My Blood on Your Lips, Your Money in My Bra

It was barely nine o'clock when the first knock on the door came. The sun had set only ten minutes ago, and I'd just gotten out of the shower. With a towel wrapped around my thin body and dripping red hair, I went to the door.

"Eli," I said when I saw the tall male, my eyebrows raising coolly. "I didn't think you'd actually be coming again tonight."

"Got bored." He walked by me like he owned the place, slipping his shoes off before heading to his usual spot on the couch.

I stared at him as I shut the door. "All right."

A scary movie was soon playing on my TV, the familiar sounds of voices low in whispers and eerie footsteps filling my living room. "Why does it smell like human in here?"

Damn. Forgot to fix that. "I was around a lot of humans today," I lied, making my way to the hall.

"Ah." Luckily, the movie had caught his attention, so he was oblivious to the lie.

I quickly dressed in a black halter top and skirt, then finished drying my hair and did what I could to pretty myself up. I almost went to check on the human in my library, but I opted to go straight to the living room instead. I couldn't risk letting Eli know that I actually had a reason to go into the dusty old room now.

"Expecting anyone tonight?" Eli asked, his eyes not leaving the television.

"Always," I answered simply. I sat down beside him and crossed my legs, beginning to watch the movie. My focus didn't stay on the gore for long, though.

Eli's presence was tranquil, his eyes almost blank, yet his body, calm, still, unmoving, was so formidable. He was big, fascinating. I wanted him. I wanted him bad.

But, why now when I'd never desired him so much before?

I reached for him. My long fingers neared his arm slowly, my movements hesitant, for I wasn't even sure why I wanted to touch him. Yet my fingers gradually got closer, my hand almost drawn to him. Luckily, my cell phone stopped me before I could make a fool of myself.

"What do you want, Derrick?" I couldn't tear my gaze away from Eli. He was still looking at the TV, not even noticing that I had moved or spoken or turned my attention to him, and somehow, that only made me want him more.

"I can't take it, Elyria." The male sounded nearly frantic. "I need you."

Eli turned to me now, a cold glare on his face. He'd heard very clearly what Derrick had said.

"Come to me," Derrick pleaded before I could speak. "Please. I'll pay you whatever you want. Or I could come to you. Please. Please."

"Derrick, I-"

"You know where he lives?" Eli interrupted. The chill in his voice matched his hard gaze, and it was nearly enough to send a shiver down my spine.

"Yes," I answered confusedly.

The vampire gently pulled my phone from my fingers and closed it very carefully. "Let's go."

"Eli, what-"

He dropped the cell phone on my lap. "Come." Now, I did shiver, though this shiver wasn't unpleasant. He was out the door by the time it passed, only seconds later.

Dumbly, I stared after him. It took me a full minute to pick the remote up and turn the TV off, another to get my heels on. Then, I hurried out of my apartment building, knowing he'd be waiting out front by now.

"Lead," he commanded as soon as I was outside.

I did as I was told without a word, glad I'd remembered to shift to my human form before exiting the apartment. Being seen by humans in my necromantic form would've made this whole situation even worse.

-

"What are we doing here?" I questioned as Eli knocked on the door to Derrick's apartment.

"Saving ourselves," came the short reply. The door opened before I could ask for more.

"Elyria," Derrick said excitedly when he saw me. He didn't even seem to notice Eli standing next to me, pretty much radiating anger and menace. The younger male looked like a junkie who needed his fix. Unwashed hair, unshaven face, old-looking clothes...I almost felt bad for him. Almost. "You came." He seemed so happy now, his eyes all lit up and a smile on his face. It nearly made me forget why I wouldn't let him drink from me.

"Well, I-"

Eli interrupted me again. But this time, it was in a different way.

He lunged at Derrick.

"Eli, stop!" My scream came far too late, and as it ended, so did Derrick's life.

A single twist-and-jerk motion had blood spattered everywhere, covering both Eli and myself. Derrick's body and head hit the floor simultaneously, and I could only stare, horrified. The male's irises had turned a dull, stony gray, just as the irises of all vampires did when they were killed. That was nothing new to me. It was the smile still on his face that was different, almost terrifying.

"Eli..." I trailed off, my whisper fading to nothing.

Eli crouched next to the corpse and wiped his bloody hands on the only clean part of Derrick's white shirt. Only then did he look at me.

"Oh." He stood and walked over to me, his expression concerned and no longer angry. He cupped my chin and ran a thumb lightly along my cheek. "I got blood on you." I could only gawk at him.

That was all he was worried about?

