Vampire Thing Part 3

I held the sword in my hand. The pommel was a bright blue gem that was probably supposed to represent something mystical and awesome but succeeded only in looking gaudy. The guy who had handed it to me had NERD written in capital letters across his forehead. He probably spent his weekends playing Dungeons and Dragons or something equally weird.

I ran my thumb along the blade. “It’s not sharp.”

The man chortled. “Well, no of course not.”

“How do you expect me to decapitate someone with a blunt blade?” I asked.

His face paled. “It’s not supposed to be used…practically. It’s purely decorative.”

I looked at the sword. “Why would I want to use this to decorate my house when I could buy a nice painting instead? I need a sword. Not a decoration posing as a sword but a real live sword that can chop the head off a vampire.” I hadn’t meant to say that last bit. I never was known for keeping secrets, even when they were my own.

“V-vampires?”

“So you see why I need a sword, right?” I asked. “It’s not like I want to go on a murdering rampage.”

“I never said you did.”

“So where’s my sword with the nasty sharp blade?”

He licked his lips and stared at his feet. “We don’t sell those kind.”

What? “Why not?”

“Just not good for business see…in case anybody crazy ever came in…” His voice trailed off.

“I am not crazy.”

“I never said you were, ma’am.”

“But you think I am, don’t you? Just because I want to kill a vampire. Well, let me tell you, they do exist. Where do you think all the stories came from?” I decided not to mention that just a mere week ago I didn’t believe in them either – that was besides the point.

“Crazy people?”

I sighed. “I’ll take the bloody sword though it’ll be useless if push comes to shove. It’ll make a nice threatening gesture, I think.”

The man’s face lit up with the biggest smile I ever saw. It was too big to be real. After I paid, he called to me and asked me to come again.

Fat chance, that. As if I’d come to a lousy business that didn’t even sell a real sword.

I did a few practice swings and lunges when I got home. I only had a few hours before I met the vampire at the donation center and I wanted to be sure that my threatening gestures would be, you know, threatening; fear inspiring…you know, that sort of thing.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I had decided to wear black for the occasion, with a faux leather jacket and boots. I had hoped it make me look more like a self confident, assured hero personage, but I still looked more like…food.

And I still had no idea on what to say to the vampire. They should have stayed in books where they belonged.

It didn’t take long to drive to the blood bank. I opened the door and found the vampire waiting for me behind the desk. Her name tag said Jonathan. “That’s a boy’s name.”

Jonathan shrugged. “I’ve never been a boy before. I never considered it before, but a couple hundred years gives a body lots of time to think.”

“A boy’s name doesn’t make you anymore a boy. You need…certain body parts and hormones.”

“My hormones don’t work anymore, I think,” Jonathan said. “I mean…I’m dead.”

A walking, talking, blood sucking, stiff. Nightmarish. “I suppose you want me to give blood again, huh?”

“Yes.”

“What if I said no?”

Jonathan shrugged. “We’d take it from you. You probably wouldn’t live through it.”

“Right.” I shifted the fake sword into a more comfortable position.

“That won’t help you,” Jonathan said as she prepared me.

“It’ll help me lop your head off.”

Jonathan laughed. She seemed quite unconcerned, which was disturbing. Maybe living for years and years made death not quite so fearsome and bitter. Still, I wouldn’t like being immortal – never knowing what death was like for all those years. The looming threat would just continue to loom and get bigger and bigger until, even though I’d be immortal, I’d be terrified of it. It’d be like this great old monster who’d grown too big to stay under the bed. No thanks. I’ll burn my candle now.

As she prepared me, she asked, “Any more ideas?”

I picked at my lip with my free hand. “Well, you said it wasn’t magical. Do you not have a heart?”

Jonathan laughed again. She laughed too much. It was unnatural. “How could I be a vampire without a heart?

“You are a vampire, right?”

“Of course…what else would I be?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. You lot shouldn’t exist anyway.”

Jonathan sniffed and said very coldly, “No need to be so hateful.”

“You’re the one that wants to kill me!”

She nodded at the sword by my side. “And what’s that supposed to be for, as well as that wooden stake in your pocket?”

