Blood Reaction A Vampire Novel (26 page)

Asa had turned his attention back to the man and was drinking again. The human was draped backwards over Asa’s legs as he knelt on the floor of the forest. Asa’s mouth was at his neck, the young man’s arms thrown back above his head. It might have appeared quite intimate if a stranger had passed by, but it was pure deceit.

I struggled to remember this was a person. A person that I couldn’t protect, but a person just the same. Probably someone I had seen once around town. A friend of a friend. A person with family, friends, and hobbies. A family would be searching for him tomorrow. He deserved better than this and I tried to focus on his mother, who like me with my child, probably remembered his birth as the greatest day of her life.

But I wanted his blood. I craved it with a growing intensity. My right foot moved forward in my first step towards giving in to my cravings. My left foot followed and before I knew it, I had taken a couple of steps to what I wanted so badly.

Managing to stop, I resolved that I wouldn’t do this. I needed blood. I wanted it. But not like this. I wouldn’t be part of this.

Leaning over at the waist, I grasped the backs of my legs and willed myself to stay where I was. To not take another step into the hell that Asa lived every day, knowing in my heart I might never come back if I stepped off into that darkness.

I held on as tightly as I could, both internally and externally, in the hope that I could keep myself rooted to the spot where I stood until this was over. It would take every shred of resolve and willpower that I had developed in my thirty years of life to fight off my desire.

Not looking up, I forced myself to focus on the details of the ground beneath me. Staring intently at the smallest of pebbles and the minute cracks in the yellowed leaves, it was all I could do to not lift my eyes to watch Asa drink what I knew must be the richest blood I would ever smell.

“Momma.”

That one word, the cry of a desperate man, jerked my head up. The human was incoherent now and like most of the dying, he craved his mother. And with that one word, he brought me back to my senses.

I could feel the hate build up to a new level inside me. Rage at everything he had done to me, to my family, and to this man boiled inside of me. “Stop,” I screamed at him. My fists were still balled up at my side. My voice was inhumanly loud and it reverberated among the trees causing Asa to pause in his drink. Taking one last swallow, he tilted his head back slightly, running his arm across his mouth. Turning to look at me, I could see the rage and the questions in his eyes as well.

Finally, after what felt like hours but in reality was probably less than a minute, I heard the human’s body slip from Asa’s arms to land very quietly on the ground beside him.

Turning away from the dying man and towards me, the vampire took a deep breath and released it slowly into the cold February night. It looked like a cloud of smoke as it slowly dissipated on the cold night breeze. Proof of another kill.

The man’s blood had warmed him up enough that it gave him the appearance of breathing. But it was an illusion. He was dead and I’m not talking physically. Spiritually and emotionally, he was dead.

But did I have any right to stand in judgment over him? I, who had stood by for so long before saying anything, without even trying to save him. I probably would have lost, but I should have made an effort. Was his life not worth the same as mine or Ellie’s? It was a regret I would live with for the rest of my life or die with tonight.

The human still lived but barely. He was dying. I could hear his heart attempting to circulate the small amount of blood he had left, his heart beginning to fail and infarct from the lack of flow. Red tears, one at a time, began to run down my face and I looked down so Asa wouldn’t see them and know what I was.

“I prefer to let them run for a while when the situation allows before I feed. It gets their blood warmer, but you have to be careful. If they run too hard or too fast, it ruins the flavor. It is important to pace them individually, they are all so different. Human men can go farther and longer, but women tend to taste better to me. I suppose every vampire is different.” He stopped now. I guess he was waiting for me to say something.

Not knowing what to say, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Lactic acid. That’s probably what ruins the flavor. It builds up while they are running.”

We stood there in silence and I could feel his eyes on me and I wondered what he was thinking.

“There is something different about you, Annalice. Have you finally had enough?” Asa was looking at me strangely now. “Yes, I think you are done for. Your heart is giving out. You are running out of time, my dear.” He had that look on his face again, that sarcastic smile, cold and unfeeling.

“I've seen enough, Asa. I’m done here and I’m going home. Let’s leave this man here. His family can find him and maybe save him. But I won’t stand here while you kill him.” Keeping my head down while I talked, I took a few moments to wipe the blood-tinged tears away before I looked up at him.

“I agree, Annalice. You have seen too much, but I do not see the point in going back to the house.”

Jerking my head up sharply at his words, a cold chill ran through me and I realized my moment of reckoning had come.

“I have decided I really do not desire a companion, Annalice. Although you made it farther than I would have ever expected. So you can take some pride in the strength of mind to have made it this far. Do not worry. You have nothing to be afraid of. It will be very quick and I will even allow you the dignity of a true burial if that is want you want, of course. I can take your body back to your home so your family can find it, or I can bury you here. Whichever you prefer. And more importantly for you, your daughter will live.”

He thought he was being gallant and I should be happy that he thought so highly of me. “I think I’d rather my family find me. It’ll give them some closure.” But I had no plans on going peacefully, despite my calm words.

“Always thinking of your family. That is very noble of you. It is interesting actually how you view your daughter. Arrogant in the extreme really. You actually thought I would stick around here for her to return home just so I could kill her. Like I would waste my time. Humans are a dime a dozen, I can take my pick of whom to kill. I certainly would not wait around for the life of an inconsequential human girl,” he concluded, laughing at me, mocking my love for Ellie. “But it served its purpose; you did as I told you. If there had been any evidence that you had called the police that first day or even if you had just simply disappeared, I would never have considered following you. No one would have believed your stories of vampires, but I avoid controversy whenever possible. It is not worth the risk with so many other humans at my disposal.”

At his words, I began to see red again. Crimson overtook my visual field as the rage traced its way through my veins again, only now more strongly. My fingernails pushed farther forward from their nail beds and my fangs, that had partially receded once I had become accustomed to the blood scent, pushed out of my gums once again.

