NightFall: Book One: Bloodlust Is the Cure for the Immortal Soul Read Free

in a way he could not understand.
    Van s ucked in a breath, held it, and let it out slowly. He had no purpose in this life. Why couldn’t he just fall asleep and never wake up? Provoke some drunkard into beating him to death? Steal some poisons from the local apothecary down the street, hoping to get caught for his actions? If the owner was merciful, he would either make him drink the vile poison or have him killed for his crime. Then it would truly be over. No one would care any way. Just a nobody transient that was justly punis hed. Van who? Who cares? He c ould almost see his limp, bony body, his eyes glossed over in death, being thrown into a shallow grave with no marker showing who he once was, even though he really never was. He would be with the rest of the ‘unknowns’ in a dirty, rotting pile of corpses.
    No! he thought, shaking that eerie image out of his mind. There must be a be tter life for me in the future, he mused with the smallest glimmer of hope. But that hope had disappeared faster than it had appeared.
    Future? What blasted future? He felt he did not have much longer anyway. He felt his life waning, barely hanging on by a thread. And with one nick of a razor, he would die.
    Gladly die.
    Hopefully die.
    “What in the world is wrong with me?” Van asked the emptiness. He looked up at the dark sky, wai ting for an answer. Nothing. Just a s he predicted. Every thing , every being was against him.
    He must be going insane. Surely, it is because of going days on end without food.
    Yes, he decided. That must be it.
    But even as he thought of that being the case, something niggled in the far recesses of his mind. He felt hungry all of the time but no matter what he ate-if he ate-the hunger never changed its commanding rage. The hunger was like a whole other being within him. He had no control whatsoever over this mysterious demon.
    He thought for a fleeting moment that he must be coming down with some mysterious malady. Whether it was physical of mental, he did not know. Either way, one was not better than the other.
    Physical: die on the streets. Mental: die in the asylum. Van didn’t know which was worse. People run the other way at either of those problems. They wanted no part of it.
    Van wondered if the other beggars felt the same way. He knew he would never bring himself to talk amongst them. They had never shown any camaraderie toward him. He knew they-like him-had their own miserable lives to think about. Though, it was not much of a life to think about or a life worth waking up in the mornings happy. Those days for them never came. It was an endless darkness cascading all around them, shutting them off from everything and everyone.
    The last though that swam in Van’s brain was that if he was sick, he would not have to worry about begging for food any longer. The dead don’t eat.
    Just as Van’s eyes drifted off to slumber, a hand, a powerful hand, clamped down over his mouth. He never thought a human could possess such brute strength……..until now.
    Van tried to struggle free, but his efforts were done in vain. Panic encased his rapidly beating heart.
    Now that Van was looking death in the face, he realized he wasn’t so brave about wanting to die. Especially right now.
    Oh, but he was a worthless coward.
    Oh, please. Not now, he beseeched silently. A soft whimper escaped his lips.
    “Be still, man,” the rich male voice ordered with the same power that his hand possessed.
    Van stilled immediately. He looked into the stranger’s eyes. If this man were surely death, wouldn’t his eyes reflect that fiery doom? His eyes only showed genuine concern.
    Van studied the stranger’s face. It was rather pallid and shone oddly in the glow of the moon . His skin was somewhat luminous an d very smooth looking. And his eyes? They were the color of ancient amber. His sooty lashes seemed to go on for miles. His hair, colored as a raven’s wing, was shiny and nearly touched to nape of his pale neck. The