Ang Enkantos (The Enchantment)

The Manananggal is a creature from Philippine myth. In rural areas people still believe in her power.

Manila September 2054

Violy took a mouthful of food and a wave of nausea surged through her as she swallowed. She looked over her shoulder to check whether the housekeeper was watching, then tipped the rest of the food into the refuse bin. She was seventy-five years old and dying. Her husband had passed over several years earlier and taken her joie de vivre with him. She'd outlived most of her friends and her daughters were half a world away with families of their own so when she realised that she was seriously ill she told no one. All she had now were her memories and the music that comprised the soundtrack of her life. Most nights she sat alone listening to her record collection, remembering the places she'd been and the events that had shaped her life.

Her thoughts often drifted back to when she'd served with the armed forces during the insurgency in Mindanao. That was the first time in her life that she'd felt abandoned and depressed. She'd been a specialist nurse in a modern naval hospital, enjoying her work and busy social life, and then with almost no warning she received orders to report to a forward aid station in Mindanao. A week later she found herself on an ancient rust bucket of a transport ship heading for the boonies. As her superior had said as they parted, the posting was a major setback.

Sulit, South Cotabato August 2004

The storm had already raged for two days when twenty-four-year-old Lieutenant Violy Generosa climbed into an overloaded army truck to complete her journey to the almost forgotten outpost. It was just forty clicks from the city boundary but the route followed a rough track that wound uphill through dense jungle. Squalls of torrential rain lashed the ancient Hino truck as it bounced over rocks, wallowed in liquid mud up to its axles, and repeatedly became stuck. It took most of the day to reach the little group of cement block huts at the edge of the village.

A small group of soldiers and villagers gathered under the overhanging roof of the schoolhouse to watch as the driver and his assistant unloaded the few crates of supplies they claimed were all that were due to the Civil Assistance Team. The onlookers stood in a huddle and watched with amusement as drenched and splattered with mud, she argued with the driver. Her fury and threats gained her nothing, as out here in the hills, ordinary soldiers could ignore a nurse with impunity even if she were an officer. A few minutes later the truck groaned and creaked its way out of the village, taking the rest of her supplies with it.

She hadn't expected the Korporal in charge of the outpost's security detail to snap to attention and salute her when she arrived but his casual attitude, dishevelled appearance, and the way he brazenly leered at her confirmed her worst suspicions about the way the post was run. After she'd been introduced to the nurse aides and shown the tiny room where she was to sleep for the next six months, they took her on a tour of the village. It was a collection of small huts; some were traditional wooden buildings with thatched nipa roofs, and others were crudely built from concrete blocks topped with rusty corrugated iron. The only substantial buildings in the village were the schoolhouse and a small church. The smell of wood smoke lingered in the air, but the few villagers she saw vanished into their huts as they approached.

It was near dusk when they returned to the schoolhouse that served as the team's headquarters. The trunks of the Sago palms creaked ominously in the wind, and their rustling fronds brushed against the tin roof making a sound like heavy rain. When the wind died and the air was still, there were other noises. There was always the chirping and buzzing of hordes of insects, the steady hum of mosquitoes, and the sudden strident squawking of birds. Sometimes she thought she could hear the distant metallic chiming of the native musical instruments called Kulintangs, There was another sound she heard repeatedly but could not identify. It was an annoying tik-tik, tik-tik that increased in volume and then faded away until she could barely hear it. She was a city girl alone in this alien place so it wasn't hard for her to imagine that communist guerrillas or even supernatural beings might lurk in the gloomy forest surrounding them.

By mid-evening the rain had stopped, but she was exhausted from the journey, and the sweltering heat only increased her discomfort. Alone in her tiny room, lit only by a small flickering oil lamp, she was close to tears. She was still angry but now she was frightened too. Her skin was clammy, and the slightest exertion caused beads of sweat to form on her forehead and back. Wearily, she undressed, wiped her face and upper body with a damp towel, and doused herself with insect repellent. She pulled on a plain white cotton nightdress and slumped onto the crudely made bed. She pulled the mosquito net closed and opened her pocketbook at the place where she'd left the story. Within minutes, she'd fallen asleep.

