Blunt-Fangs' Lunch

I came to, stood on a beach. A man jogged towards me.

"Where am I—?"

He ran right through me.

It was the strangest sensation, something cold yanking my insides. I patted myself down. Solid. There was blood on my collar. I brought my fingers to my neck; two pinpricks, just to the right of my throat.

It all came back. Breaking into the decadent mansion, creeping into the candlelit room, walls adorned with golden-framed portraits. The burgundy coffin, the sleeping form within, arms crossed over a chest that rose and fell. Bringing down my wooden stake— his eyes flying open, unnaturally bright, clawed fingers catching my wrist. My gasp as he rose, pulling me up like I was a ragdoll. His sing-song voice, "How nice of my meal to come to me for a change." Hypnotic eyes drawing me in. Fangs sinking into my neck. Blood being drawn out of me, the ache, the tingling, the numbness...

"I'm going to kill him!"

*****

Second-favourite wooden stake in hand, I returned to the mansion, passing through the front door. Classical music floated alongside me as I slipped between rooms.

There he was, his back to me at a grand piano, fingers flying across the keys.

I raised my stake.

"Adios, sucker," I muttered, and lunged forward—

He caught my wrist, whirled around, and his eyes— an unnaturally light blue— grew wide.

"Eugh!" He flung me backwards, fangs bared in disgust. "Shouldn't you be dead?!"

"I am!" I cried. "Thanks to you, I'm a ghost!"

"A ghost?" He stepped forward, studying me, his nose in the crook of my neck. "I've never made a ghost before."

My fingers twitched. He was so close; I could kill him now—

He stepped backwards; the opportunity was lost.

"Why were you trying to kill me in the first place?" he asked, affronted.

"You're a vampire!"

He stared at me. "And?"

"A vampire killed my family."

"What's that got to do with me?!"

"I don't know!" I cried. "Maybe nothing! I'm looking for the vampire that killed my family and I kill any I find along the way."

He scrunched his nose. "That seems a little unfair."

"Unfair—?!"

"You're mad at one vampire so you take it out on our whole kind?" He grimaced. "It's a little racist—"

My jaw dropped. "Your kind kills my kind every day!"

"To survive!" He spread his arms. "It's the circle of life, Lunch."

"Leia."

"Lunch."

I clenched my jaw.

"And what was your plan for tonight, hmm? Sneak up on me and stab me with that?" He peered down his nose at my stake. "Again?"

"Not anymore. You're going to help me ascend from this mortal plane."

He raised an eyebrow. "Why would I do that?"

"I'll haunt you."

His eyes glinted with laughter. "Will you now?"

I rose into the air. He copied me, angelic in comparison, blonde hair a halo around his head. Glancing around the room, I spotted a bust that looked— I squinted— exactly like him. I envisioned myself tipping it over, and suddenly, I was right next to it. Even then, he beat me to it, gripping my wrists so hard that my stake clattered to the floor. He raised his eyebrows, amused.

"I'm going to coffin," he said. "You'd better be gone by the time I wake."

He let me go, landing softly and strutting away.

"Your fangs are blunt!" I called. He paused, turning slowly to glare, but his tongue darted along the edges of his teeth. I shrugged. "Just thought you'd want to know."

He narrowed his eyes, then whipped around and disappeared down the corridor.

It couldn't end like this. But what could I do to make him help me? He was faster, more powerful, far scarier than me.

The idea struck me at the front door.

*****

The sun set. Inside his velvet-lined coffin, the vampire stirred.

"Rise and shine, Blunt-Fangs."

He opened his eyes drowsily. Saw me. Blinked.

He shrieked, throwing the lid open and clambering out.

"How long have you been hovering over me like a— a creep—?!"

"Thirty… forty minutes?"

"Forty—!"

"I couldn't stay all day, could I?" I closed the lid and sat down. "I made a list of all the ways I've freed ghosts— Oh, don't look so scandalised! I said I'd haunt you. Now…" I eyed him, lacy white shirt, corset pants, long bejewelled coat. "Change into something… summery. We're going to the beach."

