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A dripping red-black clump in both hands that the murderous stranger tears into with more squelches and gurgles. She gulps down the pieces as blood gushes in clumpy rivulets past her knuckles.
She’s—they’re?—eating the heart.
Chapter 11
Lauren?iu
God.
What right does he have to horror?
Nevertheless, he can only stare and formulate his next words. The stranger from the diner, still in the same oversized, faded blue coat, is so immersed in heart-eating, tearing apart every sinew and swallowing, that Lauren?iu goes unnoticed.
This person digs into the heartstrings like one scoops out the faintly rancid-smelling bowels of a pumpkin.
Vampirism truly is lovely business. Seems like this stranger is making it a little more difficult than needed. It takes a lot of strength and effort to split apart a ribcage.
Lauren?iu calls softly, “Hello?”
To his shock, she does stop, staring up at him with saucer-round eyes, dark circles under them. He has to find a way to capture the stranger’s attention, while showing that he isn’t a threat.
“The stars are beautiful tonight...” When she startles back, shooting to her full height, he reaches out with an open hand. “—wait, don’t go. I won’t do anything—I’m—we’re...”
The stranger asks with a harsh rasp, “What do you want?”
“Apologies for interrupting, but I think I should ask you the same thing. You were at the Waffle Duke, and now you’re here.”
“At least you’re observant.” Oh, good. Banter over a corpse.
The stranger looks down at the dead body. “I tasted it. She was a spy. They’re coming for you.”
Lauren?iu looks behind his shoulder at the makeshift cabin. A log cabin, it is not. “Then, we should make this quick.”
As if noting the weather, the stranger says, “You’re like me.”
“I’m guessing Terminus is not rife with vampires.”
“Not like us. They haven’t died. Not yet. They were frightened of me.”
Seeing her drenched in blood with the black clots of a chewed up heart in her hands, yes, he can see why. Somewhat. To him, she looks like she dove into a blackberry pie. Or the entire bush. Despite the cooling corpse between them, it amuses him.
Lauren?iu shows her both his empty hands. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“And why not?” A fair question. If she’s on her own, possibly once pursued by hunters, there’s no reason to trust anyone. Even if she’s had the best life possible, it’s not worth it to trust anyone. “Are you telling me that you’re like me, and not a threat? Seems like a contradiction.”
He can only tell the truth.
“No, I am like you, and I am a threat to almost every human being alive. Just, not to you.”
They stare at each other, assess, for a long time.
That’s how he and Paimon end up standing in a musty living room while the stranger sits on a near-ruined, mildewed cloth couch. Though hunched, the stranger looks somehow both on alert and at ease.
A spider works in one corner of the room, and Daisy naps at the end of the couch.
“Oh,” Paimon says chipperly, rubbing his chin, “it’s the diner girl.” Atsk. “We are never getting these bloodstains out of the carpet, wherever we go. If we were still at that motel, the room service fee is going to be killer. It’s like that time I rented a room in the Eighties. At least here...”
“Don’t call me a girl,” the stranger snaps, crossing their arms over themself. “I’m not a woman or a man. Sometimes, I am more like a man, but I’ve never felt like a woman.”
