A Hunger for Darkness (3 page)

C
hapter Five

“You’re feeling more hunger, we’ll have to address that tomorrow.” Connor said in his soft brogue as they entered his flat.

Kenzi studied the room around here with the care of an animal fearing a trap. It was a large, open space with twelve-foot ceilings and a few arched partitions. On one end was the bedroom, sitting in its own alcove, with another space blocked off next to it, with a frosted-glass door that Kenzi guessed was the bathroom. On the other end was a kitchen area with a small rustic table. Here in the middle were a leather couch and few chairs on an area rug. It was at once minimalist and classic. Heavy dark curtains covered the long wall facing the door.

Kenzi turned to face Connor. “Address it? How are we going to address my hunger?” Her bitter tone answered her own question.

“I’m not going to pretend this is anything other than what it is. We’re monsters, and now you’re one of us. We need warm, living blood to survive. It will take a great deal of training and discipline before you’re able to take blood without killing a human.” Connor had stepped closer and was now only a few feet from her.

Kenzi refused to step back or look away from the green eyes blazing into hers. “You’ve got the wrong girl. I can’t do this; you should have left me to die in Center.” She spat the words and started to turn.

Connor grabbed the back of her neck more quickly than she could react and pulled her close. She gripped his wrist to break the hold but stopped as his faced neared hers. She felt very small as he loomed over her.

“You’re alive; you can still do some good in this world. I saved you because I need your help. I know you’re not afraid of killing, you’re proven that too many times. Your war hasn’t changed, just your weapons.”

He released her. Kenzi caught herself before she slumped. “I will kill any vampire without a second thought, but I am not going to suck blood like one of them. I’m still human!”

“You’re no human, Kenzi. The sooner you embrace that, the better chance you’ll survive. You’ve killed many human servants of the vampires. You’ll just be making better use of them now. Waste not, want not!” Connor said with a dry laugh.

Kenzi collapsed to the couch, no longer able to resist the fatigue of the past days’ events.

Connor turned and headed to the large bed through the arched opening. A tumble of dark sheets spilled off one edge. He began to strip as though he was alone. Kenzi watched, more surprised by his nonchalance than his increasing nudity.

“Sleep now,” he ordered. “The sun is coming up. We’ll take this up again at nightfall. This will make more sense after you rest.” He had removed his shirt and pants, displaying lean muscles and skin crisscrossed by fine lines. He left his boxers on as he pulled the sheets aside and slipped into the bed. He looked for all the world like some kind of animal curling up in his den.

“I suppose I sleep on the couch?” Kenzi asked, still bemused by how the conversation ended.

“Works for me.” Connor answered and turned away.

Kenzi leaned back into the soft pillows. Her body began to relax, almost against her will. Thoughts of the past few days began to race through her mind. She saw herself restrained in the hospital bed at Center. Mrs. Whitechapel’s face leaning over hers, concern replaced with clinical interest. She saw herself writhing in almost painful pleasure with David.

Thoughts of David brought her back to that strange mix of arousal and hunger she had felt in his bed. Once again she saw the artery in his neck pulsing, and felt that over-powering urge to tear into him, to feel his hot, coursing blood flow into her mouth.

Kenzi began to dream in the twilight of sleep. She slid up David’s body, feeling him arch his body under hers, desperate to feel their bodies join. Her body felt as though it might explode with a pressure that was building within her. David’s eyes looked into hers, his eyes half-open and clouded with lust. He threw his head back as she rocked her hips against him, teasing him with the closeness of his goal. She felt his hard length press against her heat.

David’s pulse pounded on the side of his neck. In her mind a white-hot glow began to expand and she felt her self-control fall away as a frenzy of lust and hunger washed over her. Without any conscious decision she bent forward and captured David’s wrists and plunged her mouth to his neck. Newly-sharpened teeth began to tear as David bucked wildly underneath her, his screams inarticulate. As his hot blood exploded into her sucking mouth, a fresh wave of rapture began to build….

Kenzi shot upright on the couch, panting and flush. Her hand trembled as she pulled her hair out of her face.

This is what I am
, she thought. A wave of revulsion swept through her, washing away any remaining thoughts of pleasure. Nausea settled in the pit of her stomach. If this is what feeding would be like, she would never be able to do it. She stared at the curtains and realized what must lay behind them. Surely there was a window or even a balcony. A vampire would want the sunlight kept out.