Suddenly, with all my might, I punched him. I heard something crack, and then, he was on the floor, his blood mixing with Derrick's.

I didn't stay to see how much damage I'd done. I just walked away.

-

People stared as I walked down the street. More stared as I entered my apartment building. But I didn't look at any of them; didn't speak, didn't lie.

Let them think what they want.

I found the door of my apartment unlocked, just as I'd left it...probably. I couldn't really remember much of what I'd done after Eli had left. Now, my walk home was a bit of a blur. Anger obviously wasn't good for me.

I slammed the door shut behind me and immediately fixed a glare on the figure on my couch.

"Go away, Terrence," I hissed, stepping into my living room. I noticed a grayish glow on the glass tabletop before me, but I didn't know what it was, nor did I care.

"Where have you been?" Terrence asked, as if I hadn't spoken. "I tried to call you several times. You never answered."

"That's because my phone is on the floor." I gestured to the carpet at his feet, and he picked up my forgotten cell.

"Why did you leave it there?"

"Dropped it and never bothered to pick it up." He laid the device on the table, and I said again, "Go away, Terrence."

"Hold on, now." He stood and slowly looked me over. "What has you so angry? And..." He cocked an eyebrow, amused. "Bloody?"

"Nothing," I snapped, the gray glow reflected in the table brightening. "Now, leave."

Terrence smirked and moved toward me. My entire body tensed, readying for his touch...readying to snap. I was angry, and I wasn't afraid to take it out on this cocky bastard. I wasn't afraid to take it out on anyone.

Anger really, really wasn't good for me.

Before I knew it, Terrence was so close he was nearly touching me. The tension in my body was painful now. Depending on his next move, he could end up like Eli. Or maybe even Derrick.

"Your eyes are glowing," the male murmured in my ear. "Your human eyes." He laid a hand on my throat, running his skin across mine, his fingers softly searching for something that wasn't there. "And none of this blood is yours." His voice dropped to an even lower whisper. "That's not nothing."

I was trembling now, his touch and his voice and his irritating fucking closeness only forcing my anger up a notch. The glow being cast over the vampire's shoulder turned amethyst, the hair about my shoulders becoming the deep red of blood.

Not good. For him, anyway.

He chuckled. "Elyria, you-"

I fucking tackled him. He fell back, right through the glass table, and I had no choice but to follow him down.

Two punches. A low growl. The scent of vampire blood.

"Elyria!" The scream barely registered in my mind.

Hands on my wrists. A louder, angrier growl. The scent of my own blood.

Suddenly, I was sprawled on the couch, panting and covered in more blood than before. A dull throb began around my wrists once I started to recover from my violent outburst. My neck stung as well, the sticky warmth of blood coating it. I ached the slightest bit all over from the struggle. All of this, I'd expected. The warm tears running down my cheeks, I had not.

Terrence watched me in wonder from the other side of the broken table, his feet just barely clear of the sharp shards of glass. "Elyria..." There was an odd tone to his voice, though it wasn't pity or sympathy or anything of that sort. It was raw fascination. He'd never seen me cry before. Only my parents had.

I sat up as my breathing returned to normal. "Go away." My voice cracked, and I did nothing to hide it. It was as the tears were: unstoppable. "Now."

Much to my surprise, the man nodded. "Of course." He paused, then added, "I'll have a new table brought in while you're gone tomorrow." Having nothing else to say, he left, though the look in his brown eyes told that he would've much rather stayed to poke and prod my emotions.

I laid back down on the couch, staring at the remains of the table. Without fully knowing why, I curled into a tight ball and sobbed harder than I'd ever sobbed before. Even my parents' deaths hadn't caused such a severe reaction.

I was glad when exhaustion took over a while later and forced me into a deep, dreamless sleep. In this darkness, I could not think, I could not move, and, best of all, I could not feel.

It was like a temporary Heaven to me.

-

Waking the next morning proved to be a bitch. I hurt. In ways I wasn't used to. The physical pain had faded to a barely noticeable ache, but the emotional pain had only become worse.

I'd tried to save someone...done my damnedest to keep one male alive...just one guy, one sweet, innocent guy...yet I'd failed.

Derrick was gone now. Because of me.

I felt like a murderer, a failure, a curse to anyone who came into contact with me.

It sucked.

When I finally sat up, I felt a blanket slide down my body. I glanced down at it, fingering the dark fabric. How had this gotten here?

"What happened?" I looked up and found Gabriel sitting beside the couch, watching me from a spot clear of glass. A spark of hope flared to life within me. It wasn't much, but it was more than I was used to. Hope wasn't a very common thing for me. But now, I had a reason to feel it.

