Breathe Under Water - Shadows of the Night 1

Chapter 1

The club's sign was the only source of light, casting the side street into a pinkish neon color. I saw them less than twenty feet away, close to the back wall of Tamurè. The vampire knelt above Maria's unmoving body, its back facing me.

Time seemed to slow down as I watched and forgot how to breathe.

Unnaturally white hands drew something out from Maria's jacket. It was a pendant or amulet, glistening eerily in the pinkish light. The vampire held it in his right hand, just above her body. He didn't seem to notice my presence.

The blood rush must still cloud his senses.

I shot without a warning. The silver bullet cut through the air like an arrow, biting into sun-deprived, white flesh. I shot him in the back, intending to hit him straight in the chest from behind. The echoes of the shot hadn't reverberated fully, when the vampire jumped to his feet, baring his fangs at me.

I missed. I cursed under my breath.

You just gave away the best shot you had.

He must have been quite old. I could feel his power hitting my walls of air like a fist pounding on a wooden door. I got my first good look at his face and saw it. A smear of blood coated his chin and lips.

I drew back, raising my gun, and for a moment our eyes met. The creature stared at me. Its shape was bathed in pink neon light, owning the stillness only the undead possessed. I stared back into predatory black eyes that lacked the heat of the chase and other primal instincts prone to animals. There was nothing but a cold certainty of death.

The world tipped and tilted as reality folded in on itself only to morph into something else. My vision was narrowed and distorted. Everything felt unreal. I was facing one of them, and I was alone. Fear detonated inside of me – mortal fear that reeked of decay and rot. Did the vampire see it in my brown eyes, or could it smell the fear on me like a cheap perfume?

The vampire moved with unnatural speed, and suddenly he was only two feet in front of me. I screamed and fired blindly only to stare into thin air the next moment. The vampire was faster than I anticipated. I never saw it coming. He struck with the force of a sledgehammer as his fist connected with the side of my head. Pain exploded behind my eyes. I went down and hit the ground.

There are no rules or action patterns where survival is concerned. Stronger? Smarter? Better? Doesn't mean a thing. All that counts is that you are the one coming out alive. I didn't know if I was going to survive this night, but I knew that it was either move or die. I let myself roll, crawling away from him clumsily only to end up in a half-crouch. I blinked away disorientation, scanning pink-neon-darkness. I couldn't see the vampire, at least not with my eyes. I closed them and reached for that switch inside.

Second sight slammed into me until the world was drenched in bleak grayness again. The dark smudge was right behind me. I whirled around in one smooth motion and shot twice. The hissing sound coming from the vampire confirmed that at least one bullet hit home. I shot again and again, emptying my clip. The vampire staggered back, stilled, and vanished in front of my eyes. I tensed, trying to see and sense what could not be sensed by human senses alone. He hadn't vanished. I knew better than to count on luck this night.

I closed my eyes again, focusing on the otherworldly vision of second sight. My breathing was erratic. My pulse jumped in my veins, spurred by panic and adrenaline. But all I could see was auratic gray around me. To my utter surprise I found that the vampire was gone. We were alone.

I shoved hair out of my face and turned around. My eyes couldn't seem to focus on the shape lying on the black asphalt.

"Maria!"

No response. I ran to her and dropped to my knees. Her eyes were closed. Her throat was ripped open, blood streaming down from the neck. I pressed my right hand on the wound, trying to ignore the sick sensation of red wetness on my fingers. I searched for her pulse on the other side, listening intently, but the violent beating of my own pulse covered anything I might have heard.

However, I didn't need to hear. I felt it. There was no pulse. She wasn't breathing.

The world slipped and faded away in the cold night air. Her body seemed to be colder than it should have been. I looked around wildly. There was nobody but me in that street.

I started resuscitation with the determination of the desperate. I pushed and pressed until my arms were numb, until tremors walked up and down my body in twos and threes. Until I gave up. I shouldn't have given up. So why did I? The answer to the question never came.

I think at first I talked to her. Then I screamed and yelled at her.

Too late. You're too late. A voice kept whispering the words over and over in my mind.

It took longer than it should have for the information to settle in. And once it did, I couldn't even stand hearing my own voice in my head. The taste of vomit started creeping up my throat, slowly arresting my mouth. I crawled away from her, throwing up violently.

I blinked past the tears, panting heavily once it was over. Sounds and perception, anything above my lungs heaving violently, came to me slowly. There was darkness all around me. I was kneeling in the deserted street – alone. My friend was dead. The past had repeated itself.

The power exploded, and my magic shot out like a tsunami – a vent for the desperation, the madness inside. I heard glass shatter around me and car alarm systems kicking off, without really caring. The tears came, ugly and hot. Nothing mattered.

* * *

I think part of me stayed there in that alley. Just as dead as she was.

Some things were essential to me, things I didn't even notice, but took for granted. The world I was living in was a dangerous one. Times were unstable, but I was living in my own microcosm of fake-safety and I liked it. All it took for that microcosm to shatter and implode was one night, one damn night.

People died. We all did. It was a universal law, but losing someone you cared about wasn't something you just got over. Death was too vast, too terrible and too overwhelming to simply accept and walk away from it. A part of my little world had been ripped out, and the realization of that hit me in waves and small doses.

I don't know how long I stayed in that numbed state of shock, how long I refused to look at what happened and what would happen once I dared face it. Maria was dead.

Our friendship started out in a weird way, but it was one of a kind. Maria was always the stronger one. Better in so many ways. She was the kickass witch that got into the Circle's Force, solving crimes, catching the bad guys, doing everything I dreamed of. I was the witch who remained in the academic field and told herself she liked it there.

I knew what would have happened if it was me dying out there in that alley. Maria would have done everything to bag the bloodsucker that killed me, and not give a damn who got in her way.

It took time, but the resolve manifested like smoke rising from ashes. I'd do what she'd have done. I stared at myself in the mirror, long and hard. I wasn't sure who or what I was seeing, but I picked myself up. Numbing my emotions. Becoming the witch that could have saved her.