Tale of a Vampire Assassin

Chapter 18

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

My heart pounded in my chest as if I truly were human.  Each beat felt as if I had been kicked in the ribs and I held in my cries of pain as I suffered through the ghost of mortality and let silent tears slide down my cheeks.  I could feel each one being born from my eyes, living the better of their lives on my cheeks, and then dying on my lips.  I felt myself shudder and my skin tightened painfully with chills as it iced over in the most unnatural way.

I bit down on my lip hard and held back the suffering cry of pain that I yearned to let escape my lips.  My heart sank again in my chest as I glanced out the second story window down at Mason where he waited silently for me to return.  I wouldn't.

This had been going on for five minutes now and I could feel Mason's end drawing nearer and nearer.  My heart was heavy with guilt and sadness and fear and death.

Another minute passed in agony and I glanced out the window at him again.  He was quiet and peaceful as he leaned back against the wall of the neighboring building.  His hair was still mussed from his helmet, which sat on the seat of my bike, where it stood in shining glory next to Mason.

 I wanted to ask Mason Faye all the questions that were bouncing around on the inside of my skull along with the echoing beats of my lifeless heart.  My head throbbed with a migraine headache.  I clenched my jaw as to not cry out from that degree of high intensity pain, either.  Living was going to be the worst part of existing forever.  Living as I killed and ripped eternity away from the immortal Mason Faye . . .

I couldn't bare to finish the thought.

Two painful minutes passed as I suffered through the ghost of humanity.  Two agonizing glances down at Mason waiting patiently for my return and growing worried that I wouldn't come back for him.  Two minutes left until the end and it's beginning.  Two minutes . . .only two . . .

Tears continued to slip down my cheeks in silenced agony.  I felt myself become more human by the second.  My limbs quivered and shook with pain and the punishment of it.  My fingers ached to stroke Mason's cheek and slip through the silky tousles of his dark, blond, messy hair.  My lips trembled with the need I felt to kiss him in his last few moments of forever.  The wrongness of my comforting instinct was absent as I knew it would be the right way to end things.

My heart gave a squeeze of morose and I sank to my knees in pain as I bit down hard on my lip to stay silent.  My shaky hands came down over my heart as if to silence it.  I knew it wouldn't work but I did it anyway.  Its powerful beating was a strong painful hum and flutter behind my ribs.  I wanted the pain to end.  I wanted to rip my own chest open and tear out my own heart.  That wasn't going to happen either.

There was one minute left and I gazed down at Mason through the window.  The lighter in my pocket might as well have been a flaming brick because that's how it felt.  I wanted to bury it beneath the cement floor but I didn't have time.  Mason suddenly rose to his feet and began walking toward the door of the warehouse.

I panicked and ran for the back entrance of the warehouse, scratching and tearing at my skin as I went.  Just before I heard Mason enter through the front of the warehouse I began to let myself cry out in pain; in agony.  I let out all the guilt in my screams and cries.

My heart hammered harder in my chest as I heard Mason listening to my cries of anguish.  I could hear him sniffing me out in panic and I pulled the back entrance open and slammed to the floor of the warehouse on my back.  When I hit I let out a loud cry of pain.  I felt my entire body rattle as I hit the ground.  All my organs, excluding my heart and brain, only felt half alive.  Half immortal.  Mason finally reached me and the moment his eyes fell on the crumpled and bleeding heap of myself I died inside their dark blue depths.  Nothing was ever going to matter again.  My heart would forever cling to the pity and worry and pain I saw in Mason Faye's eyes at that very moment.  It would be the Hell that I would eternally endure.  Forever.

He flitted to my side and got down on his knees next to me.  "Are you alright?  What happened, Andy?"  Hearing him say my name made everything so much worse.  My heart squeezed again and I writhed in pain.  I panicked look crossed Mason's face as he observed the ghost of mortality eat away at my sanity, my body.

"What happened?"  His lips were pailer than they were before as he asked.  I looked down at my torn up arms and hands.  There was venom soaked blood seeping from the wounds.  It smelled like sugary rust.  I thought back on how I'd unzipped the front of my leather jumpsuit and shoved the sleeves down my arms to free them.  The top half of the leather jumpsuit hung around the lower half of my body.  I was glad now that Ian had made me put on a tank top.  Otherwise, I'd have nothing but my bra to cover my upper body.

"The blood dealer poisoned me," I lied.  Tears rolled down my cheeks at the deception in my painfully thundering heart.

"Are you going to be okay?"  I was glad Mason had never seen a poisoned vampire.

"I can't walk," I lied, "but if I can get blood soon I'll be fine."

Mason's fangs descended and he lifted his wrist to them.  With a shaking hand I reached up to stop him.  "I only drink from my mate," I say.  That was mostly true.

"But you're hurt.  I think you can make an acception," he pushed.

"No," I said and unsteadily shook my head.  It made me dizzy.  "I made him a promise and I'm keeping it."

Mason took this into consideration.

"Should I go for help?"

"Mason," I whisper and reach up to touch his cheek, my hand still shaking.  "You are help.  Carry me to my bike."

Mason slid his hands under me very carefully and I cried out in pain as he lifted my body from the floor.  My heart still pounding in my chest and my limbs still shaking, I wrapped my arms around his neck and rested my chin on his shoulder.  My heart began thundering against my ribs again.  I cried out again in pain.  It hurt so much to be human after being dead for six years.

I kissed Mason's shoulder.  "I'm sorry," I whispered with my lips light on his skin.  The top of his leathers were hanging the same way mine were.  He must have done that before he'd entered the warehouse.  He was wearing a white 'wife-beater' and a silver chain hung from his neck.  At the end of the chain was Saint Jude.

"What?  For causing trouble?  Don't be," Mason said.  "Things like this happen all the time."  That was true.  Shady dealers were always  trying to kill us.  They rarely succeeded, though it still happened.  I ignored him and continued with my apology, tears streaming down my cheeks.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered and kissed up his neck.  I let my lips trai up to find his and kissed him deeply through my tears and pain as my heart hammered in my chest.  When he let my lips free I trailed them back down to his throat.

I let my fangs descend and sniffed back the pain of their escape when they did.  "I'm so very sorry," I told Mason.