Blood Rider
Chapter 4

Lee had found her prey. It wasn’t hard to track him down once she knew the scent of his essence. Vampires could always tell strength and power in their own kind. It wasn’t smell or any definable method of determining another’s power. It was a bumping of auras really. To her it felt like a light pressure on her skin and as though someone was rubbing it from the inside. More pressure, more power. If someone was strong enough it would even make her skin feel a bit numb, if they were not hiding it well. More power the better the ability to mask their tracks.

She watched him from a snow-covered rooftop. He had looked drunk when he had approached his prey and when she focused on him she could pick up him mumbling to himself. He had pulled a prostitute into the alley, one so stoned she paid no attention to his aggressiveness when he pushed her against the wall. She felt his mind, his mental aura, thick like humid air, seep into the woman’s mind, dulling any instinctual reaction.

The night traffic for humans was quite low because humans didn’t walk freely in the night and had some heavy superstitious fear of it. In the northern part of the continent, they didn’t have to deal so much with fanatics as they did in the south. It took a certain type of human to live in the isolated, colder climates.

He’s talking to himself, not his rider, she remarked to Charlie, in the situation sticking to mental speech.

Lee shifted her stance, being careful not to slide down on the layer of ice beneath the recent snowfall. The sharp wind had the bite of ice in it, but she found it to be refreshing. Already the weather was turning less bitter; the season of longer days and more vigorous human activity. But they were still firmly in the grip of winter, which meant more bleeders and business for her.

-He is a bleeder. Killing prey. It is inevitable that part of human souls taints the mind. Do it enough and all those slivers of souls will override his thinking and personality. Messy business that.-

I’m aware of that. That is where the whole monster part of the mythology comes from. You and I have stalked enough bleeders to know the symptoms.

-Then why are we watching this one kill another, right by the open street, where he will leave his prey for others to clean up?-

I doubt it matters. He is hunting humans in the sub-quarter, not Town. They are fair game really. No one cares about those that don’t have firm loyalties and choose to survive on their own.

She tilted her head as she studied the bleeder, absorbed in his feast. It was rude to watch another eat, she supposed, and rather indifferent on her part knowing the feast wouldn’t survive. Sometimes the greatest evil was indifference. It was another thing they were skilled at in the north; ignoring ones’ neighbours. In her case, it was a matter of Council law. She had to stalk a vampire suspected of killing its prey, a bleeder, and catch them in the act before she had the authorization to execute them.

This bleeder was particularly vicious, perhaps because he didn’t care if the prey survived. Still watching him made her shiver because he looks so bestial and reminded her of how her kind could be beneath their human masks. And how much she missed the hunt.

-I’m hungry.-

The demon always stated such things so bluntly, as if it were not already making her feel it. As if in echo, her stomach rumbled, but it was the deeper ache that signified her bloodthirst. Having Charlie more aware made the blood thirst stronger. Meant she had to feed more, which was damn annoying really. Sipping a bit off a donor was better than gouging into a prey; a difference between having a snack and gorging on a buffet for one. The blood thirst was like any addiction. You don’t hand a compulsive eater a cake. A compulsive eater, who has to eat, constantly pays attention to what they consume and how much. Same thing really. Just watching the bleeder gnaw at the woman’s neck, the blood splatter hitting the crisp snow, made her breath catch. Her sluggish pulse picked up a notch.

Me too. Just stop talking about it, or I’ll be down there sharing that meal. It’s just, something is off. I know bleeders go all crazy. I should know; I do crazy quite well. And he wouldn’t be talking to his rider, cause apparently, that’s a special thing you and I have goin' on. It is the gait. That shuffling, stumbling gait. It’s so not normal.

-Normal enough if he is drunk. You have proven many a time your enhanced metabolism doesn’t prevent you from getting drunk when you put the effort in. Or add something else in there. I love the combos.-

Précisément, my special friend. If you were going to feed, you will purge the booze in moments. No one feeds in that state, nor wants to. It is pure survival instinct. And seriously, I have never walked like a zombie after a vampire cocktail.

-He’s crazy. We cannot predict how it will affect him. Maybe he hunts drunk. Bleeders often use drugs and alcohol in order to dull the fragments of spirits in them. Who knows? He’s killing his victims and going crazier every time. He needs to die.-

She stifled a snort of amusement. Who couldn’t be amused by the fact a little voice in her head was telling her someone else was a few beers short a keg. Saying that others tended to use drugs to dull their little voices in their head. A voice telling her to kill. She could be reassured by the fact only sane people speculated they were crazy, but it didn’t matter, crazy was crazy, no matter the introspection.

