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She looked up at me. “I know it’s awful, I know I’m killing another human being, murdering, but you can’t imagine what it’s like to receive, I don’t know, another person’s life force. It’s a strange, mystical thing, but I know there’s a reason, a scientific reason, for it—I just haven’t been able to find it yet.”

The furnace came on and the air blew the curtains. A small sliver of light appeared on the floor near the table.

“Can we move into the living room?” she asked.

“Sure.”

I refilled our coffee cups and we settled in the room on the other side of the house.

“Can’t you feed on animals?” I asked.

“Not really,” she said, looked into her cup. “I have heard that some of us have fed on gorillas or chimps and that works. Problem is an adult would tare me apart. But dogs or sheep…something like that, I don’t understand, but whatever it is that we need to survive, they don’t have it. It’s not in stored blood either, I can’t just go rob a blood bank. I suspect that there’s some hormone or short-lived protein in because of fear, or because of stress or trauma.

“What about the people who want to die, that let you take them?”

“Yeah, I know,” she said. “I can only guess that there must still be the fear, emotion. It also doesn’t work if they’re unconscious. I tried that back in, oh, the 1700s. I once came across a man who was passed out—drunk—and I fed on him but it only made me feel sick, and drunk.”

“So you have to let junkies dry out?”

“Yes. We once held a woman for three days while she went through withdrawl—then I just couldn’t do it, we couldn’t do it. We let her go.”

“I’d think you could really interest a scientist.”

“Oh, we did…back in the late forties.”

She took another sip of her coffee. “I was captured along with four others in Russia. We were trapped in a basement when the Red Army re-took Kiev. The buildings were all destroyed and it was a sunny day. Some solders came in. There were actually seven of us, three were dressed in German uniforms, so they took the lot of us out to shoot us. The sun burnt us and one of the solders, an officer, saw what was going on and had us put back. An hour later a doctor arrived and we were loaded into a truck.”

“Three of us hadn’t fed for a week. This doctor knew what we were and he provided some prisoners for us. That’s when the three, all big guys, were able to escape, but the rest of us couldn’t.”

“How did they hold you?” I asked.

“They had us in cells, in a prison. I wasn’t strong enough to break out, but some were. One guy tore a guard’s arm off and ran out in the day. It was raining, he might have made it.”

“After a couple of weeks we ended up in a prison outside Perm, near the Ural Mountains. They turned it into a research institute to study us. That’s were the virus was discovered, and how it changes our cells. We were all complicit, two because they were well fed (the Russian’s never had a shortage of people they wanted dead) and me and Carmine were interested in what made us…well…us.”

“We were there for five years. Then, well, Carmine was having an affair with one of the scientists and he told us that they intended to kill us. We were too dangerous and they had learned all they could. He left a door unlocked and we escaped.”

“In 1949 I flew to Canada from France. I was terrified the whole time but I had an isle seat so the sun never touched me.”

“Who’s Carmine?” I asked.

“Oh, you don’t know,” she said, “of course.”

She took a sip of her coffee. “Carmine was made about the time I was, but she was from Naples. We didn’t meet until 1723. I was in really bad shape, living in the woods and constantly moving. The only way I could feed was to find children playing alone at night. After one or two kills the word would get around and parents would keep their children home.”

“We just happened to meet on a road. I was walking and she was on a horse. She was beautiful, well dressed, on her way home from a ball or something.”

“Carmine had been seventeen when she was ‘made’. She had no trouble finding victims. There are always men willing to make themselves vulnerable to pretty teenagers. She took me in.”

“She was under the protection of a Count who, in return for keeping her safe, used her to eliminate his rivals.”

Jenny got up and walked toward the kitchen, then stopped. “It’s too bright in there, could you get some more coffee?”

I had to make another pot and Jenny stood in the doorway as I put it together.

“There was a man, a merchant of some sort, that the Count was somehow dependent on. I really don’t know the details but it seemed that, if the man died, the Count could make a claim against his estate. I guess the Count decided that that was the best course…so he asked Carmine to take care of him.”

“One evening when he came to a dinner party that Carmine went to also. There were a number of people there, and the Count had him seated next to his ‘niece’. A week later they met again, this time at a party somewhere else.”

“The Count didn’t want him dispatched right away, he wanted Carmine to get some papers first, so the affair went on for almost two months. She’d come back in the night and tell me about him…how many times they had done it and in what positions. She said his sperm was sweeter than most men’s and I, jokingly, said I’d like to try it. She smiled and said she’d arrange it.”

“Two nights later they met at a house he kept and she suggested that her little sister might join them.”

“We went to Carmine’s, ah, friend’s house (?), just after sunset the next night. The servants knew Carmine and let us in, saying they were pleased to see her again and happy to meet me—although I did get a couple of confused looks. Apparently our host hadn’t had guests like me before.”

We went back into the living room with our coffee and I brought a few cookies on a plate.

“So, how sweet was his sperm?” I asked with a smile.

She got a thoughtful look on her face. “I don’t know, pretty average I guess.” She paused. “You’re really not interested in the details, are you?”

“Not really,” I said. “When did you take him?”

She paused, munching on an Oreo. “I think about a week later.” She smiled. “He was sitting in a chair, we were playing a game and his ankles were tied to the legs of the chair. He liked to be tied up. I was on my knees in front of him and Carmine was standing behind him, her arms around his shoulders. He had a really small dick, it was amusing how proud of it he was. When Carmine’s eyes flashed red, I bit it off let it fall out of my mouth on the floor. He had the most amazed expression on his face until Carmine ripped out the side of his neck. I just sucked on the stub of his cock. Didn’t get much, so I ripped off the inside of his thigh and fed on the femoral artery.”

A bit of a shiver ran through me. “I’m not sure I wanted to know about that.”

She gave me a wicked smile. “I wouldn’t let you suffer…not for long.”

“Where’s Carmine now?” I asked.

“She stayed with her scientist friend, until he was arrested. He was transported to a gulag and died there. She’s also come over now—she’s in Vancouver but doesn’t want to be around others. I’m not sure what happened, I think she fell in love.”

She was silent for a moment, then looked up at me—her eyes were wet. “Vampires should never fall in love.”

She stood up and then quickly walked to the stairway, then went into the basement.

A few minutes later I went to the top of the stairs. “Honey, are you alright?”

“Yes,” she answered. “I just want to be alone for a while.”

“OK,” I said.

A little while later I went back to the stairs. “Honey, I need to go into the office.”

“Sure,” her voice was tight. “Please leave the blinds closed so I can get something to eat if I want.”

“I can help you get to your house.”

“That’s OK, I’ll stay here today.”

I took a shower and shaved, then dressed well enough to visit the offices. Forty minutes later I went down into the basement to check on her. I had made a bed up in a dark corner and hung some drapes around it—not as secure as her box at her house, but a dark place. I couldn’t see her but from the barely audible sound of her breathing I could tell she was asleep, that and the thudding of Arbutus’ tail on the floor.

That’s something about vampires—we sleep a lot.

Chapter 12

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