Savage Wings: Book Three of The Whitechapel Chronicles

Chapter 4

There was a beauty in the woman's flesh, underneath the dirt that lingered on her skin, underneath the grease that weighed down her lank hair, underneath the stench of cigarette smoke that seemed to infiltrate every pore of her body.

As I held her close, I admired the sharpness of her cheekbones, the gentle curve of her brow and the smooth lines of her throat. I didn't see the needle marks that punctured the thin, the bruised skin on her arms, nor did I see the deviated septum of her nose, decimated by too many years of slavish drug abuse. She was beautiful to me. When she took her last breath, the wound on her neck still sluggishly pumping out the blood I could taste on my lips, I told her so, whispering into her ear until she was gone and I was left holding the empty husk of her body.

And all the while as I hunted and fed, I felt the intrusive gaze of the seer.

I should have grown used to it by now, that constant crawling sensation over my skin, however the weight of it was so heavy that I couldn't move without feeling the burden of it pressing down upon me. From the moment I had lured the woman with the promise of money for the small bag of coke stuffed in her inside jacket pocket, to the point where I had crushed her against the wall and pierced the soft yielding flesh of her throat with my incisors, muffling her screams with my hand, Josiah had kept those cold white eyes fixed on my every move.

When it was done, he helped me dispose of her body, just as I had assisted him earlier after he had fed and we had done all this in complete silence, not uttering a single word to one another since we had left the Chapel. In truth, there was a lot I could have said to Josiah. And I could have kept saying it over and over again, spewing out my hatred and frustration, fuelled by grief and anger, but I knew it would do me no good. My anger did nothing but amuse him and I was tired of being the resident entertainment. As much as it pained me to keep my opinions to myself, I had done just that, nodding wordlessly when he ordered me to leave the Chapel with him, assuring me it was perfectly safe to leave Lucius and Harper to go hunt the dark backstreets of Holborn. There, not far from Josiah's home, I had stalked the unlit alleyways, seeking out a victim, with the seer shadowing my every step. I had tolerated his oppressive presence with gritted teeth and fake nonchalance. I might have belonged to him, but I sure as Hell wasn't about to become his plaything.

It was on the short journey back to the Chapel that Josiah broke the silence between us. I wasn't sure what I preferred: silence or having to speak with the seer and being forced to resist the urge to crack his jaw with my clenched fist. Admittedly, busting his mouth open would have brought me tremendous satisfaction, but I had no doubt the retaliation would be quick and far harder than any punch I could throw.

Stopping at the end of a narrow alley, he motioned for me to hold back as he peered around the corner, checking the street beyond. "I never thought I would see the day that this city would be ruled once again by fear," he admitted in a gruff whisper, his breath painting clouds in the chill of the night air. "The Great Cleansing was something told to the fledglings. Horror stories passed down to each generation of vampire to educate them about the fucked-up world they'd just been reborn into." He sniffed and raised the hood of his zip-up jersey. "We'll have new stories to tell now. That is, if there's enough of us left to create a new generation."

I snorted derisively. "I'm surprised you have the guts to walk these streets at all considering your kind was a much desired commodity during the last Cleansing. I mean, if the Varúlfur don't find you first and use you to help them hunt the last of us hiding out, maybe a vampire who remembers what the seers did will find you and drain you dry before you can be used again?"