AllFreeNovel
Share Us
You know, I really should eat. I began looking around for any sign of life. Probably it didn’t matter that I hadn’t wanted blood. Humans lost their appetite when they were sick, after all. Probably I had a touch of the flu or something, and instead of having human symptoms, I had vampire symptoms. I should make sure I had plenty of blood so I could get well.
Alleyways are good places to prowl for food, both for vermin and the creatures who hunt them. Within a couple of minutes, I heard some scurrying behind a garbage pail. I wrinkled my nose from the odor as I darted behind the can and grabbed—a rat, a small one, twisting in my grasp. It smelled no better than its surroundings, and I didn’t like the thought of where it had been.
This never bothered you before, I told myself. Remember the pigeons in New York? Flying rats, basically. Before, my craving for blood had driven me past the gross-out factor. Without any appetite, this was a lot harder to do.
As the rat squirmed, I said, “Sorry about this.” Then, before I could chicken out, I bit down, hard.
The blood flowed into my mouth, but the taste was—flat. Empty. Like a bad imitation of the real thing. I forced myself to take all four swallows the rat offered, but it did nothing for me. In fact, it tasted sort of disgusting. I recalled the one time Lucas had tasted blood, and the face he’d made as he spit it out. Finally I knew how he felt.
I tossed the rat’s corpse into the garbage can and hurriedly fished some mints out of my bag. The last thing I wanted was rat breath.
Yet the mints seemed flavorless, too. Maybe I hadn’t really noticed, because Lucas and I had mostly eaten bland microwaved food these days, but human food didn’t taste right either.
What’s wrong with me?
“What’s wrong with you?”
I jerked back to attention. The voice I’d heard—a woman’s voice—came from perhaps a block over. With my vampire hearing, every word was as clear as if I stood only a few feet away.
“Nothing’s wrong with me,” said a man’s silky voice. “Nothing’s wrong with you either, so far as I can smell.”
“I don’t smell bad,” she retorted. “And it’s—your teeth—”
“What, you’re not going to be shallow, are you? Judge on appearances?”
I grabbed a stake from my purse and hurried toward the voices. Hopefully Lucas was also on this guy’s trail; if not, I wasn’t going to have any chance to reach him. My thong sandals slapped against the pavement, and I wished that I’d had the sense to choose something quieter and more practical for my only pair of shoes. But I also suspected the vampire was distracted.
When I reached the corner, I stopped and glanced around. They were silhouetted sharply against a nearby streetlight. Dusk had only just turned into night. The vampire was short but stocky and powerful, and the woman was tiny, hardly up to his shoulder.
“You’re making me nervous,” she said, trying to make it sound like she was flirting, though I could tell she meant it. She didn’t want to admit how scared she was. That was the number-one thing vampires used to their advantage—people’s refusal to believe that the worst-case scenario could really be happening to them.
The vampire leaned closer to her, his arms on either side, almost pinning her to the brick wall of the nearby building. “I’m trying to make you excited. Get that pulse rate going.”
“Yeah?” She smiled feebly.
“Oh, yeah.”
I’d had enough. Although I had no illusions about being able to scare the guy, I thought I could surprise him. That might do the trick.
Quickly I held the stake up in a fighting position, spun around the corner and said, “Back off.”
He glanced at me—and smirked. So much for the element of surprise. “Or what, little girl?”
“Or I’ll paralyze you with this. After that, you’ll be out of luck.”
The vampire’s eyes widened slightly; because I’d accurately described what staking did to a vampire, he’d realized I knew what I was talking about. That was the general idea. But it wasn’t nearly as intimidating as I’d hoped. “You might try.”
“Excuse me,” the woman said, “but do you two know each other?”
“We’re about to get real well acquainted.” The vampire took his arms from around the woman, and she wisely took off running. Her footsteps clattered against the sidewalk into the distance. He swaggered toward me. Though he was a short guy, his shadow from the streetlamp was tall and thin, stretching over me.
Lucas, I thought, this would be a really good time to step outside the bar and check on me.
The vampire stopped. “You don’t smell human.”
I raised an eyebrow. Finally I had his attention. Every other vampire I’d ever met was impressed by the fact that I was a born vampire, a rarity.
This one simply shrugged. “Hey. Blood is blood. Who cares where it comes from?”
