May 16 Chapter 9 Millicent Finds Jeffery, I love Writing Evil Characters

Chapter 9Millicent comes back in this chapter. She is one of my favorite characters to write because she  can do what ever she wants pretty much. I can be as dark as I want to be with her.

I think after this chapter things start to get less edited. I'll need to do more work to clean it up so the chapters may start coming out a bit slower. Hopefully you'll stick around. There are 36 chapters all together so I do have a ways to go.

Chapter 9

     Jeffery wandered in the dark feverishly. He ran from the mall at inhuman speed toward the closest patch of woods he could find. He left just in time. He had heard his mom call his name from across the food court. The sound of her voice pained him, he missed her so much and wanted to talk to her, but he couldn’t, not until he found a cure. The blood lust had risen up in him like a thunderstorm ready to burst. If she had gotten any closer he would have attacked her right there in the mall in front of everyone. He should never have returned to his hometown. Being here was far too risky, but it was also the only place he knew the gypsies would eventually return to.  

He desperately sucked in gulps of air to catch the scent that would quench the burning. Finally, a few yards in front of him hid a groundhog. Not the best meal but hopefully enough to make the thirst subside before he attacked a human. 

     He glided across the ground like he was on ice, closer to his prey, the craving pushing him onward. His pupils widened farther than any humans, eyes black as death. The dilation gave him perfect vision in the dark, colorless but clear.  He stopped a few feet away waiting for the opportune moment to strike. His predatory teeth retracted from his gums ready to sink into the flesh of his victim. He waited; saw his moment and sprang like a cat trapping the creature under his body weight. The animal struggled to escape as it twisted and turned trying to break free. The warmth of its flesh and the smell of its blood drove Jeffery wild and he plunged his teeth deep into the back of its neck. The groundhog’s heart beat against his lips, quick at first as the blood gushed into him, then slower as its life force weakened and then slipped away.  The struggling surrendered to a peaceful stillness and its heart silenced. The animal lay lifeless on the ground. Jeffery released from its neck. He always ended their life as quickly and painlessly as he could. He never enjoyed killing, not like his past companion, Millicent. 

     Millicent caught humans and kept them alive and dragged them off to play with like toys. She loved to listen to their pounding hearts and their screaming and begging. Occasionally, she compelled humans and forced them to forget so she could hunt and catch them again and again. She always revealed what she was before she killed them. She enjoyed being a vampire and apologized to no one for what she was. To her, humans were no different from a cow or a chicken. Any relationships she may have had with humans had dissolved long ago. Nothing survived of her humanity; only a blood sucking monster remained now. 

     “It’s nice to see you still think about me.” The voice from his nightmares fell from the trees above. Jeffery sprang to his feet forgetting the animal on the ground. He bared his teeth ready to attack, his senses still wild and alert from the recent kill. He could smell the strong scent of dead blood in the air, and wondered how he had missed it. His cat like eyes penetrated the dark, black holes sucking up all the light. In a tree above, his worst nightmare crouched on a branch like a black panther, Millicent. 

     “Come now, don’t be so dramatic, certainly I’m not your worst nightmare.” Her red fiery hair hung long, almost to her breasts, full of waves and curls and her eyes reflected an eerie white glow in the dark. Her body moved more like an animal as she glided down the tree trunk and slithered toward him. Black flowing materials clung to her perfect body complementing her every movement. The front of her outfit exposed the top of her ivory breasts. Her lips were full and red and her skin perfectly smooth and pale. She smiled at him exposing her vampire teeth. She looked beautiful in a monstrous way.

     “If I’m so beautiful to you John, then why did you try to kill me? I didn’t appreciate that at all.” She stood in front of him, her eyes black and empty, no longer reflecting the available light. She still called him John. She knew perfectly well he didn’t go by that name any more. She used it to hurt him, to make him think of his family. John Crouse died eleven years ago. Now, only Jeffery Walker remained, the walking dead.

     She pressed her face up to his and growled. Fear rose up his spine and traveled throughout his body. She was older and drank the blood of humans making her far more lethal than him. Was she here for revenge? After what he did to her he had hoped she would stay away from him. Was she here to kill him? If so, he welcomed death.

     “Don’t worry darling, I’m not upset about that.” She brought her hand up and caressed his cheek. Her hand felt warm, very warm; she had fed well. “It was just foreplay, right? You were just playing hard to get? Is it my turn yet?” She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him in close taking deep breaths around his neck and face. Her menacing, black eyes devoured everything, their emptiness made him shudder. So empty; not a spark of life existed in those large round black holes.

     He tried hard to keep his mind clear. He didn’t want to give anything away to her. He concentrated on her appearance so she wouldn’t hear anything else in his mind. Why was she here if she wasn’t going to kill him?

     “I’m here because you have been attracting an awful lot of attention to yourself searching for those, gypsies, and your stupid cure. You left evidence in New York, John, and hunters know you exist now. They’re looking for you, and if the hunters know so do other vampires. They’ll kill you if they find out what you’re trying to do.” He wanted her to stop calling him John. She released his shirt pushing him back from her. A human would have instantly fallen but he kept his balance.

