I took a sip of whiskey from my glass, smacking my lips together and letting out a small sigh of relief. The glass then went promptly to my wounded cheek and the coolness of the ice soothed it ever so slightly.
My phone buzzed and I looked towards it.
Lisa: Are you sure you got her?
Beatrice: Absolutely
Lisa: How bad is the cut?
Beatrice: Probably going to keep me out of work for a little while but I’m sure it will heal.
I paused, very much aware of how bad it must’ve looked.
Beatrice: It will, right?
Lisa: It should… I hope.
Beatrice: You hope?
Lisa: Just been a long time since I’ve encountered a silver wound. Wasn’t expecting us to suddenly have a hunter jump on top of us.
I looked towards my sofa, seeing my darling little hunter currently squirming in her sleep. It was not a restful sleep, not in the slightest. Though I suppose I couldn’t really blame her. After all, her heart had beat its last a few hours prior.
She was a cute little thing for a genocidal murderer.
Though I supposed that I didn’t have much room to talk as your run of the mill murderer either.
I glanced at the coffee table where I had casually laid out her silver dagger. The entire thing was made of the substance, likely so one of my kind could not grasp it if the tables were turned.
If that were the case, then this would be a fascinating and highly cathartic teaching moment.
It would seem that sleeping beauty was giving up on her attempts at rest, squirming and slowly opening her eyes.
She spotted me and immediately yelped, jerking back even further into the plush material of my sofa.
“You,” she whispered, terror dripping from her voice.
“Me.” I grinned. “Sorry for my ghastly appearance. Some sociopath decided to take a knife to my face.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked. Then she looked around, blinking in confusion. “What am I doing here?”
“You are a guest at my abode,” I stated. “I thought it was better to bring you along than have you found at the scene of the crime. Plus, my dear mark didn’t really have the best blinds in the world.”
The woman noticed the dagger upon the table and scrambled for it.
I merely smirked and took another sip of my beverage. It really was a three fingers kind of day. Not that the alcohol would be effective.
She grabbed the silver dagger and aimed the blade at me. And on cue, a grizzly shizzle filled the air, like a steak that was searing upon the grill. In a heartbeat, she yelled and dropped the blade, the silver clattering upon the table.
There was this wonderful confusion in her eyes, a disbelief. It was just so wonderful, watching her try to process what had happened.
Then it clicked and pure horror filled her expression.
“No,” she whispered.
“Yes,” I replied, grinning from ear to ear.
“What did you do to me?” she roared, growling.
I shook my head. “Rewarded you with eternal life and spared you from becoming just another one of my meals. Honestly, a murderer, such as yourself, should consider themselves lucky for such merciful treatment.”
“I’m going to kill you,” she said.
I snorted. “You’d be welcomed to try but if you want any hope of navigating this new world, as one of us, then I’d suggest sparing my life.” I motioned towards her. “You're fresh off the streets, bet you don’t even know where to get blood.”
Before she responded, I got up and made my way over to the fridge. Inside were a few cocktail mixes and many bags of blood, fresh from the local banks.
“Are you a positive or negative kind of girl?” I asked, flashing a cheeky smile. “I’d imagine negative but I just wanted to make sure.”
I selected a bag of blood, examining it when I brought it over.
“You’ll be enjoying the blood of Mr. Nolan, aged twenty-four, and B-negative,” I said, placing it on the table before her.
She examined it and sneered.
“It’s either that or starving,” I said, shrugging.
She shook her head. “I’ll starve.”
Our conversation started to fade.
So, I tilted my head to the side. I wasn’t much of a fan of awkward silences.
“How about we start with names?” I offered. “I’m Beatrice.”
My guest snorted. “Beatrice?”
“It was a surprisingly common name when I was born,” I explained.
“What?” She shook her head. “Were you born in the 1800s or something?”
All I could do was offer a very thin smile as a response.
My guest blinked at this, likely not expecting that response. Or well, a lack of it.
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
“And your name?” I asked, hoping to pry something from her.
She worked her jaw before letting out a heavy sigh. “Christine.”
“Oh, that is such a lovely name,” I teased.
I moved over to a chair off to the side of the room, plopping down within it. I crossed my legs and studied her intently, wondering how we should proceed from here. It had been ages since I had willingly infected someone else and this was the first time I had done so in bad faith.
“So, you’re two hundred years old?” Christine asked.
I smirked. “Not quite but I am growing dangerously close. I was infected in 1852 by a cotton mill owner in Albany. He was destined to be my husband and didn’t wish for me to age.”
