Another spasm and cough cut her words.
“But what really does thrill me, is that you don't even want him. What makes me hate you with all my fiber is that you hurt him, that he unstoppably suffers because of you.”
“Stop talking.” I say to her. “Maybe there is still a way to...”
“No,” she wheezes, “there is no way for me to escape. This vampire blood is nothing but a poison…”
I sardonically grin.
“I understand now why you were so generous with it.”
Once again, I'm glad I resisted the call from inside me, and I never poured that stuff in one glass as she was absent. She clears her throat once again.
“You know something? I am glad that even though I gave you not the satisfaction of killing me with your own hands, you'll still be tracked like the one that killed me. Your scent... it's steeped in my bracelet, in my house, on myself. Nobody is going to believe that I committed suicide. And even if someone would think, you won't have time to explain it. Hunters are simple and strict: betray is executed without trial, without explanation... Whatever you do, my revenge will still get you...”
Her head suddenly falls in one hand, with eyes wide open. She remains motionless, lifeless. I take the cup from which she drank, and I disappear. I move quickly, but not quickly enough. Not as quickly as I could before. I am still weak, and I can't refrain myself from cursing. I will not make now the mistake that I made many, many years ago, with Dom and Kyrya. Now, I will hasten. Now, I will go ahead of time. Now, no one will die because of me. Now, I won’t feel guilty. I get at the door of Slim’s house, door that I almost break down.
“Hey... even though I don't mind the wind from outside, however I need some privacy.”
Slim’s cheerful voice stops abruptly when she sees me.
“What’s the matter? Something happened to you?”
How typical of her to worry for me!
“We must go!”
“But...”
“Now!”
“But... I didn’t even announce at the hospital...
“Now, Slim!”
My tone is softer, slightly tired. Only now I convinced her.
“Let's go then.” She says without any further hesitation.
We leave the house exactly as it is. We do not take anything with us. My betrayal will be considered to be complete now. Once they will follow me, and they will arrive here, they will know that I'm with a vampire. Not with the vampire to chase me; not me chasing the vampire; but together with a vampire. And even if, in the end, my existence no longer serves any purpose, Slim must live. Because I know now that she cannot be judged only after her coating, which she is not guilty of. I know now that she is more human than many humans. She is nobler, more compassionate, more kind-hearted, more loving. For me, she is really a human, regardless of how she looks, and my duty is to save her, as she saved me once. My duty is to protect her, as she did with me. I will take her safely, then I will go back to end up with all this tracking, even though it will mean the end of my existence. I have nothing to live for.
Our luck is that it's night and that we run according to our powers, without being seen by humans. I see clearly that she's not trained to run away, but I'm not in the fullness of my powers, even though much stronger than her. She doesn’t ever get tired, but she's slower and I'm quicker, but I do get tired.
“Do you have a safe place where to go?” I ask her heavily.
“Home.” She answers. “They can’t find us there. It's beyond the ocean.”
“Let's go then!” I say short.
“Through… the ocean?”
Her breath is cut and I look intrigued at her. Again, it strikes me that even for her, her pallor is too pale.
“Slim, are you okay?”
Slightly gasping, she nods in approval.
I hurry too much now to talk.
“You know, we first cross England, and then we pass the Ocean on the other side, okay? I hope to induce them in error and to delay them.”
Slim gives again a nod.
Once we’ve crossed the water, we stop a little. I feel the need to get some rest, how I didn’t feel for a very long time. The wound from my neck started to pulsate painfully. It annoys me. I know that if I’d eat even a little of vampire meat, I would restore much faster. But now I don't have time to chase.
What? You didn’t think that just because I now have a debt to pay toward a vampire that I hardly consider her so, it means that I have any restraint in hunting others? The wound hurts me, my senses are weakened, and I really am in great haste. Very bad.
“I need to look at your neck.” Slim says. “And I will do that even they would have to catch us... anybody who track us.”
There is a question mark in her voice.
“My kind .Hunters are those who come after us.” I recognize abruptly. “In fact, they come only after me. Just that they took your smell too, and now they will hunt you as you would be just an ordinary other vampire. I don't know what chances do we have, but I'm afraid that you wouldn’t have had a single one if you were alone.”
I feel my regret in my voice
“You are kinda dumb, sometimes.” She says in an equal tone.
I look at her questioning, while I stop for a second just to catch my breath, and then we start do run again.
