InsaneJournal

Waking up with the scent of blood in your nose, I’ve discovered, is no fun way to wake up.  Especially if you’re not exactly sure why you can smell it at all.

Or why you’re lying face down on dingy brown shag carpet that’s seen far better days with every limb aching and with blood hardening on one coat sleeve.

Groaning, I slowly worked my way up off of the floor to my hands and knees, trying to move as slowly as possible.  I was hurting in spots I didn’t think could hurt and a few of them were going to be aching for a good couple of days.

 Blinking to adjust my eyes to the dim of the room, I took a glance around and winced.  The walls were as dingy in the floor…though both did have a new décor of blood and gore spattered across them.  Not that that made the room any more tolerable though.  Pretty much anything else that had been in the room was shattered and lying in splinters on the bloodstained carpet so that left little more to see.  And from looking at it and vaguely remembering what had happened, I figured the rest of the house was in the same state.

Plus, my remembering explained why there was a hole in the wall to my right leading to the wreckage of what had been a bedroom.

Shaking my head, I took a swaying step forward and peered around a counter into a small kitchen.  The corpse of a woman, already hardened into rigor mortis, stared back at me.  At least I think she was staring…it was hard to tell out of the ravaged mess that had been made of her face and throat.

I’d been trying to save her.

And I’d failed miserably.

Again.

I closed my eyes tight and turned away from her, angry and annoyed with myself that I kept trying to save people and failing.  What was I hoping to accomplish?  To redeem my eternally damned soul and make myself feel better about my existence?  To…

The caterwauling of the police sirens broke through everything and a dog started barking in reaction from somewhere nearby.  Cursing, I hurried through the room and dove out of the broken window where I’d entered in the first place.  My own blood and fingerprints were likely everywhere in there but I didn’t have the time to deal with any of it.  I just had to run and hope I could weasel my way out of this mess when it came to my door.

As I hit the rain engorged ground and rolled to my feet, taking off in a dead sprint, I sighed heavily.

I just had had no luck this past decade.

And it didn’t look like my luck was about to get any better anytime soon judging from previous experience.

What the hell had I done to piss off God this time?  Oh, yeah…I was an abomination to the existence of life itself, silly me to forget that important little morsel.

Somewhere between the run-down house in Hell’s Kitchen and my old building two blocks from Central Park – which was a walk of about an hour after I slowed down from my panic run and the pain crept back in - I ditched the coat on top of a sleeping bum.  Hey, I tried to get most of the blood off before that.  And he needed it more than I do anyway, so shut up.

Ditching the coat meant I was soaked by the time I got to my building but rain hasn’t bothered me in a long time.  I can’t catch diseases or get sick so why should I care about a little water?  Bruises on the other hand…those were never fun, even if they did heal in about an hour or so.  Wet clothes aren’t the most comfortable though so I hurried inside and threw my nasty shirt and jeans into a corner to burn later.  Some dry jeans and boxers later, I was walking into the main room on the bottom floor with a towel draped over my head when the doorbell rang about two hours after I’d fled the trashed house.

That woke up my dog.

Kay is a big, one hundred forty-ish pound scarlet mound of hair that I don’t know the breed of and I don’t really care.  She’s as gentle as a kitten to me but vicious as a badger to about anything else.  Which is strange considering other dogs have the exact opposite reaction if I come near them – guess it’s just from me raising her from a puppy.

On that note, people that abandon puppies or kittens on roadsides should be shot.

The doorbell rang again, this time more pointedly, and Kay charged at the door with a growl that was more similar to a roar.  She reared up and planted two huge paws on either side of the windowpanes, stuck her nose through the curtains, and started barking loud enough to wake the dead.  Usually that will scare off even the most adamant of door-to-door salesmen and religious lunatics.

Hence why I was surprised when the doorbell rang for a third time.  That it was joined by a fist pounding was even more surprising since Kay was snarling right up against the glass and she’s got some fearsome teeth.

Guess I needed to go answer the door then before my dog broke it down.

“Easy, girl,” I mumbled as I strode over.  My hand on Kay’s head immediately stilled everything and she dropped to the floor, tail wagging and acting like she hadn’t just been a snarling monster.  Smiling at her, I opened the door – not even the slightest bit abashed at answering it wearing only jeans and a towel on my head – and got an immediate face full of NYPD badge.

“Detective Arana Folwns,” snapped the badge sharply.  Wait, badges can’t talk…  “I need to speak with you for a moment.”

I blinked and replied, “Sure.  But can you lower the badge so I can see you, Detective?”

The badge dropped and I arched an eyebrow appreciatively at the sight of the detective standing on my doorstep.  Even Kay uttered a growl of approval and she’d never liked anyone but me since I took her in.

Detective Folwns was soaked to the bone but she still managed to look stunning and in control.  She was wearing dark jeans, what looked like a good pair of hiking boots, a man’s t-shirt in some dark color that was hard to tell in the rain, and a leather coat.  The straps of her shoulder holster showed from underneath the coat – I don’t know if that was deliberate or not – and I could smell the metal of her gun.  She was about 5’3” with blonde hair lashed back into a bun, held herself like a Queen, and managed to look down at me despite the fact that I had three inches of height on her.  Green eyes filled with fire looked up at me as she clipped her badge onto her belt and a blonde eyebrow arched elegantly.

