Bath of Blood

He didn't withdraw his penis right away. Instead he relaxed, and slowly his penis returned to its flaccid form while still inside her. Jaclyn relaxed as well, clearly satisfied with this decision. While they had something very important to do in the morning, until then, they would enjoy this moment while it lasted.

* * * * *

4. The Blind and the Bloody

The alarm beeped at six a.m. Dylan groaned, and rolled over in bed. Neither he nor Jaclyn had gotten dressed after their lovemaking, so both had slept the entire night in the nude.

Dylan climbed out of bed and staggered off into the shower. He had been letting the warm water run down his back for just a minute before he felt a soft hand rest on his shoulder. He turned to see Jaclyn stepping into the tub behind him. She wrapped her arms around his chest and rested her head on his shoulder.

Dylan responded with his own arms around her, and held her gently as the warm water soothed their bodies. Finally, he let her go, and grabbed a bar of soap. With his hands lathered up, Dylan placed his soapy palms on Jaclyn's breasts and washed her body thoroughly and lovingly. She grabbed the soap and did the same to him.

Jaclyn leaned closely to Dylan and whispered in his ear.

"After we kill Balko, when we get back home, I'll let you fuck me as many times as you want."

Dylan grinned.

Dylan shut the water off and Jaclyn grabbed two towels. After drying each other off, the siblings selected their clothes for their mission.

They both dressed in all black. Dylan put on a t-shirt, leather jacket and jeans; Jaclyn a turtleneck sweater and yoga pants. After a quick breakfast of toast and eggs, the pair gathered their supplies.

Dylan filled his father's duffel bag with everything he reckoned he needed. Crosses, a vile of holy water, a hammer, two stakes, two flashlights, and ammunition for his .38, which he kept secured around his waist. Jaclyn wore the skeleton key around her neck and rubbed two cloves of garlic beneath her ears. She tucked her crucifix into the waistband of her pants and Dylan wore his cross necklace around his neck.

By 6:30 they were in Dylan's car, and on their way to Catherine Balko's residence. Dylan clutched the steering wheel nervously as he sped down the road. Jaclyn did the same with her crucifix. Neither spoke a word the entire drive.

Dylan nearly missed the turn on Blackwater road, which was reasonable as he'd only been there once before, in the daytime, but was flustered by his near mistake all the same. He made a sharp turn onto the road, squealing his tires as he did.

"Shh," Jaclyn whispered.

"I know," Dylan snapped, following it with a quick "sorry." He continued driving, trying his hardest to remain focused and alert.

He pulled into a park just a few lots away from Catherine's house. Dylan located a spot next to some tall bushes and parked his car there. He and Jaclyn promptly exited.

"What's the time?" Jaclyn asked. Dylan checked his watch.

"Six fifty-nine," Dylan said. "Thirteen minutes."

"Let's switch our phones off," Jaclyn said. She and Dylan turned their phones to silent.

Dylan slung the duffel bag around his shoulder as he and Jaclyn hurried down the dark residential road. To their relief, no cars passed them during their quarter mile hike down the empty road. Not wanting the push their luck, the siblings cut into the nearby woods as they approached the Balko residence.

With darkness for cover, Dylan and Jaclyn sneaked into the back lot, only to find the gate protecting the residence extended around the back grounds as well. Making their way around, they came across an opening in the gate, secured shut by a sturdy looking padlock.

"Key," Dylan said, shining his flashlight onto the padlock. Jaclyn slipped the skeleton key into the lock and popped it open with ease. The pair quietly stepped through the gate, shutting it behind them, but leaving the lock open just in case.

The eastern horizon glowed with the promise of a soon-to-rise sun, prompting the pair to hurry up the slope towards the patio behind the house. A pair of wind chimes jingled harmoniously in the early morning wind from a balcony overlooking the patio. Dylan and Jaclyn sneaked under the balcony and waited outside the back entrance. Dylan checked his watch.

"Three minutes."

"Should we go in early?"

"Better than lingering here. Besides, we're armed." Dylan winked. Jaclyn slid the skeleton key into the lock, and the two quickly made their way inside the house. They looked to be in the kitchen. Jaclyn spotted the teapot on the stove that she'd been served from five days earlier.

The kitchen was clean and tidy, and not a sign of anyone's presence. Dylan and Jaclyn quietly edged their was into the room, and shut the door behind them.