It didn’t feel right but she couldn’t argue with killing a bleeder before he went out of his mind, bloodlust crazy. Besides, that was the idea. She made a thousand notes doing so, which given the fact she had to see them in the act once, then the tracking and then the killing, wasn’t that much. She was such an underpaid assassin flunky to the Council. Had to pass the decades somehow, especially when not Clan initiated. Within the Clans, she would be the flunky of whoever initiated her passage, for about a century or two as she worked her way up the ladder. A vampire without a Clan could be killed for any reason at all by any vampire.

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Got that right. This fucking peon shit is getting on my nerves, Charlie.

-We are being smothered.-

Lee crouched down lower, bunched her muscles and leapt off the building with a push outward, to land smoothly close to the bleeder. He retaliated swiftly, turning to her with a hiss right as she was landing. There was no moment of confusion, common in far gone bleeders. No attempt to converse. And certainly not a precise attack. He launched himself at her before she could catch her balance. She flew into the wall, cracking the stone with her head. In that moment of stunned pain, he wrenched her left arm away from her body, while grabbing her around the neck with the other. Feeling the pulsing throb from the lack of oxygen she knew he had enough strength to snap her neck if he exerted much more force. She slammed her arm guard into his elbow to weaken his hold while trying to use her aura to repel him backward.

Her aura thrust past his barriers, but he was like a tree rooted to the ground against her assault, even though the pressure alone had to be excruciating. This bleeder was far stronger than he ought to be, no matter how many souls he had consumed, he had only had his rider for a less than a year by her senses. Usually, with such a newly turned, she could blast them so hard with raw energy their rider was scorched right out of them.

When he released her arm to punch her in the side she stopped playing with him and used the full force of her mental attack until blood dripped from his ears and nose, his body trembled and she was able to thrust him away from her. The force of her aura, the vibrations, restricted his rider, tore them asunder forcibly.

Lee pulled her hunting knife free and slashed him as he fell back. Swipe, shift, stab, duck. Smooth and easy now that his spirit cringed. No matter his abnormal strength, he didn’t have the age, the bond with his rider, to get past her shields, although she felt him battering against her like a moth to a window pane. Futile. While he may have physical strength and pure aggression, he should have fled when he sensed her age. Instead, he had attacked. Not only that, but he attacked like she was food. Madness.

In quick succession she kicked him back, stalked forward and punched him a few times in the chest, all for pure retaliation for his blunt physical assault. Compressing her aura with well-honed skills she pinned him to the wall with a flick of her wrist and maintained the telekinetic restraints. He couldn’t break from a trained mind. She regarded him silently for a brief second. His aura battered against hers mindlessly. She could sense no coherent thoughts from him and a pure raw rage from his rider.

This was not an interrogation, but an execution. With that in mind, she pressed forward, feeling her rider surge within her in anticipation. She hungered. It was not the sort of hunger that a person got from forgoing a meal or two. It was the sort of hunger you had when you were a chain smoker trying to quit, a deep gnawing ache so much stronger than the desire for food. Because this vampire was engorged with energy, this meal would satisfy her for days. She cupped her hand around his neck and pulled it to the side, seeing no reason to draw it out, and felt her teeth slide out from her gums.

With a shiver of pleasure running up her back she sank her teeth into his neck, immediately pulling back a bit, tearing and then sucking at the pulsing flow. Her teeth extended further, firming her grip, as his neck and shoulder became slick with blood. His body immediately went slack as the chemicals from the bite relaxed his muscles and gave him a pleasurable high. Yet despite his body’s reaction she felt the raging torment of his rider and oddly nothing at all from the human within.

The pure pleasure of the blood flowed through her, expanding her aura with its essence. It was intoxicating, but she focused herself and seeped into his mind and found pure chaos. The human was in a panic; a gibbering, delusional panic and seemed to be hiding within the depths of his mind. The slivers of soul he had consumed lingered within him, giving her hints of other thoughts, other feelings. She had brief flashes of his victims but not his maker. Pity. Knowing the maker was information she could sell to the Clans.

Lee fed quickly, draining him of energy, until the link between his rider and him was thinning and death was near. It was more than bleeding him dry, although even that would kill one so young. This was bleeding all of his life essence and no vampire could survive that.

-It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me. I couldn’t stop it. The beast. It was the beast within me.- the vampire projected outward, not to her, but she could hear it; full of anguish and panic.

-Do it now. I will filter the souls out of them, to find whatever afterlife they can find being so splintered.-

She drained him until the point of death, felt him getting weak and losing consciousness and then she took the last few sips, feeling the rush of energy as he died. As the energy flowed through her, healed her and enhanced her aura, she felt a surge of euphoria.

