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 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.