I hurried through the fortress, trying to keep the noises I made to a minimum. I had seen only a couple of humans since darkness fell and I could only assume that they were hiding in their sleeping quarters, hoping desperately that their bloodsucking masters would leave them undisturbed for another night.
Moving forward, my eyes did what they could by the light of the flickering torches on the stone walls, while my ears attuned to the silence around me. Bloodsuckers were quiet when they wanted to be, and could sneak up suddenly, so I was sure to check behind me frequently so it would not get a jump on me.
Doubts began to cloud my mind. Perhaps I would have been wiser to try to get more information out of that leech Dana before I took it out. It had seemed inclined to play and I could have used its overconfidence to my advantage if only I had been thinking. It would have known if there were other leeches currently in residence.
There was no changing what I had done. I focused instead on the dark corridors. I had not spent a lot of time with her at night when I had stayed there, but even when I had found her in the kitchen in the capital or seen her in her windowless chambers, there had been sources of light. I had not questioned it at the time, but perhaps she kept the lights on in deference to human sight rather than because she preferred it herself.
Would my quarry be sitting in darkness like the black-eyed demon I knew it to be, or would it use light? If it did, perhaps it would be easier to locate, and it would certainly be to my advantage to meet it when I could see properly.
I decided to throw caution to the wind and I removed one of the torches from the wall and carried it with me. Perhaps it would make me stand out, but there were so few humans now that darkness had fallen that I was not overly worried about discovery by them. If I chanced to be unlucky enough to be spotted by it first, I would deal with that when the time came.
I scoured every inch of the fortress lair that I could find without any luck. There were clearly hidden chambers where they would spend the daylight hours, but finding those would be of no benefit to me now. I considered my options. If Jack found the remains of the leech I had staked before I found it, it would be on its guard, if the demon leech was even here at all.
Or, I could try to get it to find me.
My lack of time thrummed with the beat of my heart in my ears as I made my way back to the hallway were I had first snuck into the fortress. I set the torch I had stolen back into the sconce on the wall and I continued on in the semidarkness of the halls. Soon, I was back where I intended to go and I readied myself to convince a vampire that I was needy and nonthreatening.
"Master? Excuse me?" I called out as I began to move back into the fortress as if I was entering for the first time.
I continued walking along with the most nervous gait I could manage while saying things so pitiful that they turned my stomach.
"Master?"
I tried to summon my Marcel impression, but even he would probably balk at this sort of attitude for anyone but his mistress. His dedication to her made more sense in retrospect of her surprising goals. I bet he would be just as eager to stake another vampire at her command as I was to finally get my knife into Jack.
Even my repulsive acting did not summon forth the demon. My dismay at not finding it built with each second my pathetic display went unanswered. I wandered out through the halls into the wide inner courtyard that I had not dared to visit during the day.
I tried again, "Master? I only beg a second of your time."
Maybe, instead of wasting my time looking for that demon, I should have cleaned up and hidden Dana's remains. If I were fortunate she might be the sort of unreliable vampire who they would assume had simply left to see to her own amusements rather than guarding her sire's lair while he was gone.
I decided I would try a bit longer and when that failed I would go back and do just that. With the emptiness of this place there was a good chance she had not yet been discovered, and then I could attempt to hide again and wait for another chance.
"Master?" I called as I walked further into the courtyard. By the light of the half moon, I could see well enough to make out that the courtyard was largely paved with stone. A fountain stood at the center, although the water was still and smelled stagnant. There were also structures filled with dirt and dead plants clung to the soil, long since having given up the fight for survival.
Like the master of the fortress lair, this courtyard held only death.
"Is anyone here?" I asked, and the response was the lightest scruff of sole against stone. I whirled around to see who had heard me.
"Are you the master of this fortress? I crave a word with the one who rules here," I said, keeping my head lowered as much as I could while still eyeing the one who had answered my summons.
"Not the master, but a master," it responded in a low oily voice that made my skin crawl like it was covered in insects.
