Part 18 (1/2)
Diallo was trapped in his mortal memories. Persuading him to relinquish his old pa.s.sions would be perhaps Kyle's most daunting challenge.
Diallo wobbled and slumped against Kyle. He breathed heavily.
”Help me lie down,” Diallo said. ”I must rest, then feed again.”
Kyle helped Diallo onto the bed. His father reclined against the pillows.
A small cooler sitting nearby held several packets of blood. Kyle retrieved one and pierced the top. He handed it to his father.
”Drink this, Father. It will nourish you.”
”What is it?” Diallo frowned.
”Blood,” Kyle said. ”Human blood. In this age, we live on blood that has been packaged like this.”
Diallo looked doubtful. Kyle demonstrated how to squeeze the packet and draw the fluid between the lips.
Diallo frowned, tried to mimic him.
He vomited explosively.
”I cannot feed on this!” Diallo flung the packet across the room. ”The blood tastes foul.”
”But you must adapt to it,” Kyle said. ”It is a safe way for us to nourish ourselves. We cannot hunt and kill prey, Father.”
Diallo dropped against the pillows. Sweat had broken out on his face.
Kyle again attempted to feed him the packaged blood. Diallo gagged.
”I need live prey,” Diallo said. ”Bring me a human”
”You don't understand what you're asking me!”
”I need a live human” Diallo coughed. ”Or I fear I will die.”
Kyle paced. His father demanded the impossible. He had not hunted a human in decades, and found the idea inimicaloffensive, even-to his nature. He was not a predator. He counted humans as his friends and confidants. How could he prey on them? Mamu had been like a brother to him.
His gaze flicked over Mamu's corpse.
Father needed to feed on him. Now, he needs another. Mamu's death caused me sorrow, but I shall go on, for it was for a great purpose, my father's survival. What would it hurt me to kill a stranger to keep him alive?
The coldness of Kyle's thoughts frightened him. He considered himself a civilized vampire, a lover of culture and art, with refined tastes and habits. Yet he was thinking of regressing into the kind of vampire that he despised: the ruthless predator.
He went to Diallo. Hunger twisted his father's face. A face so much like his own.
Diallo's hand found his, squeezed tightly.
”Hunt for me, my son,” Diallo whispered. ”Save me ””
He had waited almost one hundred seventy years to find his father. Was a human's life worth that much? A human would never live to such an advanced age.
He could not deny his father.
He would not.
He would do anything to keep Diallo alive.
Kyle covered his father's hand with his own.
”I'll return soon,” he said.
Kyle drove the Lexus sport utility into town.
Briefly when he had climbed in the vehicle, he'd thought about Mamu and how he typically drove Kyle everywhere that he needed to travel. Then he cleared memories of his friend out of his thoughts. He could not afford to think of any humans in kind, familiar terms, not while he was engaged on this mission. Nothing could distract him from his purpose.
He was a good but cautious driver. Mother had warned him about the pitfalls of automobiles. Humans are reckless, she had taught. It is far too easy for you to be ensnared in a collision; think of the furor you would cause if the humans witnessed you walking away from a head-on wreck, unscathed. Or what if you were to lose consciousness and they took you to one of their hospitals and discovered your unusual blood ... Kyle could not quiet her somber voice of wise advice.
As he motored down the steep road, the town unfolded before him, lights twinkling. It was fifteen minutes past eleven.
He hoped that most of the residents had taken to bed. He could not risk being seen.
He turned onto a residential street. Porch lights glimmered on many of the ranch-style homes.
He remembered the last time he had hunted. He had been one hundred and twenty-seven years old, living in Paris. He and his mother had gone to the theater one evening, and after the performance, they followed a young couple along the city streets. Mother led the hunt. She swept toward the couple and forced them into a dark alley with the power of an unstoppable gale. She fell upon the man; Kyle took the woman. He would always remember the terror that had shone in the woman's eyes as his hands grasped her shoulders in an iron grip ... the sigh of pleasure that escaped her when he sank his fangs into her warm, tender neck ... and the cloying scent of her perfume mingled with the coppery odor of fresh blood.
A delicious s.h.i.+ver coursed along his spine and rattled through his arms, making his hands tremble on the steering wheel. But nausea followed soon after. The thought of touching his lips to germ-ridden human flesh seemed so repulsive, so primitive.
But he could never forget the rapture of sucking blood directly from an artery and into his mouth.
He reached an intersection. He turned onto a road that appeared to be darker, with fewer homes.
He parked in front of an unlit house. A nearby elm tree concealed the Lexus in additional covers of darkness.
Still, the luxury sport utility was glaringly conspicuous in the humble town. He regretted that he had allowed Mamu to acquire the vehicle. However, he reminded himself that hunting amongst the townspeople had never been part of his original intent.
He climbed out of the truck. The thump of the closing door echoed down the desolate street.
He drew his leather gloves more tightly across his hands. Perspiration coated his palms.
He had never hunted alone. Mother had always accompanied him.
But her teachings returned to him: You are a prince of the night. Use darkness to your advantage, revel and cloak yourself in it. At night, the world belongs to us.
A breeze swirled around him, carrying the scent of flowers and the singing of crickets and other creatures.
The world belongs to us ...
His eyes slid shut.
Like a man submerging a net in a river in search of a fish, Kyle cast his mind into the atmosphere. He sought the warm pulse of a human life. Someone young, but not a child. An adolescent, yes, with ripe blood that would nourish his father.