“You started it,” I said. “Chasing me. Threatening to bite me. The whole killing you thing is all about self defense.”

“And trying to kill you is all about me defending my right to survival.”

“Technically you’re already dead. It’s time to move on.”

Jonathan pricked my arm with another needle and licked the bead of blood from my skin.

“Hey! No touchy. That’s disgusting.”

“Technically we have no heart beat. We have no breath. We stopped breathing and our hearts were silent, so our loved ones assumed that we were dead. We rose hungry the next night, possessed by something more powerful than life.”

That sounded a lot like splitting hairs to me, but I wasn’t going to say that out loud.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” I asked.

“You don’t,” Jonathan said as she stared at my blood that poured into the pint pouch. “But you should know that I have everything to gain by telling the truth – so why would I jeopardize that by lying?”

“Oh.” I think that I should have paid more attention to my psychology courses. Of course, maybe that line of thought didn’t apply to walking corpses. “So you have your heart and it’s not some sort of magic spell that didn’t cause you to die. Did I miss your heart? I mean, I’m no whiz at anatomy but the heart is just on the left side.”

“Yes. You missed my heart.”

“So this whole song and dance was over something that trivial?” I asked. I pulled myself into a sitting position – if she got hungry she wouldn’t get me on my back.

“No,” Jonathan said. And then she laughed.

“You said that people would know how to kill you…that your secret would be gone. Yet, there would be no secret if I had just missed your heart,” I said.

Jonathan nodded and smiled. Her teeth were pointed fangs. “Continue.”

I could tell that it wasn’t a request but a command. I tried to remember all the physical ailments of the heart that I could remember from my health and anatomy classes. And then it came to me. “Your heart is on the right side of your body.”

Jonathan smiled at me. It was quite terrifying…all those teeth. “It’s a medical condition called situs inversus. It took me years to figure it out.”

“Do you have to kill me now?” I asked.

“I’m afraid so.”

There aren’t any words for that dread, terrified sort of feeling that made me sick to my stomach. I remember wrenching the needle from my skin and throwing it at her face. “Sorry to disappoint, but I like being alive.”

“I did once, too,” Jonathan said. Her eyes looked a little sad when she said it. “But I hunger. I wish to feel fear, to feel the underlying anger that feeds your fear. I wish to feel the sun on my face once more. And you are young, you are alive and I want it. I need it. I hunger for it fiercely.”

I backed away from her, and fumbled for my stake.

“Don’t try to run. The door is locked. There is no where for you to go.”

The thoughts dashing around in my head consisted mostly of four letter words and incoherent phrases that urged me to run far far far away. But that hadn’t worked last time. I had been saved only by dumb luck.

“Wait!” It sounded more like a squeak than a word.

Jonathan stopped, and looked at me curiously. “Why?”

“Because I have a better idea!” I don’t know if it was a good idea or not, but anything has to be better than bleeding to death to feed some vampire, right?

“What?” she asked.

“I propose a compromise.”

“Compromises are pacts with the devil, are they not?”

“Well, some people consider vampires to be demons so it’s not that far from the truth for us.”

“I am losing patience, I grow hungry,” Jonathan said as she stepped towards me.

“How about I come here every week and I’ll let you bite me anywhere that’s not the jugular or any other important artery vein thingy?” I said quickly. “Fresh blood direct from the vein.” I knew as the words blurted from my mouth that, eventually, this would be a bad idea. Well, until I killed her at least, which wasn’t a great idea to do it then, weakened as I was by blood and the fact that her cronies were around somewhere. And when the time did come, when she least expected it and when she was alone, I’d stab her on the right side of her chest and cut off her head, so that there’d be absolutely no mistake. I didn’t plan on being a walking talking blood tap for some vampire any longer than necessary.

Jonathan licked her lips. I could see the greed light up her eyes. “Alright.”

“Next week then?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I don’t think I’ll kill her next week, or even the week after that. I just hope I can kill her before I die accidentally. That adage about slippery slopes is real. I should have stabbed her over and over again when I first met her…but I had allowed my fear to cripple. Not again, not ever again.