Okay.  So I was bored one day at work a few years back.  I'd recently, (at that time), purchased the book about Vampire The Masquerade.  I in fact, purchased several such books to use as reference material for some writing I was doing.  Those books are packed away somewhere right now, but back then I perused them almost nightly.  So, while being bored at work, and having some little time, I decided to write a vampire story.  This is it.  Now, don't get excited that I'm doing a second story!  I may never continue this one. Then again . . . . Well, ya never know, really. So, here's that vampire story thingy. Such as it is. - = - = - The title goes here. If you can think of one, let me know. Chapter 1 - The Betrayal When the subway train stopped, Larry Hoffman exited the car he'd ridden in, leaving it empty.  He looked back at it as it pulled away a minute later and watched as it disappeared down the tunnel.  He looked around at the graffiti marked walls of the twenty-first street subway station and tried to ignore the rank smell of the place.  He also tried to ignore the slumped bodies of the drunks and the homeless that were scattered around, sitting propped against the walls or lying on the floor and the benches as they got drunk or slept off their earlier drink. He climbed the stairs that led up to the city street and the fresh crisp chill of the autumn night air smelled much better than the air he'd breathed below.  He went to the bus stop half a block down and waited for the bus that would take him the rest of the way to his apartment building.  It arrived five minutes later and he chose a seat in the back.  Besides the driver, no one else was aboard.  The driver started to close the doors, but opened them again. Larry looked up and saw a dark haired woman climb the steps.  She said something to the driver, who then closed the doors.  The bus pulled away from the curb as she walked down the narrow aisle between the seats. The woman was attractive, as always, and she smiled at him as she approached and sat down next to him. "What are you doing here?" Larry asked her. "I thought I'd meet you," she said.  "Aren't you glad to see me?" He felt the desire for her growing within him already.  "Yes," Larry said through a smile.  "I always am." She leaned against him and kissed his neck.  He thought she'd bite him right there on the bus and he glanced at the driver feeling just a little nervous, but the driver didn't look back at him. "Don't worry," she told him.  "He won't remember me."  She snuggled closer and laid her head against his shoulder.  "Have you thought about it long enough yet?  Do you have an answer?" "Yes, Liz," he said.  "I have an answer." She leaned away from him and stared into his blue-grey eyes.  "What is it?" she asked him anxiously. "Yes," Larry said.  "I'd like you to make me like you.  Make me a vampire." She smiled her pleasure at him and kissed him thoroughly on the lips.  He felt the points of her fangs with his tongue and when she pulled her mouth away from his, he tasted his own blood.  He tilted his head to one side, exposing his neck to her.  She bit into his throbbing carotid artery and he could feel his blood leave him as she sucked with undead strength. He felt lightheaded and the initial brief pain turned to intense pleasure as she drained him.  He could feel himself almost slipping into unconsciousness when he felt something moist pressed against his lips. "Drink," Elizabeth's voice commanded him. He licked once at the bloody wound she'd made in her wrist and he savored the taste of her blood.  He savored the painful fiery path it seemed to make as it slid down his throat. "Come on, drink!" she ordered, impatient with his sluggishness to do as she instructed. He placed his mouth over the wound and sucked at it, as hard as he could.  He drank deeply of her blood and intense pain coursed through him.  As his organs changed and shriveled inside him he wanted to scream his agony.  But he also felt an intense pleasure as new life and strength returned to him.  He drank furiously, wanting more and more of her blood.  He needed it to stop the pain.  He wanted it for the pleasure. "Ok, stop," she said, shoving him away from her. He licked her blood off his lips with his tongue and suddenly the dim light in the bus seemed to brighten.  The street lights flared into bright spotlights along the road.  The engine noises and tire hum the bus made as it moved along the city street seemed louder now.  He looked at her smiling face and with a finger he wiped his blood off her lips.  He was going to lick his finger clean but she grabbed his hand and brought it to her own mouth.  She licked the blood off his finger and he suddenly felt very hungry.  Larry looked at her wrist where she had made the wound for him to drink her blood from and he saw it heal itself closed.  She saw his glance, felt his hunger.  "No," she told him.  "You must now feed on a mortal." He glanced at the bus driver, who still drove on, oblivious of the unusual event that had just happened on his bus. "No," she said, smiling at him, her fangs retracted.  "But I know where we can hunt." Elizabeth had the bus driver stop at the next corner and after she made him forget herself and Larry, they got off the bus.  They made their way back to the same subway station he'd gotten off at.  But they had run all the way back.  He exhilarated in the celerity he'd inherited from her.  They ran so fast that the occasional mortal they'd passed never even saw them but only felt the slight breeze they made as they went by. She led him back down into the depths of the subway station and had them both cloaked with her obfuscate ability so that they would not be seen.  This time he examined each of the homeless with renewed interest.  