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Geoffry tried to calm his breathing once again, but only just managed to bring himself back from the edge of hyperventilation.
I didn't think that it would be so much harder this time than last. The fact that I've had so much more time to think about this one is part of the problem.
She's an innocent, or at least innocent enough she doesn't deserve to die. What am I doing? She hasn't killed anyone, she isn't selling crack to school kids. What I'm about to do is wrong but I have to protect Melody. I have to keep Imastious happy so he won't try and rape my mind again.
Geoffry looked around at the dirty subway platform with it's yellow-tiled walls, and fought a bout of queasiness as he thought about the end result of what he was about to do. It will probably take them hours to confirm her identity.
The sound of hundreds of approaching footsteps signaled that it was almost time. Geoffry felt his hands start to tremble as the first set of teenagers made their way down the stairs. Kids from high school and kids from junior high. There are thousands or even tens of thousands of them all over the city right now that are getting out of school and heading home. Some of them live close enough to walk, but most of them take the buses or subway. They temporarily overload the public transportation system. More bodies will probably be transported in the next hour than will be transported in the subsequent two hours when some of their parents get off of work.
Kids being kids, they're smaller and take up less space, but that is only half of the equation. They also seem to need less personal space, so they pack themselves in incredibly tightly. They squeeze themselves into the buses, they cram themselves into the trains, and they dangerously overload the platforms. They seem without fear, sometimes standing within inches of the edge, never really understanding how inadequate those inches are to protect them from harm.
They read the headlines of course, the ones about the accidents where the crowd surged at the wrong time. The hear about the senseless revenge carried out with a hard shove, no less deadly for the fact that it's anonymous. Despite all of that, the fact that those inches aren't sufficient doesn't ever sink in.
Geoffry saw the girl finally appear on the steps leading down to the platform. She was all but indistinguishable from her friends, all of whom were dressed in matching uniforms, but something pulled Geoffry's attention past the skirt and white blouse. There was no doubt but that she was the one he was looking for. His worries suddenly vanished. It's just like I rehearsed. I'll just follow the plan, and this will all be over in a few minutes.
No, you can't stop right there, I need you to come closer to the edge. As much as Geoffry had hoped his target would walk right up to the edge, he'd known that the odds were against it. As a result, the vampire had mentally prepared to have to compel her. The fact that using his abilities to kill somehow made the crime, worse, but that couldn't be allowed to stand in the way.
Opening his mind, Geoffry was nearly swept away by the maelstrom of thoughts surrounding him. So many of them. They're so energetic, undisciplined. It's like everything happening right now is of life-altering importance for each of them.
Geoffry tried to build an island of calm around his mind, and succeeded just enough to find the girl's thoughts.
Boring, this is so boring just like every day, you can feel it building inside of you, demanding you do something exciting and adventuresome. That's right, your friends are boring, those boys are boring, none of it is interesting.
It took longer than the vampire had expected, almost as if his efforts were less effective than normal, but soon Geoffry saw the girl's thoughts begin to shift. There, she is tapping her foot, flipping her long dark hair, and she isn't listening to her friend anymore.
Once the girl started moving towards the edge, her fate was essentially sealed. A quick pull on her trendy black backpack, was all it took to send the poor thing onto the tracks a heartbeat before the train came barreling up to the platform.
The ensuing pandemonium was more than enough to cover Geoffry's exit from the area. By the time the police arrived and decided that the girl's death was nothing more than a tragic accident, the vampire was several miles away.
The whole operation had gone so smoothly that an hour passed before what Geoffry had done fully sunk in. I don't even know what her name was. Tami, Tallie, Tanya...it started with a 't', but I can't quite remember what exactly it was. Is that just happenstance, or am I subconsciously dehumanizing her?
**
“Come on gorgeous, I'm not letting you miss weapons instruction two times in a row. You should know better by now than to stand up a beautiful woman.”
