If they had killed Max sixty seconds earlier, I would have bled to death on that cheap hardwood floor
The thought pounded into David's head as he made his way down the road in a shambling run.
The wounds still stung mightily, but worse than that was the strange, burning feeling of immortality leaving every cell in his body. Max is dead. But I'm not. Then what am I?
Before he could stop himself, he felt his knee lock. He tries to catch himself as he fell, but it seemed like his limbs had lost their usual catlike ability. They felt slow, heavy. He hit the concrete violently and rolled to the side of the road.
He lay there for a full minute, somewhere in between gasping and crying out of sheer confusion, pain , and desperation. I am an animal. I cannot feel. All I know is pain and desire to run. His senses felt strangely dulled. I can't hear the people on the Boardwalk. I can't feel anyone's thoughts. I can't, I can't...why do I feel so weak?
He managed to get to his hands and knees and looked up. The sun was creeping over the horizon.
There was no burning.
He remembered the scene only minutes ago, shaking himself from his faint and the searing pain of the wounds. Extricating himself from the horns as the battle raged, the onlookers oblivious, he desperately tried to coax his heightened healing along as the blood poured down. By the time he was at the back door, the flow had stopped to a trickle and the openings of the wounds had closed. By the time he got to the end of the yard, only the pain remained. Stupid horn doesn't kill vampires, he had thought, a tiny bit of confidence returning. In a few more minutes I'll be right as rain. They forgot how fast we heal.
And that was when a terrible, agonizing scream seemed to come from within ,as he felt something deep inside of him being ripped out with such force that it almost brought all the air out of his lungs with it.
Max was dead
And he was mortal.