Nocturnal

by David Paul

  “What would you do if you ever came across her again?” She asked. David paused, and contemplated his answer for a while.

  “I’d rip her black heart out if I could.” The old feelings have never subsided. The vampire will always hold a grudge against her for what she had done to Katerina. Sicilians always hold onto their grudges. This grudge takes the cake. “The world could do without Regina for sure. Occasionally, she’ll visit me in a dream,” he said. He let Fiona inside a bit more. David lights up yet another cigarette.

  He can feel that Fiona is digging deeper about Regina. Regina is a touchy subject.

  “Are those the nightmares that you have?” She asked.

  “Almost every nightmare that I have involves her in one way or another.”

  “Does she ever try to touch you in sexual ways like before?” Fiona asked.

  Fiona looked uncomfortable asking that question. There was a slight bit of jealousy or possessiveness behind it. David had described Regina’s appearance to Fiona with somewhat complete honesty. Fiona knew how much David was attracted to her, and even if Regina only appeared to him in dreams, she feels somewhat threatened.

  “Do you really want to know?” David asked.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Sometimes she rapes me,” he said, “and sometimes she tries to torment me with horrific reminders of the past.” The dream is different from the first time that Regina visited David many years ago. Regina is not actually there in the room like before. David hasn’t seen or felt Regina in the flesh for centuries. He is not happy to be answering these questions, but he plays it off calmly.

  “Do you enjoy it when she touches you?”

  “I can’t say that I enjoy it, my love,” he said. He hopes that she isn’t feeling more insecure. “She always takes me by force in the dream. Just as I start to enjoy it, some painful memory is brought up.”

  “Like what?” Fiona asked. His other half keeps prodding for answers.

  Fiona won’t let up.

  “I don’t know,” he said. The vampire struggles with the truth. “Something like Katerina exploding into a bloody mess or a group of male vampires defiling her while they drink her blood.” She wanted to know, and the vampire told her.

  “Sore subject, babe?” She asked. The woman realized that her questions were bothersome to David.

  “A little bit,” he said. That was an understatement. “If you could see into my mind, then you would know what I mean. Some things can never be forgotten.”

  “We don’t have to talk about it,” she said. She sensed David’s pain and does not want him to hurt any further. She switched her line of questioning to something less intrusive. “Tell me what happened with the prophecy.” Fiona is a smart girl, and she made a fantastic segue into a subject that David will talk about.

  “The prophecy has yet to be fulfilled,” he said. The vampire has been waiting patiently for closure. “My existence has gone on for almost eight centuries, yet the prophecy is still open ended.”

  “There had to have been some things that came true,” she said. She practically begs for him to elaborate.

  “The fight to maintain the balance of good and evil has been a war waging since the dawn of time,” he explained. A great deal of what has been foretold has come true. Everything that Capello spoke of has come to fruition with the exception of a few things. However, centuries have passed by stagnantly. The vampire is waiting for the next major move. “I chose my role in the war, and I’ve been waiting for signs that it has officially begun.”

  “When the battle starts, what will you do?” She asked.

  “I’ll have to find out when it happens.” Part of his torment is feeling like he is in limbo. The vampire has heard the prophecies, and he wants to get the show on the road. After hundreds of years, he is ready for action. “There are no clear cut answers.”

  “You said it yourself that you would do anything to disobey your role as a vampire,” she said. Fiona wants to know everything. “Why would vampires want to get rid of all the humans?”

  “We are supposed to be collecting righteous souls and building an army of vampires.”

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “What will vampires feed on if all the humans are all gone or turned?”

  “The blood of the angels in heaven,” the vampire said. David looks into her eyes. Fiona’s face changed over from cheery enthusiasm to a sullen puss. Something in the vampire’s tone had touched Fiona in a dark way. It frightened her to think that this alternate future was even possible. In one day, the walls of Fiona’s reality have come crashing down.

  The Devil had promised his followers an afterlife filled with all of their deepest and darkest desires after he defeated righteousness and dethroned God. The vampires were promised the purest blood that the universe had to offer. If the war is won by darkness, then every vampire will have enslaved angels to torment and feed from. That comes straight from Lucifer’s bible and his Satanic Manifesto. Lucifer has yet to win the war, but he claims that he will be victorious. Some warning signs point toward the end.

  The Earth is tired and angry, so it rebels against its tenants. A slew of new and terrible natural disasters have occurred in all parts of the world. Earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, hurricanes, and tornadoes have brought death and destruction. Steadily over the years, murder rates and violent crimes have risen. The Church has lost a great deal of their following. People worship false idols like the almighty dollar. Women fornicate with other women. Men fornicate with other men. Trust has given way to skepticism. Truth has given way to deceit. Love and hate have blurred lines of demarcation. All of the symptoms of the end of the world are present in everyday life. All of these symptoms are discussed in the Bible and have been foreseen by many. Everything points to the Battle of the Apocalypse.

  “That’s an awful thought,” she said. She smiles and tries to lighten up the mood of the conversation, but deep down, Fiona is terrified of the future.

