She turned to glance up at the moon with unseeing eyes before rising to a sitting position in one swift and graceful movement, the bedclothes tumbling down her body to reveal a sinewy, shapely torso of milky pallor and exquisite yet still budding voluptuousness. Her young breasts were just beginning to swell into adulthood, her waist just starting to have a definition of its own. In another few years, the beauty she now possessed would be characterised and individual, endowed with the wisdom of early adulthood yet still imbued with the innocence of youth. When she truly became a woman, she would rise above all others in the eyes of the one that held her. She would be adored and cherished, for all eternity.
She cast her gaze away from the external light and swung her body around so that her feet touched the floor. In the frozen semi-darkness of the room she found her slippers and pushed her tiny feet into their warmth. As she stood, the moon threw her silhouette against the opposite wall, the little girl's body with the woman's figure fighting its way out even now. As though suddenly aware that someone might be watching, she picked up her dressing gown and wrapped it around her naked body. A blush of demure modesty flooded her face momentarily, and then she crossed the room and opened the door onto the landing.
As she tiptoed to the top of the staircase, she passed her parents' room. From within she heard the muffled sounds of their sleeping – earlier she had listened to the rawer sounds of their lovemaking, and now they were resting peacefully. They would sleep through until the morning now, and never even realise she had been out of the house. Poor parents, she thought, ignorant of the true nature of their beloved daughter. She was their life, but how little they knew her.
With practised ease she descended the staircase, criss-crossing to avoid the loose floorboards, and when she reached the ground floor she stretched out one hand to check that the dog still slept. Yes, good. Being responsible for feeding the animal gave her the perfect opportunity to slip a sleeping draught into its meals on the nights when she had to leave for a time. She stepped over the slumbering beast and crossed the hall into the lounge. The curtains were drawn, but as she pulled them across, the moonlight flooded in and she bathed a moment in its precious light. It seemed to beckon her outside, seemed to urge her onwards, as though to say that time was running short.
She stepped outside, securing the French doors behind her and pocketing the key. The cold air hit her, penetrating easily the light wrap she wore, but she did not really feel its sharpness. There was a light frost on the ground, and her breath fell away from her as dragon-plumes of heat, but the adrenaline was pumping so hard inside her body now that she scarcely felt the cold on her bare arms and legs. She looked up at the swollen moon, her eyes wide and lit with a fanatical light. She sniffed the air and smiled, her senses telling her that this would be a successful night. There was food somewhere near, she could smell it. Casting off her human inhibitions, awakening to the nature of her inner beast, she set off like a predator through the long grass, scaling the back fence with liquid ease and breaking into a run through the wheat fields beyond. This was freedom, and it tasted good...
"Is that Cassie gone out again?" whispered the woman, some time after the last sounds of their daughter's ragged breathing had died away into the distance.
The man turned to look at her, his face cast in shadow by the moon outside. "Yes, she's gone. And out of earshot by now, I should think."
"What should we do, Ciaran?" The woman leaned up on one elbow and looked into the hidden face of her husband. "We must speak to her soon, tell her about..."
"I know, Adele, I know we must." He looked up at her translucently pale face and smiled grimly. "She must know the truth. She imagines that we do not know about her night hunts, that we would not understand them if we did know."
The woman chewed her lip anxiously. "Do you think it will help her, knowing that it's ok, that we don't object to her hunting? Will it help her overcome the hunger?"
"I wish I knew, my love." The man lay down beside his wife and stared up at the ceiling. "We both knew that one day it would come to this, that certain things would need to be explained. It won't be easy, but it must be done. Only then can she become one of us."
The two moved closer together and their lips met. Within seconds the tender kiss had developed into something more passionate, and when he rolled on top of her she did not complain, but clung to him with one hand on the back of his neck and the other gently guiding his swollen penis inside her. For some considerable time they rocked together in the quiet intimacy of the bed, until each was close to the climax, at which point they both leaned back momentarily from each other, before sinking their now distended fangs into the throat of the other. In the midst of their mutual passion, as the mortal fluids of each mingled in the dark secrecy of their conjoined bodies, they drew the blood of the other into their mouths, gasping at the richness and the taste of it.
