Bitter Sweet

by Lennell Davis

  "I know." He bit into his wrist and I felt the first few drops hit my abdomen, warm and soft, and he raised my head and a few more drops dripped into my opened mouth. The usual metallic taste of blood you get when sucking on a cut finger wasn’t there. It was a warm, wonderful taste that I couldn’t describe; it ran all across my tongue, firing off all my taste buds. Sweet, sour, tangy, spicy, and bitter filled my mouth all at once. The smooth, warm texture and cool soothing spread through my body as the pain slowly faded, firing off pleasure receptors everywhere and I gave a soft moan and passed out.

  Vanessa Stanton

  Chapter 06.0

  Fainting- it was a curious experience. It reminded me of being put to sleep by a doctor once when I had my wisdom teeth pulled out. It could have been stress, pain, or any combination of things, but considering the night I had up until this point, I think it’s understandable. I don’t know how long I was out, but I woke up in the passenger seat of a car. My fingers felt the soft, smooth leather before my eyes ever opened. My eyes were sore and even the low light stung as I opened them; I rubbed them and as the scene before me came into focus, I saw a full moon reflected on a still body of water. City lights blinked and flashed in a rear-view mirror behind me. I felt for the door handle and stepped out of the car. The cool breeze on my skin sent a chill through me. The wind carried with it the sound of cars in the distance, with the occasional foghorn of a ship off in the night cutting in. I looked around but didn’t see anyone, but I heard a clopping sound that would start loud and then fade away. I walked toward the sound and again. Alik appeared out of the dark on a beach skipping stones. The car was parked slightly above the beach and there was a thin sandy path that led down to where Alik stood. As I made my way down, my shoe caught a rock and I stumbled, Alik caught and steadied me, despite having been clearly fifty feet away.

  “You shouldn’t walk yet, you’re still weak. Sit down over here,” he said in his soft, deep tone as he walked me over to a large rock. “Just take a moment and rest.”

  “Where are we?” My voice came out in a sickly wisp.

  “A beach; Long Island is over there,” he pointed off in the distance.

  “Why?”

  “I hoped the salt air would wake you…” I shivered as the breeze crossed my legs. “I’m sorry, I forget that the cold affects you so much, maybe somewhere warmer would have been better?”

  “What happened? I can’t remember the last hour or two.”

  “It was....” he started, then he stopped and looked away.

  “What?”

  “I wanted to catch up to them, away from a populated area, I didn’t expect anyone to be in that part of town at this time. I was trying to make them act carelessly by thinking they had an advantage and then when I saw you in Jessica's arms... I had to be careful, it would have been so easy for her to kill you. She almost did, your injuries were so severe; a hospital would have asked questions, which I could have answered with lies, but… I don’t think you would have lived long enough to get there. Better safe than sorry, right?” It sounded as if he had been trying to justify something he had done, more for himself than me. He spoke very fast and I only caught bits and pieces.

  “Slow down, what injuries? I feel fine.”

  "Unbutton the jacket," he said softly.

  “What jacket…” I hadn’t noticed I was in his jacket, and as I undid the first button, I glimpsed the inside of my palm and noticed the blood on my hands. Was this my blood? I started to shiver and it wasn’t from the cold. Under the jacket, my shirt was ripped down the middle and soaked in blood. However, everything seemed fine.

  “May I?” asked Alik, kneeling, holding his hands a few inches from my skin.

  “Sure…” At the promise of his touch, I forgot the seriousness of the situation. His hands were cool on my skin and gentler than I expected. They moved first up my stomach to just below my breast and then around to my back, feeling my ribs. Then to either side of my neck and down to my collar bones and just above my breast, checking for sore spots I was guessing. All I felt was his cool, smooth skin on mine, and I liked it. Then a few small pricks of hot pain fired in spots, but he was there to cool them with his touch.

  “I’m sorry, but you had broken ribs and a collar bone snapped, they have healed nicely.

  “Broken ribs? Broken ribs don’t heal in a few hours."

  “They can with help," he said, taking his hands from my skin and buttoning the jacket back.

  "What the hell happened?" I asked again, looking up and meeting his eyes. I grabbed his hand and noticed it was ice cold to the touch; I reacted to the cold, but didn’t let go.

  "A side effect of drinking my blood. Your skin temperature is much closer to my own around your injuries. It will go away soon, I hope," he said, moving his hand and averting his eyes.

  "Why would I drink your blood?"

  "Memory loss… another side effect. Give it a moment and try to focus on what you lost, you should remember…"

  I sat there for a moment and tried to remember what happened… It all came back in a painful unfocused flash: Jessica kicking me, the fight, Jason’s head rolling on the ground, bodies crumbling into ash, and a childlike face. Then Alik catching me, cold, soft fingers on my skin, and then a wonderful taste… I couldn’t help but lick my lips, tasting a faint echo of whatever it was. I had an urge to raise my bloody palms to my mouth and lick them, but I think Alik saw me moving my hands up slowly and caught them. I looked into his eyes filled with concern and then thought about what I was going to do and pulled away."I’m sorry," he said and I think he thought he scared me. It hadn’t been him, but I wasn’t thinking and said the first thing that came to mind.

