In the Dead of Night, Sanguin Nights Saga #1 - chapter 0, the beginning by Sierra Torrin

I closed my apartment door behind Elizabeth, realizing that I was exhausted. “God, it’s only ten,” I muttered, “I’m getting old.” I rolled my eyes and answered myself. “I’m only 20!”
As I walked toward my overstuffed couch, visions of new anime on running through my head, a knock on the door made me turn my head. “Now what?” I muttered. Maybe Elizabeth forgot something, I thought.
I closed one eye and tried to look through the round fish-eye lense that served as a peephole. A woman about my age stood on my welcome mat, her skin pale in the reflected streetlight that overlooked the apartment complex’s parking lot. “Katherine?” I mumbled as I opened the door all the way. “Katherine! Nice to see you!” All traces of tiredness washed away at the sight of my childhood friend. “How long has it been?”
Katherine laughed. The sound was strange, but I couldn’t figure out why. “Fourth grade. I moved to Paris in fourth grade. I’m back in the States for college.”
“Are you going to UC? I’m a junior there.”
“Yeah, I am, majoring in history right now, though that could change!” Katherine laughed again while leaning on the doorway. Her brown hair fell to her curvy hips, her v-neck t-shirt accentuating her curves. “Hey, you wanna go out for a drink, catch up a bit? It’s not too far a walk.”
Her voice was silky, a bit suggestive. I shook my head. Katherine’s not that way, I told myself unconvincingly. “Yes, of course! Let me grab my wallet.”
I lied. I ran a brush through my thick black hair, slipped on a black and white checked pair of Vans, then grabbed my wallet and followed Katherine down the stairs.
“So, Sebastian, what’s new with you? Did you ever find your ‘real’ mom?”
I shrugged. “I never did decide to really find my birth mother. Remember how driven I was?”
Katherine smiled. “Yup.”
The sidewalk wound into the city abruptly, and I waited for a pack of cars to drive off before answering. “My adoptive family was supportive, but I just lost the curiosity, I guess. I wandered around the Internet a bit, but I never called the agency. UC was a nice change. I studied history, too, for awhile, but now, I’m undecided.”
Cars were going past us like it was the middle of the day, still in a hurry to get home or to a bar. People laughed and talked and hurried around us, everything illuminated by blue streetlights. But I felt alone, as if I was invisible, and I had no idea why. I felt a strong need to stay very close to Katherine and get to her apartment quickly. As if she could read my mind, Katherine interrupted my babbling. “Would you rather just go back to my apartment? I’ve got a basement flat just around the corner.”
“Yeah, I would,” I said, hoping it sounded more like her idea. What was wrong with me? Usually, I wanted to be the protector…
“Here we are.” Katherine motioned to stairs bathed in darkness. “Just down these steps.”
The iron stairs hugged the small brick apartment building. Katherine went first, keys in hand. I trusted my sense of hearing to listen to the jingling, the subtle click of the dead bolt, and the squeak of the door’s hinges before I followed. I couldn’t see a thing. I had no idea how Katherine moved so fluidly. Familiarity, I guess, I thought, shrugging.
A single lamp was on, and I swear it couldn’t have been much more than a 25-watt bulb. It barely illuminated the simple wooden tabletop underneath it. “Have a seat. What would you like to drink?”
Seat? I squinted into the blackness, and made out the outline of what might be a couch. “Sure. Um, whatever you’re having.”
Katherine really laughed this time, and I figured out why it bothered me. It sounded hollow, like wind blowing through an old tree. “Sebastian, you’ll want something else. How about a beer?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.” I figured it had to be the cheap stuff, but maybe the alcohol would bury that strange feeling.
“The remote’s beside you!” Katherine called to me as she disappeared into the kitchen.
