Chapter One

Chapter 1: London, 1861





I was the first of my kind. The very first Vampire and the first to perpetrate the act of bringing more into this world. I am responsible for roughly a third of the Kidnappings and about Just as much of the Murders this world has known over the centuries. Directly or indirectly. I was born this way. No choice was given to me. I was the result of a freak accident that took the life of my parents and left me quite a bit...different than others.

            I can't eat human food. It disgusts me, and leaves me vomiting as my stomach cavity rejects what has no right to be there. I live off of the life of humans, the flowing red nectar that pulses within them. I can go out in the daylight but I prefer not to because it becomes easier for humans to recognize the subtle differences that make me what I am.

            My eyes are the most easily recognizable. After I have fed they are as red as the blood I gorge myself upon, when I am not well-fed they are as black as pitch. My mood varies with this as well, I am far more irritable when thirsty, and far stronger as well. Next the might notice my skin. I am extremely pale, not as much as an albino, but close enough for the eyes of the general population. This is, of course my excuse on the rare instances I have reason to venture outside during the sun lit hours. I suppose this is where the legends come from. I do not however turn to ash in the sunlight. I do not even turn pink. My cells are very different than yours. They reflect the radiation instead of taking it in, making me look all the paler.

            I am Immortal. My body has its own defense from dying of thirst. As I mentioned before, the thirstier I get, the stronger, but not only that, I become more aggressive, more...animalistic. I would kill every human within a mile radius before I died of thirst. I learned this once before, when I was young and had ideas of destroying myself. I did not like what I was and thought perhaps it would work. I didn't try it again. The planned harvesting of a few seemed better than the massacre I committed on Easter Island. Yes that was me. It's a long story. The immunity to disease took me a while to discover. I had fed on a human that had contracted small pox. I discovered this after the deed was done and I was worried, but nothing happened and my suspicions were confirmed upon further attempts to discover a weakness to what I was. I will never die of disease. I am immune to them all. I am, in fact, nearly invulnerable. The only thing that could ever hope to destroy me is the same force that created me, that mysterious creature in the Carpathians If even it still lives.

           

            The ones I have created however, they are not quite as invulnerable. To humans perhaps, but I have killed many over the years. Territorial disputes, annoyance...They tend to get in my way. I have destroyed far more of them then I have humans, far more. In this way I can at least feel that I am atoning for what I have no control over, and sometimes have no wish to. I am a predator, and I cannot always stop myself. Sometimes I prefer not to even try. Not all humans are good after all. Most aren’t. This is how I met her.









            Snow fell from the sky in great clumps, blanketing the rubbish strewn streets and reflecting the flickering lamplight. The last trickle of carriages hauled off their charges, back to their manor homes, or to one of the many theaters or opera houses. The beggars had retreated to alleys and slum housing, finding whatever heat they could, and few were the factory workers still winding their way home.

            In the softly coming night I stood at the mouth of an alley, watching the scene of a typical London evening unfold. The body of an unfortunate pick-pocket lay crumpled on the ground behind me, slowly being obscured by a veil of white. It had provided the most human flush that now crept up my cheeks. My eyes burned with the change, my canines retracted, and I repressed a shudder as the plasma raced through me, carrying the terror induced adrenalin of the now conquered prey. The body would be gone by morning, a testament to the fact that I had been here too long, slipped up too many times, let my prey live, and become monsters. He would be missed by few or none at all.

            The sound of hooves on cobblestone grew louder and a carriage pulled into view, rolling to a stop in front of me as the massive black chargers that pulled it snorted and stomped their hooves. It was larger than most and made of solid Mahogany, painted black as is the fashion. My wealth and status provided me many luxuries.

            The driver was a boy, who appeared to be about sixteen years of age, but he leapt from the driver's platform with a fey grace, and his eyes glinted like fire, suggesting his true nature to those who were bold enough to notice. When I found him in Paris he was close to death, a victim of the riotous mobs that at that point in time were accusing the police force of abducting children. Ironic. I did what I could to save him, and in doing so, I damned him. I have lived for little over a century with the guilt of what I did to him. It haunts me even though Louis (For that is his name) constantly reassures me that he loves the so called "gift" I have given him. He left behind his regret and self-loathing long ago. The first time he took a life, his initiation into this hell, he wept. I could not console him, I could hardly remember a time when death had affected me in such a way. So I watched on in pity as the blood and tears mingled and ran down his face. The last of his humanity died that night. Since then we have had lived in London, drifting amidst the rich and affluent under the guise of a young gentleman (for I will always appear to be just over twenty) and his French cousin.

            He opened the lavish doors with an exaggerated flourish and subservient bow. "Master." he said with a grin as I climbed in and sat down on the white crushed velvet seat. "Louis, you don't have to address me so in private, you know that." I said. "This is hardly private master, this is a public street, and it's so unbecoming for a servant to address his charge otherwise." he replied with subtle sarcasm. “It amuses me." He added."Oh and by the way..." He wiped his lip and gestured at me. "You might want to attend to that before we arrive." He shut the doors and the carriage was shrouded in darkness.



            My eyes adjusted quickly to the blackness that enshrouded me, and with a small jolt the carriage moved onward, winding through the narrow streets and bringing me ever closer to that fateful party, which at this time I felt naught but apathy towards. It was to be another lavish gathering of the London aristocracy, a chore to which I devoted myself to avoid the whispers of suspicion, a mere annoyance to some, but a deadly threat to me.

