You Shall Know, At All Times, Exactly What You Are
"Jessica! Hey, Jessica, look at this."
I turned my head slowly. Obviously he meant me to hear it, the muttered proclamation of bravado before he moved, expecting just his words to stoke my fear.
"Hey!" he shouted, louder. "Hey!"
He already knew I was looking when he shouted it, a dirty urchin with long black hair in a raincoat and knit cap.
"Last I looked, it seemed like some of the baddest fuckers in England had been called to this place. So what's a ponce like you doing here, eh?"
Scowling, I snapped out my hand and grabbed his throat. He looked confused for a moment, before realizing what was happening and clawing at my wrist, gagging.
"Leif! Leif!" Turning to me, the blue-haired girl who was with him screamed, "Stop it!"
I released him and he fell wheezing to the concrete floor. Coughing, he propped himself weakly up to stare at me with feeble anger.
I knew better than to turn away. People like him attacked the instant you turned, convinced of some insult to their meagre manhood.
But in truth I didn't need to bother with him. I was more interested in why we were called there. Leif was right about one thing, at least: this was a den of beasts that I had to watch. To keep us here, to have our cooperation, meant the promise was powerful. I had just found a simple note in my schoolbag, giving me a time and place, with the question, "How powerful are you?"
In London my records were likely kept confidential to most, otherwise the headmaster might have turned me from his door, but only out of paranoia. I had just done trifles to them, really; a stolen object here, small threats, extortion. Little enough. It was the animals I used to really work on, before I lost interest. So what did they want with someone like me?
A deep, liquid male voice wandered through the room, from a speaker I could not see. It was a handsome voice, but my interest was always what it was saying.
"There is no welcome but a simple question: How powerful are you? Little can be seen. Would you demand more? Not simply the power of weapons, but of the form. Enhanced speed? Increased strength? Eyes that see in the dark?
"Look."
The dim room was suddenly a little brighter, the activated screen tingeing it with sick green light. The image was of something floating in in that shade, and I squinted, seeing that it was something like a computer chip, but with trailing ribbons that make it into a metallic spider. It bobbed slowly, somehow tantalizing.
I realized that I was licking my lips.
"This is your power. But to have it, you must die and be born again, as something other than human, never to be accepted by others. But that is why you have been chosen, because you have so little to lose and no love for humanity, because you are able to give what is needed in return."
"If you agree, each of you will get one chip now. To acquire more, you must kill. Not any specific person, but kill many, and kill spectacularly. For each thirteen you kill, come back to us for more chips, more strength. Immortality, eventually."
Hmph. Really they were offering us no choice. As mysterious as they made it, obviously they could not afford to have us talking, and would be able to kill on the spot those who disagreed.
"I'll do it!" roared an older man. "I've had it with this life!"
They all began to cry for it, me included. But I had more that I wanted, and did not care if questioning them cost me my life. What meant life, this alleged power, without him?
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We were gassed, or otherwise knocked out somehow, and I woke in another empty dark room. I was lying upon a slab, and there seemed to be glints of light falling around me like sparkling snow.
"Wait..." I choked out, sure that the transformation was about to happen.
"Yes?" asked the same voice that spoke to us before. There was no way to tell its source; I couldn't even see the room around me.
"I can give you another. He is not of the type you summoned, but he will come. Just let me have another of your chips." I spoke slowly, weakly, with slight pauses. Maybe the drugs haven't worn off yet. But I was sure of my desire.
"Hm. We will see what your desire is after your rebirth."
I scowled, anger bubbling up. "I am--"
An icy insect suddenly scuttled across my body. I sucked in my breath and tensed, watching the chip move across my chest as if it were alive, ribbon-legs tearing my shirt, scratching my flesh.
It stopped at my neck, and pain suddenly stabbed there. It felt like my neck was being sawed open and I arched my back and screamed, able to feel it burrowing into my flesh, blood spurting in its passage. I groaned and writhed once, before it became dark again.
This time I got up with a gasp, the tightness in my chest letting me know that I was alive. If this was the same room, the fog and lights were gone, and I could see the walls and floor outlined perfectly.
Then I remembered the pronouncement: to see in the dark... With a little cry, I felt my neck, but it was unmarked. Not so my upper body, which as I felt under my shirt, was crossed with many little scars.
On the metal table was a small mirror. I at first wasn't interested, but I caught a flash of red in my peripheral vision and bent down to look into the mirror. My irises had become bright crimson, so much that they almost seemed to glow faintly.
I staggered backwards, banging into the slab. My jaw had dropped in surprise, but it was hanging lower, almost touching my chest, revealing that all of my teeth had become like a wolf's. Enhancing the impression was my tongue, which seemed to have grown longer as I used it to wetly caress my new teeth. Despite this, my mouth still closed easily, fangs fitting into each other like puzzle pieces.
So this was the true price: we would be unable to live as humans again. I remembered the thing plunging into my neck, touched where the entryway had been.
A vampire.
I was a vampire. Wounded in the neck, sharp teeth. Likely I would fear the sun. A absurd conclusion, when it was just something mechanical that had done this to me, but I felt a truth in it.
"Do you still want this for your friend?" came the voice.
A surge of fear; I gripped the edges of the table, my head drooping. Then a sudden crack as I tightened my hands, and I opened my eyes to stare at the dangling corners of the table in my hands.
That sight made everything go away. "Oh yes." There would be nothing more for us but each other. How wonderful. "Give me one of your chips."
"You will be given one. But also remember this number: '5317'."
I should have asked why, but I was really just too excited to care.
Later a tray extruded inside the door. On it was a glowing green vial and a scalpel. I could sense no one outside.
"How very helpful," I remarked, perhaps jokingly. Both of the items were cold.
