Incendiary

My crimson eyes narrowed to slits at the man's response, uncertain as to whether I was annoyed or entertained. He'd be facing his death tonight and yet he had time for jokes.

But I wasn't laughing. I was too focused on the cooling pool of blood he was lying in, the same blood that dribbled down my chin.

I could feel his heartbeat, actually feel the steady thrumming vibrating through the air. It only served to make the trembling worse.

"Your dinner is bleeding to death --"

"I am moments away from ripping your throat out and dropping you off at the back door of that cute little restaurant so that your coworkers can be mortified for the rest of their lives. Perhaps provoking me is not in your best interest," I threatened, my voice a sharp edge.

"Cute doesn't fit with that sentence."

I moved quicker than he could comprehend. My talons weaved through his hair and I yanked his head back so far that he had to strain to look up at me from beneath his glasses. His fragile throat was completely exposed, an unmarred, tan canvas just begging for me to rip into it.

"Your gratuitous wit is wondrous. Please, keep talking."

"Gladly."

I yanked his head back farther, enjoying the look of pain on his face. The muscles and veins in his neck strained against his flesh.

"I get the feeling that you're being facetious."

"Sharp," I murmured, slackening my grip enough so that he could stare up at me.

"Well?" he inquired, watching me with steady green eyes. My jaw twitched with irritation as I released him and straightened up.

"What?" I spat, flashing my fangs.

"Are you going to kill me?"

This man had nerves of steel. He stared at me, a monster that resided in the darkest hells of any persons nightmares, and yet he was able to stare. He looked into me and through me and past me and I hated it. I hated humans. I hated their weakness and their desire to make everything sweet and wondrous and right in the world. Yet here in my apartment, sitting on a sheet of plastic and wallowing in his own blood, was the very exception to everything I had ever known.

The sheer force of resisting temptation caused my neck to jerk, but I played it off as tossing my hair over my shoulder. This human would not best me.

However, he had already won for I didn't want to kill him. Well, I wanted to drain him dry, but the curious, cognizant part of my mind wanted to keep him alive.

The smallest of smiles graced his lips, "Oh, don't tell me that I'm the man who causes you to change your mind and right your wrongs, that you've suddenly seen the evilness in your ways."

I continued to stare at him, unfazed. He looked unsettled. "Do I look like a fairytale creature?" I asked calmly, cocking my head to the side as I studied the peculiarity in front of me.

He withered slightly beneath my gaze, "No, I suppose not."

"Then your speculation is highly flawed."

He blinked, uncertain, "Well--"

"Don't be fooled by my allowing you to live. I only want you around for a moment." A moment, at least, on my time scale.

He seemed to perk up slightly, "So you have changed your ways, if only for a 'moment'," he mused.

I grinned at him, quickly surveying his injuries. He had lost far too much blood to stand, let alone run. Before he could speak again, I was back down the fire escape and quickly hunting for the drunken woman I had been watching earlier.

She had made it another three blocks and was just entering her apartment complex. She was almost home. What a shame, dying so close to safety.

I stepped up behind her rather unceremoniously. I didn't bother to mask what I was, and when she turned to face me in a drunken haze, I quickly snapped her neck, the crunch of bones floating into the air and fading out. I was in a hurry.

I easily supported her weight and hoisted her over my shoulder. It was late and it was dark. Hardly anyone was out and about, but I kept to the shadows anyway.

I didn't like my meals to be dead, but I also didn't want to hassle with a drunk woman. Humans were particularly "invincible" when alcohol had soaked their systems and softened their judgement.

I was back at my apartment quickly, once again using my fire escape, grateful that the window was large. I had attempted to use the stairs once. A middle-aged man had seen me. I killed him.

I deposited the deceased woman on the plastic in front of the man, her head lolling awkwardly to face him.

He looked horrified, his eyes widening behind his glasses.

"I have not changed my ways. I am still rather fond of blood," I stated casually before sitting down beside the woman and pulling her onto my lap. The man continued to stare, unable to avert his eyes. I sank my teeth into the woman's neck and blood spurted languidly into my mouth. Without the heart pumping the crimson fluid through the body, I actually had to engage in the laborious act of drawing it from her.

When she was virtually drained, with her skin sunken in, I shoved her off my lap and turned my eyes to the man. Immediately after I fed, I was usually moderately calm and at peace for a few moments. Right then, however, I wasn't. I felt all the guilty nigglings increase tenfold as I had an audience to my wretched behavior. He saw me for the true and utter monster I was.

I climbed to my feet and he weakly tried to scramble away as I approached him. I snatched him by the collar and pulled him to follow me. He stumbled along behind me as I led him into the bathroom. I made him sit in the bathtub to avoid unsightly blood stains before I collected supplies from beneath the sink.

I turned back toward him silently and helped him pulled off his shredded, drenched shirt. He wasn't unattractive and I imagined that he had a girlfriend, one who would be worried sick when he didn't come home. Oh well.

I forced myself to not acknowledge the warm stench of blood and to instead wipe the excess from his skin. With precise, sharp movements, I expertly cleaned and stitched the bite wound in his shoulder before treating the gash at the back of his head.

"What...why..." he stuttered, trying to form an appropriate question.

"I'm going to dissect you mentally now and physically later," I murmured absently, my eyes set on my work. Again, he looked mortified, the witty spunk depleted.

I offered him back his blood-soaked shirt and he hesitantly pulled it back on. I drug him out of the bathroom and into the room with the dead woman. He stood there awkwardly while I cleaned up and he didn't move, even when I left to drop off the body.

I climbed into the room through the fire escape and he just stood there, watching me with some emotion that I couldn't discern. I closed and bolted the window before walking past him and out of the room, locking the door behind me.

I showered and then I sat in my closet for a long time, trying to figure out why I was the way I was. But worldly questions like that are never answered, and so I eventually got up. I sat outside the door to the room, listening to the unsteady breathing of the man.

I didn't even know his name.