The scent of Alicia's fear was distracting me, so I took to the air immediately, whisking her to the nearby rooftop of a glass-faced building. "Stay here. I'll be back in a moment," I whispered as I set her down next to a humming HVAC unit. Her eyes were wide but distant as she struggled to assimilate all this, but she had the presence of mind to nod before I was in the air again.
Like a bird of prey, I prowled the streets for a minute or two before seeing a business man in an expensive Botany 500, calf-length coat. His Italian shoes glimmered, reflecting the glow from the sodium-vapor street light above him, and his footsteps were light. He walked slowly, deeply involved in a cellular conversation with someone in Atlanta: a woman who was not the wife now at home nursing their newborn. The mistress’ name was Charlene; he promised to see her in a few days.
A promise he would not be keeping, but breaking promises wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for him.
Moving in with purpose, I took him from behind, hooking my hands under his armpits and bringing him with me into the air. Before he knew it, he was off the ground, the phone falling from his fingers and shattering on the sidewalk below. "What the-" he began, trying to turn around.
Shhh, I whispered softly in his mind, projecting soothing thoughts into his head. This is just a dream. You are safe in your bed.
"Just a dream," he murmured, his head falling forward and his whole body falling slack. I could smell his sweet blood, a little sluggish with the cold but calling to me nonetheless.
I took him to the rooftop where Alicia stood straining to catch sight of me. As I landed, I made sure that the man could stand on his own power before I relaxed my grip. He moaned softly, and Alicia whirled around to face us. The man looked at her for a moment, a smile coming to his face. "Nice dream," he murmured softly, reaching out to touch her.
Dream? Alicia asked mentally as she recoiled a step, and I was impressed by the power of her projected thoughts. She was a great deal better at it than the last time.
I nodded. I thought it’d be easier for you if he didn't know what was coming. Alicia studied me for a moment, squinting in the darkness.
Don't sugarcoat this for me, she ordered testily, and I was surprised by her reaction. I hesitated. Jason, at least give me one choice. She cocked her head to one side and pinned me with an expectant look.
"Okay," I replied with an affected shrug of indifference, affected because I was beginning to freak out. "Steven," I whispered, turning the man to face me. "This is real, as real as it gets," I revealed softly, and as if I were a hypnotist who had just snapped his fingers, Steven’s vacant eyes went clear with onrushing reality. Though he was released from my suggestion, confusion erected a massive wall that blocked panic from view as his mind tried furiously to fill in the gaps. It wasn't even nominally successful.
"You're about to die," I stated somberly, almost grimly, watching Alicia closely, my heart knocking so hard against my chest that it seemed to possess enough force to break ribs. Steven laughed suddenly, startling us both, and my gaze flew to his face. It was clear that hysteria had taken possession, molding his face into a visage of utter shock and disbelief. This was all way too much for him, and his mind was reacting the only way it could by completely rejecting it. Pity for all of us that it doesn’t work that way, that we can’t make something go away by simply refusing to believe it.
"Ohh really?" he asked, the bravado coming out. "What are you going to do? Chuck me off the fucking roof?" I find it truly fascinating how panic manifests itself differently in each mortal. Whether you turn into babbling morons, freeze, go into deep denial, or find a ballsy, false bravado, it is never boring. There are some rare, more unique reactions, of course, but those are the most common.
I opened my mouth to answer him, but Alicia spoke first and scared the shit out of me. "Not at all," she whispered with a casual wave of dismissal she certainly did not feel. "That would splatter your precious blood all over the sidewalk and waste it." Her face was shuttered, and I could sense a fragment of something ugly and cold lurking beneath the cloudy pool of thought in her head, and when my mind touched it, I physically shivered.
At that time, I didn't know exactly what it was, but later, I would discover it was mania. Fringes of sociopathic megalomania nurtured by my display of power, except that her fantasies of power were not delusional because, thanks to me, true power was well within her grasp.
