Nature of the Beast
Copyright 1994
T. Beaty
Comments to vxurnm01@reading.ac.uk
 
My thanks to all the people on this list, who bring up the topics that make
me think, and discuss them long enough to make me try to answer *why.*
 
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                    The Nature of the Beast
 

     He didn't hear the screams around him.
     He was vaguely aware of the path that opened up before
him, of the frightened blobs of faces that gaped, mouths
open in black, empty holes, muscles contorted as they
scurried from his path, eyes darting wildly about. He heard
the snapping of clothes as they ran away, the tinny
pattering of feet on shiny floor.
     But he didn't hear the screams.
     Behind him, Schanke ran, panting, gun held in hand. He
ran behind the hunter, yelling at the people to get away,
get out of the mall, get under cover--
     "Move, move, move!!"
     Nick heard nothing of this, only peripherally aware of
the man tracking behind him. Schanke was doing his job.
     Now it was time for Nick to do his.
     He didn't realize his gun was in his hand. Why should
he? It was not that which would search out the shooter. It
would not help him scent out the evil.
     A man had shot and killed two people in this mall, and
now Nick was going to find him.
     His senses strained, reaching out. Heartbeats fluttered
all around him like frightened birds, fleeing away from the
hawk in their midst. He caught their rythym, held them,
discarded them. This was a different fear, that of constant
prey, of people accustomed to an everyday, unnamed fear. Not
the sweet tang of predator turned prey, not the hunter
turned hunted. This fear wasn't what he wanted, what he
searched for. His world had narrowed down to the gleam of
eyes brightening in the flash of gunfire, the nostrils
flaring at the smell of cordite, at the pleasure that caused
that heart to skip a beat, then beat faster. He searched for
that heart.
     The steel door was closing, slowly, slowly, nothing
like the figure that had fled through there, arms
outstretched to open the door and claw its way through,
moments before. Nick was at the door in an instant, shoving
the bar, sending the doors flying open again, admitting him
into the dark tunnels and recesses behind the mall, leaving
Schanke behind. He was alone now, only him and the killer,
away from the people. The people. His footsteps rang down the
bare corrider, echoing those ahead of him, bouncing off the
corners and through the turns he passed, senses straining to
catch the running figure he occasionally glimpsed ahead.
Nick's eyes narrowed in the dim light, his world shrinking to
that of the footsteps and the bare, echoing walls. And the
fear.
     Then the sounds ceased.
     Nick rounded a corner and stopped. Ahead of him, two
corridors stretched out, open mouths gaping, smiling into the
darkness. Two other doors flanked them, presenting blank,
untouched faces.
     Which one?
     The man had gone to ground.
     Nick's head swung from side to side, testing the air.
No. The smell of sweet fear was too strong; it clogged his
senses and overpowered them.
     He paced to one door, the one furthest to his left. The
stink of fear pervaded the area, but it did not creep from
under the door. He moved to the hallway to his left, eyes
tracking down the hallway for any movement, any shifting
shadow. He took two steps down it, cocking his head.
     No sound echoed down the corrider.
     He moved silently to the second hallway, head low, eyes
half-closing as he abandoned eyes to strain with ears. There
was only this and another door. He stepped into the hallway,
feet padding quietly on the floor.
     A whisper of a heartbeat. His head snapped upwards.
     He smiled, lips parting to show teeth. His eyes were
bright as he set off down the hallway, hunching to hug the
wall, body carried low, setting one foot carefully before
the other, eyes centred on the coming bend in the corrider.
     Nick froze in mid-step, one foot nearly touching the
ground, when he heard a slight rasp. The sound of cloth. Then
another, a quick breath, a heart speeding up in anticipation.
     He paused, eyes blanking as he considered. His ears
brought him more sounds, and he turned his head this way and
that, building the picture in his mind:  the man, waiting
just around the corner, back against the wall, shirt sweaty
and sticking to his shoulders. Body shifting minutely from
one foot to the other, muscles bunching, working up to act.
Fingers clutching the grip of a gun, the scrabbling of a wet
palm over a denim-covered knee, wiping sweat, coming back to
rest on the gun. Man's head swiveling back and forth,
straining to catch some sound of pursuit.
     The scent of fear rolled in waves down the dark hallway,
adrenalin spicing the thick flavour. Then a slight scrape,
the scrunch of roughened shoe soles twisting on smooth floor,
cloth scraping over stretching muscles and limbs--
     Nick threw himself on the floor, snarling as he heard
the snap of the bolt, the bullet whine over his head, the
report bouncing off the close walls. On his stomach, he
sighted along the blue metal of his own gun, following the
line reaching towards the rage-contorted face above him, the
trembling fingers that squeezed against a spent gun, shocked,
the point of that muzzle wavering and dropping in a frantic
attempt to find him--
     Nick pulled the trigger, feeling the gun kick back as
the bullet burst from the gun, the slight ping of it sliding
through the air, the drowned crack of metal hitting jaw. He
watched as the man's face spattered, crumpled in on itself.
 
