Dead Perfect

For a moment, she thought of waiting for the sun to rise and putting an end to her pain and her new existence. She wondered how long it would take, but the thought of burning to death, whether it happened quickly or not, was more than she could bear and she began to run, not stopping until she found an abandoned building in a town far from North Canyon Creek.

With remarkably little effort, she pulled a board away from one of the first-floor windows and climbed into what had once been a warehouse of some kind. Moving away from the bank of windows, she made her way down a rickety stairway to the next level. Streaks of sunlight filtered through a broken window. She was running now, driven by her fear of the unknown.

Spying a dusty canvas tarp on the other side of the room, she dove underneath, hoping it would shelter her from the sun’s light.

She huddled in the musty darkness, fearful of the death-like sleep she knew was coming.

Tremors wracked her body, her stomach cramped with the sharp pangs of vampiric hunger.

Murmuring, “This can’t be happening,” she tumbled into the dark sleep of the Undead.

Ronan sat on the mattress in the basement, his face pressed against the blanket that had covered Shannah the night before. He drew a deep breath, inhaling the scent of her hair, her skin, her very essence. They had been parted for one night and it already seemed like a lifetime.

It had taken every ounce of self-control he possessed not to follow her when she left the house, but he had failed her once, he would not fail her again. If she wanted to be alone, he would accept her wishes, even if it meant he would never see her again. And even though she was now far away, he found some small comfort in knowing that she was still alive, that she still walked the earth, even if she no longer walked with him.

Where was she now, he wondered. Would he ever see her again?

Rising, he left the house. Her scent still lingered in the air. Unable to help himself, he followed it, curious to see where she had gone. He followed her scent down the street and into a bar and then into an abandoned warehouse located in another town. It pained him to know her anger had driven her so far away.

He walked around the outside of the warehouse. Her scent was strong but his senses told him she was no longer in the building.

Was she, perchance, on her way back to his house?

Had she fed? He remembered all too clearly the agony he had endured as a fledgling. Unless she fed, the pain would grow steadily worse until it was excruciating.

If only she had stayed, he would have guided her through the transition from mortal to vampire, a change that was often difficult, especially for those who were brought across against their will or without knowing what to expect.

But there was no help for it now.

When his own hunger rose within him, he put Shannah from his mind and prowled the city streets in search of prey. Finding none to his liking, he went into a night club where he found a woman sitting at the bar, alone. She was a lovely creature, with short blond hair and large brown eyes. She smiled when he sat down beside her.

He returned her smile. “Good evening.”

She lifted her drink. “Hi.”

He nodded at the dance floor. “Would you like to dance?”

She tossed off her drink. “Sure, why not?”

He took her hand. It was small and soft, warm and pulsing with human life. She went into his arms, easily following his lead. The music was slow and he held her close, wishing all the while that it was Shannah in his arms, Shannah smiling up at him.

“I’ve never seen you in here before,” the woman said.

Her words were slightly slurred, making him wonder how much she’d had to drink.

“I’ve never been here before.”

“I’m Anne.”

“Ronan.”

“A distinctive name,” she remarked.

“A very old name.”

His nostrils filled with the scent of her blood, arousing his hunger. It would be easy to take her away from here, he thought, easy to seduce her, but it wouldn’t be right, nor would it be fair to the woman, not when he was worried about Shannah. Worried and angry.

But he had no scruples when it came to taking the woman’s blood. Mesmerizing her with a look, he took what he needed, there on the dance floor, and then he wiped the memory from her mind and escorted her back to her seat at the bar.

A thought took him out of the night club and back into the darkness of the night. His thoughts immediately turned to Shannah. She had so much to learn; how to dissolve into mist, how to transport herself from one place to another, how to travel with preternatural speed so that her passing was invisible to mortal eyes, how to block the constant barrage of sights and sounds and smells that he knew were pummeling her senses every hour of the night. All that, and so much more he would have taught her if she had only stayed and given him the chance.

But he could not fault her for shunning his company. Whatever blame there was lay in him, not her.

Shannah wandered through the city, the ache in her belly spreading, burning through every nerve in her body like liquid flame. She had never felt such agonizing pain before. It was like her blood was on fire, as if her bones were melting. She needed to feed, and soon, she thought, before the pain consumed her and there was nothing left of her at all.

She didn’t want to feed off of humans. She didn’t want to consume blood to survive. Perhaps, if she resisted, the pain would go away. Ah, foolish hope. Even as it crossed her mind, the hunger clawed at her insides. Her body screamed with agony until she couldn’t bear it any longer. She needed nourishment, and she needed it now.

Glancing around, she saw that she had traveled far from the city. Instead of houses and shops, she was surrounded by hayfields and pasturelands. Farmhouses and barns and corrals lined both sides of the road.

It scared her that she had no memory of how she had gotten there.

She moved toward the nearest pasture, drawn by the scent of blood. Several dark shapes were clustered together in the middle of the field. They lifted their heads as she drew near, their ears twitching, their nostrils flaring.

She called one to her, waited while a small brown horse trotted toward her. Slipping between the fence rails, Shannah put her arm around the horse’s neck.

“I can do this,” she said, and with tears of pain and revulsion coursing down her cheeks, she bit into the horse’s jugular and satisfied her hunger. The horse didn’t seem to mind. Oddly enough, neither did she.

With the hunger assuaged, she felt content, almost joyful. Quiet power thrummed through her veins. She had never felt better in her life.