Chapter One––Waiting

Maximilian Edward William Hall flipped the lid open on a silver Zippo lighter, the click echoing in the still night. Sparking it with his thumb, he brought the small flame up towards his face, lighting the cigarette between his lips. He snapped it shut again, returning it to his pocket and taking a long drag on the cigarette.

It did nothing. He felt nothing.

He rarely smoked. There was little reason to waste his money. For him, nicotine did not provide that paradoxical calming rush most smokers held so dear. He did, however, find it vaguely amusing when people he had never met would stop him on the street and begin ranting about his future painful death, involving years of cardiovascular and pulmonary agonies. “That cigarette will kill you, young man,” he was told.

He smiled at the thought. If only it were true.

It was nearly three in the morning. There would be no one out to lecture him now. But he chose to smoke, nonetheless.

He needed the distraction.

He was called Maxim by those who knew him. He had never particularly cared for his multisyllabic first name, and had detested the nickname “Max.” It didn’t help matters that “Maximilian” was no longer in vogue, hadn’t been for years. People said trends always came back, but he was fairly certain that one had succumbed to its ultimate fate, along with hoop skirts and the word “tis.”

Maxim leaned back against the brick wall, propping one foot upon it as he continued to wait. The alleyway where he stood was pitch black. There was a light at the other end, over the back door of a restaurant, but the bulb had burned out and no one had bothered to replace it.

So much the better. After all, the darkness did not impede his vision in the least.

He smiled. There were two remaining workers in the restaurant, and he could hear their voices, hear them inch closer for the door. His wait was almost over.

Taking one last drag on the cigarette, he dropped it on the ground and crushed it under his shoe. No need to alert anyone of his presence with the smell of tobacco.

Maxim sighed after a few more minutes had passed and still the restaurant workers had not come out. He was getting very impatient, anxious. He didn’t like it.

Generally, Maxim Hall was very good at waiting. He should have been, after more than two hundred seventy years of practice.

• • •

After another minute or so, the door at the other end of the alley opened and out stepped a pale brunette. She was slender, though not excessively so, her figure apparent even from where he stood. She was clearly of short stature. Maxim could see loose threads hanging from the hem of her pants, indicating she had taken them up, a do-it-yourself affair for those who could not afford a professional tailor. She was quite pretty, though not in the common way. Her thick dark hair was hastily knotted into a messy bun on the crown of her head, loose pieces hanging in her face, and her wide eyes were a very pale green, clair de lune––vaguely similar to a young Vivien Leigh. She was about twenty, he guessed, though she could have easily passed for younger.

He could smell the laundry detergent from her clothes––a cheaper, generic brand. It was faint, buried under the layers of kitchen smells that clung to her––coffee, butter, olive oil, a plethora of fried and baked dishes. There was the smell of her shampoo as well, and a perfume that reminded him of lilies. And, of course, ever present––the scent of her blood.

She was mouthwatering.

Maxim had caught sight of her hours before, and had been inexorably drawn to her. He had been swiftly walking past the window of the cafe, Déjeuner Triste, just after sunset, when he had heard her laugh, low and soft. Not knowing why it had arrested him so, he had spun towards the sound, stopping dead in his tracks at the sight of her. She had been standing by a table near the window, wearing a white blouse and black slacks, a little black apron around her waist. She was balancing a serving tray on one hand, setting glasses of soda down on the table encircled by a group of teenagers.

One of the teenagers had scowled, throwing up her hands and saying, “God, do you ever just feel like no one gets it? Like you’re just outside of everything?”

The waitress who held Maxim so entranced smiled and murmured, “I stood among them, but not of them; in a shroud of thoughts which were not their thoughts.”

“What?” the group stared up at her in confusion.

“Byron,” Maxim whispered, just as the waitress had flushed, biting her lip and replying, “It’s Byron. He’s...he’s an early Nineteenth century English poet. You just reminded me of...” she hesitated, seeing the strange looks they were giving her, “um, nevermind.”

