Bloodlust

‘Drink deeply,’ said Aruda, his eyes gleaming wearily from the corner of the room. He had a look of utter disgust on his face, but looked extremely weary, after opening his veins and emptying them into a cup. ‘Even if it hurts, drink it down.’
Aruda stood in a filthy, lightless room, with not a single window. It was completely featureless, unless filth could be counted among the features. In the centre, stood a single, blue-shirted cop, with a chalice in his hands, filled with swirling liquid that did not reflect his image. Aruda stood on the sidelines, wearing a black shirt, and long, featureless, black pants. ‘This isn’t what you think it is, you know,’ he said, as the cop looked greedily at the shivering red liquid. Small mouths of liquid angled toward him, and he seemed mildly frightened. Aruda looked away. ‘You’re scared? After hunting me down, coercing me to give you this filth, and curse you to live in it forever, you’re scared? Perhaps your mind recognizes what this blemish is, and recoils,’ he said, curtly. The cop gave him a look, though he ignored it. ‘You’re sure this will work? ‘ he asked. Aruda nodded. The cop smiled.

‘That’s all I needed to know,’ he said, and tipped the liquid down his throat. Immediately, searing pain went up his tongue and his gullet, like he was drinking molten metal. He screamed a gurgling shriek of panic, before hurling the goblet to the floor, where it shattered, staining it red. The cop dropped to his knees. Aruda walked over to the form as it twitched pitiably against hard granite.
‘Nothing I can do now,’ he said, with a vindictive smile on his face. ‘Unfortunately, the body does not relinquish mortality that easily. Your books and comics have lied to you. To rise again, and join me, in night’s embrace, first, you must die.’
‘F-f-fuck you,’ the cop managed through gritted teeth. He spit some of the substance back up onto his shirt, as if his body was trying desperately to expel the vile, liquid curse it had just imbibed. Aruda chuckled. Wasn’t that easy. Once accepted, vampirism raped the mind and body of the individual, damning it to be just another night-predator. No humanity, no potential, no creativity, and no soul. That was Aruda’s hard lesson. Wasn’t it seven centuries ago, that the positions had been reversed? Time moved fluidly in Aruda’s sleepless, agonized mind. Wasn’t it just over seven hundred years ago, that he himself had lay dying at his sire’s floor, his head full of dreams that his talent as a painter be preserved forever? As his soul had died, he remembered his cry as he entered the world of undeath, a bitter death-cry of the soul, and a birth cry for just another monster in the world. His sire had secreted him away, warning that he was of a dying breed, one of the very select few who had been chosen to be made permanent by himself. He had not known of others of their kind, for they were rare, but Aruda had spent seven hundred years worth of sleepless days and nights to live, and perhaps regain his soul and mortality. He wasn’t strong enough to die by his own hand, but there was a certain feeling of irony in this situation. His hand was damning another, consuming another soul. There was a certain sadistic pleasure in that. At least he would never suffer alone again.

The cop had stopped gasping, and started sobbing, weeping into the floor, as the last of his life leaked out of him through his wet eyes. Vampires didn’t cry, just like all monsters. Aruda didn’t help him up. This was his path, the one he chose. The cop wept against the floor. ‘It’s gone,’ he muttered, as his skin turned velvety white. The vampiric blood he drank would  very quickly devour all the blood in his body, expanding and killing him, and then bringing him back as a hollow shell of himself. As his tears stopped and the breathing dried, the cop lay still, more than a human could ever do. Aruda couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sickly form. He watched as the man slowly began to move again. He had never sired before, and always wondered what it would look like. He would almost feel pity for the man at his feet, though mostly the feeling was just familiar contempt. He could not bring himself to have mercy for a man who willingly chose damnation, despite the fair warning. He had earned his own fate.

