The Sorrows of Midnight

Chapter Nine

Chapter NINE

He was a short and oddly broad shouldered, his face harsh and angry as his eyes glowed out of his sickly face. He hasn't fed in days, it looked like. He came at me, all animal and no intelligence in his eyes, just the pure animalistic hunger. He slammed into me, knocking us both in the wall as he hissed, trying to go for my neck. I shifted, bringing up my knife and slamming it up in-between his forth and fifth ribs. He went stiff and blinked at me, his eyes losing their glowing color and fading back to a rich hazel.

"Wha?" he asked, before he dropped. I pulled my knife free, and shut his eyes. He wouldn't have stopped, not until he had killed me. It would have taken at least three adults to pull him out of the hunger rage. But they know that they aren't allowed to go more than two days without feeding, so that they can keep the hunger rage a thing of the past. It was written in the vampire laws that they had to feed every two days. And he was completely caught in the rage, so he had been four or five days without feeding.

What the fuck was going on? Could this tie back into someone undermining Michalis' authority? That was one sure way of being the vampire council down on Michalis, having multiple vampires going in the hunger rage. It would make him look like a bad master, like he wasn't strong enough to keep his line in check. It seemed his problem was bigger than he had thought.

But that doesn't explain why they were here, at Leslie's apartment. Most of the time, when vampires were in the hunger rage, they attacked the first human they found. They didn't climb up two flights of stairs, and choose a certain apartment to attack. Not unless they were ordered to attack a certain apartment. Someone had either put a hit out on Leslie, or they found paper work that lead back to me and I was the one who had the hit on my head. Being that I was working for the Master of the city, having a hit on my head wouldn't be that far fetched.

"Are you okay?" Leslie asked, poking her head out of the kitchen and staring at the dead guy on her floor. She didn't flinch as I stated going through his pockets. I wanted to know who this guy was, when he was turned and why he hadn't fed in four or five days.

"Randel Wiltmore, twenty years old. He has a University ID," I told Leslie, folding his wallet and putting it in my pocket. There wasn't going to be anything left for his family to find, not unless they knew about our world. And if that was the case, I could tell them what had happened and give them his wallet back. They wouldn't want to see what had became of their son though, because the sickly thin and pale thing laying in front of me looked nothing like the attractive kid on his ID.

"Eliz-" Leslie started, and some knocked me backward. I threw my arms up, trying to protect my throat. If one of these things got at my throat there would be no hope for me. Sharp, tearing pain screamed up my arm as the hunger raged vampire tore into my arm like a rabbited dog, shaking its head as more blood pored out of the holes that it was making deeper.

A gun shot rang out, and her head exploded, spraying me with blood and thick bits of scroll mixed with brain. I forced my urge to gag away as I shoved her body off me and rolled to my feet, wiped blood off my face. I glanced over at Leslie, gasping.

"Thanks," I said, looking down at the mess that was my arm. It was filleted, muscle and skin hanging down it stomach turning strips. And I could see bone in some places. "Fuck!" Leslie went pale, her unseen freckles standing out like beacon as more blood poured out of my arm. She turned and disappeared into her room, coming back with a first aid kit, one of our first aide kits, not those silly things that the humans scolded.

I walked over to her as she opened it, and pulled on a pair of gloves. She gave me a bottle of rubbing alcohol and I pulled in a deep breath as she unscrewed the lid. This was going to hurt. I pored half of the bottle on my arm, tears sliding down my face as my arm became nothing more than a huge burning ball of pain.