Part 4

6

Had I been my old self, just hanging out at a bar with my old gang, we would have called the girl "lush." The light from the streetlamps made her platinum blonde hair gleam like the real metal. She was curvy, but only in the best sense. Unlike so many stick-thin women who thought that "healthy" meant that bones had to show under the skin, this woman had a fully-feminine figure that, in her clingy black dress, betrayed not an ounce of flab. As she walked, her rear swayed delightfully, even hypnotically, drawing nearly every male eye in its wake.

And now she thrashed in my arms, about to become the first in what would likely be a long line of victims needed to feed my everlasting hunger.

After leaving behind the ruins of my recent prison, it was only a matter of seconds until I reached the roof of the apartment building. I half-expected to find Ka'lath waiting for my there, but as I turned in a slow circle, I found nothing there but the normal pipes, tar-paper, and heat pumps. Within moments, the sounds of loud music and laughter lead me to the corner of the roof that bordered the front sidewalk, yet was opposite the alley in which Ka'lath had shown me his hunting prowess so recently.

I stood there on the edge of the roof, gazing up the street toward where my heightened senses told me there were many people packed into a small space not far from my perch. Idly, I wondered if this were the attraction of this particular building to Ka'lath - its proximity to bars and restaurants with little or no off-street parking, which in turn guaranteed so much foot traffic to and fro on the sidewalk below me. Whatever the case, the vampire I was becoming could see the cold logic that made such a location appealing - a large city in which violence was an accepted part of urban living; a large number of "hot-spots" which drew intense hype within easy walking distance; and, most importantly, the fact that those hot-spots drew patrons from across the city, not just this neighborhood... giving investigators so much less a chance to tie together the mysterious disappearances of those who caught Ka'lath's eye and fed his own appetites.

Another thought came unbidden, and I felt my lips turn up in a cruel grin: Welcome to Vampire Restaurant Row! On the menu tonight: a wonderful cabernet, delicious prime rib, and, for dessert... your blood, taken from you by your friendly neighborhood vampire!

A commotion on the sidewalk drew my attention away from such gallows humor. A couple stood in front of the building next to Ka'lath's, arguing fiercely. The woman wanted to go home; the man, obnoxiously drunk, wanted to stay the party. They went back and forth for a few moments, their voices getting louder, until the woman finally slapped the man and started walking up the sidewalk toward me. The man, stunned and angry, watched her go for several moments before firing the most pointed rejoinder he could muster - "Fine, bitch!" - before returning to the restaurant from which they'd come.

Before I was consciously aware that I had made my choice, I was standing in the shadows of the alley mouth, waiting for her to pass. I could feel her walking up the sidewalk, passing the stoop of the building; I could smell the slight vanilla scent of her perfume, could hear her still agitated breathing. As she moved closer, I could even sense her elevated heartbeat, pushing the blood through her body, making me salivate as I anticipated its rush over my tongue and down my throat.

And then, she was walking past me. I launched myself from the shadows and had my hand over her mouth before she could sense anything happening. The anger and hurt that had been fueling her angry march up the sidewalk had no chance to start to change to bewilderment before I had her in the alley. As Ka'lath had done with his victim, I pulled her behind a slight outcropping in the wall of the apartment building, one which created just enough of a blind to keep anyone passing by the alley mouth from seeing what was going on within. From the moment she was even with the mouth of the alley to the time I had her hidden from sight took perhaps three seconds... a time that stretched accommodatingly for me, but that she and anyone else on the street likely had no time to really register at all.

Perhaps, if I had truly allowed the blood beast inside to take control of me, there would have been no hesitation on my part. Perhaps, if I had taken all that Ka'lath had been trying to teach me into account, I would simply have turned her around and sunk my fangs into her neck, thereby ending any struggles she might have made before they began. Perhaps... but ultimately, I did not.

Instead, I turned her in my arms and looked into her eyes.

The realization that she was in desperate trouble had just begun to dawn on her. In five seconds, she had gone from wounded and angry to confused, and then, as I turned her around, the beginnings of fear. I had to remove my hand from her mouth to turn her, and as her fear began to ramp up into real panic, her mouth opened to allow her to sharply inhale, preparatory to a scream. Sensing what was going to happen, my natural vampire instinct kicked in, and my upper lip moved away from my teeth, baring my fangs for her to see.

Her eyes opened as wide as they possibly could, and her entire body tensed in my arms. Instead of completing her deep breath, her throat seemed to lock, paralyzed. Then her whole body went limp in my arms.

The shock of seeing the true nature of what had captured her, and perhaps of knowing what was about to happen to her, caused her to faint.

So there I stood, confused, her limp body in my arms. Her head had lolled to her right, baring her throat to me, and I saw the throb of her pulse indicating where I should bite down to let her blood flow into me. A heartbeat before I had been ready to plunge my fangs into her neck to silence her permanently. Yet, now that she was silent at least temporarily, I found that desire muted. Instead, a distant memory began insistently trying to push its way forward, clamoring for attention...