Chapter 25

The February sky hung over my shoulders like a velvet cape. Frosty tidbits of clouds tiptoed eerily across its surface, seemingly collaborating with the nipping winds and threatening a terrible storm.

I grinned. My favorite weather. 

The Broken Horse was bustling with the usual Saturday night crowd. Young hipsters decorated with gold-rimmed glasses, glittery girls with pleather pants that looked painted on, and the occasional shifty-eyed couple, completing an unspoken trust exercise with their partners near a busy, horny crowd.

I slinked right through in a tiny silver dress, my dark hair up in a high pony.

“Ruby, my top customer!” Jerome exclaimed, beckoning me over.

The tall, muscular bartender leaned against the edge of the bar, grinning wickedly.

“I’ll take a tall glass of cabernet, as usual,” I winked.

He nodded, staring at me a little too long, like always. Holding up a finger, he called over Demitrius, a large man in nice clothes stationed by the back wall. My order was whispered in his ear and he glanced over to me, nodding hello. I smiled.

A few minutes later he emerged with a glass nearly overflowing with dark, red liquid.

“Your drink, madame,” he crooned.

“Thanks, baby.”

My hand cradled his as I grabbed my drink, and he looked up at me longingly.

It was a struggle not to roll my eyes.

I took a seat at the other end of the bar and began to gulp down my thick drink.

“Wow, not everyday you see the hottest woman you’ve ever seen in your life chugging wine at the bar. That’s fucking classy.”

“I’m one of a kind.”

My eyes stayed focused on the crowd ahead. Screaming, smiling, losing their balance as they drank their way through yet another throwback song.

“You can’t be from around here, I woulda remembered a face like yours.”

 This guy was starting to get on my nerves. A perfect match.

I finished the rest of my drink, the red liquid dribbling down my lip. I wiped it lazily with my thumb and turned to the problem with pursed lips.

“Are you trying to ask me to dance?” I cooed.

He staggered off of the stool he was leaning on, his cheeks flushed deep red.

Was I about to wreak havoc on a Friday night?

Before I could answer my own thought, my animalistic instincts drove me to press myself up against the greasy stranger’s warm flesh.

“You smell so good,” I sang, sniffing the side of his neck.

He, whomever he was, Jack or Randy or Nathan, was reacting to my advances like a sports car with a new oil change. 

His body jerked underneath his scratchy black hoodie and jeans and he started gripping my waist with shaky but driven hands.

We swayed for a bit, my body aching almost painfully. It was time.

I gazed up at him. He was a tall, lumpy man, at least six feet. I loved when they were taller than me.

Lifting myself onto my tippy toes, I brushed my lips against the edge of his ear.

“It’s too crowded in here,” I whispered.

His heart went into overdrive, I could hear it growing faster with every advance I made.

Grabbing his arm, I winked over to Demitrius, who gave the slightest nod in return, one the human eye wouldn’t have spotted. We were good to go. 

Once outside, I finished the job. Seek and destroy. 

I’m not a heartless monster; I gave him the time of his life before ending his. 

Jumping into his arms, kissing him until he was out of breath.

After giving him a little more fun, I nibbled on his ear, and made my way down to his lips. 

The nibbles turned to soft bites. As he moaned in ecstasy, I dove into the jugular, my teeth showing their true potential in the final bite. Within a minute I’d drained him of his fresh, warm blood, tinged with the buzz of the ten beers he’d chugged.

Demitrius shot me a tired look as I made my way back to the door.

“Sorry, I just couldn’t resist a good, fresh pint of jerk,” I sighed.

I felt the most human after getting a good amount of blood in my system, its temporary warmth flushing my cheeks when I returned to the stuffy bar. 

I sat in the very back, watching the humans dance and breathe and just be…human.

Was I really once like this? I doubted that.

Maybe two hundred and six years ago, before my family was taken from me in front of my eyes, drained and ripped apart. I was “saved” because I was pretty, and fierce, but I never asked for this. My humanity died along with them. And unlike the majority of my kind, I chose to be alone. 

My eyes wandered through the crowd, wondering how many people I could kill here without starting a riot.

I paused on a guy hidden by a book outstretched in front of him. 

He flipped each page quicker than some of these humans were gunning shots, his head sinking deeper down into the pages.

I studied him for a few minutes longer, to see if the reading thing was some sort of cheap icebreaker. The book cover had been removed, so just a blank, blue, woven hardcover was visible. It looked like he was trying to hide himself, to be ignored amongst the chaos.

 He was so engrossed, that when I walked directly in front of him he didn’t notice.

“Reading at the bar? A bit pretentious, don’t you think?” 

His eyes, a deep olive green, peered up momentarily from behind gold framed glasses. I saw them dilate as he took me in, then just as quickly returned them to the comfort of his pages.

“It got your attention, didn’t it?” he replied. 

 I chuckled. 

“So you ARE just trying to pick up girls.”

Finally, he lifted his face out of the book and set it down on the circular table in front of him. 

“The only thing I intend to pick up tonight is a promotion from my boss for coming to this raging headache.”

“Is that so?” I mused, placing a hand on the book and picking it up before his reflexes had a chance to think.

I opened the front cover. 

“Oh this is a good one!”

He raised an eyebrow, looking both cocky and unimpressed.

It was the first time in a long time that a human turned me on.

“There is not a chance you’ve read Holly’s Sock”

I leaned in closer, my forehead nearly touching his reddish-brown curls.

“Holly’s little sister Ethel was my favorite character. She’s such a tough bitch, especially in chapter 25, when the-”

“Okay, I believe you! Please, no spoilers, this book is all I have to live for!” he pleaded, grabbing my hands.

I paused, feeling the tingle of his warmth against me in a way I wasn’t used to.

