Even though your spirit and body had been reunited, it still felt like there was something missing. Your grasp on the memories further away from the day of your death were quite muddled, and the only thing you seemed to speak of was vengeance. I couldn't complain, though, as I felt the same. Gache had to be punished for his unthinkable actions. And now that you were alive again, it was only fitting that you would be the one to exact this revenge.
Yet you said that the time was not right. I did not understand what you meant. but I deferred to your opinion nevertheless. It was as if you knew something I did not, and it would not do for me to pry.
Though I was loathe to leave you in the cellar, you seemed to understand that your presence would not be taken well among the populace, and agreed to the compromise.
As the nights passed, I saw some odd physical changes taking place to your body. Your arms and legs became darker, almost a charred colour, and they grew much more sinewy than the rest of your delicate frame. The transformation unsettled me ever so slightly, but whenever I felt as such, gazing at the face I had known for so many years instantly soothed the brunt of my worries.
When I thought things could not become stranger, you greeted me one night with a request for sustenance. This made me raise an eyebrow, as you had not eaten any of the meals I had brought to you, instead choosing to let them rot until I had to take them out of the room due to the smell. At my wit's end, I asked you if there was a meal you preferred.You stared me in the eye. Without blinking, you requested a vial of human blood.
I frowned and sat down on a chair, wracking my mind for ideas. As far as I knew, there were no places to retrieve human blood safely and without raising suspicion. But I did not want to disappoint you. I told you to wait here and left the cellar, bracing myself for what had to be done.
When I returned, I had a pocket knife, a small bottle, and a roll of bandages. I felt your cryptic, yet familiar eyes watching me intently as I sat back down. Rolling up my sleeve, I gritted my teeth as I drew the blade across my upper arm, cutting only deep enough to procure some blood. I began to reach for the bottle to collect the blood in, but to my surprise, you simply walked up to me and put your mouth to my arm, drinking from the open wound as if it were a completely normal activity.
I shivered as I felt your teeth and tongue trace over my wound, and I watched you with apprehension as you drank your fill. Once you were done, you stepped back and handed me the bandages, which I accepted with a shaky hand. I struggled to handle the roll in my weakened state, and you must've felt pity for me, as you used your newfound strength to tear a section of the roll off and tie it tightly around my arm.This ritual continued once a week until a month had passed, whereupon you stopped me as I took out the blade and looked me in the eye with fierce resolve. You raised your hand, now armed with sharp, thick claws, and told me it was finally time.
I nodded and began to explain the plan I had been formulating all these weeks.
In the early morning, I penned a letter addressed to Gache, signing it as an anonymous admirer and leaving it at the entrance to the trader's guild while nobody else was awake. In it, I instructed him to meet with me at the fountain at two in the morning.
Gache's arrogance should've been the easiest way to draw him out into the open. However, as I stood with you in an alley later that night, I began to fear that I had miscalculated, that Gache had perhaps settled down for a monogamous relationship and found no need to speak to lovesick women. It was ten minutes past two, and he still had not shown himself.
The moon was high in the sky, full and brimming with light as it illuminated the cobbled streets. You stood behind me, still as a statue, as I occasionally peered out into the square for signs of our prey. The square, filled with people during the day, was unnaturally silent at this time, as if holding its breath in anticipation along with us.
In twenty minutes from the assigned meeting time, as if lateness would somehow leave a suave impression, the man of the hour walked into view, still wearing the hat you had gifted him all those months ago. He moved with his usual confidence, but I could see he was on guard, his green eyes darting back and forth between the fountain and the nearby alleyways.
Quietly as possible, I motioned for you to engage: but you were already on the move, whirling past me in a blur of inhuman speed. As I blinked, I saw your form rush Gache's, and as I blinked again in utter disbelief, his body was on the ground, blood spilling out onto the rocks underneath the silvery moonlight without so much as a single scream.
I watched in fear as you perched over his body, gorging yourself on his blood. For a moment, I began to wonder if I had done the correct thing in bringing you back into this world, even if it was in the name of justice. But then you stopped your feast and looked over your shoulder, calling my name, and I was snapped out of my stupor, back to the matter at hand.
Waving me over, you asked me to remove his heart, explaining that your claws were not delicate enough for the task. I was taken aback by the request, but I swallowed my questions and raised the useless axe I had brought for the night, the only weapon I had on hand. Steeling myself, I swung at his ribcage until it was shattered, and nudged the heart out of its confines with the handle of the axe, being careful not to damage it.
With the utmost care, you picked up the heart as you would an infant and swallowed it whole. I watched, astounded, as your eyes began to glow with a faint red light, which vanished as quickly as it appeared. You stood up from your kill, disregarding the scene you had just created, and looked at me with an unreadable gaze.
And then you smiled, your blood smeared lips upturning in a kindly, soft shape that stood in stark contrast to the slaughter. For a second, I thought I saw the same flash in your eyes that you had when you first met Gache, that look of pure adoration, of pure love. And as I stood there in front of you, lost in the way your body was bathed under the gleam of the moon's light, I smiled back, a vague feeling inside of me murmuring that everything would change from here on out. That we would have some semblance of control over our new lives.