The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

The drink, icy cold, touched her full red lips, and as it slid down her throat, despite its smoothness, she almost choked. The tears in her dark brown, almost black, eyes threatened to pour down her high cheekbones once again. She sat alone in the crowded smoke filled bar. She wished she was oblivious to the throngs of people around her, but she wasn’t. No one had asked her to dance, or asked to buy her a drink, or for that matter, no one had even given her a second glance. That made her feel even worse.

“What’s wrong with me?” she wondered. Then she chided herself. Why would any self respecting man approach a pitiful soul like me when he could have any of the half naked, bone thin, blonde haired, no brained bitches bouncing around on the dance floor?

She made up her mind to smile and pretend to have a good time and see if anyone noticed her. She got up out of the corner, walked straight to the bar, and ordered another crown and coke. She smiled at the bartender, and he gave her a knowing smirk in return. She turned too quickly and almost spilled her drink on the woman behind her. The woman made some sort of snorting noise and returned to conversing with her pack of girlfriends. Mirra mumbled an apology and began the long trek around the wooden dance floor. A scrawny drunken drugstore cowboy shot her a toothless grin and stuck his tongue out in an attempt at a seductive gesture. She turned her head quickly and continued blindly on her way. When she realized she was back to the corner she had so recently vacated, she sat down in a slump.

I don’t need this! I don’t belong in this place. She downed the drink and left the bar almost in tears. Why doesn’t anyone want me? She thought. Then, with revulsion etched on her face, she remembered the skanky cowboy. Why do I always attract the scum of the earth?

The dense, black night enveloped her, trying to prevent escape. The rain fell in waves and pounded her skin with a personal hatred. The keys, too, held a vengeful grudge against her as they slipped from her hand to the muddy ground. She cursed as the rain blended with her tears, stinging her face. She looked up at the cold moonless sky and squinted her eyes, wishing she could see a single star, any bright shining object in the darkness of her life. She bent down and pillaged through the filth until her fingers grasped the cold metal ring. Finally, the key slipped grudgingly into the lock.

The old car sat unassumingly among dozens in the unlit parking lot of the bar. Its once black cherry clear coat had scratches and the makings of rust spots where the paint had thinned to metal. Silver tipped glass packs jutted out from straight pipes on the rear end under a busted spoiler. Mirra loved that car. It was the best present she had ever been given. Her father had bought it secondhand for her as a sixteenth birthday present and it had only taken her a month to wreck it for the first time. She loved the raw power of the old SS. It was easy to sit behind the leather wheel and pretend to be anyone, anywhere - racing the wind and winning.

She had to wiggle the key back and forth several times before the old gears slipped enough to unlock. The door fell some on its hinges as she swung it open and slipped inside to dryness. She pulled hard to slam it shut and sat for a moment in the comforting darkness before she broke down and cried. She banged her head against her hands tightly gripping the steering wheel and wondered why.

She wiped away the tears and the old Monte Carlo roared to life. It was a comforting sound that brought a smile to her face. She liked the raw power of this car. As a matter of fact, she just liked power. She had none; but she craved it. Power was what she had always wanted, but she had been too afraid to take the chances that were required to obtain it. She grabbed the stick and threw it into reverse. The Chevy kicked up gravel as it spun out of the dimly lit parking lot. The tears were still singing in Mirra's eyes and she tasted the saltiness on her lips.

The car picked its own way through the city streets as Mirra drove blindly and thought. Her current/ex boyfriend, Brad, wasn’t really such a bad guy, but he wasn’t what she wanted. He was too controlling and domineering and he really had no right to be. If you looked at him, all you would see was a guy average in every way. He had slightly receding brown hair, a paunchy belly, a nose that was a little too big and too thick, and a pecker that was nothing but average. He was an okay guy, but he wasn’t what she wanted.

Select, don’t settle. What a motto! If she remained with Brad, all she would be doing was settling and she didn’t want to do that. Mirra wanted more. She deserved more! Somewhere down deep she knew that, but every time she started believing she did deserve things, she heard her father’s voice in her head yelling at her, telling her she was pathetic.

To her father, she had never been good enough and she never would. Her mother felt the same way except she didn’t say it as much, but the way she had doted over her son (Momma’s baby boy) left the same impression. Brian was the lucky one. He couldn’t let her parents down any more. How could he? He was dead. And because he was dead, he was perfect in their eyes, a martyr who she could never live up to.

It wasn’t Brian’s fault he had died in a car wreck and left Mirra impossible shoes to fill. Brian was captain of the football and baseball teams, class president, etc., etc., … Mr. Popularity. A pang of guilt swept over her. It wasn’t Brian's fault he had been the perfect son. He hadn’t been any worse to her than any older brother would’ve been. They’d had the usual sibling fights, but when it came right down to it, he had stood up for her when he’d had to. After all, she was his little sister. And that was all she ever would be in her parent’s eyes. Brian’s little sister, the one that didn’t measure up.

Mirra thought back to the day she realized that life wasn’t fair. It was report card day, and she had proudly shown her straight A report to her parents. They had looked at it and laid it aside, but when Brian had shown his report with all A’s except for two B’s his father had slapped him on the back and congratulated him! They expected her to bring home straight A’s, but Brian was congratulated over B’s! The realization that she had come to that day was one to haunt her the rest of her life. Nothing she would ever do would be good enough.

Mirra came out of her little memory lane escapade and noticed her surroundings as she drove under an overpass, realized that she had missed her turn, and slowly came to a stop. All of the buildings were old, made of that red brick that everything was once made of, and the windows that weren’t boarded up were broken. Even the street that the Monte Carlo SS traveled on was made of the red brick. It was the uneven ride of the car over the ancient bricks that had caused her to pay attention to where she was. The whole place was deserted, and it gave her a bad feeling. She braked at the stop sign and wondered how she’d gotten here - The Middle of Nowhere.

It was then that she looked in the rear view mirror and noticed something that made her gasp. In the middle of the street, barely visible under a broken street lamp was a man - a man who was so wrongly out of place that it made her blood run cold. He caught her attention for innumerable reasons. His dress was completely black, all the way down to his calf length coat. He hadn’t been there seconds before. Her mind told her that. Yet, she wondered if she had been so self involved that she could’ve missed him standing on the roadside. No, he hadn’t been there before.

The old abandoned brick buildings suddenly looked ominous with their busted barred windows and plywood coverings. They lined the street like tall gaping open-mouthed soldiers. The weeds on the roadside were blowing in the wind, spraying droplets into the saturated air. The streetlights were broken, all save one… the one behind him, silhouetting him, making him stand out in the rain. His face was white, too white, and he grinned at her. Mirra stared at him in the mirror, transfixed. She grabbed the back of the passenger seat with her right hand and pivoted her upper body to get a better look at the stranger standing in the downpour. No one was there.

