ALL NOVEL 51
Blacke observed the Josh boy. He sat in the driver’s seat of a large grey SUV as the teenager wandered from the house to the small coupe parked in their driveway.
This was probably going to be Blacke’s only chance to do this quietly. He opened the door and stepped out, nothing more than a gentle tap sound accompanying the movement. And then he moved, fast and light.
Josh didn’t even flinch as he approached, completely unaware he was in danger; completely unaware that someone had actually wanted him dead, not just hurting and maimed.
It made it even easier for Blacke. The boy was rummaging through the backseat of the coupe, looking for something, annoyed that he couldn’t find it when Blacke struck. It wasn’t a violent death. It was actually quite quiet. Blacke clapped a hand over the mouth and nose, cutting off the air supply and then found his grip on the neck as the boy was distracted by trying to claw his face free. With a strong grip and a practiced twist, there was a quiet pop as bones dislocated and then the unpleasant feeling of cartilage rubbing against cartilage as the spinal cord pulled apart.
The boy went limp as everything below that vertebrae in his neck lost signal. He wasn’t quite dead, but without a heartbeat or breath, he would be within a few seconds. It was quite merciful, in Blacke's opinion. Impractical for their means as it meant getting the blood out was more difficult than if they left the boy alive and slashed open some veins while he was hanging upside down, but if they were going to be doing things like eating the kidneys anyway, a merciful death was a kindness they could spare.
Blacke wrangled the body onto a shoulder and turned back to the SUV. If it wasn’t for vampire strength, this entire task would be miserable. He pulled the back door open with one hand and with the other, shoved the body in. It fell with a satisfying series of thuds.
“Threaten my sister, will you,” Blacke grumbled to himself and slammed the door.
Part of this was wanting to draw attention to himself. He lingered just a few seconds longer, just long enough to see a silhouette in the house move about before he got back in the drivers seat and drove off.
Scarlet and her new human friends were all still at the theme park, so there was little way they could get blamed for this.
He drove the van up to the asylum hill and backed it into the morgue’s hearse area, conveniently able to be closed off from the outside world. It was nice and private, quiet, out of the way, and most importantly they knew this building very well. They’d even set up one of the old freezers with a generator specifically so that Scarlet could stay here for extended periods of time.
It was up to the kitchen area he carried the body and shoved it down on one of the prep tables there. Demetrius slid in behind him, silently judging the scene in front of him with crossed arms. He was an older man, grizzled-like and with the requisite not-quite-normal colored eyes. Blacke’s were a deep blackish purple but Demetrius had something much more akin to rust, flecked with the bloodiest of reds.
“What is it?” Blacked grumbled at him, finding the hem of the boy’s shirt and taking a knife to start cutting it off.
“You’re being reckless,” Demetrius told him. His gaze scalded the practiced motions of Blacke’s hands, cutting away fabric and peeling it back to reveal the bare skin.
“Wow. You’re normally so happy when I make a kill,” Blacke said flatly.
Demetrius scowled at him. “Killing is necessary but this— this murder in the interest of protecting your… kid sister’s human friend is just foolishness. We should’ve just left after dropping that cooler off… or just let her starve to death in peace.”
It was that last comment that made Blacke whirl and cross the distance between them in one too-fast second. His hand clamped around the older man’s throat and shoved him back against the wall. “You know damn well I will never leave Scarlet behind,” Blacke growled. “I have done far worse things than murder a boy to keep her happy and I would do far worse, far more painful things to keep her safe.”
Demetrius barely responded to the threat, just continued to seeth back at him until he released his neck.
“You know this is impractical,” the older man said, then took in a deep breath. “But we can’t just leave her here, either, can we.”
Blacke eyed him out of the corner of his eye as he resumed his work, getting a cord to tie around the ankles and throwing it over one of the exposed steel beams in the ceiling. He hauled the weight up, angrily. It wasn’t the most practical, that much was true. Staying in one place too long let the hunters catch up to them and while they could usually handle themselves, there’d been too many close-calls as it was. He closed his eyes a moment as the body swayed, arms dangling down lifelessly. It was a very morbid pinata.
“If she decides to stay, that’s her choice, not ours,” Blacke said. If it wasn’t for their damned need to kill people, this would be so much simpler. But he was well familiar with the headaches and the malaise feeling that came with not consuming human blood. He had really thought they would find Scarlet dead when they got back here. It made him question how much blood they really needed but there was no safe way to experiment on that kind of thing.
Demtrius judged him harshly.
With a firm and practiced motion, Blacke grabbed the body’s hair and steadied it as he cut along the neck, opening a wide slit that followed the blood vessels there. A ready stream began almost immediately but he repeated the cut on the opposite side, letting all that blood fall into an awaiting bucket. In a few hours he could come back to butcher the rest of the body and milk it for everything it was worth
“You know there is that other thing we should do before we leave,” Demetrius said. “Whether your sister comes with us or not.”
“No,” Blacke said hotly. “I don’t know what your problem is with women, but I won’t allow you to touch somebody important to Scarlet.” Blacke’s eyes flashed almost murderously as he bared his teeth briefly.
“She's a liability," Demetrius told him, coldly.
"It doesn't matter. If she's important to Scarlet, she's important to me, too." Blacke leaned against the old prep table as the blood steadily tapped and dribbled audibly. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "How is it reckless of me to take care of this problem," he poked the body initiating a gentle swaying motion from it. "And reckless of me to not take care of something that is t a problem?"
Demetrius' face shifted uneasily
"You need to admit it," Blacke said harshly. "Youre a misogynist."
"I am not– I just— there is a different between a man who can't give the humans a straight story and an emotional wreck of a girl that knows everything."
"Mmhmm." Blacke rolled his eyes and pushed off from the surface behind him to wander off to another room. They could always get some space from each other in here, at least. Even if the decrepitness got depressing rather quickly.
With an angry snort, Blacke kicked a random bit of cloth bundled on the ground and discovered it was a bag of some sort, with some items inside.
He crouched to pick it up and turned it out into the dirty floor. He scowled at the hunting supplies there. Mainly a bottle of garlic oil and a couple silver knives for werewolves (he supposed, he was free to handle them as he pleased). Somewhere out there, the hunters were regrouping to make another attempt at their lives. They had to move on or hide. Staying out in the open wasn't an option.
For now, though. He was going to let Scarlet make her choice. If she wanted to risk her life for love… well. It wouldn't be the first time either of them had done so.