The Watcher

I DON'T THINK I'VE EVER FELT SUCH DISGUST FOR any creature, human or otherwise. Martinez either did drink at Marta's urging, or there was blood transference through our injuries. With such devastating injuries, though, she could not have been sure that it would work. That's why she tried to make me turn her.

In any case, I can't leave him like this. Vampires have great powers of healing, but a nearly severed head reunited with a body ? And what kind of vampire would an infamous drug lord make? I have to kill him-really kill him- before it gets any worse.

I rub my hands over my face in an effort to clear my head. I've killed rogues. But up until now, they have had at least a fighting chance. This will be like murdering a baby.

Almost instantly, cold, hard reality chases that thought out of my head. Martinez is not a baby. He was a killer in life. He will be a killer in death, too. Worse, because should he survive with vampire powers, he would be practically indestructible.

I feel Marta's eyes on me. She is watching to see what I will do. I have no doubt she will try to stop me if she regains greater mobility. I have to do this now.

This room is furnished only with the metal cots. The room across the hall held nothing more, either. What can I use to inflict the second death? There is no wood to use for a stake.

My eyes fall on Marta's knife.

As soon as I bend to pick it up, she begins moaning. She tries to take a step toward me, but her legs aren't quite strong enough. She stumbles and falls to her hands and knees.

Should I push her out of the room? She's as despicable as her son, but forcing her to watch as his body disintegrates into dust seems harsh even to me.

I don't give her a chance to make any other attempts to communicate. I drop the knife, pick her up and carry her through the door to the room on the other side. She squirms in my arms like an angry child. I deposit her on the cot, and tear another strip off the piece of sheet I'd left there. I tie her good hand to the leg of the cot. I doubt she can untie it with her wounded arm and she certainly isn't strong enough to pull the cot through the door.

Her guttural moans follow me as I step back into the hall and pull the door shut.

I have to steel myself to go back to Martinez. If I could call up the animal, this would be easier. But it's a human decision I'm making and the human Anna has to handle it.

My hand shakes as I turn the doorknob. The knife is where I dropped it when I took Marta out of the room. I pick it up and approach Martinez, praying that he does not realize what I'm about to do. I remember that Avery, the vampire doctor who treated me when I was first attacked, seemed to be able to read my thoughts from the very first. I know I must do this, but inflicting terror first seems unnecessarily cruel.

Martinez' eyes are still open. They are focused on a point to my left Quickly, before I lose my nerve, I move behind his cot, raise the knife and sever the tendrils of skin that hold his head on his shoulders. The head separates from the body, his eyes roll back. He projects a sigh that remains in my head long after the body has disintegrated into dust.

"Anna."

This time the voice is definitely outside my head.

I whirl toward the sound.

Max has raised himself up on his elbows. He is awake, suddenly, completely. His face is contorted with confusion and something else.

Fear.

His eyes are on the cot that until seconds ago, held Martinez' body. They shift away finally, to catch and hold mine.

"God, Anna," he whispers, voice raw and choked with undisguised horror. "What did you do? What have you become?"