Tale of a Vampire Assassin

Chapter 21

I passed out face down on the pull-out.  I still had a bottle of vodka in my left hand when I woke up.  I wondered how I hadn't spilled it.  I wondered how I'd even passed out.  I'd never done that before.  I didn't understand.

My arms were dangling over two different edges of the mattress where my head rested at the bottom right corner.  I sat the vodka down on the floor and caught a whiff of a familiar scent in the room.  I wasn't alone.  I scooted back onto my elbows then shoved myself up onto my knees.  I turned to face Marcus.  He had one of his brows raised at me.  "Passed out, did you?"

I glared at him and clutched my painfully searing throat in one of my hands.  I groaned.

"What do you want to talk about?"  I rubbed my throat and looked over at him.

"It's about the vampire you destroyed," he said.  His face told me he really didn't want to bring it up again.  I knew this was important but I didn't want to hear it.

"I don't want to talk about it," I say.  I got up off the bed, grabbed the open bottle of vodka from where I'd left it on the floor, and crossed the room to the window.  Mark rose from the bed and flitted silently and invisibly to my side.

"Trigger, we have to talk about this.  I know it's hard but it's part of you now.  You have to face the responsibility that comes with the aftermath," he said.  Mark put his hand on my shoulder.

"What responsibility?  I get that I have to live with the guilt of killing one of my own kind but what do you mean face the responsibility?"  What he'd said made no sense.  I turned on him, arms crossed, looking for an explanation.

"You should sit down," he said and motioned for me so go back to the bed.

I went to the foot of the bed and looked over at him.  "Do I have to bring you too or are you gonna walk?"  He crossed the room in silence and sat down beside me.  I sat the vodka down by our feet.  "Okay," I say and cross my arms.  "Tell me."

Marcus took a breath.  "You want to grab that vodka, because this is about to get heavy?"  I reached down for the bottle and handed it to him.  The bottle was already half empty and Mark polished off two thirds of that.  "Sorry," he said  and handed me what was left.  "I told you it's going to be bad."

Mark closed his eyes then and took a deep breath.  He looked over at me and I met his eyes with a sober look.  He looked away.  "Last night when I told you about Nora, I didn't finish the story.  You see, when i killed Nora and Evangeline came back and found me dying from depression she told me what I'm telling you now."

"Which is what?"

"When a vampire kills another of their own kind they have to replace the one they destroyed," he said and practically shivered.

"What do you mean?"  I didn't understand.

"I didn't understand at first, either.  Then Evangeline explained it to me."  He took another unneeded breath  and reached out for the rest of the vodka.  "Can I have that?"  I gave him the bottle.  He finished it and tossed it across the room before he continued with what he was saying and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.  "You have to create a vampire, Andy."

My mouth fell open.  "What?"

I rose from the bed in shock.  He had to be joking.  As out of character as that was for him he had to be.  Didn't he?  "You're joking!"  The words slipped out of my mouth in an almost scream.

"Sit down and be quiet," Mark instructed.  "And I'm serious.  You don't have to do it anytime soon.  I waited a hundred years before I became a maker.  You don't have to do it now, Andy, but you have to do it sometime."

"Why?"  I thought I was over those stupid questions.  Apparently I wasn't.

"It's a law, Trigger.  It's one of the only ones we have.  If you don't promise -- no, swear -- to me that you'll be a maker I have to order you to do it.  I've never made you do anything and you know I don't want to."

I nodded and summoned my fangs.  "I swear to become a maker," I say and put my hand out to Mark's already outstretched one.  I summoned my fangs and we pressed our palms together.  For a moment our hands are cooler than the rest of our bodies but then they return to normal and I feel the pressure change in the room.

Another memory that would stick with me forever.