Rivulets of Blood

Rivulets of Blood
Chapter 1
Alone with a vampire
“Don't cross the border!” That's what Leena's mother told her.
         But tonight Leena crossed the border of The Galrick Empire that separated the supernatural and the humans with foolish dreams of falling in love with a vampire, a vampire like the ones she read about or watched on tv.
         Nothing could prepare her for the reality of it all.
         A scream rung throughout the night sky and paralyzed her with fear. It got closer and closer, so close that for a moment she thought it was in her head.
“What are you doing here?” A voice shouted.
         She saw a beautiful boy who looked about thirteen with blond hair and the most stunning blue eyes she had ever seen.
She smiled. “ Is this the part where you save me and we fall in love?”
         The beautiful boy laughed and quickly swooped her up and carried off with the screams following them, turning into laughter. He ran with all his might.
         He stopped at a large abandoned house and unlocked the door and threw her onto the dusty floor before locking the door and turning on a light to lighten the place.
“No,” He panted. “This is the part…where I save our skins.”
“What was that?”
“A hunter vampire.”
“And what are you?”
“A vampire.”
         Leena felt super excited about this. “Are you a thousand years old?”
         The beautiful boy looked at her quizzically. “No, I’m sixteen.”
“Oh, how long do we have to stay here?”
“Until they either somehow break down the door or if they leave.”
         She looked around the house. “Maybe you could use some of your vampire speed to go out there and use your vampire strength to hold them down and we could chain them up with silver.”
         He laughed. “What vampire speed? I run just as fast as any regular old human, vampires don't have super strength, and silver does affect them.”
         She looked around the house again. “Where are we?”
                   The beautiful boy turned on a lamp and rummaged through a dresser, searching for a gun and when he found the gun he filled it with copper bullets.
“Can you tell me your name? I'm Leena Dasher.”
“Dorian Grenier.”
“Where are we anyway?”
“My uncle's place.”
“It looks like this place hasn't been touched in years.”
         He pulled up a chair and sat in front of the door with the gun in his hand. “Actually this place is quite lived in. Vampires here prefer to live in places like these.”
         Leena looked at one of the pictures on the table of three men with milky white skin and milky white eyes, cracks in their skin, and limp hair.
         She scrunched up her nose in disgust. “Ew! Is this them? They are ugly.” 
         He shrugged. “Well, they are dead.”
         She looked at another picture of a beautiful girl who looked about twelve with long black glossy hair and brown eyes and mixed skin.
“Who is this girl? She's pretty.”
“My cousin Katharina. She's a vampire just like me.”
“Can I see your fangs?”
“I don't have any, I was born with vampire blood injected in me and that's why I looked as young as I do and so does she. Katharina was fifteen when that picture was taken, but she is eighteen now.”
“You don't act like a vampire.”
“Yes, I do, I  drink blood, but other than that I act like a regular human. I also have really good hearing.”
“Do you drink human blood?”
“Yes, but vampires feed mostly on animal blood. Some of us can't stand human blood, like my three uncles.”
         Leena stared at the vampire next to Katharina with limp white blond hair.
“Who is the guy in the photo with her?”
“A good friend of my uncle Cyrus, Katharina fell in love with him.”
         She gave him this look that said are-you-kidding-me? Which made Dorian laugh.
         There was a loud rapping at the door with a bunch of screaming and laughing. Leena completely ignored this, caught up in Dorian's family. Dorian was on high alert, his hand locked on the trigger.
“Is she blind?”
“No, she just isn’t shallow like you. Richard always tries to get her to leave him though because of how old he is and because he smells of rotten flesh.”
         Leena gagged. “Gross! How can she be in love with someone like that? I thought vampires were young and beautiful like you?”
“No, vampires are dead and ugly.”
“But your beautiful and so is Katharina.”
“Katharina has acne and so do I, we keep it maintained with what do you people call it? Proactive?”
“You get acne?”
         He glared at her. “I told you, I'm like a regular human, but the only difference is we drink blood.”
“So if we fell in love you couldn't turn me? I couldn't be beautiful?”
         He snorted. “The day I fall in love with a human is the day I die of a heart attack.  It's rare that a human should turn into a vampire, like my friend Romeo and my cousin Cole.”
         She started crying. “ The next thing you know you'll be telling me vampires don't live forever.”
“They don't!” He shouted, showing not even an ounce of sympathy.
“They only live for four hundred years while those like me are lucky enough to live to be a hundred.”
