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THE ONLY SOUND GREYSON heard as he walked down the path of the East Fallkill Recreation Center was the rhythmic clack of his boots hitting the pavement. Sated and with his energy replenished, he savored the dark. Darkness was, after all, where he felt most comfortable. It was where he thrived. Concealed by an infinite navy abyss and cloaked in shadows, nightfall afforded him opportunity. It gave him the ability to move about unseen and at full strength. It allowed him to feed.
And feed he had.
Tonight, he’d selected Byron Wall. A loathsome creature who’d hardly qualified as human. A man who’d preyed on young girls, satisfying his lust then killing them when he’d finished.
Byron Wall, he thought with disgust. Human scum. I did the world a favor.
“You sure did, Greyson,” a familiar voice hissed.
“Oh jeez,” Greyson sighed, not bothering to mask his annoyance.
“Really? I can hear you rolling your eyes as well as your thoughts you know?” Dario tisked as he materialized on the pathway.
Dario Ambrose, one of the most arrogant, self-indulgent beings Greyson had ever crossed paths with, was like herpes to humans: one mistaken moment led to a lifetime of being afflicted by him. In Greyson’s case, it hadn’t been passion that had caused him to contract Dario. It had been desperation. As bad a decision as any, for sure. And just when he’d thought Dario was dormant—sometimes a decade would pass without having to endure him—he’d appear like a nasty outbreak.
“What the hell do you want?” Greyson asked. He also thought two words, knowing fully Dario could hear them, and they weren’t Happy Birthday.
“There’s never a need for me to do that to myself. I mean look at me! I’m devastatingly handsome! Furthermore, that’s no way to talk to a friend.” Falling into step with him, Dario heaved a dramatic sigh.
Devastatingly handsome? Greyson refrained from gagging. Sure, all of his kind were attractive. Outwardly at least. It was part of the illusion. “Still full of yourself, as always.” Greyson could see Dario in his periphery. Floppy, highlighted hair, skin bronzed a shade darker than his own and teeth whitened to the point they glowed in the dark, plastic looking were the two words that came to mind. Not devastatingly handsome. “And you’re right. Telling you to f yourself isn’t how I’d talk to a friend.” Greyson smiled. The expression was devoid of mirth. “Luckily we’re not friends.” His pace quickened. He knew it wouldn’t deter Dario, but he just wanted to get away from him. He wanted to go home.
“Someone’s testy even though he’s full.” Dario shook his head. “I’d have thought you’d be in better spirits after a good, hearty meal. Especially after going so long without feeding.” He smiled smugly.
“What I do and how I feed is none of your business,” Greyson snapped, knowing fully a lecture was imminent. “Just leave.”
“Not a chance. We haven’t had a chance to catch up. I want to see what you’re up to.”
“Haha! Catch up! That’s a good one!” Greyson scoffed. “Do us both a favor and say what you need to say, what you always say, then get the hell out of here.”
Ignoring his spike in temper, Dario remained and began the speech Greyson had anticipated. “I don’t know why you do it to yourself. Why you hunt so infrequently and have to be so picky about who you choose.” He ran a hand through his thick, artificially sun-kissed hair. “It’s weird. It’s beyond weird. It’s masochistic!” he huffed sanctimoniously. “You should try being more like the rest of us. Or better yet, you should try to be more like me. I was just at the Newburgh Waterfront and drained a couple who’d left one of the restaurants there. Then, just for fun, I drove to the city of Poughkeepsie and killed a homeless man.” Dario curled his upper lip in disgust. “His blood had an odd, sour taste, but it served its purpose.” He shrugged.
“Good for you,” Greyson said with contempt. He could feel anger knot in his stomach.
“Yes, it was good for me! And you should do the same.” Dario grabbed Greyson’s upper arm and spun him to face him. “You could be so much more. So much better. Instead you choose to be...this.” He spat the words with such disdain, with such superiority, that Greyson’s hands balled to tight fists he promptly stuffed into his pockets.
Greyson’s eyes moved from Dario’s dark gaze to the hand he’d placed on his bicep.
Releasing his grip, Dario held his hands at chest height and stepped back. “You need to eat. It’s what we all do. What all of us need to do to survive. We feed on them. We’re at the top of the food chain. It’s nature. It’s why we live for centuries and they don’t. Natural Selection, my friend.”