For whatever reason, Maxim hadn’t been able to get her out of his head since. And thirsty as he was, he knew he had to have her, as assuredly as a man needs oxygen. He assumed as soon as she had provided him with a light supper, the spell she had over him would be lifted.

And now that she had left the safety of the cafe, she was his for the taking.

“Night, Gen!” a female voice called to the girl.

The girl called “Gen” turned and gave the voice a halfhearted smile and wave, “Goodnight, Sara.”

“Careful walking home, huh? It’s so dark out!” the voice belonging to Sara cautioned her, before closing the door and disappearing back inside the building.

“Right,” Gen muttered, rolling her eyes.

It was a pity for Gen that she was not heeding Sara’s warning.

Gen, née Genevieve Maillard, paused on the small stoop, shivering into her coat and deftly wrapping a scarf around her neck, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the blackness. Cold, brisk winds were coming in off the ocean. For someone who was always cold, as Genevieve was, the chill in the air bit at her, finding its way through her layers of clothes. A heavy fog had rolled in, leaving icy droplets of moisture in her hair. She didn’t mind the dark so much; it was the fog that bothered her. One’s vision could never acclimate to see through that thick gray soup that would dominate the city of San Francisco until the late morning, before being swept across the Bay, burned off as it crept over the Berkeley Hills.

Wrapping her arms around herself, Genevieve let out a loud, “Brrrr!!” which served no purpose except to vent her frustration with the weather. Faintly, she thought that Jack the Ripper liked foggy nights. A very comforting notion to have. Of course, she reminded herself, this was not some seedy area of London circa 1888, and she was not an about-to-be-eviscerated prostitute.

That still did not change the fact that she was faced with the unfortunate task of stumbling home in the fog at three in the morning. And San Francisco was not exactly crime-free.

And, worst of all, to begin her trek home, she first had to traverse the creepy dark alley that opened up onto Van Ness. It wasn’t so bad walking along the main drags. There were streetlamps there, and occasionally a car or two would pass by. It would have been wiser to go through the front entrance, but then Sara would have had to fuss with undoing all the locks and deadbolts and pulling back the steel accordion fence, set to keep nighttime intruders from breaking in. The alleyway was also a shortcut––if she went the front way, it would be an extra half-mile. And, after all, the alley was no more than fifty feet. If she squinted, she could make out the end of it, little more than a murky haze.

Would it really have been so much trouble to put in a light fixture back here?

Genevieve scolded herself. The longer she stood here contemplating the unpleasantness of her walk, the longer it was going to be before it was over and she could return home. And she needed to get home quickly, in order to hop into bed and catch as many hours of sleep as she could. She was scheduled to come back in for her next shift at eleven.

Genevieve normally worked fifty hours a week at her little restaurant, struggling to make ends meet. She was not technically supposed to be scheduled for more than forty, but as she received little more than minimum wage, she needed all the extra hours she could get. Her boss hated it when she did that, as he had to pay her overtime, and often would practically chase her out of the place and threaten to punch out her timecard himself. Tonight, however, she had lucked out, and he had left early. Several of the other employees calling in sick, it was just her and Sara until closing at midnight, and by themselves, it took a full three hours to clean and organize the kitchens and dining area. Sara was staying behind to go over the books.

Genevieve’s income nearly all went to the care of her mother, who had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma three years prior. With her mother ill, Genevieve had put all her dreams and aspirations on the back burner. Growing up, it had been just the two of them, and her mother had been willing to give her anything she could. Though funds were always a little tight, her mother always saw to it that her little girl got to go through the rounds of ballet lessons, Girl Scouts, school field trips. That she would receive that doll for her birthday that she had wanted more than life itself. That she would always have a pair of arms waiting to hug her close and wipe away her tears for whatever childhood problems she encountered. Her mother had been purely selfless, putting all her needs to the wayside to make Genevieve as happy as she was able, to make sure she fulfilled her goals. And what goals Genevieve had. For most of high school, she had been at the top of her class. She was going to go to college, earn a graduate degree, teach English Literature at a world-renowned university, do everything she could to make her mother proud.

