Darren
by
Heather Wielding
Copyright 2012 Heather Wielding
Smashwords Edition
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Chapter One
1964: Conception
Choosing her was only partly deliberated: the chatter of her heels enticed him, loured him. Called for him, if you will.
The thought of conceiving a child had long haunted him. There was no rule to forbid it, not to his knowledge, anyway, but no-one had done it before. Not of lack for opportunity, but out of convenience: none of them wanted an infant to look after. Life immortal was hard enough without a suckling to care for.
He heard the echo of her footfall long before he saw her, and once he did, he had to look twice to make sure she was the one making the sound.
Girls like her didn't wear boots like that. Girls like her wore flats, and hid in shades of grey and brown. This one, however, flaunted her conventionality in the colours of a rainbow, and green buckled stilettos.
In the shadows, Darren smiled. This one would do.
This one would do nicely.
She tried to scream as he grabbed her. She tried to kick. She tried to offer him her purse.
He overpowered her easily, and as he took her, he could have sworn she came.
Afterwards, he shrugged.
Girls like that were always easy: no-one looked at them twice, and they fell at the drop of a hat.
Finding out where she lived was easy enough. All he needed was to look inside her mind, and remember.
***
He watched her with little interest. He sensed her longing for him, sensed his seed growing within her.
In the beginning, he worried for her. He feared she would do something to harm the child, feared her growing depression would affect the pregnancy.
Worry soon subsided as she found a man to stand by her. To do, so to speak, the job that should have belonged to Darren.
Still, he stopped by sometimes to see his seed grow inside of her, to enjoy the little lies she told her husband-to-be.
As the months passed, he grew more and more pleased with his choice. Worry consumed her, worry over the unborn child, but she kept it in, pretending to be just another grieving young widow.
Her lies entertained him, though he knew they were born of necessity alone. She knew the rules and regulations of the world she was forced to live in, and did the best she could to fit inside the norm of society.
Darren had to admit she was doing well: she hadn't just bagged a husband. She had made sure he had the money to support both her, and the baby.
As the time for birth drew nearer, she flipped. Darren sensed her terror in his slumber, and laughed. Had he had his way, the wench would have spent every day of her miserable existence in such a state.
She would lose all meaning to him once the child was born. She was nothing but an incubator for the half-breed Darren already regretted having conceived.
Caring for a child had already proven both difficult and trying.
For a while, around the seventh month of the pregnancy, he considered getting rid of the child. It would be easy enough: all he would need to do was to drain her. Or reach inside, and pull the brat out. The only thing stopping him was curiosity: he wanted, needed, to see how the child would turn out.
Would it have his eyes? His speed? Would it share with him the inability to tolerate sunlight? Would it grave blood instead of mother's milk? He had to know, and to know, he had to see this through.
The child arrived in the early hours of the morning. Darren was there, outside the hospital, to hear her first cry.
From the moment she first drew breath, Darren knew he had done wisely not to kill her in the womb.
She was exquisite, one of a kind, a monster posing as a human.
And still there was an imperfection in her.
She didn't have the thirst for blood that separated Darren and his kind from mortal men. She walked the day, and, in time, her body would wither and die.
She had the weaknesses of mortals, yet she was born of his blood.
A half-breed was all she was, and as such, she was more powerful than any vampire ever to have walked the night.
Chapter Two
1782: Birth
Born into the house of a simple farmer, Darren had little hope of marrying money. At the age of seventeen, he knew he would spend his days farming the little spot of land his father had inherited from his father before him.
Accepting his fate didn't come easily to Darren, but as he began his twentieth year, he was at peace with both himself and his life. He would live, farm, wed his cousin Eileen, sire children, farm some more, grow old, and die. His children, given they outlived him, would bury him next to his father. It wasn't a great fate, but he was content with it. And there was little he could do to change it. The only chance he had was to become a mercenary, and that was a fate even less glamorous.
Since Darren knew little of sword-fight and despised bloodshed, he chose to farm the land his father would, in time, leave him with.
It was a bear that changed his plans, along with his life.
***
"Don't forget", his father said. "The field needs ploughing."
"I won't, father. I'll only be a moment."
He took the cane he liked to use as a walking stick when roaming the woods surrounding the little house his family had settled into some twenty years ago, and left. He made his way through the yard, passing the remains of the hut his grandfather had built as he claimed the land for himself, and as the woods closed behind him, he sighed of relief.
Even though he had accepted his fate as a farmer, he welcomed every chance to escape it. In the woods, he was free from it all, free from the land, free from the seed, free from his cousin whom he would wed in less than a month.
The thought of Eileen made him flinch. The maid was far from fair. With a stick-like figure and crooked teeth she was as pleasant a bedmate as a tree trunk.
Having had the choice, Darren would rather have shared his bed with a pine. At least pines slept quietly, demanding no attention.
Eileen would want children from him, and the mere thought of consummating his unwanted marriage to her made him sick to his stomach. It was a fate no man would welcome.
Darren frowned. Most of the young men living near had already wed. Their wives were humble and accommodating, easy on the eye if not exactly pretty.
Darren's wife would be ugly, wicked of tongue, unpleasant of nature. And he would be forced to spending the rest of his life with her, with a woman who cared little for his welfare.
"A fate worse than death", he muttered to himself.
The day was warm for early autumn, the wind soft like a young mother's touch, the air full of forest's perfume. Darren closed his eyes to welcome the warmth, to enjoy of the freedom the woods granted him.
