Soulmate

Florien felt a deep sense of regret and shame, overlaid with a heart wrenching panic, as he contemplated the gravity of his error. He’d eaten something he shouldn’t have. He’d eaten the artist, Sarah Jane.

With self loathing settling in his stomach and the imminent repercussions resounding in his head, he withdrew his fangs from her neck and she slid to the ground in a boneless heap. The panic rose in his dead heart as he staggered to the side table where his phone was on charge, and opened his saved contacts. He only had one number, Mrs Bedford, and he pressed the call button with a shaking finger.

“Hello?” Mrs Bedford’s voice was slurred, full of sleep.

“Mrs B, it’s me, Florien. I need you. I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

“Florien, love. What time is it? It’s the middle of the night.”

“I ate her!”

There was a long pause, and some shuffling on the other end of the line, and then Mrs Bedford spoke again, this time with more clarity. “Oh Florien, what happened?”

And Florien explained it all. How the artist had come to paint his picture, and she just smelt so good, every touch, every glance sending him wild, and not in the good, sexy sense, but in a wild, uncontrollable vampiric sense. He explained that the girl didn’t have the common sense to fear him and run when she could, and how his primal side had taken over as he pounced on her like a feral cat. The self revulsion and regret dripped from his every word, and he was near tears by the end of his recount.

“Oh Florien, oh my poor love!” Mrs Bedford’s sympathy was his undoing, and he was unable to control the soul wrenching gasps that erupted from his lips. God, he hated his existence. “Is the girl still alive?” Mrs B asked, ignoring his shaking sobs. “You did have two whole pints of blood this evening. Perhaps you didn’t drain her completely.”

Mrs Bedford was his supplier of bagged blood. She had organised an arrangement with all the people in the village, that in exchange for free rent, they’d donate blood for his consumption on a regular basis. It had kept everyone sane and safe until now.

“I don’t know.” Florien scurried over to the crumpled heap that was Sarah Jane, his stomach clenching as he grasped her wrist, his fingers shaking as he searched for a pulse. It was there, very light and thready, but the fluttering in her veins was reassuring. He leaned towards her, his cheek resting against her blue lips, as he desperately tried to feel her breath. Small, unsteady puffs of air trickled through her bloodless lips, so soft he could have missed it. “She’s alive, barely,” he told Mrs B.

“Well, love, can you heal her? Maybe you could turn her?”

Turn her! Hell no! Florien rejected the idea immediately. It was not something he’d ever done, and he’d sworn he would never turn anyone. His own turning had been painful, and he shuddered to think of his time as a newly birthed, wild vampire with no self control or sense of moral compass. Morals only came with age. It had taken him about two hundred years or so. Turning Sarah Jane would release another wild vampire into the world, and he just couldn’t do it to her. She’d be better off dead.

“Well, if you won’t turn her, we’d better heal her.” Mrs B was ever practical. “She’ll need a transfusion. What’s her blood type?”

Over the two hundred years or so of tasting blood, Florien had learned to distinguish the different flavours of each sample, the way a sommelier would identify the unique bouquet of fine wines. Each blood type was distinct. Sarah Jane was O positive.

“Right love, you just stay where you are, get the girl comfortable and warm, and I’ll fetch Geraldine and be right over.”

Comfortable and warm? Right, that meant a bed. Florien didn’t use a bed in this drafty old castle. His sleeping arrangements included a coffin in the basement where no light could enter. He had a severe, life-ending allergy to sunlight, and once he was asleep for the day, he slept like the dead, so a coffin seemed to be the most appropriate and comfortable space to hide from the daylight. He’d never really explored many of the chambers above, but he assumed one of them must be a furnished bedchamber. So, with cautious, gentle arms, he lifted Sarah Jane and carried her upstairs.

The feel of her cool skin pressed too closely against his own, nearly undid him yet again. Even this close to death, Sarah Jane ignited his feral vampiric senses. His mouth began to water and his teeth pressed against his lips, urging him to finish the job, to drain every last drop of her essence. Now that he knew the taste of her, his body trembled with wanting, needing, and it was almost unbearable to hold her so close and refrain from sinking his fangs into the sweet curve of her neck.

The first chamber he kicked open had a bed, thank god. He couldn’t torture himself with her nearness any longer. Carefully, he laid her to rest on the coverlet and pulled the surrounding blankets, wrapping her in a cocoon of warmth, like a burrito. Not that he’d ever eaten a burrito, but he’d seen the rolled up food served to others at Mrs Bedford’s pub. Now it was time to wait.

