“Hello, Peter. How are you this evening?”

I lower my hands from the keyboard the moment I hear him. He starts as a shiver up my spine, but then becomes a voice and the voice echoes only to gain strength the longer it reverberates. I shut my eyes and lean back in my chair, rolling my head around once, slowly, as though attempting to work out a kink in my shoulders.

My failure to respond does not deter him.

“We go through this every evening,” he says. “Every evening I ask you the same questions and you offer the same responses. Back and forth until you relent. Wouldn’t you like to be spared the argument tonight?”

“I would like it,” I finally say, “If you would leave me the hell alone.”

“I am afraid that is not possible.” Two hands rest on my shoulders. Psychosomatic? Heaven only knows. “You and I go back too far for me to simply leave you be.”

“I do not have to listen.”

“Oh yes, yes you do. You see, Peter, you have nowhere to run and never have. You never will. I was there the first moment you tasted blood and have been there ever since. Speaking of which…” He leans closer. His breath hits my ear, teasing it with its warmth. “Aren’t you feeling a trifle peckish tonight?”

I jump and slide my chair out, uncertain if apparitions can be knocked off balance, wishing they could as I come to my feet. As I spin around, I expect to see him there, staring at me with those emerald-green eyes which resemble mine far too well. Nobody stands behind me, though. I should have known better than to expect to see him standing there.

Especially when I feel his fingers slide from shoulder blade to shoulder blade.

I shiver.again. He chuckles as my lids drift shut once more. “Where exactly are you going to go?” he asks. “Run? I dare you. Come now, and try to escape me, but you know damn well you cannot. I thought we had an agreement. You and I, one at last. Isn’t that what we agreed?”

“I do not want to do this,” I mutter.

“Oh yes, you do. Do not kid a kidder, sir, you wish to do this and more. This is why we have this discussion. You know what you are and you know what I am. You know this voice that speaks into your ear is only speaking the innermost desires of your heart. I love the same as you. I loathe the same as well. We hold the same things captive and the same things in esteem, only I take it one step further and I confess those dark things you are not willing to confess.”

“Stop it right now, F – …”

“You stop it. Quit trying to give me a name. We both know how useless that was. You would shudder at night anyway, feeling those urges intrude on you, calling into your ear much the same as I am speaking to you right now. Don’t deny it. Cease trying to form a dichotomy again.” He stops talking, but does not step away. Instead it seems he grows closer. He looms larger. He overshadows me and that decadent craving he alluded to starts making its presence known within me.

I groan against it, but find myself waging a losing battle. He knows it, too.

“What do you want, Peter?” he whispers.

“Blood,” I say. The word runs from my lips and down my chin in rivulets of crimson. I think of that one vice I cannot live without and it infects my thoughts much the same as it does every night. I need it. I crave it. I cannot live without it. “I want blood.”

He smiles. I do not have to see it to feel its sadistic warmth radiate on me. “Is that all?” he asks.

I swallow hard. Why does my throat suddenly feel so dry? “No.”

“What else?”

“Fear.” I smile despite myself. A sinister grin. “I want them to be afraid.”

“Of what?”

I lose control of my tongue as it continues spilling out the darkness inside my soul. “Of me. I want to make them shudder. Make them quake. I want them to look me in the eyes and see their worst nightmare come to life. Sharp teeth exposed and murder in my eyes. I feed from it. I crave it. I need them all to be afraid.”

“Yes, and that they should be. They do not know what they trifle with, yes?”

“The devil.”

“The devil come for their souls.” I close my eyes. He circles around me; I see an image in my mind of him pacing around me in a thoughtful repose, as though sizing up his protégé. “Come for whose souls now, dark assassin? Tell me. Tell yourself. Their fear tastes that much sweeter, does it not?”

I nod despite myself. “Yes, it does. We come for the killers. The wicked in disguise. I want to punish them.”

“Punish them for what?”

“For all their evil deeds.”

“Yes. To hear them scream. To feel their terror rage through you like a thousand volts of pleasure as you pierce their skin and sink your teeth into their neck.” A pause. The hair on the back of my neck stands aloft. My skin prickles. “Now tell me, evil angel … What are you?”

My voice becomes a whisper. “I am a vampire.”

“What are you?” The question fired in a rapid manner.

I answer just as quickly. “A killer.”

He delivers the final blow. “And who am I?”

I open my eyes and think it. My lips speak the truth, no longer able to deny it. “You are me,” I say, and in that moment, my darkness ceases to be a separate entity. Poison in my veins again; I take a deep, steadying breath and sense the night calling to me, the pulse of humanity beating with a siren song that lures me out onto the patio and forces my eyes to focus on the city before me. My ears tune themselves to the sinners of the metropolis. My senses catch their scent and the taste already drips liquid temptation past the pointed teeth and onto the tip of my tongue. I have this fight with myself every night; with the darker side to my immortal psyche.

But he’s right. I’m right. The hunger always wins in the end.

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