“Why?”
“She always takes me back. I-she can’t do any better than me.”
I frown. Maris has horrible taste in men. She’s lucky that I found her. I’ll show her that a vampire is a more suitable match than a pathetic fickle human.
“She’s already done better than you,” I tell him and slap him again. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes, oh god, yes. Please let me go! I swear I won’t come back here. I won’t tell anyone what you did to me. I-about any of this. I won’t.”
I don’t let Billy go. I pull him closer and grab his throat with my free hand. I stand up and drag him with me. He gags and claws at the hand choking him. I let him struggle for a minute before I loosen my grip and give him enough air to keep him conscious.
“Maris is mine,” I tell him, “you are never to approach her again. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” he whimpers.
“If she looks in your direction, go the other way. If you see her in the store or on the street, you will leave. Wherever Maris is, you are not. She will never again see you. You will never speak to her and if I hear you say her name, I’ll fucking kill you.” I bring him closer to me so that we’re eye-to-eye. The moon is bright, it hangs right over us in the sky, the perfect spotlight for my crime. I let the human mask I wear slip and fall away. I think about healing him after I glamour him so that no one even thinks to ask him what happened. Even if he tries to find a way around what I’m about to tell him, he’d look crazy. That’s the trick with humans, apply enough pressure to their mental state and they break all on their own.
Reality is a tricky, slippery thing. Reality is the only thing that exists based on sheer belief.
Anything is real if the human believes it deeply enough.
A healed Billy screaming about being attacked by me looks like a lunatic. After I saved Maris today, I’m a hero to thepeon townsfolk of Vesper Point. Not a soul would believe Maris’ scorned ex. The tables would turn and he’d be treated to a helping of the isolation and ostracization Maris has had shoved down her throat.
No. I’m not going to heal Billy. I want him to look at himself in the mirror and remember what I did to him. What will happen if he crosses Maris.
“Look at me,” I order. Billy looks because he must. I’m all vampire right now. He couldn’t disobey me if he had an army of priests praying over his ass. “When anyone asks you about why you’re injured, you are going to tell them that you got drunk and fell on your way home. You’ll tell them you came to Maris’ house but couldn’t work up the nerve to face her after how you treated her. You’re going to tell anyone that will listen that Maris is a saint. Do you hear me? Tonight is going to be nothing more than you being an idiot drunk fuck trying to pay your ex-girlfriend a visit but instead, like the failure you are, you fell down and fucked yourself up. Isn’t that right?”
Billy nods weakly. “Right.”
I bring him closer and his boots drag the ground as I do and I smile at him. Billy whimpers and I know what he’s seeing. I’m not the new easygoing doctor. I’m a demon. “Oh, and one other thing. Anytime that you try to tell someone about what happened, you’re going to pass out. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing or where you are. You will faint. Blackout. No matter how many doctors try to help, they’ll never find out what it is. You’re going to die with my hold on you, Billy. When you close your eyes, you’re going to see my face.”
Tears shine in his eyes and I watch as tears roll down his cheeks. “What are you?”
“I’m Maris’,” I answer and because I am Maris’, I add on extra to his lifetime sentence of having me in his head. “That fiancee of yours. What’s her name?”
“Minnie,” he whispers.
“Minnie Mouse, right. Any time she comes near you, touches you, so much as tells you she loves you, you’re going to throw up. She will repulse you from now until the end of your days. There will be no fixing it. Her scent, her taste, the sound of her voice will make you sick to your stomach. You’ll feel like killing yourself to get away from it. That’s how sick she’l will make you."
“Wh-why?”
“I wanted you to pay. To say you were sorry and admit what you did. I waited for it, but it never came. You both just went on your stupid fucking way together like I never existed.”
I might not have been here for what happened to Maris before, but I’m here now. Her suffering and humiliation by these inconsequential human debris is over.
“Because you don’t deserve peace. Neither of you do. You deserve to pay.” I make sure to stare deep into Billy’s eyes to cement the glamour. “And remember, the same rules apply on trying to snitch on any of this. If you tell anyone about why you can’t stand Minnie, even if you just try to hint at it or about any of this and,” I snap my fingers, “it’s lights out, Billy boy.”
I drop Billy to the ground the second the glamour snaps into place. It’s different for every vampire, but it’s easy enough to pinpoint. It feels like a release. Like you’re finally able to put down something you’ve been carrying and hand it off to the human. No one understands why, but I think the transferred weight is the command. My will. That’s what I think leaves me to bind Billy now. He’s not stronger than me, he never will be, and now he will carry the reminder of his inferiority until he dies.
It’s perfect.
“Get the fuck out of here,” I order him. “Don’t fucking stop until you’re home.”
“Yes, sir.” Billy picks himself up and bolts for the road. I make a face at the ‘sir’ it’s almost as bad as please. He practicallyruns through the yard’s wrought iron fence. The last I see of him he’s stumbling down the road in a half run, half limp combo move.
I dust my hands off on my pants. “Pathetic mortal.”
When I vault back over the porch railing, Maris is standing with her back to the house, waiting. She gasps when I land with a soft thud beside her.