     He was startled by a brief, warm touch on his hand.
     "Nick, what's wrong?"
     He looked up, moving his free hand over Natalie's before
she could draw it away. He squeezed it gently, feeling frail
bones under his fingers, before letting it go, smiling
reassuringly at her. "Nothing, really."
     "Uh-huh." She collapsed beside him on his couch, leaning
backward into the cushions. Her body didn't touch his. "Does
this 'nothing' have anything to do with the Internal Affairs
hearing tonight?"
     He grimaced. "I forgot. You did the workup on the
shooter."
     "So, how did it go? The hearing, that is."
     "They were kind enough to hold it just after sunset."
     "I know. I'm the one that reminded them about your
wonderful little allergy. Are you going to try and change the
subject again?"
     He sighed. "No. They cleared me for duty."
     "I know, Nick, I checked the duty logs before I came
here." She touched his shoulder. "But something else is
bothering you about it."
     "Yeah." He stared down at his folded hands. "They
cleared me. Self-defense."
     "That's good."
     "Was it?"
     She watched him, confused. "Good, you mean?"
     "No. Was it self-defense?"
     "You tell me."
     He didn't look at her. "I don't think it was."
     "Why not?"
     "I wouldn't have died."
     "If he'd shot you? No, not *you.* But anyone else, yes."
     He looked up at her. "Anyone else wouldn't have caught
him."
     She touched his folded hands, covered them with her own.
"What do you mean?"
     "No one else would have found him. Not without lots of
luck, anyway. I only found him because I . . . was searching
for him."
     She squeezed his hands softly. "And you found him,
Nick."
     He stared at her. "And I killed him, Nat."
     "He shot at you first, didn't he?"
     "Yeah." He looked down at his feet, brooding. "But I was
never in any danger. I didn't have to kill him. That is, I
could have found another way."
     Her voice was soft. "Nick, sometimes there just is no
other way. Not for us."
     "What about me? Where do I draw the line, Nat?" He stood
up, tearing his hands away from her, from her warmth and
comfort. He moved around the low table, pacing, slipping
restlessly through the shadows. "When is it right? When is it
wrong?"
     She sat up, her eyes searching his face. "I don't know.
I don't think anyone can really answer that for you."
     "I know," he admitted slowly. "That's what's bothering
me, I suppose. I don't feel that it was . . . wrong. I don't
feel that . . . I don't know if I could have done anything
else. Not really. I wasn't thinking about what would happen,
after I found him. I was concentrating on getting him--on
hunting him down--so much that I forgot--" He broke off, his
eyes darting away.
     Natalie smiled sadly. "You forgot that you weren't there
to kill."
     He tucked his chin down. "Maybe," he said. "Maybe that's
why I'm not. . . ." He ran a hand through his hair. "I don't
feel out of place. Not here." He touched his temple. "Should I
be?"
     She didn't look at him. "I don't know."
     "I'm not, you know."
     She shrugged, struggling to hold onto a nonchalonce that
she didn't feel. "I'm not surprised."
     He turned to her. "What do you mean?"
     She sighed. "Nick, you were a knight before you crossed
over. From what I've heard--and don't correct me now, thank
you--you guys were taught to kill. You guys were brainwashed,
beginning from the age of seven or eight or whatever, that it
was okay to go out there and shish-kebab the bad guy. So,
there you've got, what? Fifteen? Twenty-five years of being
told you're a great guy; don't worry about killing a couple
of mere peasants playing at being soldiers?"
     "Something like that," Nick conceded.
     "Nick, don't you see? You've been trained--ever since you
were *born*--that it was all right to kill someone. Being a
vampire--well, it wasn't a contradiction to your mortal life.
You've been in that mind set for a long time now, Nick--nearly
700 years. You've only quit cold turkey for the last 100.
That's not enough to break all those other centuries of
conditioning. You can't expect it to change overnight, Nick,
or even after only one century." She stood up, faced him.
"It's amazing that you were able to break the cycle at all,
much less keep to it this long."
     He snorted. "Sometimes I wonder if I have kept it."
     "Haven't you?"
     "I told you that I haven't killed mortals in a hundred
years. I should have said that I haven't killed them for their
blood. I haven't done it for the hunger." His eyes were sad.
"I've killed, Natalie. I've killed all my life. My long life.
Even these past hundred years. The only difference is . . .
now, I don't kill for myself. I don't kill . . . to feed the
beast inside. To feed the vampire."
     He stared at her. "I don't feel guilty, Nat. Not for what
I've done. Not this time. I don't like taking a life again--
not another life--but it's not for me this time. It's not for
*me.*"
     "Where's the difference?"
     "Here." He touched his heart. "It wasn't something that I
wanted. It wasn't for my pleasure."
     "What about next time, Nick?" she asked softly.
     "I don't know." He sighed. "I just don't know. When I see
someone running--it's so hard, Nat. It brings it out--makes me
want to run after them, to hunt them down. . . . It's what I
did, for a long time. Then, the hunt ended with a kill. My
kill. Every single time. The hunt and then the kill, the
blood. My kill, and my blood.
     "I'm still hunting, Nat. I can't help it. Only now, the
hunt doesn't always mean the kill. The blood is no longer
mine. I'll still get the urge, but as long as I don't kill for
the blood--for its own sake--then I don't think that what I
did was wrong." He turned away. "I can stop the kill . . .
sometimes,  but I can't stop the hunt."
     She walked up behind him, threaded her arms through his,
wrapped them about his waist. He froze in place, feeling her
press herself against his back, warmth where her cheek laid
against his shoulder blade, her breath whispering across the
fabric of his shirt. "Then don't, Nick," she said quietly.
"Not yet."
     He covered her hands with his. "I'm a hunter, Nat--I
don't know when I can stop. I can't promise to, either, just
like I can't say that I'll never kill again. I will, when I
think it's the right choice. When it's not just for me. Not
for the beast."
     "I understand, Nick." She leaned into him, closing her
eyes and smelling his cologne, his shirt, his spicy scent.
"I think I understand."
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