She pulled herself around even more and strained her eyes against the blackness to make out his form. He wasn’t there. She felt a cold chill streak down her back. The hairs on her arms and back of her neck suddenly stood erect and she shivered. Ten thousand years of evolution couldn’t contain the animal instinct pounding through her veins. She was in danger. She could feel his predatory eyes penetrating her back. Her eyes dilated to their utmost. Every muscle in her body was painfully straining. Her nostrils flared as her breathing rate stopped, then accelerated with a shake. Her mind tried to rationally tell her that there was no way he could be standing outside her door. But he was there. She could feel it. She had a sinking feeling, a feeling of pure terror that she had never known before, and as she forced her eyes to her left, without moving her head, her worst fears were realized. The horror was so great even her mind shivered. It seemed as if a great blackness were encompassing her. He was standing beside her car door. Grinning.

A single thought came crashing through her brain. The door was unlocked! “Don’t turn around. If you don’t turn around, he won’t be there,” her mind screamed.

It was the same way a child would handle fear. Just like hiding under the covers to escape the Boogie Man, except she had no teddy bear to defend her. She was alone at one-thirty in the morning in the worst part of town. Even the hookers knew better than to be out on a night like this.

“The knife is in the middle console!” The thought popped into her head with clarity. How long would it take to flip the lid, rummage through all the napkins, cassette tapes, and other meaningless garbage until she found the cold hard steel of her knife? How long after that would it take her to open it? He was staring at her through the window. She could feel it. Mirra swallowed. The car was still running! In all of its racing days, the Super Sport hadn’t ever been asked for as much speed as she willed right then. Mirra’s foot involuntarily slammed the gas pedal to the floorboard and the old SS was true to form, spinning on the wet pavement before catching and screaming in the silent night air. Her head swung around as she felt the car jolt forward. Her left hand was still on the wheel as she waited expectantly for a gunshot to blast through her window and penetrate her skull. Involuntarily her hand whipped the wheel left to knock the man down. There was no contact. She shivered again as the car thundered forward. Terror screamed in her ears as she found the strength to look left. No one was there. Her eyes flashed to the rear view mirror. No one was there. An involuntary full body shiver overtook her. Mirra slammed her fist on the automatic door lock button and tried to exhale as she flew down the street. A little like locking the hen house after the fox has gotten all your chickens, she thought to herself. She kept looking back, but no one was there. Her heart continued to pound until she reached a part of the city that was both crowded and familiar.

Hating herself for her fears and for needing someone, anyone, she found herself outside Brad’s apartment building. Yet, she could not make herself unlock the car door and enter the dark stairwell that led to his second story apartment. She was trembling, and she knew the neighbors would think her crazy, but she laid on the car horn anyway. Almost immediately a few people peered out through their curtains and one old man even came to his door to see what all the noise was about. Finally, she saw Brad’s door open. He poked his head out and was embarrassed to find out that the loud honking noise was solely for his benefit. Mirra motioned for him to come down, but Brad shut the door.

This time, fear was not the only emotion she felt. How could he just shut the door on her? He had seen her! She knew he had. Wounded anger welled up within her and she cursed herself for even thinking of coming to him in the first place. Yet, she stayed where she was. She couldn’t face the thought of going home to an empty house… or worse – a not so empty house with that eerie man in it.

She realized that she meant nothing to Brad. Hell, she couldn’t even count on him just to open his door to her, let alone give her some sort of comfort. Why did she even bother? She knew why. She was a loner by nature, but she couldn’t stand being alone. In all her life there was but one person who she had let in through her self made wall that shielded her emotions and her name was Jamie. Jamie was her best friend, the other half of her soul, the only person on earth who could begin to understand her. Never had Mirra allowed a man to penetrate the fortress that surrounded her. And for that matter, as far as Mirra could see, no man ever would. No man she had ever met was worth it. All men were good for was money and a few minutes between the sheets. Anger rose again. Hell, Brad wasn’t even good in bed, so why had she come to him? He was available. But he wasn’t, not really, not when she had needed him.

Something caught Mirra’s eye and she looked up. Brad! He was coming for her! Then she realized why he hadn’t come right down. The bastard was probably naked, she thought. Although the night had a chill to it, he was coming down the steps barefooted and wearing only a pair of running shorts. She got out of the car as he approached and was thinking to herself, he’s not so bad. He really does care about me.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he hissed at her, “You woke up the entire fucking building! Do you have any idea what time it is? If the super finds out about this, you’re liable to get me kicked out of here, you stupid bitch!”

The smile fell from Mirra’s face, and she had no words to say. It was this constant belittling that kept her from thinking she could do anything. Earlier that day, when Brad had demanded a reason for her wanting them to spend time apart, there was no way for her to describe the way he treated her because it was all little stuff. The little comments, the cutting edge in his voice, the yelling, the griping, the constant barrage of “I am superior to you” subtleties masked behind every little bitch. She didn’t know if he did it on purpose of if he was even aware of it because when she tried to point things out to him, he denied them and pretended as if they didn’t exist.

“Well, what the fuck do you want?” Brad noticed Mirra’s eyes were glittering under the yard lamps, a glittering that meant tears were on the way, and if he needed another sign, her lips had taken on that pouty look. “Come on up,” he said, “before anyone knows it’s my old lady out here raising the dead.” He tried to soften his words, “It’s colder than a witch’s titty in a brass bra out here.” He turned without looking at her and started up the stairs. Mirra followed like a whipped puppy.

Once inside, Mirra realized that she couldn’t confide in him. She still didn’t know what had possessed her to run to him. He would laugh at her fears and belittle her again. She wouldn’t let that happen. She made up some story about a man following her out of the bar and scaring her that seemed to satisfy his curiosity.

“I told you I didn’t like you going to those bars by yourself didn’t I?” he said. “You could’ve gotten yourself raped or even killed by those crazy drunks. From now on, I don’t want you even going near those places again.” His self-righteous tone was really a smirk in disguise. He had been right again. Score another one for good old Brad.

Mirra just nodded her head and let him think he could declare martial law over her coming and goings. She finally realized Brad was a domineering control freak. He demanded her complete attention like a selfish child. He had no ambition in life other than making her subservient to him, but it wasn’t in Mirra’s nature to be subservient to any man. She vowed that tonight was the last time she would ever see him. She didn’t need him or anybody and it was past time for her to prove it to herself.

“Come on, babe, let’s hit the hay. Some of us have got to get up and go to work in the morning,” Brad shot her that smile of his that said, you woke me up in the middle of the night, and now I’m going to get my reward. Mirra took his outstretched hand and followed him into the bedroom while consoling herself with the fact that this would be the last time she would ever have to fake an orgasm for this man. After all, she did owe him that much at least. He had given her the place to calm down and alleviate her fears, and in his own way, he had tried to help.

Brad fell asleep within five minutes after the earth shattering three minute sex session. Mirra smiled. The boy never could hold out, let alone if she started to enjoy it a little and move and moan under him. She got out of bed, dressed, and grabbed a Coke out of the fridge.

The clock on the VCR blinked its endless 12:00…12:00…12:00… She looked at the wall clock behind her. It read 1:40. Mirra sat down on the second hand couch, lit a cigarette, sipped her drink, and wondered just what in the hell she was going to do with her life. She realized she'd rather be anywhere but here, playing Brad's whore so she grabbed her keys and left.