I still had someone to save.

"Nothing you need to worry about." I stood, wondering if the human could hear my heart beating quickly in my chest at the mere thought of redeeming myself for one murder by preventing another. That was just silly, though. He was only a human. Even in the silence created by my slight pause, he wouldn't be able to hear such a thing unless he had his ear to my chest. Which I wouldn't allow. Ever...maybe. It all depended on where his tongue was. "All you need to worry about is surviving until we can get you back to where you belong."

"How long will that be?" the human asked as he got to his feet.

"We'll find out." I turned from him, sighing. The mixture of hope and hurt swirling around inside me was making my head freaking throb. I needed to distract myself for a while, but I didn't think I'd be able to. "I'm going to go get ready for school."

"Okay. I'll clean up while you're gone."

I arched an eyebrow at him. "You don't have to."

"Nothing else to do," he said with a shrug.

"Well...all right. Have fun." I just hoped he cleaned the floor well.

I hated dirty floors.

-

The shower helped me more than I thought it would. Getting the blood off of my body and the dried tears off of my face proved to be quite a relief. Going to school also turned out to be oddly helpful. My focus was forced from my hellish life to petty things like English and math. For once, I was actually glad I was in some of the most challenging classes I could get.

When choir class came along, I paid attention to the alto girl who always watched me. Today, she didn't stare, but she did shift a lot more than usual. She seemed awfully nervous...

Class ended a few minutes early, just as it always did. Our conductor went back to her office, leaving her class alone to converse and do whatever else they pleased. I sat down in my place and stared at the floor, alone, like I always was at school. That didn't last for long, however. My stalker finally decided to come talk to me.

"Hey," she said softly as she sat down on the risers beside me. She moved in a way that felt overly cautious to me. How odd...Was she that shy? Or was I just that intimidating?

"Hello," I replied calmly, glancing at her. When she didn't speak again for a moment, her eyes dropping to the floor, I asked, "So, why have you been watching me?"

"I haven't," she said far too quickly for her words to be true, her body tensing.

"You have. Just tell me why. It's not like I care."

She was silent for a moment, then she said quietly, "I know what you are."

I turned to her again, an eyebrow arched. "Oh?"

She nodded only once. "I'm one, too."

"And what are we, exactly?"

She leaned closer to me, looking around suspiciously. When she was sure no one else was listening, she whispered, "Necromancers."

"Oh. How did you find out?"

"I may have accidentally followed you a few times," she answered as she leaned back, away from me.

"Accidentally, huh?"

"Yes, accidentally." She looked down while she explained, "I just happened to be going the same way you were."

"And you stopped to find out that I was a necromancer?" She said nothing, so I added, "How did you know to follow me?"

She shrugged. "You seemed different."

"Ah." To most, that would've been vague, but to one of our kind, it made perfect sense. We could look like humans, act like humans, do everything imaginable to simply be humans, but we could never truly blend in with them. Vampires, werewolves, and almost every other creature out there could easily pass themselves off as humans, but we were just too...dead. Cold. Off. Humans didn't really notice it -- if they did, they were looking way too hard -- but our own kind would notice easily.

I hadn't noticed her because I hadn't cared to. I wasn't looking for anyone like me. She was new here. She probably needed to find others like her. It all made sense. So did all the times I'd felt unfamiliar, unthreatening eyes on me...

She nodded. "So...I'm Kyrianna Cloxis. Who might you be?"

I cocked my head at the name. It was so obviously a necromancer's name...I must not have been paying any attention when she'd been introduced to the class. She'd probably had to tell the teacher how to pronounce it and everything.

"My name is Elyria."

"And your last name?"

"Vlorinix."

Her eyebrows rose. "Wow. That's worse than mine. How do humans not notice?"

"They notice, they just don't know exactly what they're noticing."

The bell rang, and we both stood.

"Can we talk more sometime?" she asked as we descended the stair-like risers. "I don't know of any others like me, and I haven't found anywhere to fit in with the humans yet."

"Do you plan on ditching me when you find others to befriend?"

"Depends on how much fun you are," she said with a teasing smile. Annoyingly, I knew that she was serious beneath her playfulness. If she found better, she'd leave me without hesitation.

I liked the honesty. And it didn't break my heart that she would go.

"All right," I said. Then, with one of my sexy, cocky smirks, I added, "But good luck finding better."

We went our separate ways at that point, her laughing and me getting another headache as my emotions sank back in. Maybe she would prove to be useful for a while. She seemed distracting enough...