I dismissed the request as I had many others. Rather than contacting the author directly, I’d ignored her altogether, figuring my silence would be answer enough. Unfortunately, it wasn’t and I received several additional emails requesting a conversation or some pictures. She was relentless and annoying.
Over my long, long life, I’d come to the conclusion that Americans, as a general rule, were a pushy lot. They knew what they wanted and did everything within their power to get it. There was a time and a place for that approach, of course, but this wasn’t it. Eventually I forgot about her and focused my time and energy on getting acquiring another biotech company.
Chapter Twelve
William
One month earlier
I wasn’t sure if it was that my true, vampiric nature could no longer be denied, or if my humanity had finally made way for the monster within, but I’d spent the night before yearning for the thrill of the hunt and the ecstasy of the kill and now I sat in my library, whiskey in hand, contemplating all the reasons I shouldn’t entertain this overwhelming urge to kill. I told myself doing so would scratch away the last remaining shreds of compassion and empathy I carried within, and how, more importantly, if I were to give in to these base desires, I’d be forever turning my back on my more civilized self. Ultimately, none of the arguments I made against my innate barbarism were enough to stop me. As I’d learned many decades before, there was simply no way to rationalize my behavior when I was in the midst of a blood fever. The only thing I could do to justify my actions was to feast on someone who deserved to die but who hadn’t yet met with justice. The idea of acting as judge, jury, and executioner wasn’t entirely unwelcome.
I drove like a man possessed, making it to Dublin in record time. Because I couldn’t die by conventional means, the rules of the road meant little to me. Arriving in the city in a cloud of mist and fog, I drove my Audi to an area of town where I could easily find someone far too intoxicated to conceal his innermost thoughts. Being a telepath, it wasn’t hard for me to locate the scumbags and degenerates who thought their need for sex trumped a woman’s right to say no. I planned to find a pub and then lay in wait for one of them to make his move. Only then would I strike, making the miscreant beg for the mercy he would have refused to show his victim. And then, only once I’d shown him what true and utter terror felt like, would I drain his body of its useless life.
I didn’t know if my certainty stemmed from the hundreds of years I’d been reading minds, or because I’d spent the majority of that time watching how humans interacted with each another and I’d learned their cues, but I could always pinpoint in a room full of people who would be the predator and who would be the prey.
When the bars closed for the night, my wait was finally over. I watched a man, likely just out of university, stealthily maneuver a shy girl out the door, his intent clear to anyone with a pair of working eyes. I moved quicker than anyone could see and followed them down the alley, neither knowing I lurked in the shadows. I detected a trace of Rohypnol coursing through the girl’s bloodstream, which explained the dazed look in her eyes. A few seconds passed and then Aidan, the young man, began filling her muddled head with flattering tales of instant attraction. In the girl’s drugged and inebriated state, she didn’t fully comprehended the words he spoke. Tentatively, she kissed him back and told him he was the most handsome man she’d ever met. I wondered if this was the first time he’d pulled this trick. To the random passerby, it would appear as if they were drunk on booze and each other.
At least this one took the time to charm his victim instead of merely assaulting her at his first opportunity, I thought. Sadly, I’d seen far too much of both in the last decade. Humans were out of control and it didn’t appear, as a species, they would find their way back anytime soon.
As Aidan kissed his way down Jessica’s neck to reach her exposed, heaving chest, I heard her sharp and staccato intake of breath. The lust emanating from her was palpable to my preternatural senses and as the seconds ticked by, I began to smell her arousal. I was so busy focusing on the drugged girl that I nearly missed Aidan’s next thoughts.
This is far too easy. I’d hoped she’d put up a fight. If she’s going to fuck me willingly, I’ll have to inflict a little pain and humiliation to make it worth my while.
He pushed harder against Jessica so that her back rubbed forcefully against the brick wall with no room to get away. Still not understanding the danger she was in, when Aidan reached under her skirt and cupped her most private parts, she moaned with pleasure. He pressed his forearm against her throat and kissed her brazenly before biting her lip and drawing blood. This time she gasped in pain, and her drugged eyes flashed as her mind fought to comprehend what was actually happening to her.
With her hair wrapped around his fist for leverage, he shoved Jessica onto her knees. Pulling a switchblade from his pocket, he flicked it open and held it in front of her terrified eyes.
“Suck it bitch,” he demanded, his threat clear.
Jessica begged him not to hurt her but every time she whimpered it just excited him more. He held her head against his groin while he forced himself in and out of her stretched mouth. Saliva and bile dribbled over her chin as she gagged around him. But even as tears coursed down her cheeks, I didn’t intervene. Why would I? Truth be told, I didn’t really care what became of the girl—she was nothing to me.
Aidan panted like a dog, beads of sweat glistening on his brow as he neared his climax, and I moved in for the kill. It took him more than a moment to realize he had company. Seeing me emerge from the shadows, he flung Jessica into the wall as he turned to face me. The copper scent of her blood reached my nose and I realized he’d cut her. My eyes finding her slumped in a heap, I watched as a large gash across her neck let loose a steady stream of liquid gold. Such a waste.