As the headlights illuminated her drive, Mirra felt the beginnings of apprehension. The house, usually her sanctuary, looked dark and foreboding. With a conscious effort, she swept her fears aside, stepped out of the car resolutely, and fumbled for the door key.

She flipped on the overhead light and the room basked in its warm glow, but her comfortably worn furnishings did not seem as inviting as they should, and the silence was deafening. Mirra grabbed the remote from her yard sale coffee table and switched on the television. Heavy metal music poured out and she thought, Thank God for MTV.

Mirra systematically went through the house room by room, switching on every light she came to. Everything was as it should be, and as she entered the last room on her rounds, her bedroom, her earlier feeling of apprehension had almost left her. But just as she turned on the light, she knew something was wrong here. She had a feeling that the room had just been vacated by the grinning specter that had visited her earlier.

Nothing in the room had changed; her clothes from earlier in the day were still strewn on the floor, her dresser that she’d had since childhood still supported the various perfumes and jewelry boxes that it always had, and her bed lay unmade just as she had left it. It was then that the object caught her eye. It reflected the light with all the intensity of the sun, and it glared at her. Mirra was terrified! He had been here just as she knew he would. She wanted to scream, to run, to get out of this room, but she just stood rooted and stared at the glittering object. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, she found the courage, not to turn tail and run, but to approach her bed and the present from her visitor that lay upon her pillow.

The cameo was the most exquisite piece of jewelry that she had ever seen. The details of the face were immaculately engraved and surrounded by a lace made of fine gold. She wore a tiny necklace of stunning baguettes. There were thirteen diamonds embedded in the finely woven lace surrounding the cameo. The heirloom was absolutely breathtaking. Mirra couldn’t take her eyes off of it, but she couldn’t bring herself to touch it. She was sure it was from the man, but why would he break into her house to leave her such a gift?

Mirra didn’t want to think about it. Him. His grin. His smile? His stunning beauty. His pale skin. His perfectly white teeth. His perfectly seductive white teeth.

She found herself in the bathroom and looked at the washcloth in her hand. Mirra splashed cold water on her face and rubbed her neck with the cool cloth. She looked in the mirror at her disheveled reflection. That tiny little voice inside her spoke up again, telling her that she was attractive, that she was beautiful without all the makeup and fancy hair styles. Her dark hair fell in ringlets around her delicate neck and accented her olive complexion. All of her friends said they wished they had her perfect complexion and her naturally curly hair. She always returned the favor by telling them she wished she had straight hair, but she didn’t. That tiny voice inside her whispered her friends were right. She was pretty… and lucky. Her friends spent hours in front of the mirror and hundreds of dollars on perms and tanning beds to look the way she looked. Mirra was secretly glad that she didn’t have to put in all that work and time on her appearance. As a matter of fact, Mirra wouldn’t put in that much effort. Her favorite hair style was a ponytail - quick and easy. One hour out in the sun gave her the tan that her friends spent weeks on. Mirra never burned; her friends had to use sunscreen and pay for a base tan (burn) before they could spend the day on the lake.

That man had been so pale. Mirra laid her washcloth on the side of the tub to dry and walked the few steps back into her bedroom. The cameo was still lying there… beckoning her to come. Imploring Mirra to hold her, caress her, and appreciate her. Mirra approached her bed and sat at the foot, staring at the gorgeous piece of jewelry. Her fingers trembled as she reached out and touched it for the first time. Her fingertips traced the detailed outline of the face, the lace, the tiny diamond necklace. Mirra stretched out on the bed and gazed at the sheer beauty. She rolled over on her side and slid her arm under her pillow. Instantly her hand shot back like a snake had bitten her. There was something cold and hard underneath the pillow.

Mirra shuddered and sat bolt upright, squeezing the cameo in her left hand. Goose bumps broke out over her entire body and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. With her right hand, slowly, deliberately, she lifted the pillow. A golden chain had been placed there. The pattern was a miniature replica of the lace surrounding the cameo. Mirra realized that together they would make a more stunning necklace than any of the ones Jamie had designed, or anyone else for that matter. Jamie! She had to call Jamie. She had to talk to her. Mirra looked at her alarm clock. The digital bright red numbers announced that it was 2:41. Too early to call, but, Mirra thought, if I leave right now, I could be at her store when it opens in the morning. Mirra grabbed her suitcase from under the bed and started throwing clothes in. She had a plan. She would go see Jamie. Jamie was a jeweler; she could tell her about the necklace; she could talk to her. She needed someone to talk to. Desperately.

Outside her house, Mirra caught herself looking into the bushes, half expecting to see the man. She felt a wave of terror creeping up her spine as she fought to keep her feet from running to her car. She searched the backseat for the man. She had seen too many movies about the stupid girl who always forgot to look in the backseat, and then had paid the price for her negligence with her life. Mirra threw her suitcase in and clambered in after it. No sooner had the engine roared to life than she had the car in gear and was backing down the drive.

By some miracle, concentrating on getting on the right road kept her from thinking about the man, but when she hit the interstate, his face kept returning to her. His image was haunting. Beautiful; if a man could be beautiful. His teeth; that grin. Flashes of his face came to her. Mirra shook her head and turned up the radio. For some reason, she took the cameo out of her purse. She set the car’s cruise control at eighty and searched her purse for the chain. Slowly, she put the chain through the golden lace of the cameo and held it up as if to study it. It was truly exquisite. Mirra draped the chain around the base of the rear view mirror. Why would he leave her such a gift? She was absolutely sure it was from him. There was no question in her mind about that. She knew it, as surely as she had ever known anything in her life. She knew she would see him again. She knew him. Now where did that come from? She asked herself, I know him? Then she answered herself. A feeling came from the depths of her soul out of a darkened, suppressed memory, and she knew, I know him. She repeated with conviction. I know him. The something black within her crept to the surface again, threatening to swallow her. The harrowing realization hit her like a Mack Truck. I invited him to come.

She pushed the scan button on the stereo, not knowing what she wanted to hear. His voice. His voice must be magnificent. Hypnotizing. His image seemed to have burned itself into her eyelids because he was there. She could see him, yet, she couldn’t distinguish him. His features, he, seemed to be enveloped in a fog, a wispy, billowy, incandescent blur. The radio kept scanning. A screeching guitar solo yanked her back to the present. The interstate was deserted. No headlights greeted her and no tail lights blazed a trail for her to follow. It was as if she was isolated in a world of blackness. A chill flew up her spine. She sat up straight, gripped the wheel, turned up the AC to subzero, and slammed a cassette into the radio. Prince poured out. Her foot instinctively pressed harder on the accelerator and the speedometer closed in on eighty-five miles per hour. Yet, she knew this was futile, utterly hopeless. She knew she couldn’t out run him. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. A fragment of a lecture from a science class in college flew into her mind. That reflex was a leftover evolutionary mechanism used by animals to scare their enemies into thinking that they were bigger than they actually were. She shuddered. Every instinct she had told her that HE was in the backseat, grinning, staring at her, licking those gloriously sharp, white teeth.