The voice gave me instructions and I followed them, going on an intricate route through the corridors. These were also dark, and while I could see in the dark now, there's not much to. No windows, no markings on the doors, the hallways absolutely empty and silent.
When I got to the exit door (also unmarked), there was just wind and trees outside. I was knocked out again, this time with a little jolt in the neck.
When I awoke again, I was in an area I recognized, close to home.
"Home" was the university. I had been glad to get away from Rome; I couldn't stand their eyes watching me. I never knew how much they were aware of what I did with men or those other general things, but either way I had been sent to England with little explanation.
Both aspects of myself had to be kept hidden. I have not killed, but I could. I have not loved another since coming here, since Mick. We will be all the other needs.
We did not meet often, both being frequently gone from our room, as Mick was last night, but I know him. He watches me when he thinks I do not notice. I know that he will follow, even if he feels he has to keep his feelings hidden because of protocol.
I did not return straight to the dorm, but to the slums to wait in an abandoned building, out of the sunlight, not wanting to test if I was a true vampire. God help anyone who came near, though no one did.
I did not eat. I was not hungry. I reached into my pocket and stroked the vial and the scalpel, waiting for the night.
When I judged it dark enough, I quickly made my way back, hoping that Mick was in tonight. I thought that I could scent him, though that might have only been a delusion.
But my confidence grew as I made my way into the dormitory, and it was not disappointed. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, reading a book, but started and turned when I opened the door.
"Enrico?" He marked the book and stood. His tone became smirking. "So where was it this time? I swear, you're going to start making me nervous."
He had lovely dark hair, and keen, piercing eyes. When he walked with that friendly swagger he was even more beautiful.
"Not going to tell me, are you? Well, it's your life, but I'd start...Enrico?"
After closing the door I had begun stepping slowly towards him, my head lowered. With the hair that usually hung over my right eye, he would not be able to initially see the red as I started to look directly at him. "Mick. How would you like to live forever?"
He must now have seen my eyes, because his own widened. The book dropped from his hand.
I understood that he was afraid. But he didn't need to be. I would show him.
Darting forward, I took Mick's shoulders and gently pressed him down to the bed. He tried to say my name, but I clapped one hand over his mouth. Even before, I was larger and stronger than he was, and now he had no chance.
But he was struggling, the cheap bed creaking underneath his twisting body. "There's no need," I whispered. "I just want to give you something."
I could not cover his mouth, hold him down, and perform the operation all at once. I tried pressing my knees down onto his chest with my free hand fumbling in my pocket as I moved farther up his body. This pinned him, but likely hurt his chest. Now.
With a burst of strength Mick threw me off, and I crashed down between the beds. I was not stunned, heard him panting, and snagged his leg even before he tried to run. Still holding on, I rose up and clamped my arm around his waist, muffling him with my hand again.
Turning Mick around, I took the top of his head and pushed him back down on the mattress, before gripping his head in both hands and slamming and slamming the back of it into the headboard. The banging was loud, would bring others. I didn't care. Mick and I would kill them all if they tried to stand between us, the invincible vampires.
Finally he stopped thrashing. The only sign of trauma was a line of blood tricking from his mouth; bruises might have formed later, but they wouldn't mar him. I straightened his tangled limbs and mussed hair so that he looked more peaceful.
Carefully I drew out the scalpel and touched it to his flesh. The skin easily slid open, and I poured the chip from the vial into my hand, the smell burning my nostrils. The chip was now a limp thing, legs trailing over the edges of my hand, but with careful love I slipped it into the opening. Mick's skin closed of its own accord.
Gently I brushed the hair back from his eyes. They had already turned crimson, but he did not move. It must be the pain, paralyzing him.
But now it was done. The world had both narrowed and opened for us.
"I'm sorry, Mick. I know it hurts. It threatens to engulf me as well. But from now on, we can share it together."
The blood flowing from this mouth. I could kiss it, drink it, a joining of ourselves.
The door opened. I had ignored the rumble of footsteps from below, but from the moment I entered this room it was too late.
"All I wanted...was to be with you forever."
And then everything went dark yet again.
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Where did you go?
I was in a coffin.
No...my fingers moved as well as they could, feeling cold metal all around. Something coming from the wall...a sliding mechanism? A morgue drawer? How...
Tensing up, I raised my knees slightly and push hard with my legs and feet. The drawer rushed out, spilling me to the floor.
Instinctively my hand went to my neck, feeling a break in the perfect skin. Did someone remove my chip? But I was still strong enough to push my way free. Strong enough...
I got to my feet, unwinding the blue sheet from around myself and tying it about my waist. I pressed my ear to the door and listened; silence in the hallway.
The doorknob did not turn when I tried it. An animal growl rumbled in my chest, and with a snarl I ripped the door away and threw it into the wall, equipment falling and clattering everywhere.
Alarms began to scream. More noise. More distractions. Why are they all standing in my way? Why does this world try to keep Mick and I apart?
The hallway was lined with cabinets and filled with pulsing red lights. Red, like Mick's eyes. Our eyes.
I kept walking, and noticed that one of the cabinets, taller than the others, had a keypad on its front.
The number. "5317".
I pressed in this sequence, and the cabinet door retracted, revealing a forest of guns. I took one and laid its strap over my shoulder, before reaching for a cartridge. How convenient.
I had hunted before, and easily adapted to the rifles. Maybe this was why the dark men granted my request so easily: I still am going to kill for them, cause that havoc that they wanted, and now my "resurrection" will bring much attention. Perhaps they made my chip knock me out, so that I would be thought dead and awaken here, unguarded.
But it's all for us. It's all to punish them for trying to separate Mick and I. Everyone will die, and I will revel in splitting their flesh and drinking their blood, before claiming him as mine forever.