Kenzi slipped the t-shirt over her head, this time grateful for her lack of underwear. She listened for any sound from Connor. There was none, not even the sound of breathing. Vampires were often mistaken for dead when sleeping during the day.

Kenzi unbuttoned her jeans and wiggled them over her hips and down her long legs. She stood and crossed to the curtains. She looked to Connor and thought briefly of killing him. He was entirely vulnerable now, while she had just enough of her humanity left to be capable of exertion during the day. The thought left her just as quickly. He had tried to save her; she would honor that.

Pulling the curtain to the side exposed a sliding door onto the balcony she had hoped for. The sun had risen and bathed the barren platform in a golden light. Her naked skin tingled in the light that passed through the glass. The realization that her transformation had come so far steadied her as she opened the door and stepped through.

The pleasant tingling she had felt inside now became more painful. In a moment she felt full effect like a blast furnace on her bare flesh; she forced herself not to turn from it. Instead, she opened her arms and leaned into the sun’s embrace, willing the pain to take her away from her fate. A gasp escaped her as she felt her body begin to shake.

“Kenzi, you idiot!” She recognized Connor’s voice even as he roared at her. Strong arms gripped her around her waist and pulled her back into the cool darkness. She struggled against his grasp even as her body welcomed the relief. Connor spun her through the doorway and shielded her body with his own. His final push sent her reeling across the room.

“Leave me,” she cried as tears began to spill down her cheeks. “I don’t want this!”

Connor had shut the door and the curtains and turned to face her. He stood without speaking and slowly sank to his knees. Kenzi’s eyes had to adjust to the gloom before she could see him clearly. His torso and legs were now almost black, and bright red seams opened in his skin even as she watched. The smell of burning flesh nearly made her gag.

In two steps she was next to him as he pitched forward. Now she could see his back, also blackened. As she caught him she felt his skin crack like dry parchment. He moaned.

“Can’t let you die,” he croaked. “You have too much left to do.”

Kenzi gently lowered him to the floor. “There’s nothing more for me, why couldn’t you let me go?” She spoke softly, almost gently.

“There’s a lot more I need to tell you. Please wait and hear me out.” Connor’s eyes were tightly closed, and his jaws clenched in obvious pain.

“What can I do for you?” Even as she said the words, Kenzi marveled at the difference a few days had made. Before she would have cheered this creature’s death, now she sought to help his pain.

She also became aware of two other facts. One, she was in pain. It wasn’t terrible, more like a severe sunburn. The second fact was her nakedness.

She stood and started back to her T-shirt and jeans. The moment her hand touched them, she knew the fabric would torture her skin.

“I have a silk shirt hanging by the bed.” Connor was said, equal parts pain and amusement in his voice.

Kenzi padded to the clothes rack that had been hidden from her view earlier. She found the white silk shirt and slipped it on. The silk felt cool and soft against her burned skin. She returned to Connor and knelt beside him.

“What can I get for you?”

“Nothing, this is going to take time to heal. Give me a minute and help me to my bed.” He closed his eyes again.

“Why didn’t the sun burn me as badly?”

“You have not completely transformed yet. The virus takes a while to work its magic.”

“How long?”

“It is different for everyone, but probably a few more days for you. Even then, it will be years before the process is truly complete and you have all the powers of a mature vampire.”

“Is there any way to reverse it? Can’t I stop it somehow?” Kenzi felt an unfamiliar hope rise.

“Not that I have ever heard of. If there was, it would be your people that knew of it.” Connor grimaced as he began to move. “Help me to my bed.”

Kenzi tried to support him gently as he rose, but she could still feel his scorched skin crackle against her hand. Connor stifled a moan and they shuffled to his bed. Kenzi noted the satin sheets as she pulled them back to let him lay across the giant mattress.

Connor sighed in relief as he sank down onto the soft surface.

“I shouldn’t have heard you go out on the balcony. We sleep very deeply during the day; it’s when we are at our most vulnerable. Some sense just warned me.”

“Lucky me,” Kenzi said with quiet sarcasm as she sat next to him.

Connor reached out and grabbed her arm. “In time you will see how lucky you are. Just give me time to explain.”

Kenzi gently pulled his hand away. “Is there anything I can get you? Would some kind of lotion help?”

Connor chuckled. “You think vampires keep skin lotion around? You think that’s part of our beauty regimen?”