“Wow, you’re cold,” he noted.

“In the physical, and metaphorical sense.”

He started asking me questions about the book, how I felt when Harvey set his dog free, what I thought a specific line in chapter 5 was referring to.

And I answered, warming up my meal slowly.

With every question, my tongue began to twitch, imagining the sweet, pure blood untainted by alcohol that flowed beneath his pale skin.

It was a good distraction to plan my attack. Would I take him to the back where the remnants of poor ol’ whatever-his-name-was were currently being cleaned up?

We reached a moment of solitude, both of us turning towards the crowd and watching them together. It felt strange.

I decided I was going to play the long game with this one. What can I say, I had a soft spot in my soulless chest for a feminist king who appreciated a book with a fierce female lead. 

 “Hey, do you think any of these people would care if we just…dipped?” he asked.

“Dipped?” I repeated, looking at him questioningly.

My food was planning his own dinner time. But...it would be more fun to wait.

“I think I’m going to stay and people watch a little bit longer.”

“Some people just love to torture themselves,” he sighed.

How right he was.

“How about, we can meet up here next week. To discuss chapter 25,” I added.

“Chapter 25,” he repeated, holding out a hand, “Oh, and I almost forgot to get your name!”

“You first,” I bargained, gently grabbing the top of his shoulder.

He lowered his arm, surprised by my gesture.

“Cal. With one L. It’s short for Calum.”

I nodded with a devious smile.

“I appreciate the Webster Dictionary response for your three letter name.”

“Your turn,” he urged. 

“I’ll tell you next week,” I smirked and he stood up out of his chair.

He grinned. It was sincere and a bit exasperated. 

An unexpected giggle escaped my lips. 

I watched Cal wave goodbye to his buzzed boss and slip out the front door, his face right back in his book like before. 

After he left the bar seemed empty. Like a movie camera zoomed in on the extras.

“Are you seriously gonna break up with me right now? Like, right now?!” a brunette screamed at her stoic ex-partner. 

I dully watched her shove the remaining watered down vodka at him, storming back to the bar to get another one.

That was the sixteenth break up this week. Each one was less interesting than the next.

As a spectator it all looked so cliché and dramatic. 

Boring.

I had decided it was time to go home. I wished Jerome and Demitrius farewell, their faces showing small signs of relief that the vicious vampire was finally leaving with just one kill under her belt.

The streets were tinged with ice and the sky was as dead as my bar victim. I desperately wanted to make a mad dash to my hideout. But even we immortals had rules. It was of utmost importance to “slip into the shadows” when it came to discretions. Running 5 miles of rough terrain in stilettos was probably a no-no. I would play human until I got deep enough in the backwoods to run. That was the usual plan. 

I was speed-walking towards the woods, wondering how humans found heels so painful, when I saw it. Actually, I smelled it first. Sweet, fresh blood.

Right by the cusp of the woods, where the road fades into dirt. A crumpled heap, soaked in crimson. 

My vision honed in on the details: a broken wrist twisted nearly all the way around. Chest moving slowly up and down. Shoes gone. Blue book.

Blue book.

He had five deep stab wounds, three I could see and two I could smell.

I sighed. 

“Oh Cal with one L, you idiot.”  

He was knee-deep in that damn book, a mugger’s perfect target.

No, two muggers. The signs were all visible. They jumped him, stabbed him, stole his shoes and his wallet, and fled. 

I could catch them. Pin them down, make them pay for ruining my chase, my future meal. 

Then again, they did kind of help me out.

Cal was trying to make noise, scream for help, but his voice squeaked and wheezed like a dog toy as he tried to catch a breath.

At this rate, if he was lucky, he’d be dead in the next ten minutes. 

Losing my hunt to the grim reaper made me angry. I had to hurry and kill him myself. 

I stood silently over his wretched body, and kneeled down to look him in the eyes. 

He stared back, eyes widened. Pleading. Dilated, like before. 

I shook my head.

“C’mon, I thought you were smarter than this,” I purred, running a hand across his chest, feeling the extent of the first wound.

He was trying to mouth something.

“Shh,” I whispered, holding a finger up to his trembling lips, “don’t worry, I’ll help take the pain away.”

I started to lean into his neck, when I noticed something in his expression. His eyes darted to the right, to his side. He was motioning to the book.

I paused, reaching to pick up his blood splattered hardcover.

“Did you want me to read to you?” I crooned.

I opened the book to the page marked with a braided green string bookmark, and froze.

Chapter 25.

I stared at the page as his heart slowed to an irregular thump.

“You skipped about seven chapters,” I noted.

Thump. Thump. Thump. 

His heart almost sounded as though it were answering me.

“I thought you said you didn’t want spoilers.”

Thump. Thump.

“Well I-”

Silence. I dropped the book and lifted his head up into my lap.

His olive green eyes had rolled back, so I felt it was only right to close them before I drank him. He deserved some dignity for following my instructions. 

Staring at him, I realized that I was feeling something. Me, the cold, heartless monster, had some hint of warmth in my stony chest that wasn’t the result of blood-drinking.

Slowly, I lifted my lips against his neck and paused again.

“Oh…oh fuck you!” I cursed.

I knew what I had to do.

Baring my teeth, I pulled his neck back up against my mouth and bit down, hard. There were a few crackling sounds from beneath my bite. If he wasn’t dead before he was definitely dead now.

"By the way,” I said, “my name is Ruby.”

I sat with his lifeless body for approximately four hours and twenty five minutes. Maybe it didn’t work, maybe-

His eyes flew open, a deep red.

Then he screamed, gasping for the air he had so desperately tried to intake as a dying human.

“Aw, it’s great to see you too! Now let's talk about that chapter.”