Dedicated to Sigrist for being an awesome reader, and for writing an awesome story - check him out!
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Lilly managed to talk her way into a suite on the twenty-third floor of a hotel downtown, about fifty miles from Sean. It was a perfect place for her because someone disappearing from a larger city was a common occurrence. No one would even know she was hunting or who she hunted.
The suite, she figured, was a great permanent home for her and was quite large. It had a single master bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen, and its own living room. The master bedroom consisted of one large circular bed in the center, multiple fancy wooden bed stands on either side of the bed and a large golden chandelier with eight pronged bulbs that hovered over the center of the bedroom. The deep red covers filled the room with soft, relaxing mood and flowed well with the creamy brown carpet.
Connected to the bedroom was a large bathroom, everything in it sparkled like new. The bathroom shined with fresh marble counters and two golden sinks side-to-side. A large mirror engulfed the wall above the sink and opposite the mirror was a massive bathtub adjacent to a glass shower. The shower’s granite tiles matched with the rest of the bathroom. The bathtub was its own mini Jacuzzi, it had hundreds of jets that could massage whomever was in the tub. The tub’s solid white color stuck out in the otherwise granite bathroom.
To the left of the bedroom if someone was entering the room was a connected living room through a double door entrance. The living room had a single large window overlooking the city on one side and the door to the hotel on the other. The room held a dark brown hardwood table with four chairs around it sitting on the same kind of carpet from the bedroom next to the window. Closer to the hotel door was granite tile that cascaded into the full kitchen.
The kitchen was directly across from the double door to the bedroom, on the other side of the living room. Inside the kitchen Was first a granite sink with a long silver faucet on the far left wall, , then a large fridge and freezer next to the sink full of snacks, drinks and even pre-cooked meals. Continuing to the right and into the corner that would be adjacent to the hotel hallway were several large wooden cabinets, each cabinet filled with even more food, some canned food, chips, candy, and anything else that didn’t need refrigeration. On the counter below the cabinets were a toaster and microwave, ready to be used.
Of course all the food and the room were free for her. She worked out a very decent deal with the manager. Lilly absorbed her new accommodations and spread herself out along the couch slightly behind the table and along the wall to the bedroom. Above her head was the hotel door and bedroom door, to the left and in the corner the kitchen, and directly across from the couch was a large off flat screen TV high enough on the wall to not be obstructed by the table. She stared over her feet at into the slightly darkening sky and at multiple other distant skyscrapers, enjoying the view. It wasn’t really a surprise to her when her silent homecoming was ruined by a familiar voice from the bedroom, “You being bossy again?” it drifted out of the room, along with light footsteps that trailed into the living room.
“I thought I told you to leave me alone,” Lilly threatened the voice without making any effort to move off the couch.
She heard shuffling on carpet and glanced up to see Pop pull one of the chairs out from under the table and sit down in it, “You know I won’t do that.”
“Go away!” she didn’t want anything to do with him, especially after he blew her off and left her with a body earlier that day, literally.
“What happened to the body? I went back to retrieve it and it was g-.”
“His blood was sweet.” She cut him off. She heard a soft thud on the carpet and pulled herself up into a seated position to see what he was doing. Pop had stood up and the chair was knocked over. “What? He asked me to bite him, something about a part of me, but I didn’t get what he meant… so I just drained him dry, he was alive too. I feel it tastes so much better when they are alive.”
Pop took two large steps, covering the ground between the fallen chair and the couch, and snatched Lilly by the shirt. He pulled her off the couch and began to lift her into the air. She spat at him and jumped, trying to get away.
She appeared in a dark alley at the bottom of the hotel. She only took a few steps before she heard his voice again. “You can’t hide.”
Lilly kicked at an old can, pissed off that he was able to follow her, and jumped again, this time further. She came out on a beach about forty miles from the hotel. She heard someone shuffle on the beach and spun around. “GO AWAY!” she roared at Pop, who was once again behind her. She jumped again.
