A Dance at Midnight

spilled secrets

-

Vampires didn't bleed. 

Everybody, even humans, knew that. 

Except, the one who tore out the throats of enemy soldiers, avenged the brutal death of her child, and bled dry her own sire was bleeding. Mistress Kill was bleeding.

The aromas of bergamot and osmanthus flowed from the cut.

From her expression, she seemed shocked, too. 

That makes two of us.

Adrian reached into his suit jacket and pulled out his handkerchief. He handed it to her. She glanced down at it. 

"Take it," he said. 

She stared at it a moment more. Then, she reached into her pants' pocket and pulled out a handkerchief of her own. She dabbed the silk against the cut. 

A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. He dropped his hand and tucked his handkerchief back into his pocket. 

Meanwhile, the gears in his brain turned. The lit-up room, the lack of daysleep, the need to vomit...the blood - her blood - on her face. 

"You're bloodwoken," he said. 

"Say it louder, will you?" 

He paused and concentrated on his senses: no other vampire was near. 

"Since when?" he asked. 

"You're going to kill me?" She ignored his question. 

She was bloodwoken, and she'd still managed to make him sweat during their scuffle. He didn't know whether to be awestruck or terrified. 

She's Mistress Kill, after all...

"Why would I kill you?" he asked. 

"Why would you not?"

"I don't want to clean up after you," he said. "This suit cost me a fortune."

"I wouldn't have guessed." 

Annoyance pricked at him, but he squashed it down: now was not the time to debate the cost of his suit, which, indeed, had costed him a fortune, despite what she thought. 

He said, "I'm not going to kill you." 

She continued to hold the silk against the cut near her eye. "Why not?"

"You want me to kill you?"

"You kill everything," she said, her eye contact steady, "and everyone." 

A bird flapped its wings. Something - a squirrel - scurried along the ground, rustling bushes.

"Like who?" His voice was steady and even. 

A tiny smile graced her lips. "You already know the answer to that." 

"Actually," he said, his turn to smile, "I don't. I've killed so many people throughout the years."

"Right, you're The Bleeder." Sarcasm was thick in her voice. 

"We've been here long enough; let's go back before they notice." He began to walk up the hill, out of the woods, when Senar called after him.

"Celeste," she said. 

He halted. A twig crunched under his shoe. He had never thought he'd hear that name again; he certainly had never uttered it since that horrible night.

Slowly, he turned back around. Under the faint glow of the moonlight, he saw that she was neither smug nor frowning. 

Adrian looked up at the moon. It was a crescent moon, tiny amid all the black of the sky and the shadows of the trees. Its soft, luminous rays only reached halfway down, as if knowing it was in the company of sinners.