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  My days without blood made it orgasmic. I pulled on the energy from her aura and her body went limp. I knew of no other vampire who could see auras well enough to capture them, but I could, and always did. A born knowing once told me I was stealing their souls, that there would be nothing more for them after this. Throwing up my mental firewall, I blocked out her chaotic thoughts, and drank. I drained her. The details of each human’s last thoughts were different, but they rested on the same background: terror, regret, and knowledge of impending death.

  Without warning pictures flashed in front of my eyes. My body jerked. I nearly fell off the girl. In my head I clearly saw the girl from the store. She was like an erotic dream catching me unaware. There she was again, but with pitch black skin and a contorted body. Suddenly my thoughts filled with images of the Quatre and Sara, the girl who’d been with them. She’d been no more than a child.

  Then I returned to reality. The girl I’d fed on was dead.

  But what had those flashing images meant? When I tried to get a hold of them it was like grasping sand. The harder I tried to see them the more they slipped away. Tomorrow couldn’t get here quick enough. I needed to talk to Jessica.

  I put my hand under the dead girl’s neck and pulled away. I’d let only a few drops of blood spill. I wiped my hand across the spot. In my fury to eat I’d inadvertently taken a full bite out of her neck. There was blood on my palm. I licked it. It was intoxication like no other.

  I sat back feeling full, much like a normal human might after the gluttony of a Thanksgiving dinner. Jason turned to me, grinning. I didn’t have time to reflect on flashes and pictures. We needed to get off the street.

  I grabbed the duffle bag from under the driver’s seat and started stuffing the girl into it.

  “Do they really taste better to you if you scare the shit out of them?” Jason asked, as he gave me a hand with the bag.

  “Yes they do. It’s like a fine wine. Also, fear loosens their hold on their auras, which makes it easier for me to take it.”

  I zipped up the bag, got out of the car, and checked both ends of the alley. Jason got out of the passenger side. When he stood beside me I felt so small. He was not only taller than me but he was better muscled. My lack of food had a lot to do with that. I should’ve been eating every day, but doing this daily would’ve risked my anonymity.

  Jason hurried to the driver’s side of the car. I always let him drive to the hotel afterwards, while I basked in the accomplishment of survival.

  Jason gave it gas, and we headed for the hotel. Jason checked his mirrors a hundred times, making sure we weren’t followed. I felt sympathy for Jason. He only ate humans so that he could shift into werewolf form. It’s a good thing he didn’t need it to survive.

  At the hotel, I checked us in, then we drove around to the back. We looked for humans. None were around, so we did our work. Jason retrieved the bagged body from the back seat. He flung the strap over his shoulder almost effortlessly. We followed our standard procedure, taking the steps, avoiding the elevators, and checking the long hallways. TVs blared behind almost every door. We approached our room, and I used our key card to open the door.

  He took the bag to the bathroom. It looked like any hotel room: two full size beds, ugly floral patterned comforters, a television and a bathroom.

  I grabbed the TV remote and turned it on, then flopped down on the queen bed closest to the window. I flipped through the channels, turning the volume up to drown out the noises coming from the bathroom.

  I knew what was happening behind the door. I had watched Jason and other werewolves before. He would dump the girl’s body in the tub and strip her naked. He would then take off his own clothes so they wouldn’t tear when he shifted. He would shape shift into his werewolf form, lean over the tub and devour the girl’s entire body, bones, skin, hair, everything.

  Once he was done he would take a shower and rinse any evidence down the drain. Nothing but the girl’s clothes would remain. We would throw these in the dumpster behind the hotel before we left. That trash would go to a dump and no one would ever know. And since she was a prostitute, more than likely, no one would ever care.

  As my meal settled my eyelids grew heavy. I thought I would close my eyes for just a second, but ended up falling asleep. I dreamt. Dreaming was something that I did not do often. Now I saw the girl with the strange aura, her skin as pale as mine. Her hair was snow white. This wasn’t a light yellow like my own hair; this was true white. She stood in a grassy field. Above her the sun and clouds sailed through the sky. Hunching her shoulders, she bent forward.

