B008GMVYA4 EBOK (21 page)

“Pretty basic stuff then - forget what you’ve heard about
holy water, crosses and garlic. That’s old wives-tales, religious folks
perching to take the side of God. The sun light and stake part is true. Most
vampires can’t step into the sunlight without combusting into flames and
Vampires can also be poisoned by silver. If they are shot by a pure silver
bullet and it is not removed within a few short hours the bullet with poison
their blood – killing them slowly and painfully. It’s not a nice way for a
Vampire to die” Brendan insisted.

“What did you mean by
most
vampires?” Madison asked
curiously. 

“That’s what I like about you, Madison. You’re sharp!”
Brendan said chuckling.

 Madison smiled back at him, satisfied by his affection
for her.

“I’m not like other vampires. When the vampire DNA bonded
with my mine it changed something. It created a new evolved species of vampire
and it’s not just me, there are five other vampires that have evolved just like
me. I was the first. We are not sure why, but there’s just something different
with our blood” Brendan said proudly.

“I don’t understand - what do you mean by evolved?” she
asked.

“We have advanced in strength, skill and speed. Normal
vampires, the older they are the stronger they become, in our case; we were
stronger and faster than the oldest vampires around at the point of creation.
Some of the same weaknesses remain, stake to the heart and poisoned by silver
bullets, but we have evolved so one weakness is no longer a problem…”

“Sunlight?” Madison asked.

“Sunlight... We’ve adapted to walk in the sunlight, built up
our immunity so our skin is protected from the UV rays. We can act and look no
different from humans. The older generations are restricted to only going out
at night - we can venture out during the day, blending in with the humans. To
everyone on the outside world we appear human and can only be identified by our
brightly coloured eyes. Luckily, my eyes are only a brighter shade of blue so
they don’t look too abnormal to humans; some vampires are less fortunate with
abnormal shade of purple and red and are forced to wear contact lenses when
venturing into the outside world” 

“But you drink blood?” Madison shifted nervously at her
question.

“Yes. But it isn’t like you think. Films and books portray
us to be a blood hungry savage which isn’t the case. Yes there were times when
vampires killed humans and feed of the vulnerable, but those times have been
over for centuries. When you awake as a newborn vampire you are disorientated
and hungry. There are no human emotions - only the instinct to feed.

Newborn vampires are wild, without other vampires for
mentors and uncontrolled, they would kill humans. My first six months of a
newborn vampire I spent killing peasants and prostitutes - anyone that was
vulnerable. It can take up to two years for human emotions to come flooding
back, but when they do, it can drive a vampire mad with guilt for the people
they’ve killed.

When you change your whole body is sent into mayhem, you
mind and body has to reset to its new surroundings. I was fortunate it took
only six months for my emotions to come flooding back. It was a tidal wave of
remorse, hate, anger and depression, all mixed into one big ball of guilt that
I possessed for every person I had killed while I was a newborn. Gabby and
Trace were still wild vampires at the time and couldn’t understand my guilt.
Uninvolved vampires still struggle with their human side; it doesn’t come as
easily to them as it does to us. Trace believes it’s because they lived too
long in the wild - killing only to feed. In the first two years of a vampire’s
life the disease is in high activity in the body - it changes your mind and
soul, allowing the darkness to take you. For some vampires, the darkness
consumes you. I was lucky that it didn’t consume me for too long, but a few
others like Gabby and Trace, it’s harder to let the humanity back in after they
have been consumed by darkness for so long…

I spent the next 48 years in New York feeding off animal
blood, while Gabby and Trace continued to feed on the sick and homeless. In
1959 we heard a government was forming - a vampire government. So we moved to
London to see what sort of prospects this vampire government would hold for us,
this is where I met my Father”

“You’re Father?” Madison asked, confused.

“Well, he isn’t my biological Father, but he’s the closet
thing I have to it” Brendan corrected.

Madison nodded, eager to hear more.