Connor faded into silence and appeared unconscious, though due to his natural daytime slumber or as a result of his burns she didn’t know. He had the unnatural stillness of a sleeping vampire, and she could see how the people of a simpler time had been deceived into believing these monsters were dead.

Kenzi sat next to him, battling the growing lethargy she felt and wondered why she didn’t kill him. He was this thing she had sworn to hate and destroy, regardless of his tales of killing other vampires. And yet….

Sitting cautiously on the bed, Kenzi studied this creature before her. Even through the sun-blasted skin, she could see the muscles in his arms and chest, and the flat stomach that tapered to this waist. He had the build of an athlete from a sport like swimming or running, as though built for speed.

Kenzi turned her attention to his legs. Like the rest of his body, his legs were heavily muscled though still long and lean. Her gaze finally settled on the boxers he still wore. Staring at the only portion of Connor’s form still covered, she blushed.

The reaction both surprised and amused her. She had never been shy; in the aftermath of combat she had sought out physical comfort openly and without coyness. Kenzi had also always been honest with herself. She knew this creature lying helpless before her was a vampire. She also knew his body was pleasing to the eye.

Chapter S
ix

It was a low moan that awakened Kenzi. She was disoriented for a moment before she turned to the figure next to her. In the dim light she recognized Connor, stretched out next to her in his bed, her leg now over his. Sleep had come so quickly she didn’t remember lying down next to him.

“I’m grateful for the company, but could you move your leg?” Connor said with a rasping laugh.

“Oh God! I’m so sorry,” Kenzi gingerly moved off Connor’s damaged skin. “How do you feel?”

“Better,” Connor answered. “It’s just going to take a little time.”

“I thought you’d heal faster,” Kenzi said.

“I should have, but the sun gets more dangerous to us as we age, and I haven’t fed in a while.”

“How long is a while?” Kenzi asked.

“A couple of weeks, I guess.” Connor shifted and winced at the effort.

Kenzi sat up and gasped as the room seemed to spin for a moment.

“Are you feeling weak, maybe a little disoriented?” Connor asked, his gaze searching her face.

“A little, yeah,” she answered.

“We have an interesting problem here,” Connor said as he closed his eyes again.

Kenzi was suddenly aware again of his lack of clothes, and a moment later of her own. A flush slid slowly across her body. It was a sensation she’d never felt before, like a teasingly slow arousal.

“What’s the problem?” She asked as she gingerly rose to her feet.

“I need to feed in order to heal quickly, and you are feeling the first effects of your own hunger. I am too weak to get out myself, and you’re too inexperienced to hunt.”

“I told you, I don’t think I can do it,” Kenzi said.

“You don’t have a choice,” Connor said with sigh.

“What do you mean? Can’t vampires starve to death?” Kenzi said, although the truth began to dawn on her. A forgotten lesson returned with icy steps into her mind.

“You know it’s not that easy. You’ll go insane long before you starve. Left alone, you’ll end up attacking people on the street. The hunger can’t be repressed for long.”

Kenzi felt a rising panic. “Please let me die! I’ll go back out on the balcony, just let me go! I won’t become a monster.” Kenzi sank to the cool concrete floor and began to sob.

“Kenzi,” Connor said gently. “It’s time I told you what I have in mind for you. Please hear me out; if you want to go out into the sun, I won’t stop you. But you can’t do it now.”

“Why not?” She asked as tears crept down her cheeks.

“It’s past midnight,” Connor’s serious expression faded into a grin.

Kenzi stared a moment and started to laugh herself. Soon Connor was chuckling through his own pain.

“So talk, vampire. We have some time to kill.” Kenzi finally said. She came back and sat carefully next to Connor on the bed.

“I told you before, I was a beat cop in Manhattan just before the turn of the century; the twentieth century, that is. I had been a poor Irish kid with nothing in my pocket when I got to America, but through some family connections I joined the police. I was actually a pretty good cop. I walked my beat at night, and I tried to take care of my neighborhood.

“I’d been at it a few years. I’d put a little money away, had a girl I was going to marry; all in all I had a pretty good life. But one night at of nowhere, I became food for a vampire.” Connor spat the last words. “I never even saw him; he grabbed me from behind, drained me and cast me aside like I was nothing.”

