Hunger

by Karen E. Taylor

  “No. Look, I brought some of Gwen’s things from the office. They’re in those boxes.” I pointed. “Can you see that her mother gets them?”

  “Sure. See you around?”

  I smiled and kissed his cheek. “Maybe, who knows?”

  Nick left, and I stood for a moment watching until he disappeared into the crowd, then walked out the door and into the fresh night air. As promised, Mitch was waiting.

  “Who was that guy?”

  “Guy?”

  “You know, the guy you were practically necking with in the hall.”

  “Damn, Mitch. You’ve got a real problem. That was Gwen’s fiance, Nick. Didn’t you meet him?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said sheepishly. “I guess I did. I’m sorry Deirdre, I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Obviously.”

  My dry comment drew the first smile out of him that evening. “Let’s get out of here and get something to eat.”

  “Okay, but I’m not very hungry; I ate before I came.”

  His smile disappeared. “Well, humor me anyway. I would guess we could find something you can choke down.”

  I looked at him sharply, but said nothing. He opened the car door for me, closed it behind me and got in behind the wheel.

  “Where to, lady?”

  “Your choice, Mitch. Remember, I am humoring you tonight.”

  “Just see that you remember it.” As I watched his unsmiling profile, he pulled the car out of the parking lot and turned onto the street, and I thought that it was going to be a long night.

  Chapter 18

  We went to the same restaurant he had taken me to before. We had the same waiter and ate the same meal, but the atmosphere was charged with the unspoken between us. All of my attempts at conversation were brushed off with a shrug or a one syllable response. Eventually, I quit trying and concentrated on my steak and the second bottle of wine. Mitch had turned from a witty and exciting companion to a sullen child, and ordinarily I would have gotten up from the table and left, never to see him again. But even in the tense silence, I realized that I still loved him; enough that his anger, combined with the events of the last few days, finally reduced me to tears. I excused myself and fled to the ladies’ room.

  When I returned I was more composed, having reached the decision that our relationship was now at the point I had always feared. No longer would I try to salvage what we had; instead, I would cut my losses and get out. It seemed best, but when I sat back down, he looked over at me with concern on his face and love for me in his eyes once again.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, and touched my hand across the table.

  I pulled away and noticed the extra glass, now half empty, on the table. I picked it up, sniffed and set it back down. “Scotch, Mitch? On top of all that wine? Do you think that’s wise?”

  “No, but at this point I don’t much care.” He took another drink and looked away. “What’s happening with us?”

  “Us?” I laughed more shrilly than normal. “After tonight, I don’t think there will be any us. You were the one who said we should talk; so here we are, let’s talk. Or let’s just give it up.”

  “But that’s the problem; I don’t want to give it up. When I’m away from you, I have all these doubts and questions. Nothing about you or your reaction to situations makes any sense to me. I’ve never seen you in the light of day, never seen you eat anything substantial. And I have heard some pretty unsavory things about you from various people.” I gave him a questioning look and he continued. “But I don’t really want to talk about any of that. It can all be explained, I’m sure.” He glanced at me, with a sheepish smile. “Nothing about you is as it seems, but when we’re together, nothing else matters but you.”

  “You certainly have a strange way of showing it.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve been fighting you all evening, but I didn’t realize it until I made you cry. I know these past few days have been rough on you, and you’ve taken it all pretty well, considering. I should be treating you better than this, we both know that. But everything seems so uncertain. I just don’t know what to do, what to say.”

  “So you say nothing.”

  “Exactly.” When he touched my hand this time, I did not pull away. I closed my eyes and began tracing the outline of his hand with my fingertips, softly touching his fingers, his close trimmed nails and the callouses on his palm. When I reached the soft part of his wrist, he shivered and I raised his hand to my mouth and kissed it. I opened my eyes and looked him square in the face.

  “Pay the bill, Mitch, and let’s get out of here.”

  Frank was there to greet us at the door of the hotel, nodding his head in acknowledgement. “Miss Griffin. Detective Greer.”

