A World of Vampires: Volume 2

by Dani Hoots

  But I also have never heard of blood being able to heal anyone. It was probably some exotic thing that no one but him had heard of, something he learned over the years.

  I blew out my candle, since there was no electricity up in the attic, and kept the thought of it being alright in my head, even though doubt was sitting in the back of my brain.

  Something woke me up in the middle of the night. It was a strange noise, almost like growling, but not quite. It was followed by a large crash. All of the noise seemed to be coming from the shop down below.

  I quickly grabbed my robe and hurried down the stairs with my large wooden stick. It wasn’t an actual weapon, but I had found that sticks did quite a lot of damage. I thought about yelling for Herr Schmidt, but I didn’t want whoever was breaking in to hear me coming.

  We have had one burglar before, whom Herr Schmidt dealt with directly. We caught him, and then Schmidt took him to the local authorities in the middle of the night while I stayed in the shop. I always thought it was strange they never came around to see the damage. I thought for sure they would want more answers to what happened, but Schmidt said they took care of it at the station and that we would never see that burglar again. It was strange, but I never questioned it again.

  As I got down the stairs, I found a figure wrestling with some kind of dog. The dog was growling as it bit at the person’s arm. The person didn’t say a word as the dog tried to attack. He must have not wanted to let anyone hear him and know that he was in here. I turned on the lights and pointed my stick at the person.

  “You! Turn around!”

  Herr Schmidt looked at me, surprised. “Ade, come help. This mutt got into the shop and I can’t seem to get it to leave.”

  I couldn’t believe that it was him, I thought he had still been in bed. Why wouldn’t he have called out for me as this dog attacked him? “Yes, yes of course.”

  We pushed the dog out of the shop, still growling but no longer snapping at either of us. I glanced out the window to find it running off back towards its home.

  “That was strange,” I turned to Herr Schmidt to find him cradling his arm. “Oh Gott, are you okay?”

  He nodded. “I’m fine, the dog was just scared.”

  “If it was attacking you, why didn’t you yell for me?” I asked as I helped him pull up his sleeve to wash it.

  “I was just about to when you turned the lights on, you really surprised me actually,” he said in sort of an automated tone. Schmidt didn’t look at me as he washed off the blood.

  I grabbed a cloth and ran it under some water in the bathroom. “What were you doing down here? It’s late.”

  “Couldn’t sleep so I thought I would go for a stroll. That mutt must have snuck in when I wasn’t paying attention. It wasn’t until he bit my arm that I figured out he was in here,” Herr Schmidt sighed. “Now we have a mess to clean up. At least not much was ruined.”

  I glanced around. A couple of chairs had been knocked over, but that was the extent of the damage. Placing the cloth on his arm, I helped him wash out the wound. “It looks like a deep cut, I can call your doctor if you need me to.”

  He shook his head. “No, no need to do that. I’m fine, I have some of that medicine I gave you stored in my bedroom. Should heal quite fast.”

  I looked back at the wound. It was no simple matter, I could see part of his bone when he shifted his hand. “It looks really bad, are you sure—”

  “I said it’s fine!” he snapped back. While normally Herr Schmidt was a very patient man, sometimes he would have spouts of short-temperedness. I got used to it, and understood that one couldn’t keep their cool constantly, especially when dealing with pompous customers all the time. He couldn’t take out his anger on them, and I was just a kid who needed to learn his lesson to not question something Schmidt said. I stepped back, not because of him yelling, but because I noticed something in his eyes.

  They turned... yellow. Just like a cat’s.

  I had never seen a human’s eye do that before, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t normal. It was only for a second, and then Herr Schmidt appeared just as he did normally. “Sorry, Ade, I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just really hate doctors and have learned to deal with tending wounds myself. Don’t worry about it, okay?”

  I nodded but didn’t say anything else. I knew whatever I saw had to have been caused by either the lighting or maybe just general sleepiness making me see things that weren’t there.. Right?

  He patted my back. “Now, go back to sleep. We will clean this up in the morning.”

  “Do you need help getting back to your room?” I asked, watching still as blood oozed out of his arm.

  He shook his head. “No, I will be fine. Just go to bed.”

  I turned away from him and hurried up the stairs to the attic. I didn’t know what to say or what to do, because the more I thought about it, the more I knew there was no way his eyes changing color the way they did so rapidly was just a figment of my imagination.

  I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night. I began to worry about Herr Schmidt and how my mother always talked about him being unsafe. And now with my mother being sick and him dismissing it all like she simply cut a finger or just has the sniffles bothered me. Why wouldn’t he want me around my family? I would come back, it wasn’t like I would leave him forever. And now, after seeing those eyes and the strange vial of medicine he gave me, I didn’t know what to think anymore. I wondered why my mother and father didn’t trust him, though. Did they know about these same things? Did my father witness something during the war?

  But I trusted Herr Schmidt with my life. He took me in and was more of a father than my father ever was. Not that I would ever consider him like a father, as my father had been harsh to both my mother and I. I saw Herr Schmidt more as a savior than anything. He brought me to a place I would have never been without his help. So even if there was something strange going on, I should trust him, shouldn’t I? He gave me everything, even when he didn’t need to, so I shouldn’t worry.

