Temptation

I immediately noticed her pale skin. Pale translucent skin, the type of skin that goes with red hair and freckles. One to two per cent of the population. Long red hair falling straight to her shoulders. Red hair that she shook back, exposing her pale neck. I thought I saw a pulse. ‘Alabaster skin’. Isn’t that what they call it? Green eyes and the delicate look that would get her on the front of any magazine.

I dragged my eyes away and concentrated on what my group were discussing. I sipped my drink, but my eyes kept drifting back to the girl and her pale, pale skin.

Then, suddenly, she had gone. A different group of people sat at the table that she and her friends had occupied. I glanced around, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“What’s up, mate?” Colin asked. “You’re quiet tonight.”

“Just tired, Col.”

“But it’s early!” he protested.

I laughed. He and the others had been steadily drinking and looked like they were going to be there all night. A wave of fatigue swept over me.

“I’m going to call it a night, guys. I might be getting the flu or something.”

Someone mentioned Covid-19 of course. To a chorus of catcalls and jeers, I stood up and left, smiling and waving dismissively at them as I went. The girl was not in sight as I left the bar, but I’d expected that.

***

“Vampire Killer Strikes Again!”

I read the article as I ate my curry. Apparently the body of a man aged about thirty had been found in a car in a car park near some public gardens. I read it again, but the article mentioned nothing that would connect the murder with the Vampire Killer.

I reflected on the fact that the ‘Vampire Killer’ didn’t kill vampires, but instead he killed humans and, supposedly, drank their blood. I wondered about the education of the journalists who wrote the headlines, but maybe they knew exactly what they were doing. ‘Killer Vampire’ didn’t grab one’s attention in quite the same way.

Of more concern to me, though, was the fact that I knew that the ‘Vampire Killer’ had not killed this person. I knew it, because I was the Vampire Killer. Yes, I drained humans of their blood, leaving only an empty husk. I don’t like the fact that I am a vampire. I don’t know if I could exist without taking human blood, but every time I’d tried to give it up, the temptation had slowly built to the point where it became irresistible.

The girl. My thoughts kept returning to the girl. I tried to put her out of my mind.

I’d been living in the city for three years now, and I’d only given in to the temptation twice, but still, someone had connected those two killings and invented the Vampire Killer. Now apparently, they had decided that this new killing was also the work of the same person!

I thought of the girl. Her long pale neck. No! I didn’t want her blood! I didn’t want to experience the initial gush of blood as I bit her neck, the solid flow for a minute or so, and the trickle as the flow died, and her last expiration as she passed away. I didn’t!

“Come on!” I told myself. “You’re better than this!”

It was rare for me to be attracted to my ‘victims’, but it happened. I wanted to track down the girl and get to know her, but I was afraid that I would end up looking down at her drained body. I didn’t know if I could control my dark side.

Apart from anything else, if the Vampire Killer were to strike again so soon after the recent murder, the city would be plunged into chaos. The citizens would panic and start to suspect one another, and the authorities would be forced to ‘take steps’. Who knew what they would do? Mirrors in public spaces? Garlic over the entrance ways to buildings? Everyone carrying a Bible on their person. Cops with silver bullets and wooden stakes? Well, the mirrors and the garlic would not affect me, of course, but the silver bullets and wooden stakes could.

My thoughts strayed to her again. What the hell?

***

I was coming out of the coffee place when she came in. I confess that I started, as if someone had jabbed me with a needle. She must have seen it, but she smiled at me.

“You were in the bar the other day. You kept looking at me.”

“I’m s-s-sorry,” I stuttered and she laughed.

“That’s OK. I was watching you too.”

“Ah, er. Can I buy you a coffee?”

“Sure, but not here. Down by the river? But you’ll have to drink that quickly.” She gestured at the coffee that I’d just bought.”

“Oh, er, yes!” I couldn’t walk into a coffee shop with coffee from another place.

I’m sure that she was laughing at my confusion, so I dumped my coffee in the first bin we passed.

“Right, sorry,” I said. “My name’s Dana. What’s yours?”

“What a waste!” She was openly laughing. “My name is Niamh.”

“Neev?”

“It’s Irish!” She spelled it out for me.

“I thought that I detected an accent!”

I bought her a coffee. “It’s actually a lot better coffee here than at that other place.”

She nodded. “I know.”

We sat in the coffee place chatting for a long time, but in the end, I had to leave.

“Work. Sorry.”

We arranged to meet again.

“You eat me up with your eyes,” she said.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so intense. Is it off-putting?”

“No. It’s quite sweet. See you tomorrow.”

“Sure. Looking forward to it.”

***

We went out together a few times, and I was conflicted. I liked her, maybe loved her, as a person, but my mind kept drifting to the crunch of a fatal bite to her pale white neck and the taste and feel of blood coursing down my throat. The two parts of me were battling as they never had before, and I was a little exhausted by it. She probably noticed, but maybe she thought that I was just shy. She didn’t say a word.

Things were not progressing between us because of my internal conflict. I was afraid of the blood-sucking part of me and what it might do. In the end she made the decision for me and invited herself to my flat.

I showed her around and returned to cooking our meal. I opened a bottle of wine, and poured us a glass. She praised my flat, my cooking, the wine, and all the while I was holding my dark side under tight control. We finished eating and a silence fell.

“Let’s go to bed,” she said, taking my hand.

***

I lay on my back with my arm around her, while she lay coiled up in my bed, dozing. Her soft skin, so soft, pressed against me. I had done it! I had controlled my dark side and resisted the temptation! The desire for blood seemed to have left me for once, and I felt so free!

I kissed her on the top of her head and she straightened herself up in my bed and turned to face me. She still had a blush on her cheeks and smiled at me.

“Dana,” she said and sank her teeth into my jugular and clamped her mouth around the flow of blood. I felt pain and shock from the bite and from the realisation that I had fatally miscalculated. At the last instant, I felt a deep feeling of acceptance, of rightness, of death.

***