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A Monster
by
By James Owens
Prey was scarce at four in the morning, and Pauli nearly told the young nosferatu to find her own dinner and leave his alone. He had been trailing the prey (it was hard to think of them as people anymore) for half an hour through the dim streets. The young man seemed to be wandering at random, staggering a bit now and then under the weight of alcohol. Perhaps he had left a late party and wanted to walk off his drunkenness. Pauli had stalked him longer than he really needed to, slipping in and out of the shadows, prolonging the hunt and the black flutter of anticipation in his belly.
At first, Pauli thought the other nos was just an ordinary mugger. She hunted clumsily, tripping over her own feet as she tried to get herself into a position where she could pounce. He could hear her footsteps from fifty feet away, though the prey’s dull ears did not notice anything. Pauli slipped ahead to stand in the shaded corner of a doorway and watch them pass, thinking that maybe he now had two options for the night’s meal, but, after the prey had sauntered obliviously by, he saw the young woman’s paler-than-human cheeks and the glint of her teeth as she passed under a streetlight, stalking.
His first impulse was to claim the prey as his own, as was his right of age and power. But she was obviously inexperienced and in great need. He could feel the hunger emanating from her like an icy wind. She was also pretty. That was the most persistent carryover from his former life. Almost everything else from before he became had melted into the darkness, but this tenderness for attractive young women remained, like an itch in an amputated limb.
He grasped her around the arm and pulled her into the darkness of the doorway with him, clamping his hand over her mouth and feeling the sharp points that protruded between her lips against his palm. He whispered, “Be silent! I am a friend.”
There was fear in her eyes, but when Pauli took his hand away, she did not cry out.
“Who are you?” she asked.
He shrugged and lifted his lips in a brief grimace so that she would be sure to see.
“We are the same,” he said. “My name is Pauli.”
She stared.
Pauli was aware of the prey staggering farther away while they chatted. He kept track with a part of his mind, listening and feeling for the life force, flickering then burning steady like a candle in a slight breeze.
“You’re a vampire?” she asked. Surprise in her voice. More fear.
“I am nos, yes. Nosteratu.” Pauli winced inside at the sound of the word in his mouth, a word he had not spoken for many years. It evoked, for him, not the sleek, dangerous, slightly ridiculous creatures of American movies, but the whispered tales and rumors of the ignorant peasants in the village where he had grown up. He had done much to distance himself from those origins, but now he suddenly seemed to hear the peasant accent on his voice, like a stain. So what? He told himself there was no reason he should be shy before this girl.
“Did you think you were the only one?” he asked her, putting a note of condescension into the words. “We are rare, but hardly extinct. It hasn’t been long since you became?”
“Became?”
He nodded.
“Oh ... no, not long. How long have you been doing this?”
Centuries, he thought, but nodded toward the prey. “We’d better get moving, or we will both go hungry.”
They circled the block quickly to get in front of the prey. She attacked first, and if she had been alone, the young man might have gotten away. She rushed from an alley and shoved his shoulder, pushing him from the narrow sidewalk into the gutter, an awkward assault. He managed to keep his feet and pushed back when she came at him again, sending her sprawling to the pavement, vulnerable.
Pauli stepped up behind the prey and stunned him with a sharp blow to the back of the head. He could have killed the young man just as easily, but it was better to feed with the heart still beating.
He dragged the prey into the dark shelter of the alley, and the young nos joined him.
Lying alongside the prey like a lover, Pauli sank his teeth into the side of the neck and felt the satisfying warm spurt against the back of his throat, the animal, coppery taste of blood flooding his whole being. The food was, as he had known it would be, spiced with alcohol, a spreading giddiness that somehow reminded Pauli of his youth for the second time that night.
After the first lovely gush, he opened his eyes and was momentarily shocked to discover that his protégée had fastened her mouth to the other side of the prey’s throat and was pulling greedily and a bit messily at the food. Her lying there with him was not only a break in protocol, but also a sudden intimacy that surprised him with the excitement it brought with it. Pauli felt this sharing was somehow indecent, as if a stranger on the street had placed a hand down his pants, but he didn’t want to stop.
Blood leaked in thin streams from the corners of her working lips. In her inexperience, she didn’t yet even know how to eat properly, and Pauli thought, right in the midst of feeding, that there was much he would have to teach her.
Pauli rolled away from the drained prey and lay on his back, his stomach tight and hot and full. He looked up at the few pale stars he could see through the glow of the city’s lights. They would need to get to safety soon, he knew. He could distantly feel the sun getting ready to swing up from under the horizon like the terrible hammer of fire it was. But he and his new companion could rest there for a few minutes without risking exposure to the dawn. He wondered if that was really what she was, a “new companion” for him, and how long that might last. His whole body thrummed with delicious heat as the blood began to move out from his center, feeding an excitement he would not have thought himself capable of.
Then she was there, moving onto him as light as a dream, pressing her mouth to his, naked. Her fingers trembled as she undid the buttons of his shirt. “Pauli,” she said softly, and again, “Pauli."* * *
When they were finished, Pauli lay beside her, gazing at her face.
“What’s your name? I don’t even know,” he asked.
She smiled. “It’s Mina.”
“Is that a joke?” he smiled back.
“Not exactly. More like, what do you call it, an homage. You understand?”
“We’d better go now,” he said, fumbling at buttons. “It’s morning.” He was beginning to be uneasy. The first ray of sunlight would be cutting through the alley any second now, he felt.
“Yeah, sure,” she said, sitting up, dressing. “Have to get inside before dawn, right?” she asked, laughing. “Let’s go to my place.”
“I’d love to, but....” he started, stopping mid-sentence as he saw that the night was later than he thought. A moment after, first sunlight flooded the street outside the alleyway, as if someone had opened the gates to a pent river of light. The nook where they had fed was still in shadow, but that wouldn’t last. As the day progressed, the rising sun would touch everything, burning and without mercy. Pauli felt like a fool, letting himself get caught outside like this, and just as bad for trapping the inexperienced young nos there with him.
“Hurry,” he urged, “this way,” trying to lead her away from the light, further back into the alley, where there might be a shaded escape passage. “We have to find a way out of here right now.”
“Come on,” she said, pulling him in the wrong direction. “Fun’s over, and we’d better get gone before somebody finds him.” She gestured at the empty prey, a cooling bundle of rags against a brick wall. Mina stepped out into the bright sunlight, blinking as her eyes adjusted, peering back at him.
“You coming?” she asked. She lifted a corner of her blouse to wipe the white powder from her cheeks, then grimaced as she popped her front teeth loose with a thumb and dropped them into her palm, turning her head to one side to spit out the taste of adhesive. Her face was pink and vital, eyes blue and sleepy.
“Last chance,” she warned, peering back into the shadows, then, muttering “whatever,” she turned and left, glancing about in all directions to make sure no one saw her leave what would soon be known as a crime scene.
Pauli stumbled to the back wall of the alley, gagging. He fell to his knees against the dirty brick, and the prey’s blood came rushing up in a red stream, splashing over his feet, cold now from its time inside him.
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© Owens, 2006
James Owens lives in La Porte, Ind. Previous stories have been published in The Harrow, Lost in the Dark, and The Fifth Di.