         She turned away from him and looked at a large photo that hung on the wall of a ghastly gray haired vampire woman.
“Who is she?”
“Grandma Luxi White, she is still around. She's my uncle Cyrus's mother.”
         Leena looked at one last picture of four small beautiful children.
         She gasped. “Vampire children!”
         Dorian nodded. “Like Katharina and I, yes.”
         She wiped away her tears and looked at him. “You have a very interesting family, Dorian, I would like to be apart of it someday.”
         Dorian gave her a look that said have-you-lost-your-mind? He turned toward the door wishing the hunters would burst through the door and end this conversation.
“How do you feel about me, Dorian?”
“Right now I just want you to shut up.”
         She walked toward him and grabbed a hold of his arm. “Tell me.”
         He snatched his arm away from her, careful to not let the gun go off.
“I love you, Dorian, I decided that I don't care if I don't live forever anymore just as long as I spend the rest of my life with you.”
         He refused to make eye contact with her. “How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
         He grinned at her. “You don't understand love nor do I.”
         She laughed. “We can discover what it is together.”
“You know what I would do if I saw you on the street and we weren't in this situation?”
         She stared lovingly into his eyes, her eyes twinkling. “What?”
“I’d kill you and drain you dry of all your blood.”
         The smile faded from her lips. “You don't mean that.”
“I do.”
         She inched away from him and fell back onto the dusty floor.
“Why would you say such a horrible thing?”
“’Cause it's true.”
         Leena bit her fingernails and stared silently into his eyes and he stared back at her with the face of an angel wearing a devil's grin.
“But-but vampires are supposed to love.”
         He chuckled. “You are so stupid! Who told you all these lies about vampires?”
“Twilight, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, a bunch of vampire books.”
“Did it also tell you that you can have a vampire baby? ‘Cause you can't.  You would die giving birth to it and vampire males have no testicles. Now my cousin Cole had a vampire baby with a siren, but in his case it was very rare since he was turned.”
         Another rapping came from the door followed by another scream.
“Do something already!” Dorian shouted. “Come on!”
         Leena ran her hands through her dark hair. “What are you doing?”
“Anything that will make them end this, so I can get as far away from you as possible!”
“Why are you being so mean?”
“’Cause I hate you!”
“Then why have you been talking to me all night?”
“Because I would die of boredom if I didn't.”
         Leena was so confused. Everything she knew about vampires was all wrong and the fantasy she thought was going to be a reality was not.
“Say you love me,” She whispered.
“Shut up!” He hissed.
“Just say it!”
“No!”
“Why not?”
         Dorian rolled his eyes and snatched her up off the floor and shoved her against the wall, making her yelp.
“When you love someone you would do anything for them. Bleed for them, die for them, be anything for them, live only for them.”
         She smiled. “You do know what love is.”
“Yes, there is one thing I love.”
“Tell me what it is.”
         He kissed her and she melted into his arms.
“Tell me.”
         He pulled a knife out of his pocket and placed it behind her back away from her seeing eyes.
         His lips kissed her ear. “Your blood,” He whispered and slit her throat.
         He drank the sweet crimson red blood from her neck and the light faded from Leena's brown eyes as she went limp in his arms.
         The hunters burst through the door, and Dorian took the gun and shot both hunters in the head.
         Nothing could ever replace the love Dorian had for human blood.
****
“And that is why humans don't cross the border,” Said Dorian.
         Dorian sat in the living room of the abandoned house he took Leena to. The children sat on the carpet looking up at him.
“Telling the children stories, again, Dorian?” Said Uncle Cyrus.
“Dorian told us why we have to fetch human blood,” Said his niece Naomi.
“He did, did he?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Time for bed, little ones,” Said Uncle Gerald.
         Royce pouted. “I'm not tired.”
“If  you all go to bed now, tomorrow uncle Gerald and I will teach you how to hunt humans,” Said Uncle Cyrus.
         They cheered and scurried off to bed.
         Uncle Cyrus stared at the grinning Dorian.
“Dorian, will you never appreciate life for what it is?”
“I prefer to live in the moment.”
“I suppose you will never love, huh?”
“I love blood.”
“But you didn't love Leena.”
“Leena was a fly on the wall.”
“I hope love strikes you before you pass.”
“She had a smile of beauty, but blood is the only love for me. It is the only thing worth living for to me.”
         Uncle Cyrus looked saddened by this. “Goodnight, Dorian.”
“Night, Uncle Cyrus.”
         Blood was the only thing in the world this vampire needed. Life was about happiness and he had found it in his own way.