A Taste For Blood

I took a gulp from the chalice, and the world exploded around me.
Lighting zipped down my throat, filling me with such energy that I may as well have been an exploding volcano. So much color filled my sight. The vividness of greens, blues, and of course. Bright bright red. It was like getting glasses for the first time all over again. Details I hadn't known were there sprung out from every direction I looked. The grain in the woods, the weave of the cloth, the intricate colors in my companion's feverous eyes.
I found myself jostling for space, snarling as grabbed onto the dented pewter bowl, fighting and clawing the others to get another sip, another taste of this miracle substance. I had to have more. To feel this alive again. I had to have it.
But all too soon, the large bowl contained nothing but scratches in its surface from our claws. Snarling I lifted my head, nostrils flaring, more. I needed more!
I stilled. There. A wift. There was more elsewhere.
But others had caught the scent of more blood elsewhere. As I moved, they surged forward with me, some on twos others on fours scrambling to get to the scent first.
We burst through the doors in a tidal wave.
Only to be met with the acrid smell of musket fire. Bullets whizzed by my head, hitting the mob around me as we rushed to the source of the smell. The scent behind the fire.
A cannonball exploded, sending me tumbling through the air. Away from the blood, away from the life source I could smell.
The wall of the church crumbled at my impact, chunks of mortar pelting me as I dropped, head hitting the jagged edge of a stone.
Blood. My own. Filling my mouth, washing away the heavenly flavors of the other blood, leaving a rotten, vomit inducing taste in my mouth.
I gagged, stomach heaving within as hard as the stones from the falling church wall were hitting me from above.

*****

I'd hardly straightened, from pulling myself free from the rubble that had once been a wall, when a blade pressed up tight against my throat.
I froze, my eyes following the blade. Pausing on the gun, pointed at me on top of the sword. Then reaching the face of the human about to kill me.
My nostrils flared as I watched fresh blood drip down the side of his face from a wound on his head. The tantalizing scent, right there. I wanted it. Badly. Only the blade, and the own rotten taste in my mouth keeping me from moving forward.
The man frowned, finger tightening on the trigger, eyes on mine. I didn't move.
"Name?" He asked me suddenly.
I blinked, tearing my stare away from his wound to his eyes. What?
The blade pressed a little more against my throat. "Name?" He demanded again.
I frowned. Name? The word had meaning....but I couldn't place why.
I swallowed, hating the awful taste in my mouth. "I...Don't Know." I managed, watching a flesh streak of crimson make its way down his face to drip off his chin. I licked my lips.
His eyes narrowed further, becoming almost slits. "Move." He said his blade against my throat moving to the side of my neck, goading me to move in the direction he wanted me to go.
I barred my teeth, irritated though I didn't know why and stepped to the side, stumbling over a rock in the process. His blade never left my throat, the gun never deviating its aim from my forehead as he walked me away from the battle.  

*****

"What is that thing doing here, Cairo?" asked a tall bull of a man with a voice like thunder.
I wasn't a thing, I thought irritated all over again, but I was wondering the same thing. Chained to a fence like an animal. I stayed hunkered down out of the main site of the other humans. Glancing to the male, this Cairo apparently, who stood guard near me, the bright red blood on his face now dried to a dingy brown color, I saw him straighten as the bigger male approached. Why was I here?
It wasn't like I couldn't see the others that had been with me being dragged into a pile a bare hundred yards away. Dead. Dismembered. Beheaded. Bloody in general. But Dead. All of them, but me.
"This one is different, General." Cairo said calmly.
"Different?!" He roared stomping up to this Cairo. "These monsters are killing machines, Cairo!" He jabbed a finger in my direction. I growled, barring my teeth, the hair on my neck standing up. Oh, this one I did not like. "They drink blood, they go crazy, and then we kill them before they kill us!"
Cairo raised an eyebrow. "She drank the blood." He agreed. "But, she hasn't tried to attack me. She can speak."
"Speak? You're delusional, Cairo."
Cairo turned to me. "Name." He asked me again.
I wrinkled my nose. "I don't know." I told him again.
The General turned more fully to me. "What did you say?"
I growled, not liking his tone of voice. "I. Don't. Know." I repeated.
Cairo smirked. "Told you she was different." 

-Inspiration from watching Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Quote: "What did you do?" "I fed them!"