But when her mother had gotten sick, everything had changed. Genevieve’s needs and ambitions were no longer important to her. Her mother mattered more than anything else in the world, and she was going to be there to help pull her through. More worried about doctors’ visits and her mother’s illness than school attendance, her grades had slipped drastically––so much that she barely graduated. She had never even crossed the threshold of a local community college. With only a high school diploma, her waitressing job was about the highest-paying position she could obtain.

But that was of no difference to her now.

Things were looking dark, though. All the medical bills had plunged them into heavy debt. And for all of Genevieve’s efforts, she could not will away the cancer eating at her mother’s poor body. Her mother had gone through rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, her periods of remission brief and fleeting. Genevieve had watched her lose all her strength, lose all her hair, lose almost half of her body weight. Her mother had been vivacious and beautiful once, and was now a sick, emaciated skeleton, bedridden, waiting for death. Her oncologist had told her she could expect to live no more than six months––all their options had been exhausted. Genevieve didn’t want to think about her life after her mother died. She could barely reconcile herself with the fact that by this time next year, the woman she loved so dearly would be gone. Instead, Genevieve focused solely on the time her mother had left. She would be there every step of the way, so her mother did not have to go through this alone. She would give her anything she could provide. She had sworn to that, and nothing, absolutely nothing was going to keep her from fulfilling that promise.

Sighing, and pushing such melancholy thoughts away, Genevieve began walking down the alleyway. To dispel her anxiety, she started talking aloud to herself. She knew she looked like a lunatic, but fortunately, there was no one around to hear.

Or so she thought.

“Crap, I need to stop at the grocery store when I wake up. Mom might want some soup and we’re out. She’s been too nauseated to eat anything lately, but maybe I can coax her into a cup of chicken noodle or something. She likes that when she’s hungry. I hope that stupid nurse, Peggy, shows up in the morning. They really ought to fire that idiot. How in the world did she get through nursing school, anyway? I should call Dr. Franklin and see if they can’t arrange to send someone else. Stupid Maurice making me work at eleven. What am I going to get, five hours of sleep, tops? Of course, he thinks I clocked out at one, but how did he honestly expect Sara and I to close that fast when we were the only people in there? God, it’s cold. I hate the cold. I’m going to die of hypothermia. My fingers are numb. So is my nose. I bet it’s just going to fall off or something. I’ll be like Michael Jackson without the dance moves and molestation charges. Fantastic. Gah, why is it so freaking cold out?!”

“I suppose it is rather chilly this evening––or should I say morning?” a very polished masculine voice remarked, a possible faint trace of a British accent to it.

Genevieve whirled around in alarm, her heart in her throat, her blood turning to ice. She tensed, waiting to spring away and flee from a potential attacker as she scanned the area around her for the owner of the voice. It was too dark; she could see nothing. Her breath was coming out in uneven gasps. She took a tentative step sideways, and then stopped, not knowing which direction to take. Her mouth was dry. A very primal terror was clutching at her. She was an animal cornered, predator about to descend upon its prey, with no way to escape. Her gaze wildly sought the alley’s exit, off to her left. Should she try to make a dash for Van Ness? But what if he was standing over there? There was no way to tell. She could inadvertently run straight to him.

Maxim smiled from where he stood in the shadows. He could see her as clearly as if it were midday. He could hear her heart rate climb, see the clammy perspiration break out on her forehead, see her pulse pounding in her neck, above her scarf, the bluish tinge of her veins just faintly visible under her pale complexion. But it was the incredible scent of her blood rapidly coursing through her that hit him in an exquisite tour de force.

Quickly, he shook off his happy, silent observation. That had been quite enough. He had never subscribed to the idea of torturing his dinner. That was unnecessarily cruel. It was much better to calm them down, make it all as quick and painless as possible, and then send the soul home to sleep it off and shrug it off as a bad dream the next day––if they remembered it at all. The bite marks would already have healed, so there would be no evidence to suggest it was anything but a dream. He never drank enough blood to kill or harm. One would be weaker after a visit to the Red Cross than from a meeting with him. He still acknowledged that it was nightmarish what he did, but at least this way, he was able to live with himself.