She couldn’t turn around. She told herself not to look in the rearview mirror. She didn’t want her worst fears realized. Telling yourself not to do something is impossible. Her eyes betrayed her will and darted to the mirror. There he was, just as she imagined. Grinning. Mirra screamed. Her foot slammed on the brakes. The car swerved and instinctively Mirra’s grip on the leather wheel tightened. Her knuckles turned white. Even as she fought for control of the car, she could feel his icy breath on her neck. Every muscle in her body was strainingly taut. The next thing she expected was to hear his voice, his sinister mocking laugh, as his rough hands surrounded her neck, choking the life out of her. His laugh, delightful, as he slowly squeezed her throat, cutting off the air to her lungs, turning her face blood red and forcing the veins to pop out in her neck and forehead. His satisfied smile as he squeezed harder to make her eyes explode out of their sockets like a bullet from a gun. After what seemed like an eternity, the car almost came to a stop and Mirra exploded from the Monte like all the demons from Hell were right behind her. She didn’t put the car in park. She didn’t slam the door. She just ran out into the night.

As she crossed the median, the other two lanes, and staggered blindly out into the brush, something froze her feet in their tracks. He was waiting for her under the cover of the brush and trees! Just waiting on her to come to him! Her mind whirled. Why didn’t he grab her in the car? Why hadn’t she seen him run after her? How in the hell did he get in the backseat? She’d checked it herself. A crawling sensation flew upward from her toes and suddenly she felt she had more to fear from the darkness than her car. She spun and faced the Super Sport. Her car! It was rolling forward at an angle that would soon lead it down the ditch. Its lights still illuminated the path ahead and the door was still ajar, lighting the interior.

Noticing the steep embankment the car was about to plunge down, and now, wanting more than anything, not to be left stranded here alone in the night, Mirra began to run. She reached in and grabbed the wheel while still running along side the car. She wasn’t ready to get into the seat just yet. The backseat was empty once again. She double checked it twice before getting into the drivers seat. She locked the doors and floored it while ripping the rearview mirror off the windshield. The cameo flew onto the floorboard. The speedometer soared, and for the first time in her life Mirra wished for a cop to pull her over. He would be such a welcome sight. The needle was buried against the knob to reset the odometer, and she looked at her tack. It wasn’t even near the red line. She never took her foot off the gas until she saw the artificial illumination of civilization. The Monte Carlo cruised into the truck stop and parked at the gas pumps. As Mirra filled the tank, she noticed the first rays of dawn emerging to combat the darkness of night. Already, the sky was fading to a hazy gray and the horizon was beginning to take on the hue of fire. Mirra took a deep breath and sighed. Relief flooded over her. For some reason, the dawn brought with it a sense of security, a peace that floated over her, a serenity that washed her body in a warm calmness. She was elated and at the same time relieved. She had never been so happy to witness the birth of a new day.

Mirra strode directly into the brightly lit convenience store / gift shop / diner’s restroom. She had to pee like a Russian racehorse. The bathroom stunk and that sickeningly overpowering scent of restroom floral bouquet only added to the stench. She couldn’t bring her self to actually sit on the toilet, so she just squatted over it. She made herself touch the water faucet long enough to turn it on and washed her hands. She left the water running while she dried them and used the paper towel to turn it off. She also used it to open the door whose knob had never seen a disinfectant, then she threw it in the trash and walked to the counter. Mirra paid for her gas, a cup of cappuccino, and a fresh pack of Marlboro Lights 100’s. She couldn’t believe she’d smoked so many last night. A whole pack usually lasted her three or four days. Mirra got back in her car and aimed it south.

An hour and a half later, Mirra pulled into “JEM’S” parking lot and killed the engine. Two other cars resided in the yellow lined invisible garages. When she walked in, the jingle of the bell alerted Jamie to her presence and she looked up over her customer’s shoulder. A face cracking a smile sprang up and she made a miniscule excuse to the old lady as she ran around the corner and grabbed Mirra in a giant squealing bear hug. Mirra hugged her back tightly. “Girl, where’d you come from?” Jamie asked excitedly, “I ain’t seen you in a coon’s age! Hey, why ain’t you in school today? Are you out for Spring Break or something? God, it’s good to see you!”

Mirra smiled at her best friend and shook her head. “I’m sick today, can’t you tell?” She and Jamie laughed. Then Mirra grew serious. “I need your professional opinion on something… as well as a good old fashioned talk.”

“Uh-oh, got men troubles again? That Brad’s a …” Jamie’s voice trailed off and she turned embarrassingly back to her customer. “I’ll talk to you in a minute, Ok, Mirra?”

“Sure,” Mirra agreed as Jamie walked over to the little old lady to make her apologies for her rudeness. The old woman’s hair was that blue-grey that Mirra’s own grandmother had had. She wondered if she also possessed that sweet powdery smell that her grandma had always smelled of. The memory of that smell wafted in her nostrils, and just for a moment, she smelled her grandma again. She closed her eyes, not wanting to lose it, wanting to savor her memories. How she loved that woman. A smile crept on her lips. She remembered Timmy, her imaginary friend who lived in her grandma’s chimney. Her grandma had helped her name him and they’d had such fun times together. Timmy seemed so real. He even made noises in the chimney when he was playing. Her mother told her it was just chimney sweeps, but she and her grandma knew it was Timmy. Her grandma Loree was the best. They would sit around and put together all her toys that had “some assembly required”, and when all else failed, they would sit together on the floor and her grandma would read the “destructions”. When Mirra was first learning to walk, and would fall down, she’d call for her grandma to pick her up, and her grandma would always say, “I can’t reach you. Come over here and I’ll help you.” So little Mirra would get up, walk over in front of her grandma’s chair, fall down, and stick up her arms for her grandma to help her up.

Mirra looked at the woman in front of her. No, she wasn’t like her grandma at all. She was too tall; the lines on her face too hard, her face as a whole was too hard. Her grandma had been so soft and so kind, so loving.

The way she died was awful. It broke Mirra’s heart. Mirra remembered the first time she realized something was wrong, that her mother hadn’t been lying to her. Her mother told her Loree was sick, but Mirra wouldn’t believe it. Loree was her grandma and her grandparents were invincible. Even if Loree wasn’t her biological grandma, she had been the only grandma she could remember. Loree and her Papa Bill had married just after Mirra’s birth and she was the only grandma she had ever known. Her mother told her Papa was afraid to leave her in the house alone because she might hurt herself or try to cook something and burn the house down or something. So Mirra had stayed inside with Loree while her Mama and Papa went to work in the garden. Dusk was falling, and Mirra at age ten was getting bored. “Loree, you want to paint our fingernails?” she asked.

