by Rook, Rowan
He studied the alley. There was no body waiting for him with blank eyes and a twisted neck – his victim must’ve been discovered, too – but black blood lingered in the old tar cracks.
If it was Sorrel, he hoped he’d find her there, checking up on her crime scenes under the cover of coming darkness. Perhaps it was wishful thinking. No. It was definitely wishful thinking. Why would she risk returning when she didn’t need to, anyway? He looked around helplessly. Should he go search for her at the prison? He shook his head to himself. There was no way he could do that. He wasn’t in any mood to face a loud, muscular man with a gun and plenty of demands, and wouldn’t be any time soon.
He was about to give up and make his way home when a cacophony of caws stopped him. Crows flew from the rooftops and rushed the gray sky. He looked up just in time to see a telltale brown ponytail vanish over the general store’s roof.
“Ah!” His own luck almost startled him. He stood on the tips of his toes, straining to see. “Sorrel?”
For a while, there was nothing. Then a familiar face peered down over the ledge.
Sorrel frowned. “Y’know, you’re making ignoring you difficult. Why are you here of all places?”
“I need to, umm, I need to talk to you.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. It was easy to forget that this was the girl who’d taken his life – he was asking his own killer for a chat.
“You didn’t seem very eager when you took off.” She objected, not leaving her perch.
“That’s what I need to talk to you about.” He managed to find her eyes. “Why hasn’t anyone come after me? Did you all let me go?”
She heaved an exasperated sigh. “To actually seek someone out and bring it up. I didn’t realize you were that stupid.” She vanished over the edge of the rooftop. “If you want to talk, then come up here.”
“Eh? But I –”
“You can if you try. Vamps are stronger than humans, remember?”
He bit his lip. “I…don’t feel very well. I can hardly walk.”
A few moments ticked by without a response. He’d started to wonder if she’d simply abandoned his woes when she leapt from the roof. She landed just inches from him, shooting a smile. “Well, let’s do something about that, then.”
He stammered wordlessly, tensing as she leaned closer and gave him a stern looking over.
“You look awful.” Was that a slight frown on her lips? “You still haven’t fed, have you?”
He just shook his head, trying not to tremble. He knew where this was going.
Her blue-grey eyes met his brown ones, unusually solemn. “You need your first meal, soon. I actually haven’t seen any vamps die of starvation yet, but with the way you look, I’d say you’re pretty darn close. I’m not convinced you’ll make it through the night if you don’t feed this evening.”
He swallowed hard, trying to keep any reaction from his face. He believed it. The way he felt now was similar to the way he’d felt before his heart stopped beating. The immense pain was gone, but in exchange, was a haze coating his senses and gradually closing over his mind.
She straightened. “You can’t put it off any longer – you have a choice to make. You kill. Or you let yourself die.”
He shook his head. “I-I can’t…!” Dread weighed down his tongue. “I’m not like you. I’m not a killer!”
She crossed her arms. “Get off your high horse – the fear is written all over your face. You don’t want to die, do you? Certainly not after you’ve just gotten a second chance at a real life?”
He looked down. “I’m sure the people you murder don’t want to die, either. I didn’t.”
“Neither does the mouse that the cat hunts.”
He didn’t answer.
“Human beings are still animals. So are we. The strong survive while the weak fall victim to the food chain. That’s always been the natural order of things, and always will be.”
He didn’t answer.
“Besides, humans have no hope left. Within four years, they’ll all be dead. We still have potential futures. They have to die, we don’t.”
He didn’t answer.
“Look, I’m here to do some hunting anyway. I’ll help you. That’s the real reason you came to find me, isn’t it?”
Maybe it was.
“After you’ve done it once, it won’t seem so bad anymore.” Her voice bounced back to its usual chipper tone. It seemed she didn’t stay down for long. “It’s as I’ve said before. The homeless. Drug dealers. Criminals. We’ll go after people that have nothing to live for, anyway. People that no one will miss.”
