The Bloodlust

by L. J. Smith

  I glanced out the window. The sun was sinking low into the sky, and Lavinia’s nearly dead body felt heavy in my arms. Outside the window, New Orleans rose up as if in a dream, and I could see the ocean continuing on and on forever. It was like my life was destined to be: never-ending years, never-ending feedings, never-ending pretty girls with sweet sighs and sweeter blood.

  “Forever panting, and forever young,” I whispered, pleased at how well the lines from the poet Keats suited my new life.

  “Sir!” The conductor knocked on the door. I strode out of the compartment, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. He was the same conductor who’d stopped Damon and me just outside Mystic Falls, and I saw suspicion flash across his face.

  “We’re in New Orleans, then?” I asked, the taste of Lavinia’s blood in the back of my throat.

  The ginger-haired conductor nodded. “And the ladies? They’re aware?”

  “Oh yes, they’re aware,” I said, not breaking my gaze as I slipped my ticket out of my pocket. “But they asked not to be disturbed. And I ask not to be disturbed, too. You’ve never seen me. You’ve never been by this compartment. Later, if anyone asks, you say there may have been some thieves who got on the train outside Richmond. They looked suspicious. Union soldiers,” I invented.

  “Union soldiers?” the conductor repeated, clearly confused.

  I sighed. Until I had compelling under control, I’d have to resort to a more permanent style of memory erasing. In a flash I grabbed the conductor by the neck and snapped it as easily as if it were a sweet pea. Then I threw him into the compartment with Lavinia and shut the door behind me.

  “Yes, Union soldiers always do make a bloody mess of things, don’t they?” I asked rhetorically. Then, whistling the whole way, I went to collect Damon from the gentlemen’s club car.

  Chapter 6

  Damon was slumped right where I’d left him, an untouched whiskey glass sweating on the oak table in front of him.

  “Come on,” I said roughly, yanking Damon up by the arm.

  The train was slowing, and all around us passengers were gathering their belongings and lining up behind a conductor who stood in front of the black iron doors to the outside world. But since we were unencumbered by possessions and blessed with strength, I knew our best bet was to exit the train the same way we’d entered: by jumping off the back of the caboose. I wanted us both to be long gone before anyone noticed anything was amiss.

  “You look well, brother.” His tone was light, but the chalkiness of his skin and the purpling beneath his eyes gave away just how truly tired and hungry he was. For an instant, I wished I’d left some of Lavinia for him, but quickly brushed aside the thought. I had to take a firm hand. That was how Father used to train the horses. Denying them food until they finally stopped yanking on the reins and submitted to being ridden. It was the same with Damon. He needed to be broken.

  “One of us has to maintain our strength,” I told Damon, my back to him as I led the way to the last car of the train.

  The train was still creeping along, the wheels scraping against the iron lengths of track. We didn’t have much time. We scrambled back through the sooty coal to the door, which I pulled open easily.

  “On three! One . . . Two . . .” I grabbed his wrist and jumped. Both of our knees hit the hard dirt below with a thud.

  “Always have to show off, don’t you, brother?” Damon said, wincing. I noticed his trousers had been torn at the knees from the fall, and his hands were pockmarked with gravel. I was untouched, except for a scrape on my elbow.

  “You should have fed.” I shrugged.

  The whistle of the train shrieked, and I took in the sights. We were on the edge of New Orleans, a bustling city filled with smoke and an aroma like a combination of butter and firewood and murky water. It was far bigger than Richmond, which had been the largest city I’d ever known. But there was something else, a sense of danger that filled the air. I grinned. Here was a city we could disappear in.

  I began walking toward town at the superhuman speed I still hadn’t gotten used to, Damon trailing behind me, his footfalls loud and clumsy, but steady. We made our way down Garden Street, clearly a main artery of the city. Surrounding us were rows of homes, as neat and colorful as dollhouses. The air was soupy and humid, and voices speaking French, English, and languages I’d never heard created a patchwork of sound.

