Chapter Eight
Predator
The night had only just begun to fade, the swirling blacks and indigoes fleeting over the mountains of Bohemia. It would only be a couple of hours now, thought Aiden. His bare feet padded silently against the cold topsoil as he ran. He had possessed so much power in his lifetime-possessed so many abilities and attributes that allowed him to do the impossible. He had known the feeling of all that magic coursing through his veins and what it was to be indestructible. But never in all of his years of knowing this familiar power, this birthright, had he experienced ability like this.
This new, stealthy body had overcome him the minute he'd been resurrected and figured out it was his. At sunset, he had awakened to his mother weeping over his seemingly dead body on a stone slab in the bowels of the Regime basilica, where all of the other Regime rulers lay recently buried. He was the one who'd buried them. She'd stood there, not used to seeing her son that way, clutching his cold hand in both of her warm ones.
"They feed on light-dwellers to sustain themselves during the daytime. I've seen it," she told him with tears running down from her sparkling, blue eyes. She held out her wrist. "Here, son," she said. "You've got to have time on your side. You need to have the upper hand-"
"Never!" he howled, shoving her hand away, sitting up on the slab and gripping the sides with his fists. He was so furious with the notion, he swore he could tear through the stone with his bare hands. Feeding from a living thing, like the demonic beasts themselves. He wouldn't even think of it. Catching the grim glimpse of himself in an ancient mirror on the far end of the tomb, he asked, "What the hell am I now?" He leapt off the slab, whirling around at his mother when she did not answer. "Well?" He blanched, causing her to jump back. "What am I?"
He'd spent weeks alone, deep in the mountains where no one would ever find him, where his mother had hidden him away so no one of their kind would figure out just what he was. He'd valued the time alone, however, just testing himself; taking out huge chunks of mountainside, over-turning aisles and aisles of trees with one push, destroying entire packs of wolves in the blink of a human eye. This was what happened when you combined the light with the dark. He grinned. There needs to be a balance. He heard Charlotte's idiotic voice in his mind.
An intense smell of incense, musk, and unearthed graves carried on the wind as he careened too quickly through the dark forest, feeling nothing but soft earth against his bare feet. Pine cones and bushes that would have jabbed any normal person crunched in his wake. He followed the trail of this scent with lightning speed as the world blurred past, though he saw it now in intricate detail as if he had only just opened his eyes for the first time in his life. Every vein in every dead leaf was so apparent in this new, dark world. The snow was no longer snow, but zillions of twinkling sculptures-each one with a unique face. And the greatest part about it was all the powers he'd possessed before the transformation, he still possessed.
He wound his fist around the leather strap of the satchel slung across his shoulder as he continued to run. Illuminated blue frost trailed from the new claws of his free hand, painting the space around him as he raced through the air. Valek had made this too easy, too much fun. Aiden smirked as the forest faded into the familiar, empty country road and he stopped.
Inhaling, the trail he followed was stronger when the zillions of forest pines didn't mask it so heavily. He knew exactly where the Vampire coven was, though not wanting to risk running into them, he wanted to take his sweet time getting there. His own scent needed to remain concealed from them as well. It was only a matter of time before Aiden would find exactly what he wanted. Bait. A decoy. A distraction. A lure. Something the band of leeches would leave thoughtlessly behind.
Looking up, he could see hundreds of stars glittering overhead through the thick blanket of winter clouds. It was to snow again any moment. The chill that might once have bothered him did not as he stood as still as he possibly could in the center of the road. Shirtless. Bootless. Careless. He preferred it this way. The new feeling of the cold air against his skin was actually energizing, though a black scarf masked the bottom half of his face. The earth came alive beneath him in an entirely new way, as though it had a pulse. And while he devised his revenge, exploring this different life would only be half the fun.
He turned to glance in the distant direction of the Bohemian Occult-the place he'd once called home. Getting to Charlotte would be too easy, but that wasn't what he wanted now. He could hear Valek's wild trepidations from miles away-how he feared the day when they would meet face to face again. No. Aiden didn't want that to happen yet. He wanted Valek to sit in his sick stew of fear and self-loathing for a while. He wanted him to suffer for as long as possible while Aiden carried out this new plan. A grander one. A plan that Valek's band of idiots and misfits could never intercept.