This time she was in the desert over nine hundred miles from the beach. The hot gravel burned her bare feet. She didn’t care. Within an instant something hit her back and she was thrown onto the ground. Now Pop was on top of her and his hazel eyes drilled into her own black eyes. She tried to jump again, but couldn’t. He managed to block her powers again.
“Look,” he started, staring intently into her eyes, “I need you. I’m invisible on this world and you’re not. I’m a closed case, trapped; they gave me a choice stay or go home and before I choose someone else did for me, and it wasn’t what I wanted. Now you’re the only way to call for help. For my help. I don’t give a shit what you do, how you do it, or what it causes. I just want to get home.” He tightened his hold on her shoulders and pushed her harder into the scolding hot gravel, “Now, I could move right now and let the sun boil you alive, watch you die. Or you could work with me, and help me get home.”
He must of known she had a soft spot for the sun ever since the suicide, perhaps jumping to the desert wasn’t one of her best ideas. “What do you want?” she begrudgingly responded.
“That’s better,” he smiled. In a blink, they were back in the hotel, Pop still on top of her. He got off and she quickly stood up trying her best to scrape the scolding gravel off her legs and arms. She could already feel light sunburns on her hands and neck from her short trip to the desert. “I know we got off on the wrong foot, but I’m a friend… what did the man say?”
“Who was he?” she asked.
“A wizard.”
“Oh,” she knew the wizard person was an important figure to Pop, so she started explaining, “Just that he mustn’t fail, he doesn’t want to die, his mission wasn’t complete and that she -” she considered her words, “I assume she was me. Must not stay here, that ‘we’ must get back. Then he babbled on about how I could save him, ‘Bite me, suck my blood then give me a part of you.’” Pop nodded his head as if he understood the meaning of the statement, “Do you know what it means?” Lilly asked, noting his nod.
“Yes.”
“What?”
Pop lifted a single finger and pointed it at her forehead. He moved in and touched her forehead with a light sting following. “Ouch!” Lilly jumped back a step.
“If you have questions, or need to find me think of a forest painted red. It may take a few jumps to get to me—but you’ll know when you’re there.” He disappeared, leaving her unanswered question.
Lilly wasn’t done with him. She was interested in what he knew. Forest painted red? Hell, she was going to follow him—it was probably his intention anyway.
Without further consideration she jumped with a forest painted red in mind. She appeared in the desert again, the blistering sun stung against her bare skin. With her being so intent on finding answers she forgot to place on her protective clothing. Her pale skin was exposed to the sun via a short sleeve shirt, while her legs were covered by jeans she always wore. Deciding not to retrace her jump she jumped for the forest again.
More desert. She jumped again … Grass. Jump … a beach; she had no idea where she was anymore. Jump … she was on the outskirts of some city, looking down at it from upon a hill; she didn’t recognize it. Jungle. More jungle. Grass. Trees. Every jump the scenery around her changed. After several more jumps she was on a cliff overlooking the fearsome ocean. The weather had changed from the sizzling desert to a brewing storm; drops of rain began crashing down from the clouds and colliding with the upset water.
She jumped again. She appeared falling through the clouds, it was now pouring rain. The storm tore the ocean below into twenty foot seas; heavy rain soaked her in seconds. She closed her eyes and kept thinking of the forest, she jumped again. In the air again, more stormy weather, jump, she was still falling, but the weather cleared.
Another jump … she was on solid ground again, ice. She heard a crack and felt herself start falling once more, this time with the ice. Jump … ice was in every direction. She paused to catch her breath, so many jumps at once chilled her to the bone. Her temperature had a hard time recovering and the thoroughly cold weather wasn’t helping. She was used to single jumps, the chill with them was quick and left in seconds, but now she lost count of how many jumps she did—her entire body ached.
Jump, more ice. She felt she was getting close. She tried to overcome the freezing ache in her head, thinking of the warm desert.
