Feral Desires

Abe

   I gulping the bag of blood and wipe my mouth as I trow the bag into the trash. I quickly grab another one and start gulping.

   "Dear Lord, girl, slow down." Abe scolds me. I smirk at him. Abe is a vamp I'd met a little over six hundred years ago. He'd taken on the father role as much as he could, but I rarely took the help he offered. I didn't want him to get hurt for helping me. I have nowhere else to go though. 

   "I just spent the last three days running through the wild and feeding on animal blood to get here, Abe. Give me a break." He shakes his head as I start in on another bag. I'm in Spain now in Abe's little cottage. He's in the doorway, staring at me with his arms crossed over his chest while I lean against the kitchen counter downing blood bags.

   "I told you to stay away from them, Briar." I sigh and nod. He'd already read me the riot act when I got here. Now he's just giving me jabs here and there to hammer it in. 

   "I know. It was stupid. I won't be here long, I promise. I just needed somewhere to lie low until I could think of something."

   "You can stay here for as long as you need, Briar. You know that." 

   "I know, Abe, but the longer I'm here the more danger I put you in." He chuckles and shakes his head. "What's so funny?"

   "Stubborn as ever." He says and I smile a bit.

   "What do you make of that other coven?" I ask. "What coven goes against the Zugami?" 

   "There's a new coven that's been giving the Zugami lots of grief lately."

    "Why haven't I heard of it?" I ask.

   "Probably because I'm your only friend and you haven't talked to me in over five decades." He says pointedly and I smile at him timidly. "Now, as I was saying, there's a new coven. They're a relatively peaceful one that doesn't kill humans. They want the Zugami's rule over vampires to come to an end. They've completely pushed the Zugami out of South Africa, parts of Russia and America."

   "There is no Zugami personnel South Africa?" I question. "Like . . . at all?"

   "To my understanding, no." Abe says.

   "Dang."

   "I don't think they would have hurt you, Briar. In fact. You'd probably be safest in their care." I shake my head immediately.

   "No way, Abe." I say, pushing off the counter. "I don't know them. I don't trust them. They could take down the Zugami and then be even worse than them once there's no one left to fight them." 

   "I don't think that's what they're p to, Bri." I start going through his cabinets and and fridge. "What are you doing now?"

   "Do you have any chocolate chips?" I ask, putting the milk and eggs on the counter. Abe tends to have a lot of human guests over, so he has his kitchen fully stocked. 

   "In the pantry. Why?" I go to the pantry and start looking for the chocolate chips. 

   "I need cookies." I mutter. "Something else other than blood."

   "I don't think I'll ever understand your obsession with human food." He mutters, shaking his head.

   "Makes me feel human." I say as I start mixing the ingredients into a bowl.

   "You aren't human," he deadpans.

   "Well it tastes good. My taste buds haven't stopped liking human food. They just started liking blood." I shrug. I love to eat human food. I never cared that it doesn't do anything me anymore. I need something to chew on. "Besides, I can eat blood out in public without anyone knowing." I say, pouring some blood into the batter. He makes a face of disgust.

   "Blood and chocolate. What a lovely mixture." He mutters sarcastically. Abe never understood my love for human food. He thinks it's utterly absurd. I start spooning globs of dough onto a cookie sheet. 

   "Oh, I don't just put it in cookies, Abe. I use it as dressing, dipping sauce. I even made this marinade with it in it. Mm mm mm! It is so good." I tell him as I pop the cookies in the oven. 

   "It sounds disgusting. Our food and their's shouldn't mix."

   "Well it does and it mixes well." I start eating the left over batter and he grimaces.

   "Whatever. This isn't even important. Look, I know a guy within their coven. I can make a call. They'll take you in, Briar. You'll be safe with them." I shake my head. "Briar! Stop being so bloody stubborn! You're going to get yourself killed! Is that what you want? Cause you sure act like it! You got sloppy! You knew better than to be in Paris with the Zugami presence! You knew better! A hundred years ago you wouldn't have made that mistake! Do you have some sort of death wish?!?" I stare at Abe, wide eyed. He'd never yelled at me before. Not even raised his voice.

   "Fine." I smooth my face out. "Since it means so much to you, make the damn call. I'll go." He sighs and nods before stalking off to find his phone. I roll my eyes and bend over to look at the cookies impatiently. "Come one. Hurry up," I mutter under my breath. A few minutes later, the oven dings and I yank it open and pull the cookie sheet out. 

   "I made the call. Someone will be here to pick you up tomorrow ni - what are you doing?" I look up from where I'd been stuffing cookies into my mouth. 

  "I wuff hugy." I try to talk around the mass of food in my mouth and only really succeed in spitting crumbs onto the floor.

   "What?" I hold a finger up and chew a few times before swallowing. 

   "I was hungry." I pick up another cookies and take a bite. "Hmm. Where'd I put the milk?" I look around while he starts talking.

   "As I was saying, someone will be here tomorrow night to pick you up. They'll keep you safe. Briar, are you listening to me?"

   "Mhmm." I find the milk and start pouring a cup. 

   "Briar, this is serious."

   "I know, Abe. I know." I sigh and look at him. "That doesn't mean I have to like this. You know how I feel about new people."

   "They won't hurt you, Briar. I promise. You have to learn to let people in. If you'd learn that a long time ago, you'd have had a lot more people than me to run to." 

   "Save it, Abe. We've been through all of this before. You'll rant at me about whatever thing I did that displeases you, I'll shrug it off and stuff my face, then you'll blow a gasket. One small but dysfunctional family. We both know how this will end, so please save us the unneeded breath." He spits and sputters for a few seconds before emitting a high pitched whistling noise and storming off. I snort and take a bite of another cookie.

   "The sun will be up soon!" He shouts as he stomps to his room. "Get ready for bed!" I roll my eyes, but push off the counter where I'd been sitting. 

   "Yes, father!" I quickly put the rest of the cookies in a tupperware container and bring them up to the guest room. Abe is very old fashioned and likes to sleep in coffins and expects his undead visitors to do the same. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I'd rather not get into another argument over the matter. 

   I pull the antique coffin out from under the actual bed he had in the bedroom for appearances. I put on an over-sized t-shirt and crawl into the coffin, shutting the lid just as the sun starts to rise.