Raving Moon, Lords of the Night Book One

Chapter 5: A Medusa Morning

I positioned us to keep my weapon from view of the train, and he went limp in my hand. A set of makeshift fangs fell from his mouth and through the crack between platform and train.

"Please, Praetor, I need... her," he whimpered. Someone had defanged him, a punishment used on traitors by the Greater Houses.

"You know what I am?"

"White Smoke." He used a name I hadn't heard in ages.

"Do you know me?" I asked, shaking him.

"No... not yet, but we will know... each other."

A strange sensation washed over me, like walking through a curtain of cold water and arriving somewhere I'd been before but couldn't place. Even as I tried to define it, it eluded description. I tossed the crippled vampire away from me and backed onto the train as the doors closed. I watched him crawl around on the ground as we pulled out of the station. Feeding was not against the law, but hunting in public was punishable. Repeat offenders were disciplined by their House. If that didn't work, they were left to the mercy of the thrones.

I could have taken his head, but something stayed my hand.

The train entered the darkness of the subway tunnel and I caught sight of my reflection in the window. I looked to be in my early thirties, but I'd seen nearly six centuries. My white hair sat in a neat afro atop my head, my eyebrows two caterpillars of the same color. Staring at myself I could see my mother's dark skin, her full nose, and wide mouth, but the eyes looking back at me were my father's. Those who knew him said I inherited none of his cruelty. They were wrong. His foul humors plagued me everyday, but I struggled to keep them in check.

His blue green eyes, my eyes, made it tough to separate myself from his legacy.

I shook off the dark thoughts closing in around me, and took a seat.

"Thank you so much, mister."

The woman I'd helped sat down across from me. She was young and doe eyed, with the bright disposition of a tourist or someone new to Gorgon City. If you stayed long enough, the city chipped away at that youthful exuberance until you either became something sharp and dangerous, or shriveled down to nothing.

"You're welcome."

"What was with that guy?" she asked, lowering her voice. "Was he off his meds or something?"

Her fear and confusion was a physical thing I could feel, something I could taste. I tried to look away, but I couldn't stop looking at her hands. My mouth suddenly felt dry.

"Wow... I think I'm bleeding."

I grabbed the seat, squeezing the metal to keep my hands busy. The smell of her blood quickly became overwhelming. I struggled to ignore it, but with every second the sirens song grew louder.

Michele, my beautiful boy, you have to eat. My mother's voice filled the air, thick in her native tongue.

I closed my eyes, but I could still sense the young woman, still feel the blood pulsing down her arm and out of the wound in her palm. The sound of the blood dripping to the ground rang in my ears louder than her prattling words.

Take her, coward. Drain her dry, add her life force to your own. The blood spoke with his voice, the voice of the monster who made me. Monster? You are the abomination. You're the monster who killed your mother. You're the animal who killed your own father!

My eyes flew open, and I could see him beside her, glaring at the carotid artery pulsing in her throat. Seeing that monster after so many years jump started my resolve. I could look at the blood, but that's all it was just blood, and blood couldn't control me. He faded as my willpower was restored.