Dark as the Grave

by Peter Dawes

  Sabrina remained silent. As my expression faltered, I strode closer to her, weighing each step along the way. Slowly, I slipped my hand into my pocket, and when she looked poised to draw the blade, I pulled out Monica’s scarf and held it up to where my Mistress could see it. “You requested the death of a meddling girl?” I asked.

  Her reaction was instantaneous. Her shoulders sank and a smile lit up her face, her obvious relief disrupting some of the tension. Walking to make up what little distance remained between us, Sabrina reached for the scarf and snatched it from my hand. “My darling Flynn,” she said, admiring the sheer fabric, “I feared she got the better of you. A silly notion, wasn’t it?”

  “Quite, all things considered.” I perked an eyebrow and somehow managed to laugh without sounding nervous. “Has anything about my recent behavior suggested a human would present any sort of challenge.”

  “No. Our little spat over Anthony aside.” She sighed, slipping her trophy into her pocket. As her eyes lifted to engage mine, she slinked closer still, pressing our bodies together. A sly grin traced across her lips while her fingertips glided from the center of my chest up to my neck. “I promise I haven’t lost faith in you.”

  “Good.” I bent until our noses touched. “Because this is me we are discussing. And I have never failed to come through for you.”

  “You most certainly haven’t.” Softly, she kissed me, the gesture hinting at deepening the longer we remained engaged. While the verbal match of wits had been a victory, the sharp amount of disgust which ran through me made my stomach turn. Blinking, I pulled away, straightening to a stand as I realized how close I had come to stumbling backward in sheer revulsion.

  Unfortunately, Sabrina noticed my discomfort.

  She opened her eyes, weighing me once more with skepticism when I thought I had managed to sate her fears. “Are you alright, Flynn?” she asked. “That was… abrupt, to say the least.”

  “Yes, I apologize, my Mistress,” I said. Every word of profanity I knew raced through my head, making it feel as if my skull might split in two. The lingering taste of what could only be described as wickedness had left me chilled to the bone, at a complete loss while it seemed like the witch’s infection had begun to manifest. My eyes shot away from Sabrina. Had I a pulse, it would have been racing. “I am starting to believe I made a grave mistake last night.”

  What started as a blurted confession shifted to chagrin when I glanced back in Sabrina’s direction. Her expression softened, though I saw the wariness behind her stare linger. “What happened to you last night? Were there complications?”

  “Only minor ones.” I sighed, slipping back into the posture of an actor. “I fed from her before finishing her off. I admit, I have never experienced this many problems after feeding from someone.”

  “How much did you take?”

  “A few mouthfuls. That was why I did not return last night, though. I had to sleep off an extremely ill reaction I had to it.”

  Her reaction became as much of a tell as Robin’s had, though while I saw heightened concern from my brother – even the beginning of an admission – I saw relief guised as maternal care from my maker. She chuckled, reaching to cup my face in the palm of her hand, her eyes meeting mine as if she had the power to plant a suggestion. “It happens, at times, rare though it is. I’m only grateful that you’re okay.”

  I fought to maintain my smile. “None the worse for the wear. Though I hope not to encounter that again anytime soon.”

  “It should be a while.” Lifting onto her toes, she reached to place a kiss on my cheek before stepping back. “Get some rest, then. Go on a hunt if you feel up to it, or drink a few blood packets. You should feel fine within another day or so.”

  “Thank you, Mistress,” I said. Reaching for one of her hands, I brought the back of her palm to my mouth and kissed it. We exchanged a smile, though I could not tell if hers was as forced as mine. As much as I wanted to unpack her mind, I turned to leave her room, at least grateful to have given a convincing enough performance.

  How much of one would remain to be seen. As I shut the door to her penthouse, I avoided looking at Paul for fear I might see some hidden commentary lurking beneath the surface of his eyes as well. My gait resumed its usual, nonchalant swagger all the way to the stairs, my composure intact while I ignored anyone I passed on my way down. Forcing myself not to enumerate an already-forming list of absurdities, I reached the ground floor and slipped out into the night.

