To Kiss a Killer

To Kiss a Killer

Chapter 4: The Slayer

When I was far enough from Dom to look back and he was no longer there, I dropped to my knees and drove my tears of frustration in the palm of my hands. I couldn’t breathe habitually or even keep my hands from trembling. “I kissed a vampire. I kissed a killer,” I said to myself… and it felt incredible. “Oh, God,” I sobbed wrapping my arms around my body. “What have I done?”

The guilt was overpowering, so foolish, so wrong, so right.

I couldn’t deny he’d stolen my heart, but I couldn’t accept that I was this close from making that moment last. He was there in my thoughts, and would be there for a long time until I was graced with his company again.

I ran home as fast as my worn-out legs could take me; after getting that call from Julius, I predicted the matter was important because he never called my phone. I usually got them from Georg, but if I were to ever speak with Julius, it’d be when I returned to the house.

Once I made it to the house, I opened the door, and was immediately greeting with a strong hand to my shoulder. Georg rushed me through the dining room and passed the kitchen. “What’s going on?” I asked, but he didn’t answer me, so I guessed I’d have to wait until I was where we needed to be: in the den, where Julius was sitting on the couch in front of the lit fireplace.

He was seated with a folded up piece of paper in his hand, an uncomfortable smile on his face. He patted his hand on the cushion beside him and I took a seat. “My grandson,” he said first, “My blood has been tasked for royalty.”

I didn’t understand. “What do you mean, Julius?”

He handed me the fold and I undid it, looking up at him before the text in my hands. “Read it aloud,” he added.

* * * * *

Ciel Dalton

Ciel Dalton, son of Preston Dalton, will be tasked with a target to mark a reigning contour of recognition. Given the objectives in the past, you have been remarkable in accomplishing your goals, maintaining your pride in the art of slaying.

For the statement of your undefeated title, the Slayer Public have come to the conclusion that you, our brother, will be the next Hamilton, the next legend; follow these orders and become an immortal of your own kind, a prodigy to us all. In your city [Wind Ridge], there is a vampire that was created five hundred and fifteen years ago; the name it also goes by is Dom Von Kraige, and it is a vial being. It was created by an immortal feared by the Slayer Public’s elsewhere in the world, Demiesius Titus, and it must be slain.

It has committed the crime of innocent murder of our fellow brothers and sisters. Slayers all around the world have perished at its hands. A new society identified as the Assassin Assassin’s Association: The Triple A, are an assembly of vampires trained to massacre slayer’s just as we do them but worse. Take this fiend: kill him

Slayer Public

When I was done reading the letter, Julius slapped a proud hand on my back, “You, Ciel, will go down in history for putting an end to that thing’s life. Without it, the life of its maker Demiesius will fall ail with the loss, become careless, and that’s when the Public will swoop in and take it out. The monsters will quiver at our rise to power… Soon they’ll all be gone.”

I faked a smile, “This is great, but comparing me to Hamilton is a little over the top, don’t you think? He was… Hamilton.”

Julius rose from the couch, “Ciel, I’m sure you’ll be ten times the slayer Hamilton ever was. After this you’ll only be adding chrome stars to your ranking as a slayer. Soon, our family name will be the talk of the Public. Dalton… sounds about right, wouldn’t you say, Georg.”

I craned my neck to look back at Georg, but when my eyes met with his, all I could determine was something that was surely far from cheering me on. We shared a scratchy stare for mere seconds before he crossed his arms and backed out of the den, “Whatever,” he made clear before disappearing.

Julius assured me, “Pay him no mind, he’s just feeling a little down that the Public chose you in place of him. He feels since he’s the eldest, he should’ve been picked.” He brought his voice to a whisper, “But truly it has nothing to do with age; it’s about skill. And if you ask me, I’d rather compare you to Hamilton any day. Georg is a good slayer, but I feel he’ll never be a great one like you.”

The credit was warming, but I wouldn’t say I was that good. “Oh,” I said taking my backpack off and worked out a plastic bag. “I brought its ashes as you commanded of me.”

He took the bag in hand and tossed it straight into the flames of the fireplace, the ashes crumbling to more ash in the inferno. “Good, now that that’s out of the way… I think it’s time I give you a few things I’ve been saving for an occasion such as this.”

