Danny laughed. “Pouting and batting your eyelashes doesn’t work on me — angel, remember.”
I let my shoulders slump forward and sat in the chair dejected. I was very hungry, even though it had only been three days since I’d fed.
“Today,” Danny said, “I’m coming with you. I’ll do some preliminary scouting while you’re hunting, to make sure they’re not laying any traps for you. Now that they know you’re different — something to fear — they’ll be hunting you in greater numbers, nothing like the small groups you’ve had success with to date.”
“Ah, but they also know I hang out with angels. Well, one angel at least, and they won’t know if you’re nearby or not. And they don’t know about my new weapon.” I drew the knife out of its sheath, admiring the rainbow slick on the blade. “I keep forgetting to ask, what do the symbols on the blade mean?”
“On one side it says God's soldier and on the other, She who kills.”
“God's soldier,” I pointed the knife at Danny, “is that you?”
He nodded — God's soldier and she who kills, working together. I wondered if He would approve.
“We stay in my territory,” Danny warned. “If they cross the boundary you’re to let them go, at least for now.”
“Understood.”
He smiled and clapped his hands together, rubbing them eagerly. “Well, what are we waiting for?”
Danny held out his hand, warm and strong as usual. A girl could get used to this, I thought as I grasped his hand and we headed to our destination.
“Don’t venture down the tunnels,” he cautioned. “Now that they know you know about the tunnels, there are sure to be traps, or a watch detail, ready for you.”
“Damn,” I murmured. “I had a lot of fun in those tunnels.”
“I won’t scout far ahead of you. I’ll be within earshot. I suggest you follow the trail to the far right.” He smiled. “I think you’ll enjoy that one.”
“Wait.” I put my hand on Danny’s arm to stop him from leaving. “What do you want me to do if I come up against Drake?”
“The same as you’d do to any other vampire, provided you’re strong enough.”
I let go of Danny’s arm. He ran, whisper quiet, along the trail he’d suggested I follow. I touched my left arm, reassuring myself the knife was still there, and set off after him.
Within half an hour I came across three vampires — two males, one female — that had loosely surrounded a couple of hikers no older than me, but very scared. They knew they were in danger, but didn’t realise what sort of danger.
I stayed well back, to avoid being seen by any of them, mortal and vampire alike. This would be a true test — to kill the vamps and save the mortals. I knew Danny would not be far away. In fact, he was probably watching from the cover of the trees, ready to strike if necessary. I picked up a decent-sized rock and threw it as hard as I could. It hit a tree some twenty metres behind the little gathering with a loud bang. A shower of bark exploded outwards. It provided just enough of a distraction for me to rush in and grab a vampire from behind. I covered his mouth with a hand and quickly dragged him back to where I’d been watching them.
I needed to act fast. I kicked his legs out from under him and he fell, pulling me down with him. As we fell I turned my body so that I landed on top of his chest, my hand still clamped to his mouth. I pressed my lips to his neck and pulled his t-shirt out of his jeans, my other hand seeking his abdomen. With three points of contact, he was drained in less than thirty seconds. A personal best for me!
I stood up and, from the relative safety of my hiding place, threw his body out into the open. It made a loud thud as it hit the ground. I ran quickly then, to watch their reactions from a different spot.
“What the fuck?” one of them yelled out. “What are you doing, Damien?”
When Damien didn’t move, the one who called out turned to his companion, the female. “Keep an eye on these two. I’ll see what game he’s playing at today.”
She nodded and moved closer to the frightened hikers, hands on hips and tapping a foot.
I dashed out behind her, careful not to make any noise. Raising a finger to my lips I let the hikers know they should remain silent and not give anything away. As I wrapped an arm around the vampire’s neck, I waved them away with my free hand, mouthing the word run! They nodded and took off in the opposite direction.
I neutralised her, standing up, with little difficulty — the element of surprise on my side.
The other vamp was still leaning over Damien’s body, poking him with a finger, when I jumped on his back and knocked him to the ground. I held his arms out to the side, careful not to let my fingers find skin. I wanted this kill to last a bit longer. I wanted to savour the moment, and leaned down to touch his neck with my lips.
I felt his blood infuse my body with strength. This was body number seventeen… somehow I knew it still wasn’t enough. I was impatient to become whatever it was I was meant to be.
Danny appeared out of nowhere and together we jogged back to where we had started out from.
“You’re quite the killing machine,” he said.
“I thought you might be watching,” I sighed.
“What?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
“When someone’s watching I feel like some kind of perverse deviant, almost dirty. Maybe it’s just because I still feel a bit weird about the whole thing.”
“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, the killing. I have to admit, though, the use of your hands as well is… what words could I use to describe it? If I try to look at it from a mortal viewpoint I think strangely erotic might suffice.”
I stopped in my tracks. It was funny how, only days before — at my first training session — I’d been oddly aroused by the blood. Now I was listening to Danny describing what I did in a similar fashion.
Always the call girl, I thought.
“What’s the matter?” Danny asked.
“Nothing,” I lied. “I thought I heard something.”
“I don’t hear anything unusual,” he replied, and we set off again.
