The Consuming Heart

There is beauty and love in everything, even in death. Susan Hill knew this, and it made her smile.

The adonis sitting across from her in the Gold Lounge, a stylish restaurant, definitely mistook her smile as a reaction to what he had just said to her. But all she was thinking about was what would happen if she made love to him here and now. Would he go along with it? Would he be able to please her?

A waiter arrived, pulling Susan from her carnal thoughts; he took their order.

When the waiter left, the adonis said, “I was quite surprised when you agreed to my offer.”

Susan sent him a charming smile. “Why is that?” she asked.

“You’re, I’m certain, the most beautiful lady I’ve ever come across in my life, and ladies like you are usually hard to find—and they don’t just say yes to any guy. I mean, clearly you aren't someone driven by wealth. You look like you do well enough on your own. So I’m amazed. I feel like the luckiest guy in the world tonight.”

Susan kept on smiling. “Thanks,” she said.

Without looking, Susan was aware of the glances coming her way from different tables occupied by men, women, and couples. They, of course, had seen a beautiful lady before, as some of the other ladies here were themselves beautiful, but Susan’s beauty was unrivalled, and she had a habit of attracting unwanted attention.

The waiter arrived with their orders, and they ate their meal.

After their meal, Susan said with a smile, “Why do you keep looking at me that way?”

Her adonis grinned. “I’m sorry. I hope it doesn’t make you uncomfortable?”

She shook her head slightly. “No,” she said.

“It’s just, I’m finding it hard to take my eyes off you.”

“We’ve been together for two days. Surely, by now, you should have gotten used to it.”

“And that’s the thing. I can't get used to beauty like yours. It's so surreal; it feels like a dream.”

“If this were a dream, would you want to wake up?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No. Never.”

“Maybe you are dreaming.”

“Are you real?”

Susan smiled. “Yes.”

“Good. That means, if this is a dream, when I wake up, I can still find you.”

Susan laughed.

“What’s your name in the real world?” he asked.

“Susan Hill,” she said.

“And I'm—”

“I already know your name.”

He asked her what it was, and she told him, along with his surname.

He squinted at her. “This is odd. You seem to know quite a lot about me, but I barely know a thing about you. Why is that?” He feigned a gasp with a hand to his mouth. “Are you stalking me?”

Susan, as usual, simply smiled and said, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

He gestured with his head. “Try me,” he said.

“Okay,” she said, “I'm a bloodstone, one actually made from blood, and my heart is a heart of stone. I move at the speed of light, I can split my being into different personalities, and I am a killer. I can kill anyone; it matters not where they are—in public or private—or even if there are cameras recording. When I leave, every image of me, whether in the minds of witnesses or caught on camera, is erased. When I kill, I get stronger, and I can call on nature to fight on my behalf.”

When he heard all this, the man with Susan burst into a wild fit of laughter. People in the Gold Lounge looked their way.

“Good one!” he said. “I didn’t know you were such a comedian. What else? Do you fly too?”

Susan grinned. “I can't fly per se, but I can move using lightning.” Her smile vanished as she looked down at the table. “However, I understand love quite well. I am a creature of love,” she said, looking up to meet his gaze, for he too now wore a serious stare, “and when I love, I love with every bit of myself. I can’t hate evil or good. But I can tell the difference, and usually, I run from good. I’m very much attracted to evil.”

“In other words, you like bad boys,” he said.

Susan nodded. “I sure do. It’s very easy to love them. Loving them comes cheap, but in the end, it’s usually full of hidden costs.”

“And who has to pay?”

“They do. You see, my mother cursed me. I challenged her during an argument, and she put a curse on me. While my sisters have the blood of our ancestors coursing through their veins, I have to create opportunities to keep mine flowing.”

“And how do you do that?” he asked.

“I kill those I love.”

He smiled. “Ah, back to that.”

“I wasn’t lying the first time,” Susan said.

“What makes you think you’re a killer?”

Susan shook her head slightly. “I just know that I am one.”

He arched a brow. “Well, you don’t look like one.” I wish you knew who I really was, he said in his mind.

Susan heard him, both the words from his mouth and the words in his mind.

She looked down at the table. “I forgot to add…”

“What?” he asked.

Her gaze lifted to meet his. “I can read minds too.”

He smiled.

“And I know who you really are,” she said, noting that his smile, which was like a smudge on his face to her, had begun to disperse. Then she grinned, giving him the devil’s stare.

Before he could say his next set of words, Susan moved to kiss him, her hand caressing his hair. Their lips played with each other.

Crack.

Her adonis stopped kissing her. Cries erupted throughout the restaurant. Everyone went into a frenzy. Susan broke the kiss, looked at her lover's head, whose hair she held firmly in her grasp, and smiled.

Why all the commotion? she thought. You all will forget soon.

“I told you I knew who you were,” Susan said to the head while the headless body just sat resolutely on the chair, blood seeping from where the head used to sit.

Susan flung the head across the restaurant. Then she walked out into the cold night, and in everyone’s memories, including that of the cameras, there was no record she was there, for all traces of her had been erased.

She had loved him. But it was because of who he was that she did.

She would find more people to kill. But first, she would have to love them.

“There’s a killer on the loose in our city,” Susan heard a radio presenter say from a distant radio. She tuned it out and focused on the newspaper she was reading by a roadside café.

So far, there was nothing on her last night’s victim, maybe an investigation was yet to be carried out, or he hadn’t been discovered, she closed the newspaper and added it to the pile of other newspapers on the table before her.

Susan took up her cup of coffee, sipped from it, a dark aura settled about her, she looked up to the sky, and adjusted her dark shades. Shaking her head, she briefly looked at both ends of the busy street, briefly noted the faces of the people moving on both sidewalks, and like a magnetic pull, her glance moved across the road to the newsstand that had sold her these bunch of newspapers, and she saw her sister standing right next to it.

