30 Nights

4

EDRIC

It's funny how some things fade with time and other things get sharper. Like smell for instance. I can detect death or the dying almost in an instant. Sweet and sour all at once. And fear, that smells too and right now it stinks of it.

I take a deep breath and pull my hood up. Time to focus. I had to drag myself out of there, away from her.

I have never needed blood more than I do right now. Thirst is supposed to be for the young. I was so close. Just one bite and I would have tasted her. She's so young though.

I just need to feed, then I will be under control. That's all this is, bloodlust. The moon's bloodlust. I walk towards the circle that is gathered around the cedar tree. The oldest thing here apart from us.

"Edric, you're late." I turn and look at him. An old man, frail looking and haggard, is waiting for me. His prune-like face flickers into focus under the moonlight. Never judge a book by its cover though, as the humans say, because he's anything but weak. No, my father has always had a will of iron, even when he lay dying. That's why he's still around 300 years later. That's why we all are.

"Victor. I trust you had a satisfactory journey." I don't meet his eyes, instead, I look ahead to the circle of four humans chained together ahead, naked and kneeling on the ground. My father's wrinkled face doesn't change but I still feel his scowl. He hates it when I use his first name but he knows I'm in no mood to be deferential.

"The guard said there was an issue," that scratchy and croaky voice still irritates me even after centuries.

"It's now under control."

"How is stealing a young girl off the street keeping things under control?"

"The escaped man is dead. We are about to consume the others. The girl has been gone no more than one hour."

"You intend that she will join the games? It would be better if her corpse turned up far from here."

"She is 17. I'm not sentencing her to death because a guard made a mistake."

"She joins the games or she dies Edric. And if she joins the games, you better have a damn good plan. Or have you forgotten The Samil?" I give one last look at my father and then turn away, walking over to the circle and taking my place in at the pentagon.

No, I had not forgotten the Samil. They made certain that no-one forgot them. The last time they stepped foot on this land was a 300 years ago, right before they murdered my mother.

I let the anger wash over me as my brother, Peter, starts his incantations. He is dressed in his brown sackcloth as always, forever repenting to a God I am sure does not exist. He will not drink tonight, he lives like a peasant off the blood of the lowest animals. He is frail, weakened and would surely die without the protection of our guard. His life is one of misery, sacrifice and repentance, never accepting what he is but believing death is too easy.

I watch as he anoints each of the kneeling humans, giving them their last rites. I can't think of them as people anymore. One shakes, crying and softly pleading, another repeats the same prayer over and over, another is frozen still, tense and waiting. I know Peter feels their pain, soaks it up, wants to feel their anguish. But I don't. I refuse to live my life in repentance. I didn't ask for this, I am what I am, and these four would die anyhow, what's a few human years, it's nothing, gone in a blink of an eye.

Peter hands a dagger to me, my father and my brother Tobias. But I don't want the blade, in a second I am at the woman's throat and gulp down the warm river of blood flowing through me and for that moment nothing else exists.