Vampire, Hunter

by Maria Arnt

  Tatiana frowned. “I know that it does, but I don’t remember exactly how,” she admitted.

  “The how of it isn’t really important.” He waved a hand dismissively. “It’s the idea that each cell within your body is a copy of a copy of a copy and so on and so forth, each copy losing a little of its quality, like a document that has been xeroxed too many times.”

  “Xeroxed?” she asked sarcastically.

  “I’m sorry, are you too young for that reference?” he retorted.

  “No,” she rolled her eyes, “Not quite.”

  Seth bit his tongue. She would learn soon enough that the value humans placed on youth was quite the reverse amongst vampires. “Well then. My theory is that in a vampire, there is no loss between copies. By strengthening our connection with the divine, our bodies can access that original copy for each regeneration.

  “What’s more, any flaws that existed in the original, due to an error in the reproductive process, have been corrected. Beyond that, there are some... improvements, in strength, speed, mental acuity. You are, in essence, the perfect version of yourself.”

  Tatiana thought about that, rubbing her thumbs thoughtfully over a soft piece of suede. He knew it would be difficult for a modern girl such as herself to accept a theory which relied so heavily on both science and mysticism. At least she seemed to be taking it seriously. She glanced down at her hands in her lap, and when she spoke, it was very quiet.

  “But I liked myself the way I was.”

  He drew in a sharp breath. “I did too,” he reached out, but she pulled away from his touch. “But you would have changed, Tatiana, and not for the better. You would have grown old, and frail, and perhaps ill. I wanted to save you from all that—”

  “It wasn’t your choice!” she looked up at him sharply, tears in her eyes.

  For the first time in many decades, Seth was rendered truly speechless. Her objection was not something he had even considered.

  She made a frustrated sound and reached for the bag, pulling it from his limp fingers and thrusting her hand inside in search of the next swatch. Too late he tried to stop her, snatching the bag back as she gulped in air, her mind trying to process a hundred different textures all at once.

  “Damn,” he cursed, watching as her eyes glazed over. He could hear her heart accelerate to a dangerous speed, and went for the blanket, rising up on one knee.

  To his surprise she struck out, grabbing his outstretched hand and planting a foot in his stomach. With a convulsive twist of her body, she threw him halfway across the room. He rolled to his feet easily and turned, but she had curled up on her side, a riot of colorful swatches littering the floor around her. Working quickly, he wrapped the blanket around her shaking form.

  Her body was on fire. Her arm felt like it was covered in hundreds of ants as she clutched it to her chest. She couldn’t breathe, and the blanket was squeezing her so tight, making it better and worse at the same time.

  “Shh, it’s alright, Tatiana. Try to focus on the sound of my voice,” he instructed. Muffled by the blanket, his words seemed heavy to her somehow, and she felt them go into her, felt herself go still, and then started sobbing.

  “Why did you do this to me?” she cried. “Why me?”

  “Because I need you,” he said, and there was something about how he said it that made her believe him. He sounded needy, almost desperate. She pushed at the blanket, and he loosened it enough that she could get her head out. Her hair was a disaster, and she tried to puff it up out of her face.

  “What for?” she asked, suspicious.

  Seth pushed the errant strands out of the way for her and grinned. “To kill vampires. That is what you want to do, isn’t it?”

  She narrowed her eyes. He had said it so casually, she didn’t quite believe that was what he had been talking about. “Yes, but that doesn’t explain why you want me to.” She waited a moment for him to explain before realizing he was still holding her in his arms. She squirmed out of his grasp, and he let her go.

  “I will explain,” he offered. “But do you see why it is important for us to continue this exercise patiently?”

  She sighed and looked at the mess she had made of the swatches. “Yes,” she grumbled.

  As they continued with the fabric scrap exercise, Tanya found it gradually got easier. After a while each one was not a completely new experience; she would feel one and think this is like that other one. When she moved she was still aware of her clothes against her skin, but it wasn’t overwhelming. Just a little distracting.

  As she focused on the exercise, Seth finally got around to his justification for what he had done to her.

  “In ancient times, humans accepted, wholeheartedly, that they were not the only intelligent species. Many different sentient beings walked the earth, on two legs or otherwise. Among these creatures was the vampire, and like most of their non-human kin, they were originally respected—even worshiped by some cultures. In those days, it was a great honor to be chosen to become a vampire. It was like becoming a god.” He made an expansive gesture, palms up.

  “Like in your book?” she asked, remembering the murals of the man-made god. He nodded. “So you really do think that’s how vampires came to be, it wasn’t just a part of your Dr. Walker cover?”

  He smiled. “Tatiana, very little of my ‘cover’ as you put it is untrue, except the age and humanity.”

  “So... just the important parts then?” Yeah, go ahead and try to tell me you didn’t lie to me.

  Shrugging, he rooted around in the bag for another piece of cloth. It was nearly empty, and Tanya was starting to wonder what would come next. “As I was saying, though, things changed. Change is perhaps the only constant in this world, as most vampires come to learn through long-lived experience.”

