Excerpt: Bloodarchy

It was easy enough to climb back onto the dumpster, but I could not from there climb up the flat exterior wall of the grocery store. I struggled with this for at least two minutes before Leopold instructed me, “Just jump, Nathaniel.”
Irate, I called back, “It’s as tall as I am. How I am I suppose to accomplish anything by jumping?”
He jumped up onto the dumpster to prove his point. “Bend your knees and push off,” he answered, standing beside me. I leapt, if not to prove him wrong, than to get away from him. To my astonishment, I landed both feet on the roof of the grocery store. I laughed out of nervous disbelief, and Leopold jumped up beside me. A great tingling feeling raced through me, as if my heart were pumping light and this light was flooding through my veins. I gazed down at my hands, my arms, and my body. I’d never know such a force before, and I liked it. I loved it.
Like a dream in that had suddenly become lucid, I was determined to find out exactly how far I could push the laws of reality now that they were, for this time, so flexible. I was ecstatic to find my body could bend and spring like elastic, that I could run so fast I could not completely comprehend where I was until I had already passed it by. I ran and raced up the buildings, crawling, climbing, and then taking leaps that sent me soaring. As if on some ecstasy-inducing drug, I found I could not tire, that I could not grow weak, and I could not let go of the life that the exhilaration was forcing into my heart.
When at last I grew short of breath, I bounded up to the tallest building I could find and looked out over the city, running so fast that my vision was blurred.
It looked just like Van Gough’s Starry Night.
Leopold caught up to me, but only because he had not been trying to catch me. He hadn’t wanted to interrupt that moment of evolution, of revelation, but he caught up to me now. I laughed out loud.
“Laughter,” he snickered, “our reaction to non-threatening surprise. How ironic.” I just shook my head. I didn’t understand and I didn’t care. When he saw in my face that I didn’t understand, he elaborated on the point of his arcane statement, “You are going to keep the vampires of this city on their pale toes. You are going to be the greatest threat they’ve ever known.”