  I smiled at him as I passed and he gave me a wink that seemed very out of character. When the elevator doors closed on us, I burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Frank. He winked at me.”

  “So?”

  “So, you’ve ruined my reputation, Mitch. Less than a month ago I was a mysterious, unapproachable resident. All anyone knew of me was the little they read of me in the papers or magazines. They may have gossiped about me behind closed doors, but wink at me? No one would have dared. Now suddenly I am an ordinary person, carrying on a perfectly ordinary affair.” I laughed again and he still looked puzzled. “I’ll have to move.”

  The elevator doors opened and we walked down the hall. Mitch was still unamused by my predicament. “Why?” he asked, his expression petulant. “Because all of a sudden you have a personal life? It’s really nothing to be ashamed of, living like an ordinary person.”

  “But I have never been . . . oh, never mind, it is not important.” I opened the door of my room and he walked in ahead of me.

  “Besides,” he said, “I don’t really think that what you and I have could ever be called ordinary.” He took off his jacket and his gun holster and hung them over a chair, then turned around and smiled.

  I stood against the locked door and lazily began to unbutton my dress. “Mitch, you have never said anything truer in your life.”

  He watched until I reached the bottom button and dropped the dress on the floor. Then he crossed the room, his eyes intense and blazing, took me in his arms and switched off the light.

  He lay sleeping with his head pillowed on my breast, one hand lightly grazing my hip. I could not sleep, but had stayed perfectly still for what seemed hours so as not to disturb him. Eventually when he stirred and rolled over, I slipped out of bed and pulled aside the heavy drapes.

  The night curled in perfect darkness, the slivered moon and the stars were blotted out by thick clouds, rushing through the sky. Dawn was perhaps two or three hours away and I felt the night calling to me. For there, in the dark, I would find what I needed. I had drawn no blood, mine or his, when we made love, but the desire to feed had arisen strongly. To lie next to him now, with my hunger full and strong, would be a great mistake.

  I turned and looked at Mitch; his skin seemed to shine faintly in the darkness. Sighing, I quietly pulled my robe from the closet, put it on and gently closed the bedroom door. Once in the other room, I went to the small refrigerator under the bar, remembering an opened bottle of wine that would help alleviate, though not fully satisfy, my thirst. When I opened the door, I also saw what else I had stored there: the nine remaining bags of blood I had taken from Larry’s apartment.

  “Damn!” I reproached my carelessness. Mitch could have seen these, easily, had he decided he wanted a drink. Thank God he had not. Looking over my shoulder at the still closed bedroom door, I listened carefully. Mitch’s regular breathing reassured me. I stood the blood bags against the back wall, supporting and hiding them with the bottles inside, adding additional ones from the bar. I left the scotch in the front, should Mitch awaken and decide he would like to have a drink at some point in the evening. Hopefully, he wouldn’t ask me why I was now storing the liquor in the refrigerator.

  With my g
lass of wine poured, I sat down on the couch. With each sip I visualized the blood, remembered its taste and texture. My body trembled and I broke into a sweat, trapped where I sat. I could not go to the bedroom—my desire to feed was too strong now. And I could not risk using one of the bags for fear of Mitch discovering me. But, he was, after all, in a deep sleep, wasn’t he? And I was practiced in stealth and silence. I should be able to feed and return to the bed and he would never know. And yet, should he awake and find me, what then?

  My body made the decision for me. Getting up from the couch and opening the door, I dislodged one of the bags. The bottles clinked very faintly and I froze, but there was no accompanying noise from the bedroom, only Mitch’s rhythmic soft snoring.

  Knowing that I could not drink it cold, I went into the darkened bathroom and turned on the hot water. This might wake him, but it was such an ordinary noise, it would not seem unusual. I held the blood under the faucet and the water splashed out, soaking me to the skin. Swearing under my breath, I slid out of the wet robe and pushed it into the corner of the room. When the plastic of the bag became pliable and the liquid inside seemed the right temperature, I removed it from the sink, then realized that I had brought no scissors with which to cut it, and no glass from which to drink.

