Vampyre's Kiss

Karen actually felt good basking in the late summer sun. Around the bench on which she sat, the stately grounds of the private hospice were dotted with other patients and their attendant nurses. Enjoying her own solitary misery, she ignored them.

A shadow fell over her and she sat up in annoyance, squinting as the sun speared over the newcomer’s shoulder.

‘You do not look well.’ The voice was deep and strangely accented.

She drew in a lung-tearing breath, ‘Your chat-up lines need work.’ She gasped then doubled over as a fit of wracking coughs got the better of her.
She scrambled in her pocket for a tissue but a handkerchief appeared before her face. With only a brief hesitation she snatched it and pressed it to her blood-flecked lips.

Beside her the bench creaked as the stranger sat. She refused to acknowledge him, concentrating instead on the handkerchief; it looked as though it had been spray-painted red. She quickly crumpled it and jammed it into the pocket of her sweatshirt then carefully eased herself upright, flatly refusing to look at the newcomer.
‘You’ve done your good deed; you can leave now.’ She managed in a hoarse whisper.

He didn’t move or answer. Reluctantly she turned to face him and was immediately struck by a haunting sense of familiarity. Like she should know him but try as she might she couldn’t place him. He definitely wasn’t one of the numerous oncologists, nurses, and councillors, who had poked, prodded, irradiated and fed her various poison cocktails over the past sixteen months. Nor could she place him from her life before cancer and despite his pale features he looked far too healthy to be another patient.
‘In case you don’t get it, I want to be alone.’ She croaked with as much force as she could muster.

He turned his gaze on her and she was struck by the strange, violet hue of his penetrating eyes.
‘How long have they given you?’ The words were spoken softly but there was no hint of sympathy there; he might have been merely asking her the time.

‘A couple of months, six at the outside.’ Now why had she told him that? ‘Breast cancer. But it metastasized before they could catch it. It’s in my lungs now.’ She finished while trying to look at her own lips.

Long fingers reached out and touched her wrist but as surprised as she was she made no move to shake the light, electric, touch.
‘And have you prepared yourself? For death I mean.’

‘That’s a stupid question, of course I haven’t!’ she snapped, ‘I’m not giving up without a fight!’
He showed no reaction to her outburst but continued to stare at her with those strange eyes; twin pools of dark promise that seemed to draw her in…
She blinked, her anger returning with a vengeance. ‘Oh I get it now; you’re one of the ‘God Squad’. Well you’re wasting your time; when he comes for me he’ll have to drag me kicking and screaming!’

The smile he gave her wasn’t sympathetic or condescending but one of genuine humour.

‘I’m not joking.’

‘I believe you.’ He replied his smile fading. ‘So you would live forever if you could?’

It was an effort to maintain her anger but she was more than willing to try. ‘Why not ask me if I would fly to the moon if I could? It’s as stupid a question.’ She looked around to see if her outburst had attracted any attention but the few people in sight weren’t paying them any heed.

His grip on her wrist tightened but there was still no sense of threat to it.
‘Answer the question.’ He pressed intently.

She felt her determination crumble under that warm, intense, and questing gaze. ‘Yes! Never to be constrained by time or illness. Yes.’

Her answer seemed to satisfy him. ‘And what price would you be willing to pay for the gift of immortality?’

She laughed then, breaking the spell, but there was no humour in the sound. ‘Right now I’d give everything I have, do anything for just another year of life.’

‘That is the voice of fear.’ He stalled her outburst.

‘Of course it is!’ She laughed again, ‘After the next few months that’s it. The end.’

His smile widened to a grin. ‘How long since the last stab of pain from your lungs?’

‘What’re you…’ Her eyes widened.
With infinite caution she drew a breath and kept on; filling her lungs to capacity. There was no pain beyond the discomfort of an extended rib cage. She exhaled sharply and repeated the test with greater confidence.
‘How?’ Her voice was barely a whisper.

‘What would you give for immortality?’ He pressed.
‘The cancer?’ She asked ignoring his question.

‘I have freed you from its curse. You can walk away from this place now and live out the span of your life. However long that may be.’

She stared at him, unable to believe his words, not even sure if any of it was real. Was she, even now, lying in her bed in the last stages of delirium before the end?
‘Tell me how you did this?’ She pleaded
.
He continued his infuriatingly calm stare but it was apparent that she wasn’t going to let it drop.
‘A predatory trait. One of many; like this—’ In the space of a blink he had disappeared from the bench ‘—one.’ The word was whispered in her ear.
She turned her head startled to find him behind her; bending close. She hadn’t seen him move!
‘Simple abilities—’ He was standing the other side of the path, directly in front of her. ‘—once mastered.’ He finished, walking across the path to sit beside her once more.

Karen jumped to her feet and backed away from the bench and its occupant. ‘What are you?’

His smile this time was slightly mischievous. ‘I am Upyri. And I am immortal.’

‘Ipiri?’

‘Upyri; or in a language you might understand, Vampyre.’