Geoffry didn't open his eyes. He'd expected that Venice would probably show up next to his bed tonight despite his having changed all of the locks on the apartment, but hadn't been able to bring himself to really care.
“I'm not feeling well. I can't train today.”
A springy weight settled onto the bed next to Geoffry, “Listen, I understand that killing the little girl had to be hard for you. I don't really know why, not considering the fact that not too long ago you wouldn't have even batted an eye over something like that, but I've come to accept that things have changed. We're no longer together, and those things bother you now.”
Geoffry felt unexpected emotion begin to well up inside him, and fought the desire to curl up next to Venice and sob.
It isn't real, she isn't being genuine, she's just telling me what she thinks I want to hear.
“Based on all of that, and the fact that you're barely functional now, I imagine there must have been something pretty important to make you go through with the hit. I don't know what it was, but you have to focus on that reason. That's why you did it. You have to cling to that reason, or you'll loose your sanity.”
The unexpected emotion in Venice's voice pulled at Geoffry's heart, and he found himself opening his eyes so that he could meet her gaze.
Why? Is it a facade, or is she truly worried about something? Is it my sanity that concerns her, or does the situation bring back ghosts from her own past.
Venice stared into Geoffry's eyes, but seemed to be looking past him for several seconds before blinking and then attempting a smile.
“Careful there, love, next you'll decide I have a soul after all, and then where would you be?”
Geoffry opened his mouth to respond, but he was torn between an honest response and the flippant sarcasm so normal between the two of them. Before the vampire could decide between the two options, Venice shrugged. “It was just a joke.”
The blond paused on her way out the door to adjust her hair. “I won't bring all of this up to Imastious, but I'm no mentalist. If he decides I'm trying to hide something, there isn't anything I can do to stop him from invading my mind; he won't even have to starve and torture me like he does to you. I just thought you should know. There's more than just you riding on you behaving and keeping him happy.”
**
Geoffry stayed in bed for quite some time after Venice left before forcing himself to get up and head outside. It would be all too easy to languish in that hole of an apartment, but all that would do is result in starvation. Even if I managed not to lose control and kill someone, when Imastious finally came to investigate my apparent apathy, he wouldn't have the slightest difficulty in overwhelming my meager mental defenses and plundering my memories.
The idea of going for a run to try and clear his mind was briefly considered, but discarded in the end because the hunger had Geoffry feeling so weak. I'd probably collapse about mile three.
Instead, the vampire found himself wandering through the sparsely-populated financial district in an attempt to avoid frequenting the kinds of places where it would be all too easy to find someone to feed from. Geoffry tried to distract himself by examining his surroundings, the proud metal and glass buildings that still looked new and unblemished. In time they'd enter the state of semi-disrepair so common elsewhere in the city, the same kind of near ruin he'd seen at the school. The inevitability was depressing, but didn't manage to truly distract him from the things really bothering him.
It was so intoxicating, the satiation of the hunger combined with the very real danger that I'd take too much and kill those poor girls. The feeling of being connected to them, and then submerging myself in their memories and thoughts. It may have been an illusion. I didn't feel anything like that the first two times I fed, but it felt real and it pulls at me with a strength as powerful as the hunger has ever been. It would be so easy to become addicted. Then again, maybe I'm already addicted. Is this what it feels like to need another fix?
A low growling, almost too faint to hear, brought Geoffry's attention fully back to his surroundings. Underneath the concealment of his coat, the vampire gripped the handle of his katana while scanning the darkness.
Some kind of animal? A dog maybe?
A chill slowly made its way up the back of Geoffry's neck as something operating on the level of instinct told him he was in the presence of extreme danger.
Where did everyone else go? There weren't very many of us out and about tonight, but they all disappeared incredibly quickly. Is it possible that they sensed that something bad was coming?
Looking around, Geoffry saw that the one other person on the street, a middle-aged woman in a dress suit that marked her as some kind of business executive, look frightened, and was actually moving towards Geoffry at a fairly quick pace, almost as if hoping to find some kind of safety in numbers.