He waved for me to follow him and I pursued after him down the hallway and up the stairs to his bedroom. When we made it to his room, he motioned for me to remain behind the threshold while he went inside. He traveled to the edge of his made bed that he hasn’t slept in since the murder of my grandmother, and dug under the contents of his bed. Out he worked a heavy-looking leather chest. He set it on atop the bed and unlocked it with a gold key that dangled from the necklace he always wore. Has been wearing it for years.

After getting the lid open, out he brought another something held shut by a lock, but he didn’t open it, he just set it aside, and to my behold, brought out a bundle of stakes and a daggered chain a lot like the one I used when out on the hunt. “These were the very weapons Hamilton used in his years of combat. The very stakes he killed thousands of vampires with,” Julius said.

He set the large locked chest back into its compartment and tucked it beneath the bed again. “Come. Look at them… hold them.”

I was in awe as I moved closer to the delicate weaponry. Julius placed a stake from the bundle in my hands. I surveyed the awesome sight, reading over the imbedded carve of HAMILTON in the silver. “I can’t believe this; all of them; they are all mine?” I asked in utter shock to even be allowed to touch such a remarkable structure.

One stake in particular was wooden, designed to fit the hand comfortably when grasped, down it ran silver streaks, and it was sharply pointed with blessed silver. It would be my favorite, such beauty, such precision.

Julius took one of the stakes from me, and rolled it in his hands, taking the opportunity to swing it with force in the defenseless air, as if a target were moving about him. “These were my teachers, the greatest to ever live, and though he is dead now, you will be their next owner.” He handed the stake he wielded back to me, “They are yours now, grandson. Your father would be exceptionally proud.”

That was an encouraging thought; my father, Preston, proud of me. “You really think so?” I asked with cheerfulness in my elated voice, “You really think he’d be proud?”

“Ciel, what slayer’s father wouldn’t be proud of their awarded son. Out of every slayer in the world, out of every single one on the continents, the Public chose you. Not for your looks, or for your last name, but for your devotion, your commitment, your loyalty to the human race. Believe me when I say you will lead us until vampirekind is no more.”

“I understand, grandfather. Thank you.”

“There is nothing to thank me for; your skills and perseverance is enough.”

“I feel I should be thanking someone, without you bringing my father into the world, he would’ve never brought me, and…,” I breathed, “This is so exciting. Wait, will this Dom vampire be my only task? Where is my list of others?”

Julius started down the hall for the stairwell, and began his decent, “Though the Public has such faith that you will get this job done, they decided this will be your only one to worry about for the time being; they feel it may take time since this thing is… “powerful”, a lot more powerful than the others. And when you’re done with it, they’ll go ahead and grant you with new targets. Focus in on this one for now, understood?”

“Yes, Julius; I won’t disappoint you.”

Frankly I already felt like a failure, but I told myself a million times that I wouldn’t let my heart control my destiny. I was going to be the next Hamilton of the new age. My feelings for Dom would end tonight and they would never surface again. It was true that I liked him more than I intended; however, I looked at it as a crush, a crush that didn’t work out the way I’m glad it didn’t.

Dom Von Kraige.

I’m done with you.

I lay in bed wishing sleep would come over me with each second that passed. I was more tired than I’ve been in a while, but still my eyes wouldn’t close. I turned in the covers and curled up under them. When the warmth of the comforter was reassuring to my chilly arms, I closed my eyes hoping it’d be the last time I would have to.

There was a vibration on my bedside table adjacent to my lamp, and I clicked it on to reach for my cell. In a way I didn’t want to look and see who it was, but my certain curiosity got the best of my wits.

I’d received a text from an unknown number, but if my guess was accurate, I’d already know who it had likely come from: sweet dreams, my beautiful slayer, is what it read.

A smile I loathed came to me, the heat rising in my cheeks. Beautiful; I’m not beautiful. I was the boy people called “emo” in school, the one who was shoved against lockers, and put down by others almost every day of my high school life. In the regular human world, aside from slayers, I was the joke; there was no Hamilton or satisfaction in me. But still, Dom’s way with words was sufficient enough to make me content.

Not knowing exactly why, I saved his number in my contacts, adding a (?) beside his name, because I wasn’t sure how long it’d be saved there or why I was saving it at all.

Again I was breaking rules even set for myself.

Still, he was tempting.

Can I call u? I replied, and in no time he texted back: If you wish, my dear.

