Out in the forest the world felt pure. The cold air was burning my throat, so I slowed a bit and wrapped a scarf around my face. It recalled the image of Mary and I cursed myself. The ground crunched with frost beneath my feet. I felt I could die there. That the trees were the pillar of the church that would contain my funeral. There seemed to be no life outside the unyielding trees. Then I caught a strong acrid urine scent with an earthy undertone. I moved towards it as slowly and as quietly as any nocturnal predator through the complete darkness of the early morning. The moon had set, the stars were hidden, and the sun would not rise for a few hours. I felt as if I might disappear into the night. My body and soul merge with it and then I would ride its winds and never see the harsh light of the sun again, but then I saw the deer lying under a clutch of brush. Its head was up as if it had gotten spooked and it looked around with big glassy black eyes twitching its ears back and forth. I dashed forward, ducking under the branches but still crashed through many of them as they ripped across my chest. I caught the doe just as she’d heaved herself to her feet and shoved her hindquarters to the ground. She kicked me in the stomach hard enough to knock the wind from my chest and allow her to scrabble to her feet. She danced around and started to run but I tackled her to the ground grabbed her muzzle and pulling her head to the side bit into her neck. It only enraged her. I had not yet grown fangs and I’d only managed to bruise and scrape her flesh. Still I got a slight taste of her sweet herbaceous blood and I went wild. I shoved her face into the ground with one hand even as she pummeled my chest with her front hooves and tried to roll over. Then I pulled the knife from its sheath and slit her throat open in one smooth move. I tossed the knife aside and leaned forward to suck the deep red blood from the wound. I pulled at it like a child nursing. The blood tasted of iron and bark in my mouth. It raged through my body. My mind cried for more and I drank and drank until she stopped spasming beneath me and my stomach pressed painfully against my abdomen. Even still I lay half dazed on top of the body licking at the slowly oozing blood as the warmth dispersed back into the cool night air. From off in the forest I could hear the laughter of the vamp that had followed me, but I scarcely registered it.
A drip of coagulated blood that fell from my chin to my hand snapped me from my feeding frenzy. My heart rushed with the influx of blood. My face, chest and hands were covered in a slippery, drying layer of blood. I pushed the dead animal away and scrambled backwards frantically all the while hearing the growing laughter of the vamp who watched me. Even as I felt a surge of life and warmth rushing throughout my body I turned away from the corpse and hurled into the dormant brush. The thick liquid came rushing back up with an acid bite and splattered all over the ground. I watched the brown; black and red liquid running along the wrinkles of the ground and felt an involuntary sadness at its loss. Then I stood and wiped the vomit from my mouth with the back of my sleeve though a sticky layer of dried blood still coated it. I walked back slowly towards my brother. I felt truly vampire and truly disgusted with myself. I had drunk before but that had been the blood that had been brought to me. Now I had killed. Now I had sucked the life blood directly from a beating heart and quivered with joy at it rippling through my veins. I remember how Abdul had described the first time, how it had made him feel alive for the first time and I agreed. When I had the quaking frightful deer’s neck in my mouth and its blood was gushing into me, I had felt alive, more alive than I had felt since Mary had been killed.
I walked straight back to where the rest of the group was loading the wagons. I climbed up on the sidebar of the wagon and sat in the very front where the whipping of the cold wind would keep their heckling at bay. It didn’t take long for the mortars and packs to be repacked and soon we were on our way south again travelling through a clear night lit up by my inhuman sight. The doe’s blood had dried all over my face and I fitfully tried
