The Greater Darkness

  Overcome by self-doubt, Geoffrey pulled several thousand dollars from his pocket, threw it down on the bed, and stumbled out of the room. The sense of connection was gone, replaced by foggy memories with no real weight to them. How could he have felt like what he was doing was right? How could money or a few mental parlor tricks possibly compensate for having almost killed them? He really was nothing more than a self-aware parasite.

  A decision that Geoffrey hadn't even realized he still had to make was suddenly crystal clear in his mind. His hand was shaking as he pulled a carefully-sealed envelope from his jacket pocket. It had been foolish to spend so much time composing a response. It had been even more foolish to risk Imastious finding it between when it was composed and now. A risk which turned out to be all for naught. The letter he'd planned on delivering was of no more substance than what he'd just accomplished. It was time to write another letter, an honest one.

  A few hours later, Geoffrey found himself standing outside Melody's window staring at both letters, the words of the newest burnt into his memory.

  Melody,

  There is a very real possibility that I shouldn't respond to your letter, both because it puts you in danger, and because I am not the kind of person that you should be talking to, but I find myself doing it nevertheless.

  All of those things really did happen. You were nearly raped, but I stopped your attackers. I persuaded those girls to be somewhat less self-centered, but I wasn't sure that my efforts would work, so I entered your mind in an attempt to find out if I was successful.

  Despite my efforts to help you, you should know that I am in no way an answer to your prayers, as no god known of man deals with demons. You are so pure and innocent though, that even one as fallen as I couldn't help but try to aid you in your difficulties.

  That hasn't changed--I still want to help you but it isn't safe. Everything I touch goes wrong, and I wouldn't wish that on you. On anyone really, but you least of all. My presence would corrupt and ruin you.

  My thoughts will remain with you,

  Geoffrey

  As the sky started to lighten, Geoffrey affixed the second letter to Melody's window and turned away, thoughts of fire flitting through his mind. He needed to destroy any physical evidence and stop thinking about her. Otherwise everything he'd done to help would just be wasted.

  Chapter 14

  Geoffrey tried to calm his breathing once again, but only just managed to bring himself back from the edge of hyperventilation. He hadn't expected it to be so much harder this time around, but all of the time he'd had to think about what he was about to do wasn't helping things.

  This girl was an innocent, or at least innocent enough that she didn't deserve to die. She hadn't killed anyone, wasn't selling crack to school kids or any of the other things he could have rationalized as being deserving of the fate he was about to deliver.

  Geoffrey was acting now with the full understanding that what he was about to do was wrong, but he couldn't see any other way to protect Melody. He had to keep Imastious happy so that the other vampire wouldn't try and invade his mind again.

  Geoffrey looked around at the dirty subway platform with its yellow-tiled walls and fought a bout of queasiness as he thought about the end result of what he was about to do. Once he was done, it would probably take the authorities hours to confirm the girl's identity.

  The sound of hundreds of approaching footsteps signaled that it was almost time. Geoffrey's hands started to tremble as the first set of teenagers made their way down the stairs. Kids from high school, kids from junior high. There were tens of thousands of them all over the city right now getting out of school and heading home. Many of them lived close enough to school to walk home, but an incredible number of them would take the buses or the subway. It stressed the public transportation system every day at this time, and it wouldn't have surprised Geoffrey to find out that more bodies would be transported over the next hour than would be transported in the subsequent two hours when some of their parents got off of work.

  Kids being kids, they took up less space; but that was only half of the equation. Kids also seemed to need less personal space, so they tended to pack themselves in incredibly tight. They would squeeze themselves into the buses, they'd cram themselves into the trains, and they would dangerously overload the platforms.

  Geoffrey had watched it happen several times now. They seemed utterly without fear, sometimes standing within inches of the edge of the platform, never really understanding how inadequate those inches were to protect them from harm.

  They probably read the headlines, the ones about the accidents where a crowd surged at the wrong time, or the senseless revenge carried out via a hard shove, but the fact that those inches weren't enough just didn't seem to sink in.

  The girl finally appeared on the steps leading down to the platform. She was all but indistinguishable from her friends, all of whom were dressed in matching uniforms, but something pulled Geoffrey's attention past the skirt and white blouse. There was no doubt but that she was the one he was looking for. His worries vanished. Things would go just like he'd rehearsed. As long as he followed the plan, this would all be over in a few minutes.

  As much as Geoffrey had hoped his target would walk right up to the edge, he'd known that the odds were against it. As a result, the vampire had prepared for the possibility that he might have to compel her. The fact that he was using his abilities to kill her somehow made the crime worse, but that couldn't be allowed to stand in the way.

  Opening his mind, Geoffrey was nearly swept away by the maelstrom of thoughts surrounding him. There were so many of them, and they were so energetic and undisciplined. It was like everything happening right then was of life-altering importance for each kid.

  Geoffrey tried to build an island of calm around his mind, and succeeded just enough to find the girl's thoughts. "This is boring," he told her. "Boring just like every other day. You can feel it building inside of you, demanding you do something exciting and adventuresome. Your friends are boring, those boys are boring, none of it is interesting."