  As I walked closer I saw something protrude from her back. She raised her hands to her forehead and stared at me, her black eyes in agony. She took a deep breath, then unleashed an animal-like scream.

  I woke with a start. My whole body jerked, shaking the bed. I let out a yelp. I gasped for breath, and wondered where I was. As I heard Jason belch I knew that he’d probably awakened me. He’d flung open the bathroom door, and now he was creating sound effects with his digestion. He stood in the doorway rubbing his enlarged stomach with one hand, as he held the empty duffle in the other.

  When he looked at me he must’ve seen the confusion in my eyes. ”Jesus Christ! Are you ok?” He fished in his pocket for his cigarettes.

  “Holy Shit!” I muttered. “I just had a fucked up dream.”

  “That’s no good,” said Jason. “It’s got to be bad when a vampire has a nightmare. Verloren, you’re what nightmares are made of.” He chuckled to himself as he threw the duffle bag on the floor. He shook his head and ran one hand through his wet hair. He held the cigarette pack in the other.

  “That girl from earlier today,” I said.

  He leaped onto his bed, stretched out on his stomach, and turned his head to me. “I’ve been thinking about that too. If she comes back in Wednesday I’m going to try and get her number.” He lit a cigarette. “If you can’t fuck her I want to.”

  “No you’re not!” I snapped.

  “I knew it. You do want to fuck her.” He jumped up and sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s about time you got some. I can tell when you feed off of a chick you want to bust her shit up. You haven’t gotten laid since I’ve known you, and you are one grumpy son of a bitch. You need to bust a nut, dude.” He took a deep drag off his smoke, then he flopped on his bed.

  I inhaled, closed my eyes, and tried to ignore him. “Go to sleep. I’ll wake you a few hours and we’ll head home.” I stared in the direction of the television but didn’t watch it. He finished his cigarette and then snuffed it out. I heard the sounds of his snoring.

  In truth, I did find the girl attractive. It was the way she carried herself. She reminded me of a flower, closed and waiting for the sun. With sun she could open her pedals and bathe in the light.

  She was almost certainly an incarnate. The incarnates often sensed the strangeness in their lives, but they struggled with what that meant. They came in the store searching for books with answers. What they wanted to know most was: were they a part of something bigger?

  Like so many incarnates, the girl was embarrassed and confused, but her confusion went deeper. There was something about her, and I didn’t know what it was. She wasn’t a typical incarnate, so what was she? Something I’d never seen before. I went through a mental checklist of every type of creature I knew, but came up empty. Could she be from another world? I doubted it. Every extraterrestrial I’d ever known had a blue hue, but not her.

  I snapped out of it, woke Jason and we headed for home. He dozed as I drove home. I barely noticed the road or the traffic. All my thoughts were of the girl.

  Chapter 4

  REMEMBERING PURGATORY

  The next day I was anxious to see Jessica. I sat on the stool behind the store counter, as my DVD player ran through “Dawn of the Dead.” The flashing images still haunted me. I couldn’t get the girl with the strange aura out of my head. I had to know what was happening.

  I paid littl
e attention to Jason as he busied himself with inventory, only asking him to put on Marilyn Manson. I wanted to stop thinking about the girl, yet I wanted her to come back. I realized that she was growing into an obsession.

  The door opened and Chris came in carrying a plastic sack. He put it on the counter.

  I opened the bag and checked the contents. “Hollow points right?” I asked.

  “It’s all you ever ask for. So what are you doing this weekend?” Chris crossed his arms and leaned on the counter.

  “Nothing that I can think of. Why? You want to do some target practice?”

  “Always man,” Chris said. “You know it would be better to practice with regular bullets though.”

  “Yeah, but I like the way the .45 hollow point bullets blow shit up.”

