Vincent
My punishment was starvation. Easy enough to accomplish without any access to blood, but I can say for certain, it was a shitty way to die.
I’d passed through the bloodthirsty mania already and had slipped into a strange, coma-like trance. I could hardly lift my limbs or raise myself off the bed pad, so I lay there, drifting in and out of consciousness in a strange sort of twilight. I couldn’t dream because of the drugs I’d been given, but I thought of you and worried what you’d think of who I’d become. My victims haunted me with accusations. I remembered all of their faces and the sounds they’d made as they died. I’d marked each of them on my skin. I rubbed my fingertips over the scars as I recalled each atrocity, part nightmare and part sick, twisted fantasy.
I disgusted myself.
And then suddenly I was wide awake with Cyclops standing over me with an empty syringe in his meaty fist. I shot up from the rush of the stimulant to find I was already restrained, this time with a metal muzzle over my mouth like a rabid dog. I tested the metal tines with my tongue. Cyclops still bore faint marks around his throat from my attack, but even still, I had no idea how much time had passed.
He yanked me off the mat and shoved me out the door. It was a new place every time. New corridors. New people staring at me in horror and backing away. But they were similar in their terror as they unwillingly confessed. The ever-changing scenery meant that I could never get my bearings. I knew every inch of my metal box but beyond my prison door, I was helpless.
Cyclops led me to what looked like another interrogation room, and I thought about refusing. If they killed me, I would still escape my current situation. I was done being Azrael’s weapon. I’d rather be dead.
“Vincere,” came Azrael’s lifeless tone over the speakers. A chill slithered up my spine and wrapped itself around my throat. “Our last blood sacrifice did not please you.”
“I don’t want to kill humans,” I said for the hundredth time. “I’ll take blood in bags or a regular feeding schedule, but I’m not interrogating anyone else so long as you make me kill people.”
“I don’t recall your diet being up for negotiation.”
“I don’t recall doing anything to deserve this punishment,” I parroted back at him. There was nothing to be gained in being polite.
“This isn’t a punishment, Vincere. You’re acting in the service of angels. You should be proud of the work you’re doing with me. It’s truly an honor.”
What a con man. Did he think I couldn’t smell his bullshit? “Sniffing out your snitches, you mean? Maybe if you weren’t such a heartless bastard, your soldiers would remain loyal.”
Azrael made a sound of disapproval, like a parent might to their child at their misbehavior. I hated his condescension. I hated who he’d made me become.
“Well, I can see you’re in no mood to discuss it, so why don’t I bring in your bloodmeal? Perhaps you will find these humans more to your liking.”
Cyclops crossed the room and opened the door. Two men were forced inside. Their clothes were torn, and their faces so bruised and bloodied that it took me a moment to recognize them.
“Papa?” I said as the air left my lungs. One of his eyes was purpled and swollen shut, his lip fat and bloodied. The way he cradled one arm made me think it was broken. Azrael had abused my gentle, loving Papa. God, how I wished he were in a body. I’d tear out his throat with my teeth.
“Dad?” Dad looked at me with dread and Papa squinted with his one good eye as though he’d never seen me before. My muzzle hid most of my face, which was just as well. I probably looked and smelled like a rotting corpse.
And then I realized Azrael’s intention.
“No,” I shouted at him and Cyclops both. “Not them. I’ll do anything you want. I swear. Just take them away.”
“As I told you before. This isn’t a negotiation.”
At that I felt a cold liquid injected into my arm, coursing through my veins and ignited my hunger so that I felt it in every cell of my body, throbbing like a hot, angry rash across my skin. My mouth watered and my senses became hyperaware of every movement across the room where my parents held each other. I smelled the blood in their lungs as they exhaled and the sweat where it collected on their skin—fear and pheromones.
“Take them away,” I hollered as Cyclops began unbuckling the latch on my mask. “No, don’t take it off.” I tore my head violently so that he’d not be able to free it, but he’d anticipated my movements. He cracked me in the back of my legs with his baton so that I fell to my knees. “Please, if you have any heart in you at all, don’t do this.”
Cyclops grunted and continued unstrapping my restraints. As soon as my mouth was free, I gnashed at him, but he choked me with a spiked, metal collar. My ankles were next. Now, one wrist. I turned toward my dad.
“You’re going to have to knock me out.” I nodded at the metal chair. Thankfully, it wasn’t bolted to the ground. “Use that. I won’t fight you. Do it now.”
Dad was always the pragmatic one, and when I saw his fingers curl around the back of the chair, I knew I could count on him.
“If you harm him,” came Azrael’s chilly voice, “you will both die in an extremely unpleasant manner.”
“Fuck you,” I yelled. “You fucking coward. You’re the goddamned demon here. Getting us to do your dirty work for you while you sit back and watch. Making us into monsters. I swear to fucking God, when I get out of here, I will spend my eternal life making you pay for this shit. Until you are fucking destroyed.”
“Vincent.”
Papa.The affection in his voice made me want to bawl. I dropped my forehead to the cold floor, anchored my hands to the metal table legs, and begged, “Don’t come near me. Please, Papa. This isn’t me.”