I fumbled around on the couch cushions, feeling the unbelievably soft material – some expensive ultra suede? – and found what I hoped was a remote. I grinned to myself. Where the hell was the TV? I held the remote under the lamplight, found an “on” button, and pressed it. The signal found the TV, a flat panel perched on a long table pushed against the wall in front of me, and the room was suddenly awash in pale light.
My nervousness didn’t subside. Thick curtains closed off the few long rectangular windows near the ceiling. Silk or ultra suede sheets covered all the furniture, as if whatever cheap material it hid should never be sat upon. When did Katherine come into money? Her family had been as poor as mine…
There was only one other light – one bulb stuck into a socket in the ceiling under a translucent glass square. The dust inside was visible.
I tried to concentrate on whatever was on, some old movie on the Sci-Fi channel, when Katherine came back from the kitchen. She held a full wine glass in one hand and a Budweiser can in the other. At least it wasn’t Light, I thought. “How about you?” I took a sip. I didn’t grimace. “How was Paris?”
Maybe if I kept Katherine talking, it would alleviate my fears. This was ridiculous. She had been one of my best friends, even to the point where we kept in touch through middle school, pretty good for kids. But whatever Katherine was saying, I couldn’t concentrate. Her voice was melodic, a tone I hadn’t remembered hearing before. It was so soporific. Before I could think about the rudeness of my actions, I gave into my previous exhaustion and fell asleep.
I shook myself awake, what I thought had been a few minutes later. But the television was off, and I couldn’t see Katherine anywhere. Not that it was easy to see anything in the glow of the ‘nightlight bulb’… “Katherine?” I spoke into the near darkness.
There was a shuffling noise, like an ungraceful cat, near the front door. “Katherine? I’m sorry I fell asleep like that. I didn’t know I was so tired.” My voice sounded nervous to me, and I cleared my throat, feeling silly.
“Don’t feel bad, Sebastian Desnesti. I won’t hold it against you.”
It was not Katherine’s calm voice that answered me. It was a distinctly sultry feminine voice with a hint of malace. I sat up, sluggishness replaced by a slight edge of fear. Whoever she was, she decided not to sneak around any longer. “And who are you, since you have the pleasure of knowing my name?” I cringed at the wussy sound of my voice.
A dark laugh came from the woman as soon as I said “pleasure.” “The pleasure is all mine, Sebastian. You may call me Savior.”
She emphasized “pleasure.” I had a distinct feeling our definitions of the word differed.
The woman – Savior? Or was she being sarcastic? -sauntered into the dim light. Short spiky black hair jutted from her head in sharp angles, emphasizing her angular features. Savior’s dark eyes glowed with an internal illumination. Her skin was pale, almost luminous, against her dark clothes. Savior grinned at me, like a wolf finding a young fat deer alone. I focused on her mouth, full red lips framing pointed canines, and decided my wolf and deer analogy wasn’t far off. “Katherine,” I choked, but Savior only laughed.
“Your girlfriend can’t save you. You amuse me, human. I shall enjoy watching you die.”
Before I could react, Savior pounced, pinning me to the seat cushions. With a free hand, she forced my head backwards, my neck fully exposed. This is ridiculous! My brain shouted. There’s no such thing as vampires!
“Yes, there is, Sebastian,” Savior mocked as if she could hear my thoughts – could she? What I knew of vampires ended at the Bella Lagosi movies that Elizabeth and I watched. “And I shall make sure this hurts you as much as it pleases me!”
Savior was right. Her fangs pierced my neck, and despite the full gulps of air I took, telling myself I wouldn’t scream, I couldn’t control it. Fire swept through my veins, a pain past when I broke my leg in two places when I was thirteen; past the pain of the concussion and bruised knot on my head I got falling down the stairs when I was eight. I felt the fire ripping through me like the most potent viper’s venom. I know I begged for death, to give this woman some information I knew or might have known, but Savior just laughed. I don’t know how long it lasted, but when I felt the last vestiges of my life’s blood being sucked out of me, I welcomed the oncoming darkness and relief of death.