"The beach?"

"To burn my body." I started for the door, glanced over my shoulder. He stood frozen, long fingers clutching the front of his coat. "Or would you rather we share your coffin permanently—?"

"Fine." He strode forward. "But if you so much as set foot into this room again, so help me, I'll—"

"Kill me?"

He glowered at me. I smiled, then strolled down the corridor.

*****

"Léandre, what do your vampire eyes see?"

On the shore, Léandre peered at me, fangs bared in his trademark look of judgement. I sighed.

"Can you find my body or not?"

"What do I look like, a human?"

Hoisting his coat up with one hand, he held the other over the water, palm down. A splash and something shot out, hurtling towards us. I gasped, stumbled backwards, but I needn't have. Léandre flicked his wrist, and the object jerked to a halt. He lowered his palm, and my corpse lowered itself onto the sand. I stared into my own lifeless eyes and held back a scream. Léandre trudged away.

"Aren't you going to help me carry this thing?"

"It's your body."

I huffed, then bent over, looking away as I wormed my arms underneath its squelching form and lifted it off the sand with… ease. Of course, I thought. Ghost strength.

At a nearby grassy plane, we gathered wood for a fire, which Léandre lit, sparks flying from his fingertips.

"You're welcome."

We set the body down to dry.

"You know," I began. "Souls are sometimes tied to the mortal plane by unfinished business."

Léandre sighed. "And?"

"And I had some business left unfinished… involving a wooden stake and someone with blunt fangs—"

"Do you know," Léandre spat, "in all my 312 years, I have never met anyone as irritating as you?"

"If it's of any consolation, you don't look a day over 200."

"If I could kill you again, Lunch, I'd do it in a heartbeat."

My body looked sufficiently dry. "In that case," I picked it up, "let's hope this works." Léandre held out a palm, then raised it. I watched in awe as the fire obediently stretched upwards. He raised an eyebrow, half-expectant, half-amused. I caught myself, closing my mouth.

"I guess this is goodbye, Blunt-Fangs," I yelled over the roaring flames.

"It couldn't have come sooner!"

I tossed my body into the blaze.

The fire spluttered and raged. Léandre watched it, his hair glowing in the firelight. Very slowly, it fizzled and dimmed, until it was nothing more than a handful of flickers and sparks, then nothing.

"Finally," Léandre whispered, and turned around.

He cried out, leaping backwards, almost onto my charred remains.

"Still here, I'm afraid."

He groaned, burying his face in his hands.

"I promise, I'm as disappointed as you are."

*****

The following evening, we moved to number two on my list: prized possessions.

"We're looking for anything my soul might be tied to," I said, letting Léandre into the dingy little cottage in the middle of nowhere, my home since childhood. "Meaningful objects."

"Any pets?" he asked, leaning against the doorframe, judging my bedroom.

"No, I never had time—" I whipped around. "No! And even if I did— God, you really are a monster." I pushed past him with my armful of keepsakes, starting a pile on the immense lawn of dead weeds.

"I killed you, but this is what makes me a monster?"

I poked through cabinets and shelves, filling my arms with souvenirs. Léandre started with the bookshelf, picking out books seemingly at random.

"What are you doing?"

"These are the most worn out." I studied the titles he dumped on the pile, Pride and Prejudice, Dracula, other assorted classics. My favourites. I stole a glance; he took only the ones with the most crinkled spines. A rush of warmth passed through me. He looked human in that moment, filling his arms with my books. I shook my head, returning to the task at hand.

*****

"You humans and your workaholism," Léandre said as I topped the pile off with my laptop, before setting my most prized possessions on fire like he was simply flicking dirt off his fingernails.

"Not human anymore," I said, my chest aching as the blaze engulfed my books, my mother's watch, my brother's cars, my father's hat.

The fire died, leaving a pile of ash on my lawn, and me.

