The people howled in delight. They hissed. They began to clamor for Abdul’s head and his blood as if they were vampires themselves. A rock flew from the crowd towards him. As Abdul’s handlers stepped back one dropped his shoulder and he fell limply threatening to drag the man who held him on the other side down with him. His head lolled at the end of his neck and his arms flopped like deadwood as they twisted him upright again. Peter glared at the crowd and the rocks stopped but the volume of the crowd grew. “Get on with it,” someone yelled. I was shoved from behind and fell to my knees. I didn’t look backwards not wanting to agitate them further against me, fearing a shot or a knife to the back. I looked up at my brother’s eyes golden in the morning light as if I were kowtowing to him and suddenly, a searing hatred flared in my veins and sputtered out in spittle from my lips. I stood quickly turned and took a step as if to push myself through the crowd but then stopped, not because I was afraid of the crowd though I did fear them at that moment. The faces of the men and women were contorted into animalistic expressions of anger and bloodlust and the children with them aped their parents. Their voices sounded like the squawks of ravens overlooking a corpse that a coyote has forced them to leave. An attempt to force my way through them could have easily ended in them pummeling me to death and leaving me lying on the ground in a bloody heap that my brother wouldn’t have mourned. I turned back because I thought I owed it to Abdul. He could have drained me at any time and who would have been the wiser. He could have left my corpse on the side of the road, or worse still turned me into a thrall to serve as his hunting dog, but he didn’t. He had remained true to his orders, to the General, and in some way to the men who’d created him. If he would have come upon me on an empty road before the General had learned of my existence than he would have drained me without qualms but even so I felt that he deserved for me to bear witness to his death as the closest thing to a friend or family member present. When I turned back Abdul’s eyes were opened wide but unfocused and his lips were moving slowly as if he were muttering to himself. The vampire slung him down onto the wooden block with an audible thump. The impact didn’t faze Abdul. There was no indication that he realized that he’d changed position at all. He looked almost peaceful lying there with his head on the block as if it were a pillow and his face turned to one side. His lips moved steadily and silently as if he were praying, and his eyes seemed to be staring into a world that no one else could see as if he’d achieved some transcendental ascension beyond the world that we inhabited, a world in which I stood, alone and surrounded by people, people who I’d worked with, people who were now reduced to no more than animals.
The vampires’ skin shone in the sun and those that stood around my brother looked somewhat queasy as Robert came forward with the axe, his thin old arms miraculously holding it upright without shaking. A crust of blood still clung to its edge. He alone amongst the vampires showed no signs of queasiness, though undoubtedly the other vampires had no qualms about killing one of their own but were instead suffering the effects of the sunlight. He sauntered up to the block grinning up a storm and swinging the axe handle jovially. As he approached the Peter grabbed Abdul by the hair and pulled his neck into position. He flicked a clump of hair from his fingers as he stood. It floated slowly to the ground dissolving in the sunlight. Without even stopping and making a show of it, as if the act were an extension of his stroll Abdul’s appointed executioner swung the axe. The blade glanced off Abdul’s neck shooting to the right before the old vampire got it under control with a smirk. The crowd squealed with delight and a child in the front row shrieked and covered her eyes. A chunk of Abdul’s neck was gone and the wound oozed rancid yellow pus slowly. He moaned and his body shuddered. His tongue was sticking out. A wave of sadness washed over me and my eyes quivered, but no tears fell. I wondered if I was still able to cry. The vampire struck again spraying himself with a line of bloody pus. Still the neck remained intact. A couple of people laughed, and he looked around glaring for the source of the noise, and then turned back to Abdul’s quivering body. My brother stood behind it all sharing a self-assured smile with his compatriots. Again, the old vampire swung, no longer lackadaisically but with more vigor, and with a crazy anger building in his eyes. The blade bit through the bone and the head rolled away. The crowd roared with approval. The head came to rest facing me only a couple of feet away. In death Abdul’s eyes were more focused than they had been in his last few minutes of life and they stared at me sadly as if they knew all that was in store for me. I turned away from that gaze only to