In the dense jungle behind the schoolhouse, something stirred. Its finely tuned senses began to focus, searching the surroundings for the being that had disturbed its sleep. It wasn't an animal, and although it had taken human form in the hollow Balete tree, it was neither human nor mortal. It had lain dormant for many years, but time meant nothing to the creature. Some people claimed that its kind could read minds, but the gift that had woken it was more akin to an ability to sense emotions at a distance. It took in the familiar auras of villagers and soldiers, the stench of fear, unwashed bodies, and stale tobacco, but there were more interesting smells and emotions. It identified new human forms with the distinctive scent of young healthy women. It examined and considered each of the females. Two were placid and uninteresting like the villagers, but the third... her chaotic emotions had been the cause of the Manananggal's awakening. For centuries, the creature had soared unchallenged over her domain, abusing the superstitious T'boli villagers as she pleased. She rarely missed a chance to terrorise the village women. She violated them when they menstruated, stole the unborn from their mother's wombs, and tormented the sick and elderly.

For as long as she could remember, there had been a pattern, Each time she awoke, she'd roam the hills, feeding off the T'bolis' blood and terror, but always after a few decades, their fear of her would gradually fade to the point where they'd begin to fancy themselves strong enough to destroy her. For her part, she'd grow jaded by their placid nature and dismal lives. She would begin to search the hills for more exciting prey but find none, and then, as her life force dimmed, she'd retire to her tree in the darkest part of the jungle. At long intervals, she'd wake, aroused by the strongest of human emotions. The creature knew little of human life, but this third female seemed different from the villagers and soldiers. Her heart and mind were full of pure rage and sorrow, and her body seethed with hormones. The creature struggled to recall the memory of another human she'd forgotten for centuries but failed. She smiled to herself, knowing that she'd soon be more intimately acquainted with this one because, within a day, the young woman would find her underwear spotted with blood. Her familiar, a drab bird the size of a pigeon, fluttered lazily into the night heading towards the schoolhouse.

Violy woke suddenly as if she'd been shaken. She lay panting in a pool of sweat. She knew she'd had a nightmare but had no memory of it. She pushed herself upright and pulled the mosquito net aside. A bird flapped its wings in panic and skittered across the room. It ricocheted off the door frame and vanished into the night. The odd tik-tik, tik-tik sound of flapping wings faded into the darkness, and suddenly the jungle was eerily silent.

The Manananggal had sight of a sort, but she did not see the polychromatic images that humans see. For her, there were only hazy shades of grey, overlaid with brighter patterns that signified emotions. Of these, she loved anguish the best, but fear and desire also caught her attention, and this troubled girl was possessed by all three. Now that she'd seen the strange female through her familiar's eyes, she began to steal her likeness.

The strange one began to menstruate the next day, and that night the Manananggal knelt by her bed, watching as she tossed and murmured in her sleep. She was ravenously hungry from her long hibernation and intoxicated by the scent of her prey but still she hesitated. She knew that it was too early to risk revealing herself to the girl, but she couldn't resist knowing more. She swept the mosquito net aside and bent over the sleeping girl. She pressed her temple against the girl's thick black hair and listened to her dreams. She was shocked and delighted by the jumble of alien thoughts and conflicting emotions she sensed in the girl's head. Even as she slipped her hand under the nightdress to caress the girl she knew that she'd gone too far. She was weak from her long sleep and confused by the girl's strangeness. What if she woke and screamed? With a sigh, she removed her hand, pulled the nightdress down and drew the netting closed. As she slipped out of the hut, she came face to face with a drunk soldier who hesitantly saluted her. She frowned at his lack of fear before remembering whose appearance she'd assumed. She turned her back on him and strolled towards the village.

The next morning, a young T'boli woman awoke screaming hysterically, claiming that she'd been attacked by a Manananggal. At first, the nurses of the Civil Assistance Team were unaware of the growing commotion in the village. Just after midday, an ancient police Daihatsu stopped outside the schoolhouse where the army team was based. Sergeant Corazon Alvarez, smiled as she introduced herself. She was a homely middle-aged woman, so despite her camouflaged fatigues, and the heavy pistol on her belt, she appeared to them more like a favourite aunt than a guardian of law and order. The policewoman told them of the attack in the village and the superstition surrounding it. Sgt. Alvarez knew the girl was genuinely frightened and upset by whatever she thought had happened, but she did not believe in supernatural beings. Her concern was that the T'boli were superstitious and incidents like this usually led to wild allegations and trouble between neighbours.

