Part 1: The Death of Master Ka'lath

We stood on the roof of our apartment building, looking down at the glowing street-lamps and the scattered groups and couples making their way to or from one of the many restaurants and bars up and down the sidewalks.

"Look at them!" Ka'lath sneered, sweeping his arm from side to side. "Cattle is what they are, grazing and lowing in pastures of the city, until the time comes for their masters to feed! Can't you smell their hot blood even from here?"

I refused to give him the satisfaction of answering, instead placing my foot on the parapet surrounding the roof and fixing my gaze on the street below. As I ignored him and his question, he studied me with a raised eyebrow... then let loose with an explosive burst of laughter, his head bobbing up and down, fangs flashing as it caught the light on the roof.

"Still angry, are we?" he managed to ask through his laughter. "I often wonder if there will ever be a vampire created that doesn't think he knows more than his creator when first reborn. And then, when they find themselves in that first hunt, on the verge of their first kill, and find themselves unready for the reality of it... when the prey manages to scream and run, and you find yourself frozen for a moment, unable to give chase... when all your 'Look into my eyes' fantasies suddenly fall away and you know that to be a vampire means to grab, to subdue, to bite, and to drain in one swift and violent moment... that is when you suddenly become like some sullen teenager who blames his parent when they get into trouble." His laughter died, and his visage became stern. "I told you that you should not hunt alone that night... that you needed me to at least go with you the first time, to help and teach you. But no! You wouldn't listen, and in the end their proved to be too much human left in you to kill for the blood you desired! So you went, and you failed, and I was there, and I stopped the screaming girl before she could get away, and I brought her back to you... and now you feel you have the right to be angry?" He grabbed my shoulder and squeezed, a grip that promised exquisite pain if only increased a bit more. "You have NO RIGHT to be angry!" he thundered, releasing his grip and flinging me to the ground. Standing over me, he put his boot to my throat, seeming not to press down at all, yet pinning me more solidly than if I had been tied to stakes. "Like all the young ones, you hear but you fail to listen. Those that have come before have found out, though... they've listened and learned, or found a stake or a ray of sunlight for their trouble." He suddenly removed his foot from my neck, whirling around to return his eyes to the street below.

Without facing me, he muttered, "You will learn, young vampire... or you will die. The choice is yours."

The silence stretched between for several minutes, as I lay massaging my throat. Then, without realizing I had even thought about doing so, I was standing beside him again; my mind was still at odds with my new reflexes, which were so fast that my body seemed to move with a will of its own. Still, I made no sound, no additional movement; I simply stood looking down, waiting to hear whatever he might choose to say.

After a few more minutes he nodded, apparently mollified. "Know this, then. You were right to choose the woman you did, and the time and place of your choosing was solidly done. However, you are yet young, and still coming into your powers. You may feel strong, even invincible, but you are not yet able enough to toy with your prey. Even such as I, a vampire for nearly three centuries, do not often do more than select the source of my meal, and then quickly take what I want from them. We hunt to survive, youngling... and our survival methods are brutal and bloody... catch them, bite them, drain them, and leave their corpses out of sight. These are the rules of the night hunter on the streets of the city."

He paused for a moment, still scanning the sidewalks. When he spoke again, his voice had a distant quality, like he was speaking his thoughts aloud. "But I understand what you did, and why you did it. We hunt, and we kill... it is stark and ruthless and cold, and there is no more art to it than a man with bludgeon hitting someone over the head. Sometimes, we wish for more... more light, more substance, more depth. We wish to take that which merely is and take it to some other level. We wish to stop being hunters, and somehow become artists... artists who emerge from the shadow, the human body our tapestry, their blood our medium, and their death the subject which we wish to elevate to art.

He looked over at me, as my eyes stayed glued on the street. "More than that, I have observed the behavior of our various brethren for years on end, and I have observed that there is something inside us that rarely acknowledge. Put simply, it is that the blood tastes better when given most unwillingly."

I cocked my head toward him, meeting his eyes. "There are far too many in this world who wish they could be what we are, who hope beyond hope that one of us might swoop in and give them the gift, or curse, of eternal life. Others are natural born victims, and, when we move from the shadows to take them, they give up immediately, yielding with no thought of trying to escape.

"But... there are others. Those you see walk down the street, full of confidence and defiance; they radiate and energy that says 'I cannot be defeated!' For a vampire, such a thing is like catnip. It attracts us like no other scent, because, if the aura is real, the blood seems to taste so much better once our fangs have been set. There have been some who, once cornered, turn out to be posers... they beg for their lives and piss their pants when they realize there is no mercy forthcoming.