“My Father took us in and showed us the correct way to live,
so joined the coven - The Vampire coven of London. I found the new way of life
uplifting, exhilarating even! But Trace and Gabby found it difficult, Gabby
more so than Trace, but still we all settled into our new life in London. There
is no such thing as freedom for vampires anymore, as times have changed and
humans have overpopulated the world, vampires cannot live outside the covens.
Each coven throughout the world abides by set rules which have been in place
for over a hundred years. Vampires are forbidden to break these rules; if they
do then the penalties can be deadly. One of the more enforced rules is never to
kill a human being. Each coven owns a few factories that are scattered up and
down England; these factories harvest blood for the coven to survive.  The
coven pay human’s to donate their blood - of course humans do not know what
they are donating their blood for and our employees are told it is for medical
research. The human’s earn some extra money and we use the blood to feed.
Removing the need to kill humans to survive” Brendan said, positively.

“But don’t you still want to kill humans?” Madison asked
shyly.

“No! When you see a cow, do you want to kill it and start
feeding off its flesh?” Brendan laughed.

“No!” Madison said, screwing her face up in disgust.

“Exactly, we have no need to kill human’s to feed, just like
you have no need to kill a cow in a field to feed.  Our food is in ready
supply so we no longer crave human blood in the same way like you have no need
to crave the cow, because you have the beef burgers in ready supply” he said
happily.

“But you still think we smell… yummy?” she asked confused.

“No, do you think a cow smells yummy? However, I do think
you smell yummy” Brendan said beaming a shy smile at Madison.

Madison smiled shyly, as the butterflies swarmed in her
stomach.

“Just think as me… as a cuddly bear with fangs” Brendan
joked, closing the small distance between himself and Madison. He wrapping his
arms around her and pulling her in for an embrace. Madison lent her head
against his cool, hard chest. Her skin tingled at his touch and she couldn’t
hold back the large satisfied smile that crept across her lips. They hadn’t
known each other for very long and with anyone else she would have found this
type of behavior awkward, but with Brendan it felt right.

Pressed again his hard chest Madison found the sound of a
thudding heart vacant and the more she tried to listen for it, the more she
realised that the silence didn’t scare her, but she found it peaceful. His
chest rose and fell, mimicking breathing, but there was only silence from the small
space where his heart should operate.

“Does Gabby and Trace still kill people?” she suddenly
asked.

“No! Of course not, if they did the coven would have them
killed” Brendan replied, shocked.

Madison pulled herself away from him to examine his expression
- she had offended him unintentionally.

“I’m sorry, I did mean….” she said sheepishly.

“No, it’s fine. Like I said, there are strict rules that we
must live by. Some that cannot be broken without the penalty of death. We must
never break the peace, or draw attention to ourselves or the coven. Killing a
human is forbidden, the punishment for killing a human is almost certainly
death. It is also forbidden to tell a human a human of our existence…”

“But you just told me! You’ve broken one of the rules!”
Madison pointed out, unhelpfully.

“Not exactly” Brendan said uncertain.

“Yes you did!”

“Actually, Bernie told you...”

“Yes, but you didn’t deny it”

“Good point. Well, that settles it then” he said.

“What’s that?” Madison asked.

“I’ll have to kill you now” Brendan joked.

“You will have to catch me first”

“Umm…that wouldn’t be hard…” he laughed.

“But you’ve broken a rule, what’s going to happen?” Madison
asked more seriously.

“Like I said before, with knowing this information there
will be consequences. Things will change for you, but the most important thing
is you cannot ever tell anyone what you know. Not even Gabby or Trace should
they ever ask - it is likely they will become suspicious now that Gabby has
seen you here, but they can never know. It is in your best interests that no
one finds out; if they do there will be serious consequences. This stays
between me and you - do you understand? Brendan said firmly.

Madison nodded, gulping down the large ball that had formed
in her throat.

“As far as you are aware, I’m just a normal guy that offered
you a place to stay when your house burned down. We met at the club and became
friendly – there’s no crime in that!”

“But… my house didn’t burn down” Madison corrected.

“Not yet anyway…”

“What? What are you going to do? All my belongings are there
and my handbag! It has my cards and mobile in it! I must have dropped it when
Rich grabbed me!” Madison said frantically looking around the apartment for her
handbag – making sure she Brendan hadn’t picked it up on his way out. 

