The Purity of Blood: Volume I (19 page)

“Well, that
explains a lot,” I mumbled as I pushed back from the desk, leaning onto the two
back legs of the chair.
 
“Poor guy.
 
Wonder what really happened to him.”

It made me
wonder when the last time someone had thought of Daniel Bennett was.
 
I might be the first person in seventy five
years to even remember how he died and feel sorry for him.
 

It reminded me
of our conversation in the woods yesterday, about how quickly people forget and
move on as if you never even existed.
 
This was the letter in the desk drawer that had brought his memory back
to life.

Kind of a
coincidence, I thought.
 
Daniel
Bennett and
Daniel
Simmons.
 

It also reminded
me that I wanted to look up info on blood disorders that would require
transfusions.
 
I did some searching
online and came up with a few, but none of the symptoms listed seemed to fit
Daniel or the Professor.
 
They were too
healthy looking to possibly be suffering from any of the maladies I’d come
across.

I searched
Blood Stockpile
and came up with a lot
of bizarre results, most of which were about vampires or people who like to
dress up and pretend they were vampires.
 
The strange things people do.
 
I
even read about some folks who actually cook gourmet food with pig’s
blood.
 

Starting to get bored, I clicked on a site that looked like it might have
some interesting vampire trivia.
 
I was
looking for something to be for Halloween, and hoping I might find some costume
tips, opened it up.
 
These people were
way too
serious here.
 
A page entitled ‘
Ten Ways To Spot A Vampire’
drew my attention and sheer curiosity
compelled me to click on it.
 
A blood red
page with a frilly black background opened up.
 
The page was so completely over the top, it was hard to tell how
seriously these people took themselves.
 
But
looking for a good laugh, I started to read the list.

Number One: don’t believe anything you’ve
heard or seen about vampires from television or the movies.

Humm
… This doesn’t seem very practical if
you’re
trying to spot one in a crowd
I
thought.

Number Two: Vampires have super strength.
 

Number Three: Vampires can influence your decisions.
 

Number Four: Vampires don’t eat food.
 

Number Five: Vampires don’t sleep.

Number Six: Vampires don’t cluster together; they are solitary
creatures and won’t travel in groups of more than two or three.
 

Number Seven: Vampires don’t sweat.
 

Number Eight: Vampires will kill animals if they can’t find a human
victim.
 

Number Nine: Vampires have very pale skin that feels room temperature
to the touch.
 

Number Ten: Vampires don’t age.

Well, that’s not very sexy,
I thought to
myself.
 
Where is Count Dracula sweeping
in to drink the beautiful damsel’s blood in the middle of the night?
 
What about the bats?
 
And the ruby red eyes?

Having had
enough for one night, I turned off the computer and tidied up my desk.
 
I’d work on Sophronia’s tree a little
later.
 
Maybe the library would have
something on the deaths.
 
After all, it
was local history.

After I brushed
my teeth and got my backpack ready for the morning, I put on my old sweats and
a ratty tee-shirt and slipped into bed.
 
Turning off the light, I laid back and closed my eyes, but my mind was
too active to calm down.
 

Why did Daniel
have all that blood?
  
Why couldn’t I
just ask him directly?
 
I mean, he
probably had a reasonable explanation.
 
It’s not like he was going to say G
ee,
that’s because I like a snack sometimes and well … I’m a vampire
.
 

Yes, it’s true
he was a pale guy but so what?
 
And his
skin did feel kind of odd, like room temp, and yes, he was extremely
strong.
 
I should be grateful he was,
after all he did carry me all that way through the woods to his house.
 
Then I remembered that I’d seen Daniel nibble
on some food in the dining hall a few times and that set my mind at ease.
 
At least until I remembered that his kitchen
cabinets were bare …
bare with
a layer of dust in
them.
 

I forced myself
to think about something else for a while and finally started to drift off to
sleep.
 
The last thought that flitted
through my mind as I faded out, was hiking with my friends in the forest and
hearing Mike saying “We found a couple of bloody dear in the woods.”

DANIEL

The
past twenty four hours had been some of the most difficult of
my life, and tonight probably wasn’t going to be any easier.
 
Even now the scent of the blood hunter still
lingered on the fringes of the quad.
 

Sara’s tumble
couldn’t have been better timed.
 
Had she
slept in her room last night, he would have seen her through the window I now
perched by.
 
Would he have killed her, or
would he simply have continued to stalk her?
 
I’d run into one or two of his kind over the years.
 
He got off on the hunt, wanting to know her
as intimately as possible before he reveled in her.
 

