Bride of Blood:: First Kiss (4 page)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
“Miss?” said a voice from across the room.
 
Shannon groaned and got up from her seat.
 
As she walked away Anton turned and looked at her small butt wiggle as she walked.
 
He reached into his pocket and unrolled about ten singles and put them under his cold coffee cup.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
He hated to say goodbye to her, so he quickly walked out of the restaurant.
 
He stopped at the cashier and paid for his coffee and a newspaper.
 
Without a backward glance, he walked out the door and into the cold night air.
 
He would be walking home that night, and a glance at his watch told him that he had plenty of time before daybreak.
 
Still the flakes were falling harder and harder.
 
The cold didn’t bother him at all, it never had, even when he’d been mortal.
 
Still, it was a long walk. He set out in the direction of his home and disappeared into the darkness of the unlit street.

The night was cold and the air was crisp.
 
Anton and Alexander sat on the roof of their home looking like two beautiful gargoyles.
 
The two of them were striking against the almost darkness of the night and the drabness of the house they shared.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Alexander was 150 years old although he appeared to be 19. He was made by Anton and was his devoted companion ever since. He was much taller than Anton, though he wasn’t skinny at all.
 
His frame was heavily muscled.
 
He didn’t have the usual pale skin that most vampires had; his was a normal flesh color, as he had been heavily tanned when he was made. His eyes were brown and had a strong sadness to them.
 
His hair was blonde like Anton’s but slightly darker. His face was smooth and handsome, appearing as if it were never able to grow facial hair.
 
He was also the last new vampire made by their order because Lady Bernadine had decreed that society was too dangerous and vampires were too easily detectable to stay hidden.
 
She felt that there were too many of their number to make any more. Of course, only she knew exact number of “her children”.
 
The Order of the Dragon had no such rules and their carelessness threatened to bring down the entire vampire society.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Anton was out West in the 1880’s when he found Alexander naked, starving and half-dead on the prairies.
 
In his mortal life, Alexander was known as Jesse, a name he despised.
 
Upon his transformation, Anton christened him Alexander after his old friend Alexander Hamilton, whom he knew from his time on St. Croix.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Transformation wiped out quite a bit of Alexander’s memories of his mortal life.
 
Anton glimpsed them right before and he thanked God that they were lost.
 
Alexander’s family moved out west as so many had in the years after the Civil War.
 
There were four of them in the family:
 
Alexander, his parents and a baby sister. Somewhere out near Missouri, they were separated from their wagon train and got lost.
 
In the ensuing months, both his mother and baby sister succumbed to the elements.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Alexander’s father changed dramatically after that.
 
He began to physically and sexually abuse Alexander.
 
After one particularly bad episode, Alexander had enough and stabbed his father several times.
 
He then left the hut where they had been staying.
 
He simply ran out into the night without any plans at all, much less a horse or gun.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
After a few days wandering the prairie, he was dazed and confused when Anton found him.
 
After The Transformation, he changed greatly.
 
His body which had been gaunt and scarred became lean and flawless.
 
His empty eyes became bright and shining.
 
His hair doubled its length and lightened in color.
 
But most of all, his memories from his mortal life were almost totally erased, which was not uncommon for anyone who had made The Transformation between mortal to immortal.
 
All he could remember were shadows, but no real faces or memories.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Sometimes though, he did suffer from mood swings and bouts of depression.
 
He had a difficult time forming relationships with women.
 
One particular female vampire named Rachael really liked him, but Alexander seemed incapable of taking their relationship past that of friendship.
 
All that aside, he was deeply devoted to Anton and would defend him with his own life, if needed.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Anton looked at Alexander.
 
He loved him deeply, but worried about him. On that particular night Alexander cut his hair short.
 
By the next night it will have grown back.
 
It wasn’t that he didn’t like his hair long, which fell down past his shoulders, he just felt that he would fit in better sometimes.
 
And fitting in was what that night was all about.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
They were going out for a night on the town.
 
The destination was a local bar and grill called JR’s Place.
 
Anton and JR were friends and they had an agreement about no killing on the property.
 
All kinds of people came into his bar on Friday and Saturday nights.
 
Some of them were evil with very dark secrets, which was just the kind that Anton and Alexander fed upon.
 