  He laughed. “Yeah I know what you mean.” He quieted down, then said softly: “I had this guy come in yesterday. Said you sent him. He was looking to buy a gun but he didn’t have ID. He’s cool right? I told him to come back today. I figured that I would talk to you first.”

  “Yeah he’s cool,” I blurted, before realizing that I didn’t know who he was talking about.

  Then the door opened and a short figure moved quickly down the aisle. Jessica put her coat and bag away under the counter.

  Chris stood up, as always unsure of what to make of her overly happy persona. “Jessica.” He acknowledged her, then looked back to me. “Well, I gotta go open up the shop. I’ll call you about the target practice.”

  “You know I hate talking on the phone. Just come over,” I said. He knew I hated phone conversations.

  He stopped at the door. “I’ll call you,” he said with a smug smile.

  “Don’t call me, you asshole! Just come over!”

  He laughed as the door closed behind him. He headed across the parking lot toward his shop.

  “He doesn’t like me much does he?” Jessica asked.

  “Chris is about as thrilled with your eternally happy joy attitude as I am,” I said coldly.

  She slipped her hands in her back pockets and shrugged at me. The cool thing about Jessica is she didn’t care what anyone thought. She killed everyone with kindness. It was hard to truly dislike her.

  “So?” she said. “What about yesterday? I felt this pulse go through me right before you looked at me.”

  “Yesterday…last night.” I struggled for the right words. I didn’t want to talk about feeding with Jessica. That was private. I steered my thoughts back to the girl. “That girl had the weirdest aura I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Then, last night, images started flashing through my mind. It was…like dreaming with my eyes open.”

  “What kind of images?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember. When I try I lose all memory. Chris thinks I’m having seizures.”

  “Can you remember anything about them?”

  “One was of the Quatre, Sara in particular. Then when that girl looked at me…when our eyes met…” My head shook.

  Her eyes widened a little. “Hmm. The pulse.”

  “What does all that mean?”

  She bit her lower lip and looked at me. I felt like she was holding something back. “Strange stories are going around the born knowing community, stories about the Quatre and…Sara.” She shivered.

  “What stories?”

  “Nothing really clear. Just rumors. Apparently they’ve been….experimenting.” She squinted, as if she were trying to focus on a distant picture.

  “Experimenting?” I asked.

  “I’m not real sure, but it’s all centered around Sara and….possibly hybrids.”

  Sara. Her name brought back the fear. What was she doing now? She would be in her late teens, and if she’d developed the way she wanted to she would now be greed’s creature. All she would do is want. How would the rest of them do when this full grown child with her incredible powers, started throwing a tantrum. And hybrids? The Quatre didn’t allow vampires to change incarnates into vampires because of the fear of what a hybrid would become. Yet now the Quatre was running its own experiments.

  The thought hit me like lightning. “You don’t think that they would be building some kind of army do you? They have Sara, a fairy. You know how greedy fairies can be. She might want to build some crazy empire for herself.”

  “No,” Jessica said. “That would be hard to miss. Someone would catch on. But they’re doing something. It’s got everyone stressed. The board is supposed to put fear in us. It was created to keep things quiet and under control. It selects it members carefully. Hania is there because he is one of the oldest of the born knowings. Kale was chosen because he is a meticulous record keeper. He’s documented every day of his life, even when he was human. I don’t know how the werewolf and incarnate were selected, but there was a reason for each of them.

  “Overall we want everyone represented so the board can reflect popular opinion. The born knowings structured it like that once the dragons went extinct. We had to control our activities among humans. That was especially true among vampires, with the danger being greatest if a vampire were to infect an incarnate. What if the incarnates shifted in front of humans? What if the vampires went mad and turned every human into a vampire? The world would be chaos. If the balance of the vampire population tipped too far it could drive humans into extinction. Then how would you survive?”

  She reflected on her words then continued. “We can’t allow humans to see our lives. They would kill us all. They mustn’t even know we’re here. Still, if anything were to get out of hand with the Quatre I know Hania would handle it.”

