The Embrace (13 page)

Gabriel stared into the man’s eyes, teasing him in a way no other creature can. Even in the vampire world, Gabriel was a master of taunting his victims, and he was bringing out the big guns again.

“I want the key to your apartment.” He said after this long, torturing pause.

“Will that work? Won’t he need to invite us in?” I asked Gabriel, displaying my ignorance as a newborn vampire.

Gabriel shook his head. “When the owner dies their home goes into a state of limbo. That’s when vampires can go in and take over. We don’t need any permission if there isn’t any owner.”

This was our way in. I knew Gabriel had spent centuries honing his abilities but I hadn’t realised just how skilled he was in the tricky parts of vampire lore.

Gabriel would never let this man live now, no matter how much he begged. If we wanted a nest before the sunrise we would have to kill him and take control of his home.

The man took the key from his pocket, one of those fancy, new key cards, with shaking hands and placed it in Gabriel’s outstretched palm.

I was right about the lie. After Gabriel placed the key in his pocket he reached his hands back up to the man’s neck and snapped it with such a swift, fluid movement that even my highly developed sight only just caught it.

As the corpse of her employer fell to the floor the prostitute, who was still in my grip, gasped in shock. She had probably never seen a dead body before, most people haven’t. As a human, I had been one of the unlucky few.

Gabriel located the camera at the corner of the lift and stared in to the lens, warping the mechanisms inside. I had never seen him display this gift before, and I knew it would be many years before I could do it for myself. I knew there would be no trace of our murder on record. The camera would never work, no matter what the police tried.

Gabriel kicked the limp body of the alcoholic into the lift and the two of us ran rapidly up the stairs, Gabriel leading while I dragged the prostitute behind me.

We reached the right floor, second from the top of this huge apartment block. The door was made of grey stone, with flecks of glittering dotted amongst it, while the peephole and doorknob were made out of a golden material like the lift.

As we reached the door Gabriel pulled the key card out. Within seconds we entered our new apartment for the first time, pulling the prostitute with us. We didn’t even have time to look around. There was a fresh victim in the room, and we had blood to drain.

The red curtain of hunger descended again as Gabriel surveyed the room. I was too absorbed in the deafening sound of this girl’s beating heart o take any notice. I pushed her down until she hit the black tiled floor with a thud.

I picked up her quivering arm and saw a large cut running down her wrist, blood just beginning to trickle down her forearm. The girl looked straight at me, locking on to my gaze, and I saw her eyes fill with tears as the trance wore off and she finally felt the sting from her cut.

Her pain was positively ravishing.

Gabriel was the first to taste her. He took her arm and licked the blood away from the wound, using our healing properties to seal the open gash. I saw the ecstasy on his face and I knew my first kill in the new city would be a satisfying one.

“You have to taste her.” Gabriel whispered before he bit into the girl’s wrist, the spot he always favoured when draining his victims.

The strength of the red thirst was growing and I knew I had to drink soon. I leaned down and stroked the hair out of her face as Gabriel so often did to me. She was whimpering but when I touched her face she seemed to calm. Her body became still and she stopped making those pathetic noises.

“She responds well to you.” Gabriel told me.

I nodded, noticing how quickly she calmed down when I touched her. Maybe I did have the great potential Gabriel had suggested, the ability to influence humans more strongly than most newly created vampires.

I took the girl’s left wrist and bit in to the raised veins as Gabriel resumed his position on her right arm. Her blood came thick and fast in a desperate exodus from her doomed body. The fluid ran more quickly than most victims, gushing forward and hitting my fangs in a glorious flood.

Gabriel and I lingered on our chosen spots, draining the girl in what seemed like seconds. I could feel her heartbeat slowing the longer we spent on our meal.

We could spend hours with this girl, intoxicating ourselves with the metallic blood that flowed through her. The taste was sharp and powerful, just what we needed to start our new life together.

I found it fascinating how different each victim seemed to be, each with their own taste and a unique effect on the vampire who fed on them. This difference was all part of the exploration of a new vampire, the excitement of finding the perfect victim.

It was just how I imagined a drug addict would feel. You would taste the kind of blood that seemed perfect, and then you would spend every waking moment trying to emulate this effect until you finally realised you couldn’t recapture it. That’s when you moved on to a new kind of victim, beginning the cycle again in vain.

After a few hours of draining it seemed obvious that this girl was dead. Her heartbeat had stopped and I could no longer see the jagged rise and fall of her chest as she tried to cling to life.

Gabriel turned to me and kissed me forcefully on the lips, as he liked to do after a particularly successful kill. He always experienced the full force of his lust straight after a kill and this had certainly been a strong victim.

It was then that I realised I hadn’t even looked around our apartment. It was our new home and I hadn’t even seen it.

Gabriel picked the dead prostitute up from the floor and threw her over his shoulder.

“I’m going to get rid of her.” He said, kissing me on the cheek with a gentle love that replaced his previous lust.

Gabriel left the apartment and I decided to take a look around our new home. The room we had used for our first city kill was an expansive living room. There was a black leather sofa in the centre, resting at the perfect position to see the huge plasma TV set on the wall. This would be of no use to us. I hadn’t watched television at all since my death five months before.

There were expensive gold throws lining the sofa and I was beginning to sense a colour scheme. The black tiles glinted on the floor, perfectly complimenting the golden accessories and furnishings. The side of the room was made with darkened glass, probably the expansive window we had seen from outside. Gabriel and I couldn’t sleep in this room unless we wanted to face an untimely death at sunrise.

