I found myself searching desperately for an excuse for why I let it die. I blamed him, but I knew deep down that it was not his fault. He was confused, new to the blood; he didn’t understand what he was doing. All he knew was the excruciating thirst that consumes all of us when first born to darkness. I had been enthralled, yet frightened. Upon seeing him returned to me, all I felt was happiness until I saw his face. I let him take me; I wanted to die and who better than to take my life than my beloved? I was selfish, so selfish! Not once did I consider the pain that our child would endure. I often wondered if our child suffered as it died. I often wondered if it knew how sorry I was for not being strong enough to save it.
With cold fingers, I reached out to brush against the old withered stone. I was weakening, I could sense it; I was in dire of need of blood, so thirsty yet too submerged in my sorrow to do anything about it. I would not leave here like this! I would not leave this empty grave until I had truly mourned a life that had not lived. After all, wasn’t it the least I could do as I stood in immortal mockery at my child's grave? My child who never got to see the light of day?
Suddenly I was furious at him. A fire burned so intensely inside of me that I was afraid that I would lose control. I felt sick with crazed curiosity if he had even visited our child’s grave. Would he bother to make an effort to grieve for the one thing in his mortality that he truly lost? Or would the mud here at the cemetery be too unbearable for him to endure on his new shiny boots?
Two hundred years in the blood had not only hardened a once gentle heart, but also corrupted it into a selfish, arrogant being who was insufferable and quite detestable. I understood completely why others of our kind hated him. They hated to love him, and they loved to hate him. Who could resist the rebellious one? The raven haired one, the arrogant one? After all, Everard only acted out what we kept as our secret fantasies. Everard wanted to tell the world that he was immortal and that they would love him just because they could! It's hard to resist him no matter how much of a cruel fiend he became over the centuries.
But could my Everard really be so cold? So many questions flooded my mind at that moment that I suddenly had an urge to go back to the château in central Paris and confront him about it, but thought better of it. What was done was done, and I had to accept it no matter how bitter a taste it left in my mouth.
Mournfully, I turned my head to the side of the tomb to look at the inscription upon it. Nothing. An unmarked grave, an open invitation to all kinds of evil without the Lord’s blessing.
Pain.Anger.Thirst. In a cold fury, I tore my hand away from the tomb and descended into the night air once more. I had to leave that place; I could take it no more. Already the sky was turning pale with the promise of sunrise. Shades of pale pink and peachy orange painted the sky. There would be no time to hunt now.
In my rage, I knew that I had two options of where I could find rest and sleep off the day. I could either choose to return to the one being that I had loved who I had not seen in over two centuries, or I could face my demons and sleep in the empty tomb of the nameless child. In my heart of hearts, I knew that I had made my decision., I turned on my heel and once again, like a figure of a lost soul, quietly made my way towards the tomb.
I forced open the stone lid before piling myself inside. I was drained, so very drained. Pulling the lid shut I lay there for a moment in the dank, dark silence wishing that the body of my child was in my arms and that I was singing to it. But it was just a fantasy, and no matter how hard I tried to remember that I was no longer mortal, the pain would consume me. Never again could I bear a child, never again would I feel the warmth of a newborn babe upon my breast. I was doomed to be this creature. Taker of life, cold and unfeeling.The walking death.
Embracing my nature with bitter resentment, I let myself fall victim to the age of sleep.
*****
The thirst awoke me, burning and raw. My throat had become dry, and I could feel how tightly I clenched my jaw as I resisted the urge to bite down into my own lip and draw blood. I needed to hunt. I had gone too long without blood. It was foolish of me. I knew I should have hunted before my descent to Paris, but I was so desperately curious as to why I had been summoned by my old lover that the idea of draining a human slipped my mind.
Silently I cursed myself for being so careless. I was always so careful.
The twinkling lights of Paris engulfed me as I stood beneath the grand Eiffel Tower, drinking in the beauty around me.
I watched the young sweet couples who huddled together in loving embraces beneath the illuminated tower of romance. I was hungry, insanely hungry. The scent of the blood of the mortals intoxicated me and almost made me drunk on the smell alone. I had to close my eyes to stop from revealing my true nature.
All the issues from the previous night left my mind as my main priority became feeding. But I had a problem, there was no evil that lingered within the grand central. They were all good people, innocent and in love. The only evil here was me.
But oh, how I needed to feed! Somewhere in the back of my mind I could hear Everard’s mocking laughter as I fought with the urge to hunt an innocent. As wicked as he is, one thing he taught me was to only hunt defenseless humans, the ones that littered the streets in sleeping bags and begged for mercy. They were not evil people, and when I fed upon them, I did it out of kindness. I released them from their pain, but Everard was not so kind. He would kill all of them and not bat an eyelid as long as his thirst was sated.
Oh, truly I could go and find one. I was positive there was one lurking in alley somewhere waiting to rob or to rape a young woman. If my strength had been up to it, I would follow them like a hunter, but I was weakening by the minute and I could not last another hour without sustenance.
So, I did what I had to do.
He was a young man of about twenty. Dressed alternatively as I, as was the fashion. His hair was black as the night itself and fell down his back in a long waterfall. He could have almost passed for one of the undead himself, but for the fact I could smell his life-force on him.
He had been to a concert and was now returning to Central Paris to meet some friends at a club. He asked to join him, and I, ever the hunter, accepted. If I were to drink from him, then I needed to do it in private.
We reached the alley where the underground club was located. The alley was completely abandoned, all its occupants already inside. I was grateful for that. Slowly he turned and gestured to the doors.
“In here,” he purred in perfect French. “It is a hidden doorway to stop others gate crashing our turf.” He smiled proudly.
He was so beautiful.