"We should look for the basement," Dylan whispered. Jaclyn nodded in agreement. She noticed a doorway just outside the kitchen, and quietly opened it. The door led to a cleaning closet, and nothing more. Jaclyn quietly shut the door and tiptoed out of the kitchen.

Dylan followed Jaclyn down the hallway, past the oil paintings of the nudes. Jaclyn paused once again at the painting of Lukas and Catherine, and shuddered at the sight of him.

The siblings continued down the hallway, arriving at the den. Dylan stepped into the empty room, looking around, confused. Sunlight began to slowly fill the room.

"Where the hell is the basement stairway?" Dylan whispered.

"It's got to be around here somewhere," Jaclyn replied. She walked through the den, noticing it led to a dining room. Jaclyn peeked through the dining room and just beyond it, she caught sight of a door, slightly ajar.

"Psst!" Jaclyn said. Dylan grabbed her arm. Jaclyn turned to Dylan, and then saw the reason Dylan grabbed her arm.

Morris stood at the bottom of the stairway holding a sturdy wooden cane, looking directly at them. Jaclyn and Dylan froze, neither making a sound.

"Is someone there?" Morris asked.

Neither of them moved a muscle. Morris stepped forward, walking in the exact direction of the intruding siblings.

"Who's there?" Morris demanded, angrily. Dylan was certain Morris could hear his heart pounding. Morris stepped closer, and stopped.

"Garlic," Morris said. Jaclyn touched her neck and smelled her finger. She looked at Dylan, with fear in her eyes. Dylan squeezed her hand.

Morris inched closer to the pair. He extended his cane out in front of him, tapping it left and right. Dylan and Jaclyn quietly stepped apart, avoiding the touch of the blind man's cane.

Jaclyn looked at Dylan, made a gun gesture with her hand, and mimed pointing it at Morris. Dylan shook his head. He came to this house to kill someone, but it was not this man.

Dylan crept out of the den and into the dining room, as Morris inched ever closer to Jaclyn. Nearly against the wall, Jaclyn ducked down and rolled under the coffee table. She peeked up at Dylan, and nodded for him to continue without her.

Dylan deliberated leaving Jaclyn alone. He was armed, she was not. But she had only an old blind man to deal with. As Dylan heard another set of footsteps descending the home's main staircase, he realized he couldn't risk delaying any longer. Quietly, Dylan crept through the dining room, and sneaked down the other stairway into the basement.

* * * * *

Dylan couldn't risk turning on a light switch. Instead he elected to use his flashlight. He hurried down the stairs as quickly as he could, taking a calculated risk that Catherine was not in her basement at seven thirty in the morning and was unlikely to hear him.

At the bottom step Dylan found himself in what looked to be a wine cellar. He made his way past three separate wooden shelves stocked to the brim with exotic wines Beyond that there was final shelf against the wall. Perplexed, Dylan checked the room once again, and found the room was nothing more than a small twelve by twelve foot wine cellar.

Suspicious about the room's small size, Dylan examined the shelves more carefully, and noticed a gap between the stone cellar wall and the shelf in front of it. Pushing against the shelf, Dylan found it to be mounted on a set of unseen hinges. The shelf turned to its side, revealing an entrance to a hidden room.

Or several hidden rooms. Dylan stepped into the hidden passage to find a dark hallway with several doors. His footsteps echoed down the long corridor, and aside from them, all Dylan could hear was the sound of a dripping pipe somewhere above him.

Dylan treaded forward, and felt himself step on a soft, squishy object. He shined his light to the floor to reveal a dead rat underneath his shoe. Dylan gave a disgusted grunt and continued walking. The first room to his right had no door, so he cautiously tiptoed inside.

The room looked to be empty. He couldn't make out any furniture in the room, but he did spot something on the wall. Shining his light on the wall in front of him were a series of hooks mounted into the concrete. And hanging from several of the hooks were what looked to be pairs of panties.

Dylan shined his light across the hanging garments. The ones near the back of the room looked old, both faded with age and in style. The ones nearest the door looked much newer, like something a girl his age might wear. Thinking of Jaclyn, Dylan checked his phone. She had indeed sent him a text.

"did u find him?"

Dylan replied with a quick "not yet" and put away his phone. If she was able to text she was fine. He just need to to keep searching.

Dylan counted thirty-seven pairs of panties hanging on the wall in front of him. Something about the way they were hung, all in a row, in perfect formation. What he was looking at was a shrine. These were trophies. Dylan wondered for a moment of one of these had belonged to Riley. Or his mother. A chill cut through Dylan's body and he retreated from the room.

