at that, with a strong, rugby-player build.
This is a two-person job, at least. He glances over at Helen. She is wrapping Clara in a blanket, hugging her tightly. Clara’s arms hang limp by her sides.
No, he can do this himself. He’l just have to drag him and cover the tracks. It’s forecast to rain. If it rains hard enough, then the tracks wil be covered. But what about DNA? Back in the 1980s they never had to worry about that. Wil would know how to get around it. Why was Helen always so funny about him? What was her problem?
Peter grips the ankles and starts heaving the body across the ground. It’s too hard, too slow.
Stopping for breath, he looks at the blood on his hands. He had vowed to Helen never to contemplate what he is now contemplating. It shines, turning from black to purple. Headlights flicker through the hedgerow in the distance. The car is moving slowly, as if its driver is hunting for something.
“Peter!” Helen cries. “Someone’s coming!”
He hears her usher Clara into the car, then cal back to him. “Peter! Leave the body!”
The boy’s corpse is closer to the road now and, when the car passes, could easily be seen under the glare of what seem to be fog lights. He yanks desperately at the body, using al his strength and ignoring the shooting pains in his back. There is no way. They have seconds, not minutes.
“No,” he says.
He looks again at the blood on his hands before Helen reaches him.
“Take Clara home. I’l deal with this. I can deal with this.”
“No, Peter—”
“Go home. Go. For God’s sake, Helen, just go!”
She doesn’t even nod. She gets in the car and drives off.
Peter watches the advancing fog lights as he licks his hands to taste what he hasn’t tasted for seventeen years. And it happens. Strength rises through his body, taking away every little ache and pain. He can feel that quick, smooth realignment of teeth and bone as he transforms into his purest self. It is an incredible release, like undressing after years of being trapped in the same uncomfortable outfit.
The car is stil approaching.
He scoops his hand down into the boy’s leaking throat, licks the rich, delicious blood. Then he picks him up, hardly noticing the weight, and soars upward, over the dark fields.
Faster and faster and faster.
He tries not to enjoy it, to stay focused on what he must do. He keeps flying, steering himself by thinking alone.
That is what the taste of blood does. It takes away the gap between thought and action. To think is to do. There is no unlived life inside you as the air speeds past your body, as you look down at the dreary vil ages and market towns—now transformed into pretty clusters of light—and head beyond land and out above the North Sea.
And it is here, now, he can let the feeling take over him.
That exhilarating rush of being truly alive and in the present, fearless of consequences, of the past and the future, aware of nothing but the speed of air and the blood on his tongue.
Miles out at sea, with no dark shadows of boats below, he releases the body and circles the air as he watches it fal toward the water. Then he licks his hands once again. He real y sucks at his fingers and closes his eyes to savor the taste.
This is joy!
This is life!
For a moment, in the air, he almost thinks about carrying on. He could go to Norway. There used to be a big vampire scene up in Bergen, maybe there stil is. Or he could go somewhere with lax policing. Hol and, maybe. Somewhere without secret crossbow units. He could escape and live on his own and satisfy whatever cravings came along. To be free and on his own. Wasn’t that the only real way he could live?
He closes his eyes and sees Clara’s face, the way it was as she stood by the road. She had looked so distraught and helpless, wanting the truth he’d never given her. Or at least, that’s what he had chosen to see.
No.
Even with blood inside him he is a different man from the one he left behind
This is a two-person job, at least. He glances over at Helen. She is wrapping Clara in a blanket, hugging her tightly. Clara’s arms hang limp by her sides.
No, he can do this himself. He’l just have to drag him and cover the tracks. It’s forecast to rain. If it rains hard enough, then the tracks wil be covered. But what about DNA? Back in the 1980s they never had to worry about that. Wil would know how to get around it. Why was Helen always so funny about him? What was her problem?
Peter grips the ankles and starts heaving the body across the ground. It’s too hard, too slow.
Stopping for breath, he looks at the blood on his hands. He had vowed to Helen never to contemplate what he is now contemplating. It shines, turning from black to purple. Headlights flicker through the hedgerow in the distance. The car is moving slowly, as if its driver is hunting for something.
“Peter!” Helen cries. “Someone’s coming!”
He hears her usher Clara into the car, then cal back to him. “Peter! Leave the body!”
The boy’s corpse is closer to the road now and, when the car passes, could easily be seen under the glare of what seem to be fog lights. He yanks desperately at the body, using al his strength and ignoring the shooting pains in his back. There is no way. They have seconds, not minutes.
“No,” he says.
He looks again at the blood on his hands before Helen reaches him.
“Take Clara home. I’l deal with this. I can deal with this.”
“No, Peter—”
“Go home. Go. For God’s sake, Helen, just go!”
She doesn’t even nod. She gets in the car and drives off.
Peter watches the advancing fog lights as he licks his hands to taste what he hasn’t tasted for seventeen years. And it happens. Strength rises through his body, taking away every little ache and pain. He can feel that quick, smooth realignment of teeth and bone as he transforms into his purest self. It is an incredible release, like undressing after years of being trapped in the same uncomfortable outfit.
The car is stil approaching.
He scoops his hand down into the boy’s leaking throat, licks the rich, delicious blood. Then he picks him up, hardly noticing the weight, and soars upward, over the dark fields.
Faster and faster and faster.
He tries not to enjoy it, to stay focused on what he must do. He keeps flying, steering himself by thinking alone.
That is what the taste of blood does. It takes away the gap between thought and action. To think is to do. There is no unlived life inside you as the air speeds past your body, as you look down at the dreary vil ages and market towns—now transformed into pretty clusters of light—and head beyond land and out above the North Sea.
And it is here, now, he can let the feeling take over him.
That exhilarating rush of being truly alive and in the present, fearless of consequences, of the past and the future, aware of nothing but the speed of air and the blood on his tongue.
Miles out at sea, with no dark shadows of boats below, he releases the body and circles the air as he watches it fal toward the water. Then he licks his hands once again. He real y sucks at his fingers and closes his eyes to savor the taste.
This is joy!
This is life!
For a moment, in the air, he almost thinks about carrying on. He could go to Norway. There used to be a big vampire scene up in Bergen, maybe there stil is. Or he could go somewhere with lax policing. Hol and, maybe. Somewhere without secret crossbow units. He could escape and live on his own and satisfy whatever cravings came along. To be free and on his own. Wasn’t that the only real way he could live?
He closes his eyes and sees Clara’s face, the way it was as she stood by the road. She had looked so distraught and helpless, wanting the truth he’d never given her. Or at least, that’s what he had chosen to see.
No.
Even with blood inside him he is a different man from the one he left behind
Similar Books
