by Rook, Rowan
“You're wrong!” He shouted again, voice shaking the stillness. “You're wrong. So please...come back!”
He screamed it over and over, like he thought he might pierce that sky itself and reveal Heaven on the other side, calling them down. But nothing happened. The sky never shattered. The clouds never parted. The stillness swallowed his screeching, wrapping him back up the second he fell silent. He'd never see Merril or Martin again. No matter how loud he screamed, they wouldn't hear him, and never would.
There was one last name on his tongue. One that filled his mouth with the tang of blood and his mind with memories of fear. One that he hadn't wanted to call, but one that belonged to someone who had promised to stand there with him on the day the last human died. “Sorrel!”
“Shh.” Sorrel said from behind him.
He froze at the answer, and suddenly he wasn't in the street anymore.
The gravestones and the gray sky were gone, replaced by equally colorless cement walls and prison bars. He was in Sorrel's cell. Her arms wrapped around him, somehow warm despite her lifeless veins. He tingled, feeling her forced breath on the back of his neck.
“It's not cowardly. Making the decision to live - to keep going without them - might be the bravest one you've ever made.” She clutched him tighter, fingers digging in to his thin tee. “And you made it on your own, without Merril to support you or Martin to force you. It's all yours. Don't you like the power in that?”
He swallowed. Some part of him did.
“It's wrong.” He said, and this time, there was nothing right about it at all. If there was such a thing as absolute evil in the world, then murder had to be it. It didn't matter how much they tried to rationalize it. Taking lives to save your own was wrong. No matter what they said or did, that was something that would never change.
He felt Sorrel smirk behind him, her chin creeping up to rest on his shoulder. “No one's right all the time.”
Much of her body may have been dead, but somehow, she radiated heat. And somehow, that made him shiver. She pulled him closer, holding him so tightly that her breasts pressed into his back. Their soft touch belied her stern grip, the boy barely able to feel her nipples through his sweaty shirt.
He gasped, nerves coming alive with a wave of tingles and heat. “Sorrel, stop!” He pulled against her, but she held too tightly, and his struggles were too half-hearted, to free him.
“Why?” She asked, leaning closer until her cheek touched his. “Let's drop the pretense. With what we are now, we don't have any innocence left to lose.”
“But Merril...!” He protested. How long ago had it been now? When was the last time he and Merril had held each other like this?
“Dead.” Sorrel reminded. “And human. Not like us.”
“And you...!” And you killed me, he finished internally, and you've killed so many.
“Why does any of that matter now?” She asked. “What happened, what this is - we can't change any of it. But there's nothing wrong with taking advantage of an opportunity we've been given. We're blessed, you know? Most people won't have the chance we do. So there's nothing wrong with fighting for it.”
“There is.” He shook his head at the wall. “It is wrong. All of this is wrong.”
“I don't care.” Sorrel admitted. Her knees wrapped around him, hugging at his hips and holding him there. “All I know is that you are mine.” She paused, letting her words seep in. “And I am yours, if you want me.”
He craned his neck, pulling away enough to look at her. Her blue-gray eyes blazed back at him, strong and sure. Messy hair lay slick against smooth skin that draped a feline figure - powerful but graceful. She really was pretty, he thought again. If he chose this life, he'd also be choosing her.
Her, who had killed him. Who had killed dozens of others and would kill more. Who had chosen murder over death.
And yet, as she pulled him close again, he didn't fight. His body tensed with pleasure as her arms reached around his waist.
His heart pounded, just once. Or at least, he swore it did. He swore he could feel it press against his ribs. He swore he could feel the blood heat in his veins. He swore he could feel air catch in his throat.
He pressed his lips against hers.
And suddenly, it wasn't her at all, but the frantic tremble of a vein against his mouth. Blood oozed over his pursed lips and onto his tongue, filling him with the tang of a different sort of pleasure. He swallowed, instinctively hungry. And when he opened his eyes, the faceless corpse of a man fell away beneath him.
He wasn't in the cell with Sorrel anymore. He was back in the city, but this time, it was different. There were people now - just a few of them - but they seemed so small, weak. All of them were running. From him. He smiled, letting traces of blood cling to his cheeks. He leapt after them and pounded the tar in powerful strides.
Hah. Who was the weak one now? Who was the one who ran from everything?
His limbs moved with a strength he'd never had before, rippling with silent energy, like he could run forever. He bet that he could.
A man, panting with fear, ducked into a nearby alley between abandoned homes. Mason swung after him and pounced in one motion, teeth sinking in to the stranger's neck. He drank, savoring the satisfying taste of fresh life.
He wasn't Mason Mild anymore. He wasn't human anymore. Not the boy who just rode the ride without complaint, without ambition. Who had never really lived. He was the beast of the urban jungle. The hunter who stood at the end of the world. The heir of the weak thing called humanity.
He laughed, shirt stained with blood as he abandoned the pretense of normalcy.
He was the strong one, now. He was the survivor. A master of life, not a slave.
His head pounded with excitement, every nerve in him alive with power and desire. He wasn't dead at all. He was alive in a way he never had been before. And this time, he was going to live life to the fullest.