Friend. There was that word again. Greyson laughed bitterly. Dario was anything but a friend. He was a monster like all the others, a ruthless murderer who viewed the human population as little more than cattle, a species whose sole purpose was to be led to slaughter. Greyson despised everything about him. About all of them. It’s why he chose to live in places where he was the only one of his kind in the area. “Natural Selection,” he repeated with disgust.
“That’s right. I eat all the time. Because I can. Not because I have to. I’m not a Boy Scout like you.” Dario flicked his wrist, waving his hand dismissively. “Hell, I took a drive up to a college in the middle of nowhere in this godawful state just a few days ago. I fed there like humans feed on holidays!” he chuckled. “Young, fresh blood.” He continued to laugh. “I went to a party and actually told a group of girls what I am and guess what?”
“I don’t care,” Greyson answered honestly. “But you’re going to tell me anyway, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely.” Dario smiled broadly.
“Greaaaaaat,” Greyson said in a monotone voice and raised both brows.
“They said, ‘Ooh, a vampire. Vampires are hot!’ I kid you not, that’s what they said.” He snickered, so charmed by his own story and so oblivious of the fact that Greyson didn’t give a damn. “They thought I’d be all glittery skin and pained looks of starved love.” He threw his head back and laughed again. “Guess again, ladies! They took me back to their sorority house expecting some romantic scene from a movie.” He looked over his shoulder and flashed a sinister smile. “Needless to say they didn’t get it.”
“You’re disgusting,” Greyson said.
“Am I? Am I truly disgusting?” Anger flashed in Dario’s dark eyes.
Greyson stopped and ticked off a few reasons on his fingers. “Killing humans just because you can. Feeding when you don’t need to. How you see them as a living buffet. Yeah, you are truly disgusting.”
“What are you, Grey?”
“Shut up!”
“No, I’m serious. What are you? You’re not one of us, that’s for sure.” And by “us”, he was referring to pretty much every other vampire he knew. “If you like humans that much, get one and keep it as a pet. But don’t blame the rest of us for eating.” He shook his head. “Do you hate humans for eating a hamburger?”
“What? That doesn’t even make sense!” Greyson protested.
“Yes, yes it makes complete sense. They eat hamburgers, which are made of cow meat. And they eat it because that’s what cows are for. They’re for consumption.” Dario smiled triumphantly, as if he’d just said something brilliant.
“Dario, I can see you’re all puffed up and think you’ve made a point here, but before you take your victory lap, you need to realize you just compared human beings to hamburgers.” Greyson looked at him, waiting for the gravity of his statement to sink in. It didn’t, however.
“Cows, Greyson. I compared them to cows. Try and follow the conversation.” Dario shook his head and rolled his eyes. “I think living alone in that dump you’ve been in the last six months and barely eating has affected your brain. Not that that dump is any different from the others you choose.” He let out a loud breath. “I don’t get it. Don’t get why you shun all of us and have ostracized yourself, why you stay in crappy, depressing places. Why you do anything you do. You could have tons of money if you wanted. You have looks and unsurpassed strength and speed. Top of the food chain, like I said. Why don’t you live a little already?”
Blocking out Dario’s mind-reading ability, Greyson considered his words. Live a little. What an odd concept when all he wanted to do was die. His existence was useless, without any purpose whatsoever. His life wasn’t enhanced by killing humans. Sure, he was stronger, but for what? What did he need to be stronger for? And since when did feeding become an endeavor so noble it was worthy of ranking at the top of the pecking order? What, exactly, did his kind do that helped the life cycle? The world? Nothing. At least human beings had ideals. They had goals. The environment. Equal rights. Curing cancer.
And they had souls.
Greyson had spent years reading about souls, about the immaterial essence that marks individual lives. Souls were believed to survive the physical body. A body without a soul was thought to be a lightbulb without electricity. An empty vessel. It was a point of particular interest to him. Scholars as well as religious leaders believed humans had them. His kind, however, did not. They held a strictly scientific view and didn’t recognize a spiritual dimension to life. They believed the animating principle in humans and animals was the law of physics. That’s why Dario clumped humans and cows together. Humans and cows and every other creature that roamed the planet were mortal. Vampires found the notion of some immortal, immaterial essence occupying their bodies that couldn’t be seen under an electron microscope laughable. The fact that the majority of human beings believed they possessed such an essence only served to foster the belief that they were a lesser species doomed to eventual extinction due to their own stupidity. Dario was no different, and nothing Greyson said to the contrary would change his mind.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Greyson realized he’d be wasting his breath but still said, “Humans are not like cows at all. Not even a little. They can think and have ideas and have the ability to carry out those thoughts and ideas.”
