I tried to lunge forward, but was held in place. I didn't hear them behind me, or even feel their hands grip my forearms, as I watched the vampire draining my newest and only friend. Darryl's eyelids slid lower and lower, as his life's blood was pulled in heavy draughts from his body.
Darryl's life faded, and soon I knew it was only the vampire's deadly embrace that kept him on his feet. His frantic gasps slowed, so much that I couldn't detect the rise and fall of his chest. He was nearly finished. In a matter of heartbeats he would be gone from this world and I would be alone once more.
I sensed another presence as my soul quickened and a surge of power filled my being. It might have been only a shadow or lost spirit, but I knew it was there. In the corner of my eye it advanced, but then suddenly paused, as if content to watch the show.
My mind roared to life as though a switch had been flipped, and I pulled violently away from my captors. Their arms were torn from their bodies, and screams filled the air as my dismembered captives howled in pain. I heard the weight of their bodies strike the earth, and smiled. The perfume of borrowed blood choked the air and a surge of heat crawled along the base of my skull. As I looked on, Darryl and his attacker glowed as though a spotlight had found them. My eyes were ablaze and, with each involuntary distraction, the object of my attention was cast in a ghostly light.
I spun to my right to see what had been watching, but was only quick enough to see a darkness slide deeper into the shadows.
The smell of decay and putrid death drifted past my nose and I spun again to face my dying Darryl. It wasn't his death I smelled. It was the vampire's. He was presenting his opened wrist to Darryl, who suckled like a starving pig.
The fire raged and surged up from the back of my neck, and centered with searing pain in my forehead. It was so intense that even the slightest touch might tip the scales, and release it from the confines of my shattered skull. I knew the trails of tickling fingers that crawled down my cheeks weren't tears. They were blood. The pressure was too intense, and I am more than familiar with the scent of my mortality.
"Let Him GO!" My voice seemed to take on a life of its own.
With each syllable the pressure built and, before I finished wrapping my lips around the final word, the heat burst out of my mind and scorched the vampire holding Darryl. His skin paled as he reared back and screamed into the night sky. His eyes burst like soap bubbles and he fell to his knees. The hold he had on Darryl was now reversed and Darryl followed to the ground still feeding from the open wrist. The vampire's ravaged screams were swallowed by wet gurgles of pain as his body toppled to the ground and began to convulse.
As easily as someone might shatter glass with a hammer, a surge burst from my mind and the vampire cracked. Black lines laced up his skin like a chaotic lattice made of darkness, and a subtle wind cleaved portions of him that floated into the sky. Only ashes remained and they scattered along the breeze like dusty grey diamonds. I staggered backward and fell against the boxcar I called home.
"Next time, you must not hesitate. That one is lost because of it," a voice I knew whispered from the darkness.
"Hello, father." I felt him on my skin and breathed in his scent.
My father has always been an entity and pressure upon the world. There has never been a time I couldn't feel his weight when he was close.
The distant horn of a train, and the rumbling even clatter of wheels on heavy tracks drew my attention. I've always loved that sound. It has kept me company through more years than I care to remember. When there was nothing, and no one else, there has always been the desolate forlorn cry of a train in the distance to comfort me.
In that moment I breathed in the night and let it wrap around me. The smell is difficult to describe. There is earth, and damp, with the subtle remnants of oil and machinery that aren't easily forgotten. It's like a contamination of something pure that lingers just above and can't be washed away. The smell of humanity stains the air like no other, and for me it is home. These things have served as my security blanket for as long as I can remember.
Now, the darkness was ripe with metallic hints of life and the spatter of decay. Darryl lay on the ground, convulsing as the last vestiges of his life slipped away. He drank death into his body, and it surged through his veins, permeating every cell and feeding each organ with tainted blood. He was in the throws of death, and a new life would soon be taking hold. I didn't know much of vampires, but the knowledge I was born with told me at least this much.
"I've never asked you for anything. Not one damned thing. I care about this one." I nodded in Darryl's direction, ignoring my father's advance from the shadows. "Please help him."
The light of the street lamp slashed across his features like a knife. There was only the color of recent grey and midnight blue. The night paints with different colors than the day and each has its own way of highlighting beauty.
I knew his face as well as I know my own. Each line and wrinkle that was chiseled during his creation haunts my memory. The square of his jaw was the same as mine and I knew I had inherited this, among other things, from him. As the moonlight glided across his features, I saw pieces of me appear and then disappear into shadow.
