Chapter 1
I tighten the overcoat around me as I stop in the middle of the bridge. Temperatures have been falling rapidly since the beginning of November, but my body shouldn’t be able to feel the difference so keenly. Usually, I am impervious to temperature shifts. Guess, not feeding properly has its side-effects.
I look behind me at the winding path creeping in and out of the forest. It's completely deserted, the emptiness weighing heavy in the air. Who would be crazy enough to go for a walk just before nightfall in a town like ours? No one, except me. Bear attacks, wild dogs on the loose scavenging for leftovers, boars out of the forest and about town – none of them scare me. In fact, I would be most grateful for crossing paths with a boar right now. I am so hungry that it would be dead in a second.
Hunger. Thirst. The same thing under different denominations. This is why I’m roaming about. I am too thirsty to go home, and Dad hasn’t come back from his trip yet. My blood supplies are gone, and being in the house with Mom and my sister, Mara, while thirst rages on at the back of my mind is not wise.
A long walk is preferable to the possibility of losing control and attacking my family. Besides, I needed some space to process what I saw on TV this morning.
A girl in her early twenties was found dead at a train station only a couple of towns away. Her body was almost drained of blood. But the strangest thing about the murder wasn’t the absence of blood. Something even more disturbing roused the media’s attention.
The girl had been carefully placed in a wooden box made to fit her size. She was wearing a wedding dress, and a red rose laid on her chest entwined between pale fingers. An odd murder. The kind that makes words like “serial killer” and “psychopath” instantly pop up into your head.
People around here aren't used to this sort of things. Murder is murder. Raw, shocking, always with a violent reason. I think this freaks people out more than if they had found the body somewhere in the woods, covered in dirt and maimed by animals. As strange as it might sound, that would have made more sense to them. I can't figure it out either.
First, I thought that maybe it was the work of a vampire, but no vampire would risk exposure like this. The murder would be considered an act of provocation, and the vampire community doesn’t tolerate such defiance. The culprit would be hunted down, beheaded, and then reduced to ashes. No vampire would be so foolish as to betray his or her own kind, not when the betrayal has such definitive consequences.
Then, I started considering that perhaps the murder was a set up. Someone was trying to warn the world of our existence. Someone was making a point. Monsters are real. Nightmares walk in the daylight. No one is safe. The innocent are dying, and they will keep on dying. There’s nowhere to hide when the enemy looks just like you.
But, people seem to be deaf and blind to the warning. Sure, they were shocked by the murder, but I doubt any of them is seriously considering the possibility of a vampire committing the crime. Besides, our little vampire community is very discreet. Select few know about us, and the ones that know would never to tell anyone.
As far as I know, I am the only vampire around here. The rest of my family is human, only I have inherited the gene. Lucky me! If there were others, I would be able to sense them, and they would be able to sense me. Why, then, commit a murder that screams vampire in a place lacking in the main suspect? I am pretty sure no one knows about me. The wolves in this area have no idea a blooddrinker lives among them. Dad said that because I was born in a human family, my vampire side is less conspicuous than in the case of those born in full-blooded vampire families. So, my existence unravels completely under the radar.
The valley and the towns around it are vampire free. Dad has to go buy human blood all the way to the capital. There are no human blood suppliers in the area, thus no vampire community. Why then? Why murder someone in such a manner here? What would be the point? Perhaps, there is no point. Perhaps-
The sound of twigs breaking somewhere in the forest catches my attention. Thoughts dissolve like salt in water, and thirst overtakes my senses. The monster steps forward, demanding its meal. I drop my overcoat on the ground, gather my black hair in a tight ponytail, and get ready.
A gray wolf, bigger than any wolf I have seen up until now, emerges from between the pine trees. It doesn’t growl and it doesn’t look scared.
“Sorry, little fellow! You’ll be my dinner tonight,” I say, the veins underneath my skin turning dark with hunger.
My conscious mind retreats in a corner, as the monster takes control. I feel my body jumping forward, I see myself thrashing on the ground while chocking the wolf, I feel warm blood flowing from my arm where the wolf bites me...If I tighten my grip just a little, then the wolf is finished. It wants to live just as badly as I do, and it struggles till falling unconscious.
The monster within demands the wolf’s death, but the human watching from the sidelines begs to differ. I loosen my grip and let go of the wolf. Its body limps to the ground, life still thumping in its chest.
Searing pain claws up my arm and spreads throughout my body. His bite was vicious and bloody, but I will heal. I may not be indestructible, but I am more resilient than most. One of the many perks of being a blood drinker. I grab my coat off the ground, and glance at the wolf one last time.
I am so hungry! Letting it live is the right thing to do, but the monster within knows it's foolish and reckless. The monster only cares about its own survival, but the human in me would rather die than take a life, even if that life belongs to an animal and not another human being. I always go hunting, but never kill my prey no matter how hungry I am.
I have tried to kill before, but in the end I released my prey just as I did now. Seventeen years without getting blood on my hands...I don't wish for this to ever change. Hopefully, I'll be just as strong when I am eighteen, and nineteen, and so forth.
The wolf is starting to come around, so I begin making my way deeper into the woods. Darkness has already settled over the valley. My favorite time of the day is afoot. In the dark is when I am strongest. In the dark is where I am safe.
