Short Story / Creatures of the Night (Analysis)
A raven-haired woman pressed herself into the shadows of the dark alleyway. She writhed and twisted her body as if in convulsion. Small beads of sweat fell from her face and neck, leaving a pool of wetness where she lay. The woman bit down hard on her tongue to prevent herself from screaming. She did not dare bring herself to the attention of the night predator.
The woman could still remember the man. He was more like a creature, actually. She remembered his tall lithe form. His milky pale skin gave him a delicate appearance. However, he was far from fragile.
The woman attempted to lift her right hand to her eyes. There on the back of the hand were two punctures. Soon, a flood of unwanted recollections came crashing back to her memory.
The woman remembered how the night predator had gracefully glided through the brothel. His impeccable black dress suit looked out of place compared to the dirty soulless men that were the usual customers. All the women stared at the newcomer with lavish interest but his dark eyes stayed locked on only one woman.
The raven-haired woman could not resist the allure of his capturing eyes and so she came to him, her deadliest mistake she was soon to learn. The man took her outside the brothel where they were met with the golden dusk of Paris.
“Bonjour,” he whispered through pale lips. “My Cosette…” (Greetings)
She had never met the man and yet he already seemed to know her.
Cosette watched as he pulled her right hand up to his lips. She was entranced by his attractive dark eyes that never left her face. The touch of his lips on her hand was icy cold and the pain that followed after was even more unpleasant. The night creature had sunk his teeth into the back of her hand. Immediately she knew something was wrong and jerked her fingers away from his grasp. His darkening eyes and the trickle of blood that ran down from the corner of his lips convinced her that he was dangerous. She quickly turned from him and ran down the street, never looking behind her for fear of being caught.
Cosette threw herself into an alleyway and remained there until darkness had completely settled. Her hands still throbbed and she could do nothing as the pain took its course. The icy venom of the bite travelled throughout the rest of her body, burning the veins and arteries along the way. Cosette felt her heart racing exponentially and knew that her time was coming near. The pain was too unbearable anyway and so she allowed for the darkness to come over.
As she closed her eyes, she glimpsed at what appeared to be a shady tall black figure. Familiar pale lips smiled mockingly.
“You cannot escape me, Cosette,” he sang softly.
Cosette shook her head violently.
“Non, non!” she cried. “S’il vous plait, monsieur…” (No no! Please, sir!)
The night predator ignored the woman’s cries and lifted her into his arms. Cosette felt the cold wind rushing past her face and glimpsed at the daunting proximity of the full moon before the darkness finally took her.
O o O o O
Death felt so cold…and hungry.
Cosette’s lids fluttered open, brown eyes wide and alarmed. A gnawing feeling grabbed at her stomach and she suddenly felt the pangs of hunger. When she tried to move her body, she found that she was chained onto a cold steel surface.
Cosette heard the distinct sound of a door opening but could not see who had come into the room. Suddenly, a strong scent entered her nostrils and her immediate instinct was to scream. In front of her was the night predator in all his pale yet dark glory.
“Cosette,” he murmured as his fingers glided over her face.
Cosette tried to pull away but his frigid touch was too irresistible.
The predator chuckled richly, a deep baritone that echoed throughout the room. He gently removed his hand away from her face before she bit into it.
“You don’t want to do that, mon chèree. My blood is not what you seek.” (my dear)
Confusion furrowed Cosette’s brow and she then stilled in apprehension as the predator’s hands moved delicately over the curves of her body, stopping at the bonded hands. He swiftly freed them and then went to unbound her feet.
“You were so desperate to leave me before,” he commented lightly as he saw her stilled form did not budge.
“Please, monsieur,” Cosette whispered. “Food…”
The predator nodded. He helped her up from the steel platform and onto her feet. At first, Cosette’s knees nearly gave way but the night predator held a firm grip around her waist.
“Just follow me, mademoiselle,” he assured her. (young lady)
As he walked her to the door, Cosette took time to look around the room. It was barren with only the steel bed and a small caged window that allowed for the moonlight to spill over.
“Why am I here? Who are you?” she managed to ask.
The firm male arms around her frame guided her to another room. The new room was dim and neatly garnished in maroon and burgundy colored furniture. The walls were covered with shelves of books and a small fire burned discreetly in the fire place. Above the fireplace was a single picture frame of a happy couple standing together in each others’ arms. The man in the painting had long black hair and a charismatic smile. The woman’s hair was also black and her eyes were a welcoming shade of blue.
“I am the Marquis Delano de Monte Pellier,” the night predator decidedly answered, removing Cosette’s attention from the portrait. “Welcome to my home, the Monte Pellier. You are no longer who you used to be, chèree. You died in that alleyway.” (Marquis Delano of Mount Pellier)
“But how—”
“And I resurrected you.” the marquis cut her. He sat the young woman onto a dark red leather armchair. The skirt of her black tattered dress fanned around the large seat.
Instead of focusing on his words, Cosette clutched at her stomach.
“Ah, mon chèree,” the marquis said and turned to leave the study. It only took seconds before he came back into the room with a stout and disheveled man. “Our kind finds the blood of humans to be the most satisfying quenchers.”
His words should have alarmed her but Cosette could not keep her eyes off the scared little man. Her hunger intensified. Now that she thought about it, she was rather thirsty…
“Please, no!” the round man begged her with beady gray eyes. He got to his knees at Cosette’s feet. “Do not harm me! I beg of you.”
