DOFAB#3

Chapter One

~ TRISTAN ~

Hellion Era Year 1477

Fear hunts the weak. It burrows deep, rotting the mind as it devours its victim. Rational thoughts blur to the potent cocktail drudged up by instinct, a subconscious acceptance of faults and inadequacies. It's a reaction evolution preys upon. Simply put, fear is the stench of death personified.

Drip, drip.

There are seldom pastimes I enjoy more than wheezing breaths accompanied by the freefalling splat of the luscious ribbons of one's lifeforce unraveling. It's the narrowing of the airways, the dilation of cortisol pumping hard and fast while one's body chokes on adrenaline. It's a betrayal, a fright-wrapped betrayal that causes my fangs to ache and throat to be parched in anticipation.

It's the amenity of it all. Strangling without having to exert effort. It's in the mind, hidden like in the shadows I lurk...stalking...taunting...the invisible, great big bad.

Feet hurriedly quicken their steps, strides lengthening.

Run, little eevie, fast as you can. Death's favorite hand is nipping at your heels. Coiled and caged, I'm ready to play. So run, little eevie, run.

The eevie looks over her shoulder, cerulean-infused drops leeching from her torn neck. She keeps her hand clamped over the gruesome wound to slow her escaping life force. It's helpless, really. Maiming is one of my specialties. Too much blood loss makes it hard for eevie to heal themselves. I consider that their maker's underestimation of my kind and an overestimation of theirs.

Pants of ragged exhilaration collide with the iron door the eevie slumps against.

Drip, drip, drip.

Besides the fact eevie are all female and deliciously forever young, what I enjoy most about them is the variety. They aren't one-bite suits all. Some are bitter, some sweet, some spicy, and some are even sour. They're a mixed bag of colors, shapes, sizes, and savors. An eevie's life force is a wild card, bleeding all the colors of the rainbow and the in-between. There is no golden glitter or fairy dust like with the angels. There are no spines and wings to rip out or ribs to snack on. It's all in the blood, drinking it until that illuminated life force of theirs turns dark and crimson. They are never more mortal than at that moment.

Tattered breaths come in gasps as affixation takes hold. It's no longer terror that has the eevie in its clutches. It's death squeezing the life she's trying to hold on to.

Scarlet stains the door, smearing across pristine and intricate depictions that mark this place as a church of the humans. The eevie fumbles with the handle and latch. She heaves, giving what little she has left. She tumbles in, stumbling as she makes her way down the center aisle. It reminds me of the way she floundered around in the aftermath of her slain garden sisters, the temple priestesses of The Flame no more.

I cross the threshold, boots wetted by the puddle the eevie left behind. An injured bluebird that has no wings to escape. The scent of incense infuses the air like the religious who cling to a faith they think can save them. It doesn't matter your god. Blood is blood, and I excel at the freeing of it.

The downfall to eevie, there is a compulsion to purge them from their light by draining their every drop. When this moment is reached, the eevie expire and pass on to their afterlife in Naveeden or live out the rest of their days as humans until they die of old age and Rien accepts them back.

Drip, drip, drip, drip. The succession of the eevie's life coming to an end quickens, her footsteps nothing more than ungraceful plods of desperation.