Memory
I opened my eyes sleepily, and stretched on the bed.
“Finally, you awake. Your meal was satisfactory I assume?” Duke asked me, and I nodded slowly. “Good. I came in here, and you were passed out on the bed.”
I looked around, and the homeless man from last night was nowhere in sight. I had no memory of what happened after the red took over, but I hoped I had not harmed the man any more than the broken arm. I didn’t ask though, because I knew if I asked I would get an answer I did not want.
“Um... Thank you,” I stammered, and bit my lip. My canines were flat and dull when they touched my lips, instead of being sharp as they were before.
Duke smirked, and looked me up and down. “You are still wearing your clothes from before when you were...human.” He said the word human like it was the plague, and I looked down at myself.
I was wearing a pair of pink Victoria Secret sweatpants, and a thin white T-shirt. There were splotches of blood and holes on my shirt, and I felt bile rise in my throat. What did I do last night?
“How long have I been...out?” I asked softly, noticing how my voice was like velvet. It held restrained power and was alluring, unlike my before high, bell-like voice.
Duke looked down at a watch on his wrist and shrugged. “Well, probably seven hours. All though, if you are talking about how long you were ‘out’ during the change, well that was about three days.”
My mouth dropped, and I shot up from the bed. “Three days? Everyone probably thinks I’m dead!” I yelled, my fingers raking through my hair.
Duke looked at me with an amused smile on his face and chuckled softly. “Trust me, no one thinks you’re dead. They think you have gone away for a few days to visit your parents. I am quite good at convincing people,” he said, and strode toward me. “Soon you will be very good at convincing people too. And that will not be the only thing you will be able to do, there are many more advantages to being one of my kind.”
I backed away from him, my back hitting the bed I had just seconds ago been lying on. “I do not want to be what you have made me,” I spit out, and immediately knew that was a mistake.
Duke’s eyes blazed a fiery red, and he grabbed my wrist tight enough to make me gasp with pain. “I have made you more powerful than the world itself. I am the King of all Amatores Sanguinis. I have not made one of us in more than a thousand years, and I have chosen you. But you do not want to become what I have made you?” He shouted, and I flinched away from him.
The red disappeared from Duke’s eyes, and he stepped away from me, looking down at the ground with his hands held tight within one another. “You said Amatores Sanguinis. What does that mean?” I asked softly, wanting to calm him down as quickly as I could.
“Amatores Sanguinis means lovers of blood in Latin. That is our kind’s name. We are lovers of blood.” Dukes’ voice was sweet, as though his before craziness had never happened.
“I thought we were called vampires?” I asked, biting my nails as I thought.
“Stop that at once. We do not bite our nails, that is a human habit and you are no longer a human. And to answer your question, some call us vampires, which in some way is true. We do drink the blood of humans with long pointed canine teeth. But we are as alive as them, not reanimated corpses,” Duke answered back, and I pulled my hand away from my mouth to put it on my chest.
My heart was beating, although not even close to as fast as when I was a human. “Do we have to drink the blood of humans?” I asked softly, looking at Duke with wide eyes.
He thought for a moment, and then looked at me slowly. “Yes. You can try to drink only animals, but that will be like only eating salad. It does not fill you up, nor will it ever. So you will end up starving yourself, and inevitably killing off the parts of you that make you, you.” Duke looked so lost and so sad, that I knew something like that must have happened to someone he had loved. But before I could ask him about it, his face turned expressionless and he looked away.
“I have to go. I will come back later to check on you. The TV has cable, and there are many other things to keep you busy. Good bye.” Without another look at me, Duke was gone.
---
Hours passed agonizingly slowly, and still Duke had not come back. I had spent the time watching the TV, cleaning myself up, and thinking. Why had Duke seemed so sad? What had happened?
Just as I was beginning to worry though, Duke stepped through the doors into my room, looking as cold as ever.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, his voice betraying no emotions.
I thought for a moment, and then shook my head no. “Thank you though,” I whispered, biting my lip.
“That is a lie. You are a newborn. They are always hungry. Therefore, you are hungry.” Duke’s eyes burned red for a moment, before going back to their normal grey color. “I have decided that I will take you out tonight, so you can find a meal that you think is satisfactory.”
I nodded, afraid to anger him anymore. Something was not right with Duke, and I decided that if I wanted to figure out what it was, I would need to do what he said without any questions. “Okay, thank you. When are we leaving then?” I asked slowly, and tried to not wince as I heard the excitement in my voice.
“We will leave now. Do not worry though; I have an idea of where we will eat. You will find many...tasty treats. They are of the richer blood. But do not kill, because killing will bring the police onto us,” Duke said, a cruel smile on his face.
I nodded once, and followed him out the door. I couldn’t keep the smile off my face, and that made me more scared than anything else. It made me scared of who I might be becoming. If I was turning into a monster, or something even worse. Because I knew deep inside me, that I shouldn’t be afraid of monsters. They’re not as scary as the things that lurk in the dark. They’re not as scary as the things that get excited at the prospect of eating people.