"But the true fighters... ahhh, their blood is the richest of all. Even knowing that they cannot escape, they fight physically and mentally, not giving up even to the moment their essence fades away. Their blood tastes like triumph, like victory... like conquest. And so, as we watch so many pass by daily, we sense those few who we know will not beg, will not concede, will not cower... and we covet them. We watch them and learn about them, and wait until the time is right...

"And then we take them, draining them until nothing is left, the blood seeming somehow more potent, more powerful, more revitalizing. It sings to us as it flows through our bodies, and we always crave more. Except... these are rare creatures, and, like an endangered species, must be cared for and husbanded and managed, so that they will not completely die out.

His eyes bore into mine like laser beams. "You wanted that, for your first kill. You sensed her fight, her fire, and you wanted that blood inside you. But you weren't ready for how she fought, and you thereby learned an important early lesson." He grinned mirthlessly. "Don't play with your food. Catch it, bite it, drain it, discard it. Wait until you are at least my age before you go chasing after things that might decide to bite... you... back..."

His gaze was captured by someone on the street, and I immediately saw the woman who had caught his attention. She didn't walk up the sidewalk as much as she strutted; her stiletto-heeled leather boots beat a fast cadence on the concrete. In one glance, I took in many things about her... long red hair down her back, exquisite curves at both the breast and the bottom, dressed to thrill in a short leather skirt, leather bustier, and black leather jacket. Her aura, however, held both promise and peril... as she walked, her body exuded undeniable sex appeal, attracting most male and some female glances. But that same body language also plainly said "Look, but don't touch," and promised hell-to-pay if that warning was disregarded.

Ka'lath watched her walk like a human might watch a finely prepared steak on a plate headed for someone else's table, his hunger for the woman radiating from him. Here was the true embodiment of what he had just lectured me about... the aura, the confidence, the attraction. Yet, in his face was a confusion that I had never seen before. He stared as the woman walked up the sidewalk and shook his head, muttering softly, "How can such a thing be?" His fingers dug into my arm like small bands of steel as he watched this morsel stroll toward the cross street... then suddenly turn down the alley between the two buildings across from us. He seemed at war with himself, trying to keep from chasing after the very thing he had just warned me against. Finally, he pulled me toward him, his voice raw and hoarse, and he spoke quietly into my ear.

"Remember what I have told you, young one. Watch and learn. Tonight, you will see a master vampire hunt the ultimate prize.

"Tonight, I will taste again the richness and power of unwilling blood... blood that is not given up... but taken by force. The sweetest blood there has ever been."

Then he was gone, his passage marked only by the slight breeze that brushed my left side as he seemed to disappear.

I stood still for a moment on the roof, letting my enhanced senses trace the path that Ka'lath used to make his way over the street to the rooftop across the way. Then, knowing he wished me to follow, I mimicked his steps, though much more slowly.

He was right of course - I still had a lot to learn, much to adjust to. But, of one thing I was absolutely certain.

I loathe being a vampire with every iota of my being. It would never have been my choice to be forever damned to wander the night, forced to drink human blood to survive. But then, Ka'lath had given me no choice.

As I picked my way across the telephone lines that connected the rooftops, I thought back to the fateful night on which Ka'lath plucked me from my normal existence and turned me into a creature of the night.

It had been a beautiful night for a walk. Mary, my sweet Mary... we had eaten at Luigi's just a block from our apartment, and we decided a short walk around the neighborhood might help us find a way to keep all the good pasta we'd eaten from turning to fat. We had walked many times along these sidewalks, and had no reason to think that this trip would be any less engaging than those others.

Ka'lath told me later that it was Mary's laughter that attracted him that night. I remember still how I told some vaguely funny story, and it caught her fancy to the point she threw back her head and laughed aloud. I saw the gleam in her eyes, and basked in the glory of her love and good humor, and knew all was right in my world.

Except, there was no one on the sidewalk but the two of us, and the light from the street-lamps was dim. And then, suddenly, he stood in front of us.

It is still hard for me to remember much of the detail of that encounter. I saw nothing of our attacker's face, and only had time to register the slight movement of his hand before I was on my back on the sidewalk, my jaw feeling as if it had been broken. Ka'lath told me later he struck me a light blow to the side of my face, aiming to incapacitate me while he fed. Yet, somehow, I was able to raise my head despite the pain of any slight movement. What I saw more than likely would have struck another man frozen in fear.

