The Embrace (18 page)

Then he left. He turned around and walked out of the room, leaving me in the bath tub. I heard the front door slam behind him and I was left alone for the first time in weeks. Gabriel had only left me a handful of times in our long vampiric relationship and both times had been to perform mysterious “errands.” Now he didn’t even attempt to come up with a convincing argument.

The silence and loneliness hit me and I let the tears fall down my face. It felt strange to cry so much. As a human, the murder of my family had left me emotionally numb. Gabriel had been the only thing to even register on my mind in that time. My transformation into a vampire had inevitably made me even colder, it was part of my nature to disregard human feelings so that killing on a nightly basis evoked no guilt.

Even as a vampire Gabriel had been the only thing to force emotion out of me. I hadn’t displayed this much distress in years. I felt completely out of my element. It was time to pull myself out of the hole and get going.

I felt a migraine developing, reminding me to get out and hunt urgently. Blood is the only thing that keeps a vampire going and I had to get out and feed, Gabriel or no Gabriel.

I left the bathroom to get dressed. I had to learn to live on my own. I was meant to be a creature of the night, the bringer of death, but my co-dependent lifestyle had left me alone and vulnerable.  I didn’t know how long it would be before we were together again, but something told me this wouldn’t be the last time I would be left to hunt alone. I had to learn to handle myself now.

I changed into one of my usual outfits and set out for one of the hundreds of busy streets London had to offer. Every person I passed looked at me adoringly. Despite the personal problems that were clogging up my mind I still had a powerful hold over humans. I could have made any one of them fall at my feet with just a glance, but this adoration went straight over my head. I didn’t want
them
to love me, I wanted Gabriel to love me.

I tried to remember my previous hunts. I usually let Gabriel point me in the right direction, but now I was left on my own. I had only been alone twice: once had led to the death which caused the first fight between us and the second was the night I killed Ben. Neither of those were particularly successful.

I stalked the streets and let the heartbeats wash over me, wave upon wave. My earlier moment with Gabriel had left me feeling groggy, dampening the beats as if they were struggling to break through an invisible force field.

On the corner of one of the busier streets I found a quaint French cafe. It had all the stereotypical French motifs: the stripes, the garlic, the extravagant and extortionate menu. It was obviously a popular place to eat as the crowds were bustling in and out of the building even at this late hour.

The conversation floated out from inside. I had never seen such happiness in one place. The couples held hands and smiled at one another as they discussed the future, the past and their happy memories. I felt as if every one of their smiles was directed at me. It was as if they were all trying to rub their happiness in my face and highlight my own miserable love life.

I wanted to kill every last one of them. That was sure to wipe the smiles from their happy faces.

I knew this was the right place. One of these perfect couples was going to surrender to me and I could feel my excitement growing. I wanted to show them just how destructive love could be.

There was a taxi rank just outside the restaurant and I leaned against the post, waiting patiently. Closing my eyes, I let the heartbeats grow. Nothing in particular stuck out, but then suddenly one stabbed through the barrier and stomped loudly around my mind. This was the one.

I turned around to pinpoint this person who had provoked my desire. Two young people were approaching the taxi rank, obviously a couple. The male was tall and gangly with a greyish blonde hairdo he had spiked up in a fashionable yet ridiculous style. He had a definition to his body that implied fitness, but of course his strength was no match for me.

The woman he was with was much shorter than him, closer to my own petite build. She was wearing a short, spangly dress covered in metallics and sequins. Her legs and arms were covered in orange fake tan so she screamed vanity. Her blonde roots had surfaced through her dark hair, adding another odd haircut to the pairing.

They were holding hands and she was smiling up at him, but I could sense unease in the boy. Something about him wasn’t sure about the relationship. He would be the one who was most easy to control.

Luckily no taxi was waiting to take them so I knew they would have to wait for a few precious moments. This was my window, my time to make a move. I scanned the street around me and saw a taxi approaching. My plan too shape in my head and I knew I would have to get in the taxi with this couple.

The tall boy hailed the approaching vehicle. I could see his eyes travel up and down my body as I approached and the heat almost radiated from him. He certainly found me aesthetically pleasing. The girl had the typical reaction that most girlfriends display when they see me: a mixture of jealousy, admiration and astonishment. Despite her restrictive humanity she had a strong connection to her companion and she could tell he was attracted to me, which put her on edge.

I smiled brightly and put on my most convincing human mask. “Hi. Sorry guys but could I share a taxi with you? It’s so hard to get one in this area.” I asked in what I hoped was a pleasant tone.

I could tell the boy was enamoured and even the girl’s distrust of me was being overshadowed by my allure. The male looked down at his girlfriend and she nodded begrudgingly. A taxi pulled up at the side of the road and I let the couple enter the car before I slipped in.

“I’ll handle this one, guys” I smiled at them and leaned around the driver’s seat. I pressed my lips against his ear and let all my energy pour into him. “Just. Drive.” I said.

I was using the gift of compulsion. I had only done it a few times that but I believed Gabriel when he told me I was a natural and, as I expected, the taxi driver set off with a glazed look on his face. “Quiet roads only.” I told him and he nodded obediently.

“So, what’s your name?” The boy asked, not noticing that the driver had started moving despite not being given a location.

I smiled again. My cheeks were beginning to tire with all of this false happiness. “Beth. Beth Reed.” It felt odd to use my dead sister’s name as an alias but that time in my life was so far behind me that it raised no real emotion.

The boy returned my friendly grin and wrapped an arm around his cold girlfriend. “I’m Angus and this is my girlfriend Becky.” He said.

