The Purity of Blood: Volume I (29 page)

I watched him
closely as I spoke.
 
I guess I was trying
to pick up on some of his subtleties now.
 
He didn’t look offended, so I continued.
 
“If you, pardon me for saying, died when you were seventeen, how come
you look older?
 
I thought …
your kind
didn’t age.”

He chuckled to
himself.
 
“Yes, there is a lot of
misinformation out there about –
my kind
,
as you say.
 
That we don’t age is only
one of them.”

I looked at him
with what must have looked like bewilderment.
 

“I don’t
follow.
 
You don’t look a hundred and
twenty four either.”
  

“Yes well, I
suppose that’s a good thing.
 
No, our
aging process is a little more complicated than that.
 
How quickly one ages depends on a few
factors.
 
The more we give in to our
basic desires as vampires, the quicker we age.
 
When living a true vampire lifestyle, we estimate the body will age
physically about four to five years for every calendar year.
 
The average lifespan of one that lives like
that is about fifteen to twenty years at most.
 
However we’re very territorial creatures, and if you wander into
another’s territory and hunt, they kill first and never get around to asking
questions.”
 

The waitress
brought my food, undressed Daniel with her eyes, then left.
 
Trying to ignore her, I took a bite.
 
It needed salt so I liberally sprinkled some
on as he watched me closely.

When I looked
up, he raised an eyebrow.
 

“I like salty
food,” I said by way of explanation.
 
“So
how is it that you look the way you do then?”

“The reason why
living the way we were originally designed to ages us so fast is the
blood.
 
Our bodies are, for all intents
and purposes, dead.
 
When blood is
ingested through the normal way of feeding, the body has to process it, forcing
the dead organs to work.
 
When they do it
taxes the body and causes it to age faster.
 
My mentor discovered over a century ago that if we took blood
intravenously, directly into our veins, it bypassed this process.
 
Basically we got all the benefit without most
of the drawbacks.
 
Of course we slowed
down the process even more by using animal blood instead of human blood.”
 
He stopped for a moment and watched me
eat.
 
“You know this really isn’t
appropriate dinner conversation.”

“Don’t stop on
my account, this is fascinating.
 
So
you’re fridge is full of …”

“Pig’s blood.”

I made a face at
that.

“Sometimes,
Sara, I think you’re the strangest human I’ve ever met.”
 
He smiled as he shook his head.
 
“But as for your original question.
 
When someone is bitten and transforms into
one of us, no matter what their age was before, when the transformation process
is complete, they will either have aged up or back to the age when their body
was at its peak of physical abilities.
 
For men it’s usually somewhere between about eighteen to twenty-four
years of physical age.
 
For women, a few
years older maybe.
 
When I transformed, I
aged up a few years to about twenty-three or so and haven’t aged a whole lot
since then.”

I swallowed
another bite of food.

“So you’re
saying that if an old man was bitten, he’d become young again?”

He nodded yes.

“Wow, I never
saw that in a movie.”

“Yes well, these
are trade secrets that are carefully kept away from the general public.
 
The less of the truth they know, the harder
it is for them to detect us.”

“I guess that
makes sense,” I said as I swirled the last bit of fettuccini on my fork.
 
“You said before that you were old by your standards.
 
Why is that?”

The waitress
walked back and collected the dirty dishes.
 

“So did you save
room for dessert?” she asked.

“What would you
recommend?” Daniel asked.

“There’s a nice
cheese cake and a decent apple cobbler.”

“She’ll have the
cobbler,” he answered.
 
As the waitress
walked away, I gave him a questioning look.

“What? I like to
watch you eat apples,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“So, my
question?”

“Not many of our
kind are either able or willing to live like us.
 
It’s not easy, especially at first to make
the transition from ingesting human blood to going cold turkey –
 
if you’ll pardon the expression.
 
It’s a jolt to the system.
 
It also changes your personality, from being
controlled by the animal side governed by instinct, to the human side governed
by reason.
 
Don’t get me wrong, it’s much
better to live by reason, but in some situations those instincts can keep you
alive.
  

“If you’re one
of the ones that live the other way, they see no reason to change.
 
They are what they are and quite frankly
don’t see the benefits we enjoy as much compensation.
 
I’d equate it with a drug addict.
 
He gets his high and thinks people who don’t
live like him are fools.
 
Does he know
he’s killing himself?
 
Yes, I think he
does, but he just doesn’t care.”

The waitress
came over with my cobbler.
 
It was hot
with vanilla ice cream on top.
 
I dived
right in.
 
It was beyond wonderful.

“I was
lucky.
 
I never had to live like
that.
 
I’m the only one of my kind that
I’ve ever heard of that has never tasted human blood.”

“How is that?” I
asked, suddenly confused.
 
What was he, a
virgin vampire?

“Well, my mentor
helped me through my transformation process.
 
He’d already stopped feeding on humans by then and brought me up that
way.”

I was devouring
my cobbler.
 
Not that I was glad he was a
vampire, but I was relieved I didn’t have to share it with anyone.
 

“Was he the one
that … bit you?” I hesitated when I asked.
 
I wasn’t sure if it was an inappropriate question or not.

“No.
 
He probably saved me from being killed by my
attacker.”
 

