Vampire Heartbeat, chapter 2

Later that afternoon they were sitting on Em's floor, she had her fondue set out and they were busy covering all manner of gooey sweets in chocolate. Em leaned back against Mike.

"I like it when it's just the two of us; it's possible to have a mature conversation."

"I know what you mean; as much as I love the guys, I can only handle so much."

Em giggled, and pulled a marshmallow out of the dish, feeding Mike.

"Why thank you."

"You're welcome." She reached into the packet to pull out another one, but it was empty. "Damn, sweets are finished."

Mike grinned. "Never mind, I'd had enough anyway, I would be sick if I ate anymore."

Em sat up and stretched. "So, what d'you wanna do now?"

He bit his tongue, thinking. "Is it safe for you to go out?"

"Yeah, I'm fine during the day, it's just at night I have to feed."

"Every night?"

She looked down at the floor. "I'm meant to hunt every night, that way I wouldn't have to kill, but in a place like this it's impossible, people getting attacked every night, they'd soon realise what's going on. So I only hunt every few days, which leads to a death."

Mike pulled her into a hug, and she buried her head in his chest.

"That must have been hard for you, the hundreds of people you'll have had to kill."

"Thousands, hundreds of thousands."

"Why, how old are you?"

She sat back up and looked into his eyes, her own shining with tears.

"You'll have heard of Jesus I take it?" Mike nodded. "Well, the night he was born, I was in the same city hunting a vampire." She chuckled at the look of surprise on his face. "I was a twenty-one year old female vampire slayer, totally unheard of, but I was from a family of slayers, so I knew what I was doing. Or at least, I thought I did.

"Anyway, the bugger got the better of me, and I was bitten. But, whilst trying to fight him off, I cut his arm with my knife, and accidentally swallowed some of his blood. That's how you become a vampire you see, you have to exchange blood.

"I killed him right afterwards, but knew it was too late. I couldn't return to my family, they' d kill me outright, I had nowhere to go, so I just left. I've been travelling since, 'til about a hundred years ago, when I settled in the Bay area."

She wiped her eyes, and smiled gently at her friend. "That's why I hate Christianity so much, not 'cos it's what vampires are supposed to do, but because every time I hear that name it reminds me of what happened, and how I've been cursed to kill."

"That must be awful."

She nodded. "It is, but I do what I have to do, so do we all in the end.

"You see, the things you've been told, they're not real, they're made from nightmares, the things people believe they see. Like the whole sleeping in a coffin thing, though that one is actually my fault."

"What, were you actually sleeping in a coffin and they found you?"

She chuckled. "Not quite. Back in the middle ages, they started a huge crackdown on people they believed to be monsters, in league with the devil."

She rolled her eyes. "So, in order not to get caught, I had to find an alternate blood supply. Not humans, and not cattle, because I had to kill them, they're blood isn't as rich as humans.

"Anyway, one of a vampire's added powers is we can render ourselves invisible. So, using this, I found my new blood supply.

"Religion was a huge thing then, so people had to go through a proper burial, which, helpfully, involved them lying in a funeral parlour for a few days.."

Her friend grinned. "Don't tell me... "

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Well, what would you do? I snuck in, invisible, and drained their blood. I did it for a for a few months before I was busted. They couldn't see me, but the lid was off the coffin, and they saw the bite marks, so they believed the poor sod was a vampire.

She sighed. "He went to his grave with a stake through his heart, just in case. Like it would have worked. We're immortal see, it makes for a lonely life. I can only ever hang around for so long, or my friends get old while I stay eternally twenty-one, and cursed to bring death."

They sat in silence for a moment, the young man pondering his friend's situation.

"What if you had a blood donor?" Mike cocked his head to the side, looking at her with raised eyebrows.

"What do you mean?"

"What if I was to donate a little blood to you every day, as much as you needed, so you won't have to kill anymore?"

"You'd... you'd do that, for me?"

"Course, if it's possible?"

She shook her head. "It's not, you'd lose too much blood, it wouldn't have enough time to replenish itself... "

"Surely you could whip up some potion to help?"

She looked at her friend, a smile slowly creeping across her face.

"You know, I might have just the thing, let me look."

She got onto her hands and knees and crawled over to the corner where she stored her trunk, full of everything she needed for her witchcraft. Lifting the lid with one hand, she fished around and pulled out an old, leather-bound book. Crawling back over to Mike, Em plopped herself down again and opened the volume.

"Let's see... Beauty, Boldness, nope, gone too far... ah, here we go, Blood... Blood replenishing, yes, there is a potion here!" She gazed into Mike's beautiful blue eyes, and he stared back into her equally gorgeous green ones.

"Are you sure you wanna do this? You'll have to take the potion everyday, won't Billie and Tre get suspicious if you're hanging around here all the time?"

"Hmm... well, I know one way around that." Emerald raised her eyebrows questioningly, and Mike beamed. "I'll tell them you're my girlfriend, if you've no objections?"

She laughed. "None at all, in fact, that's perfect, 'cause, if you want, you could move in here."

"That would be amazing. In fact, Emerald... will you go out with me, for real?"

"You... me... of course I will Mike, god, you don't know how long I've been waiting for you to ask that!" She dived on him and kissed him.

"Right, come on, let's get the cauldron out and the potion made!"