“Sure honey, let’s go get the nail polish,” Loree smiled. They got up off the couch and walked down the hall into her grandparent’s bedroom. The bed was neatly made, as always, with a softly worn handmade quilt for a bedspread. The dresser was directly on the right against the wall. Loree opened a drawer and got out her makeup box. Mirra began to rummage through it to find the right color. She hadn’t noticed her grandmother had taken a step back behind her. Suddenly, her grandma screamed, but it was the kind of scream that terror locks in your throat, only allowing a whisper to emerge. Mirra whirled. A wild terrified look was shooting out of her grandmother’s eyes. “Daddy’s comin’! He’ll whip us! He’ll whip us!”

Mirra’s eyes strained to see down the shadowed hall that her grandmother was pointing down. She really expected to see her grandmother’s father storming down the hall with a strap in his hand. Loree was going into hysterics and Mirra was suddenly freezing and shivering and utterly terrified. The man she imagined appeared for an instant, marching down the hall swinging a leather strap. He was the man in an old military suit from a picture kept on the kitchen windowsill. He was menacing. Loree was crying. This snapped Mirra back. Seeing her grandma who she loved so much in a state like this was beyond describing. Suddenly, the roles had changed, and Mirra became the adult, soothing her grandma who thought she was a little child going to be spanked for playing in the make-up.

“We won’t paint our fingernails, Loree,” she promised, begging. “We won’t play in the make-up. No one’s coming. It’s OK. It’s alright. We’ll go back in the living room. It’s alright.” Mirra held her grandmother tightly around the waist, as much for her as for her grandmother’s comfort, and they walked slowly back down the shadowed hallway. Mirra still expected to see the dead man in the picture step out in front of them, swinging the leather strap, but he didn’t.

That was the beginning of the end. The disease that was eroding her grandmother’s brain was slow, relentless, and merciless. It was because of her grandparents that Mirra decided to become a doctor. She wanted to find a cure for Alzheimer’s and keep other people from hurting and dying like she did.

At her grandmother’s funeral, Mirra and her Papa were the only two people who didn’t cry. They knew she was better off. There would be no more pain. Loree had always gone to church and she believed deeply in God, so Mirra knew she was where she wanted to be. The only time during the service Mirra almost cried was when she looked at her Papa. He looked so old. Mirra didn’t think she could handle it if he died. He meant the world to her. She took his hand and squeezed it. Yes, Loree was better off now. The disease had eaten her mind first, then her body. Before she died, rigor mortise had already set in, or so it appeared to Mirra. Her body, which couldn’t have weighed seventy pounds sopping wet, had curled into the fetal position and her hands had long since curled into fists so strong that Mirra couldn’t open them. Her fingernails grew into the palms of her hands and dried blood caked there.

Loree’s son by her first marriage wanted her in a nursing home near him, but her Papa didn’t want to put his wife in there. He was the type of man that married for better or worse, no matter how bad it got. His first wife had died of kidney failure long before Mirra was born, and he had stuck by her until the end. He world take care of Loree by himself as long as he could and then sell everything he had to pay for help when it got so bad he had to have it.

Loree’s son came one weekend to pick her up to stay the weekend with him. She never came back home. He put her in the nursing home five minutes from his house in Texas. Mirra had been fifteen then. She had driven her grandfather the two hours every Sunday down there to visit Loree. For a while, Loree could recognize them, but after a while, she didn’t know them anymore. She forgot how to talk, but Mirra and her Papa talked to her anyway. She forgot how to walk, so Mirra pushed her wheelchair. She forgot how to eat, so Mirra fed her. Her Papa would have, but his arthritis was so bad, and his hands shook so much that he spilled more than he got in her mouth. Loree forgot how to swallow, so the old folk’s home stuck IV’s in her and squirted food down her throat with a syringe.

Even when there was nothing recognizable of Loree anymore except the sallow skin that covered her fragile bones, in the shell of a body that had once been beautiful and healthy, Mirra and her Papa Bill still drove every Sunday to see her. Mirra’s grandfather would regret until the day he died that he hadn’t taken her out of there.

The ironic thing was that her son wanted her there to be close to him and he went to see her maybe twenty times in the three years she laid there waiting to die. Loree’s three biological grandchildren were worse. They also lived a few minutes away. All together, they came a total of five times. One of them never came to visit at all. Guess who was howling and crying the loudest at the funeral? Those hypocrites. Only Mirra and her Papa didn’t cry. They’d already done their crying, sitting with her, watching her die slowly. She was better off.

“Mirra? Mirra?” Jamie’s voice snapped her back to reality, “Mirra, Earth to Mirra. You OK?” The store was empty. The old lady had gone and only Mirra and Jamie remained.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You don’t look it,” Jamie observed. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Mirra relayed last night’s events, leaving out only the part where she jumped out of the car and portrayed the scared psycho chick. When she finished, Jamie had her hand out expectantly, waiting to see the cameo. Mirra looked dumbly at her outstretched hand, and then realized what she wanted.

“Oh, shit, I left it in the car. I’ll go get it,” Mirra said as she turned. It took her a minute to locate it because it had slipped up under the passenger seat. When she handed the cameo to her best friend, Jamie’s face took on a worried look.

“What?” Mirra demanded.

“Either this is a damn good replica, or this piece is really expensive. It has to be a fake,” she reasoned. She was walking absentmindedly to the back of the store to get her jewelers glass. “Let me look at these stones, no one would put diamonds in to a fake,” she reasoned. “Holy shit, Mirra,” she whispered in awe, “these are the highest quality diamonds I’ve ever seen… every one of them is almost perfect. And look, this piece isn’t marked.”

“What does that mean, they aren’t marked?

“Well,” Jamie explained, “Now days we mark all our jewelry, you know, 12K, F1, you know, so we can tell the quality and the customer can see exactly what he’s getting.” She mused, “I don’t get this…”

“So what are you telling me? This thing is real, and it’s so old when it was made they didn’t do stuff like that? Somebody broke into my house, didn’t steal anything, and left me a piece of jewelry that’s got flawless diamonds in it? That’s crazy.”

“That’s what I’m telling you. Mirra, just one of the tiniest stones would sell for at least three grand, minimum.” Jamie stared at her. “Really, where’d you get this?” She held up the cameo which sparkled in the artificial light.

“I told you.” Mirra dropped her head, “I think he left it for me to find.”

“Well, who the hell is he?” Jamie almost screamed, “Give him my fucking address. I can stand a little spookiness for a piece like this.” She shook the cameo. “Mirra this thing is genuine. Its intricacies are amazing. Look, it’s not pieced. It’s all carved from one stone, like by a master craftsman. No molds, do you understand? It’s agate. But something’s weird about it…” She was examining the piece and really talking to herself. “Can I keep this for a while? I want to study it some more.”

Mirra stared at her dumbly and nodded. “I feel sick. Can I go to your place and lay down?”

Jamie looked at her incredulously. “Yeah, if that’s what you want. Here’s my key.” She took it off of her keychain. “I’ll close at five and see you then. Are you OK?”

“Yeah, I just need some time to think.” Mirra took the key and turned toward the door. “I just need some time by myself.”



