Of the Night

In Paris I am known as a great lover. When I was last in America I earned the title of a beggar. In England I am known strictly as a gentleman. Yet, when I return home, the only place where I have ever felt I belong, I am regarded as a monster.

In the purest sense of the word I can understand their reasons for such a rash judgment. For a nightwalker has never been regarded as something of a good omen. More often than not I have been seen as anything but. Yet, as much as I yern to hate them for their harsh judgment of the intricate society of the night, I cannot. For I am not entirely human anymore.

I sighed deeply as my thoughts ran over my last fifty years of life. Things had changed greatly since I had first entered the elite cult of the night. My eyes ran over the wet cobbled streets while they grazed over the few remaining citizens of my Romanian village. Most passed without any regard to my presence in the dark street, and those that did, assumed from my black coat, top hat, and trousers, that I was of a higher class than they. If only they truly knew how I received this specially tailored suit from England's upper class.

My eyes continued to look over every person that walked down the dimly lit street as I searched for the perfect one. A man looked at me strangely, as if he somehow knew that I did not belong. I merely tipped my hat to him and bid him good day. Once he was out of my way I turned down a side alley where I could continue my search of the mostly empty street without being seen.

The smell of blood was heavy in the streets. Perhaps it was because I had not fed in a week, and I was long overdue for a meal. I stared in the distance, no longer seeing the dark street before me, in a bitter silence as my mind wondered to my growling stomach yearning for blood. This was the main factor people used against me when they finally became wise to my existence in their streets. The basis for them to form their mobs; the basis for them to hunt and kill the vampire.

A bloodthirsty monster from legend, of nightmares. A monster that looks human at a glance, but has a black heart and a lack of soul. Only such a beast could prey on humans and live to another day without a trace of regret. Such a being should be killed before given the chance to feed, to kill, again. Such a monster does not exist.

As with many legends there are truths. I do in fact drink blood. I cannot live without it. I cannot go out by day. If I do I will burn badly within the first five hours, and after such wounds have been inflicted upon my fare skin, it will prove to be fatal and I will die. I cannot live forever, but I grow at a fifteenth of the rate a human does. Ultimately, extending my expected less than a century of life, to span several instead. My bite is infectious if I choose it to be, merely by sucking their blood while pumping my own into them at the same time. Gruesome, for a human to hear, but my people need only a small reminder: I am not human.

I continued to watch the streets as grown men filtered out of the pub across the way. The perfect specimen to pick off, for their minds were not as quick as they should have otherwise been. The alcohol, though, would prove to be the problem for such a beverage often turns the blood sour and in such an event would also prove to be my undoing in the end. My eyes quickly abandoned the Romanian lower class, and scanned over the other small crowds of people, casually tallying to myself the possible flaws as each one passed.

"Too fat." I mumbled as a man hobbled past me through the alley into the shadows in the distance.

"Too talkative." I grunted as two women walked past me in a flurry of excited words.

"Bad blood." I groaned unsatisfied at the bitter smell I had received from the man that had passed me much too closely for comfort.

My hunting was beginning to wear on my nerves. Going this long without a feeding was not healthy by any means. I contemplated leaving but as a vampire the blood running through my veins was against it. One thing all nightwalkers had in common was their love for danger coupled with their telltale stubbornness. We never gave up on a chase, no matter how uneventful it happened to be. Yet, maybe I should have just stayed in London or moved onto somewhere, where the people didn't know me by name. It was risky for me to come home, no matter how many decades had passed. Even if I didn't want to, I had to leave soon anyway. I knew this. As a vampire I had to move around the world before the beings of the sun caught whiff of my presence and a mob would be gathered by dusk, running through the streets after me. I'd experienced these mislead mobs one or twice in my long life and tried to avoid them at all costs.

Mislead beings of the day that hunted me because I am different, as a wicked form of revenge because I hunt them. When in all reality my bite leaves only two small scars and most 'victims' believe that they have simply been bitten by a spider and never even think that they had been 'attacked' by a vampire. And I am the monster being hunted because I am evil! I have never even blooded anyone. Misunderstandings. All because of fear. If only they could accept beings like me, life would be much simpler.