As the nurses chatted over lunch, the policewoman sat quietly, studying the three women. Two of them were auxiliaries from GenSan with annoying Maragsa accents. After listening to them for a few minutes, she knew they were barely trained local girls with no interest in what they were supposed to be doing. She wasn't in the least surprised because it was common knowledge that the Civil Assistance Program was just a flimsy excuse to justify the army's occupation of the village. This made the third girl something of a conundrum. Her polished Manila accent, the neat naval uniform with its shiny rank badges and the designer sunglasses, all marked her out as an Ilustrada; she was a professional and very much out of place up here in the interior. Sgt. Alvarez knew enough not to take people at face value, but she'd met her sort before and they were usually trouble. Perhaps this arrogant young woman was just a hapless do-gooder, but more likely, there was a more sinister reason for her presence up here in the hills.

Two nights later, Violy had an erotic dream. She woke sometime after midnight, drenched in sweat as usual but with a lascivious throbbing in her womb as if she were on the verge of an orgasm. An image from her childhood lingered in her mind. She remembered the illustration in a children's book of an impossibly beautiful woman with flowers in her hair and tapering black wings wrapped around her like a cloak. She focused on the image, eased her panties aside and began to masturbate. Her clitoris throbbed and tingled under her moisture slick fingertips as she imagined being wrapped in those shimmering black wings. She imagined a kiss that sucked the breath out of her and then those long slender fingers thrusting deep inside her but before she could finish she'd drifted back into the dream.

At the foot of her bed, the Manananggal crouched silently watching with unblinking golden eyes, her wings extended, unfurled, ready for flight if the girl screamed. As her prey settled back into deep sleep, the wings folded and shrank until they formed an almost invisible ribbon along the underside of her arms. She gathered the sleeping girl in her arms and kissed her. Soon, her fingertips were caressing the girl from throat to breasts then drifting lower, brushing the hem of the nightdress out of her way she began to stroke the girl exactly as she had touched herself. The tips of her slender fingers deftly teased the taut bud of her clitoris, slowly stroking and circling, then as the girl writhed and sobbed in her arms she slipped two slender fingers into her.

The Manananggal laid the girl down on the bed, settled beside her and gently pushed her knees apart. She kissed her passionately then slipped between her thighs. She licked her fingers, savouring the intoxicating taste and scent of her prey, letting it waft through her senses for a while before she spread the girl wider and began to lick and kiss the source of her pleasure. Her tongue traced the moist, delicate folds and slavered over the swollen knot of the girl's clitoris. She was momentarily confused when she discovered the tampon, but soon it was on the floor with the panties. The Manananggal trembled with excitement as she thrust the tip of her obscenely long tongue into the girl's hot, tight cunt and began to lap at the rich, dirty blood that oozed from her cervix. The taste and scent combined with the quivering warmth of the girl's body saturated her senses. Her euphoric trance was interrupted when the mortal girl moaned aloud and dug her fingers into the Manananggal's shoulders, drawing her closer, and clinging to her. With a start, she realised that the girl was awake but before she could pull away the girl dragged her down and wrapped her arms around her. The girl whispered something unintelligible and began to writhe against the Manananggal's tongue. She held the squirming girl tight and repeatedly thrust her tongue into her gushing, clenching cunt filling her completely. As the last echoes of the girl's orgasm finally faded, her breathing slowed and she fell into deep sleep. The bemused Manananggal spread her wings over the sleeping girl and snuggled against her.

The Manananggal lay beside the sleeping girl for most of the night, listening to her strange dreams. She'd grown so used to abusing terrified village girls that finding a willing victim unsettled her. She hadn't bothered to learn anything about her conquests in a very long time, but now she felt a compulsion to know more about this girl. The strength of the girl's sorrow and anger had been the cause of her awakening, but now she was captivated by the girl's desire and puzzled by some of the other fascinating needs and urges she sensed swirling through the girl's subconscious. The Manananggal pondered these and decided she would probably never truly understand these creatures. Smiling, she pushed the girl's knees together and spread the thin sheet over her before she vanished into the night.

Violy woke the following morning feeling as tired as when she'd gone to bed. She lay there for another hour, trying to recall the dream she'd had in the night, but by midday, she'd forgotten that she'd even had a dream. She yawned continuously as she busied herself with writing orders and reports while the nurse aides traipsed around the village handing out Doxycycline capsules. When they returned to the schoolhouse, the girls were full of tales of another Manananggal attack. Both girls mocked the villagers' claims of sighting the creature flying over their fields or lurking on rooftops but their laughter sounded forced to her. She knew they'd probably repeated the same stories a dozen times that afternoon, helping to spread panic to the surrounding villages.