Jump. She felt herself blacking out, the ice and the chilling headache too much. Her eyes were unable to focus on anything and black figures floated around her as her body spun trying to maintain standing.. She shivered uncontrollably, but to her surprise she didn’t feel the expected chill from the icy terrain. It felt warm, heated. Her eyesight slowly came into focus. She discovered she was bent over her knees, slowly the ground come into clarity. It was brown, dirt?
She looked up from the dirt and saw a large round poll that shot into the air. No, it was a tree, a red tree. A plastic tree. She shifted her head from left to right and saw more, hundreds of them. A plastic red forest? She stumbled over to one of the larger tree trunks and pushed up against it. She slid down the tree and her bottom landed on the ground. She needed to recover.
She concentrated on slowing her breathing. Her body warmed up. Once she felt she’d recovered enough to wonder about she stood up. She looked up towards the sky and saw some kind of plastic roof far above, the green plastic leaves well below the rooftop. The trees were all a decent size and made completely out of plastic, right down to their leaves. As Lilly turned in a complete circle she saw one edge of the forest.
The dark brown dirt was overtaken by snow and ice that refused to enter its boundaries. It was curious how the roof stayed above the plastic forest without any sign of supports or surrounding walls. Deciding she had enough cold weather for one day, Lilly turned away from the snow and trekked deeper into the plastic mass. The trees were organized in several large circles around some focal point—she decided to head for the middle.
The bright red trees where an eyesore. Who would make this forest? And where is she? She pondered while moving closer to the middle. Finally, the center. It opened up to a perfect sphear that was at least one hundred yards across. The center was domed in by the plastic leaves that unnaturally curved into it, but was empty, just dirt.
She stepped into the empty sphere. It was like she stepped through a horizontal wall of water, the center transformed into a single massive building before her. The building was as wide as the center of the forest and had a large dome roof. She admired the roof, noticing the sudden inability to see the leaves that once engulfed it. The roof was white with hundreds of odd engravings bulging out of its marble. The massive dome was completely carpeted and had seven large boxed rooms plopped in random places.
Two of the boxes lined the far wall—each with ten foot roofs and around twenty feet wide. The wooden doors to these rooms were shut. The rest of the spread out rooms were open. One of the rooms a few feet off the center of the dome looked like a kitchen, while two more near one of the far walls with a small hallway between each of them looked like a dining room and a bedroom. She moved further into the building, its soft carpet felt good against her naked feet. She glanced over her shoulder, there was a solid marble wall behind her, it appeared as if she walked right through it.
She walked across the vast empty space on her side of the dome and towards the center to enter the final room which was about five feet from the almost-centered kitchen. Inside the room a big screen TV was on and she could see a head coming up over the top of a couch in front of it. The head bent back over the edge of the sofa and looked out into the doorway, “So, how do you like my place?” Pop asked.
“Its … fine,” Lilly replied, still in awe of the confusing structure he somehow created.
“I may add more in when it’s needed but until then, this is fine.”
Lilly peered over at the TV; she recognized the location it was frozen at, a sky view of the field she encountered the wizard at. She could tell it wasn’t paused—occasionally a bird would fly by the picture or a person will walk on the sidewalk near one of the edges of the camera. What was he doing watching the field? “What is this place?” She asked instead.
“The South Pole.”
“No one knows about it?”
“Because I wish for no one to see it, just like your buddy couldn’t see me.” He lifted his head off the back end of the couch and stood up. He snatched the remote off one of the armrests and flicked the TV off. Pop turned back around and started for the door, Lilly backed out of it and out of his way. “So you came, what do you want to know?” he shrugged as he exited and headed for the neighboring kitchen.
She looked around the obscure building once more and asked, “What am I?”
“Now, that’s a very good question.” He entered the kitchen and opened the fridge. It was empty. He shook his head and vanished only to reappear a few second later with a jug of milk and a few cookies. The labels where in some foreign language she didn’t understand, they looked like some kind of Eastern language, like Japanese or Chinese.