John Marrow slowly tottered to his feet. His head rung like a bell, and he had the feeling that he hadn’t been asleep in thousands of years, and wanted nothing better than to lie down and sleep, though not even blinking seemed to make this world-weariness go away. Slowly, he tried to form words, but they came out as a half-slurred jumble of various sounds. His knees gave, and sent him plummeting once more to the cement. He was surprised to feel the jarring pain didn’t exactly hurt, but was more of a dull ache that slowly grew in his knees. He tried again to talk, and found whispers in the corners of his mind interfering whenever he tried to think clearly. The other was standing there, simply watching with a look of contempt. The face that John had scorned not a few minutes ago, he now looked to with a feeling of desperation. ‘Please,’ he managed. ‘Help me.’

The other gave a long sigh, and reached into his pocket, withdrawing, after what seemed like an eternity, a small bottle of blood, that he threw at John’s feet. The plastic bottle landed with a soft thud at John’s knees, and quickly, without thinking, he ripped the top off with clawed hands, and allowed the red rush to cascade into his throat. It felt better than anything he had ever done before, better than love, better than sex, better than the best drink he had ever had. Immediately, the tired feeling lessened, drawing back into the dark behind of his mind, as he leapt, like a dying man, at the last drop of blood. The weariness retreated, and the pain in his leg became more acute.  Silently, he winced. The indistinct whispers in his veins and head quieted, allowing his own mind to shine through.

‘Satisfied?’ asked the other vindictively. ‘Is this what you wanted to be? Immortal, cold and forever incomplete? Is this what you were hoping for when you begged me empty my veins for you?’ He didn’t move to help John up.
‘Fuck off,’ muttered John uneasily, wiping the red smear from his jaws. ‘Will this make me live? Like forever?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Aruda, simply. ‘You will not live. This is not a life. This is just a pale imitation of it. Never again will you see the sunrise. Never again will you feel the warming glow of fire. Never again shall your heart ever beat or your lungs ever draw breath or your genitals stir. And never again will your heart ever sing or your mind ever find beauty in art or the world, or anything beyond warm blood. That is what you will live through forever.’
John shuddered involuntarily. ‘What?’
‘You’re not a human anymore,’ said Aruda. ‘You’re just a monster, a hungry, dead thing that rises each night to slake your thirst on the living. And every hour you are conscious, the grave will call to you, encouraging you to lie down and embrace death, but you never will.’
‘Shut up,’ said John, trying to take a step forward. ‘Shut up with the Shakespeare bullshit alright?’ he said. ‘Just tell me, what does this mean? Does it mean I can’t die?’

Aruda rolled his eyes. ‘ No,’ he said. ‘You’re slightly more permanent, but at the moment, no, you are not immortal. Step into the sun for even a second and you’ll be reduced to regret and embers. Same goes for fire. Getting stabbed through the heart will end this undying curse, as will the removal of your head.’
‘But sickness?’ he asked. ‘What about Cancer?’
‘No,’ said Aruda. ‘Any sickness you may have head is dead and devoured along with you. And your flesh regenerates too fast to be decayed.’
Despite himself, John wept, allowing a single tear of the freshly ingested blood fall from his eye, and then another. He ran forward and hugged Aruda. ‘Thank you,’ he gasped.

Aruda shrugged the man off immediately, with a look of disgust. ‘Thank me for what?’ he asked. ‘is that why you relinquished mortality? In the fear of death? Instead you choose this?’
‘No,’ he said, again between the sniffs. ‘I had cancer. Now, I can live to see my wife and son,’ he said.
Aruda raised an eyebrow. This man had done something nobody had ever done in awhile.
He had surprised him. ‘I see.’

----

‘I don’t want to do this,’ said John, a look of utter displeasure at what he was doing, as he held the woman against a wooden fence, his cold, dead hand pressed over her mouth. ‘Please don’t make me do this.’
‘Do it this instant,’ hissed Aruda furiously. ‘You chose this path, now commit!’
John felt his jaw open, as he heard the woman’s warm blood pumping in her veins. His felt his facial features twist, reforming into a hideous, bat-like visage with two enormous fangs growing from his front two teeth.  Revulsion and lust fought in his mind. The woman screamed silently, trying desperately to be heard through this monster’s hand. Then she stopped struggling and fainted.
‘Now!’ hissed Aruda, looking around at the deserted street, lit only by the moon and a streetlight several feet away. ‘Before someone drives past!’