And hunger.  They wandered the station until she saw someone by himself in a dark corner.  They made no sound as they approached the still sleeping man.  There were no bottles, empty or otherwise nearby and he didn't stink of alcohol like most of the others they'd seen here. She nodded at him and he crouched down, feeling a strange sensation in his mouth as his feeders grew.  Without waking the shabbily dressed man, Larry sank his new fangs into the man's neck, instinctively finding the carotid artery.  At first the man's own heart helped pump the blood into his mouth, but he sucked hard anyway.  The hunger was upon him and he fed until it was sated.  Feeding was so pleasurable that he ignored her pleas to stop and save her some.  When he sucked and no more blood was forthcoming from the wound, he pulled away and sat back against the wall.  He looked up at her and smiled. "Wipe that silly grin off your face and wipe off the blood too," she whispered to him.  "You could have saved me some you know," she pouted. He jumped to his feet so quickly that he seemed to just suddenly be standing there in front of her.  He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close and she licked the blood off him.  "We can find you another," Larry said.  "They're all over the place." "Yes," Elizabeth answered.  "But the others are alcohol tainted." He tilted his head to one side, offering her his own neck.  "You can feed on me," he said, smiling, his fangs having retracted after his feed. "No," she said, giving her head a little shake.  "Not any more." "Why?" he asked, puzzled that she would no longer feed on him.  She had always made it so pleasing that it was much better than sex. "Because," she said.  "If anyone should be blood bound to anyone, you should be bound to me, not the other way around." "Blood bound?" he asked in confusion. "Never mind for now," she told him.  "You have a lot to learn.  For now, I'm hungry.  Let's find me some supper." - = - The weeks seemed to pass quickly for Larry and soon they became months.  By the time the months became a year, Elizabeth told him that they would celebrate his deathnight at the place where he'd had his first feed.  They went to the subway station and they each cloaked themselves with obfuscate.  They each selected their own meal and used dominance to make them walk puppetlike to a more secluded corner of the mortal made underground caverns.  They both fed, hungrily and greedily and when they were done, he kissed her, but not until he had bitten a small wound in his own tongue so his blood would mix with his prey's.  He licked his lips but he left more blood than he removed.  He looked at her and smiled. He hoped his prey's blood would hide the taste of his own as it had the two previous times he'd done this.  She kissed him, licked his lips clean and swallowed the blood that she found there. "I thought I taught you to eat neater than that," she admonished him.  He held her tighter to him, like he did when he was mortal.  As if he hadn't done so for a long time and might not again.  "My but you're affectionate tonight," she said, knowing that sex had died for him as it had long ago for her.  The pleasure they felt when they fed far surpassed any pleasure either of them had experienced from sex when they were alive. "I love you," he told her, wondering what her response would be this time. "I love you, too," she said.  Her eyes opened wider as she realized that she did love him.  He was all she ever wanted and how come it took her this long to realize it?  "I love you," she said again.  She looked away from him, thinking that something was wrong.  She frowned, but when she looked back at him she smiled as warmly as a cold undead woman could.  She kissed him, mortal fashion again. He smiled, bit his tongue and when the blood flowed freely he kissed her again.  He pushed his blood into her mouth and she swallowed it before she knew what she was doing.  Then, it hit her but it was too late now.  He smiled at her, his tongue already healing and they both knew that she was now blood bound to him. She wanted to hate him, to raise her hand and strike him down, but she could not.  Now, when he said he loved her she found herself saying that she loved him, but this time, she did not feel love for him.  She felt numb at the betrayal.  She had loved him for so long, and now he'd tricked her.  How long had he done this?  Could she break free of his influence? They went back to her haven, an old deserted school where the windows were boarded up, and when they settled in for the rest of the night, he told her to tell him everything she knew about being a vampire that she hadn't already shared with him.  He also asked her to tell him everything about all the powers she had and what powers he had inherited from her for he knew that she had not told him everything. She fought his influence as best she could.  She fought not to tell him things.  A few things, she managed to keep secret.  But, only a few.  And only because his questioning wasn't as specific as it should have been. It was another three weeks of instruction and practice . . . . . . then he tried to destroy her.  He'd thought a stake through the heart would be sufficient.  Too bad he had not asked her to tell him how vampires could be destroyed.  Oh, she'd told him about the sun long before she had asked him to consider her 'bringing him across' or 'embracing him' as many of her kind now liked to refer to it.  She'd told him about the stake and she was sure she'd mentioned that to be sure of destroying a vampire, or Kindred as they also called themselves, that the spinal cord must be severed.  