Prologue

Panting, the young man sprinted down the dimly-lit street as fast as his legs could carry him. He had caught a glimpse of a shadow lurking behind him while he was outside the White Knight Inn pub smoking a cigarette. At first he thought his eyes were playing a trick on him. The young man had brushed it off and returned to chatting up the pretty blonde he’d met earlier inside the pub.

She had excused herself to go back inside to use the loo.

“Cool, baby. Just don’t be long,” he had said as she was walking away. He thought he sounded desperate.

Right when he was mentally scolding himself for acting like an idiot moments before, he heard a soft voice carried on the wind whisper his name.

“Carmin…”

He spun around to see who had said his name. Nothing. Not a soul in sight.

“Carmin…” The voice came again.

“Who’s there? Hey… Anybody there? Hello?”

He peered around the corner, but all he saw were a few trash bins and a stray cat eating scraps of food from the ground. Turning back around, he heard the voice for the third time. It was more clear and pronounced.

“CARMIN.”

His heart jumped inside his chest. Carmin, now to the point of being scared shitless, turned around yet again. Only this time he came face to face with a massive black shadow that appeared to be in human form.

This was enough to send Carmin running.

He scrambled through the streets with the shadow in hot pursuit. He dared not look back at the wretched thing, but his intuition told him it was there. It was chasing him. He had to keep running.

He rounded onto Whitterby Lane, the street he lived on. His cottage was at the end of this secluded dirt lane. He could make it. He would get inside his cottage, bolt the door behind him, and the shadow would leave him the hell alone. Or so Carmin hoped.

He managed to get to the front door, only to find that his keys were missing. He had locked the door on his way out that evening, and nobody else was home. He was enveloped completely in darkness. Carmin wished he had be sensible enough to have left the porch light on.

He reached into his pocket, fumbling for his keys. His hands were shaking so bad that it was difficult to grasp them. He finally got a hold of the key and stuck it into the lock. He quickly turned it, unlocking the door. Carmin opened it. It was the last thing he would remember doing as a human.

Chapter One

Vincent watched the young vampire as he slept. The man’s golden hair seemed to almost reflect the flickering flames in the fireplace. He had not been an Innocent in life, which Vincent discovered whilst drinking the man’s blood.

Blood is everything, Vincent thought to himself.

He recalled a time in his mortal life when he had been gravely wounded, shortly before being made into a Creature of the Blood. He had lain in a pool of his own blood, his mind soaring above his body. He saw himself, his own broken body drenched in that thick red liquid. It had been a harrowing yet vital experience - a fragment of his existence that Vincent would never forget.

The fledgling vampire stirred slightly in his sleep. His breathing was low, barely audible. Vincent could still feel the blood running in his veins. He had been waiting so long, so very long, for a worthy companion.

For once in half a century, I am not alone.

The fledgling vampire’s eyes opened. They were crimson, only to be matched by the colour of his lips.

Carmin first caught sight of the fire before him. He knew the fire must be warm, but he could not feel it.

“Ah, you’re awake at last,” spoke a flighty voice.

Carmin forced himself to fully wake up. He sat up on the blue velvety sofa with a blanket still wrapped around himself. He saw whom the voice belonged to, and he was taken aback.

“I’m sure you have a million questions, and I will answer them in due time,” the stranger said. “As for now, I will tell you only what you absolutely need to know.”

“Which is?” Carmin replied groggily.

“You’re in my home. You are safe here. I have no intention of harming you again. I’m sorry for the manner in which I pursued you, but I didn’t want to reveal too much of myself at once. You would have never come with me willingly.”

“What are you on about? I am not following. This is mad! Who are you? What do you want with me?”

The stranger pressed his thin lips into a tight grin. “My name is Vincent. I am a vampire.”

Carmin thought the man must be insane. Vampires surely could not be real! “Listen, Vincent, I don’t know what your agenda is, and I want nothing to do with it! I want to go home!”

The man’s smile faded. “That you cannot do. Not yet.”

“Why in the hell not?”

“There are many reasons, none of which you will comprehend right off the bat. You won’t understand until I explain more.”

“Then go right ahead. Explain away.”

Vincent paused, contemplating momentarily. “It is probably best that I show you rather than tell you.”

Vincent arose from the armchair he had been sitting in and strolled over to the fireplace. Propping himself against the mantelpiece, he stared into the mirror in front of him. He cast no reflection.

“I used to take great pride in my looks,” the vampire said quietly, as if in the midst of a reverie. “I haven’t been able to see myself in ages. Centuries. Can you not guess what I am? What you have become?”

Carmin was still dumbfounded and knew not how to respond. He had heard that vampires cast no reflection, but he had always scoffed at the idea of creatures of the night being real. Yet his eyes could not be deceiving him. The black-haired man - if he could indeed be called that - had no reflection. He did not think the mysterious Vincent was trying to fool him into believing they were both vampires.

