Between Beasts

Chapter 12. First Taste

Hidden on a balcony, high up on one of the nearby buildings and shrouded in darkness, he watched as more wolves rushed towards where the larger one had fallen to one knee. It seemed to still be alive. He smiled.

He didn’t care if the smaller ones lived or died, but the larger one had surprised him, a rare treat. It was massive, exceptionally strong and much faster than he had expected for its size.

He looked at where his ruined arm was already almost completely regrown. As a vampire, many benefits came with age, and he was extremely old. He would perhaps need to be a little more careful, however; he generally expected that he could kill anything he chose to, but he had clearly underestimated that one, and he hadn’t lived as long as he had by being entirely careless.

“Most exhilarating… It is perhaps only when we are closest to death that we have the capacity to realise just how alive we feel, wouldn’t you agree?” He looked into the wide eyes of the woman he had been feeding on a few moments before. Aside from needing to feed to survive, fresh blood dramatically sped up the healing process.

His current host had not been obliging enough to have invited him in, not that he had given her much of a chance, but he had very conveniently found her watching the fight from her balcony. He ran his hand across the empty space of the doorway, unable to pass beyond its threshold while she still lived.

If only she had known how close she had been to safety. He looked at her, curious to see if she understood, but there was no comprehension in her eyes, only fear.

“Have you nothing to say? How terribly dull. Fine, lets finish you off then.” He sighed to the terrified woman in his grasp before biting back into her neck again and completely draining what blood she still had left, then discarded her like an empty drinks bottle.

He flexed his new arm to get the feel of it, torn off the dead woman’s night gown and used it like a napkin to clean the blood from his face and arms, then silently spread his wings and glided towards Jodie’s bedroom window.

Jodie stirred, as with the sound of cracking wood and rending metal, the locked bedroom window was pried open by powerful, but dexterous claws.

“Mary? What was that? Was that you, Mary?” Jodie groggily asked the room. She began to get up but suddenly the handsome stranger from the coffee shop seemed to just appear in front of her, naked from the waist up, and knelt down beside the sofa to look her in the eyes.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, briefly startled. Jodie should have been scared, she should have screamed or run. Apart from their two brief, odd meetings she didn’t know this man and she had no idea how he had gotten into her flat, but after the briefest moment it had taken her to notice his fine, lean figure, her gaze had been captured by the sweet embrace of those deep, dark eyes again.

Jodie lay back down on the sofa, simultaneously relaxing as her heart began to pound with excitement and her skin started to tingle. She just lay there and stared into those eyes, eagerly waiting to fulfill whatever request or command that beautiful, smooth voice would ask of her.

“Be still, I am not here to hurt you.” He said, gently taking one of Jodie’s hands without breaking his gaze into her eyes. He slightly extended a single claw and pricked one of her fingers, drawing the smallest droplet of blood. Jodie didn’t even notice, and she certainly didn’t react.

He slowly raised his claw and tasted her blood.

“I knew it.” He breathed, smiling at Jodie. He had been searching for the descendants of a specific bloodline for a considerable number of years. Nations and empires had risen and fallen during his search, many with his help.

Over his lifetime so far, he had sired numbers beyond count more of his kind, and he had certainly enjoyed the company of many of them, but he had never found someone who had the potential within them to be his equal, to challenge him… who would be worthy of being his eternal bride. But now, he finally had. There was great power in her blood, and once he had awakened it, she may even grow to be more powerful than he himself.

He slowly lent closer, cupped her face in one hand and paused just the moment before they touched.

“You will not remember me being here tonight, except in your dreams.” He said firmly, before gently kissing her lips.

“Now sleep, Jodie.” He quietly commanded, and Jodie instantly obeyed, closing her eyes and falling into a deep, dream filled sleep. He remained still for just a moment, until he heard the barely audible sound of keys being carefully slipped into the lock. He silently disappeared into the darkness of the bedroom just as the door slowly opened.

A young, naked woman carefully padded into the room and sat by Jodie. He waited until she went through to the other room and then silently opened the broken window, slipping back out into the night.