"Why is it so hard to get rid of you?" Léandre said, and I must have looked dejected, because he followed up with, "What, are you going to cry?"

"I just burned all I had left of my family for nothing."

"Everybody loses people. Get over it." He stormed into the house.

Bruised as I was, I suspected this outburst had nothing to do with me. "Who did you lose?"

He stopped in the middle of the dining room.

"You must have lost lots of people, being immortal." His shoulders rose and fell, then suddenly, he beelined for the sofa. "What are you doing?" He sat down, and I watched in disbelief as he turned on the TV with a flick of his wrist.

"Well, go on. Put on your favourite movie, or whatever you humans watch these days."

Wordlessly, I made for my DVDs, feeding Bram Stoker's Dracula into the player.

"You're kidding."

"It's a classic!"

"It's ridiculous!"

I'd barely sat down when the commentary began.

"Completely inaccurate. We vampires are far better looking than that."

"I'm not so sure."

He hissed at me, and I broke into peals of laughter.

"Alright." He stared at me, thoroughly offended. "That's enough. Shut up."

Indignant gasps, persistent outbursts, at one point, yelling at the screen that vampires cannot, under any circumstances, survive daylight, and that everyone responsible for this film ought to be drunk to their very last drop. I shook with laughter for 128 minutes.

"We're burning this," he said, the second it was over.

"Fine. Now will you answer my question?"

His expression softened and he turned away.

"I promise I won't laugh."

A long pause, then…

"I lost my family long ago. Woes of immortality. I tried my hardest to hold onto them; souvenirs…" He gestured toward my now-empty shelves. "My mother's favourite books, spines so creased they were unreadable, my brothers' shirts. A hundred years later, my eternal youth attracted suspicion from the church, and I was forced to flee Surrey." Red tears rimmed his eyes. "There was no time to pack. All I could do was run."

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "It must be lonely, living forever."

He smiled sadly. "You get used to it."

I hoped I wouldn't have to. Though, perhaps… I watched him turn away, wipe his eyes.

Perhaps, if I was stuck here, I wouldn't have to—

"Doesn’t this place have an attic?" Léandre said suddenly.

 I gasped. "I'm an idiot!"

"No need to state the obvious— hey!"

I'd appeared in the attic. I swung open the trapdoor and Léandre floated up.

"I haven't been up here since..." Since I'd found my brother's body, sprawled amongst his toy cars.

I opened a box at random— my childhood diaries. Léandre knelt before another box, flipping through a photo album.

"Hey!" I snatched it away. "These are for burning, not judging!" His face paled. "Léandre?"

He blinked, shook his head. "Sorry. You were just such an ugly child." He picked up the box and floated down. Curious, I looked at the photo.

The four of us with the school bus that would take me to summer camp. Me, in my school uniform, my parents grinning on either side of me, and my brother, clutching my hand and crying. "See you in two weeks," my mother had said. And I had, my mother's body on the old sofa, my father's, on the floor next to hers, and my brother's, here, in the attic.

I wiped my face before joining Léandre on the lawn. We shuttled up and down, emptying the attic, then Léandre extended his fingers like he had before.

No sparks flew out.

"Is something wrong—?"

"I'm sorry."

I stared at him. He stared at the pile. "What for?"

"For— for killing you."

"Oh. Thanks?"

He nodded, then, out shot the sparks.

The fire raged, growing taller than the house within seconds.

"Look out!" I shoved Léandre out the way, a spark passing right through me and setting a patch of dead grass alight. "Why is it so big?!"

"It was a big pile!"

Another spark; we ducked under it.

"You need to get out of here!"

Léandre nodded. We made for the house, reaching the threshold as a fireball landed in the doorway. Léandre jumped backwards, spinning frantically, but the fire had snaked across the dead grass, boxing us in.

Without thinking, I grabbed his hands.

"Hold on!"

He nodded. I closed my eyes and pictured the road in front of the house as clearly as I could. Pictured the two of us standing there.

