The Anatomy of Vampires: Volume 1 (2 page)

Some might have thought him to be a sort of rogue traveler, starved by his own wanderlust and chosen poverty. But I knew the truth.

There was no other being in the car with us, so I opened my case and pulled out my leather-bound journal, plunging him into my questioning.

He knew it was coming. I saw it in the way his expression tensed at the stormy night. I didn’t ask his permission before I began. He would either give me answers, or he wouldn’t. It was as simple as life and death, and considering the fact I was still sitting there; I already knew what his answer would be.

“You seem tired,” I began with pen in hand. It felt hot in my grip, my heart continuing to pummel. I held my breath.

“You seem eager,” he muttered. His eyelids drooped halfway, and I could see a new thought being born. “There are new laws. New statutes, in our world, friend. And they are taking their toll,” he sighed. “I trust you know what I’m speaking out.”

“Yes.” I nodded, the words feverishly pouring from the tip of my pen. “Yes.
Law One
, put in place by the Central European Magic Regime. But yet here you are, in a mortal passenger car, making your way across England in full disclosure. Are you not afraid of being caught?”

Law One
was a newly instated measure of ridiculousness set by the light sight of Occult-kind, namely the Wizards, locking the magic folk within the borders of their respective, secret cities, thereby making it impossible for any cursed man or woman to hunt mortals. Simply, they were starving them out.

The Vampire smiled, though the grin did not reach his tired eyes. He hesitated a moment and said, “I find the best place to hide is in plain sight. They won’t find me here, because they are not looking here. The Regime and their idiotic force are too busy guarding city borders.”

“I see,” I said, continuing to scribble. And though I didn’t look up at him, I could feel his glare piercing my skull. I dared not meet his gaze, praying he would continue to let me be. Though, my prayer may have fallen on deaf ears, for I could see how starved he was. “Why are your eyes still blue?” I asked, head down at my journal. He would know what I was implying.

He chuckled briefly. “You needn’t worry, friend. This train is infested with rats and pigeons, and luckily for you, I’ve had my fill just before you arrived.”

“But does it satiate you in the same way human blood does?” I prodded.

“No. Not at all,” he answered and paused again. We studied each other in silence for a few moments, save for the low rumbling of the wheels over the wet rails. The gentle rocking of the car made me queasy. “Tell
me
something, now,” he queried, finally. “How did a man as…
usual
as yourself come to know so much about my kind and those immediately surrounding us?”

My throat closed over my words, my mouth going dry, but I spoke regardless. “My wife was altered by your kind.”

He paused for another moment, rubbing his index claw against his lower lip. “My condolences,” he said with sincere reverence, from what I could detect. He frowned. “So, you wish to know me before you hunt me, then? You seek revenge.” It wasn’t a question.

“No. I’m sorry, can you not sense the intentions in my mind?” I was confused. Why should he question me when he should instantly have the answer?

He shook his head. “Yes, I can. But I’m afraid I still do not understand. So, you have no vendetta against what I am? You only wish to…
learn?
”

“Yes.” I nodded. “I’ve made it my business to learn everything I can of the Occult and of the darkness. I no longer want to be afraid and I know my wife is not evil.” My pen had stopped. Our conversation had turned personal.

“No more evil than I, I’m afraid,” he breathed. “How recently was your wife…changed?”

“Not too long ago, at all.”

“Ah. And I imagine she has tried to kill you?” He nearly giggled, folding his hand over his mouth, his eyes revealing some apology under his amusement.

“Actually, yes, she has. Her cravings are insufferable. But her attempts are paired with regret. I know somewhere in her mind, there still lives humanity and compassion. I left to discover more about the truth, so I might be able to help.”

“There is no help,” he muttered, shaking his head. His scowl darted to the grim world outside the window, again. The hail had stopped, and all I could see were the streaks of rainwater sliding against the glass. “And where is she now?” He continued, frowning again.

“Taken. A platoon of those you mentioned, the Regime guards, appeared in the night at our home to drag her off to one of your hidden cities. It wasn’t a full week since she’d been changed when they came for her. I, of course, kept out of sight.”