  “Only fairy tales and massage parlors have happy endings, my love,” the vampire said. David tried to loosen up the mood as well. Fiona still has a dead serious look on her face.

  “Are you scared that we won’t win?” Fiona asked.

  “Have you looked around lately, my love?” The vampire asked.

  David prompted her to assess modern day society and the state of the world around her. The prospects do not look good. In a sense, the world is turning to shit, and she knows that is the truth. The vampire can see her wheels turning inside of her mind.

  “Does it look like we are winning?” David asked.

  “I guess not.”

  “There is your answer,” the vampire said morbidly.

  Fiona’s eyes fill up with more tears.

  “What else is out there?” She asked. She sounded overwhelmed. Her whole life has been crushed by the vampire’s honesty. Fiona grew up believing that she would go to Heaven if she went to church on Sunday’s. Somehow, the truth about everything was never said. She feels betrayed and lied to. “It seems like I’ve lived my whole life blind to everything,” she said.

  “There are things that walk the night that only Lucifer could love.”

  “There is more to the story than just vampires?” She asked. At this point, Fiona is completely overwhelmed and is one step shy of a panic attack, but she still asks questions that she doesn’t really want to hear the answers to. She pours herself another drink.

  “My love,” he said, “vampires are simply one spoke in the wheel of darkness.” There is so much that she needs to know. A part of the vampire wishes that she could have remained blind to the truth. “Yes, there are many horrible creatures roaming the night.” Just about anything that there is a legend for is quite real. Hundreds of witnesses of paranormal activity throughout the history of the world couldn’t all be wrong. “Do you know how many times a werewolf has been mistaken for Bigfoot at night?” He asked.

  “There are werewolves?” Her face is priceless. Fiona she rolls her eyes
in wonderment. “Jesus Christ, David,” she said.

  “They’ve been around almost as long as us,” the vampire said.

  Werewolves are another twisted creation of the Devil. He took the original design of the creator and put his sick perverted twist on it for his own purposes. Most vampire elders look down at this race of beasts because they are very unrefined. The werewolf is a cunning hunter, but all their conquests use brute force and chaos. Anyone that they bite or scratch will be barking at the next full moon. There is no such thing as choice or finesse in their world, and the vampires look down on this. The two species usually do not play well together even though they are technically on the same side.

  Ironically, racism crosses over even into the world of evil creatures. In the realm of our world, Lucifer has basically been a mad scientist experimenting on humans and other creatures of God. What’s comical is that the Devil has yet to create anything from scratch. Heaven has angels, so the Devil created his army of vile creatures to combat the angels. Everything that he has created is merely his take on something else out there. Even ghosts are just souls that are forced to be at unrest. He never created the soul, and all he has done is try to poison the soul. Sadly, Lucifer has done an excellent job at tainting souls and causing mayhem. In that area, he shines like an evil prodigy. He has proved a worthy adversary, but has yet to surpass our creator.

  “Have you encountered any werewolves?” She asked.

  “Of course I have, Fiona. They are out there.” There is so much to tell her. David could go on for years. “You have to understand that numbers have dwindled, and there are not as many of these creatures still around,” he said.

  David tells her about the great unknown. There are not millions of vampires out there, but they are out there. Most vampire encounters end in a death and not a turning. Vampires will only turn their victims if the victim has some worth to the cause or the creature. For instance, turning an archbishop is a worthy endeavor for a vampire, but a faithless homeless person is most likely going to end up as a refreshing drink for a thirsty vampire. Vampires are usually very selective of who they turn.

  When werewolves take their form, they run wildly, and kill haphazardly. Once man discovered that silver harmed them, then their numbers started to diminish dramatically. This especially held true after the creation of firearms. Before man had these defenses, they were practically powerless against these creatures, and the creatures could roam the night freely.

  Man’s God-given, survival instinct has made it possible to overcome such filth. The Devil has been at it for years trying to upset the balance. In his earlier days, he used the creatures as his primary weapon. Just like everyone else, the Devil changes with the times and alters his plans to work in an ever-changing world. Since the beginning of life, the Devil has been unable to take over the world with all of his magnificently evil creatures, so he switched it up by attacking humans on the mental level. This makes David a throwback to the times of olden evil…a dinosaur of sorts. Most of the Devil’s efforts are focused on possessing people and having them cause chaos. He has an entire pantheon of minor demons that are experts at cracking into human mind like it was a safe.

  Every time you hear about the mild-mannered man who flipped out and killed his entire family is usually a case of demonic possession or strong persuasion by a demon. The Devil plants the seeds for evil that are sewn in the mind and then reaped with their actions.

  “Almost every evil act has an evil entity behind it,” David said.

  David scares Fiona with this additional information. His statement implies that outside malignant forces constantly act upon mankind.

  “Does all wrong doing come from the Devil?” She asked.

  “People have free will, but the Devil plays on their weaknesses, and that allows him to shape their minds,” the vampire said. It boils down to temptation in the Garden of Eden…the forbidden fruit. “Every time he makes a person sin against God, then he has won a minor victory. He loves it, even if it’s a minor sin. Lucifer does have some bigger victories that have made the newspaper and television.”