"It's not within my power, Mallik. I was put here to destroy, not to create." His somber tone was flat and without emotion.
I suppose I expected at least some hint of emotion from the son of a bitch. He had abandoned me, and left me to my own devices. He stole away my childhood, and his absence robbed me of the innocence I could only now witness in others.
"That is a lie. You created me. Will you not grant me this one thing?" I didn't dare look at him as I pleaded. As I spoke each syllable, the ache in my chest deepened and seemed to swell with emptiness. My body suffered and ached to the bone, so much so I felt almost hollow.
What little control I had over my muted emotions was quickly waning. I didn't want him to see the shameful sorrow in my eyes. I knew it was there, and he would too, if I glanced his way.
"Are you so afraid to look at me, Mallik? I can smell him on you, and I feel the desire that rides along your flesh. You care for him, don't you?"
There was a hint of tenderness in his voice that I had never heard before. Even when I was younger, and our life resembled something almost normal, there was never a hint of half-hearted concern. We were never more than passing strangers locked together by blood and circumstance.
Time was passing, and I chanced a look into my father's eyes. I nearly jumped when I saw how close he stood. Had he stepped any closer I would have felt his breath on my skin. The urge to run into his arms almost devoured my resolve, but I held fast, and just gazed into his black eyes. There was never living color like I have found in my own reflection. His eyes are giant pupils of darkness that seemed to focus on everything… but me.
"Ahhh, I see now." He paused only a moment before continuing. "Does he love you in return?"
"He was my friend." My voice cracked against my will, but I continued. "In the life that you forced on me, he is the only thing that has given me even the slightest joy, and you… you watched from the shadows and let those creatures steal it from me." I felt my rage and despair building in unison. My body shook with the pain and frustration of it all.
"Help me, Devuun. Help me now, so that my hate for you might someday fade." I couldn't ignore the look of shock in his soulless eyes, and yet I was glad that there was something in him.
I had never spoken his name. It is an informal thing, and not something to be used when speaking to family. Still… the cold address seemed to get his attention. Maybe it's that my father can't accept love but, strangely, he seemed averse to my loathing of him. Maybe it was the blood tie we shared, but I suspected that even my hatred of the man didn't truly matter. I don't know. I might never know, and I didn't care.
"If I do this, he will never be the person he once was. Your mother could do it. She possesses the ability to draw the poison and feed him life, but that is not within my power. I have searched for her for so long. Pray there is enough of her blood in you to perform the task." There was sadness in his words as they rolled over me like a heavy blanket.
He turned his head, hiding his eyes from me, and then he was suddenly kneeling beside my friend. He had Darryl's wrist clutched in his hands, and he dove into the tender flesh like a viper. His chest heaved as he drank. Moments passed with sickening, thirsty sounds. My father, Devuun, released his hungry embrace, and staggered backward falling to the ground.
"Open your wrist and feed him your blood." My father's voice was so weak and fragile it frightened me.
I wanted to ask if he was okay, but something stopped me. Perhaps it was that I hated him for what happened, and now hated him even more because, after all this time, he did possess some emotion. He had never shared with me and so I had starved throughout my childhood.
I watched in horror as an ashen color crawled along my father's skin. The blood he took into himself coursed through his veins and fed him death.
"Do it now, before it is too late." His pleading words seemed to struggle past his lips as he gazed up at me.
I kept a small knife safely stowed away in my front pocket in case my night-time endeavors let passion make them too overzealous. The denim strangled and stilted my movements as I rushed to pull it from the pocket of my jeans. It seemed as though every movement and action was an effort like someone swimming against the tide.
Fumbling, I opened the knife and the blade slipped into place with a metallic click. There had only been two instances when I needed it in the last five years, and this wasn't something I had ever anticipated.
I dug the metal tip into my wrist and jerked it toward the curve of my arm violently. I felt tendons release and veins spill as I rushed about my work. There was no time to be squeamish or contemplate the action. I cut, because I had to.
There are some that cut to make a tapestry of their flesh. I however, cut with purpose. I almost chuckled at the thought of it. The simple fact that I had done it correctly, as if there were a proper way to open your wrists and bleed yourself, made me smile.