  I might have laughed but frustration had taken hold. I had to feed, I thought. I had to! The bag was awkward in my hands, but I held it to my mouth. The plastic was more resistant to my bite than human skin. But eventually I managed to puncture it, somewhat messily, then drank with ease.

  The taking of blood, even in this fashion, is a rapturous event; I become aware of nothing more than its nourishing flow, the heat of the liquid warming my throat, my stomach, my whole body. Except for sleep, it is probably the only other moment that one of my kind is defenseless and without protection from the outside world. There is only the blood and the drinking of the blood; nothing else, at that moment, exists.

  When the light flicked on and Mitch entered, I was at the peak of this experience. My eyes fastened on him, still glowing with the hunger and it took me more than a minute to recognize his presence, to realize what had happened. My naked body was exposed in the glaring light, tiny rivulets of blood trickled from my mouth, and elsewhere there were small splashes of blood from my clumsy attempts to puncture the bag.

  Mitch stared at me, his face white with shock. The half-empty bag dropped from my hands onto the white-tiled floor. Two small fountains spurted up from my fang marks, then settled down into a small spreading pool.

  “I see,” he said, his tone flat and emotionless. “Oh yes, I finally see.”

  He walked out and closed the door behind him. I stood motionless staring at myself in the mirror. Turning on the water again I scrubbed at my face frantically to wash away the traces of blood, then struggled into my wet robe. By the time I left the bathroom, Mitch was dressed and putting his shoulder holster back on. He did not look at me when he buttoned his jacket, nor when he crossed to the front door and kicked my discarded dress out of the way. I shivered for a moment and wrapped my arms around myself.

  “What,” I croaked, my voice scratchy and hoarse, “what will you do?”

  Mitch looked at me at that moment, and I wished he had not. Then without a single word, he opened the door and left.

  Chapter 19

  For the rest of the night I sat in the darkness, shivering in my wet robe. When I felt the rising of the sun, I threw off the garment and stood naked by the window, my hand on the curtains. How I longed at that moment to open them, to see for the first time in over a hundred years the colors of dawn. I remembered the other times I had been caught by the sun’s rays, the agony of burned flesh, the weeks of painful recovery. This time there would be no recovery, if I exposed myself I would not retreat, but allow the sun to burn away all traces of my life.

  My hands trembled as they reached for the cords, then jerked away. They moved forward again. “Coward,” I whispered. For I was afraid; not of my contemplated death, nor even the pain. That was the easy way out; that was the cowardice. No, I was frightened of where my life would lead.

  With a conscious effort I turned away from the window. I would see this through, I decided, and even though I could very well be dead at the end of this day, it would not be by my own hand. Mitch would return, I was certain, for answers or justice. Or both. And I knew that if his justice meant that I must die, I would let him kill me.

  Oddly enough, my mind was eased by this decision. I went to the bedroom and dressed in jeans and a shirt, nothing fancy or sexy to distract him from his purpose. I cleaned the blood from the bathroom floor; combed my hair and brushed my teeth, but applied no makeup. No need anymore to pretend to be human; no need to disguise myself. He would see me as I really was.

  Halfheartedly, I began to straighten up the room. I started to make the bed, and when I picked up the pillow on which he had slept, I held it to my face. The case smelled of him and I closed my eyes for a moment and remembered the love we had shared. Then I set the pillow back down and covered it up.

  When the phone rang, I was removing the liquor from the refrigerator. The sound shocked me and one of the bottles slipped from my hands and shattered on the floor. As I went to the phone, there was a pounding on the door. “So soon, Mitch?” I said softly, then picked up the phone.

  “Hold on a minute, please,” I said before the caller had a chance to say anything, walked across the room and unlocked the door. He was there, as I knew he would be, and I motioned him in.

  “Hello, Mitch, I was expecting you.”