He walked along pathways he had walked since childhood, paying no attention to the forest around him. He didn't see the cubs until it was too late.
A roar pulled him from his thoughts, stopped him on his feet.
Darren looked up, and saw two bear cubs playing in the bushes. As he watched, they paused, and stared at him with black, wary eyes.
From behind, he could hear twigs breaking, undergrowth shuffling.
Darren stood his ground though panic fumbled for a grip. His body wanted to run, to race to the edge of the forest and beyond, to the edge of the world, even, and he had to force it to stay still.
If he ran, the mother would come after him, take him down, and kill him.
Remaining still gave him a better chance of living through this.
Slowly, Darren took himself to the ground. Two bear cubs watched him with big, wary eyes, and behind him, mother bear moved through the undergrowth.
Slowly, he pressed his face against the earth, pretending to be nothing but a corpse.
He tried not to breathe, not to move, not to be, and as the mother rolled him over, he remembered bears liked to feast on carcasses.
***
He didn't remember getting home. He remembered the claws, the pain, but not much else since the bear had left him to die.
He remembered his father's face as he saw him, remembered his mother's cries, remembered being carried to his bed. He remembered the pain, the wailing of his sisters'. Remembered his father saying he wouldn't live long.
He agreed with his father. Years had taught him he wasn't often mistaken. Darren trusted him, and if he said he would die soon, it would most likely happen.
Darren didn't really mind. He had seen all that life had to offer him. He had farmed enough to get his fill. In a way, he welcomed death as a release.
Being dead, he wouldn't need to wed and bed Eileen.
He remembered the pain, his mother's pale face, the tears. And he remembered a whispered conversation between his father and two brothers.
"He's beyond help", Damien, his younger brother, said. "He will die, no matter what you do."
"Haven't you heard of Them?" Daniel asked, his voice tight with worry and unfocused fury. "Haven't you been listening? Has your head been buried in books again?"
"This is no time to argue", their father hissed. "Darren hasn't much time left."
"Sorry, father." Damien's voice, soft, guilty, taking the blame for his brother's sin as usual.
"Will you call for Them?"
"No." Father's voice was low, hurt. There had been much hurt in his life, and Darren didn't blame him for not running from the pain a son's death would bring him.
Pain was a part of life, the part that made one grow. Without pain there was no progress. Without pain one would walk through his life without living at all.
"But you must!" Daniel again, demanding, arduous. He'd never been good at taking no for an answer, and it seemed he wouldn't accept it now. "Darren is dying, and They're the only ones who can help him!"
"But at what cost?" their father asked. "Have you thought of that?"
"The cost doesn't matter", Daniel insisted. "We'll make the money back next year!"
"It's not money They want, you know that. It's..." Father hesitated, unwilling to speak out the truth well known by all.
They had been there as long as anyone remembered. Seemingly eternal, ageless, They roamed the woods, taking with them those faced with an untimely death.
Everyone knew of Them, yet no-one knew who They were. To the simple people living here, they were known only as Them, tall, fair creatures who came in time of need, took away the dying, and had their pay in blood.
Everyone knew of Them, and the price They demanded, and in time of need, They were called upon.
"Let them want what they will. I refuse to let my brother die!"
He remembered the slam of the door, remembered his father sighing, remembered Damien's soothing voice as he read the holy psalms by his bed.
He must have slept then, for it seemed They came only moments later.
He remembered Their voices, soft, subdued, naming the price They would take, remembered his father promising Them anything, anything, remembered being lifted from the bed.
And then came the taste that altered his life forever, condemned him to a world of darkness.
He drank deep, and the pain left him. He drank, and a warmth took over him.
He drank, and felt his life slipping away from him, replaced with something else.
Something he could not entirely comprehend.
***
They wanted one of his sisters in payment.
Darren watched as They drained her, shredded her flesh, and consumed her. Horrified, he turned away from Them.
"What is it, newborn?" They mocked. "Sickened by the ways of your saviours?"
"Sickened by the way you desecrate my sister", Darren replied.
Their laughter tore at his ears. "You don't have to stay with us", They said. "You're free to come and go as you please. We have received what we need, and have no use for you."
"Do you not think we should stick together, being of kind?" Darren asked, and again received laughter in return.
"We think you should learn our ways the best you can. And quickly. Mortals have a way of killing what they fear."
"Mortals?" Darren asked, confused. His life had altered, but surely all life must come to an end. Surely all those who lived, must eventually die.
"You are no longer one of them, fledgling", someone said. "You are now one of us."
"And since you cannot abide our ways, you are not welcome among us", someone else said.
"Our ways sicken you, fledgling", spoke another voice. "Our ways cause you pain."
Mocking voices all around, taunting him, ridiculing him, telling him to go, to leave, to run from those who saved him. Voices calling him ungrateful, voices calling him a traitor, voices telling him to return to his human-mother, and cry against her soft teats, voices mocking, taunting, laughing, sneering.
The woods were kind in welcoming him. In the silence of the forest, Darren had the first chance to understand what They had done to him.
His senses were clear: he could see further than before, could smell animals moving around him, could hear the whispers of mice. His skin tingled as mist gathered upon it.
Darkness no longer troubled him. Trees and stones were as clear before him as in the light of day.
And the need the eat was gone, replaces with a thirst he could not yet fully understand.
He remembered Them tearing at her sister's flesh, and the memory roused the thirst in him.
He wanted to do the same, to bite into living flesh, to drown in living blood.
Only not that of his own family.
The forest was full of life. Darren was pleased to see he could snatch a rabbit with a single gesture.