“Even if I had any chance, do you really think that I would have left you by yourself to deal with them?”
Again and again, she takes me by surprise with this nobility of her soul. I know, you could laugh at me when you see that I use the word "soul" referring to a vampire. But the truth is that Slim is like that, a vampire with a soul, a creature that hardly remains faithful to the concept of "Vampire".
“I really should look at your wound.” Slims draws my attention some time later, staring at my neck.
I knew that my wound started bleeding again. But we kept running, without giving attention to my increasing weaknesses.
“Let’s reach the ocean, first.” I say.
“No!” she opposes. “I’m going to look now!”
She stretches out a hand to stop me, but I unexpectedly growl and stop her hand in an iron grip. She gaps, surprised by the pain and shock.
“I said at the ocean.” I say through my teeth, pulling her little ceremoniously after me.
Only when I spotted the endless expanse of the ocean. I let her hand. On her arm, there are whitish trail of my fingers.
“Sorry, I'm tired. I didn't mean to hurt you. But you have to understand that we do stand a chance only if we run faster than they do. We have a considerable lead, that's right, but I want to keep it that way.”
“Let's not mention that.” she says, seeming just as tired, what surprises me again.
“I have never heard until now of vampires to get tired. Why do you get tired?”
Her eyes avoid my gaze, but I take her chin, facing her at me, inquisitorially.
“What is it, Slim?”
“Look, now it's not the time o talk about it, okay? When we will get home. Now let me fucking look at that hole in your neck!”
She's troubled by my question, and much more worried about my condition. Her cold hands touch my neck, calming my pain. Suddenly, I realize that since I met Slim, the memories about Dom and Kyrya are just as strong, but less painful, more tolerable. My grief has now a note of unexpected sweetness, when I think about our happy moments. I looked at her.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
O mess her already rumpled hair, like she was a little girl. So I feel Slim actually, like a little girl, and, in fact, like a little naïve innocent.
“Nothing.” I say.
Then, she does something at my neck with a patch that she breaks from her jumper.
“Ah!” she says, being a little upset. “Better yet I would bring to you some vampire steak! You will heal almost instantly!...”
I look very surprised at her. I would never have expected to hear such words from
her mouth. I no longer have any doubt now. Just because Slim looks like one, it sure doesn't mean that she is a vampire. I catch her back of her head with one hand more vigorous than I intended, and I glue my lips to her forehead. Not even her smell, bearing vampire’s odor, isn't bothering me now. I can see that she is very surprised, but delighted.
“Let's go!” I say.
We stand both of us, looking at the dark water in front of us. It is going to be some distance, and I will definitely need to breathe from time to time. Her face doesn't show any more thrilled by the prospect.
“Well, at least there are some fresh sharks out there. It almost makes my mouth watery.”
My mouth gets water after another sort of meat, but I keep my mouth shut. After all, the shark meat that she used to feed me with is not so bad. Slim sinks into the water, advancing until a can no longer see her. Will I have time enough to recover myself until my kind will track us down? Will I be strong enough to save Slim?
“Hey, what are you doing? Aren’t you coming?”
Her head pops out from in glossy waves of water. I join her with a single jump.
I don't want anything more for the moment than the answers to my earlier questions to be positive. After a while, I get up to the surface to take a breath of air. To my surprise, Slim follows me. She's too pale again. And again, she seems tired.
“Look,” I say. “For now, we are safe. We can loosen up the pace a little. So I'm going to swim for a while, okay? In the meantime, you can climb on me, to rest a little.”
“But I am too heavy!” she protests.
I laugh.
“You are as thin as a bulrush. Come on, come up on me and rest your soul!”
I no longer ask her how come she gets tired, since she is a vampire. She already said that she will let me know once we get at her place. With this in mind, I get a chill
At first, Slim just leant a little on me, slightly beating the water with her feet. Then, she gradually climbed on me, stretching her whole body.
“Once we get to your place, I will head it elsewhere.” I say sharply.
Her eyes seem to pierce me.
“No.” she says as firmly. “You can't do that!”
“I have no choice, Slim. I hope that we will arrive safely and quickly, and then I change the way so that I might lead them to me.”
“What if your plan will fail? What if they are still doing to find me? What will it happen with my family? You will just let them to... to die?”
“Oh, my God!” I sight a little pissed. “We are talking here about a whole family of vampires, not about a nursery!”