  “I’ll bet you were.”

  “Look, I’ve got a phone call, I’ll be with you in a minute. Sit down.” From the tone of my voice, he could tell nothing of my excitement or my fear. It was as if he was paying a social call and my attitude caught him off guard. He went to the couch and sat down while I returned to the phone.

  “Yes?”

  “Miss Griffin?” It was the daytime doorman. “There’s someone on his way up to see you. I know you don’t usually have visitors, but Frank said that lately you’ve been seeing this guy and, well, I hope it’s okay.”

  “It’s fine,” I said calmly and I could hear his relieved sigh. “I was expecting him. Oh, and could you please send up some coffee and danish?”

  “Right away.”

  I hung up the phone and turned to Mitch. “I’ve ordered us some breakfast. Have you eaten yet?”

  “No.” He gave me a strange look. “Have you?”

  I shook my head. “Just coffee for me, of course. The danish is for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I have a mess behind the bar to clean up. Do you mind?”

  “No, go ahead. We can talk when the coffee gets here. I didn’t sleep real well last night and I could use the caffeine.” He ran his fingers through his hair in the gesture I had learned he used when tired or confused. I smiled at him for a moment then ducked behind the bar.

  “I hope you won’t want a drink anytime, Mitch. It was the scotch that fell.” I sopped up the liquor with a few paper towels and pushed the broken glass aside. When I stood up again, he was staring in my direction.

  “So, how did you sleep?”

  I laughed. “I don’t sleep much at night, Mitch. I thought you had figured that out by now.” There was a discreet knock at the door. “Coffee’s here,” I said and went to collect it. Setting the tray on the bar, I looked over at him. “Cream and sugar, right?” At his nod, I prepared a cup for him, poured one for me and settled down in a chair facing him. He took a sip of his coffee, and I jumped up. “Did you want a roll?” I asked and moved toward the bar to get him one.

  “Damn it, Deirdre, this is not a social call and you know it. Quit playing the hostess and sit down. We need to talk.”

  “Sorry.” I sat back down, cross-legged, and took a drink of my coffee. “Now I guess you can read me my rights and get on with it.”

  “What? Why would I do that?”

  “For th
e first three murders, I would guess. Even though I had nothing to do with them, I must be a prime suspect now that you know.”

  “I know nothing, except that you need help.”

  I looked at him in surprise. “Help? Why would I need help? Any help I received now would only be about a hundred years too late.”

  “Deirdre,” his voice was soft, reasonable, “I know that you think you’re a vampire. But there are doctors who specialize in this sort of sickness. You could take treatment and be cured of this obsession after a while.”

  “Obsession? Sickness?” I laughed. Even to me it sounded hollow and hysterical. “You know that I only think myself a vampire? Oh, Mitch, that’s priceless! After last night, after everything you’ve discovered about me, you still won’t believe.”

  “How could I believe it? I’ve spent time with you, made love to you. Damn it, even after last night, I’m still in love with you. But you’re human, you’re real; I can touch you, see your reflection in a mirror. Just because you’re disturbed, and believe in legends and folklore, doesn’t mean that I have to.”

  Suddenly I was angry at his lack of belief. “Ever the skeptic, aren’t you, Detective? What if I could offer you proof?”

  “And what sort of proof would that be? Can you change into a bat or a wolf? Dissolve into a mist? Crawl down a wall?”

  “No, but I can give you proof even you cannot doubt.” I got up from my seat and knelt in front of him. Taking his face in my hands, I looked into his eyes and kissed him slowly and passionately.

  He did not pull away from me, instead he held me for a moment. “What was that for?” he asked, almost smiling.

  “Because you won’t want anything to do with me in a few minutes. And because I love you.” I gave his cheek a final caress and stood up. “Now stay there and pay attention.”

  He folded his arms with a smug expression and watched me. I looked around the room and saw the broken glass by the bar. I picked a piece of it up; it was long and jagged and glinted in the light. He looked alarmed and reached for his gun.