She was an impressive little sight and I found myself smiling a little.  I liked her – even if she was a cop about to grill me.

“Thank you,” I said with a slightly arrogant tilt of my head.  Her gaze hardened to ice and I smirked inside.  Oh, she was a little spark plug too, which just made me like her all the more.

“Someone of your description was reported fleeing two hours ago from a crime scene, Mister O’Connell,” she stated in a cold, precise voice.  Then she reached into her coat and pulled out an evidence bag that had a bloodstained card in it.  “We also found this on the floor inside.”

I didn’t need to look at the card to know what it was.  That was the reason I’d ended up at the house in the first place and I knew it.  The woman had run her small business out of her home and when someone had come trying to get her to stop giving her little baskets of homemade chocolates out for free around the neighborhood, she’d come to me.  It had been someone trying to snuff out a little light in a dark part of town and I didn’t hold to that.  And I’m somewhat known around town to a few people as someone you can turn to in a bind and who doesn’t ask for payment.

What they don’t tend to say is that far too many of the people I try to help end up dead rather than alive later in happy ever after.

The card was her business card and in her cheerful scrawl on the back, I remembered, was “Thank you, Mister O’Connell, for helping me.  I can never repay you.”  It must have fallen out of my coat during the scuffle inside when I’d arrived to find her dead and had attacked her killer.  And I’m the only O’Connell in the phone book – I know, I’ve checked – so it didn’t take much effort to track me down.

Scowling, I said, “I was helping her earlier today.  Must’ve dropped the card earlier when I was there.”

Green eyes narrowed at that and Detective Folwns growled, “You have anyone that can attest to that?”

“Unfortunately, she’s dead,” I sniped back bitterly.  “But you can ask her neighbor Miss Walters about me.”

“We will, trust me.”  She scowled and tucked the bag back into her coat then hissed, “I would suggest you remain in town, Mister O’Connell.  We will definitely have more questions for you about what you were helping Mrs. Abrams with.”

Her gaze flicked down over my chest then and she sneered, “And I would wear a shirt next time we talk.”

My lip curled at that and Kay growled from behind me as she sensed my ire.  Bowing mockingly, I said, “Of course, Detective.  If that’s all…good night.”

“Good night,” she said sharply and turned to leave.  I watched her from the open doorway as she walked down to the squad car idling at the sidewalk until she disappeared inside and it pulled away.  Then I shut the door with a vicious snarl and slammed my fist against the wall, mildly denting it and just missing the mirror that hung between the door and a window.

Slowly I managed to calm down and looked up into the mirror, grimacing at my reflection.  A square jaw rough with near constant stubble, a slightly hawkish nose, hollow cheeks, and dark eyebrows stared back at me from underneath a dark fringe of hair and a white towel.  Sweeping my damp brown-black hair back made the towel fall to my shoulders and I took another deep breath to make the last of the red fade from my almost emerald colored eyes – gemstone eyes, my mother used to call them.  Then I sneered at the mirror, flashing my lengthened canines at it in seeming mockery.

I’m alright looking but I don’t kid myself about ever having a relationship with a woman.  Not with being what I am…

Sighing, I turned away from the mirror and limped over to the couch, suddenly feeling all of my three hundred plus years.  Kay padded along behind me and climbed up to lay her head in my lap once I’d collapsed against the cushions.  I smiled and scratched her ears, earning a happy growl and a lick on the hand in response.

“Well,” I said after a moment, “looks like your master has screwed things up again, old girl.  I’m starting to think I should just give up…”

Kay whined and I looked down at her, meeting her gray-green eyes steadily.  She’s the only dog I know that will look at someone dead on and just stare – some day’s I swear she’s a human reincarnated because of that and other things.  Then her teeth nipped my fingers and she whimpered, laying her head on my thigh.

Sighing, I ran my hand through her thick fur and smiled.

“Yeah, we both know I’m not really going to give up.  But…every day makes it seemed harder and harder to try and redeem everything I’ve done.  I know that Liz says I shouldn’t be so hard on myself, that it was just me surviving, but I can’t believe that.”

My hand convulsed and clenched in her fur as memories sprang up, bright as beacons.  All of them memories of me killing – slaughtering – people with ruthless abandon and a smile on my face, my eyes dancing with an insane joy.

“I can’t forget,” I hissed as Kay whined and nudged at my knee.  “That wasn’t me…but I can’t forgive and forget all of those deaths.  It wasn’t survival.  No, that was pure pleasure…”

Tilting my head back, I forced my hand to unclench and let it rest on Kay’s head as I closed my eyes, every ragged edge of my being aching.

I hadn’t killed her, but I was responsible for Marie Abrams death as much as her husband who had killed her in a fit of pre-moonrise rage.  And I’d let myself get thrown off balance and he’d gotten away before I could stop him from killing someone else.

I was responsible for her just as much as for those people over a century ago.

God, I really am a monster…