Desiderate
Dirt clung to his fingernails as he made his way over the moist soil. He was dying, he knew, not of a terrible disease, not of some body-breaking wound, but of one, simple, satiable thing- thirst. He had not had a drink for almost a week.
Of, course, he reflected wryly, that was because he had been kept under silver lock and key, guarded by foul enchantments by his ungrateful master just because he happened to fall in love on the job. That degraded, loathsome brute. Finally he’d managed to break free and kill the hated dictator, only to find himself in a no-man’s land. After desperate days of dragging his rapidly deteriorating, he’d managed to find a town. Yet, even now, he couldn’t find relief. The houses had been deserted, every one of the blasted population had gone for a feast at the mayor’s mansion.
‘Damn you,’ he rasped, then chuckled to himself, a laugh that came out more like a hacking cough. But of course, who could be more damned than he, who had performed such evils that the coldest serial-killer could not hope to surpass him?
There was a rustle in the bushes. Terrified, he climbed up a tree, awaiting the worst. Oh, but it was only a girl, a most beautiful lass of about sixteen, carrying a bucket full of water from the nearby well.
He licked his chapped, dry lips and panted like an overly eager dog. He was so thirsty, so very thirsty! The fire built up in his throat, so close to temptation. He could hear the water slopping over the rim of the bucket, could see it splashing onto the grass in cool silver drops.
He hesitated. The girl was so much like her, his love, his fleur-de-lis, his heart. The same golden hair, stroking her lower back with shining ringlets, eyes the same shade of lavender-blue her exquisite, limpid orbs had been. Then his heart hardened. She had died, hadn’t she? His master had seen to that. He didn’t want redemption anymore.
And with that final thought, he leapt at the girl and put an end to her screams by biting into her warm, fleshy milk-white neck and drinking in the one thing that could douse the flames in his throat- rich, red blood.