“A good decision. They would have killed you instantly.”

“As I imagined,” I said. “But this didn’t occur before she received a curious letter from something called the Parliament.” I shrugged slightly. “Not even she knew what it meant, but they knew rather quickly she’d joined the ranks of your kind.”

“Ah,” he said again, his two index claws becoming a steeple before his pursed lips. “Yes, we all receive our letter of acknowledgment when we change. Consider it a
re
birth certificate, of sorts.”

“I see.” A new thought flashed through my mind, and though I felt foolish, I had to ask my next question. “Do you think she is safe?” I might have appeared daft, but my worrying about her fate kept me up at night. And I needed to proceed on this venture with a clear head. This devilish character might provide some insight.

“I do believe she is alive, yes,” he answered. “The same happened to me, but the memories of the night I was taken from my family are much grimmer.” He did not divulge any more details, but my imagination answered for me. “They’ve probably taken her to the Occult City nearest wherever you lived. I would imagine she is there, attempting to stumble through what life means for her now, and how she will continue on with what she has become.”

The corners of my eyes pricked, and I clenched my jaw, swallowing back a few tears. I needed to remember my mission and not let the emotions muddy what I was there to accomplish.

“Right,” I mustered stoically. Clearing my throat, I swung one leg over the other and proceeded with my pen gripped tightly in my hand. The new lump in my throat made it hard to talk. “I would like to return to the topic of
Law One
, if I may.” The Vampire nodded politely for me to continue. “This, the most important law of magic society, makes it impossible for your kind to hunt, does it not?”

“Yes. You are correct. Another assertion of
Law One
means none of Occult kind, be it Elves, Witches, Phasers, or…Vampires, are allowed to set even a single toe over the designated Occult City borders. Results of being caught, especially for our kind, are most lethal. Burned to a crisp at midday.”

I shuddered, furiously dashing my pen across the paper. “And what sort of physical results does this harbor? I mean, the effects of not being able to regularly feed on mortal blood.”

He smiled again and mirrored my action, crossing one leg over the other. “You are brave to approach me and ask these questions. Aren’t you concerned a topic this morose could whet my appetite?”

“It has crossed my mind, yes,” I admitted flatly, but I was no longer concerned. After swapping stories, I considered this man more or less an acquaintance. I knew he was only speaking ironically and for his own amusement. I offered a confident grin up at him and again, he nodded in response.

“The feeling is a gruesome one. Even my human memories do not contain a situation to which I could effectively compare this. It is something like starvation. However, no.” He closed his eyes and shook his head, deep lines forming along his brow as his own pain bubbled to the surface. “No, it is much different. Much worse. It is like swallowing bags of sand, and somehow surviving. You are forced alive, but you in your entirety are dry and burning from the inside. There is no water around you, and even if there were, no amount of it could cool the incineration turning your insides to ash. Yet you live on. An eternity of hell fire. Killing one after another after another, and though you feel compassion and regret in doing so, it is in your will to survive. Death and evilness are forced down your throat, just like the blood.
Law One
makes this life—if you even want to call it a life—nearly impossible.

“Once in a while, the Wizards take pity on us and round up groups of the Earth’s heathens and bottom dwellers, and throw us a meal. Of course, I am speaking about the drug lords and whores who pollute cities. People who would never be missed. The Regime captures them and delivers them upon the doorsteps of various Occult cities. But this is a rarity, and they advertise their actions as a humanitarian effort, so they maintain even the most liberal followers. But I find their efforts unnecessary. Nothing in this world could ever overthrow them. They are too powerful. Popularity seems oddly irrelevant.” He turned his focus out the window, again. This time, a new bitterness appeared behind his dark lashes.

The tip of my pen moved so quickly, my notepad nearly caught fire. “So, you would say the Regime is tyrannical and
Law One
is the direct cause of your suffering?”

“Absolutely.”

“But something you said strikes me. Most people would never believe you feel compassionate for killing and feeding. Society, or those who believe in your existence, view your kind as ruthless and dangerous—bloodthirsty and emotionless.”

