We stood facing each other, watching to see each others' next moves. My hands tensed watching as she began to sweat standing in place. If she reached for the curtain, she had to die. But I was interested in her so I had to try to stave her off that choice.
"Listen, you do not want to reach for that curtain. I will be on you instantly. You will be dead before your body hits the ground." I said warning her. Her heart was racing along with her blood heating.
"What...what are you?" She asked me fearfully. I could sense she knew the answer but better to hear it directly from me.
"Mm, that is a good question. I do not know what I am classified as officially. Half of me is vampire. The other half, well it is hard to say. But you will never meet that half so it does not concern you." I said watching her still. She was about fifteen meters away so getting to her before she could reach the curtain would be a simple task if I moved the instant her hand started to raise. I had to know she was moving first so I had to focus on her.
'Kill her. Better than leaving her to tell the other humans of us.' The demon whispered inside. He was not as forgiving as I was. The slightest inconvenience usually resulted in him wanting to shed some blood.
'We will not, not yet. You see her. And you know she has my interest. I want to see what choice she will take next.' I said back. He was silent for a moment before replying.
'You gain attraction to women too quickly. This is only lust. It will pass. But if she exposes us to everyone, that will never pass. We will be forced to deal with that forever.' The demon said forgetting the vampires' reach.
'We have money, and time. Let us wait.' I said pushing him away. The legends the humans told only told of part of our strength. We would see whether if she believed she was fast enough to open the curtain before we could kill her.
She looked at me in horror as she said, "Please, I do not have anything. Please just go." We both knew I could not go anywhere until night. She was just begging incoherently.
"You know we cannot do that. We both can have a good time until nightfall, though, if you want. I will stay out of your way while you do your tasks and you can leave me to sleep in peace." I said bargaining with her. This seemed to put her a little more at ease as she stood straight up and walked away from the curtains. She started doing something in the kitchen but I was too tired to care what it was.
"If you try to open the curtains or report me, I will come back here and I will kill you along with all your guards, your family, and everyone you have ever held dear." I said getting back under the blanket. That would be her only warning.
The day came and went as I slept. Every time I opened my eyes, to check that she was not doing anything she was not supposed to, she was on a new task. When night came around again, I was up and ready to leave immediately. There was no use in trying to salvage the relationship. We would part ways and forget each other.
As I walked down the street heading back to the base, there was a scream from the room I had just come from. It was high enough and a ways away so none of the humans around me heard it but it was clear as day to me. With no hesitation, my wings stretched and I leapt straight up. The demon took over half way up but as we got to the room, there was silence.
We looked around for the woman quietly but there was nothing. We did not hear the guards shuffling around in the hall either. It was silent on the floor. After two and a half minutes of looking around, we came up empty-handed. There was no body or signs of a struggle. But there were two shoes scattered on opposite sides of the room.
We took a deep breath in to smell if there was any traces left. The smell of blood was strong coming from another room in the complex. It was from the opposite side of the hall. If we were not focusing on it, we never would have noticed it, or rather I would not have.
"Do you smell that?" The demon asked me out loud. He had never talking to me externally so this must have been a high priority to him.
'I do. Find the source. She might still be alive. Kill whoever is there.' I said blinded with rage. We flew to the room but there was no one there any more. The scent of blood trailed out of her apartment and down to the street level. We followed through the city until the trail went cold.
After a few minutes of bleeding openly, human wounds tend to close up. She might still have been in trouble but she was not bleeding anymore and the blood had been cleaned from around her neck so we could not follow any longer.
'I am sorry. I cannot follow any more. We have lost this one.' The demon said giving me control of my body again. Even though I meant to leave her and continue on with my new life, seeing her die so quickly after sleeping with me left a bad taste in my mouth. I would have vengeance on whoever was at the heart of this.
As we walked back to the base, we plotted how to get to the bottom of who was conspiring against us.
'It is not any of the vampires. Our battle is still fresh in their minds. None of them would dare stand against us.' I thought to him.
'The other ones, what were they called? The wolves would not dare stand against us either. Who else could it have been?' The demon thought back. We were stumped who dared to defy us. The high ranking vampires and the princes could still likely beat us but they would not expend the energy to kill a human just to anger us and have to kill us. All the vampires should have known we would not drop this until the culprit came to light.
'Could this just be another human murder?' I thought wondering about the circumstances. The humans did have quite the nasty little habit of killing each other over trivial matters.
