It was a man staring back at me. Not a vampire, not the blood-driven demon or tortured soul but a man. I changed that day. Left Rosanna, cleaned myself up and started studying medicine.
I’d been a normal man before Rosanna took my life. I wasn’t anymore. I wouldn’t ever be normal again. There was no unseeing the demon in me but now…
Now I want to see the woman running away from me.
I don’t bother calling out to her. That would just make her run faster and I’m still drunk on Father Paretti. That means I’m fast but fucked for coordination. The proof of my lack of fine motor skills is evident in the confessional door that’s been turned to splinters from how hard I hit it. I skid across the marble floor before righting myself to run after the woman. A quick scenting of the air points me after her. She made a beeline straight for the back of the church and ran out the door she came in through. I’m across the church and out the door in a few seconds. Outside, the wind carries her scent to me again—it’s rich, sweet without being cloying. Roses, lemons, and sandalwood.
Fuck she smells good.
“You just ate,” I remind myself with a low growl. I head after the woman that feels more vampire than human. The second Iround the church and cross into the graveyard I smell the man she killed. His blood hangs heavy in the air, coppery and acrid. I make a face. He smells like shit. Whatever diet and life he led was a piss poor one. I wouldn’t drink him if I was starving and he was the last bit of food on earth. Rather suffer along on pig’s blood than drink this fucker. The smell of his shit blood grows until I end up right in the middle of his murder scene.
He’s dead, laying over a raised stone slab. I slow long enough to assess what I’m looking at. His head is a mess, blood and brain matter are smeared on the stone and puddle onto the ground. What the fuck happened to him? I look up when I hear the clatter of an iron gate slam shut. Damn. She’s out of the graveyard. I’m going to lose her if I stay here much longer. Another glance at the muder scene gives me the answer to my question of how did she do it?
I let out a low whistle when I see the murder weapon. Not a knife, not a gun but a fucking candle. From the looks of it she beat the shit out of him with the prayer candle laying on the other side of the grave. It’s the only thing that makes sense, and besides it’s covered in his rancid blood.
This woman is unhinged. I want her. I have to fucking find her. I need her.
I sprint across the graveyard and vault over the gate. Her trail is still fresh. I follow it up the hill and along the winding road that runs along the neighborhoods. I keep expecting it to turn into a neighborhood but it never happens. On and on we go until the street turns into the familiar street I’m staying on.
St. Leon’s.
Where the hell is she going?
I see her, have been watching her for a few minutes now but I don’t overtake her because I don’t want to scare her. I want to see what she does. I want to know everything about this woman. I’ve never felt this way about a human. But then again,no human has ever spoken to me so freely, not even when they thought they were offering me their soul did they speak to the heart of who I am the way this woman has.
She understands what it is to kill. To make a decision and know that nothing will or can stop you because you’ve made the decision to kill. The life you’ve chosen to take is yours now. Yours to own.
Yours to consume.
This woman understands the hunger I feel.
How does that feel to bear with a soul? Not even I know that. It’s an old wives’ tale. I know that. All vampires know it—do we have souls? The evidence for us being soulless demons inside a human skin is pretty high.
But there’s also a lot leaning towards not being a demon.
It’s not like we’re bound by holy ground or priests the way demons are. Praying won’t stop us, and neither will an exorcism. There were a lot of vampires in the earliest of days that thought they could exorcise themselves. A unique way to achieve the Final Death to be sure.
None of them were successful, but we did learn about the perils of holy water and the cross. Both damn things burn me like a fire brand but can they kill me? Not a chance. That damned cross is the grounds for all the demon talk. No one knows why the cross burns us. I just look at it as an allergy. Something I need to take precautions around and honestly, given the current state of the world, crosses are easy enough to avoid contact with.
There’s the occasional zealous cult member or scorned acolyte but that’s life, right?
Up ahead the woman lets out a choked sob. Whatever remorse lives in her body is conscious now. She stops her speed walk to double over and vomit on the side of the sidewalk. I lean against a tree while I watch her. Humans aren’t meant to kill.
It’s not their natural state, not like a vampire. Even for someone willing to make the kill, it’s going to weigh heavy on that little thing called a soul. Of course, there’s the outliers, the ones that manage to kill their soul and stay mortal. A real raw deal if you ask me. Who wants to stay a vulnerable human and have no soul?
If you’re going to get rid of it, you may as well exchange it for something worthwhile like I did. I’m damned but at least I’m not weak. Anything but that.
I hear another retching sound from the woman. This one sounds as bad as it looks. I lean out from the tree to get a good look at her. She’s nearly on the ground now, one knee down in the puke she’s just thrown up. Nasty business. She’ll have to do a lot more killing before she’s going to get used to it without making a scene. I continue watching her until she lurches to her feet and heads on again down the street, this time at a slower clip but still moving at a decent pace.
The longer I watch the woman the more familiar she seems. Just like her voice. I frown watching her. She never turns her head quite enough for me to see who she is but none of that matters when she’s standing in front of my house.
Or as close to in front of my house as someone can get without it actually being my house. She lets herself in past an iron gate and slowly goes to stand in the yard of the neighbor I’ve been thinking about all night.
“You,” I whisper, even though there’s no way she’ll hear me from where I’m hiding across the street behind a car but when she turns my way I’m not so sure I was right in my estimation of her hearing abilities.
Moonlight shines down on her, illuminating the murderess in front of me like a goddess. Her eyes are dark and there’s blood smeared across her face. Her face is shining with tears, and all around her the world is bathed in starlight. A gust of wind blowsand her dark hair dances around her face while the leaves rattle and fall around her before fluttering to her feet. When she parts her mouth I want to hear her say my name but there’s nothing, just the sound of another choked cry before she turns her back to me and runs into her house.
I watch her house. A light in the living room comes on and then another in what I know is the kitchen. Warm, golden light spills out across the lawn where she was just standing. I stay there for another minute before I turn and head back to the graveyard. I’m there in a minute, the journey made all the easier without stalking a human. The scent of fresh blood hits my nose when I approach the prone form of the man she killed.