  Reluctantly I extended my hand to her. I had never allowed any born knowing to look into my mind before. Some things about my life I was afraid to know. Ignorance is bliss. But now it was time.

  “Here,” I said. “It’s the only way you will be able to see what I saw.”

  She looked at my hand, shocked. “What?”

  “I want you to see the pictures I saw. But only look for them. Don’t go rummaging around in there. I don’t know how long I’ve been alive. I’ve done vile things to humans. Go in and see for yourself.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. There are reasons we vampires can’t remember things.

  I felt her tiny hands close on mine. She laid her palm on my palm, with the subsequent mental intrusion. I had to fight the reflex to keep her out. I tried to pry into her mind, but it was like getting a door slammed in my face. After a few awkward moments she pulled her hand away.

  I opened my eyes. Looking at her, I knew she had seen more than she’d expected.

  “Some things are left better unknown,” she whispered, “and some are better left until the right time. Just as there are things you don’t want me to know, there are things that I do not want you to know.”

  Why was she hiding it from me? My thoughts felt slow and confusing. Was she using a spell on me? She must be hiding something big.

  Then the odor hit me, like hot rotting garbage and feces. I threw my arm up and pushed my nose into the bend of my elbow. I recognized the ugly smell immediately: a troll.

  I walked quickly through the aisles looking for it. I heard Jason searching too. He’d smelled it. Only humans were immune to that stench. Trolls come from another realm—the same one where fairies originate—and they are nothing but a nuisance on earth. I found her in the back, squatting as she filled her pockets with stones. I knew her: Patti. To a human she would have looked like a small middle-aged woman but even if I hadn’t known her I would’ve recognized the rainbow aura tinged in green. I squeezed her shirt and coat collar into a knot and yanked her to her feet. She dropped the stones. They clattered across the floor.

  Her face was only inches from mine. I wanted to dry heave. I towered over her. “Patti what the fuck did I tell you? Stay the fuck out of my store!”

  Her face shifted into a childish expression, but her voice was old. “Mister I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

  Suddenly I had
a flash of Sara, the girl with the strange aura. My body jerked. Patti stared at me confused. She was one of a lot of trolls in our area, but they had little power, just a glamour for making themselves look like anything they wanted. But that took all their strength, and never lasted long.

  As she started to say something I cut her off. “Shut up! Your glamour shit is not going to work with me and you know it!” A half gurgled growl was rumbling in my chest. Trolls were kleptomaniacs and liars. I looked around to see if anything was missing. “How many times do I have to tell you to stay out of my fucking store?” I started dragging her toward the door. Her little feet struggled to keep up.

  “Get that thing out of here it fucking stinks!” Jason yelled, gagging.

  Her face shifted to that of an innocent child, but it did her no good. She couldn’t fight me. I could snap her neck as easily as I might break a thin twig. Once I knocked her out the door her features shifted back to her truest form: sunken cheeks, huge, deep-set eyes, and an ugly mouth.

  “Why did you come here Patti?” As daylight spilled in the doorway I pulled my sunglasses out and shielded my eyes.

  As she got up and brushed herself off, she smirked. “Hey, I was just in the neighborhood and thought…”

  “No,” I snapped, “not my store.” I leaned back gulping fresh air. “Earth. Why did you choose here, this planet? Or should I say this realm?”

  She glared at me. Should she walk away? Or talk to me? Finally she said: “In my own realm everyone knows I’m there, but here, humans don’t even notice me. They think I’m one of them.” She shrugged her shoulders and looked defeated.

  This was her way of getting me to feel sorry for her. Instead I turned from her and walked back into the store. I watched through the window as she walked away.

  Jason came out of the apartment armed with lemon air freshener. “Jesus Christ it fucking stinks in here!”

  “I threw her ass out again,” I said. I went to the back to help Jessica gathered up the stones.

  Jason sprayed the store, holding his nose.