But that was also before she'd embraced him. Now, as Elizabeth lay on the school's cellar floor near her simple bed, a stake rather painfully sticking out of her chest, she still smiled ever so faintly as she lost consciousness. - = - Larry Hoffman told himself as he soared into the moonless night sky that he hated to drive the stake into Elizabeth's heart, but that it had been necessary.  He'd become bored with her.  He didn't think it was possible, but it was true.  Perhaps what he had thought of as love had just been a fascination with her vampiric condition. Oh well, no matter, he thought to himself.  I'm free now. He gave himself a smile as he rushed over the city.  A city he now considered to be his own private hunting ground. He flew over to Saunder's Westside Park, carefully using obfuscate to conceal his presence, and when his hearing detected the trotting footsteps, he descended to the ground.  Larry looked around, the starlight and the lights on the telephone and electrical poles lighting the park up like daylight to his enhanced vision. He watched as the late night jogger came around a curve in the path that snaked almost mazelike around the park. The jogger passed him and Larry rushed up behind him, caught the jogger in a strangle hold and pulled the young man to one side, near some bushes.  Larry fixed his gaze on the frightened jogger and the man went still.  Larry's fangs grew quickly and he bit into the jogger's neck and fed. Larry told himself not to take too much.  He was careful, though it was difficult for him.  He stopped sucking at the wound he'd made in the jogger's neck and listened to the man's heart.  It was still beating.  Not as strong as before, but strong enough and not labored at all. Larry gazed into the jogger's eyes, held them and pressed his influence at the young runner.  He told him that he would forget all that had just happened.  He made the man go to sleep.  Larry licked the twin neck punctures he'd made in the jogger's neck and they healed shut, forming two small welts that paled to very minor scars and then faded to normal undamaged skin. Larry Hoffman faded himself from human sight and rose into the air.  Now that he had staked Elizabeth, he had to find a new haven of his own. - = - Natalie Greene knew something was wrong.  She'd felt a stabbing pain in her chest shortly after sunset that caused her to drop the glass she was drying back into the still sudsy dishwater in the left side of her sink so that she could clutch at the front of her yellow flowered blouse.  She'd been forewarned about the pain, but to actually experience it was something else altogether.  She took a few deep breaths, retrieved the glass she dropped and rinsed it under the flow coming from her faucet into the right side of her sink.  She dried off the glass and placed it in the plastic drying rack on the counter top. Then, she felt dizzy.  After she turned off the water and opened the drain in the left side of her double sink, she moved to the nearest kitchen chair and plopped into it.  She sighed.  With her elbows on the table and her palms on her forehead, she rested for several minutes with her eyes closed.  She knew with a certainty that there was something amiss. Her mistress was in danger. "Miss Farland," Natalie murmured to herself.  "Something's wrong," she said. She pulled herself together, rose from her chair and quickly moved to the back door.  She donned her coat as protection from the cold late autumn air and rushed out to her car. She seemed to hit every red light along the way, and though she was tempted to run a few of them, she did not.  It was not in her nature to do so, even though she was sometimes the only person at the intersection.  She waited at one particularly long light and clutched her bosom in remembered pain.  The light changed and she drove on.  It seemed to take her forever to reach the abandoned school.  When she did, she took only enough time to shut off her lights and engine before jumping out of the car, shutting the door and then running as fast as she could to a door near the loading dock in back. She dug a key out of her purse and fumbled once getting it into the lock.  Once inside, she removed the small flashlight from her purse, switched it on and ran down several corridors until she came to the stairway that led to the basement.  Still holding her key ring, she used another key to open the stairwell door.  She ran down the stairs as fast as she was able and she had to use the key again in the door at the bottom of the stairwell.  She locked this door as she had all the others after passing through them and she eventually came to Elizabeth Farland's bedroom. The door was wide open. Natalie froze in shock for just a moment when she saw Elizabeth on the floor in the beam from her light, the wooden stake partly showing above the woman's chest.  She trotted over to her mistress's body and knelt down beside her. The wooden stake was evidently a leg from some piece of furniture in the room.  She dropped her purse, flashlight and key ring on the floor, gripped the makeshift stake with both hands and pulled but it barely moved.  She pulled again and it came out a bit.  She tried a third time with all her strength and fell backwards with the stake in her hands as it came free. She breathed a heavy sigh, got up and turned on the room light. - = - Awareness of darkness and pain.  A presence of someone near.  Pain.  A rustling noise.  A sharp intake of breath, then a wetness on the lips.  Blood.  Warm, but cooling fast.  Pain.  More blood dribbled and she sucked it in passed her lips. She drank for several seconds then the source was removed.  Pain, but not quite as much and awareness that she was still in the world after all.  She opened her eyes, blinked at the bright room light and tried to move.  She grimaced against the pain in her chest. "Don't move too fast, Miss Farland," Natalie whispered. At the moment, Elizabeth couldn't move very fast at all.  