     He had left evidence? How? He had gone to Bohemia, Long Island researching the gypsies he hunted for, but they were no longer there. The locals told him they traveled up and down the east coast and one woman told him they frequented a hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia. The reason he searched for them he never revealed to anyone. 

     She turned her back to him and breathed out a huge sigh. “Yes Bohemia, and what’s forty-five minutes away from Bohemia? The vampire research center.”

     The center, he knew it was near. The center was harmless. The so called Vampirologist Steven Chapman had started the place in the seventies and was a sort of census taker of vampires. He claimed 1215 real vampires existed in the world and that most of them lived in Los Angeles. It was ridiculous. No real vampire would have anything to do with a human. Only pretenders contacted his center. Jeffery had heard they found Chapman dead in 1995 from a heart attack and now his wife continued his work.   

     ”They have a dhampir with them now and she can sense you, John. They are using her to track you and they followed you all the way to Allegany State Park and found the bear that you fed on.” She turned back to him again, the material of her clothes whirled around her with the smooth movement. Why was she so melodramatic?

     He remembered the bear. He was starving and needed larger game to eat. The park had a large black bear population. He found one and it had put up a fight. The bear had clawed and bit him several times before it lost and succumbed to death. The wounds from the bear on his body pained him but healed quickly, no harm done. 

     “No harm done! You left your DNA everywhere! Your dead vampire blood in its claws and mouth, on the ground, everywhere! Did I teach you nothing? They know your identity now and know where you’re from.” Her body tensed as she continued. “They no longer research vampires; they are out to exterminate them!” The emptiness in her eyes grew larger and he felt they would swallow him into their blackness.

     He didn’t know what to say. It didn’t occur to him that people were on his trail or that he still had DNA. He had always been careful to avoid discovery. No vampire wanted the ancients coming after them. He froze, speechless. 

     “And here you are in your hometown! What a fool! I should kill you myself right now and take your blood. Too bad it would taste like rodents.” She flashed her menacing white teeth.  

      He welcomed that idea. Death would be an end to his suffering and his family could finally place his body back in the grave where it belonged. Millicent growled at him furiously. He knew she would never kill him or let him die. That’s why she had reappeared, to protect him from the coming storm. But why? Why did she care about his existence so much? 

     “You need to get out of here before the dhampir senses you again. They already know that you’re staying at the hotel. They were in your room with the dhampir.” 

     Maybe he should give himself up to the hunters and let them end his wretched existence. How ironic, the hunters had what he searched for, a dhampir.  Maybe if he turned himself over to these hunters he might get a chance to speak to the dhampir. Maybe, if they hated vampires, they would be sympathetic to his mission to find a cure. They wouldn’t have to kill vampires anymore, they could just cure them.

     “Are you NUTS? What are you thinking? I don’t understand why you want to cure yourself? We are like gods compared to humans! They are just cattle. We should be domesticating the humans. You are completely out of your mind! Do you have any idea what a cure would do to our kind? I should have never left that journal with you. It’s filled your head with nonsense.” She stopped her rant, and her eyes widened as she realized her slip. 

     She had left the journal with him? This raised a hundred questions, like how she got the journal, how she found him in the first place to give it to him. Why did she leave the journal on his body instead of handing it to him when he awoke a vampire? She would never answer any of his questions. Sometimes, he wished he could read minds so he could pluck information out of her like she did to him. He watched her expression twist. She regretted letting that piece of information out. 

     “You need to leave town tonight!” She said to change the subject. “I don’t think the dhampir can tell one vampire from another so I’m going back to the hotel to lead her away. You need to get as far from here as possible.” 

     Clearly, she wasn’t going to acknowledge the questions in his mind. It would be a waste of time to say them out loud.

     “OK, I’m out of here. I’ll do what you want.” His voice sounded hoarse and hopeless. She would get what she wanted one way or another. No use resisting her. He planned to leave tonight anyway.

     “I’ll meet up with you later, John,” she said. The smile she tossed him felt like a slap in the face. He watched as she gracefully turned in her melodramatic way and melted into the dark woods.

     He continued thinking what he knew she wanted to hear until she was out of range. Good, now he needed to figure out what he really planned to do. He didn’t know where Millicent would lead the hunters or what horrifying things she would do to them. He blocked the mental pictures out of his mind. He couldn’t do anything to stop her. He was too weak. Millicent could easily rip him to pieces or drain his blood until he was nothing but a living corpse.

     So close to his goal and at the same time it slipped through his fingers. A dhampir right here in Martinsburg!  If Millicent gets to them, she will probably kill them all, including the dhampir. He needed to find them first. Maybe Millicent was wrong; maybe the dhampir could tell the difference between vampires and would continue tracking him. 

     He couldn’t go back to the hotel. The hunters would be there waiting for him while he was at his weakest. He would gorge himself on blood tonight and sleep in the ground. Tomorrow night, if they still lived, he would try to contact them and speak to the dhampir. Hopefully, Millicent wasn’t in a hurry to lead them off and kill them. If he was lucky, maybe the dhampir was a prisoner and he could free him or her and get their help. First, he wanted to say good-bye to Cosima.

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