The room across from the panty shrine had a door. Dylan hoped it was not locked, as Jaclyn had the skeleton key. He squeezed the brass knob and turned, and the door squeaked as it opened. Praising his good luck, Dylan shined his flashlight inside the room. He only looked in the room for a second before he took out his phone and immediately sent Jaclyn another text:

"Found the coffins."

* * * * *

If Morris had heard Dylan slipping away into the basement, he didn't show it. Instead he remained where he was, standing in the center of the den, listening. Jaclyn cowered under the coffee table just inches from his feet, praying he would not hear her.

Jaclyn heard footsteps descending from upstairs and settling upon the hard tiled floor. The pair of feet continued down the hallway to the kitchen.

Seeming to have given up, Morris turned and exited the den, finally leaving Jaclyn alone. She could hear a faint conversation in the kitchen. Jaclyn took out her phone and typed out a quick text message: "did u find him?"

She waited. She could hear Morris say something about coffee, and something about the den. Jaclyn had a sinking feeling her hiding place would not be safe for long. Very carefully, she slid out from under the coffee table and climbed to her feet.

She peeked into the dining room, and saw the stairway to the basement where Dylan had gone. Just beyond the door, she could see into the kitchen where Morris was preparing coffee. Jaclyn briefly considered making a run for the basement, and realized immediately that would be a foolish thing to attempt. Whoever was in the kitchen with Morris very likely was not blind as he was and would surely see her. For now, Dylan was on his own.

Jaclyn checked her phone and saw that Dylan had not yet replied. Please answer, Jaclyn prayed.

She could hear movement in the kitchen, and realized she needed to get out of the den as soon as possible. Seeing as the stairs to the basement were out of the question, Jaclyn instead opted for the main staircase. Maybe, just maybe, Catherine had the coffins moved to the second floor. If not, it would still be a good place to hide while Dylan searched the basement.

Jaclyn scurried up the stairs. She was fairly light on her feet and made little noise as she hopped up the steps. When she reached the top, she took a glance back down the stairway, and heard at least two pairs of footsteps entering the den. She'd gotten out of there just in time.

On the second floor, Jaclyn could see down a long hallway, with three sets of doors on each side and the exit to a balcony at the end. Setting foot on a fancy red rug that ran the entire length of the hallway, she quietly crept along, peeking into each room as she passed. Bedroom. Bathroom. Bedroom. Study.

More paintings of female nudes hung on the walls. Jaclyn glanced at one, and saw it featured two women standing in a large windowsill, with the sunlight shimmering against their bodies. One of them was fully nude, and stared out the window while holding a wine glass. The other had a towel wrapped around her waist and peered at the viewer curiously.

Jaclyn couldn't place it. There was something familiar about the women in the painting. She was sure she'd seen them before. Perhaps in one of Catherine's other paintings?

Jaclyn continued down the hall. The last door of the right was closed. Turning the knob, Jaclyn found it was locked. Not to be deterred, she slipped the skeleton key into the lock and turned. The door opened.

She paused to check her phone. Dylan had finally answered. "not yet", the text read. Relieved that he was alive, Jaclyn crept into the now-unlocked room.

The room was fulled with paintings. It looked to be a storage room, as the paintings were stacked on the floor and many were covered with sheets. Wary that Catherine would keep the paintings in a locked room, Jaclyn searched around. Like the paintings outside the room, these paintings also featured nude women. However, the paintings here were a bit more macabre.

Torture, death, and terror seemed prevalent in every painting. A woman being butchered in some kind of ritualistic ceremony. A woman drowning in a lake. A woman hanging in a barn being sliced with a scythe. Jaclyn placed her hands over her mouth and gasped. Something told her these paintings were not just the sick imaginings of the artist. No, this was the illustrated history of the Balko family.

Regretting she'd ever stepped foot in this room, Jaclyn turned to leave, when one of the paintings caught her eye. It was propped against the wall, in the corner of the room. It depicted a naked woman lying on the floor, staring lifelessly at the viewer. Her skin was gray and lifeless, her body twisted and contorted. It was the same pose she'd found Riley in just days earlier. But Jaclyn recognized this woman as someone else.

"Mom?" Jaclyn cried.

The detail on the dead woman's face was unmistakable. The artist had either been at the scene of the murder himself, or had had it described to him to the finest detail. The painting was unquestioningly the scene of her mother's death, depicted in more vivid detail than Jaclyn could have ever imagined.