I found my gaze drop to the cobble stone streets below me as a black carriage pushed past me as the horses hooves flicked water into my alley. I jumped out of the path of the splashing water and cursed loudly in my own language before I looked back up to the basically empty street, only to see a fare lady: a pure blooded woman, pass out of my reach. Her auburn hair was only slightly alight from the street lantern hanging above her as I watched her walk casually, without the knowledge of my presence, into the darkness of the night, out of my reach forever. I cursed once more before I went back to my futile attempts of scanning the streets once again for the perfect specimen of blood.

The fine blood lust that had made my people fear me, because they don't understand: I am not evil. I was a gentleman as the English had said daily (or rather nightly) when I was there. I was not the murderer my people had named me. I was simply a young man who fell in with the wrong people, the wrong beings, when my luck went sour. When I had fallen too far into debt and became inherently aware that the only way I could pay for it was with my life. Back then I had no idea how I would have to pay. If I had I would never have left my home that night. I would have stayed in and not placed that final bet. But as the case happened to be, I did leave that night, fifty years ago, and I did become, against my will, the apprentice of a vampire, to ultimately pay off my debt.

Today, I have repaid that debt in full, and in the end have found that I am no longer the bitter apprentice of 1815. I have excepted the card fate had so bitterly dealt me and am finally proud to say that I am a creature of the night. Yet, still, part of me yearned to come home, as I watched my potential victims pass through the starless night, to be seen as human and to finally lose the eternal threat of being hunted. If only I could somehow show my people that I am not the monster they forever see me as.

I sniffed the air, slightly unsure of what it was that had caught my attention. It was a sweet scent, like candy was to a young child. I smiled slightly as the sweet scent of blood lingered through my nose and I turned around quickly and traveled down further into the alley, intently following the inviting smell. Gradually, darkness consumed the alley and if I was human, I would have been completely blind in it's wake. As the case happened to be, I was not human and my eyes could easily make out any obstacle enclosed in the black alley.

I deliberately kicked a loose stone against the building beside me. I grinned as I heard a high-pitched squeak of fear escape into the void. A breeze blew quickly past me carrying with it the luscious smell of blood. I whipped around and focused immediately on the source of the frightened cry. I smiled devilishly at her as my fangs dropped, forming the needle edged weapons of the night.

I sensed the blood in the human's body and felt a tingle run down my spine as I silently urged myself forward into the darkness. I had not had a meal this potentially sweet in ages and my body yearned for the opportunity.

I stepped forward as the girl's eyes darted back and forth across the alley in search of the trespasser in her midst. I smirked at the fear. It would be dangerous for me to drink from her, a child, for there was less blood and the chance of death rose greatly in those of the fresh generation. I stepped closer into a small puddle in the street, and she let out a frightened squeal and I could not help but grin madly at her, but I quickly wiped the look off of my face. I was not evil. I did not enjoy the chance of possibly killing a child, but I was hungry.

The girl screamed once more as she backed against the wall when I lit the lighter that I had pulled out of my pocket. The small light it shed gave wake to my face, the face of a young gentleman, and the girl relaxed. I feigned concern as I looked at the frail child in her white dress carefully taking in the dirty hems of her dress and the fact that there were holes in her shoes and stockings.

"Are you lost?" I asked with as much sincerity as I could muster.

She stared at me in shock and fear but then she slowly began to feel safe in my presence and nodded her head.

"Where are you from? The town?" I continued, feeling her out before I made my move.

She shook her head, "I'm from a surrounding village." She stated in broken English. I was shocked that she could even speak it at all, and found myself smile at her.

"Are you alone?" It was an obvious question but if she happened to know where her parents were, she would prove too much of a risk in the long run. I am not evil. I would never split a family apart.

I watched as tears welled up in her dark eyes, and slowly ran down her dirty cheeks before her voice broke and she cried out. "I can't find my mother." I smiled wickedly at her revelation but wiped it aside, I am not the beast my people thought I was, and looked at her glumly.

"How about this." The girl's ears perked up slightly at the idea of a proposal. She knew what I was going to say. This was a clever girl, a fare specimen of good, pure blood. "I help you find your mother. She cannot have gone far."

The girl smiled widely as more tears fell down her stained cheeks and nodded eagerly at my proposition. I beamed at her, having successfully led her into my web and extended my hand to her. She took it gratefully as I said, with a playful smile, "Let's find your mother." and I led her further into the darkness.