Bloodlust

Claire sat their, she just sat there. Things were no longer the same. She rested her head in her pallid palms. Her head ached; so many new sound and smells were plaguing her. At least it wasn’t day, day was painful; day was when the sun ate at her skin and eyes, day was when fatigue stole her very soul. But now it was night, and with night came hunger, with night came bloodlust.

He would come back soon, the one who brought this upon her; well, most honestly, she’d brought this upon herself, after all this was what she wanted. Wasn’t it? She felt the cold bricks of the wall on her back; her hunger was becoming insatiable, night after night red acid, never quenching her thirst. Her thirst, her thirst for what? Blood? Yes, but it could be satisfied for the moment anyway. Power? Yes, yes that was it, power. She was but a proselyte, the one of the low ranking of her kind. She would ask him tonight, for his blood, for she had given hers for him.

She heard him approaching, soft footfalls, but her vampiric hearing made them as cracks of thunder in her ears. “William,” she whined his name with a slight Irish accent. She looked at him pleadingly. “Make it stop, make the noise and the pain stop.”

“Soon my darling,” he spoke tenderly. He sat beside her in the dark alley; gently, ever so gently, he caressed her bloodless cheeks. He pushed a package of raw meat into her hands she could feel the blood, screaming to her. She opened the package, the blood dripped over her fingers. She pressed the meat to her lips and sucked the blood from it. Then instinctually she drove her fangs deep into it wringing the last of the blood from the meat. She threw it aside, her thirst begging for more.

“Will, what of the ancient rites? Is it possible that I might become an elder?” she asked, hoping that the sound of the pounding of her own heart would dim in her ears.

“My proselyte, in two hours the harvest moon reaches her peak, then, my love, you shall become as I,” as he spoke his voice became soft. His face neared hers; pulling her into a long, sweet kiss.

Claire smiled; his happiness and passion made the noise and the pain flee from her weak form. She felt his lips on the white scars on her neck, scars he had put there. Claire smile as he again kissed her neck, this time his fangs grazed her skin and he licked up the tiny red droplets like sweet nectar. “Now,” he whispered.

The familiar lust for blood and for him came over her. She wrapped her arms about him, sloppily laying kisses down his neck. She ran her tongue over the puncture scars at his collar. He let out a soft moan as she plunged her fangs into his throat. She lapped at his blood as a cat would at milk. It was sweet, but acidic; it burned her throat and made her whole. She smiled as she watched the black sparks repair his wound. Then fatigue swept over her, rays of sunlight swept over the horizon, but no longer did her eyes ache. But she was tired, she needed to sleep.

Will cradled her on his lap. Like a father would to his sleeping child. “Now, you are whole, Claire. Now, we can spend eternity together.”

Claire awoke; she felt Will’s head on her shoulder. His dark red hair was messy; tonight he wore small framed glasses for a disguise. Behind the glasses his blue eyes were closed, she liked him like this. She kissed his lips gently waking him.

Will smiled as she pulled away, his ridiculous, toothy smile he reserved for her. She smiled in return, baring her white fangs. “We should get you attire that better shields you from the sun, at twilight,” he said, pulling off his cloak and putting it around her badly sunburned shoulders. It was barely noon; the shadows had lifted from them only minutes before, they were in a hidden alley, where sunlight hardly touched for a half an hour every day.

She felt her back cool immediately. She wore a white dress that exposed her shoulders and back. One day it had been an extravagant garment, but now it was bloodstained and dirty, and it was an inadequate cover for her sensitive skin. She nodded in thanks, settling herself in his lap.

She recalled how she had gotten here. It was barely weeks ago, yet it seemed so very long past. She was the one of the more intelligent at her college though she was only a freshman. She had known him since the beginning on ninth grade, dated him in tenth and eleventh, and fallen madly in love with him as a senior. But one thing was always the same, he seemed afraid to tell her something. He never told her why he dumped the twice they had a chance for relationship in high school. He was the perfect boyfriend, he never pushed her, and he was always there to talk to. Her friends used to call her obsessed, but she loved him.

But a few weeks ago he admitted to having feelings for her, and he admitted to what he was. A vampire; it scared her at first, but the notion appealed to some beast inside her that sought morbid pleasures.

She begged him for that kiss; that bite. At first he refused, but slowly he gave in, and by the full moon, it was apparent that he wanted her with him, for eternity. And then, as she recalled, they met in the dusky forest. Sweet kisses passed the time until the moon reached its noon. It hurt a lot at first, but slowly the pain dimmed and she found herself unconscious. Now she felt no more than a small twinge of pain when he bit her, for her kind it was a passionate act to share blood.

The sun’s burning rays bit through the cloak, she shivered in pain. “Will, we need to find a more sheltered place,” she whispered. His face was red as the blood he drank. He pressed his knuckles to his face feeling the warmth. His fingers left white marks on his cheek but they rapidly faded back to red. He nodded silently; his eyes went out of focus as they caught the sun’s rays. He blinked hard expelling the blurriness. William arose and took her hand.

