Chapter 3
1226 Words
The hospital cafeteria was a sea of fluorescent light and the smell of burnt coffee. Chloe sat at a corner table, her fingers tracing the jagged edge of the gold coin in her pocket. She hadn’t told anyone about the man in the alley. How could she? “I met a man who speaks like a Shakespearean play and moves like a leopard,” wasn’t exactly standard small talk.
"Earth to Chloe! Are you actually eating that salad, or are you just performing an autopsy on it?"
Chloe jumped, nearly dropping her fork. Sitting across from her was Sarah, a fellow nurse whose energy levels seemed physically impossible given they had both just finished a twelve-hour shift. Sarah’s scrub cap was covered in cartoon pineapples, and she was currently unwrapping a massive breakfast burrito with the enthusiasm of a gold medalist.
"I’m just tired, Sarah," Chloe said, forcing a smile.
"Tired? Honey, you’re haunted. You’ve been staring at that wall for ten minutes," Sarah said, her voice carrying across three tables. "Is it the guy from Radiology? I told you, he’s cute but he has the personality of a damp sponge. You need excitement. You need to go out. There’s a new club opening in the North End tonight—"
"I can’t. I have the night shift starting at eight," Chloe interrupted softly.
"You always have the night shift! You’re a young, beautiful woman in Boston, and you spend all your time around IV drips and grumpy surgeons. You’re too selfless for your own good, Chlo. One of these days, you’re going to wake up and realize you’ve lived your whole life for other people."
Chloe looked down. Sarah wasn’t wrong, but Sarah didn’t understand the quiet comfort Chloe found in the shadows. She liked the night shift because the world was hushed. It was the only time things felt manageable.
"I like my life," Chloe murmured, though the weight of the gold coin in her pocket felt like a heavy secret.
Miles away, Cassius was discovering that the modern world was a cacophony of invisible needles.
He had found refuge in the rafters of an abandoned cathedral. The stone was familiar, but the air was tainted with the smell of gasoline and ozone. Below him, in the nave, a group of squatters had built a fire in a metal barrel.
"Hey, look at this one," one of the men laughed, kicking a pile of trash. He was dressed in a thick, dirty coat and held a glass bottle wrapped in a paper bag. "Found it near the old subway entrance. Think it’s worth anything?"
Cassius watched from the darkness of the vaulted ceiling. His paranoia was a physical ache. Every sound—the drip of water, the crackle of the fire, the distant wail of a siren—felt like a direct assault. He was a predator, yes, but he felt like prey.
"Who goes there?" the man in the coat suddenly shouted, squinting into the rafters. He had spotted the faint, unnatural shimmer of Cassius’s eyes. "Hey! Come down here! You got money? You’re on our turf!"
Cassius didn’t move. He didn’t even breathe.
"I speak to thee once," Cassius whispered, his voice carrying through the vast space like a cold wind. "Depart. This ground is hallowed, even if your hearts are not."
The men below froze. They looked around, confused and spooked. "What did he say? Is that a prank?"
One of the men picked up a rock and hurled it toward the rafters. It whistled past Cassius’s head, snapping against the stone.
In an instant, the shadow in the rafters shifted. Cassius didn't climb; he simply ceased to be where he was and appeared where he wanted to be. He dropped through the air with the weightless precision of a falling leaf, landing in the center of their circle. The impact was silent, his rags fluttering like the wings of a giant bat.
The men scrambled back, terror instantly replacing their bravado. In the flickering firelight, his skin was the color of a winter moon, and the veins beneath his eyes began to pulse, darkening into jagged, black webs.
"Thou wouldst strike a guest in his own sanctuary?"
He moved in a blur, a streak of motion too fast for the human eye to track. He caught the arm of the man who had thrown the rock. The man screamed as he felt the inhuman, crushing strength in Cassius’s grip—a force that felt like iron wrapped in velvet.
"Please! Take the bag! Take whatever!" the man sobbed.
Cassius looked at the man’s throat. He felt the hunger—the dark, pulsing urge to tear and drink until the noise in his head finally stopped. But then, a flash of blue fabric crossed his mind. He remembered the nurse. He remembered the water bottle she had offered.
“I’m a nurse. We don’t leave people in alleys.”
With a snarl of disgust, Cassius flung the man toward the exit. "Begone! Seek not the darkness again, lest it swallow thee whole."
The men fled into the night, leaving the cathedral silent once more. Cassius stood alone by the fire, his hands shaking. He hated this world. He hated the lights and the noise and the people who smelled of chemical sweetness.
But his body was failing. The blood he had taken earlier hadn’t been enough to mend the damage of eight centuries of stagnation. His chest burned, and his vision was beginning to tunnel. He needed help. He needed the woman who hadn't looked at him with fear.
He didn't know how he knew where she was, but he could feel a faint pull, like a silver thread tied to his cold heart. He stepped out of the cathedral and into the neon glare of the city, moving through the shadows like a smudge of ink.
He followed the scent of antiseptic and the sound of a thousand heartbeats. He followed the thread until he stood before a massive building of glass and white light: Massachusetts General Hospital.
Inside, through the sliding doors, he saw her. She was standing at a desk, writing on a piece of paper, her dark hair tucked behind her ear.
"Chloe..." he breathed, the name a strange, modern melody on his ancient tongue.
He reached out to touch the glass, but his strength vanished. The world tilted, and he slumped to the ground just as the automatic doors hissed open for an arriving ambulance.
Chloe looked up from her charts, her brow furrowing as the sensors triggered. At first, she saw only the empty pavement, but then her eyes dropped. A man lay crumpled in the entryway, his face ghostly pale under the harsh LED lights.
Her heart hammered. It was him. But as she rushed toward him, she realized he wasn't just unconscious. The front of his tattered tunic was soaked in fresh, dark red, and his skin was so cold it felt like stepping into a tomb. Before she could call for a gurney, his eyes snapped open—two bleeding orbs of crimson that stared directly into hers.
- Writer