“Who cares what ideas they have or what they think?” Dario threw his hands in the air. “Oh yes. Yes, I forgot. The principled Greyson Black does! The only vampire who feeds on the bad humans,” he mocked. “Hold on while I vomit.”
“Are you done?” Greyson’s question dripped like venom from his lips. “Do you honestly think I care what you think? Or what anyone else thinks for that matter?” he said through his teeth.
Dario glared at Greyson. “I know you don’t care what anyone thinks. And for the record no one thinks about you because no one gives a damn about you. Not one of us.” Dario leaned in and enunciated each word to punctuate his point. “Frankly the only reason I come around from time to time is to have a good Greyson story to laugh about with everyone else.” He tipped his chin up haughtily. “I should’ve let you bleed to death from that Viet Cong bullet in your chest in 1960.”
Greyson felt his temper flare. The dark and deadly part of him awoke. Rage, his constant companion, was hard to harness. Especially in the face of someone as vile as Dario. “Yes, you should have,” he said. Then in the space of a breath, he lunged at Dario. Hands flying to Dario’s throat and tightening with vise-like pressure, Greyson’s movements were so sudden and so explosive they caught Dario off guard.
Back slammed into a nearby tree trunk with such force the bark splintered, Dario’s eyes bulged. “You...can’t...kill...me,” he gasped.
“Care to find out?” Greyson snarled between clenched teeth.
Dario’s face turned purple.
“Because it looks like you can’t breathe.”
Eyes bulging and veins in his forehead protruding, Dario tried in vain to free himself. But Greyson had fed moments ago. His strength was at its peak. That, combined with his youth of just sixty years, was no match for the several-centuries-old Dario.
“Please...” Dario pled.
“Only if you leave. Leave and don’t come back,” Greyson growled.
“O-Okay,” Dario agreed, his voice a reed-thin croak.
Reluctantly, he released Dario’s throat from his grip. “Go. Now.”
Doubled over and gulping air, Dario cursed him then slunk off, vanishing like a wraith.
Greyson stood for a moment, eyes cast to the sky. His past—all that he had been and all that he was now—was an unending ache. His human family was long dead. Friends of any kind were nonexistent. He moved from place to place without ever connecting to anything or anyone. He was a nomad, invisible and inconsequential. In the moments after he’d been shot, he’d been desperate to live, to cling to life in any way he could. That’s when Dario had appeared. Unknown to Greyson at the time, Dario hadn’t been there to save him. He’d been there to recruit him. By accepting Dario’s “help” Greyson had entered into a covenant. One he’d sealed with his very lifeblood. Since then, he’d been paying the price.
The mournful hoot of an owl reminded him of the hour. He needed to hurry home. Before long, day would be dawning. Daylight was a dangerous time for him. It stripped him of his strength, reducing it to that of an average human male his age. It also seared his retinas, nearly blinding him as it scorched his skin. Pain and weakness was what the rising sun brought. He had enough pain welled within him. Adding physical pain to it created an unbearable situation.
Speeding his pace, Greyson rushed to his waiting car in the farthest lot of the Rec Center. He sped off the grounds to his apartment less than twenty minutes away. Windowless and with walls painted a hideous shade of puke green, his place was sparsely furnished with just a bed, a dresser, a television on a stand and a couch, it was every bit as crappy as Dario had said. It didn’t matter to Greyson, though. It was exactly what he’d wanted.
A rare find, the basement-level space was in an apartment building. The landlord had been thrilled to unload it. He’d never dreamed he would. He’d said it was just too depressing a place, even when offered for practically nothing to the last inhabitant, who’d lived there briefly and left in 1977. That was the last person to live there. Until Greyson had moved to town.
Stripping out of his clothes and climbing into bed, the last sight Greyson saw before the sun, unseen by him, rose was the avocado-hued ceiling. Only then, embraced by the dark, velvety oblivion of sleep, did he feel peace.