Staring at her
window, I couldn’t get the image of her lifeless body sprawled on the floor of
her room out of my head.
 
She was lying
in a pool of her own ruby red blood, her deep brown eyes staring out at
nothing, lifeless.
 
I closed my eyes
tight and shook my head to chase the disturbing image from my mind.
 
It was her eyes, that earthy brown under
those thick lashes, always so full of life, full of questions.
 
To see them lifeless made me shudder
involuntarily.
 
No matter what her other
allurements, how could anyone want to snuff the light out of those amazing
eyes?
 
And yet, I knew perfectly well
why.
 

In the end, I
still wondered if I’d be the one to blow the light out of them.
 
I was walking a thin line – one forced on me
– one I wouldn’t have wished on myself for the world.
 
I wanted her, wanted her desperately.
 
But my desire was dangerous for her and
ultimately for me as well.

If she was so
important, how could he have left her unprotected like this?
 
She was so frail, so human.
  
I remembered the look on his face when he’d
left.
 
He was scared.
 
She must have some meaning to him, something beyond
those amazing eyes, curves and questions.
 
But what?
 

I was pondering
this as I watched her light go out.
 
She
must be going to bed.
 
The tree outside
her window where I now sat was thankfully not losing its leaves yet and I was
able to hide, motionless in its branches with no one the wiser.
 
This was the first time I’d come so close to
her window.
 
I usually just patrolled
around the perimeter of the building at night.
 
But ever since she’d told me her roommate wasn’t staying with her, it
didn’t feel right letting her out of my sight.
 
The hunter wouldn’t attack when her roommate was in the room with
her.
 
He’d want her all to himself,
without the lesser blood of the blonde on his palate.

Nestled among
the thick branches and withering leaves of the elm, I thought back to last
night.
 
I’d checked on her several times
as she’d slept in my bed.
 
Something
about the peacefulness of her sleeping form made me feel uncomfortable.
 
To see her lying there motionless, it brought
back the visions of her dead body.
 
But
it was her face.
 
It wore the most
peaceful expression in sleep, so innocent, like Eve before the fall.
 
Last night, in the dead quite of the house
while she slept in my bed, my natural instincts had been hardest to fight.
 
The parts of me that didn’t want to fight
them anymore only grew stronger as the sun began to rise.
 

Her scent had
permeated the house by then.
 
My only
escape was the balcony.
 
From there I
could still sense her presence without getting too close.
 
She was like a lightning rod for me, drawing
me in, yet completely unaware of the danger I posed.
 
I didn’t want to be the monster that snuffed
out this light, but wondered if I even had a choice.
  
Like it or not, I was what I was and there
was nothing I could do about it now or ever.
 
I was fighting it, but God help me, I wanted her so desperately, I
wondered how much longer I could possibly hold out.
 
Unfortunately, what I wanted wasn’t good for
either of us.
 
In the end, her light
would be gone as would any I might still have left within me.

Through the
window I could hear her breathing start to slow down as she drifted off.
 
She was a sound sleeper, even the noises of
the drunken students stumbling home down the hall just feet from her head
didn’t rouse her in the slightest.
 

Looking closer,
I could tell her windows were unlocked.
 

Oh, Sara.

I felt the wind
as it started to pick up, and afraid the parting of the branches by a gust of
wind might allow my position to be compromised, I looked around for better cover.
 
It was a short leap to the outcropping of her
brick window sill and I managed it easily.
 
Lightly grabbing the window, I eased it up.
 
As she continued to breathe softly, I slid in
around the blind on her absent roommate’s side of the room.

Pulling out her
roommate’s chair, I gently placed it in the shadows on the far side of the room
and sat down.
 
There was no harm getting
this close.
 
After all, he’d said to
guard her with my life, right?

I lifted my chin
and sniffed the air.
 
The room was full
of her smell, sweet and flowery.
 
Her
soft perfume hung in the air as well, but it did nothing to mask her natural
scent.
 
I closed my eyes and breathed.
 
Ahh
… So much more enticing than any store bought perfume
could ever possibly hope to be. Shaking my head, I did my best to snap myself
out of the trance I’d found myself in.
 
I
had to keep my guard up as much as I could this close to her.

I sat there for
some time just listening to the rhythm of her breathing, concentrating on the
sound of it.
 
She had no idea how much
danger had sat outside that window just last night.
 
It was that same danger that had been hunting
in the woods she’d hiked just last week.

She rolled
over.
 
I could see her face now, circled
by a halo of soft red hair.
 