He lead her around the corner and out of the alley, the sun caught them full. Claire struggled to ignore it; it made her skin burn as though on fire. He pulled her quickly to a hotel, inside the fluorescent bulbs made her head pulse but the stinging of her skin began to ebb. The hotel was second-rate, but that was ideal, because there were no questions asked. Money for a room, no name no phone number, nothing. He handed the woman at the counter a few dollar bills, grabbed the key and hurried to a room. He opened flimsy door and quickly shut off the light that buzzed at the center of the room.

Claire pulled the window blinds closed, so the room was nearly pitch black, except for the tiny beam of light that wandered around the room from the crack below the door. Claire collapsed onto the bed, the spring mattress screeched in protest beneath her. “Well, it’s more comfortable than the alley.”

William sat down beside her and examined her sunburn. She winced as he gently rubbed his finger to her shoulder. “We’ll need some medication for these burns,” his voice was quiet and dark like always, but Claire could tell he was concerned for her wellbeing.

“At twilight,” she replied, rolling closer to him. She stretched her neck suggestively, “But right now I hunger for your blood.”

He smiled, she loved his smile. He pulled her into his lap and licked at her throat, leaving tiny blood marks around her neck. He sunk his teeth hard into the nape of her neck. She groaned, letting out an inhuman hiss of pleasure. He licked the blood from her back, she shivered ecstatically. She turned in his lap to face him. She pushed him back into the bed so she was straddling him. She laid sloppy kisses down his windpipe to the collar of the ebon shirt he wore. She carefully unbuttoned his shirt enough to expose his shoulder; she ran her fingernails over his chest, leaving a line of blood. She ran her tongue over to blood, the sweet iron taste made her grin. He moaned in satisfaction as she bit tenderly into his shoulder. The blood came to meet her tongue; she welcomed it gulping it taking as much as he allowed her to before he repaired himself. She brought her lips to his before surrendering to the fatigue that the sun had brought.

Claire woke; she felt the bed next to her realizing that he left. Her stomach screamed for blood. He would bring it, too; he always did when he went out hunting. She laid back into the grey sheets and waited.

By midnight the hunger was becoming too much. Her vampiric senses began to awaken. First it was her sight, the buzzing lamp in the hall whose light came under the door seemed to blind her. Then her smell, she could tell there had been seven people in this room over the last three months. Next, her hearing, she could hear her own heartbeat it as it pulsed in her ears; she heard a roach scuttle across the bathroom tile. Her skin prickled as the sheet brushed her skin, her touch. Her tongue was dry, the taste of William’s blood was faint in her mouth; she needed more, she needed blood.

Her heart raced, her instincts were taking over as she rose from the bed. She made no sounds as she opened the door. Claire stalked silently toward the desk at the front. A boy was sitting behind it; he didn’t notice her for he was reading the Spawn comic book. She came behind soundlessly. She wrapped her fingers around his head. “Scream and I’ll kill you slowly,” Claire rasped into his ear.

The boy made no sound, in fact he cooperated. He made no move to be free of her. Her hand still around his head she hauled him to the corner. She licked at his neck gently making a place for her fangs.

She felt him smile; he thought she was some sort of sick woman. She returned his smile as she plunged her fangs into the nape of his neck. The sweet, irony taste met her mouth, she lapped at it for what seemed like hours. His form soon fell limp, she had drunk his veins dry, and still there was hunger. Where was William?

Claire stalked out the door, to begin to search for William. “William? William!” Claire called into the alley, the alley where she had become one of the creatures. She saw his dark frame sitting calmly on a crate. “Will?” There was no answer.

She approached her love. That was when she noticed the stake protruding grotesquely from his chest. “No, no, no, William, wake, please.”

That night her tears mixed with his blood. She noticed the paper with a scrawled note written upon it lying beside him.

I know who you are and what you are, Claire, you’re next.

The Hunter

No, she thought, you are next. She crumbled the note as she let the alley. Little did she realize that he who had made her was no longer, by definition, living. No longer was she a proselyte, or an elder. Claire was becoming one of the elite, those who could not fall, even in battle.

She pressed the crumpled note to her nose, taking in the scent of her next victim. She dropped the note to the cold pavement, stepped on it confidently sniffing at the air for the scent of the Hunter.

She followed the scent in the air for hours around many turns to a hotel suite in downtown. It was on the sixth level of the building. How was she to get up there? She brushed her hands over the rough bricks. Her blackened fingernails extended instinctively like a feline’s. She dug them into the brick, the brick held. In that fashion she scaled the building.

He was sleeping soundly in the king-size bed; she was sure it was him, the smell was identical. She ran her fingernails over his throat, slitting his trachea. She began to lap at the man’s blood, she blinked in disgust. His blood was tainted, for it had been taken by another before. She heard something and turned, but not soon enough to see the figure round the corner.

She followed the sound around the corner, where she found herself facing the true Hunter.

End. Hoped you liked... I know sort of a not-so-good ending. smiles evilly maybe I'll write a new ending sometime.

--Corinne