  She thought he sounded very much like a professor at lecture, and she would have been irritated by this if his voice hadn’t been so damn pleasant. It was smooth and rhythmic, in that rich territory between bass and tenor, although it got a bit rougher when it dropped in pitch. She could listen to him read the freaking phone book, she decided.

  “The world was becoming a complicated place, and as transportation improved, a much smaller one as well. Mankind sought to remedy this by simplifying their belief systems, their religions. Panoplies of thousands of gods were whittled down to hundreds, then dozens. Deities gained in power as they assumed multiple roles. Eventually, the concept of worshiping a single, all-powerful god became popular among some groups, although belief in other, competing gods remained,” he went on.

  “Wait a minute, how long ago are we talking about?” she may not have been the most religious person, but she remembered her Sunday School well enough to know that the Old Testament took place a really long time ago.

  “It depends. The trend probably started in the middle-east around four or five thousand years ago, but the old form of religion remained in many places. In some non-western cultures, it still does.”

  Tanya blinked. Did he say five thousand years ago? Up until that she had assumed he was talking from personal experience. But that wasn’t possible, was it? He was clearly English, and she was fairly sure nobody lived in Britain that long ago.

  “But my point was that elements that were no longer included in a religion came to be hated and feared. This was especially true during the Middle Ages in Europe. The church was struggling to eradicate the aspects of local pagan religions it had absorbed in its rapid sweep across the continent. A few more benevolent creatures persisted in folklore, but often the darker beings were lumped all together and called demons.” He sounded irritated, as if the whole idea was stupidity incarnate.

  “So they—we,” she corrected herself reluctantly, “We are demons.”

  Seth leveled a sarcastic look at her. “Do I look like the devil?”

  She pursed her lips together. “The devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape,” she quoted. Nana had always used to say that.

  “Hamlet. Very ni
ce, and I shall take it as a compliment,” he grinned.

  She frowned. She had thought it was from the Bible.

  “Well, whatever similarities in origin stories I might have with him, I assure you I am not Lucifer,” he said. “But you can see how strongly the idea has been embedded in your culture? The stories about us that you grew up with, in television and movies and books, were largely crafted in that era. Tales of us were exaggerated beyond all recognition, and we did nothing to discourage it. A host of superstitions rose up to help combat this feared creature: garlic, crosses, mirrors, et cetera.

  “Of course, all this actually made it easier for vampires to move among mortals. We need only wear a cross, and no one thought twice about our actions—until we needed to feed, of course. For this reason, it was often simpler to kill a victim, since a survivor would run and tell everyone exactly what you were,” he sighed.

  “Sounds frustrating,” Tanya said sarcastically. By now she barely needed to pay attention to the fabric swatches and took them almost as quickly as Seth pulled them out of the bag.

  The deadly smile he favored broke across his face. “Well, as you will discover, feeding is much more satisfying when you take not just the blood and its energy, but the ka, the life force, as well.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “Think again,” she sputtered, pushing away the swatch he offered. “I’m not going to take anybody’s ‘life force’ whether you like it or not. I’m not a killer.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “How many vampires have you killed, Tatiana?”

  She bit her lip. “I know I’ve killed over thirty Masters,” she said. “I never bothered to keep track of the minions.”

  He nodded. “And did you enjoy killing them?”

  “I did what was necessary!” she shouted.

  “That does not mean you didn’t enjoy it,” he pointed out.

  “Okay, yeah, I did take a certain satisfaction in snuffing the bastards. Happy now?” she fumed.

  “The stronger, the better, yes?”

  She crossed her arms. “Sure. But they weren’t human.”

  “No, and the ka of a Master vampire is much more potent than that of a human. So much so that its dispersal could likely be felt even by a human, as a kind of euphoric rush.”

  That shut her up. She knew the feeling he was talking about, had often fantasized about it while planning her next takedown. There was a long moment where she waited for him to press the topic further.

  Instead, he reached into the bag, pulled out the last few scraps, and changed the subject. “While it was easy to find food in the dark ages, it was very difficult to find suitable companions. Most vampires created in that era were outcasts and rebels, thrill-seekers and hedonists. They did not usually last long. Our numbers remained small, which was probably for the best.

  “With the coming of the Enlightenment, though, we had a bit of a heyday.” He grinned but then ducked his head sheepishly. “By the 18th century, the general attitude was that folkloric creatures did not exist. Vampires, oddly, remained something of an exception. That is because any culture that proclaimed not to believe in such things was precisely the sort of environment a vampire sought out. The vampire population tripled within a century, fueled by intrepid men and women who sought vampirism as a sort of experiment. These are the majority of the young Masters you will encounter now,” he told her.

  “How long does it take for a vampire to become a Master?”

  “A century at least, but usually less than two. It depends on how much they rely on their Master.”

  Tanya stored that information away for later use as she finished examining the last piece of fabric. She handed it back to him, and he started gathering them up off the floor. Carefully, she helped him, finding it easier than she expected. It seemed the exercise had worked. “What now?”

  “Surfaces,” he stood and offered her a hand up.

  She ignored the offer and got up on her own, although it took a moment to get her legs sorted out and under her.

