Illusions of Soul

I wouldn’t have to kill her.

I could taste her and she could live.

Forever.

She could travel with me. I’ve had many years of traveling alone. And I think that she wants it. Or at least doesn’t fear it. She stowed away on a ship, facing both known and unknown dangers to escape the world she lived in. She can still do that. I hold the key to being in this world and outside of it at the same time. She’d like that, I think.

But she doesn’t understand the risks.

In me, she sees passion and everlasting life. What she also sees, without realizing it, is control, an ability to make choices and renounce cravings. Willpower.

She may have it or she may not.

She may be what I am or she may be what I used to be.

There are no guarantees.

There are some promises that are unspoken. We call them expectations.

Parents are expected to care for their children. And when you have created something, you are expected to take pride in it, take care of it, value it.

It expects those things from you.

But when you have created something, you are also responsible for it, and anything that it might do. For all of your hard work, for all of your dedication, it may make itself impossible to appreciate.

I had drained Helen’s father dry, taking from the side that wasn’t so charred the skin hung off of it. Helen just sat in the corner, watching me drinking of her mother. She was crying, but her tears were silent. Only the tiny sniffs that I could easily detect now gave her away.

We were in those positions when Haydn appeared in the doorway. I felt her presence as surely as if she’d announced it.

She looked around the room at my handiwork and I was quick to fetch Helen from the corner. I held her out to Haydn. My offering. Haydn stared down at her. And then she looked up at me.

Those things I long to forget that I never will? The look on Haydn’s face is the foremost one. I had tried so hard to prove myself to her, to prove she had done the right thing in turning me, and for her to look at me with such disgust? Such revulsion?  A biological parent’s rejection would hurt less.

She didn’t say anything. She just turned and walked away from me. Left me in my chaos, with my gift to her now sobbing in my hands.

I was right. It was a test. And I had failed miserably.

She lies still beside me. She always seems so content after, like my touch has mended something broken inside of her. She has no idea how many things I have broken in my time.

Such is the effect we have over people. If they are strong of will, they may despise us, despise what we come from and what we stand for, but they are too drawn to us to properly fear us. They want to believe that we won’t hurt them, even though their inner voices assure them that we will.

I won’t. But that doesn’t justify her lack of fear. What I am is an exception. As a rule, she should be terrified of my kind. She shouldn’t even be at ease with me. If she knew what a struggle it was, how I longed to have her in the only way that I haven’t yet, perhaps she wouldn’t sleep so peacefully.

She took me to a house to drink. It was a family that I knew well. The lady of the house had cared for me from time to time when my parents had to be away, and I, in turn, had cared for her young daughter, Helen.

It was a test, and I knew it.

I rapped softly on the wood shutter of Helen’s window. She was a brave little girl, not the type to scare easily, and I knew that she would answer and let me in. She thought it a game, a late night play date, without her parents’ permission. All in good fun. And it was. For me.

I dragged Helen through the tiny cottage by her hair. Her parents were up in the kitchen, having late night tea. It was strange. I expected them to be sleeping. They were shocked, as one might expect, by my sudden appearance in their kitchen. But not too shocked to react.

If I’d come in peacefully, they might have been more receptive, but they looked at me holding onto their daughter and jumped to their feet.

Helen’s father grabbed the metal pole for stoking the fire and came at me. I tossed Helen into the corner and plucked the pole from his hands so easily, it was as if he was giving it to me by choice. Even weakened, I had so much strength, they didn’t stand a chance.

I pushed him down. He fell into the fire. He struggled to get up, but my foot against his cheek kept him firmly in the flames. The screams, they were like a symphony for me.

His wife tried coming to his aid and I ran her through with the pole, just below her ribs and straight back into the wall. She hung there like a decoration.

Helen wasn’t unconscious. Busy as I was with her parents, she had every opportunity to run. It could have been shock, but it wasn’t. As a child will, despite all the reason I’d given her not to, she still trusted me. I had always been good to her, close to her, and, if I was killing her parents right in front of her, they must have had it coming.

Her neck tastes salty… and sweet at the same time.

Women. They are such a fascinating dichotomy of flavor, all allure and innocence.

And she is no different from the rest. Except for this.

I lie against her back, my breasts against her shoulder blades, my palms on the backs of her hands, pushing them down into the mattress. She is in a position of complete surrender. When I move to her neck, run my tongue up and down the vein throbbing with the ever-changing beat of her heart, she doesn’t flinch.

So many do. The may want me, want this, but they are always wary, always defensive, always waiting for me to attack.

But not her.

Either she doesn’t expect me to, or she doesn’t care if I do.

There was no weakness, not anymore. Depleted as I was, there was only energy, potent energy, of a kind I had never felt before.

And an incredible hunger.

Haydn lifted her head to look at me, as if she was searching for something, some assurance. What she saw, I don’t know. Some glimmer of hope? A bogus sign of success? And indication that everything had gone right?Or did she know right away that it hadn’t?

She traced her thumb below my lip and brough the leftover blood to my mouth. One taste and my daggers emerged, sharp and lethal. Later, Pavlov would study the effect in dogs. From that moment, just the thought of blood would instinctively bring forth my weapons. 

She has made a subtle mention of the holiday. As far removed from its traditions as she finds herself, it still retains a significance for her. And I know why she has brought it up. It is a gift giving holiday. I know exactly what she wants from me.

I am not unaffected by this submission. It’s something I relish every time, that complete abandon to me. I would have it no other way. Whatever she gives, I will take. But she can withhold what she wants to. I never take what isn’t mine to have. Even at my most vile, I never caused this particular brand of pain. I’ve never had to. What I really want, I am persuasive enough to get in more delicate ways.

When it comes to us, people, they always acquiesce.

Haydn gave no indication that she’d heard my whispered plea. She spoke quiet words that made no sense, but were clearly significant for her, and then she broke skin. There was a twinge as her daggers entered my vein, and then…

Rapture. Ample, undiluted rapture. All good things flowed in. All bad things flowed out. The fear went first. Whether I lived or died was no longer of consequence to me. There was only Haydn, her lips on my throat, and my hand in her hair, where it had latched on to pull her closer.

When death is slow, you can feel it coming. I felt my body slacken, my ever-working mind go silent, and my soul drift away. Tranquility… I could see it there in the distance. But, before I could move in that direction, death left me. Haydn’s daggers drew away and I felt the sting, but only for the briefest moment. Then, her lips were on mine, and I knew a different kind of peace. I tasted my own blood, my own desire and her. Within that sacred trinity, there was strength, life, and boundless pleasure.

Beneath my hand, her skin is crawling with life. Sweat seeps through her pours, goose bumps form in the wake of my fingertips. Her skin is fevered, not with illness, but anticipation. And, just beneath, searing blood rolls through her veins.

I can feel her heartbeat. She has an arrhythmia. I didn’t notice it on the ship, but I sense it now. Beat, beat, beat, and then a long pause that alludes to her mortality.

I wonder if she knows.