  The Devil has had many victories.

  “Do you remember those gang-banging bank robbers in LA from a few years ago?” He asked.

  “Do you mean the guys that had bulletproof armor on and shot up everything, including half of the police force?” The vampire laughs at her blunt description of the occurrence. Fiona makes him laugh the hardest. She has a way about her that touches him.

  “Yeah those guys,” he said. He wore a quirky smile. “Well, those guys were all possessed by demons when they perpetrated that crime.”

  “How do you know that?” Fiona asked. She spoke almost sarcastically, implying that David is exaggerating.

  “Because,” he said, “I know the demons that did it.” David knows many demons. He is a creature born of darkness, and he has many brothers and sisters in the same family. “The demons were bored and wanted create some chaos. They told me first hand that gang-bangers have some of the easiest minds to invade because they are filled with so much rage and insecurity. They all boasted that it took less than three minutes to convince all of them to do it. The demons gave them the idea for the body armor suits, and the gang members used their own resources to get everything else.”

  “I’m sorry to doubt you,” she said, “but all of this information is almost too much to process.” The panic attack is setting in, and she is breathing slowly to calm herself down.

  “I know, my love,” the vampire said. He senses her anxiety and pulls her close to him. David is sympathetic. She is only human. Somehow, Fiona was able to suspend her disbelief about David’s affliction, but never thought past that. Maybe, it is denial. “It is hard to learn that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are bullshit, and the vampires, the demons, and the werewolves are the ones that are real.”

  “You got that right, David. This is unreal.” She regroups, and Fiona pulls away from him. “How do you even know those demons?” She asked.

  “Baby,” he said, “I’ve been a vampire for seven-hundred and thirty-six years, and we all travel in the same circles. I run into all kinds of characters. Demons have possessed world leaders and kings throughout history, and they like to talk about anything that they’ve done. There are such places where they congregate that are no different than where humans would frequent. Catch a demon drunk, and they’ll tell you all kinds of things.”

  Fiona’s wave of anxiety passes. Her spark is back. She has her backbone again.

  “I’d love to see one of these places if you were there to protect me,” she said.

  “I don’t know if you really would want to be in a lounge full of demons.”

  The vampire shot down her idea comically, but quickly. She gives him a look like he may be right. The two of them talk into the early morning, and the Sun is starting to wake up. He takes her to bed, and they engage in passionate lovemaking. Their new-found closeness creates an even more intense passion for one another. They are both lying in bed smoking cigarettes.

  “Why don’t you sleep in a coffin?” She asked abruptly. David laughs. “I never asked you that question, and it has been on my mind since I first found out about you being a vampire.” The vampire has been shelled all night with difficult questions, but he is still willing to communicate with her. “Sorry for the twenty questions, but this is the most that you have ever revealed about yourself, and I feel closer to you.”

  Fiona holds his hand warmly.

  “Honestly, I never liked it,” he replied. The answer to her question is that simple. It was a matter of preference. Fiona was expected a long fact filled explanation from David. She seemed let down, so David elaborated. “Some vampires make their coffins a resting place. Vermeir slept in a coffin after he was transformed, but it was more of a sick fetish of his, than an actual requirement of the curse. Some vampire purists choose to do the same, and others think it is foolish and impractical. As long as I’m not being tortured by the Sun, the
n I am all right. A bed is fine.”

  Fiona seemed satisfied with that. Moments later, Fiona is asleep on his chest. She is happier than ever. David retires as well, and he rests his head with a clear mind and conscience for the first time in many years. The couple sleeps away the day until sunset when David instinctively wakes up. He didn’t want to disturb Fiona while she was sleeping, so he sits there just thinking in general. David thinks about whether to include Fiona in some of his late night activities. Part of his concern is for her safety, and the other part is for her sanity. He doesn’t know if she can handle what she may see.

  David doesn’t want her to be frightened by watching him feed. In his mind, she is very accepting of him, but he fears that after she sees him rip open a victim’s neck that her impression of him will change. He doesn’t want her to see the monster that he really is. This is more uncharted territory in David’s existence. He has never allowed someone to be this close to him as a vampire. These situations have never arisen before, and he is worried that he will make the wrong decision. David definitely needs to feed tonight and also needs to decide what he should do. Fiona wakes up and looks at him with loving eyes.

  “Hey, my love,” he said.

  He runs his fingers through her long beautiful hair.

  “I slept so good last night,” she said.

  “Good.” he replied. David sits up in bed and gets a bit more serious. “I need to talk to you about something, my love.”

  “Will I be petrified afterward?” She asked.

  “Maybe,” he said. He smiles. “We have some business to attend to.”

  David retrieves a large folder of paperwork from a dresser drawer.

  “What is this?” She asked.

  “It is my will.”

  “Your will?” she asked. Fiona looked confused. “I don’t understand…I thought you couldn’t die.”

  “Let me explain, my love,” he said.

  The vampire is thumbing through his paperwork. The file is rather large, and it looks professionally prepared. The folder is labeled with a nice crest and the logo of Attorney Roman Alighieri.