I have no doubt the seed was planted long before she ever met me, by years of abuse suffered at the hands of a long string of men in her life. It’s conceivable that it would have manifested itself even if I hadn't gotten involved in her life (discounting, of course, the fact that if I hadn't intervened, she'd be dead), but I’ve since discarded that notion. I can no longer deny that I was solely responsible for the water and sun that helped the seed sprout and flourish.
But I get ahead of myself.
It was a tossup on who was in greater shock, Steven or me, but I was certain that all her illusions were gone, obliterated, actually, but that wasn't the frightening part. Frightening was what replaced those illusions.
Realization. Purpose. Desire.
And by desire, I don't mean physical desire. I’m talking about the desire that transcends everything, the desire that makes mortals great. The same desire that I imagine drove Alexander to conquer, a fanatical desire that never rests and can never truly be sated. This was perhaps the closest she, or any mortal, could ever come to knowing BloodHunger.
The most frightening thing, however, was that an uncomfortably large part of me was exhilarated by her thoughts and reaction. Hell, I’d probably encouraged it subconsciously since the moment we met. It was an epiphany to realize that I’d found what I was looking for, a mortal willing to embrace the traits I required to sustain this unique relationship, and I’ll explain why.
You probably figured out long before now that I desperately wanted a mortal who could accept me for what I am. It was a consuming, driving need that skillfully kept itself concealed in my subconscious. Deep inside, I believed one mortal accepting what I was would make up for the fact that I hadn’t allowed Cassia to be that mortal. That wasn’t a new revelation; I knew it even then, but I could never fully understand why I’d been so unwilling to let her even try.
If you’ve figured out the why by now, then you have discovered that crucial truth at the same point during the telling of my story as I did during the living of it.
As a mortal, I saw Cassia as an angel, sent to me to help make sense of the madness that is mortal life. After my Conversion, her love for me and her willingness to sacrifice had attained legendary status in my mind. To accept my vampirism and still love me anyway would corrupt her, and I couldn’t bear it, not because of any unselfish gesture on my part, and certainly not because I didn’t want her to make that sacrifice for me. Nope. I couldn’t bear it because I was sure that I wouldn’t love who she became afterwards. And I needed that love, needed the perfection she embodied to make up for the cruel, miserable being I’d become, so I sacrificed her, and the love we shared, so that I could live with myself.
I really am a shit.
If you didn’t figure it out, then either you weren’t paying attention or I’ve failed in some portion of my storytelling, which is entirely possible seeing as I’m a novice at it. Either way, I suppose it matters little as I’ve let the cat out of the bag. Without it, you couldn’t understand that if Alicia was going to be my atonement for Cassia, I had to love her and then willingly corrupt her.
The discovery should have been rapturous, but it was too damn short-lived. A fraction of a moment later, it became painfully obvious that thoughts of atonement belonged under the category of “wishful thinking.”
"You want my blood?" Steven cried, horror tightly wound throughout each syllable. His face instantly drained of color, and I could hear the blood pumping furiously throughout his body. It sounded like a freight train rumbling through a tunnel, and it smelled heavenly, slicing deep into my apprehensio
n.
"No, Steven," Alicia said impatiently, her eyes flashing annoyance. True to form with all mortals who realize they are destined for greatness, she had little patience for the small-minded. "Not me. Him," she offered flatly, pointing her finger at me, her eyes full of cunning. Her words jolted me like a cinder block to the face, and I couldn't find my voice when Steven turned to me for confirmation. Somehow, I managed a grim nod, my mind reeling out of control into indescribable chaos.
The salvation I’d been seeking my entire revenant life, achingly beautiful, monstrously cold, and startlingly exhilarating, was staring me in the face, and then it vanished into the cool, pre-dawn air, hurled aside by the truth. Alicia’s acceptance could never offer the absolution I sought, and even worse, I finally understood that no mortal could truly accept me without surrendering her humanity. As I watched her surrender, I had an overwhelming feeling of anger and disgust with myself for being a pawn in my own stupid game.