  Once I emerged outside, however, I sprinted away from the coven estate, using all the vampire speed I could muster to put as much distance between me and my immortal brethren as possible. The wind tossed my hair and my suit jacket flapped behind me until I slowed and rounded a corner, entering a side street. When I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt I was safe, I pressed my back against the wall of one building, eyes shutting while I took a deep breath. Inside the confines of my new safe harbor, I let it all wash over me at last.

  Hearing what I perceived to be Robin’s thoughts had proven unsettling enough. Even this paled in comparison to my meeting with Sabrina, however. The level of duplicity I had felt inclined toward settled into second place, slotted behind the revulsion her kiss had inspired. Nothing about my actions made any sense, and that, paired with the strange mental phenomena plaguing me, left me to wonder what Monica had done.

  “If any of this is her blood,” I mused aloud, “then I need to force it out.” Opening my eyes, I focused on the location where I had settled, calling to mind which hunting grounds lay in my vicinity. Slowly, I drifted away from the wall, pausing to light a cigarette and perch it between my lips while my hands restored order to my hair. Yes, I told myself, I would drown in blood. Then, I would sleep until life could resume as normal.

  Walking back toward the main thoroughfare, I sought out my first victim. Something young and lively, I reasoned, with some of the same features as my captor, so I could exact vengeance against the witch even if symbolically. It took only an hour for me to find myself a suitable conquest, and as I had her pinned next to a dumpster in a seedy alleyway, I wore the Devil’s smile. Strains of music pulsed from the nightclub we had exited, and as I kissed up her throat, her hands gripped onto me, head lulled to the side to permit me access. “I normally don’t do this,” she whispered in a breathy manner. “Moving so quickly. Do you?”

  Lust wafted from her scent as an intoxicating perfume. “Life is too short to be bothered with formalities,” I said before licking over the spot I intended to bite. Pushing away a swath of brown hair which had fallen from her shoulder, I clutched onto the back of her neck while my fangs descended. As she began issuing a response, I drove my teeth into her, releasing a warm rush of blood from the wound and into my mouth.

  It took only seconds for a strange sensation to cascade over me, whispers forming in my head the same way they had from Robin. Rather than presenting a concrete thought, however, they carried details and hurtled them at me before I could regroup. Her name was Cecilia, they said. She studied law at Temple University and had two brothers who tried to ward her against being so trusting of strangers. I pulled away to stem the tide of information, but once I started feeding again, more followed. I saw graduation days and parents and heard the screams for help her mouth could not produce. She had never left the region. Never traveled. Never been to Europe and now…

  Pushing away from her, I threw her onto the ground and stepped backward several paces. Cecilia crashed into a pile of empty boxes, and pressed her hand against the bleeding wounds on her neck while I wiped at the remnant staining my lips. As I did, my hand trembled. Our eyes remained fixed and all at once, I realized I could not look away from this peculiar creature I now knew too much about.

  “Get away from me,” I said, my voice a low rumble. Cecilia sat upright, regarding me with tears in her eyes, but otherwise, not moving. The hand not near my mouth lifted, my finger pointing to the end of the alley. “Go!! Before I change my mind and kill you out
of spite.”

  She clambered to her feet. While her eyes remained focused on me for as long as they could, when I hissed, she caught sight of my teeth again and scrambled away. I did not think to even plant a suggestion that she forget me. I wanted her gone and breathed a sigh of relief when she finally disappeared. “What the hell did that fucking witch do to me?” I asked, not expecting a response.

  As I asked the question, though, an overly chipper voice replied. “Did you know a vampire can go up to a month without feeding and not go completely bonkers?” she asked, and when I peered upward at the edge of a fire escape, I saw the wiry imp of a woman perched on the metal, feet kicking as they hung down toward the street below. Monica dressed the same way she had during our previous encounter, only now an emerald green scarf which matched her eyes had been secured around her neck.

