Лиза Смит: Bloodlust

Left and right, I could see alleyways leading down to the water, and rows of vendors were set up on the sidewalks, selling everything from freshly caught turtles to precious stones imported from Africa. Even the presence of blue-coated Union soldiers on every street corner, their muskets at their hips, seemed somehow festive. It was a carnival in every sense of the word, the type of scene Damon would have loved when we were human. I turned to look over my shoulder. Sure enough, Damon’s lips were curved in a slight smile, his eyes glowing in a way I hadn’t seen in what felt like ages. We were in this adventure together, and now, away from memories of Katherine and Father’s remains and Veritas, maybe Damon could finally accept and embrace who he was.

“Remember when we said we’d travel the world?” I asked, turning toward him. “This is our world now.”

Damon nodded slightly. “Katherine told me about New Orleans. She once lived here.”

“And if she were here, she’d want you to make this town your own—to live here, be here, to take your fill and make your place in the world.”

“Always the poet.” Damon smirked, but he continued to follow me.

“Perhaps, but it’s true. All of this is ours,” I said encouragingly, spreading my hands wide.

Damon took a moment to consider my words and simply said, “All right, then.”

“All right?” I repeated, hardly hoping to believe it. It was the first time he’d glanced into my eyes since our fight at the quarry.

“Yes. I’m following you.” He turned in a citcle, pointing to the various buildings. “So, where do we stay? What do we do? Show me this brave new world.” Damon’s lips twisted into a smile, and I couldn’t tell whether he was mocking me or was speaking in earnest. I chose to believe the latter.

I sniffed the air and immediately caught a whiff of lemon and ginger. Katherine. Damon’s shoulders stiffened; he must have smelled it, too. Wordlessly, both of us spun on our heels and walked down an unmarked alleyway, following a woman wearing a satin lilac dress, a large sunbonnet on top of her dark curls.

“Ma’am!” I called.

She turned around. Her white cheeks were heavily rouged and her eyes ringed with kohl. She looked to be in her thirties, and already worry lines creased her fair forehead. Her hair fell in tendrils around her face, and her dress was cut low, revealing far too much of her freckled bosom than was strictly decorous. I knew instantly she was a scarlet woman, one we’d whisper about as boys and point to when we were in the tavern in Mystic Falls.

“You boys lookin’ for a good time?” she said languidly, her gaze flicking from me to Damon, then back again. She wasn’t Katherine, not even close, but I could see a flicker in Damon’s eyes.

“ I don’t think finding a place to stay will be a problem ,” I whispered under my breath.

“ Don’t kill her ,” Damon whispered back, his jaw barely moving.

“Come with me. I have some gals who’d love to meet you. You seem like the type of boys who need adventure. That right?” She winked.

A storm was brewing, and I could vaguely hear thunderclaps in the far distance.

“We’re always looking for an adventure with a pretty lady,” I said.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Damon tighten his jaw, and I knew he was fighting the urge to feed. Don’t fight it, I thought, fervently hoping Damon would drink as we followed her along the cobblestone streets.

“We’re right here,” she said, using a large key to unlock the wrought-iron door of a periwinkle blue mansion at the end of a cul-de-sac. The house was well kept, but the buildings on either side seemed abandoned, with chipping paint and gardens overflowing with weeds. I could hear the jaunty sound of a piano playing within.

“It’s my boardinghouse, Miss Molly’s. Except, of course, at this boardinghouse we show you some true hospitality, if that’s what you’re in the mood for,” she said, batting her long eyelashes. “Coming?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I pushed Damon through the doorway, then locked the door behind us.

The next evening I gazed contented at the sun setting over the harbor. Miss Molly hadn’t exaggerated: The girls at her house were hospitable. For breakfast I’d had one with long, corn-silk hair and bleary blue eyes. I could still taste her wine-laced blood on my lips.

Damon and I had spent the day wandering the city, taking in the wrought-iron balconies in the French Quarter—and the girls who waved to us from their perches there—the fine tailor shops with bolts of sumptuous silk in the windows, and the heady cigar shops where men with round bellies struck business deals.

But of all the sights, I liked the harbor best. This was the city’s lifeblood, where tall ships carrying produce and exotic wares entered and exited. Cut off the harbor, you cut off the city, making it as vulnerable and helpless as Miss Molly’s girl had been that morning.

Damon gazed out at the boats as well, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. His lapis lazuli ring glinted in the fading sunlight. “I almost saved her.”

“Who?” I asked, turning sharply, hope swelling in my chest. “Did you sneak off and feed from someone?”

My brother kept his eyes on the horizon. “No, of course not. I meant Katherine.”

Of course. I sighed. If anything, last night had made Damon more malcontent than ever. While I’d enjoyed the company and the sweet blood of a girl whose name I would never know, Damon had retired to a room of his own, treating the establishment as if it were simply the boardinghouse it pretended to be.

“You should have drunk,” I said for the hundredth time that day. “You should have taken your pick.”

“Don’t you understand, Stefan?” Damon asked flatly. “I don’t want my pick. I want what I had—a world I understood, not one I can control.”

“But why?” I asked, at a loss. The wind shifted, and the scent of iron, mixed with tobacco, talcum powder, and cotton, invaded my nostrils.

“Feeding time already?” Damon asked wryly. “Haven’t you done enough damage?”

“Who cares about one whore in a filthy brothel!” I yelled in frustration. I gestured out to the sea. “The world is filled with humans, and as soon as one dies, another appears. What does it matter if I relieve one wretched soul of its misery?”

“You’re being careless, you know,” Damon grunted. His tongue darted out of his mouth to lick his dry, cracked lips. “To feed whenever you feel like it. Katherine never did that.”

“Yes, well, Katherine died, didn’t she?” I said, my voice much harsher than I meant it to be.

“She’d have hated who you’ve become,” Damon said, sliding off the fence and standing next to me.

The scent of iron was more pervasive now, curling around me like an embrace.

“No, she would have hated you ,” I retorted. “So scared of who you are, unable to go after what you want, wasting your Power.”

I expected Damon to argue, to strike me even. But instead he shook his head, the tips of his retracted canines just visible between his partially open lips.

“I hate myself. I wouldn’t expect any different from her,” he said simply.

I shook my head in disappointment. “What happened to you? You used to be so full of life, so ready for adventure. This is the best thing that has ever happened to us. It’s a gift—one that Katherine gave to you.”

Across the street, an old man hobbled past, and then a moment later, a child on an errand rushed by in the opposite direction.

“Pick one and feed! Pick something, anything. Anything is better than just sitting here, letting the world go by.”

With that I stood, following the iron and tobacco scent, feeling my fangs pulse with the promise of a new meal. I grabbed Damon, who lagged a few paces behind me, until we found ourselves on a slanted lane out of range of the gaslights. What little light there was gathered onto a single point: a white-uniformed nurse, leaning against a brick building, smoking a cigarette.