Nocturnal (The Noctalis Chronicles 1)

The rain started. I always loved the smell of the rain and even more now. The scent of something new, of the washing away of sins. Baptism. I was baptized, a long time ago. Some days it felt like thousands of years, but it had not been that long.

I held her eyes without meaning to.

That surprised me. Nothing much surprised me and I got a thrill from it. I wanted her, but not tonight. Ivan moved to take her and she fainted. The movement of her eyelids shutting startled me. I didn't want him to have her, but he would not let her go. So I had to take her.

Four

When I wake up, I'm strapped into the front seat of my car.

What the hell? It takes a moment for my head to catch up with the situation. First is the bodily inventory. Everything still attached, check. No bleeding wounds, check. Feeling like I got hit by a truck, double check.

I turn on the interior light to make absolutely sure, and catch a glimpse of my awesome neck. It's definitely a little red, and the marks looked a little like hickeys. I've seen enough of them on my best friend Tex to know what they look like. She was going to die when she saw these. She'd think that I'd been getting hot and heavy with some guy. Yeah, like that was going to happen. What had actually happened was more likely.

For some reason, I'm amazingly calm. Thoughts run through my head, but they're like water, flowing in a river. Is this shock? My distant thoughts remind me that it would probably be best if I got the hell out of here. Someone put my key in the ignition. The radio blares on, scaring the daylights out of me. I can't take much more of this. I'm cracked already and if anything more happens, I'm going to shatter. I bite my lip hard not to cry. No, I will not cry any more tonight. My goal is to get home. Just get home. Everything will be fine when I get home. I repeat it while I get my finicky car back in gear and on the road.

It's a good thing I'm in a rural area and it's the middle of the night. My shaky hands are having a difficult time steering and all I can really do is hold on and hope there aren't any deer out wandering. The heater does little to thaw my shivers, which even a raging fire can't cure. Why is it so hard to breathe?

Shut up and just get home.

Don't think about them. Don't think about the fact that one of them carried you to the car.

Don't. Think.

***

Ivan went for her, but I stopped him. Told him I did want her. He smiled and threw her limp body at me. It was all I could do not to sink my teeth into her neck. The fact that her eyes were closed stopped me, and a voice that sounded like my mother's. She reminded me of her.

My mother had dark hair, like this girl, and milky skin. She was originally from Japan, but her parents emigrated to New York when she was three. This girl was pure American, but something about her face reminded me of my mother. Something...

Ivan left, in search of other prey, leaving me with her.

I had no qualms about killing. I hadn't for years, but this night did it to me. I thought of it as my one human night a year when I didn't have to be a killer.

I carried her back to her car and put her in the driver's seat, snapping the seatbelt so she wouldn't fall when she woke up. Her eyes were still closed, but her breathing was steady. I took one last look and went back to the woods. No one was going to die tonight. Not me, not her.

***

The sky is fading from deep blue to gray when I creep through the front door, almost knocking over a vase of flowers on the table by the door. Yellow roses. Dad bought them for her a few days ago. In fact, he'd been buying her more flowers than usual. Now I know why. Quickly, I go around the house and make sure all the other entrances are locked. No one locks their doors in Maine, unless you live in the ghetto of Lewiston, or something.

My heart still beats as if there's a murderer chasing me, which is pretty close to the truth.

Down the hall I go, after slipping off my shoes. For the millionth time, I wish we had carpeting. Wood floors have a tendency to make noise when you're trying not to. There's a break in Dad's snoring; he must have rolled over. I stop moving, terrified any sound I make will wake him. I stand there, holding my breath. I'm still shaking, my hands jumping around. Dad's snoring resumes and I tiptoe upstairs.

Once I'm in my room, I close the door and finally feel like I can breathe. Just seeing all my things the way I left them before the night collapsed into a nightmare makes me feel a little better.

None of my furniture matches. Sometimes I wished I was one of those girls who had a matching bedroom set with a white painted bed, nightstand, dresser and desk. Instead, I have a iron daybed, a yellow dresser that has remnants from stickers I've tried to peel away when I grew out of my sticker phase. The night stand was a hand-me-down from my grandmother, dark polished wood that has seen better days. My desk once belonged to my mother. She'd gotten herself through college with it, crammed it in a crappy apartment with three roommates. So comforting, but there is only so much familiar furniture can do.

In one night I'd found out my mother was going to die, come across two strange guys in a mausoleum, one of whom had tried to kill me and the other who watched. My first instinct, drummed into me by my parents and kindergarten teachers, is to call the police. That's the logical thing to do, but my cell phone is gone. Just the cherry on top of a big crappy night sundae. It's possibly the crappiest night ever.

Don't. Think.

I should call 911. Give the location and then hang up before they could track me down. In the good old days, I could just use a payphone that couldn't be traced, but now I was out of luck. Too bad I didn't have one of those crappy disposable phones like a drug dealer. I've watched enough Law and Order marathons to know that nearly every phone is traceable. Then the police would find me and there would be questions and what would I say? Not to mention I'd have to tell my parents. What would that do to them? My mother is in a fragile state. No, I can't call the police.

I run through my other options, none of them very good. I watch the light get brighter as my prospects get dimmer and more desperate. I can't tell anyone. I can't do anything, really, which just sucks.

Finally, I get up and brush my teeth. It's the only thing I can think to do. I look up at my face, and all I can see are my green eyes, huge in my face, framed by dark circles and thin lashes. My jeans have dirt on them, and my shirt stinks of sweat. I strip down, and try not to let what happened at Bolero, and the cemetery, consume me. I'd already had a good cry about it. There was no use for another episode.

I shower for a long time, using water so hot it scalds my skin, and makes me look like a cooked lobster. I use the loofa Tex got me last Christmas to scrub myself raw. As the hot water courses down my face and I try to scrub the horrible night away, tears start to leak from my eyes. Damn them. Most of the time I'm able to put a stopper in my tear ducts, to swallow them, keep them bottled up. There's something about the vulnerability of being naked, the water running down my face and the fact that the shower muffles any sound I might make.