My Girlfriend is a Vampire Ch. 01

My congregation was comprised of bus drivers, convenience store managers, fitness trainers, soccer coaches, hotel workers, college students, high school teachers, auto mechanics, cab drivers, veterans, teenagers and even a few homeless people.

Every Sunday somebody in the congregation came in with a respiratory disease, liver damage, broken bones, torn ligaments, burns, chlamydia or some other medical problem. Most of these medical problems were work related. This was especially true of the cab drivers. They were a prime target of armed robbers, and I had healed a multitude of cab drivers who had sustained gunshot wounds.

"Is there anyone in the congregation in need of a healing?" I shouted passionately from the dais of my church on a typical Sunday morning.

"Me! I need a healing," shouted one a man from the third row, as he shot to his feet and throw his arms up, in a vigorous attempt to gain my attention.

He was a white man of middle-age. He was neither noticeably attractive, nor noticeably ugly. There was nothing really remarkable about him...except for the bandages on his left hand.

"Our brother needs a healing," I announced forcefully from the altar, "Our bother is in his hour of need! Our brother has come here for aid and comfort!"

There was an enthusiastic sprint as the wounded man rushed the stage. He was a tall man. He stood about three or four inches taller than me, however, everyone was focusing their attention on me. I was the ringmaster of this performance.

"What is your name, brother?" I asked boisterously, focusing more on his wounded hand, than making eye contact.

"Steve," the guy with the wounded hand said, Steve the wounded guy.

"Steve," I demanded, "what happened to your hand?"

"I was trimming the hedges," Steve replied, "I was using an electric hedge trimmer, and I accidentally cut through two of my fingers. Sliced through them deep. If I cut them any deeper, I might have cut them right off."

Visuals are important for good theatre, so I had Steve remove the bandages and allowed the whole congregation to see how bad his fingers looked. A public healing isn't really a public healing if the audience can't see how badly wounded the unfortunate person was before he got healed.

Steve unrolled the bandages and I had him hold his hand up high. It was a mess. The fingers were scarred, red and swollen and there were a multitude of stitches holding his fingers together. The stitches were black, and the ends of his stitches stuck out in differing diagonal directions. It looked as if Steve had a small swarm of angry wasps perched threateningly upon his fingers.

"People," I called out, "good people of Chicago, Steve is in pain, but we are not going to allow him to remain this way! We will make Steve whole again! Now join hands and pray to me, that I might heal Steve and repair his damaged flesh!"

I had a large silver bowl on the dais, filled with water. I didn't need it, however, Lara told me it would make for better theatre if it was there. People seemed to think that water held mystical properties, like holy water, the fountain of youth or sacred wells. Lara believed that If I used water in my healing ceremonies, it would make the healings more memorable and give me more credibility.

Other aesthetic touches that supposedly made for better theatre were the two carved, marble statues of angels up on the dais behind me. Also, everything I wore for these church events was pure white, white pants, white shoes and white shirts. Supposedly the color white helps to project an image of holiness, innocence and compassion.

As my congregation joined hands, and prayed to me, I sank my hands into the bowl, filled my hands with water and then held them up, as if I intended to drink the water I had just retrieved.

There was a heady rush as my congregation prayed to me. My blood sang as it surged through my veins. I was feeding on a sort of energy that was so potent I began to feel pleasantly light-headed and giddy as I consumed it.

Gods are creatures of force and spirit and belief, and as hundreds of people prayed to me, imploring that I make Steve whole again, the energy of their faith and belief flooded into me and my heart raced. I stood there panting, my eyes only half open and I felt my mouth stretching into a widening grin.

Their prayers made me feel vigorous, strong and intensely stimulated. It was an exquisite feeling.

The prayers weren't necessary for me to heal Steve's hand; however, my congregation didn't need to know that. Their prayers and their belief in me were what I needed to become stronger and more powerful. I could feel potent energies flowing through my veins as they prayed to me.