He didn’t seem
particularly bothered by the question.
 
I
think the topic in general was uncomfortable for him to talk about, but again I
wasn’t exactly sure why yet.

“Oh,” I said as
I paused to consider this and ate the last of my cobbler.
 

When I finished,
I leaned back my chair and asked “So do you ever think you’re missing something
by not having ever tried it?
 
I mean it
must be good or else others wouldn’t care so much about not stopping.”

He looked at me
as if I’d said something horribly offensive.
 

“What kind of
question is that?” he spat out.

“I don’t know,
it seemed logical,” I replied, refusing to respond to his reaction.

“That’s like me
asking if you’ve ever wanted to try cocaine.
 
I mean enough people seem to think its good stuff, so why not?”

“I suppose I see
your point, but I don’t have a natural craving for cocaine like you do for
blood.”
 

He sighed and
looked out the window.

“I’m sorry.
 
I shouldn’t have sounded so harsh.
 
No, you’re right.
 
I can’t say I haven’t wondered, but I’ve seen
too much of the damage it can do first hand to ever want to casually try it
just to satisfy some intellectual curiosity I might harbor.
 
We can’t be sure, but we think the taste of
blood – it just being in the mouth, is most of what causes the animalistic
behavior.
 
We can take the same blood
intravenously, but we don’t get the same desires they do.
 
I mean we do to a certain extent, but we’re
usually able to control them.”

“But not
always?” I asked slowly.

“No.”

The waitress
came by with our check.
 
Daniel
immediately slipped a few bills in the folder and handed it back to her, then
she walked off to get his change.

“I guess I’m not
a cheap date – compared to a female vampire that is,” I said waving at the
empty dish in front of me.

“Well, now … I
wouldn’t know about that.
 
To be honest,
I’ve never been on a date with a female vampire before so I have no real basis
for comparison.”

“Really?”
 

I leaned back in
my chair again, looking at him appraisingly as I crossed my arms in front of
me.

“Well, that was
a look.
 
What was that about?” he asked
jokingly.

“Nothing, I’m
just trying to figure you out.
 
You don’t
seem to have dated much for a – person of your advanced age.
 
I mean let’s face it, you’re kinda old.”

“What’s that
supposed to mean?” he said, feigning offence.

“I’m just saying
you’re like a hundred and five years older than I am.
 
You’ve got to admit, that’s a little weird.”

Interrupting our
moment, the waitress returned with his change.
 
Pausing our conversation, we walked out of the restaurant and got into
the elevator.
 
As the door closed in
front of us, he said “The age difference.
 
This is what bothers you?”
 
I
could tell he was half serious so I tried to not give a flippant response.

“Well, maybe not
the only thing, but when I think about it, it does seem like … I don’t know …
like why would you be interested in me?”

“Age is just a
number, Sara.
 
The older you get, the
more you realize that.
 
Some people are
more mature at fourteen than other people at forty.
 
It’s the experiences you have in life and the
way you face them that make you who you are, not a date on a calendar.
 
Besides, when I look at you I see an old soul
in a fragile human body, and I’m –”
 
He
stopped and smiled.

“You’re what?” I
asked, curious to hear what he wasn’t saying.

He sort of chuckled to himself.
 
“Well, I was going to say young at
heart.”
 
We both laughed as the elevator
doors opened in the lobby.
 

As we walked up to the front door,
he helped me on with my jacket and, with no particular destination in mind, we
strolled into the darkened quad.
 

“The first time
I saw you was in that building,” I said absentmindedly.
 
He didn’t say anything so I continued.
 
“The way you looked at me – ”
 

“I scared you,
didn’t I … I’m sorry about that.”

“Why?”

“Like I said,
I’ve run across a few pures in my time, but nothing could have prepared me for
you.”
 

He paused,
closing his eyes as if reliving the moment in his mind.
 

“The scent of
you.
 
It wafted down the hallway and just
slapped me in the face.
 
Hard.
 
You just have no idea how you bring out the
animal in me.”
 
He stopped when he
realized what he’d said.
 
“Well, that
must have sounded terrible.”

“Corny really,
but I think I understand what you’re driving at.”

“I’d have a hard
time spending this much time alone with any human, but you – it’s like living
on nothing but cheap dollar a bottle wine your whole life.
 
Then one day someone suddenly hands you a
glass of the finest vintage in the world and tells you not to drink it.”

“I think I like
that analogy a little better,” I smiled.
 
“But I still don’t understand why you’re here
with me now.
 
Why put yourself through
it?”

“Because I want
to be.
 
Because, as little sense as it
makes, I think I’ve been waiting for you for a hundred and twenty four years.”

The utter
sincerity in his eyes made me stop for a moment.

For me?
 
What for?

Then we
continued our stroll.
    

When we stopped
at the edge of the deserted quad, he looked down into my eyes.
 
All I could think was how much I wanted him
to take me in his arms and kiss me.
 
As I
looked up, returning his intense gaze, I was hoping, expecting that he
would.
 
His eyes told me he desperately
wanted to.
 
Were mine saying the same
thing to him?
 
He reached up and gently
cupped the side of my face with his hand.
 
It wasn’t warm as I would have wished it to have been, but it felt solid
and strong, and I ached for him to reach down and place his lips on mine.