When I didn’t move, he frowned. “Mar Cher are you not coming in?” Slowly I stepped closer to him. He was tall like Everard, if not a few inches taller. Hmm, he would not like that, I thought. I could feel his gaze fixated on me.
“Indeed, I do wish to go in,” I whispered softly into his ear, “Though, I fear I am very thirsty and in need of a drink before we continue.”
I heard him give out a slight laugh. It was obvious he didn’t know what I was. I was glad. It meant that his death would make my feeding all the quicker.
“There are drinks inside,” he said to me while taking my hand and edging me toward the door. He didn’t flinch at my coldness. “Come.”
It was then that I chose to make my move. Quickly I released my hand and pinned him to the wall next to the doors, my face staring up at him. He didn’t seem shocked.
“Or if you're in such a hurry we can go back to my place,” He whispered seductively, his arm snaking its way around my waist. For a moment, I found myself enjoying this activity but the need for blood was making me feel dangerous, and one wrong move on his part would force me tear him to pieces.
“Hmm,” I whispered leaning up to his slender throat. He tilted his head at me as if he knew what was coming. “As much as I would enjoy that, my love, I’m afraid I must cut our meeting short.” With that, I sank my teeth into his neck.
Hot blood filled my desperate, wanting mouth in a crimson waterfall. He didn’t flinch, he didn’t cry out, he only sighed, one that encouraged me to bite deeper. And I obliged.
In a red tidal wave, his life was revealed to me. He was an innocent. He lived his life the way he chose, played in a heavy metal band and aspired to be famous. He loved his family, his mother in particular. She was ill, and he was looking after her; she was all he had.
I ripped my fangs free and let his body slump to the floor. He wasn’t dead just unconscious, but if I had held on any longer, he had would have been dead. I had intended to kill him, to spare him false mercy but I found that I could not. He wasn’t an evil man, and no matter how much I thirsted for the rest of him, I refused.
Slowly I bent down to him. His eyes fluttered open and closed. With a serene expression, I whispered to him, “Do not be frightened my love. You have been spared. Go home and look after your mother. She needs you as much as you need her.” And with that, I left him there for a mortal to find and to care for him.
*****
“It’s me,” I spoke quietly into the slender phone.
“August?” His deep voice questioned. Silence followed. He never was much of a conversationalist.
“I’m coming home,” I told him.
“From Paris? I expected you last night, but you never returned.” I let out a long sigh at his words.
“I... there were some complications,” I assured him calmly. It was his turn to sigh now. Oh, how I missed his sighs.
“He's in Paris isn't he?” Kyle asked calmly as if he already knew what it was that had prevented my return the night before.
“A distraction,” I replied impatiently, “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“What was the urgency?”
His clipped tone suddenly caught me off guard. My mind had begun to wander with thoughts of my one true love. “I will tell you when I arrive back in London. I will meet you back at the house. Have you fed?”
“Not yet.”
“Remember what I told you. Stay safe, and when you feed keep out of sight. The world is even more dangerous than we thought it was.” At that, I hung up.
The night was young, and the lights of the city still sparkled before me. Part of me didn’t want to leave the city; it had been so long since I had actually been ‘home’. For over a century, I mourned for the city that I had so loved. For over a century, I had mourned for my mortal life and for my dead child.
I loved Paris as much as I despised it.
Kyle was an artist, a great painter with a talent so raw that his musings always made me weep. He was beautiful and knowledgeable, and gentle where Everard was angry. He was everything that Everard should have been, yet Kyle was everything that I didn’t want.
I loved him, but I didn't love him enough. He appreciated me, and me him. He was my companion and many a night we would sit on the balcony of our hotel and quote poetry to each other, and talk of dreams, passions, loves and the nature of our kind.
Once there was a time when I did that with my Everard.
The thought of Everard made me bristle. The memory of the previous night burned inside my mind, picking away at me until I gave in and went back to the old château where the black-haired lord resided. But what reason did I have to go back? He wasn’t my problem any more. But then I thought of the voice and what it had said to me. I was to die by my makers hand. Well, I would not run away from death.
I found him in his château, lying on a bed of silk. The black silken shirt that had adorned his body was thrown upon the floor next to the finest, shiniest black boots that only Everard could wear. His black undershirt was unlaced at his chest, revealing the cold hard marble skin beneath. His perfect silken mane was loose and spread about him like a velvet veil. Blood painted the corners of his mouth. Next to him, the source of that blood lay lifeless.
Blooddrunk, my mind whispered. She had been young, perhaps a girl of nineteen. Not slender but voluptuous. She had been a whore.
He was sleeping outstretched with his arm still beneath the young girl’s waist. He hadn’t been kind to her when he took her. Her neck was savagely torn. He did it out of anger; he was always the same. Each time we argued, he would always go out and hunt, lure them back to our home before brutally ravaging them in front of me.
I was glad that I left him when I did.
The girl was a drug user; I could smell the chemicals in her dead blood. Fool my mind snapped at him.
He had done it to get a fix. He was bored of the usual. He desired rebellion, freedom, and a contaminated little whore was just the supply of ecstasy that he needed.
I stared down at him debating what I should do. I didn’t even know why I had come back. I had promised Kyle that I was coming back to London, yet here I was, standing over my maker with no reason to be there.
Slowly I turned away from the bed and sat in the velvet armchair. I watched him lying there, unmoving. For a moment, I contemplated killing him but I knew that I couldn’t do it.
Groggily, he began to stir. I got to my feet and walked back towards the bedside. My hand entwined with the white silken lace that concealed my face.
“Have you sunk so low that you only feed on harlots now?” My eerily calm voice questioned my lover as he stretched out lazily on the bed. He knew I had been there all along.