Holding the small, struggling animal, he noted the thirst growing stronger. He could sense the blood coursing under the rabbit's skin, could feel it's burn.
It's skin gave in easily under his nails, and a flood of warm blood rushed out to satisfy the thirst throbbing within him.
The salty taste of blood was like nothing he had experienced: it was sweeter than any wine he had tasted, more substantial than any meal he had ever eaten. And yet, as the river died down, he found himself thirsting for more.
Disappointed, Darren tossed the lifeless rabbit aside. The thirst hadn't left him, hadn't diminished, hadn't faded. It was alive, demanding more.
Another rabbit's life could not quench his thirst. The third and fourth still left him wanting more.
As daybreak drew nearer, Darren began to feel the need to rest, to hide in the shadows of the woods, and sleep. He did as his instincts bid him, and hid himself within the earth.
***
As darkness fell, he awoke, only to find himself consumed by the same thirst.
Darren pushed himself from the earth that had sheltered him throughout the day, and caught more rabbits to nourish himself.
Deep within his mind a spark of fear tried to light a fire: how many rabbits could he kill before there was none left? How many creatures could he feast upon before the balance of nature was upset?
He pushed the thought off, and sat on a rock to ponder over things more pressing.
He needed a place to stay, a place that would welcome him.
It would be easy to live inside the safety of the woods, but Darren longed for company. He missed his family, missed having human beings around to surround him with their voices, their scent and warmth, their loving laughter.
He had brought pain to his family, had forced them to part with a daughter in order to restore his life. He had to repay them somehow.
Uncertain, Darren stood.
Finding his way home was easy: he hadn't travelled far, and the woods were familiar to him. Even in the dark of night, he soon found himself standing on the edge of his father's lands.
The small house was silent, dark. It loomed at the other side of the fields like a ghost. Inside, his family slept, dreaming the sweet, innocent dreams of mortal men.
Envy rose to his throat, tasting like bitter bile.
He no longer shared with them the sweet, innocent dreams. His rest was imageless, dark and deep as death.
The fields stood out in the night like sore wounds, raw and uncared for. It seemed his family had more to think about than fields these days. With a daughter taken, and a son missing, they spent their days in mourning, and their nights in restless sleep. Whilst they grieved, they dug a shallow grave for themselves: without crops, the following winter would consume them.
Grief made them blind to the future. Grief made them vulnerable, easy targets for the merciless world.
Darren took a hesitant step closer. Autumn would soon turn. Frost would set into the earth, and all it's fruit would be lost. Now was the time to gather what had been grown. Now was the time to prepare for the coming winter, and his family wasted the only chance they had in mourning over him, and the daughter they had sacrificed.
Grief and guilt would be their doom.
Slowly, Darren made his way across the fields. The air was chill, and his breath steamed before him. Soon it would be too late.
The shed was unlocked. He went in, and took the tools he had used many times before. A shovel, a pick, a wheelbarrow. Somehow, they seemed less now. Weightless, brittle like old bones.
He took them to the fields, and set to work.
Come dawn, the first field was empty, it's fruit safely stored in the cellars grandfather had dug when he was just a young boy. Spider webs now guarded crates of potatoes and turnips and carrots and onions his mother would use for the lean broth she fed her family every winter.
Darren took the tools back, and fled into the woods.
Dawn was near, and his skin tingled with a strange pain.
***
The house was dark as he returned the following night, the land untouched.
It seemed no-one had even noted Darren's labour.
Shrugging, he fetched the tools. It didn't matter whether his family noted what he had done for them or not. The important thing was to make sure they had food to eat when winter sunk it's claws into them.
Come dawn, the field was littered with sheaves.
Darren looked at what he'd done, and saw a light flicker in a window.
Someone was watching him.
He waved a hand, and left. Sun was rising, making his skin tingle in pain again. Though he wanted nothing more than to go in, and see his family again, he fled for the safety of the woods.
***
"We should kill him", Daniel said. He stared glumly at the sheaves, kicking pebbles around.
"Should we now?" father asked. "Darren's gathered the crops all on his own, and you wish to kill him?"
"He's not natural", Daniel argued. "Not anymore. Not since they took him."
"Natural or not, he's one of us."
"One of Them is what he is!"
Daniel turned, and walked away, his motions stiff and rigid. Father shook his head watching him go, and turned to Damien.
"Do you think we should kill him?"
Slowly, Damien shook his head. "I agree with Daniel in one thing: he's not natural, not anymore. But he is of our blood, and as a part of our family, he has the right to come in, and stay with us." He paused, staring at the empty field, lost in thought. "If he so chooses", he continued after a moment, and the hesitation in his voice claimed he did not wish Darren to choose to remain as a part of their little group.
"If he so chooses", father confirmed, and the same hesitation coloured his voice as well.
"If he returns come evenfall, we shall invite him in."
Damien frowned. "I'd rather he return when the sun still shines, like the rest of us."
Father patted him on the shoulder with a hand bent with lifetime of hard work. "Our ways are not his ways. Not anymore. We must learn to accept. After all, we gave a daughter to have Darren returned to us."
Damien nodded, in shame. "We must not let her sacrifice go to waste."
Choosing a daughter to give as payment hadn't been an easy task. Darren had three sisters, and all of them were to wed soon. Giving one of them up had torn through their mother's heart, and left their father hard of mouth and dark of eye.
Had not one of them stepped up to volunteer, they would have had to order one of them to give herself to Them, and save her brother's life. Still, losing a daughter burned.