Charlie separated the splinter souls and projected them outward, including their victim. As the body died the rider was released to its realm. Lee pulled back slightly and let him slide to the ground. When the sun rose, it would burn him beyond recognition, even so, no one would see a mark on him and he would decompose fast without his rider, turning into fine silt. Or, since he was young, turning him into a puddle of goo. Not that internal Clan wars bothered humans much, but the Council liked the perception of peace. Job done. And yet she was not satisfied. There had been something wrong with this one. More so than the madness bleeders inflicted on themselves by killing human prey.

Lee crouched down and studied him silently. She picked up his left hand and turned it to inspect the wrist. No mark of the registered. The Clan usually kept a tight rein on their own; with no liking for bleeders either, but this one had slipped their notice. Bleeders were often marked, because they slowly lost the skills to evade human Hunters. This one was not one of the registered that had slipped their notice. Odd. Neither marked by the Council nor owned by the Clan. Where did this bleeder come from and how had he even survived the Turn and the blood lust for a year, feeding as he was, with no one noticing? New to town perhaps? Maybe a gang of rogues coming into town and feeding in the sub-quarters?

There was a great deal of emphasis within human law enforcement to mark unregistered vampires, being as the Elder races had never cooperated with implementation of Changed Laws or the Council. Lee had dragged a great deal of vampires in to do just that. The United Council needed to demonstrate they could hold all races under their laws. Their influence in the north was not nearly as strong because there were too many fragmented groups. The local werewolf pack made an agreement with the Council, as long as they retained the river valley as their land. Town, the Human Quarter, followed Council laws, mostly. The Changed Quarter was like vampires, had their own government and had long been resistant to Council rule. The main focus had been reining in the vampires, as no one worried over reclusive Changed. In the end, the Council wanted a unified city, under one law and one government.

She scooped up a handful of snow and rubbed down her face and then dried it off with her sleeve. It would do. Thankfully, when on the hunt she wore dark colors to mask any spillage.

She felt a little lethargic having sated her hunger so completely, but the night was still young. Ignoring the corpse and the depleted woman she slipped out of the alley and merged with the foot traffic. The night was chill, but she never minded the cold weather, not when living in Middle Canada provided a great deal more night as the weather cooled. She wore a leather trench coat, not for warmth, but to hide her weapons and to at least slightly blend. She strolled down the street, trying to ignore Charlie’s commentary about the men she saw; that might be appealing to them, about the sooty auras, it tended to like a bit of a taste from.

“And what of this bleeder then?” she asked softly. She did not like to talk to Charlie in her head, it just did not seem right and this way it made it sound like a conversation. A conversation separate from herself, not with another part of herself.

-What of it? Tasty. With the tang of stolen souls. The rush of feeding until the victim passes without the problem of taking some it within you. A damn fine good meal really.-

“Right. And the fact it seemed the rider was running the show?”

-Oh?-

“Don’t ‘oh’ me, Charlie. You know what I mean. His strength and his aggressive assault. His zombie shuffling movements. No communication at all, except the sensation for the rider’s intense rage. And such a raging hunger too. I didn’t even feel his mind, just a mindless haze of jabbering fear.”

Lee was not really sure herself, but she remembered how it been when her rider did so.

-It seemed as though his rider had a strong influence on him. Perhaps because the host was loony and needed to be guided.-

“Really? That is the answer that works for you? That rider was literally riding him, suppressing the host, and then using him to drain their victim dry.”

-There is no conclusive evidence of that. Although I admit, his rider was riding him, for some reason. And the only true reason we have to do so is to protect the host. We would have to see such a case again to make any solid determination.-

“Maybe we will have the chance. There does seem to be quite a few rogues to control this winter. Maybe we have a clan war starting like they had in New Ontario. That could be messy.”

-That’s the spirit.-

Lee huffed and then laughed dryly. It would be good for business. Then she blurred forward, a form of movement as close to teleportation as possible, as close as a being with mass could get. Within moments she stopped in front of the Crimson. This particular club, as a Clan club, was limited to only vampires, no humans and no other supernatural entities. There were plenty of feeder clubs that naturally permitted humans. And even one rather rowdy club that allowed for all otherworldly beings to mingle and occasionally brawl. They had a greater Changed population in the northern areas than in all of the North Continental Countries.

Lee held still for a moment, as her aura swept the area, bumping into other vampires. Partly to gauge any threats and partly, of course, to make them aware of hers. The air practically vibrated with the spread of auras. It made her shiver slightly with anticipation and satisfaction.

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