Mirra unlocked the door to Jamie’s house and walked in. Ice cold air was forced into her lungs, and she reveled in it. She needed something to wake her up. This must be a dream… or a nightmare. She couldn’t tell which just yet. The refrigerator offered a fine selection of wines, but Mirra grabbed a Bud Light instead. She wondered over to the couch, flipped on the TV, and lit a cigarette while she channel surfed and drank. She tried her best not to think about what was happening to her. It was incredible. Unbelievable, really. The man’s image seemed to haunt her. Something about him scared her, but at the same time drew her to him. It had to be her mind playing tricks on her, but he seemed to ooze that masculine sensuality that she found so attractive. She found herself trying to remember exactly what he looked like. How tall was he? He seemed to be seven feet tall in her memory.

Stop it! She told herself. Why do I always daydream about men? Why do I always make them out to be better than they are? I should despise them all. She grinned sheepishly to herself as her old saying slid from her lips, “Love is a myth.” It should be. She thought. Lord knows, I have exactly no luck with men.

Mirra’s eyes clouded over with tears that threatened to spill over their fragile boundary and snake down her face. She should be glad that she didn’t have Brad in her life anymore. Hell, she was the one who’d made the decision, but somehow, she was still ready to bawl and she didn’t know why. He wasn’t worth a damn. Just like all the other men in her life. Boy, could she pick ‘em! She didn’t know if any of her ex boyfriends would ever be able to hold a job for more than a year. They had all had one thing in common, though. They knew how to use her to get what they wanted. Chris wanted someone to possess like a bird in a gilded cage. Jim wanted the younger girl to show off to his buddies like a fucking trophy. Bo wanted social stature. Rush wanted money and someone to build up his self esteem. The list was endless and with every man and every break up, Mirra lost a piece of herself.

It seemed with all the pieces broken and scattered, the holes in her heart and in her soul would never mend. And it was always the same. She was always the one to end the relationship long after she knew it was over and she always felt like warmed over dog shit. She couldn’t figure out how it was possible to know for sure what you were doing was the right thing and still feel so drained and depressed and lonely.

Mirra couldn’t pinpoint the reason the tears began to flow, but they had and she knew from experience there would be more to follow. She drained her beer, wiped the tears from her eyes and walked to the frig to get another. Mirra decided she just needed to get drunk. Just like the old days, before the reality of grade point averages and entrance to Med School had straightened her out. She laughed out loud. Straightened her out? Who was cutting class, as a matter of fact, who was blowing off a test right about now? She was, and she didn’t give a damn. Mirra felt her old attitude returning. Fuck the world. Fuck men. She’d just turn lesbo if she thought she could stomach the sex. Mirra shook her head unconsciously at the thought. “Not me. Find ‘em, fuck ‘em, and forget ‘em. That’s the attitude I need to get back.” She told the silence. “I need to start taking care of number one again.”

Mirra decided to take a nap until Jamie got home so she found a bedroom and lay down, waiting for sleep to come. When it did, he was in her dreams, smiling. Not that throat slitting smile, but a seductive subtle movement of this upper lip that parted just enough to show his right canine. It was ivory white. So sensual, so masculine, so charismatic, that in her dream she went to him with open arms. His powerful body enveloped her and held her in an iron clad embrace of satin. He lifted her chin, and looked deep into her wanting eyes. Fiery passion flew from his steel blue orbs and seared a path directly to her heart. When he bent to kiss her, she realized she could never want for a better lover. No man could see to her desires like he would. His kiss was deep and possessing, yet soft and caressing. Mirra knew she had never been kissed like this before. It was utterly perfect. Her knees began to go weak and her mind floated above her as she thought of nothing else but making love to him. Sweet, long, hard, soft, love.

Mirra awoke to Jamie sitting on the bed shaking her. “Hey, what… Oh, hi.” Jamie laughed at Mirra’s groggy voice.

“Long night, huh? You slept all day. Well, you just wake your ass up and tell me what the hell is going on. I called a buddy of mine and sent him digital pics of your cameo. He thinks the same thing I do. Mirra, I really think you’ve got an authentic Hellenistic cameo on your hands. The only thing is, there are no known cameos from that era with diamond insets like yours. If I’m right, you have a one of a kind. A piece that will change what we know about the history of jewelry!”

Mirra looked at her stupidly. “What’s Hellenistic?”

“Shit. This cameo is from a period from about three hundred years before the birth of Christ! Do you hear what I’m saying? We thought the Etruscans who were in Tuscany in Northern Italy about the late 8th Century BC mastered granulation… gold adheration on jewelry. You know, attaching the gold frame to the agate stone relief? This thing is from the time preceding Alexander the Great! Do you understand me? I really think this thing belongs in a God damn museum. We, John, my jeweler buddy, and I, think the image is of an Egyptian Queen... maybe Arsinoe… or someone even older. The only thing that makes me think it’s not what I think it is, is because of the diamonds. I just don’t know of any pieces jeweled like that from that time period. Shit, what if it was in a museum and it’s stolen?” Jamie drew a breath, red-faced from her tirade.

It was too much for Mirra to take in. “Jamie, I’m scared." She took a deep breath. "You know how I’ve always said it would be cool to be a vampire?”

“Hell yes. Why the hell else do you think I was your friend? Everyone else thought you were a nerd.” Jamie laughed, trying to lighten the situation. Then she looked at her friend in a whole different light as Mirra’s face didn’t crack a smile. “You’re not serious are you? What… you think that weirdo who left you the cameo was a vampire? Come on.” Jamie laughed a little nervously.

Ever since Mirra was a little girl, she had been infatuated with vampires. Mirra had what her friends thought of as a slightly odd collection. She owned every vampire movie ever produced. She bought every vampyric novel that she came across at the bookstore. Her library at home was filled with every book on the subject she could find, fiction and nonfiction alike. Some people collect angels and unicorns; Mirra collected vampires. Of course, no two books or movies on the subject agreed exactly on the extent of their powers. Some claimed they could fly and some said they could only fly as bats. She loved to read about them. They were her escape from reality. They were truly free. They had no boundaries. No everyday worries. They could do whatever they wanted and answered to no one. In the movies, they had no money problems, and the opposite sex dropped to their knees at their command. She loved the complete power vampires possessed.

She dressed up like a vampire at Halloween. Not that she was a “Goth”, those people who dressed entirely in black, painted their nails and hair black, and seemed to have a wish to lie down in graves. She was the normal American girl, but she liked the idea of the incredible, decadent world of vampires. She loved the very idea of creatures of the night that remained beautiful forever, unbound by the laws of conventional society. Free to do what they wanted, unstoppable, limited only by the darkness of night. The lure of the power of darkness intrigued her. Mirra always thought it would be cool to be a vampire.

She even found the vampire network on the internet. The first time she logged on, she stayed on the chat board all night long. It felt weird to know that so many others felt the same way she did. Of course, the people on there that claimed to be real vampires made her wonder about their sanity. It was one thing to dress up at Halloween and another to actually think you were a real blood sucker... and those people really believed they were vamps. Mirra had logged on under several different names and held several different stances on the subject. She played along with their little fantasy games a few times and even asked if someone would come baptize her in their blood and bring her over to the dark side. A few times, she pretended she was already one of the living dead and was looking for someone to become her new fledgling because her old one had been staked. Once she had been a complete non believer and had pissed a few of them off. Her email was full of threats for quite a while. It was then that she decided not to deal too much with those psycho types.