  It took longer than the vampire had expected, almost as if his efforts were less effective than normal, but soon Geoffrey saw the girl's thoughts begin to shift. She was tapping her foot now, flipping her long, dark hair. She wasn't even listening to her friends now.

  Once the girl started moving towards the edge, her fate was essentially sealed. A quick pull on her trendy black backpack was all it took to send the poor thing onto the tracks a heartbeat before the train came barreling up to the platform.

  The ensuing pandemonium was more than enough to cover Geoffrey's exit from the area. By the time the police arrived and decided that the girl's death was nothing more than a tragic accident, the vampire was several miles away.

  The whole operation had gone so smoothly that an hour passed before what Geoffrey had done fully sank in. He didn't even know what her name was. Tami? Tallie? Tanya? It had started with a 'T', but he couldn't remember quite what it had been. Was that just happenstance, or was he already dehumanizing her?

  **

  "Come on, gorgeous. I'm not letting you miss weapons instruction two times in a row. You should know better by now than to stand up a beautiful woman."

  Geoffrey didn't open his eyes. He'd expected that Venice would probably show up next to his bed tonight despite his having changed all of the locks on the apartment, but hadn't been able to bring himself to really care.

  "I'm not feeling well. I can't train today."

  A springy weight settled onto the bed next to Geoffrey. "Listen, I understand that killing the little girl had to be hard for you. I don't really know why, not considering the fact that not too long ago you wouldn't have even batted an eye over something like that, but I've come to accept that things have changed. We're no longer together, and those things bother you now."

  Unexpected emotion welled up inside of Geoffrey, and he fought the desire to curl up next to Venice and sob. It wasn't re
al; she wasn't being genuine. She was just telling him what she thought he wanted to hear.

  "Based on all of that, and the fact that you're barely functional now, I imagine there must have been something pretty important to make you go through with the hit. I don't know what it was, but you have to focus on that reason. That's why you did it. You have to cling to that reason, or you'll lose your sanity."

  The unexpected emotion in Venice's voice pulled at Geoffrey's heart, and he found himself opening his eyes so that he could meet her gaze. Try as he might, he couldn't tell whether her concerned expression was just a facade, or if she was really feeling the things she seemed to be feeling. It seemed hard to believe that she could be that concerned about his sanity. Maybe something about the situation brought back ghosts from her past.

  Venice stared into Geoffrey's eyes, but seemed to be looking past him for several seconds before blinking and then attempting a smile.

  "Careful there, love, next you'll decide I have a soul after all, and then where would you be?"

  Geoffrey opened his mouth to respond, but he was torn between an honest response and the flippant sarcasm so normal between the two of them. Before the vampire could decide between the two options, Venice shrugged. "It was just a joke."

  The blonde paused on her way out the door to adjust her hair. "I won't bring all of this up to Imastious, but I'm no mentalist. If he decides I'm trying to hide something, there isn't anything I can do to stop him from invading my mind; he won't even have to starve and torture me like he does to you. I just thought you should know. There's more than just you riding on you behaving and keeping him happy."

  **

  Geoffrey stayed in bed for quite some time after Venice left before forcing himself to get up and head outside. It would have been easier in some ways to just stay in his hole of an apartment, but that would have just resulted in him starving. Even assuming that he managed not to lose control and kill someone, it would only be a matter of time before Imastious eventually stopped by, and Geoffrey couldn't afford to be weak when that happened. It was all he could do to fight off Imastious when he was at full strength. If Imastious found him half starved, it would require next to no effort on his part to overwhelm Geoffrey's defenses.

  The idea of going for a run to try and clear his mind was briefly considered, but discarded in the end because the hunger had Geoffrey feeling so weak. He knew he'd probably just collapse at about mile three if he tried.

  Instead, the vampire found himself wandering through the sparsely-populated financial district in an attempt to avoid the kinds of places where it would be all too easy to find someone to feed from. Geoffrey tried to distract himself by examining his surroundings, the proud metal and glass buildings that still looked new and unblemished. In time they'd enter the state of semi-disrepair so common elsewhere in the city, the same kind of near ruin he'd seen at the school. The inevitability was depressing, but didn't manage to truly distract him from the things really bothering him.

  Feeding from those two girls had been intoxicating. The satiation of the hunger had combined with a very real danger that he'd take too much blood and kill them. The feeling of being connected to them might have been an illusion, but it hadn't been like that the first two times he'd fed. This had felt real, and it pulled at him with a strength nearly as powerful as the hunger had been. It would be very easy to become addicted to the sensation. Truth be told, he wasn't positive that he wasn't already addicted. He couldn't get his mind away from the idea of getting another fix.

  A low growling, almost too faint to hear, brought Geoffrey's attention fully back to his surroundings. Underneath the concealment of his coat, the vampire gripped the handle of his katana while scanning the darkness. It was obviously some kind of animal, maybe a large dog, but that didn't seem quite right to him.