“The next thing I remember, I’m looking up at this angel; this beautiful woman. She had me pressed to her chest and I was suckling at her breast like an infant, but it wasn’t milk I was drinking. She’d made a cut on her breast, and I was sucking at her blood. Still don’t know how I was compelled to do it, but I felt like I was drinking some kind of intoxicating fire; my whole body felt like it was glowing.

“That’s how I met Rebekah; she saved me. She had seen me taken, and had felt some kind of pity and seeing I was a cop, thought I might be able to help her.” Connor paused, obviously fatigued.

Kenzi watched him for a moment, waiting for him to continue. In the silence she realized she could hear the noise from the street, and the low murmurings of people passing on the sidewalk five stories below. She wondered briefly what it would be like to drop on them from above, and feel the hot blood pulsing in their broken bodies. Connor began to speak again, and broke the chain of thought. She shuddered.

“Rebekah was hunting vampires herself. By the time I met her, she was already well over two hundred years old, still fairly young by vampire standards. Her entire family had been wiped out, husband, three children, all of them by a vampire who had thought it amusing to turn her.” Connor paused again.

“How did she survive? What did she do?” Kenzi focused on the story rather than explore the changes she was beginning to recognize in herself.

“Vampires live for pleasure; the animal side of human nature becomes completely uninhibited. Imagine those powerful urges unrestrained in a body so much stronger than an ordinary human. We are very careful about whom we choose to join us, but sometimes a vampire seeks entertainment in a certain kind of perversion. Sometimes one of us will turn one family member in order to watch as the hunger drives them to destroy and feed from their loved ones. The vampire that turned Rebekah did so because she was particularly virtuous in some kind of Puritan way. It amused him to try to turn her into a lustful, ferocious killer.”

“Did it work?” Kenzi asked.

“For a while,” Connor answered. “He carefully kept watch as Rebekah was buried. He had given her only a small taste of his blood, and it took some time to work. Eventually Rebekah awakened in her casket and fought frantically to get out. She was weak, and only the vampire would have had hearing keen enough to hear her. When he judged that she was sufficiently unhinged by fear and hunger, he let her out. He set her free.”

“And?” Kenzi barely breathed the question.

“He taught her well. In a single night they destroyed the village. She fed as much as she could and killed everyone else alongside her new mentor in an orgy of blood and murder.” Connor’s voice dropped in what sounded to Kenzi like pity.

“My God,” she said.

“But something strange happened,” Connor continued. “As the blood-lust left her, she remembered who and what she was. In the faces of her slaughtered neighbors she saw her former self. She told me that when she finally calmed she formed a plan; she would learn from that vampire and in time she would destroy him and all his kind. She swore a vengeance that became her consuming passion. Her mentor was delighted in her savagery that night and was fooled by her pretense. They became lovers, and she stayed by his side as he taught her all he knew. She killed sparingly, and preyed on thieves and other criminals, passing off her choice of prey as presenting the greatest challenge. The vampire that made her eventually let his guard down completely, that’s when she ripped his heart out of his chest.”

Connor stopped speaking, and Kenzi felt her pulse pounding through her body. Her imagination had run wild, and the thrilling combination of her own hunger and the lust that seemed to accompany it burned in her mind. Her vision in the dim light of the apartment seemed tinged in red.

Connor grabbed her wrist, and she jumped in his grasp.

“Kenzi, she showed me how we could destroy vampires by hunting them ourselves. She wanted to create a number of us who could hold on to our humanity and our sense of justice and wipe them out for all time.” Connor’s voice was urgent, and his eyes held Kenzi’s as though trying to force her will to join his.

“Where is she now?” Kenzi asked as she struggled to control her breathing.

“Sometimes we forget that although vampires are mostly a solitary breed, there is some communication. We traveled the country together, back and forth for decades, killing vampires in every city we came to. Eventually word got out. In 1958 we were in Tulsa chasing a vampire who had created a wave of disappearances when Rebekah and I split it up. It was a trap, and Rebekah died.” Connor had settled back with his eyes closed as he finished his story.

“I’ve been at it alone ever since. It’s hard to find a person who can resist the blood-lust that takes hold of a new vampire. I’ve tried a few times, but I’ve had to destroy them all.”

Kenzi sat in silence for a few minutes before she spoke.

“Is that what you plan for me; to wait and see if I can keep some kind of conscience?” She asked.

“Yes,” Connor watched her without expression.

“And if I don’t you’ll destroy me?”

“That’s right.”

“Then I accept.”