  “Okay… I’m calling a cab to take me home.” I started to stand.

  “I... I have started all wrong, just give me a moment,” he said behind me. By this point, I was halfway up the little hill. “Please, Vanessa… you don’t even know where you are; it’s late and New York can be a dangerous place at night.”

  “Apparently, where you are is worse; I will take my chances,” I said, just coming to the top of the little hill.

  “You’re probably right… but nothing will ever harm you again when you are around me; I won’t allow it.” His voice, full of conviction, made me stop, and when he took my hand, I turned.

  “How did you...” I said confused as to how fast he climbed up here.

  “Please, just listen to me for a moment; you can choose to believe me or not, either way, when I’m done, I will take you home. Here, you can even hold the key to the car,” he said, handing me a small square crystal. "If you still think I’m crazy and want to go home alone, you can have the car and I will stay out of your life as much as possible." How he had said that made me believe him completely, but I took the key all the same. There was a part of me that wanted to run, a large part. There was also a small part of me, a very powerful part, that wanted to just hear him speak.

  “Alik, tell me straight. What is going on; little girls playing with big knives, people turning into dust and disappearing, and whatever the hell else you did to me,” I said walking over and leaning against the car, desire winning out over the fear.

  “That was June, my sister. You might have seen her at Masteria; she is the DJ.”

  “Where is she?” I suddenly became even more hostile. I’d like to blame the shock for that.

  “She thought it would be better if she wasn’t here so you wouldn’t feel outnumbered and scared.”

  "How do you think that’s working out," I said a little too hostilely and he looked hurt. "I'm sorry, go on."

  "Well my sister and I aren’t human."

  “Wait! I know what you’re going to tell me next,” he nodded and let me go on. “So we got people bursting into flames when exposed to a light... You are insanely fast, as you crossed that beach and climbed that hill without me noticing. I’ve only ever seen you out at night; I’m going to take a wild guess, blood is involved, as you've implied I’ve
had some of yours…” I caught a glimpse of my palm and gave another shiver at the reflection of red. I then grabbed his face, pulling his lips apart and his white teeth sparkled in the moonlight. I placed a finger against one of his canines, forgetting that my hands were very dirty, and it pricked me. “ Ow..." I had to fight the urge to suck my finger. "You have fangs. Please don’t tell me you’re a fucking vampire.”

  “What else do you want me to say?” he said with a little smile, and for some reason that set me off.

  “Oh great!" I shouted and I began to pace a short distance. "Are you serious?! Is that the best you could come up with?” I said, getting louder by the second. “You being a blood drinker and raping me would make more sense.”

  “I don’t love you for your body!” he shouted and looked like he had said something he didn't want to. “This is serious,” he continued in a softer tone. “You don’t understand the position we are both in. I want to keep you alive, but there are forces that might say otherwise and I'd have to kill you if they forced my hand."

  “Now you’re going to kill me, too? Well, that’s the first thing you have said that makes sense; I see why we are on a dark beach alone.” My mind was racing, he loved me... I didn’t act as if I had paid attention to what he had said.

  “No, that’s not what I meant; that came out wrong. Ugh, I didn’t want this to happen,” he said, again more to himself than me.

  “Well now that we have established you’re a vampire that wants to kill me, what else?”

  “Okay, look. The girl with the curls, that was Alisa." His tone was the same, but the way he phrased that was strange. "She has been responsible for the whole Nightcap/Night Children thing in New York. I guess you can say I am a little responsible by recreating Masteria and giving her the stage to play her little game. She was creating new vampire who fed outside Masteria in other clubs in the open. Some kids saw, thought it would be cool, and mimicked it. Things spread fast and so you have the rise of the Night Children. Alisa spread the 'Night Children' name to the media as she created thirty-three new vampire in total. Most people no one would miss and some rich spoiled brats who liked to spend daddy’s money at night who are now on missing people’s list. Those two we killed tonight were the last of them. The nine deaths recently around the club scene were done by a few who couldn’t help themselves on their first feed and killed the human.”

  “You missed one, I believe you let Alisa go.”

  “Alisa is an ancient, over five thousand years old; this is her idea of a game. The Elders didn’t deem her a risk; she was only the creator. Young vampire rebel against their creators all the time like this; however even if Alisa didn’t try to stop them, it’s the same as a troublesome teen stealing cars. As vampire, we are potentially immortal and jail, which is just loss of some of your life, isn’t punishment. Destruction is how we solve these matters. It was up to me to kill her or not and she has never been a threat to anyone.”

