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.There was a blare of horns as cars swerved to avoid the twisting figures in the road.One driver of a Lexus SUV was so startled she swerved too hard and went speeding into the median, where her luxury utility vehicle proceeded to flip several times before stopping in a grinding crash on the opposite side of the freeway.David laughed and drank deeply of the dying man’s blood.Then he felt hands on his shoulders, pulling him away.He snarled and fought for an instant, but the hands would not be budged.He relaxed.Narcisa.He wanted more of the man’s blood, but not at the risk of displeasing her.She steered him away from the road and he lurched toward the BMW.She tightened her grip on him and steered him away from the car, guiding him toward a stand of trees beyond the road’s shoulder.David was still wired from the fresh infusion of blood and laughed with wild abandon as he allowed her to lead him into the darkness of the woods.The laughing stopped as white light began to displace the darkness.“Oh,” he said, sobering almost at once.“Magic again.Where are we going?”She didn’t answer.There was no chance as the white light glowed brighter and the fuzzy feeling he recalled from before of disembodied near non-existence wiped out conscious thought.He relaxed and knew a few moments of seemingly timeless bliss.Then the world began to coalesce around him again, darkening and solidifying.He felt the ground beneath his feet and remembered his name as the last of the white radiance fizzled away.They were on a suburban sidewalk somewhere.He heard a snatch of conversation in the distance, saw rows of respectable houses on either side of an immaculate street.Narcisa stood in front of him, smiling.“Recognize anything?”David frowned.He glanced to his left and then to his right—and froze.Narcisa laid a hand gently on his shoulder.“It’s time, David.”He turned to fully face the house that was obviously their destination.Janine’s house.Her parents’ house, actually.Narcisa leaned into him, whispering fiercely in his ear.“Are you ready to do it, David? Are you ready to rip that cunt to pieces for me?”David shuddered.Then he smiled and squeezed Narcisa’s hand.“Yes.Yes, I am.”“Good.Who do you belong to, David?”“You.Only to you.”“Let’s do it, then.”Still holding hands, they started across the manicured lawn toward the house where he’d once shared warm meals and laughter with his beloved’s family.The house where he and Janine had spent many late nights plotting their bright future together.David and Narcisa climbed the steps to the front porch.Narcisa rang the doorbell.10: AND IN THE END…David sat shaking on his knees in the middle of the blood-spattered living room, squinting against the bright sunlight shining through the large bay window behind the Martins’ plush leather sofa.He remembered almost everything now—everything up until the moment after he and Narcisa climbed the steps to the Martins’ front porch.What happened after that was an enigma.It wasn’t that the memories were hazy.They were just gone, like a file permanently deleted from a hard drive.No matter how hard he strained to remember, he came up empty.Obviously something had gone wrong.Not because the Martins were all dead.That had been according to plan, after all.The sense of something wrong derived from the array of emotions raging inside him.Guilt.Anguish.Grief.Regret.A sense of loss so profound he felt utterly hollow inside.All things he should be incapable of feeling.These were human emotions, and he was no longer human.Or…was he?Perhaps yesterday’s absence of those emotions was part of some trick Narcisa had played on him, a demented mind game designed to degrade him and forever taint his soul.She was powerful almost beyond comprehension.Wasn’t it possible she’d manipulated his thoughts and impressions, had somehow immersed him in a convincing illusion or delusion? Which would mean he wasn’t a vampire after all, just some gullible sucker she’d subtly coerced into participating in a slew of appalling homicides.It sounded like a plausible scenario and yet…it didn’t feel right.Because even in the midst of his grief and confusion, the scent of blood was driving him half-mad.He lifted a shaking hand to his mouth and tasted dried blood with the tip of his tongue.It wasn’t as electrifyingly potent as the fresh stuff, but it did light up his senses, stilling his tremors and bringing everything into a crystalline focus.The problem was it wouldn’t last long.He needed more than a taste.He licked more dried blood from his fingers and rose smoothly to his feet.A closer examination of the scattered body parts revealed enough information to confirm that virtually every member of the Martin family residing in the area had been present for the slaughter.Janine’s parents, Ed and Margaret Martin, sat on the sofa, their heads lolling, facial features hanging slack.Ed’s belly had been ripped open, his abdominal cavity scooped out and its contents flung across the room.Loops of intestine hung from a slowly twirling overhead ceiling fan.One of the man’s kidneys was wedged in his mouth.Margaret’s blouse was in shreds.Her breasts had been torn from her body.David began to feel slightly sick again as he cataloged the atrocities.He licked more blood from his fingers to quell the nausea.More of Janine’s relatives were quickly accounted for.Her uncle, Bob Martin, had been reduced to a limbless torso before finally being killed.His stumps had been cauterized and his face was frozen in a mask of eternal agony.A stench of burned flesh hung heavy in the air.The torso was propped in a corner by the front door.Carol, Bob’s wife, was dead, too
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