Death of a Nightingale

CHAPTER 18: THE NEW ME

Step three in luring a human.

Thrill. I've found danger to be the most intoxicating and effective poison you can offer to humans. Dancing with death makes them feel alive. There's a sexual component to it too. That idea of being invincible. They don't understand that it's not they who are invincible at all. But they get to taste it.

When I woke up after the fire, naked in the ashes, the villagers had left. It was evening again and the crickets were yelling their nightly song of southern charm. I remember being confused, heartbroken, scared, and very, very hungry. I searched through the rubble of the mill but my family was dead. I found my mother's necklace and my sister's shoe. Only one. That's how hot the fire had burnt.

There were no remnants of my father. Anywhere. The good doctor Tepeš Lucârd had been wiped off the face of the Earth.

Deep in the old morgue, I found his metal cupboard with the scalpels. All of them. With not a thread of clothing and no empathy left, I went to wipe out a village. I didn't know then what was happening to me, how strong I was, or anything like that. I didn't care if I died again. So I strapped as many of my father's scalpels to my body as I could and went hunting.

The first stop was easy. The cemetery was close and quiet. The little adjacent chapel stood stark against the midnight sky. So pretty.

I looked through the window and saw the old undertaker occupied by his favorite past-time. Drinking. By his movement, I could guess he was about half a bottle of moonshine in. He stank. Somehow I never noticed how much he reeked. I waited until he went outside to relieve himself by pissing on a freshly dug grave. Heathen. This is the kind of God-fearing man who called my family the spawns of the devil?

"Good evening." My voice sounded the same. I found that so surprising. He stumbled around. I will never forget that dumbfounded expression on his face. All he must have seen was this 19-year-old woman he killed yesterday. Not the rage. Not the utter emptiness inside.

It was almost instinctual. Smooth. I knew exactly where to cut. He didn't even raise a hand. Too drunk and in disbelief. I sliced from the groin up to his ribs and made sure my hooked knife hitched a little bit. No mercy for the rat.

The scent of his blood hit me at once. For the first time, I felt a change in my eyes and felt stronger. Before I knew what I was doing, I drank him dry.

He tasted vile. Sick. Faintly rotten. I tried to throw it up but my own body didn't comply. After a few moments, it settled. I took his clothes and vowed to replace them as soon as possible, as I made my way into the village.

I started with the mayor's house. He allowed this to happen and he was my father's friend. He saw me coming. When I marched towards his front door through his gate, he held up a crucifix. He prayed. Just like my mother did last night. Except my mother did it for the well-being of my sister and me. This little, fat man did it to save his own hide.

With him, I had the sudden urge to play as a cat does with her second mouse. Not too hungry, enough time to have a little fun.

So I pulled out a small scalpel and watched it fly through the air. You see, dear reader, scalpels are not like knives. The weight is different. I wanted to test just how they work if I threw them. Let me tell you, they do fairly well. My first shot nicked his carotid.

The second just made his crucifix land on the steps of his grand entryway. I picked it up and to show him how little I cared about anything after last night, I hung it around my own neck. Its weight sat cold against my sternum. I remember his eyes widening and his chubby, little hands scrambling for anything to throw at me.

But I grabbed him by the throat.

"I was right. We were right. You are the devil's spawn."

I let him finish his little process and squeezed my hand. So fragile. Skin and bones. So very fragile. My hand went straight through his flesh without much effort at all. Another gulp and no more words emerged from his hateful heart. I licked my bloody hands clean and went on my merry way.

From house to house. Sometimes I let them speak, sometimes I killed them quickly. But by the end of the night, I was wearing a beautiful, silk dress, leather shoes and had even found better leather straps to tie my scalpels to me. They would become my jewelry over the years.

I didn't feel anything. Not for a long time. I don't know what exactly I became that night, but the death toll was attributed to an outbreak of consumption. Of course.

The neighboring priest and his flock buried all the bodies staked to their individual coffins. For a month I watched them pray every night that no revenants may rise from the graves.

Well, nothing rose from the graves. It was already amongst them. Helping them bury and pray and nod at the strange tales of the mill fire and the village struck down within one, single night.