Instincts told Cosette to leap off her chair and pounce on him but a small voice pulled Cosette away.
‘He belongs to someone,’ she told herself. ‘It is not your place to take his life.’
Sensing the hesitation, the marquis interfered.
“My love,” he began softly. “Your conscious is reminiscent of your former life. Your new transformation demands authority above these horrifying men. We are the gods of them. We have the place to give and take where we see it as necessary. Now Cosette, let go of that part of you that ties you to your old life and allow for your new instincts to take over.”
It was so much for Cosette to completely swallow. Her conscience was struggling even harder to counter the marquis.
‘Cosette, let him go,’ it insisted. ‘You were once a human, too.’
“And you hated your human counterparts,” the marquis reminded. “Your family left you and your friends ignored you. I am the only one who actually saw you for who you were and took action to take you away from the slums of the Paris brothel. Pierce and drink his blood, mon amie. You are rather ravenous.” (my friend)
An image of her poor parents came to mind. The old couple had been severely impoverished by the unfair policies of the French Monarch. The Revolution had taken a great toll on them and their occupations did little to ease the financial situation. In order to pay the debtors and keep from being homeless, the couple had to sell their two youngest children, and for Cosette they sent her into prostitution where the profit she kept would go to them.
Cosette grew bitter at the memory. She and her siblings had been turned into mere commodities to be bought and sold. Her parents had truly abandoned them. She was alone…
“And if I dare ask, Monsieur Delano,” she spoke harshly. “Who am I to you?”
The marquis walked in front of her and placed a long slender finger under her chin. He forced her to look up at him and could see the internal struggle within her brown eyes.
“You are a creature of the night, my lady,” he began.
Cosette angrily turned away assuming that he was talking about her dishonorable night job.
“I meant nothing about your appalling meddling in the brothel. What I did mean is that you are now like me; an apparition, the archfiend, a leech…”
Cosette remained silent and unconsciously rubbed the back of her right hand where two slit-like silver scars was left from the bite.
“A vampire…” she whispered to herself in self-realization.
“Yes, love,” the marquis confirmed and quietly removed his body from her peripheral vision. “Bon appétit.” (term in French meaning enjoy your food.)
The room was suddenly quiet except for the loud whimpering of the bald human by the corner.
“He left, didn’t he?” she asked absent-mindedly referring to the marquis.
The human nodded carefully, his red face blotched with fear.
Cosette leaped onto the carpeted velvet floor on all fours and let out a feral growl. The battle of her conscience and instincts was already made up.
O o O o O
The steel raised platform was actually the lid of a coffin that served as a bed. Inside the coffin was a soft mass of dirt and a young raven-haired woman whose large brown eyes wandered in thought.
Cosette laid on said soil in the same room in which she first woke up to as a vampire. The marquis had left hours ago on a business trip to Transylvania leaving the young woman alone in the chateau Monte Pillier. A week had gone by since the first day she met the marquis and since she became like him, but once again Cosette was struggling with her conscience.
She stood up from the comfortable mound and immediately set out to leave the room to clear her head. Outside the dark chateau for the first time in her new form, Cosette breathed in the frosty air of the night and found its coolness soothing, something she would not have felt in her old life.
Cosette walked through the snowy path that led to the horse barn. She had watched the marquis enter there several times from her room window and witnessed his skilled expertise on the horses.
Once inside the stalls, Cosette pulled the reigns of the first horse she saw. It was an Egyptian stallion, an unknown horse-breed to the providences of France as the marquis once told her. Cosette climbed on the black stallion with ease. Once settled, she saw a black extravagant cavalier hat hooked from the corner of the stall’s wooden wall and placed it on her head. The wide-brimmed cut and the large ostrich plume rivaled that of a mousquetaire’s. It matched soundly with the black breeches and ruffled black blouse she “borrowed” from the marquis. (musketeer’s)
“Allons!” Cosette chirped to the horse and then tapped its sides with her leather boots. The stallion threw its head back with a heavy neigh before running into the Paris night. (Let’s go!)
Cosette directed the horse to the tallest building near the impoverished district of Paris. She lifted herself off the horse and tied it to a tree. From there she climbed the brick-made walls of the building and planted herself at the very top of it with cat-like agility. The cross she steadily balanced on indicated that it was a church.
From where she stood, Cosette could see for miles. She found a two-story house that she recognized as the place where her parents lived. With her sharpened eye-sight focused inside their second floor window, she saw a woman and a man sleeping, their hands held together as a weathered and tattered painting of a raven-haired girl lay between them.
Cosette sighed. She had to remind herself that she was a night predator and could not risk her parents’ life by being with them. She was still a new vampire and her thirst for blood was difficult to control, almost unpredictable. Cosette understood that she could not deny her fate. She was who she was, a creature of the night forever to walk the black earth and feed on its pulsing veins.
A rotund man swaggered drunkenly on the street towards her direction. “Bonjour, mademoiselle!” he slurred when he spotted her. He lifted his hat out of courtesy to reveal a familiar bald head.
Cosette smiled to herself, catching a random crow that flew past her in the process. She broke the bird’s neck and punctured its flesh with her teeth, consuming all of the blood dry from its body.
The pulsing veins of the earth, she decided, did not have to be humans’.
“A la vie, monsieur,” Cosette laughed through bloody lips. (To life, sir)
FIN.
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