  Left and right, I could see alleyways leading down to the water, and rows of vendors were set up on the sidewalks, selling everything from freshly caught turtles to precious stones imported from Africa. Even the presence of blue-coated Union soldiers on every street corner, their muskets at their hips, seemed somehow festive. It was a carnival in every sense of the word, the type of scene Damon would have loved when we were human. I turned to look over my shoulder. Sure enough, Damon’s lips were curved in a slight smile, his eyes glowing in a way I hadn’t seen in what felt like ages. We were in this adventure together, and now, away from memories of Katherine and Father’s remains and Veritas, maybe Damon could finally accept and embrace who he was.

  “Remember when we said we’d travel the world?” I asked, turning toward him. “This is our world now.”

  Damon nodded slightly. “Katherine told me about New Orleans. She once lived here.”

  “And if she were here, she’d want you to make this town your own—to live here, be here, to take your fill and make your place in the world.”

  “Always the poet.” Damon smirked, but he continued to follow me.

  “Perhaps, but it’s true. All of this is ours,” I said encouragingly, spreading my hands wide.

  Damon took a moment to consider my words and simply said, “All right, then.”

  “All right?” I repeated, hardly hoping to believe it. It was the first time he’d glanced into my eyes since our fight at the quarry.

  “Yes. I’m following you.” He turned in a citcle, pointing to the various buildings. “So, where do we stay? What do we do? Show me this brave new world.” Damon’s lips twisted into a smile, and I couldn’t tell whether he was mocking me or was speaking in earnest. I chose to believe the latter.

  I sniffed the air and immediately caught a whiff of lemon and ginger. Katherine. Damon’s shoulders stiffened; he must have smelled it, too. Wordlessly, both of us spun on our heels and walked down an unmarked alleyway, following a woman wearing a satin lilac dress, a large sunbonnet on top of her dark curls.

  “Ma’am!” I called.

  She turned around. Her white cheeks were heavily rouged and her eyes ringed with kohl. She looked to be in her thirties, and already worry lines creased her fair forehead. Her hair fell in tendrils around her face, and her dress was cut low, revealing far too much of her freckled bosom than was strictly decorous. I knew instantly she was a scarlet woman, one we’d whisper about as boys and point to when we were in the tavern in Mystic Falls.

  “You boys lookin’ for a good time?” she said languidly, her gaze flicking from me to Damon, then back again. She wasn’t Katherine, not even close, but I could see a flicker in Damon’s eyes.

  “I don’t think finding a place to stay will be a problem,” I whispered under my breath.

  “Don’t kill her,” Damon whispered back, his jaw barely moving.

  “Come with me. I have some gals who’d love to meet you. You seem like the type of boys who need adventure. That right?” She winked.

  A storm was brewing, and I could vaguely hear thunderclaps in the far distance.

  “We’re always looking for an adventure with a pretty lady,” I said.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Damon tighten his jaw, and I knew he was fighting the urge to feed. Don’t fight it, I thought, fervently hoping Damon would drink as we followed her along the cobblestone streets.

  “We’re right here,” she said, using a large key to unlock the wrought-iron door of a periwinkle blue mansion at the end of a cul-de-sac. The house was well kept, but the buildings on either side seemed abandoned, with
chipping paint and gardens overflowing with weeds. I could hear the jaunty sound of a piano playing within.

  “It’s my boardinghouse, Miss Molly’s. Except, of course, at this boardinghouse we show you some true hospitality, if that’s what you’re in the mood for,” she said, batting her long eyelashes. “Coming?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I pushed Damon through the doorway, then locked the door behind us.

  Chapter 7

  The next evening I gazed contented at the sun setting over the harbor. Miss Molly hadn’t exaggerated: The girls at her house were hospitable. For breakfast I’d had one with long, corn-silk hair and bleary blue eyes. I could still taste her wine-laced blood on my lips.

  Damon and I had spent the day wandering the city, taking in the wrought-iron balconies in the French Quarter—and the girls who waved to us from their perches there—the fine tailor shops with bolts of sumptuous silk in the windows, and the heady cigar shops where men with round bellies struck business deals.

