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[18+] “The Vixen and the Vampire” by Kohitsuji (read by Leuna, part 1 of 2)

[18+] Linnet the vixen is a newly anointed nun and a freshly sired vampire. Sent on a holy mission, she grapples with a new, dark hunger.

Today’s story is the first of two parts of “The Vixen and the Vampire” by Kohitsuji, who hopes his fellow night-creatures will enjoy this one, however grim it may seem. You can find more of his stories on Furaffinity, under Kohitsuji_Writes.

Read by Leuna, your Internet Half-Creature

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https://thevoice.dog/episode/the-vixen-and-the-vampire-by-kohitsuji-part-1-of-2

Transcript
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Today's story concerns adult subject matter for mature listeners.

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If that's not your cup of tea,

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or there are youngsters listening,

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please skip this one

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and come back for another story another time.

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You’re listening to The Voice of Dog.

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This is Rob MacWolf, your fellow traveler,

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and Today’s story is the first of two parts of

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“The Vixen and the Vampire” by Kohitsuji, who hopes his fellow night-creatures will enjoy this one, however grim it may seem.

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You can find more of his stories on Furaffinity,

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under Kohitsuji_Writes.

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Read by Leuna, your Internet Half-Creature

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Please enjoy “The Vixen and the Vampire”

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by Kohitsuji,

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Part 1 of 2 Attemper fair,

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with gentle air The sunshine and the rain,

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That kindly earth with timely birth

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May yield her fruits again.

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-Edward White Benson

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The two of them fled across the mountains in the cold winter moon, the fledgling and her sire.

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She was a red fox, slender and hard as a dueling blade.

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The vampire was the vampire, and he was Master,

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his chiropteran body forever burning and forever bound.

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The smoking tri-crosses he wore on chains about his robes kept him in permanent painful check.

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He moved with all of night’s dark grace,

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and she hopped along behind as best she could.

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Now and then, he was obliged to stop and patiently wait for her,

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standing against the sky,

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and it was as if the stars behind him had been swallowed by the void.

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There was no helping it.

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Sister Linnet was only a year among the dead.

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“Slow.” He said to her,

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voice like leather

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that had once been soft, but was now frayed and brittle.

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“Dawn will break. One hour.”

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The thought stirred her into a panic,

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even if she knew perfectly well that evening had only just settled itself an hour or two ago.

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A fledgling vampire is sometimes little more than an unthinking animal

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—and even for those who keep their wits, instinct rules. The master was a man of fathomless compassion,

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but results came before all with him,

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and service shortly after.

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He did not abide

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animals. The vixen met him at last standing on the mountain summit,

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looking down upon the winter fields.

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The Master extended one long claw, pointing down at the great city below, with its ivory turrets glimmering like snow-sculptures in the patchy moonlight.

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“Verse of Grass is here?”

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he rasped. No plume of steam rose from his lips to be snatched away by the wind.

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“Yeah.” She said. “Relatively certain he is.”

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“Relatively.” It was a question,

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and Sister Linnet looked away.

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“It was years ago.

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We barely spoke- he paid me for the job,

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and I did it. He seemed mortal then.”

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The master was silent,

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but the fledgling did not lift her eyes.

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Her life as a thief had been short and full of terror,

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but it had been hers.

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This non-life was someone else’s,

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but still, she clung to it very hard.

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After what felt like a long time, the master said:

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“Is mortal still.” A pause.

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“Go and take his head.”

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“Go what?” Her heart nearly beat again,

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and she felt fear move in her like the passage of a thunderbolt. Linnet looked at him, moon caught in the red-ring trap of her eyes, and she betrayed herself.

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Master hated fear in his fledgling.

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Too late now. She was caught.

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“I’m a year old!” she whispered, trying to bite each word back into her mouth even as she said them. “Master, he’s a magus, he’ll pull me in half—”

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“Year is long enough.

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Kill.” He pointed down at the city again.

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“Or wait for sunrise.

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Expect you in three days.”

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As she looked back into his scarlet eyes, Sister Linnet’s paws began to tremble.

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“Yes, master,” was all she said.

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They parted, and she fled for shelter before the breaking day.

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When the morning arrived,

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she was already curled in the back of some dank and dripping cave, dreaming the way they dream,

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when they are young and cannot get back to their coffins.

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Fitfully. *** She pleads with them to stop.

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She says anything. She says she will do anything. She tells them things, truths

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and lies, incredible fantasies, whatever comes to mind. Whatever they want,

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they can have it,

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if only they will put down the fucking cross.

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Sometimes it is the sisters.

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Sometimes it is the gangly maned wolf friar, who holds her head and peels up her eyelids with a claw.