Our assailant had walked up to Mary and had drawn her into his arms, turning his back to me since he thought I was no threat. I vaguely remember that at one point she had been screaming, but as I looked at her now, she seemed very calm, even placid, her arms hanging limply at her sides. My very first thought was that he had knocked her unconscious, perhaps meaning to rape her. In thinking that, the blurriness in my vision started to clear; in fact, the adrenaline that suddenly pumped its way through my body allowed me to rise to feet and lurch toward the man embracing my woman.

My thoughts raced, seeking to find some way to attack someone who had swatted me aside as if I was an insect. Looking around for a weapon, I saw nothing I thought I could lift that would stealthy enough to catch him unaware. I knew that sooner or later he would sense that I was no longer lying on the ground, so I had to move quickly. His head was starting to dip toward Mary's neck, and the thought of his lips touching her fair skin finally pushed me into action. Like Pete Rose heading for second looking to stretch a single into a double, I ran across the short distance separating us and dived headfirst into the back of his legs.

Our (to that point) unknown attacker fell backward on top of me, pinning me to the ground. However, in trying momentarily to retain his footing, he had let go of Mary, and she slumped to the ground in front of me. Looping my arms over his legs in hopes of keeping him from rising, I yelled, "Run, Mary! Get the hell out of here and get the police! Godammit, get up and run!"

However, instead of moving, she lay still, her body limp, her eyes glazed. In the dim glow of a light above one of the nearby stoops, I could see a faint smile on her lips. It was the very last thing I would remember clearly.

Despite my best efforts, I could not hold the black-clad man more than a few seconds. He easily broke the grasp I had on his legs, springing back to his feet as my hands flailed uselessly for a grip on his pants. He turned around and, with one hand, hoisted me to my feet, using the back of my jacket to haul me up. His free hand grasped me by the front of my shirt, drawing me closer to him until we were nose to nose. In those few seconds it took to go from on the ground to mere inches from his face, I came to know that this was no ordinary street thug. When I looked into that face, all I could think was that a minion of Hell had come to Earth, and now it was about to kill me.

I suppose the romantic image of a vampire is one of wicked beauty and sexuality, movie idol looks that only hints at the beast inside. However, though I did not know what it was that was holding me inches off the sidewalk by the front of my shirt, my first thought was not vampire, but Klingon! To see this face was to truly think of a Star Trek character come to life! The crown of its head seemed raised, with something akin to small spikes sticking from it; the rest of the face was brown and wrinkled, with a black goatee surrounding its mouth and covering its chin. Its mouth, slightly open, showed wickedly gnarled teeth; as it opened wider, two long curved fangs popped into view from under its upper lip. And its breath, hot and damp, smelled like you might expect an old slaughterhouse to stink, the rotten stench of old blood washing over me like a cloud. In that moment - that single instant in which the demon before me seemed to be evaluating me like a butcher might eye a side of beef - I realized that, no matter what, I was going to die.

But perhaps Mary might still have a chance... if I could do something to keep this monster's attention.

So I spit in its face.

A moment later I found myself traveling backward through the air, until my back and head impacted solidly with what must have been a brick wall. I slid down to the ground, unable to move; I felt like a rag doll that had been discarded by a child, as I could not control any part of my body. Somehow I had landed in such a way that kept my head up, so I could see the demon beast coming toward me, wiping my spittle from his face as he did. He looked down at me, broken and floppy, and bared his fangs in what I took to be a triumphant smile. Bending down, he took my chin in his hand and turned my face to lock eyes with him once more. With a sound like two rocks grinding together under pressure, I heard its voice for the first time.

"Did you really think you could do anything to hurt me? You, a puny human being with no higher purpose in life than to become my food, should I choose to take you? You never had any chance, mortal! And what has your foolish action availed you? Nothing! Your body is likely broken in several places, never to mend; if you survive this night, you will always be crippled, a burden either to those who love you or to the state that might shelter you. The best you could hope for is death... which is why I will not give you death. That you dared to touch me means you should be punished, and your punishment will be to not die at my hands tonight!"

As he spoke, I saw movement behind him. Though I couldn't move my head, his stance gave me a clear view between his legs to where before Mary had lain unmoving. Now, though, she began to stir, and I knew that perhaps my hope for her escape might still be realized... if I could keep his focus on me.

