by Night, Ash
“Next week? But that’s…”
“Your birthday, I know. You and Erin are going away for a few days. Why do you think I planned it for next week? Less danger to her.” I didn’t understand why he couldn’t see it my way. I thought it was a genius plan. Kistel would be gone. Erin would be safe. No one got hurt. Problem solved.
He sank into the couch. “And you really see no problem with this? It’s the rest of Erin’s life!”
“She won’t want me in it!” I said, exasperated. “Brother, it’s perfect. Why can’t you see that?”
“You love her, Alex. Not the same way you loved Anastasia, of course. You could never marry anyone else, but you want Erin in your life. She reminds you of what it’s like to feel something for another person.”
I closed my eyes and tried to shut out the image of Anastasia. “You don’t get it. I don’t want to feel anything! Life is so much easier that way. Did you ever think that I’m doing this for me? I’m getting away from Erin for me, brother, because I’m a selfish prick and I’ll always be a selfish prick.”
Growling, he glared at me, his brown eyes hard. “Why do you push people away? I know you use people as a food source and I’ve accepted that, but you finally find another human besides Anastasia that you don’t see as one, and you just push her away. Why?”
A sudden flash of my power busted out a newly-replaced window in the living room. “I’ve only ever loved two women in my life. They both ended up dead. I’m not an idiot, brother. I am never going to go through that again. You’re the idiot for putting yourself through it with Erin. Erin made her choice. One day, she’ll die, and you’ll finally understand why I choose being a dick over getting friendly with my playthings.”
“Humans are not playthings!” He shouted. “They have hopes and dreams. They have benevolence that you could not possibly even begin to understand.”
I could feel the darkness emanating from my own expression and I hoped my brother would get the message. “Maybe I should work on getting you to hate me too.”
I needed to tear someone’s head off. Since I figured my mother would highly disapprove of me tearing my brother’s head off, I decided to find a human to drain.
“Are you really leaving town?” Erin’s friend, the wolf girl, jogged to catch up. I was on a backstreet that I’d thought was deserted.
“How long have you been following me?” I asked, mildly annoyed.
“Answer my question first,” she said.
“I don’t really have a choice, but more importantly, how the hell do you know about that?”
She shrugged. “You were yelling. It wasn’t hard to overhear.” Smiling, she tapped her ears. “Built-in surround sound.”
I rolled my eyes. “Why don’t you follow my brother around? He has much more patience.”
“Because you’re more fun to annoy,”
Sighing, I continued walking in silence. The wolf girl wouldn’t take the hint and kept following. I glared at her.
She laughed. “What? Your asshole meter not run out like it did last time?”
“No, actually seeing you refilled it.” I said through gritted teeth. “Go away.”
“Touchy,”
My fists clenched tight enough to draw blood. “Not in the mood, wolf.”
To my surprise, she growled. “Okay, I’ll leave, but let’s get one thing straight.” All traces off her usually playful, annoying demeanor was gone. I was intrigued. It appeared I had pushed a button.
I smirked. “Which is?”
“You hurt Erin, in any way, I will rip you apart faster than Lauren can start a bonfire.” She flashed her fangs for good measure. “Got it?”
My grin turned menacing. “What the hell do you care? Oh, right, wolves are disgusting pack animals.”
She clenched her jaw and her body started to ripple, on the verge of transformation. “Watch it.”
I shrugged. “You are so out of your league, little wolf cub. I wouldn’t dare try. Unless, of course, you’re suicidal. In which case, by all means, attack me. I’ve been meaning to try out some new torture methods.”
“Erin would hate you.”
My heart squeezed at the thought, but I pushed the thought behind a door and slammed it shut, tossing the key in a vat of acid. “That works in my favor.”
“You want her to hate you?” Wolf girl’s body stopped shaking and she looked genuinely confused.
“Yes, now leave me alone. My patience is non-existent and I swear I’ll snap your neck if you so much as breathe another word in my direction.” My voice was deadly.