“Jamie, you’ve got to admit this whole situation is completely bizarre. What kind of person would break into a house and leave a fabulous piece of jewelry? Most thieves steal. Get it? I don’t know what is going on, but I’m getting pretty worried,” Mirra took a deep breath, “Jamie, I dream about him. I see him when he isn’t here. I don’t know what’s going on. Sometimes I think I’m loosing my grip.”

“Mirra, you’re just stressing out. You need a break. You’re not any crazier than you ever were. Just chill out a while and let’s think this out rationally. There is no proof that any of this has to do with the guy you saw at the stop sign. It could be one of your old boyfriends trying to get back together with you or something. Maybe Brad is trying to be sweet.” Jamie knew she was lying, but said it anyway.

“Oh, yeah, Jamie, clue in. None of my ex’s has a pot to piss in, let alone a window to throw it out of. You know no one I know has the type of money to buy a piece of jewelry like that.” Mirra’s retort was sarcastic.

Jamie smiled, “I never said they bought it, did I?”

Mirra cracked a grin. Her luck with men wasn’t what you’d call spectacular and she wasn’t the best at facing the facts. Her friends would tell her the men she dated were losers, but she wouldn’t believe until it was too late. She dated a drug addict for almost a year before she finally found out the truth the hard way. Yes, she was definitely a bum magnet. She had even had one guy tell her that her life wasn’t worth fifty bucks to him. He knew a black guy who would blow her away for that price. At the time he had broken down her apartment door and was waving a gun in her face. It wasn’t hard to believe that one of her ex boyfriends was a thief. But it was hard for her to believe that they had enough balls to pull off a theft of this magnitude then leave her a piece of jewelry like that without a note or something to give credit to themself.

“Jamie, who do you know that is smart enough to pull off a crime like that, and at the same time dumb enough to give it to me?”

“Well, I never said any of your men were in danger of winning the Nobel Prize, did I? Hell, I don’t know. Maybe it’s not what I think it is at all, but those diamonds are sure as hell real. I’ll have to call someone to come down and give me an appraisal on it. I don’t even know who the hell would know anything about it, though.” Jamie’s face took on a thoughtful look. “But I do know one thing. If it was stolen, it would sure as hell make the papers. Want to go get one?”

“Sure,” Mirra said, “Maybe we could grab a bite to eat before I get arrested for trying to fence stolen jewels.” She laughed, “You know that’s what they’ll think if they catch me and you with it.”

Jamie looked at her, truly worried for the first time. “Oh, shit, you’re right. I gotta go get that thing out of my safe! Hurry up, let’s get outta here.”

They took Jamie’s Lincoln Town Car back to her store and Jamie grabbed the cameo out of her safe and gave it back to her best friend. “No offense, but I really don’t want to go to jail. Let’s go get that paper, and if it’s in there, let’s take it to the cops, OK?”

“Sure,” Mirra agreed. “It was fun being a millionaire while it lasted.”

They left the jewelry store and stopped at a Quick Mart to grab the Dallas paper. “Let me see it,” Mirra snatched the paper from Jamie’s hand and opened it up. Neither of them found a reference to a jewel heist or any reference to the mysterious cameo. “Maybe they don’t know it’s stolen yet,” Mirra surmised. “What should I do? Turn it in anyway?”

“I don’t know. Yeah, probably. Hey, if you turn it in and no one claims it in thirty days, it’s legally yours, and it’ll save your ass if it does come up stolen. What do you think?”

Twenty minutes later, they pulled up in front of the police office and marched their way in. They waited forty-five minutes for Detective Willis to take their statements. He had an astonished look on his face when he heard their story. “You found this cameo in your house and you think it may be stolen? And you,” he said gesturing toward Jamie, “are a jeweler who says this thing is worth what?”

Jamie choked. “If it’s what I think it is, a rare one of a kind antique that can revamp all of what we know about the time period development of jewelry making. The value is beyond what I can say, but I know for a fact that the diamonds alone are worth about a quarter of a million dollars.”

“If you two are jerking my chain…,” Detective Willis’ voice trailed off.

“No, honest, officer, I found it just lying on my pillow. It kind of scares me that someone broke into my house and didn’t take anything.” Mirra looked at him pleadingly.

“Well, how did they get in?” the detective asked.

“I don’t know,” Mirra replied, “The doors were locked and so were the windows. They didn’t break anything to get in.”

“All I can tell you about that is to file a report in… Where was it you said you lived?”

“Oklahoma City.”

“File a report with the Oklahoma City police for breaking and entering, but without forced entry, I am inclined to believe it was someone you gave a key to.” He looked thoughtful. “Do you rent a place where a past tenant could still have a key?”

“I guess they could. I do live in a rent house, but I haven’t given anyone a key that would do this.”

As they walked out of the station, Mirra and Jamie were both pissed off. “You try to do the right thing and people look at you like you were crooks. That asshole didn’t believe a word we said. If this thing does come up stolen, which I’m sure it will, the first place he looks will be at us. He probably thinks we stole it and felt bad or thought we’d get caught and tried to look good and turn it in.” Jamie was livid. “That asshole!”

“Aw, fuck it, they can’t do anything. Let's go grab a bite to eat. I’m starving.”

“Where do you want to go?” Jamie asked.

“How about the Olive Garden? It’s been a while since I ate there.”

Mirra forgot her troubles for a while as the two reminisced the old days and caught each other up on the latest gossip. Jamie always could make her feel better. She was hilarious and she knew just when to throw in those old colloquialisms that hit home. Mirra was so happy for Jamie that her marriage to Clinton was going great and her store was thriving. If anybody deserved to be happy it was Jamie. She was the epitome of what a best friend should be, and she and Mirra were linked. Months could go by where they never spoke a word, yet one phone call, and the two could pick right up as though they had never been apart.

Mirra got Jamie through a few classes in high school and Jamie got Mirra through a few hundred crises in life. There had never been two better friends. They laughed about Mirra driving Jamie and her boyfriend of the month around in the backseat while Mirra sat up front and called out time limits. “Ya’ll got fifteen minutes till we gotta go home!” Talk about putting pressure on a guy.

In high school, what better proof of friendship was there than letting your best friend break in your backseat before you got to? Mirra and Jamie had had more than their share of fun. Their favorite place to party had been the grave yard. What better place could there be?

Mirra was feeling a lot better by the time they downed two bottles of red wine and finished their meal, but she still hadn’t forgotten her problems completely. Jamie still held fast to her notion that one of her old boyfriends had left her the cameo. “Even if it was this freak guy, Mirra, who says he’s a fucking vampire? Come on. I mean, really, I know you’ve always said you wanted to be one, but you never really thought you would, did ya?”

That question really hit home. Mirra had always said she’d jump at the chance to have immortality and would gladly pay the price by sucking a little blood, but did she ever in her heart expect her dream to come true? She answered herself and Jamie in a hushed undertone, “Not until now.”

