Without a Sound

Even though it was very dark, it wasn’t hard to see the other vampire’s face. I didn’t know his name, but the face was unmistakable. Mikey obviously hadn’t forgotten either. Every muscle in his body tensed. I took a tentative step closer to him, almost putting him between me and the other vampire. I grabbed his arm.

“You stole my prey.” His voice was venomous and sounded like scales rubbing against metal, like a snake. His eyes looked hollow because of the way the light hit his face, making him look even more menacing.

Mikey answered evenly, “You killed my daughter.”

The vampire squinted to take a better look at Mikey. After a few seconds, he nodded. “Fair enough. We’re even then.”

Even more anger flashed across Mikey’s face. “We are not even. You’re the reason I lost everything.”

“I don’t see how,” he replied shrugging. “I gave you immortality. You should be thanking me.”

Mikey flinched as if someone had just hit him. “Immortality is a curse if you have no one to share it with.”

The vampire chuckled, a horrible, maniacal laughter. “Ah. So you killed your wife?”

Now the anger was overshadowed by pain, and he swallowed loudly. “I didn’t know what I was doing,” he choked out.

The other vampire laughed again, and I just wanted to make him stop. “As I expected,” he muttered shortly. Then he smiled cruelly. “Your wife. Ivy, was she? I should’ve kept her instead of you. Then again, maybe not. I had quite enough fun with her after you were passed out.”

I felt the new blood in my veins going cold. Why hadn’t we sensed him? I reached out my blood feeling and realized why. He had so little blood in him it was barely noticeable.

Now rage and heartache were equal on Mikey’s face. He seemed to have no way to put what he was feeling into words. I saw his hands curl into fists, and I knew he wanted to take every bit of pain this vampire had caused him and inflict it back on him. I didn’t blame him. The vampire was far past the lines of evil.

He chuckled again. “You heard me correctly. She was a real beauty, that girl.”

I think he vampire missed it, but I saw Mikey’s eyes dart desperately around and settle briefly on the splintered wood from our prey’s wooden crate. Then he was looking back at the vampire. He widened his stance and said calmly but forcefully, “Run away, Charlotte. Go to Celia. I’ll get there… if I can.”

I tightened my grip on his arm. “I’m not going anywhere,” I replied.

The vampire squinted again, this time examining me. He scowled. “Well, now, if it isn’t Charlotte! I’d know that voice anywhere. I remember it even after all these years. How could I forget you begging me to stop, saying you’d rather me kill you than force you to do what I wanted. Pleading for me to kill you,” he reminisced, smirking again.

My skin crawled and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I didn’t remember, but I understood all too well what he was talking about. I was very glad I didn’t remember. I swallowed hard.

“Please, Charlotte, run,” Mikey said desperately. I didn’t listen.

“I thought I stashed you away for safekeeping,” the vampire continued, puzzled. “It wasn’t the most comfortable of places, I must admit, but you couldn’t die, so why bother with luxuries?”

“I found her and provided her with what she needed to become a person again,” Mikey informed him coldly. To the side, he added, “Charlotte, go, right now. I’m not kidding around.”

“No. Neither am I.” I wasn’t leaving him alone with this guy. “Besides, I can’t drive.”

Mikey cussed badly in response before adding, “Run, damn it!”

Across from us, the vampire looked curious. “You stole my slave, here, too. That makes us even. She’s yours. Do with her what you want,” he said carelessly.

“She’s not a slave,” he retorted hotly. “She’s a woman, and she deserves respect.” He slipped his hand around my stomach, almost as if he was holding me back.

The vampire cackled, and I felt the air get tenser. “I don’t know what would make a man say that about a woman,” he said in wonder.

“It’s called love,” Mikey explained caustically. “I love her.”

My eyes widened. Had I heard him correctly? Was I having a horrible nightmare with a bit of niceness in it?

The vampire tilted his head to the side, looking thoughtful. “Do you really?”

It all happened so fast it was blurred in my memory. Mikey bent over and snatched a pointed piece of wood from the broken crate and lunged at his daughter’s killer. In one fluent movement, the vampire spun to the side, barely avoiding the wood entering his chest, grabbed his own splintered piece of the crate, and buried it into the dead center of his victim’s chest, angling it to one side.

Only his victim wasn’t Mikey. It was me.

First, of course, I felt the blinding pain and the blood rushing from me, and I lost my sense of sight . My blood sense was almost as good as sight, though. I tried to focus on what was happening around me.

Then I felt my head crack on the cement ground, but I didn’t feel that pain. It was smothered by the gaping hole in my chest. I could barely feel where the evil vampire was, but I felt where Mikey was. Not to mention that I heard him howl in rage.

I heard the delicate tearing sound as one of them buried their stake in the heart of the other. Since all of Mikey’s blood stayed in his body, I assumed it was the unknown vampire’s chest. I smelled blood everywhere, and then I smelled nothing.

I suppose a vampire really could be killed by a stake in the heart. At least Mikey killed the vampire who’d killed our families, and then who’d just driven a stake into my chest. At least he’d gotten his revenge.

I started to taste blood, started involuntarily coughing it up. What would Mikey do without me? He would have nothing again. What a shame. And he’d finally said he loved me, too. Just to have me torn away from him.

I sensed the blood in his body. He was frozen, staring at me, breathing heavily. Maybe he was crying. He didn’t know what to do. I tasted the blood in my mouth for a little longer, and then I tasted nothing. I just didn’t taste at all.

I actually felt at home for a second. No sight, smell, or taste. I’d lived without these senses for sixty-three years in that graveyard. Only hearing, touching, and sensing blood was familiar to me, and I almost welcomed it with open arms.

Finally, Mikey moved. His footsteps echoed loudly, and he was quickly kneeling at my side. “No,” he whimpered. “Not you, too.”

I opened my mouth and mustered every bit of strength that I could. “Mikey,” I tried to say, but it came out as only a gurgle. I still sensed the blood in my mouth. I couldn’t speak to him. Then I felt no blood anywhere, and my blood sense failed me.

He cradled my head in his lap. “Please, don’t die,” he begged. “You can’t die.”

He rambled on, but what he was saying was getting lost in the ringing of my ears. Then the ringing was cut off, and I couldn’t hear anymore. I lost the fifth of my six senses.

Then only the pain was left. I tried to block it out, succeeding partially. I managed to feel my head in Mikey’s lap, feel his fingers stroking my cheek, feel a tear – and then another – fall on my arm.

I knew I had to hold on to my sense of touch. When the numbness threatened to take over, I shoved it away. If I let it overcome me, I knew this would be the last thing I felt. When you’re dying, you know things like that.

He picked me up and started walking. He pressed his damp cheek to mine, kissed me, stroked my face. I even felt his jaw moving, and thought he was talking. Maybe he was telling me he loved me. I think I managed to smile.

So I held on to my last sense, even though I would’ve gladly picked Mikey’s arms as the perfect place to give up and die. I wouldn’t do that to him if I could help it.