Hunted in Darkness

I felt the gentle brush of his hand against my cheek, his fingers soft and caressing. I pretended to stay asleep a moment longer so I could hold onto him in my mind. When my eyes fluttered open he was gone, as he had been for years. The old emptiness filled my heart like a knife stabbing open old scars, for a moment, in my dream, he was there with me again and now he was gone. Emile, my monster and my saint, was the reason I became what I am today. I pulled my petite frame out of the bed and stretched catlike towards the crisp, white ceiling. Ambling towards the bathroom I took in my reflection in the mirror, my crisp emerald green eyes staring back from a pale face framed with reddish brown hair, passable for pretty. The hot water of the shower caressed my body like a hug and I closed my eyes and imagined him again, crystal blue eyes meeting mine for just a second before I forced myself back into reality and tended to my shower activities. Oh, Emile..you remind me of that poem by Sylvia Plath, only the truth is that you were actually a vampire and you did drink my blood for countless years. I can feel it now if I’m very still, pounding in my ears, on your lips like electrified copper when we kissed. I taste death and sweet eternity on those soft lips. Where are you now, Emile, and why can I taste your blood and feel your fingers in my sleep? I towel off and dress comfortably in a green cotton shift dress, looking perfectly normal and alive, a little pink lipstick and blush complimenting the illusion. I look normal, sane, and alive to the average person, and working nights for the pathology lab at the hospital helps because people expect me to look pale and tired. A vampire with a medical degree seems like a perfectly rational thing when you consider that time isn’t an issue anymore, eight years of medical school hardly touches eternity. I’ve actually held down many careers over the years, some with stolen identities, and others with my own. Unfortunately I’m not on duty tonight, and I have to entertain myself in ways I take for granted when I’m busy with work. That dream was still haunting me, dragging my mind back over a hundred and fifty years ago to a ballroom full of silk and taffeta. I could waltz with the best of those girls, back and forth, down and around. His eyes bore holes through me that night, and I could feel his hand brush the grass colored silk of my gown, tracing the pink embroidered roses at my bosom, I could feel his desire. I was young and foolish, he courted me like a lady, and hunted me like a stag. I can still feel the pressure and pain, hear my own muffled scream in my ears, and taste iron on my lips. I drank greedily and kissed his soft lips, his tongue mingling the taste of his blood and mine in my mouth. I miss his kisses the most, and the strength of his embrace. I wanted to die as much as I wanted to live, and if living forever meant I could take in his scent every day, then I wanted that eternity. My mind travels to a point thirty years ago, I’m dressed in a green velvet tank top and a short brown mini skirt, in a room with pounding music and lights. I push him away, the hurt and confusion filling those blue eyes. I can taste the stranger’s blood on his lips, my beloved Emile, tasting of a stranger, smelling of someone else when his words had promised only to take what we had to have from the people doing harm, but this blood tasted of innocence. His grip on my arm so tight I felt as if bones would snap. The sharp pain in my hand as I slapped him to make him let go. The feeling of the cool night air, full of smoke and rotten trash as he pushed me against the wall behind the club. The threats and angry words. Her body lying behind the dumpster. A shudder fills me as I try to push these memories down. Tears crest and fall involuntarily, as I remember sneaking out of the hotel room as he slept, starting the car, and escaping. Not a day goes by where I don’t feel him looking for me. I shudder and wipe the tears. That night I dropped the car off and walked until I reached the door of Oldenfeild and Immerbach, I felt the magic in the door before I saw it, and I knew from rumors that these were people who could make you disappear if you needed to. Their sign advertised a law firm, and they did handle some human law cases, but they also ran an underground for creatures like me, who shouldn’t exists and couldn’t get away through normal channels. An old and powerful coven of witches founded it during the European witch trials to help hide those who were actually witches, this practice spread to other mythical creatures, werewolves, vampires, fae folk, until everyone knew where to go if you needed to be hidden. Their magic comes at a steep cost, sometimes it’s money, blood, artifacts, or unique spell ingredients.  My price was a pint of cursed vampire blood and a decade of being their file clerk. They hid me in plain sight, just behind the hand carved doors brought from a castle in Europe decades ago. I learned much in my time with them, and I even made some friends. I felt safe and free during my time helping to hide the hiddenfolk. My friend Dorthea ran a metaphysical shop and rented me a room upstairs for when I wasn’t at the offices of O&I. She had powerful wards embedded in the walls and windows, her magic had come from Africa and Haiti, old and powerful as the earth itself. During that time I learned that the relationship I had with Emile wasn’t healthy, Dorthea and I spent hours talking about taking back my power and recovering from the cycles of pain and abuse Emile taught me, She set me on a path to becoming independent and whole.