Fledgling (The Vampire Manifesto, Book Two) (2 page)

“Thank you.” She was self-conscious, cheeks rosy with blood. Dakota smiled, yet turned away slightly as if she were somewhat embarrassed. I pondered what I looked like to her. Did I enrapture her senses fully the way Connor did me when we first met? Is there an eerie quality about the way I moved, the way I talked?

I wonder…

She was such a pretty young thing and I found myself drawn to her almost instantaneously, compelled to be with her by some unseen force that had taken ahold of me.

“Dakota Theia, would you like to be my new friend?” I asked. Something had clicked inside of me. Whatever misgivings I held about being some type of monster had faded away. That last little shred of humanity that I clung to for dear life was silenced by the thundering in my ears that was her heartbeat. I could see a glimmer in her eyes. Was that exhilaration? Is that what Connor beheld in my eyes when we talked at the bookstore?

“Um…sure.” She shifted her gaze to some extent, afraid to look at me directly. I inhaled her scent in further, letting it grip me entirely with its influence.

I lifted her chin with my finger so that our eyes locked. At first, I thought to compel her, the same as I did my last quarry, that insipid tasting young man from the alley, but then I realized almost all at once, that I wouldn’t have to.

Just my presence alone was sufficient.

“Why do you look away?” My voice was easygoing, nonthreatening.

She blinked once, those blue eyes of hers so crystal clear, so violently intense, it was like a midwinter tempest frozen in time. It was like ecstasy in her eyes.

“You’re just so…pretty.” She was flustered, self-conscious, yet even as I removed my hand from her chin and caressed her face delicately with my fingers, she did not pull away.

“Almost as stunning as you.” I whispered to myself, yet loud enough for her to hear. It was miraculous to me, how such a delicate, petite thing could mesmerize me so, as if she herself had placed me within her own personal thrall upon meeting.

I grasped her by the hand and she interlocked her fingers with mine as we began to walk across the boulevard, heading down towards the shoreline. Dakota could scarcely keep her eyes off me; a dynamic grin sprawled across her face.

“Where are you appropriating me?” I asked, letting her assume the lead, pulling me along to whatever destination she chose. I discerned in my mind that I needed to just be done with her, to just drink my fill, then return home to where I was needed, yet a fraction of me couldn’t care less. It didn’t care about my parents, or Aiden or anything remotely associated to my former life.

I am Vampire…

Mortal trepidations just seemed…beneath me.

“I just wanna drop my board off.” Dakota giggled. “Then we can go anyplace you want.”

I smiled.

We were on the beach and I could see she was pulling me towards a cluster of teenagers, music blasting, dancing around a small little campfire. Nothing like the bonfires I was accustomed to, but it served its purpose.

“How old are you?” She asked without breaking stride.

“Seventeen.” I responded.

“Well that’s not too bad.”

I slowed to a halt and Dakota spun to face me. Her angelic face framed softly in the moonlight. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Haha, nothing.” She began. “You’re only like, two years older than me.”

And Connor is only nineteen years older than I.

“You have fascinating eyes.” She stated. “It’s like they glow in the dark.”

“It’s because they do.” I explained.

“Can I see?” Dakota moved closer to me, only inches from my face, her breath hot across my skin. She was scrutinizing my eyes, admiring the coloring of them, the radiance they produced. I ran my fingers through the back of her hair, clenching it tenderly, pulling her head back. I did this for diversion, you could look into a Vampires eyes but for so long before recognizing an…inhumanly characteristic about them.

Her hair was yielding in my hands and she groaned somewhat, from pleasure or pain, I know not and yet I kissed her deep and long and she kissed me back and I disregarded all the tribulations of the world as I became swept up in her yearning.

“Hey, look at Theia getting it on with a chick. Since when did she go les?”

I could hear laughter in the distance and when we stopped, I saw that her little collection of associates had taken notice of our passion.

“Shut up, Horatio.” Dakota thrust the bottom her board into the sand. “Everyone this is Madison.” She motioned out to her assemblage of friends before us. I could smell their lifeblood from where I stood and I fancied drinking every last one of them. I could feel my teeth began to sharpen and I knew it was only a matter of moments before the radiance of my eyes would become peculiar and so I gave a subtle nod in their direction and began to walk, gradually pulling Dakota along with me.

“Be back in few.” She hollered out to them.

We began walking down the shore, the waves crashing up against her bare feet, the water soaking through my shoes, yet I didn’t mind. We kept walking until the beach was devoid of anyone but us. Throughout this time, I did not speak and I could tell that she wanted to and yet she kept silent, simply resolved with being in my presence.

“So what do you want to do?” She asked finally, when the calm had become too much for her.

I stopped and then wrapped my arms about her midriff, pulling her slender body close to my own, my mouth close to her ear. “This…” I whispered.

I began to kiss her neck, my tongue against her skin, my teeth on her flesh when Connor appeared for a moment, standing not far behind Dakota so only I could see. He shook his head no and then vanished, faster than even my Vampiric eyes could track. Even though he was only there for an instant, I could ascertain something was wrong.

I pulled away from Dakota Theia, kissing her once more, then held her at arms distance, just admiring the flawlessness that was she.

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

“I have to go.” I paused, not wanting to leave her. She was different. Her fragrance didn’t drive me insane; I didn’t become blood drunk in her company. However, it did cry out to me in other ways.

“Go?” I could see the look of disenchantment on her façade. It paralleled my own. “But we just met.”

I reached out and pulled her to me once more, her form against mine.