Pop opened a cabinet above the tile counter next to the fridge. It was also empty. He stuck in hand into the empty cabinet and somehow pulled out a glass cup. He set the cup on the counter and poured a glass of milk. Afterward he opened the empty white fridge and stuck the milk on one of its shelves allowing the fridge to close on its own.
Before drinking he began, “You’re a Darth.” He took a sip of the milk and headed for the door. He walked back into the living room with the TV and couch and continued, “Darth’s are not from around here. No, they came to this planet around 10,000 BC. A crash landing after their first discovery of intelligent life other than their own.” He sat down on the couch and waved his hand towards a reclining chair that was near him.
Lilly didn’t remember the chair being there when she first entered the room. She sat in the recliner and turned it so that her back was to the TV. Pop snatched the remote and turned it on before continuing, “There was about one hundred that survived from the crew of thousands. Technology on earth at the time made it impossible for them to rebuild and leave, so they decided to live out their lives in isolation. They decided no interaction with the intelligent species already living on the planet so they would die out without affecting the planets evolution. Somehow though—one or multiple of the Darth’s male-only survivors didn’t follow this rule and had children with the locals—humans.
“Darth DNA always spreads to its offspring, but it got buried so deep within the human population that it almost never gets activated. Now, twelve thousand years after their landing, well over ninety-five percent of the human population has the Darth gene somewhere in their DNA, but that’s just the first part. It’s still not active or even accessible. Yet on a few rare occasions and when I say rare I mean one in a million people, a person is born with the Darth gene accessible. It’s complete enough to actually work. But still, that is accessible, not yet activated.
“So, first you have to be one of the ninety five percent that has the gene. Second you need to have the gene complete enough to even give it a chance to work. And finally you have to make it needed. The only way to ‘need’ the gene is by getting killed in a non-natural yet recoverable way anywhere during its active phase—the ages of eighteen and twenty-four. Even more specifically, you need to be killed during the prime-phase of the gene’s active state to ensure the highest chance it’ll work. That prime-phase is a small window of two to six months during the active state that normally happens once a year.
“In other words,” he paused for a moment, looked over Lilly, took another sip of his drink, “the odds of a Darth actually appearing are very slim. Out of the thousands of potential’s there are currently only five—” he paused and thought about his numbers, “four Darth’s in the world now.”
“So, there are others like me out there?” “No. None of them are like you.”
“I’m different?”
“That’s an entire different aspect of the Darth—their ‘blood sucking’ ability. This part of the Darth became obsolete thousands of years ago, after the civilization modernized. There was no longer a need to hunt using the blood sucking so the power recessed. Every Darth gets their power, but if it’s not used in two to three weeks of it being prevalent it recedes, and never comes back. But there is a catch to even this. The power is only around for two to three weeks of being a Darth, and normally when one first becomes a Darth. This is a huge problem with ever activating a power in the modern Darth-world. A pure-bred Darth, in other words the entire civilization, is born a Darth.”
“Ah!” Lilly cut Pop off, “So most Darths don’t suck blood!”
“Most.” Pop let the word linger for a bit, “Their ability is around when they are too young to think for themselves and it vanishes. But still some Darths still find their power in that short time.”
“They bite someone when they are infants?”
“No, they don’t have teeth that young! That particular power is the easiest to discover at birth but also impossible to be able to use, the teeth won’t ever grow in, they will lose it before their first tooth. It hasn’t existed in Darth-lore for over ten-thousand years.”
“Not all Darths have fangs?” “No, none have fangs. The most common ability found in Darth society today is the leach, the power to unknowingly suck single atoms of blood from anything and everything around them. Back in the primitive Darth societies these would be the leaders because they never had a need to eat and fed off everything around them, while the ones with fangs—like you—would be the hunters. The leachers today are easy to find. You just need to find the one who can eat, but is never really hungry. They won’t kill anything because the process is too slow and whatever they leach off of will reproduce the blood far faster than the drain it, but if ever trapped on a desert island they would be the last to die or the ones found years later, living off the blood of small animals and insects.