Steve's hand healed while I was feeling the intense rush of potent energies flow into me. The stitches were still there, however his fingers were no longer red or swollen. Even the scars were gone. Damage that would have taken years for Steve's body to heal, had been healed within scant seconds.

"Steve is healed," I shouted triumphantly at my congregation and they collectively let out a cheer of victory. And when Steve returned to his seat, dozens of parishioners embraced him. Spirits were high and everyone underneath my roof was thrilled to be a part of this. They didn't understand how the healing worked, but they knew that something extraordinary had just happened.

I healed three other people that morning, and I was riding a wave of euphoria from the energy of the faith and worshipful reverence I'd absorbed from my congregation. I was bursting with energy. I felt like I was unstoppable, like I could do anything. There was an intense sensation of thrumming power that spread through my body and made me feel stronger than I had in centuries.

_____________

Of course, Lara checked up on me. She didn't really care about my church; however, she did care about how powerful I became now that I had worshippers once again.

There were obvious signs that I was becoming more powerful. As a white court vampire, Lara drains life energy from her lovers every time she has sex with them. When I first met Lara, the life energy she drained from me left me feeling weak and defenseless immediately after we had sex. For several minutes afterwards, I would lie limp and lifeless, and attempt to recover my strength.

After several weeks of having worshippers, I had a much greater abundance of life energy. Lara was draining the same amount of life energy from me as before, however, I didn't feel weak or lethargic afterwards. I had so much life energy, Lara could feed off me as much as she liked, and I still felt strong and energetic. It was like my life energy was the size of an ocean and Lara was drinking a few liters of it at a time. She could never feed off me enough to make me feel weak ever again.

"Ready for a trip down to the dungeon?" Lara asked me as we lay naked in her bed. I wasn't really big into bondage and I told her so.

"This isn't about bondage," Lara explained to me, "This is about testing your limits now that you're becoming a goddess once again. I'm quite certain that you've gained a number of benefits now that you have worshippers once again."

_____________

Down in the dungeon, I encountered chains and iron shackles. The chains looked heavy, sturdy and extraordinarily solid. They also looked ancient. I wondered who had been bound in these shackles.

"Can you rip one of these chains out of the wall?" Lara asked, and I looked at the chains dubiously.

The chains were anchored to a cinderblock wall by means of a metal ring attached to a metal plate that was bolted to the wall. The whole arrangement looked to be very secure and sturdy. I felt much stronger now than the first time I had met Lara, however ripping iron bolts out of a cinderblock wall didn't seem feasible.

I sighed heavily, grabbed one of the chains and pulled.

"Are you even trying, darling?" Lara asked, obviously unimpressed by my performance, "Hana, show some enthusiasm for your work. Put some effort into it!"

I braced my foot against the dungeon wall and tightened my grip on the chain. With a mighty grunt, I yanked on the chain as hard as I could, and I felt the metal begin to give. A few seconds later, there was a loud metallic snapping noise and one of the iron links in the chain snapped and exploded like so much shrapnel. I fell on my butt and held in my hands the length of chain that I had ripped away from the wall.

"Now, that is a show of strength worthy of a supernatural predator," Lara said, applauding my performance.

"Are you in need of a supernatural predator?" I asked, still sitting on the floor of Lara's dungeon, "Do you need somebody to batter the large troll that's living underneath your bridge?"

Lara raised one of her eyebrows and looked at me in a quizzical manner. I'm guessing that her education never included an introduction to fairy tales like the Three Billy Goats Gruff.

I didn't bother to explain the reference, and the silence in the dungeon eventually became so uncomfortable that Lara chose to fill the silence by explaining her need for a supernatural predator.

"I have plans and agendas in Chicago," Lara explained, "however, there are others in this town with conflicting agendas. There is a crime boss named Johnny Marcone who owns even more properties and businesses than I do. Of late, his associates have made incursions into my territories, testing my reactions. His trespasses thus far have been negligible, however, at some point his agendas and mine will come into conflict and he'll need to be taught not to meddle in my affairs."

"So, you want a supernatural predator to put the fear of god into a Chicago crime boss?" I asked.