  Sighing, he stowed the bag back in its hidden cupboard. “Would you like a tour of your new home?” he asked.

  Why does he have to be such a creeper when he’s polite? she cringed inwardly. She sighed and nodded, not really feeling up to objecting. Going through all those swatches had worn her out. Or the conversation. It was hard to tell, it was all so surreal and exhausting. He led her around the large building; it was too big to be called an apartment, she decided.

  “This place looks like it used to be an old warehouse,” she mused aloud, looking at the brick wall that ran two stories up one side of the open living room and the balcony above where her bedroom was.

  “A printing press, actually,” he followed her gaze, “but close enough.”

  As they went through each room, there were plenty of new textures to discover. The smooth old bricks, and the rougher new ones where the walls had been patched. Concrete floors, and granite tile in the kitchen.

  “Why is there a kitchen?” she asked, mystified.

  “Well I wasn’t going to ask the architect to leave it out,” he laughed. “That would have sounded suspicious. I do use it to make tea, and the very occasional snack.”

  “I can eat?” she felt her heart rise. If she could have a nice bowl of macaroni and cheese, maybe she could deal with all this weirdness.

  “Err... well, no, not just yet,” he said regretfully. “It would probably make you sick.”

  She sighed and started tracing a pattern in the marble countertop. “So what happened after the Enlightenment?”

  Seth chuckled. “I suppose that sounds like an era long past to you. In truth, we are very much still in the Enlightenment. Science is given much more credit than faith. Something is not real these days unless it can be quantified, measured, and proven.”

  “Well, yeah...” she moved on to the stainless steel refrigerator, opening it—empty. But it was on, and the sensation of the cool air rushing out of it was fascinating. She closed her eyes and let it pour over her.

  “Anyway, the trend continued. As people believed in vampires less and less, our numbers increased. Now that almost no one believes, and we have been romanticized in fiction, humans are practically lining up for the change. Before a Master would have perhaps one or two children at a time. Now...”

  “Etienne du Lac had at least 26,” she put in.

  “Quite,” the word dripped with disapproval. “Even some of the more experienced Masters like him have opted to trade personal power for the security of numbers. Considering the failure rate, which is about half, can you imagine how busy he must have been?”

  Tanya slammed the refrigerator shut. “Half?” she demanded. “There was a fifty percent chance I would die?”

  “I was citing the overall average, not my own personal rate. As I said before, I have not failed in well over a thousand years,” he bragged.

  She blinked. Clearly, he was older than she thought. “And how many times did you try in the last millennia?” she asked flippantly.

  He thought about it. “Not including you? Three.”

  “How many are still alive?”

  “Of those three, one,” he stated.

  Wow, talk about all my friends are dead, she winced. “Why so few?”

  Seth shifted uncomfortably. “I am very, very old, Tatiana. My blood is very potent. The vampires I make...” he trailed off, giving her an uncertain look, “they tend to be rather vicious. Their names are often recorded in history.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Did you make Vlad the Impaler into Dracula?” she asked.

  He laughed, lifting the mood. “Vlad Tepes was a very disturbed human, not a vampire.”

  “Well, I will be the exception, then,” she told him, facing him across the island counter.

  “Perhaps,” he mused. “If we are speaking strictly in terms of human lives, certainly.”

  “Yeah, you never did get around to why you want me to go on hunting vampires,” she said, frowning. “Seems kind of hy
pocritical.”

  “Not at all,” he assured her. “And I was getting to that. You see, now that we have essentially free reign in the modern world, our numbers have grown too great. There is no caution used in the choice of who to turn, it is done on a whim. There is no shortage of willing humans, and even with the steep odds, the end result is staggering.”

  “So basically vamps are taking over the world. Still not seeing where this is a bad thing for you,” she argued.

  “It is a matter of proportions, of supply versus demand. If a vampire kills when he feeds, he will require at least one human life a month, usually more. Most feed around once a week, some even gorge themselves and take one a night,” he explained. “You do the math.”

  Tanya balked as she added the numbers up in her head. If there were only 1,000 average vampires, that would mean 52,000 deaths a year. And she knew there were a lot more than a thousand of them out there. “What if they don’t kill?”

  “Then the math becomes more complicated. Most who choose to take a reasonable amount, which leaves the victim only slightly weakened, will need to feed once a week. Every other night seems to be the norm, though,” he figured. “But it will take each human a good two to three months to recover enough to be safely fed upon again.”

  She thought about it. “So between eight to twelve humans to each vampire?”

  “At least. Some may need as many as eighty-four, though,” he reminded her.

  “And there’s seven billion people in the world....” she reasoned.

  He shook his head. “The elderly and children are not suitable for feeding if you wish them to survive. The elderly aren’t really a good choice either way, actually. Not enough life left in them,” he explained.

  “Okay, so three and a half billion, let’s say?”

  “And unless we wish to become well known again, we must limit our exposure to as few people as possible,” he went on.

  “One billion?” she ventured. The numbers were getting tight.

  He nodded. “At present, anyway.”

  She chewed pensively on her bottom lip. She’d done all right in math class, but it had been a long time. “That’s about twelve million vampires,” she decided.