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Sometimes she sees the Master looking out of the shadows,

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his silhouette obscured by the dancing fume of his holy bondage.

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Unlike newly-turned Linnet,

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he can wear crosses. He wears them always,

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and that which seemed to her inexplicable in life now seems like

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ravening insanity.

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Days she stares into that cross, the three sets of arms carving out technicolor afterimages in her vision that haunt

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her scant sleep. For weeks she burns and yet is not consumed.

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Is it a pleasure to watch her seize and foam and shake?

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Do they enjoy it?

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Every single one of them has bright red eyes, and every single pair reveals

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nothing. That was how her nights began,

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usually. But as is the case for many fledglings,

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Linnet’s dreams allowed time and memory to convolute. The maned wolf friar makes her

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touch it, makes her

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hold it and the pain eclipses that of having to look,

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but he says hold it,

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in the name of God, hold it

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or we will push a stake

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through your heart

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right now, right now.

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Her master wipes a single bloody tear from her cheek

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“Better today.”

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The one-armed rabbit nun

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leads in a feral swine on a leash.

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“You looked hungry, sister.

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Just leave him by the door when you’re done, and we’ll

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have him for supper too. Aren’t

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things better when we work together?”

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The liturgy. The prayer. The explanations. The recital,

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the humility before the Red God.

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The scraping in the dark as she is taught to sharpen knives.

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She takes the iron chain and, shaking, slips it over her neck.

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A lit match to rest between her breasts, a little iron tri-cross that she finally came

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to tolerate after weeks of torture.

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Her Master’s voice.

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“Never goes away. Never should

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go away. Burns me always,

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impairs. Affects language centers.

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Broca’s area. Aphasia.

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Damage may be permanent-

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cannot know. Will never

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take them off.” It is the most he has ever said at once.

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The warm leather of his wings as he holds her when she sobs.

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Strange compassion in the dark.

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All this swirled within Sister Linnet’s daylight dreaming, and because she had no coffin the thoughts and memories harried her,

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picking at her like birds.

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But the Master learned to endure it.

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He found peace. She, too,

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could learn, but it was a matter of discipline

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and time. Once, Linnet asked the master how old he was.

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“Very.” He’d said and smiled with those too-long fangs hanging down

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from that slender flying-fox muzzle.

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Of all her nightmares, the memory of that smile terrified her most,

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and always she saw it when night fell,

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and she awoke again to hunger. ***

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The fledgling had to make do with vermin.

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They weren’t remotely satisfying to her anymore, even in great need,

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but she caught them anyway. She snapped their little spines and sipped to her distant approximation of content

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while the squeaks and the jerking slowly stilled.

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Sister Linnet drained each one away until she was sure she could keep her unrelenting hunger at bay

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while she was knocking on doors and asking questions.

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The townspeople did not

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want to be questioned.

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They saw her robes and her cross and her eyes and shrunk away.

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They hurried home, feeling unconsciously the chill of her shadow stretching toward them.

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Each of them said something like “It’s late, ask tomorrow morning”

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or “We’ve no shelter for you flagellants”

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or “Sympathetic to the faith though we are, we know nothing, Sister.”

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But she knew they meant “You scare me,

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and if I let you inside my home you will kill me.”

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Her former life as a thief never earned her any love,

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but at least she could get something out of an hour or two’s questioning.

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Outside the walls of her monastery, this was generally how things were.

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Particularly late at night. Some ancient mortal instinct loathed her presence, and her Master

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had not yet revealed the methods by which she might twist it, or make it go blind. Eventually

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she had to catch them on the street outside of taverns she could not enter.

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Each time, Linnet took pains to be cautious and delicate with her questions:

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“I am looking for an old

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banker, Rafford Bucolo.

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He’s a mule deer. Maybe 40- he used to live in this town,”

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but with every word, her audience sensed her lurking interest in their throats,

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and caught more and more frequent glimpses of her eyes.

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“He moved out years ago,”

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was the common response, but nobody seemed to know precisely where the banker had gone.

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The night was beginning to drag on, and frustration was settling in.

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Midnight came, and she knew nothing, and all the while she was pondering the consequences of failure.

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The Master had left them totally unsaid. Sister Linnet has been made aware of his capacity for the unspeakable, and so

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she fretted up and down the streets, searching desperately, with increasing incaution.

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She almost didn’t hear it

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when someone called “Hey, sister!”

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Her hunger, however,

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pricked up its ears.

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An old otter in a mariner’s coat waved his paw to her from within a doorway warm with lamplight.

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“Sister,” he whisper-called again,

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and Linnet went to him.