Lara gave me a thoughtful look and seemed to consider my question for several seconds before answering.

"Perhaps I will need you to send a message of sorts to the crime boss," she finally answered, "or perhaps not. In any event, Marcone is not the only force in Chicago with the potential to interfere with my plans. The Black Court continues to send their agents into Chicago with agendas of their own and will probably require a violent demonstration at some point to illustrate why they should refrain from interfering with my affairs. There is Skavis and Malvora, other White Court Houses, who hatch plots and could pose a threat to House Raith soon. There is also a wizard named Dresden who seems to have no agenda, however, he has a talent for disrupting the agendas of others. He is powerful and unpredictable. And he has a way of showing up at the wrong place at the wrong time and disrupting carefully laid plans."

"I think I get it," I said, finally pushing myself up off the floor and standing upright once again, "You have potential enemies, and you want a being of extraordinary power in your arsenal that you can use whenever your enemies meddle too much in your affairs."

"I would not call upon your skills often," Lara replied, "House Raith frowns upon ostentatious displays of violence. We prefer to work our agendas with quiet elegance and subtlety whenever possible."

And just like that, I agreed to be a supernatural enforcer, who would terrorize and slaughter Lara's enemies, if she ever called upon me to do so.

- - -

In theory, Lara's plan to use me as her supernatural assassin was a sound one. In practice, it fell apart like an eggshell being trampled by a herd of stampeding bulls.

Hannah Higgins was most famous for her miraculous healing abilities. Making certain that people never stopped worshipping me meant consistently healing believers and potential believers. I was averaging about six public healings every Sunday morning, plus about another four private healings during the rest of the week. I made certain people didn't forget about me.

Mostly people came to my church to be healed, however, there were exceptions to that rule. Susan Asher was a sixty-two-year-old woman with a fractured hip. I've never experienced the pain of a fractured hip before, however I understand that they are very painful and severely limit your mobility. Susan either couldn't or wouldn't make the trip down to my church, and thus I was forced to make the trip out to her apartment building on West Adams to work my healing magic.

In the lobby of her apartment building, I pressed the button for Susan's apartment. I was expecting the voice of a typical grandmotherly sort of woman to respond. Instead, my attempts at communication were met with a resounding, arrogant female voice, shouting out, "Oh, fucking hell!"

"Susan Asher?" I ventured, thinking perhaps I'd been given the wrong apartment number.

"Yes, this is Susan Asher," the cantankerous female voice replied, "Who the hell are you?"

I sighed, rolled my eyes hard enough to strain the rectus muscles of my eyes and replied into the microphone, "This is Hannah Higgins. I'm here about your fractured hip. Your granddaughter supposedly arranged everything with you in advance."

"Higgins," the imperious female voice said, "Oh yes, the fraud. Well, I suppose you may as well come in, so we can get this over with."

I rolled my eyes again. Humans could be such cynics and curmudgeons. Susan was lucky that I still wanted more believers and worshippers. She certainly wasn't going to motivate me to help her with her winning personality.

A middle-aged woman opened the door to let me into Susan's apartment. The middle-aged woman seemed to be eager to get out of the room before Susan and I had a chance to speak, and she scurried away at her first opportunity. I'm guessing that she was some sort of personal care aide or a housekeeper, that wasn't too fond of her employer.

Susan Asher herself was a small woman in a recliner. She wore a floral housecoat and thick glasses and had hair that was shockingly white and pulled back into a severe bun. She reminded me of those humorless librarians who are always sternly admonishing people for speaking aloud in a library.

She gave me an intense look that seemed to be accusing me of something. Her eyes were piercing and intelligent. I almost got the impression that she was a wizard of the White Council about to do a soul gaze.

"Well, you're very pretty for a fraud," Susan proclaimed imperiously from her recliner, "An attractive woman like you could get herself some honest work. Plenty of modeling jobs in the city of Chicago. I don't suppose you've looked into any of them."

