Irina

Initially, Maria Giachetti was heartbroken. They'd been high school sweethearts. Despite the demands of Ed's work, she loved him deeply and never once doubted his love for her. About two months after his disappearance, a Western Union money gram arrived at the house. The amount shocked her as it was equivalent to a month's salary while her missing husband was a police officer. Then, every month like clockwork, it would appear and in ever escalating amounts. Were they from her spouse? She had no way of knowing but his body was never found.

****

The noise from the overhead music was deafening but Irina saw her target and zeroed in. The young man was handsome and smelled delicious. In no time she entranced him and led him outside to his car. She fed judiciously, only taking enough to quell her thirst. A second victim would be necessary to satisfy her, and she entered the club solely with that intent. A lovely young woman was chatting with a very handsome, virile man. Suddenly, the man turned and winked at her. The girl walked to the crowded bar, and Irina glided over to the man, her companion.

"Edward, why did you let her get away?"

"My love, she's a sweet university student and I just..."

"You are so caring and thoughtful. Just what I wanted..."

Irina kissed the unnaturally handsome man. His conversion was extraordinary as the positive traits he embodied during his human life were intact. There were times when she felt as though he acted more human than the vampire he'd become.

The former Ed Giachetti, police detective was now simply Edward. They had no use for surnames. He gazed at the mass of beings on the dance floor. As Irina had told him, the hunger for blood would drive him to seek it. Edward preferred young women and when he found a virgin, the blood was sweeter, like a very fine wine. Their smell was intoxicating as his vampire senses homed in on the prey.

As Edward pondered his next source of nourishment, he reflected on that fateful night. When he expressed the desire to become one of the undead, Irina lovingly smiled at him.

"Are you certain? You can never return to your former life, your wife. You will leave it all behind."

Still reeling from the effects of the most erotic experience of his life, he nodded.

"Yes, I love you. I want to be with you. Will it hurt?"

Irina chuckled. It happened so fast, his love but the feeling was mutual. She wanted him as her companion, her mate but if he had declined, she'd have set him free.

"No, you won't feel pain, but I will bring you close to death. You must trust me."

Irina straddled the detective once more and took his shirt off so that he was bare chested. She wanted unrestricted access to the opposite side of his throat. She would feed at a snail's pace until his heartbeat dimmed from blood loss.

"Lay back, try to relax. You will feel some pain, discomfort from my bite. I must drink very slowly. As I feed, you will gradually experience a feeling of euphoria."

Ed Giachetti complied but when her mouth was close to his neck, he trembled. Irina sensed this and tenderly kissed his forehead and cheeks until he sighed in acceptance of his fate.

"I love you and I will be as gentle as I possibly can." she said in her soothing voice.

The detective nodded, there was no turning back. His mind went to his loving wife he was leaving forever. While he felt pangs of regret, the allure, the intense magnetic attraction to the beautiful vampire was too potent to be ignored. In an incredibly short time, he'd fallen in love with her.

Irina's lips moved over the vein that pulsed with the sweet rich blood that she hungered for. As she opened her mouth, her needle-sharp incisors bathed with saliva, moved into position. With consummate skill, her tongue gently licked the warm tissue, sending shivers of excitement through Giachetti.

The points made contact and remained barely touching. The vein throbbed, filled with the essence she needed to extract to complete the task ahead. Holding him firmly, they broke the skin and Ed Giachetti arched his back as the pain registered in his brain. Deeper they traveled until they were inside the pipe.

Irina sealed her lips over the wound and sucked carefully. Thin streams of blood spurted onto her tongue, igniting her tastebuds. Purposely she kept the pace leisurely, swallowing the succulent fluid at a gentle pace.

"Oh...oh...oh...oh...Irina" he moaned, as he experienced the ecstasy that she predicted.

Time seemed to stand still as her feeding drained him gradually but relentlessly. Her vampire senses alerted her that the point of no return was fast approaching. The detective's heartbeat slowed as his blood volume had dropped precipitously, His heart struggled to maintain its rhythm and was fading. Irina stopped, quickly opened a vein on her wrist and pushed the fresh wound against his mouth.

"Suck my love. Drink!" she commanded.

Ed Giachetti suckled the rich fluid, swallowing hungrily. Once he started, he found it almost impossible to stop.

Irina experienced the highest of highs, feeding him her essence. Eventually, she wrenched her bloody wrist from his stained mouth and waited.

The conversion started very slowly. His facial features retained their handsome look but were dramatically enhanced as muscles deepened and grew until they bulged like a lean bodybuilder. Hair color went from dark brown to a lustrous darker brown and the color of his skin lightened until it was pale white and translucent, eyes bright and glittery. Lastly the teeth. Porcelain white and sharp.

The former human opened his eyes to a vastly different world. Every sense organ, hearing, sight, and smell was greatly enhanced. The first desire he noted was for blood.

"Are you hungry, my love?" Irina asked her new companion.

"Yes, I am." His voice now a rich velvet smooth baritone.

"Wait here, I'll bring you some food."