I shouldn’t
have feelings for her.
 
It wasn’t
natural.
 
It was confusing, so
confusing.
 
Here in the dark of her room,
I didn’t understand what was happening to me.
 
Were they physical instincts, or emotional instincts?
 
Something inside me felt as if it was waking
from a long deep slumber.
 
It had slept
so long I wasn’t sure I understood what it was anymore.
 
Yet, I knew exactly what it was.
 
It had just lain forcibly dormant so long,
its memory was just a distant echo of things that once were.

An hour
passed.
 
I concentrated even harder on
her steady breathing.
 
I’m pretty sure it
was the only thing keeping me in the chair.
  

The hallway
outside was silent now.
 
How could anyone
stand to live in such a place?
 
So much
noise, so little peace.
 
And yet she
slumbered on, blissfully unaware.
 
So
innocent, so sweet.
 
Yet could one really
describe this creature as sweet?
  
Some
small voice inside me was whispering that she might be something else entirely,
somehow in a class all her own.

In … out … In …
out, she breathed.

She shifted her
position again.
 
Now when she breathed,
the swell of her breasts beneath the sheet was more than evident.
 
That and the gentle curve from her waist up
to her shapely hip.
 
I stared, transfixed
by her.
 
No, this wasn’t right.

Desperate for a
distraction, I got up and crossed the room to look out the window.
 
Still no sign of him.
 
I turned and glanced at the top of her
desk.
 
I frowned.
 
No Art History book to be seen.
 

Humm
, I hope she’s studying
.
 
I was
thinking about a pop quiz tomorrow
.
 

I picked up a
legal pad with notes scribbled on it and saw Sophronia’s name and family
tree.
 
I shook my head silently.
 
I should have known she’d do something like
this.

Another hour
passed with agonizing slowness as I sat motionless, listening, watching.
 
But I could have listened and watched for a
hundred years and still not have been prepared for what came next.

“Who are you?” a
voice said in something just above a whisper.

I froze for a
moment.
 
There was no one else in the
room except us, I was sure of it.
 
I
scanned the room quickly only to confirm I was right.
 
When I looked over at her face, I saw that
her expression had changed.
 
It was no
longer the soft features Sara wore in sleep, but an empty face, devoid of
expression.
 
Yet, she was asleep.
 

Then the voice
spoke again.

“You’re not the
other one,” it said.
 
The voice sounded
bland, monotone almost.
 

No, she was
asleep.
 
How was she talking to me, or
was she?
 
She might be dreaming, but on
all the previous night’s I’d staked out her room I’d never heard her talk in
her sleep before.

“The other one?”
I whispered, talking more to myself than the voice.

“The one that
usually comes.”
 
The voice, like the face
still emotionless.

“Sara?”

There was no
answer.

“Who are you?” I
asked, but I didn’t really know why.

After a long
pause, I heard “I am the part that does not sleep.”

I was frozen,
unable to find words in my mouth to express the confusion of my mind.
 
I had no idea what to say.
 
Sara was sleeping, her breathing and heart
rate hadn’t changed one bit since she’d first fallen asleep.
 

After a few
minutes it spoke again.

“Who are you?”

Ignoring the
question, I asked “Who is the one that usually comes?”

“The one like
you.
 
The one that has come our whole
existence.”

The blood hunter?
I thought to myself.
 
Was
that possible?

“Why did he
come?” I asked.
 

Was she really aware of him?
 
How long had he been stalking her anyway?

“We do not
know.
  
He asks questions without words
and takes answers we do not give.”

“Who is ‘we’?”

“The part that
sleeps and the part that does not.”

“Where are you
when the part that sleeps is awake?”

“Here.”

I had no idea
who or what I was talking to.
 
Did he
know about this?
 
Was this part of why
she was so important to him?
 
I sat there
in silence for a few moments trying to figure out what was happening.

Then the voice
spoke again.

“Why are you
here?”

“To protect
her,” I said.

“Protect us from
what?”

“One like me
that wishes to harm her.”

The voice paused
for a moment.

“Are you sure?”

I didn’t answer
right away.
 
I was even more confused
than before.

“The other never
means to intentionally harm us.”
 
It
paused for a moment then continued. “You
can not
harm
us.”

“Yes, I can,” I
said to myself with more sadness in my voice than I usually betrayed.

“You think this,
but it is not true.”

The silence of
the room was shattered by an intoxicated group of students stumbling along
loudly as they made their way down the corridor.
 
Sara rolled back over.
 

In … out … In
…out, she breathed, and the voice spoke no more.