Aiden spun on his naked heels and began running in the clear opposite direction. He continued to run toward that harsh Vampire smell. He picked up on something else also. The smell of iron and rust. Blood. Just several yards to the north, where he knew there was a tiny, human village. Just like he'd anticipated. Easy. Vampires had such little self-control. He understood that fact better, now that he was closer to being one. A new creature caught in the in-between of light and darkness. His father would definitely disown him, that was, if he was even still alive. So would the rest of whatever was left of the Regime, knowing Vladislov would have never wanted a creature so vile to take his place. Aiden had been exiled for what he had become. For catching the 'disease'. Quarantined for eternity. But he no longer cared to rule the Regime. He had broadened his horizons. There was more power to be had. A dark chuckle bubbled from his chest as he continued to run.
His hair whipped wildly around his face in the wind. He ran faster than a mortal-made train. Unseen, and deliciously invisible to the world. The next town to the north was only a few kilometers ahead of him, though that would only take him about forty-five seconds. And finally, he reached its border.
The road continued down a steep hill before it forked off to varying parts of the village, which was eerily silent. The only sound Aiden could hear was the harsh January wind blustering through the open windows of these modest homes and over the cold shingles of the rooftops. The silence was almost deafening. He proceeded forward slowly through the bleakness.
Kojakovice had been left in shambles, just as Aiden expected. Those parasites were never careful, especially now they thought they'd found freedom. The putrid smell of death and dying made bile lift in the back of his throat as he treaded through the ransacked streets, disbelieving that a single coven could be responsible for this much destruction. The village's population had only started out at around a few hundred, he guessed as he assessed his surroundings. One general shop. A tavern. A few modest brick homes with the lights on and the doors left wide, though this discovery only made his devious plan seem that much easier.
He stopped walking, closing his eyes to listen further for any sort of movement or life.
A few yards away, a bird rustled the snow off a branch. But that was it until another moment went by, when he finally heard a faint and fairly familiar sound. It was wet and even sounded warm somehow. . . if noise could even take on the characteristic of being warm. It thudded once. And again. It was living, and sounded as if it was submerged under something thicker than water.
Aiden stepped forward in the direction of the noise. A human heartbeat, he finally deducted. He felt a grin spread across the part of his face covered by the black scarf. His gaze shifted across the empty street toward the sound until it was finally met with the cause. A single, human arm lay extended from behind an open threshold of one of the houses. Aiden raced to it and pushed the door open farther to see that the arm continued on to the rest of the dying male human that lay before him on the floor. His breathing was shallow, and he was young-only about eighteen, Aiden guessed. His heartbeat was so faint; Aiden knew there was
no way this person would survive. He was dying quickly. Perfect.
Aiden moved to the boy's side and carefully turned him over and on to his back, taking in a sharp breath of shock when he saw the human's face. The identical, angular features. The eyes, with the exception of that immortal, deathly color. Uncanny. But, this was impossible. His brow furrowed as he watched the boy's familiar eyes slit open to peer at him, a soft moan slipping out from between his pale, blue lips. His breath formed in clouds of mist in front of his face as he shivered there on the ground. In his fist, he clutched a crumpled piece of paper. Gripping the boy's wrist, he pried his cold fingers open, snatching the document. Unfolding it, he revealed the indigo symbol of the Dark City. His breath caught in his throat as he scanned the words for the impossible information he had just uncovered. This finding certainly changed the game. It was as if every piece was falling so perfectly into place.
"How did you get this?" Aiden hissed frantically, the shaking the parchment in the boy's face. "Who gave this to you?"
He was so close to death, demanding a reply would have been senseless. How had this average human ended up with knowledge that Aiden himself never even possessed? The legendary city of Abelim was real! And what was more was that this lonely human was linked to the whole affair. But did he know it?
"Boy, can you hear me?" Aiden continued, stroking the dark hair away from the boy's face. His throat had been ravaged so brutally, Aiden wondered if this mortal would ever be able to speak again. Even after saving.
The boy finally acknowledged him with another shiver and a sharp exhale, followed by a slight, simple nod of his head. Even the mannerisms were eerily similar to Valek's. To his sworn enemy.
Aiden slipped his hand under his head and pulled the boy from the frosted ground and into his lap. "I am not going to harm you," he continued. "If you can, answer me with another nod. Can you do that?"
Again, the boy nodded once, struggling to keep his eyes open, the blood from his throat smearing over Aiden's arms and clothes as he held him. His shaking was no longer crafted from the fierce cold, but from fear. Aiden could hear it in his mind.
"You were attacked?"
He nodded.
"You were attacked by something that was not human?"
The boy hesitated for a few moments and nodded once again. Aiden could hear his pulse was continuing to slow as each second ticked by. He had only minutes left.
"Listen to me carefully now, human. And answer me honestly. " Aiden began again. "Do you wish to live?"