Sit down. Please, stay a while by my fire. I have a story to tell you. A story that takes place a long time ago.

It all began on the day I died.

Even after all these years, I remember that day like it was yesterday. The sun rose that morning over the ocean, just like it always has. I was already at the docks; I watched the first rays breech the horizon and turn the black water gold. All day I worked and sweated on those docks, and by the time I had finished, the sun sank red behind the mountains.

That sunrise and sunset stick in my mind. I think about them every day. I can still see them, burned into my brain, even though I have long forgotten the warmth on my face. You see, that day, over two hundred years ago, is the last time I ever saw the sun. Since then, all I can feel is cold and dark...

What's that? You want to know how I died? I was just getting to that.

After that last sunset, after I got off for the day, I went into town with some of my mates. It was a Saturday: no work the next day, so the pubs were all full. Everyone was laughing and living, not a care in the world. I spent hours drinking and gambling away my wages, and only left at last when all my money was gone. I couldn't afford a woman's company or even another drink, so I stumbled out into the night without a coin in my pocket.

Though the pub was still noisy, the streets were empty, and the streetlights were burning low. The night air was cold and clear, but my head was swimming and more than anything I wanted water. Two men were collapsed over the side of the horse trough out front, and they smelled strongly of bile. So I wandered off alone down the dark streets to find a cleaner place to dunk my own head and drink.

I do not remember exactly where or when I first felt it, but as I walked my heart went cold. I was filled with a sense of dread I could not explain. The street was deserted; there was nothing to be seen anywhere. But still I trembled, and turned this way and that. Then I felt foolish for behaving in such a manner. I forced myself to calm and walk in a straight line. Though I may have denied it at the time, I don't have to tell you that fear does not subside at will, especially alone in the night. As I pretended indifference, my palms still sweated and my heart still pounded in my throat.

Then I saw her.

She appeared as if out of nowhere. I had heard no sound, nor seen any movement. I had simply looked into a dark alley, then blinked, then opened my eyes to see her before me. She was the very image of perfection: her hair shone silver in the moonlight and her face was even more pale than the thin white dress she wore against the chill. In that instant, my fear was gone. I was entranced, my every thought bent toward her, my very soul pouring out into her cold, dark eyes.

She glided back into the darkness of the alley, and I had no choice but to follow her. When I say I had no choice, it is not because I had any other desire in my heart; no, if given the choice, I would have followed her to the ends of the Earth. In fact I mean it literally: my feet lifted and planted themselves of their own accord, carrying me after the ghostly figure. It was as if she had a rope tied round my waist, though I could not see or feel it, and was pulling me with slow, deliberate strength into the darkness.

So I followed her down the alleyway and through a door, and into a room. In the blackness of the room, she glowed with a pale light of her own, a pristine vision of unimaginable beauty. As her dress slid from her shoulders, I saw in her nakedness the will and station of a goddess. She beckoned me to approach, and approach I did. And there in that room I took her. Rather, I should say she gave herself to me; a mortal such as myself cannot claim to take what he cannot reach.

Even if that night had not been the last of my life, I would still have remembered it forever. I was first struck by the coolness of her skin. The warmth of a woman's touch was strictly lacking; indeed she was no warmer than any other object in the room. But the thing that struck me most was her almost casual indifference to my presence. As I joined with her, flesh and spirit, I was fully aware that our union was not of my design, but only of hers. The pleasure I saw on her face caused my heart almost to tear from my chest; what pleasure she felt I could never know, though I must admit that I was not the source. And though I exerted myself beyond my own limits to please her, still she made no sound, but only held me in her unblinking gaze.

It was only as I planted my seed within her body that she closed her eyes, her pale face a mask of bliss. She held me with her cool hands and placed her lips on my neck in a kiss unlike any I had ever known. Even had I known it was to be a kiss of death, I would not have pulled away, so heavily was I under her spell.

I felt the warmth of my neck melt into her lips; I felt her tongue as she licked and pulled at my skin. Then, her teeth: I felt two sharp points pierce my flesh, and I heard her give a deep sigh. No, not even when I realized what she was doing did I pull back. Instead, I held her more tightly and closed my own eyes, so rich and full was the satisfaction that had spread over me. I do not know if it was minutes or hours that we lay together while she drained the blood from my body. But by the time the night had ended and the next sun rose, she was gone and I was dead.

I see the shock in your face and the disbelief in your eyes. How can I be sitting here before you, talking to you, had I died all those years ago? Let me assure you that, in this tale, death is only the beginning.

First, you must know several truths about the vampira, for there are many false myths created by simple peasants, wishing only a feeling of safety. We are not evil or magical beings, but a noble and ancient race; as old as the dawn of time. We cannot be killed by a stake in the heart, for we are already dead and our hearts do not beat. Garlic and silver causes us no discomfort; I do not like the smell of garlic, but the same was true while I still drew breath. Nor do religious symbols and talismans do us any harm, for we are not the servants of Satan; indeed most of us are more religious than humans, and I make my own home within the walls of a church.