The wolf girl got the message and ran away as fast as her wolf form would carry her. No doubt she’d tell Erin about this little incident. I shrugged and kept walking. I didn’t waste any more time and decided just to walk into the center of town.
“Hello, young man!” I saw a frail old lady who looked as old as I was kneeling on the sidewalk. She was feeling around for the contents of her dropped purse. “May I have a moment?”
“Yes?” I grinned, kneeling beside her. I normally preferred a younger kill, but I wasn’t in the mood to be picky at the moment.
She smiled. “Could you help me? I seem to have dropped my purse. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be. Could you help me pick up my things?”
In the dim light of the moon, a young human would have trouble seeing. My eyes, however, saw a pocketbook, a few pens, a now-broken perfume bottle, and a shopping list. “Sure, let me help,”
The woman smiled wide. “Thank you! I really appreciate it! I was walking to the store to pick up milk and food for my two cats, they’re everything to me since my Elmer passed, and I tripped. My balance isn’t what it used to be either.”
I heard her gasp slightly as she sliced her finger on the shards of the perfume bottle. A guttural growl escaped my lips. Right now, her blood was sweeter than any perfume.
She emptied quickly, and with little struggle. Not even fit to be a snack. Luck was on my side though as I spied a frightened college student running away from the scene. He’d seen everything. I smirked and appeared right in front of him. He stopped short and tried to run the other way.
I paused for a few seconds and then reappeared in front of him. He was stuttering, his dark blue eyes a blank, frightened stare. “W-what do you want? I didn’t see a thing!”
I glanced sideways at him. “You just prove my point that humans are stupid. You just gave yourself away. Now, if I were a cop, that would mean trouble for you.”
“You-you’re a cop?” That seemed to calm the boy down quite considerably. His mind was somehow trying to reason that the old lady had fallen in the street and I had just been checking for a heartbeat instead of what I had really been doing.
I flashed my fangs. “No, I’m much worse.”
Chapter Ten
Aubrey
Mother would not like this. Alex could be moody, downright miserable at times, but this, this was different. Did he really mean what he said? Was I headed for the same path? No, I couldn’t be. After all, I planned to die the minute Erin took her last breath.
Of course, Alex had had the same plan the moment Anastasia was taken from him. His plan, his whole future, had dissolved in a matter of seconds. There was nothing more for him. He’d never really love again. He was shattered to the core.
I felt a deep sense of guilt. I had tried to put the jagged pieces back together that night, not knowing they were too small to ever be whole again. No wonder Alex didn’t want that kind of pain again.
“Why can’t he ever just tell me these things?” I muttered. “Instead he just speaks in cryptic answers and leaves me to decipher them.”
“Knock-knock, need some company?” Topaz asked, coming in through the shattered window. “I was going to come in through the door, but then I saw the window was already open.”
“Hey, Paz,” I said tiredly.
He held up a bag of animal blood. “I stopped at a butcher and got the vampire equivalent of bacon. I bought one
of my own as well. I am not sharing, just so you know.”
I grabbed the pig’s blood from him and tore it open with my teeth, squeezing out every last drop. It landed on my tongue like fire and slid down my dry throat like rain. “Thanks, Paz. I needed that.”
Paz looked at me with wide eyes. “You look like you need about five more.”
“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “I went through my supply earlier this week.”
“Maybe you do need some of mine,” he joked. “Where’s the raven-haired Sleeping Beauty? You didn’t go crazy and eat her, did you? Because then I’ll have to tell her mother, and her mother would have to tell my…well, I don’t know who she would tell, but it would end in an angry mob and flaming pitchforks.”
“Flaming pitchforks? That’s quite a picture, Paz.” I laughed. “Maybe you should take up writing.”
His eyebrows wiggled up and down as he threw himself onto the couch. “I am quite the storyteller, you know.”
I smiled. “Erin’s at home. I can be right over if she needs me. I just had to deal with Alex.”
“Oooh, drama, dish.” He said, drinking his own blood bag. The smell made me lightheaded.
I swallowed and fought to regain my senses. “It was nothing.”