“Thus you are different, because the ability has to be used during the first few weeks of being a Darth—and you used the teeth as soon as they finished developing. Those fangs are there to stay, forever, and may be the first in a long, long time. As far as I know the other three Darths on Earth have the normal abilities: increased eyesight, hearing, speed. While two of them can teleport.” Pop stood and looked around, now holding an empty glass, searching for the cookies. It didn’t take long for him to realize he got milk and cookies, then left the cookies in the kitchen. Pop left the room leaving Lilly to pounder in the chair. He returned a little while later with more milk and the cookies. said he took a bite out of a cookie and said, “Well, that’s enough history for one day. Anything else you need to know?” He sat back down in his spot on the couch.
“What did the wizard mean?” This question was, after all, the reason she came.
“Darths, the ones with fangs being the best at it, can actually embed their DNA into a person’s body and overtake or steal their body. The odds are slim, the chance of a common cold killing someone, but the Darths adapted to that problem a long time ago. If you sucked the majority of the blood out, but not kill them, it makes taking over their body easy to take over—because it’s so weak. The hard part is stopping the stealing of blood and sharing some of your own.”
Lilly cracked a smile, this guy was a fountain of knowledge. She wanted to know more about him, but was afraid to ask. She had this feeling he was ignore the question, turn her away, or lose his sharing mood if she asked. He had avoided all her previous attempts at learning something about him. She wanted to at least know his name, but knew it was impossible to ask… “One more,” Lilly take a stab at another question, “What about the undead?”
“What?”
“The ghouls?”
“Ghoul?”
“You know like zombies! The undead guys.”
“Yes, I know what they are—but what about them?”
“If I don’t take all the blood from a body it comes back as undead, it tried to kill my boyfriend Sean, but I stopped it.”
“Bodies coming back? No, that shouldn’t be possible—a bite from a Darth means nothing except the loss of blood, they almost never kill that would make no sense, because that meant having to find more food.”
He didn’t know about them. If the fountain of knowledge didn’t know about them does that mean they’re not a Darth ability? Or does it mean it’s something outsiders never discovered out about Darths? Maybe they were forgotten lore that hasn’t been achieved for thousands of years? “Well, that’s enough for today; I may come back when I have any other questions.” Lilly answered her most important question, and was getting bored with Pop’s monologues. She decided he liked monologues, she was probably the only person the poor guy can to talk too, he looks pretty lonely out in the middle of the… South Pole.
“How are you getting home?” he asked, smiling from his position on the couch.
“Umm, teleport?”
“How?”
“I’ll just go back the way I came.”
“Oh.”
Lilly jumped, she looked around, black smoke. She was still in the living room. What the hell? She tried again, but yet again landed right back where she started. Why wasn’t she going anywhere?
“You can’t go back the way you came.” Pop told her after she tried yet another failed attempt. “You won’t ever remember the way back. That way you can’t find where ‘here’ really is.”
Lilly growled under her breath and swore at no one in particular, one day she’s going to figure this guy out. “Then how do I get back home.” She glared right into his eyes.
He met her black eyes with a soft look and lifted one of his hands, setting the half empty glass of milk on the armrest of the couch. “Like this!” he touched her and she was gone. He stretched his arms over his head and glanced around the living room, thinking, maybe 2,000 feet in the air was a bit too much?
***
Wind slapped against her face. She was sent hurling down. Lilly forced herself into a spin to try and see what was below her—she was heading towards several large buildings. Lilly closed her eyes and tried to jump for her room, hoping the city below was the one she thought it was.. The harsh wind stopped. She opened her eyes and was back in her suite. It worked. Even with his kind explanations Pop somehow still managed to prove he was, indeed, an asshole. Sending her hurling down thousands of feet above the city?, Terrible.