John , unable to fight the urge, drove his teeth firmly into her neck, and felt the warm, liquefied life flow into his cold, dry throat, refreshing the cracked, dead flesh, and pouring into his dusty veins. Again, the feeling of insomniacal tiredness faded away. He felt the woman grow cold in his arms, and her breathing slowed, though he didn’t care. He was lost in the sensation of crimson pleasure that filled him, let him breathe and live again.

He felt an iron grip fasten around his shoulders, wrenching him from his prize. Aruda’s face had changed, just as his had, though Aruda’s batlike visage was a thousand times stronger, more monstrous and regal. There was a time when John would have felt disgust and horror at such a shape, but something within him acknowledged that he was in the presence of another of its kind.

‘Enough,’ he snarled, and John instinctively backed down from the woman, who collapsed into the grass. ‘We are not killing her. Take too much, and we have a body to dump. We bring cops to this area. They will find us, they will investigate this area and find fibers of your shirt and jacket here. They will identify you, and they will find us, and most likely, they will come to investigate during the daytime.’
John released the body, letting her slide into the grass. ‘What the hell,’ he muttered. His hands flew up to his forehead, and he hissed. ‘What the hell?’
‘The hunger can take over at times,’ said Aruda, transforming his face back to his human visage. ’But we need to move now.’

‘I can’t just move,’ he said, looking down at the body, slumped against the fence, with a look of merciful unconsciousness on her face. ‘I just assaulted someone.’
‘It’s the path you chose,’ said Aruda sternly. ‘We need to go now. We have both had our fill, the cops will most likely pass through here at any moment, and the sun will be rising. There is no logical reason to remain out here. We have to go now.’

‘No,’ shouted John, shrugging Aruda’s arm from his shoulder. ‘Do you know what it means to be a cop? I just fucking assaulted someone. I grabbed someone, bit through her veins and drank her blood. I’m some kind of fucking psycho.’ He was looking down at his blood-soaked hands.

‘No,’ said Aruda, not raising his voice, but not allowing any weakness to slip into his voice. ‘You are a monster. You wanted to be a monster. Now, you have to hide from the light of the sun and your fellow man.’

‘I didn’t want to live like this,’ shouted John. ‘Don’t just talk about her like she’s nothing. We just assaulted another living being! Don’t you fucking care?’

‘No!’ roared Aruda, finally losing his patience, grabbing John by the throat and slamming him against the wall. ‘I’m only helping you because you, at very least, have a worthy cause to join me in the night. You’ve only survived thus far with my help. When I was a young ghoul, I did the same thing, got stuck in a jail cell, and was very nearly incinerated as sunlight shone through the bars. I have lived for seven-hundred years, I know how the world works, and we are going to do this my way! Now get the fuck off your ass, run back to our bolt hole, and tomorrow night, with a belly full of stolen blood, we are going to see your wife and child. Now hurry the fuck up and stop arguing with me like the juvenile little shit you are!’

John shut up, and Aruda slowly let him down from the wall

A minute later, the cops raced around the side of the road, checking out the disturbance, after someone had called about the commotion. The girl really could not remember anything, and gave the testimony that she had simply fainted from lack of food. She reported strange dreams of two monsters arguing about whether to kill or her or leave her, but nothing more. The cops were rather unimpressed, and told her to be more careful with that.

The morning sun dawned over the world, painting it in golden and red. Shadows everywhere retracted, as they sensed their hated enemy claim the world once more, and jealously waited ‘till their kind would rule once more. Two shadows sat in filthy old basement, filled with old paintings. One was crouched, looking at his hands, while the other sat in an ornate looking chair, reading ‘Dante’s Inferno.’