  A chill crept up the back of Geoffrey's neck as something operating on the level of instinct told him he was in the presence of extreme danger.

  There hadn't been very many people out and about this late into the night, but what few there had been seemed to have disappeared. It was like they'd sensed something bad was coming and sought refuge indoors where they had a chance of avoiding whatever was stalking him.

  Looking around, Geoffrey saw that the one other person on the street, a middle-aged woman in a dress suit that marked her as some kind of business executive, looked frightened. She was actually moving towards Geoffrey at a quick pace, as if hoping to find some kind of safety in numbers.

  Venice's warning that he shouldn't become too secure in his superiority over the humans around him flashed through Geoffrey's mind, and suddenly he wondered if there wasn't some kind of predator out there that preyed on vampires the way that Venice sometimes insinuated he should prey upon humans.

  The thought of something faster, stronger and even more deadly than him made Geoffrey's blood run cold. It was ludicrous to think that something was actively hunting him, but he found himself hurrying towards the woman with a smile on his face that he hoped looked reassuring, but which he suspected looked more forced than anything else.

  Maintaining an awareness of his surroundings while extending his mental senses was a trick that the vampire hadn't fully mastered yet, but the need to know what was out there stalking him drove him to try.

  He could feel the woman's presence ahead and to the left of him. He skimmed her thoughts enough to register that her name was Alice and that she was even more terrified than he was. Now that he was oriented, he reached out further, looking for whatever was out there prowling in the darkness.

  At first there was nothing, but then Geoffrey reached a little further afield and brushed against a presence unlike anything he'd ever imagined. It was ferocious…and tortured, and it felt somehow fuller than it should be. The only parallel he could draw was a glass that someone had poured memories and knowledge into until it started to overflow.

  The brief contact was all Geoffrey was able to manage before his mental probes were torn away by a huge, mostly unformed, presence, leaving him with an incredible headache.

  The vampire stumbled in pain, reflexively grabbing Alice to avoid falling to the ground.

  Alice's gasp of surprise, brought about by the unexpected contact, nearly drowned out the sound of many feet padding through the darkness, but Geoffrey retained just enough composure to duck as he sensed something leap towards him from out of the night.

  A dark form sailed over the vampire and crashed into Alice as something else latched onto Geoffrey's left arm and bore him to the ground.

  Venice's training largely deserted Geoffrey. None of the reflexes he'd spent so many hours retraining were appropriate for a close-quarters struggle.

  The crushing pressure on the vampire's forearm was so great that he wasn't really surprised when first one and then the other bone broke, crushed despite the protection of his heavy trench coat.

  The next few seconds were a nightmare of fur and pain, but Geoffrey somehow managed to get to the knife he'd secreted in his boot. Once that happened, the fight was quickly over.

  Rolling to his feet, Geoffrey was just in time to see a large Rottweiler release Alice's arms and turn towards him. The vampire took a step back, and dropping his knife onto the corpse of the first dog, drew his katana. It was obvious that the beast would rush him, but its hind legs didn't seem to be working quite right. It was a small thing, but it might buy him a split second or two in which to respond, and he was quickly realizing that fights were won and lost on smaller things than that.

  With a weapon in hand, Geoffrey was once again on familiar ground, and his training, both the parts he remembered and the parts that were now nothing more than reflex, took over. The dog's leap became a slow, predictable arc that his blade intercepted, neatly beheading the animal as he spun out of the way to avoid being carried to the ground again.

  Not surprisingly, considering the extent of injuries to her arms, Alice was in shock. Geoffrey started to apply pressure to the wounds, but when
he heard sirens in the distance he realized that someone must have called the police.

  He deserved jail, or worse, for his crimes, but he wasn't ready for that. He whispered an apology as he turned away from Alice and faded into the night. He wanted to stay and help her, but the police would ask too many questions that he'd be hard-pressed to answer.

  **

  It had been all that Geoffrey could do to roll out of bed once the sun went down the next day, but he didn't dare miss another training session with Venice. It had the feel of the kind of thing that spun out of control quickly. One missed training session had become two, and unless he got back into the right routine things would snowball. The last thing he could afford would be for Imastious to kick his door down again.

  It wasn't until Geoffrey got out of the shower and accidentally bumped into a doorway with his left arm that he remembered the events of the night before, remembered how badly his arm had been damaged. He was suddenly less surprised that he was tired and more astonished that he'd managed to sleep at all, considering how much pain he should have been in.

  Geoffrey probed his arm, but aside from some tenderness it seemed perfectly normal. It should have been impossible. He remembered the bones breaking. He tried to remember whether or not Venice had mentioned anything with regards to abnormally fast healing. As unlikely as the idea was, the only other explanation would be that his memory couldn't be trusted.

  The speed with which he had healed continued to worry at the edge of Geoffrey's mind, so much so that he asked Venice about it within a couple minutes of arriving at her club.

  "Increased regenerative abilities are part of the package that comes with being turned. A vampire will basically fully recover from anything that doesn't kill him outright…but the speed with which we heal correlates with our age."