My Precious Nightmare

Chapter 51: The Other Old One

For the second time in his life, Aster came to with someone's throat in his mouth. With a thrill of horror he yanked his teeth free and tossed it aside, visions of Lane's limp body flashing before him, every nerve on end screaming—

But it wasn't Lane who flopped lifelessly to the ground. It was a black armored security guard with a neatly trimmed black beard that was at odds with his deathly gray-white skin.

Aster scuttled back. When he registered his blood soaked shirt, he tore it off and chucked it as far as he could. It soared over a plain of scattered, black-armored and medical scrub wearing bodies. The only ones moving were, like Aster, hunched over some of these bodies, faces nuzzled to the jugular or pressing prey against the walls. Some shifted among the dead, nibbling on wrists and licking at oozing necks, hoping for more.

Aster's back hit the bars of an open cell, hitting the door closed with an earth shattering clang. Dozens of variously shaded, glowing eyes snapped up to him, then back down to their meals.

He felt his stomach roll and prayed that he'd throw up. He wanted to throw up. Get all that disgusting, warm death out of him. But his insides refused to give up their precious catch and even as he stood there, heart hammering, screaming inside to the point he couldn't hear a thing, he could feel his instincts purr with satiated satisfaction.

He looked up to the skylight to instead see a low, brick ceiling. Somehow, he'd gotten back down to a lower level—the second level, with all the vampires. How they had gotten out, he didn't know. The last thing he remembered was falling through gunfire.

A flash of platinum blond jerked his attention away, where a thin, average height young man had his arm around a young woman. She huddled against a column and looked much the same way as Aster felt, with blood staining her chin and shirt. There was something vaguely familiar about him in the way his shoulders somehow stayed straight and sure even while he was bent over someone else, or perhaps the wild spikes his thick mane of blond hair made. The tips at the end had been soaked red and sticky with blood. A fair color like that would.

As though sensing his eyes, he looked up. Aster's heart jumped to his throat so hard it nearly escaped from his mouth.

The whites of his eyes were black. Black as night with thin, dark red circles for the irises.

But it wasn't the same ancient vampire that Sky had torn the heart of. This was a completely different person, but with the same features as Husani that hinted at a Middle Eastern ancestry without the dark skin. The hair was more golden rather than bone white and wild.

Blood tipped. Wild hair.

The man straightened and came his way. Aster tensed and out of habit schooled his features into the cool mask that had become his default since the day he'd entered into the cut-throat world of the business elite. Whoever this man was, he wouldn't get a single detail of any thought, feeling, or weakness of Aster's. Aster would be in control.

The quiet, gentle voice that came once he drew near, however, threw Aster off guard.

"I noticed you weren't reacting as well either," he said, even lowering his eyes to the ground as though knowing how unnatural they were. "Please, rest assured, none of this is your fault. You didn't murder them. The monster within you did."

"I don't need your comfort," said Aster, quickly rebuilding his guard. "Though I do have a few questions as to how all this happened."

"While the electricity was out, the locks on the high security cells in the basement went out and I, among a few others, managed to escape." The man hesitated. "I don't really...remember anything after that. My condition is a bit rare, I suppose, though probably not for our kind that is as old as I am."

Perhaps that explains the eyes, Aster thought, even as he folded his arms across his chest.

"If you want to escape, I'd do so now. This prison isn't going to be unwatched for long," said Aster.

"Oh, I know. Some have already left. I'm just seeing to the young ones, such as yourself. Though," the black eyes fluttered up and down Aster so quickly it could have been a black fly zipping past. "You're a bit old to be having this response. Six, seven months, at the most." He gave a quick sniff. "You don't have any physical talents to speak of either...have you been hungry all this time?"

"Yes, because I'm going to answer all the personal questions of a black eyed stranger while surrounded by dead bodies."

The man's mouth twitched. "I'd be a bit more careful, if I were you. Provoke me and I may be forced to leave."

"That sounds like an invitation."

"And you won't like who replaces me. As I said," He looked up at Aster. "I have a condition."

They stared at each other for a moment longer before the strange, older vampire smiled and straightened his shirt, which hadn't a speck of blood on it, despite the red on his hair.

"Be careful out there, young one. All is about to get rather chaotic. I must see to your younger kin now, so perhaps I will see you again out there. Those without physical talents tend to show the most interesting gifts."

And with that, he walked away towards others who also hunched up against the walls, much as the young woman had before. Aster watched his back as the red-soaked tips of his hair brushed across the white shirt. There was a rolling grace to his steps that kept his hair from moving much, despite its length.

Another tickle of familiarity crept across the back of his mind.

But Aster didn't have time to stare until he figured out where exactly he had seen this new, ancient vampire. After all, he couldn't to see what would happen if he waited around. Though bullets wouldn't kill him, Aster also wasn't too fond of the idea of waking up with some dead person's neck in his mouth again.

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When our second was born he had taken a gulp of fluid so he wasn't breathing right away, so my husband stood guard next to the nurses as they worked on our new baby while I got cleaned up, crying and worried about my baby. It was endlessly reassuring to know my husband was on it.