You see, that’s what people don’t understand about us. We are human. We’re born, we live. One day, we will die. What sets us apart is the secrecy. No one can know we exist. We’re born with our fathers assisting our mothers, and no one else in attendance. We die either in combat or with a silently grieving partner by our sides. Or we die alone.

In between, a wealth of life all under a cloak of secrecy and behind any number of masks. It is more freedom than anyone could possibly imagine.

They say that we don’t talk very much. That isn’t true either. When two of us get together, you can’t stop us talking. It is true we don’t meet up all that often but we do call each other on the phone. Over time, we may get to know each other’s real name but we’re happy enough with our codenames. We know we can trust each other.

The only time we don’t talk much is when we’re involved in business with .. outsiders – and I hate using that term. It doesn’t push them to the edge, it pushes us. Segregates us. But, if it is business, the inner self is running things and they are trained to fight. They don’t waste breath on talking. It’s right for them to be segregated. But not us, not the living shells. We are human and we like company as much as the next guy.

We listen a lot, to learn about whatever situation has arisen; we think a lot, to formulate a strategy and assess our tactical options. We occasionally will ask a question or two to clarify some area. The point to remember is, when we’re contacted by outsiders and the codename is spoken, they are handing control over to us for a limited duration.

With an enemy, we rarely say a word.

Demons and humans who have sold out, crossed the line, whatever you want to call it, they share one curious personality trait with regular humans. Give them a silence, they have to fill it. I know there must be one creature who isn’t like that, but I’ve never met it.

They have this .. unshakeable belief in themselves that they’re stronger, faster, tougher. They can’t be beaten. And they have to tell us that. They have to strut, and brag. They love to point a finger and laugh.

It’s a fatal error. They just haven’t seen that yet. There is a reason we have two eyes and two ears but only one mouth. While they’re strutting and pointing and bragging to fill a silence, we’re watching and waiting and learning. Refining our strategy. Finalizing the options. Choosing our weapons. Every moment they waste in opening their mouths is a gift to us.

And then we strike. No warning. No giving them a chance to repent or apologize or express any remorse. That kind of invitation warns them, puts them on alert. The smarter ones .. they try to escape. The less smart, they attack. So we don’t put them on alert. We just kill them. One stroke is often enough. With the bigger ones, one stroke to paralyze, a second to finish the job.

That’s how it was last night. Yet another creature learned that filling a silence is a fatal error.

I’d been tracking this particular vampire nest for over a week. They were on the move, unusual for them. Unusual, too, for so many to congregate. Vampires are, by nature, solitary creatures, or so I’ve found. They hunt to survive. They’ve advanced a lot – most do their hunting at the hospital blood bank. That’s why they take jobs as night porters and janitors. No one misses the occasional bag of A positive.

This nest, though, wasn’t just hunting to survive. It was killing, and it was growing its numbers by turning. Rumor was that they were expecting a leader to arrive and take control.

I decided to intercept this leader – and I found him in a small town about fifty miles north east of Paris. He was easy enough to spot although no one else seemed to notice anything wrong with him. It’s becoming fashionable to avoid the sun. Tanning is bad for the skin. But this one wasn’t just pale. He was white. Bloodless. And hungry.

Flamefalls don’t give off a certain smell to warn creatures we’re nearby. We don’t glow or anything like that. We’re human. Our auras might be a little brighter when the power is being used but, everyday, we’re like everyone else. Despite what the legends say about us, we’re not angels.

So, he wasn’t alerted that I was close and watching him.

Vampires possess certain abilities. I’ve never seen them change into bats or mist or anything like that but I’ve heard it could be possible. And I know they can evade security systems and they sure can climb. Their biggest .. gift, if I can call it that, has to be charisma. They can make a victim feel special, wanted, treasured. People who feel like that drop their defenses. It makes them easy prey for the hypnotic stare, the softly suggestive voice. Before they realize it, they’re someplace else with no memory of how they got there, and a slow, cold numbness is spreading thru their limbs as they’re drained dry.

He left at just gone eleven with a female companion. I followed. I didn’t try to keep in the shadows but I didn’t advertise my presence. Flamefalls are confident and self-assured, we know we can deal with just about anything; we’re not stupid. They went to an apartment building in the older part of town and that’s when I showed myself. Simple enough. I stepped into the pool of light from a street lamp and let my boots sound on the cobbles. He looked round and I saw his face change. From a smooth mask, it became feral. He recognized .. not me but the threat I represented. He bade his confused companion goodnight and left her, walking swiftly, knowing I would follow.

I tracked him to a warehouse on the edge of town. The door was slightly open but the interior was in darkness. Slowly, cautiously, I went toward the door and he stepped around behind me, a knife to my throat. Vampires have excellent night vision. But so do we. I knew he was hiding outside, waiting for me to make the mistake he wanted. His mistake, however, was not to consider that my doing what he wanted played into my hands and not his. In everything, there is always a choice. Most would believe it is to do one thing or another. But there is always a choice to do nothing, to allow the situation to mature and provide other, fresh choices.

The knife was a complication, I will admit. Flamefalls can heal themselves but a cut throat would require two of us and I was alone. I stood very still – to move would have meant suicide, the blade was that close and I could tell it was sharp.

But, once he knew I would not attempt to struggle or break free, the pressure was released. Another mistake. He still held the knife to my throat but not tight against my flesh.

“What have we here?” he said. “A willing sacrifice .. or a hero?”

I could feel his breath on my ear.

“The first, I think,” he went on, removing the knife.