She fusses a little on my back, irritated.
“Maybe you didn't quite notice, but we're not exactly the kind of killer vampires.”
In her voice, I feel that she is offended.
“Fine!” I raise my voice a little. “And what do you suggest, then?”
“What? To... to stay with us, of course!
I suddenly roll over, and she falls into the water with a splash sound.
“Let me see if I understood well what you just said. Are you saying that you expect me to live with I don't know how many vampires altogether?”
Instead of thinking, Slim is raves.
“You will just love my folks, I know you’ll do! They are great, you know?”
“I'm quite sure that they might seem that way to you!” I say in a tone a little disgusted. “But let us not forget that there are still some abominable vampires.”
It fallows a moment of silence.
“Listen,” I say, “I didn't mean to offend you. Neither you or your family Just that, frankly, I don't know how you can believe that I could stay around your family without bidding for…”
I stop, slightly abashed.
“I hadn't thought about the fact that you will suffer by asking this.” Slim says slowly.
Her understanding makes me feel even more humiliated.
“Look, I shall find us a solution, in one way or another. So help me God...”
Her thin hands encircle my neck, and her cold cheek sticks to mine. Our bodies have identical temperatures.
“Now, you look more than ever like me." She says softly.
Just because I left myself beset by her tender gesture, I have managed not to get upset at her remark. Or perhaps now, more than ever, I realized that whatever I’d do, some part of my blood is the same as hers.
“I love you.” Slim tells me. “You are my best friend, you are...”
“Yeah, yeah.” I say quickly, trying to diminish the emotional charging of the moment. “I got the picture: a glass with two straws and so on…”
Slim happily laughs. And for the first time since very, very long time, I feel something very similar, too. I was wrong when I thought that I and she can never be friends. Or maybe I'm wrong again. Because it is certain that we are something more than that. We are...
“We are like two sisters, right?”
Slim's voice that seemed to say aloud my own thoughts, makes me jerk. We know even each other’s thoughts. I turn my eyes toward her. Here, in the middle of the dark ocean, a new feeling comes over me; my relation with her takes a new dimension.
“Watch out!” she says with joy. “That guy over there is a shark.”
She licks her lips, with relish.
“I’ll go catch it.” she says with complicity.
But the shark departs, feeling as though here is something even more dangerous than him, and I am confident that it's not about Slim. Then, her hand catches my arm.
“Look!” she say with her breath cut of emotion.
I raise my eyes to what she shows me. The sun stands to rise, and the colored palette that seems to paint the sky is impressive, especially since it mirrors all over the surface of the ocean. But she didn't want to show me the sunrise.
“Lights!” she says. “We are home...”
THE END OF THE SECOND BOOK
COMING IN THE NEXT BOOK…
[…]
I myself, am so shocked that I can't realize that what I see is reality. More animal than human, more like a wild beast than woman, and more woman than the girl that I once met... there she still is... I cannot even speak. Any sound I want to articulate it’s just… too much. All I can do is to look at her in disbelief, with obvious shock.
[…]
“Nothing in this world could be more wonderful than to discover that she's not dead. And yet, how could it be possible now whatever, when not even before was it not? To make her love me… A groan is coming out of my chest, without being able to stop. I have to convince myself that it's not just a dream; I must convince myself that what I saw was real, that it was not just one of the dreams that I have with my eyes open for years and years…
[…]
"What favor?” I ask her softly.
I expected her to ask me to leave her alone forever, both myself and my family. I just wasn’t ready anyway to promise her anything like that. But her requirement leaves me with no reply, shocked.
“Are you grateful enough to kill me?”
Her question makes me feel as if I've just been bitten by a hunter who drained me of blood. I realize now that I was right when I assumed she has an obsession. But I never expected her to be really mad. Perhaps my thoughts are read easily on my face.. She stands from the place where she sat until now, and she approaches me, speaking persuasively.
“Only a hunter or a vampire can kill me.” She says softly, caught in her madness. “So you can kill me. Like an execution, you know? I will not oppose any resistance, if this is what you fear of…”
[…]
“And what are you willing to pay for it?”
She does not hesitate a bit when she responds.
“Anything you ask for.”
“You’ll do anything I want? I ask her, unbelieving.
“Anything.” she says with the same conviction, while nodding approvingly.
“Would you even make love to me?”
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The Huntress: Becoming a Huntress Page 9