Edward waited patiently but not long as Irina guided a very pretty woman into the back seat of the vehicle. She laid the entranced human on the back seat and guided her new protégé on the procedure. He found feeding to be very instinctual but restraint more difficult.

"Stop feeding, my love. You've taken enough, we don't want to harm her needlessly."

Edward followed her instructions to the letter and discovered that his human feelings and emotions were startlingly intact. If he'd have drained her, he would have felt intensely guilty for hurting an innocent.

Irina was hungry and brought her food to the car. He watched with fascination as she fed carefully.

"Are you ready? We must leave as it will be dawn soon. We'll need to rest until nightfall."

Irina guided Edward to a small but elegant apartment located in the basement of a restored historic building near Old City. Once inside, she took him to the bedroom, checked the heavy curtains and they lay on top the bed holding hands. That first night he slept the sleep that vampires called rest. As soon as the sun dipped below the horizon, they woke simultaneously.

"Are you hungry, my love?" Irina asked.

"No...I'm surprised. I thought I'd be thirsty for more but...I'm not."

Irina chuckled.

"You will only need to feed every two or three days."

For the first time, they made love vampire style, white hot and intensely passionate. The act itself, transcendent, exploding over and over in powerful orgasm after orgasm.

They decided to go walking along the river.

"Do you like to gamble? There is a casino near here."

Edward nodded vigorously. As a mortal, he took great pleasure in the activity. But with a wife to support and on a detective's salary, his chances were limited.

As they approached the Rivers Casino, the sound of the dice tumbling then coming to rest on the felt, fascinated him. He glided to the Craps table and watched for a few minutes; his vampire senses attuned to the cubes. He held them and with extraordinary accuracy, sent them rolling down the table. Fifteen minutes later, his stack of chips had grown considerably but excused himself from further play. From experience, he had no desire to draw any attention to himself.

Edward realized that they could subsist comfortably in this manner. Since feeding was unnecessary, they left to walk along the Delaware River.

"Irina, if you agree, I would like to send my...wife...some of the winnings. My absence will be a financial hardship for her. I don't want her to...suffer..."

She took his hand and gazed at him very fondly.

"Of course, Edward. A thoughtful and noble gesture."

The following night, Irina and Edward left the city of Brotherly Love for the nightlife of South Beach Florida.

****

Edward's thoughts about the past were interrupted by a pretty girl gazing at him with interest.

"Hello, my dear." He said in a velvet rich voice.

The entrancement took but moments and he led her to a deserted area at the back of the building. Holding her against the wall, he brought his lips to her throat and smelled the sweet blood of youth. His needle-sharp incisors penetrated to the throbbing pipe, and he fed prudently, extracting only enough to suppress his hunger. Irina had passed on the gift of healing saliva, he licked the wounds and watched them fade. They went back inside the club, and he sat her at a table as she slowly came out of the trance.

"Thank you for the dance." He said chivalrously and kissed her hand.

The young woman was perplexed. One minute she was talking to the incredibly handsome stranger and the next he was thanking her for a dance.

"I've had too much to drink." She whispered to herself.

"Well, my love, have you satisfied your hunger?" His unnaturally beautiful mate asked in her smooth lilting voice.

"Yes, she wasn't a virgin, but her blood was rich and delectable."

They were preparing to leave when a commotion near the bar got their attention. A tall muscular man was yelling at the poor girl Edward had just fed from.

"You fucking bitch! I saw you go outside with him. I'm gonna beat yer sorry ass to a pulp."

The man brutally grabbed her wrists and forced her outside.

"Who is that?" Irina asked the bartender.

"He's a no-good son of a bitch. White trash. He's been in trouble with the law more times than fingers on my hands. Done time for rape, attempted murder. He thinks he owns her. Abuses the poor kid. I feel sorry for her. I'll call the sheriff but on Saturday night it'll take them some time to get here. We're kinda out of the way."

Irina and Edward left in the blink of an eye and spotted the man forcing the terrified girl into a pickup truck with a Confederate flag. Edward calmly opened the door and the man whirled around to face him.

"What the fuck do you want?"

"Leave her alone or you will be sorry."

"Go fuck yerself! Who are you? Her dad?"

"I'm warning you, let her go, now!"

Edwards voice was full of implied malevolence.

The man tried to close the door, but Edward grabbed his arm and easily pulled him out of the truck, facing him.

"You like hurting innocent women, gives you a thrill."

"What business is it of yours, asshole!"

Irina got in the truck to protect the poor girl, but she passed out. She gazed at her mate and silently communicated her thoughts.

"Do what you must, my love."

Her companion forced the struggling man against the truck. The man reached in his pocket for a switchblade knife and slashed at Edward's arm. The wound was slight, as he gazed with a vampire's fury at the horrible excuse for a human.

"Let me go, get the fuck off of me!" the man shrieked.

"Too late! Any last wishes before I do my civic duty?"

"Go fuck yerself!"