She wanted to laugh at him; she wanted to run away from him. She did neither, despite the fact that she was now able to do both for the first time in months.
‘A vampire?’ She couldn’t hide the note of scepticism.

He waved an airy hand. ‘A bastardisation but it will suffice.’

She glanced skyward pointedly. ‘It’s broad daylight; shouldn’t you be exploding into dust?’

‘You watch too much television.’ He smirked, ‘Sunlight is no more harmful to my kind than yours. Less in fact, since we do not suffer the curse of cancer.’ He must have seen the questions queuing on her lips. ‘And before you ask; I like garlic. Holy water will do nothing more than make me wet. I can cross running water and my body can heal any wound including the ubiquitous stake through the heart. Did I miss anything?’

She didn’t miss a beat. ‘And that’s what’s on offer? I’m to become your. What, bride?’

He laughed; a rich, warm sound that rolled from his throat. ‘Mr Stoker has much to answer for.’ The humour was still evident in his voice, ‘Nothing so prosaic but yes, you would become Upyri.’

‘And I suppose that you’d have to bite me and drink my blood?’ She had unconsciously backed away a few steps. A pointless exercise given what she’d just witnessed.

‘I do not want to feed on you. Contrary to myth not everyone I bite becomes Upyri; no-one in point of fact.’ If her sarcasm had angered him he showed no sign of it.

Common sense said she should already be back at the hospital insisting on a check-up, that she should be pinching herself to make sure the whole thing was real. But she knew it was, that he was real.
‘And if I don’t want to be an Upyri?’

‘Leave if you wish, I will not stop you. However if you take another step I, and my offer, will be gone forever.’

She froze mid-step considering her options. ‘I might tell someone about you.’

‘And do you think anyone would believe you?’
‘They might wonder how I was suddenly cured. Or do you intend to take it back if I refuse?’

For the first time his ever-present smile faded. ‘Even were that within my power I would not.’ His tone was cold.

She couldn’t hide the relief. All it would take to end this foolishness was one step. She took a step and another, sitting on the bench next to him once more.
‘I’m sorry. But why me?’

‘I sense in you a desire, a thirst for life. Most of your kind go through their lives with the distant acceptance that one day it will end; but not you. You refuse to accept the end.’

‘You can read minds as well?’ She asked lightly, startled by his knowledge of her.

‘Let us say rather, that I can read people.’

She turned to the swans moving placidly on the lake. ‘I take it from your questions that there’s a significant price for this. Gift.’

‘Obviously you will have to feed…’

‘That’s a problem; I don’t think I can kill anyone.’ She interrupted.

‘You must stop thinking in terms of horror movies. Yes you will need to consume fresh human blood at least every two days but you don’t have to take it all from one person.’

She looked back at him in surprised understanding.

‘The Upyri are not monsters; we are a specialized predatory species. If we were to kill our only prey how would we feed?’

She laughed, already making a list of whose neck she’d be biting. ‘I take it there’s more.’

‘You will have to give up your old life. Family, friends, lover, all must be left behind.’

‘My parents are both dead and I have no other family. My boyfriend took off the second I was diagnosed and what other friends I had have already written me off.’ She mused. ‘But that still isn’t all is it?’

He was silent a moment before answering, ‘Far, far in your future there will come a time when you will grow tired. When you will have chased all of your dreams, done everything you ever wanted. You will find there is only one desire left. An end.’

She looked at him and for the first time realised a sense of the endless years he carried. ‘How old are you?’

‘I was born in the lands of Carthage in the year 695 BC.’ He answered quietly.

She sat back doing the arithmetic. A life measured in millennia; it was almost too much even to imagine. Almost.
‘What do I have to do?’ She asked quietly.

He scrutinized her intently. ‘Close your eyes.’ He said finally.

She could still leave; still walk away from his wild promise. After a moment’s hesitation she closed her eyes. She heard him shuffle closer to her, felt his fingers turn her face to his. Then their lips touched. Her eyes flew wide and she found herself staring into his. Within she saw a vision; a young man in bronze armour lying wounded and over him knelt a robed man. She watched the robed man raise the other’s head until their lips met, saw the young man’s skin pale and his hair darken as the empty robes collapsed atop him. The young man opened startling, violet eyes. Violet eyes that even now held hers. Then her vision swam; blurring and settling once more. She was alone now save for a pile of clothes on the bench beside her. She closed her eyes, twitching as lifetime after lifetime of memories flowed through her mind and settled. She stood, drawing a deep, sweet tasting breath. She could hear every person in the grounds; their voices, their breathing and their heart beat. She opened her eyes and looked around in wonder at the vivid colours and wavering auras that surrounded the trees, the swans, and every living thing.
Her gaze returned to the pile of clothes, ‘You got your ending and I my beginning; as it always has been.’ She lifted the long-coat and draped it over her shoulders.

Across the lake an old man watched as the beautiful woman pulled on her coat, smiling at the sight. He blinked, his smile fading; his eyes searching. There was no sign of her anymore. Sadly he dismissed the vision as a remnant of a very old memory of a very beautiful woman and an outrageous offer. What had she called herself? Upyri?