****
Mason slid across the sidewalk with unnerving, purposeful grace.
Five days had passed since he’d last seen Sorrel. It didn’t feel like long ago that he’d killed and fed, but thirst ached in his throat and kept him away from Merril and every other breathing human being he came across. The meager leftovers from the bitten boy hadn’t lasted long. It was already happening all over again.
The sun was fast asleep, but he absently pulled down his sleeves. The rashes stung more than ever. Did they count as an injury? Were they what was sapping away his energy so fast? Perhaps not paying them the proper notice had cost him in the end.
Heh. A bitter snort escaped him. Last night's dream surely hadn't helped, either. It'd felt so vivid that he could still taste the tang on his tongue, warped into a craving - a gnawing hunger. It left his unused guts twisting in his stomach.
He wasn't a monster like that. And no matter what, he'd never become one. He wouldn't allow it! He frowned, fingers curling into fists at his side as if ready to push someone away, indignant. But there was no one. Just him.
All of it had seemed so real. And Sorrel... He flushed, white with shame and embarrassment. He didn't want her like that! Not the person who'd done this to him.
The things she'd said, too... Her arguments had sounded so much like her. So full of that same twisted logic she built herself up on.
And yet, it was only a dream. It'd all come from him. The cruel words written in Martin's and Merril's hand, the way Sorrel had touched him, the things she'd said, his horrible joy as he stalked the streets. It was all inside him somewhere, running loose while he slept.
The thought made him feel smaller, sicker. Strange amongst himself.
This was nothing like that, he told himself as he slipped away from traffic and into an alley. This was necessity, and nothing more. Maybe he was a coward, too afraid to accept the fate everyone shared, but for now, this was the only option he had.
He couldn’t take it anymore. What he was doing was terrible, but to him, living with the fear that he may
snap and hurt someone he loved was far worse. And, well…he didn’t want to die. Not now. From the curiosities going on around him to the excited uncertainty bristling in the prison walls, he felt like he was a part of something for the first time in years. Sure, it wasn’t all good, but as selfish as it was, he wasn’t ready to let go of it. He wanted to see it through. He wanted to be there when Cliff completed his research.
And so, he’d surrendered to his thirst and decided to hunt.
He was already a murderer, anyway, and even if he never killed again, he always would be. At least this way he could make sure the life he stole deserved that life less than the ones he was protecting. Heh; Sorrel was rubbing off on him.
Martin and Merril were already asleep, and he hadn’t wanted to alert Sorrel or any of the other prison folk. He wanted to get this done with and go home. He shook his head. To go home and sleep so that he could try to forget it all like the monster he was.
His limbs quivered with sick anticipation. Some terrible part of him was excited, and he hated himself for it. He let his alien body take over, giving in to what it wanted.
He could hardly think – he hardly allowed himself to think – but the way his legs moved seemed strange. He remembered Sorrel’s cat-like movements, and it almost felt like he was gliding across the sidewalk now, too. Not a ghost, but not quite an earthly creature. If he tried hard enough, he could probably make himself believe it was a dream.
He stayed low in the shadows, just a few miles out from where he’d killed before, but he found himself making his way to a slightly busier part of the city than he’d meant to. Loud techno music seeped through the walls of a nearby nightclub and assaulted his sensitive ears.
He was just about turn in the direction he’d come, when footsteps faded in from the other side of the building. He ducked down, clinging to the wall.
A man turned the corner into the alley and stumbled his way to the back of the club. He wore rather lavish clothes, but his swaying limbs and glassy eyes were anything but elegant. He paused and looked around, as if making sure there was no one nearby.
Mason relaxed just a bit when the stranger seemed to conclude there wasn’t and turned to face the wall. His keen ears heard unzipping pants and the dribbling that followed.
He wrinkled his nose at the unappetizing stink of urine. Nasty drunks. But beggars couldn’t be choosers – he’d just been handed the perfect opportunity.
He emptied his mind, slunk forward, and sunk his teeth into the vein bulging on the man’s throat. A shriek ripped from heaving lungs, but the vampire silenced it the same way he had before – an arm around a neck.
Blood, its metallic layers tinged with the hot tang of alcohol, spilled into his mouth. His tongue twitched, his throat contracting to swallow the warm fluid. Life and heat traveled from the stranger’s body to his, and he shivered in satisfaction, greedily sucking down as much as he could, as any human thought died away to animal ecstasy.
At least, until another scream came from somewhere behind him.
His eyes snapped up to meet those of three other men. He stared, gaze as wide as the strangers’. The drunk collapsed limply beneath him. Blood dripped from his chin. For an instant, time seemed to still.
Then one of them yelled. Something loud and frantic, but the words never registered.
Shit.
The next few moments condensed into a single beat.
The men lunged, fists outstretched, and the vampire just barely jumped away.
He’d been witnessed. The realization finally started to take hold of his head. They were witnesses.
Fleetingly, he realized that he needed to kill them. He needed to get rid of them the same way Sorrel had gotten rid of him. He needed to blank out the eyes that’d found him and silence the tongues that could say what they’d seen.
