Vampire, Hunter

by Maria Arnt

  By the time she left her room, she had more than remembered why she was angry at him. Still, she wanted answers, so she took a few deep breaths before she went downstairs. She nearly missed the last step and clutched the banister to keep from falling.

  Seth was sitting on a leather sofa, reading a newspaper and drinking tea. The smell of ink and herbs assaulted her senses, but the leather wasn’t so bad. He glanced up to smile at her as she approached, setting the cup and paper aside.

  “You were there the night me and Jake were attacked.”

  The smile vanished from Seth’s face, and his expression became unreadable. “Yes, I was.”

  “Did you send those vampires to attack us?” she asked.

  Now he looked taken aback. “Of course not. I was not even aware of their presence until they attacked you. Unfortunately, I was too far away to arrive in time to save your friend.”

  “Do you know where he is?” she asked quickly.

  “He… your friend?” Seth asked, confused.

  “No. He’s in the ground, Seth, no thanks to you. I mean the vampire who attacked me,” Tanya snapped.

  Seth shook his head. “I was more concerned with getting you to medical attention than apprehending your attackers.”

  Tanya deflated a little, then frowned. “So what, you just happened to be in the area?” she crossed her arms.

  “Actually, I was some distance off. A few miles, I believe,” he said, thinking.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why?”

  Seth pressed his lips together as if he was trying not to smile. “Well, you were a young woman exploring your sexuality,” he said casually, “I thought it best to give you some privacy.”

  He was making no sense, and Tanya was tired of standing there, so she sat in one of the chairs that bracketed the couch, pulling her feet up under her. The leather was buttery and soft and smelled fantastic up close. “I mean why were you even there in the first place?”

  There was a long moment where they stared at each other. Tanya found it hard to hold his piercing blue gaze, it was so frank and yet uncertain. She glanced down at the pattern within the leather and was amazed by the hills and valleys and rivers of folds. She was so mesmerized by it that she almost didn’t catch when he spoke quietly.

  “Tatiana, I have been following you all of your life,” he confessed.

  She paused in her journey across the landscape of the leather chair. “You what?” she looked up.

  Seth was smiling. It was a strange half-smile, the kind that would make sense after someone confessed they had a large collection of sock-puppets. “I have watched you, from a distance, from your earliest days.” His smile disappeared in favor of something much more intense. “I watched you grow in wisdom, beauty, and strength, and I waited to approach until I was certain you were ready.”

  “So you... you stalked me since I was a freaking baby?” she demanded.

  His eyebrows shot up. “Stalked implies predatory intentions. I was there to protect you.”

  “Right,” she balked, completely at a loss. “And you did a great job at that!”

  To her surprise, he looked stricken. He leaned forward and put his hand over hers where it was wrapped around her knees. “I admit I failed you that night,” he said softly. “I would have done anything to keep you from suffering the loss of your first love. But sometimes you cannot stop fate. You were destined to be a great fighter, and that loss is what made you so strong.”

  Seth was so sincere that she almost forgot she hadn’t been talking about that night so long ago. “I meant turning me into a monster,” she sneered, glaring at his hand. Why was he always touching her?

  Seth pulled his hand away, slowly, reluctantly. “Is that what you think we are?”

  The way he said ‘we’ made her shudder. “Uh, duh. Vampire: a bloodsucker that feeds on humans. The undead creatures of the night, the evil nosferatu. Pretty much the definition of monster.”

  Sitting back, he folded his hands in his lap. “What if I told you that almost none of that is true? What if I told you that we aren’t evil, at least not categorically?”

  “Vampires kill humans,” Tanya drew the line.

  “Some do, yes,” he agreed. “Not all.”

  It was her turn to raise her eyebrows. “You’re telling me that you’ve never killed a human?”

  His smile turned dangerous. “Of course I have. It’s been a few years. These days it’s simply not worth the hassle, not when there are so many who will give a little willingly. It hardly seems necessary to take it all; I am not a greedy man.”

  She remembered Izzy at the bar where they called him Casanova, and felt sick. “So the only reason you don’t kill people is because it’s a pain to deal with the consequences?” she asked, incredulous.

  “I see where your logic is leading, Tatiana. Yes, I give death to some, but I give life to others. Each year that I have stolen from one life has undoubtedly been repaid in the extension of another. Death is part of life. Even we, so much more long-lived than humans, may eventually meet our ends—as you so very well know. A life without death has no meaning...” As he waxed philosophical, he seemed to draw within himself, until Tanya wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or himself.

  “Well I don’t want to be part of your little equation,” Tanya snapped, jerking him out of his train of thought.

  “I have given you a gift, one which many would kill to possess—”

  Good god, he was actually offended. “No!” she yelled. “A gift can be returned, or refused. You forced this on me, with no thought about what I wanted!”

  Seth stood, fuming, and walked stiffly away. She thought at first he was just running away from the argument, but he stopped at a door with a number pad on the wall next to it. “You want out?” he punched a series of numbers in, and with a click the door unlocked. He wrenched it open, unleashing the smells and sounds of the city. “Here’s the door.”