“You talk too much,” I noted as I launched myself at him, reaching up underneath my coat and pulling out the stake I had concealed there.

Not expecting my attack or my conversion, he was unprepared for the suddenness of my movements. Where I had been standing a good fifteen feet from him, I now flew through the air, knocking him backwards in less than a second.

With exact precision, I aimed for his xiphoid process at the tip of his sternum. Directing the stake towards his left shoulder, I used all my strength to pass the wooden dagger through his heart and then out.

As I felt the give of the stake passing through his intercostal muscles and out of his body, I gave another thrust, forcing the stake through the tree behind him, driving it a good six inches into the interior of the tree, splinters erupting out in all directions. I had chosen my stake well.

Surprise had overtaken his expression as the stake penetrated first his skin and then his heart. Blood erupted out his mouth, running in ribbon-like streams down either side of his lips. His arms flailing uselessly at his sides, he was unable to grab for me as he had been rendered impotent by the stake.

Despite my knowledge that he was helpless now, I had flown backwards as soon as I had buried the stake in him, putting some distance between us for fear that the myths weren’t correct. Now unable to completely hold his head up in his weakness, he watched me out of the corner of his eyes, his chin resting on his chest.

I could see betrayal in his eyes and rage washed through me again. How dare he feel betrayed? With my anger came the need that had been rising in me as I had watched him drink from the human dying a few feet away.

Hunger spreading from my chest downward into my belly, it coursed through each of my blood vessels. I could feel the fire rip through every one individually. Asa’s blood called to me and, unable to stop myself and not wanting to, I sprinted the short distance between us.

Lifting his head in both of my hands, I stared at him intently for a moment. Then leaning my head back and pulling my lips back, I buried my fangs in the large carotid in his right neck. Thick blood, warmed by that of the human, sprang into my mouth and I swallowed down mouthful after mouthful until I could get no more.

Angry that he had produced so little of what I so greatly desired, I wrapped my arms around him. Using my fingernails, I pushed first through his skin and next through muscles and facial planes until my hands hit bones. Wrapping my fingers around his ribs, I squeezed with every ounce of my strength, forcing more blood up and into my mouth. Swallowing each mouthful gratefully, I wrapped my legs around his waist and coaxed out every last drop that I could.

Knowing that I had gotten his every last ounce, I pulled away, hearing the air suck through the holes in his body that I had created with my hands.

Lifting his head up again with one hand, I looked at his ashen and sunken face. Despite everything he had done to me, I was disturbed I had this in me. That I could do this to anything was repugnant, although logically I knew he deserved this and more.

Dropping his head back down and with every instinct warring inside me, I grasped the stake and pulled it out. He was too weak to do anything, but with the stake out he wouldn’t die immediately. Why was I doing this, I questioned myself? But I knew why. I wasn’t yet ready to be a killer, to have intentionally taken another life no matter how horrendous a creature sat before me. It was a line that I wasn’t sure I was ready to cross.

With another sickening gush and the passage of air, the stake pulled out and Asa, empty and broken, slid down the trunk of the tree. I didn’t ease him down, staying a safe distance from him in the event he found a reserve of strength. He had just enough energy left to pull his knees up as he landed on the ground, his back still against the tree.

The decay that I had smelled a few minutes ago wafted gently on the breeze, but didn’t get any stronger. His lips were gray and his skin sallow. With the suppleness gone out of his skin, his face was flaccid and sunken. I didn’t let that fool me as I knew he could regenerate if given enough time and a little bit of blood.

“How long?” he questioned. His voice was barely above a whisper, but I could still hear him.

“Since the first time you bit me. I’ve been changing every day, Asa. I was amazed you never noticed but I guess you didn’t know the signs,” I answered with a level voice.

“You did not have any of my blood. I was careful.” He had dropped his eyes now and was no longer looking at me.

“It’s not the blood that’s special. I think it’s a virus, you know, similar to a cold, only the effects are different. Get enough of it and the results are the same, regardless of the source. I exposed myself as much as I could and I knew that all I had going for me was the element of surprise. It was a race against time,” I answered, never taking my eyes off of him.

Beginning to laugh quietly to himself, he looked up at me with his sunken cloudy eyes. “What do you plan to do now, Annalice? Are you going to try to play Mommy?”

Not answering his question directly, I shouted at him, “I’m not like you. I could never be you. I will never hurt her.” But inside, I quaked with fear.

“How naïve you are. You think you are so different than me. But you are a killer too. I could smell it in you that first night. That is why you have done so well with me. It was in your blood. Just like mine.” He continued to laugh, mocking my attempt to save Ellie.

“Wrong again, Asa. You became a killer out of self-pity. Out of jealously. You reveled in your bad luck, letting it consume you. Never bothering to grow, evolve, or change. I won’t let that happen to me.” Shouting at him, I shook my head back and forth, refusing to allow his words to sink into me, to become a part of me.

“You knew so little about your own kind that you didn’t even realize I was becoming like you. Did it ever cross your mind to look for help? To learn to cope with what had happened? Did you? No. You have no excuse, Asa. You deserve to go to hell. But I’ll be different. I swear it. You may have changed my body, but you haven’t changed my soul. Or my heart. You can’t change that. You. Can’t. Take. That.” I was so angry that my nails cut into my hands as I balled my fists up, streams of blood dripping down onto the ground.

Asa’s eyes were on my blood now. It could probably save him and he knew it. “The best part of this, Annalice, is that you will kill her yourself. I will get my revenge through you as your new fangs slice through her ivory throat. It will be a fitting tribute presented to me by the new self-righteous vampire you have become.” Looking up at me, he smiled his usual condescending grin and I hated him even more than I had thought possible.