Apparently, Alicia wasn’t the only one who needed to lose a few illusions.
Steven's face crumpled in on itself as he began to pay attention to the nagging voice in the back of his mind, the one that told him something was not quite right about me. A mortal who sees me always notices that I’m somehow wrong, that I don't quite fit, but for most, it’s a subtle difference only recognized on a subconscious level, and they don't live long enough, or see me long enough, for it to cross the chasm to conscious thought.
Unfortunately for Steven, this wasn’t the case. "Ohh God," he mumbled, his knees giving out, and as they crunched into the gravel on the rooftop, I'd had enough. I really hate to see you beg, which is ironic, because I love the terror that is so often the precursor to groveling. Before Steven could begin to beg, he needed to be put out of his misery.
I reached for him, extending my fangs in preparation, and Alicia cried out, "Wait!"
"What?" I gasped, horrified to the core. More horrified than when I heard the news broadcast about my parents’ plane, more horrified even than when I faced my revenant creator as a naive mortal. My legs turned to numb masses of jelly, trembling suddenly as if my body weighed a ton, and my frozen stomach, rapidly filling with black dread, began a tumbling routine worthy of an Olympic gymnast.
I flinched as if she’d struck me, my outstretched hand frozen in midair, and Steven cringed away from me, throwing his arms up in front of his face. Why in the hell would she want me to wait? I thought, even though I was sure I already knew.
"Wait. I'm not done with him yet," she explained, moving to crouch at his side. "Don't you want to know why?" she asked of him, her hand on his shoulder. He cried out sharply, recoiling in horror and regarding Alicia with a look that should have been reserved for the Devil himself, or at the very least someone like the vampire standing in front of him, and something shifted deep inside me. I was sickened, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why exactly that was.
"What's it matter? It's not... It can't... no difference," he babbled at length, his voice tremulous and weak.
"It makes a difference to me," Alicia returned matter-of-factly with an incredibly apathetic shrug, and violently, I'd had more than I could stand. The shifting stopped and why this horrified me so completely became perfectly clear. Certainly I had done things like this to both mortals and revenants, but I was a vampire! It was my nature, a vampiric tendency to be cruel and cold, to delight in the pain and terror of mortals, but it should never, ever, have been hers!
What did I do?
"Enough!" I shouted, the rage lashing out. On its own, my hand flashed, striking Steven sharply on the left side of his head, an inch or two behind his temple and rendering him instantly unconscious. As he fell slack at our feet, Alicia’s eyes went wide and followed his progress to the ground. My dejection at her inability to be my salvation knotted painfully with my self-directed rage and disgust, and she was the only target to unload it on.
"What the hell are you doing?" she bit out harshly, bringing her face up to glare at me with open animosity, and for an instant, all time stood still. The world seemed to cant insanely to one side, either to make room for the thunderous explosion of my rage or because of it. I heard nothing except my Blood pounding in my ears like dropping bombs. I saw nothing but her face, a brittle mask of every ugly mortal emotion possible. I felt nothing but the inferno of rage that, for all the pain it was causing me, should have incinerated me on the spot like so many rays from the sun. It was completely surreal to be both a participant and a spectator in my life at the same moment.
Then the world started up again. A deluge of sensation hammered my brain as if Thor were wielding the tool himself, and I had her, steely grip latching onto her shoulders and holding her in midair above the street below. Far below. "It's not your place to toy with mortals!" I bellowed, the sheer volume of my voice making her wince. "Don’t forget that you are one! And if I drop you, you’ll die like one..." My words began in a shout that would drown out Ozzfest but ended in an anguished whisper.
My sudden rage beat her mania into unconsciousness, and tears sprang to her eyes as sanity returned and the meaning of my words penetrated the fog. "But. Your. Promise," she sobbed softly, her heart-wrenching tone more effective than my earsplitting shout could ever have been.
"I think it’s better I don't keep it." The agony I felt as I uttered those words is completely indescribable. I can't even think back on them now without squeezing my eyes shut and grinding my teeth.