  “She seemed plenty dangerous to me,” I mumbled to myself.

  “I should have said never been a threat to another vampire. We are all threats to humans.”

  “Was that clarification supposed to make me feel better?”

  “It was, but I guess that wasn’t the most tactful response, sorry. Although it serves its purpose in showing you that there is a difference between human and vampire, vampire are highly matriarchal and Alisa being an ancient as well made it so that I couldn't bring myself to kill her.”

  “So you don't hit girls?"

  "I would have killed Jessica myself for hurting you if I did not have your injuries to tend to," he nearly growled, and it shocked me to hear that sound come from him. “Ugh, are you going to keep stopping me?” I heard the first hint of annoyance in his voice.

  “Go on.”

  “The highest law within our society is to never lift the veil. That is to say no human may know about us, unless they are changed or chained to us."

  "Chained?"

  "Our blood... has several properties that are beneficial to human life, one being its healing abilities. However, all it takes is a drop to leave you addicted."

  "I’m a junkie now, too? This gets better and better," I laughed harshly.

  "I will ignore that comment," he mumbled. "The Elders, the three oldest vampire in the world, they maintain the veil, or law. It is a vampire’s life of secrecy or death.”

  "Okay, stop; the teens in your club, Underworld; I mean have you never heard of Twilight?! It’s not that big of a fucking secret."

  "Did you believe any of that garbage? Night Children or as the news put it: ‘teens who took an appalling act too far’ are just a fad. Underworld and Twilight are just dark fiction and stupid fiction respectfully. We are hidden thanks to all of that. This is the age of science, not monsters and myth.” I opened my mouth to interject, but he went on and raised his voice. “Although the more pressing problem is that I’ve given you my blood to heal your injuries."

  "So you saved my life and now I am to be your pet, bound to you by some addiction? Or you’re going to kill me out of regret,” I stated as if it were fact.

  "You are a human being and no one's pet, and no matter what happens to me because of it, I will never regret saving your life!" he said loudly, turning and raising his hands in the air angrily.

  "Then what’s the problem?!" I yelled, jumping from skepticism back to anger.

  “I’m dead, goddamn it! You’re alive; we are opposing forces that have clashed for nearly as long as humankind has existed. To give a human vampire blood without taking their life fucks everything up. We are only supposed to take. Death and life cannot occupy the same space at the same time,” he said, pacing. It looked like his arms would blur because they moved so fast at times.

  “You’re dead?" He stopped pacing and was in front of me. He took my hand and placed it to his chest and I felt nothing, flinching away. "Okay, say I believe this, which I don’t by the way," I couldn’t hide the quiver in my voice, "why tell me any of this? Isn’t this breaking some secrecy or whatever?”

  “I gave you my blood already, there is nothing worse than that,” he said, his voice returning to normal. “I’m sorry for yelling, I shouldn’t have done that. It’s just that I never wanted to do this, not in this way, at least.”

  “Do what?”

  “I didn’t want to see you again and it be us angry at each other,” he said, looking at me for the first time in a while. Our eyes met for a moment and then we looked away from each other. It was silent for a while, the city's noise in the background not intruding.

  “Well, what now? Do you kill me tonight, or what?”

  “What?” he asked, looking shocked.

  “You said you would have to kill me, didn’t you?”

  “If they were to order it… I don’t know.”

  “Why not just kill me now and save yourself the trouble?”

  “You still don’t get it, do you? The whole point of this was to keep you alive. I want…” He seemed to think better of what he was going to say.

  “You want what?”

  “No, I need you to come with me to see the Elders.” It felt like he was going to say something else, but I didn’t press the issue.

  “Why do we need to meet these Elders?”

  “They will have to know about you. There is no higher crime than this, apart from lifting the veil, which I have done as well, I guess.

  “I’m sorry, but no.”

  “No?”

  “No, I’m not going.”

  “What do you mean you’re not going?”

  “To see your Elders; I have a life to live. Thank you for saving my life and watching out for Sam that night, but… I’m sorry, I’m not going.”

  “You don’t get it; your mundane human life is over. The world is a much bigger and scarier place than you ever knew. That world could find you and if you want to live through it...” he said, appearing in front of me.

  “If what you say is true, then the moment I go
to see whoever this is, I am dead,” I cut him off.

  “You don’t understand…”

  “I won’t tell your secret. As you said, no one will believe me.” I turned to the car and reached out for the handle, but he beat me to it, opening the door as I stopped and looked at him.

  “I have a promise to keep,” he said and he had the key out of my hand and shut my door once I was in.

  He walked around and started up the car without another word; he sped through the streets and freeways with his lights off, weaving in and around the other cars on the road as if they weren’t there and ignoring stop signs and street lights. When we got to my street, he slowly pulled up and stopped the car; he leaned back in his seat, placing his hands on his face.