“But… My family… My parents… If I am truly a vampire, as you claim, then how can I ever see them again?” Carmin queried.

“You cannot, for your own good as well as theirs.”

“They’re my family! They will be worried sick about me if I don’t turn up somewhere!” Before he knew it, Carmin was on his feet. “I have to see them. I have to tell them -”

Vincent rounded on him, his eyes glaring. “You will tell them nothing,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “I instruct you as my creator instructed me. We do not interact with humans unless we mean to kill them or make them into fledglings.”

“But WHY?”

“Carmin, please. I think I ought to show you some things before you go any further with this.”

Carmin contemplated running away at just that moment, but decided against it. He knew he was nowhere near as strong as Vincent and could not possibly outrun him if Vincent tried to chase him down. Mopping his mess of blonde hair out of his eyes, he felt hot tears start to roll down his cheeks.

There came a subtle change in Vincent’s demeanor when he saw those bloody tears come cascading down the young vampire’s peaked face. He took Carmin gently by the arm.

“Come, child,” spoke Vincent tenderly. “There is much for you to learn.”

In a distant land, another eccentric creature stalked the night. He, however, was not out to kill, change, or teach. He wandered aimlessly through the quiet landscape with the moon serving as his guide. He did not know where he was going, nor did he care. All he knew was that he was going.

The bartender lazily polished off the last shot glass. It was closing in on dawn, and he was eager to retire to his apartment above the bar for a nice long nap. The bar had been packed that night, since it was hosting a bachelor party. The attendees of the party were all local hicks, most of them being interrelated in some way. Bill, the bartender, was not originally from the area and did not condone incest, but he never spoke ill of it in front of his redneck customers. He knew that not all of them were breeding with their cousins and siblings.

Bill was an honest man. A good man, tried and true. He had no wife or children. He didn’t even have a pet. However, working in a bar every day made it so that Bill was scarcely lonesome. He made an effort to get along with each and every patron, despite the fact that most of them were not pleasant people. Bill was raised to be respectful of others and show kindness towards every living being.

Perhaps that was the reason he took on the stranger as a boarder. He felt the utmost sympathy for the odd young man when he haphazardly walked into the bar shortly before it closed. There was no one else in there at the time, just the stranger and Bill.

“Can I help you, sir?” Bill asked the man.

“I need a place to stay. Just for the night,” the man responded in a hoarse voice.

“I have a room that’s available… I don’t normally let people stay here,” Bill said.

“Please. I cannot pay you. I have no money, but I can work off whatever debt I will owe you,” pleaded the man. “I need a place to stay… If you would so kindly allow me a bed here. Every other place in this godforsaken town has turned me out as though I am Joseph and the Virgin Mary.”

The sun was coming up over the horizon, and the first rays of morning were streaming through the windows of the bar. The stranger’s eyes widened when he saw this. Again, he begged the bartender to let him have the bedroom.

“All right, all right,” Bill finally agreed.

“One small request. I cannot be exposed to sunlight. It… it irritates my skin. You see, I have this disorder… Could you possibly board up the window right quick before I go in there? It would mean everything to me.”

“Of course. Let me just go get a few spare boards, a hammer, and some nails.”

The bartender left to go search for these items. Akira felt relieved to have been able to find a sort of safe haven from the coming day.

Chapter Two

Carmin struggled to keep up as Vincent led him on into the night.

“Where are we going?”

“Nowhere in particular,” Vincent replied airily. “We’re almost there.”

The pair came upon a parking lot that was empty save for one car. Carmin wondered why Vincent had led him to a deserted location such as this. Yet he felt it would be unwise to question the older vampire. If Vincent was going to provide him with answers, he figured it’d be best to let it happen without having to prod them out.

“I should think you are starting to feel a bit… hungry,” Vincent addressed Carmin. Indeed, Carmin was aware of the growing hunger within himself.

“Yes, a bit.”

“Good. The first thing you should know about vampires is what our feeding habits are like. It is not like what you read about in books or see in films. There is nothing romantic about it; neither is it repulsive. It just is. We feed to stay alive, so to speak. Some of us fast, going for up to a century or two without feeding. That makes for physical weakness. From blood we draw strength. Blood is the essence of living. Loss of it means dying. Do you follow? Do you see what I am trying to tell you?”

“I think so.”

“Our sole interaction with humans should be to feed off them or change them, as I have done to you. Vampires are not meant to intermingle with mortals for any other reason. It’s a part of the unwritten doctrine. Nowhere will you find it set in stone that vampires and humans cannot be friendly, but it is something that should be heeded by both kinds.”

“Are… Are you saying that humans and vampires have been friends before?”