Lilly patted down her hair getting the ‘falling from the sky’ look out of it and walked through the bedroom to the bathroom. One glance in the mirror and she came to a conclusion—she needs to make a note to ALWAYS cover up. Her arms, feet, and face where all a cherry red. She knew her entire body was going to hurt in the morning. She turned to the oversized bathtub then glanced out into the master bedroom. Her clothes from ‘moving in’ were still on its edge. She needed a nice long bath; she glanced at her sizzled arms, a cold bath.
After her cold, uninterrupted bath and a few days of sunburn recovery Lilly decided she needed her hair redone. She still loved red highlights but the current highlights where so faded she could swear they’re no longer red, but rather an off brown, almost blending into her natural black hair.
It wasn’t hard to find a barber shop to do what she wanted, free of charge of course. She had her same old highlights renewed with several deep, bright red streaks, mainly towards the front, but several on the back as well.. Instead of going directly back to the hotel room She decided to stroll along the streets, it didn’t take long for her to find something of interest within the small downtown shops.
Less than a block from the barber shop Lilly came across an odd shop a medieval shop—the bold red-lettered signs strapped to the windows said everything in the store was in fact, real. She wondered in, if their sign was true she wouldn’t mind picking up something.
The shop was eerie and dark. It had black concrete flooring with excessively polished wooden racks that wielded tons of shiny medieval items. She passed by full body armor, several medieval swords, an array of flails, and chainmail. Every item was made of sparkling silver steel with the flails having burnished wooden handles. Everything was expensive.
She stopped at the chainmail, it intrigued her. She looked at several different sets of chainmail, some sets were just the body while others went as far as the legs. Some looked as if they could fit an infant while others an eight foot man. She didn’t know there was still a market for such outdated armor, but apparently its age and mark on history made it an expensive collectable.
She waved down one of the two employees’ in the store—he came up to her and rattled off his routine introduction, “Hello, welcome to Middies the best medieval shop and showcase for a thousand miles. How can I help you?”
“Do you make these here?” She pointed at the chainmail.
“No ma’am, are you interested in any? All armor and weapons are made off-site and shipped here.”
“Can you make custom orders then?”
“What would you like?”
Lilly considered what she wanted, then told him, “I want a chainmail … cape.” she considered her own height, and if she wanted it to drag or be just above the ground. Then she figured that if it went down to her feet the metal would knock against her legs and hurt. She can fix that later. “Make it this long,” she pointed at her butt. “Also, can you put fabric into it? Like, woven cotton? I want a real tight weave so that it’s thick enough to hide the metal and so the metal doesn’t make a rattling sound. I also want the cloth part of the cape to go further. Make it long enough to go down to my ankles. Oh, and one more thing. I want the metal to be stained black, that black you get from burning metal, completely black to blend with the black cloth.”
“What an interesting idea. Yes, we could make that it would take around fourteen days to craft and ship it. We link, weld, and polish all chainmail by hand—and staining will take around two days. Come over to the counter so we can fill out the paperwork and give you an estimate on the piece.” Once they moved to the counter he wrote down the specifications while she repeated exactly what she wanted.
A few measurements later he finalized the paper work and turned it around for Lilly to sign. Before he let her sign it he asked, “So, this looks like a dark piece you fight for the dark side? What battle ground do you go to? I’ve never seen you at the local one.”
She smiled at him. Lilly had no clue what he was talking about, “I’m not from around here.” She pulled the pen off the counter and signed the paper taking a quick glance at its cost. Twelve hundred and forty dollars, expensive. She knew the rules from sign on the counter, ‘all payments must be paid in full before a custom design is commissioned.’ She glanced at the employee and said, “I’ll bring the money in when it’s completed, I tend not to carry my money around the city—would hate to get pickpocketed.” The employee nodded as if he understood and she walked out of the store.
***
Lilly didn’t let the next fourteen days pass away slowly. She was back at Pops hideout almost every day, and when she wasn’t at his place she was trying out new tricks. He said she could give her blood to someone else by the teeth—that she can take over someone’s body permanently. She wanted to find out how. But failed attempt after failed attempt resulted in more dead bodies. Good thing she snatched her victims and killed them hundreds of miles away from the city, no one would ever find her.