And now their son had returned, yet not as he had been. He was no longer the Darren they knew and loved, but someone else.
Something else.
"Come tomorrow", father sighed, "we'll invite him in."
***
As the sun set, Darren returned to find the sheaves he'd made last night carried inside. He paused by the empty field, and wondered what to do next.
He had nearly decided to fill the shed with firewood when the door opened.
A glimmer of light poured out, and Darren could see the outlined shape of his father.
"Won't you come inside, son", he spoke. "To sit and sup with your family."
"I no longer have need for food", Darren said, shy now that father beckoned him closer.
"Come in anyway. Let us see you, thank you for what you've done."
Hesitantly, Darren stepped through the door. Hesitantly he entered the rooms in which he'd spent so many days of his life.
Hesitantly, he looked around, looked at the faces of the people who had shared with him his joys and woes.
"We've missed you, son", mother said, tears in her eyes. "Sit, eat. I made your favourite."
"He no longer eats, ma, you know that", father said, his voice softer now that the family was reunited.
Mother looked away, abashed, and turned to stir something cooking over the fire.
His sisters stood near the walls, eyeing him like he was a monster. To them, he probably was. He was the reason for their sister's death, he was the reason why Amber would never return to them, never sing them lullabies again, never braid their hair, never share their secrets. To them, Darren was the cause of their small world shifting, turning inside out.
They wouldn't speak to him, wouldn't greet him. They stared at him with big, hostile, hurt eyes, and Darren found he could not blame them for it.
He was the reason their sister was dead.
Daniel and Damien expressed their emotion more openly.
"You have returned to us", Daniel said, and hatred burned in his eyes. "After taking our sister to an early grave."
"Hush, now, Daniel", mother snapped. "We have Darren back, and that is all that matters now. Let us be grateful for what we have, and not blame each other for what we have lost."
"We welcome you back amongst us", Damien said. His words were kind, forgiving, but his eyes betrayed him. It wasn't anger nor hatred Darren saw in them, but fear.
As he looked more closely, he could see it in all of their eyes, written clearly across their dear faces.
Fear.
Fear of him, fear for their lives, fear of the unknown. Like they had said, mortal men dealt with fear by burning down the cause of it.
All of a sudden the small house felt too warm, too bright. Darren backed away from his family, towards the door, desperate to get away from their eyes, their fear, the scent of their blood.
Father grabbed him by the arm.
"Surely you're not leaving yet, son?" he asked. "Sit with us, talk with us. Stay, be one of us again."
Gently, Darren removed his hand, careful not to hurt bones weary with work. "I am no longer one of you, father", he said. "And I cannot stay with you."
"But you must!" father insisted. Mother joined him, touching Darren's arm, clinging to him. "You mustn't leave us, not again."
"It is time for me to go", Darren said. He kissed his mother's brow, and held his father's hand in between his.
As he looked at his brothers and sisters, he saw their hatred had bled away. Their eyes were now hurt, filled with sadness.
Pain of loss had drowned out the fury, and Darren found it was easier to leave them in sorrow than in hatred.
***
He never returned to the little house he grew up in. He never saw any of his kin again.
For a long time, the woods were the only home he knew. He lived off the blood of animals, slept inside the soft soil, breathed in the beauty of the night. The sense of freedom drowned him, for now the only prison he had, was the need for blood.
He was free of work, free of Eileen, free of duty. There was nothing for him now but the night, and blood.
For years, the forest offered safety to him. For years, he roamed the woods by night, and slept in the soft soil during daylight hours. For years, the only creatures he saw were the animals who, like him, considered the forest as their home.
When he left the woods, it wasn't out of boredom, or of loneliness. It was out of curiosity.
The world around him was changing, he could feel it. Mankind was evolving, creating laws, uniting under one flag. Darren didn't feel a part of them anymore, but still, the change intrigued him enough to make him abandon the safety of the woods, to emerge, and seek solace among mortal men.
To walk once more among them, but not as one of them.
Chapter Three
1967: Childhood
The child grew, as he had expected, showing little sign of the heritage of her blood.
Darren watched her from the shadows, watched her as she bit her mother, watched her as she developed a keen interest in blood, watched her as she scared her mother silly by eating all the red crayons.
In the shadows, he watched her, and smiled the smile of a proud father.
Creating her seemed like smartest move he'd ever made, and by the time the girl started her seventh year, Darren began considering presenting himself to her.
She went to school every day. A yellow bus picked her up in the morning, and returned her in the afternoon. Darren sensed this from her thoughts, from the way her presence shifted within him as he slept.
Night-time was the only time he could go to her, talk to her, teach her. Night-time was the only time he could make himself known to her.
She slept during the night. A trade Darren loathed and despised.
No vampire slept during the few short hours of darkness. No vampire walked the streets of mortal men as the sun shone bright, deadly, from the skies.
No vampire, except her. The half-breed he had made.
Sometimes she seemed weak to him. Sometimes she did things no vampire would do. At those time, Darren wondered if it had been smart to make her after all. At those times, he wondered if it would be better if she was gone.
Doubt didn't come often, and it passed quickly, leaving Darren with a sense of pride. This girl was his offspring, his daughter, the only thing he had managed to create in his miserable existence, the only thing he would protect with his own life.
The only thing that would, truly, make him immortal.
The girl would carry on his name, give it to her children, sing them stories of him, the scar-faced man who gave life to her. The girl would pass on his blood along with his name, ensuring he would live even after death came to collect him.