When we were back at the start, and I was picking out a trail to follow, Danny praised me for resisting the temptation to taste human blood, and for telling them to run.
I shrugged my shoulders. It was no big deal at all.
“I wasn’t tempted in the slightest,” I mumbled. “I smelled them, but their scent only evoked a sense of, oh, I don’t know, familiarity or kinship? Kinship isn’t the right word. It was more like something you’d associate with a favourite jumper that you’re keen to hold onto, after it no longer fits because you can’t bear to be parted from it. They definitely did not smell like food.”
“Sounds to me like you still have a connection to your humanity, if only a psychological one.”
I shrugged my shoulders again. Who cared why, as long as I didn’t do what he feared I would.
“Let’s hope that time doesn’t erase that connection,” Danny whispered.
I continued to study the trails, pretending I hadn’t heard him. How long would it take for him to stop thinking of me as a potential threat — forever perhaps? No matter. If I was immortal, we had forever to work on it.
“This one,” I finally said, pointing to a trail that ran northwest. “This is quite fresh, still strong. I don’t think we’ll end up anywhere near the border.”
Danny nodded and took off. I waited a few minutes before following, enjoying the dappled sunlight filtering through the trees and the dust motes dancing in the air. It was a good day for a hunt!
I wanted to try out the knife Danny had given me, although I was torn between the blade, the hunger, and the need to be strong. My animal instincts won out. Why was I not surprised?
Considering Danny had said they were forewarned about me, I was surprised to still come across small groups. Presuming there was safety in numbers, it seemed stupid for so few to travel together. Perhaps they thought my abilities had been exag
gerated. Surely they would know about the marks my hands had left, and have realised what had caused them? There would be no secret there. Seems I can’t keep anything secret anymore!
What I wasn’t expecting to stumble upon, and Danny hadn’t seen fit to warn me about, was two vampires copulating on a bed of moss. It’s not like I hadn’t seen grown individuals doing it before — hell, I’d been involved in more than one orgy — but the frenzied biting they seemed to take pleasure in I found disgusting — the gratification of mutual bleeding. It turned my stomach.
Here’s to blowjobs that blow the mind! I told myself silently, and gave a disgusted laugh.
They were too wrapped up in their own flesh to hear my laugh. I was uncertain if they could stop, even if they wanted to, so ferocious was the act that was taking place.
Looking on the bright side, at least I had an answer to my question about sex. The sexual drive was still there, though so perverted it was totally wrong. They seemed to be getting off on the blood more than the sex itself. God, I hope I’m not going to be like that!
I casually walked up to them. Crouching down beside them, I laid my hands on bare flesh. I didn’t want to sully my lips on either of their bodies — that would be really wrong. My hands could do the dirty work. It was easy enough to wash them afterwards, if they felt dirty and soiled.
When the male — he was on top — tried to disengage himself, I placed my knee in the small of his back and pushed down with all of my might. My jeans were bloodied from the bite marks on his back. I resolved to destroy them after this day’s killing spree was done, rather than wear them again.
“This is so repulsive,” I said out loud.
I looked anywhere but at the vamps. In the distance I spotted Danny, waiting for it to be over as well. Evidently he, too, found it distasteful, as he made no attempt to come any closer.
“I guess someone’s got to do the dirty work!” I yelled in his direction. In response I heard a faint laugh.
As I walked away from their bodies I was overcome with a strange sensation. My knees buckled, causing me to fall on all fours to the ground. I struggled to stand, and hugged my torso. When I managed to gain my feet, the ground beneath me seemed to drop away. Was the earth recoiling from my touch?
A far-off voice was calling out to me. Was it calling me? Who was I? What was I? Was I real?
My body arched backwards, exposing my throat to the sky. A lamb ready to be sacrificed. Slowly my arms unfolded, stretching out on either side of my body, the palms of my hands facing upwards. I felt the sun suffuse my body with a heat that could turn the world to ash. Somehow I knew that I was burning, yet I felt no pain, only the heat of the fire that was consuming me. My eyes were blinded by the brilliance of it, even though I could no longer see, the colour of the sun lingered in my vision — a beacon to light my way.
I was at peace, the voice no longer calling me. No, there it was! Very faint, like the buzz of a distant bee. Did I know the voice? What was it saying? Helena. It was saying Helena. A memory from my distant past was slowly bubbling to the surface. I could feel it struggle against other memories that tried to push it back down to where it had come from. The voice became louder.
HELENA!
I heard a primeval scream and the sound of it distressed me, causing the bubble to burst, the memory of who I was flooding my mind.
I am Helena.
The sun withdrew its heat from my body and I fell to the ground. The screaming continued, reverberating throughout the forest. The screaming was coming from me…
Some final change had occurred within my body, and I was reborn, a phoenix rising up from the ashes. I opened my eyes and found that I could see. My vision seemed sharper and I could see the life force and vitality coursing through the grass beneath me. Colours were more vivid. I lifted my head and listened to the sound of worker ants scurrying around on the forest floor. I heard them going about their daily business as they carried bits of leaf to their nest. I could hear the rustling of treetop leaves — some thirty metres above me — in the gentle breeze. These were sounds that previously would have gone unnoticed. I felt the muscles in my body harden. Tightly coiled springs of power, waiting to be unleashed. I was alive!