“Janice!” Susan said.

In a flash, with the speed of light, Janice was standing before her.

Susan met her sister’s gaze, Janice smiled down at her.

“Hello, sister. I see you’ve been busy,” Janice said, and moved to sit in the empty seat on the other side of the table.

“Good morning, sister,” Susan said, took her cup of coffee from the table, and sipped from it. “What are you doing in High Town city?”

“The culture, art, civilization technology.” Janice briefly looked around, a female waiter came by their table, her gaze rested on her. “I miss seeing this many people.”

“What would you be having?” the waiter asked.

“Beatrice!” Janice said the name inscribed on a blue rectangular crest pinned to the waiter’s pink uniform.

The waiter looked at Janice whose gaze left her breast pocket to meet hers.

“I’ll be having blo—”

“Tea,” Susan interrupted her sister. “She’ll be having tea. Or a cup of coffee just like mine. And I’ll need a refill. I’m almost done with this.” She gestured to her cup.

Beatrice flashed Susan a smile and left to attend their order.

“Are you insane?” Janice asked. “Mother said to always state your intentions before carrying them out.”

Susan sighed, and removed her dark shades to reveal her deadly reddish-brown eyes. “I have a curse, sister. It doesn’t mean I’ll have to see all humans as threats. Frankly, love is my punishment, and I’ve been trying lately to limit who I fall in love with. So, stating intentions or not, that’s not my problem. Besides, for someone like me, you’ll already be dead before stating your intentions. Why not just do it?”

Janice chuckled and leaned back against her chair. “You know, the more you resist what you are, the more likely you’ll feel the needful desire and hunger to kill. Or should I say love. You’re beautiful, attractive, smart, intelligent, with amazing features, literally everything a guy would need. Once they come to you, you’re bound to love them, and then end them.”

“Well, at least, I know what I am. You, mind how you request for death in public. That waiter would have pretty much understood you, and you can be most certain that I won’t let you kill her.”

“Why ever not? She means nothing to you.”

“It’s as you said, sister. I don’t give a damn about her, meaning I don’t love her, or care about her, and the sun won’t settle, neither would it be able to tell mother what kind of dark deeds would have transpired here today should you take that course of action.”

Janice squinted her gaze. “Are you threatening me?”

“It’s a word of caution.”

Beatrice arrived with their order, Susan read her sister’s deadly intentions quite clearly. Janice was going to kill the waiter, and there would be no saving her after that.

With Susan’s will, she turned the tray in Beatrice’s hand, the jug of coffee tilted soiling Beatrice’s pink uniform as she lost her balance in her attempt to catch it, the empty ceramic cup in the tray wobbled, fell off, and with a crash…it shattered right next to Janice’s feet.

“Apologies,” Beatrice said, and stooped down to pick up the pieces. “That’s so clumsy of me.”

Janice fixed her sister with an angry stare. “I still can do it,” she said.

“At least, you’ll have the attention of everyone when you do,” Susan said, a gleaming dagger appeared on her lap. “Mainly, you’ll have mother to answer to for this mindless deed. That’s if I’ve not ripped you in half by then.” She squinted her gaze. “Think that’s a good idea. Ripping you in half. Would give me the window of opportunity to return you home to mother, and only heaven knows what untold deed I could do. I too I’m curious to know what it will be.”

Janice turned to the waiter. “Beatrice!”

Beatrice paused what she was doing and looked at her. “I’m sorry, madam. I’ll get a rag to wipe your shoes.”

“No need.” Janice swung her arm, hoping to slice Beatrice’s throat, but Susan was faster.

In a blur, with brisk unseen movements, the dagger that had materialized in Susan’s lap went through Janice’s hands and pinned them to the table, and still in the halt of time, Susan set the bunch of newspaper next to her sister’s hand and opened its broad page which concealed Janice’s bleeding hands.

“Now,” Susan said as time unfroze, she leaned back against her chair. “Where were we? Yes. Thank you Beatrice.” She looked at the waiter, and smiled at her.

Beatrice who had been too slow to see a thing, only thought she’d seen Janice briskly raise her hand, then adjust the same time to hide both hands under the pages of a newspaper in an awkward fashion, she took to her feet, and left to deal with the rage of her manager, for he had been giving her the Devil’s stare all the way from the entrance.

Shortly after Beatrice left, the muffled shout of a man was heard from inside, but it was too loud for Susan and Janice. They turned down their hearing.

Susan looked at her sister, and knew Janice wasn’t strong enough to take out the blade. No will of hers could for Susan’s was stronger.

Janice winced in pain, Susan smiled.

“We don’t know when we were born, sister,” Susan said. “But we know what we are. You’ve always had the mindset, the presumption, that you are older than I am, but I’ve passed through a lot, and that, dear sister, is what makes me stronger. You live within an ocean of blood, drinking from it all day, I feed from the veins of life itself. Never assume you’ll ever have the upper hand. I could destroy you in a second. But for now, I’ll spare your life.”

“How are you doing this?” Janice wore a look of worry on her face. “Mother said the ocean of blood made us stronger.”

Susan grinned. “Mother lied. I’m able to defeat you because I don’t hate you. I love you. That, dear sister is terrifying, for my love is death itself.”

The dagger vanished, Janice retracted her hands from behind the newspaper with her mouth slightly parted, the broad page of the newspaper closed without a hand touching it, she rubbed her hands.

“Next time,” Susan said, “I won’t be too merciful.” She took to her feet.

“What are you going to do?” Shear fear was written all over Janice’s face.

“To fall in love with Beatrice’s manager.” Susan went inside the café.