The Manananggal in her hollow tree basked in the waves of terror radiating from the village, but her attention was focused on the schoolhouse a few meters from where she crouched motionless in the shadows. She studied the mortal called Violy and those who interacted with her. Violy seemed so strange, yet when she had held the girl in her arms, that vague and distant memory resurfaced. She'd slipped into the beds of many women over centuries, so all that she could recall was that one of them had been different to the others. With each night, the Manananggal grew stronger and understood more about the strange one and the world she inhabited, but still, that faint memory nagged at her. Her growing infatuation with the girl made her feel protective of her, so when she was hungry, she'd hunt in the most remote of the surrounding villages. She could have easily beguiled the few victims she needed to sustain herself, but in her fury at the devastation of her forest, she savagely attacked all those who crossed her path, she violated them and left them whimpering and terrified. Soon the hysteria spread far and wide; within days, the village shops had no garlic or rock salt left to sell, the mission church services were packed, and no one ventured out after dark.

Sergeant Alvarez began to tour the villages almost daily, wearily recording each attack with increasing dread. She was used to dealing with simple disputes and misdemeanours. Usually, they were quickly resolved, and when they weren't she gathered the evidence and presented it to her superiors; either way, she was done with them. After the first few reports, she knew there would be no simple resolution this time so she listened to each new victim's account, consoled them as best she could and then recorded the time and place of the incident. She watched the panic and hysteria building and was sure that it would soon develop into mob violence against some hapless local woman.

She began spending a lot of her time with the Civilian Assistance Team. They knew the village women and must have gained the confidence of a few of them. She'd hoped that they might pass on something useful but the nurse aides spoke only their own dialect and could barely communicate with the villagers so there were no revelations. Then there was Tenyente Violy whose attitude continued to irritate her. She was difficult to talk to, always evasive; barely even polite. Clearly, she resented her current situation and struggled, unsuccessfully to control her anger. Once the Sergeant had arrived at the schoolhouse and witnessed the end of an argument between Violy and a visiting Army officer. It had been a disgraceful incident and she was shocked that a nurse even knew the sort of curses that she'd screamed at him. The officer had looked shaken by her fury. Later, one of the nurse aides told her that Violy had threatened the officer with a pair of scissors during the argument but Sgt. Alvarez was ever patient and continued to chat with Violy until, over time, she began to let slip clues to the events that had brought her to Sulit.

The Manananggal heard all of these conversations and sometimes saw them through the eyes of her familiar. She'd become an avid watcher of humans and grown confident in her ability to mimic their ways. She often sat by Violy's bed through the night and listened to her dreams. Many of them recurred endlessly but there were often surprises and she slowly began to appreciate how complicated it was to live a mortal life.

Deception came naturally to her as she'd taken the likeness of many mortal women in her time. Now with her growing knowledge, she could imitate the subtle gestures and mannerisms unique to each human. Once, as she left the small house where the nurses lived she came face to face with the nurse aide called Thelma. The girl's expression of surprise gave way to panic as she thought she'd come face-to-face with Violy. The Manananggal tilted her head slightly, gave the girl a conspiratorial smile, and put her finger to her lips. She grinned as she watched the nurse aide look back and wave, reeking of sexual excitement as she slipped into the Korporal's quarters. She'd seen the sexual act between men and women performed many times but that night as she watched Thelma writhing and moaning under the Korporal it suddenly came to her that this was what her latest conquest pined for.

She was many times more intelligent than an average human but just as flawed. She had learned more about the human world in these few weeks than she had in centuries before and she was frightened. She'd never considered humans as more than prey but now as she spent her nights untangling the human girl's thoughts she realised the threat that the mortals posed. She still smiled at the crucifixes, and strings of garlic the villagers bought to keep themselves safe from her, but she'd seen the vast plantations where her forest once grew and counted the huts in the villages where she hunted. She also began to realise that she was a slave to her primal instincts and lacked the self-awareness that most humans have. She was ancient and had lived in solitude for as long as she could recall but she knew instinctively that it had not always been so. She knew that once there must have been others like herself and there was a time in the distant past when her kind had been something other than rapacious predators although their origin and purpose were long forgotten. Now she longed for someone to talk to, someone to help her understand this strange new world.

