Download Game! Currently 61 players and visitors. Last logged in:ZandreaIberiamsspMahjongZerthus

Library: The Shadows of Spring

Books

Author: Evora
Date:Nov 2 1995

     Her strength was equal to mine, perhaps superior.  With one motion,
she had grabbed and hurled me across the length of the room.  The solid
wood wall cracked and splintered under my impact.  I roll quickly to my
feet and dart back towards her, I can't let her have a moment to remember
her original prey.  Why?  Why am I protecting him?
     Anna glares at me with red feral eyes.  I am not sure how it is
that she can be stronger than me when she has only just become a 
vampire.  Perhaps it is her madness.  She charges me, teeth bared, nails
extended.  I move quickly to the side and let her pass, then rake my 
claws along the back of her head.  My nails dig deep and I come away with
pieces of hair, skin, and bone, but no blood.  She hasn't fed.
     Anna turns with savage speed and again lunges at me.  I dodge 
backwards but an overturned table catches my foot and she is upon me.
Her rank breath is hot upon my face as she digs her claws into my upper
arms and her mouth tries to find hold on my throat.  A few feet away,
still in shock, Stevan watches in horror.  My eyes touch his briefly and
for a moment, I think to control him and have him attack her.  That
thought passes quickly with the river of pain I feel as her teeth find
my flesh and then touch into the bone of my shoulder.  
     I put all my effort into one push and send her flying across the
room into the door which crashes down upon her impact.  Before she can
react, I have covered the distance between us and am upon her.  I get
no pleasure from the thought of destroying her.  It will be the second
time I have done so.
     Anna is consistant.  She fought hard for her life when I found 
her alone in that alley a month ago, and now, she fights with
savage passion to prevent me from taking her recent un-life.  I leap
upon her but she has twisted in such a fashion that a piece of the door
has shifted point u has shifted so that a shard of wood is now point up.
     I feel a pain so intense that I am paralyzed as the slice of wood slides
into my chest . . . nearing my heart.  The blow I strike Anna sends
her reeling and she does not see my injury, she only knows she must 
escape.  Anna staggers quickly from the house and into the darkness.
     I feel the wood within me . . . killing me.  My eyes are wet with
blood, my veins ache and throb within me.  This is how I will end.  My blood,
my veins ache and throb within me.  This is how I will end?  My
thoughts whirl about me like a cloak that can no longer shield its wearer
from the elements.  Only a month ago . . .
     I had taken her as I have taken hundreds . . . thousands.  She had
been alone and walking down a dark alley towards her home.  I remember
her clearly for unlike many, she did not succumb to my mental powers
and fought me the entire time I drank her life from her.  I can still
feel her fists pounding against me as her heartbeat fades . . . fades
. . . and stops.  At least, I had thought it had stopped.      I left her
crumpled body in that alley alongside the trash left by the humanity I could
no longer be a part of.   But she had not died.
     Perhaps a week later, I had again come to this place and had felt
pain emanating from someone with such intensity that it had drawn me
to it like moth to flame.  His name was Stevan.  I watched him through
his window as he sat upon a bed too large for one to sleep in alone.  I
had been careless and let myself be seen, then had been foolish and
actually let him speak to me.
     Stevan had been Anna's husband, but only for a short time.  For
the first time in my unlife, I had been forced to see the devastation
that I had wreaked upon others in order to pay the price for my life.  I
discovered that Anna had lived an entire day after my attack before
finally succumbing to deaths cold embrace.  Or, at least that is what
all believed had happened.
     I could sense movement in the room.  Through a haze of agony, I
turned my head and saw Stevan moving slowly towards me.  What would he
do now?  Should he kill this monster he views before him?  Does he
realize that it was me who took his beloved from him?  And could he
know that I am also responsible for what she has become now?
     I fled Stevan that night upon learning of what I had done, the pain
I had caused.  I ran like the night wind to the place I hide from the day
and I sank into it in hopes that I would slip into the death like sleep
which holds me during the sunlight hours.  It did not come.  I lay
awake, feeling the horrible guild rising up within me.  All th
I had hoped for emotions to return.  I had dreamed of the feeling of
something other than the unending apathy that I found within myself.
I would gladly have taken apathy over this terrible feeling.  This
self hatred.
