Page 20 of Taste of Death

I looked at her face, her flawless skin and bright eyes set in black. The only imperfection I noted was the scar across the base of her neck, and it did nothing to detract from her beauty, or her sweet, cheery demeanor. She definitely wasn’t a woman who struggled to look at herself in the mirror.

“When?” I asked. “When does it get easier?”

The optimism in her expression faltered a little. “Well, everyone is different. And coming to terms with being a brusang is not a linear path. But for me, it was about five years before I really accepted who and what I was.”

Fiveyears? I didn’t know whether to hysterically laugh or cry.

If I was being deeply honest with myself, I wasn’t sure if I would last that long.

Chapter 7

Novak

7. Novak

The monster staredat me with unblinking red eyes, its pupils the size of pinheads. Black blood vessels crisscrossed over the entire eye like spiderwebs. It was hunched over, but the same height as me, its skeleton an elongated, twisted form of what it once was.

“Are you going to cooperate today?” I kept my eyes on it while sterilizing a small scraper tool with isopropyl alcohol.

The creature never answered when I spoke to it, not with words anyway. But in the fifty years I’d kept it captive in my basement, I never kicked the habit of trying to have a conversation. Once upon a time, this had been a vampire after all. A person.

I approached the barred cell, holding the scraper tool down next to my thigh, and earned a hiss of warning from the monster.

“I just need a few skin cells,” I said, as if I could reason with it. “I need to see if there are any changes from last week.”To see if you’ve gotten any better.

This task felt futile. Who was I kidding? Everything felt futile. Over a hundred years of trying to find a cure for the madness that plagued my clan and nothing to show for it.

But I couldn’t stop. What would be the point of anything then? What if I was on the brink of discovering the cure?

I pushed back my sleeve, exposing my forearm. The creature’s eyes dilated at the sight of my flesh, its jaws parting with a whine like a dog.

I took advantage of the distraction, jabbing the scraper through the bars to drag along the creature’s side. It roared in response, its rank breath hitting me in the face like a sucker punch. Just as I pulled the scraper back, the monster lunged for my exposed forearm.

“Shit!” Pain shot up my arm like a hot brand. Usually I was good at keeping out of reach, but I was off my game today. Distracted.

Backing away from the cell, I glanced at my forearm where it had gotten me. Four scratches from its filthy claws puffed red and throbbed with a pain that I knew would linger. Healing would take longer than a normal wound, an ever-present reminder of how I’d fallen short in this endeavor.

Turning my arm to show the creature its work, I asked, “Satisfied?”

Saliva dripped from its near-skeletal jaws. The skin over its bones had become so thin and brittle, I could see the shape of its gums and all its teeth, not just the fangs. Bony-fingered hands wrapped around the bars of its cell, those animal-like claws preventing a tight hold.

The creature was covered in dirt and filth. At this point, it was impossible to tell if it was wearing any clothes or had been male or female. It was hunched over, misshapen. There wasn’t a shred of the proud vampire it had once been. Not anymore.

“Are there any of you still in there?” My voice was heavy with despair. “Do you know who you are? Do you even recognize me?”

The creature let out an anguished, hungry roar. It had been for over fifty years. But considering that it would only be satisfied by vampire or human flesh, I wasn’t exactly inclined to give it regular meals.

I stared at the edge of my scraper, not entirely hopeful that I got viable skin cells through all the grime and filth. Not for the first time, I wondered if it would be better to put this creature out of its misery.

Before I could follow that train of thought, the intercom on the wall beeped. I dropped the scraper into a sterile plastic bag and turned away from the monster to answer the call.

“Yes?” I released the button and waited for a reply.

Lourna’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Sorry to interrupt, sir. You have a call on your office line.”

“Who?” I pressed, knowing it couldn’t be good if she was hesitant to tell me.

“Baros of Carpe Noctem.”

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