Blood & Power [Book One of The City of Eternity Series] [✔]

1.23: Culmination

Despite the explosions roaring through the zone, the long line of defence in front of the main building barely flinched at each one. This, at the very least, was surprising, considering that the line of defence was mainly official workers who were desperately pleading with the enraged zone inhabitants to calm down; barely being kept alive by the line of soldiers behind them.

Those soldiers were doing a terrible job at keeping people alive, from what I could see, anyway. Even as I stepped through the entrance and was met with an even stronger aroma of death and blood mixed together with violent passion, all I could consider were the crushed bodies at the entrances to the zones. Those bodies belonged to vampires, werewolves, and humans alike, each with so much to live for, yet here they were, lifeless and empty of all hope of survival.

I couldn't help but focus on the little body in amongst them; the body of a small human boy who even in death was clutching desperately to the golden teddy bear in his arms adorned with a blue polka dot handkerchief around its neck - I had hoped it had been the force of bodies that had hurt this little boy, but the large chunk of skin bitten away from his shoulder told me that I was being optimistic. This little boy, one so undeserving of it, had been murdered. He had to have been thrown to the ground afterwards too, a wound forming on the back of his skull and pooling blood underneath.

Killed. Wiped away like it was nothing.

While the two species were still attacking each other in the back of the crowd, many at the front had focused their energy on the officials, screeches and cries could be heard all around as people fought for their lives. Those pleas were falling on deaf ears it seemed, as claws tore through arms and guts like soft butter.

I couldn't help but think of the first war as the sounds echoed around my head and ate into my ears. The horrifying screams of people that were too weak to defend themselves, the screams of people that hadn't known of our existence and didn't have any idea of what we could possibly do to them. There was no way to protect yourself from something you had no understanding of. How can you fathom protecting your life when something so strong, and so unfazed was willing to physically pick you up and throw you to the ground; all to feast on you?

I remember the first time. Now that I could see all of this in front of me, the memory charm that Nora had blessed me with had vanished, the memories that were already breaking through too much for the charm to handle. And it was all coming back to me now. The night that had changed me completely.

A group of us had gone to the surface, and after a while of roaming around and passing by reasonable snacks, we'd smelt something so divine and pungent; it had to have drawn us in all night, subtly pulling us to the complete opposite side of the city, Barewood, as it was called then. We'd broken into that house and forced our way through it, collecting the people inside and gathering them in the small living area they had.

I had been crazed. Even then, blood was such a delicacy to me. Every ounce of it I enjoyed mercilessly, gulping down every drop I could with little worry about the consequences. So when that small boy had stood in front of me with blood so pure, so fragrant, and so untouched, I couldn't help but lunge at him. My fangs had broken into his skin before the group had time to even fathom torturing this family; draining almost every drop from his small frame before I dropped him to the ground.

As I broke free, it didn't take me long to realise what I had done. Even with the way I was, I didn't touch children. Even now, I didn't have a reason why I had gotten so out of control; I wanted to say it was just excessive hunger from all the years underground, but I had no faith in that as a reason. I had stepped back and slid down the wall, watching the boy heave on the ground, pale, with his life slowly leaving him.