Empire of Vampires ✔️

Chapter Eighteen

Andrew sat on the rocks by the cliffside, his bare feet dangling over the edge as he stared into the abyss.

He found himself wondering what James found so appealing about staring into the darkness. It was a bleak sight; and it got old pretty fast.

The twin suns stayed hidden behind dense, dark clouds. The frozen wind whipped rather ferociously but Andrew felt oddly comfortable in its roar. Clothed in nothing but a thin T-shirt and his pajama trousers, the chilly air barely made him shiver anymore.

What did make him shiver was the image of the heart-shaped murder scene, still imprinted in his mind. They lay in perfect symmetry, neatly arranged on a bed of lilies. The care taken to organize them somehow upset Andrew more than the haphazardness of the plane crash or the mess of a body laying on broken glass.

This was calculated. Done with meaning and method, although it seemed to make no sense. Andrew felt numb as he considered it. He should be screaming but he couldn't make a sound.

A perfect crimson heart painted on sparkling, dazzling... glittering flowers.

Sickly beautiful.

Like something a child would paint with coloured markers, torn from the back of a notebook to be put up on the fridge.

Andrew closed his eyes and tried to breathe. At least it wasn't James. It couldn't be James.

Because the bodies hadn't been drained.

A rock skittered and fell off the cliff's edge, the sound pulling Andrew from his morbid thoughts.

'Andrew.'

Andrew jumped to his feet and spun around fast, taking in a sharp breath as he saw the fanged boy standing behind him.

James looked like a wreck. His usually perfectly-styled hair was now as wild as his stormy eyes. His face was expressionless and deathly pale. His lips were red with blood.

He took a step towards the human boy and Andrew took a step back. The flight crew were all drained.

'Don't. Move.' The vampyre commanded, deliberately taking another step forward.

There's blood on his lips.

Andrew stepped back again and the loose rocks gave way beneath him. He gasped as he lost his footing, his eyes widening in shock. He threw out his arms but there was nothing to hold on to.

Strong arms reached out to grab him as Andrew started tumbling off the face of the cliff. They pulled him to safety and they pulled him so close.

Andrew's face was inches away from blood-stained lips. From this distance, he could clearly see the places where the vampyre's razor-sharp fangs had cut into his soft lips and caused them to bleed.

The scent of blood made him feel dizzy. Andrew unconsciously reached up to touch it, his thumb gently swiping across the busted lips to wipe them clean.

James wrapped his fingers tightly around the human's wrist, holding it in place between them.

'What are you doing?' he asked slowly.

Andrew gulped, not daring to step back again.

He couldn't if he tried.

'What are you doing at the edge of the cliff?' James repeated. His voice came out strangled and hoarse.

'I was just thinking, I- needed to get away and-

'But why here.' He said it like a statement, as if he already knew the answer.

'I was thinking how you stared into the void all the time and I— was wondering what you saw there,' Andrew explained, feeling a bit embarrassed and then wondering why he felt so.

James looked taken aback at this unexpected response. 'I see nothing. Only darkness.'

'If you squint really hard you can see the fluffy little tops of trees.'

The vampyre blinked once or twice and almost smiled in shock. The expression of humour gracing his features was gone a second later, however. 'I thought that,' he started slowly, 'you came here to....'

Andrew stared at him and the vampyre stared back in all seriousness, waiting for a response.

'I wasn't- I wouldn't do that!' Andrew defended, sounding appalled at the thought.

James stared intensely into the dark, flashing eyes, trying to catch a lie. He visibly relaxed when Andrew glared back at him openly.

After a long pause James finally spoke, his voice barely audible. 'I used to come to the cliffs all the time.'

'I'm- I'm glad you don't anymore.'

The air between them was turning foggy as their breathing quickened. Andrew found himself wondering why James even needed to breathe - he certainly didn't need to - but the vampyre's chest rose and fell in precise timing. His undead heart pounded loudly, in sync with the human's own.

Andrew swallowed, feeling a bit faint once more.

'Maybe we should go back inside,' the vampyre softly suggested.

'Uh, yeah...'

'You must be cold out here.' James frowned, remembering that the human hated the weather up in the mountains.

'Not really,' Andrew replied truthfully, 'I've grown quite used to it.'

'You can still catch your death of cold.'

'How old are you, James?' Andrew suddenly grinned teasingly, 'Do you, by any chance, come from a time prior to cold vaccinations?'

'I was born in 1797, Regency England,' James replied as he helped Andrew back inside, through the low window he had somehow crawled out of.

'What?!' Andrew toppled again and almost fell head-first through the opening. 'That's so, SO OLD!'

James frowned. 'I was turned in 1814, so I was frozen at seventeen years of age.'

'No, you're like five hundred years old, actually!'

'Actually, I'm five-hundred-and-fourteen... if you want to count it like that.' James couldn't help but chuckle at the priceless look on the human's face.

Andrew stood hesitantly outside the dorm. The vampyre was patiently holding open the door but Andrew's mind was not at ease.

After the initial shock at the cliffside, all his doubts were slowly crawling back.

If James had really been alive for over five hundred years... how many people would he have had to kill to survive?