CHAPTER 9 NOW
I PULL MYSELF from my memories. I curse the fool I was to think I could save my damned soul with silly protests.
Aubrey's servant has run from my home, and I sense him leaving my town. He fears for his life, with good reason. Had he stayed I would have killed him. He knows I would, and he knows I can smell his fear.
I may have been changed against my will, but I do not fight what I am anymore. There is no greater freedom than feeling the night air against your face as you run through the forest, no greater joy than the hunt. The taste of your prey's fear, the sound of its heart beating strong and fast, the smells of the night.
I stand in this small town, so near to the dead and almost as near to the faithful in the church across the street, feeling the fear of the human running from my home. For that is what I am—a hunter. I learned long ago that I could not deny that fact.
Every instinct tells me to hunt this running, frightened creature. I am a vampire, after all. But I am not an animal, and I was once a human. That is what makes my kind dangerous: a hunter's instincts and a human's mind. Humanity's cruel way of toying with the world, laced with the savage, unthinking hunt of the wild animal.
But I do have control, and I will let this human live to tell his news to Aubrey, whom he fears even more than he fears me. He is the bearer of bad news, and Aubrey does not like bad news.
I refuse to allow Aubrey to rule me, but only because it is the way of my kind. I fear Aubrey as much as this human does, perhaps more, for I know exactly what Aubrey is and what he is capable of.
I am restless. Despite the rising sun, I am in the mood to do something.
After making a quick check to make sure there is no blood on me from the previous night's hunt, I leave my house. I walk, partly because I am not leaving Concord and thus not going far, but mostly because I have a craving to move.
Occasionally I visit cafes like Ambrosia, which cater to my kind. But more often I become a shadow of the human world. Human lives, which seem so complex to those who are living them, seem simple from the perspective of three hundred years.
The coffee shop has just opened when I slip through the door.
The girl who works there is human, of course. Her name is Alexis, and she has worked there for most of the summer.
'Morning, Elizabeth,' she greets me, and I smile in return. I often visit this place in the morning. Of course, I did not give Alexis my real name. I do not allow myself to grow close to humans. They have a tendency to notice that I never age.
I buy coffee, not because I want the caffeine or even like the taste, but because people will stare at someone who is sitting in a coffee shop without anything to drink.
A few minutes later the prework traffic begins. For about half an hour the shop bustles, and I sit in the corner silently and watch people.
Though I have worked to distance myself from human society, I enjoy watching humans as they go about their business.
The principal of the nearby school hurries in, already late for work, dressed in a somber suit that makes her look even more tired than she is. A minute later a middle-aged man opens the door, stopping in during his morning jog. Two women, sipping their coffee at one of the small tables, get into a quiet argument over an article one read in the newspaper. A teenage girl meets her boyfriend and then is horrified as her father walks into the coffee shop.
I smile silently, watching the various dramas, which will probably be forgotten by evening.
Business slows as the customers depart, many complaining about their destination.
Humans are often this way. They go about their lives, constantly working, complaining of boredom one minute and overwork the next. They pause only to observe the niceties of society, greeting each other with 'Good morning' while their minds are somewhere else completely.
Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I had been born into this modern time. Sin and evil no longer seem as important as they did three hundred years ago. Would I have been as horrified at what I have become, I wonder, if I had not been raised in the church, with the ever-present threat of damnation?
The two women in the corner who have been arguing about politics now stand and depart together, laughing. I watch them with an ounce of jealousy, knowing their worries are far away and that despite everything they know, they are still innocent.
Innocence … I remember when the last of my innocence died.
CHAPTER 10 1701
ATHER LED ME from her house, and I saw no choice but to follow. The moonlight cleared my mind slightly, but my vision was still red around the edges, and my head was pounding.
I did not have specific memories of who I had been, but I knew what a town was, and what a house was. And everything I saw around me was somehow not
Ather's home was at the fringe of a wood, set far back from the road. After a moment I realized what was bothering me about it: the house was painted black with white shutters, as was the one next door. I had an impression of inversion, like the black Masses I had been told of at which Devil-spawns spoke the Lord's Prayer backward. It was the same, and so very wrong.
'Where are we?' I finally asked.
'This place does not exist,' Ather answered. I frowned, not understanding. She sighed, impatient with my ignorance. 'This town is called Mayhem. It is as solid as the town you grew up in, but our kind owns it, and no one outside even knows it exists. Stop thinking about things you need not worry about, Risika. You need to feed.'
'No,' I said again, though this time it meant nothing in my ears and nothing in my mind. Thinking was impossible. I only knew I did not want to kill, but all I could think about was blood…red blood on black petals, and thorns and fangs like a viper's…
The pain was intense, pushing my reason away from me, and my thoughts were no longer coherent. Ather sounded so sure, so calm.
'Come, child,' she said soothingly. 'You can feed on one of the witches waiting for death, if that would appease your conscience. They are already doomed to death and worse.'
A shiver wracked my body, and the pain in my eyes and head grew. My hands were numb.
I am not sure whether I nodded. I believe I may have.
The next instant I found myself in a cold, dark cell with two of the accused witches. I did not consciously know how I arrived there, but part of me knew that Ather had used her mind to move us both. She appeared beside me a moment later.
I heard a beating that filled the room, and it took me a moment to realize that it was the heartbeats of the two women who were in the cell with us. One of them had screamed when she saw us, and the other had crossed herself. The smell of fear was sharp, and though I had never smelled it before, I recognized the scent the way a wolf does.
The accused witches tried to move away from us, one reciting the Lord's Prayer, the other still screaming. But the cell was too small for them to go far. I hardly heard the prayer.
I was aware only of their heartbeats and the pulses in their wrists and throats. I heard nothing else, saw nothing else. My vision was red-hazed, and my head was spinning.