  She stood, walking slowly towards it. Her shin caught the corner of one of the low tables, but she barely noticed. Was he really going to let her go that easily? The closer she got to her freedom, though, the more it terrified her. Even at night, it was so loud, and the smell of all the cars made her choke. Under that was another smell, one that had her moving forward again before she recognized it. People. Humans.

  “Yes, you can smell it, can’t you?” Seth studied her face. “Do you know what would happen if you were to cross paths with a human tonight? You’re too new, you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself, and young vampires are known to be messy eaters.”

  The torn up mess of Jake’s neck, blood smearing his face and jacket.

  “You haven’t learned to control your body yet, but you were a talented fighter before the change. How many do you think you could kill before sunrise? A dozen? One hundred?”

  Tanya swallowed thickly. “I’ll wait until morning, then,” she argued. If death was her only other option, she would take it, but not if it meant that she would kill others in the process.

  “At this point, you will become unconscious half an hour before the sun rises, and remain that way until it has been gone as long. Nothing can wake you. That is why they think we’re undead, because the young ones sleep like they are dead.”

  Tanya swallowed the memory of a woman, burning in her sleep.”I-I’ll go out just before then,” she said, but already the sounds and smells coming from outside were beginning to overwhelm her. She took a step back.

  “I said unconscious, not asleep. In that margin of time, your instincts will take over, and your body will do whatever is necessary to find a protected place to spend the day. It will be very taxing, and when you wake again you will need to feed immediately,” he rattled off as if he was reading a textbook.

  Her breath began to quicken. What if he was lying? What if he was making it up just to mess with her? She couldn’t think, the sound of horns filling her ears, the exhaust and smell of blood making her lungs burn and her stomach lurch. “Shut
the door,” she said weakly.

  He hesitated. “Are you certain? This is the only time I will make you this offer.”

  “Shut the goddamn door, Seth,” she choked out the words.

  He closed it gently, blocking out the sound. The smell remained, though, and she struggled to catch her breath, stumbling back against the couch. Seth darted forwards as if to catch her, but she held out a hand. To her surprise, it was enough to stop him.

  “Do you need the blanket?” he asked warily.

  “No!”

  He leaned over and plucked it off the couch, and before she could speak, he had wrapped it around her. For one terrifying moment she thought he would put it over her head again, but he didn’t. Instead, he stepped back almost immediately. The end result that the blanket was wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl.

  “Better?”

  She pulled the dark softness of it closer around her, lifting a corner to smell it. Grudgingly, she nodded.

  They stood there, staring at each other. She saw that he looked tired, and wondered if he had been sleeping. If he needed to sleep. Serves him right, she thought distantly.

  “Would you permit me the opportunity to explain myself, free of interruption?” he finally asked.

  She recognized her request from the night in his apartment and scowled. “I won’t make any promises to you.”

  “Fair enough,” he tilted his head a little. “There is much to tell you, and you are in need of some very basic training, to help you reacquaint yourself with the world around you. Shall we kill two birds with one stone and get them done at once?”

  “I hate that expression,” she complained.

  He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “All right,” she answered. What else was she going to do? Stay locked up in her room for all eternity? The first inkling of a plan began to form in her mind: she would cooperate just long enough to learn how to control her monstrous new body, then make a run for it at her first opportunity.

  Seth gave a nod of his head like a very small bow and gestured towards an open door. “Then let us begin.”

  As he led Tatiana to the training room, Seth made an effort to keep his breathing steady. He had been almost certain that she would make the logical choice and stay, but the decision had taken her longer than expected. The gesture of offering her the door had been impulsive of him, and if she had made the wrong choice, he would have been forced to close the door before she could exit. He didn’t like to think how she might have reacted to that.

  Fortunately, his gamble had paid off, and he reminded himself that they usually did. It was only that the stakes were much higher now—higher than he had ever risked before. “I thought we might begin with fabrics,” he said casually.

  Tatiana looked around the large room with interest. The carpet was soft but sturdy, and the walls were covered in wide panels. All of the colors were neutral, soothing and light. There were a variety of lighting options, and Seth had selected a soft, indirect glow to help keep the mood calm.

  “Fabrics?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he opened one of the panels to reveal a cupboard behind it, and pulled out a large bag of swatches. “The human mind, in order to effectively deal with all of the information it encounters each day, develops a sort of shorthand. When it recognizes one aspect of a thing, it automatically remembers the rest of it, like seeing a person’s face and recalling their voice and personality.”

  “Makes sense,” she agreed reluctantly. She stood just inside the door, arms crossed as though she were hugging herself. “How do you know all of this stuff?”

  He shrugged. “I was involved with the Esoteric movement in Europe that gave rise to the study of psychology, and I’ve kept tabs on it since. Have a seat.” Seth gestured to the middle of the floor and sat, holding the bag in his lap.

  She looked around the room one last time and then sat on the carpet opposite him.

