Bloodlust

by Kramer, D. L.

  “Th-the artist?” she asked, her voice quiet, in awe. “Oh my God--” She took a deep breath and a reflexive step back, as if respecting my space this time instead of out of fear.

  I tilted my head, looking at her more fully from under my hat. “You know me?” I asked. Nothing like stating the obvious. Sometimes even us monsters did that on purpose.

  “Oh my God,” she repeated. “Lily’s Water is one of my favorite paintings ever,” she said. “I had a print of it in my room--” she paused and I felt her shut that part of herself down again. Definitely a sore spot there. She looked back at me. “So this is why nobody ever sees you?” she motioned to my face and the scars snaking up from my neck.

  I nodded. “No sense scaring off the customers,” I told her. I leaned over to put my camera back in the bag, latching it closed and looking back at her.

  “Wh-what happened?” she asked after several deep breaths, calming herself down. I felt her heartbeat trying to settle back into a normal rhythm, but the surge of adrenaline was keeping it going.

  I sighed. I suppose I could tell her the truth, just not the details. “I was burned,” I said, nodding to her that she’d been right in her guess the other day. “When I was younger, the place I was living caught fire. That was when I decided I needed to find something to do that didn’t require much contact with the outside world.” Okay, so that wasn’t entirely true. I paused for a moment. “So do you want to talk about the job?”

  For having gone so long without hearing a teen girl squeal, hearing it twice in one day was almost enough to make me smile.

  We discussed the details in a nearby café. I had my usual cup of tea while she tried getting by with just coffee before I insisted she order something to eat. I didn’t really need any help, I’d been managing on my own quite well. But if nothing else, April had struck me as someone real. She was self-aware and that alone was rare to find anymore. She was also smart and had determination. The more we talked that afternoon—well, she talked, I listened—the more I was impressed with her.

  At first I let her work on the digital copies of my photographs and artwork from a computer at the library. Letting her get more comfortable being around me. She was still living in the shelter and had taken the money from the first week and opened a savings account, telling me I could just deposit her pay in there, as she was saving it for her baby so they could rent someplace as soon as she had enough. By her third week working with me, she was working from my studio, coming over in the afternoons or early evenings to work on whatever I’d finished that day. I found she was responsible in her work and couldn’t figure out how she had ended up homeless and pregnant at her age.

  Damn those sore spots.

  She didn’t pry into my puzzles, though, so I didn’t pry into hers.

  I believe I mentioned the keen sense of direction as one of the ‘benefits’ of this curse. Another is a keen sense of premonition. Though not always right, I’d had a number of ‘bad feelings’ be close enough that I didn’t ignore them.

  It was towards the end of the third week when I had such a feeling. April had stayed late, sorting the photos I’d taken over the last week into organized files for me. She’d noted my penchant for counting things and had made sure each of the files had the photos organized so I could easily see how many were in each one.

  As she told me goodnight and left the studio, a sick wrenching gripped my spine. I hated that feeling, but I knew not to ignore it. I set aside my brushes that I’d been cleaning, dropping the last few into the jar of turpentine to soak, then went and got my coat and hat. I left the studio, quickly picking up April’s scent and following her.

  It was about half way back to the shelter when I heard her scream. I leaped onto the nearest building and raced toward the sound, covering the ground in a blur. Down by an alley, two young men had grabbed her and pulled her down out of the light and away from where she could be easily spotted by anyone walking by. Not that anyone would have stopped to help. I wasn’t the only one who used large cities for the lack of concern people had for each other.

  I could see her struggling as one held her arms and the other searched her for any money or drugs. The one in front of her held a gun and I growled. Guns were noisy, obnoxious and annoying, but almost no threat to me. April, however, was getting close to having her baby and it was a huge threat to her. Crouching low, I clenched my hands, feeling my claws growing, forcing me to relax my fists before they cut into my own flesh. The edges of my eyesight tinged red and I leaped down to the ground.

  The movements were a blur. I slashed at the one behind her first, catching the heavy canvas of his army fatigue coat, but missing any flesh. As he yelled in surprise and let go of April, I turned on the other. He panicked, turning his gun on me and firing. I ignored the bullets, most of them missing me anyway. Very few humans can shoot straight when they’ve just been scared badly enough to piss themselves. And I could definitely smell that on him, too.

  The one bullet that grazed me hit the wall behind me even as I jumped towards him, slashing at his face. I caught skin that time without a doubt, leaving four deep gashes running from above his left eye down to the right side of his jaw. Screaming in fear and pain, he dropped the gun and turned to run after his friend, clutching his face. I growled once more, retracting my claws and turned back to April.

  She lay crumpled on the ground, a growing red spot beneath her. I cursed. I cursed her for being strong and resisting them. I cursed myself for allowing myself to care for anyone. I cursed the city for not caring about its youth. And I kept going, finding something new to throw curses at even as I gathered her up and carried her out to the street.

  I found a taxi, ordering the driver to take us to the nearest emergency room as fast as he could. When I told him I’d tip him double whatever the fare was, he took me seriously.