In the beginning, he had trusted death no longer cared for him. He had soon realized he was mistaken: his body was stronger than before, his senses keener, cleared, but death still fancied him. In time, death would collect even those thought to be immortal.
In time, it would collect his daughter as well. But not until she had passed on his name, and his blood.
Sometimes, he dreamed of a world filled with his kind. Sometimes, he saw half-breeds taking over, transforming the world to their liking.
He woke from those dreams, covered in a film of sweat, shivering.
It seemed like a nice idea, a pretty picture, but the truth would be quite the opposite.
In his dreams, he saw half-breeds feeding on each other, killing each other like mortal men did.
The lack of food would drive them to it, force them to take the lives of their own kind.
It sounded like the perfect world, but Darren knew better.
Survival was only possible in a world where one species didn't force itself to rise above others.
The girl would survive, and so would her kind. If they didn't overpopulate.
Darren watched her, learning from her. Her presence was never far from his mind. The more he knew of her, the more he wanted to be with her.
At times, he wondered what it would be like if he went to her, and took her. If she lived with him, in darkness, as his true daughter.
And then he looked at her, safely asleep in her little bed, clutching a teddy, and left her in peace.
She was, above all things, a mortal child, and mortal children belonged to their mothers.
But still, he wished her to know him. To know her vampire father.
The opportunity presented itself come Halloween. The streets of her cosy little neighbourhood were littered with children dressed up as witches and ghosts and mummies and Frankensteins, and the girl, Jay, as she wished herself to be called, was no exception. She ran along the sidewalks with her little friends, and together the three were the smallest vampires in the world. Their faces were white with flour, their eyes circled with their mothers' make-up. Black capes flew behind them, and their laughter was like music to his soul.
He watched them as they went from door to door, collecting candy that would later give them belly-aches, playing pranks on the poor souls who wouldn't open their doors for them. He watched them as they played and laughed, and all the while he knew Jay would soon lose some of her innocence.
All the while he knew what would come to pass.
This was the only night when people didn't stare at him. They gave him a glance, and complimented him on his outfit. They trusted his scarred face to be just another mask, and allowed him to walk among them unnoticed, unfeared.
This night was the only chance he got to approach his daughter without sending her off screaming at the first sight of him.
She ran past him, breathless with laughter, and he grabbed her arm, stopping her. Her friends ran on, without noticing she was left behind.
The girl looked at him, joy slowly fleeing her eyes, the blue, bright eyes of her mother.
"Let me go", she said, demanding with all the might of a scrawny seven-year-old.
He knelt beside her, to reach her level.
"Aren't you going to ask me who I am?" he asked. Excitement rushed within him, bubbling in his throat, surprising him with it's force. He hadn't felt anything like it in decades, centuries. Not since...
He shook his head slightly to drive off the memory, and watched her frown in disgust.
"No", she said. "I don't want to know. And your scars ain't a mask. They're real."
He smiled as she pulled herself free, though excitement was soon turning into despair.
She hadn't know him, hadn't smelled her own blood within him as he had hoped.
Instead, she had turned, and ran, like everyone around him.
Like all the people he had ever come to know, leaving him alone, unsatisfied.
Slowly, he rose. She had caught up with her friends, and they turned to see him. He could see resentment written on their little, white faces.
He smiled, and offered them a light bow. As he touched the rim of his hat, they sneered, and fled to collect sweets from another unsuspecting victim.
He watched her go, and knew she would never live with him in the darkness, as his true daughter. She would walk the sunlit days, and be what she was made to be.
A half-breed, a strange combination of two worlds.
And she would, like him, walk through her life alone.
Chapter Four
1800: Alone
He'd seen his face. He knew why people shied away from him.
The scars kept them afar, the scars that covered half of his face, the scars left by an angered bear trying to protect her young.
Darren bore no ill will toward the bear. Years spent in the forest had taught him much about the relentless ways of the wild. They all did what they needed to survive. They all killed if need be. The bear had followed her instincts to ensure the survival of her offspring. She had done what was necessary in order to live. Darren had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and suffered the consequences.
In a way, the scars the bear had given him had done him a great service: without them he would have been able to live among a great new society as part of it. Without them he would have been able to continue his life as an ordinary man, never realizing to look behind the façade of custom and etiquette.
Without them he would have lived through the endless nights of his life, never seeing the true nature of mortal men.
To him, they were ruthless beings, killing each other for causes invented by those in power, killing without mercy, never pausing to see the blood on their hands.
Darren walked amongst them, isolated by his appearance, a beggar among the lords and ladies of modern society. He walked their streets, and killed one of them every night. Seeing himself as an angel of salvation, he rid men of their lives, closing his eyes from the blood that stained his own hands.
Among them, he was alone. Surrounded by them, he was alone.
The world around him lived and breathed, and he walked through it's nights, lost in the shadows, alone.
Isolated, cast out.
Alone.
Whispers hung about him, shades of breathed conversation.
"… look at him..."
"… think of the poor man..."
"… where do you think he got those scars..."
"… what a horrid fate..."
"… he should be in a freak show..."
"… he's probably dangerous..."
"… an escaped prisoner..."
"… mental patient..."
"… there's an asylum on the other side of the city..."
"… maybe he wants us all..."
"… dead..."
"… he should be dead..."
"… how do you think he lived..."
"… must have been some doctor..."
"… was it an animal? Or..."
"… who would do such a thing?"
"… probably dangerous..."
Parts of whispered conversation floated around him, surrounding him, isolating him.