When the experience was over, the man sank back onto the bed, his body slick with sweat, his mouth stained deep scarlet. Beside him, the woman sighed deeply and then cuddled up close to him. Her teeth had now returned to their natural size, and she tenderly kissed his chest. "Delicious," she whispered, delighted by the feel of his lovemaking and the taste of his life-blood. "You truly are the one, the only one." She smiled softly up at him in the moonlight, her eyes glowing fire, her lips parted and moist. "For ever..." she added quietly.
"And ever," he replied, holding her close. "We will tell Cassie the truth tomorrow. For now, sleep my darling. Sleep until morning."
"You know that we have always been different," began the mother, gently stroking her daughter's hair while her husband caressed the soft, childlike hands. "It is time to tell you the reason why, a tale which perhaps you should have heard before now." At that the girl looked up, meeting her mother's eyes for the first time in weeks, and seeing such depth and beautiful strangeness there that she caught her breath. "We know that for some time now you have been going out during the night, and we can guess the reason for your secrecy. When one of us reaches a certain age, and mortal changes start to affect our bodies and our minds, a hunger begins to grow inside us, a hunger which can drive us insane if we do not give in to it now and then. You have been out hunting, in an effort to feed that hunger."
The girl bowed her head as though ashamed at being found out. How could her parents have known, when she had been so very careful to conceal her activities?
"The hunger cannot be fed forever by such crude kills," said the father, drawing one of his daughter's fragile hands to his lips. "It was so with your mother and I in our youth, and it will prove so with you. As the body grows, so does the hunger, and you will not be able to stop at taking animals then. You will need human flesh." The girl wrinkled her nose in disgust, but he continued as though unaware of her reaction. "In the old days it was easier. Larger animals roamed the forests, deer and even bears were easy to track and kill. In this time we must be content with smaller creatures, rarely if ever finding anything as large as a deer or wild horse. The need for increasingly larger and richer prey will come, if it has not already begun." He looked at his daughter again, anxiously scanning her face for signs of distress.
"You must understand your nature, Cassie," added the mother. "Understand it and accept it. What your father says is true. When I was growing into adulthood, I too left the home at night to kill and take food. I felt that my parents would despise me for what I did, so I never mentioned my pain. But they knew, they always had known, and one day they told me what we are now telling you. It is our nature to kill. We were not born human, we are a separate race, a separate species. As children we remain untouched by the influence of our bloodline, but as we blossom into adulthood the hunger begins to grow. We feed like wolves until we are taught otherwise."
"But mother, what am I? If I am not human, what manner of creature am I? I do not change into another beast when I run on the hunt, so I am not a werewolf!"
"No, not a werewolf. Such thing do exist, I am sure – a result of our mating with humans perhaps – but such is not our burden. We are similar to those pitiful creatures in our youth, but as adults we develop into something far stronger. Under the tutelage of our parents we become what is known as wampyr."
The girl almost laughed, but the seriousness in her parents' faces convinced her otherwise. "You're saying I'm a vampire?!" she breathed, looking at each parent in turn. "You can't be serious!"
"Deadly serious, darling," replied the father. "Sorry." He smiled suddenly, and she could see the distended fangs in his mouth. Her eyes widened to see them; they had never been there before, she was certain of it. "You're right, you haven't seen them before. They usually only become distended at moments of intense passion or at the time of the kill. For the purposes of education, however, they can be lengthened at will."
She stared then at her mother. "And you too?" The woman's lips parted slightly and there were the teeth; long, dangerous weapons of ivory. "Jesus Christ!" The girl tried to back away, but they both held her tight. "You're crazy. Both of you. This can't be happening."
"Accept it, Cassie. Let us bring you through the worst of life into the best of it. It is time for you. The hunger is starting to become unbearable, you cannot rest because your hunger is never assuaged. It is time to come into this, time to join your Family."
"Oh my God, you can't mean... you're going to kill me!"