  Ten minutes later, we pulled up to the emergency room. I’d tried to stop the bleeding, but near as I could tell, she’d been hit by two of the bullets. The smell of her blood was almost overpowering and I was thankful I’d fed when I did or it would have pushed me over the edge. Her heart struggled and just as importantly, I could feel the tiny fluttering heartbeat of her baby as it also struggled.

  I tossed several dollars over the seat to the cab driver as I threw open the door and got out, carrying April with me. The heavy double doors opened and I yelled for help, which thankfully came running.

  Everything was a blur after that. April was put on a gurney and rushed off into a room while doctors were paged and nurses and orderlies rushed in and out. A nurse did her best not to act repulsed by my appearance as she asked me what had happened and any personal information I could give them on April.

  “Mugged,” I managed to croak out. “She was working for me, I…” I paused, not really wanting to say I’d been following her. I knew how I looked to everyone else. I knew they’d immediately suspect me. “I was walking her home because of the hour. She’d gone on a little ahead of me. I heard her scream…” My voice trailed off and I sat down on one of the hard chairs in the waiting room. “There were two of them.”

  “Are you hurt?” the nurse asked me finally.

  I shrugged. “Not really,” I replied. “When I got there, they ran off. I didn’t get a good look at them, but I’m sure they got a good look at me and that’s what scared them away.” I said the last with a bit of humor. That was an understatement. I also knew she’d take it to mean my normal appearance. Patchy skin, white eye, burn scars. I was definitely not going to win any beauty contests. I didn’t mention the bullet that had grazed my arm. I could already feel it starting to heal and didn’t really want them trying to look at it.

  The nurse nodded and glanced over her notes one last time. “We’ll send someone out when we know something,” she said, practiced, matter of fact. All business. She’d been a nurse for a long time and had almost seen it all.

  I waited, listening to what was going on behind the double doors that separated the eme
rgency room from the waiting room. The mixture of smells was almost stomach turning to me. I heard mention of heart rate, blood pressure, then emergency c-section. I sighed and leaned forward, grateful for my hat and collar on my coat to hide my face from the people who wandered in and out of the waiting room. I heard the gurney from April’s room wheeled out and a number of footsteps keeping up with it, running.

  Why had I let anyone near me? Why had I given in and allowed myself to care? I’d seen homeless teens before, hundreds, if not thousands of them. I’d decided years ago not to care about people in general. They were food, a way for me to control what ravaged my body and raged in my soul. Most were blind to what was going on in the world and unable to think for themselves. They followed without question and very few were suited to lead.

  Because I didn’t want to become the animal.

  Some small part of me even now still hoped to hang onto the human side. To know I was capable of caring. To know I could make a difference in the world.

  To know I wasn’t as evil as I feared I was.

  To just once hear someone new say my name and know they were really talking to me instead of about me.

  It was nearly six hours later when I heard footsteps approaching. I looked up, aware of the painful kink in my back and neck. A doctor was walking toward me, pausing when he saw me, then composing himself and coming over.

  “Mr. Dorian?” he asked. I stood up, nodding my head. The doctor was tall, able to look me directly in the eye. “I wish I had better news, but the fact is, Miss Merced is in a precarious position right now.” I nodded again, letting him go on. He talked about her blood loss and other injuries and that they’d had to deliver the baby by emergency c-section. During the operation, April’s heart had stopped, but they’d been able to get it going again and she’d regained consciousness briefly just a short time before.

  “How is the baby?” I asked.

  “Do you know if she has any family?”

  I shook my head. “She was staying at a shelter. She didn’t want to talk about her past.”

  The doctor nodded his head. “The baby is stable, but we’ll keep an eye on her for the next little while to be sure she’s all right. She’s about five weeks premature, so she’s going to have to stay here for a while.”

  “I would like to see them,” I said quietly. “But I understand I may disturb other people here.”

  The doctor managed to almost hide his nod. I was impressed with the professionalism of the staff here, at least. Hopefully they were as competent. I didn’t have any need for hospitals, so I rarely paid them heed.

  “Miss Merced is in ICU right now. If she recovers enough to move to a regular room, she can receive visitors.”

  If. I wanted to cram the word down his throat.

  Instead I just nodded.

  “Thank you,” I said. As the doctor turned to go back inside the emergency room, I adjusted my coat and hat and walked outside. Once outside, I walked slowly around the building, testing the air, sorting the scents. Near the back I found April’s. I did a studied look for any cameras, but found none on this side of the building. Glancing upwards I jumped silently from window ledge to window ledge until I found hers. Looking in through the window, I could see her laying in the bed, needles and tubes everywhere. I sniffed the air, frowning.

  Death.

  She was dying.

  I had smelled it enough times now that there was no question.

  I jumped back to the ground, staying crouched as I landed. I clenched my hands, bringing out my claws, then sniffing each one separately. The first boy’s jacket had left his scent on my left claws. The second boy’s skin had left his on my right. I would remember them and the next time I needed to feed, I would already have my prey.

  I stood up slowly, walking into the darkness, my jaw set.