Trying to suppress her tears, Jaclyn drew her phone from her pocket to inform Dylan of her find. As she unlocked her phone, she found Dylan had already sent her another message. She opened the message only to feel a pair of hands grab her from behind and pull her to the floor.

* * * * *

Dylan counted twelve coffins in the small storage room. Most of them looked to be made of varying qualities of wood, but one looked to be made of solid black marble.

Without wasting any time, Dylan proceeded to open the coffins one by one. He started with the one closest to the door.

Empty.

Dylan shut the coffin and opened the next. Also empty. He continued opening other coffins, when his eyes settled on the large marble casket. It was clearly the nicest one of the collection. It seemed logical that if Lukas had his choice, he'd choose this one.

Dylan approached the black marble casket, but found it had a sturdy lock sealing it closed. There was a keyhole in the lock, but Dylan saw no key anywhere in the room. He realized he might need to get Jaclyn to open it.

Dylan checked his phone to see if Jaclyn had replied to his message, and to his dismay, she hadn't. That made him nervous. Dylan put his phone away and opened the rest of the coffins.

Eleven unlocked coffins, eleven of them empty. Dylan turned his attention back to the marble coffin. He needed to get Jaclyn.

Dylan.

A whisper in the dark basement called out to him. Dylan shined his flashlight out into the hallway.

Nothing.

He was certain it was not his imagination. He shined his light throughout the room, illuminating each of the empty coffins. As his light passed each empty crate, he spotted something he hadn't noticed before. Blood.

The blood leaked from the wall. It seeped out from between the bricks and had gathered in a pool on the floor beneath him. As he looked closer, Dylan noticed the bricks in the wall were not held together with mortar. They were simply stacked on top of one another.

Dylan pulled away the false wall, brick by brick, until he uncovered a small hidden compartment in the wall containing a thirteenth coffin. Dylan crawled into the cramped space, and found there was enough room in the compartment for him to stand over the hidden coffin.

Dylan shined his flashlight across the surface of the casket, and saw no lock. Preparing himself, Dylan pulled open the coffin lid.

Yes.

Lukas looked like a corpse. Dylan was not deterred, as Lukas looked like a living corpse both in the nursing home and in Jaclyn's bedroom, so this was likely a mere catnap for the inert demon. He wore a black robe tied at the waist, with his hands folded across his belly. His mouth was partially open; his lower jaw leaning slightly to the left.

His eyelids were still. Lukas showed no reaction as Dylan's flashlight beam passed across the sleeping vampire's face. Dylan reached for the wooden stake in his duffel bag, and stopped. He realized he should apprise Jaclyn of the discovery before he continued.

Dylan took out his phone to find Jaclyn had finally replied. Her message was a single word:

"HELP"

* * * * *

Jaclyn looked up to find three faces looking down at her. The middle was Catherine Balko, she was certain of that. The other two looked familiar, but Jaclyn couldn't quite place where she knew them from. They were strikingly similar to the women in the windowsill painting. But not just there. She knew them from somewhere else, too.

"Good work, girls," Catherine said.

"I like it when they make it easy for us," Violet said. She and Rose giggled.

Catherine knelt down on the floor so she was at eye level with Jaclyn.

"Thank you for coming to visit me again, Jaclyn," Catherine said. "I was hoping you'd stop by."

Jaclyn tried to move, but Rose and Violet grabbed her arms and held her in place.

"What do you want with me?" Jaclyn cried. She flailed her arms and legs but Catherine's attendants kept a strong hold on her. Catherine smiled.

"You have something that I haven't had in a long time," Catherine said. "Youth. And purity. And I have it on good authority that you are a virgin."

"No! I'm not! I swear!" Jaclyn said.

"Not gonna work, Jackie!" Violet said, teasingly.

"All the girls say that," Rose added.

"What do you mean, all the girls?" Jaclyn asked.

"They're referring to my previous guests," Catherine said. "You have the honor of being my thirty-seventh-"

"Thirty-eighth," Rose corrected.

"Thirty-Eighth young virgin who will have the prestigious honor of helping maintain my youth and beauty. At the expense of your own, I'm afraid."

"You're sick! You're insane!" Jaclyn screamed.

"Now, before we begin, there is something I need to know," Catherine said. "I need to know where your brother is so he doesn't interfere with what we have planned for you."