Finding Blood (City Underdark #1)

The Starvation

"I think that everyone is here," said Hugo.

He had turned his attention to the prisoners, and so did Barmond. There were those among them that seemed to perk up, understanding that they were finally getting a rescue, but there were others-- those were hard to look at. They seemed like they were struggling to care about what was happening right in front of them.

Barmond had seen those looks before. What else was there to expect? At least those had been saved from Aurora... not like the last ones. The ones that had prompted the hunters to take action and attempt to strike her down the first time.

Funny that she would be taken down like that, by coincidence, years later. Or at least Barmond hoped that she was going to be taken down. She had, in his eyes, already cheated death once. He was not letting her get away a second time.

"We need to get everyone out," said Hugo, turning to Barmond. "Can you give me a hand?"

Barmond looked at the humans again. They had been fed on, this was Aurora's cattle.

He suddenly felt hungry.

He felt terrible for it. But there was something about how terrible it would be to feed on them now that awakened the temptation of the taboo - and the slumbering beast inside of Barmond. He quickly looked away from them.

"Barmond?" asked Hugo. His voice was a little softer, concerned.

Barmond didn't answer. He looked at Hugo in the eyes, then at the people, then back at Hugo. Somehow, the werewolf understood what he meant.

"You should go get the others. They should be done," he said.

Barmond nodded and left through the tunnel.

He wasn't the type of vampire that endlessly lamented themselves on their condition as bloodsuckers - they were those, the tragic type, that made it into an obsession. Barmond very much judged that way of thinking among his peers. He was a creature of the night and he had urges, and that was all. As a man that had clung to a lot of illusions just to have them break in his hands during the course of his life, he didn't have a high esteem of himself - and he knew it.

But he thought that he had a bit more control than that. He had managed to remain lucid until the very last moment before he dropped on the ground out of hunger, back when he was being hunted himself. He had thought that he had more control over himself. And yet... here he was.

He found a werewolf to talk to, telling her that Hugo needed her in the back - as well as a few of her companions. He never showed her the way. But he did go back up that tunnel. Even talking to the werewolves was distracting.

He found his way to the source of water the imps had been using while they were still alive.

There were no corpses there, at least. Just the water, drip-dropping from the ceiling into a basin, and some quiet. Or, at least, as quiet as it could be when underground. Constant echos were chasing each other off every nook and cranny of the cold, irregular walls. The voices in the other rooms, the lights that slipped through the openings, came to him deformed.

It was uniquely soothing. Strange, but soothing. Barmond sat down and started to breathe slowly, sorting his thoughts once more.

He would have attacked the humans, he told himself. He wouldn't have done that. He had more control than that over his hunger. And, even if that wasn't the case, he had recognized what was happening and had removed himself from their presence, lessening the risk of him attacking them.