  “You have a lot of nerve playing games with me,” I said.

  “I’m just giving you information that might be valuable in the future. Don’t be so grumpy.” As she peered downward, I watched her study the street and whisper something under her breath. When she pushed off from her perch, I startled, expecting to see her plummet the three stories she had jumped from and shocked when she glided gracefully to the ground. A sly grin tugged at the corners of her mouth when our eyes met, her hands brushing at the pleats of her skirt as if they had become mussed. “C’mon,” she said, addressing my obvious surprise. “You didn’t think my ‘tricks’ were limited to vampire bondage, did you?”

  “Why are you here?” I asked, stalking forward. She grinned up at me smugly, and though I envisioned myself grabbing her by the throat, I held back, not wanting to touch her for fear of what else she could do to me. Instead, I pointed in the direction my meal had fled toward, pausing several feet shy of her. “I have not been well since waking and now, you have made me into an emasculated vampire. Either undo whatever curse you put on me, or expect me to find a way to kill you.”

  Monica lifted both hands in surrender. “This isn’t coming from me, Flynn. It’s coming from you.” Her smile faded, but bemusement lingered in her gaze. “The only thing I did was bring out what you already had.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “What do you find so hard to believe? That something could crack through that sociopathic exterior and hint you might have some good left in you?”

  “This is not good.” I laughed, incredulous. “This is being genuinely disturbed. I knew more about that girl in twenty seconds than I ever wanted to.”

  “And it unnerved you, because she wasn’t just a juicy burger served in a Styrofoam container. She became a person to you again, didn’t she?” When I failed to answer, Monica sobered, taking a step closer and gesturing in the same direction I had. “Flynn, this is the gift. It’s the second sight. You wanted the truth, so here you go. You’re something they call a seer. Seers read people’s thoughts. They can look into others’ intentions. Stuff like that.”

  “Then I do not want to have this power.”

  “It’s not a choice anyone made. You were born with it.” After studying me for a moment, she strode over to the collection of boxes where Cecilia had landed. Righting one which had tipped over, she lowered herself on top of it and folded her arms across her chest. “Listen, one way or another, you were going to face this day, so I decided to pull the pin on the grenade. That small voice belonging to Peter is getting drowned out and even as it stands, I don’t know if you’ll use your powers for good or not. I only know that the further you wade, the more out of reach you’re going to get. I’m here to wake you up before there’s nothing left of you.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is this a game you are playing, then?”

  “In a way, I guess it’s more of an experiment. Though, you should be a seasoned veteran by now when it comes to being manipulated.” Monica mirrored my expression. “Why do you think Sabrina made you an assassin. Hell, for that matter, why do you think she turned you in the first place?”

  Just as a biting retort nearly jumped from my mouth, I realized even I did not know the answer to that question. Brow furrowed, I searched for an actual response – if merely to satisfy my own curiosity – and continued arriving back at her insistence that I was special. “You are implying that she has not only known exactly what type of being I am, but that she has utilized it for her own gain?” I shoved both hands into my pockets. “Even if I grant you the former, how does it indicate the latter if I have not had these powers at my disposal?”

  “Because you’re given them for one reason only.” A pause preceded the rest of her response, inserted almost as if for dramatic tension. “Peter Dawes, you were supposed to be a vampire hunter.”

  I turned away from her, freeing a hand to wave dismissively. “Shove that name,” I said, “and the notion that the hypocritical Boy Scout was, in any way, destined to be a hunter.”

  “Wow. Hypocritical Boy Scout? You’ve got some issues, beyond the fact that you refer to yourself in the third person.”

