Blood Memories

I pulled out, reeling internally. How long had that taken? Had she felt me? Only seconds seemed to have passed, and she continued watching Philip with the same cautious curiosity. She had a little boy? I wanted to know more but didn't know how to deal with the moment's revelation.

Was I more like Wade than I realized?

Philip caught my attention suddenly by sitting down next to Becky and touching her bare thigh. I hadn't seen him touch anyone yet, and the movement of his hand was slow, light, gentle. That's why he hadn't grabbed my hand in the carnival. Touching was only for victims.

The room fell silent as he leaned down and kissed her. Everyone-including me-watched the gradual movement of his open mouth as he licked her lips and face. His pale hand moved up her side, feather touch, like a concerned lover. Nobody else moved.

What was he doing? This didn't make sense. If he wanted to lure her away from her friends, he should have just asked. She'd have followed him off a cliff.

The red polyester couch they sat on showed huge gaping holes of foam rubber. Becky's breathing quickened when he moved to her neck. Completely lost in his gift, she tried to put her fingertips on his face. The scene changed.

Click.

He ripped out a chunk of her throat before I could blink-right in front of her friends. Instead of falling into a hazy state of slow motion, the world rushed to a hundred miles an hour. Scott started screaming as blood shot out of her jugular and covered his T-shirt. Philip jumped over the back of the couch and landed on top of him.

"No way, man," Culker kept repeating from the center of the room. "No way."

Philip stopped Scott's screaming by flipping him onto his stomach and breaking his neck with a loud crack. Then he smiled up at Culker.

Until that point, I'd been too off guard to move. What was he doing? He wasn't even feeding, just ripping and breaking bones. But they'd seen us. Both Jet and Culker could describe us right down to "any distinguishing features."

"You son of a bitch," I said in despair.

He turned his head toward me, laughing savagely. Jet bolted for the door. I caught her by whipping my left arm around her stomach and pulling her back into my chest. She was nearly a head taller than me. Her mouth formed a scream. Hating myself, hating Philip more, I grasped her entire chin with my right hand and jerked. Her body hit the floor before the scream ever escaped.

Culker began crying.

"Do it fast," I hissed to Philip.

It sounds cliche to compare Philip to an animal, but that's what he reminded me of. I mean it. He couldn't even talk. Culker seemed to know running was a waste of time and backed up against the wall.

Please don't let him start begging.

Philip was on him in a flash, tearing at his neck, but this time I heard sucking sounds. Often frightened by my own kind, sometimes confused, that was the first time I ever felt ashamed.

"We gotta go," I whispered. There was no way we could clean this mess up. Better just to leave it.

Philip dropped Culker's body and stared at me as if he didn't know who I was. His eyes made me step back.

"No," he said, finding his voice, red liquid dripping down onto his black shirt and vanishing against the darker color. "Not yet."

I'd thought the worst was over, but it wasn't. Putting his own wrist to his teeth, he tore it down to open veins and held it out. "Here, like with Edward."

For a minute I didn't get it. Then what he wanted came crashing down, followed by revulsion. "Stay away from me."

"Like Edward."

"Philip, don't."

Jet's dead body lay between me and the door. But in the time it took me to glance down at her, Philip had his hand around the back of my head, gripping my hair.

"You know nothing," he breathed in my ear. "You need me."

Survival instincts told me to do whatever he wanted and get away as soon as possible-please him and run. But I didn't. Something snapped. Grabbing his shoulder for support, I rammed my knee into his stomach hard enough to make him spit out a mouthful of Culker's blood.

"I don't need your arm." My own voice sounded unfamiliar. "I don't want you touching me. You're sick. You weren't even hungry, were you?"

He gasped once, eyes glazing over. He didn't hit me. "But I thought…" He looked confused. "You hunt with me now, like with Maggie or Edward."

"This isn't how we hunted! Any of us. Maggie left bodies sometimes, but at least she made sure they were drifters or dealers. She always took their ID, and she never killed anybody for any reason but to drain life force. Is this what you do in France?"

"We do as we want," he whispered. "We are not sheep, Julian and I. And how many have you killed in just this past hundred years? How many?"

"I'm not like you."

"You are. This moral piety will not comfort the dead."

His words hurt and left me wanting cool air. I ran into the hall and down to the street, not caring who saw me. The dirt and garbage still sat in large, ugly piles. The baby upstairs still cried.