Cold Burn: The Demon Chronicles #1

Chapter 1 - Straight Up Facts

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          I hadn't stopped there and the word vomit continued until I was sure I no longer had the air to speak. Regardless of my foul obscenities he simply sat there silently, letting my verbal abuse of him go on uninterrupted. Finally when I did stop, it was only due to the fact that I found myself regurgitating the same word vomit and I'd just grown weary of it all suddenly. As if a heavy blanket had been laid over me and I just didn't have it in me anymore. For a long while neither one of us said anything in the silence of the dark interior of the cab. Only when there was the vibration of the road passing beneath us and the hum of the cars around to keep us company did he speak.

"I know you hate me," he said quietly. "I know you must really loathe me to do what you did."

I laughed. It was cold and bitter and forced. "God it must be nice to be the center of the universe."

"What other reason would you have for doing this Kris?" He asked, his voice rising. "Cause for the life of me I can't find one!"

"Find one?" I asked coldly. "I'm sorry, but were you here for the past eight years? Were you invisible and I didn't know it? Is-is invisibility one of your abilities? You know... being a vampire and all." He said nothing after that and neither did I. I seriously doubted there was anything he could say.

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          I don't know how much time passed or how far we'd gone down the dark highway only lit by the lights of our fellow drivers on their own trips before he cleared his throat as he brushed his fingers through black hair that matched my own.

"There's food in the thermos," he said plucking the aforementioned object out of the grey, worn out duffel bag on the floor between us. "You should probably have some before we get there. I know you haven't fed yet, so I can understand if you're hungry."

Before I realized what I'd done, something warm and rather like a dirty penny was in my mouth and just as abruptly as it had appeared there, held by my tongue, everything changed the instant it hit my throat. I felt the world widen and grow small all at once. The sounds of the tires on the ground and the whirling of the gears under the hood flooded in and out in waves of intensity while the smells in the small cab of the moving van I sat in with my father grew unbearable. Through it all I wanted to simply drown in the golden liquid sliding down my throat. To bathe in it and not care about the rest of the world as it passed me by... and just as quickly it was gone. The thermos was empty and I... I wasn't sure what the hell had happened, but I wanted it to happen again. And badly.

"Is there more?" I asked licking my lips, peering into the empty thermos. He didn't reply immediately, which caused me to look up at him questioningly. "What? You don't have anymore?"

"No, I do," he said.

"So what's the hold up?" I demanded.

"You just downed a pint in less than thirty seconds flat," he answered, slight disbelief in his voice as though he had been taken by surprise.

"That was a pint?"

"Sixteen ounces, yes," Caleb replied quietly.

"Okay... can I not have anymore?" I asked somewhat confused by the tone of his voice.

"It's just-- never mind, go ahead. There's another thermos in the bag." The top was off before he finished his sentence and I was downing what I could only describe at the time as: the sweet nectar of the gods, like it was going out of season and fast. I hadn't even realized I was hungry until I was full. He had said that I'd be thirsty, that I wouldn't even register it until I wasn't anymore. I didn't understand what he meant at the time, but I did then as I sat there with the faint smell of pinewood and blood in the small, lifeless, grey cab of the moving van with a father I hadn't seen in over eight years. It was pure instinct. Like fight or flight.