Albino Child

Twenty Six

She pulled the instrument back as I clutched the wound in horror, I was not expecting to be betrayed so soon - while back-stabbing was inevitable, it would have made more sense to have had waited till we came close to S' lair - I let out curdling yelps as my blood splattered the pavement and choked upon the saliva that had accumulated due to shock-factor; she had a grim face that clearly expressed disgust, the item in her hand was recognised as large shard of porcelain that formerly belonged to a gold-rimmed vase whose design was a tangle of thorny vines and blooming roses, I had thrown the antique upon the floor once in frustration and never got round to asking Doll to fix it for me. I'm fury, I lunged forward and gripped her shoulder with my bony hands and sunk the jagged nails into her sunken flesh between beside her clavicle, she was clearly not expected ting me to have so much strength but my regeneration abilities could easily cope with such a predictable stab; tearing the supple tissue towards her shoulders, I proceeded to sink my incisors in the area that was roughly her jugular vein. She thrashed wildly as I collapsed my body weight into her, she sunk onto the ground as she collapsed with a muted thump, using my left hand to throw the porcelain shard away so she could not retaliate badly, she howled - the high-pitched vibrato was powerful and screechy as he momentarily recoiled at the dreadful sound; I just could not stand the noise so I took my westerly hand and thumped her nasal area with the side of my fist, blood began to leak out of her nostrils while I clawed her bottom jaw downwards in a forceful motion, my grip was firm onto the mandible and refused to let go. She clamped her teeth into my fingers as she desperately but marks into my knuckles, her arms were immobile thanks to my legs which had pinned them down so they could not punch me; she wore a look of absolute horror within her eyes as I bit deeper into her throat, metallic droplets had seeped into my wet cavern - they were bittersweet with low notes of a throbbing sour after-taste that was delicious yet disgusting at the same time, while I did enjoy the flavour, the foul fact it originated for P was distasteful - I attempted to ignore this fact as I sunk deeper and deeper into her flesh. The succulent taste partnered with the ebbing warmth of her accelerated pulse was divine, while I did not usually do this type of play, it was nevertheless enjoyable; I grinned as her body became limp from blood loss, I had turned the tables but she was still alive.

Detaching myself from the flaccid flesh, I wiped my mouth upon the spinel-black sleeve of my over garment and removed myself from her, once placing myself in a crouching position, I proceeded to pick her up bridal-style and race back to my home; as I swiftly completed these actions, I sensed that my hasty movements had roused her senses as she shallowly breathed through the slim slit she made with her lips - she did not have the regeneration abilities M or I had so I had time before she would reawaken to attempt to harm me once more. Kicking the unlocked door open with a forceful snap-kick, I shook my lamb-leather shoes off and ascended up the staircase, missing a middle step as I went upwards; shoving the entrance of a guest room open, I threw her limp corpse onto the cumulus-coloured sheets - the brushed cotton made her slumberous face seem almost angelic as she rested upon the caressing mattress - she did not stir from her silent sleep, nor did her breathing spike upon the contact, she merely lay there like a fallen angel with her mouth slightly agape. Moving forward, I rested my knees upon the bed and proceeded to palpate her body to check if there were any items that could give me some form of answer as to why she suddenly stabbed me in the stomach; I found multiple letters within neatly torn brown envelopes that were slotted into the lining of her windbreaker, I rolled my eyes at the cliche trick but carried on checking the body for any other items that could be of use - there were seemingly ordinary items in the inner left pocket of the jacket but inside the right, there were a set of keys, a bracelet that I recognised as being one of Manic's and a pouch containing some glass marbles with insects crystallised into the design. Upon her wrists and arms were many leather bracelets with clay beads, synthetic pearl loops, cloth tags from various franchises and charm type chains which had many dangling designs dropping off them; none of them looked suspicious until I caught sight of a bracelet that I recognised as being one of N's; it had her representational beads that she had made with me when she was at my home one weekend, upon the black cord there were: silver beads for her personality issues - the narcissistic tendencies that dominated her confidence and self-hatred -, blue for the the deep set bitter emotions that swirled around her whenever she was alone, orange and black for her tendencies to cut away people and pain, yellow for the way she ended and lastly, pink for an EDNOS that I would later discover after reading the letter she addressed to me. As to why P would ever have such an item infuriated me, there was no reason as to why she should have the jewellery; it was never hers and N would have never given it to her.

Twisting sharply around, I dug crescents into my palms using jagged nails as I bottled the irritation and swiftly went to open the top compartment of the birch chest of drawers opposite to the bed; inside was a plastic bag containing saline solution, multiple sterile tubes, vacant syringes and a concoction that I had devised when I was sick one day. Pouring the liquid into a syringe and connecting the saline to a tube with a needle cap, I then ambles towards her and roughly pulled her right sleeve up to check for a prominent vein, I injected the saline needle into it and pumped the solution - the bag jiggled around and soon depleted, the diluted blood would ensure that my concoction would have maximum effect. Once removing the saline cap, I placed the syringe contains the hand-crafted substance into the same puncture wound and jammed all the fluid in, she squirmed under the initial influence but soon came to a rest.

I sighed in relief and walked over to the chair and table next to the bed in which I rested my exhausted body upon the desk, then, I began to read the letters that were concealed within her navy jacket. The one labelled with a scribble of biro with the number one in a messy circle was addressed to Penelope - the name P had chosen to adopt after the facility - it contained no physical area that I could search for digitally and it had been typed in the font 'Courier New', the writing style that I recognised as N's favourite, however, I doubted it had anything to do with that fact, the message was written to P and contained an single double-spaced paragraph which read as 'Hello my dear, it has been a very long time since I did 'that' for you, have you forgotten that you owe me a favour? Reply to me soon dove. - n-1 what a useless letter, there was no context and who was 'n-1' in the first place?

I growled in discontentment and proceeded to read the next letter, this one was labelled two but rather that be in a messy circle, this one was in a square, I frowned momentarily but shrugged it off; this one was again meant for P and was again written by 'n-1', within the message it said 'Thank you dear, I much appreciate your response. It means a lot to me. Anyway, meet me at the location {@£€ and we can sort out arrangements there. Bye dove and reply soon. - n-1'. Well, that was unhelpful, what use were a bunch of symbols, they clearly meant something to P but I was sure that she would not tell me-

"Wait. The writer was called 'n-1'," I began to realise that this all made sense, "If 'n-1' was a code and not a place number of sorts then this simple theory works. There are 26 letters in the Latin alphabet, 'n' is clearly a reference to N and how P was close to her, perhaps this mystery figure was also well known to N when she was alive; anyway, 'n' is number 14 in the alphabet. By substituting the fact that 'n=14' into the equation, I get '14-1' which is '13' and the thirteenth letter in the alphabet is M. The puppeteer in that case must be M, he must be the one piling the steins of this failed assassination. In that case, Manic must die. I can do that before P is no more; I have enough time before she is finished."

I grinned once it all came to me in a clear and precise format, "Oh Manic, I will be the end of you, just wait for me 'dove'."