8
"It is his place now," the old woman says, watching the shadow of the Nosferatu as it shambles through the abandoned convenience store. She says something else in an indigenous language that you don't understand, her hands gripped tight around her crucifix.
Then she grabs the young man's shoulder before he goes back for the dead woman. His shoulder is hurt, and he has a cut on his scalp. The crucifix doesn't move you, but you get away from the blood.
The old guy moans, and the two of them help him stand on his own.
You have a thousand questions and one problem. Where did the Nosferatu come from? Who chained it up? Was it imprisoned because it had become a wight, or did it lose its mind during its imprisonment?
And what are you going to do with these people, who just saw a bloodstained, bat-eared monster kill a woman?
April 2004.
"'A Beast I am, lest a Beast I become.' Kindred call it the Riddle," your sire says. "How is your fake ID holding up?"
"Fine," you tell Elin.
"And the apartment owned by the dead woman, where you stay?" Elin asks.
"No complaints."
"Have you had any trouble from that would-be 'witch hunter'?" she asks. "The one who resisted my mental powers?"
"Haven't—"
"I had to shoot him, I'm afraid," Elin says, checking her new outfit in each of the three mirrors. "So he won't be bothering you again. We're ugly creatures, Krarr. But what we do is bound by rules. Not just the Traditions I've taught you. There are crimes we commit to survive, ugly things we do to escape destruction…I won't criticize you for stealing, or even killing. But then there are acts that will corrode your very soul.
"Does it surprise you to learn I believe in a soul? Whatever you want to call it, you can ruin it. Killing the innocent—even to feed. Acts of torment and depravity. Murder and desecration. All of these things corrode us. I know what you want to say—Elin, I don't want to do any of those things. Why would I?
"You're going to be surprised by the things you'll want to do, Krarr. You'll be surprised by what you can justify to yourself. But remember what I said here. Don't kill for thirst or sport or convenience. Hold onto your humanity, Krarr. Without it, we're just animals in nice clothes."
Next
You take the young man out first, since he's the strongest; you hit him from behind and get his crowbar. The rest of the work is quick and bloody. And then you feed.
You feel awake and alive for the first time in years as the blood trickles across your gums. It coats your throat, then crawls up behind your eyes, into your skull, until it feels like your hair stands on end. You close your eyes and savor the feeling, because you know how rare it is. Tonight the Hunger has abated, and the Beast is quiescent.
But you didn't do it for your own selfish needs, you tell yourself. They needed to die to preserve the Masquerade. The work was ugly but necessary.
This sort of thing happens from time to time, and you know what to do. You find a knife and some tools and hack their bodies up so it looks like an isolated act of brutality—common enough out here—and not like a vampire drank their blood.
Then you take a moment to enjoy the blood on your teeth.
Next