Chapter Eleven

We sped off into the woods behind my house as fast as we could. Jack did well keeping up with me. I was a touch faster than him, but I knew these woods well enough to run blind through them, and I was more nimble than he. He was as silent as a ghost though, and unlike all the life of the forest, he gave off almost no ‘vibration’, as if he was as dead as stone. If he was to fall behind me, I had no way of knowing he was there, other than the smell.

We floated through the woods like spirits, hardly noticed by the inhabitants; or perhaps more like predators, for when we crossed paths with a young buck, Jack took the opportunity to feed.

It happened so quick, there was hardly any finesse. Jack hunted on pure instinct. When he saw proper prey, he pounced on it, without thinking. It was a bit frightening; if that had been a human, I can’t be sure he would have acted any differently. It’s not our place to prevent any creature from killing to gain sustenance, but it is also emotionally straining to think of the effect that human death has on the community.

The buck was a good size. 8 points, 141 pounds, and alone, most likely only two years old. A buck wasn’t the same as a 141-pound human for Jack, but it would satiate him for a couple weeks. The animal looked lean as well. I didn’t wish to waste it, as André greatly enjoyed venison. It would make a good treat for him when he returned.

“Does thou mind if I bring the rest home?” I said when he was done. Jack was laying on the ground, blood staining his lips. His eyes were shifting quickly, as if he may be experiencing a sort of vertigo, or trying to look at many things at once. When I spoke, he snapped out of his delirium suddenly. ‘’

“Huh? Oh, um...” He slowly sat himself up. “Do you want to return home?”

“Only for a moment. I’ll meet back up with thee. “

“Where?” he asked.

“I’ll find thee.”

He smiled, “You didn’t even notice me the first time I met you.” he teased.

“Well, now I know what to look for.” I bantered.

I lifted the beast’s remains and ran them home. We had a shed that André used when he hunted. Field dressing the animal was rather easy, as Jack had saved me the process of exsanguinating the carcass, so it only took me less than ten minuets to do so. I then left it in the meat freezer for when I had time later to butcher it properly.

Vampire scent is subtle, like a creature just on the cusp of life and death. Yet, once I locked onto it, it was easy to follow. He had continued running in the direction we had started in, this time without stopping.

The forest ends in the same park in which our paths first crossed two nights prior. Jack was there, his back to me, swinging on the parks swing-set; nothing fancy, just swinging... like a child. I wondered, when was the last time he had done such human things. I decided to toy with him.

I ran up to the swing as fast as I am able, pushing the swing clear over my head as I ran under. He was thrown off the swing, but he tucked into a roll and landed on top of the swing-set, motionless.

I laughed, and ran up the leg of the set to join him on top.

“So, how did you find me?” Jack asked. I pointed to my nose.

“My sense of smell is as good as thine.”

“And your strength? Your speed, your balance, they all seem to be as good as a vampires.”

“They are.” I jumped off the crossbeam, grabbed ahold of it with my hands, then flipped back onto the beam into a crouching position. It was partially vanity, showing off for Jack, but it was freeing and fun to play like that.

Jack took this as a challenge. He walked along the beam, did a one-handed cartwheel, but instead of landing back onto the beam, he intentionally missed, hanging off the beam, one-handed, for an instant, then using his momentum to swing diagonally under the beam and back up into a hand stand. He then hand walked a few steps, before righting himself with a front-walk-over.

I gave a golf clap, and smiled.

He turned to face me, and straddled the beam. “Tell me more. Your husband; you said you’d explain about him later.”

“No.” I shook my head sadly, “I am not able to tell thee any information on him given our current situation. Perhaps when we can trust thee more.”

He nodded, though disappointed. “What about children?”

I smiled to myself. “Yes, I have many, in fact. None with André, so only three still walk the Earth. But I have countless descendants. I know each one’s name, birth, death...”

“So you really do have perfect memory.”

“I have eidetic memory, yes.”

“Can you read minds?”

“I cannot, but there are a few still of my kind that can. It was once more common, but that was generations ago.”

“Is it common for my kind?” He now pressed.

“More so. Usually those that were unwillingly changed are more likely to manifest it. We are not sure why.”

“Does Anthony?” He asked, with a slight air of contempt.

I scoffed. “Sorry, that was rude. But no, he does not.”

“Hey, last night, you said “hebrew tomorrow” when speaking to him. Why was that? What did you mean?”

“Goodness, thou was not embellishing about thy questions! It’s just easier to use the hebrew measure of time with vampires; sunset-to-sunset. No special reason, though I have associated with Hebrews before. I even have a few descendants of that ethnicity.”