  I didn’t bother going back to the hospital, knowing they wouldn’t let me in. I once more buried myself in my work and was surprised when someone knocked on my door two days later. April had died the night before. I’d seen the brief story in the newspaper, only surprised she’d hung on that long. She’d been worth an entire three inches of column space as the police asked for any possible witnesses to come forward.

  I crept over to the door, recognizing the scent of newly polished shoes and suit trousers that had been dry-cleaned at the little cleaners on the north side of town. They weren’t fancy, but used a different cleaning solution with a distinct smell.

  Sometimes it annoyed me that I knew such things.

  And now the police were here.

  I should have known they’d come by eventually. A girl had been the victim of a crime and I was the only known witness.

  I opened the door, keeping my head tilted down, hiding the scars as best I could.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “Michael Dorian?” one of the two detectives there asked, reading from his notebook. He was somewhat heavyset and half bald with a ring of dark hair around the back of his head. He carried himself well, confident, alert. He’d obviously been a career cop and took his job seriously. He was healthy, I could hear his heart beating with a strong beat, steady. No hesitation. His breathing was clear, not labored after climbing the stairs. Healthier on the inside than he looked on the outside. Good for him.

  I could still outrun him.

  His partner was a bit shorter, not quite as heavy and reminded me for some reason of a wrestler. I’m not sure if it was his build or the way he carried himself, but that was my first thought. He wasn’t quite as healthy, though and I could hear the faint wheeze to his breathing, though it wouldn’t have been obvious to anyone else.

  “Yes,” I responded. “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me, I don’t have visitors often.”

  The first detective looked up, visibly pausing when he saw me, then clearing his throat. “My name is Detective Rasmussen. This is my partner, Detective Paulson. We're here to do a follow up on the report that was filed a couple of nights ago regarding April Merced.” He paused to show me his badge before tucking it away again in his belt. Not that it was hard to miss there anyway, but I appreciated the gesture. His partner didn’t bother taking his off his belt.

  I nodded and opened the door wider, letting them inside. I’d learned long ago it didn’t do to be rude to the police, even as much as I tried to stay away from them. When your survival depended on killing four or five people a year, the police would never be your best friends. But that didn’t mean you had to make instant enemies of them.

  “It says here you were walking her home and she was ahead of you when she was attacked?” Rasmussen asked.

  I nodded again, closing the door behind them. “I’m afraid I don’t move quite as fast as she did,” I replied, the lie coming easily and convincingly. My scars were good for something, I suppose. If nothing else, they allowed me to hide how normally I could move. I noted him looking around my studio, pausing on the paintings hung on the wall then the one I was working on over at the easel. His eyes moved with a steady, practiced sweep of the room, looking for possible dangers, noting things that would tell him about me. His partner did likewise, spending more time looking at the living quarters area of the studio.

  I was glad my art was in a hopeful phase and not something darker.

  I was also glad I’d straightened my bed that morning. Little things can mean so much, especially when it’s a cop looking at how you live.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” Rasmussen flipped to a clean page in his notebook.

  I motioned to a chair at the table just outside the kitchenette, then sat across from him. He was nervous, but not overly so. I was sure he’d recover. His partner leaned against a nearby bookcase.

  “She was staying at the shelter down on twenty fifth. She’d walked on ahead of me, I think to see what time one of the shops opened, I’m not sure. I heard her scream and ran to catch up. I saw the two young men attacking her, but I’m afraid I didn’t get a good look at their faces. I yelled down th
e alley at them as I ran down to try to help her. I think I gave them a pretty good scare, the one with the gun started firing blindly. He missed me, but hit her.”

  Rasmussen nodded his head, making notes as I recounted what had happened. I wasn’t going to give them much to go on to find the young men, though. I was saving them for myself if at all possible.

  “You didn’t see anything about the two men who attacked her that would help identify them?” Paulson asked.

  I paused, seeming to think about it. “One had on a dark jacket, kind of long, maybe like an army jacket,” I said after a moment. “It was hard to see to be certain.” I pretended to think about it again. “I can’t really remember much about the other one except he was shooting the gun.”

  It’s not as easy as you’d think to hide what you know, when you can clearly remember everything in very fine detail. My night vision had shown me both of their faces very clearly, as well as what they were wearing. I could have even told the detective what the two had eaten that day, it had still been evident to me on their breath.

  “The report at the hospital said it was the alley off Westfield between seventeenth and eighteenth?” Paulson asked.

  I nodded. “I think the one with the gun dropped it, but I’m not sure. After they ran off, my only concern was getting April to the hospital.” I silently admonished myself for not going back and getting the gun. Chances were if the police found it, they’d be able to trace it to the one who’d fired it. I wondered how he’d explain the scratches on his face to them.

  It was unlikely they’d believe a monster attacked him.

  Rasmussen continued writing his notes. “Anything else?” he asked me when he’d caught up.

  I shook my head. “I don’t suppose you can tell me what’s going to happen to the baby?” I asked, genuinely concerned. I’d seen what happened to babies who were lost in the system of foster homes before and April’s memory deserved better than that. I was hoping they’d found her family and they were able to take the baby in. Though being born as prematurely as she was, she’d undoubtedly be in the hospital for at least a few weeks yet.