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When I first met Elizabeth, my head often felt like it might implode. It was the addiction to her body I required more than her blood. But this sudden pain I find myself suffering from now, is something else. My head feels like it is full of razor blades, being shook to the point that my ears ring. I can taste blood in my mouth, caused by the uncontrollable distention of my fangs, piercing through my gums and into my lips. I’ve fed from two bags already, and it subsided for a while. But fuck, now I need a whole lot more. I need blood from the living, warm and freshly pumped around a beating heart.
My iPhone has been ringing none stop. Sara, Dom, and Vincent. Voicemails, emails, text messages. The only one who understands why I’m here, and has left me alone, is Ben. Maybe this decision is rash. Maybe that’s why I have this sudden sickness, which I’ve only suffered once before, when awakening.
We arrived at the house over three hours ago. We made love as soon as we got through the door, and almost immediately after I wasn’t myself. Now Elizabeth sleeps in bed, as I try to get rid of this seething agony, quietly. It feels like I’m betraying her in some way. Hiding away, like it’s a dirty secret. But I’m sure it will pass. I will make it pass.
I pace before the front door, zipping up my hoodie. I’m going to do what I used to do, and run the rampant thirst away.
I wrap my fingers around the door handle, and I hear the bedroom door open upstairs. I growl and bite down, facing the door, completely immobile. I can hear her heart beating slowly from the top of the staircase. If I look at her, she’ll know.
“Elizabeth, go back to bed,” I say, my eyes on the door only. “I’m going for a run to clear my head.” I open the door. “I love you.” I step out into the misty cold air, closing the door on her.
***
IT’S SO SILENT HERE. So peaceful. My sneakers pound down on the dewy moorland, as I race through the early morning fog. This place is like the birth of creation. The air is clean and the fields, hills, and foliage, are enduring like myself. It’s untouched by human hands, but is full of history. It’s a place where thoughts are forgotten, and in which nature heals. But I still feel this torture. Like the torture I felt after drinking Selene’s blood.
“GRRR!” I bite down as my fangs again emerge without consent, and puncture through my lip.
I pick up speed into a flitting motion, wiping the blood from my lip. I need blood. I need blood like a new blood.
I bound over a four foot wall. My sneakers crash down onto the country road and I land directly before a car. The car squeals to a stop, and I slam my hands down on the hood.
I glare hungrily at the driver’s wide eyes. A young man in a ten year old Ford Fiesta. He smells fresh, and his racing heart brings that delicious blood to his carotid artery for my consumption.
My fangs lengthen fully as my eyes fixate on his neck. I can hear and feel it pounding, like the drums of my monster calling to me.
“FUCK NO.” I look up to the sky, smashing my hands down onto the hood, denting it.
“Hey,” the young man yells, winding down his window.
The reason I’m here flashes through my mind. The thought of her tames me enough to clear the car in one leap, and flit out of sight.
What am I doing?
Why do I need to hunt?
Why this urge to give in after all this time?
I arrive in a ravine of rocks. I pound my fist into the slate face, chipping several shards out of it. I punch it again and again, shredding my knuckles, fighting against myself.
“You can’t do this,” I holler, turning to drop down with my head in my hands.
I run my hands up and down my face, as a sound from the top of the rock face catches my attention. I squint up to see a male stag grazing on the grass. The stag suddenly stops and gazes right down at me, as though it knows what I truly am, and what I want. It knows it has become my prey, whether I want it to be, or not. I’ve hunted animals before. In the twenties a group of wealthy sang threw weekly hunting parties. I didn’t care for it. It was nothing but an arrogant masculine sport. Like who has the biggest dick. I didn’t need to feed from the hunted. Now I find myself not having a fucking choice.
I concentrate on the stag’s forceful breathing, and slowly rise up to my feet, holding out my arms.
“Adrien!”
“Ben.” I frown, turning to look behind me. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same question?” He jumps down the rocks.
I turn back to the stag. It’s gone.