---
The night was dark as Duke and I walked down the street, yet I could see everything. I could smell everything too, and had to force myself to stop breathing, because each breath brought in more and more smells, some bad enough to make me gag.
My throat had started to burn again, just heat at first, then a full on fire. Instinctively my hand went up to my neck, trying to claw out the pain.
“It’s okay, young newborn. You will eat soon enough,” Duke murmured, taking my hands off my throat and holding them in his. “We will eat here. Pick a house, and remember you cannot kill these humans. We are not to be noticed.”
I nodded once, and then ran to the nearest home. But I could not get in. It was like an extremely thick invisible door was in front of the thin wooden door, too thick for me to get close enough to go inside.
“Tammy?” a deep male voice said, and I whipped around. My fangs popped out, and I hissed at the stranger.
“Holy shit Tammy! It’s me, Luke. Your boyfriend! What the hell was that?” he asked, and I strode toward him. “Uh.... Tammy?”
My eyes were locked on his throat, as I heard the blood rushing through his veins. He was human. He had blood.
“Come with me,” I whispered, my voice sultry. Instantly, Luke’s eyes glazed over and he started to follow me as I walked to where the woods were.
I didn’t see anyone around me, just a few animals that scattered when I came near them. My thoughts repeated one word over and over, hungry. I was so hungry.
When I thought we were far enough away, I let go of my hold on Luke. He stumbled forward, and I grabbed his hand and pulled him towards me. My fangs tingled in anticipation, as I got closer and closer to Luke.
“What are you doing Tammy?” he asked, his voice slow, and his hair rustled slightly in the wind.
“I’m hungry,” I answered back, my teeth grazing his neck.
We both shivered with pleasure, and Luke pulled me closer. I took that as an okay for me to bite, and so I did.
The world exploded in millions of colors, a firewo
rks display above my head. Duke pulled me even closer, groaning slowly, and my body grinded against his.
Both of our bodies were burning hot, so when Luke slid his hand up my shirt it left a trail of his heat.
As minutes passed, I felt as though Luke and I were becoming one and I wanted more and more of him.
‘No more,’ a voice in my head whispered. ’If you continue, you will kill him.’
Instantly I pulled my mouth from Luke’s neck, gasping as a sharp pain pierced my heart. Luke swayed, his eyes extremely glazed, and stumbled towards me.
“More...” he murmured, his arms outstretched.
My eyes widened as I remembered the homeless guy, most likely dead in some alleyway, and I started to run. The wind stopped, and it felt as if the world did too. I smiled, feeling as though I was flying.
“I assumed you had a good meal?” Duke asked, startling me to a stop. I jumped when I saw him, lying as though he had no care in the world, on a park bench.
I was standing in a field of bright green grass, ants paving their way along beneath me. I could smell flowers by the dozen, and hear the chirping of birds from miles away. In the distance, there was a small red-bricked cottage with a tiny white door. There were no windows in the house, and green vines were crawling up the sides of the bricks.
“You could say that,” I answered back, my eyes fixed on the cottage. “Um...quick question, who lives there?”
Something was nagging at my brain, but I couldn’t figure out what. The cottage looked so familiar, and when I went through my memory I was surprised to see how I knew every part of it. I knew how inside you would see blank white walls and wooden floors, no furniture at all, just a set of metal stairs going down.
And when you walked down those stairs, there would be hundreds of rooms. A whole city under the Earth. Tunnels that connected around the state of California. How do I know all this? I asked myself, and started walking slowly to the cottage.
“All the Amatores Sanguinis. Most of us have houses above land, but every house connects to these tunnels.” Dukes said, and I nodded, trying hard to remember why I already knew this.
The picture came suddenly, pulling me into the memory I would soon regret.
---
Hungry. The homeless guy is dead. I want more. My throat is burning. I looked down, pushing the homeless guy off of my lap with disgust. His blood had been dirty. I want a clean one. I tried to open the door but it was locked. I pushed and pushed on it, to no avail.
I hear a sound. My head tilts to the side, and I listen hard. There are people beneath me. My face pulls into a cruel smile, fangs pressing lightly against my lips. Food. My eyes spot a crack on the floor, and I speed over to it. Like I had thought, it opened.
When I was down in the tunnel, I started running silently toward the voices, my ears listening intently to their noise. It only took me seconds before I caught up with them. Humans.
“I told you! There is nothing here to be scared of! It’s just a stupid tunnel you idiots,” one of the three guys said, his voice tinged with annoyance. They all had black knit caps, black shirts, and black pants on, but my focus was on the sound of their warm red blood rushing through their veins.
They turned suddenly and jumped when they saw me.
“Shit Tammy! You scared us!” one of the boys said.
“Yeah, I mean we thought you were a monster or something!” another one added in.
“I am,” I whispered, trapping them in a spell as I bared my fangs.
Their eyes slowly widened in fear as they froze in their spot.
“Don’t worry sweeties. You’ll like it! And I promise I won’t kill you. At least, I’ll try not to.”
My smile was cruel as I bit into them, one by one, and drained their life, sip by sip.