Venice's warning that he shouldn't become too secure in his superiority over the humans around him flashed through Geoffry's mind, and suddenly he wondered if there wasn't some kind of predator out there that preyed on vampires they way that Venice sometimes insinuated he should prey upon humans.
The thought of something faster, stronger and even more deadly than him made Geoffry's blood run cold. It was ludicrous to think that something was actively hunting him, but he found himself hurrying towards the woman with a smile on his face that he hoped looked reassuring, but which he suspected looked more forced than anything else.
Maintaining an awareness of his surroundings while extending his mental senses was a trick that the vampire hadn't fully mastered yet, but the need to know what was out there stalking him drove him to try.
There she is, slightly ahead and to the left of me, her name is Alice and she's even more terrified than I am. Where is the thing out there that is stalking us?
Geoffry reached a little further afield and suddenly brushed against a presence unlike anything he'd ever imagined. Ferocious, tortured, and somehow more full than it should be, like someone poured memories and knowledge into it, more than it was ever meant to be able to hold.
The brief contact was all Geoffry was able to manage before his mental probes were torn away by a huge, mostly unformed presence, leaving him with an incredible headache.
The vampire stumbled in pain, reflexively grabbing Alice to avoid falling to the ground.
Alice's slight gasp of surprise, brought about by the unexpected contact, nearly drowned out the sound of many feet padding through the darkness, but Geoffry retained just enough sense to duck as he sensed something leap towards him from out of the night.
A dark form sailed over the vampire and crashed into Alice as something latched onto Geoffry's left arm and bore him to the ground.
Venice's training largely deserted Geoffry as none of the reflexes he'd spent so many hours retraining were appropriate for a close-quarters struggle.
The crushing pressure on the vampire's forearm was so great he wasn't really surprised when first one and then the other bones broke, crushed despite the protection of his heavy trench coat.
The next few seconds were a nightmare of fur and pain, but Geoffry somehow managed to get to the knife he'd secreted in his boot and once that happened, the fight was quickly over.
Rolling to his feet, Geoffry was just in time to see a large rottweiler release Alice's arms and turn towards him. The vampire took a step back, and dropping his knife onto the corpse of the first dog, drew his katana.
It will rush me, but its hind legs don't seem to be working quite right. That may buy me a split second in which to respond.
With a weapon in hand, Geoffry was once again on familiar ground, and his training, both the parts he remembered and the parts that were now nothing more than reflex, took over and slowed the dog's leap into a predictable arc that his blade intercepted, neatly beheading the animal as he spun out of the way to avoid being carried to the ground again.
Not surprisingly considering the extent of injuries to her arms, Alice was in shock. Geoffry started to apply pressure to the wounds when he heard sirens in the distance and realized that someone must have called the police.
I'm sorry, I'd stay and help but they'd ask too many questions. Questions I'd be hard pressed to answer. I deserve jail or worse for my crimes, but I'm not ready for that yet.
**
It had been all that Geoffry could do to roll out of bed once the sun went down the next day, but he'd known that he didn't dare miss another training session with Venice. It was just going to be one, but it's already been two, and unless I stop now it will snowball and the next thing I know Imastious will be kicking my door down.
It wasn't until Geoffry was out of the shower and accidentally bumped into a doorway with his left arm that he remembered the events of the night before, remembered how badly his arm had been damaged.
No wonder I'm tired, how could I have possibly slept with those injuries?
Geoffry carefully probed his arm, but aside from some slight tenderness, it seemed perfectly normal. How can that be? I remember them breaking. Did Venice say anything about abnormal healing? It seems utterly impossible, but the only other explanation would be that my memory can no longer be trusted.
For all it had happened before, the speed with which he had healed continued to worry at the edge of Geoffry's mind, so much so that he asked Venice about it within a couple minutes of arriving at her club.
