Page 2 of Killer of the Bells
When the tolling had finished and the fabric of my being was no longer under assault, I collected myself, took a deep breath, and sped away into the night, eager to be home. Once I was in my wing of the house, I could lose myself in research inside my soundproof lab and be safe from the urge to rend and tear.
I’d barely used my power at all on the evening’s mission, but it had riled easily due to the bells going off every hour, and now all it wanted to do was hunt. That’s what I got for showing off. Mild usage of basic skills I’d mastered was a small drop in the bucket and rarely triggered the monster inside. It was the bigger things like spellcasting or skills I never used, like extreme strength, that were more likely to set it off when I was on edge.
I’ve never been one to use strength to solve mundane problems. The society I grew up in disdained physical labor. It was something strictly for the common man to do and not the aristocracy. Not that I fit in with their idea of suitable behavior, but some social conditioning stuck, so I leave being a muscle monkey to Gareth if at all possible.
Speed, however, is different. I love to run. There’s something about going so fast that I become a blur to the naked eye that brings me deep satisfaction. It softens the demands of the monster inside me briefly, and every moment I get a chance to run, I take it. I can generally only get away with it between dusk and dawn because I can’t go invisible, and as unobservant as the population of the valley we live in is, someone is bound to notice eventually if I zip around everywhere I go.
It was dark when I left Baz and Gareth, and, while we’d been two towns and a river away, I was home in minutes. I slowed my pace because I was responsible for theno running in thehouse rule. I entered through the front door and almost made it to thehallway connected to my wing of the house when I came across Vix just as his fiancé Paris came all over his face.
My heart clenched, and the power inside me demanded I pop Paris’s head free of his neck as gruesomely as possible. Internally, I told it to fuck off, while externally, I told the exhibitionists, “We talked about this.”
Vix’s pretty face was dreamy as he apologized. “I’m sorry, Vale. You know how it is.”
I did know how it was, having been in Paris’s place many times.
Vix’s mind was the sharpest, most exquisite diamond the scientific world had ever seen, but the drawbacks were costly for him. Not only did he have no ability to control his manic episodes of creativity, but when he got overwhelmed, he’d fall into a comatose state, and to top it all off, his body had developed an extreme form of hypersexuality likely as an attempt to balance him out.
Vix was a charming and adorable man of extremes, and he had no control over any of it. Before he’d met Paris, Vix turned to his housemates to help him regulate his quirks and desires.
At first, Vix was nothing but an outlet for me to burn off excess energy so I didn’t have to go out and kill every night, but when Paris arrived and stole Vix away, I realized far too late the beautiful thing I’d taken for granted.
I knew Paris was better for Vix. He didn’t get lost in his lab for days on end, forgetting all about Vix until someone forced him to leave and eat. Paris’s obsessionwasVix. His entire purpose for existing seemed to be taking care of Vix’s every need and desire. If Paris hadn’t been perfect for Vix, I would have successfully killed him instead of merely attempting it last year.
If I’d really wanted Paris dead, the deed would be done. The little electrocution incident was more of a warning than an actual attempt.
That didn’t mean I was happy about their relationship, and it didn’t mean I wanted to see Vix sucking Paris off in our foyer, so I said, “I’m telling Gareth,” before storming away. Being petty soothed the beast long enough to get far enough away to keep from killing Paris.
I stomped to my elevator, texting Gareth about Vix’s and Paris’s foyer activities as I rode to the top floor of my newly rebuilt wing. It had been burned down last winter, so I currently had the nicest part of the house, not including my room.
I refused to allow Vix to demolish my bedroom. It was cozy and perfect the way it was. Since it had survived the fire, why bother replacing it?
Baz often joked about me being the vampire living in their attic.
What an absolute child.
I slammed my door open and kicked off my boots, one after the other, flinging them in opposite directions.
“Why aren’t you ready to go?” The bane of my existence asked, sitting innocently in my windowsill like it wasn’t guarded and trapped to hell and back.
“Someday, one of Vix’s security measures is going to give you a nasty surprise. I look forward to that day,” I said, shedding my coat and allowing it to hit the floor with a muffled thump.
I keep many things in my coat pockets because I take it with me everywhere I go. I like to be prepared. If I wasn’t so strong, it would be too heavy to wear. Apple once joked that I could simply throw my coat at someone to kill them rather than tear them limb from limb. Apple wasn’t wrong.
“I can’t wait,” Wraith agreed. “So, for tonight, I was thinking we hit up the reservoir. Dumb college students always go there, and the gods only know what they’ve put into their system. It’s like roulette. My favorite are the ones with the green sparkles in their blood. What do you think they have to take to get those?”
Wraith always does things like this. He’s gone for weeks and months on end without a word, then shows up like he’d only popped out for cigarettes and is ready to party.
“Why are you asking me?” I shrugged off my shirt and let it fall to the floor, too, but it landed silently.
“You’re the chemist. Who else would I ask?” Wraith’s current hair color was green like his beloved blood sparkles, which meant he was having one ofthosenights.If I engaged with the topic, he wasn’t going to shut up about it until he got his hands on a college kid high on whatever the hell drug made blood taste like green sparkles.
It certainly didn’t show up as a visual effect. Wraith was weird like that. He suffered from synesthesia along with a variety of other issues. Fucking fae. The older they get, the more quirks they pick up. The ancient ones were so bizarre that they were nearly impossible to interact with.
Think of it like this—the longer you live, the more time life has to hit you with the plot bat. For creatures who interact with magic regularly, the bat can pack one hell of a punch.
I can only hope I don’t live long enough to find out what I would be like as an ancient.
No, I’m not a vampire. I’m cursed. There’s a difference. Everyone thinks I am because they’re fucking idiots. I’ve been cursed, and the asshole responsible for it was currently chipping away at random bits of cracked paint on my windowsill. He had already made an impressive pile on my floor.