"And what makes you so certain that I'm a fraud?" I asked, folding my arms across my chest in a defiant gesture.

"Hah! I'm not some starry-eyed teenager, like my granddaughter," Susan exclaimed, "Faith-healers are always frauds! Benny Hinn, Larry Maxwell, Oral Roberts and the like! You're all snake oil salesmen! You think I'm stupid and gullible?"

"No," I replied, with my arms still crossed in front of me, "I think that you're a cranky, snappish and irritating old woman. You're about as much fun as a bad case of syphilis."

Susan's mouth dropped open and she stared at me for a long time. Apparently, I'd gone way off script. She was expecting some sort of smooth-talking fraud that would flatter her, tell her pretty lies and charm her out of her money. Instead I told her that she was a pain in the ass.

"I like you," Susan finally replied, "You're not some sort of bombastic preacher making flowery speeches about peace and love and how you're doing God's will. You're blunt and plainspoken. No overblown, pretentious bullshit."

"Thanks," I said, somewhat taken aback at the compliment.

"You're still a fraud," Susan added, "But a plainspoken fraud. I don't know how that's going to work out for you, though. It seems counterintuitive to me. Frauds need to tell lots of lies. You're going to confuse yourself if you try to be dishonest and plainspoken at the same time."

I rolled my eyes again and said, "Maybe I'm actually telling the truth. Maybe I'm not in danger of confusing myself, because I can heal people's injuries with a few seconds of physical contact."

"Hah," Susan exclaimed contemptuously, "If you could really do that, you'd be up at Northwest Memorial, making money hand over fist, and putting all the other doctors out of work! I don't know what your angle is, but you aren't going around healing people with the touch of your fingertips! Even if my granddaughter is naive enough to believe in you, I'm not falling for it!"

"You know what my angle is?" I asked defiantly, "I heal people. And then people revere me for the amazing things I do."

Then I grabbed her wrist and immediately a rush of mystical energies flooded down my arm and into my hand.

Susan had called me plainspoken. And as if to prove her right, I told her exactly what my game was. I wanted to be revered by mortals. I wanted their awe and reverence and gratitude. I didn't tell Susan exactly why I wanted this, but I was honest when I told her what I wanted.

Susan reacted predictably when I reached out and grabbed her wrist without warning. She reflexively tried to break free from my grip. Of course, she failed in her attempt. I was far stronger than her. She struggled with all of her might, and still made no progress in breaking free or even loosening my grip.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Susan Asher demanded as she felt the mystical energies from my fingertips travel down her arm and all across her body, searching for broken bones, torn muscle tissue or other obvious damage that needed fixing. The energies I unleashed from my body to hers seemed almost sentient. They found damage and fixed it. There was no need for me to explain what needed to be done. The mystical energies I unleashed understood perfectly the role they were to play, and they did it perfectly every time.

"Aarghh," the old woman screamed inarticulately, however, the look on her face rapidly changed from outrage to confusion to fascination.

"You did something to me," Susan observed, her voice soft and tentative, "There was a surge...like electricity, only not painful. It was glorious, it was breathtaking, it was..."

She gave me a curious look, and then lifted herself up out of her chair. Her hip was perfectly fine and supported her weight without any difficulty. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. What I had done was so unexpected, she was utterly dumbstruck for several seconds.

"You're not a fraud," she proclaimed when she was once again able to form words.

"Nope," I agreed readily.

"What are you then?" Susan asked, "What you did just now isn't normal. Nobody that's a normal person can do what you just did."

"I'm Hannah Higgins," I replied, "And I can do the impossible."

Susan spent the next fifteen minutes asking me questions and attempting to pry answers out of me. I gave her evasive answers that left her with half-formed ideas and even more questions. I just wanted mortals to worship me and believe in me. I didn't want to answer any of their questions about who and what I was.

In retrospect, that was a mistake on my part. It would have been wise to craft an identity for myself. Worshippers give gods power; however, they also craft our identities with their beliefs. By not taking an active role in guiding what they believed, I was allowing them to choose an identity for me.