“You have Jewish descendants? What religion are you? Does your kind have religion?”

I rolled backwards and hung upside-down by my knees. “Of a sort. It’s not exactly organized though. It’s more of a philosophical spirituality based on traditions and mythos.

“Like the one you told me?”

“Sort of. That particular one has been modified some over the years. When I first heard it, the names were different, though the details were almost identical, just more in depth. It is likely it was influenced by the myths of the area as well, as I have heard varieties of the myth that are closer to the ‘first man’ myths of the local human communities.”

“I feel so ignorant when I speak to you. Not to speak any ill of you at all, the contrary really, I love that you’re patient with me in regards to all this. It’s simply that I have been alive for longer than any human, and I feel as if I know no more than a child.” he confessed.

I righted myself and sat more casually. “I would not have thee so hard on thyself.” I placed a hand on his shoulder; the most intimate physical contact I had ever had with him at this point. “Thou has not spent this time in pursuit of knowledge. Thou may be much older than a human, but thou are young for an immortal. The nature of the gift of time, is that thou has the opportunity to take thy time.”

“So, who is Romulus, and why is he so dangerous?”

We had been ignoring the passerby’s, few as they were, relying on the idea that they just assumed we were some bored teens showing off, but when a police officer called out to us, I can admit, it startled us.

“Hey you kids! What are you doing up there!?” He shouted in a threatening voice. What happened next happened so fast, that to write it out seems ridiculously slow and misrepresentative of the event. It would make better sense to write it out as one compound word, if I thought I could create such a thing in English.

As soon as the police officer finished his first sentence, Jack was after him. He had his teeth on the officer’s neck shortly after he had finished speaking and just as the officer was gasping in fear and disbelief.

I’m ashamed to say that it took me a blink to realize what was happening. Jack was already pulling the blood from the man’s neck by the time I was close enough to stop him. I placed my hand around the back of Jack’s neck. “Jack. Please. You don’t need to kill him.” I said soothingly, like speaking to a wild animal.

Jack slowly pulled away from the officer, who had fainted, most likely from shock, more than blood loss. He lowered the limp man to the ground and looked back up at me. I saw that childlike expression again, something that I had caught glimpses of since our first encounter, but this time it looked so innocent and confused. He had reacted exactly as he had when he had attacked that deer. I felt a twinge of guilt for oppressing his nature, but I couldn’t help but also feel for the poor man in his grasp. I wondered about the officers family and friends. I wondered if he had a wife and kids that would miss him. “Please Jack. You don’t need to kill him.” And that was true. I knew he was full from the deer. It wouldn’t sustain him as human blood would, but it filled his belly almost to the brim, and he likely couldn’t consume much more of the man than what he had already taken. Mostly, I worried that he would mortally wound the man and leave him for dead simply out of survival instinct.

I held out my hand and Jack tenderly took it, I gently lead him up to standing before crouching to check the officer. I inspected the wound on his neck. It was still bleeding freely, and needed to be stopped or the officer would bleed to death on the grass. I pulled off a shoe and sock, put the sock in my mouth to wet it, and pressed the wet portion hard onto the wound. The twenty seconds that I waited for the wound to clot were oppressive, as so much of me wanted to run from that place immediately. When I finally pulled the sock away (something that should never be done under non-supernatural circumstances), the wound was well clotted and had diminished in severity some.

When a vampire bites it’s victim, it doesn’t leave two neat little puncture wounds on the top of the neck, like most media tends to depict. Most of the pressure is applied by the lower fangs, which look somewhat similar to the sharks teeth that one can get at tourist shops on beaches. The goal of the bite is to rupture the common carotid artery, the artery that is used to check a pulse, therefore, this causes a wound that includes two superficial piercings on the top of the neck from the upper fangs, and two deep serrated piercings over the carotid artery, and a long curved gash in between where the lower incisors bite into the flesh.

After my tending, the gruesome lower wound had stopped flowing blood and had slowed to a more viscous oozing. The gash between the two puncture wounds had clotted and stopped bleeding all together, but was still open, and that risked infection. I mopped up the oozing blood from all four puncture wounds, licked my lips and bent down to kiss them closed. Elven saliva has the ability to transfer some of our self-healing abilities to mortals, and is likely linked to the affect our blood has on vampirism.

The kisses helped fix the worst of the wounds. He would likely still need stitches, but it was unlikely to reopen, and unlikely to become infected with the help of some amoxicillin.

When all that was done, I held fast to Jack’s hand and ran.