Parts of lies, made up fairytales about him, about his life before he entered the growing city. Parts of fantasies that never ceased to play with mortal minds.
Parts of lies.
Lies to drive him off, lies to make him leave, lies to make his life as difficult as possible, lies to ward off the monster.
Like They had said, mortal men had a tendency of taking a torch to anything they didn't understand.
Things couldn't hurt you once they were dead.
Surrounded with lies, Darren remained amongst mortal men, feeding on them, listening to parts of whispered conversations.
Isolated from those around him he walked the night.
Alone.
Chapter Five
1981: New York
Times had changed, and vampires no longer hid in the shadows. Like most his kin, Darren walked the night, untouched by mortal eyes, ignored by many, admired by some.
Fashionably pale, stylishly lean, he blended into the crowd despite the scars he bore on his face, and as Jay emerged from the belly of the Greyhound, he was waiting for her.
The city was a merciless place, a machine without a soul. It's streets could devour a lost little girl in a matter of moments.
Darren didn't want that happening. Not now. Jay had escaped the prison she'd spent her days in, and now that she was all his, he wanted her safe.
Happiness was another thing.
Happiness, Darren had found, was entirely overrated. It made one slow, content. Contentment made one shy away from challenges. Challenges made one stronger, hence, a happy person remained in his current state, without moving forward, without growing.
Darren wished his child to grow to her full potential. She wouldn't achieve that if she was content. Happy.
If it were up to Darren, Jay would never know happiness. She would walk through her life, losing everything that was valuable to her, learning from her loss, growing stronger with every stab of pain.
He would rather see his daughter strong than happy.
The city had grown since he first entered it. Decades had turned it into a living thing, into a pulsating being of light and glass and metal that chewed up people and spat them out, bent and broken and bruised, too weak to surrender, too weak to crawl back home. He watched the victims of the city go on day after day, wake up, get up, go to work, go home, fall asleep watching TV. He watched them die a little each day without even realizing it, force themselves to have fun, to smile, to laugh, and all the while there was nothing left but empty shells of people, empty shells in the place of living souls.
The city was as good a place to hunt as any. Darren hadn't chosen it for the night-life, or the museums. He had chosen it for the people who lived there, the soulless, faceless crowd waiting for death.
For them, he was nothing short of salvation.
Standing on the pavement, Jay looked small, fragile. She seemed to shine a light of her own, to echo with the sound of life pulsating within her.
Darren watched her as she took her first, hesitant steps. She was so young, so brittle. One blow would break her.
He couldn't remember how many times he had imagined this, went over the details of this very moment in his mind.
She would see him now, come to him, trust him, rely upon him to help her survive in this travesty of a city. She would come to him, and be his daughter, dependent on his guidance, his advice. She would come to him, and be his own for all times.
And, of course, she looked around, her eyes touching him and letting go. She took another step, almost forgot her bag, and made her way deeper into the jungle of neon-lights.
Alone.
Darren watched her go, and as the sun began to rise, he hid.
***
She arranged her life, easily, with no effort. Soon, she was much like the soulless, faceless slaves who worked all day and slept during the dark hours of the night.
With disgust, Darren turned from her. She had failed him before, had proven to him she was more human than vampire.
"Nothing but a half-breed", Darren muttered to himself. "A weakling posing as a mortal woman."
And still, she was his child, the one thing he had managed to create.
The one thing that still belonged to him.
Finding her wasn't difficult. Her presence was constant in his mind. If he closed his eyes, and concentrated on her, he could see what she saw, could, for a moment, watch the world through her eyes.
A disappointment she may be, but still, she was born of his blood.
Knowing he would never truly be rid of her, he decided to teach her. As a failure, she was nothing to him, but as an apprentice, she could prove her worth.
And in the process of teaching her the ways of his kind, he could make her stronger.
A rare smile touched his lips as he set out to follow her every step, to trace her moves around the city that never slept.
***
It took a long time for her to see him. It seemed she went through her days and lonely nights with a blindfold over her eyes. And then, with no warning, she began to struggle.
He sensed her in his sleep, saw what she did, felt what she felt. She wanted out, she wanted to escape the life she was forced to live.
Even in his sleep, Darren knew this was the opportunity he had been waiting for. She was lost, vulnerable, yet not weak. She needed guidance, and at her current state, would accept it eagerly.
He followed her as dusk fell, entered a crowded bar before her. He watched her as she ordered a drink, touched the barkeep's mind to fool him into thinking the little girl wearing a dress too short and make-up too dark was actually over twenty-one. He sat at a table across the room, hiding himself from her though she sat just a few feet away from him.
She sat there, alone, fiddling with the straws in her drink, eyeing the people around her with the wary eyes of a cornered animal. It was like she had left her cage to find a saviour, a knight in a shining armour to protect her until her wings grew strong.
It wasn't a knight Darren intended to be, but a saviour none the less.
As her eyes brushed him, he allowed her to see him.
At first, her eyes passed him by with no interest. Then, her gaze returned, and her eyes filled with fear that quickly turned into curiosity and annoyance.
Darren slipped out, just to see if she was brave enough to follow him.
She did, but not as he had hoped. She didn't come as a strong, powerful half-breed ready to confront him. She came as a weakling, shivering in the violent embrace of panic, doubling over as cold night air caressed her.
Again, contempt rose it's head in him. Was this truly the girl he had conceived, the girl he intended to guide and teach?
He spat at her, and left.
There were women in the world more willing to accept his guidance.
Chapter Six
1961: Belinda
She seemed to follow him.
Everywhere he went, he saw her.