It is true that sunlight will destroy us, but not because we are vile creatures of darkness. Rather, we are in a sense guardians of the night.

The blood of humans is our only food, our only source of sanity and strength. But not every bite kills, and not every death Turns. We are gifted watchers of the night sky and read many signs in the heavens. We sense the souls of humans, and see the fates that await them. It is our law that we only Turn humans who would have otherwise died tragic and pointless deaths. In this way do we add numbers to our race.

I don't know what happened when I was found in the morning, or what they said killed me. It doesn't much matter; had I not died from her bite, I would have drown at the docks that very day; many years later, I saw that death in the stars with my own eyes. I don't remember my funeral either, though I'm told it was small and brief. They buried me beside my mother and father in the cemetery behind the church. Not long afterward, people started saying the place was haunted. Maybe that had something to do with me.

The next thing I do remember is waking up, trapped in the darkness. It was a tight space with little room to breath, but it didn't seem to bother me; I realized later it was because I no longer had the need to breath. I was cold, but did not shiver. I was disoriented, and confused. And also very thirsty.

I pushed against the walls of my confinement and found them solid and strong. My first thought was to find a way out, a task which proved absurdly easy. No sooner had the thought entered my mind, than I was pushing my way through freshly turned soil, emerging out of the ground and into the moonlight, dressed in a black suit that was not mine. There was no hole in the earth at my feet, and could see no trace of dirt in my fingernails or on my clothing. What a shock I had when I turned to find a headstone bearing my name. Surely it must have been some mistake!

But then, through my fear, I realized something else: the shock passed, and I found my palms were still cool and dry. The small hairs on the back of my neck did not stand on end. Indeed, my heart rate had not increased by even the smallest fraction. As I wondered at this, a thought crept into my head, unbidden, and I placed my hand on my chest. Though I tried for several minutes, standing in the darkness of the cemetery, I could find no heartbeat whatsoever. A wave of panic gripped me, and my heart should have pounded loudly against my ribs; but still I could feel nothing. I stared in growing horror at the headstone: might I really be dead?

Then I ran. I don't know exactly what came over me, but I found my feet pounding down the hillside toward the town. But it wasn't exactly pounding; it felt more like gliding. As I listened, only the sound of the wind in the trees reached my ears. There was no puffing of breath, no slap of foot on soil, no crunch of dried leaves, no rustle of small animals frightened away. I ran but did not tire, with a speed I had never known. All this only served to frighten me more.

And I was still very thirsty.

I ran all the way into the town, in among the buildings; the shadows seemed almost to move with me. The hour must have been late, for the streets were deserted and even the pubs were closed. A certain calm descended over me whenever I was concealed in the pitch darkness of an alleyway, enveloped in the deepest of shadows. But I did not stay; I was in a fright and searching for someone to comfort me.

Yet even in my state, I did not feel disposed to wake someone from the depth of sleep, so I walked the streets in search of some sign of consciousness. This I found at last in the doctor's home: a faint light behind the drapes in the front room, and the muffled sound of voices within. I stood at the door with every intent to knock and ask for entry, but to my amazement I found the door swinging silently open before me. Perhaps my hand touched the door or turned the knob, but I cannot remember.

Inside the room were three faces I knew well: the doctor, the blacksmith's wife, and her young daughter, holding her stomach in pain. I expected a word or nod of greeting from any one of them, but I was disappointed. There was no flash of recognition in their faces, only looks of pale dread. All this I saw quickly, but an instant later, my ears rang with a scream.

The blacksmith's wife clutched her daughter protectively and begged me leave them in peace. The doctor, his hands shaking, fumbled for a wooden cross on the wall; he brandished the implement in my direction and forbid me entry into his home. The girl alone was unafraid, though only after she met my wondering gaze. I was startled by those first three reactions to my appearance. So much so that I indeed turned to leave, unaware of my apparent compliance with the words spoken against me.

As I walked away from the doctor's home, still puzzled, still wondering why none of the three knew my face or called my name, I heard the word shouted for the first time in the growing clamor behind me. A word that carried the same sense of dread I had witnessed in the three faces. A word that should have sent cold shivers up and down my spine.

Vampire is what they said, and I heard it many times over before the night had ended.

The noise died down and the hours passed, and I wandered and wondered at the events of the night. I felt as though in the middle of some strange dream, from which I would soon wake. My thirst had not abated, so I stopped at a horse trough. But the water that passed my lips did nothing to satisfy me; I craved something thicker, something warmer...

