Waiting For Sunrise

It is frowned upon for my kind to develop romantic attachments, especially with one another. This makes a certain amount of sense when you take into consideration the fact that our lives are lived in shadow, evading the Hunters that seek to wipe us out of existence.

Yet it is nearly impossible to make the heart understand reason. This is true even of a heart that no longer beats.

Her name was Callie and she was my child. By this I mean that I was the one who bestowed upon her the blessing (or curse) of immortality.

Our relationship was at first that of teacher and student. I taught her where to hunt so that no one else's territory was encroached upon. I taught her how to feed without endangering the lives of her victims, drinking only enough to leave them feeling a bit light headed as though they had donated at a blood bank, and how to erase their memory afterward. I taught her how to recognize and avoid those that call themselves Hunters.

I don't know exactly when it happened, for it was a slow and gradual process, but during those nights of lessons and conversations Callie and I fell in love with each other.

She is gone now and I am left to wander the nights alone.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Perhaps I should begin with our meeting.

I had just risen with the fall of evening and was making my way toward my favorite nightclub when I heard a shrill scream of mingled pain and terror emanating from one of the nearby narrow graffiti-scrawled alleyways.

Melting into the shadows at the mouth of the alley, I was able to observe without being observed. The deep shadows and lack of sufficient lighting were not a hindrance to me.

There was a young woman lying on the cracked and dirty pavement with a muscular man bent over her.

He did not hear me as I approached him swiftly and clamped both hands about his neck, slamming him against the wall and pinning him there. The knife clattered against the cement as it slipped from his slackening grasp. He choked and sputtered, his feet desperately pedaling the air two inches above the ground. The steady pulse of his carotid artery beneath my fingers reminded me that I had not yet fed.

"I'm sorry," he gasped out. His eyes were wide and full of terror. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'll turn myself in. I promise. Just let me go. Please let me go."

I lowered him just enough for his feet to touch the ground but did not release my hold on him.

He gasped as my fangs broke through the skin of his neck. His blood, hot and rich, flowed over my tongue and down my throat. I drank until his pulse began to slow almost imperceptibly. I pressed the palm of my hand against the two puncture wounds I had left and murmured "heal."

Under any other circumstance I would have entirely wiped my victim's memory of our encounter, but this time I wanted him to remember. I wanted him to quail in terror every time he walked past a darkened alleyway.

"Go on," I instructed him, giving him a rough shove back out onto the street. "Go turn yourself in like you promised."

He ran as though all the demons of hell were hot on his heels, leaving his knife where it had fallen.

I walked over to the crumpled form of the young woman and knelt down at her side. She was still breathing, albeit with some difficulty. The man had stabbed her twice. Although he had missed any vital organs, the wounds appeared to be deep and she was bleeding out at an alarming pace. She showed no signs of consciousness.

There was only one way I could save her life. It would have to, under the circumstances, be done without her consent. Turning a person without giving them a choice first is against our code but at the time I could not afford to debate with myself. Her life was at stake and time was running short.

So I lifted the young woman into my arms and carried her back to my apartment.

When I laid her down in my coffin her eyelids fluttered open for just an instant.

"Help me," she whispered. Her voice was not much louder than a gentle breeze stirring the leaves of the trees.

"I am," I murmured. I knelt down beside her and lowered my lips to the side of her neck.

Unlike feeding, Turning an individual requires them to be drained of blood to the very point of death. When her thready pulse was barely detectable I sat back on my heels and bit through the skin of my own inner wrist. When the blood welled up to the surface I held it to her slack mouth.

"Come on, come on, drink," I encouraged her.

For several long seconds she lay still with her eyes closed, my blood dribbling untasted over her lower lip and down her chin. At last the tip of her tongue protruded from her mouth and gave my wrist a tentative lick. A moment later she was latched on, holding my arm to her mouth with both hands and gulping voraciously.

When I pulled my wrist away she once again reclined against the silken pillow of my coffin, her breathing shallow and rapid.

She emitted a low moan and her limbs convulsed all at once as her heart ceased beating and her mortal body expired. When her eyes opened they were as cold and colorless as my own, and her canine teeth had lengthened into curved fangs.

She sat up slowly, staring first at me then down at the bed she sat in.

"I'm in a coffin," she observed with a note of panic.

"Yes," I agreed.

"I'm in a coffin!"

"Yes. Don't worry. It's my coffin, not yours." I didn't add that we would have to procure one for her as well.

"Am I...am I dead?"

"Yes and no," I answered truthfully.

"What happened? Where am I? Who are you?"

"My name's Summer, you're in my apartment, and I saved your life. You were attacked and stabbed, and you would have died if I hadn't brought you back here and Turned you."

"What do you mean turned me? Turned me into what? Are you...am I..." Her voice trailed off as understanding dawned in her inhuman eyes. "No. No!"