“Shit,” I hiss, knowing that if I wanted, I could easily go after it. But Ben hasn’t seen me this way for a long time. I guess appearances are more important to me after all.
“This brings a whole new meaning to the words, stag party,” he jokes, but I’m not amused. “I’m sorry. Look, Liz called me, said you were acting weird. Now I know what’s wrong with you.”
“Yeah, and what the hell is that?”
“Pre-wedding jitters.”
I smirk at him. “No it’s not. Elizabeth is everything to me. I have no jitters when it comes to her.”
“I saw the young guy you traumatised. I had to bung him a few hundred. Told him you escaped rehab.”
I shut my eyes. I’ve fucking humiliated myself.
“Ben, I need fresh blood,” I admit. “Not bagged and cold. Fresh and hunted.”
He jumps down to stand on my level, frowning. “Then go get it.”
“It’s not that easy. I don’t know why I feel like this. I can’t fight it. It goes against everything we’ve achieved. And where does it stop if I do go after that stag. Next it will be men!”
“Do you think that you’re the only vampire to fall off the waggon? It’s a part of our instinct. Right after Conner died, I wanted to leave the city. But I stayed, for you. But as a consequence of that, I found myself full of hate. The fucking sight of everything riled me. Everything reminded me of him. One night while leaving The Mill, I saw a young girl being attacked. The guy ran from me, and I ran after him. What was supposed to be an act of honour, turned into a goddamn hunt and massacre. But I enjoyed it.”
I freeze up, glaring right at him. “What did you do Ben?”
“What do you think?” His guilty eyes drop down to his feet.
“Goddammit. You killed him!”
“Yeah. And I don’t regret it. After I got rid of his body, I dug into the guys past. His life. He’d been out of jail only a week after serving ten years for the rape and attempted murder of two women. I’m not a hero, I’m a killer. But the man I killed was no better than I. We’re all monsters. But it’s how we control the monster inside that counts.”
“Ben, it doesn’t matter how you dress up your actions. What you did could have exposed us all.”
I don’t even know why I’m mad at him. He maybe did the world a favour. And the reason he was so angry after Conner’s death, was my fault. The run up to Conner’s death was my fault, because I failed to see the truth.
I rub my eyes, feeling another agonising shock running through my skull.
“Go,” Ben says to me.
I peer up to where the stag was stood, then back at Ben. Again he gives me approval. I have to, it’s pointless fighting what I am right now. I need some peace, today of all days.
My feet eject my body up the twenty foot high rock face. I land, pause, and inhale for the stag’s scent, listening to all sounds carried in the wind. Almost instantly I sense the stag in a small patch of woodland, around five hundred meters away.
I flit to the edge of the trees and arch over, my sight scouring through branches and shrubs. The stag grazes on the berries of a bramble. I get ready, focusing on the pulse beating in its neck, but I suddenly stop as something else catches my eye. The stag stops grazing and turns its head to watch a female doe approach. The doe nuzzles at the stag, and the stag responds by resting his head on hers. This show of care and love is one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen. They live here in nature with not a care in the world. Content with being near one another, and unaware of the danger only feet away. Just like Elizabeth and I.
Ben’s hand from nowhere, comes down on my back as he stoops over next to me.
“Hunger doesn’t seem relevant now, does it?” He pats my shoulder.
“No. No it doesn’t.”
“Go back to your intended. You have a big day.”
I stand up and nod at him.
I don’t know why I lost my resolve, my boundaries. What I do know is, Elizabeth, unbeknown to her, will always find a way to bring me back.
***
I CREEP THROUGH THE door and into the bedroom. I drop my hoodie on the floor, watching Elizabeth sleeping on her side. I climb into the bed beside her, and wrap my arm around her naked body, holding her as close to me as possible. She hums, running her hand over my forearm as I rest my head on hers.
“Ben found you then,” she mumbles.
“Yes. Go back to sleep.” I kiss her hair.