Three Words Unspoken

It was late, the city finally starting to sleep. Streetlights flickered here and there, and things of the day had died down, giving the Night her chance. His chance of another target. However, things were looking grim, nobody around for him to… finish. The darkness didn’t help, wrapping him in a cloak of anger, making the gin on his lips burn hotter, burn faster. Half the glass was gone, enough to warm him, but not so much that it would hinder his deed, a careful precaution. But after wandering the streets frustrated and cold, he almost gave up, longing for the full warmth of the drink. Perhaps he should deny the Night. Perhaps he should pocket the switchblade and turn tail. Perhaps he should repent and turn himself in. That was when she walked around the corner, straight towards him. 

It’s a sign.

   Horrendous. That was the only word he could think of to describe her. She was sickly, malnourished, half-dead even. A part of him wondered if he’d drank too much. Stringy bleached hair fell around her shoulders, dead eyes and pale lips coming clear as she walked closer. ‘Vampire’ was his first thought, ‘easy target’ the next. Bones showed through what skin he could see, pale and corpselike. Hell, she looked like she had been buried, dressed in her white Sunday dress and laid neatly in a coffin, left for the Earth to take her back. But she couldn’t be dead, she was walking with him now, both cutting through the nighttime air with ease. 

Timing her steps with his own, he waited until she stopped, peering through the inky darkness, a weak streetlight her only source of light. She obviously knew he was there, but didn’t even spare him a glance, no fear nor any other emotion showing through on that gaunt face of hers. A grim smile creeping up his face like fire, he moved closer, knowing he’d be doing her a favor by doing this. After all, she looked like an extra from a horror show. What harm came about by killing those who had no life left in them? 

Wait!

Instinct was too late, and he watched in awe as his beloved switch fell across her throat, cutting cleanly through skin. A step back, awaiting the crimson that would paint her a brilliant red, awaiting the strangled gasp and slump of the head, then the body. Seconds passed, then a full minute, all with the awful stillness settling over him. Her skin was cut, but where there should have been blood there was nothing, just a thin, clean line where his knife had ripped. Those glassy eyes of hers stared at him, full of a certain sorrowful disappointment. The switch fell from his hands, clattering to the concrete below, the flickering light illuminating every bad deed he’d ever done. A glint of silver, a scraping of skin, and… nothing. She stepped closer, he stepped back, their roles suddenly reversed. He was no longer the hunter, she was no longer the hunted. They continued this waltz of forward-back until he could move away no longer, caught at the end of the chessboard with a firm brick wall at his back. Here, the street lights shone about her silhouette, a halo of destruction. Her skeletal hands reached forward, cupping his face, and…more stillness. No snapping of bone, no quick jab with a blade, nothing. She just… held him. Perhaps they were lovers, in that brief second. She leaned forward, the sorrow in her eyes reflecting in his. Both of them were of Night, and only one could leave. 

She kissed him. Slowly, gently, like a wife would. Suddenly he’d known her all his life. Suddenly the genre dipped into romance, tenderness crashing on the shore of violence. Shock was shoved away by pain, his body turning to dust and back, every atom screaming with confusion. Ice bloomed in his veins, and fire shot through his lips, the aftermath of her kiss worse than a gunshot. Strength drained away easily, and his lungs contracted, making each and every breath more painful than the last. The fabric of his existence had been shredded, his soul trapped in his own corpse, unable to flee to the relief of Death. He looked up at her, lips unable to move, eyes unable to close, and he could feel the transfer. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. He wanted to say something to her, to cry out the words he’d never heard with the lips that would not move. It was choked, a strained effort, but he had to say it, to have some form of apology, some sort of peace.

“I… love-”

He’d lost the bet, and his soul was the currency that changed hands, ripping away from his body to repair hers. And yet, he didn’t mind. The way she changed was a miracle, and the pain was worth it, to see his lover and victim become whole again. Dark hair fell in ringlets, framing her suntanned face. Full lips and sparkling eyes accented her lovely complexion, the hands on his shoulders soft and warm. She was beautiful, what with that new deep blue of her dress, the shining green of her eyes. She was full of life, the life he’d stolen from others, the life she’d stolen from him. It suited her, to look so… alive. He could never look like that. Would never look like that. Her heart beat with his own, the murderous intent in his soul replaced by the full and empty nothingness of peace. She leaned down, brushing a kiss over his temple, a soft whisper coiling around his mind like a rose bush, wonderfully and beautifully sharp, a viper’s fangs dripping sugary venom. Nobody would ever speak like she did.

“I love you too.”

With the street lamp as her escort, she returned to Night, leaving him slumped against the cold and unyielding brick. The sand in his timer had run out, and she had come to collect. A life for a life.