Many times she'd woken from her sleep weak and starving, she was familiar with the pain of raw hunger, but now she experienced a new agony. She was infatuated with the mortal girl. She longed to possess her, to make her quiver and scream with desire again. Each night she crouched motionless inside the mosquito net, head bowed as she tried to wake her muse but there was no response. It seemed that Violy was only receptive when she was menstruating. Sometimes the Manananggal took to the air, climbing high into the black starry sky then wheeling and swooping until she was dizzy but the hunger always remained. As the days dwindled her obsession deepened and the attacks on village women ceased as this new passion enveloped her.

By the time the night finally came, she was weak with hunger, savouring the exquisite pain until at last as she drew the mosquito netting aside, she felt a pang of hunger so intense that she swayed and almost fell. She snatched at the frame of the mosquito net to steady herself, the girl stirred and her eyes opened. She rolled onto her back gazing up at the shadowy figure beside her bed. Shocked, the Manananggal hesitated; but the girl's fingers reached out, brushed down her flank from waist to thigh, and then both hands gripped her, drawing her down onto the bed. As they kissed the Manananggal was shocked to hear the girl's voice in her head. No one had spoken directly to her in centuries and now this strange girl was whispering to her, begging her to make love to her. She wrapped her arms around the Manananggal pulling her closer, squirming against her as their tongues swirled and darted. The Manananggal slid her hand between Violy's trembling thighs and eased two slender fingers into her wet heat. She pinned her to the bed as the fingers reached deep inside her to caress her cervix. The girl whimpered and begged, pleading for her to use her tongue but the Manananggal just held her tighter, curled her fingers into the clinging warmth and stroked harder.

"Be still Violy, we will play first" She whispered, feeling the girl's cunt clenching convulsively around her fingers. She was adept at sexually exciting her victims because it made them more compliant and increased their menstrual flow but the idea of shared pleasure was novel to her. She teased Violy into a series of climaxes that seemed to echo through both of their bodies and only ended when she'd licked the last drop of blood from the girl's clenching, oozing puki. She'd never known a conquest who didn't fall into a deep sleep after she'd fed from them so she was shocked and then delighted when Violy kissed her passionately then pinned her to the bed, slipped between her thighs and brutally ravaged her with fingers and tongue. The Manananggal had always known how easy it was to excite mortal women but this was the first time she'd experienced the sensations through her own body. She wrapped herself around the girl and sobbed, begging her not to stop.

They lay entwined while each adjusted to the idea that they could share thoughts. Sharing thoughts was one thing but their minds were completely alien to one another until Violy realised that the Manananggal's thoughts were expressed in an ancient form of Spanish and then they began to explore each other's minds. Violy asked for a personal name to call her lover. At first, the confused Manananggal had no sense of her own identity but after a few minutes of questioning, she remembered the name Letizia. Her memory was hazy and at first, she could only remember the name and a pleasant emotion associated with it. Over several weeks, as she continued to visit Violy, the Manananggal recalled that centuries before, Letizia had been the daughter of one of the strangers who invaded her forest searching for gold and spices. The Manananggal had seduced her and they became lovers. When the girl's father announced that he planned to marry her to a Spanish nobleman the lovers had fled into the jungle. Only one of them had survived.

Violy was no longer the well-tuned-out professional who'd arrived three months ago. As her infatuation with Letizia grew, she lost interest in her work and appearance. She was covered in mosquito bites, her uniform was grubby and creased and she never seemed to be without her sunglasses and Walkman. Often she seemed to be in a trance and would refuse to acknowledge people who spoke to her. The soldiers and nurse aides began to ignore her and the villagers whispered and pointed. Initially, Sgt. Alvarez suspected that the girl was a drug addict but once she realised that this was not so, she too began to accept that there might be some truth in the Manananggal stories. Her training as a police officer told her that the Manananggal panic had begun soon after Lt. Violy Generosa arrived in the village and it was centred on Sulit where the young woman happened to be staying, these facts made her at least a person of interest if not the prime suspect.