The fourteenth day arrived; it was the day she was to pick up her cape. But not yet, she first went to Pop’s. He said he wanted her today, it was something important. When she made it to his secret forest she shock off the shivers and walked causally into his invisible house. Someone else was with him. Pop was leaning up against the wall to the kitchen in the center of his dome building. He had long pants on for the first time since she met him but maintained a t-shirt with it. Next to him was a tied up man—the man struggled uselessly against the tight rope and gag. “I would like you to meet my friend.” Pop grabbed the man’s hair and yanked it up, forcing him to look at Lilly.
“What’s going on?” Lilly asked looking at the bound man. He had blood running down his face over a tight and well placed clear tape and sock gag. Several fresh cuts lined his forehead and sideburns. The man no longer had a shirt on but she could see the shredded pieces scattered amongst the floor. More light scratches and scars covered his bare chest. It looked like the guy got into a fight, and lost badly.
“He’s the perfect example of what happens when you try to go against me. His ‘organization’ killed a wizard that was going to take me home not only once! But twice! He’s not going to talk either, so I’ll let you have him.” Pop let go of the man’s hair and let his head flopped back down, hitting the carpet. “I want you to bite him suck a little but not kill. You claim you can raise the undead with your bites. I want to see it.”
Lilly looked at the poor man, “Okay!” she loved the bite and if an opportunity came to her she would never turn it down.
Deciding it best not to mention the mess it normally makes Lilly advanced, she decided for the first time to not to use her controlling aura, there was no point in wooing him into submission since he was already bound. Lilly stopped; her body towering over the man huddled against the floor, and tilted her head down. Her still fresh hair flowed over her face and skimmed the top of his head. She bent down further and reached out her hand to snatch his chin. She felt her beanie slide off her head as she tightened her grip on his jaw and pulled his face up to look at it.
He was worn out and didn’t make much effort to fight her. Looks like Pop gave him quite the beating. “Hello.” Lilly smiled down at the man. She leaned in closer, her hair brushed against his bloodied face. The blood stuck to her hair. Lilly hadn’t found out how to do a clean bite anyways, somehow she always managed to end up covered in blood.
The man kicked at her. His foot skimmed her leg. She pulled her body back and slapped him as hard as she could across the face. It was an instinctive reaction, her slap so strong it knocked the man onto the ground, his tied hands scrapped across the carpet leaving a trail of torn skin and frayed rope behind him. Before the man even had a chance to take a breath she jumped right on top of him and lunged down for his throat without letting the smoke clear.
She her teeth cleanly slid into his throat—the man struggled to pull her off with new found power. Resistance, Lilly smiled, that’s new this is the first time she’s bit someone that wasn’t under her control after all. His eyes watered as she squeezed her jaw tighter, making sure her teeth were in position. Did it hurt that much? He squirmed under the ropes and gag desperately trying to break free. Lilly felt the delicious pre-suck liquid fill her mouth, but she held it in, she didn’t want to give him any yet.
Lilly concentrated on holding the liquid in her mouth, swishing it around with her tongue—it was by far the best part of biting someone. She lifted one of her hands off its firm position on the ground and grabbed at the tape on the man’s mouth, she wanted to hear him scream. Hear him die. She needed it, wanted it. She pried her fingers under the tape and yanked at it. It was tight to his face, she pulled at it more until it slid in his spit and was yanked all at once free from his mouth. She then forced the sock out of his mouth to hear exactly want she wanted, his screams. His deep voice bounced off the hallow walls of the building. It was music to her hears. She never saw Pop cringing at the man’s deathly roar just feet behind her.
She heard a rip. Her eyes shifted from his face to his body. She saw his arms coming up. It looks like he managed to break out of the ropes. She had to act quickly; she didn’t want this man’s thrashing to hurt her. Lilly let the liquid go just as his strong arms made contact with her back and his battered hands dug into her hair.
