The Donor House: Nick: Talking to a New Vampire

[k_a_webb]

Previous story – Morgan: Wearing White

“What’s your name?” Nick asked the newly arrived vampire, their eyes meeting for a moment, before the vampire turned his gaze to studying the floor.

“I…” The vampire’s voice was full of fear and Nick knew his only option was to wait. Finally, after taking a deep breath, the vampire looked back at Nick. “I’m Josh… Joshua technically, but I prefer Josh.”

“Why did you come here?”

The vampire bit his lip. “I’d heard about the donor house and when my creator left me I thought it was the best place to come.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to be alone… I didn’t want to go after some poor human who had no idea what was going on… I didn’t…” Breathing deeply again he ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Nick reached out and grasped Josh’s shoulder. “You did the right thing.”

Josh looked in the direction that Morgan and Alice had walked in. “But…”

“Morgan knew what she was doing. She’s been here a long time and she knows her limits.” Nick kept his voice calm, even though he wasn’t exactly happy about what Morgan had done, because he understood why she’d done it. “I’m almost certain that any of our long term donors would have done the same thing.”

Maybe that was the problem. Nick knew that creating the donor house would change the relationship the donors had with vampires, but he hadn’t realised how much. Now that the majority of the donors within the house viewed the vampires as people rather than evil creatures they’d do things that they’d never even have contemplated doing in the past and that was beginning to worry him. It probably shouldn’t. None of them were stupid, they all knew that there were vampires out there that weren’t nice people, but Morgan had stepped in to help a vampire she’d never met before.

“Do you know who your creator was?” Nick asked, even though he was pretty certain that Josh had no idea.

“I wish I did,” Josh replied, sounding sad. “She grabbed me when I was walking home last night and by the time I’d woken up she was gone. I never even saw her face.”

Nick nodded. “Where were you when you woke up?”

“I don’t know.” Josh sighed. “Almost everything between waking up and getting here is a bit of a blur, because…” He shrugged. “I was hungry. I’ve never felt like that before and it was… it was terrifying.”

That feeling, that hunger, was something Nick wouldn’t wish on anyone, not even his worst enemy. “Just hope you never feel like that again.” He looked at Josh, thinking. “How did you manage to stop yourself from biting someone?”

“Yesterday I was human. I was one of them and I couldn’t… I didn’t want to feed from anyone who had no choice. Every time I looked at one of them, and I looked at a lot of people as I made my way here, all I could think about was last night. All I was doing was walking home and then…” Josh shook his head. “I thought… I hoped she was just feeding from me, but then I woke up this morning… this evening… and I was a vampire. A couple of times… it would have been so easy to take hold of one of them and… but I knew I would have killed them. I couldn’t kill a human.”

“You did the right thing, Josh. I don’t know how you had the willpower to walk past humans and not feed from them, but we’ll help you learn how to deal with being a vampire.”

“There’s no going back, is there?”

Nick shook his head. “There’s no magic cure for vampirism. You’re going to be a vampire for the rest of eternity.” He smiled. “It can be the best thing in the world and it can be the worst thing, but it’s something you can learn to live with.”

“I don’t know if I want to.”

“At the beginning I think every vampire feels the same way. I’ve met very few vampires who were given a choice before they were turned.” Nick squeezed Josh’s shoulder. “Ending your life as a vampire is much more difficult than ending your life as a human, so it’s not something I would even suggest attempting. It’s painful and it takes a very long time.”

“There are hunters.”

“True, but even letting a hunter kill you isn’t easy. Some vampires do, because they feel like it’s their only option, but they’ve always taken time to live as a vampire before they made the choice.”

“I’ve lost everything. My parents don’t like vampires, at all, and I doubt they’d even let me in the house now.” Josh ran a hand through his hair, sighing. “I’m never going to finish college, or go to university, or do any of the things I planned to do with my life. All because of a vampire.”

“You’re right about your human life being over.” Nick wished it wasn’t still that way, but it was going to take time for the humans to accept that not all vampires were like his creator, and even then vampires would never be universally loved. “Instead of acting like it’s the end of the world you need to accept what’s happened to you and begin planning for the future.” As he spoke he couldn’t stop calling himself a hypocrite, because if he hadn’t met Alice he’d probably still be avoiding dealing with the change that had been forced on him. “The first thing you need to do is contact your parents. Even if they don’t want you in the house you need to let them know what’s happened to you.”

Josh shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Even if your parents decide they want nothing to do with you once they find out that you’ve been changed into a vampire it’s you who has to tell them. Right now you’ve been gone all night and they’re going to be worried about you. They might even have called the police already.” It was entirely possible that the police were already on their way to the donor house and all Nick could hope was that Garion was the officer they sent. “This is something you have to deal with, Josh.”

“What would happen if I didn’t?”

Nick looked at Josh, trying not to remember what it had been like to be a newly changed vampire and failing, eventually deciding that he needed to be honest. “Turning a human into a vampire isn’t illegal, although there are people who want it to be, but you were changed against your will. We’re doing our best to work with the community here, to get the humans to accept that we’re more than just predators, which isn’t an easy thing to do, and if you don’t tell your parents what happened then every vampire who lives in this town will be under suspicion.” That was probably why Josh had been changed, and it helped that leaving a hungry young vampire alone was the easiest way to cause carnage normally. “It’s possible it was someone who comes there that changed you, but I doubt it very much, and we’re going to need to do yet more work to mitigate the problems that your existence is going to cause.”

Josh raised an eyebrow. “Thanks…”

“None of it is your fault, Josh. I’m just stating unfortunate facts right now, because you need to understand your position within the vampire community quickly. Ring your parents. Deal with the problems becoming a vampire is going to cause you while we work on dealing with the problems it’s caused us.”

“I hate this.”

“Join the club.” Nick knew that he needed to get on the phone to Lewis and Issac before the police arrived, because they wouldn’t like to be kept out of the loop, and neither of them would be happy about what had happened. “I’m not going to promise you that things get easier, because they don’t, but we’ll help you deal with what’s happened to you.” Nick almost smiled. “It’s part of what we do, Josh.”

Nick watched as Josh crossed the reception, to where the phone was on the desk. The receptionist nodded when he spoke to her and then he picked up the phone. It was easy to see that he didn’t really want to, but it seemed as though Nick’s words had gotten through to him, and eventually Josh tapped in what Nick hoped was his home number. Keeping on eye on Josh Nick pulled out his mobile phone. He stared at it, hating what he had to do, before searching through his contacts. If it had been anyone else he would have known the number, but he didn’t ring Lewis unless he had to.

The phone rang twice before Lewis picked up. “What’s happened?” he asked, worry threading though his voice.

“We have a new vampire,” Nick replied. “He was changed last night against his will, somehow found his way here, and Morgan fed him.”

Silence followed. “It was Morgan’s day off,” Lewis eventually said.

“She dumped her ribbon, knowing our new receptionist has no idea of the feeding schedule, so she could feed him.” Nick sighed. “She did the right thing, because we have a couple of newbies arriving today, and the vampire was out of his mind with hunger, but…”

“The house is having an effect on the donors.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.