Path of the Vampire forum

Renewed life, repair, and revitalisation feels like it is just one more sip away and he pushes through every mouthful for it. That is, until the woman rips her arm away from him. It is then that everything goes black – as quick as flicking a light switch. Pierre doesn’t know that he is dead because he’s not aware of anything. He doesn’t feel it when she lifts him up and throws him over her shoulder. He doesn’t acknowledge the complete transformation of their surroundings as the woman teleports them to a different location. Pierre is lost to the transportation of being taken to her room and neither does he feel the sheets, the soft cushioning of the duvet and mattress under him as he is dumped on the bed and left there to return in his own time.

There’s no agony, no loss, no mourning in his death because nobody who knows him is aware of his passing. The restaurant becomes confused by his sudden departure because it is not like the Frenchman to take off without warning. They call his mobile, but it is left in his locker at the restaurant. They call his girlfriend, Marilyn, but she is just as confused as they are by Pierre’s sudden disappearance. After a few hours, the authorities are notified and the missing person’s report joins a rather large pile on the desks of detectives feeling less than hopeful about working through them. The story is always the same and the missing are either never found or are found dead – their bodies drained of vital fluids, ravaged and cold. Any evidence they find on the corpses are fleeting and although some missing persons are suspected to still be living within Harper Rock, their reluctance to come forward and reach out to their loved ones leaves the authorities to assume – but do nothing about – some form of cult rising in the city. Pierre Roux becomes just another statistic, another person lost to the darkness and emptiness that is Harper Rock City. Only, in so many more ways, he is found and he more at home here than he realises.

It is four hours later when heavy lids are peeled back and ghostly blue eyes look – without seeing – this new world around him. Pierre can’t feel much, his senses are hovering just out of reach, fuzzy as a gathering fog. He moves without automatically detecting the action, scrabbling his way across silk that retreats from under him. Pierre ungracefully drags himself into a seated position after a lot of effort – his body working instinctually as his consciousness hovers behind a wall of frosted glass. It wants to break through, but the threat of sharp glass seems to deter it and so it waits, hoping something will break through and reach for it.

There is a murmur behind his ear, or maybe in front of him, or maybe all around him. It sounds like it is both close and very far away. He can’t tell if it’s someone speaking or the low hum of a refrigerator. The world around him is dark and shapeless, but it’s slowly coming to light; patches of colour so bright that it hurts to look at them. It’s like zooming into a digital photograph; a familiar world broken into fragments of coloured crystal. Pierre closes his eyes to refocus his sights and it seems he’s zoomed out on reopening. The sound’s still there, but it too has shifted and refocused. It’s someone speaking, he’s sure now, and it’s when he looks at her that it all comes to centre. Those onyx eyes belong to the devil and although he should be fearing for his life – again – he sits there staring at her like he’s giving Satan a chance to put all those horror stories to bed, like God is some jealous ex-lover who wrote a book purposely to spoil the other’s reputation. Only, the woman can’t give him exactly what he wants to hear and tells him something else entirely.

He’s dead. She killed him. He’s a Vampire now. It’s no joke.

Pierre stares at her incredulously before muttering, “Right. Ok. Nice to meet you…”

As the Frenchman makes to stand from the bed, his legs buckle beneath him. The fall sparks something, some wanton memory in the brain, and by the time he hits the floor like a crumpled marionette, he’s remembered everything about what she did to him. A hand flies to his neck, blue eyes almost pop out of their cases to look at the woman who has him convinced she really is the devil. Still, he can’t turn away from those blasé onyx eyes. This woman has put a spell on him, a curse. He feels cold. Sick. Blue eyes search the floor, search himself for a reason why he feels like warmed up death. He comes away looking at his hand, at the dark crimson smear of his own blood that had become tacky with time. It is blood. He knows it’s blood, but he’s in denial immediately. He wants to believe so badly that this is all some cruel prank, that he convinces himself that she’s smeared his neck with paint. He looks at her accusingly, though sheepishly, and demands an answer with all the will and fortitude of a broken man.