The draining of his blood started the second the liquid finished entering his body. Instead of feeling the forceful pull of her hair that she expected she felt nothing. His tight hold instead loosing and his struggling pull instantly became weak.
She pulled her teeth out of his neck and quickly backed away letting the gaping holes fling their blood over the carpet. She opened her mouth and let the blood that had built up in it flow out of her mouth landing at her feet—this man wasn’t even worth it. She closed her mouth and swished her saliva around, trying to rinse out the blood. After she swallowed she wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her black jacket. The blood wasn’t noticeable on it anyways.
Pop finally moved from his position leaning against the wall to the kitchen. He walked closer to the body, expecting something to happen. They both waited.
The running blood slowly stilled its explosive exit and was quickly absorbed by the carpet. Just like Germdols it sat up after a few minutes. Lilly was prepared for it this time. “Stand up and don’t move.” She ordered the newborn ghoul. It stood up and then froze. The scar’s the man had turned white while the rest of the skin was had the normal gray flappy texture. The gray, cold, wet, and boney appearance matched Germdols. Pop glanced over at Lilly, so she told him, “It won’t move, I told it not to. I have to or else the thing will try to get away or kill anything it sees.”
He went up and admired it, touched it. The skin was cold. Then he moved to the mouth—he stuck his fingers into the mouth and pulled away the lip. The teeth had grown rapidly, where jagged, and had a wicked tint of yellow. After a few more circles around the ghoul he said to Lilly, “This isn’t from a Darth,” he backed away from the Ghoul, “what did you see when you died?”
That question flooded Lilly’s mind with answers, she recalled exactly what happened but didn’t want to tell her story to him. She never wanted to tell anyone what happened when she died, she didn’t want to drag anyone into her deepest secrets. To drag them into the monstrous deal she made. She had to tell him something though. “Terrible things.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to say.”
“So you saw something then? I saw nothing.”
“What?” Lilly noticed Pop let something slip. Saw nothing?
Pop realized what he said then tried to cover his tracks, “What? You really thought you’re the only walking dead?” Pop pulled off his shirt, he decided that if he let it slip he may as well show her too. His chest, Lilly noticed, had a tight knot of stringy skin. It looked like thousands of small veins all congregated in a small two inch circle. She also noticed the similar, smaller mass in the center of his neck.
But the mass of veins wasn’t what he pointed at. He turned around and reached one of his hands down his bare back. He scratched at the skin leaving white marks behind. The white marks turned red as he continued scratching at the same spot. His nail caught something—a flap. He stopped and forced his thumb under it. Once he had his thumb firmly under the skin flap he tightened his grip and pulled the flap down.
As the flap slowly peeled away it left a slimy residue behind. Lilly couldn’t move. Was she really seeing this? There were thousands, no millions of veins of varying sizes and colors in a perfect circle under the large skin patch. Some of them where large enough to stick a finger in while others so small they looked like a thousand multi-colored pixels. Some of the veins looked active, green and white puss ran out of them. He let go of the flap and it rolled itself back onto his back covering the exposed veins. The edges of the skin patch instantly started to fuse with his skin, hiding the crease.
“One foot in diameter,” he said in a firm voice. “It’s what happens when you try to make friends with monsters.”
Lilly wasn’t sure if he was talking about her, or someone else. She decided it was best not to ask. So, he died once too and also has visual inhuman qualities. It was good to know, but no use to her.
“Does it remember its thoughts from before you turned it into a ghoul?” Pop asked, putting his light blue shirt back on.
It took a while for Lilly to realize what he was talking about, “I don’t know.”
Pop pulled a small bracelet out of his pocket and told her, “Tell it to go back its organization’s hidden base.” Pop walked back over to the ghoul and clipped the bracelet tightly to its wrist, “And tell it not to take that off.”
“Hey! You! Go back to your base, and don’t you dare take that off your wrist. Do what the nice man says,” she pointed at Pop.
It tilted its head lightly and sped off, she could see it leave but wasn’t so sure Pop could. He waited a moment and disappeared. The bracelet was a tracker.
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