Edward held the human with ease and forced his head to the side, exposing the pulsing vein he'd soon pierce. With lightning-fast reflexes, he sank his fangs into the pipe.

"What the hell are you!" the now terrified man yelled.

Edward planted his mouth over the oozing wounds and sucked, leisurely gulping mouthfuls of blood. The man's efforts to free himself amused the vampire as he extracted the fluid from his body. Edward was in no hurry and wanted the wretched human to feel helpless, like his victims. With his fate sealed, he hung limp in Edwards death grip.

"No...don't do this...I feel so dizzy..." His voice weak and failing.

Edward sucked harder, swallowing fluid until the heartbeat slowed. The plunge in blood pleasure put strain on the heart to keep pumping.

"Why...why are you doing this...who are you?" the man's voice weak and barely audible.

Edward paused and gazed with disgust at the pathetic creature.

"I am your judge, jury, and executioner..."

When he resumed draining his prey, the caring vampire noted that he found the taste of the blood was not his liking. It had a tainted quality.

"I'm dying..." were the last words the man spoke as he lost consciousness.

As he extracted the last two pints, Edward heard the heart fade to a stop.

"Welcome to hell...maybe one day, I'll see you there."

He let the useless hulk fall to the ground. Irina heard sirens approaching.

"We must hurry, my love."

She carried the unconscious girl to the steps of the club while Edward put the dead carcass into the driver's seat of the truck. With unnatural speed they left the scene.

****

Sheriff Gus Belinski got the call from the coroner's office.

"Hello Gus...Neil Page. I'm finished with the autopsy report. Thought you'd like to pick it up."

"Can't you send it over by messenger?"

"I could but this case is...well...kind of unusual."

Sheriff Belinski got a good look at the deceased as he was pulled from his pickup truck. Body had a shrunken look, skin white as snow, the stuff of nightmares. The only prints in the vehicle were that of the dead man and his girlfriend.

Neil Page pulled the body out of the freezer and uncovered it.

"No sign of trauma anywhere except here, on the side of the neck, two small punctures. Didn't have a drop of blood left in him, dry as the desert. Now, what's really baffling? There wasn't any blood in the vehicle or anywhere around it. Where did it go? Complete exsanguination, blood loss with no logical explanation."

"Thanks Neil."

"That's it. You don't have a theory?"

Sheriff Belinski pondered the question. He'd let the girlfriend go after questioning her. She had nothing useful to add as she had passed out in the truck. He believed her. The poor thing was so frightened, but she did vaguely recall two people coming to her aid but when she came around, they'd disappeared.

"Look Neil, we're out in the boondocks here. Miami's fifty miles east and except for a few small towns, there aint nothin but swamp and gators. I don't have the manpower to investigate. Besides, a real shit head low life is gone for good. I'd like to find the person or persons who did this and shake their hand."

As Gus Belinski drove back to the sheriff's office, a dark thought crossed his mind. Twice in the last ten years, two strikingly similar situations with the same cause of death. When his deputy at the time suggested vampires, he scoffed but he wasn't so sure now. He shook his head but knew it would remain unsolved just like the others.

****

After a vigorous session of vampire sex, Irina looked at Edward with love. He was everything she thought he would be and more. But after a year in and around Miami, it was time to move on.

He'd dispatched the revolting human much as she would have. The sun had just set, and they should hunt for prey, but first she wanted to tell him her idea.

"Have you ever been to New Orleans?"

Edward shook his head.

"We've worn out our welcome here. So tonight, lets head for the Big Easy. We can find some food along the way."

"Do they have Casino's?"

"Oh yes, plenty of action there!"

Edward looked pensive.

"Is something bothering you?"

"That...low life...I killed, he deserved it, didn't he?"

Irina knew this was the hard part for her companion. He valued human life as much if not more than her. Something similar had happened in South Carolina and with the same result. Irina did the world a favor but tonight was Edward's first kill.

"Yes...yes, he did."

"I would have done anything to help that poor girl...and I guess I did. It's strange but when I was draining him, it felt empowering, knowing that I was doing mankind a service."

Edward shook his head until Irina brought the caring vampire she'd created into her arms.

"It's time to go, my love."

They closed the door to the small cabin and walked down the dirt lane toward the interstate. A friendly trucker would pick them up and maybe provide them with some nourishment. However, they'd never take advantage of his hospitality.

Truck stops were chock full of prey. On the journey from Philadelphia to South Beach, Edward entranced a pretty waitress just ending her shift. Irina was by his side guiding him and he took only enough to dampen his hunger.

The darkness of night surrounded them, comforted them but something was still on Edward's mind, she could easily sense it.

"Does it ever bother you when you take a life, no matter how twisted and evil?" he asked.

"No, my love. If it helps to erase the suffering of even one innocent human, then it was worth it. I have no misgivings when it comes to executing them. I decided a long time ago that they deserve to lose the life that is precious to them but no one else."

Edward took her hand and kissed it.

"I love you, Irina."

"I love you too, Edward."

With the moon rising on the horizon, they walked hand in hand toward a new destination, and never looked back.