He laughed. “It’s never nothing with Alex. Now, tell me, pretty please!”
“He wants to leave town.”
Jumping up, Paz whooped. “That’s awesome! We should celebrate! Drinks are on me! I know this great little bar-“
“Paz, you don’t drink.” I interrupted.
“Doesn’t mean I can’t buy you drinks. I’ll be your designated. Double D.”
I chuckled. “You mean designated driver.”
“Sure, whatever, let’s go. If we hurry, I can still get you those five blood bags.”
“I don’t want to celebrate.”
Paz whipped around and reappeared inches from my face. “Why the hell not? The resident town dick is leaving! Why do you have to ruin my fun?”
“Because Kistel is following him,” I said. Like Alex, now that I knew the truth, he was no longer father to me. I quickly shoved the thought of my mother’s shattered rosary out of my mind.
“Oh,” Paz said, finally understanding my lack of joy. “What do you plan to do?”
“I have no idea.”
“What’s Erin have to say?”
I sighed. “A whole other problem. Alex compelled her feelings away. She only sees him as a friend now, although he’s planning to destroy that too before he leaves. He wants to make her scared of him.”
“But she already has nightmares!” A low growl rumbled in Paz’s chest as his body tensed.
“Exactly what I said.”
“He won’t hurt her, will he? If he does, I will rip his heart out myself.” My friend’s golden eyes were serious, a sight I rarely saw.
“Of course not, Paz. He still loves her. He’s just pushing her away because he’s a selfish prick, his words verbatim.”
Paz relaxed. “And here I thought he wasn’t self-aware,”
Sending the conversation directly to him, I watched as he looked more ready to hit something the more he heard. I sat down, suddenly very hungry again. “Can we still stop and grab that bite to eat?”
“Keep drinking! Drunk people are entertaining!” Paz encouraged as he ordered a fourth round for the entire bar. None of these humans were going to be able to walk by the end of the night.
“No wonder you don’t drink. If you were any more entertaining, you’d be a public nuisance.” I laughed. My head was spinning with all the blood I’d consumed. At the butcher shop, I’d drank six or seven bags to prepare for the night out Topaz was planning.
“Do you want me to ramp it up a notch?” he said. A wicked grin appeared as he yelled for shots.
“You’re trying to kill me,” I said as I downed my shot. Topaz offered his to a nice blonde next to him.
She accepted it with a smile. “Thanks, I’m Kimberly.”
“I’m Topaz. You, sweetie, can call me Paz. My reluctant friend Aubrey and I are celebrating.”
I shook my head. “For the record, I am not celebrating. I’m possibly mourning.”
“Mourning?” Kimberly asked, tipping her head back quickly to throw back her shot. “Whoo! Now, why would you be in mourning? You’re in a bar. Have a little fun!”
“My guess is you’ve never heard of Hemmingway,” I muttered.
The loud music kept Kimberly from hearing me. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said. She wasn’t paying attention, already talking with Paz about how she was newly single and how her last boyfriend had been a lying, cheating piece of trash.
No matter how many centuries I lived I didn’t think I’d ever get used to how freely people talked about their problems these days. What once was said in hushed whispers was now proudly shouted from the rooftops. There was no such thing as privacy in most people’s lives anymore. Everyone knew everyone else’s business, not because they asked, but because they were told. Gossip wasn’t something quietly breathed in one’s ear anymore. It was discussed over coffee in crowded coffee shops for anyone to hear.
People did everything so boldly, men and women alike. They used car keys to write terrible words on a cheating husband’s car. They dragged out lengthy divorces, all the while making life a living hell for each other, using their children as pawns. They kicked up dust and set cars on fire, hurting innocent people in the confusion under the guise of a riot. They didn’t need to be turned into vampires. Sometimes the human race turned into monsters all on their own.
Alex sometimes liked to hang out with those sort of humans, the ones who were monsters, who seemed to have lost their humanity while their hearts still beat. It never lasted long. My brother would grow bored and either kill them or simply slip into the night, making them forget he ever existed. A part of me was happy when he chose to kill them.
