A stack of names. With addresses, including social security numbers, phone numbers, and all their pertinent contact info. With a little digging, I could find out if, say, they lived alone. A Google Maps search would let me know if, say, they had neighbors nearby or far away, neighbors who might hear them scream, or not.
I drummed my long nails on the stack of prospects, most of whom were probably waiting anxiously to hear if they got the job or not. Not one suspected that an honest-to-God vampire was looking a little deeper into their private lives.
I wondered how they would feel about that.
Would they be nervous? Or scared?
I suspected both. I also suspected they didn’t believe in vampires. But they would believe, oh, yes, if I showed up on their doorsteps. Then they would be very, very nervous. No, frightened.
Terrified.
Yesss, good.
I knew she was speaking to me. The devil bitch that lived inside me. She had been gaining some ground in my mind. What that meant, exactly, I didn’t know.
But I felt it.
And, for tonight, I didn’t care.
Instead, I thought again of the new hires. The thought of anyone fearing me intrigued me. No, not quite intrigued me. Excited me.
I swallowed, licked my lips.
I felt my heartbeat pick up a little. It went from beating maybe five times a minute to twenty or thirty. Yeah, I’m a freak through and through.
No, Sssamantha. You are a hunter.
Yes, I thought. A hunter.
I liked that. I would be a damn good one, too. No, I’d never hunted a living person for the express purpose of killing them, just for killing’s sake. Other vampires did this. Not me. Indeed, other vampires explored their true natures.
Not me, though.
Not until now. I needed to do something about that. I needed to hunt the living, to feel their fear, to taste their blood, and to live again. To really, truly live.
I knew it was the demon bitch inside me, encouraging me, influencing me, possessing me...but I didn’t care.
Not true, I thought suddenly, shaking my head. I do care. I care very much.
Alarmed, I sat up. I had to care. I had to. Caring was the only thing that separated me from her. And the demon was a her, too. I sensed her repressed femininity. I sensed that she had been enamored with her own good looks, too. She had been beautiful once, I felt. Interestingly, I sensed she might have been a mother once, too, but I could be wrong. Either way, more and more of her was creeping through, bubbling up from the depths. Whether or not she controlled what came through to me, I didn’t know. Perhaps the information that came through was random. Perhaps not. Perhaps the information was carefully provided, controlled, designed to do exactly what it was doing to me right now: breaking me down.
No, I thought. No, dammit. No one is breaking me down.
The bitch inside me didn’t often express herself clearly by using complete sentences or stringing together a coherent thought. I suspected she couldn’t. I suspected our connection wasn’t complete, and so, only parts of her came through. Random, stray thoughts.
More often than not, she came through via feelings. At first, I had always known it was her. At first, her bloodlust thoughts were easily distinguishable from my own. Now, not so much.
Now, her thoughts felt natural, comfortable. Even worse, they felt like my own thoughts. This should have scared me. In the least, it should have worried me. But it didn’t, not anymore.
She was a powerful entity. I would benefit from her presence in my life. She would benefit, too. She would live again, and I would have untold strength.
“Now, dammit, get the fuck out of my head.”
I stood, pacing, fighting her presence, recalling how the entity within Hanner had possessed her completely. Would that happen to me? What would it feel like to have another control my body? To speak for me? To act for me? To think for me?
I paced in the small space behind my desk, careful of power cords. Why I had so many power cords, I didn’t know. I spotted a charger for my phone, my iPad, my Kindle and even one for a Nook. I didn’t even own a Nook.
I avoided it, along with myriad of other cords that seemed to multiply behind my desk, all of which served some damned purpose.