Prophecy of the Undead Read Online Free PDF Page A

exploded, “I’m not hungry.” The minute she said it, a gnawing, empty feeling roiled in her gut.
    “You will be very soon. I can see it on your face. Now sit and listen while I talk.”
    She sat back down, perched on the edge of the seat and pulled the afghan up around herself again.
    “Do you remember who I am? Do you remember meeting me before?”
    Keisha studied his face for a minute before recognition dawned on her face. He grinned.
    “Yes, I can see that you do now. When I introduced myself to you in the bar, I did use my correct name, Yuri Kozakov, but I lied about my occupation. I’m not really a neurobiology researcher like you. I’m just an educated man with many questions I was hoping you would be able to answer. I engineered an introduction to you by mesmerizing your co-worker so he thought he knew me.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I have read many of your published works and I still hope you will be able to do the research to answer my questions. However, they may need to take a back seat to your concerns. But I get ahead of myself.” He watched her closely and something on her face made him change his next words.
    “You are getting hungrier every minute.” He sighed deeply, surprising her because she hadn’t noticed him breathing at all until that minute. In fact, with a start, she realized that she wasn’t breathing either.
    “You’re right, my dear. Neither of us needs to breathe anymore. We may do it for punctuation when speaking, or when talking to mortals so they don’t get too freaked out. We no longer have a regular pulse. We don’t breathe and we don’t eat food or drink most liquids anymore.”
    She tried to ignore her body to concentrate on his words. “Why not? What do we need to eat, then?”
    His lips moved into a slow smile. He put his wrist up to his mouth for a minute and then moved it slowly towards her, to show her what he had done. He had punctured two small holes in his wrist and blood seeped out of the wounds.
    Keisha felt her stomach lurch with hunger and the squeezing in her gut became unbearable. She got up out of the chair, unaware that she was moving, and only stopped when she knelt on the floor in front of him. She gazed, transfixed, at the wounds.
    “It’s alright, Keisha. Drink. You will feel better for it. Then we can continue talking.”
    She was staring at the blood, uncomprehending.
    “Drink what?”
    With one hand he held the back of her head, pushing her forward and moving his other arm at the same time, so that the bloodied arm was right in front of her face. With a snarl she grabbed the arm with both of her hands and pulled the blood up to her mouth. She sucked on the wound, the blood hitting the back of her throat and filling her with the glorious knowledge that this...oh, this was what she needed. This made everything alright .
    She gulped reflexively, continuing to suck and gulp—each mouthful giving her strength and clearing the fuzziness out of her mind. Yuri stroked her hair with his free hand until, with one movement, he grabbed the nape of her neck, squeezing on the pressure points to the brink of pain. She opened her mouth to cry out. At the same time, he pushed her backwards and away from his arm.
    “Enough. Leave me some for myself. I don’t need to feed as often as you but I will need to after that. Give me a minute to compose myself.”
    Keisha fell onto the floor to lie still and then slowly comprehension dawned on her, along with the horror of what she had just done.
    “ Oh, my God. Oh, my God! ” She shrieked as she crawled backwards and away from Yuri until her butt bumped against the chair she had been on. She cringed and curled into a fetal ball, trying to make herself disappear.
    Yuri got up slowly to walk over to her, and then he bent down and picked her up. He sat heavily down on her chair and held her tightly on his lap as she sobbed in panic and fear. He rocked her slowly, uttering comforting noises that she gradually heard but