I toured the rest of the apartment. The bathroom followed the theme with a claw foot tub and black, glittering tiles. The bedroom was just as beautiful, complete with a double bed and silky black sheets. There was a desk in the corner with delicate writing instruments and an expansive wardrobe which would suit me well.

The whole apartment dripped luxury from its very walls. As I let myself wander from room to room I felt a soft buzz, signalling the vitality captured by the walls of these rooms. Gabriel and I had stumbled upon the perfect home.

I returned to the living room to find Gabriel sprawled on the sofa. He was reclining like the master of a grand home, waiting for his mistress to return. I curled myself up in his arms, stroking his skin and letting myself relax. His body folded around mine as he held me close. I hadn’t felt such an affinity with him in weeks.

As I felt my body loosen my mind returned to those three glorious months we had shared at the peak of our happiness. We had often fallen asleep holding one another, with peaceful minds and full veins, and now we had finally recaptured that contentment. I felt as if this city was already shaping up to be the start of a beautiful new beginning for us.

Eventually I felt that unnerving, prickling feeling that is the first signal of the approaching sun. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I knew we had to find shelter from the large glass panels lining this room.

I turned around to face Gabriel, rubbing his cheeks with my knuckles to gently rouse him. His beautiful eyes fluttered open.

“The sun’s coming up” I whispered. “We have to take cover.”

Gabriel nodded and led me to our new bedroom. There was one large window but it took us only moments to make the room sunlight tight. We had strong blackout sheets and our strength made it easy for us to attach the sheets to the window.

We managed to secure the room just before sunlight and for the first night we curled up on the soft black sheets and fell asleep together with a renewed sense of optimism.

When I awoke the next night it took me a few seconds to realise where I was, but eventually I felt the silky sheets and remembered the night before. We were in our brand new nest.

My clothing selection was crippled as I had been forced to leave most of my beautiful garments behind. I put on the outfit from the night before and mentally planned the items I had to buy.

Gabriel had stolen the wallet of the older man from the night before and he had left the two of us quite a handsome legacy. Of course the prostitute had quite a large sum in her handbag, probably after being paid for her night’s services. It meant we had a substantial amount of money to play with.

Gabriel and I left the apartment to start the hunt, locking the doors behind us as we left. Outwardly we seemed like the perfect newlywed couple, and to our neighbours we would be nothing more than a loved up duo who had moved in without much fanfare.

We took the stairs down to the foyer to begin our hunt. As we reached the bottom we found quite a scene.

The lift was out of bounds with huge banners criss crossing the entrance, emblazoned with the warning: Police Line, Do Not Cross. There were blood stains on the floor but no bodies and no officers. A crowd of nosy neighbours had gathered around the scene, chatting with low voices at the scandal that had hit this normally high class building.

Gabe and I knew what this was all about: the people found in this lift were our victims. I wondered why he had chosen to leave the bodies out in the open, but I didn’t question him. He had been a vampire a hell of a lot longer than me and I knew he was far more knowledgeable than I was about these things.

I raised my eyebrows at Gabriel, silently asking for his approval to approach the throng around the crime scene, and he gave a slight nod.

I walked up to a plump woman at the back. She was wearing head to toe designer with an Armani handbag draped over her arm. Her plump face was frozen in a state of shock, tinged with an undercurrent of disapproval. She obviously didn’t like the fact that the reputation of
her
building had been tainted by a murder.

I tried to mimic her expression to get some common ground between the two of us. Human emotions are difficult to fake for someone like me, but I was happy with my mask.

“What on earth happened here?” I asked her.

She shook her head, ready to engage in the sanctimonious neighbour routine.

“Well, there has been a
murder
. It’s positively shameful. This building is meant to be the most exclusive in the whole city and I just cannot believe it.” She carried on with her furious act. “It was some escort who died. Some...prostitute.” She said the final word in a whisper, as if just uttering it aloud linked her to this woman of ill repute. “She was stabbed, bled to death the poor dear. Police took her away early this morning. Oh and as if that’s not bad enough, the lift will be out of operation for at least the next week! Goodness sake...”

I shook my head again, hiding my secret delight at getting away with this girl’s murder. I made a show of checking my watch and sighing heavily.

“Well, I think it’s just terrible. I’ve only been in this building a few weeks and I’m already regretting moving here. Oh well, I better go but it was lovely talking to you.”

I smiled at this plump old woman and she smiled back, but I immediately sensed a wave of contempt when she took in my outfit. She was thinking my morals were just as loose as the dead girl’s. She thought I might be the next to die if I carried on in such a shameful manner.

I rejoined Gabriel and we left the apartment building quickly.

“Did you feel that? God, she hated me.” I chuckled, feeling nothing but relief.

Gabriel smiled back at me. It felt good to see him smile so often these days. “So you left the girl there. What did you do with the man?” I asked.

Gabriel took a more serious tone. “The girl doesn’t matter but the man would create too many questions. The police would start poking around his apartment, our apartment. I couldn’t risk it. You’ll learn to make the call one day.”

I nodded at him, pleased that he was teaching me something. They may have annoyed me at first but I had started to miss Gabriel’s lessons.

Gabriel and I walked into the nearest shopping area, ready to take full advantage of the weekly late night shopping. We spent a couple of hours in this area, splashing our cash on brand new outfits.

The first shop we came to catered for women and specialised in one of a kind dresses, perfect for dinner dates and parties. The shop assistant was a young man fresh out of school, no more than 17 or 18 years old. He helped me to pick out several outfits, each more beautiful and expensive than the last. I could feel him growing enamoured with me as the spending session went on.