  But of all the sights, I liked the harbor best. This was the city’s lifeblood, where tall ships carrying produce and exotic wares entered and exited. Cut off the harbor, you cut off the city, making it as vulnerable and helpless as Miss Molly’s girl had been that morning.

  Damon gazed out at the boats as well, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. His lapis lazuli ring glinted in the fading sunlight. “I almost saved her.”

  “Who?” I asked, turning sharply, hope swelling in my chest. “Did you sneak off and feed from someone?”

  My brother kept his eyes on the horizon. “No, of course not. I meant Katherine.”

  Of course. I sighed. If anything, last night had made Damon more malcontent than ever. While I’d enjoyed the company and the sweet blood of a girl whose name I would never know, Damon had retired to a room of his own, treating the establishment as if it were simply the boardinghouse it pretended to be.

  “You should have drunk,” I said for the hundredth time that day. “You should have taken your pick.”

  “Don’t you understand, Stefan?” Damon asked flatly. “I don’t want my pick. I want what I had—a world I understood, not one I can control.”

  “But why?” I asked, at a loss. The wind shifted, and the scent of iron, mixed with tobacco, talcum powder, and cotton, invaded my nostrils.

  “Feeding time already?” Damon asked wryly. “Haven’t you done enough damage?”

  “Who cares about one whore in a filthy brothel!” I yelled in frustration. I gestured out to the sea. “The world is filled with humans, and as soon as one dies, another appears. What does it matter if I relieve one wretched soul of its misery?”

  “You’re being careless, you know,” Damon grunted. His tongue darted out of his mouth to lick his dry, cracked lips. “To feed whenever you feel like it. Katherine never did that.”

  “Yes, well, Katherine died, didn’t she?” I said, my voice much harsher than I meant it to be.

  “She’d have hated who you’ve become,” Damon said, sliding off the fence and standing next to me.

  The scent of iron was more pervasive now, curling around me like an embrace.

  “No, she would have hated you,” I retorted. “So scared of who you are, unable to go after what you want, wasting your Power.”

  I expected Damon to argue, to strike me even. But instead he shook his head, the tips of his retracted canines just visible between his partially open lips.

  “I hate myself. I wouldn’t expect any different from her,” he said simply.

  I shook my head in disappointment. “What happened to you? You used to be so full of life, so ready for adventure. This is the best thing that has ever happened to us. It’s a gift—one that Katherine gave to you.”

  Across the street, an old man hobbled past, and then a moment later, a child on an errand rushed by in the opposite direction.

  “Pick one and feed! Pick something, anything. Anything is better than just sitting here, letting the world go by.”

  With that I stood, following the iron and tobacco scent, feeling my fangs pulse with the promise of a new meal. I grabbed Damon, who lagged a few paces behind me, until we found ourselves on a slanted lane out of range of the gaslights. What little light there was gathered onto a single point: a white-uniformed nurse, leaning against a brick building, smoking a cigarette.

  The woman looked up, her startled expression turning into a slow smile as she took in Damon. Typical. Even as a blood-starved vampire, Damon, with his shock of dark hair, long lashes, and broad shoulders, caused women to look twice.

  “Want a smoke?” she asked, blowing smoke into concentric circles that blended with the mist in the air.

  “No,” Damon said hastily. “Come on, brother.”

  I ignored him, stepping toward her. Her uniform was spattered with blood. I couldn’t stop staring at it and the way the rich red contrasted to the stark white. No matter how often I had seen it since changing, blood continued to awe me with its beauty.

  “Having a bad night?” I asked, leaning next to her against the building.

  Damon grabbed my arm and started to pull me toward the lights of the hospital. “Brother, let’s go.”

  Tension coiled in my body. “No!” It took a swat of my arm to toss him against the wall.

  The nurse dropped her cigarette. The ash sparked, then extinguished. I felt the bulge of my fangs behind my lips. It was just a matter of time now.

  Damon struggled to his feet, crouching low as if I was going to strike him again.

  “I won’t watch this,” he said. “If you do this, I will never forgive you.”

