The Silver Cross - Claiming The Night (Book Two)

Chapter One - To Sate A Killer

Jack crouched, watching the night, it's inhabitants so blissfully unaware of his presence. Perhaps that was best for them, the fearful would only try to run if they knew, hiding themselves in their homes to attempt to keep the monsters from their doors. Such exciting pleasures soon became predictable, a waiting game became boring and the hunger merely grew as the vampire was forced to wait for prey to slip up, thinking they're safe but there were better ways of feeding, of killing those who deserved to die.

It had been at least two years since he had seen Cain, much to his delight. He left a false trail, leading to New York, in hopes that down in London, he could be free to do as he wished with the coven he kept together, yet hated. It was not easy to continue on, to keep looking after the monsters that had effectively made him what he was, a monster in human form, with a beast on his back that demanded blood, demanded to be fed but for Cain's sake, and Katie's sake, he continued to live the lie he fashioned.

The cold air ran gently through his hair, his hunger spiking as he watched below, picking out his target as if they were lobsters in a tank and he was just picking the worst lobster to make the nicest meal only difference was, the saintlier the human, the more delicious the blood, an evil creature's blood was sickly, but no decent person was going to lose their life to his teeth, to his horrid hunger.

He waited for a couple of moments as a despicable creature walked past, his own intentions for the night, despicable, his own hunt uncontrollable. Jack understood what that was like, in some ways they were the same, in other ways they were different, they both felt that hunger, uncontrollable, perhaps even painful. He hung back until the alleyway was clear, until it was quiet, so quiet he could hear a pin drop if he wished. Without a warning he grabbed the man, pulling him into the alleyway, choking him as he ripped his shirt off his shoulder. He covered his mouth and bit down, drinking quickly, deeply, ignoring the taste.

The body dropped on the ground, one more life taken to blacken his own soul, but he liked to think lives were saved by his choices, it lessened the blow to his conscience, stopped him seeing the faces of those whose lives he had cut considerably short. The monster wanted blood, he wanted to protect, that was the only way they could come to reason, but their existence together was never peaceful, they would often fight over the source of blood. One of them enjoyed drinking the innocent, the other bargained for his own soul, to keep Cain from dying, or worse, joining their own ranks as a monster himself.

For another month, the lust for a kill was sated, but it would not be long before the lust for blood became once again unbearable, when the hunger became too much, and he sought out blood, attempting to feed once again on human blood. That time the victim would be innocent, but left alive much to the monster's disappointment, it enjoyed the thrill of the hunt, killing was its duty and it wasn't going to simply stop and follow Jack's orders.

He often wondered what he'd be in a few years, more monster than man or more man than monster? Choices were cruel, resting on things that were yet to come to pass, that Jack was yet to see for no matter what the vampire blood had given him, enough strength, power, it couldn't allow him to see his future fate, not when all that remained were shadows or light he'd never see for himself, a darkness he'd never know and yet would come to resent all the same, for it meant he could never step into the light of day.

There was nothing Jack could do about the lives he'd taken, but he could choose the lives he was going to take, he was going to stop himself from killing the innocents that the monster wanted to taste.

He cleaned the dried blood off his chin, the stench as rotten as the taste and yet he ignored it, focusing on the pleasure of a sated monster, his hunger temporarily satisfied, enough not to hunt for another week, a little more if he wanted to but that would lower his strength, make him appear weaker, less of a threat to those who would love to see him overthrown and his brother hunted down to be killed or made into a monster.