black leather gloves and buttoned the collar of the coat to
protect my neck from all things that bite. I half wished that
I wore a sweater instead of the button-up shirt that I did,
but it was too late. I was dressed, out-of-doors, and
walking into the dispersing crowd of onlookers, the dead
child’s parents long gone.
“He was so young, poor boy,” a man said as he
passed by, not even noticing me.
“I know, right? We better get home to Lenny,” the
woman accompanying the man said.
I made my way to the place where the boy had
lain. My eyes slowly moved to the left, canvasing my
surroundings, before my head followed. A few onlookers
were lingering, talking about the boy’s unusual death for
the area, while a couple of policemen in uniform were
standing nearby, guiding stragglers away from the scene.
They were preparing to leave when I bent down to
examine the blood. The blood was cold, dried, and trapped
within the grooves of the cobblestone. The smell was
potent but stale, which meant the boy had been dead
approximately four to five hours. I took out a small
pocketknife, scraped some of the blood off the pavement,
and rubbed it in circles between my gloved index finger
and thumb. The dried blood was a bit hard from the cold
but also tacky, a clear indication of human blood mixed
with that of a fiend’s. It was curious that vampire blood
would be present, especially since a child wouldn’t
normally be able to cause damage to one so strong. I grew
even more curious when the bitter-tasting blood hit my
tongue, my eyes bulging as I slapped my hand to my
mouth.
79