by JN Moon
I arrived at a bar, and things grew more heated. The deep pounding of the music coupled with the mass of hot mortal bodies, sweaty and bursting made Marcus look like he was ready for dinner.
His face lit up and he beamed a smile. We spotted a lot of other vampires in there, mixing easily with the humans, laughing, touching, thrashing around to the heavy music. It felt like my lucky night. I watched as Marcus made his way to the bar and I decided to hang back, knowing that as a vampire it wouldn’t be long before they came to me. The mortal males, so young, offered to buy me a drink. Of course I obliged and whilst one of them went off to the bar his friend asked me questions. I had to listen but in my mind I thought, I could turn him and take him with me for eternity.
Marcus boisterously made his way through the crowd, smiling and carrying his drink and a drink for me which he instinctively put on a table next to me knowing I could never touch it. I introduced the man I was talking to, his face betrayed his feelings of inadequacy against Marcus. I told him Marcus was my cousin. Ah, relief for him.
Then Marcus wandered off to mix with the other immortals, some of whom were watching us, while the others wildly threw themselves around in the crowd to the fast pounding beats. They were working themselves into a frenzy and watching them made me feel untamed. I forgot my troubles with temptation surrounding me. Anthony was with Nathaniel. Life was never going to be as it was before. We had slept in the dark crypt together for three months after the war with Tyrell, in hiding. Now I had to move on.
Impulsively I grabbed at the man—I didn’t hear his name—and kissed him. His lips were soft and warm against my cold lips. As I pulled him into me, I felt a pity then. He couldn’t fight back or resist. Was it fair? I couldn’t help myself though, he was vital, full of life and passion. I was angry and empty and needed a fix. But he held no evil intent and guilt. I couldn’t harm one so innocent, could I?
A vampire approached us and pulled us apart, smiling.
“I’m Damien. You’re Rachel? You should leave him alone; he’s always here. He knows what you are and he’s as addicted to your blood as you are to his. Wouldn’t you rather be with an equal?” He winked, still smiling, which made me laugh. Before I could answer Damien pulled me gently into his arms, his cool body next to mine.
I sighed. “Yes, I want an equal.” Damien was really tall, his black hair fell over half of his face, and he dressed like someone from two decades ago. Leather, black and erotic. His white skin clashed beautifully with his hair, but his kiss, slow and meandering, sent a shudder of expectation through me. He kissed like a gentleman and I could stay there, locked with him forever. I forgot everything. We were like two teenagers kissing and stopping only to look into each other’s eyes.
“You should come with me,” he breathed at last.
“Why should I do that?”
“You know why. You’re nephilim friend, you need to get away from him. He spells death to you, and your lover, everyone knows about him having her blood in him and his bond with Nathaniel. Come with me, we could leave this place. I don’t live far.”
It was tempting, I wanted him and he was one hundred percent right about Anthony. Before I could say more Marcus came over looking concerned with a girl clinging to his arm, but he acted as if he didn’t notice. “Rachel! You’re leaving, so soon?” Looking at Damien who avoided eye contact he continued, “I understand, I know. We can meet up later, just shout.”
So I left with Damien, his presence was soothing to my soul. As we walked through the busy streets, his flat was right in the centre over-looking a small park.
In his flat, everything was black, various animal skulls adorned the walls and large dark paintings of emotional torment . The only lighting, red and blue low lights and the sweet musky incense produced thick wisps of smoke. Sublime Gothic music played softly, so fitting with the few candles flickering. He’d set his scene, an art of seduction he’d practised for how long? The atmosphere was enticingly Byronic. Taking off his jacket, he welcomed me to his huge sofa as he sat there.
He was so alluring, I was completely drawn to him but I wanted to get to know this man first. So I sat at the other end of the sofa.
“Your place is very...retro. And dark...”
He laughed. “Yes, I guess it is. I hadn’t noticed really. God, I’ve only lived here just over ten years. To think, I could have the same decor for a century and never notice! What an awful thought...” he chuckled.
