Page 19 of Taken By the Ripper
The vampire’s words returned to her mind with a stumbling crash.Feed on the men, infect the women.
She nearly kicked herself when her medical curiosity took over, and her fear took the corner seat in the mental carriage. “Your blood can only infect women.”
His ears momentarily flattened with evident surprise. “How did you know that?”
“I’m more intelligent than I look?” she jested, fighting the urge to collapse into a chair. Or onto the ground. Whichever was closer. “What are you? Some sort of vampire?” But then her gaze raked over his chiseled muscles, and she took another guess. “A gargoyle?”
“I’m a ghoul.” He pinned her with a stare. “Are you going to run off to your detective friend and tell him what I am? He’s been hunting me for some time.”
“I haven’t said anything.” She clamped her mouth shut, realizing the precarious situation she’d found herself in. No one knew what was in her room. If she screamed, she might only put her sisters and patients in danger.
Then again, she preferred that none of them find her body mutilated with her guts strewn all over her and her kidney missing in a large pool of her own blood.
“Y-y-you were here before.” She hated how her voice shook, but in the face of a monster, aghoul, it couldn’t be helped. Especially when her hands ached and her fingers turned white from clutching the scalpel in her hands so tightly. “In my room. Why?”
“While I’m being hunted by your detective, I’m trying to rid Whitechapel of vampires. You had a patient who was bitten. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to transition.”
“Why my room?”
The corner of the monster’s mouth twitched as he gestured toward the window. “There’s a trellis I could climb. It was easier than walking through the front door. I might have given someone a good startle.”
On any other day, she might have laughed at the image his words conjured up. But she was closer to choking on her own fear than releasing a chuckle. “What happens if someone is infected?”
Another step closer, near enough for her to catch a glimpse of his sharp, black claws on his large feet. “They become a ghoul like me. But more…feral.”
“And you want to prevent that? Why?” Aside from the obvious, of course.
He released a long breath and closed his eyes. Without the yellow of his irises, he nearly blended right into the shadows with his dark coloring. Finally, he opened them again, revealing the sadness in his expression.
“A ghoul is created, not born. I had no choice in the matter for my own transition. But I would not wish this existence on anyone else. Therefore, I kill those who are infected. There is no other option.”
Slowly, she lowered her scalpel to her side. It was a foolish thing to do. But she was feeling rather foolish tonight. “Why, though?”
His attention turned toward the window and the darkness lingering outside. “Male ghouls are created. Female ghouls are turned. And the females are incredibly infectious, ravenous blood-drinkers. Half of Whitechapel would get turned like them.The other half would die horrific deaths because of their feral thirst.”
“You would have killed me.”
“I did my best to prevent you from getting infected.”
She recalled getting cornered by vampires and nearly forced to drink the blood. Theghoul’sblood. And then she remembered him fighting the vampires while nothing she did could do any damage against their far superior strength.
“You’re sure I’m not infected?”
“Believe me, you’d know. But…”
“But?”
“There are ways to make sure.”
The last thing she wanted was to scour the streets in the dead of night with a feral thirst for blood, killing, and destruction. Which was why she held perfectly still, fighting against her instincts to run in the presence of a monster, as the ghoul approached with agile movements. She could tell he was trying to move slowly, but he was too quick and graceful to manage the feat entirely.
She still jumped and gasped in a breath when he almost seemed to disappear and reappear directly in front of her. She dropped her scalpel to the floor. Her body was too petrified to retrieve it. Not a single sound escaped her despite her desire to cry out for help. But help for what? The ghoul wasn’t hurting her. He wasn’t threatening her. He was just…scary to look at. Inhuman. A monster.
And he was the Whitechapel Murderer.
“May I touch you?” he asked softly, though any sort of gentleness was lessened by the gravel in his voice.
“Do I have a choice?”
