A Pallor of Death

Note: This is chapter five and six of my gothic vampire romance novel! To read chapters one and two, plus content warnings, visit the pinned post on my profile!

Chapter Five

Elvira hadn’t moved from her spot on the ground, dress coated with the beast’s otherworldly blood. Half of her was terrified of it rising once more, and half of her hoped it would.

She’d just killed a living, breathing thing. One who’d worn a human face. Who had screamed in human pain.

But it had been trying to kill her for nothing more than Elvira being in the wrong place at the wrong time. For the demon man inadvertently putting her on his side of a fight she had no part in.

Purple clouds floated overhead, the thunders rumbling closer than it had been, and she knew it’d start raining soon. But still, she couldn’t move.

Black boots appeared in her periphery, and then the demon was kneeling down beside the beast, two fingers pressing to its pulse. “This one had slipped past me and lost in my bloodlust, I hadn’t noticed until it was too late.” Blood eyes meeting hers, he grinned, “It seems you handled yourself just fine.”

Elvira didn’t answer, sickened by the easy way he talked about her killing something.

He watched her for a moment, eyes narrowed in consideration, before pushing to his feet and offering his hand. When she didn’t take it, he said, “She will be gone before the rain falls, vanished into smoke, along with all remnants of your fight with her.”

She’d forgotten about that fact. Trembling in her shoes, she placed her hand in his and let him pull her to her feet. Ice cold washed through her, momentarily, freezing her panic enough for her to ask, “Are there more?”

“No, I have defeated the foes of tonight. But tomorrow is a new day, so I ask that you let me keep my promise and escort you home before tomorrow’s enemies arrive.”

Tomorrow’s enemies, she thought with a shudder.

Elvira had never had enemies. Not like this. Only earlier that night she’d been half skeptical of ghosts existing, and now she’d just killed a beast who could wear the face of humans and was still gripping the hand of a demon with red eyes who spoke as if from a different century. A different world.

And she was terrified. Too afraid to be exposed to more attacks that she let him take her home, forgetting that he was also one of her enemies.

Chapter Six

The demon offered her his hand to help her down a few crumbling steps at an entirely ruined entrance, and she let him, let Death escort her from the graveyard. However, as they walked through the dark forest, rounding the hill towards her house, she began to remember that if it hadn’t been her birthday he might have killed her.

She still wasn’t sure why that of all things, stopped him or if he had simply been dramatic. The latter seemed possible with the performance he’d put on to kill the beasts. It hit her, then, that he probably could have ended the fight a lot sooner than he did.

He walked only a few steps in front of her with a confidence she was envious of at that moment. The demon could take down five supernatural beasts on his own, and yet she’d nearly lost her life fighting off one.

The wind was harsher now, bringing goosebumps to Elvira’s already chilled skin, and when the rain began, it felt like drowning. The night had quickly gone from okay to downright horrible. Shakes overcame her, and she clutched at herself, wishing she’d never gone into that graveyard. It was cursed in more ways than she’d ever known.

They broke through the trees, exposing themselves to the harshest of the rain, but the demon didn’t seem to mind. As she watched him, hair soaked flat to his forehead and the odd coat swinging at his legs, she remembered what the blond had called him.

“You aren’t from here,” she said, hoping the conversation would distract her from the panic writhing in her gut.

“Not from your continent, not from your time,” he replied in his strange, drawn-out way of talking.

“Why were those — things, after you?”

The demon fell back so they were walking side by side, and Elvira immediately stiffened, watching him for any sudden movements. “They kept me like a bird in a cage, but do not appreciate my newfound freedom as much as I.”

“A castle?” She asked, struggling to hold her thoughts together enough to make sense of his words, “That was your cage?”

“With bars and dark walls and all.”

She shook her head, “Why?”

They stopped at the edge of her backyard. Elvira eyed her house, streaks of lightning bringing its towering height into sharp focus. Just inside the backdoors, she caught glimpses of her friends and her shoulders slumped. Safe, she thought, mind threatening to shatter under the weight of her panic, they’re safe.

The demon turned towards her, and at the sight of his eyes she nearly flinched. She’d forgotten just how shocking they were to look at. His expression was the most grave it’d been all night, as he said, “Because, they fear me. They all fear me and I fear me and you should too.”

Elvira’s mouth went dry at the warning, one that she would take well when she woke with a clear head. But for now, instead of running, she asked, “What were they? What are you?”

“They are animal and they are human and they are not. Born of the darkest magic, their kind was created with the purpose of killing me and all of my bloodline. Known to the world as Shades.”

“The silver,” she said, remembering how every weapon was made from pure shiny silver. Then her brows furrowed, “They bled it. But why would their blood need to be a weapon against you?”

A slow, wicked grin spread over his face, and Elvira was sure she was missing something; some pun she hadn’t intended to make, or maybe a part of the fight she’d missed that amused him. It wasn’t until the lightning cracked once more, that she understood.

The white light sent his skin into a stark, almost deathly pallor, making his blood eyes stand out in striking contrast. Her gaze fell to his crimson lips and then to the teeth within; the two teeth ending in razor-sharp points in place where his incisors should have been.

As the rain whipped at her face, she blinked, hoping her eyes were fooling her. They weren’t.

Two ice-cold fingers brushed her collar bone and she shuddered, “You have been Marked so now, neither are you safe.”

She took an involuntary step back from him, her gut plummeting. She couldn’t hear his words, only able to remember his breath across the bare expanse of her neck, how he’d been leaning towards it as if drawn by some unseen force.

It was all too much then, and she took another step back. Weird beast-human mutations with silver blood called Shades, and a red-eyed vampire who’d both tried to kill her and saved her on the same night. A vampire who now looked at her as if he were about to change his mind and kill her anyways, no matter what day it was.

Her breath was quickening before her thoughts could catch up, her internal survival instincts firing off. But she couldn’t run, not unless she wanted him to chase, and if anyone knew anything about vampires, it was that they were horribly fast. So she held still and didn’t dare to let him see the fear now threatening to shred her apart.

The light on his face vanished, returning his skin back to a warmer, human color.

His eyes flicked to her house and in that brief second, a wave of horror rushed through her as images of him tearing out her friends’ throats raced through her mind. It wasn’t any of their birthdays, after all.

But the look was brief, and soon his eyes returned to her.

“You should go inside, assure them of your safety, before they send the police to scour the graveyard. Who knows what starving vampire they’ll find waiting there,” he said, his grin deepening once again as if they were sharing some inside joke. As if he truly thought she understood them.

Elvira only nodded, and before she could say anything else, he was gone.

She bolted for the house.

***

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