“It’s good to meet another with the same problems, you’re right. Eternity seems incomprehensible and daunting. And full of problems I’d never have imagined.” I got up and looked across the square. “I could stand here in a hundred years, in two hundred years and the buildings, the green would look the same way they did when they were built three hundred years ago, but the people would look and dress differently. Life would be different, but we would remain the same. That’s depressing.” My existential crisis was not over yet.
“I am truly sorry,” Damien said, getting up and walking over. “It’s these walls, isn’t it? The dark foreboding eighties Goth look? I promise, I’ll paint them white tomorrow and it can look twenty-first century!”
His grin and raised eyebrows made me smile. I knew he was trying to lighten the mood, and in a way, yes, I’d have to keep up if I wanted to survive. But that was kind of the point. I didn’t want to survive, I wanted to live. To know that you will die, it somehow puts more urgency on life, you only have a finite time. You work to fulfil your dreams, but to live forever, endlessly craving the blood of humans, that incredible high, that alone feels like existence. Not living.
He moved tentatively closer, and gently put his arms around me as we gazed out of the window.
“I haven’t been like this for a century, but it would be something to stand here in a hundred years with you,” he whispered.
Looking up at his face, into his eyes I held him tighter. His lips touched mine, so delicately, but I knew I had to close one door before opening another.
“I have to go, but I will be back,” he dropped his arms, neither of us said anything and I made my way home to finish that chapter of my life.
Firedrake
Marcus
As Rachel went with Damien, I was left for the first time to explore this city with other vampires.
Their behaviour was bold compared with my friends. We headed towards the other side of the city and piled into a night club, it was heaving with mortals. Neon lights flashed, music thumping and bodies packed tightly, dancing, sweaty in the tiny club.
Torin, the vampire male who’d invited me squeezed his way through the people, reaching the other side I saw him staring at a woman- a human who subserviently got up from her chair and walked over to him- almost in a trance.
Pushing her against the wall, he turned his back on the crowd as he bent over her neck, her eyes flickered and her face stupefied. Sweat broke over me as I watched, he being so brazen in public.
Looking for the others I’d come in with, they, too, were involved with women, pushed their victims against the sticky black walls and drank from their victims. No mortal seemed to notice, as I scanned the room I noticed a man watching me, as my eyes met his he glanced away and moved fast across the club. He wasn’t human, he was a shifter, a lycan or some kind.
He darted out the door so quickly even I had a job to catch up to him, pushing my way through the crowd, human hands grabbed and groped at me, I was taken aback.
Outside I couldn’t see him, but I picked up his scent, for a few seconds my legs swayed as my body buzzed with sensations from those women’s touches. My body wanted to go back in but my mind was more intrigued with the creature that had bolted out.
There was something different about the way he moved. I’d come across lycans many times and the way they moved, walked, or ran was certainly more animalistic, seeming to use the whole of their body, their torsos almost lunging forwards unlike humans or vampires whose movement is mainly in the legs. But this one was un
usual.
Running away from the club, I spied him in the distance, as he ran he not only lunged slightly forward with his body, his legs and feet sprung from the floor with each step, his arms and shoulders automatically bobbing back and forth with his legs. I wondered if he would take off at any moment. Keeping my distance, I didn’t want him to know I was following him. He ran up through the outskirts of the city and into the park, stopping abruptly to catch his breath.
Shadows from the trees emerged, their smell filling my senses, earthy and musky. I knew what these creatures were by their scent alone. Lycans. Powerful, wild, and almost impossible to kill, especially in a pack.
Instinctively I gulped and stayed completely still, trying my hardest to quiet my breathing. Moving only my eyes, I hoped they wouldn’t smell me. But I could fly off, if I was fast enough.
The man collapsed to his knees, his hands reaching to the ground to stop himself falling flat upon the ground as one of the lycans strode forward, his limbs moving like clouds, fast and soft.