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It had been so long since a voice expressed eagerness to her,

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want of her, that she felt a finger of reverent joy

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run itself along her dead heart.

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He smiled at the fox and went inside,

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calling “Come in, please.

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I’ll make you tea.”

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And in an instant

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the ancient magic defending his home was torn from the building,

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ripped like a bandage from a wound that had not yet healed.

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Sister Linnet walked right through his front door,

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marveling. No one else

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had ever done it for her before.

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They all seemed to know better.

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She stared longingly around at the humble home, simple and orderly.

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A fire was burning hot at the far end of the room, and on the hearth were a number of simple effects,

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trinkets and curios from the distant southern continent,

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talismans, charms.

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Such things counted as symbols of faith, but they had been made to drive off evil spirits, and not vampires. She felt

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only a faint pressure.

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“Come warm yourself by the fire.”

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Said the otter. “Aren’t you cold? You’ll freeze to death out there.”

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“Oh.” Said Sister Linnet and folded her ears in a posture of apology.

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Shit, she wasn’t remotely dressed for winter.

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No wonder people were avoiding her. They’d walked miles of frozen winter ground and Master had simply

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let her wander into town without mentioning it.

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This was a lesson.

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An examination. “Yes, of course.

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I’m quite sorry, someone took my coat coming out of a tavern and I’ve been

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hopeless ever since.

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since.” The otter gave her a sympathetic look and took

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her to a pair of plainly upholstered chairs by the fire,

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and Linnet politely sat down when one was offered.

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“That’ll be because you’re

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redcloth- they hate the Church out here.

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They think you’re a lot of sadists and flagellants.

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flagellants.” Linnet smiled in a way that didn’t show her fangs.

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“They think you’re

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here with one of your inquisitors, looking to chop people’s fingers off, but look at you. You’re a poor young girl out alone.

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Old Sully knows better.”

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He smiled and tapped his round, brown head.

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“The old Red Church did me a good turn

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several years ago. They might not be as polite as the Four Fortunes devotees,

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or have the Heliad’s cathedrals, but you’re no…”

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He struggles to find a polite enough word.

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He fails. “Cult.” “Very

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charitable, Mr. Sully. I am Sister Linnet.

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On behalf of the Church of the Red God, I bless you and your house.

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Peace attend thee, sufferer.”

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“Oh,” He chuckled, delighted that Linnet had concealed her offense,

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“I’m no sufferer. I’m no

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devotee, see, but… as I said,

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your folk did me a kindness once. Long ago.”

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The otter stood and bustled to a kettle, which rested on a table a short ways away.

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He sloshed it and set it by the fire.

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“And what kindness is done me,

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I pay back.” When he sat back down, he saw that the good sister’s gaze had wandered. Linnet’s eyes traced the curiosities on the otter’s mantlepiece for a moment.

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Many different lands out there. Places she had never seen, could never have gone when she was alive.

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Now she was immortal.

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She would walk this earth until the sun took her or she was otherwise slain.

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She could visit them all now,

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and there was no real rush.

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If she managed, somehow, not to lose to the Verse of Grass.

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The fledgling’s gaze lingered on a small statuette,

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a totemic wolf, representative of male aspect of his entire species.

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He was warlike and proud and

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an inarguably good fit for the job of ‘male’ aspect, Linnet judged.

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Her mind wandered to the gray wolf Kite, her fellow orphan, thief, and slave, and how she could run her paws through his luscious winter pelt,

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warm and soft. How she could make him laugh by sticking her cold nose in his neck fur, when she could manage to sneak up on him.

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She thought of his dismantled body

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in the hands of the Master in the last moments of her wretched life,

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and then she had to stop thinking. “Sister

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Linnet?” Sully said.

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“Something catch your eye?”

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“Oh—” she snapped out of her reverie.

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“I’m sorry, I was just admiring the…” Not the wolf.

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She scanned for something else. Her eyes landed on a little scrap of paper, on which was a lovely charcoal rendering of a young hyena

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with a roguish smile.

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“… drawing of the young man.

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Someone took very great pains with all that fine detail.”

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“Very great,” said the otter.

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“That’s Uliya. I drew that the day he came aboard the vessel I was serving on.

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He barely spoke the language- the first mate told him to

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go down to the scuppers, as he was to be our cook, and Uliya decked the bastard right in his muzzle.

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I hated that first mate so much, Uliya and I became friends for life.”

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Sully smiled up at the picture,

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but Linnet could feel a little bit of his sorrow weighing down the otter’s expression.

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The new predator in her sat at attention in the presence of mortal woe.

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“He was, as it happens,

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that ‘good turn’ I mentioned earlier.”

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“What did the church have to do with your vessel?”

