by Rashaad Bell
Chapter 19
Murder was the case that they gave me…
It was late, but not that late. I wanted to go home, yet I couldn’t. There was no place for me to go. I didn’t even have enough money to catch a flight back to Palm Coast. Could I even go back to Florida after all this? Could I trust myself to be around my family as a Vampire? I can’t even go to school anymore because I’d burn down homeroom.
I began to walk. Nowhere in particular, but I couldn’t just stand on the corner in one spot all night, that was bound to draw undue attention. I needed somewhere to go, some place to just sit and think about my wayward life and what the next chess move was going to be. After talking with future John Rogers, bum rushing a Werewolf Den all by myself just didn’t seem like that smart of a move right now.
I needed to find Connor.
I could smell blood. The scent was filling my nostrils, the sweet smell sticking to the roof of my mouth like plasma flavored fruit rollups. I could vaguely hear music and I followed it, picking up the pace, testing myself once more, seeing just how fast was fast for me now.
In an instant I was there, barefoot as can be, standing in front of this bar, tucked far enough away that you really wouldn’t be able to find it on accident, you would have needed the address, yet from what I could tell, it was packed to capacity. The name of the place was called Sacrifice.
How fitting…
I slipped through the entrance, past the bouncer, moving fast enough that he didn’t take notice and just like that, I was inside. It was bigger than I expected, the music blasting at an insane level, yet I was able to turn down the volume of it in my mind, so that the tempo wasn’t as loud to me as it was to the patrons that flocked about.
The dim lighting, the ambience, the cute boys, yes, this would have most definitely been a place I would have partaken of had I been human, but now that I was a Vampire the experience was something different altogether. I scanned the area, the dim lighting meaning nothing to me. I could see as well in the dark as I could in daylight. In fact, I think my vision actually improved the darker it became.
I found what I was looking for, a nice little spot tucked away from it all and as soon as I saw it across the room, I was already there, sitting comfortably, admiring my surroundings. It was hard at first, to observe these beings in their natural habitat, unbeknownst to them that Daniel was dead, the lion’s den was empty and the Queen of the Jungle now prowled amongst them with blood on her maw.
I wasn’t sure if I could do this, live like this. The blood scent of the crowd was overpowering me, driving me into the hunt. My teeth had sharpened again and I couldn’t get them to go back to normal. I closed my eyes, attempting to mediate, as if I’d ever done that before. Not that it helped, in fact, it was making everything worse.
One hundred and twenty five.
That’s how many separate heartbeats I was able to detect. Fourteen of them had an additional, separate heartbeat within them. Pregnant, I figured. Wonder if they even knew themselves, or maybe they did and just didn’t care. Whatever. I want to eat their babies.
Okay, that’s enough of that. I opened my eyes and found this pretty young thing sitting at my table, sipping something fluorescent green, staring at me intently.
“You know, you’ve been doing that for the past forty minutes straight.” There was no way another person could have sat in my seat and heard her over the thundering of the bass, yet to me, it was as if she whispered the words directly into my ear.
“Been doing what?” I asked.
“Just sitting there with your eyes closed.” She responded. “Damn, your eyes are beautiful.”
She’s cute and she’s hitting on me. “How do you know it’s been forty minutes?” I didn’t think it had been that long. Time for me is…different now. I processed it differently.
“I’ve been watching you. I thought you were sleep at first, but then I figured it must be some kinda Zen thing. Its way to loud in here to sleep.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been watching me the whole time?”
“Yes, I know, it’s very stalkerish of me, but I’m extra cute so I get leeway.”
Yup, she is most definitely hitting on me.
“My name is Chloe by the way.”
Right…
“You’re lying.” I stated.
“About?”
“Your name. It isn’t Chloe, it’s a fake name.”
“How did you…”
Yes Madison, that’s an excellent question. “Pulse rate, oxygen intake, glandular sweat increase…”
“Okay, okay, Ms. CSI…”
“Madison.” I offered.
“Hmm. Madison. Kinda rolls of the tongue like cherry stems.” She smiled, placed her hand on mine and I knew she wasn’t going to survive the night. I knew there was no way she was going to live. My body was electric in anticipation for the kill, there was no denying it.