I could not remember the voice that belonged to the face in my mind or if I had even heard him talk in those moments in which he had killed Melissa, but this voice seemed to fit into my memories in a way that no other bloodsucker's had done before.
"Why did you come here, human?" it asked, stepping closer.
"I was hoping to find work in exchange for food, Master," I said, trying to keep my voice weak and subservient when all I wanted to do was go for its chest.
"You don't seem desperate enough to beg from vampires, human. You're in shockingly good condition. Where do you hail from?" he asked as he began to stalk around me, eyeing me while he moved, his voice melodious as if he were attempting to force my mind. I forced myself not to grit my teeth.
"I've been in the wilderness for years, but I've grown tired of it," I told him, the leech's control still powerful in my mind in spite of his attempts.
I got a glance at his face in the moonlight, and the confirmation jolted my heart. It was him, blood around his mouth likely from his poor victim of the night. Here was the monster from my nightmares, the face of death from my memories, standing next to me, so close I could reach out and finally finish him off. At last.
I could not afford to mess it up. My heart pounded.
"I don't quite believe you, human. Something is off."
I tried to calm my excitement and my nervousness. I inhaled some calming air. I exhaled my pride. "You're right, Master. Apologies. I want to earn the right to become a vampire."
He laughed, as if I had said something amusing, but I did not care about his insults or his arrogance, only that my words had distracted him from wondering what he was missing in my story.
Then he fixed those disgusting dark eyes on me and he stepped forward.
"Oh, you humans, so breakable yet so quick to get out of line. The fact that you think any vampire would willingly even consider your desires is the height of hubris, human." He laughed again, moving around me like a cat slinking around its helpless prey.
I knew the helpless feeling of being prey, but I also knew how to push back those lies. I did not try to control my body's response to the threat because it would keep him underestimating me, but my mind focused on the leach moving ever closer to me while he mocked my human weakness.
"I'll tell you how this is going to go, human. I just fed, and so I am going to lock you in the dungeon until I am hungry again. And then I am going to feed on you. And then I will lock you up again, and feed, and so on, until you're a shell of the human you believe yourself to be. And then, when that's done, I will decide whether to turn you or kill you."
"Very well, Master," I said.
He moved closer to me still. I could barely see its malevolent face with its back to the moon, but I did not need light to remember the expression on its face as it threw Melissa's lifeless body to the ground.
I did not need the moon to hear his next whispering song, "And just so you're not disappointed, human, I'm not going to turn you. You will die, when I am done, because you are worth nothing."
I did not need the sun to turn this demonic bloodsucker to ash. I grabbed the hidden hunting knife and rammed it into his chest. It took more force to get it in there than when I had killed the female bloodsucker because it hit his ribs at a bad angle, but I pushed it in.
"Or maybe, leech, it's you who will die, when I am done."
It shrieked and cursed and tried to move, but the knife in its heart did its work and weakened it almost instantaneously. Finally, it bit its fangs into my neck in some vain attempt to wound me or to perhaps steal my own energy for itself, but it was too late, because I could feel it losing its vigor by the second. I shoved the leech off of me and followed its body to the ground, my hand still on the borrowed knife in its chest.
I withdrew the blade and black blood welled up in the wound. I plunged the knife into him a second time, and a third, and a fourth, and then more times until I lost count. Then finally, first the blood that was pouring from him began to dry and shrivel to dust, and then the wound itself did the same, and then the body that I had not yet assaulted followed its heart into ash.
And I was alone in the dead courtyard with only a pile of ash as my witness to my justice.
Joy and disbelief warred in my mind. She was avenged, and all the rest of my family, my people, as well, but it still seemed nearly impossible that it might be true.
But it was true. The demonic son of a bitch, Jack, was finally and completely dead. There was no bringing him back. He would never hurt another human again.
I wanted to shout my triumph, but the thought reminded me that I was still deep within the bloodsucker's fortress lair, and I still did not truly know if the two bloodsuckers I had staked were the only ones there at the moment. I had to go.
Blood rushing, body shaking, mind struggling to comprehend that I had finally done it, I swiftly snuck away.