  “That is because I am not him.” I spun around to face her again, fingers jabbing into my own chest. “I am not a conflicted vampire. I kill and I relish it. He curled into a ball and hated himself the moment he could remember who he was.” A smile tinged with bitterness crawled across my lips. “Spare me any recitation of what goodness he had or what a model citizen he was. In one breath, he could swear his life to the huddled masses and in the next, kill two people in cold blood and like it. Somehow, every bloody entity in the cosmos seems to forget that.”

  “Not forget it. Believe me, I wish I could.” Monica frowned, her expression suddenly lacking any amusement at all. “Is that your story? You got conned into this life and figured, fuck it, let’s go full psychopath while we’re at it?”

  “It is far better than being a hypocrite.”

  “So, with that, the doctor becomes an assassin.”

  “No, with that, the assassin embraces what he truly is.” I chanced a few paces closer to where she sat. “I am a killer. I feed from mortals. I drink their blood… Damn you, I am a vampire! And a vampire unable to kill is little more than the same weak, miserable being Peter was.”

  “You know, I find it interesting how much you blame him for Lydia’s death, but the more I talk to you, the clearer something’s becoming to me.” Hopping back onto her feet, Monica dusted her hands off before allowing them to fall to her sides. “Peter didn’t kill Lydia. Flynn did. And I’d wager every mystical power in my life force you’ve never even considered that.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” I asked.

  “Sabrina got inside your head, the same way she is now, and has been playing you like a fiddle ever since. This whole persona. This whole life that you have carved out for yourself is her design. You’ve just been used for so long, you don’t know how to tell the difference.”

  A staring match commenced between us, with Monica holding a steady gaze and me weighing how best to respond. I spoke the only words I had in my defense. “And yet, I heard you confess you seek to manipulate me as well.”

  “Manipulate you into seeing the truth, yes. Into realizing what you were meant to be, rather than drowning in what you’ve become. I tell you what, though.” Her arms lifted from her sides. “If you think my only motivation is to use you, then put a knife through me and be done with it. End whatever spell you think I have over you and go back to business as usual.”

  My hand rose, unbuttoning my suit jacket and sweeping it back in a practiced motion. Fingers brushed the handle of one blade while my eyes remained fixed on Monica. She remained still, peering back at me while I considered whether ending her would truly end this enchantment, or if I believed her when she said this had been my destiny all along. If it was the latter – if I had truly been born with a sleeping battery of gifts – then killing her did not matter. Either way, I could learn to live with the voices. I could silence their screams with their murders and claim the absolute power Sabrina had once threatened could be mine, if I embraced the mons
ter I had become.

  Except, that could have been exactly what Sabrina wanted. For me to be her loyal servant and later, a weapon of great power. Something about that thought sat poorly with me, calling to mind Robin’s concern over my well-being and making me apt, for once, to heed his caution. My hand lowered from the knife, allowing the fabric of my jacket to fall back into place. “Put your arms down,” I said. “I am not going to kill you tonight.”

  Slowly, Monica brought her hands back to her sides. “Maybe not such a cold-blooded killer after all,” she said.

  “Do not try my mercy, woman.”

  “Alright. Alright. I’ll leave you alone for now.” Monica glanced heavenward, as if to consider the hour. “I had to cast a dozen spells to get you into your coven earlier, so I’ll reserve our meetings for out here on the street. Considering I landed in Sabrina’s crosshairs once, I don’t want to risk a second time.” She looked toward me again. “I’ll stay as close as possible, just the same. If you need me, holler.”

  With a curtsey, Monica turned and started to walk in the opposite direction. I watched her take several steps before moved to call out toward her. “Witch!”

  She stopped, pivoting to look at me with an upturned eyebrow. “The name’s Monica, Flynn. What’s up?”

  “Monica.” Her name burned my lips like acid splashed on skin, but I forced myself to speak it. “What is the story behind the necklace? I assume you are the one Anthony stole it from.”

  “I am. More like gave it to him, but anyway, what about it?”

  Pausing to frame the question, I realized that asking it stood the risk of admitting the scope of this situation. “Why was it necessary for me to have it?”