He looked at her with love but behind his eyes there was still a layer of uncertainty, possibly even guilt. I was getting a more accurate picture of their lives the longer I spent with them, and I knew he was in the doghouse.

I was getting tired of putting on such a sweet act so I was happy to see the taxi driver pull on to a quieter road. Time to act. Becky looked out of the window, also noticing our change of surrounding.

“Um, Gus, this isn’t the way home” She said, her voice coated with worry.

As she turned to peer out of the window, an exquisite vein tightened on her neck and my fangs extended almost without me noticing. It seemed as if the vein was almost transparent. I could practically see the blood pumping around her body, the rhythm matching the steady beat I could hear in my head. It was tantalising. The red curtain was coming thick and fast and I had to clench my fists and use all of my willpower to stop myself from pouncing.

Just as the sight of that wonderful liquid became almost too much to bear, Angus turned to face me. His eyes opened wide in pure fear.

I wondered what I looked like to a human. The only vampire I had seen was Gabriel and that had been under very different circumstances. For a start I was in love with him. His transition into a vampire had been purely to turn me and let me join him for eternity. It had been a moment of ecstasy rather than fear. Gabriel was predatory and authoritative even in his normal form. Without the fangs he still exuded a sense of power and so his transition into a true killer wouldn’t come as a surprise to his prey.

I, on the other hand, had nothing of this atmosphere. I was small and slim and Gabriel had always described me as being angelic with my white blonde hair.  Although my victims would be charmed by my supernatural aura, they would never expect me to be the cause of their death. I saw fear in my victim’s eyes when I revealed my true nature and my fangs, but I saw just as much shock in their eyes as terror.

When I looked at Angus I saw that familiar mixture of fear and shock, the perfect fuel for my hunger. I could tell that Angus was desperate to attract Becky’s attention but his fear made it almost impossible for him to speak. I was willing him to leave Becky alone, to let her discover my true nature in her own time.

“Hey, sorry lady...” Becky turned around to face me. Her sentence stopped in mid air as she too saw my face. She was more vocal than her boyfriend. She began to sob and the tears rolled down her face in a heavy river. “Oh god, oh god...” she said over and over.

She was falling apart in front of my very eyes. She clutched at her boyfriend’s arm for support and tried to bury her face behind his body like a shield.

Gabriel would have been in his element if he could see this pathetic woman. He loved to find beautiful girls and make them beg for their lives, but I had never been a fan of his fetish. I found desperate girls pathetic to the point where I could hardly look at them. This young woman was annoying me already and I knew I had to shut her up or risk losing my lust.

I grabbed her by the neck. My hand was like a powerful vice and I could see her life fading away as I tightened my grip. I took my hand away and allowed her to get her breath back for a second.

My fingers had left lingering purple marks on her throat. As I looked at her I noticed a raised white shape appearing under the bruises. It must have been there before, but I only noticed it as the pure white contrasted with the sickly purple.

I ran a finger over the mark. It was a white-silver colour and the texture was softer than the rest of her skin, as if it could easily be broken through. The mark mesmerised me. The shape was distinctive and if I wasn’t already sure what this mark was, the placement was the last clue I needed. The mark lay right over the thick, pulsing vein in her neck.

I had seen this mark many times. I had seen it on my mother’s neck many years before and I had a very similar mark on my own neck, although it had faded substantially. I could guarantee that Gabriel would have one too, somewhere on his body, although it was probably too old to be seen.

This was the bite mark of a vampire.

Becky didn’t seem like the kind of person who would be desirable to vampires. She had the fake appearance and obvious vanity that was a turn off for most common humans, let alone a powerful vampire, but something had bitten her, and it had been recent. That meant that my suspicion was right, and there was another vampire in town. Gabriel could never have feasted on a weak girl and let her go.

“How did you...?” I began but realised that Becky probably didn’t even know she’d been tasted.

It was impossible for me to stop in the middle of feeding, except the time when I was caught draining Ben. Gabriel had learnt to control some of his desires in the many years he had lived as a vampire and so I knew Becky must have been bitten by one of the older creatures.  

The thought of my vampire stalker appeared again. Was it him who had bitten Becky? It was possible that he was sending me a message. I shook the thought away. Surely, I was being too egocentric. He had to feed and he wouldn’t choose his victims just for me.

Still, it scared me a little. If this bite mark was down to my stalker then I was well out of my depth. This creature was powerful enough to stop half way through feeding and then erase the memory of the victim while I couldn’t even hide a body convincingly.

I could have sat there for hours contemplating my foe, but I had two meals in front of me and I had to kill them before someone saw the strange taxi driving back and forth with no real destination.

I chose to kill the girl first. The mark on her neck was almost glowing, taunting me. I didn’t want to look at it anymore and so I decided to kill her as quickly as I could. The mark was on the right side of her neck just on top of the vein, my usual fall back spot, but I had never used another vampire’s point of entry so I decided to go to the other side instead.

I sank my teeth in quickly and drained her of her blood. There was no thrill to it. Her desperation had been a turn off from the get go but now I couldn’t stand to spend any more time with her, knowing she’d been tasted before by someone who might one day lead to my death.

The blood was gone from her body in moments and I turned my attention back to her boyfriend. He was more my type. His body was frozen in fear. I had just killed his girlfriend and he could tell I was going to kill him. Just before the point of death many humans can sense the end, but they don’t scream or try to escape, they just resign themselves to their own death.

I picked up Angus’ arm and bit into his wrist. It felt like biting into an apple with a hard outer shell and juicy centre. His blood streamed out and I lapped it up. It wasn’t spectacular, it didn’t effect me as strongly as the blood of some of my other victims, but it was enough. The stream travelled through my own veins, mixing his warm sustaining blood with my cold, dead veins.