  Yet, something in the back of my head was starting to panic.

  It wasn’t natural, how fast my wounds were healing, and that he could take a bite from a dog like that, and not worry about it. And his eyes were horrifying at that moment. It wasn’t my imagination, I knew it wasn’t. But as to what it was, I still wasn’t quite sure. I just couldn’t get my heart to stop racing. Not only that, but I felt he started to become more controlling as time went on, making sure I do certain things, not see my family as often, putting me in a position where I have to choose between other him or my family.

  Daylight came eventually, and I got ready for the day. There was an early appointment for a sizing this morning, and the shop needed to be fixed up after last night’s.... whatever it was.

  When I got down the stairs, I found that Herr Schmidt had already started cleaning up. He looked up at me. “Oh, Ade, could you finish this up while I grab some breakfast for the two of us?”

  I nodded, “Yes, sir.”

  As he started to leave, he gave me a quick glance. “Is everything alright?”

  He always knew when something was bothering me. I loved it and hated it at the same time. In this instance, I hated it. “Just tired, that’s all.”

  “Because I woke you last night. I’m so sorry, that wasn’t my intention.”

  “Don’t worry about it, I’m just glad the dog didn’t hurt you any worse than it could have.”

  He nodded. “Right then, I’ll go start breakfast.”

  I started straightening things up as he went upstairs to the kitchen. The struggle really didn’t end up damaging the shop, so there wasn’t much to clean thankfully, as a customer was coming in early this morning. As I finished clearing everything up, I headed to the bathroom and washed my hands.

  As the water poured onto my hands, I noticed something off. I gasped as I looked down at my hands and then quickly in the mirror at my face. All my cuts and bruises had been miraculously healed. There wa
s no sign of any of them, not even a scar. I knew something was wrong.

  I stepped back, feeling almost like I had seen a ghost. My face quickly turned white, I could feel it, and I quickly sat down. There was no way that this was possible, it should have taken weeks for them to fully heal. Yet everything was perfectly fine. There’s no way that was physically possible. There had to be something else going on here, something Herr Schmidt wasn’t telling me.

  The question was, what?

  The door chimed and our customer had arrived. I splashed some water on my face, dried it off, and went back into the shop to greet them. As usual, I showed them the fabric that we had available until Herr Schmidt came to take over and give a more ‘professional’ feel, as he would call it, as men who bought suits always preferred someone older showing them around, though he hated admitting he was older. I let them carry on as I went upstairs to finish up breakfast for the two of us.

  Once breakfast was done, I hurried back down stairs and helped Herr Schmidt take the measurements for the gentleman who wanted a suit made. I didn’t say a word, remaining as professional as I could, even though I wanted to demand Herr Schmidt to tell me what was in those vials. I wondered if he could tell I was frustrated as he watched me closely. I worried what was going to happen once the customer left.

  After taking the last measurements, I took notes down and went back up the stairs to where the food was waiting. Herr Schmidt appeared not too long after.

  “You seemed a little off this morning still, is everything okay?” he asked as he sat down.

  I debated saying something, I debated whether or not I should argue with him about what had happened that morning with the dog, and how I saw his eyes change, but as he sat there, with his smile, I noticed something. His eyes. They weren’t like the night before, yellow with a sliver of black, but they were instead his normal eyes.

  I never noticed how dark his eyes truly were.

  He always had a smile on his face, but it wasn’t until that moment did I realize his smile masked the darkness that was inside. And I could finally see that darkness in his eyes.

  “I’m just worried about my mother. I think she is really sick. I think I should—

  “No,” he stated before I could finish. “I need you here, not there. You have this entire business to help me run, I can’t let you leave me.”

  I felt my cheeks begin to heat up. “But I can’t just leave my family behind. They are all that I have!”

  “No. You have a job and a commitment here. When you agreed to becoming my apprentice, you left your family behind. You are doing all you can to support them from here, and your mother knows that. If you stop now, they won’t have any money coming in. Do you want your family to lose their apartment? To not have food for the next week? Then you better stay here and do what I tell you to do.” His voice didn’t sound angry, but steady and more importantly, dark. I didn’t say anything else, knowing that this argument was over. He smiled. “Now, how are your injuries?”

  “Fine. Just fine.”

  “See, what did I tell you? Works wonders, doesn’t it?”

  I simply nodded, but didn’t say a word. There was something wrong, there was something wrong with this whole scenario. I watched as he took a drink of his coffee, wondering how he came to own this shop after the war, when everyone else was struggling. How he could have easily gone to my home, across the border, again and again while I was growing up, why he wanted me here, and why he always seemed to be in a good mood, unless I went against his wishes. And why he didn’t want me to go home, even though he knew I would come back within the year. There was something going on, and I no longer wanted to be a part of it.

  I had to do something about it that night.

  There was always the chance that I could go back home and hope that no one found me. I had my old ID, I would just need to renew it and act like none of this had ever happened, that I hadn’t lived on the West side and that my time with Herr Schmidt had been a lie.

