There is beauty and love in everything, even in death. Susan Hill knew this, and it made her smile.

The adonis sitting across from her in the Gold Lounge, a stylish restaurant, definitely mistook her smile as a reaction to what he had just said to her. But all she was thinking about was what would happen if she made love to him here and now. Would he go along with it? Would he be able to please her?

A waiter arrived, pulling Susan from her 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, 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 they don’t just say yes to any guy. I mean, clearly you aren't someone driven by wealth. You look like you do well enough on your own. So I’m amazed. I feel like the luckiest guy in the 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, of course, had seen a beautiful lady before, as some of the other ladies here were themselves beautiful, but Susan’s beauty was unrivalled, and she had a habit of attracting unwanted attention.

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 shook her head slightly. “No,” she said.

“It’s just, I’m finding it hard to take my eyes off you.”

“We’ve been together for two days. Surely, by now, you should have gotten used to it.”

“And that’s the thing. I can't get used to beauty like yours. It's so surreal; it feels like a dream.”

“If this were a dream, would you want to wake up?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No. Never.”

“Maybe you are dreaming.”

“Are you real?”

Susan smiled. “Yes.”

“Good. That means, if this is a dream, when I wake up, I can still find you.”

Susan laughed.

“What’s your name in the real world?” he asked.

“Susan Hill,” she said.

“And I'm—”

“I already know your name.”

He asked her what it was, and she told him, along with his surname.

He squinted at her. “This is odd. You seem to know quite a lot about me, but 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 wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

He gestured with his head. “Try me,” he said.

“Okay,” she said, “I'm 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—in public or private—or even if there are cameras recording. When I leave, every image of me, whether in the minds of witnesses or caught on camera, is erased. When I kill, I get stronger, and I can call on nature to fight on my behalf.”

When he heard all this, the man with Susan burst into a wild fit of laughter. People in the Gold Lounge looked their way.

“Good one!” he said. “I didn’t know you were such a comedian. What else? Do you fly too?”

Susan grinned. “I can't fly per se, but I can move using lightning.” Her smile vanished as she looked down at the table. “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. But I can tell the difference, and usually, I run from good. I’m very much attracted to evil.”

“In other words, you like bad boys,” he said.

Susan nodded. “I sure do. It’s very easy to love them. Loving them comes cheap, but in the end, it’s usually full of hidden costs.”

“And who has to pay?”

“They do. You see, my mother cursed me. I challenged her during an argument, and she put a curse on me. While my sisters have the blood of our ancestors coursing through their veins, I have to create opportunities to keep mine flowing.”

“And how do you do that?” he asked.

“I kill those I love.”

He smiled. “Ah, back to that.”

“I wasn’t lying the first time,” Susan said.

“What makes you think you’re a killer?”

Susan shook her head slightly. “I just know that I am one.”

He arched a brow. “Well, you don’t look like one.” I wish you knew who I really was, he said in his mind.

Susan heard him, both the words from his mouth and the words in his mind.

She looked down at the table. “I forgot to add…”

“What?” he asked.

Her gaze lifted to meet his. “I can read minds too.”

He smiled.

“And I know who you really are,” she said, noting that his smile, which was like a smudge on his face to her, had begun to disperse. Then she grinned, giving him the devil’s stare.

Before he could say his next set of words, Susan moved to kiss him, her hand caressing his hair. Their lips played with each other.

Crack.

Her adonis stopped kissing her. Cries erupted throughout the restaurant. Everyone went into a frenzy. Susan broke the kiss, looked at her lover's head, whose hair she held firmly in her grasp, and smiled.

Why all the commotion? she thought. You all will forget soon.

“I told you I knew who you were,” Susan said to the head while the headless body just sat resolutely on the chair, blood seeping from where the head used to sit.

Susan flung the head across the restaurant. Then she walked out into the cold night, and in everyone’s memories, including that of the cameras, there was no record she was there, for all traces of her had been erased.

She had loved him. But it was because of who he was that she did.

She would find more people to kill. But first, she would have to love them.