Beyond Nocturne Ch. 04

He was the only one could potentially expose her, and she could take care of it now, permanently.

And she could feed; she could appease the thirst and quench it.

The darkness within tempted her, dared to her to indulge.

Tears erupted from her tightly shut eyes as she fought the urge to bite him. She cursed herself, damned herself to Hell for not being strong enough to resist. She fought back, trying to keep Michael calm and in his deeply centered state as she struggled with her self. The logic of the darkness reasoned with her, played off her feeling for him, her sympathy and affections. It would be less painful this way, and he would not feel a thing. It was inevitable, it was who she was, the part of her being that would not be denied...

She felt her mouth open, as though she were no longer in control of herself, and her fangs extended down for the kill.

She looked at Michael, his eyes closed in complete trust.

The tips of her fangs touched his skin, and as the impulse came to bear down, something passed from Michael to her. It was an alien feeling, forgotten along with most of her life before the turning. She stopped and withdrew, his flesh unbroken as her body tingled, her mind shell-shocked. The darkness screamed and wailed, berating her for they betrayal of the thirst. She considered this new feeling, and finally she understood it.

It was need.

Michael needed her. Not in the blatantly sexual way that Maricel had earlier or even in the misguided way that Steve had. Somehow, Michael had seen past her defenses and saw they were kindred spirits, a like in so many ways. In the accelerated minutes of their bonding, they had discovered the truth about each other as people. He didn't know that she had killed Steve, she was sure of that. And while she felt secure her secret was safe, she felt even more guilty over the fact that Michael had this need for her. She had taken his brother, and he was feeling this true, pure need for her. A need for her as a human being and as a woman, as a sympathetic soul and support against the weight of life.

It was so beautiful to be needed, and yet she felt like a liar, a fraud as she accepted his newfound feelings for her. She couldn't tell him what she had done now. If she did, his feelings for her might change and now that she knew they existed, with her manipulating him at all, she didn't know if she could bear that.

In three hundred years, tonight was the first time anyone had ever felt a need for her, beyond her body or her abilities. It was so simple and innocently pure that she found she couldn't breathe for a moment.

Michael looked at her and asked, "How are your wounds?"

"What?" she asked as she sat up.

"Your face is healed," he said, his mouth gaped open wide.

Lydia touched her face and found that the gash was gone, regenerated as if it had never been inflicted. It was no surprise to her that it had done so, but when she looked at Michael's chest and abdomen, she gasped. The five long slash wounds were gone. Only the biodegradable thread she had used to sew up the one below his navel was left, support for a wound that had been erased from existence.

"Lydia," Michael said slowly, his hands on his stomach and eyes as wide as silver dollars. He looked at her like a man waking from a dream and put his hand on her arm. "What is going here?" he asked.

Lydia looked at him, unsure of what to say to next. To be honest, she didn't know what was going on anymore than he did. She knew she could regenerate, but healing other people?

"I don't know, Michael."

***

Rossetti pulled up to the museum and into the alley where Michael was supposed to meet him. From the moment he got a good view of the cramped side street, he knew something had gone wrong. One of the dumpsters was overturned and on its side, almost a quarter of it buried in the blacktop. Rossetti got out, turned on his flashlight, and walked slowly forward, his gun drawn. A black, thick ooze pooled on the wet ground by the overturned dumpster. The rain hit it and rolled off, as though some oil coated it. He knelt down and touched it. It was warm and sticky, like viscous crude petroleum. He looked at saw more the strange substance spattered across the ground.

"Mike?" Rossetti called, searching the alley and becoming more and more panicked. The smell of trash was thick in the air as he rounded the back of the museum and found only more cluttered side streets and alleys. Garbage floated on top of the bloated gutters, spilling out into the middle of the alley and collecting there. But beyond that, he could also smell something else. It was a rancid smell of decay, potent and sour as he turned to head back and call for help. He knew it might get Mike fired by bringing in the department, but better unemployed than dead.

He had run halfway back down the alley when a noise to his left stopped him. He turned, expecting to see Michael thoroughly drenched and miserable greet him. Instead, he saw something he never once imagined in his worst nightmares. He fired off ever round in her service revolver, and if he did hit it, it didn't matter.

"No!" he screamed as a powerful fist pistoned through his stomach, destroying his internal organs in the passing and punched out the back. Behind him, wet heavy things fell from his body and splashed in the gutter water as his life's blood spurted out of him. The thing regarded him quietly, contemplating him. It tilted its head, as if admiring its handiwork. Rossetti only gurgled and spat up gore as he fought for the last few seconds of his life. He heard his gun hit the ground with a muted, dull clink. He could feel his insides falling out, and as the creature grasped his still intact and exposed spinal column, everything he knew about pain became irrelevant.

There was a snap and he went cold, staying conscious long enough to feel sharp teeth sink into his face, scrape the bone beneath and clamp down. And then it was dark.

...to be continued...