“I’ll get all your belongings tomorrow, but it’s important
you stick to the story. Let me worry about removing the evidence” he reassured.

“Ok…” Madison stuttered.

“So the Skin Crawlers… their not Vampires?” she asked.

“Demons” Brendan hissed through his teeth.

“Demons?” Madison repeated, thinking carefully.

“Demons are everywhere, some worse than others. As humans
populated the earth, the demon world died out. As a result some of the demons
blood got mixed with the blood of humans - creating half breeds. Most humans
are unaware that they even carry the demon gene and some never truly become
demons but continued to live as humans until they naturally die out, others are
destined to live alone or in groups, hiding from the real world. Some demons
spend their lives conspiring against the human world, building armies in
attempts to wipe out all traces of human blood in hope that the demon world
will once again populate the planet. That’s where we come in, me and a small
army of vampires are just one of the Coven’s units that specialise in
protecting the peace. As vampires we rely on the donation of blood from human’s
to survive, like many other demons for humans to be wiped out would mean the
extinction of us. Our unit hunts down the demons that intend to hurt the humans
and reason with them, bring them to justice and on occasion destroying the
demon clangs that are not so willing to go peacefully”

“So there are different types of demons?”

“Yes. Lots”

“And you….are like the good guys?”

“You could say that, but in some ways we’re still very much
like demons” Brendan joked.

“I think I could do with another drink” Madison said heading
back towards the sofa to sit down - trying to process the new information.

The sunlight shone through the crack in the curtains, it lit
up the room in a beautiful display of orange and yellow lights. Madison opened
her eyes and stared into the unfamiliar room where she had crashed out after
too many Brandy’s. The room was painted a clean cream colour with white fitted
wardrobes stood at the opposite end of the room at the foot of the bed. Madison
turned her head to the left only to be confronted by her own reflection in a
tall wall length mirror. Repulsed by her own reflection, she examined her pale
tired face from a distance.

They had spent most of the night talking, he had gone into
great detail about his life before becoming a vampire and Madison gave vague
details about her life in Thatcham – leaving out a majority of the details.
Brendan had originally been born in London and he was the son of a book store
owner. His parents were extremely poor and he had a hard upbringing working
nonstop in the family busy. He then told her about how he had made the trip
over to New York and started up as an actor and how he had made the trip back
to London as a vampire. They talked until Madison could barely keep her eyes
open. Even though Madison felt safe in Brendan’s presence she had still found
it difficult to sleep after tonight’s events. She had managed to sleep a few
short hours without the reoccurring nightmare resurfacing – probably fended off
by the bottle of brandy.

Madison stretched, sitting up too quickly the blood rushed
down her body sending her spiraling into dizziness. Her head thumped from
dehydration, only now did she realise the amount of Brandy she had consumed
last night was probably not the best idea under the circumstances.

Madison shuffled to the edge of the double bed, dropping her
legs over the edge and placing her feet on the soft white carpet. She had
stripped down last night only leaving on her underwear and black work polo
shirt on.

Madison grabbed the pair of screwed up black trousers from
in front of her feet and slipped them on.  She stood up carefully gaining
her balance before slowly stumbling towards the mirror on the wall.  Her
makeup was smudged down her face and her hair stuck out at all angles. Her face
was blotchy and the three inch cut on her cheek from the bread knife looked
less angry then yesterday and was barely noticeable. She looked away
repulsively and grabbed her jeans from the bedroom floor – slipping them on
slowly. She headed towards the bedroom door and stepped wearily out into an
open plan room that had a couple of low sofas in it and a dark brown wooden
desk. The right wall was completely made of glass, that looked out over the
city Papers and open books scatted around an easel that stood in the centre of
the desk. A canvas stood on the easel, an arrangement of colours caught Madison’s
eye. She headed towards the canvas to examine the painting more closely. As
Madison approached the painting it became clear the picture was a mirror image
of the view from the window at night. It was stunningly beautiful with
different shades of blacks and blues, dark clouds swirled in the sky giving the
painting a magical effect. The yellow and white’s of the skyscrapers stood out
from the dark background. She traced her finger over the raised strokes of
paint and tilted her head to the side allowing the painting to draw her in.