He pushed me ahead of him into the darkness, then switched on a light. A naked bulb at the end of an electrical wire. It strengthened the shadows and cast a glow rather than give true light.

I stood in the empty space and watched him. He paced all around me, in a big circle, his eyes narrowed, his hand cupping his chin in consideration as he studied me.

“You don’t appear scared,” he remarked, filling the silence. He came to stand in front of me. “No crucifix. No holy water. No garlic. No wooden stake. No weapons at all, yet you are not scared. You know what I am, don’t you?”

He opened his mouth, revealing the long canines. Then he seemed to shake himself and he closed his mouth again.

“I am your death,” he said. “You face the end of your life. And you are still not scared. Remarkable.” He stepped back again, putting distance between us. “Maybe you think you are a hero after all.”

If there is one thing Flamefalls possess in abundance, it’s patience. When we act, we act quickly, decisively, but we can wait motionless for as long as we must for the moment to be perfect. My stillness and silence were unnerving him and he began pacing again.

“What is your name?” he demanded. “I am Messiah.”

He waited for a reaction and he didn’t get one. He frowned irritably.

The name meant much to me. Messiah was old. A medieval vampire, a former monk taken in one night of frenzied feeding. Most of the other holy men had perished that night. The few who had been turned .. only this one was left. He had plagued Europe for centuries. He looked young, mid-twenties, fashionably dressed. Now I had his name, however, I knew this was a worthy enemy, one justifying my time and my attention.

“You should know the name of the man who kills you,” he said.

I couldn’t help it. I smiled briefly.

His face twisted with rage. “You find it amusing? I am a man. I am no creature. I live. I have cheated death.”

I shifted slightly and he took this as boredom, which, in part, it was. If I have heard this exposition from one vampire, I have heard it a thousand times. No doubt, I will hear it a thousand times more. The old self-pitying bleat of ‘I am not a creature, I am a man. I cheated death and I have immortality.’

Not true. If someone can lie to themselves to that degree, they deserve no mercy. Vampires can die. They are not immortal. They haven’t cheated death at all. To become a vampire, first you have to die. Otherwise .. no vampire.

But they can’t accept this truth about themselves, so they lie. They create a mythology. They force themselves to believe it until it becomes so ingrained it’s second nature.

Messiah frowned, retreating again. I was beyond his ability to understand. I was immune to his charisma and his hypnotic stare. And, so far, I had not said one word.

“Wait …” he breathed, and his eyes lit. “I remember something. From, oh, so far back in the past. The men who walk this world with the power of the angels. They fear no evil. I believed it was legend. Can it be that I have actually captured one of these creatures ..?”

If he thought describing me as a creature would provoke me, he was mistaken once more. I said nothing, only watched and learned, and waited with that infinite patience.

Messiah came closer again. “I think I have. Mortal man .. with the power of an angel.”

He reached out a hand to stroke my hair.

“Dark .. with the telling streak of white. They say it is one white hair for every evil creature you have vanquished. Is that true?”

His question was genuine, I could see the curiosity in his eyes but he received no answer from me.

“Is the power in your blood, perhaps?”

I felt one long nail trace a line down my cheek to my chin, and then to my throat. There it paused, over the vein. Vampires never bite the artery, the pressure’s too great for them. They’d drown before they could drink.

“If I feed on you .. will I gain the power of an angel? Will I become like you? A champion for my own kind ..?”

It was never going to happen, but he believed it. The ability of a vampire to believe in the most ridiculous of things never fails to astonish me.

Messiah seemed mesmerized by my neck, and the promise my blood held out to him. His eyes were riveted on the vein as he moved around behind me.

Male vampires who attack men do so from behind. Face to face is .. somehow threatening to them. It is female vampires who attack men from the front. Similarly, when the female is attacking another female, it is from behind. Only male vampires go in for the kill of a woman while looking her in the eye, maintaining the influence over them till the last possible moment – and that is when the lure of the blood is too great to resist anymore.

I felt him caress the flesh of my neck, tiling my head over slightly. This brings the vein more to the surface, plus it gives them room. His breath was warm on my skin. A vampire’s bite is, no matter what gender is involved, a terribly sensual experience.

Time slowed. It does when the mind needs it to. When many things have to occur in a set order in a very short interval, time slows so we can do it all. I knew the moment he opened his mouth, exposing those elegant canines. I knew when he began the descent to my neck. I knew the talking was done. I also knew what weapon to use and the tactic to employ.

I held my arm across my body and summoned a short blade. Not a knife, it was more a narrow bladed sword a little longer than my forearm. The point was back, toward my elbow. It wasn’t a blade of fire but rather a blade of light.

I moved my arm back, as if to ram my elbow into his gut. I felt the blade dig in and I switched my grip to my other hand just as I felt him stiffen in surprise. I turned smoothly on my heel, away from his teeth and his impaled body, and I pushed the blade in and up toward the heart. Then I summoned the fire.

Messiah stared at me for just a second as the fire consumed him. There was awe in his eyes. Then he was gone. Not even dust remained.

I went outside and returned to my car. I drove to where the nest was located. I waited till after dawn this morning, and I torched the place. They couldn’t escape. They never even knew who’d been there. Death had come for them .. again.

In all my time with Messiah, I never said a word to him. But silence doesn’t make me less human. It just means .. I’m watching and waiting and learning. They say silence is golden. Sometimes, it’s also good.

Jon Flamefall Masterson

Cygnus

September 22 1995

© Jay Brown, 2001

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