The next morning, Jodie woke up stretched out on the sofa with a blanket over her, feeling oddly happy.

“That you finally up, sleepyhead?” Mary called from the kitchen.

“What time is it?” Jodie asked, reaching for her phone.

“About eleven!” Mary called back.

“What?! But it’s Monday, I’m supposed to be at work!”

“I already called them. I told them you needed an emergency day to move.”

“Thanks Mary… What’s that smell?” Jodie’s fleeting concern about missing work vanished as she sniffed the air and panic set in, there were various conflicting food smells, underlain by a subtle hint of burning… Mary was cooking!

“Waffles! With… pretty much everything you had left in your fridge and cupboards… There’s ice cream, syrup, bacon, beans, mushrooms, some canned chicken curry, garlic bread and some crisps” Mary came through with a couple of heaped plates, bouncing with pride as she presented the bizarre mound of food to Jodie.

“Thanks, I think…” Jodie replied, taking the plate and giving Mary a concerned smile. She hadn’t lied, it was all on there, all heaped over the pancakes. Mary sat on the chair beside the sofa, holding her plate but just smiling at Jodie, waiting for her to try it. After a moment’s hesitation, Jodie scooped up a piece of pancake and ice cream which only had a little bit of curry on it.

“It’s really good, thanks Mary.” Jodie lied, as she choked it down, trying to keep the instinct to hurl from showing on her face. Mary beamed with joy and started wolfing down the mixed food on her plate. Jodie knew she had to distract Mary now, from experience she only had a few minutes before she would have cleaned her plate of food and would be hurt that Jodie had only picked at hers.

“So, you want to help me pack?” Jodie asked, knowing Mary already intended to but also knowing it was something she was very keen to do.

“Yes! Let’s do it!” Mary put her plate down on the table and leapt from the chair, grabbing Jodie’s arm and heaving her towards the bedroom.

“Right, first thing, where are your suitcases and what are we taking?” Mary asked, still bouncing enthusiastically.

“I don’t actually have any, we’d planned to travel but hadn’t ever actually gone anywhere.”

“No problem, just put everything on the bed.” Mary said, spreading the duvet out.

“And I don’t actually have that much stuff… None of the furniture electrics or kitchenware is ours, it’s really just my clothes…” Jodie said slowly, taking stock of how little she had actually bought herself over the last couple of years.

“Well, that makes things easy, this might actually work then.” Mary said, grinning. She opened the wardrobe and started throwing everything of Jodie’s onto the bed, as Jodie tried to quickly fold everything into neat piles.

After emptying what little Jodie owned in the bedroom onto the bed, Mary led Jodie on a whirlwind tour of her own flat.

“Is that yours? What about that? And that? This? ...It’s nice, you sure it’s not?” After only an hour Jodie’s bed was heaped with everything and anything that she could possibly lay any sort of claim to.

“Mary…”

“Ye, Jodie?”

“How am I going to get this all uptown to the cafe?”

“Already taken care of!” Mary answered, bouncing off towards the front door just as someone knocked. “I called Ovin, he’s got a truck! And we’re finished just in time!” Mary opened the door to reveal a young, good looking man with mid length hair flopping down, partially hiding a series of scars going across the side of his head and part of his face.

“Ovin, this is Jodie, Jodie, this is Ovin. He works at the cafe with Teo.

“Hey Jodie. Mary has told me pretty much everything I can image about you.” He flashed a wide, charming smile and took Jodie’s hand.

“I, um… thank you for helping.” Jodie replied, unsure exactly what he had meant by that.

“So, where are the boxes?” Ovin asked.

“Right this way!” Mary charged off through to the bedroom and Ovin followed.

“That’s… not boxes…” Ovin laughed, looking at the mound of clothes and various other items on Jodie’s bed.

Mary threw all the pillows on top of the heap and grabbed two corners of the duvet, looking expectantly at Ovin.

“Mary… Never mind.” Ovin laughed again, following her lead and grabbing the other two corners, the two of them using the duvet like a large, heavy hammock to transport Jodie’s belongings down to his truck.