Hiding in the trees, peeking out of stairways, hanging from fire escapes on dark alleys.
Everywhere he went, she was there, a small being with huge eyes and a mess of matted hair.
Before long, he realized he could smell her. It wasn't a nice scent. It was the smell of an unwashed human body with years of dirt clinging from toenails, the smell of rotting matter hiding in a tangled head of hair.
After a month or so of her following him, he got sick of her smell.
"If you are going to trace my every move", he said one night as he spied her staring at him from behind a dumpster, "you better have a bath. I don't want to smell you again."
She stayed away for three nights after that, and as she returned, he noted she had tried to make herself clean, with little success. Her face was free of dark stains, but the smell still lingered.
Darren paused to have a good look at her as she climbed out of a tree.
She was small, dressed in rags. He could see the marks of malnourishment on her.
Clearly, she was homeless and alone.
Darren turned to leave her there, on the street, to fend for herself, but something tore at his heart. Something he hadn't felt for a long time.
Compassion.
She was alone, like he was.
Slowly, Darren turned around.
She stood there still, staring at him.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Belinda", she said.
***
Finding a home for her proved more difficult than he had expected. He had planned to dump her on the doorstep of a friendly-looking house, to be cared for by some nice couple who, sadly, had no children of their own.
He found a house owned by a nice couple with no kids, and dumped her on the doorstep. He hid in a tree to watch as the door would open, and a smiling woman would welcome Belinda as her own.
Belinda reached for the doorbell, pushed it, and waited. The door opened moments later, and a woman appeared in the soft, yellow light. She looked at her, warily, and asked what she wanted.
"I'm alone", Belinda said, like Darren had taught.
"Well, that's not my problem, really", the woman said. "You want a cookie? I can get you a cookie."
"No", Belinda said. "I want a home to live in."
"Well, dear", the woman said. "I think it's best you seek out a shelter. If you like, I can get you an address. Would you like that?"
"No", Belinda replied, and ran off.
Hid by the branches of a willow, Darren sighed.
It seemed she would have to stay with him, at least for the time being.
***
He had a small house outside the city. Sometimes he slept in the basement. Most times he slept in the sewers.
Tonight he took her there, drew her a bath, washed her hair, fed her, and put her to bed. He told her he wouldn't be there when she woke up. She said she knew that. He told her he'd come back at dusk. She told him OK.
For some reason, the trust she offered him awoke a warm feeling in his soul. It was almost like having a true daughter, a child to care for, a helpless being to protect.
He watched her sleep for a moment, and as her grip on his fingers loosened, he set out to make sure she'd be content come dawn.
He found her a TV to watch, books to read, toys to play with, food to eat. He found her a dress, in case she wanted to wear something clean, and fluffy slippers in case her feet got cold.
Come dawn, he sealed himself in the basement to sleep, uncertain he would sense her presence.
***
He found her where he'd left her.
She sat on the floor, watching TV, pink slippers on her feet, a box of cold Chinese safely in the crook of her arm. The other arm held a big, blue dog.
Darren paused at the doorway. She glanced at him, and returned to Sesame Street.
"Everything good?" he asked her. She nodded, eyes fixed on the TV.
He went to her, sat down on the floor beside her. She smelled better, but he knew she couldn't stay with him. He needed to find her a home.
"What do you say", he asked, "if I buy you a house, and hire someone to care for you?"
She shrugged.
"How old are you, dear?" he asked.
"Seven", she said, without looking at him.
"How come you were out there all alone?"
"They died", she said.
"Your parents?" he asked, and she nodded.
"How did they...", Darren started, and hesitated. She probably didn't want to remember.
She answered anyway, eyes fixed on the TV. "Home burned."
"There was a fire", Darren repeated, lost in thought.
He'd heard of a fire about a month ago, had smelled it, in fact. A house had burned down in Manhattan, with a young couple and their seven-year-old daughter trapped inside.
He looked at Belinda, who had traded the box of Chinese for a banana.
As it turned out, the daughter wasn't dead after all. She was here, watching Sesame Street in a vampire's house.
Darren smiled. The world truly was a sick, twisted place.
"Do you have family?" he asked her. "Aunts? Uncles? Grandparents?"
"No", she said, reaching for a Snickers-bar.
"No-one?"
"No."
Darren settled to watch TV with her.
"You have me now", he said. "No more living on the streets for you."
***
"How come you don't play with me in the day?"
She had started asking questions a few nights back. Darren welcomed the change, although some of her questions made him squirm. Still, it was better than having her watch him with huge eyes full of pain, rimmed with black circles.
"I sleep when the sun shines", he replied.
"Why?"
"Because that's the way God intended." Darren wasn't sure whether God had intended him to exist at all, but it was the best answer he could come up with.
"Why?"
"Because he likes it when some people sleep during the night, and some during the day."
"But why?"
"Because he just does."
"And you sleep in the day."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Sweetheart, we were just over this."
"No, you just said God likes it that way. You didn't say why you sleep when the sun shines."
"I thought I did."
"Did not."
"How would you like Italian tonight?"
"I want to see where you sleep."
"OK", Darren said. "But it's not very nice."
"Why?"
"Because I don't need nice things around me when I sleep."
"Why?"
"Because when I sleep, I don't look around."
She giggled, and allowed him to carry her down the stairs, into the basement.
"It's dark in here", she said.
"Yes, it is. It's easier to sleep in the dark."
"You don't like the light." It wasn't a question. She had already come to know his ways. Sometimes Darren feared she knew more than he realized. Most times he was sure of it.