  “I have to get back to my shift,” the nurse muttered, taking a step away from me, as if to run.

  I grabbed her arm and pulled her to me. She let out one short yelp before I covered her mouth with my hand. “No need to worry about that anymore,” I hissed, sinking my teeth into her neck.

  The liquid tasted like rotting leaves and antiseptic, as if the death and decay of the hospital had invaded her body. I spit the still warm liquid into the gutter and threw the nurse to the ground. Her face was twisted in a grimace of fear.

  Stupid girl. She should have sensed the danger and run while she still could. It hadn’t even been a hunt. Worthless. She groaned, and I wrapped my fingers against her throat and squeezed until I heard the satisfying crack of bone breaking. Her head hung at an unnatural angle, blood still dripping from the wound.

  She wasn’t making any noise now.

  I turned toward Damon, who stared at me, a horrified expression on his face.

  “Vampires kill. It’s what we do, brother,” I said calmly, my gaze locking on Damon’s blue eyes.

  “It’s what you do,” he said, taking off the coat around his shoulders and throwing it over the nurse. “Not me. Never me.”

  Anger pulsed like a heart at the very core of my being. “You’re weak,” I growled.

  “Maybe so,” Damon said. “But I’d rather be weak than a monster.” His voice grew strong. “I want no part in your killing spree. And if our paths ever cross again, I swear I will avenge all of your murders, brother.”

  Then he spun on his heel and ran at vampire speed down the alleyway, instantly disappearing into the swirling mist.

  Chapter 8

  October 4, 1864

  As a human, I’d thought it was my mother’s death that had shaped the men Damon and I would become. I’d called myself a half-orphan in the initial days after she died, locking myself away in my room, feeling as though my life had ended at the young age of ten. Father believed grieving was weak and unmanly, so Damon had been the one to comfort me. He’d go riding with me, let me join the older boys in their games, and beat up the Giffin brothers when they made fun of me for crying about Mother during a baseball game. Damon had always been the strong one, my protector.

  But I was wrong. It is my own death that has shaped me.

  Now the tables have turned. I am the strong one, and I have been trying to be Damon’s protector. But while I h
ave always been grateful to Damon, he despises me and blames me for what he has become. I had forced him to feed from Alice, a bartender at the local tavern, which had completed his transformation. But does that make me a villain? I think not, especially as the act had saved his life.

  Finally, I see Damon the way Father had seen him: too imperious, too willful, too quick to make up his mind, and too slow to change it.

  And as I had also realized earlier this evening as I stood just outside the dim glare of the gas lamp, the body of the dead nurse at my feet: I am alone. A full orphan. Just as Katherine had presented herself when she came to Mystic Falls and stayed in our guesthouse.

  So that’s how vampires do it, then. They exploit vulnerability, get humans to trust them, and then, when all the emotions are firmly in place, they attack.

  So that is what I will do. I know not how or who my next victim will be, but I know, more than ever, that the only person I can look out for and protect is myself. Damon is on his own, and so am I.

  I heard Damon steal through the city, moving at vampire speed down the streets and alleys. At one point, he paused, whispering Katherine’s name over and over again, like a mantra or a prayer. Then, nothing . . .

  Was he dead? Had he drowned himself? Or was he simply too far away for me to hear him?

  Either way, the result was the same. I was alone—I’d lost my only connection to the man I’d once been: Stefan Salvatore, the dutiful son, the lover of poetry, the man who stood up for what was right.

  I wondered if that meant that Stefan Salvatore, with no one to remember him, was really, truly dead, leaving me to be . . . anyone.

  I could move to a different city every year, see the whole world. I could assume as many identities as I’d like. I could be a Union soldier. I could be an Italian businessman.

  I could even be Damon.

  The sun plunged past the horizon like a cannonball falling to earth, dipping the city into darkness. I turned from one gaslit street to the next, the soles of my boots rasping over the gravelly cobblestones. A loose newspaper blew toward me. I stomped on the broadsheet, examining an etched photo of a girl with long, dark hair and pale eyes.