Not all vampires drank blood according to the book. Some ate flesh either from the living or from the dead. Some took in a kind of spiritual essence or energy—whatever that meant. All took something from their subjects, usually not caring how they injured the subject. Many killed their subjects. Many were
dead themselves, but magically reanimated by the blood, flesh, or energy they took. One feeding usually meant the taking of one life. And that made no sense, at least for those who took blood. Who could need that much blood? Why kill a person who would willingly feed you again and again if you handled them carefully? No wonder vampires in folklore were feared, hated, and hunted.
Then my thoughts drifted back to the man I had killed at the cave. I killed and fed as viciously as any
fictional vampire. I ate a man without ever recognizing him as a man. I’d not yet read of a vampire doing that, but I had done it.
Did others of my kind do such things? Had I done such a thing before? Had someone found out about us and tried to kill us back at the ruin? That would seem almost ... just. But what about the other people
who had been at the ruin? Had they been like Wright or like me? Had the ruin been a nest of vampires? I could still remember the scents I had found here and there around the ruin where flesh had been burned. Now I tried to sort through them, understand who was who.
After a while, I understood that some of them had been like me and some like Wright—vampires and other people living and dying together. What did that mean?
Wright got up, came to stand beside me, and took the book out of my hands. He laid it open, its pages facedown on the table. “I think I’m strong enough to take you on now,” he said.
Perhaps he was, but I took only a few drops more of his blood while I enjoyed sex with him. It seemed necessary to take small amounts of his blood often. I felt a need for it that was something beyond hunger. It was a need for his blood specifically. No one else’s. I took it slowly and gave him as much pleasure as I could. In fact, I took delight in leaving him pleasurably exhausted.
I went out later when Wright was asleep and took a full meal from Theodora. She was smaller and older than Wright, and she would probably feel a little weak tomorrow, tired perhaps.
“What work do you do?” I asked her when she looked ready to drift off to sleep.
“I work for the county library,” she said. Then she laughed. “It doesn’t pay very well, but I enjoy it.” And then, as though my question had opened the door for her to talk to me, she said, “I didn’t think you were real. I thought I’d dreamed you.”
“I could be just a dream,” I said. I stroked her shoulder and licked the bite. I wondered what work was done in libraries, then knew. I had been in libraries. I had memories of rooms filled with books. Theodora worked with books and with people who used books.
“You’re a vampire,” she said, breaking into my thoughts. “Am I?” I went on licking her bite.
“Are you going to kill me?” she asked as though she didn’t care what the answer might be. And there was no tension in her.
“Of course not. But you shouldn’t go to work tomorrow. You might be a little weak.” “I’ll be all right. I don’t like to take time off.”
“Yes, you will be all right. Stay home tomorrow.”
She said nothing for a moment. She moved restlessly against me, moved away, then came back, accepting again, at ease. “All right. Will you come back to me again? Please come back.”
“In a week, maybe.” “That long?”
“I want you healthy.”
She kissed me. After a moment of surprise, I kissed her back. I held her, and she seemed very comfortable in my arms.
“Be real,” she said. “Please be real.”
“I’m real,” I told her. “Sleep now. I’m real, and I’ll come to you again. Sleep.”
She went to sleep, happily fitted against me, one arm over and around me. I lay with her a few moments, then slipped free and went home to Wright’s cabin.
On Friday evening after dark, Wright drove me back along the road where he had found me. The road was almost as empty on Friday as it had been when I walked it, barefoot and soaking wet. One or two cars every now and then. At least it wasn’t raining tonight.
“I picked you up near here,” Wright said.
I looked around and couldn’t make out much beyond his headlights. “Pull off the road when you can and turn your lights off,” I said.
“You can see in the dark like a cat, can’t you?” he asked.
“I can see in the dark,” I said. “I don’t know anything about cats so I can’t compare myself to them.”
He found a spot where there was room to pull completely off the road and park. There, he stopped and turned off his headlights. Across the road from us there was a hillside and, on our side of the road, a steep slope downward toward a little creek. This was a heavily wooded area, although there was a
clear-cut area not far behind us.
“We’re not far from the national forest,” he said. “We’re running parallel to it. Does anything look familiar?”
“Nothing yet,” I said. I got out of the car and looked down into the trees, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness.
I had walked this road. I began to walk it now, backtracking. After a while, Wright began to follow me in the car. He didn’t turn his lights on but seemed to have no trouble seeing me. I began to jog, always looking around, knowing that at some point it would be time for me to turn off onto a side road and go down into the woods.
I jogged for several minutes, then, on impulse, began to run. Wright followed until finally I spotted the side road that led to the ruin. I turned but he didn’t.
When he didn’t follow, I stopped and waited for him to realize he’d lost me. It seemed to take a surprisingly long time. Finally, the car came back, lights on now, driving slowly. Then he spotted me, and I beckoned to him to turn. Once he had turned, I went to the car and got in.
“I didn’t even see this road,” he said. “I had no idea where you’d gone. Do you know you were running about fifteen miles an hour?”
“I don’t know what that means,” I said.
“I suspect it means you should try out for the Olympic Games. Are you tired?” “I’m not. It was a good run, though. What are the Olympic Games?”
“Never mind. Probably too public for you. For someone your size, though, that was a fantastic run.” “It was easier than running down a deer.”
“Where are we going? Don’t let me pass the place.”
“I won’t.” I not only watched, I opened my window and smelled the air. “Here,” I said. “This little road coming up.”
“Private road,” Wright said. “Open the gate for me, would you?”
I did, but the gate made me think for a moment. I had not opened a gate going out. I had climbed over it. It wasn’t a real barrier. Anyone could climb it or walk around it or open it and drive through.
Wright drove through, and I closed the gate and got back into the car. Just a few moments later, we were as close to the ruin as it was safe to drive. There were places where rubble from the houses lay in the road, and Wright said he wanted to be careful with his tires.
“This was a whole community,” he said. “Plus a lot of land.”
I led him around, showing him the place, choosing the easiest paths I could find, but I discovered that he couldn’t see very well. The moon wasn’t up yet, and it was too dark for him. He kept stumbling over the rubble, over stones, over the unevenness of the ground. He would have fallen several times had I not steadied him. He wasn’t happy with my doing that.