He watched his feet. “Someone will miss them, somewhere.”
The last time he’d seen his mother flickered through his head, translucent and faded like old film. There was nothing worse than missing someone. He knew that as well as anyone, and that was exactly why he couldn’t…
“More than your brother and that lovely little girlfriend of yours would miss you?”
He was quiet. A nasty taste welled up in his throat, bitter like bile. The thought of putting blood – real blood, blood from someone else’s body – in his mouth, of swallowing it… His skin crawled, prickling with not only disgust, but also a silent sort of pleasure. The realization made him sicker.
“I’d be a bit sad too.” She leaned in closer, face near his. “You’re my first riser, after all! Don’t waste your second chance.”
He stared at the cracks in the cement, mouth opening and closing soundlessly.
“You’re kind.” She closed her eyes. “Surprisingly kind, but isn’t that all the more reason you have to live?”
He raised his chin, their eyes meeting just briefly before she smiled and spun away. “Follow me.”
He followed.
****
Mason shadowed Sorrel while she prowled through the dim alley light. His feet moved slowly, listlessly.
She looked over her shoulder. “You’re lucky I’m with you; you’d never catch anything like that!”
Anything. Heh. Anyone, more like.
He watched her legs. They slunk through the shadows with an almost feline grace, her lanky figure surprisingly lithe. She really did resemble a cat stalking a mouse.
He paused. A cat and a mouse, huh? Saying those words was one thing, so was using them as justification. But, perhaps she actually believed them. That was something else entirely.
“Sorrel, why are you hunting now?” He whispered. “Didn’t you say that you only need to feed a couple of times a month? You just killed that man – and me – last week. And what about that old woman a couple of days ago?”
“Hmm?” She tilted her head. “What old woman?” A coy smirk played with her lips. “You were my last kill.”
“You mean it wasn’t you, who?” He blinked. “But she was found right here with bite marks. I thought…”
“It’s not like we have exclusive hunting grounds, you know. Somebody else must be using this area, too. I –” Her voice cut off. Something flickered through her gaze, but it faded so quickly that he wasn’t able to tell what it was.
“What?” He pressed, dragging himself closer.
“Nothing.” She kept walking.
She was silent after that. Whatever it was bothering her, he clearly wouldn’t be hearing about it anytime soon.
“But still…” He sputtered. “Didn’t you get plenty of, erm, blood last week? Why do you need to hunt now?”
She stopped just long enough to hold down her collar and expose the scar left by the fire iron. “Our bodies heal on their own, and fast! But, while no one quite understands the specifics yet, healing an injury saps extra energy from whatever it is that keeps us alive. That stab in the neck wasted a lot of strength.” She readjusted her shirt and kept walking. “So, technically, this is your fault.”
He grimaced. Even if her tone was light, her words were heavy. “What was I supposed to do? Just sit there and let you drink peacefully?”
“Precisely.” She chimed. “It wou
ld’ve worked out better for you that way, too. You wouldn’t have suffered so much.”
“There’s no way anyone could not fight back!” He insisted. “You must know what it’s like, yourself!”
“I don’t, actually.” She answered simply. “I was never bitten. I was one of the lucky .2%.”
His legs froze beneath him.
That…that was like cheating! How could she talk so casually about it when she’d never been on the receiving end at all! Accepting the cost when she’d already paid it herself was one thing, but she had no right to talk about people losing their lives for another’s when she’d always been the hunter and never the hunted.
“That isn’t fair at all!” Was all he could manage.
She stopped. “Don’t look at me that way. At least you weren’t left for dead on the sidewalk like road kill.”
“Eh?” The grainy image of Sorrel’s face in the paper came back to him, but the words written beneath it escaped. What had the article said, again?