“Yes. Let us not linger on that subject right now. I have a little demonstration set aside for you.”

Carmin was unsure as to what this so-called demonstration was, but he was about to find out.

Vincent approached the beat up ‘71 Triumph GT-6. The windows were steamed up, making it impossible to see through them. It was an obvious indicator as to what was happening inside the vehicle. Rapping gently on the driver side window, Vincent could feel the hunger swelling inside himself. For the moment, he would have to ignore it.

The window rolled down to reveal the round, pissed-off face of a middle-aged man.

“Whattaya want?” the man asked in a gruff voice.

Putting on his best French accent, Vincent spoke. “Oui, monsieur. I vas vandering if you could tell me vhere zee closest oh-tel is? My friend and I are from out of country, and ve are looking for a place to sleep.”

The woman in the passenger’s seat buttoned up her blouse and frantically applied lipstick, having spotted an even more desirable male than the one she was in the car with.

“I’ll show you how to get there, love,” she said, shoving the hideous red lipstick back into her shabby purse.

“Zat vould be most wonderful!” exclaimed Vincent.

The woman exited the car.

“Where you goin’, Alice?” the man shouted at her through the open car window.

“I’m goin’ to go help these nice gentlemen!” Alice shouted back over her shoulder.

“Aw, bloody hell.” The man hurriedly left the car, forgetting his keys were still in the ignition. “I thought we had something, Alice! Then you want to run off with these foreign blokes!”

“All’s I’m doing is helping them out, Archie.”

Alice latched on to Vincent’s arm and walked in step with him. Carmin, uncertain of what Vincent’s motives were, followed several paces behind. Archie lagged behind, breathing like an asthmatic kid who’d just had to run five miles without his inhaler. All the while Archie glared at the back of Vincent’s head.

The group turned the corner onto yet another narrow, abandoned road. Deciding it was the opportune moment, Vincent released his arm from Alice’s grip and put it around her shoulders.

Archie stopped dead in his tracks. “Alright, you! Get your hands off my girlfriend!”

Vincent jerked his head around, his eyes flashing red, and howled with laughter. He opened his mouth, exposing a pair of white fangs than seemed to sparkle. He sank them fiercely into Alice’s neck, piercing the skin. She screamed, writhing powerless in his arms.

Carmin saw Archie make a move toward the couple and managed to get a hold of the man’s fat bare arm.

“Let go of me!” Archie bellowed. He managed to free his arm. When Carmin tried again to stop him, he decked Carmin in the face hard enough to send him reeling to the ground. Carmin pulled himself off the pavement and wiped the trickle of blood away from his mouth. By this time, Alice’s cries had ceased, and Vincent was dragging her body to a nearby bridge. He glanced over in time to see Carmin leap onto Archie, pinning him to the ground. Carmin sank his own teeth into the man, using every bit of strength he could muster to keep the man from fending him off.

Vincent smiled with sickening pleasure when Archie’s body went limp beneath Carmin. The fledgling had made his first kill.

They heaved the two corpses into the river.

“The sun will be rising in about an hour,” Vincent said as he gazed up at the sky. “We should get home before it does.”

By the time they reached Vincent’s house, Carmin was exhausted from that night’s excursions. Archie’s blood was still flowing inside him. It had been an experience Carmin did not entirely understand. However, the dominance he had felt when killing Archie was something Carmin had enjoyed. He had never been so aware of himself and his surroundings. His senses heightened almost tenfold from what they had been when he was a mortal.

“I am proud of how well you did tonight,” Vincent told him. The older vampire removed his magnificent red coat and placed it on the coat rack in the home’s main entranceway. “You showed might that I wasn’t sure you had in you. With proper training and time, you will become a powerful creature… A formidable enemy to those who cross you and those who are oblivious to your existence.”

Carmin suppressed a smile. “Thanks.”

“You are fatigued. Let me show you to your room.”

Carmin trailed his maker up the stairs. Vincent led him into a beautiful, spacey bedroom furnished with cedar furniture. Heavy golden drapes obscured the windows. The bed itself was a massive canopy of red and gold, pillows placed meticulously upon it.

Vincent showed him the attached bathroom, which was also quite large. “All of this is yours. Feel free to roam about the entire house whenever you want. The drapes are Italian silk taffeta. They hide the boarded-up windows.”

Vincent opened up the closet and pulled out a long, frilly white nightgown that Carmin could’ve sworn was meant for a woman.

“I’m sorry. It’s all I have for you to sleep in. We shall order you finer things to wear very soon. Unless you truly fancy wearing this… thing.” He tossed the nightgown to Carmin, who stared blankly at it. “I will come and get you after sunset.”

“Good night… Er… day…” Carmin bid him.

“Sleep well, my child.”

And sleep well he did.