I took in a deep breath and sat up in bed, surveying my room and listening through the walls to make sure no one else was awake. Julius was gone, but Georg was still around. But he was clearly sleeping with his thunderous snoring sounding from his room down the hall passed my closed door.

Heart pounding, I released my hold of air and dialed Dom, the phone ringing a count of two times before it was answered. “Hallo, Ciel.”

His voice sounded even better on the phone, his sexy accent more passionate and strong. There was bass in the background, people screaming with ecstasy from having what sounded like a good time. If I was right, he was still at that V-Nish Bar doing who knows what. I wondered for a moment if he’d been talking to anyone before texting me, or… why he texted me in the first place.

Was I really on his mind?

“D-Dom,” I swore to myself in my head when I stuttered his name, “We need to-.”

“Hold on, Ciel,” he interrupted me, and his muffled enraged voice rose as if the mouth of the phone was being pressed by his palm, but I could still hear him vaguely. He demanded something in German, something that sounded a lot like a threat from the way he’d said it. Threatening to rip someone apart seemed like something he’s say, or maybe just authorizing someone to leave. “Sorry about that,” he came back to me, “Drunken vampires can get aggravating. What were you going to say?”

“If this is a bad time, I’ll let you go.” I made clear, if he was trying to have a good time, I didn’t want to ruin anything with what I was going to say. It could wait for another time.

Dom’s line was filled with the hammer of music for a short time, “I’m heading outside; I can hardly hear you.”

I waited until there was nothing else to cut me off, and when he asked me to speak again, I repeated, “We need to talk if it’s a convenient time for you.”

“Now is just a good of time as any; what is it you have to say, my sweet?”

“Please stop saying things like that.”

“Why; does it bother you?”

I sighed sunken in my own thought, “Well, no; it’s just… stop. We can’t be anything, Dom. After what happened tonight, I’m afraid you’re going to get the idea that we’re something when we’re not. I don’t want to hurt you if you think I was… thinking like that.”

“Like what?”

I mulled this over, “That… Us… We can’t be in a relationship, Dom.”

“Is that right; then tell me why exactly you told me to call you. I may not have called, but a text is just as significant. Did I send something you didn’t want to read? Was wishing you a good night’s sleep a bad thing? Bad timing perhaps?”

“No, it was fine actually, but you get my point, don’t you? This is wrong. We’re wrong for each other. I can’t like you just as much as you can’t like me. Besides, I got my task tonight right after I got home.”

Silence filled us again, until he spoke. “That must be something. Are you willing to tell me why I’m your target?”

I didn’t mean to tell him, but it slipped out when I said, “To get to the vampire Demiesius, you need to be out of the way. I’m the only person capable in taking you down, and if I do that, the slayers competent in getting to Demiesius will finally get their job done.”

“Listen, Ciel, I may have sorts of feelings for you, but I swear to the God you humans praise, that I will kill anyone and everyone who lifts a hand on my maker. I won’t let you kill me if that’s the case… Not like I was going to let you in the first place.”

His words were true, and if we were face to face right now, I pictured him pinning me to the wall my by throat, but still his voice was calm… somewhat. “Believe me, Dom, I want to kill you. It’s just a matter of when.”

“Say it again, Ciel,” he said confusingly to me.

I furrowed my brow in misunderstanding, “Say what again?”

“My name; I want to hear you say my name.”

Unsure, I did as he wished, “Dom.”

I pictured the crooked smirk appearing on his lips. “How do you expect to kill me if you take orders from me?”

I slightly raised my voice, “Orders? I’m not taking orders from you, vampire.” Realizing I wasn’t home alone, and Georg was a light sleeper, I lowered my tone to a whispering yell, “I will never take orders from someone as trivial as you. Why are you just that good at pissing me off? I hate you, Dom Von Kraige-.”

“You said it again.”

I ceased from speaking for several provoking seconds, a whole three minutes almost passing by. When I willed myself to finally speak to him without frustration forcing itself on my words. I held my tongue when another voice from Dom’s end of the line came about. Someone in the background said, “I’m going to need you to carry me home, lover boy.” There was a grunt as if someone fell against Dom, “I’m all nice and intoxicated for tonight.”

Not able to take it, an unfamiliar sense of wrath wove through my veins. “Have a fun night, vampire,” I said goaded before hanging up in his face. I hoped he heard me, I just hoped he couldn’t tell that the only reason I was angry was by the fact that he had someone else beside him.

Jealousy, it hurts.