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She said, trying to disguise her hunger and swaying her tail genially.

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“Nothing. We sailed together for seven years, and I

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took him back to my homeland out on the western horn.

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When we came into port, I was informed that my father had passed away while we’d been at sea.

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I thought it was fate-

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my father wasn’t a wealthy man,

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but I had a home for us now, we had our wages, we could live in peace. He could cook for me.

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Anything he wished,

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we had peppers from his home, spices.

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We were comfortable.”

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“You were lovers?” said Linnet.

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“Best friends.” Sully said,

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and then shook his head.

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“And lovers. And everything.”

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Her eyes widened,

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and she looked at the sketch again. The dark operator within her spirit prowled back and forth,

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listening for every word.

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“But the west—” “Yes,”

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he said. “You don’t need to remind me.

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It was foolish to think we could have been left alone in our little world.”

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Sully went silent

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for a little, “They ah…

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found us one night, in our bed.

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They dragged him out because I was…

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well, because…” He gestured,

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and Linnet took it to mean the hyena had been

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submitting at the time.

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“The judge was present. I hardly had time to dress before they began stoning him.”

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The lovely pain of this was threatening to make her drool,

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and the vixen had to look away several times. She could smell a tear threatening to form on his eye,

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and the mixture of hunger and the single drop of

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cold clear pity the otter inspired

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was unnerving to feel.

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She breathed deep, meditated on scripture, and willed herself

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to be still. “… I’m sorry.”

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She said at last.

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“You don’t have to be.”

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Sully said. “A priest of the Red God was there.

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He stood over Uliya and said

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“What man has appointed the death of this sufferer?”,

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and the judge said that it was the custom of our people to stone men who waste their lives in idleness and disease.

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The priest drew his sword and struck off the

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paw of the judge at the wrist- a thick old black bear, too. I thought it was a trick of the moonlight at first.

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And the red priest said… oh, what was the phrase he used…

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‘There is nothing in this life

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that is wasted. Even pain.

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The hand of the Red God is turned against you.’

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And they left.” Linnet’s ear flicked.

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“And Uliya…?” “Lived.” Sully said

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and looked longingly up at the charcoal sketch.

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“For a time. We left with all we could, of course, but after he healed,

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he developed these terrible shakes, and I,”

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he swallowed, “I lost him

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within five years.

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I never loved again.”

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The magnitude of her starvation was

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incredible. He was bothering to hide

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nothing. It was obscene, like a feral fawn rolling in blood before a feral wolf.

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The fox’s mouth was so dry.

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“But I never forgot that priest,

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or the church of the Red God.”

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Sully gave her a weak smile.

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“And that was many years ago, in any case. I’m just happy you can be warm tonight,

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sister.” She would never be warm again.

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“Happy too, of course, that I can share my tea. Do you want some?”

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The pot whistled and she said yes, because if she didn’t

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drink something, the violence she was contemplating would manifest.

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Some insane scrap of humanity that had clung to her bones when all the rest was hewn away

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was insisting, vehemently,

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that she stop herself.

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It was like asking an ant to crush an

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elephant, but somehow,

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she managed it. They talked all night long. She talked about what she could of life at the chapel, her fellow sisters of the cloth.

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She performed a few recitations of scripture, and he did not know them well enough to correct her when she had to fill forgotten gaps with

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convincing invention.

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In return, Sully told her stories of his time with Uliya, and she didn’t mind because she was an eastern girl at heart.

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She asked him about Rafford, and he told her the man lived out in a

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copse just north of

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the town in a little villa.

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He hardly ever came to town anymore, and many had forgotten he belonged to it in the first place.

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This was excellent news.

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When at last they decided to retire,

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the otter showed her the way to the cellar,

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where she wished to sleep, and then he bid her goodnight.

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Sully did not see or hear her behind him on the stairs.

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The good sister spent most of the night’s remainder hunched over his sleeping body with her muzzle open wide. And though strings of drool from her fangs

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hung down to dew up his neck,

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the otter did not

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stir. This was the first of two parts of

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“The Vixen and the Vampire”

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by Kohitsuji, read for you by Leuna,

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your internet half-creature.

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Tune in next time to find out how the fledgling tests her mettle

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against one of the magi,

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reckoned to be the greatest sorcerer-tyrants in all the world.

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As always, you can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog,

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or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.

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Thank you for listening

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to The Voice of Dog.

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Furry stories to warm the ol' cockles, read by Rob MacWolf and guests. If you have a story that would suit the show, you can get in touch with @VoiceOfDog@meow.social on Mastodon, @voiceofdog.bsky.social on Blue Sky, or @Theodwulf on Telegram.

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