The majority of the human race was good and was just trying to get by in life. They did what they needed for their families. They went to work, cared for their children, and were loving to their wives or husband. Their one purpose in life was to protect and provide for their family.
I wanted that for Erin. I wanted to give her everything she ever wanted. That conversation from the other morning still weighed heavily on my mind. Erin had wanted to have kids. It was the one thing I couldn’t give her. I had heard of places single women could have a procedure done to make her pregnant from a donor. I was considering asking her if, down the road, she would like that option. That way, she’d actually get to carry a child.
I smiled as I saw Topaz dancing with Kimberly to a popular upbeat song, totally unafraid to dance as a few people stared in amusement. My friend was amazing. He had adjusted to this era like a fish took to water. He was stuck in the past, longing for a love he could never fully have, but in all other ways he’d adapted. He could use a computer, knew the lyrics to most of the popular songs of this era, and was a social butterfly.
I enjoyed making friends but I was more on the quiet side. Years of keeping secrets did that to a person. I often wondered if it would be different if I’d been human at one point, allowed to freely share anything without fear of ending up in an asylum.
A Sinatra song came on the jukebox after the upbeat song ended and I looked at Topaz in surprise. He grinned as we heard some people complain about some ‘old-ass’ music. I asked a lonely-looking girl to dance as the bar wasn’t that crowded. She shyly accepted and I held her gently, swaying to the music of a forgotten era I knew and loved.
“My name is Cora.” The brunette said. She looked to be sixteen and hadn’t been drinking. Her boyfriend, a nineteen-year-old with an attitude, had taken her here to grab a beer with his buddies. He was at the bar, taking loudly, not even noticing as some random stranger had asked her to dance.
“My name is Aubrey, Cora. It is a pleasure to meet you and an even greater pleasure to dance with you tonight. You’re an amazing dancer.” I smiled.
She blushed, fumbling for words. She really was good. She didn’t look like she weighed more than ninety-five pounds soaking wet. That troubled me. She flinched slightly as I lightly touched her back. The strap of her dress fell off her shoulder and I saw deep purple bruises in the shape of thumbprints where the strap had been. Someone had been very rough with her. My blood boiled. No man should ever put his hands on a woman in anger.
“Oh my god, I…I’m so sorry!” Cora said, fixing her strap.
“It’s okay, Cora. Don’t worry. We can dance some more, if you like.” I offered, holding out my hand as another one of Old Blue-eyes’ songs came on, thanks to Topaz puppy-guarding the jukebox with a scowl at anyone attempting to change it. She melted into my arms, putting her arms around my neck, not out of lust, but of a sense of trust. I had the feeling I was the first person to offer her a kindness in a long time.
I slipped into her mind out of curiosity. Her parents had been kind and loving, but her dad had had a mean streak when he drank. He would hit her and not remember the next day. He died when he smashed into a brick building while driving drunk. Cora had cried more for the little girl he had killed.
She got into drugs after her father’s death. Her wide-eyed stare told me she was currently on something. Her drug of choice was heroin. She’d dropped out of school a few months ago and met Brett, the guy she’d come here with. He had swept her off her feet with his smooth talk and fast-paced world. He had promised to never hurt her like her father had, but that didn’t last long. When Cora’s mom found a needle in her daughter’s sock drawer, she’d kicked her out. Cora’s mother hadn’t wanted to, but Cora had refused to stop seeing Brett and get help. It was sad.
Reluctantly, Cora stepped away as the song ended. “Thank you, Aubrey.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. Without thinking, I strode up to Brett at the bar and tapped his shoulder. The boy whipped around, ready for a fight. His green eyes narrowed.
“What do you want?”
“You lied to Cora. I saw the bruises you left. You are going to start being nice to her, got it? She deserves better. I spent a total of seven minutes with her and even I could tell how special she is. You’re lucky she would even look at a guy like you much less want to be with you!” I was furious. I rarely ever got this mad. Topaz glanced at me out of the corner of his eye.
