“It is,” I whisper, turning away and gazing into the flames once more. Their familiar crackling soothes my frayed nerves.
“So you knew?” he asks after a pause.
“From the instant you stood upon my threshold and I screamed in your face and found nothing but mild irritation.”
“You don’t think there’s something wrong with me then?” he asks.
I look upon him then, noting the sincerity in his gaze. “No,” I admit. “I find it…captivating.”
“Oh,” he says, then slides beneath the covers, nestling himself along my side. “Can I ask you a question?”
“You may.”
“Do you have to kill for food?”
The question stills me. I had never contemplated the necessity of death to provide sustenance.
I, foolish, lowly as I am, should have dared challenge my maker. But what had I then? Nothing but the feeble powers of my reason. I should have?—
“Hey.”
Astaire’s voice stops me from falling to the deepest pits, the touch of his hand banishing the darkness that was so swiftly encroaching upon me. I gaze at him startled, and sharply come back to myself.
“I am unsure,” I say. “My…creator…he provides for me.”
He studies me quietly. And for the first time, I find myself wondering how far the emptiness within him extends. It makes me wish to test its limits.
“Does it trouble you?” I ask. “Me being a murderer?”
He considers this with disarming ease, then shrugs with a weary laugh. “Not really,” he says shyly. “I just always wanted to know what it feels like to kill a person.”
“You wish to kill?” I ask.
He lifts his hand in playful denial. “No! I’m just curious. That’s all.”
“I cannot remember life before I was capable of suffering, before I took my first life. My memories do not precede my murderous nature.”
“Maybe just tell me what it feels like for you now,” he says gently.
I had never reflected on these thoughts, not even in the privacy of my own mind. Yet Astaire’s curiosity encourages me to the utmost sincerity.
“It is the fear I dread most,” I begin, “the moment they sense peril. As a child, none suspected me, but when I grew to my full stature, I sensed their mortal terror as soon as I was near.”
“You feel their emotions as you kill them?” His eyes furrow again, and I want to soothe them with a touch, but I restrain the urge.
“Yes. When I was human, I sensed their emotions as I hunted them. Once turned, my own emotions became entangled with their memories, indistinguishable.”
“Wait,” he says, putting a hand in the air as if he could stop these facts of life. “You can see memories?”
“Yes, well, only through consumption,” I say matter-of-fact.
A flicker of apprehension crosses his eyes. “Did you see mine?”
“I cannot help it.” I shrug. “It simply happens unbidden.”
“What did you see?”
“Your family. Your home. I saw lovers and acquaintances—people entering and leaving your life, while you remained still, only watching from afar.”