‘Why do you read that?’ asked John softly, whispering each word. He was still not completely sure what he had done, and didn’t want to remember it.

‘I always thought Dante had a strangely inventive view of damnation. I feel a slight kinship to these people, making one mistake, taking one crazy choice, and paying for it for all eternity.’

‘I think I’m starting to know the feeling,’ said John, not looking up from his hands.
‘You have tasted a millionth  of what I have. You are in purgatoria, whereas I am Lucifer, trapped in the seventh circle, in the lake of ice, and every move I make to escape simply damns me further.’

‘Who started this, Aruda?’ asked John. ‘Who made us what we are?’

‘I don’t know, John,’ said Aruda, not looking up from his book. ‘My sire told me of the beautiful lady in white who made him what he was, and she had told him of the wreathed creature living beneath a lake in Scotland, and beyond that, I know not. We are a rare breed, you and I. In all my seven hundred years, I have met only ten others of our kind. They themselves barely knew any others beyond their own sires. I fear it is a mystery lost to the ages.’

‘What are we?’ John asked. ‘Why are we so damned? Damned to hunt our own kind? Damned to live with this guilt and  to hide underground every day?’

‘Perhaps we are sinners in the hands of an angry god,’ said Aruda, looking up with an airy look in his eyes, as he contemplated the question. ‘Perhaps this is a test, and we will all ascend to heaven. Perhaps, we are the mouths of God, taking back Christ’s redeeming blood, one mouthful at a time. Maybe we are the underworld servants of the Yama? Perhaps the last curse of Pluto on the world? Or perhaps, we are some kind of parasite, a living organism controlling dead flesh. I really don’t know, but we can do naught but speculate.’

John finally looked up and looked at the aging ghoul in the eyes. ‘How can you not know?’ he hissed. ‘You’ve lived for so fucking long, you’ve got all the goddamn answers, at least tell me there’s some kind of higher purpose to what I did tonight. Give me some kind of fucking closure, man!’

Aruda looked down at the man with a contemptuous smile. ‘You want closure. Really? You want your act of violation to have some kind of meaning. You want to excuse your rape of that woman to yourself, by telling yourself it was for some kind of greater good?’ he sneered.

John leaped to his feet and walked over to Aruda, not stopping until his face was inches from his. ‘Just tell me why I need to do it,’ he said.

Aruda smiled coldly. ‘I can’t. I don’t have a meaning. If you are looking to absolve yourself from your sins, go talk to a priest, or a therapist or perhaps a friend or lover. I have no such answers. This is the price of immortality, the rape of the innocent and the theft of their vital force. And regardless of how bad you feel about it now, I guarantee that in a month, a week, or perhaps even a day, there will come a time when you tell yourself that it is all natural. You will tell yourself that humans are your natural prey, and that you are justified. You will tell yourself that it’s just natural selection, weeding out the weak of the herd. Soon, you’ll start to look for the weak ones, you’ll gain an eye for this, and you’ll be able to pick the scrawny, unintelligent creatures out of the crowd, and you won’t even think when you drag them, screaming, into the night. You’ll start to feel contemptuous of them for their weakness. You’ll justify it, by saying that they deserve to be preyed upon by virtue of being weak, and eventually, you’ll see them as nothing more than food that walks and talks and that you have to seduce. You’ll look at a corpse and see an object, not a person, not something of value, or something that used to be alive and moving. That is the covenant with the universe you’ve chosen, John Marrow. This is the deal, and it’s simple as hell. Life for life, and blood for blood. Their lives sacrificed to keep you going for one more night. This is your choice, and I did warn you. Now, sit down, and wait for nightfall, when we will empty the veins of another person into you, or by all means, go out that door this minute (he indicated the door set into the wall, that lead into hallway, lit up by the light of the daystar, flowing in through the windows.), and paint the hallway with your ashes, another worthless failure in the world, unable to commit to what you’ve chosen.’

