Blood Diaries Ch. 03

Chapter Three: The Angel of Death

I had no fear for my life, if he had wanted to kill me he would have already. I realized that the warm feeling I had been getting was him feeding on me, but I was confident in my assessment that he wouldn't make me his next victim. He wanted me to panic, to flee and leave him, but I couldn't. instead I leaned forward and embraced him. He became very shocked at my reaction.

"Who made you the way you are?" I asked.

"I have never told this story before," he said, as he sat down, "but I have rehearsed this over and over in my head, at least a hundred times. I was born in 1863 to Harold Dean Hunter and Elizabeth Anne Hunter. My parents were very wealthy and we lived in a rich neighborhood in New York. A nanny raised me, my mother had a terminal illness and the doctors could find nothing to ease her pain. My father couldn't stand to be at home and see his wife dying and she would rather he wasn't there too, so he spent most of his time at work or at the tavern. When my mother died in 1869, my father hung himself. After that I was raised in a foster home until I was eighteen. I was given my inheritance, which had collected a lot of interest in twelve years. I gave my foster family some of the money and then moved back into my birth home.

"I lived on my own for a long time, working hard and investing my money wisely. I fell in love with my neighbor's cleaning girl. She was the oldest child in her family and all of the money she earned went to help feed her brothers and sisters. Her name was Antoinette and she had the most beautiful brown eyes and she always wore her hair up, covered by a scarf. I walked her home one evening and she had told me about her family, how her mother was not well and how her sisters worked in a fabric mill for very little money and her brothers shined shoes in the square. I lavished her with gifts; clothes made with silks from the Orient, perfume from France, jewels from all corners of the world, most of which she probably pawned for much needed things and I wouldn't have minded. We would walk along the boardwalk every night and then I would drive her home in my car.

"One night I parked by the river and just sat there looking at the stars until I dosed off. I was awakened with a violent shake of the car and a figure pounced on me and began feeding. When I was to the brink of death, my assailant looked at me and it was my lovely Antoinette. She was in shock at what she had done and sat on the seat weeping. She didn't want me to die, so she fed me on her blood and gave me immortality. She ran off into the night and I never saw her again, but I never really looked for her either, I thought it would be too painful for her.

"Now I must put a question before you, would you wish to join me in immortality?" he asked.

"I don't know... I would love to be with you, but am I to give up my dreams and the light to do this?" I questioned.

"Ha! You read too many books, my love. The sun cannot harm us, even though I tend to burn more easily," he chuckled.

"What about fire?" I asked

"Not true."

"Drinking from the dead?"

"It tastes very disgusting but nothing has happened to me," he replied.

"Can you read minds?" I asked

"No, 'the gift' just heightens your existing senses. You are more like and animal, versus a god as the books describe it. Your senses become acute to help you hunt," he explained. "Also, I don't become tired from physical activity, so I could run for hours and never be out of breath, I guess it's supposed to help us hunt as well."

"Can you fly?" I asked

"Well kind of... I can leap very high and it's almost like flying," he revealed.

"Does your human body die?" I asked.

"You really do read too much! Do you have the whole 'Vampire Chronicles' series?" he laughed, "but your human body doesn't die. I eat and drink... you've seen what I can do to a sundae! But I could never survive without blood. I have also had a child with a mortal woman. Her name was Sophia, she was from Italy. We were married in 1914, after I had made my first million dollars selling my father's company. I was overjoyed when she told me she was pregnant. But it wasn't meant to be, Sophia died in childbirth and Ivan died when he was 5 from the mumps," he said, getting a little depressed from bringing up old memories.

"So nothing can kill you?" I asked, wondering how this could be true.

"I don't know everything, I only know from experience. I am still alive and I have been in the sun so I know that is false. If you are beheaded and your body turned to cinders, you may not be able to regenerate," He explained.

"Now I do know this," he continued, "vampires need blood to survive. I feed on the men who abuse women; abusive husbands, Johns and pimps who keep prostitution alive, rapists, peeping toms, stalkers. I am ever vigilant and take only those who deserve it. I hunt my quarry and kill painlessly."

"Do you know of any other vampires?" I was so full of questions.

"I have met many vampires, that club I took you to was a vampire club. They populate the world and blend in with everyone else, because they are like everyone else.

"If you join me, we can live together forever, hunt at night and then go out and live life to its fullest."

"I need to think for a moment," I said.

"And I need a walk... I will be back in a little while," he said.

I knew what a walk meant: hunting. Could I spend all eternity, feeding on other humans?

I felt very weak and rested on the bed, making a mound of blankets to support my head. I fell asleep until Dean came back around three hours later. He came in through the sliding glass door on the balcony, it seemed as if he made no noise at all. He climbed into bed and stroked my head, thinking I was asleep. I rolled over and smiled at him.

"I want it, I want you," I said

"Are you sure? You must be absolutely sure," he said

"I am absolutely sure," I declared as I gave him a kiss.

"Now, you must want to live. When I take your blood, you will come very close to death, my love but you must hang on. I love you, my darling," he declared.

He kissed me on the forehead and I wrapped my arms around him as tightly as I could. I was so scared and he could sense it. He held me close until I calmed down a bit. He laid me down on the bed and began nuzzling my cheek, then worked his way to my neck. He sucked on my soft flesh, as if he still hungered, even though he went hunting. 'Did he not catch a meal? Will he suck me dry on accident, because he hadn't fed earlier?!' I thought to myself. He felt my anxiety and my quickened heart rate and he stopped for a moment.

He lay on his side as I was rigidly lying on my back. My hands were balled up so tightly that my nails had broken the skin and blood leaked down my fingers. He had noticed it and he sat up. He lifted my hand to examine it and had his head cocked to the side, intrigued by the pain I was inflicting on myself. He pried my hand open and looked into my eyes. He took my palm to his mouth and began lapping up the blood. He cleaned the blood away from the crescent shaped wounds and they healed instantly. He sucked all of the blood off of each finger and then put my hand on his heart. I felt a very powerful beating that took over my senses, a beating that had influenced my heart and slowed it down significantly.

I rolled over onto my side and showed him my other injured palm and he cleaned it and healed it as well. We held each other again and he began sucking my neck lovingly. I felt his teeth this time and gasped as he took the first draft of my blood. He stroked my hair and held me as he continued drinking. My vision became blurry, my muscles weak, my heart slow and faint. He had stopped and looked into my eyes. He put his wrist to his mouth and gashed it with his teeth and put it to my mouth. I drank. With every mouthful I became stronger and my heart began to pound. He let me continue until it pained him and he took his hand away. I pounced on him, not knowing my strength, and clawed at his chest, drawing blood, which I quickly lapped up. He leapt up with a grunt and held me against the wall until I regained my senses. I began to weep and he let me down, holding me tightly now. His large arms still made me feel safe.

"You need to hunt, my love," he explained.

"I don't know if I can! How do I kill and who do I kill?!" I asked.

"I am thinking you could be the 'Angel of Death'. Come to people in their dying hour and give them a painless death. End the suffering of the victims and their families. If you wished, you could come to them in white and tell them not to be afraid," he suggested, very poetically.

I couldn't picture myself dressed in white but it sounded very good. I could end suffering in terminally ill people. I pulled out a white bell-sleeved shirt and a white skirt with pearl-colored pinstripes. It looked very well on me and I loved the looks Dean gave me. I grabbed Dean by the arm.

"Where should we go?" I asked.

"How about the hospital or the nursing home?" he said.

"I'm so hungry."

"I understand, my love. Let's take the car to the hospital and see what we can do."