“Jesus,” Christine whispered.
“It was a lot harder being a vampire back then,” I explained. “Many of us didn’t have the cold-blooded ruthlessness to survive those years but well… I did.” I flashed her a smile. “Would you believe me if I told you that I met Abraham Lincoln?”
“You know what?” Christine chuckled darkly. “At this point, I’d believe pretty much anything you told me.”
I nodded and took another sip of my beverage.
“So, what now?” Christine asked.
I smirked. “Now? That’s a very good question, dear. I suppose you are welcome to stay here until the sun sets. Then you can return home. If you wish, I could provide you with my contact information. You may be a murderous bitch but you’re one of us now.”
“You’re not going to kill me?” Christine asked.
I chuckled. “I couldn’t if I wanted to. Anything that could possibly kill you, would harm me merely by wielding it. And besides, I really don’t wish to do so.” I grinned. “Revenge isn’t very fun when it's so short-lived, dear.”
This got an amused snort from Christine who shook her head. “I wish you would’ve just killed me back at the apartment.”
I flashed her a dangerously playful smile. “Oh, I’m well aware.”
I couldn’t tell if the numbness inside of me was because of the vampire’s toxin or the suffocating anxiety which had seemed to besiege my psyche. My life, my dreams, my goals and ambitions, they were effectively over.
There was a risk to the game us hunters played but we always assumed that it was our lives on the line.
Now my life would never be on the line, now I would never die. Or at least, I would never die peacefully and painlessly.
I looked at the blood bag on the table between me and Beatrice. The sight of it disgusted me. Though I wondered if starvation was an option.
Beatrice seemed to read my mind. “You could try it but I promise you, there has never been a vampire with a strong enough will to deny their hunger.” She snorted. “In fact, denying it will only make you more dangerous.”
I looked up at her, watching as she licked her chops. The action was enough to send a shiver up my spine.
“Well maybe I am strong enough,” I said.
She shrugged. “Maybe though I would not feel very secure putting any money on that.”
A silence settled between us, one so dense that a person would’ve had difficulty severing it with a knife.
I looked down at my hand, seeing the burn mark that had formed upon my palm. It ached and was both red and inflamed.
“Why do you do it?” Beatrice asked.
I perked up and looked at her. “Pardon?”
“What made you want to become a vampire hunter?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I guess it just seemed like the right thing to do? Plus, I had…”
I said nothing more, not wanting to betray anything to this demon. She didn’t deserve my backstory; she really didn’t deserve anything from me.
Not that she seemed to care. She just looked amused by the scenario, watching the slight tremors in my complexion, the slight tells that betrayed how much this shift in the status quo was getting to me.
It was a cruel joke, the hunter turned into what she hunted. It reminded me of I am Legend when the main character realized that he was the ghoul that terrorized the world all along.
I sighed and stood up, making my way into her kitchen. I opened one of the cupboards but discovered that there was nothing inside. No plates, no snacks, no containers, nothing. I searched through each one, finding that the only thing my host owned were a small collection of glasses.
“Our diet does save us a lot on china and silverware,” Beatrice said. “Were you hoping to find something?”
“Just a snack,” I whispered.
“Oh, is the hunger already starting to settle in?” Beatrice teased.
I despised the teasing edge that entered her voice.
“I’m fine,” I hissed back at her.
“So, what do you do for a living?” Beatrice asked.
I paused. “Well mostly I hunt vampires.”
“And what about before that?” Beatrice asked. “Surely, you must’ve enjoyed a life before all of this went down. Shopkeeper?”
“They call those customer service representatives nowadays,” I replied.
Beatrice snorted. “What a strangely complex title for such a simple job.” She looked at me. “I hope you don’t mind working nights.”
“I’ve done so for years,” I rebutted.
“Of course, of course,” she said, smirking to herself. “If you ever need help cleaning up your resume, I know a vampire who works management for a tech company. I’ve never used his services myself but I remember that Fredrich spoke highly of him.”
“Why are you trying to help me out?” I asked, failing to keep the venom out of my voice.
Beatrice merely smiled. “One part my responsibility for your wellbeing, one part my own personal amusement. I created you Christine and it would be very rude of me to just let you die.”
“Cruel indeed,” I grumbled under my breath.
“So how did you figure out it was me?” Beatrice asked.
I glanced at her and went over to the fridge. I didn’t answer and instead opened it, hoping to find something edible inside. And in a way, there were plenty of edible things in there. Sadly, they were all blood, each inside of a sterile-looking medical bag, fresh from the blood banks of our city.
