THE UNDYING | TWILIGHT

14. Acting Out

She went to her old house first, thinking Émile might've gone back there or, at the very least, Sophie was there and knew where Émile was. But nobody was there, nobody she knew anyway. Through the dusty windows, she saw strange people doing even stranger things and letting her house fall into ruin. They were hoarders, she guessed, of everything but mostly garbage, and the entire house smelled like a dumpster on a hot summer day. She had to plug her nose as she passed by the open door.

There was another place Émile frequented, an abandoned warehouse where he and lots of other men gathered to do business. Dahlia had only been there once, when she had to deliver a package on his behalf, and she never wanted to go again after that. It was a mean place full of angry-faced men who were rough and demanding. Terrible things they demanded, ungentlemanly things, things that made Dahlia shudder by just thinking about them.

She never made it to the warehouse, unfortunately, because she was stopped along the way by a group of men. They were ugly-faced, Dahlia thought, and unclean looking, like they hadn't bathed in months. She didn't like the look of them or the smell of them, so she didn't want to stick around, but they were very forceful, the group of them, closing in around her like a pack of mangy wolves.

"What's a pretty thing like you doing in this neighborhood?" one of them asked, and he was the ugliest of them all, with teeth that were yellow and rotten. The smell of his breath on her face made her stomach churn. "It's not safe, you know. Lots of dangerous people down here."

"I'm looking for someone," Dahlia said. "Émile. Do you know him?"

"Émile? Hmm, lemme think ... Frenchmen, right? Talks with a funny accent? Got a bit of a temper on him?"

Dahlia's eyes widened at his description. "Yes, that's him! Have you seen him around here lately?"

"Yeah, I've seen him. Saw him just yesterday, actually. He got into a bit of a scuffle with one of my boys, but he walked away from it just fine. A real tough one, that guy."

"Do you know where he is now?"

"I might. And I might even be a nice guy and tell you, but first I gotta know what I stand to get outta this. I don't give anything away for free."

"Well, what do you want? I'll give you whatever you want."

The man smirked. "Whatever I want?"

✧ ✧ ✧

In the dead of night, while the citizens of Volterra were fast asleep in their warm beds, Santiago crept into the dark alley to retrieve the decaying body of the woman from whom he'd earlier fed. He didn't like the thought of leaving her outside in the cold, leaving her without a proper burial and blessing. She didn't belong in a place like this, hidden in some dirty alley beneath a pile of smelly, rotten garbage. Nobody belonged in such a place. He would take her to the cemetery, as he did all his victims, and he would bury her in secret in an unmarked grave.

He went to her temporary resting place and began to lift away layer after layer of garbage. Upon removing the final layer, he was most shocked to find that the woman's body had mysteriously vanished.

"What's this?" Stepping back, Santiago frantically searched around the alleyway, wondering who had taken her corpse. Someone must have seen, he thought right away, but who?

As he pondered the many possible suspects, something started to stir in the shadows. It had been following him for a while, this thing, seeing yet never being seen, patiently biding its time in the darkness. Now, it was ready to reveal itself.

Slowly, it crept up behind the unsuspecting man, casting a great shadow that loomed over him like a giant.

Santiago sniffed the air. "I was wondering when you were going to come ..."