"Not kill, my beloved. Resurrect!" The father had her by the shoulders then, and his grip was impossible to resist. "Please my darling. It is time. It is for your own good."
Succulent tears began to well in the girl's eyes now, flooding her vision with a pink mist. "Please, father, don't do this. Don't kill me. I don't want to die..."
"You won't die, sweetheart, you won't ever die. You'll live forever." The father looked across at his wife, whose eyes were already devouring the rich purple vein in her daughter's throat. "For you, my love," he said, caressing her hair with one gentle hand. "This one's for you."
The mother bent over her daughter, touching her hair gently and stroking her pale, quivering face. The tears streaked her skin now, and the mother's tongue followed the line of liquid down to the full, fleshy lips. She kissed her gently but firmly there, keeping steady eye contact with the child and trying to reach her telepathically. "Don't be afraid, Cassie," she whispered. "Please don't fight us any more."
As though in reaction to those words, the girl's struggling abruptly ceased, and she lay limp and pliant in her father's arms. She closed her eyes and seemed to brace herself against the pain she knew would come. She cried out as she felt the cool firmness of her mother's fangs upon her throat, and whimpered like a frightened beast to feel the heat of her breath in so sensitive a place.
With a quick glance up at her husband, as though to confirm that this was indeed her duty and prerogative, the woman took a long, deep breath and then struck hard into the soft flesh with her strong, sharp teeth. A brief second! And then her mouth was filled with the scent and the taste of rich, delicious, virgin blood, distilled through centuries of their very ancient bloodline and perfected – as it seemed – in this one body, in their little girl. She took the limp body into her arms and locked her mouth to the wound she had made. God, such ecstasy it was to taste this sacred blood! A low, feral moan escaped her lips, a sound like that which accompanied the mortal throes of passion, a sound which stirred her husband's blood and made him hunger for blood and for sex with a luminous urgency.
The woman sensed his anguish and reluctantly relinquished her hold on the child, passing the precious creature over to her beloved for him to take his share. If the blood was not shared, they could not bring her back, and everything depended upon that happening. She was their hope for the next generation, the focal point of their lives.
The man took his fill, draining the weakening girl easily and rocking gently with her body as though making love to it. This was wonderful, keen and fragrant beyond any bounds. Their mortal child, their baby, whom they had cared for and nurtured, forever watching for signs of the blood-craze which afflicted their kind, and indicated the time for the change. And now it had come, and she was perfect – the taste of her was all the proof that he needed.
Almost drained now, a near empty vessel of thin, fragile skin and delicate bone, the girl was struggling for breath as though dying. It was time to feed her final mortal hunger, time to bring her closer to her Kindred. Biting down upon her wrist, the mother drew blood from herself and pressed the wound carefully to her daughter's parched lips. "Drink, Cassie, drink. Learn to live again." There was a slight pull at the wound. "Yes, that's it darling, that's the way. I am your mother, I provide your nourishment."
The girl began to suck noisily, lifting her head in order to get the freest access to this new food. Her strength came flooding back, her pallor began to return as she took in her mother's life-blood. When the woman fell away, exhausted and pale, the girl turned her limpid eyes upon her father. "Please father, I need some more." Her voice was changing already, as the greater depth appeared in her eyes, a smoother texture overran her skin. "Please father." She reached out to him and he let her tear and drink from his wrist.
"I am your father, I provide your enlightenment," he whispered, holding her against him as she drank, and imparting a thousand tiny telepathic messages into her brain as she listened with awe to his raging heartbeat.
At length it was over, and all three sat back together, faces pale, eyes animated with desire and repletion. The Family huddled closer, reassuring each other by touch that everything was alright now, that they were together and that they were all the same.
"No more secrets," murmured the mother, clinging to her husband and caressing her new-born daughter.
"No more secrets," the father agreed. "Just you and I and Cassie, for ever..."
"And ever..." sighed the girl gently, closing her eyes to sleep.
[19th January 1995]
Home
Back to Story Listing
Back to Literary Header
Previous
Next