She groaned as she rolled to one side and pushed with her arms to sit up.  She groaned again, the pain in her chest still only just this side of bearable as she concentrated on sending some of the blood Natalie had given her to the injured area.  It healed slowly, taking quite a few minutes to close. "Are you going to be alright?" Natalie asked, her voice unsteady with emotion. Elizabeth forced air into her lungs.  "I'll be fine," she croaked.  "Right after I give my wayward lover and son the gift of the final death." Natalie gasped.  "But, what...?" She knew who Elizabeth was referring to, but thankfully she had never actually been introduced to the man. Elizabeth looked at her servant friend, watched as she finished wrapping the bandage around her left wrist.  "Never mind," she said softly, her voice a bit stronger.  So, she'd used her own blood instead of the other, she thought to herself. She waited a moment longer to give Natalie time to tie up her bandage.  "I need to feed.  If you're through, I think I'll need your help to stand up, please, Nat." Natalie quickly went to her mistress' side, grabbed Elizabeth under one arm and helped her rise to her feet.  Natalie grabbed up the flashlight, turned it on and together, they struggled out into the corridor and moved down the hall to the kitchen that Elizabeth had made of one room.  As they slowly walked, Elizabeth told Natalie about Larry's trickery. "Here, you sit down now, Miss Farland," Natalie said as she helped the other woman to a chair at the kitchen table. "Thank you, Nat," Elizabeth said.  She still wished that Natalie would call her Liz or at least Elizabeth, but her long time servant, (and friend), would have none of it. Natalie turned on a light, switched off her flashlight and pocketed it.  Then she went to the refrigerator, pulled out a couple of clear pint bags containing blood as one might receive a transfusion from and popped one into a microwave oven. When it beeped, she gave the warm bag to her mistress and watched as she dug her fangs through the bag's side.  When Elizabeth had drained half of the bag of its contents, Natalie put the second bag into the microwave oven.  It was ready when Elizabeth had finished the first one.  When Elizabeth had finished the second bag, she looked down and saw that the healing was nearly complete.  Just a pale scar remained to show where the stake had been. "Would you like another, Miss Farland?" Natalie asked, still concerned that her mistress needed more healing. "No," Elizabeth said.  She wiped a drop of blood from the corner of her mouth with a paper napkin.  "At least, no more of that retchedly stale stuff."  She suddenly looked at her watch, not knowing what time it was and wondering if.... "Still plenty of time," she said softly. "Plenty of time?" Natalie asked.  She was not sure to what her mistress referred and she thought that maybe Elizabeth Farland still was not quite well, despite the reassurances she'd been given to the contrary. "Yes, to get a decent meal and begin looking for him," Elizabeth replied. "Do you...I mean, are...," Natalie sputtered.  She took a breath to calm herself.  "Are you still under his...." "Influence?" Elizabeth finished for her.  Natalie nodded and Elizabeth smiled faintly back.  "I honestly don't know," she replied softly.  She had managed to avoid taking any more of Larry's blood since she'd found out that he had tricked her.  Because she had not had any of his blood for some time, she knew that his influence had faded.  She would rather it was gone completely though, and of this she wasn't so sure. Natalie went to Elizabeth's room, gathered up her keys and put them into her purse, then she went to Elizabeth's dresser and pulled out a clean dark blue sweatshirt.  She pulled out some clean under things and then moved to the closet to retrieve a pair of jeans.  She knew that Elizabeth would prefer these clothes if she were out getting 'a decent meal'.  When all was in readiness, she told her mistress. After Elizabeth had changed out of her dirty and blood stained clothing and donned the clean ones, Natalie helped Elizabeth with her hair and the little make-up that Elizabeth allowed.  When Natalie thought that Elizabeth was presentable, she gathered up the worn and torn clothing and stuffed them into a plastic garbage bag.  She'd dispose of it on the way home. After Natalie had gone, Elizabeth shut off all the lights and made her way up to the roof of the school.  From there, she vanished from the sight of mortal eyes and soared into the air. Elizabeth went to the thirty-third street subway station but changed her mind before climbing down the stairs.  She flew, instead, out to the country club just north of the town.  She went to the club's kitchen and swiped a few sugar cubes from the pantry and a carrot from the walk-in refrigerator.  Then, it was out to the stables, where she knew she could bribe a horse with the sugar and carrot.  She then used a bit of her own influence and when the horse was still she supped gently at one of the horse's forelegs. The horse could supply her with more blood than a human without any ill effects and she certainly needed quite a bit tonight.  Soon, she took to the sky again to search out her wayward childe. - = - = - Return to top of page. Want to become a vampire? Join me and my friends. Pick a vampire and click on it. or But if you do, I want to know who you are. Tell me what name you've chosen for your vampire. After all, you wouldn't want me to bite you, would you? Family shouldn't bite family.     I...uhm...don't think I'm ready for email yet.    ;-) But that doesn't mean you can't try and send me a note! Copyright © 1995, 2003 B. J. Miller Jr. All Rights Reserved