Instead, he ran, leaping for the nearest banister almost instinctively. He pulled himself up with the inhuman strength he’d never quite understood and clambered to the nightclub roof.
He could hear the men shouting, cursing. There were more now, a crowd slowly gathering by the body and staring up at his silhouette. His heart was as still as ever, but in that instant, he swore it was slamming his ribs.
The world spun, melting away to nothing but the instinct to flee. He forced his eyes away from his onlookers and ran in the direction he’d come. He clung to the center of the skyline, leaping from roof to roof with an almost dreamlike grace he’d never possessed before. One gunshot split the air, but blasted uselessly against the side of an old building. He was someone else. He was outside his body, watching a stranger flee from the safety of the sky. He moved – leaping, running, climbing. He moved until the shouts behind him died away. He never stopped to look back.
By the time he shoved his front door open and locked it from inside, he was alone.
****
“Mayor’s Son Murdered.” That headline stretched across the top of the local Wheldon Weekly and wolfed down hits online.
Robin Moorn, the son of Wheldon Hill mayor Addly Moorn, had been found dead late last evening behind a downtown nightclub. Several witnesses reported the incident to the police, claiming to have seen a pale-skinned, black-haired boy kneeling over Robin’s collapsed corpse before startling and fleeing to the roof like a wild animal. Two puncture marks marred the victim’s throat, and the majority of his blood had been drained from his body through unknown means.
The vampire gossips online ate the news up, and thanks to them, the murder of that small town mayor’s son was managing to make its way to the shadier corners of the world press. Perhaps because of the large group of witnesses, perhaps because of the victim’s status, or perhaps because of both, the incident wasn’t simply written to the obituary as another plague death. Not this time.
Mason had seen the story on the local news that morning, watching a reporter tout crime scene images – a few scant bloodstains with a tape outline – and interview the witnesses. He hadn’t wanted to, but morbid curiosity had overpowered dread.
“I know what I saw! That guy sunk his teeth right into Rob’s neck – there was blood all over his face! Christ…it was like something outta some horror movie.”
“The guy looked scrawny, see – we were gonna make him pay his dues, but he sprung right up to the roof like some kinda mutant! We gave chase, a’course, but we lost sight of the thing. Never did see it come down. It wasn’t human, I tell you!”
“I ain’t never seen nobody move like that. The rumors are true – it was a vampire. It had to be. It drank Rob dry – those investigator folks said so, too. I know it sounds mad, but you wouldn’t think that if you’d been there!”
“I don’t… It… It had to be some kind of demon. It wasn’t human, that’s for sure.”
“It’s just like in Rocher! What if there are more of them here?”
The reporter ushered the hysterical group off after that, but there wasn’t any shortage of online doomsayers proclaiming that Wheldon Hill would become the next Rocher.
Mason picked up a pile of old textbooks sitting by his computer and hurled them at the wall.
How was he supposed to know that the generic drunk pissing behind the nightclub was the mayor’s son? How on earth could he have known? He should’ve killed the witnesses – as many as it took – just like Sorrel. He should’ve been more careful. He shouldn’t have wandered so close to downtown. He shouldn’t have let them see his face. He should’ve kept the man from screaming. He shouldn’t have gone without Sorrel. He shouldn’t have killed at all. What the hell had he done?
He dug his fingers into his clammy brow. This would just blow over, right? No one had gotten any pictures. Thank God, no one had gotten any pictures. There were tons of pale-skinned, black-haired young men in town, right? And it certainly wouldn’t affect the prison, right? …Right?
Shit.
He’d messed up, big time. That was an understatement.
His full belly only reminded him of what he’d done, feed
ing his dread and bringing bile to his throat.
Whether someone from the prison would come to punish him, whether the police would come to take him away, or whether it was the rest of the vampires who paid the price for his folly, longing for the incident to simply disappear was nothing but wishful thinking.
He was supposed to be at school – Merril already was – but he had no doubt that the rumors flowing online would spread even thicker in the school hallways. He was a terrible liar. He didn’t trust himself to make it through the day without panicking and spilling his own guts on the floor.
In the end, he’d stayed home, Martin’s incessant yelling and pounding on the door be damned. Caring about something as simple as that was a leisure he didn’t have left. He closed his eyes, trying to remember the days when he hadn’t been a monster and when his mistakes hadn’t risked the lives of countless others like him. The memories wouldn’t come. His mind refused to play anything besides images of the carnage in Rocher.
His eyes returned to the computer screen heralding what he didn’t want to believe. His throat constricted with each word he read – a snare trap wrapped around his neck. He shut off the monitor and slumped in his chair, face buried in his jeans.
…Shit.
Chapter Ten: Execution
Mason’s eyes swam, darted, and danced from one person to the next while the rest of his muscles froze. They were all watching him. He knew they were! The students in the cafeteria pretended to talk amongst themselves and ignore him as they always had, but it was nothing but a ruse to catch him off guard. They all knew what he was. They all knew what he’d done. He wasn’t going to make it home alive. They were going to chop off his head and raze the prison with it jutting from a battle spear, ripping Dale, Cliff and Sorrel limb from limb until there was nothing left of them.
