Chapter Fifteen
Ghosts
There's something… exciting about doing something forbidden to you before, whether by law, by rules, or by yourself. Though I felt something dark inside, a feeling of self-loathing towards my actions, I also felt a sense of freedom by biting into the shoulders of passerby's at random in midday. I only took a bite, not drinking but a drop of blood, before releasing the terrified humans who ran horrified and confused.
At first I expected town wide terror. I expected people to see a monster biting into a person's throat and become terrified as well before running for their lives. But instead I got confused looks, hushed whispers, movement to avoid walking near me, and was relatively left alone. Blood ran at my lips, dripping down to my chin as I walked down the sidewalks easily.
When I thought I'd terrorized enough people, sending any law officer who approached me away with mild confusions and stories about an elusive mystery woman attacking townspeople, I strolled into a nice park. I moved towards a secluded area, through bushes and trees, and found a bench located near a small garden of flowers. I sat down, tracing my hand over the bench as I did, and visited a human memory faint in my mind.
I saw myself in the garden at the Draele mansion, the closest thing to escape from the walls of the building. It was a garden Jove's cousin, Katha, had built for Mikel after turning him. He never cared for the garden, but I had always found it fascinating enough. I could remember writing in my notebook among the flowers, trees, and the amazing fountain with lily pods and fish with flashing scales.
While waiting for what might never come, I remembered describing myself to Evanen as jealous of trees and their ability to shed their leaves every winter; to start a new life every year with new memories. Sometimes I was sure winter couldn't come fast enough, that I wanted nothing more than to shed my proverbial leaves. And now I knew I was granted that change. I had shed my whole previous life away and started new; a new creature, new name, and new life with new love. Only now I was stuck as I was forever; stuck without the ability to grow and to change. I was frozen in my eternal winter… unless this hunter could just end me and my dangerous blood.
I heard him far before he appeared. I don't know how I knew it was him, except that he was moving fast in the day unlike just some random vampire could and I could feel his dangerous motions from here. I wasn't sure if I wanted to look at him when he was here to strike me down or if I should close my eyes and wait for any consequential blows. I decided to not witness my own death unless he failed, so I closed my eyes easily and tensed up waiting for him.
He was quieter than a normal human. He moved through the bushes without rustling one leaf and was in the clearing with a grace that equaled to the confidence of a professional ballet dancer. And then there was silence, telling me he had frozen now that he had me before him. I waited for him to attack, but time only passed by. I would have to witness my death after all. I was too curious.
Slowly, I opened my eyes, moving my head ever so slightly so that the man would enter my view. My wheat brown eyes focused on the hunter's piercing blue eyes and I felt a shock tear through me that nearly stopped my heart. I openly gasped, widening my eyes.
It wasn't the fear of the hunter himself that caused me to react this way. It wasn't his solid gaze that spoke of utter hatred or the knife fashioned out of what looked to be a dozen pairs of vampire fangs he had prepared specifically for me. It wasn't even the handsome features of his fit form, the gorgeous nearly white shock of blonde hair, or those beautiful sharp blue eyes that glared daggers at me.
It was a ghost I was looking at, that's what made me feel the weakest I'd ever felt as a vampire. The hunter attacked, stabbing the strange knife through my chest and straight into my heart. The pain was sharp and unusual; being the first time something was ever stabbed into my chest before. It was the strangest feeling, having someone destroying my existence while I only watched with wide eyes and an open mouth.
"Evanen," I finally gasped, but he didn't seem surprised at being called such a name. It couldn't be him. Instead of answering though, he only drove the knife deeper into my heart, which finally sputtered to a complete stop and drug me down into the darkness of death.
~…~
I woke up on a cement floor in a dark place confused. After blinking life back into my eyes, I realized quite suddenly that I wasn't actually dead. I lifted myself up into sitting position, moving my hand to touch my chest where the fanged knife had been buried. There was a hole ripped into my shirt and when I moved the shirt to the side, there was only dried blood left around a completely healed chest. I proceeded to touch my neck, where I felt more dried blood, all the way up to my face and head which was caked in my blood.
Well, you couldn't say the hunter didn't try to kill me.