I could not move, but it seemed I could use my vocal chords. Knowing I had only one chance left, I did what I had always done before in the face of bullies and braggarts.

Looking him deep in the eyes, I began to laugh. Haltingly at first, and then more easily as I got my breath, I started with a chuckle and managed to work my way up to hearty guffaw. His eyes began to flick back and forth, wondering what kind of madness had overcome me, that I would laugh so at such a moment.

Slowly, Mary got to her feet. She was disoriented and weak, but she could walk. I could see her face, her eyes wide with fear as she saw the beast standing over me in the shadows, but perhaps some part of her had heard my shout earlier. She hesitated only a moment, then turned and starting running toward the nearest cross-street, hoping to find someone... anyone... who might be able to help us.

Perhaps, if she had been wearing sneakers, she might have gotten away.

Instead, the loud slap of her heeled pumps against the concrete of the sidewalk alerted the beast to her escape. I had allowed myself a triumphant grin, thinking that Mary, with a head start, could outrun any pursuit at least long enough to find shelter or, if extremely lucky, a cop. However, the smile was barely formed on my lips before my head was flopping down and to the side, my chin having been released by our attacker. All I could register was that he was gone, no longer standing in front of me, and I had a small hope that perhaps he'd been scared away by thoughts of discovery of capture.

Not three seconds later, I heard Mary yell, "NOOOOOOO!" followed by a shriek of pain. And then there was a stillness, broken only by the sound of something being dragged along the sidewalk, getting louder as got nearer to me.

Much like the first time, our assailant came toward me, bearing its fangs. As it got closer, I could see it was dragging something. It slowly came into focus as it walked nearer: the blond hair that it had wrapped around its hand to use as a handle; the unresponsive form that trailed behind with no reaction despite the abrasion of concrete against skin.

In the space of a few heartbeats, it had caught and subdued Mary. And now we were both at its mercy.

Once he reached the place where I rested against the wall, he knelt beside me, Mary's hair still wrapped around his hand. "Perhaps I underestimated you, human. If your woman had had the common sense to remove her shoes as she ran, she might have been able to escape my grasp. But now, given that you have tried to thwart my desires twice this evening, another punishment must be levied. And this one shall be forever burned upon your mortal conscience."

Turning his attention to Mary, he laid her on the sidewalk on her back, and then scooped her up into his arms. He let her legs fall toward the ground, catching her around the waist so that she was in a standing position, even though her feet didn't touch the ground. And thus, he held her in the same way he had when I tackled him from behind... only this time I could see everything he was doing, just as he intended.

Tilting her head back slightly, he exposed her neck. Bowing his own head, he nuzzled the flesh to the left of her Adam's apple, caressing it with his lips. Suddenly, he stopped moving, as if he found the one particular spot he'd been searching for. Raising his head, he looked down at me, his eyes boring a hole in me with their look of frenzied lust. He opened his mouth until his fangs were fully visible, flashing in the dim light.

And then he plunged them deep into Mary's neck, biting into the carotid artery, and suddenly it all became clear to me. Our assailant wasn't just some madman, nor was he an alien, nor was he a demon from Hell. He was the living embodiment of Bram Stoker.

He was a vampire... and he was feeding on Mary's blood.

It took only a few minutes from first to last. Near the end, she trembled, briefly, and then was still. Not long after, he removed his lips from her neck and turned toward me, smiling. The fresh blood coated his mouth and teeth, leaving trails of red across his beard; some of the excess dripped from his chin onto Mary's white blouse.

He looked at me, but I could only see the gaping wound in her neck where he had sucked her life away. He shifted slightly, and her head flopped over until her chin rested on her left shoulder. Her eyes stared at me, empty of the laughter and intelligence they had always held before. It was like he had not only stolen her blood, but had taken her very soul.

With surprising gentleness, he eased her body to the sidewalk, murmuring some words in a language I could not understand. Still bending over her, he touched his hand to her head and closed his eyes for a moment; then he slid his hand over her eyes, and when he removed it, they were both shut. Her body looked peaceful in the dim light... peaceful, if somehow you could ignore the jagged hole in her neck through which her life's blood had been removed.

While I looked at her, he stood and walked the few steps it took to tower over me once again. I knew I was weeping, but he somehow took my tears as a sign that I was thinking about my own helplessness, instead of how Mary was dead.

Part 2 »