My knees buckled, my head spun, but when I opened my eyes, we were on the road, Léandre before me, squeezing the life out of my hands.

"You did it!" He smiled wider than I'd ever seen, fangs just shy of poking his lower lip. My chest warmed.

I turned to the cottage. It had been swallowed whole by the fire, and yet…

"I'm still here."

His smile fell. I dropped my gaze, down to his once dazzling coat, covered in soot, our hands, also covered in soot—

—still clinging together.

I pulled mine away. A sharp intake of breath from Léandre, then he slipped his into his pockets.

"We should go." I started towards his Bentley.

*****

The blaze shrank rapidly in the side mirror.

"Looks like we burnt down my house and nearly killed you for nothing."

"You have terrible taste," Léandre said. "The fire did you a favour." He winked.

Despite the gaping ache in my chest, my heart skipped. "We should do you a favour and burn down your mansion."

"Very funny." He scrunched his nose at me, grinning all the same.

"Thank you," I said suddenly. "For all your help."

A flash of a smile which he twisted into a smirk. "My only other option was to share a coffin with you for eternity."

I laughed. "Would that really have been so terrible?"

"Yes," Léandre said bluntly. "Though, seeing as you just saved my life… perhaps I'd consider it."

"I wouldn't."

His gaze snapped to mine. I winked. Palpable relief, then, he hissed, sending me into a fit of laughter.

"I guess you're stuck with me until I figure out my unfinished business," I said as we parked and hurried into the mansion.

"Don't think too hard on it." He locked the door with the flick of a wrist. "I'm rather enjoying having you around to insult."

But a thought niggled at the back of my mind.

Léandre couldn't have been my unfinished business. I killed vampires all the time. Why should this one be so important?

Unless…

No. Ghost-life wasn't half as miserable as I'd expected. Why ruin it—?

The picture he'd been staring at, the last photo taken of my family, looking the same as when they'd died. The way he'd paled… When he'd apologised— for killing me, he'd said— but he couldn't look at me. And he'd known about the attic, where I'd found my brother...

My stomach dropped. I watched him flit about the room, shutting the curtains, lighting the candles…

"I'd better head to coffin…"

I barely heard him. I glanced under the bust— my wooden stake. I crept over, picked it up.

"…Though I was thinking, maybe this time, you could join me? Leia?" I turned. He was watching me, nervous.

"It was you, wasn't it?"

His face blanched.

"That's why you're my unfinished business. You're the one I've been looking for. You killed them."

"Leia…" His voice was quiet. "I'm so sorry—"

Tears stung my eyes. "You've known since the attic. Since you saw that photo—"

"Leia—"

"Why?" I cried, my voice cracking. "Why them?"

He shook his head, eyes wide. "I… I was hungry."

Hungry.

The circle of life, he'd called it.

There was no evil plan, no grand purpose to their deaths.

Léandre had simply been hungry.

Rage, coursing through my veins. I glitched forward, knocking him off his feet and pinning him to the ground, stake raised above my head.

"How could you not tell me?!"

He stared up at me. "How could I? We'd just started getting along—!"

"What, did you think I'd move in? We'd watch movies together? Live happily ever after—?"

"Don't act like you never thought about it." His voice shook, eyes red-rimmed. "Don't pretend you didn’t feel it too—"

"That was before I knew you killed my family!"

He winced, red tears running down his temple, staining that silky blonde hair. "If you want to kill me," he whispered. "I won't stop you."

I wanted to. More than anything. And yet…

"Do it, Leia. You're right. I am a monster." My tears dripped onto his face. "Please. It's what I deserve."

"No."

I lowered my stake arm. Léandre's eyes widened, brows knitted.

"I refuse to put you out of your misery." I got to my feet. "I'm going to live the life you took from me the best I can. When I'm done, that's when I'll find you, and I'll kill you."

He lay there, eyes wide and red, hair streaked with blood.

I floated into the sunlight.