Watcher in the Darkness, Book 3: Imprisoned

Chapter 18

The freight train roared above my head, loud enough to drown out my thoughts, as a shower of sparks rained down around me. I could feel myself being shaken free from the trestle, so I held onto the crossbeam with one hand as I cradled my head in the other. My skull felt as though it were literally about to split open, but I reminded myself that the torment wouldn't last much longer.

Far below, the river rushed around the bridge's concrete support beams. Silver bodies flashed just below the surface of the water, more and more of them every time I looked. The nixies had become aware of me. When the train finally rumbled off into the distance, I could hear the water sprites chattering at each other in their strange demon language. Their eagerness for my flesh was nearing a frenzy.

My eyes felt hot and dry from staring at the sun as it set, and the tendons in my wrist screamed. Even so, I couldn't stop writing.

A couple weeks after my mother set me free, I found this dirty homeless guy. He was trying to fight off invisible KGB agents behind a Chinese buffet. I heard a crack when I tackled him next to the dumpster. It was the sound of his neck breaking. I can still feel his matted beard against my tongue, and his sweat was so sour, but his blood was liquid gold. I didn't drain him dry, yet there's no way he survived.

I ripped the paper out of my dwindling notebook then let the wind carry it away. I watched as the note drifted down to the rushing water. A nixie leapt out of the river to snatch the paper from the air, appearing then disappearing in almost the same instant. I could hear their breezy, tittering laughter as I began to write again.

The year before I met Justine, I came across a girl as she was stumbling home after a night spent binge-drinking with her friends. She tried to scream when I clamped my hand over her mouth to drag her back into the bushes. She didn't stop trying to scream until I bashed her head against a rock.

I ripped out the paper. I think, by this point, every nixie in the river had gathered below me, their grey faces glistening and eager. Their mossy hair floated on the water as they stared up with jet black eyes that were too large for their faces. I found my gaze being drawn to one female in particular. Her lips were moving, and I realized she was trying to tell me something. I squinted as I opened my senses, but then her face split into a vicious display of razor-sharp teeth.

A female voice to my left startled me so much that I almost fell. "You know, for a vampire, you are remarkably unobservant. I could've killed you five times already, if I were so inclined."

To be honest, I'd expected a troll; I mean, we were on a bridge. However, the woman that sat on the neighboring crossbeam, just out of reach, was anything but a troll. In fact, for several seconds, all I could do was stare.

She was very pretty, but it was an unusual kind of beauty. At first glance, she was stunning, but then she tilted her head and looked away. From that angle, she appeared almost alien. Her most striking feature was her hair; it was so red and shiny that it could've been spun from rubies. More than that, it was so long and thick that it was a wonder her scrawny neck didn't break under the weight of it. It played on the breeze like writhing tentacles.

Her skin was lily white, while her eyes were bright green and large enough to drown in. She wore an ankle-length, wispy white gown and a light brown hooded cloak. Even with the loose-fitting clothes, it was obvious that she was crazy thin. Her bare feet were hooked at the ankles as she idly kicked her heels, but she possessed absolutely no scent.

My initial surprise faded to nothing, so I started writing again. "Then why didn't you, demon?"

When I was seventeen or so, I mugged a street vendor on his way to the bank. I beat him so badly that he spent the next week in a coma. There was only seventy-five dollars in his deposit bag. I did it in broad daylight, but the cops arrested a gang member in the neighborhood because he had long hair like me. Word on the street was that the banger got twenty years, but I never told anyone the truth. I didn't even care. I still don't.