The Immortal Blood #Wattys2016

Chapter Four

I had to keep running, it didn't matter where... I just had to. My thirst was burning, my body aching, craving it. I wanted a drink, I needed one so badly because the desperation was killing me inside. That taste, that need for blood was what was keeping me walking. The fact that I was so desperate for it only meant I had to ignore it before it ruled my life, controlled me.

What was I going to do? Struggle through, fight back slowly as I try to regain some kind of humanity. The monster that turned me, they had to die because there was nothing else that would have been more satisfying, other than his death. He had to die, for Amanda and Sophie, their lives... innocent lives. The blood of the one who killed them could never be more satisfying.

To drink the blood of the one who bite me, it meant I was going to be freed from my immortality, the pain of the sickening hunger.

I kept tracking him down, I had to. I could feel his presence in every city, bodies left to rot on the streets, drained of their blood, by the monster he was... the monster I was becoming. I wouldn't be able to keep it up forever, resist the taste of blood and stop my monstrous side from growing into something darker. If I allowed it to continue, I could agree with him, the monster that took my child and took my wife from me.

I loved the pair of them and I killed them, indirectly, I killed them. I didn't mean to bring my work home but I killed them. I knew too many things were breaking, I was breaking. I needed blood, I had to drink but I didn't have anywhere to go, I couldn't just knock on every hospital door and beg for a small bag of blood in hopes or bite a random person and hope it doesn't kill them.

I couldn't protect them, I could barely protect myself. I needed to kill the monster that bit me, the monster I share this infectious poison with.

I kept tracking the monster as he kept walking, hiding from me like a coward. I hadn't drunk, I hadn't tasted human blood but there was the temptation. I had become the very thing vampire hunters' fear, no longer a man but a monster with knowledge of them, of their training, of their movements and lifestyles.

If they knew, I'd be hunted down like a dog, killed on sight. I was now like the devil, evil and sickening. I was no longer alive in their eyes, no longer a man, just a monster with more knowledge that I should have had.

Being a hunter once didn't help my cause, it just gave them another excuse to kill me, to stop me from telling others of my kind the truth, no matter how sickening that truth was. I wasn't alive to them; I'd failed in my task and fell to the ranks of the very monsters I hunted.

I was nothing more than ash to them, nothing more than something they could kill, something they could get rid of without giving me a second thought. I couldn't protect my family, Amanda, Sophie. The two innocent people that had been taken from the world because of me, because I failed to protect them and keep them safe, because I failed to keep a promise... because of me, they were murdered by the very type of monster that I am.

I knew what I had to do; I just didn't want to believe it. A desperate man would do anything and I was a desperate one. As I wondered, searching the cheap newspapers for clues, the rain pouring down as I desperately scanned, each page snatching away a piece of my hope, cruelly. 

"Can I help you?" a voice asked, a gentle voice, soft with a slight edge. She must've had an umbrella, I could feel it covering my head, hear the rain angrily falling, dripping off it. I looked up and saw a damp white umbrella, a tall woman in black and red looking at me, her blonde hair on slightly damp.

"No... thank you" I replied. 

"Really think you should reconsider. Perhaps I can help you find what you're looking for"

"I doubt it" I replied, just flicking through the paper.

"Oh, I think you may be surprised" she whispered almost teasingly as her unusually long nails dug into my skin. I grunted as I grabbed her hand, barely able to move it. She just laughed at me as she walked down the street.

Like a curious child, I followed her. I followed her down the streets like an animal stalks its prey. The rain was dulling my senses, soaking my clothes as I chased after her. I watched her step into a car, signalling for the driver to stop as she looked at me, into my starved eyes.

"Get in and hurry up" she ordered. 

I wasn't in the mood to listen to her and so I tried to argue, didn't get anywhere but still I tried. I glared and asked "who do you think you are? Just barking orders at me"

"Someone who is offering the deal of your life so you can either accept it or walk away" 

"What do you want from me?" I asked as I slid into the car.

"I don't want you for anything but you caught the attention of my master, he wants to speak to you"

"Why?" I asked rudely, looking at the door as it shut.

"I didn't ask and he didn't tell" she replied snottily.

"Fine, take me to him" I snapped as I sat back.

We drove for what seemed like forever, a black car, tinted windows. I was expecting to be met with a blindfold as he opened the car but there was nothing, no sign of one. I just stepped out of the car and into a small puddle, sighing out of annoyance as she stepped over it in her black heels. She didn't say a word, just walked through the puddles, her feet not even moving off her heel as she walked towards a small house, old-fashioned, Victorian by the look of it.