What if you were a neurobiologist studying the brain chemicals involved with intelligence, then once you’d made the discover of a lifetime, your boss told you to take some time off; then two thugs hunted you down and threw you into a car trunk, driving you to a deserted place to kill you? Then a man swoops in out of nowhere, you get shot by a thug, and he kills both of them. Then you hear him asking if you want to live, and you gurgle as you die…drifting right into a dream of extremely hot sex with him! Then you wake up and he’s with you in a strange place, and he tells you he’s made you a vampire. Because he’s one too. Would you believe him?
“I am a vampire, Keisha. I wasn’t planning on telling you until we had become friends, and then I could ask you to research the biology of what I am…to answer the questions that I have asked for many years. But those cretins shot you and you were going to die. I had no other option. I gave you the choice because I don’t believe in turning someone without their permission. But you were so close to dying that you experienced that as part of a dream.”
Keisha sniffled, “So I’m a vampire now too? That’s why I went so ape-shit and had to drink your blood?”
She felt his chest rumble and realized he was chuckling at her words as he had done last night in her barely-remembered dream.
“Yes. That’s why you went ape-shit. You are too new to be able to control the blood- lust. I am old enough to have learned how to control it, how to ignore my hunger until I can feed safely. You will probably gain control fairly quickly, since you have had so much of my blood, in such a high concentration. When I have just fed, my blood is diluted. But I haven’t since early last night before I went to your apartment, wondering why you hadn’t kept our date for coffee.”
Keisha turned her head up to look into his eyes, finding compassion and understanding there. She stared at him for a while, then sighed audibly.
He smiled, “You see? We don’t really need to breathe, but it’s a handy useful way to express emotions without words.”
“So how did you find me? I had no idea where I was so you couldn’t have been doing any kind of mind-reading on me.”
“No, I did the mind-reading, as you call it, on your asshole of a boyfriend. You really need to dump him, you know. His dick gets plenty of action that doesn’t involve you. You won’t be able to catch anything communicative from him anymore, but still…he doesn’t deserve you.”
She sat back slightly to stare at him again, this time in surprise.
“He knew about where I was?”
“You’re not surprised that he’s been cheating on you?”
She sniffed, “I knew, but I didn’t really care. I like sex, and have no time to really date anyone. He’s always hanging around the lab complex since his father is one of the main donors keeping the lights on. So he was convenient, that’s all.”
Yuri reached a hand out to caress her cheek with his fingers, then turn her head so that he could stare deeply into her eyes. Then he smiled and nodded, as if pleased.
“Good. Then you won’t mind when I kill him for what he knew was going to happen to you.”
“No! I mean he’s a cheating pig, a self-centered, pompous prick, but that doesn’t mean he needs to die,” she shook her head, then looked alarmed.
“Wait a minute! Does this mean that when I feed on people I will be killing them? Can I use animals instead?”
Yuri shook his head, “Animals can be used in extreme emergencies, but not on a regular basis. Whatever we are, whatever it is that lives inside of our blood, prefers human blood. I don’t know why…that’s one of the things I was hoping you would find out for me.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to research anything anymore. If Dan knew about the plot to kill me, then he’s in on it,” she looked away and appeared to be concentrating deeply. “In fact, since he’s one of the only ones who knew what I had found, he probably knows about what I discovered about my work also. In fact, that may be part of why he was so friendly with me to begin with. Shit! I thought I was just using him for sex, but apparently he was pumping me for information all along.”
At Yuri’s startled choke she looked at his face and realized he was chuckling again. He shrugged. “Sorry…but that’s not all he was pumping you for.”
Keisha stuck her tongue out at him, “Ha, ha. Okay, pun unintentional, but acknowledged.”
“Keisha, if you don’t mind my asking, what had you discovered that made you suddenly so disposable?”
She shifted around on his lap, “Of course I don’t mind your asking. What the hell? It’s been that kind of day…” He nodded towards the open window and she saw the darkness, “Okay, it’s been that kind of night. I guess I’m only going to have nights from now on, huh?”
Yuri shrugged, “Some of the really old ones can go out in the daylight. They just get sun-burned really quickly. Whatever is in us, doesn’t like sunlight. But with enough of my blood in you, you’ll soon be able to stay awake during the day…you just won’t be able to go outside. But then you won’t want to, so it all works out.”
“Um, Yuri, is it?”
He nodded.
“You can put me down now. I think I’m done having a panic attack.”
He smiled at her, “Are you sure? I kind of like holding you on my lap.”
Keisha started as she felt a part of him twitch against her thigh. She looked closely at his face, “We can still have sex? I thought that wasn’t possible anymore.”
Yuri laughed out loud. “What would be the point of eternal life if you had to give up having sex? Like I said, the longer you are a vampire, the more you discover about what you can still do. Whatever makes us alive wants us to be happy or it can’t be alive within us,” he shrugged again. “Besides, haven’t you read any vampire erotica lately? We’re all the rage these days. Us and shape-shifters.”
“Are they real too?”
“Don’t know…never met any, but that doesn’t mean much. They could be all around us and choosing not to reveal themselves, just like we don’t.”
Prophecy of the Undead by Fiona McGier
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