Chapter 255 - Final Arrangements part 12
"I'm hungry," Lukas groused. "You said we'd find someone to eat along the way."
The city had fallen behind us. We were tramping across a broad empty field, one that was completely encircled, but for a solitary dirt road, by dense woodland. Frozen stalks of harvested corn, smashed flat and limned in brittle ice, crunched beneath our boots. Jutting above the canopy of the forest was a solitary cellphone tower, warning lights blinking red. I could feel the signal it transmitted thrumming in the air.
"I said we'd find you something to eat, not someone," I corrected him.
"Some thing? Like what?"
"There will be times when it is not safe to feed from mortals, regardless of whether they are evildoers or not. There will be times you'll have to feed on animals instead. Tonight we hunt a different prey."
"And so we resume my education," Lukas scoffed.
"I am your maker. It is my responsibility to teach you these things."
"I think you enjoy it. It allows you to lord your superiority over me."
"I do enjoy it, but not for that reason. I do not need to affirm my superiority. I know it for a fact."
Lukas laughed.
Wildlife is much more scarce now than it was even fifty years ago. The forests have become nature's mausoleums. Life once thrived upon this globe in abundance, before mankind raped and pillaged the Earth, leaving it desolate and poisoned with their waste, but we managed to track and kill a large buck in the neighboring woodland without too much difficulty. Strangely, I felt guiltier about killing the buck than I had my mortal brethren last night. The world had changed, and I with it. Once, I raised an army of vampires to defend mankind. Now it was the world that needed to be defended from man.
Lukas enjoyed the killing part, delivering the coup de grace himself, but he complained fiercely at the taste of the animal's blood.
"I know it's not as satisfying as human blood, but you can learn to like it," I said. "It's what they call an acquired taste, and it will nourish you when you cannot feed from humans."
"For example?" Lukas asked, wiping deer blood from his chin with the sleeve of his parka.
"If mortals become suspicious of your presence, for instance. Or you are far from civilization and there are no men around to feed from. Believe it or not, there are still places in this world that mankind has not descended upon like a swarm of locusts."
"Ah."
He pushed the animal's carcass from his lap and rose, still smacking his lips. "And now?"
"Now we walk to Germany," I said, starting away from him.
"I still don't see why we couldn't just take a train. Or drive. I'd love to drive your Spider."
"This is my final hour, and I will spend it as I see fit," I answered. "We walk because that is how we traveled in my mortal life. Call it nostalgia if you'd like. I wish to experience the world as I remember it, before I join my ancestors in the next one."
We walked in silence for a time after that, Lukas a few paces behind me. A forest is only truly silent in the winter, when all its denizens have either fled south to warmer climes or battened down to hibernate through the frozen months. The only sound was the crunch of the snow and the pop and crackle of tree branches snapping beneath our heels.
I breathed, just for the sake of doing it, though it did not steam the air. If I could have willed my heart to beat, I would have done that, too. It felt good to be away from the city. To be free. In the forest, I felt almost like a living man again.
Finally, Lukas said, "I'm bored."
"I'm sorry."
"Tell me the rest of your story."
"Which one? There are so many."
Lukas stumbled over a fallen branch, cursing softly. "You know what one I'm talking about! I want to know what happened after you escaped from the God King. You said you were going to raise an army of vampires to fight him."
"Yes, I did. At the foot of Fen'Dagher. Right after we escaped."
"So tell me what happened. I want to know how you defeated Khronos."
"You want to know about the vampire war?" I said. "All right. I'll tell you."