  I finished the day just as I did any other day. Another customer came in for a suit and I sized him, and then went back to cutting fabric, as my job entailed. I also got to sew a few pieces together before Herr Schmidt said it was time to retire for the night. I tried to act as normal as possible, not letting him notice something was wrong, but it was hard. It was hard when everything was running through my mind as I tried to work and not look at him with fear that he might know. I wondered how I would provide for my mother and my sister, whether or not they would be mad at me for leaving this place. My mother had been the one to warn me, and she knew I couldn’t just stay away when she was so sick, so I knew she would understand why I was forced to make this decision.

  After I heard Herr Schmidt close his bedroom door, I quickly and quietly packed everything I needed and just as I was about to sneak through the window, I glanced back at the three dark vials that still remained. There was no harm in taking those as well, was there? In case I was beaten again, it would be better if I had a way to heal fast so I could help my mother out. Or maybe I could give them to her to heal faster? My heart started to race at the idea. I could give her the vials and come back in the morning if they worked, and Herr Schmidt would never know I was gone. So I grabbed the vials, and jumped out the window onto the roof, down from the shop, and onto the street.

  The night was even quieter than the last time I jumped the wall. I kept an eye out to see if any officers were around, but I didn’t even see the normal ones out. I wasn’t sure as to why that was, but I was thankful that they weren’t around the new way I had successfully used the other night.

  The wire was still cut so I didn’t have to worry about cutting wire. I kept looking around, but there was neither noise nor any officers around. It was odd, but I didn’t stay long enough to question it. I didn’t want that to be my fatal error.

  I rounded the same corner where I found the boy getting beaten by the officers the other night. There was no one there. I sighed a bit of relief, and hurried on my way before anything appeared. I didn’t want to run into that creature again.

  The trip to my mother’s apartment was much quicker than it was last time. It was strange, really, that I didn’t need to make any detours and get away from any officers. Everything seemed too easy. I started to become concerned as it had never been this easy before, nor have I ever not run into an officer, even if it was just catching sight of them or hearing them approach. I checked behind my back but there was no one around.

  This time, the light wasn’t left on for me. My mother must have figured I wouldn’t be coming home any time soon and turned it off. I quietly knocked on the door and it opened a crack.

  “Mother?” I could feel my heart begin to race as the door had been left ajar. “Mother, are you okay?”

  The light turned on and I found Herr Schmidt standing in the middle of the main room.

  Startled, I jumped back. I couldn’t believe that he was there. It didn’t even seem possible, as he had been in his room when I left. “What? How?”

  He shrugged, as if mocking my disbelief. “Easy. I knew you were going to come back here. Didn’t want anyone postponing you, so knocked out a few of the guards. Wasn’t very difficult, really.”

  “Where... where are my mother and sister?”

  He just laughed. “You never worry about yourself, do you Ade? They are fine, they got a great sum of money and left. Crazy, isn’t it? They didn’t ask questions or care that they left you behind. Even gave your mother some of the medicine so that she could heal from her illness, aren’t I thoughtful?”

  I shook my head. “No, you are lying. What did you do to them?”

  His eyes narrowed, as if he was irritated that I didn’t believe him. “I just told you. I gave them a large sum of money to leave and never look back.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Why would you do that?”

  He sighed. “Well, at first it was just to keep you from always jumping the wall. You almost were kille
d last time if it weren’t for that strange intervention, and it didn’t even stop you from coming this time.”

  I stared at him. “How did you know?”

  Herr Schmidt laughed. “Because it was me who killed those guards.”

  My heart pounded. “What? You were that creature? How...”

  “Because, I am an aufhocker,” he stated as if it were no big deal.

  I shook my head. It was a thing from legends, a creature that could transform into anything and haunted the night. I didn’t understand why he would joke about such a thing. “No, that’s a thing from fairy tales. They didn’t exist—”

  In an instant, he was next to me. “As you were saying?”

  I didn’t say another word, I didn’t know what to do except just stare at him. He had moved so fast, it wasn’t possible. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought about his eyes and him healing so quickly, the more I realized he was telling the truth.

  He smiled. “What is it, Ade? Do you not trust me anymore? I’ve known you my entire life, yet this is what’s going to make you not trust me? I have given you everything, I am your master, Ade, you agreed to it. Remember? Five years ago, you came to live with me to be my apprentice. I never said you were going to leave. I never said you could leave me.”

  “What did you do to my mother and sister?” I whispered again.

  He traced the side of my face. “They are perfectly fine, Ade. That is, as long as you do what I say and promise never to go looking for them again.”

  “But how do I know they are safe? How do I know you haven’t killed them?” My voice cracked a bit, as I could feel my worry begin to heighten. I didn’t want to never be able to see them again, to not see my sister grow up to be a beautiful young woman, to not be there for her when she started dating. I couldn’t handle the thought of it, all I wanted in life was to be with them. That was why I hated the wall so much, because it separated me from them.

  “You don’t. You just have to trust me,” he grabbed my bag and pulled out a vial. “Now, let’s finish what we’ve started, shall we?”