I slid a wooden panel aside from the wall of the cabin and a mirror was revealed, along with a hidden alcove full of padded glass bottles. Here I shall decline to comment on the ironic cliché’ that fills the act of myself looking in a mirror, and I hope that by now you would not ask, that you had gained some level of understanding as to how falsely the accounts of my kind shine through history. In any case, as I gazed into the gilded glass, I saw my reflection, and saw the thin line of blood still tainting my lips. I wiped it aside with a small silk handkerchief, which I folded and pocketed.

            Another reason for these social functions that I submitted myself to (but that Louis quite enjoyed) was that they gave me a window in which to observe the ever changing vista of London fashion, something important to one who wishes to blend in as I do. I was playing myself off as belonging to the one of the highest castes in the human existence and so I had to pay tribute to every subtle little detail, including the myriad finer points of the fashion of the day. My current attire reflected this. This evening I had donned a black fitted tailcoat over a spotless white shirt, black trousers that just covered the top of my riding boots, Black evening gloves, and a black velvet top hat. I also carried a cane, something most gentleman do, but which I’ve never understood the practicality of. Probably some sort of modern day replacement for the sword the affluent used to carry and which was used to start duels with anyone who offered them the slightest misfortune. Louis was not quite as eager as I to conform to the day. He wore his blue French naval officer’s coat (an item he liberated on the ship from Normandy) over a ruffled silken white shirt, which was always unbuttoned at the top, exposing enough skin to make the women frown in distaste (and then promptly turn their thoughts to more carnal ventures).He wore his hair long as well, which was usually looked down upon, as the men of the era, including myself had chosen to wear it short and combed well back form the face. I had never seen his disregard for social normalcy as threatening to our existence though, and so I let it slide, explaining to anyone who asked that French adolescence was even stranger than the London variety.

           

            Of course I would be lying if I said that I did not care what I looked like. Vanity has long been one of my cardinal sins. Along with the methodic slaying and harvesting of blood. In any case, sin is a human invention, a tool used by a select few to gain power over the rest. Such is religion. I am a predator, a carnivore, a hunter. I have as much reason to feel remorse for that as I do my fashion sense, even less, perhaps. My near unlimited wealth, obtained through-out the various centuries gives me the ability to live as comfortably as the richest human. So why shouldn’t I? I do so because I enjoy these simple comforts, because along with them comes privileges, one of which is trust. No one would ever believe that such a powerful and popular man was capable of such monstrosity. And so I live extravagantly, though not to an extent to attract serious attention, and not out of some longing for the affection of the elite. I am not privy to the same popularity driven mind games as humans. Class means nothing to me. These illusions of power and superiority that they submit themselves to are lies. Necessary to society perhaps, but lies just the same.

            All humans are the same. Fleeting, blind, they grasp at things they have no hope of understanding, for they have not the time. As soon as one small consensus is reached, their lives have drawn to a close, with no time left to apply it. And so they build on each other’s accomplishments, spending generations ignoring the truth when it is presented to them by wiser men (I was there when Socrates condemned, when Galileo was exiled) and spending generations on irrelevant details while burying the truth under a deluge of superfluities. Such is human invention. Still, some do better than most.



            Sir Stephan Blackwell was not one of these, and it was to his home I now traveled. Blackwell was one of London’s premier socialites at this time, being the heir to his parent’s fortune, made by lending the urbanites money with which to industrialize the city. His name was on almost every factory, every railway in London. He, unlike his late parents however, was a bit more…free with his money, as long as it would serve his entertainment of course. Once every year during the city season (as the rich called the time between July and August when it was fashionable to leave their country estates for city affairs) he threw vastly extravagant parties, the like of which were the talk of the city. No expense was spared, the opium filled the air in the gardens, and the wine and absinthe flowed like water.

            A week ago a servant had been sent to my home with an invitation in the form of a silver chalice. It had a thin stem, but a wide base, and it was inlaid with gold. On one side it bore the Blackwell family crest, on the other, the address and date the festivities would begin. Tied to the stem of the cup was a small vial of green liquid with a note attached. “A taste of what’s to come” It read. The liquid was absinthe, which Louis promptly disposed of. “Where it that we were as weak as they are. To be so easily intoxicated, to be able to lose yourself so easily. To forget…” He had mused.

            Not long after he had changed he had been consumed with grief, grief for his own life, for what he had lost, for what he had become. He hadn’t listened to my explanations, my pleas, my…justifications.. He had tried to hide and perhaps die, in the bottom of a bottle. And he had learned very quickly that humans handle alcohol far better than our kind. He had vomited blood for hours, leaving him half-starved, and pitched into a state of animalistic fury. He had thrown himself on every human he could find and within the hour he lay panting, soaked in blood atop a pile of pale human flesh. He screamed in agony when he’s come out of it and realized what he’d done. He’d tried to kill me. After he had clamed down and the last wound was fading from my chest, he broke down, begging for me to forgive him. ”Teach me how to live with this!” He screamed. And he had learned. He was nothing like the rest of them, the others of my creation. He was smarter, faster, and infinitely more deadly.

            The carriage halted and the door opened. Louis peeked his head in. “I see you’ve removed the last of your dinner from your face. Fantastic. The man at the gate wants to see our invitation..” I smirked and handed him the cup. “You speak as if you’re the daintiest eater present Louis. I remember a time when you couldn’t feed without removing their heads and drowning yourself in the resulting gush.” I whispered. Louis frowned. “You shouldn’t say such things. It’s revolting. You might offend the ladies.” He said as he turned and shut the door once again. His voice floated in, muffled sounding.

“Good evening ladies!”

I sighed.