As Darryl fed on my wrist, I looked back at my father. I watched as dead blood coursed through his veins, and marveled at what I believed to be impossible. He was dying. Age crept into his face as he looked back at me, while Darryl suckled from my wrist.
"I thought you said my mother was dead." It was a strange question, though I knew if I didn't ask now the opportunity might not come again.
"Your mother…" His words were barely whispers as he spoke. "…is Hengeyokai, a shape shifter. She, if human, would have died at your birth. I did not know then, what she truly is. You will know her by her golden eyes. They blaze with the same life, and color, of yours."
My father coughed as death consumed his body and he seemed to slump lower to the earth beneath him. It wasn't only age that claimed his body, but time. He withered with a vengeance I had never seen before, and hope to never see again. The moon lit the tears on his cheeks like shiny rivers traveling down his wrinkled and withering features. My father's body faded, as a ghost's might, into the darkness and other realms of reality.
I wrenched my arm away from the Darryl's hungry embrace. Each breath seemed to be a greater burden than the last. The last contours of my father's shape faded into nothingness as sleep claimed me. My father had finally taught me his final lesson. In the end we are alone. He was gone, and my mother… My mother was alive.
I woke with the sun the next morning. It blazed in the sky and seemed to bore a hole through my skull. The pain was intense and I was instantly nauseous as I scurried deeper into the shadows of my boxcar.
A sliver of light peaked through and stretched along the wooden floor. It sliced through the darkness like a knife, and stung my eyes even from a distance. Darryl lay beside me, asleep on the mattress in the corner of the boxcar. His chest rose and fell rhythmically and his subtle snore told me he slept. He was safe, and breathing. This was something I knew a vampire didn't do. In the day they are dead, as if their souls (if they have souls) travel unknown plains while they rest.
My skin was wet with sweat and I shivered against the cool morning air. I had had a fevered sleep; filled with dreams of a place called 'Brethren' and a crowd of faces I didn't know. A yearning to be among them still filled my chest as my mind cleared, and I glanced at my friend. Another thought consumed my attention. My mother was alive.
I shook my head, hoping to chase away the drowsiness, and leaned over, checking Darryl's neck. I saw that his wounds were healed. My fingers traced over his delicate flesh and I shuddered. There wasn't a mark on him, not even the slightest bruising from the violent embrace of our visitors.
Exhaustion consumed me once again, and it felt as though every inch of my body was being pulled down by lead weights. Darryl was safe, and it eased my mind enough to let sleep take me. I felt different, but I didn't have the stamina, or the clarity of mind, to think about it. I was beyond tired, and drifted back into the world of dreams.
When I next awoke, the boxcar was as dark as pitch. Darryl's breath was still a steady rhythm, and I smiled as the music of mortal sleep filled the air. There was no way to plan for the explanation I might give him, depending on what he remembered from the ordeal. I knew what I would tell him if there was no memory at all, but I wasn't sure how I would deal with it should he remember any of the details. It was too much to explain, and certainly too much for the average mortal mind to consume and accept. It might be reality, but it was also something so foreign that I feared he might lose what fragile hold he had on his sanity.
"You reek, and your hair looks like the local rats found a new home." Darryl's sleep slurred words and weak chuckle tore me from my thoughts and made me smile.
"You're no bouquet of fresh flowers yourself," I quipped.
"I had the strangest dreams." Darryl sat up and stretched.
"Yeah? What about?" I was afraid to remind him of what happened the night before, but I needed to know where to start explaining.
"I don't know. A big cave, and faces, and shadows. It's all a jumble, but now that you ask, maybe it was a nightmare." Darryl shrugged and yawned as I searched his face for any recollection of the night before.
"How about we get a hotel room, and take the night off?" I asked and smiled at the suspicion in his eyes.
"Really?" Darryl cocked his head like a dog might when hearing something they couldn't quite identify.
"Yeah. How about a night of movies, pizza, and a soft cool place to sleep? We don't have to if you don't want to," I grinned and teased.
"No! I think that'd be great!" Darryl's expression changed suddenly and he lowered his eyes back to the wooden floor. "I can't pay. I have no money." His voice was barely above a whisper.
It made my heart ache to hear the sorrow and defeat in his voice. "No one asked you to. Now get your shit and let's go." I chuckled and smiled at him as he seemed to spring back to life.