It wasn’t long by the clock, merely fifteen minutes or so, but every minute was like an hour, or a day, or an eternity for Florien as he waited. He struggled to resist the temptation to move closer to her. No form of torture could have been more painful, especially as this torture was self inflicted. He could end it with one swift bite and that evil thought niggled at his brain like an annoying buzz-fly, never leaving him alone.

It was a great relief to hear Mrs B’s voice holler up to him from below and he ran swiftly down the stairs to escort Mrs Bedford and Geraldine, the nurse, to the bedchamber. Geraldine eyed him with nervous caution. She had never really relaxed in his company, her unease evident in every interaction. He usually respected this and never forced his company upon her, but at this moment it barely registered with him, as he urged the women up the stairs and into the bedroom. He followed them, effortlessly carrying their bags and the large cooler, which likely contained the precious blood that Geraldine would use for the transfusion. At least his vampiric strength was good for something.

He supposed he should leave the room while the women worked. It would be the sensible thing to do for many reasons. It would relieve Geraldine of her tension and nerves, allowing her to complete her task without stress, and it would remove himself from the source of his torment. But his brain couldn’t seem to make his body follow any of its prompts. It wished to stay and determine if Sarah Jane would recover with his own eyes, so he slumped in the chair furthest from the bed, gripping the seat with his shaking hands.

Geraldine worked quickly to set up the transfusion equipment, hanging those tempting bags of blood from the IV pole and connecting it all to Sarah Jane’s arm.

“Now we wait,” she said, her voice cool and emotionless. “It could take days to bring her blood volume up.”

****

By the following evening, Sarah Jane was conscious again. Florien emerged from his basement after the sun had gone down, to see her laying wanly against the sheets, face pale but eyes open.

She turned her head as he entered with a soft, weary smile and asked, “Am I a vampire now?”

Florien was startled by the question, and it took him a few attempts at speech before he could answer with a simple “No.”

“Why not?”

She looked delectable lying there, and he couldn’t control his bodily response. The fangs emerged, making speaking with clarity difficult. Certain words always tangled in his mouth when he was in this state, and he often bit his own lip or tongue in the process of talking.

“You have no idea.” He strode to the cooler containing the bagged blood and viciously bit into one of the many bags inside, draining the whole thing in seconds. Hopefully that would keep his cravings for her at bay for a while. Sarah Jane watched him in rapt fascination.

“If I was a vampire too, you wouldn’t need a tinder profile.” It was the reason he had contracted her service as an artist. He’d needed a picture for his online dating app, and as a vampire, he was unable to cast a reflection or show in any photo. He was ashamed to recall that Sarah Jane had just completed his portrait when he had pounced upon her. “I feel a connection to you and I thought you might have felt it too.” Her voice was soft and thready, and a little confused.

“There is no way I would turn you, Sarah Jane. A fledgling vampire is an out-of-control beast. You would hurt everyone here and damage the delicate balance and efficient system that Mrs Bedford and I have set up. My whole life would be ruined if I turned you.”

“Oh.” It was a small defeated sound. A hurt acceptance of his rejection. “I thought we might have been soulmates.” Her voice was a soft whisper, that he wouldn’t have heard if it weren’t for his enhanced senses.

“Sarah Jane, life as a vampire is no life at all. I’d rather kill you than turn you. You see, I can’t have a soulmate, because I have no soul. When I die, I’m doomed. I will do anything to avoid death. You at least have the chance at redemption and an afterlife of heaven.”

“But I could share this life with you.”

“It is a horrible life. Do you know how many people I have killed in hot-blood? Thousands, millions. I lost count. Each time I took a life, I lost any chance of redemption. I am doomed and damned. Don’t ask me to doom you, too.”

Sarah Jane looked at him then with those luminous eyes sunken in her gaunt face. It was a disconcerting gaze, as if she could see right inside him, and as an artist, perhaps she could. Perhaps she saw more than the average person.

“If you care so much, there is no way that you don’t have a soul. You wouldn’t be able to care without one.”

It was as if the continent suddenly shifted, and Florien had been caught off guard. Could he possibly be wrong? Was there a way to atone for the sins of the past? A chance for forgiveness and redemption. It was more than he had ever expected, and his dead heart leapt with hope for the first time in centuries. A small fluttering began in his chest, and he rather thought it could be the awakening of something that might or might not be his soul.