I clasped my hand on his shoulder and squeezed until the bones give way under my grip. Aidan screamed in agony and tried to fight me off as I exerted even more pressure, dropping him to his knees. He clawed at my grip but there was no way this middling boy could fight me off. I stepped into a puddle of light so he could see my face, wanting him to know what had come for him, what he’d wrought. I was death made real, the eerie paleness of my skin more pronounced when I was hungry and at the brink of frenzy, my lethal fangs extended past my lips, my eyes anything but human. I watched as comprehension dawned in his eyes and he began pleading for his life.
“No, please don’t do this. No. No.”
Brutally, I pulled Aidan to me and sank my fangs into his neck, ripping into his artery. As the warm, viscous liquid made its way down my throat, everything I needed to know about my prey—who he’d been, the life he’d led—was made known. Jessica wasn’t the first girl he’d done this to, nor would she have been his last. She wasn’t even the first woman he’d sliced up. I could do nothing for any of them, save this. I could be their angel of death.
When I’d drained him dry, I threw his body into the garbage bin and approached Jessica. Her body bloodied from the knife wound, she was barely conscious. Huddled against the wall to make herself appear as small and inconspicuous as possible, she stared at me with vacant eyes. I hadn’t meant for this to happen to her, but there was no going back. I listened as shock invaded her system and her heart faltered. She would die if I left her here. Such a pity, and such a waste of precious resources, but it didn’t have to be. While Aidan’s blood had satisfied my need for annihilation, I was thirsty for more.
“Shh, it’s going to be okay now. He won’t hurt you anymore,” I whispered to Jessica as I crouched in front of her. “It’s all over now.”
I willed her to let go of her fear and to trust and believe in me. As I hypnotized her with my gaze and softly spoken words of comfort, she began to relax, to forget what had happened in this dark alley she never should have been in.
“Focus on me Jessica,” I commanded as her eyes went hazy. “I’m going to make you feel better now,” I said, nuzzling my lips
into her neck.
She welcomed me with a sigh of release. “You’re so warm,” she whispered, “And I’m so cold.”
The truth was we were nearly the same temperature. She was cold because the loss of blood was pulling her under. I could leave her here to bleed out. Listening to her body’s internal systems, I figured she had maybe another half hour of life left in her. Even if I did leave and someone found her, there was nothing modern medicine could do to save her. She was already as good as dead so in a flash, I chose to hasten her departure from this mortal coil.
When finished, I rearranged her clothes and propped her body against the wall. Erasing the puncture marks on her neck with a swipe of my bloodied thumb, I walked out of the alley. When I was twenty minutes outside of Dublin, I called 999 to report the body. She deserved a proper burial.
Chapter Thirteen
William
One week earlier
I was moody and brooding and my actions in that alley brought to mind the first murder I’d committed. Remembering my lovely, spirited, warm-hearted wife was more painful now than ever before. Recalling everything I had loved about her brought such sorrow and pain, especially when I considered what could have been had I not acted on my savagery. I tried to block out my thoughts, but I was useless against the force of them.
The morning before I’d been made, Ceara and I had joyously made love on the bank of the lough hoping it would result in the child we’d so desperately wanted. Later that evening I was to meet with some other men from the village to discuss our strategy for protecting our lands and families from a coming assault we’d heard whispers of.
I never made it to the gathering. Instead, I’d been caught unaware, pulled from my horse only ten minutes outside my lands. My assailant’s approach was stealthy; I’d been given no warning and during the attack, the fiend offered no reason or explanation. Despite my attempt to fight, I’d been ripped from my horse and tossed to the ground as if I weighed nothing. Tearing my clothing from my struggling body, my attacker sank jagged fangs into me repeatedly, sending searing, venomous pain shooting into my neck, wrists, the inside of my arm, then my groin, and down to my ankles and feet. It was only several years later that I realized I’d been bitten in all the parts of my body connected to major and minor arterial veins.
As the poison had spread through my body, the pain went beyond excruciating and as I laid in agony, the only thing that had made it bearable was the knowledge that I still lived and might get to see Ceara’s beautiful smile once again. Everything, I had chanted in my head, would be okay then.
In the midst of those thoughts, I’d felt a warm, thick liquid trickle into my mouth from above. Suddenly parched, the spicy, viscid fluid had been the only thing that could quench my thirst. Later, as the change had taken hold, my thoughts of Ceara went from loving and tender to obsessive and hungry. Her lingering scent on my skin had become torture, the pink of her cheeks an invitation to feast. I’d gone from longing to return to the warmth of her embrace to needing to taste her. I’d pictured what it would feel like to drain her, to take her beauty and vitality into to my body as she died in my arms. I’d felt the venom pool in my mouth as I pictured it, envisioned her struggling to escape my demonic clutches as she screamed and sobbed my name. It had excited and repulsed me. I’d grown rigid thinking of the physical struggle—after all, my beautiful girl would never have given up without a fight—and how ultimately I would prove the victor. How I’d finally conquer her intense spirit, finally make her mine, both body and soul.