“Increased regenerative abilities are part of the package that comes with being turned. A vampire will basically fully recover from anything that doesn't kill him outright...but the speed with which we heal correlates with our age.”
The hesitation with which Venice made the last statement would have gone unnoticed a few weeks previous, but Geoffry had come to realize that he had as much to learn from how Venice said things, as what she said.
“So I just gave you a hint as to how old I really am then?”
Venice paused, almost as if she was startled, maybe more by the fact that she was about to answer honestly, than that he'd caught the misstep.
“Basically yes. It isn't a perfect science obviously, but to regenerate from something like you described in the space of eight or nine hours is pretty impressive, it isn't as fast as someone like Imastious would do it, but it makes you older than I expected. Older than your speed would seem to indicate too.”
Geoffry shrugged, “So we get faster as we get older too?” At Venice's nod, he continued, “I guess I'm a freak even among vampires then, I just must heal quickly, because I'm obviously not much if any faster than you are.”
Venice returned Geoffry's shrug, “I suppose.”
Stripping off her warm ups to reveal loose cotton trousers and a white tank top, the blond continued. “I'm actually more interested in the dogs that attacked you, do you have any idea why they did so?”
Geoffry shook his head. “I don't know that much about mutts, but it wasn't like I was doing anything to provoke them. They seemed entirely normal other than the fact that they were so aggressive and that the one had some kind of injury to his back legs.”
Venice paused mid stretch. “When you say injury, was he bleeding?”
“No, there wasn't anything wrong that I could see, it just looked like they didn't work quite right.”
Venice went even whiter than usual. “Rabies, it has to have been rabies. You're absolutely sure that you killed them both?”
Geoffry nodded slowly, “Yes, they were both quite dead when I left. Why are you so concerned?”
Venice put both of her hands behind her, almost as if to ensure that they weren't trembling, and then started to pace back and forth. “I don't know, not completely at least. There are rumors of course, stories about things that prey upon us like we prey upon the humans. Things that own the night, that can appear out of the darkness and kill you before you know that they're there.”
“I always assumed that they were just stories, kind of like the ones about us descending from something else thousands of years ago, things that won't be happy with what we've become when they return to check up on us. At least I thought that until I found out that once something is infected with rabies it can sense vampires. Not only that, they always become abnormally aggressive in our presence.”
Venice looked up, and Geoffry suddenly realized he really hadn't ever seen Venice scared before. “You wouldn't believe the way Imastious reacted the last time there was a case of rabies in the city. He all but disappeared until the humans were positive that they'd contained the incident. He keep muttering about a massive outbreak.”
Geoffry suddenly felt his blood run cold as he realized he'd been exposed to whatever Imastious was scared of. “Are we exceptionally vulnerable to contracting rabies?”
Venice shook her head. “No, as nearly as I can tell there hasn't ever been a case where a vampire picked up the disease, it just boiled down to Imastious worrying something would hunt him down.”
“So if somehow there was a big enough outbreak, it is conceivable that the city's population of vampires could be decimated?”
Venice nodded in response to the question. “The humans don't realize how ill-prepared their medical establishment is to deal with something like that in a city this size. Imastious went on and on at the time about population density's effect on transmission rates, and a bunch of other stuff I understood even less well, but he sounded worried, and he told me it was more than my life was worth if I ever withheld information like that from him.”
Geoffry still felt like someone had injected ice water into his veins, but he tried to inject a little levity into the situation as Venice began packing up her things again. “He doesn't seem like one that would be all that worried about the good of vampire-kind.”
“He isn't, he's worried about his own skin. That and he'll no doubt be looking for ways to profit from an early warning if things really get as bad as he seems to think they may.”
It wasn't until Venice had been gone for half an hour that Geoffry realized the matter of fact way she'd described Imastious' desire to profit from the pain and suffering of others bothered him more than the thought of packs of rabid dogs cornering him in dark alleys.