With all my strength, I spirited away, as swift as I could, to the effect that I simply ceased to be in her presence anymore, a phantom specter that willed its way out of existence. From afar, I could see with my Vampire eyes as she twirled around, this way and that, looking for me, searching, not understanding how a person could just vanish in such a fashion, not comprehending how adjacent to death she truly had come.

I turned and made my way across the street, leaving the beach and Dakota Theia behind me, making my way towards Connor who waited patiently underneath a street lamp. A fiend in human clothing, with murder in his eyes and an angelic smile on his face.

“What’s wrong?”

“Listen.” He held up a finger. “Tell me what you hear.”

As random as his request was I did as I was requested, closing my eyes and concentrating, listening with my Vampire hearing in a fashion that I could never do when I was alive. Reverberations inundated my mind, indoctrinating my senses with their melody. The world around me blacked out and a closed inner visualization came alive within me, the sounds of commonplace life flowing through me as water would a faucet.

“Convey to me what you hear.” Connor asked.

“Just…” I hesitated temporarily. “Just the world. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

“Listen harder.” He persisted, discounting my response. “Listen to the repeating sounds.”

I concentrated again, blocking out everything that did not fit the criteria. Reiterating sounds. That’s what I searched out and that is what I discovered.

“Heartbeats.” I announced. The heartbeats of those around me.

“No focus even harder.” He commanded. “Tell me what you hear. Tell me what you remember.”

“I don’t understand what...”

“Just…concentrate.” Interjected Connor bitterly. “And tell me what you hear.”

The poundings of the hearts around me swamped my senses, gripping me in their melodic nature. There were just so many of them, each one distinctive in their own right, each of them, so similar and yet so…

That’s when I heard it.

“Someone’s following us.” I indicated abruptly.

I opened my eyes to discover Connor staring at me. “By what method did you come to that assumption?”

“Because I recognize their heartbeat.” I announced. “I remember hearing it at the airstrip when we landed. It was there in the distance, yet close enough.”

“Now you see why I came to get you.” Connor gripped my hand and pulled me along as we begin to walk, blending into the multitude about us.

“Is it the Marauders?” I became terrified, recalling everything they had done to me. “Have they found us?”

Connor shook his head. “No, they wouldn’t be this careless. If it were the Marauders, we wouldn’t know it until they were already on top of us.”

“Then who?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” I exclaimed.

“You need to calm down.” Connor directed me along, his hand against my mine, our fingers interlocked. “I don’t consider it a good week if I haven’t been followed at least twice.”

“What’s the plan?” I asked. “You…do have a plan, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.” He replied. “Apprehend whoever it is following us, torture them until I find out why, then kill them.”

“Really?” I asked. “That’s your plan?”

“Yup.”

“So…do you only have one strategy for every situation that you come across?”

“Yup.” Connor stopped in front of what appeared to be private club. “Works every time.”

I rolled my eyes.

The bouncer gave us the once over. “Welcome back Mr. Prometheus.”

“Prometheus?” I shot Connor a look.

“It’s my last name.” He responded.

I was suspicious. “Is it really?”

He just smiled. “No, but it rolls of the tongue so stylishly, doesn’t it?”

“This fucking dude.” I mumbled to myself.

The bouncer opened the doorway. “Your table as usual?”

“Is the Red Room available?” Connor asked.

“The Red Room?” Repeated the bouncer.

“I have a…guest who shall be accompanying us shortly.”

“Very well.” The bouncer led us inside, signaling for the host. “This is Mr. Prometheus. He is a favored client in need of the Red Room.”

The host nodded quickly. “Right this way Mr. Prometheus.”

She directed us through the social establishment, moving briskly, maneuvering with experienced ease. I’ve never been inside an institution like this before. It was bizarre, chockfull with faintly lit with individual enclosures for tables, semi closed off for confidentiality. In many of the booths, some of the most glamorous women I’ve ever laid eyes on pirouetted in platinum bikinis in front of sophisticatedly attired men and women.

“What is the place?” I whispered.

“It’s christened the 20twelve Lounge.” Connor said. “It’s very…selective in its membership.”

As we were led to our table, a performer not far off ensnared my eye; the way she moved appeared to have me to a certain degree, mesmerized. She smelled of honeycomb and raspberries and her skin dazzled in the low light from some type of salve. I was captivated. I couldn’t take my eyes off her and in my mind; all I could contemplate of was my fingers across her chest and my teeth in her neckline.

Connor tracked my gaze. “I’ll see what I can do about procuring you a membership.”

The host led us towards the rear, sitting us down in a distinct room at a distance from everyone else. There were no windows in this room and yet the walls seemed to be made of one long continues flat screen TV that gave a panoramic view of the club around us.

We sat down on supple leather chairs and the host decanted chilled Champaign that was already waiting. As the copious rubicund fluid filled up the crystal wine glasses, I recognized at once that it was lifeblood she dispensed and not wine.

“I’d like to set up a supplementary membership.” Connor motioned towards me. “For my comrade here.”

The host smiled. “Sixteen million for the first year. Three million for each additional year.”

Connor merely nodded.

The woman produced a thin tablet device. “Please position your hand here.”

I was skeptical, but Connor just laughed. “It’s okay.” In spite of my trepidations, I placed my palm on top of the tablet and burgundy light began to outline my hand slowly.

“Thank you.” Said the host as the light concluded its run. “You can remove your hand now.”

I did as I was told and the entire wall in front of us faded to black. A replica of my driver’s license appeared in front of us, the snapshot enlarged beside it.