"Better for who?" she cried angrily. "Better for you if I’m not around to remind you that this is your fault! I didn't want to see this!" Her words echoed throughout my head, pain spreading out concentrically from each point of contact. She was absolutely right, and it deepened my misery despite the fact that I wouldn't have thought that possible. Blood tears streaked from the corners of my eyes, only to be absorbed, and my heart felt as if each beat were pushing it further onto an incredibly dull and rusty knife.
Thump, thump. Slice. Thump, thump. Slice.
Thump, thump.
Slice.
"It’s my fault, and I’ve gotta take responsibility," I agreed sadly, my voice hollow and brittle. "To set things right.”
You know, I don't think I could have done it, despite all the rooftop revelation, and despite the depression piling up in its wake. Forget what was right and “should have,” even as I mentally prepared myself to let her drop, I’m not sure I was capable of letting her go; a chainsaw couldn’t have persuaded my hands to open.
Alicia closed her eyes, tears spilling down her face for a few moments until an eerie peace suffused her being. She opened her eyes to look at me with so much love that my pain receded to a dull ache in my chest. "I love you, Jason, but you were wrong.” Her voice was filled to the brim with anguish, and she shudder-sobbed the final word. “I am worse off. I have to deal with the pain of losing you, and though it’ll only last a few moments, I'm sure they’re going to be the longest and most agonizing moments of my life," she whispered, and, even without the benefit of reading her thoughts, it was obvious that she was sincere.
She reached up and placed a hand on each of my forearms, gently caressing with her thumbs. "Goodbye," she whispered, her words choked and profoundly dejected.
Well, if I had any doubts about my ability to drop her, they were confirmed while her words still permeated the air around us, and I did the only thing I could think of. I pulled her close to me, wrapping my arms around her and pressing my lips to her temple.
"Not today," I whispered, and piece by tiny piece, my heart began to reassemble itself. "No goodbyes today." Her arms came around me, and we held each other tightly, both of us crying, suspended a hundred feet above the street.
I could have stayed there forever if the approaching sun weren’t like an earthquake under my skin. I could hear the vibration in my ears, could feel it loosening my teeth, as if every part of me wanted to scatter and find individual shelter from the coming dawn.
I cast a quick glance to Steven’s crump
led form, wondering briefly what to do about him. Had he heard and seen too much to simply dismiss it as a nightmare when he regained consciousness? I didn’t have time to attempt a MindCleansing, and with all that had just happened, I had lost my appetite.
Yeah, I know. I could barely believe it myself.
Trying with only moderate success to ignore my instinctual reaction to the coming dawn, I extended my senses over Steven, attempting to determine the extent of his injuries. His skull had a mild fracture, and he had a whopper of a concussion, but his wounds were not mortal. And suddenly, I was faced with a choice that I never imagined would be difficult for me: to kill or not kill a mortal. Yes, I’m a vampire, but for some unfathomable reason, I was reluctant to punish Steven for my own mistakes, especially knowing we might not have crossed paths otherwise.
I was running out of time, and I like to blame the approaching sun for the decision I made, a decision completely out of character for me.
Shifting Alicia to one side, I looted Steven’s pockets and snatched up all his jewelry, shoving all the articles into the left pocket of my coat. When I had everything of apparent value, I lifted him around the waist and awkwardly flopped him over my shoulder. When I was sure I had a good grip, I took to the air, flashing like dark lightning down to the deeply shadowed spot near where I initially took him. I could see the remains of his smashed mobile phone as I lowered him quickly to the ground. Alicia said nothing during all this, clinging to me very tightly and watching in distracted curiosity.
With my free arm, I removed his coat and shoes and cast one last glance at him. Not satisfied but out of time, we were airborne again, heading out over the Puget Sound as fast as I dared. Over the water, I dropped Steven’s stuff into its murky depths, neither wanting nor needing any souvenirs of this fucked-up mess, and then I was heading north toward my house in Port Townsend.
Corrupting Alicia Page 16