  “Your transformation has undone most of those associations,” he continued to explain. “In addition, all of your senses have been greatly heightened. The end result is the sensory overload you have been experiencing since you arose.”

  “Oh,” she said, distracted. She had already started stroking the carpet rhythmically and stopped once she realized what she was doing.

  “Go ahead,” he encouraged her. “The purpose of this exercise is to reacquaint yourself with the items you will frequently encounter. We will be spending a great deal of time in this room, so the carpet is as good a place to start as any.”

  Tatiana seemed to find this a little unsettling, but she resumed, running both hands over the floor in a circular pattern. She closed her eyes, and he smiled to see how quickly she was learning to isolate her senses and focus on them one at a time.

  “It’s really soft,” she commented, reaching out further and further in her circles. “I mean, not like squishy-soft like most carpet is. It’s less scratchy.” Soon, she had stretched out on the carpet, letting her whole body experience the sensation.

  Seth licked his lips, grateful that her eyes remained closed. “Don’t just feel it,” he suggested. “Smell it. Listen to it.”

  A line creased her brow, but she inhaled, her face close to the tawny weave. She pressed her ear to the carpet, listening to the sound of her hand still thrumming across it rhythmically. After a while, she opened her eyes and studied the pattern of looping fibers.

  Not long after, she seemed to come back to herself, sitting up and awkwardly adjusting the blanket around her shoulders. She glanced at him, obviously embarrassed.

  He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, and reached into the bag for the first swatch of fabric. “This is linen.”

  She took the square of off-white fabric and began to study it, this time keeping her reactions subdued. “So you said you were going to explain some stuff...?” she prompted.

  “Indeed I did.” But where to start? It could not be the beginning, as that would take too long. Nor could he lay out his plans before her, it was too soon. Perhaps the most important thing was to set her misconceptions straight. “You said that vampires are evil,” he began. “Which makes me wonder precisely what you think we are.”

  Tatiana had finished studying the linen and held out her hand for another sample. “I dunno, really. The undead? Maybe some kind of demon? It never really mattered to me.”

  “So you have devoted your life to hunting a creature, and you never bothered to learn what it really was?” If he had been wearing his glasses, he would have looked over the top of them at her in disdain.

  Tatiana gave him a look of pure fire. “What you do is more important than what you are,” she argued.

  He nodded. “True enough. But what you are is of consequence as well. You called us the ‘undead,’ but that is very much a misnomer. The process of turning a human into a vampire brings the subject very close to death, but not through it and back again. However, until the modern era, there was not much distinction between death and a coma.” He handed her another swatch to study.

  “Do I really need to do every kind of—wait, you put me in a coma?” she demanded.

  “You need not make an effort to remember each fabric, your improved memory will manage by itself. And yes, you were in a very controlled, temporary coma. It is a process I have done many times, and I have not failed in several ages.”

  She didn’t look very reassured, rubbing a square of cotton up and down her inner forearm distractedly.

  “You like cotton,” he commented, amused.

  She blinked at him, her wary expression warning that she might not let him change the subject.

  “It’s what you’re wearing,” he said helpfully, gesturing to her form-fitting T-shirt and ratty shorts.

  “Yeah,” she agreed. “I had a really hard time getting dressed this morning.”

  “I imagine so. That is why I decided to start with fabrics,” he handed her the next swatch. “It’s something we are in contact with almost ev
ery moment of our lives, and we hardly ever notice it. This seemed a better way than offering my assistance.” Wrong thing to say, he realized a moment too late, as she made a disgusted face.

  “You are a grade A creeper, you know that?” she snapped, leaning away from him.

  Now would not be a good time, he decided, to reveal how intimately he had cared for her during her change. Instead, he shrugged. “I am what I am.” He held out another swatch, and after a long moment, she took it.

  “And you were going to explain what that is,” she reminded him, struggling to keep the conversation on neutral ground.

  “Yes. As I was saying, we are not the undead. If anything, we are far more alive than humans. Are you familiar with the concept of DNA?”

  Her offended look suggested he had insulted her intelligence. “I may not have a fancy Ph.D., Dr. Walker, but I did pass biology. Geez.”

  “It’s a fairly new concept in the larger scheme of things,” he rejoined. “And the way they teach it these days leaves much to be desired. Do you recognize the name Gregor Mendel?”

  “Yes,” she asserted. “He was the guy with the peas. He kind of invented the idea of DNA, right?”

  “More or less,” he agreed. “Did they ever teach you that he was an Augustinian Friar?”

  She tilted her head, surprised. “I don’t remember.”

  Seth smiled. “It’s often only mentioned in passing because it wouldn’t do to have a religious man be the founding father of a very important branch of science,” he commented. “Mendel believed that his studies showed that within each living thing there was a pattern, a design written upon them by the creator. Now, he was looking at how pieces of that pattern were passed from generation to generation, but the idea of a sort of code that determined why each organism was different was perhaps more important.

  “I imagine that you also learned how this pattern is duplicated not just from generation to generation, but also every time a cell divides and creates a new cell?” he asked.