k_a_webb | The Donor House: Advent Story (part 8)

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“That obviously failed if there were stories,” Dominic said, smiling.

Nick smiled back. “Even though the first found it almost impossible to leave any human they fed from alive it wasn’t the same for their children. As each vampire made their own children the need for blood became less, although there were those who were unlucky enough to have inherited their grandparent’s need for human blood. You see, one of the things the first found, was that they couldn’t survive off the blood of any creature, the way we can if we wish to, but that they had to have the blood of a human, otherwise they’d soon be feeling the first pangs of pain that came with starving themselves. We don’t know why. Lewis would love to get his hands on one of the first to see if it has something to do with the chemicals in their saliva, so he’s hoping that Issac’s acquaintance is alive too.” He shook his head. “I know the work that Lewis is doing is important, because we need to know more about ourselves, but sometimes I wonder if we can ever learn everything that we need to know. From the story Issac told we were created when an physician tried to us blood magic to cure the son of a Pharaoh and would have succeeded if it wasn’t for said Pharaoh not wanting his son needing to drink the blood of humans.”

“Would you want your son to have that disadvantage in life?”

Glancing over at Blake, his vampiric son, Nick sighed. “In the end I gave him a choice and Blake accepted the disadvantages, because it was better than being an addict. Changing from human to vampire wasn’t easy for him, it isn’t for anyone, but for someone who had been abused by vampires it’s even harder, as you have to work past the hatred you have for the creatures who made you what you were when you are one of those creatures. Had he been my human son and I could have saved his life by changing him…” He thought back to the day he looked through the window of the little cottage he had lived in, where his wife and children were struggling to survive without him. “The decision I made a long time ago, when I was young and newly changed, was to walk away from my family, because I thought they’d be better off without me. I have no idea what happened to them after I did, even though Alice keeps telling me I should look it up online, in case I do have a human descendant – who I think she believes might walk through the door at any minute.”

“You never know, Nick. There might be someone out there who’s related to you.”

“I know, but I left my human name behind a long time ago, so even if there is they’d have no idea who I am. To the world I am Nick Reeves. Maybe the time will come in the future when I change my name again, the way vampires are prone to, if it becomes the wrong name for me to use, and as I can’t imagine that happening any time soon I’m certain I’ll be Nick Reeves for at least another decade.”

“Alice didn’t change her name.”

“No, she didn’t, even though I told her she could, if she wanted to. She could have started her new life with a new name, but she was comfortable with Alice and I wasn’t going to argue with her. When we opened the House I know she was hoping that her mother or niece might come to talk to her, so I don’t think she’ll be changing her name any time soon, either, although sometimes she talks about what it would be like to be someone else. I think that is actually being someone else though. Changing her name won’t change who she is or what she’s been through.”

“Don’t you sometimes want to be someone else?”

“The longer I’m a vampire the easier it becomes to dream of being someone else. I don’t care who, most of the time, as long as I’m mortal.” Nick ran a hand through his hair. “At the time I came across Alice I was seriously thinking about ending my life, because I’d had enough, but then things happened to mean that I had a reason for living again, even though I knew she’d live for less than a century and to a vampire that’s a blink of an eye. I’ve lost people I cared about before because they were mortal, although I wasn’t in love with them, the way I was in love with Alice. Stupid as I was I always promised myself I wouldn’t fall in love with a mortal – it would hurt too much when I lost them.” He shook his head. “It was almost a year to the day that my creator attacked Alice. I don’t know if he knew the date or cared if he did, but I knew that I couldn’t let her go. I probably should have done. She’d made her choice and by changing her against her will I took that away from her, which is what annoyed her the most, even though I couldn’t possibly have known that she was happy to die. The Alice I knew would have fought with everything she was to stay alive and that’s why I thought she’d understand the choice I made.