“When I was human, I lived with my father.” She turned away. “The plague got me on my way back from school one night – I collapsed on the sidewalk and couldn’t make it home. I died there. Victims can rise within four to six hours after death, and I spent that, plus the time it took for the plague to claim me, just lying there. No father came looking for me when I didn’t come home, not until after he’d had his usual eight hours of sleep…and I only know that now from reading the paper later. No one was there when I woke up. No grieving father. I spied on the house the day after. He was there, drinking soda and watching football on TV, as if nothing had ever happened, as if his only daughter hadn’t just died.”
She ground her teeth. “So, you’re wrong. Not everyone is missed by somebody.”
He just stood there, not knowing what to say. What could he say? “Sorrel, I…”
“Shh. We’ll never find anyone if we keep talking.”
****
Mason fought to keep pace with Sorrel as they wound quietly down the backstreets. The sun was already asleep, dooming him for another of his brother’s tirades when he got home. He was beginning to believe that nothing would come from this grim little excursion when Sorrel froze in front of him.
She peered around the bend, muscles frigid and poised like a carnivore’s waiting to pounce. “There’s someone there.”
Gooseflesh ate his arms. “What?”
She looked back, a grin lighting her lips. “It’s just one guy. He’s turned away and going through his wallet – probably working through a recent ‘transaction’. It’s perfect!” She stepped back. “You need it more than I do, so you can have this one. Hurry and bite him while he’s distracted!”
“Eh?” The hair rose on his neck. “But… But I thought you –”
“The blood has to be warm and fresh. It’d probably be okay if I killed him for you, but it’d be better if you did it, yourself. You need to learn how!” She smiled reassuringly. “Go! Don’t think about it too much. Get as close as you can and just let your instincts do the rest. I’m here if anything goes wrong.”
Mason shook his head, refusing to kill anyone. He reminded himself of his conviction to not do to anyone what she’d done to him, to not become the monster she was. He turned and dashed off as quickly as his weak legs would allow.
Or at least, that’s what he should’ve done. He knew that was what he should’ve done. That was what he’d promised himself he’d do.
Instead, he took a few uneasy steps closer and claimed Sorrel’s place at the bend. He saw the man instantly, fumbling with his wallet. He needed to hurry.
He let his body control his legs instead of his mind, creeping forward. His eyes rested on the line bulging below the man’s neck and the familiar, aching thirst heating his cold limbs. He trembled for the life he saw throbbing there. That same bitter taste came back, but he ignored it, tuning out the disgust and focusing on the longing.
His feet kept slinking forward, and this time, he didn’t stop them.
His muscles tightened with the urge to leap. His jaw burned, cracking open to bar its fangs. His dry throat and tongue begged for fluid. His ribs warmed, yearning, waiting, ready.
He didn’t resist the feeling. He gave in, letting it raze through him from his feet to the tip of his skull.
He leapt and sunk his teeth into the stranger’s neck in a single swift motion.
Something hot, wet, and thick spilled into his mouth before he had time to comprehend what it was. He’d hit the vein perfectly. The stranger yelled a garbled shriek, but the vampire wrapped an arm over his throat to clamp it shut.
Mason’s sense of taste came back to life with a potency it’d never had before. The syrupy liquid poured into his mouth and sent shivers of pleasure down his spine. It was salty and sweet, with a tangy edge and a sating, bitter aftertaste. His mind swam with a wash of ecstasy, his tense body tingling with satisfaction.
He swallowed, letting the life-giving liquid warm his chilled, lifeless body.
He drank. And drank. And drank.
A clarity of mind and a sharpness of sense he hadn’t realized were gone returned as the hot fluid worked its way down his throat. He knelt to stay level with the stranger’s body when it sank beneath him. It’d stopped struggling, he realized somewhere in the back of his mind, but it didn’t deter him from sucking every last drop of liquid he could from what he’d sunk his teeth into.
Finally, nothing else came. The vein was barren, and all that remained was a metallic aftertaste. He’d drained the man dry.
Mason’s eyes widened, his spine jolting straight with horror.
