There is beauty and love in everything, even in death. Susan Hill knew this, and it made her smile.
The adonis sitting across her in the Gold Lounge, a well-styled restaurant sure did mistake her smile as a reaction to what he said to her. But all she thought about was what would happen if she made love to him here and now. Could he manage it? Would he be able to please her?
A waiter arrived, distracting Susan's 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, which 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 don't just say yes to any guy. I mean, clearly, you don't look like someone who can be driven by wealth. You look well to do on your part. It's just, I'm amazed, and I feel like the luckiest guy in this 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 sure had seen a beautiful lady before as some of the ladies who were here, were, and for the men, they were with a few themselves tonight, but Susan's beauty was unrivalled, and she had a habit of attracting unwanted attention to herself.
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 slightly shook her head. "No," she said.
"It's just, I'm finding it hard to take my eyes off you."
"We've been seeing each other for two days. Surely, by now, you should have gotten used to it."
"And that's the thing. Not a beauty like yours. It looks so surreal, it feels like this is all a dream."
"If it were a dream, would you like to wake up?" she asked.
He shook his head. "No. Not ever."
"Maybe, you're dreaming."
"Are you real?"
Susan smiled. "Yes."
"Good. That's good to know. So if this is a dream, when I wake up, I'll find you."
Susan laughed.
"What's your name in the real world?" he asked.
"Susan Hill," she said.
"And I am—"
"I already know your name."
He asked her, and she told him, along with his surname.
He squinted his gaze at her. "This is odd. You seem to know quite a lot about me, and 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 won't believe me if I told you."
He made a head gesture. "Try me," he said.
"Okay," she said. "I am 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; public, or secret, and even with cameras recording. However, when I leave, every image of me; in the minds of witnesses, and those caught on cameras would be erased. When I kill, I get stronger, and I can call nature at will to fight on my behalf."
After he heard all this, the man with Susan burst into wild laughter, people within the Gold Lounge looked their way.
"That was a good one," he said. "Didn't know you were this humorous. What else? You fly too?"
Susan grinned. "I can move with lightning. Not fly per se." Her smile vanished as she looked to the table surface. "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. I can tell the difference, and usually, I run from good, and I'm very much attracted to evil to love it."
"In other words, you like bad boys," he said.
Susan nodded. "I sure do. It's very easy to love them. Loving them comes easy, or cheap, but in the end, it's usually always expensive."
"Who gets to pay?"
"They do. You see, my mother cursed me. I sort of challenged her during an argument, and she cursed me. While my sisters have the blood of our ancestors coursing through their veins, I have to create avenues to keep mine alive."
"And how do you do that?" he asked.
"I kill those I love."
He smiled. "Back to that."
"I wasn't lying the first time," Susan said.
"What makes you think you're a killer?"
Susan slightly shook her head. "I just know that I am one."
He arched a brow. "Well, you don't look like one." Wish you really knew who I was, he said in his mind.
Susan heard him. Both the words of his mouth, and the words of his mind.
She looked down at the table. "I forgot to add."
"What?" he asked.
Her gaze lifted to meet his. "I read minds too."
He smiled.
"And I know who you really are," she said, noting his smile that was to her like a smudge on his face began to disperse, then she grinned, giving him the Devil's stare.
Before he could say the next set of words, Susan moved to kiss him, her hand caressed his hair, their lips played with each other.
Crack.
Her adonis stopped kissing her, cries erupted from all parts of the restaurant, everyone went into a frenzy. Susan broke off the kiss, and looked to the head of her lover whose hair she held firmly in her grasp, and smiled.
What's with the commotion, she thought. You all would surely forget.
"I told you I knew who you were," Susan said to the head, while the headless body just sat resolutely on the chair, blood sipping out of where the head used to sit.
Susan flung the head across the restaurant, she walked out into the cold night, and in everyone's recollection, including the memory of the cameras, there was no record she was there, for all traces of her did erase.