“Dangerous, yes. Ruthless, well, perhaps sometimes. Some of us are ruthless. But do not forget so quickly what we used to be. You. There is a parallel between you and I, my friend. Our humanity. We do preserve our emotion. Our memories. Some of us become hungry with power and vanity, and those are the ruthless killers. But they are no different than the fiends existing in your world. Am I correct?”

“Yes,” I breathed. “Yes, of course.”

I did not realize it then, or maybe I did, but the Vampire from the train bestowed upon me the greatest gift I could have hoped to find that evening. Understanding. Acceptance. The revelation he and I were more similar than I could have ever imagined. His society was oppressed, starved, and in poverty, just like many societies of the world I lived in.

A lack of human blood poses some very serious threats to a Vampire body. He explained the feelings of being burned from the inside out, but let us not forget these physical and scientific occurrences are the direct consequence of the lack of life and vitality. Dying organs. Brittle hair and yellowed teeth. Decaying bones. It is something similar to the process of aging in mortals, though faster. For you see, Vampires are none other than human beings literally
drained
of life. They are human corpses, animated by a dark and ancient magic and they are kept animated by regularly refilling themselves with that which was taken from them—life.

Unlike our sustenance, going straight through our digestive systems and being converted into energy, blood to a Vampire is absorbed almost immediately by their bodies and sent to their deadened circulatory systems. This reanimates their heart, pumping the stolen blood out through their veins and arteries, so they are, for lack of a better term, kept alive. In order to sustain themselves, killing is something absolutely mandatory and should be done without discretion. As we harvest sustenance, so should they. It is not good, nor evil.

It simply is.

Law One
makes it nearly impossible, and so many of them are kept weak and vulnerable, feeding on rats and wandering deer. Though animal blood will keep them alive, barely, it is not by the same level of comfort deemed necessary to live a remotely happy existence. Put most bluntly,
Law One
is weakening the Vampire kind.

The Daily Death of A Vampire

“Reborn with the dying of each day, spring forth into the night and with the kiss of darkness, live eternally in the shadows.”

~ Order of the Parliament

The daily death of a Vampire tends to be a sensitive topic and should be approached with caution by any reader, and most especially the squeamish. The information contained in these next pages is taken from memories painful for me to recall, but for the purpose of the truth I will do so, objectively.

The nights leading up to my wife’s capture by the Regime were by far the scariest I’d endured in my lifetime. Sleep was a thing of the past and I did my best to elude her, racing through alleys at night and hiding out in brothels and pubs. I’m sure some sort of marital joke is in order here, but this is no laughing matter.

With every stale breath she took, she endeavored to kill me. And the only things keeping me alive were the diversions that threw themselves between us. For any time she was on my trail, another nearby human’s scent easily caught her attention. The thing about newly created monsters is they are the most dangerous, but in turn, the easiest to escape. Anything with a pulse calls to them. Luckily, I was able to evade death in the evenings. But her wanting to slaughter me wasn’t what caused me the most pain.

Mornings were actually the most terrifying, I think, for both of us. When I was a child, I’d read the fairytales of Dracula and Nosferatu. I was well versed with what vexed the likes of the undead. Garlic. Crucifixes. And most famously, the sun. Perhaps the first two of the aforementioned list were only fallacies, but the danger of the sun was something most real. I knew it upon my venturing home, one early dawn. It must have been around five o’clock as I approached my house. The pastel fingers of sunrise were just barely clawing their way over the hills and treetops, looming in black silhouettes against the faint light. The only thing that armed me was some dampened twig I’d plucked from the ground. I never said I was a skilled defender.

Curious sounds of blubbering and wailing rattled the very foundation of my home as I drew nearer. I recognized the crying, clearly coming from my wife. The windows were closed, but through the glass I could see her little form, balled on the rug in the center of the foyer. Her hands were curled into fists, grabbing at silvery-blonde heaps of her hair. Did she lament for trying to kill me? Did she wallow in self-pity for what she had become? I took a step nearer when my boot crunched over a thicket of dried shrubbery, and I froze. Her face snapped up immediately in the direction of the sound I made and my heart leapt into my throat.