Several times the Sergeant had offered to drive Violy to Polomolok to buy extra food as deliveries from the army base were erratic and the nurses were often reduced to eating whatever they could beg or buy from the villagers. Violy would always accept the offer but at the last moment, she'd send the nurse aides instead of going herself. As Violy became weaker and more distracted by whatever was going on in her head, Sgt. Alvarez persisted and after conspiring with the nurse aides, eventually persuaded Violy to get into the Jeep. As they left the village the girl switched her Walkman on and lapsed into her usual trance. A kilometre beyond the village boundary Alvarez stopped the jeep under the shade of a large tree and when there was no reaction from the girl she tapped her on the shoulder. Violy seemed startled, she took off her headphones and turned towards the Sergeant looking confused.

"You're wondering why we're here?" The policewoman said quietly, "I wanted to talk to you alone because you need help and medical attention. Your colleagues don't seem to have noticed that you're not eating or sleeping and the villagers think that you're the Manananggal so it's just a matter of time before they work up the courage to come for you. I know you're not the Manananggal, but I'm sure that you're one of her victims."

"So you believe in supernatural beings now?"

The Sergeant reached over and pulled Violy's sunglasses away from her face. She was shocked at the state of the girl's bloodshot eyes, sunk deep in their sockets. Violy winced, dazzled by the brightness. She snatched the glasses back, fumbling as she put them on.

"It doesn't matter what I believe. Look at yourself. You know she's killing you don't you Violy and you're just letting it happen."

Violy was cornered now and knew denial was not an option so she chose her words carefully.

"She won't let me die because she needs me. She's intelligent and learns fast but now she's angry and frightened because she's just discovered that the world is bigger than a single village and that we are a threat to her."

The Sergeant knew that there was no point in arguing with Violy. She was beyond reason and it was only a matter of time before she died of self-neglect or at the hands of the villagers. She glanced at the girl and seeing that she'd put her headphones back on and slipped into her usual trace, she did the only thing that was in her power to accomplish. She started the jeep and headed towards General Santos City. As she drove carefully over the unmade track a small brown bird landed clumsily in the back of the jeep and squeezed itself under the driver's seat.

Violy woke in a hospital bed. She'd been diagnosed as suffering from Haemorrhagic Fever and for most of the next week she slipped in and out of consciousness. Sometimes she thought that the shadows in her room moved and that unblinking golden eyes appeared and disappeared. Whenever she slept, she dreamt that she stood naked at the foot of an ancient tree while the image of the Manananggal she remembered from childhood beckoned to her through the tangled branches. A week later she was beginning to recover physically but was still bemused over the events that happened to her in Sulit. Sometimes it all seemed real and at others, she began to accept that she'd imagined most of it.

When, at last she was discharged from the base hospital she moved into a room in the camp while arrangements were made for her to report to Fort Bonifacio Naval Station for reassignment. On the night before her departure, she went to bed early but sleep eluded her. She lay in the dark listening to the distant traffic noises and occasional far-off human voices. Sometimes she thought she heard the annoying tik-tik sound too. She understood its meaning now and when the noise abruptly ceased she sat up and looked around anxiously hardly daring to believe that her lover was close. Letizia appeared out of the darkness beside her like a wisp of smoke and wrapped herself around her. Slender arms embraced her, fingertips slid under her chin turning her head while an ice-cold hand gently caressed her breasts before slipping lower as they kissed. Violy pulled her lover down and rolled on top of her, squirming and grinding against her. The Manananggal's impossibly long tongue filled her mouth swirling and darting, while slender fingers clawed at her panties and then thrust deep inside her.

When they were finally sated they lay together examining each other's thoughts. Violy was shocked to see how perfectly the Manananggal had stolen her likeness. Looking into her eyes was now like seeing herself in a mirror. The Manananggal smiled and whispered, "I look like the girl you were when you came to Sulit. Sadly, you don't look like that now. I live by stealing the life force of humans. If I visit one of your kind they lose a little of their vitality for a while but they can easily regain it. You became ill because I took too much from you too quickly and if you stay here with me you will wither and die like a flower."

Violy began to protest but the Manananggal kissed her tenderly. "I've lived for thousands of years so the lifespan of a mortal is nothing to me. I can wait that long for you and, when the time comes, there is a way that I can make you mine forever."

"There may not be a forever unless you find a way to protect your forest from us," Violy said softly. "Sergeant Alvarez probably knows a lot more about you than you'd think but she just wants things to go back to the way they were. The way it was before I arrived and you woke up. She will protect you if you convince her that you'll stay away from the villages on her turf. She's also a middle-aged woman without a lover so perhaps there's another way to get her on your side..."

