Kaa: Kay-a Corin: Core-in Suede: Swade

Blood. There was so much blood. Too much. It covered my hands, stained my floral, pink sundress and all I could think of was why was there so much blood?
I believe I cried. I shed tears for the woman lying like an angel on the hardwood floor before me. Even in death her face was serene and beautiful. But her skin. It was so cold and I couldn't understand why. Though smooth like glass, the pallor was foreign, even for death. Her eyes were like polished sapphires as she stared up at the white stucco ceiling above.
There weren't any wounds, not that I could see. There was crimson blood around her luscious ruby lips and I couldn't comprehend why. I reached out and touched her hand that lay beside her body, the nails long and black.
Could she really be dead? Where was her family? Surely she had not come alone. I didn't recognize her face and I know I would've. You couldn't forget a face like hers. It was simply impossible.
As I looked away, gazing around for somebody, anybody, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a little pool of blood near her neck, her chestnut hair drenched in it. Gently, I brushed away the strands of her hair from her throat and peered with my wide ignorant eyes onto the severe bite that had brought her to death. The teeth marks were deep and a couple of them had pierced into her skin, drawing blood. Why would somebody bite her? I wondered helplessly and like the naïve child of six I was.
My fingers touched the blood around the two grave puncture wounds. It was sticky and I could faintly smell it. But something about it compelled me to taste it. I was in a daze, staring at the hideous peach wall that her sandal heel touched, with my fingers drawn to my lips. I licked my bottom lip before I tasted my fingertips. My body went numb with feeling. I could suddenly smell the blood much more and something that hung heavy, poignant, in the air. It made me want to vomit and I almost did. I would learn later that that was the smell of decay.
This sensation of power, heightened senses, lasted for a few days. And when it faded, I craved more of the woman's blood. The blood that had damned her a hundred years ago. That was Anthen lying in her won unnatural death on my kitchen floor. I was told later in many different versions, none of them remotely close to the truth, of how she had come to be there.
That wasn't my last experience with death. Death showed up at my window for the second time, a face of a damned angel that Heaven had forsaken and Hell refused to take. He peered at me with curious dark eyes and though I never truly saw them, I knew that they were black. He looked at me as if he knew what I was to become in life, like he knew something none of us did and this was true.
At first I was frightened, disturbed by his presence. The same time every night he would show up like a guardian angel. He never uttered a word in the ten years that he watched over me.
When the night of my sixteen birthday came I saw his face for the last time in what would be a long time. Conjuring up courage I never knew I had, I slowly walked to the window and opened it wide. There was a sudden rush of coldness despite the fact that it was a hot, humid and sticky July night. This was his aura and it smothered me. My breath caught, not only from the indescribable surge of dominance that came from him but also from the beauty of his pallid face that I had only glimpsed every night for he stood on the roof in shadows the moonlight created for him. He was so unearthly. So gorgeous unlike anything I had ever seen. I began to wonder if he had sold his soul to the Devil for his radiance, for his perfect and flawlessly structured face that reminded me of the Greek and Roman men I had seen. He chuckled gradually, deeply at this as though he had heard my thoughts, gazing at me the entire time.
I longed to hear him say something, anything, to see him move for even when he had chuckled his face remained stoic, a façade he had built upon hundreds of years ago. When he reached out to brush the back of his knuckles along my cheek, I briefly surprised him for I hadn't flinched at the intrusion or at the alarming coldness of his strong hand. I had felt such iciness before, ten years ago and suddenly the vivid image of the pallid creature lying dead on my floor was in my mind. He withdrew instantly and I thought I heard him hiss out a sharp breath. That was the last time I saw his face for years to come.