As I turned my back on him and began digging through the bags of necessities, darker thoughts filled my mind. How could I keep him safe? I couldn't, and being around me seemed pretty damn hazardous to his health. Would he accompany me in the search for my mother?
"Ready when you are, stinky." His voice ripped me from my thoughts and I couldn't suppress my smile when I saw his grinning face.
He maintained his control like a 5 year old on his first visit to Disney Land. He was practically jumping in place and I couldn't help but chuckle. When did such a simple luxury become so decadent and awe inspiring?
I took my time packing the last few things I thought I might need. Had I moved any slower, I think Darryl would have carried me out of the boxcar and to the nearest hotel. He was absolutely electric with anticipation, and I couldn't help teasing him. He stood, staring like a starved puppy at his first meal.
"How about the Days Inn? They have a pool. We'll have to take the bus through town, but it's a nice place. The manager there owes me and I think we might be able to finagle a deal." I grinned as I slid open the boxcar door and hopped down to the ground.
I turned and watched as Darryl jumped out as well. He moved too slowly toward the ground. It was almost as if he slid to the earth, defying the pull of gravity. As he landed, his feet barely made a sound.
"Come on, graceful, the pool awaits! We've got to hop on the 42 to get to the mall. It runs every 30 minutes."
We walked through the train yard and finally found a bus stop on 441. This was the same trek I took each night to my place of employ. My nightly duties kept me familiar with Orange Blossom Trail and it was on this road where Darryl and I had met only days before.
We both spritzed ourselves with a little of the Dollar Store cologne I had stolen some time back, but I knew we were ripe in comparison to some of the out of town visitors that traveled in front and behind our seat. The trip seemed excruciatingly long, but we finally disembarked at the mall and all but skipped to the hotel.
Things were looking up, and it finally seemed that something was going my way when I spied Andrew at the front desk. He was busy stacking papers, and his hazel eyes lit up as we entered. He was a client. During one of our earlier encounters he told me about himself. He was 34, gay, and had moved here from some little town in Indiana six years ago. He was also one of the few to take pity on me when I first found myself alone on the streets.
As was always the case, he was immaculate. I really couldn't think of another word for it than that. Nails trimmed, teeth white and smiling, hair always in place, and the subtle sweet scent of expensive cologne that always drifted past my nose when I found myself looking into his hazel eyes. He was slightly overweight, with a bit of a bulge along his mid-rift that told he ate what he pleased, but not to the extreme. Andrew wasn't one of the most beautiful people in the world, but he had the heart and caring of a god.
"Andrew! How you doing?" I grinned as his eyes lit up and then faded as they drifted over to Darryl.
I could almost taste the jealousy in the air as he sized up my company. This was the first time I had arrived with someone else. His expression told me he wasn't too happy with me shattering the delusion that I was only his. Still… I wanted a cheap room.
"Meet my friend, Darryl. We just met a couple of days ago, and we need a night off. I don't suppose you have a room available with two doubles, do ya?" The joy returned to his face at my request, and some of the tension seemed to leave his body as he turned and began typing on his computer.
"I think I have just the thing. It's a non-smoking room, with two double beds, facing the pool. If you smoke, go outside or use the bathroom, okay?" He smiled and winked at the suggestion of treachery. Over the years I had smoked many things in those rooms, but not once had it ever been a cigarette.
"$62.95 is the best I can do, or I'll get into trouble. That's with the AAA and ARP discount." Darryl hissed as he inhaled sharply at the price and started to pull away.
"We'll take it, and thanks for the poolside." I grabbed Darryl's arm and pulled him back so that he faced me. "Relax, I got it."
His expression went from worry to shame, and he lowered his eyes to the floor. I signed the forms and, in a moment, we were out the door and rounding the corner searching the door numbers until we stopped at our room.
"Don't ruin this for yourself, Darryl. It's a night of luxury and relaxation. It's a day… or night rather, off… and I want you to enjoy it. I do it all the time, so whether you pay or not, I'd still be spending the money. It's just nice to have a friend to share it with for a change, okay?" I meant every word, though I did exaggerate a bit. Hotels were expensive, and I didn't always feel like trading my services with Andrew or some other faceless stranger for the benefit of a night of splendor.
Darryl's eyes met mine and again he smiled up at me. I slid the plastic keycard into the door slot and it clicked, signaling the release of the locking mechanism. With a metallic clunk, I twisted the handle, pushed open the door and reached over to the switch I knew was there. The sudden burst of light stung my eyes, and I rushed to the lamp on the side table to change it to a lesser supernova like setting.