And being able to live with oneself was a very important quality to possess when it was almost impossible to die.

“I’m sorry, I did not mean to frighten you. That was very rude of me,” he stepped forward into her line of vision, but keeping a safe distance so as not to frighten her further. He could hear her pulse give another jump, and he kept from smiling, knowing that this time fear had not caused it.

Genevieve gaped up at him in shock. There stood, for no reason at all, the most absurdly attractive man she had ever seen. A shaft of moonlight illuminated his frame, giving his skin a peculiar pale glow, like white marble. He was nearly a head taller than she, though as Genevieve was on the petite side, this was nothing extraordinary. He had that purposely disheveled hair––she couldn’t tell if it was dark brown or black. His chiseled features were absolutely flawless, more than they had any right to be. And his eyes were a bright, vivid green, so much more striking than her own.

Genevieve could not guarantee it, but she was pretty certain an exquisite piece of art in the Legion of Honor had come to life and had left the Richmond neighborhood, deciding to take a stroll down this alleyway.

“I am sorry I startled you. You were talking, and as there was no one else around, I assumed you must have been speaking to me,” Maxim interrupted her stupefied, open-mouthed gaze.

“What?” she blinked, snapping out of it. “Oh, right, yes. Um, yeah, no, I just...do that. Talk to myself sometimes, I mean.” She paused in her stammering, feeling her face flush. “I don’t answer!” she suddenly amended, as though that made it sound any less bizarre. “It just calms my nerves, I guess.”

“Plenty of people talk to themselves,” he replied. “I only regret that I so rudely interrupted your calming process.”

“It’s all right. You didn’t mean it,” Genevieve said, crossing her arms. Immediately, she felt her face begin to burn a brighter scarlet as his eyes quickly dropped to the faint hint of cleavage at the V-neck of her blouse, uncovered by the jacket she had not buttoned, before just as swiftly pulling his gaze back up to her face.

He cursed inwardly, watching the color rise in her cheeks. It had been almost a reflex––how ridiculous to be distracted in such a juvenile manner! He ought to have known better by now. And for that matter, why was he momentarily distracted by her figure? She was his meal ticket; nothing more.

“Uh, hey,” Genevieve interrupted his mental self-criticism, still blushing slightly, “so, um, is there a reason you’re hanging out in dark alleyways at three in the morning? Some people would call that creepy.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he shrugged. “I thought taking a walk would help.”

She nodded, noticing that dark circles lined his exquisite eyes. It was a true testament to his perfect features that those circles did not detract from his looks. He might have been taken for an extraordinarily well-dressed and slightly tired frontman for a punk band, the circles no more than extremely smudged eyeliner.

“Oh, do you have insomnia?” she asked. “That’s horrible. I’m sorry. But if you’re going to go walking at night, you should stay on the main roads. You could get mugged back here.”

“I doubt that,” Maxim replied, amused at the unfeasible image of some hapless petty thief overpowering him. “But what about you? Surely you ought to find a safer route home.”

“It’s faster this way,” she explained.

“But more dangerous. Surely you ought not to risk it for the sake of convenience?”

“I’ve been all right so far,” she shrugged.

Maxim felt a stab of guilt––he was about to mar her perfect record. “Well, if I were you,” he said, “I would take the longer trip. Or have someone meet you.”

Genevieve rolled her eyes, “Yeah, because I’ve got a lot of friends willing to walk me home in the middle of the night. I think the majority of the people who are awake right now are speed addicts or prostitutes or something. I don’t really know many of those.”

He smiled faintly, “Yes, well, please do avoid the meth labs and brothels on your way home. You probably could go the rest of your life without making such friends.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she grinned back.

Maxim was about to reply, but paused suddenly. What in God’s name was he doing?! First, he had been caught staring at her body like some foolish, hormonal adolescent, and now they were in the middle of a little conversation. Since when did he ever stop to sit and chat with his dinner? Humans didn’t go and make friends with the cow before ordering the steak. He shook his head, annoyed. Best to get this over with.

