“The blood lust was still there, day and night, but I had changed. And irrevocably. In the same way a vegetarian decides not to eat meat. Not because the desire for meat is gone, but because the desire to protect animals is the stronger desire.”
“Does that mean you no longer drink blood?” Her voice trembles with hope.
I shake my head and see the disappointment in her eyes, but she has to know the truth. All of it. No more hiding. “I have become capable of going for months without blood, but I still need it or I feel my strength ebbing away. I get the blood from blood banks and drink it cold. That way, it does not excite the blood lust inside me.”
“After all this time you still crave blood?”
She would never understand, and I never wanted her to understand the bottomless nature of the desire. I nod. “Yes.”
She flinches as if I have hit her, but I note that she appears unafraid of me, and that is something to be positive about. “If the food you consume gives you no nourishment why are you so careful with what you eat?”
“There was a time I could eat the same food as humans, but since the second industrial revolution the food humans consume has slowly become more and more polluted with pesticides, preservatives, additives, heavy metals, and toxins until they are literally poison. When I turned away from my true nature, I diminished myself. Though it may seem to you as if I am much stronger than any man you know, I am not what I should be. The others of my kind are stronger, faster, and more resilient than I am. Without blood as my main sustenance my body has become less mighty, and those pollutants will make me fatally sick.”
“Garlic,” she says suddenly. “I’ve seen you eat garlic bread. It’s not true that it wards off vampires?”
“Garlic has no effect on us, but the myth might have its roots in the fact that too much garlic makes the blood taste bitter. Consequently, it is not introduced as a food into the settlements.”
“And the Christian cross. Is that a deterrent?”
I shake my head. “No. The only deterrent is sunlight and fire. Nothing else.”
She raises both hands and presses her temples. I watch her quietly. Then she stands and begins to pace the floor. She stops abruptly, and her hands make a chopping movement. “Okay. You and your family are vampires. I get that. That’s very clear. But what do you all want with me?”
Chapter 56
Autumn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2hGmoWFzaA
-Everybody hurts-
He moves away from me and sits on the leather chair behind the desk. Swinging slightly away from me he leans back and stares out of the window. There is an expression on his face I cannot describe. Perhaps it is sadness, perhaps it is longing for something he cannot have.
“It was written in our ancient book that a very, very long time ago an oracle had foretold the demise of our species. The vision warned that our corruption would become so boundless we would be unable to reproduce and we would slowly rot away. Ever since we have feared and waited for the prophecy to manifest. We didn’t know how or when it would begin, or what form it would take, but fifty years ago the revelation began to manifest.
“At first the effects were slow to show, and they could be easily hidden, a sore here, a boil there, some signs of ageing, but as the years passed the decay became more and more obvious. In some cases, it was no longer even possible to hide or go out in public without attracting undue attention. The reason you were invited to a masked party was because some of us have become so unbearably hideous and repulsive it would have shocked and frightened you. Not only are our bodies breaking down, but recently we have also started to reek unbearably of decomposing flesh.”
“Yes, I smelled that,” I whisper, remembering the nauseating stench coming from the man I met in the room below the party. “Why are you still beautiful and why do you not smell?”
“When you witnessed me, in bed wrecked with pain, that was not a disease I caught in Asia. That started fifty years ago when all the others began to show symptoms of decline and ruin. I don’t know, I might still start to stink as the end comes closer. For the moment the worst signs of decay seem to be in those who partake in human hunts.”
I stare at him transfixed. The things he is telling me is beyond belief. It feels as if I am caught in a fantastic nightmare. The thought of him as a vampire is too fantastic, too horrible, and yet every piece of the jigsaw puzzle that so confused me has neatly fallen into place. Now I can see all the parts I could not figure out. Knowing all of this doesn’t make me love him any less. In fact, I love him so much it hurts. Even so, I realize that I may not be as important to him as I thought. Perhaps, I am not important at all. He clearly just needs something from me. I am afraid to ask, but the words gather in my mouth and come out in a whisper.