The stranger stayed on the concrete beneath him, stretched gaze staring blankly up at him and the blackening sky. He didn’t move anymore. His chest no longer rose. His torn vein no longer pulsed.
He was dead.
Mason swallowed down a shriek, almost toppling over backwards. He shook his head, unable to believe what his eyes were showing him.
He’d killed that man.
A rancid, sickening sense of guilt gnawed at his stomach and bit at the traces of ecstasy lingering in his head. That warm taste had stolen away all the rest of his senses as soon as it’d entered his mouth. He’d swallowed that man’s life to sate his thirst.
His vision danced with vertigo. It’d been just about to knock him from his feet when firm hands propped him up from behind. Sorrel’s face peered over his shoulder. “Wow, clean and fast! Not bad at all for your first kill.”
He straightened and shoved her away. “I murdered him!” He shouted, to himself as much as Sorrel. “I…!
His eyes watched the corpse, wide with horror and disgust. He leaned back, lips curled with that same bitter dread. Mist at the edges of his eyes made the grim scene beneath him waver. Water – and perhaps something else, too – dripped from his chin, but he barely realized it was there.
“You’re a carnivore that scored its first prey.” She corrected, a smile lighting her lips. “Between this and what you did with that damn fire poker, I’d say you have talent!”
All he managed was a wordless, rasped moan. Talent for what?
She put a hand on his shoulder, firm but gentle. “It’s all right. He was a criminal. A human who wouldn’t have lived long, anyway. You have as much a right to survive as he had. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
His head shook on a quivering neck. This wasn’t all right! It wasn’t all right at all! It was very, very wrong!
“Don’t you feel better now?” Her voice was unusually slow, soft.
He choked on the lump in his throat. He did. Or at least, his body did. Hunger no longer dulled his senses and his limbs no longer dragged with fatigue. It’d been nearly instantaneous – an eruptive, terrible burst of energy. He didn’t say anything.
“I’ll report the kill back to the scouts. All you have to do now is go home. You don’t need to think about it anymore.”
He didn’t say anything, eyes never leaving the empty human shape spread ac
ross the ground. For a while, that was all there was in the world.
Sorrel craned her neck to catch his gaze. “You better stop pouting before my opinion of you drops again.” She grinned teasingly, voice light despite her words. “But hey, I’ve helped save your life now, too, so you can’t keep holding that grudge. Just relax for a while and let all of this go. What’s the point of a second life if we can’t enjoy it?”
“W-what about the…what about the body?” He sputtered, forcing his tongue to move. His shaken mind reached weakly for the logic he valued so much. “Someone will find it!”
“It’s okay.” She assured. “We can just leave it here. Causes of death aren’t heavily reported – it will enter the paper as another likely plague death. Convenient, isn’t it?”
He forced down another hard swallow, the tangy aftertaste lining his throat.
Could he really just go home – back to the house he shared with Martin and Merril – after something like this?
He finally looked at Sorrel. “W-why are you letting me go? You aren’t going to make me stay at the prison?”
The prison…maybe that was the best place for people like him.
Sorrel tensed, her tongue clicking against her fangs. “Dale said it was okay, so long as you’re really careful not to let anyone else know about what you are, or where the rest of us stay.”
He blinked, trying to clear the black edges from his eyes. “But why…?”
“Don’t worry about it. Dale was just trying to scare you a bit, make sure you listened.” She smiled. “But keep in mind that we’ll have to kill anyone – including that girl – who finds out.”
He didn’t say anything, just staring.
“So don’t let that happen.” Her face brightened. “And remember, the prison is always waiting if you change your mind.” She turned, already walking away. “I’m going to go do some hunting of my own, but you should get out of here. Sleep well, all right?”
And she was gone, disappearing around the bend and up a banister with feline grace.
He simply stood there, the body burning a deep red image into his eyes before he spun and ran for home. His boots pounded the cement with frantic claps.