The next day when Violy boarded the ferry, she wore a yellow Ylang-ylang flower in her hair and unbeknown to her, hidden in her luggage was a strange gift from Letizia.

Manila September 2054

She knew the vultures were circling ever lower as she'd overheard a phone call between the housekeeper and her daughter in America, in which a hospice was being discussed. It was time for her to act as she had no intention of dying in a hospice or anywhere else if she could avoid it. She waited calmly until the housekeeper's night off then she sent her nurse on an errand to get her out of the house.

She could barely walk but once she was alone she'd quickly locked the door and shuffled across the room to put a record on the turntable. She slumped down on the sofa panting from the effort of these simple tasks. The searing violin tones of Johan Schmelzer's Ciaccona in A blasted from oversized speakers on either side as she gazed around her home for what might be the last time and the tears fell. There were photographs everywhere; wedding photos, an image of her husband as a young man standing proudly on the bridge of his ship, pictures that marked stages in the lives of her daughters from infancy to graduation and beyond, and yet more pictures of her five grandchildren. The room was furnished with antiques and beautiful objects from every corner of the world, many of them inherited and others mementoes brought from overseas by her husband.

The house told the story of a long and happy marriage and a life well lived, a life that was now slipping away much faster than she'd expected. The pain was like liquid fire running through her veins but she knew that she was so close to death that one more dose of morphine would lull her into a dream from which she would never wake. The music ended and the needle began to bump over the end of the record track with an irritating tik-tik, tik-tik sound. She wanted to get up and lift it off the record but she needed all of her remaining energy for something more important.

She was so weak that she didn't trust herself to walk across the room. Ignoring the searing pain, she slid off the sofa and crawled over the thick Persian carpet to her desk. She dragged herself up and slumped into the chair wheezing and shaking from the effort. The lowest drawer of the desk was stiff and she needed both hands to open it. Light-headed from the effort but excited she lifted a small box from the drawer and set it on the desk. The box was crudely fashioned from bare wood, cracked and stained with age. She paused with her hand on the lid and whispered the name of her lover from a lifetime ago. The box was full of dark earth, warm and damp as it was when it was filled fifty years ago. Her gnarled fingers probed, loosening the tightly packed soil until she felt something hard and smooth nestling there. She scooped the black duck egg out of the box and held it between her palms for several minutes. She trembled as she recited the simple incantation in her head several times and then aloud before she bit into the egg. She retched at the foul taste but forced herself to swallow the contents before she slumped over the desk and began to choke.

Only the constant ticking of the needle on the record disturbed the silence as she raised her head from the desk. She blinked, looked down at her pale smooth hands, blinked again and wiggled her long, straight fingers. She smiled as she traced the contours of her body with her fingertips then swept the loose earth back into the box and replaced the lid before tucking it back into its hiding place. She stood up and lifted the needle from the record. The first fierce pangs of hunger twisted her gut as she set a new album on the turntable and dropped the needle deftly on the lead-in to La Bergamasca. Grinning, she twisted the volume knob all the way up, savouring her growing hunger and desire. The bright airy tones of Enrico Gatti's violin echoed through the room as she began to sway and then dance to the music.

Despite her raging hunger, she was in no hurry. She hunted through her wardrobe until she found her favourite Qipao. It was midnight blue silk, subtly embroidered with gold thread. She wrapped it around herself, then stepped into the blue crocodile skin heels that she'd last worn thirty years before. She stood up, straightened her back and admired her reflection in the tall mirror. In the low light of her bedroom, she looked flawless. "Not bad at all for seventy-five? she giggled.

It was long past midnight when she left the house, but there were still plenty of people abroad. Few of them noticed the elegantly dressed woman as she strolled nonchalantly through the rubbish-strewn streets. She was careful to walk down the centre of the darker, narrower streets deftly avoiding groups of noisy bar patrons long before they came anywhere near to her. She passed under the Recto Avenue flyover and began to walk faster along Asuncion. The street was dark and deserted apart from a few drinkers who sat in the shadows beside the road. Some of them shouted obscenities after her but she ignored them and soon she was at the junction with Morga Street. The hunger was growing unbearable but she was excited too. She was almost running by the time she reached her destination on the corner of Morga and J. Nolasco.