"I don't like the light."
She didn't ask why. Instead, she peered into the darkness of the basement, eyes wide, fearless, trying the make out his bed. "I used to sleep in dumpsters", she confessed. "It wasn't very nice. They smelled bad. But sometimes there were newspapers, and they were warm."
"You don't have to sleep in the dumpsters anymore", Darren promised. "You get to sleep in a real bed from now on."
"Promise?"
"I promise. Every night of your life."
She hugged him, pressing her smooth cheek against his.
A warm feeling stirred in his soul, waking memories from a time when acceptance hadn't come so easily.
Chapter Seven
1810: Companion
He had rented a small house in the outskirts of town. By day, he slept in the basement, and by night, he sat in the small living room, looking out the tall windows, watching the endless stream of people slowly quiet down as the bars and theatres and whorehouses closed their doors. Sometimes, he left to hunt, but most times he stretched his mind to summon animals.
Animal carcasses were easier to explain and to dispose of. Their blood sustained him, but it didn't offer him the thrill of taking a human life.
They struggled. They screamed for help. They tried to flee. They did anything they could to hang on to their lives.
Animals yielded with no resistance. They lay down before him, and died quietly, and their lives offered him no ecstasy, no pleasure.
It was like being served tasteless soup when a feast waited in the other room, just out of reach.
Loneliness had become a part of him, and he no longer sought release from it. He accepted it, like he had accepted his fate as a farmer, as an unavoidable trait of his life.
And as fate had altered as he accepted it, loneliness began to fade as he welcomed it.
He noted her as she began walking past his house every night, carrying a basket full of freshly baked bread, only to return a few hours later, her basket empty, replaced with a handful of coins.
Her routine never changed: she walked by his house with a basketful of bread, and returned later, coins jingling in her pocket. He heard the song of money, and knew others heard it as well.
The town was not free of lowlifes: thieves and pickpockets crowded the streets, murderers and assailants walked free, unseen, unnoticed among common people. They saw her as he did, and the sound of coin tingling in her pocket attracted them to her like moth to a flame.
Her screams drew him out of the slumber of restless thoughts.
Darren sat up in the chair he had pulled to the window, the chair he spent most of his nights in, watching the world slowly pass him by. He sat there for a moment, suddenly alert, and as the scream came again, he got to his feet.
He passed through the streets where the buzz of the evening was already fading. He moved quickly, but not at full speed. She wasn't far, and he could get to her in time no matter how slowly he moved.
A band of brigades had pulled her onto an alley: three men clad in fresh garb, shiny pistols hanging from their belts. They hair was clean, their faces shaved. Darren could easily spot the marks of wealth upon them.
It seemed the bread girl wasn't their first victim.
As Darren came upon them, two of them reached for their guns. The third had his hands busy in groping inside her bodice. She was struggling bravely, but although one of the men bore the marks of her nails on his face, they were too strong for her to break loose.
Darren did nothing to conceal himself. He could have blended into the shadows, and taken them out, one by one, but that would have taken some of the fun out.
Darren hadn't left his house in months. He felt he'd deserved some fun.
"I suggest you let the lady go", he said.
The men laughed at him. "Are you gonna make us?" they asked, and pistols moved from belts into hands.
Darren was pleased to see the third man push the girl aside, and grab his gun instead of her bosom.
"Perhaps you'd like to find out", Darren said.
The sound of guns firing wasn't deafening, merely loud and annoying. Darren saw the bullets swimming through air, and avoided them with ease. He moved faster now, taking full advantage of the gifts They had pushed on him.
He grabbed the first man by the wrist, and knocked him out with a blow to the temple.
The second man was just beginning to realize Darren no longer stood in the way of bullets as he reached him, and put a knee to his belly. The man doubled over, and Darren pushed him aside.
The third man had time to fire at him. The bullet caught Darren by surprise, sinking into his shoulder.
Angered, he leapt at him, knocking him over, and smashed his face in with a single blow.
The sound of bones breaking was satisfying, and he wished he could have made the moment last longer.
As he glanced around, he saw one of the men was dead, one lay unconscious, and one was occupied in feeble attempts to breathe.
He turned to the girl, and saw she was trying to salvage her dignity by arranging her clothing. The coins they had taken from her littered the alley, but she made no attempt to gather them. Instead, she studied Darren with cautious eyes.
Cautious, yet not unkind.
"You saved me, sir", she said, "and for that I thank you."
One of the assailants had regained his ability to breathe, and Darren stepped to him to hold him down. The scent of living blood filled his senses, drowned his mind in red mist.
"It was nothing", he uttered. "Anyone would have done the same."
She started to say something more, but he told her to go now, leave.
The scent of living blood was too strong to resist.
***
It took two nights for her to return. Darren sat by his window, patiently waiting.
After indulging himself with human blood, he had picked up the coin she had left behind, and stored it in a little purse sewn of fine black velvet. It now lay on the table beside him, waiting for her.
Once he saw her, he intended to go out, stop her politely, and return the coin to her.
He didn't expect her to return so soon. Humans, he had learned, were fragile, quick to learn from past mistakes. She, however, strolled past his house only two nights after the incidents, a basket-full of fresh bread hanging from her arm, eyes bold and defiant.
He couldn't help but to admire her for the courage she displayed.
"Miss", he called from his porch. She hadn't gotten far during the short time it took for him to get up, and reach the door.
She turned back, wary, but not truly afraid.
As she recognized him, a pale smile rose to her lips.