Since the numbers of bad people in the world outweighed the number of good ones, it was a fair trade-off.
 
Most of the time the evil people that they killed were not missed.
 
Occasionally there would be an article in the paper or something on the news about missing people, but since those that they killed were usually criminals and dregs of society, the media attention usually died down pretty quickly.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Anton pulled out his disposable cell phone and called their familiar, Rick Nash to pick them up.
 
A familiar is a mortal who takes care of a vampire.
 
They help them with properties, taxes, fake ID’s, birth certificates, college degrees, etc.
 
In recent years their importance was more needed than ever before.
 
In the past they were generally used to protect sleeping vampires or to provide them with a place to sleep and stay.
 
In the modern world, vampires relied on familiars to help their masters to stay under the radar and to appear mortal.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rick, his father and his grandfather had all been Anton’s familiars.
 
Soon Rick’s daughter, Chelsea would take over after Rick retired.
 
A familiar was paid very well, much better than any regular job. Besides doing their tasks, it was important that they remember to be discreet and never question the vampires they serve.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The only other mortals that vampires came to rely on were The Cleaners.
 
Up until the last 15 years or so, disposing of a body was relatively easy.
 
However because of DNA and new technology, it became necessary for some vampires to use their help.
 
The Cleaners would arrive at a kill scene and take care of the disposal of the body and “clean up” all the evidence.
 
They were also discreet and asked no questions.
 
Anton usually did not require their help as he was quite good at body disposal.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
“Rick will be here in ten minutes; we’d better get to the end of the driveway,” Anton told Alexander, hanging up the phone.
 
Alexander nodded as they jumped off the roof and prepared to leave.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
He stopped and looked at the house.
 
A light was left on in Anton’s study.
 
It was an oil lamp to keep from using electricity and creating a paper trail.
 
Alexander twisted his fingers and suddenly the window went dark.
 
Telekinesis was just one of his abilities.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
“Let’s go, then,” he said to Anton as he started off down the driveway.
 
Anton nodded and followed.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Their house was buried deep in an almost impenetrable wood.
 
They had what was once a gravel driveway that led from the house to the road.
 
It twisted and turned a few times so that the house couldn’t be seen from the road.
 
At the end of the driveway was a gate with a huge padlock on it.
 
There was also a “No Trespassing” sign posted by the gate although intruders never came.
 
The county had been paid off and the taxes were paid at least 30 years in advance.
 
Local townspeople never came near, and they encouraged outsiders to do the same.
 
Even if a nosey mortal were to try to climb the fence or cut through the woods, they wouldn’t get too far.
 
The entire property had a deep enchantment on it, and most mortals felt uneasy even if they drove past it.
 
Rick and his family were the only mortals who dared to come near, as they were unaffected by the enchantment.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The house itself was nothing special, although they were comfortable in it.
 
It was white and had the look and feel of a farmhouse, except there was no farm and it was the only building on the property.
 
On the ground level floor there was a kitchen that was only used when Rick and his family sometimes stayed over, a living room, a bathroom, and Anton’s study.
 
The top floor had a bathroom and three bedrooms which were usually never occupied.
 
The attic was stuffed full of things that Anton and Alexander had collected over the years.

 
But the basement was the best place of all, where Anton and Alexander slept during the day.
 
There was a door right off the kitchen that had been reinforced with steel and had several locks on it that could be locked from the inside.
 
Then down a long flight of stairs there was the main room which contained more things that they had acquired.
 
There was no carpeting, simply a cold concrete floor.
 
The room just adjacent was The Coffin Room where they slept during the day.
 
It also was reinforced with a steel door and three locks.
 
The windows that had once been in that room had been bricked over.
 
There were three coffins in the room:
 
one for Anton, one for Alexander, and one for a guest vampire.
 
There were several candelabras about the room, more for atmosphere than light since they could easily see in the dark.
 
A thick, lush carpet was on this floor, and the coffins themselves were placed on solid stone tables raising them several feet above the floor.
 
It was the perfect home for a vampire, and since Anton had spent a good deal of his immortal life wandering and living in boarding houses and basement apartments, he enjoyed finally having a semi-permanent place to call home.