Remembering Evanen's face as the hunter, I was suddenly alert. I must have been hallucinating. I had watched Evanen die in my grasps, his human heart stopped after being impaled by the pole Cecilian had driven through him. There was no way he could still be alive today and there was no reason for him to want to kill me so viciously. If anything, I would want to kill him, though I knew I didn't. Since the moment I had saw the ghost face of Evanen, I had felt the longing and grief that came since the moment he had left the world forever. Even if it was in a weird way, I had loved Evanen, his strange inhumanness and all down to his silly snake bites and tongue piercing.
I looked around the room I was in, automatically finding myself amused against my own will. I was in something of another dungeon… there was a nice sized squared caged with thick silver bars that lifted to the ceiling and was covered with a thick silver sheet to prevent a vampire from escaping. The rest of the room was filled with walls of what looked like torture devices down to a chair with silver chains and shackles.
I lifted myself to my feet, tapping at the ground as if to see if it was solid but only testing to see if I was back to being 100 percent. When I didn't feel darkness coming for me, I moved towards the silver bars on the cage. I twisted my hands around each bar, smiling at them. I felt rather cocky, if I said so myself. There was no doubt in my mind that I could just bend these bars and stroll on out of here. But I was here to die and if the hunter needed me contained for a while in order to figure out how to kill me, so be it.
On cue, the door to the torture room opened causing me to freeze. Sure enough, Evanen walked through the door without even looking at me. It looked like Evanen… besides the lack of piercings and punk attire. Instead he was well groomed, if not a little messy due to his fighting nature, and was covered with a black shirt and leather jacket down to his gloved hands and biker boots. He looked older, as though time had been rough on him since the last time I saw him. He looked more… adult, less the inconsiderate and selfish child man who had kept me as a toy.
"Evanen," I whispered, trying to get his attention. I leaned my face against the silver bar, trying to smother my emotions that were being thrown all over the place by his presence. "You died."
"That is very good news, though I wish it had been me who killed him," Evanen announced confidently, the loathing in his tone almost palpable. He placed weapons that had fangs fashioned to them on a countertop near the torture devices hanging from the wall. And then he turned his familiar blue eyes, regardless of the disgust in them, to me. "How exactly did he go? Did he suffer?"
"You're not Evanen?" I asked, confused. "You look… you look exactly like him, it's weird."
"I share the monster's face, but I'm not him and I'm nothing like him. The name's Nikolai Redmond, I'd say you should remember it but if things go my way you won't make it out of here," the ghost stated darkly. I noticed that he didn't snap or yell, didn't attack wildly regardless of his rage. He was calm and collected, though clearly dangerous. If I wasn't immortal and wanting to die in the first place, I probably would have been worried. But the fact remained, he looked exactly like Evanen, but he obviously wasn't him. Even now, as I stared at him, I could tell there was a small difference all in the way he held himself verses Evanen. This man was… human. That's the only way I could explain it. He stood with ease that Evanen didn't have, where Evanen used to stand and walk solid and straight as if he didn't know how to even act human. It was expected, being that Evanen had been born vampire.
Though I was still curious as to why this man looked like my maker, the fact remained that this wasn't my maker and that I could relax. This was a stranger with a lover's face. I narrowed my eyes, leaning my arms through the bars easily while watching the hunter play with his weapons.
"I don't know, you two seem like peas in a pod to me," I responded with a small smirk. "Let's see. Evanen tried and failed to kill me when we met. And then he kidnapped me and kept me locked up. Sounds like you two took lessons from each other." The hunter turned to me then furiously. It was still unnerving how much he looked like Evanen.
"Evanen Draele was nothing more than a monster that preyed on innocents without regard for anything more than their deaths. He laughed at the thought of mercy and deserved nothing more than the eternity in the Hell he's in now," Nikolai said sharply, his jaw clenching with anger. "And anything he's made deserves nothing less. You're only alive now because the weapon wouldn't go through your bones. I got between your ribs for your heart but it still didn't keep you dead. Once I figure out how to saw through that thick skeleton of yours, I'm cutting your head off from your shoulders."
For some reason, the statement that I deserved nothing less just for being created by Evanen stung a little. But I wasn't here to prove that I was capable of being saved or that I was one of the good guys. I had killed before and once you've done that, I assumed there was nothing that would be able to take that back.
"I won't fight back," I promised, looking away towards the bars of the cage. "I've been looking for you after all and we both want the same thing. Whatever you need to do, I won't fight against it." Nikolai laughed dryly, clearly not believing me, before he grabbed one particular weapon that looked something like a hook with silver spotted around the fangs.
