Mia's Story (working title) - Chapter 1

The moment his teeth tore through my neck, his tongue lapping at my life, was the moment I found out vampires existed. I was facing a glass store front and got a perfect look at everything that was happening. He was laughing at me, not vocally because his thin-lipped mouth was full, but his brown-yellow eyes were alight with humor. The sharp gauntness of his features filled out to a sharp thinness.

I was powerless as he drained me of my get-up-and-go. Struggle though I might, I couldn’t escape the adamantine appendages pinning my arms to my side or get a shout past the steel hand on my mouth. I could feel my energy leaving with my blood.

I searched for anything that could help me, my eyes around looking wildly, but the only thing I could see was the concrete-supports and the glassy Seattle store fronts. The stars above were hidden behind a mask of rainy clouds and their offspring spattered my face with cool droplets, as though the gods were crying with me.

No, they were crying because I wasn’t fighting. I can’t die like this, I thought and stamped my foot at the same time I moved my mouth for a bite of hand, but all I got was a concrete stomp and the mild taste of copper on my lips.

And then he was gone.

The attack stopped as abruptly as it had started. I turned to see the empty concourse of Pioneer Square, the shops all closed for night. The sky was lit up with red and blue lights from the barrage of police around the corner.

I started to walk towards them, trying to act normal. Nothing was wrong, but I couldn’t pretend. Something was wrong and no one was going to believe me. How could they? I didn’t believe me. Vampires? I ran. I ran to the end of the concourse, around the corner, and to my car. I’d never been so happy to see my silver Miata as I was at this moment.

I fumbled through my pockets for my keys and my hands came back empty. I looked in the other pocket and found the cold hunks of metal I’d been searching for. I brought them out and promptly dropped them; my hands shaking like a nine-pointer on the Richter scale. I had to get at the first-aid kit in my trunk, get the blood cleaned off my neck. I bent down and picked them up, gazing at the blue and red shining off my side panels and wanted to cry. Some more.

Fuck.

I grabbed the keys from the soaked ground and, somehow, managed to get them into the right place without damaging my car, much. I’d be sad about the scratches later. The kit in my trunk was more of a mobile emergency room, I was a paramedic and… being prepared was force of habit. I grabbed the bag, unzipped it, and it took mere minutes.

I dealt with shock victims on a daily basis, and I’d been through it once or twice on my own, but I still couldn’t function. I moved in a haze, dizzy and nauseous; the world spun and I moved with it or I’d have fallen over. I ended up sitting in my trunk, a big feat when your trunk was big enough to hold half a real suitcase. I was halfway sitting on my emergency kit, but off of it enough so that I could reach what I needed. I clutched a compact mirror in my hands and rested my head on the rear of my car so that the world would stop moving and I could look at my neck.

It was covered in blood. I took a sanitary wipe and started to clean up. I had only one hand to use, the other was pinned between my body and the spare tire, so it took a while to get the job done. Jumping back between the mirror and wiping, medics just feet away but I couldn’t go to them.

After what seemed like an eternity. I was done. My neck was clean, the skin unbroken. No bruises, no marks, just clean, smooth skin. And I wondered when I’d become a monster. When was I going to attack my family and friends, drinking from them like a crazed fiend.

I rolled out of the trunk, kneeling on the ground as the world swam and swerved around me. When it had died down moderately, I grasped for the trunk, managed to close it, and crawled to the passenger seat. I had to struggle to pull myself the foot off the ground and into the bucket seat. Closing the door, I gazed at the darkened sky.

I was safe. Safe in my car, safe near the police, safe in the company of society, but I didn’t feel safe. Whoever he was, he was still out there and until he wasn’t, I don’t think I’d ever feel safe again.

The windows started to fog and the pitter-patter of the rain on the rag-top droned me into a lull. The blood loss had started to take its toll and my lids started to flutter, but I feared going to sleep. He was out there and I couldn’t drop my guard.

The driver’s door opened and I swiveled my head to see who it was. The hair was black, long, and wavy, not brown, short, and his.

“Are you alright, Mia?” Ashlyn, my pseudo-sister, asked, her badge shown proudly on her chest.

The movement had spun my world too quickly, and my reply of ‘I’m fine’ ended up being drowned out by my blowing chunks out the passenger door. Man this sucked. At least I hadn’t gotten a chance to eat dinner. Ashlyn’s buzzer had gone off, another murder, before the main course had come and the doggy bags were in the trunk. Shit, I think I sat on them.