'I highly doubt that is the case. The way it was done was much to clean to just be a neighborhood murder. They managed to kill the guards and the woman all while carefully hiding any signs of a struggle. No human could hide the smell of blood from us as was done. This was done by someone else, by something else.' The demon said going through all the evidence from the apartment. It was masterfully covered up as if meant specifically to hide the evidence from us.
'Who could it have been...?' I wondered knowing I probably would not find the answer.
'Most of the creatures from my time have long died away so that limits most of the possibilities. There were a myriad of races that could have done this when we were the prime species but now, there is not much left. Most of the wonder in this world is gone. The humans have killed it off.' The demon said vengefully. The world in his time sounded like an incredible place.
All that was left now was war, famine, and poverty. The vampires could have corrected that if they so deemed it so but they did not. They kept their hands clean of human endeavors usually. They were such a spectator race. Even as a newly made specimen, I was disgusted with the clan.
As we exited the forest near the foot of the base, the smell of her blood came back strong. I could tell it was hers because she was low on iron giving her blood a very sweet smell. A vampire had, in fact, taken advantage of my carelessness. That would be corrected. Quickly.
We landed at the base of the cave ready for battle. A vampire was in a drunken stupor near the bar at the front of the hideout. He wobbled directly into our way as we ran through the halls. Without a second thought, we grabbed his face and slammed his head down into the rock. He was totally unconscious, stiff as a board on the ground.
As we dashed through the halls, the other vampires veered out of our path. We were on a mission. No one would stop us. We would kill the princes if need be to get what we sought.
There were so many vampires in the base. The smell of her blood was already starting to die off. Most of the vampires did not have any specific scent but all of them mixing together in such tight quarters was swallowing up the smell we were looking for. We were already moving at maximum velocity. Any faster and we might miss crucial details. But she was definitely recently here, or her body was at the very least.
'Please do not be in the feeding area.' I begged to myself. Humans in the base usually meant they were lunch but I was desperately praying that was not the case here.
We ran over to the feeding area to clear our suspicions. Her scent was not as prevalent here as near the entrance but we had to be sure. After signing my name on the sheet to wait to feed, we sat anxiously waiting with our head in our hands. My foot was rapidly tapping the ground as we sat and waited. A few minutes passed before we were called.
Upon looking around, we noticed there were not many other vampires waiting. We found a seat rather quickly so we did not take notice of the number of empty chairs sitting on the wall.
Without a moment's hesitation, we sped up to the counter and followed the clerk back. The further we walked along, the more the scent dissipated.
"None of the funny business from last time." The clerk said without looking back. It caught me by surprise but I did not bother responding. That was a matter for another time. The room we got was centered in the rest. From here, we should easily be able to smell her if she was here, even if she was in the far back with the other humans but we got nothing. Which meant she was not there.
After a full meal, we quickly made our exit. By the time we came out, her smell was gone. She was in the wind.
Without realizing we were doing it, we fell to our knees and let out a blood curdling scream of frustration. We had lost her! How could we let this happen!? We were the penultimate creature here and someone managed to outsmart us!
"Skytel, get up, we have to go." Diach said kneeling beside me. I did not even hear him walking up next to me. It had been days since I had seen him and weeks since we shared anything more than a casual hello.
I was in such a daze of frustration that his words were not making sense. I could not understand the direction he was giving as we walked. We were not going to our room.
"Diach? Where are we going? What is happening?" I asked as we walked. We were in some room before long, a viewing room of some kind. There was an area below us with some vampires in white coats below. There were some others lying variously across some tables.
"This is the room they test methods for more new breeds. Since you came here, new breed creation has been the utmost priority." Diach said looking down through the glass. As no one else was looking up at us, we must have been behind a one way glass.
"Why have I never seen this before? I AM the new breed after all. Why did they not bring me here to test me?" I asked Diach still confused.
"You were already made. The princes want to find out how to make more like you. That is why I have been absent, I have been here. Since I made you, they think I am the key here." Diach said still looking down at the others.
It was so much to take in. I was already in shock from losing the girl. Now this. It was too much for me to process at once.
'Skytel, calm down.' The demon said inside. The world around me was getting fuzzy. I could not take all this at once. I grabbed my heart as I fell to the ground.
'Skytel, what's wrong? Skytel. Skytel!" The demon screamed in my head.
"Skytel, calm yourself. It is too much to take in. You have to slow your heart!" Diach yelled as I blacked out. The last thing I saw was the girl being brought to one of the tables.