Chapter 11 #2
De Luca seemed unsure if Bastian was serious.
And the truth was, some vampires did fetishize themselves.
Bastian had seen them posting thirst traps online: pictures and videos of their undead bodies, flexing and pouting, showing off their fangs.
It was empowering, he thought, if that was what you chose to do with your time.
The mayor clapped her hands. “It’s decided. Bastian will come to the gala, and everybody will love him. It will help to usher in a new age for Vernazza. Here, let’s celebrate.”
She returned to the bureau, clinking glasses as she prepared a toast. Bastian shrugged apologetically at De Luca. The gala wasn’t his idea, but the mayor had made it impossible to say no. Besides, he was intrigued. What if this was his best chance at being pardoned?
“Here,” the mayor said, holding something out to Bastian.
The goblet came into focus like everything around it had turned monochrome.
Bastian smelled it before he registered the ruby red liquid filling the glass.
Blood.
It was a goblet of blood.
“Is that…” His throat constricted. He couldn’t say it.
“Human? Yes. Humanely sourced, of course. You have my word. I like to set a good example.”
Bastian shivered. The scent caused every hair on his body to prickle and rise.
“Mayor Moretti,” De Luca said, “this is completely inappropriate.”
“Please, don’t refuse on my behalf,” the mayor told Bastian. “Let us drink to friendship.”
Bastian’s arm trembled with the need to reach for the glass. His throat pulsed with sudden hunger. He had drained his Bonnie Tyler flask at breakfast, so he should be full, but his stomach knotted itself together, cramping with the need for exactly what the goblet contained.
“Bastian?”
Whitby’s voice was an echo in the dark.
And the blood…He felt its pull. His mouth was parched.
The mayor’s eyes shone with encouragement, and Bastian’s incisors buzzed with a desperate kind of desire.
His hand twitched toward the glass, but he managed to stop it reaching.
He could taste the aroma on his tongue, and it caused his throat to swell with want. All he had to do was take the glass and he would feel satisfied for the first time in five years. He would feel stronger. More powerful. More himself.
His hand twitched again, and Bastian thought about Whitby. How much his getting clean meant to her. Everything she had done to help him become a better person.
“No,” he choked, dragging his hand back to his side, where it tightened into a fist. He looked at De Luca and Whitby, seeing the strain in their eyes, and he couldn’t bear it, having his own monstrosity reflected back at him like that.
So, he ran.
Ignoring Whitby’s calls, he sped out of the office, past the startled secretary, and into the street. He darted around the first corner he found, then turned another corner in the opposite direction, losing himself in the blessedly dark alleyways.
He heard Whitby calling his name, and shame and hunger wrestled in his gut.
He’d wanted the blood. He still did.
He prowled back and forth in the shadows, unable to think about anything other than the goblet filled with the rich, oily substance.
How sweet the sensation would be as it poured into his mouth, coppery and warm, igniting him from within.
Memories sparked and flashed in his mind.
How could he have forgotten how wonderful it tasted?
How delicious? How content he felt afterward?
He needed it.
He needed it.
Suddenly, he wasn’t thinking about the goblet anymore. He was thinking about a neck. A vein. The source of that deliciousness. His mind twisted itself in knots trying to figure out how he could get hold of it.
He could drink from a townsperson and…blame it on the killer.
It would be easy, really. Over in an instant.
That was only fair, given Bastian was being blamed for killing Luna. Everyone already thought him a monster. Why not prove them right?
But Bastian heard Whitby’s voice calling for him, and it punched a hole in the brain fog. A fraction of the hunger shrank. His mind began to clear, the bloodlust calming.
He wasn’t accustomed to being near human blood anymore, that was all.
Still, he couldn’t bear the thought of them seeing him like this. Shame overwhelmed him, and he stepped back into a doorway, the shadows cloaking him just in time for him to see De Luca and Whitby run past the alley, still yelling for him.
Quiet fell.
If Bastian still breathed, he was sure he’d be panting. Instead, his chest ached with tension. He tried to remember the calming mantras of self-love and acceptance that Whitby had taught him and settled on whispering the lyrics from Enigma’s “Second Chapter.”
It wasn’t his fault that he had reacted to the blood; it was in his nature, and he hadn’t been around human blood in years. He had controlled himself. He had done the right thing.
Bastian was so distracted by the whiplash of emotions, he barely registered the sound of a heart hammering nearby.
Suddenly, a cold hand gripped his, and a man appeared from the dark.
Bastian stared into a skeletal face with sunken eyes, above which crawled bristling black eyebrows.
The man’s face was red with exertion, and his smile held a graveyard of yellowing teeth.
“I’m so glad I found you, Mr. Vampire,” the man whispered. “You must listen to me. My name is Salvador Silvestri, and there’s so much I need to tell you.”