“Luke? What happened?” The huge man whispered. Others edged a little further from the tree line, all in their human form. They were right to stay out of the city, God only knew if my blood-filled kin drank from them, what would happen.
But this Luke couldn’t speak, gasping he clawed at the earth beneath him, the alpha man stretching out his arms to back the others off, stepping back from Luke.
A sound of cracking as Luke yelled out, his head bent forward, face crimson with rage and pain and that chilling sound of snapping bones. Groaning in agony, his knuckles white with pain I watched as his shirt burst open on his back, revealing sharp curved ridges bursting slowly through his skin, blood oozing around them. Gripping the tree, my vision blurred as I clung tighter, swooning in shock- I had never seen a transformation in all my years. Pain in my fingers, raw and deep as I realised I was grabbing at the bark with all my strength, my body tense like an over-wound toy. Slowly I released my breath, feeling my heart slow a little as I spied this creature undergoing his shift.
The alpha spoke softly to this Luke, but he couldn’t hear anything I guessed. Wails of agony, searing pain as his flesh ripped, torn, a reptilian creature emerging. His face split, more blood seeped out and my senses sent me into a torment of craving.
A tail emerged, bursting, ripping through the end of his back, and in the next few seconds everything sped up, hands, limbs, torn and stretched. In front of me was a dragon.
My legs straining, fighting my urge to watch as my instinct was driving me to run, it took all my wits to contain myself, my wings, my body from flight. That wouldn’t save me now This dragon, long, twisted, snake like, its scales the size of my hands and its reptile eyes, its snout lifted, nostrils sniffing as he stretched out his massive leathery wings. A gust of wind blew past me from the beating of its mighty wings. Holy shit, I didn’t even know such creatures existed. And this one only a few feet away from me could eat me like a light snack, and had joined with lycans. Peering, I saw the alpha man had no fear of this dragon, the creature glancing at him, then its great head faced forward away from him as it bellowed out fire, scorching the grass in front of it.
It shook its smoky head, looked at the alpha who nodded slightly, and swiftly started running, then took off with a speed that was shocking compared to his size. I fell behind the tree, allowing my tensed muscles to collapse and I slouched on the ground against the tree, sweat pouring from my forehead. I could hear him circling above, Luke, flying too high to be spotted by my kin or any other paranormal. I needed to speak to him, to these shifters. They could help stop the atrocity of demons and wraiths. But right now, I had had enough.
Burning
Rachel
Anthony waited for me upstairs, laying on the bed, presuming. It was now or never. My stomach turned, and heart flipped. I loved him but he was bad for me. Before he could speak, I did...
“You know I always thought we’d be together forever. After you were bitten, I knew something chilling had happened to you, I knew you were infected. And you were. Not just with vampire blood, but with lies. And I know I slept with Nathaniel way back, but he was, he is my maker and my will was under his influence. You had no such excuse and I now realize that I can never trust you. I love you, but I won't trust you.
“But you, you never really came back to me. I hoped with all my heart back in that crypt, that we could start again. But you were never really with me, not then, not before, and definitely not now. And now you’re seeing Nathaniel and you think that I didn’t know that. I am numb now, I’m done. You and the nephilim need to leave. I don’t want to talk about it, and I’m not arguing about it. I need time alone.”
His face dropped, and it took all my strength not to back down. His eyes teared and his body slumped down on the bed. He was dumbstruck. I know it was a shock to him, but I couldn’t stay with him knowing he would always, in the end, put Nathaniel before me. I wondered then if Nathaniel had known this all along. By becoming my maker and saving Anthony, he had beholden both of us to him. My mouth was dry and my stomach felt empty and sick as the pain of letting him go overwhelmed me. But I had to.
“I admit I was with Nathaniel,” Anthony blurted out, pale with shock.