“She didn’t leave because she did understand. At the same time she was still mad at me for being selfish, because I had, mostly, only thought of myself. I needed her. I couldn’t lose someone else. So I turned her into a vampire, because it was my only option. She was too close to dying to get to a hospital in time and if I did manage to then they’d blame me for what had happened. I was a vampire, therefore it must have been me who’d tried to kill her.” Nick shrugged. “Now, hopefully, they might stop and think that maybe it’s possible that the vampire is helping the human, rather than leaving them to die on the side of the road. Back then, though, that would never have happened. I still thought she was too far gone for me to have saved her, but she wasn’t. When she woke up the next morning I was so happy, but I hid how I felt because I could tell from the moment that she stood up that she didn’t feel the same way. Her eyes were full of the anger she felt, so the first thing I did was apologise, and fortunately that seemed to help a little. It faded a little and she gave me a hug, whispered into my ear that she understood, before leaving the house, because she was going to get the hardest part over with as quickly as she could.

“I should have gone with her, but I knew her parents would stake first and ask questions later. They were always going to tell her that she wasn’t welcome back, because she’d become one of the creatures they’d spent their whole lives hunting. None of them looked at Alice and saw Alice. She was a vampire – that meant she was no longer Alice. It’s something I’ve never been able to understand, because I always thought I’d be happier to know that my child was alive, even though I’ve never been through something like that. The reason I never went back home was because I wouldn’t have been able to cope with my family staring at me in disbelief when I tried to tell them what had happened to me. It was beginning to become obvious then that something strange was going on, but vampires were something very few people would have been able to understand, especially at the time when Mary Tudor was on the throne. I would have ended up being burned and I learnt afterwards that a couple of vampires actually survived the burning.” He shuddered. “People started believing then, although their believing often involved the theory that they’d be able to chop off the head of the dread creature. They had no idea how dangerous vampires really were or that the ones who had been on the fire were those who hadn’t been able to accept what they’d become. Maybe they were happier once they were finally dead.

“Anyway, Alice went back home and told her parents what had happened, and left with nothing. They wouldn’t even let her take her clothes with her. Fortunately I’ve always been sensible with money, so I could replace what she’d lost, but nothing I could do would ever make up for what her parents had done. We both knew that they’d end up coming after us. It was better for her to be dead than a vampire and I as must have been the one to change her, it didn’t matter that she’d told them that she’d been attacked by a random vampire in the village, I should be dead as well so I couldn’t rob another innocent family of their child. I tried to reason with her father and brother first, hoping that they might come to understand what had happened, why their daughter had become a vampire and why they should walk away, but in the end I had no choice. I wasn’t going to let them hurt Alice, so I ended up doing something I promised myself I’d never do. It took me years to tell her what had happened. She already hated me for changing her and I didn’t want her to hate me any more than she already did, because I’d done what I needed to do to protect.”

“What did she end up saying?”

“To begin with she didn’t say anything and I think that scared me more, at least until she wrapped her arms around me. We stood there in silence for a long time. I didn’t say anything because I knew she needed time to come to terms with what I’d just told her. Finally she said that she knew it had to happen, but she wished I’d told her sooner. She didn’t doubt for a moment that they were going to come after her, that their opinion was that she was better off dead than a vampire, and she wished I’d have let her deal with the problem instead of doing it myself and making myself feel even worse about everything. Of course that was one of our good days. I dread to think what her reaction would have been if I told her on one of the days when she wished I’d never changed her.”

“She would have had the same reaction, Nick. Alice was brought up to hate vampires, but she fell in love with you and realised that the lessons she was taught were the ones her parents thought was the truth, when they’d never known a vampire. They hated all the creatures they’d come across because they’d been taught the same thing, but never stopped to think that what they’d learnt might not be true. It was easier to accept that a vampire was evil because they had to drink blood from humans, because you are, technically, our only predator, and that the world would be a much better place if all the vampires were eradicated. They had no real idea how long the vampires had existed. They had no clue how many vampires there were, even then, and that’s not something that’s going to change any time soon. It’s not as though anyone’s going to stop and ask me how many vampires I feed in a week, how that number has changed since we first opened, and the estimated projections for how many vampires we’ll have visiting at the end of five years. No human who hasn’t had real contact with a vampire cares, because they believe what they’re taught, even if it is misinformation.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

The Donor House: Advent Story (part 8)

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