As the night ticked away and my unquenchable thirst grew stronger, my thoughts grew more and more erratic. I found myself unable to concentrate on a single thing for more than a few seconds, or to even recall the thing a moment later. I was upset and almost angry; still no answers came to me, nor did my thirst subside. The only things that could hold my attention were the stars sprinkled across the night sky, and I took to gazing at them as I walked; there seemed almost to be some story they wished to tell me.

All this time, a certain unease had been growing in the back of my mind. A nervousness for which I could find no reason. By the time I recognized the feeling for what it was, I found I had returned in my wanderings to the graveyard, to my very headstone. I started, and wondered why my feet had chosen to bring me to such a place. But before the thought had fully formed itself, I was already descending into the dirt and closing my coffin lid tightly shut. The nervousness melted away, replaced by a feeling of content, and I was at once overcome with sleep.

The uneasy feeling I had: it was the innate sun-sense, possessed by all the vampira. With my mind consumed by other thoughts, my body obeyed the sun-sense and led me unconsciously back to my grave. Had my mind been less occupied, and given the chance to more closely examine my apprehension, I might easily have ignored it, not knowing its meaning. It is so with many who are newly Awakened; they do not understand the sun-sense, or the true danger posed by sunlight, and they are released of their bodies by the time their first night is ended. By lucky chance, this was not my fate, and I slept comfortably while the sun burned high overhead.

If you think I would wake the next night with a clearer head, ready to accept and begin to understand my new circumstance, you are wrong.

My eyes opened in the darkness of my coffin, and I knew the sun had set. But that sense was the only clear thought in my mind. All else was a jumble of confused emotions, if they can be so called. In fact, I hardly felt human, if such a thing were even possible anymore. My thirst had grown all through the day, ten-fold what it had been the night before. My flesh burned and crawled, and my mouth watered in the anticipation born of dire need. I found sanity in the thirst; fixing on that one aspect freed me from the confusion, and soon I found I could think of nothing else. I pushed open the coffin lid and stepped out onto the dark cemetery lawn.

With a bent purpose in my unbeating heart, I made my way back into town with stealth and speed, though without any show of effort. The shadows moved with me once more as I stalked the empty streets, searching, guided by some force, some sense which I did not yet know. In that moment, I was truly an animal, driven by the primal instinct of survival.

Then, in the dark and quite, I felt myself pulled in a particular direction. Something drew me, something called to me. At last I heard it: a soft and rhythmic thumping sound. And before I knew it, I was silently approaching a large house, the house of the governor, with a second floor window standing ajar. Then I was climbing; my hands and feet somehow clung to the brick, and I pulled myself up without feeling the effect of gravity. The shadows moved to cover me as I ascended to that cracked window, and the window swung fully open for me as I reached for the sill and swung my feet lightly to the floor.

There on the bed was a girl in a nightdress, surrounded by pillows and wrapped in a patchwork quilt: the governor's daughter, sleeping soundly. I had seen her before on occasion, and even exchanged pleasant words. But this thought did not enter my mind at the time; rather, I realized the soft sound which drew me was the relaxed beating of her heart. As I stood over her in the darkness, I could hear the sound all the more clearly for what it was, and I could almost feel the soft pulse in her neck. Already, I was not in my right mind, following instinct over reason. Then, as desire overcame all else, I bent over her sleeping form and placed my mouth at her neck.

The vampira have specially developed muscles in the upper jaw, extending the cuspids, which are hollow and filled with venom. This happened to me, and I felt my teeth sink easily into her soft flesh. The flow of blood was slow, and I found it easy to lap up the liquid with my tongue. As I felt the warmth of the rich, life-giving substance slide down my throat, my thirst began at last to subside and my sanity returned.

After drinking my fill, I pulled back to examine her neck, fearful that I might have caused the girl some damage. With the animal instinct within me suppressed once more, I felt a sweeping wave of guilt and revulsion at what I had just done. But I was amazed to see almost no trace of the marks left by my teeth. The tiny wounds did not bleed, and indeed seemed as if they might heal completely by morning. Still, I had no idea what might be her fate; if she would die and Awaken as I did.

Before my wonderings could stretch too far or my guilt rack me too severely, the girl's eyes fluttered and she stirred in her sleep. Remembering the reactions I had gotten the previous night from people I had once known, I slipped through the window and down the brick face of the house before she could fully open her eyes to see me and become alarmed.

Though I had no clear idea how much time had passed, I felt no pressing worry or concern, so I went to the docks to pass the time. The sounds of several drunk fishermen came from nearby, but they did not see or hear me. Again, I found the stars fascinating, and I sat in darkness at the end of the pier looking upon them in wonder. Again, I felt as if they calling out to me in some fashion, but I could not understand their words.

When at last my sun-sense bid me retire, I heeded the feeling and returned to my grave. With my thirst quenched and a clearer head prevailing, I began to see the emerging patterns. Rest by day and feed by night: it became the way of my life. Or, should I say, the way of my death.