I am Vampire.
That is what I am and I can only be that or nothing at all. Was there even a choice?
Chloe stayed with me for the remainder of the night, never leaving my side. We laughed and talked, once she even convinced me to dance for a few songs. By the end of the night, when it became apparent that I had no intention of inviting her back to my place, as if I could, sure have a seat on this burning ember here, she slipped me her number, kissed me with all the passion my previous life never had and then made her exit.
I waited five minutes then followed after her.
Chloe was in my system, I could track her and I found myself quit the adept in the roll of hunter. This frightened me. The ease of how I came to the decision to murder this woman and my premeditation of the whole affair in general. At least with the Cop, that honestly wasn’t my fault, I didn’t know what was happening, didn’t know what I was, but this?
This was me, putting needle to record, putting on my dancing shoes and asking the devil for a twirl underneath the pale of the moonlight.
Worst of all, I liked it. I wanted to do this. There was no turning back for me now. Once the deed was done, once I drank her blood and left her cold and lifeless then I was nothing less than a murderer. That is what I would become, that is what would define me for all eternity.
Does that make me a monster? We eat other living things for nourishment and it’s all copasetic. I, by the grace of the unholy have been moved further up the food chain, above humans, to the point that they feed me instead and that’s considered…criminal? Damnable?
Is it possible that I am just the next link in the evolutionary ladder? Is it wrong to be the dominate species? Just the fact that I could debate this act of premeditated murder, did human life mean so little to me now?
That above all else is what made me a monster.
It didn't take me long to identify my prey. Hmm...prey? Is that what I'm calling them now? Is that all they are to me? Just another meal? Can I get that number 4 to go, with a side of Louis Vuitton boots, Prada bag and iPhone?
She had been marked for death of course. From the moment her image crossed my eyes retina. I toyed with the idea at first, her blood overflowing my thirst, trickling down my throat, quenching the furnace in my chest. I fantasized about caressing my arms against her slender waist, my chin nuzzled against her neck as we danced intertwined in a lovers embrace.
We were well beyond fantasy at this point. I realized this when it became apparent her blood scent had overpowered all the others. I'm not exactly certain when I made the conscious decision to drink her dry. Even now as I trailed behind her in the early San Francisco morning, my nonexistent footfalls in concert with her own human steps, I wasn’t entirely sure.
What was I going to do? Sunrise was near and her and her girlfriend had just paused at a cab. I figured that was a sign, something from God signaling that the path I had chosen this night was a calamity in waiting. Yet as her friend got into the back seat of the cab and Chloe continued walking, I knew her fate was sealed. She was nearing an all
ey.
I was in the alley, pulling her within, her throat in my mouth, my teeth in her flesh.
And just like that it was done.
Her body slumped from my grasp, coming to rest haphazard like next to a dumpster. I could feel the blood inside me, moving with its own purpose, flooding my organs with its unique brand of flavor X.
Was this it then? Her dead gaze stared out with unblinking eyes at nothing. Still as coffins. That would make me, what? The Executioner? Is that all I am? Death immortalized in flesh?
Even as I licked the last few remaining drops of human petrol from my lips, I knew I was getting better. There wasn't a drip-drop of blood on my clothes. None on hers as well. My proficiency at murder was increasing.
Is that even a good thing?
I could feel the heat from the sun. Sunrise was less than a minute or two away. My plan was to kill her. Yes, that's right. Kill her. It was the first time I had actually admitted that. Yes, that’s what I had planned to do all along. After the fact, hindsight is 20/20.
Kill her and then hide inside her apartment at dawn. That was the plan and yet here I was, the sun rising up. I could see it as I stood in this alley awaiting a sunbeam kiss. I didn't care that she was dead. I didn't care that it was me who killed her. I could feel my skin hiss and crack as it caught the first rays of the sun.
Maybe I'll care about this.
My arm burst into flame. It shouldn't be long now. I closed my eyes. Not long at all. A tear began to form at the corner of my eye, but evaporated from my increasing body temperature.
Yes, not long at all.
