Part 3

5

Ka'lath's prey stood at the end of the alley, unmoving. She eyed the various locked doors and freight entrances without haste, as if she were simply waiting for something to happen for which she was completely prepared.

Below me, Ka'lath remained in the shadows, observing the woman. Though I had known this vampire for only a few weeks, I had never sensed in him any uncertainty or indecision... at least, not until now. He stood back in the darkness, seemingly confused. To see him hesitate so brought a cruel smile to my lips, as I remembered what he had attempted to drill into me all those nights before my own first hunt.

"You have just recently been turned, Robert," he began one evening after bringing me another bladder filled with fresh blood. "Your ability to mentally control your prey is not consciously available to you yet, though it is possible you might trigger it instinctively during a hunt," here he smiled slightly, showing the tips of his fangs, "if you let the blood beast inside you overtake the barricades your revulsion keeps putting up in your mind.

"Therefore, your greatest weapons are speed and brute force. Find a way to isolate your prey, and then attack without warning. Stun them or render them unconscious, and then rip into their flesh until you have drained the last drop. Then dispose of the body, and return to your lair."

That was his mantra: strike silently, fast and brutal; then bite, drain, dispose, and disappear. It was how to succeed at vampirism without really trying.

And yet, in this hunt, he used none of the weapons available to him, but only stood and watched as his target waited, hands on hips, foot tapping in impatience. Perhaps he was simply worried that he might pursue her, only to be interrupted by someone who might raise an alarm. But something about his manner told me there was something more, some missing information that was causing Ka'lath to regard this bit of prey with both curiosity and caution.

The night of my own first hunt had been filled with such thoughts, as well as the foreboding of knowing that, if I wanted to survive, I would have to kill someone else. Ka'lath had hinted that he would not continue to bring me my daily ration of blood, and the bladders in the nights before that seemed less and less full. What I called the blood beast - the instinctual urges and reactions of the vampire passed on to me in Ka'lath's blood - began to growl and curse within me, unsatisfied with the meagerness of its ration.

Then, one night, Ka'lath did not come at all.

After one day without blood, I could barely control the rage of the beast inside me. It clamored for something to soothe its hunger, and the only way I could keep from attempting to break the door down was to continuously shadow box, exerting myself physically in an attempt to try to wear myself to exhaustion. In this I was only partially successful; the hunger never abated, but I managed to quell the unreasonable desire to wreak havoc on the contents of my small room. By the time the lethargy of the oncoming morning finally overcame me, I thought I must know what hell addicts in withdrawal must go through: a craving so strong that it overwhelms all rational thought in its desire to have even a little bit of the object of their addiction. Of course, I had barely begun to taste what depths such a hell might hold for me, since blood was not only my addiction, but my only source of sustenance, as well.

When Ka'lath did not appear the next night, there was no appeasing the beast within. From the moment I awoke, I was seized by a physical and psychological need for blood that blotted out my rational mind. I howled and growled and cursed, beating my fists against the steel-reinforced door to my room without success. Every object in the room that might be used was picked up, either to be thrown against the door or used as a ram in an attempt to burst it open from within... all to no avail. When nothing was left but broken bits of wood or bent pieces of metal, I again resorted to my hands, beating and clawing the door until my skin was a mass of cuts and scrapes from which most mortal men would have collapsed. Only the onset of the dawn stopped my rampage; though I could not see the sun, I knew it had finally risen when I collapsed to the floor, my muscles finally put to rest by the vampire's need for daytime hibernation. As the beast within me retreated, howling in frustration and hunger, my last conscious thought was a question: could things get any worse?

Day three was much the same as day two, except my only weapons were my hands, which began to resemble tenderized meat in appearance.

On day four, I sat with my back to the door, pounding it with the back of my head. That was the last day of which I have any clear memory with regard to time passing. From that point on, my thoughts fragmented into kaleidoscopic images, with no sense of order or reason; the only underlying unity to them was frustration... and hunger.