The next night, I rose and went to the same house, to the same window. My thirst was very mild, even when compared with the first night of my Awakening, and my mind was still my own. I was drawn this time more by curiosity than any of the vampira phenomenon to which I was still adjusting. Just as before, the shadows enveloped me as I scaled the brick wall, and though the window was closed, it opened for me with the barest touch. The room was just as it had been, with one notable difference: this time the girl was lying awake.

Yes, her eyes were open and upon me as my feet touched silently to the floor. I cannot say if she was waiting for me or expecting me, but she showed no surprise on my arrival. Remembering the shrill cries of the blacksmith's wife and the shaking voice of the doctor, I braced myself to flee the room before I found myself caught by the girl's parents. But she did not scream or cry out. She only stared at me with an expression devoid of fear; it was the same as was worn on the face of the young girl in the doctor's home.

So I approached her bed and sat on the edge. I remembered the muscles which had worked in my jaw the night before and I extended my teeth into fangs; in the absence of any protest, I lowered my face and drank once more from her neck. It was a short drink, for I was not thirsty, but she held me tightly, and I felt her warmth spread over the entirety of my cool body. At her touch, I realized that a certain part of my human anatomy was still intact, and had responded to her as would any male to a beautiful, innocent girl. Her nightdress was soon a heap on the floor, and I stole away her virginity, and left her with a smile of deep satisfaction on her face.

The rest of the night I spent again on the docks; the stars moved more clearly for me, but their words were still muted. And another day I passed sleeping in the confines of my coffin.

Four days now I had been sleeping in the same tight space, and wearing the same black suit in which I was buried. Yet, as a fact of being Awake and not alive, my body did not decompose or perspire, or in any way produce an odor. I could already see that my suit would never need to be cleaned, and short of wearing it to bare threads, I would never need to take it off - except, of course, during my visits to the governor's daughter. However, a streak of vanity had arisen in me, and I longed to dress myself in finer clothing.

I woke early that night, after sundown, but before the streets had emptied. I'm not sure why I walked so boldly into the town, or what reaction I expected, but in fact I hardly attracted more than a second glance from anyone I passed. Still I saw people I knew and who had once known me, and still they showed me no hint of recognition. But I took comfort in the fact that no one yet had cowered in fear or demanded me to leave. If I had mastered some unconscious skill, I didn't know it, but all those people on the streets mistook me readily for just another living, breathing human. Interestingly, I noticed that as I walked among those people, the shadows made no effort to conceal my presence.

The tailor left his doors open late, in anticipation of the Carter's Ball, which was fast approaching. I asked to see the finest in European attire; he surely mistook my funeral dress as a suit of most severe formality, and thinking me a customer of much importance, he wasted no time in fetching a wardrobe of black silks and wools, cut in the style of Venice.

When I tried the clothes on, and the tailor was satisfied with the fit, he bade me observe my image in a full-length mirror and pass my own judgment on his choice. This I did, and was shocked to learn the truth of a myth which I always had held as silly fantasy. In the same way as shadows would sometimes leap out to hide my figure in the night, the mirror simply refused to reflect my body. Gazing into the mirror in a mixture of amazement and horror, I saw before me a suit of the finest clothing, suspended in midair, in the shape of a man. There was no head to be seen above the collar, nor hands protruding from the cuffs. My mouth was agape at the sight, but I could see no evidence of any such expression.

The tailor, on seeing my face, turned to look into the mirror as well. And I say, the fright he felt must nearly have killed him, for he jumped most sharply and fled from the shop. Vampire. I heard the word again echoing in the streets, and knew I must soon leave. As I turned toward the shop's back door, I spotted something hanging on a peg which struck both my vanity and my sense of humor: a black cloak, full in length and with a high, stiff collar. I took in and wrapped it around myself, without a second thought to the gold-worth of the fibers I had just stolen, and walked out into the night.

Again, the shadows swallowed me. I heard the noisy sounds of men shouting and arming themselves with wooden stakes and pitchers of holy water. They moved in a mob, torches blazing, as they searched the streets for some sign of a creature of the night, dressed in the finest of Italy. Quickly I found that they could not see me in the darkness, no matter how brightly their torches flared. I followed them for a time, and found some amusement with their efforts. Once, I showed myself to the mob, and they rushed forward only to find an empty alley, inhabited only by deep shadows.

I followed the mob until I had seen the lights in the governor's house at last extinguished. Then I left the men to their pursuits, and climbed once again through the window, and found the governor's daughter in her bed. I was only briefly aware of a garlic clove hung from the window, and another at her bedroom door. Instead my eyes fixed on the prone figure, already free of her nightdress. She stirred on my arrival, turned her face to look at me, though I know she cannot have heard my silent entry.