I’d heard the legends of men who drained their victims of their blood—we all had during those times—but I’d never given them much credence. That’s when I knew I’d become one of those creatures of the night. In my unbeating heart, I’d acknowledged that I thirsted with a hunger so intense it had driven me to madness, and the only thing that could have sated that driving need was Ceara. Equal parts aroused and sickened I’d come imagining how it would be.
The night following my transformation, I’d stalked the castle for hours, staring at candlelight flickering behind stained glass windows. With the last vestiges of my mortal conscience, I’d wanted Ceara to stay inside, safe from the creature I’d become, and yet my vampiric nature had demanded her blood in supplication. My fractured mind warred with itself: I willed Ceara not to look for me, while at the same time hoping she’d sense my presence and come out to meet me. Only then would I be able to put that terrible, aching thirst to rest. Human or monster, I’d always had to have her.
For hours I had fought with my subconscious. Even though it had been to concentrate beyond my thirst, I’d considered trying to do to Ceara what had been done to me. If she were to become a vampire we could stay together forever, drinking our fill of the world side by side. But the ugly truth was I hadn’t known the first thing about how to accomplish it, aside from the bites.
As I’d stood there, I heard my sire’s voice in my head explain all the reasons why my plan could never be.
She’d resent you forever. You’d take from her the ability to love and live as a normal human woman. If you do this thing you are considering, you’d steal her chance to bear children, the thing she wants most in the world.
Perhaps it had been my fragility or naiveté about what had happened to me, but I hadn’t understood the fiend’s motives. Only later had I realized my maker had wanted me for himself, for my attentions not to be divided. Taking him at his word, I’d vowed to cease my stalking and leave the area. I would push away my obsession and devote my nights to learning all there was about what I had become. I’d departed the castle that night starving for blood, the ache in my gums as intense as a flame on bare skin.
Despite my conscious desire not to, the next night I’d returned to stand in the shadows outside the keep, hoping Ceara wouldn’t sense my presence. That’s what I’d told myself at any rate. In truth, I had fervently hoped she would come to me so that my torture would end. I’d decided this had to stop one way or the other. There had been no further question in my mind about leaving Ceara alone. My only choices were to either try to make her a vampire or feast on her like nothing more than a bloody piece of meat.
After several nights of my stalking, the hunger had only grown worse. During my waking hours I’d come to the conclusion that nothing less than Ceara’s blood would suffice. I’d arrived at the castle to find Ceara standing atop the parapet, looking out over a landscape swathed in the blackness of night. The moment she’d seen me staring up at her, she’d run inside, down the stairs, and out into the field calling my name.
My first instinct, a remnant of my human self, was to rush to her side and cradle her in my arms. Almost immediately another, darker part of me remembered I was no longer human and with that realization came the uncontrollable, animalistic urge to devour her. Time seemed to stand still as I made my way into the moonlit meadow, my resolve weakening as Ceara’s scent wafted over me. I’d felt the venom pool in my mouth in anticipation, but squelched it as best I could, reminding myself that the woman before me was Ceara—my Ceara—not some animal who’d come to be slaughtered.
As she’d approached, I sensed she saw—knew—there was something different about me. The faint white glow of my preternatural skin and the new grace with which I moved told her all was not right. I hadn’t needed my telepathic ability to know she’d been terrified. It had been written in the pallor of her skin, the tightening of her eyes, the sawing of her breaths.
“Liam, what have you done? What have you become?” she’d asked in a small, fragile voice, scared to express her fears too loudly.
“What do you think you see, my love?” I’d responded, barely able to hold back my monster.
“You don’t look well. Are you sick?” she’d asked, wanting to believe I’d come down with some infection and not the true malady from which I suffered.
Perhaps if I could have kept her from coming too close, if only I could have persuaded her to keep her distance, I might have been able to sa
y goodbye to my dearest wife. In all the long years of my life, I’d often wondered if I would have been capable of stepping back into the shadows … if only she hadn’t thrown herself into my arms. At first I’d been able to resist her, but then she planted sweet little kisses all over my face as she’d cried tears of sorrow and joy.
“I don’t care what you are Liam. All I care about is that you’re here with me now,” she’d whispered to we’d stood together.
I’d known she’d believed those words and for the briefest of moments I’d thought I could do it. But then the air had shifted and her scent flooded my brain, and her heartbeat had become the primal music of a thousand drums. It had been too much for me to endure.
I’d kissed her goodbye then—fiercely—before sinking my fangs into the column of her long, slender throat, taking my lover, my wife, into me for all eternity. When it had been over, when my winsome Ceara lay dead in my arms, I’d screamed out a guttural, primordial sound that rivaled even the wildest beast’s anguish.
Chapter Fourteen
William
Today
I turned my attention to the long list of unanswered emails that had accumulated in my inbox while I’d been pouring over a business proposal for a wind turbine farm off the coast of Portugal. Finding among them another note from the American, I groaned aloud. When my ignoring her hadn’t seemed to work, I’d meant to ask Seamus to put an end to it once and for all. Clearly I’d forgotten.
Resurrection_Part One of the Macauley Vampire Trilogy Page 8