John could only stare at the grinning creature that sat before him, masquerading as a human, rotting in a chair. ‘Monster,’ he whispered, as he staggered back.

‘Get used to the term,’ said Aruda, ‘because as the old adage goes, it takes one to know one. Now sit down.’

----

Aruda and John stood on a rooftop above the house of Widow Marrow and his son, Chris. They stared down, their enhanced vision easily cutting through the darkness, into the window of the house, where Lindsey Marrow was crying over a picture of her husband.

‘Let’s go in,’ said John, muscles flexing in the night.

‘Wait a moment,’ said Aruda, firmly placing his hand on John’s chest. ‘First, I want you to tell me why we’re here.’

‘What?’ asked John. ‘Are you insane? This is what we had in mind from day one! Come on! This is what I’ve done everything for. We are not backing out now!’

‘No, we’re not, but first, you have to tell me why we’re here,’ said Aruda.

‘We’re here to see my wife and son,’ said John, his voice lowering dangerously as he looked Aruda straight in the eyes. ‘This is why I became a vampire. So cancer wouldn’t kill me, so I could go back to them.’

‘To what end?’ asked Aruda. He didn’t raise his voice, but he didn’t remove the hand.

‘Because I want to see them!’ exploded John, pushing Aruda’s hand away. ‘Don’t you fucking get it? This is why I came to you in the first place! Why I came down to that fucking little basement of yours, planted all that fucking evidence, just so you’d make me like you, so I could see them again. What the fuck are you not getting out of that?’ he roared as he shoved Aruda, who really didn’t move.

‘Make you like me?’ chuckled Aruda. ‘Now that’s an ironic statement. I did make you like me. Problem is, things like me don’t get to see their ex-wives or their sons. Things like me are monsters. We don’t get that kind of luxury.’

John grabbed Aruda by the shirt, lifting him up into the air. For the first time, the aging nosferatu showed surprise in his eyes. ‘You knew about this, you son of a bitch!’ roared John. ‘You knew about this and you just strung me along!’

‘I told you everything, ‘ said Aruda, looking down at John and regaining his composure. ‘I told you that we drank blood. I told you that we can’t move in the daylight. I told you, to your face that vampirism is not to be taken lightly, and is not a blessing, and that you were better off as a mortal regardless of circumstances. You knew all this, and yet you took my blood. You knew that this little combination of factors would mean you would never see your wife and son again. You knew full well when you took that sip, that you would be depriving them of you sooner than you would have, had you died naturally. Admit it, John. This entire week has been foreplay for this, which you just wanted to get out of the way. You didn’t do this for them, you did it for yourself, because you were too much of a coward to die like a human. This hell,’ said Aruda, with a sardonic grin, ‘is entirely self-created, because you were too much of a coward to meet death yourself.’

John didn’t answer, but changed his face, and hurled Aruda as hard as he could to the ground. The vampire gave a startled yelp and hissed as he descended down several levels, to land with a brutal crack, that sent a spider-web of cracks across the pavement. He got up, and dusted himself off, and looked furiously at the spilled blood, which snaked around like a thing alive, before rotting away to dust.

Aruda transformed his face, and gave a leap, while emitting an unearthly hiss, which seemed to carry him all the way up the building. John, despite himself, took a step back, as the hiss spoke to something within him. Aruda walked across the roof, and gave John a slap that jerked his head all the way around and knocked him off his feet.

‘Listen to me, asshole,’ shouted Aruda. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing for her to walk in there right now as you are? Let her know that you’re not dead, and that you’re a monster now who assaults innocent girls and drinks the blood out of their necks? Burden her with the guilt that things like us exist in the world? And what will you do if she asks to be like us? Will you open your veins and damn her as well? And your son, maybe you’ll drown him in our blood, and we can be a big family, hiding from the son, living forever and feeling like we haven’t slept a day of it? Killing together? Would you damn your son to an eternity of childhood and killing?’

John stopped.