Suddenly, clear as bell, Genevieve could hear his voice in her head, as distinctly as if he had spoken aloud, “Relax, you won’t remember this in the morning.”

It was almost a hypnotic thing, what he was able to do––one of the lovely esoteric tricks of the trade he had picked up. It had taken many years before he was able to do it, and it was still an imperfect art. Not everyone of his kind was capable of it, and even fewer bothered to use it, not caring if they caused their meal more pain than was necessary. This quasi-telepathy worked only on humans––it was a calming force, nothing they could actually respond to or clearly understand. It would, rather, send them into a bit of trance, leaving them too out of it to realize or protest him taking off a little less than a pint of their blood.

He waited for the dazed, complacent look to cross her features. The look he had seen on every other person’s face, where they would slip into a happy little fog, only half-aware of what was happening, before they turned for home with little to no memory of the event.

The look never appeared on her face.

“How did you do that?” she demanded suddenly, staring at him in confusion.

“Do what?” Maxim asked innocently.

“I just heard you say something, but you didn’t open your mouth. Are you practicing to be a ventriloquist?”

“What are you talking about? I didn’t say anything.”

“Yes, you did!” she protested.

Maxim frowned. This had never happened before. No one was ever that cognizant of what he said. They always heard it on a strange subconscious level, accepted it without question. Why had it had no effect on her? Why should she, this perfectly ordinary young woman, be the exception? It was incomprehensible.

He continued to play dumb, “I swear I said nothing. What do you think I said?” He carried the faint hope that she had just heard some external noise and thought it was him.

Genevieve looked as bewildered as he felt, “You said...‘Relax, you won’t remember this in the morning.’ Remember what? What won’t I remember?”

Maxim suddenly felt plagued with an emotion he had not experienced in several decades––fear. Something was very wrong. Everything about this situation suddenly felt wrong. He backed away a step. Instinctively, he knew it would not be wise to continue this little interlude. He should let her be, find his dinner somewhere else. He didn’t want to know why this girl was affecting him so differently, why she was so unlike the others. He just needed to get away and forget.

“I...” he started and then said abruptly, “I think you should go now. You ought to be getting home. This isn’t safe.”

“...Right,” she nodded, backing up from him and giving him an odd look. She could sense something was wrong as well as he could, even if she was even less able to put a name to it. “Um, goodbye, I guess,” she managed, turning from him and walking a little too quickly to be natural.

Maxim merely nodded back, watching her depart, excessively glad this meeting was at its end.

Genevieve, unfortunately, was not a particularly graceful young lady, and her anxious, hurried pace, with almost no light to guide her way, had her tripping and stumbling over her own two feet. She had only made it about five yards away, when she trod upon an empty beer can. Her ankle turned, and she cringed in pain, lurching sideways. She put her hands out to stop herself from falling, and collided with a metal dumpster, her arm scraping against a sharp corner, ripping the fabric of her shirt and jacket. “Damn,” she whispered, holding her arm. Her skin stung. She didn’t have to look at it to know she was bleeding. “And on the side of the dumpster, no less. I’m probably going to get Ebola now or something,” she muttered darkly. Though a little freaked out by her peculiar meeting with the too-beautiful-to-be-true fellow, she turned to him, taking a step forward and calling out, “Hey, before you go, you wouldn’t happen to have a band-aid on you, would you? Or Neosporin? I think I may have sustained a minor injury here.” Immediately, she felt foolish for asking. Who walked around with bandages and antibiotic ointment?

“Please stop where you are,” Maxim held up a hand, his entire frame rigid. She didn’t need to tell him she had cut herself. He could smell the blood the second it came in contact with the air, a thousand times more potent and intoxicating than it had been before. He wanted to let her go, get her out of his life, but at the moment, it was all he could do to keep from throwing himself upon her.