Darryl rushed in, leaping from the doorway onto the bed some 15 feet away. The headboard slammed against the wall, and he writhed around on the bed like some child on a trampoline. It was so hysterical that all I could do was laugh as he finally settled and let out a long heart-felt sigh.
"Okay, now that you have that out of your system… how about you order a pizza? The number's on that card next to the phone. I'm gonna take a shower." I slipped the backpack from my shoulder and watched as Darryl picked up the TV remote from the side stand.
"Hey! Look at this! It's not bolted down!" No sooner had he said the words than the TV roared to life. Darryl sat poised, dialing the number for Pizza Hut, as he clutched the phone receiver between his chin and shoulder.
If you ever want to know the class of hotel you are staying in, this one thing is the ultimate factor. If your TV remote is mounted on the bedside table in such a way that even a tow truck might not dislodge it, then you are in a dump. Here, there were a few flaws, and age had taken away some of the original luster, but the room was still nice, and a far cry above a night in a boxcar.
Every time I have stayed here, that strange intimacy of trust has never escaped me. They trust me not to steal, destroy, or lose the remote, and so I do not. This didn't mean, however, that the temptation wasn't always there. It seems silly, but I've always had that little bit of evil in me that wanted to snatch it up upon departure and race away with it. Of course I couldn't use it, and it wouldn't benefit me in any way by taking it, yet… to breach that trust is so enthralling I can't ever close the door without giving it one final glance as I turn and leave it safely on the bedside table.
I sucked in a deep breath as I closed the bathroom door behind me and let my backpack slump to the tile floor. I reached into the shower and twisted the knob to what I knew was my preferred setting. Partially pealing, and partially sliding my clothes off of my sticky flesh, I finally stood naked and stepped into the spray of water.
At first the sting of heat caught my breath, but my muscles finally relaxed and I swung my head back as the warm torrent soothed my tired muscles. Even the most decadent of showers are not usually designed for someone my height, so I turned and hunched my shoulders so that the spray sent rivers of water across my back, over my head, and down my long, shoulder-length, dark brown hair.
I lost myself in the hiss of water and the feel of it as it trailed over my body in sliding torrents of bliss. I heard the outer door slam shut and jerked up. One thought entered my mind before all hell broke loose. 'The pizza must be here.'
At that moment I slipped, and my world seemed to turn upside down. I lay thrashing about in the bottom of the bath tub, nude, and half wrapped in a tangle of shower curtain. I slipped, and my 7-foot, 2-inch frame made more noise than I thought possible as I grappled for anything to keep my balance. I failed, and took the shower curtain with me. The spray of water seemed to suddenly change direction as though the shower head had taken on a life of its own, adding to the fray.
"Hey, Mallik, you okay?" Darryl's muffled words came through the door.
I heard a click from the bathroom door knob and struggled to cover myself. "Don't come in. I'm fine!"
Time moved slowly as my head spun toward the door. It was that endless moment of horror you feel when your car careens from the road and carries you to your death.
Darryl pushed the door open and rushed over to shut off the torrent of water blasting me and much of the bathroom floor. "Hey! You okay?"
His deep brown eyes traveled the length of my pale wraith-like body to my waist and below. I watched his caring and friendly face twist into an expression of complete disgust. "What the hell are you?!"
Hot tears slid down my cheeks as my eyes blazed white light. "Get out!" I sat upright and pulled my knees to my chest.
"What the Fuck!" Darryl backed away slowly, as if he had just stumbled upon a ravenous animal eyeing him as its next meal.
His back hit the wall and he let out a yelp. He turned and ran out of the bathroom. I heard his feet pound through the small hotel room and then the jiggle of metal as he fumbled with the lock. I clambered out of the tub and watched as he flung the door open and fled into the cold and lonely night.
I loved him, had killed for him, and now he ran from me in fear for his life. I rose and pulled a towel from the rusting shelf on the wall and wrapped it around my waist. We aren't the kind of night creatures that call the police, so I didn't fear unexpected company. I made my way across the room and closed the door, shutting out the cold and the noise of traffic. At least tonight, I would have a warm dry place to rest, even if Darryl didn't lie beside me. My fears and hopes combined at the thought that he might return.