‘You can’t go back to them, John. You made that decision yourself. ‘
John broke down, sobbing against the rooftop, a little puddle of blood pouring around his eyes.

‘Why did you fucking do this to me?’ he sobbed.

Aruda snorted. ‘I thought I’d made it clear by now that you’d done this. Was I to let you drag me into the sunlight? The fact that I even tried to look out for you is just an act of kindness on my part.’

‘Why?’ shouted John. ‘Why? If this is such a fucking curse why not just let me have killed you?’

Aruda shrugged. ‘Really didn’t feel like dying on that day. New series of the Simpson coming on.’

Despite himself, John gave a single, bitter chuckle, spattering Aruda with blood, which he wiped off.

‘You are a bastard,’ said John, sullenly. He didn’t move from that spot.
Despite himself, Aruda felt sorry for him. ‘Look, we can’t go back to her, but we can look after her. And her descendants, for all eternity. How about that? Isn’t that a small respite?’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ asked John, slamming his fist against the roof.

‘I did,’ said Aruda gently. ‘You knew. You made the choice,’ he said.

‘I love her,’ said John, looking Aruda right in the eye.

‘Perhaps,’ conceded Aruda. ‘But in the end, you chose to die.’

‘Why don’t I just sit here?’ he asked, ‘let the sun fucking fry me?’

‘And what would that accomplish?’ asked Aruda, ‘What, not you’re not man enough see this through? I helped you because I thought you had potential. Because I thought that any man who would do all this at least would bring something interesting to this hell. Now I see you’re just afraid to face reality.’

‘What?’ shouted John. ‘You did this because you thought I would spice up your life?’

‘You did this,’ said Aruda, rolling his eyes. ‘How many times must I make that clear? I did not seek you out, I did not force feed you my blood. You are just a scared little child, too afraid to face reality. You didn’t want cancer, and now, you’re willing to burn away in the daystar’s rays because you cannot face up to the choice you made. When are you going to get it through your thick head that the universe doesn’t care about you or your problems, and you have to face up to them?’

‘Fuck you!’ screamed John, lashing out with his claws. ‘I am not a scared little child, you little bitch! What about you? Sitting in your little basement, lamenting forever that you made a mistake seven-hundred years ago? Constantly fucking bitch about how poor little Aruda got fucked. Well fuck you, grandpa!  Why don’t you just man up and admit that you’re just as fucking weak as me?’

Aruda brushed the horrific scratch on his face and licked the blood of his talons. He looked John in the eye with those vicious, black, doll’s eyes. ‘You think I don’t get that?’ he hissed. ‘You think I don’t get that I was, and am still weak? I was young once, you little shit, and I did shitty fucking things as well! I and my coven roamed around Europe. We bathed in the blood of missionaries! We drank from the necks of Popes! We tied witch hunters to trees and torched them alive, and we laughed! The difference between you and me, you little fuck, is that at very least, I can take responsibility for my mistakes, and my weakness, be they begging my sire for three droplets of his sweet blood, to giving you this power one week ago! This is what I am trying to open your eyes to! Now stop trying to change the subject, and face what you did! You killed yourself! You were too afraid to die, and you were too afraid that they would suffer! You were the one who made the decision every step of the fucking way. You walked up to the door to the pit, and despite my strongest suggestions, stepped readily through it! I am just trying my very best to
ease you into hell, because no-one should go through it alone! Now come on, we are going back to the basement, and dealing with this like a man!’

John punched him in the chest, and slumped down again on the roof. ‘Fuck!’ he screamed upwards toward the sky. ‘Fuck, fuck fuck fuck fuck!’

Aruda put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I know how you feel. Believe me. I really do. But there comes a time, when a man must put all personal concern aside, and do his duty. And there’s no way you’re doing that if you go barging in there and announcing that you relinquished any chance that you might have had to have a normal life for your own fear.’

John said nothing, just staring into the window, the sole point of light in the night, as Lindsey got up, kissed the picture, and turned the light off.