“What do you want from me?”

Pierre isn’t sure he’s ever believed in Vampires, in ghosts and ghouls and creatures that go bump in the night, because they’re just stories, make-believe tales to scare little kids into being good. Pierre was always good, doing whatever his mother and father wanted – at least once. It was always the same tussle; his parents would expect certain things and although Pierre did try, he generally disappointed. They often gave up trying to make him behave their way. They understood how much of a special snowflake their son was, and pushing him to become anything other than what he was would certainly break him. And now, here was this devil before him, explaining to him about Vampires and blood drinking. This whole tale is turning his stomach, bleaching whatever healthy complexion he’d retained right out of him. He nearly wretches when she explains how his blood tastes of exotic fruit. Of course he is no vegetarian and he’s been to his uncle’s farm, watched the slaughter of lambs and pigs, but somehow this is different. It’s different because it’s his blood and his meat that’s on the menu. He recoils visibly at her question.

“No! Of course not!”

His complaints are likely to fall on deaf ears, but he protests nonetheless like there might be a shred of honour in her. Maybe he can throw himself into the jaws of the lioness to save his co-workers – it doesn’t matter to him if he’s only known them a number of months. It occurs to the Frenchman that this all might be some kind of strange test or initiation, even if the whole idea of it is out there, tres far-fetched. His colleagues had always spoken about the strange happenings in the city, about people disappearing and weird, unexplainable events – earthquakes, missing items, whole districts cordoned off, people jumping incredible distances, even walking on water. Since Pierre has not seen anything strange – until now – he’s certain that it’s all just crazy ramblings. For this purpose, Pierre decides that he will not believe this woman and her words about blood-drinking and Vampires. He might feel awful, but there could be a number of explanations to account for that! At the very least, she could have… drugged him? And even if this isn’t some crazy ploy by his work mates, this woman is most certainly insane or trying to pull his leg.

“I’m not even sure I know your name… How am I supposed to believe that you’re telling me the truth?”

This was uncharacteristically bold for the Frenchman and especially when he held her onyx gaze with firm blues. If this weren’t a joke, she might have to prove it.

What good does it do the cow to know the name of the butcher? He still ends up as steak. Or, in this particularly curious instance, ends up retching as she shoves a bag of cold red liquid under his nose. Pierre turns sharply away from her, locating the clear stretch of floor that is not covered by carpet or mats in case the retching becomes more violent and… chunky. He hates the idea of spoiling her décor, though he cannot explain why. Pierre should hate her, really. He should loathe her and detest her and push her away, run like hell from this insane woman, but he can’t lift his legs to stand and he can’t find the will to feel any negativity toward her. Pierre cannot describe what he is feeling for this woman, only that he is compelled to follow her. It is like he is under her spell, not some childish love spell, but something that tugs at his soul to become her puppet. He feels as though, if she would request it of him, he would not be able to refuse or lie his way out of compliance.

Blue eyes keep fixed to the floor, watching her loom over him, knowing that she is there and demanding his attention. There is a tugging heat in the pit of his stomach, a scorching bitterness at the back of his throat, and this strange smell of food under his nose – though he can’t identify the source. A metallic scent, sort of like licking a copper pot but is warm and rich and strangely stale, clings to his nostrils. There’s something weird about the perfume in the air, kind of like the difference between the taste of apples and apple juice. Quiet, curious eyes are tugged to the source and he retches again immediately, pulling away when he realises that it’s the bag of red liquid that she has in her hand that was making him salivate.

“What is that?” he gasps. He cannot keep his eyes from switching between the woman and the bag she is holding. “What are you doing? Why are you showing me this?”

A thousand hundred questions form in his mouth but become stagnant on the tongue because there’s suddenly not enough effort to get them out. His focus is steeled on the offering, on what it is doing to him, why it’s making him so terribly sick and hungry at the same time. She must be loving this, the torture she is dragging him through, but even Pierre’s obsessive hold for the woman with the onyx eyes seems incomparable to his want of that bag filled with crimson liquid.