Genevieve did not take the hint. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, you get faint at the sight of blood, don’t you? I didn’t mean to freak you out or anything. It’s just a little scrape, really. I’m not going to bleed out or anything. It’s only––”

“Please,” his voice was strained. “You have to leave. Now.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Um, wow. It really bothers you, doesn’t it? I’m sorry. I guess I’m fine. I mean, I might have picked up some horrible disease, but other than that––”

The scent of her blood was wrenching his insides, killing him. His throat was tight, every nerve in his body tensed like it was about to snap. He was fighting for control and losing.

Genevieve could make out the agonized look on his face, like he was in some sort of dire physical pain. “Hey...um...are you okay?” she asked in concern, taking another step towards him.

That step proved to be Maxim’s undoing. He couldn’t take it.

Before Genevieve even had a chance to blink, Maxim had closed the distance between them, grasping both of her arms and pushing her up against a wall, pinning her.

“What are you––?” she cried in shock, and then stopped abruptly, gasping. A small ray of light emanating from one of the windows above cast over his nonpareil face, revealing what she had not seen earlier––this insanely handsome man had fangs.

Genevieve’s eyes widened in horror and disbelief, icy terror clutching at her. This was not like being held up at gunpoint, or even being raped. Both scenarios were beyond horrifying, but they were at least fathomable, real things that happened to real people.

This was impossible. “No,” she breathed, incredulous, “you––”

She had no chance to finish, to get her bearings, or put up a struggle.

“I apologize for this,” Maxim whispered roughly, before reaching up to rip the scarf away and jerk her head to the side. He barely heard the bloodcurdling scream as his teeth sank into her throat. His fangs seemed to make a deafeningly loud crackling pop as they pierced her flesh, puncturing her carotid artery. There was no mellow daze for her––she was getting all the pain of being bit full-force. Though she was no match for him anyway, as soon as he bit her, she was completely immobilized, powerless to stop him. Her screams quickly died off, replaced with low, anguished weeping. She could feel his cold lips against her skin, feel her blood being drawn from her, an icy numbness starting to spread through her veins.

The taste of her blood was beyond exhilarating, more than he could have ever imagined. His eyes rolled back, and he groaned slightly, sublime euphoria taking over.

But a few minutes later, he could hear a quiet sob in his ear, “Please, please stop,” and he regained his senses. This poor girl––he was hurting her. The one thing he never wished to do. Instantly, he pulled away, staring down at her anxiously. He did not release his grip on her trembling white form, though now it was to keep her steady rather than hold her still. “Oh God, please, I’m so sorry!” he shook his head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean––are you all right?”

“Please let me go,” her voice quavered as she swayed slightly with dizziness. The two wounds on her neck were already healing over, leaving only two thin, blank trails of drying blood.

Immediately, Maxim did as requested, stepping back. She was nearly as pale as he was, and he hoped she wasn’t about to faint. He hadn’t taken that much blood; he hadn’t lost that much control. She was shaking in a mix of shock and terror, gaping up at him as though she couldn’t comprehend what had just occurred.

“No one will believe me, will they?” she asked suddenly, her voice very faint.

“No,” he replied softly.

He could see tears welling in her eyes, see her back away from him fearfully. She could not seek any sort of remonstrance for what he had done––this, Maxim knew, was what it was to have absolute power over someone. He was sickened by it.

“Oh God, Oh God,” she wept, shaking her head, slowly sliding away, keeping herself pressed against the wall to save her knees from buckling.

She was not like the others. She might try to convince herself it was all some wild hallucination, but she would never be able to forget.

Maxim watched her slowly retreat into the thick fog. Something wasn’t right. The strange hold she had over him had not been lifted––it was, in fact, all the more intensified now, horrible, damning compunction hanging over him like a dark cloud. Waiting until she was a healthy distance away, he began following her, heavy with guilt. He at least owed it to the shell-shocked Genevieve to see that she got home safely. He’d never be able to rest without knowing she would be all right, that he had not done damage beyond all repair.

(A/N: So this is my first attempt at a story on here--we shall see how it goes, yes? Also, this story is predominately going to be written in the first person. I just decided to play omniscient third person narrator for the first chapter.)