Jack trembled, and then as his trembles faded, he shivered, and then not even that. Now was the time, right? It had to be. The tiny man’s breath was almost gone. Julias could feel his anxiety growing. What if this didn’t work? Think, what had Viktor done? Viktor had drained him… completely.
“I can’t… feel…. Please, Julias… I’m… scared….”
Jack started to shake. The blood wasn’t flowing anymore. He sucked forcefully now, actively, trying to pull the blood out of Jack’s body. No more came. Jack’s breath turn into nothing but a cold haze.
“… a dream. That’s all it is. A dream, Jack. Just a dream. Now I have to wake you up.”
All it took was a slice of his fingertip to cut into Julias’s own wrist. The blood didn’t come; it fought to stay inside him. He could see it in the cut, refusing to fall free of his skin. He glared at the blood, at the Vitae that kept it within. All or nothing, Julias. Just another step toward damnation.
He placed his wrist against Jack’s mouth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~Jack~~
Jack woke up screaming.
“God! Oh god!” He looked around in a panic. Couch. There was a couch. Paintings on the wall. Even a giant window. Julias’s place. He looked around some more. There was Julias, standing behind the counter of his kitchen. His face was a weird mixture of relief and pain, Jack had to guess.
The throbs hit him hard, and Jack fell off the couch to his knees.
“Oh god, Julias! What the fuck… what the hell is going on.” He looked to Julias in panic, but the tall man was just standing there, watching and waiting. “Julias! Come on, what… oh fuck. Oh fuck was it all a dream? Did….” With trembling hands, Jack sat back and looked down at his clothes. They were still soaked in blood.
“It wasn’t a dream,” his friend said.
“What the fuck Julias!?” Jack raised his shirt to look at his stomach. His abdomen was covered in his blood, but the wounds were closed. Not healed over. Just closed. They should still be bleeding, but as far as he could tell, they’d stopped. “What’s going on? I can’t… what the fuck is going on!?” Jack crawled forward until he was on his knees, and forced himself to standing.
It didn’t last long. He reached out to grab one of Julias’s stools, but fell with a hard thud to the floor. He clutched at his stomach again. There was a weird mixture of pain, but also a hunger pang. A deep hunger pang that was well into the pain realm too.
“Here. Drink this.” Julias came over to him and knelt beside him with his glass of red in hand.
“… you’ve… never offered me a drink before.” Jack looked between his friend and the drink. The deep red was oddly alluring. Normally it never seemed appetizing, but with it right there in front of him, he had to admit, he wanted a sip.
“I’ll explain everything, don’t worry. Come on, drink.”
With a sigh of relief, Jack reached out. His hands were still bloody, and now that Julias was so close, he couldn’t help but notice the huge stains of blood in his suit as well. Drink though. Julias said drink, so he’d drink.
The first sip was strange, to say the least. Was that metal? The thickness poured over his tongue, and he just had to take a second to let it coat his taste buds. Damn what a taste. Sips soon turned into gulps, and he drank down the glass entirely. It was euphoric. He could feel it in his belly and spreading out, making him feel warm.
“Wow… this is… really good.” Jack had to laugh at how the drink managed to make him forget about his current predicament. “I don’t normally drink wine. What’s it called?” The hunger pangs subsided, at least a little.
“Later,” Julias said. Jack squinted at Julias before his smile faded. Julias was frowning.
“Ok, ok… so, what’s going on? I remember… some woman, and then… a knife.” After handing back the empty glass to Julias, Jack reached down and pulled up his shirt again. He felt his muscles, his abdominal muscles, where the knife had punctured him. He could feel the holes, tiny little vertical slits just enough for his fingers to catch against subtle indents, but the wounds were closed for the most part.
If there was one way he was going to die, it’d be getting stabbed by some beauty in a dark alley.
“This can’t be real, Julias. What the fuck is…” Julias had stood up and offered Jack his hand. Jack took it, and slid onto the stool. As if psychic, Julias was already pouring him another glass of red.
“It’s very real. Here,” Julias said, and put the glass straight into Jack’s hand. Jack drank the newly found, delicious sin with fervor. He almost growled into it when the thick liquid started to coat his throat.
“So, what? What happened? I got stabbed, Julias! I got stabbed a fuck load of times. I’ve read enough to know what extreme blood loss is like.”
“Yes. You were bleeding to death. You had minutes to live.”
“Well then what the fuck!”
Jack was stuck somewhere between panic and joy. He should be dead, but he wasn’t. He could see the blood all over him, all over his best friend, but he was still alive. It was obviously the same night; the blood on him wasn’t completely dry yet.
Julias sighed and sat down on a stool across the counter. Since when did Julias look so pale? Jack had to give him a few double takes to see it, but there it was. His skin was white, and thin.
“Check your pulse.”
“What?”
“Check your pulse, Jack.”
“I can’t take a shower first? I mean my god look at us, we’re-”
“Check. Your. Pulse.”
Jack grew quiet. Julias was staring at him, with steel eyes and dead calm look. Dead was an understatement. He’d never seen Julias look so ill.
With an annoyed sigh, Jack put his index and middle finger to his wrist.
“… um… hold on, hold on.” He put the same fingers against his upper neck, near the jaw. “… hold on, hold on.” He put his hand over his heart. “Julias… where’s my pulse?” Jack cracked a worried, fake smile at his friend, but Julias just shook his head.
“I didn’t think you’d remember. You were low on blood, and… most Kindred never remember being embraced. Not with any clarity.”
“Kindred? Embraced? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“What do you feel, Jack? Inside, right now, what do you feel?” Julias’s stare was stone and more than a bit unsettling. Jack couldn’t help but lower his gaze at the intensity of it.
“I feel… I don’t know. Just… I feel… hunger.”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t know what you mean, dude. I just… I feel….” He had to take the time to think about it. That throbbing ache in his stomach, in his whole body was subdued but there. There was a strange anxiety mixed with fear and rage, but that had always been there, right?
Jack took a step back. No, it hadn’t always been there. He had trouble looking Julias in the eyes now; he never had that before, not like this. A part of him tingled with the fear of it, the fear of… Julias? A part of him was itching to run too. A part of him really, really really… really wanted to tear into something and eat.
A towel hit him in the face.
“Go wash up, get the blood off of you, and take a long look in the mirror.”