She hesitated outside the nurse's home. The thought of so many lovely young girls was tempting but she was new to this and the hospital seemed much safer. She sighed and walked the last few steps before she turned into the hospital yard. An ambulance sat outside the emergency department with its lights flashing and rear doors open. She walked around it and into the hospital through the open doors. In less than a minute she was on the first floor.

She walked unseen through several darkened hospital wards before she found a sleepy young woman who sat alone at a nurse station reading by the light of a desk lamp. Violy smiled to herself as the girl slumped forward and then sat up with a start. She moved closer, inhaling the girl's natural scent and catching fragments of her thoughts. The nurse yawned and put the open pocketbook down on the desk. She leaned forward her head resting on her arm and soon she seemed to be asleep. Violy glanced at the book and smiled when she saw that it was a lesbian romance novel. She was excited now and so wrapped up in her thoughts that it took her a minute to realise that she could see the young nurse's face reflected in the glass screen at one side of the desk and she was still awake. Violy tilted her head slightly and whispered, "Night shifts seem to last forever don't they?"

The nurse raised her head slowly and stared at her. Violy looked into the girl's brown eyes and said softly, "I thought you might like to chat for a while." She knew that the over-tired girl was struggling to make sense of the situation, wondering if this was a dream. She moved closer to the girl and a sudden twinge of hunger made her shudder.

The girl sat up, yawned then frowned, "Who are you? Do I know you from somewhere?".

She peered at the girl's name tag and smiled to herself. "I'm Violy, I used to be a nurse here. Poor Liana you seem very tired. Perhaps I could massage your shoulders while we chat?"

Without waiting for an answer Violy, laid her hands on the girl's shoulders and began to knead her trapezius muscles. Soon the girl relaxed and her eyes closed. "Just stretch out and lay your head on your arms anak." Violy's slender fingers continued to circle and probe slowly moving from Liana's shoulders to her neck. Her fingertips stroked and kneaded, moving slowly, carefully down her spine. The girl was relaxed now, drifting. "Tell me about her..." Violy whispered. "... the one you long for, the one that makes you wet." Almost instantly images began to flood into the girl's mind... a pretty tomboyish face with an infectious grin, long-lashed Chinese eyes, and short spikey black hair. "She's gorgeous, perfect. Did she fuck you yet Liana?" Liana sighed and shook her head.

Violy slipped her hands under Liana's tunic to unclip her bra and began to caress her breasts. She rolled each taut nipple between her finger and thumb until Liana began to shudder and moan softly then she cupped both warm breasts in her palms and squeezed them gently before she bent low and kissed the back of Liana's neck. The girl began to tremble and looked up at her, eyes wide. "You're a Manananggal aren't you?" the girl whispered.

Her hunger pains were almost unbearable now and her desire to possess the girl sexually was almost as urgent, but Violy smiled at the confused girl and stroked her cheek affectionately. "You're having an erotic dream Liana dear. It's your dream so I'm whoever you imagine me to be but your desire is what brought us here."

Violy held out her hand to the Liana then gently helped her to her feet. They kissed deeply, passionately before she led the trembling girl down the corridor to a small dark room where bedding was stored. Soon Liana knelt naked on a mattress quivering and gasping as Violy's tongue flickered between her thighs, tracing the folds of her dusky labia, pushing deeper into the soft coral pink interior and then playfully teasing her rosebud anus before hunger and desire overcame her and she thrust her long tongue deep into Liana's dripping cunt. Once she'd tasted the girl she couldn't stop. She held the girl tight and thrust her tongue deeper and deeper filling her completely. Liana arched her back and whimpered as Violy ravished her, pumping her cunt with smooth thrusts, savouring her taste and scent. After Liana's last shattering orgasm faded away, Violy dressed her and half dragged, half carried her back to the nurse station where she left the exhausted girl slumped over the desk just as she had found her. Violy's whole body tingled with new energy as she blew Liana a farewell kiss and slipped quietly out of the hospital and into the approaching dawn.

Three days later in a patch of forest near Sulit a strange Manananggal, knelt at the foot of an ancient Balete tree. She wore a diaphanous gown that barely concealed the svelte contours of her body and there were Ylang-ylang flowers entwined in her dark hair. Her eyes glowed with soft amber light, her stiff nipples throbbed, and her black tapering wings shimmered in the light of the full moon as she waited for her muse to awake from a half-century of sleep.