I laughed when I realised what had occurred. How ironic!
“Helena…”
I looked in the direction the voice had come from. Danny was sitting on his haunches, off to the side.
“Wouldn’t you know it,” I continued to laugh, “it had to be the ones having sex that provided the last of the blood I needed to become who I am now!”
“I thought you were lost to me,” Danny whispered. Is that a look of fear on his face? “I thought you were dead.”
“I can’t explain it. I only know that the sound of your voice pierced through the veil. It allowed me to remember who I was.”
Danny smiled, and the fear I thought I had seen just a moment before was gone.
“Do you need to rest?” he asked.
“No, I feel fine”
He stood up and offered me his hand, which I accepted without hesitation. On an impulse, when I was standing, I laid my cheek on his shoulder and gently nuzzled his neck. There was no way I’d bite him — the taste was too gross for that — but I could smell the musk of him — the unique scent of his masculinity. He smelled good, and I closed my eyes to revel in him.
Danny dropped his shoulder slightly. It was his polite way of telling me to get off. I opened my eyes and, feeling like I was truly looking into Danny’s eyes for the first time — how deep they were, the colour changing ever so subtly through the various hues of blue — smiled. I noted the beginnings of stubble on his face, and was able to genuinely appreciate his rugged good looks. Had the stubble always been there or did he shave?
“Time to try out the knife, I think. I won’t get any more out of drinking today.”
We headed back, but five minutes down the path I heard an unusual noise in the trees and called to Danny to stop.
“Up there,” I whispered, looking into the branches. “Let’s keep going. I don’t want to scare him. I’ll come back via the treetops, above him.”
“You can tell it’s a him?” Danny asked.
I nodded my head. The scent was distinctively male.
Danny joined me in the treetops. He was an excellent climber and I enjoyed watching the muscles in his arms flex as he scaled the tree.
“Stay back,” I said.
Danny crouched, perfectly balanced on the end of a branch, and watched as I leapt from tree to tree with the stealth of a leopard, agile and graceful.
I gently lowered myself to the branch the vampire had straddled. He was swinging his legs back and forth, as though he had not a care in the world. I pulled the knife out of its sheath, in preparation for the task at hand. I walked up behind him, slowly and quietly. I seized a handful of hair, jerked his head back and let the blade cut through flesh and bone.
The knife had been blooded and it felt fantastic. I hadn’t expected to hear the blade sing as it sliced through the vampire’s neck and I shivered when it was over, remembering the reverence of the song. It had almost made me weep. I kissed the flat of the blade and sheathed it.
Danny leapt deftly to my side and touched the body. It burned so rapidly all I saw was ash. He held out his hand for me to pass him the head, which I wasn’t even aware I was still holding. I released my grip and Danny set it down on the branch, among the ash. He touched the dead vamp’s forehead and it immediately crumpled to dust. Angels sure did have some cool tricks!
“Why wasn’t there any blood on the knife?” I asked.
“No blood can taint it or stain it. The blade will not be defiled.”
“What about the singing?”
“Pardon?” Danny said. “To what are you referring?”
“Didn’t you hear it?” He was within hearing distance. He should have heard the song.
“Hear what?”
“The singing!” I repeated impatiently.
“I heard the blade slice through his neck, clean and true. I heard the body slump forward onto the branch.”
“Well, that’s not all I heard. The blade sang to me as we worked together.”
Danny looked at me curiously, an eyebrow raised. No doubt he was weighing up the possibility I was trying to pull his leg.
“What did it sing?”
“It was more of a chant really, or words that I couldn’t understand. Either way, I could feel what it was trying to convey.” I searched for the words to describe it. “I felt the reverence of the blade, as though its purpose was being fulfilled.”
“May I?” he said.
I nodded my head and he removed the knife from its sheath. After a quick inspection — nothing out of the ordinary there — it disappeared up his sleeve. I wanted to ask if he’d ever nicked his arm doing that trick, but kept the question to myself.
“I promise I’ll return it after the next attack,” he said. “I need to try it for myself. Perhaps you have changed the blade in some way, or perhaps the two inscriptions have caused a change.”
“Okay,” I replied, and waved my finger in his face, “as long as I get it back. I’m holding you to that!”
“Shall I?” Danny asked as he extended his hand.
I took his hand and we let ourselves fall from the tree. It was funny how it didn’t matter if we were walking or falling — the end result was the same. A quick trip through the lights and we were at our destination. In this case, it was back on the ground, at our starting point.
“One more for today,” he said.
“Agreed,” I replied. “You pick the trail. Just be sure there are enough for the two of us. You with the knife and me with my natural talents.”
I wiggled my fingers in the air. There could be no doubting where my talents lay. I had very experienced hands, a legacy of my previous life.
The trail he chose travelled east, through very thick trees. Hardly any sunlight filtered through to the forest floor. Danny raced ahead, keen to see if the blade would sing to him as well.
A number of scents intersected, distracting me from our chosen trail. The wind picked up and carried with it a new scent, one I knew I should recognise, but couldn’t place.
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