“He’s very clever. When Alexander took you, Nathaniel had some of his genes from the infection- his bacterial strain of this disease, injected into you. We are bound by blood, but by the infected organism, more so. He could’ve just given you his blood. Now you are part of him like no-other except like me, who he turned. He has ensured that everyone is dependent upon him. And don’t worry, I know you won’t agree with me, after all I am not him. But you and he can have a lifetime debating that. I know you were with him. I don’t want to be with you any longer. If you had chosen me over him...but you never will. The saddest thing is, I could do the same, I have more connection with him, but I chose to be stronger and break that. You didn’t, you won’t. You chose him. Just leave.”
With that, I grabbed up some of his clothes and handed them to him. Anger was ready to burst out of me, but I held on.
He just sat there, mute with his mouth open. I had to turn away. I couldn’t face a life time of this, of being second best to my lover. No one needs that.
“Rachel, I know I’ve been scattered. I am sorry, truly. I am not ready to throw us away, please.”
“I can’t do this. If you were sincere you would’ve told me about Nathaniel. You didn’t, you kept that a secret and so I have to wonder, what else aren’t you telling me? No, don’t answer that, I don’t want to know. It’s finished, enough already. Just go now. I’m going out, be gone by the time I get back.”
I grabbed my coat and left.
Void
Anthony
As I walked downstairs and into her living room, Marcus answered the question that burned in my mind and my stomach, “No, I haven’t slept with her.” He said it so casually as his massive form slouched on the tiny couch. He didn’t even look up from his book.
“Has she met someone else?” I was shocked as this thought came into my head and tumbled straight out of my mouth. A moment ago I hadn’t even conceived of the idea.
“Why do you want to know? You know she’s right, I know she’s right.”
Striding over I grabbed that bloody book from his hands and flung it across the room. “Let me enlighten you, divine one! You’re in my place. If you were not still here, I wouldn’t have had to leave to get some peace. You’ve become a burden, why don’t you let me drink you dry now and rid you of your self-inflicted suffering?”
I smirked as I saw the affect my words on his face as his jaw dropped.
“After all, let me remind you that it was you that brought this upon yourself! You said you drank the blood of a vampire because you were bored! I never had a choice, I was attacked by vicious blood suckers, whilst you wallow around reading. Your sense of entitlement sickens me. You expect everyone else to clean up your mistake. We helped you, remember? And you promised
not to stay long and yet...you’re still here,” I yelled.
Marcus, the epitome of kindness watched me as I vented my anger, throwing my mistakes onto him. Don’t get me wrong, I meant some of it, but really I knew I had brought this on myself. And I didn’t want to admit it. I was being asked to leave, and he wasn’t. That made me sick.
After a few moments of silence, he walked over to me. My head was bowed in shame and I covered my eyes to hide the tears. Putting a hand on my shoulder, he spoke quietly.
“That dark power changes most, if not all. Thoughts that have laid hidden rise to the surface and once released cannot be pushed away. I think probably you are not the settling down type. You are more like Nathaniel than you care to imagine. He loved once, a long time ago. But after his lover died he was never the same. After you were turned you raged out of control, and in that time something awakened in you, something that will not lie dormant. So you separate. Eternity is a long time. Maybe in the future...who knows? C’mon, we don’t have much stuff here. I’ll sort out getting a place or staying with Acacius. I know you, Anthony, better than yourself.”
Reluctantly, I gathered my clothes and few belongings. I also carefully guarded my thoughts. Nathaniel though...I never knew.
Marcus gathered up his few possessions and without another word we walked slowly across the city to my flat. Nausea gripped my stomach and I felt hollow thinking that I would spend eternity alone. Being with her before I was turned was comforting, almost like we had shared a past life together and I had a companion to be with in this new existence. All who I met now, I would never have that bond with. I really would be cutting myself away from my past human life.
“Anthony, calm your thoughts, this is just one instance of pain. If you’re going to live for eternity, you’ll need to toughen up. Trust me, I’ve lived centuries, and friends come and some go. Who knows, in a few decades or a century you two could be together again, stronger than ever. I know right now that doesn’t seem a comfort, but for immortals time passes quickly. And maybe then you’ll have both found yourselves. You’re too young a vampire to comprehend this now.”