Page 6 of Killer of the Bells
Iknew him. How did I know him?
I observed a familiar, stupid young man from my perch on a tree branch several yards away.
The “new place” Wraith dragged me to wasn’t new at all, so I’d ditched him the second his back was turned and roamed around to hunt on my own until I came across a lonely figure sitting at the edge of a cliff.
It wasn’t his face I recognized. No, I couldn’t even see it from my vantage point. It was the set of his shoulders. The world-weary way he held himself. The way he breathed. All of it tickled my brain in a way that left me no doubt that I’d encountered him before.
The wind changed course, and it brought to me the crisp bite of early winter and something warm and soothing, like French vanilla. The last part came from the young man.
A flash of memory came to me as his scent hit me. The last time I’d come to the reservoir. It had to behim.
I never saw him clearly, but the build and smell were the same. It was the little idiot I’d saved from being chopped up and sacrificed to some bullshit god that didn’t exist.
The man I’d eaten had been delicious. I’d even shared him with Wraith, so he’d forget about our snack’s little sacrifice. Malice and insanity are a heady concoction to drink, and the man had been stuffed with both. Wraith and I were well satisfied with my haul, so there had been no need to hunt again that day.
The little man before me had been safe to go about his life, shaken but unscathed. A smart person would have never come to the spot again, so I clearly wasn’t dealing with one of those. And since I despised stupidity, I had the undeniable urge to go and educate the fool.
I didn’t try to disguise my approach, but the fool didn’t stir from his reverie. I’d originally planned to scare the shit out of him from a nice, safe distance so as not to rouse the monster, but once again, the wind blew his scent to me, and I found myself momentarily entranced. I didn’t realize I was almost on top of him until I was sniffing his neck and ready to strike.
I broke from my trance and forced myself to speak, “Little idiot. Why would you come here again?” Maybe if he responded, if he begged for his life, it would humanize him enough for me to break free of the hold my hunger had on my body.
No, it was better for him not to beg. That would only make the hunger worse.
Instead of responding like any sane person would, the small man fell bonelessly against me and bared his neck. The moon was bright enough to show off a streak of blue in the dark hair covering his forehead.
The monster in me was so startled that it gave me a chance to break free from its hold long enough to shove the man away and retreat to the tree line.
My hunger kept me from leaving entirely, so I watched as the young man pulled himself up from the sprawl I’d left him in. He was on his knees, showcasing luminous green eyes and callingsoftly, hesitantly. “Please…don’t go. Won’t…talk…” He choked like each word was painful to get out.
I didn’t respond, but my throat ached, and my stomach growled, both demanding I drain the absolute moron dry. The bells had made everything so much harder. My control was almost nonexistent.
“Please… I want this.”
The pain in his voice was a punch to my gut, temporarily silencing the gnawing hunger. I recognized the emotion in the man’s voice all too well. It had been my good companion for nearly two centuries.
The idiot didn’t want to be on the planet any more than I did, and he’d chosen me as his exit plan.
“Fuck you, you little bastard,” I hissed.
The hunger had already begun to ramp up once more, but I slammed it to a halt. Irrationally, the fact that he was willing to be my victim had given me all the incentive I’d needed to drag my self-control out from where it was hiding.
I stormed back out of the trees. “You think you can just come here and expect someone to take all your problems away? To take responsibility for your death? Do it yourself if you want to die so badly.” I gestured to the ledge behind him.
“I want to die so badly,” the man sighed, nearly echoing what I’d said. “Why can’t you take responsibility for one more person?”
I scowled and tried to storm away, but my hunger wouldn’t allow it. “The man I killed was trying to kill you. I came away from that with a clean conscience.”
Lyle had deserved what I gave him. I’d swallowed all of his sins and given them to my bloodlust. The information I’d gotten from the transfer had been enough to make Gareth drop his current project and start a new one.
“Clean conscience… What about Bethany?”
“Who’s Bethany?”
The last Bethany I’d known had died in 1942 while driving a med truck filled with injured soldiers. No, I didn’t eat her or them. I’d only learned about the bombing after the fact. The idiot probably wasn’t referring to her.
“Bethany is Bethany. You killed her…no one…remembers.”
“No one remembers? What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, starting to get truly annoyed, until I finally put the pieces together.