     Stevan is now leaning over me.  My thoughts are hard to focus but
still, somehow I cling to this existence, I still fear death.  I try to
speak but all that emerges is a gurgle.  Blood has filled my lungs and
the shard of wood has shifted so that the tip is pricking at my heart.
I am helpless.  Stevan is touching me, trying to move me.  My scream of
pain stops him.  He backs away from me . . . he has seen my blood
covered fangs.  He stands there, watching me as I lay in an 
expanding pool of my blood . . . well, blood I have taken recently.
     I had not planned to come to this place again, to see him this
evening, but as I had risen from the place which hides me from day, I had
felt something unlike anything I had felt before.  It was as if a
second set of thoughts were brushing upon mine.  I felt distracted and
was clumsy in my first kill of the evening.  Then my thoughts were of
Stevan and I knew that something was going to happen to him.  I could
not allow any more pain to come to him and so had raced to his home
only to find her there.  
     I don't know which of us was more shocked.  Stevan had tears 
running down his face and he was embracing her.  He must have seen
her as she wished, for he made no reaction to her dirt covered clothes,
red glowing eyes, and enlongated claws.  She sensed me almost at once
and attempted to sink her teeth into his neck when I crashed through the
window and began our fight.  Had Stevan not invited me into his home
that first time, I would have been helpless as the life was drained from
him.
     Stevan is again leaning down next to me.  He is saying something,
asking if there is something he can do.  I almost laugh but it comes
out as a choking sound.  That he would want to help the one who has
caused all this is the most absurd thing to me.  I want to live.  I
force my hand to brush against the tip of the wooden shard that is
within me.  I look at him and will him to understand . . . and he does.
     Stevan gently closes his hand upon the exposed piece of the wooden
shard and begins to pull.  I hear myself moan and then there is
only blackness . . . .
     Stevan is looking at me.  I am weaker than I can ever remember
being and there is something else that is bothering me, but I am alive.
Stevan has me in his arms with one hand holding my head.
Though I still feel groggy, I try to speak.  My voice sounds
ragged to my ears as I thank him.  He nods and then tells me not to
move.  He has a wet cloth and is cleaning the blood from my face and
neck.  He is very handsome, I notice this again and feel a strange
comfort as I feel his arm under me, supporting me.  He does not
look at me as he asks me what I am.  I mutter to him that I am a monster
and that he should have killed me.  He looks at me and I wonder if he
will now take that advice.  He tells me that my wounds seemed to have
closed and that he isn't sure what he should do to help me.
I try to rise but find that there is no strength in my body.  I also
realize what is bothering me so, it is almost day.  I feel a panic
begin to rise within me and Stevan must have sensed it as well for
he is asking me what is wrong.  I look at the place where I had 
been injured and see the cause for my weakness laying in a pool
in the partially repaired doorway.  I need blood.
    My voice trembles as I tell Stevan what I need, and I feel 
self loathing as I watch his face turn pale.  He begins to ask
me questions, asking me what has happened to Anna but he grows
quiet when I tell him I will soon be dead.  I tell him that I will
answer all his questions, that I will return at night fall and will
explain it all, but to survive, I need some of his blood.  Stevan
looks at me for a long time and I can feel the first heat from the
soon to be rising sun.  After moments, he nods and then asks me what
he should do.  I tell him he need do nothing more than lean close to
me, and he does.  
     My teeth slide gently into Stevan's neck and immediately, I 
feel the warm life giving rush of his blood entering me.  My arms
slide around him and I feel him relaxing as the sensation begins to
reach him.  The bite of a vampire can often be quite pleasurable if
the victim does not fight and for the first time, I feel a sensation
as well.  To have someone offer me their blood is something I have
never before had happen.  I take only what I need and begin to stop
when I feel his strong hands holding me against him, urging me not
to stop.  I pull away and tell him that I will be here at dark.  I
tell him that he must not let Anna come near him and that he
must not tell any of what has happened.  Before he can answer I
am racing into the fading night towards the place I hide from the
day.  Much has happened and there is much to do.
     Somewhere, in the last bits of night, another is preparing for
the coming day and she too has much to do . . . 

To Be Continued in "The Shackles of Summer"


Books