How many lives could this fridge save?
It made me sick, so I slammed the door shut.
“There’s no point denying yourself,” Beatrice said.
“Fuck you,” I growled.
“I mean normally I’d charge my patrons for that privilege,” she teased. “But you do seem to be quite the fetching girl.”
I flushed at the comment, continuing to rove the pantries and shelves.
Except, I didn’t flush. You needed blood in your veins to flush. Instead, I was simply embarrassed.
“So, you want to know how I found you?” I asked, trying to distract myself.
“If you don’t mind sharing,” Beatrice replied. “I’d love to know where I slipped up.”
I snorted. “Do you honestly think I’m going to teach you how to do a better job of evading a hunter?”
“I’m honestly just trying to make conversation, dear,” Beatrice teased. “Whether you like it or not we’re stuck together until nightfall and I’d really like to have a conversation instead of just awkwardly glaring at each other for the next eight or so hours.”
I looked towards the apartment’s windows.
Beatrice had affixed paneling over top of them so not even a wisp of light could enter her abode.
“What would it be like if I stepped into the sunlight?” I asked.
Beatrice shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve never done it. I can’t imagine it would feel particularly pleasant however. Probably like having the flesh seared straight from your bones if I had to venture a guess.”
“Lovely,” I grumbled.
I moved towards the apartment’s door, reaching for the knob.
“Are you really going to perform suicide by illumination?” Beatrice asked.
I nodded. “Figure being burned alive would be a better way to go than slowly starving to death. Especially better than hearing your mockery for the next eight hours.”
“Well, aren’t you an absolutely joyous creature,” Beatrice murmured. She then sighed and waved me off. “Very well, if you really wish to end things, go ahead. At the very least, I took out one of you wretched hunters. Probably rid the city of your lot.”
I stiffened.
“I mean I can only assume that you’re the only hunter in town,” she commented. “Strangely there are far less of your kind than mine still in existence.” She smirked. “That’s the thing about our modern society, it left superstition behind. Though us superstitions still remain alive and well.”
She was right. There were so few of us left. Though did I even count as ‘us’ anymore?
I paused and started to lament my decision.
If I offed myself then there wouldn’t be anyone left in this city to protect it.
I worked my jaw and my hand dropped away from the knob.
“How long have you been in town for?” Beatrice asked.
I turned and walked back to the couch, plopping down upon it.
“About six months,” I replied.
Beatrice whistled. “Six months and you already managed to kill one of us. It’d only take you a couple decades to get through the rest.”
I froze, my dead blood chilling even further at that comment. Was it really possible that there were so many vampires in this city?
“When the need for hunting is gone, it turns out that it's much easier for vampires to thrive,” Beatrice commented.
I glared at her. “Yet, you hunt.”
She shrugged. “I’m also incredibly old fashioned. The storage of blood is such a new concept and honestly the taste is absolutely foul.” She shuddered. “I think the bags do something to it, gives it this dreadful chemical taste.”
“So even though you have the option to survive without harming others, you still chose to harm them?” I asked, shaking my head in disbelief. “You’re the worst of this lot.”
“I’m sure you’ll learn to see things from my point of view given enough time,” Beatrice commented.
She then motioned to the blood pack on the table.
“Now are you going to feed or shall I put that away before it spoils?” Beatrice asked. “After all, there’s no point wasting perfectly good blood.”
I looked at it for a moment, feeling my stomach churn at the idea.
Though the worst part is that I considered the offer, legitimately thought about it. The hunger was mounting and I couldn’t help but salivate at the sight of that little packet. It was shameful and I wanted nothing more than to cry.
Reluctantly, I grabbed it, feeling it in the palm of my hand.
Beatrice looked at me, keeping her expression reserved.
Was she enjoying this?
Was she pitying me?
I couldn’t honestly tell.
Reluctantly, I twisted the stem and cracked it open.
There had to be a solution to this, something that could fix my condition, something to salvage this curse. But in order to find it, I needed to survive until I made it back home.
I placed the stem between my lips and tilted it back, feeling the cold blood against my tongue. It was thick and I immediately gagged upon it. Though slowly, I drank, hating the taste, the feel, and the depravity of it.
Though the worst part, by far, was the fact that I was actually starting to grow comfortable with it. Ounce by ounce I was succumbing to my new found nature.
That realization was paired with a cruel rumble of laughter from my host.
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