"Yeah, right. You'd rip my heart out if I got close enough without looking," He stated, the accusation not caring for a response. "Hold out your arm, oh compliant demon." I frowned mildly, but lifted out my arm through the bars with my palm held up. Nikolai moved closer, keeping himself away from between my hand and my body as if he truly believed I would attack him at any given chance. I kept my arm frozen like a statue, purposely not even twitching in effort to show that I wasn't lying.
When he was close enough, Nikolai slashed the hooked weapon at my arm, fully intending to cut the thing off. Instead, the hook got stuck on my bone, the appendage refusing to detach itself. The cut of the fanged weapon still startled me, the mild pain that I wasn't quite used to. It also was very fascinating watching the weapon gash through the meat of my arm. Nikolai removed the weapon with a set face of irritation before moving away as the wound on my arm healed rapidly.
"I'll be starving you," He announced simply, "Then maybe your body will weaken enough to be cut through completely." I thought about the possibility, remembering the hunger I'd entered at the VaMoS headquarters. To know that I'd be entering that hunger, except over time and probably worse, made me gulp physically.
"Could you strap me to um… the chair for example," I asked, uncertain, "I've been somewhat starved before, I start losing control and I might try something against my will. But after a while I can't break free as easily as say I could now…" Nikolai was now looking at me suspiciously. I rolled my eyes. Of course he didn't believe me.
"Oh, you can just easily get out of your little cage, huh?" He suddenly said sarcastically, "Please, go ahead. Show me how special you are." He narrowed his blue eyes at me, crossing his arms in clear confidence that said I couldn't escape if I wanted to.
I shrugged, moving my face away from the bars to follow the perimeter of the cage with my eyes. I trailed my hands across the bars as I walked towards the door which was dead bolted shut perhaps a dozen times. I pressed my hands against the door, testing it for a moment, and then I backed up in preparation. I could have probably just bent the bars and slid out, but I felt like showing off. Something of a familiar teasing appeared inside of me, a result of being around someone who reminded me so much of Evanen. Instead, I lunged at the door, kicking from the ground and slamming my body at the deadbolts.
With a loud screech of metal and a crash collision, the door was practically ripped opened and I rolled onto the floor of the torture room before leaping up to my feet. Automatically, Nikolai attacked me with one of his weapons, tackling into me. I weakened my legs, allowing myself to be slammed into the ground, but then out of fun I grabbed his wrist, twisting his grip to lose the weapon. Then I wrapped my legs around his waist, roughly twisting him onto his back. I slammed my arm against his arm which I held down against his chest. I pinned him down to the ground and slammed the wrist I already had in my other grip against the ground above him. The only thing left free was his legs, which only kicked at air.
When I had him completely under my mercy, I froze to stare at his face. Anger was written all over his expression; anger, frustration, defiance, and disgust. But it was Evanen's face down to a tee.
"You used to do this to me," I said quietly, "pin me down and make me feel helpless." There was forgotten emotions rising, feelings of pain, loss, and anger. I had felt a form of love for Evanen as someone who had eventually grown on me. But because of him I had lost everything: my life, my father, my friends… silly nights at concerts and boring classes at high school. I even missed the medicine and needles; the constant pain. I closed my eyes to suppress the silly human emotions I had lost in my change.
"Why do you look like him?" I asked Nikolai with a pained voice.
"Get off of me," He growled, again trying to twist from my grip, but I didn't loosen my hold on him. Instead, I bent down towards his face, breathing in his scent. Behind the musk of dead vampires and sweat was the ever so sweet smell of his human blood pulsing through him quickly by adrenaline. I could feel his heart pulsing quickly in chest, but what I couldn't hear and what I suddenly wanted to hear was his mind.
No, I scolded myself, you're here to end this. You're here to keep people like your father safe from vampires. You're not here to terrorize and invade the privacy of this man, no matter how familiar he looks.
"I'm sorry," I told the hunter in a hushed voice, "I get confused and… sorry." I quickly moved away from him and practically body slammed myself into the chair with silver shackles. I quickly snapped the latch shut around my neck, waist, ankles, and one of my wrists. The only one left was impossible to close myself, but I didn't look at Nikolai. Instead, I focused on the far corner of the room. After a moment, I heard the hunter swiftly move towards me and silently clasp the last binding around my wrist before he left the room without uttering a single word.