She loved him. And it was for 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 down her hearing and focused on the newspaper she was reading by a roadside cafe.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 th
Beatrice's manager was still shouting and hailing insults at her in the kitchen, Susan came in through the wall, no one saw her. She saw as Beatrice's colleagues watched, unable to do a thing, she took two steps forward.The manager turned. "Everyone, back to work."They all moved.The manager noticed Susan. "You, what are you doing back here?""Waiting for you, sir," Susan said.The manager looked at her and noted she had a beautiful smile. He gave a single nod and turned to face Beatrice. "You, you know what you're suppose
Susan sat by an empty table at the same cafe she had been to the previous day, and she was reading a newspaper behind dark shades which somehow made her feel concealed under the morning sun. A duo of officers came by the cafe to see the owner who was present after he had heard of the sad news of his manager. Susan knew they won't really know what happened, nor would they know how he died. They would sum it up as suicide. That was to be their only conclusion.But to be sure, she eavesdropped just in time to hear one of the officers tell the owner that he thinks it was suicide, Susan stopped listening and focused on her reading.Stocks were high today. Business was looking up. Matters of insecurity would always be the case, she flipped to the next page to read other news.Beatrice came by Susan's table feigning a smil
Susan lived in a white two-story building surrounded by trees, and located in a secluded part of the city. No one, save for Susan, lived here, and she loved and appreciated the serene environment.Susan led Jake (who stood to have one more look at her surrounding) to the door which Jake didn't notice opened to her with a single nod."This place is a bit far from the city," Jake said."It's on the outskirts of the city to be precise," Susan said and walked in. "Come in."Jake went in, the door slowly closed behind him as he took in the grandeur of Susan's beautiful home."Take the stairs to the second floor, Susan said, "and pick any room you like, but avoid the room on the first floor to the right.""You hide charms in there?" Jake said jokingly.Susan turned to look at him, her expression bland."Hey, I was just joking," he added.She smiled. "I know you were.""There are no taxis here. At least, I barely saw any. How do I
Beatrice was standing before Susan's house with a paper that bore Susan's home address. She was about to knock when the door opened, and before her stood Susan.Beatrice lifted the paper. "My colleague gave it to me."Susan nodded. "Glad it found its way to you.""Yes, it did. Is your offer still on?"Susan stepped aside. "Come in. Pick any room you like.""Thanks." Beatrice walked in.Susan looked at the darkness outside, she turned to show Beatrice upstairs, the door closed behind her.The first room Beatrice was shown was the very one she chose, for she had a belief that beggars aren't choosers.
Susan woke to feel the metal bars beneath her, she looked up to see she was surrounded by darkness."Fire!" she said.A circle of flame appeared on the ground with Vivian in the middle and in a white gown, both hands before her, Susan realised her sister had locked her up in a cage.Susan tried to stand, but her bones didn't give, so she remained in a sitting position. "What's this, Vivian?""There are things, Susan, things that may forever remain a secret to you," Vivian said."Why am I in a cage?""I just wish to talk.""I can do so quite effectively outside here. Let me out." Susan looked around. "And what's this anyway? What did yo
Susan was in the comfort of her room, filing her nails when Jake left for the city with one of her cars. He had gone to find himself a job, and she knew today, he won't be so lucky because she had wished it so. She needed him to return, at least, for his own safety.Beatrice on the other hand was supposed to be out by now, but the death of her manager and the incident of yesterday at Els Street came rushing back to her, making her eyes blurry with tears, and she considered not going to work today.In a flash, Susan was before her door, she knocked.Beatrice looked at the door and hastily wiped her eyes. "Just a second."
"The lightning leaves its mark," Hannah said as she cleaned the wound on a lady. "She could die if not attended to.""How many of them are wounded?" Susan asked."A lot.""Bring them all here."Hannah passed the order, and they brought all the wounded, and bleeding, and dying ladies who had been subject to the scattered flash of the lightning of death before Susan."The beauty of life," Susan said. "Being able to kill, and make alive. Heal."Everyone was awestruck as their wounded comrades healed, and those dying returned to life.Susan turned to Hannah. "Now, take me to him.""Who would ta