Bite Shift

71

He stood and I was grateful for the space between us. He continued his speech, pacing around the room. I watched him carefully, knowing this may be my last chance to run.

"I think about Serine. Her face comes to me when I close my eyes to sleep. For decades, she's been just inside my eyelids, teasing me. I'll see her in a crowd and look back. But, it's never her. Lately, I see her everywhere. She led me to your hospital, you know. She was inside of every woman I took. I was starting to think I was insane."

"What gives you that idea?" As the words left my mouth, I knew I should have stayed quiet.

He paused his pacing, back to me, and I saw his muscles tense. For seconds, I prepared for him to run at me and hoped my death would be quick. Instead, he relaxed and continue his circle around the barn. "I thought that Serine was trying to get me to kill those women and be caught. It is an instant death sentence. It is her revenge against me. When, I saw you Kate, under that tree. I thought it really was Serine, that this was my chance to finally rid myself of her ghost. I tore at her, ripped her throat out, destroyed her."

Will stopped his circling in front of Rhys. He seemed to be in awe. "He is nothing, a hermit, a nomad. He is the weakest of us. But he saved you. He got in my way.... this nobody."

He laughed, more to himself, than anything else, enjoying some secret joke. He drove his boot into Rhys' back. Rhys didn't make a sound. That is not a good sign

The man who was once my friend moved to face me. "I heard Sorin talking about the girl that was saved at the hospital, the new vampire. I knew you were coming to the manor. When I saw you....."

His head tilted to the side. He was smiling. "She wasn't trying to show me those women or have her revenge. She was bringing me to you. She is reincarnated in you."

I was not understanding his line of thinking, at all, and didn't think I liked where it was going.

"You are my chance," he said, too much like someone in worship. "I can be with her, in the way I never got to. And, then, I can be rid of her for good."

Dammit. Why didn't I pay closer attention in my psych classes? How do I talk down a fucking Nazi looney toon?? Was I supposed to agree and play along or challenge the delusion?! Shit!

"Only one problem, Kate."

"Only one?" I answered, choosing to treat him like the psychotic asshole that he was.

"Well, more than one." He was starting to walk towards me again and I didn't want him to. "First, if it is discovered that I am the killer," he shrugged, "well, I will be executed. But, worse than that..."

"There's worse than executed?" Maybe if I kept him talking, I could buy some time.

"If Sorin finds out that I killed you, he will do things to me that will make me beg for death. He would be infuriated that I fooled him all these years and, unfortunately, he's got a soft spot for you. So, I need a way out."

Oh yeah, I do not like where this is going.

"If he thinks it is, say, Rhys and I am the one to catch and kill him, however, I would be a hero."

"And, I can't be around to tell the truth, I assume." I said it like a statement.

He smiled. "You catch on quickly. No, you cannot. Nor can the good doctor. He will know too much, of course."