CHAPTER NINETEEN

NINETEEN
“If you scream I will kill you,” I said.
I grabbed the girl by the shoulder, pulled her to
her feet and gave her a rough yank so she was facing
me. I showed her the gun without bothering to tell her
that she would die whether she screamed or not. Then
I saw that this was no teenager, as I had first thought.
She was eleven or twelve – a tween.
I could see that no matter what, she was about
to release an ear-piercing wail. There was probably a
good deal of blood already on my face from feeding
downstairs.

I ripped out her throat and fed long and deep,
sucking both the jugular and the carotid artery at the
same time, like straws. Her memories were twisted
and removing her from the mortal plane was an act of
mercy. I sucked her dry and dead.
I brought Daddy out of the spell just as I sank
my fangs. I wanted him to feel it. I drained him to
near death, like his compatriots downstairs.
My planwas still inchoate as to final disposition of the blood
husks in this house once I was done feeding. I left him
legs straight out, sitting slumped and insensate in the
corner, his pants still open and his penis hanging out.
I turned around and saw my bloody reflection in the
mirror on the closet door. I was a terrifying specter at
this point. It made me smile.
In the basement things went much more smoothly. The three men working the lab were wearing breathing masks. None of them had sampled their own product yet that night, nor would they. The one who tried to go for a small assault weapon was the first I froze with a gaze.
At a speed imperceptible to human eyes I went right up to each of them, nose to face masks, and entranced all of them in rapid succession, waving my pistol around the while just in case. Then I drained each of them to death. There really is nothing like that last gulp when it brings death and frees the soul from the corpus. Those last few drops contain a charge like nothing else. I arranged each of them in a vaguely kneeling posture, all three corpses in a row, and pumped two bullets into the back of each of their heads.
Two of them had Czech-made 9mm automatics in holsters at the small of their backs and I grabbed those and tucked them into my waistband. As a long-running serial killer, it is important to switch out weapons as soon as they are used.
The gas was still hissing when I went back up to the kitchen. I went into the living room and sucked the last blood from the two video gamers. I flitted upstairs to the bedroom and finished off the fat biker and put a couple rounds in the back of his and the kid’s heads. On my way downstairs I changed clips. I grabbed a couch pillow and muffled the pistol in my hand as I shot both the gamers in the back of their heads.
I had noticed a small utility shed in the back yard when I landed. I went out and found the door unlocked. Strange. Usually speed freaks lock up everything out of paranoia. Anyway, there were two full five gallon plastic jerry cans of gasoline. I went back inside and doused each portion of my completed meal. I let a stream of gasoline run down the stairs from the second floor.
I soaked the guys in the basement last, then went up into the kitchen, letting the gasoline flow onto the floor and stairs as I went, and stripped naked and poured the last of the fuel over my clothes. Being at the center of a murder investigation, it made little sense to take blood soaked clothes reeking of gasoline all the way back to Manhattan to dispose of there. I grabbed a box of kitchen matches from the center of the small formica-top table against the wall opposite the stove.
I went to the back door and opened it, recalled my bearings on arrival. I stood naked with a gun tucked into each armpit and struck and tossed a kitchen match. I launched myself skyward. A fireball erupted below me.
The police would first attribute the explosion to the meth lab. Then, upon receiving the results of the coroner’s examinations of the charred remains, the entire episode would be attributed to the actions of a rival drug gang.
As a vampire, I love war for the convenience of circumstances it presents for feeding. The French and Indian War, The Revolution, 1812, the Whiskey Rebellion, the War Between the States – what pleasant times those were. Feeding all night long with no concerns about getting rid of fleshy blood husks; war is a vampire’s paradise. The war on drugs presents certain complications but in the end, it serves the same purpose as far as feeding is concerned. No one is very surprised anymore when eight people turn up dead if there’s a link to quantities of drugs.
I flew, a new-to-me gun in each hand, a true angel of death, and landed naked back atop my building. Eight people – I must have been hungry. I also knew that the excess blood would fortify me through the daylight I am certain to face as part of Danny’s murder investigation.
Sunrise is now only a few hours away. I am off to my crypt to rest. I must remember to turn on the ringer on my cell phone.