"I had to," I apologized. "I couldn't just let you die."

She hoisted herself out of my coffin and ran into the small restroom I have never had cause to use.

"I can see myself in the mirror," she commented when she returned a second or two later. Her inflection hovered somewhere between relief and disappointment.

"Of course you can," I answered. "You don't really believe those rumors do you?"

"Is it all just rumors? Do crosses and garlic ward us off?"

I sighed to myself. I should have been prepared for the onslaught of questions.

"I can only speak for myself," I stated, shrugging my shoulders. "I'm not fond of looking at crosses, but I wasn't when I was alive either. As far as garlic goes I hate the smell, and if I feed on someone who's just eaten a lot of it I suffer a little indigestion. But I'm not afraid of it."

"Does a stake through the heart kill us?"

"Who wouldn't be killed by a stake through the heart?"

"Well, okay, I guess that's a good point. Sunlight?"

"Yes, sunlight will turn us to dust and kill us. You never want to be caught outside at sunrise. That one's not a rumor."

"What about bats?"

"What about them?"

"Can we turn into bats? Or wolves? Or mist?"

As tiresome as her excited questioning was I was relieved to note that she seemed to have recovered quickly from the initial shock. Curiosity was preferable to panic.

"We can't turn into mist. That's silly," I reproached her. "I can turn myself into a wolf, but I don't tend to do that unless I'm somewhere that wolves can naturally be found. We don't want to draw too much attention to ourselves."

"What about bats? Can you turn into a bat?"

"To tell you the truth, I don't know. I've never tried. Now let me ask you a question. What do I call you?"

"Callie."

"Well, Callie, are you hungry?"

"Starving!" She agreed with an enthusiastic nod of her head.

"Then let's go get you a bite."

From that night onward Callie and I were constant companions. I have already mentioned that I taught her everything she needed to know about the ways of the Vampires. There is no need to bore you with the details of her lessons.

I don't know whether it was over the course of months or years (for the passage of time holds little meaning for my kind) that our relationship deepened and matured from teacher and student to the closest of friends, and then to lovers.

We never did acquire a coffin for Callie. We spent the days locked up together in mine with my arms wrapped about her and our bodies pressed close together until moonrise woke us up.

It was a beautiful balmy summer evening, very much like tonight.

Callie and I had just finished feeding from a young couple who had been walking hand and hand through the city park. After we healed their wounds, wiped their memories and sent them along on their way again I leaned in to lick a dribble of blood from the corner of her mouth.

"Messy eater," I teased her fondly.

She giggled and kissed me.

"I love you, Summer," she whispered against my lips.

"I love you too," I returned.

It was then that I caught the faint but unmistakable scent on the breeze. Hunter. All senses on sudden alert, I scanned our surroundings.

He was leaning against the trunk of a tree a yard or so from us, clad entirely in black with the brim of his hat pulled down low to obscure his face.

"Run!" I cried. Callie and I broke into a sprint, racing across the grass.

I doubt a human could have heard the soft whickering sound behind us, but my hearing is a great deal more acute than a human's.

I spun about just in time to see the thrown lasso settle down over Callie's shoulders, binding her arms to her sides. Just in time to see her jerked backward off her feet to thud to the ground on her back.

I reached her before the Hunter did, and was working at the knot of the rope with my hands and fangs when some blunt object struck the side of my head with a great deal of force.

It only took a moment to recover my senses, but that moment was all the time the Hunter needed to drive his sharpened wooden stake through Callie's heart. She let out one long wail, echoed by my own, and died.

I don't need to detail the Hunter's fate to you. Suffice it to say he did not walk out of the park that night.

Time has passed since then, although I can't say how much or how little. I have not Turned anyone since Callie, nor have I persued another relationship either with a human or one of my own kind.

My eternal existence feels meaningless now. All the small joys my nightly wanderings had once brought me feel hollow and empty. The warm summer breeze on my face, which I used to delight in, now only reminds me of my lover's absent touch.

I sigh and rest my head against the side of the bus stop shelter.

"Excuse me, Miss?" Taken by surprise, I jerk upright again to face the ragged old man who had spoken. "Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I was just wondering if you had a quarter to spare."

"I might." I dig my wallet out of the back pocket of my jeans and extract a five dollar bill, handing it to him.

"Oh, bless you, Miss. God bless you," he says over his shoulder as he turns away.

I am unable to suppress my bitter laughter.

"He won't."

The vagrant turns around again to give me a quizzical glance, his head cocked to one side.

"Are you all right, Miss?"

"No."

"Do you want to talk about it? I'm a good listener."

"No."

"Well, is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?"

I take a deep breath.

"There is one thing," I reply. "Can you tell me where the best place is to sit and watch the sunrise?"