Jamie just looked at her best friend. She knew this guy was playing a major fucking mind trip on her, but she didn’t know how to stop it or make Mirra feel better. It was slowly dawning on her that her best friend really and truly believed that a God damned vampire was after her. Always before it had been fun and games, and Mirra had kidded and joked around and Jamie had found it fun to egg her on, but now??? She changed the subject. “Come on, let’s get out of here before they have us back there washing dishes and Clint thinks I’ve run off with a Harry Krishna.”

Mirra smiled and slid out of the chair. Jamie didn’t believe her. For the first time in her life she was completely alone. Even Jamie wasn’t on her side. She had never felt this way before. Always, Jamie had been there to help her through her problems, if not give her the answer to them; but now she was utterly alone.

Mirra spent the night in the guest bedroom and tried to think rationally. No sane answer presented itself. She must be flipping out. She was awarded some comfort that night by the fact that he didn’t invade her dreams. By some odd miracle, she found sleep and the rest she so needed.

When Jamie left for work the next morning, Mirra went home. She couldn’t believe she’d actually blown off her classes yesterday. She’d better come up with a damned good excuse. Here I am, she thought, a first year med student, having a nervous breakdown thinking I’m being stalked by a vampire. Wonder if I could get financial aid for the psychologically underprivileged?

Mirra made her afternoon classes and then stopped by her other professor’s offices to make amends and get the assignments. She told them her house had been broken into and she had been too scared to stay there by herself so she went to a friends and filed the police report, etc., etc., In essence, it had disturbed her and she hadn’t gotten any sleep and couldn’t concentrate on school, blah, blah, blah. They didn’t give a shit.

She didn’t either right then, so she went to a tavern and had a burger, cheese fries, and a six pack of beer. It was getting late when she left, and the only thing she really wanted was a hot bath.

Her house was just as she had left it, but she didn’t feel secure in it, no matter how much she tried to tell herself that she did. She checked her 9 millimeter handgun, made sure the clip contained all thirty-two rounds, and pumped one into the chamber. Then she checked her 357 magnum and her quick loader to make sure they were ready to rock and fire. She felt a little better, but not much. She promised herself that tomorrow she would find an apartment that allowed pets and move so she could bring Knight back from her parent’s house. She would feel worlds more secure with her three year old Rottweiler guarding the place. She wished she’d never taken this place, but it had been the best house she could find at the time.



Mirra lay back in the hot water and let its steaming bubbles cover everything except her nose. Under its warm caress, she relaxed. The feel of the strawberry scented orbs exploding on her skin was titillating. She exhaled slowly, and her feet climbed the wall over the faucet reveling in its coolness in opposition to the near scalding water that caused Mirra’s skin to redden. Mirra slowly sat up in the water once again pulling her feet into its shallow heat. She closed her eyes and laid her head back on the chilly tile.

Too soon the water cooled and the bubbles left the tub. Mirra climbed out and toweled off. She ran her fingers through her curly locks, now shining ebony, while she applied moisturizer and mousse to it. She brushed her teeth, flicked off the light, and strode into the bedroom.

The room was the epitome of college life. Her box springs rested on the carpeted floor and on her queen size mattress, the covers were piled in knots. Her childhood dresser with a handle missing held her open jewelry box which displayed her few rings, necklaces, and countless earrings she seldom wore. The fossil watch she liked so much lay on her clothes from the day before which were thrown haphazardly on the bureau. On impulse she wound the music box Tony had given her. As the mirrored ring spun slowly, the tiny glass doves perched atop it caught the reflected light and sparkled as “Memories” flowed out.

She thought of Tony and how horribly she had treated him. He had been the sweetest man she’d ever gone out with, and she’d dismissed him ruthlessly. Humiliated him. She couldn’t regret it. She told herself. It couldn’t work. Her friends told her she was crazy for treating a man so obviously in love with her like shit. Tony had been a huge man, the kind she liked to have around because he made her feel small. There weren’t too many men out there that could dwarf her six foot tall frame. His shoulders were broad and his chest was thick and manly. Tony’s demeanor was that of a great big loving teddy bear… sweet and protective. He just wasn’t good enough for her. She could never love a man she was better than, and she was better than Tony. That sounded cold and arrogant, but it wasn’t. Mirra couldn’t love someone who wasn’t her equal, and poor Tony wasn’t. She was ten times smarter than him, but worse than that, she was ashamed to admit, he’d had some bumps like pimples on his back that utterly repulsed her. She couldn’t touch his back. Sometimes, she wanted to regret not letting him love her. He treated her like a queen; he put her on a pedestal and literally worshiped her. Every woman wants that sort of admiration and unconditional love, but Mirra had deliberately turned away from it.

She switched off the overhead light and slipped into bed. Mirra liked to sleep in the nude. She never could stand the feel of clothes choking her. She closed her eyes and tried to rest. She squirmed under the tangled covers and kicked to straighten them out. She looked at her alarm clock. It was just past midnight. Mirra sighed, knowing tomorrow would be a long day. It always took her an hour to fall asleep and she mentally counted the hours she could rest before the alarm went off. She thought about resetting the clock and skipping her two morning classes, but didn’t. Instead, she rolled over and pulled a pillow to her chest and hugged it tight. After several tosses and turns, sleep finally found her.

Mirra’s eyes flew open, straining against the blackness. A cold chill was flying up and down her spine. She felt someone watching her from the darkness. Some semblance of sanity or self preservation reminded her of the nine millimeter resting on the milk crate by the bed that served as a nightstand. As she began to slowly reach for it while moving no other muscle in her body, her eyes picked out the dark form standing in her doorway. Instinct overrode fear and she grabbed the gun as the form spoke.

“You know those can’t harm me,” the masculine voice stated the ridiculous words as if they were fact, but Mirra had the huge gun in her right hand with her finger on the trigger. She pulled the gun to her and grasped it with both hands while sitting up on the bed. The covers fell down to reveal two perfect breasts and the gun aimed directly at the man in the doorway.

Somehow, for some unknown reason, Mirra spoke instead of fired. “I’ve got thirty-two chances to kill you . If I miss that many times, you deserve to get me.” Her heart pounded and blood, ice cold, pounded through her veins. She had meant her voice to come out strong and bold, but it sounded scared and weak.

“Mirra, think, you know bullets can’t kill me.” The voice spoke with the tone of explaining a simple fact like “fire is hot” to a two year old. The voice was caring, reproachful, even, as if it was somehow its fault that the words were true. “Come now, Mirra, all you’ll do is wake the neighbors. I came to talk to you.” He had a soft, caring, old friend tone.

Mirra couldn’t figure out just why she hadn’t fired the weapon yet. Her mind was whirling. Somewhere it registered something. “How do you know my name?” she asked.

The figure came no closer, but Mirra’s fear abounded.

“Turn on the light, Mirra, so you can see me. I have come to speak with you.” It was a simple request, phrased as a command.

Never taking her aim off of the figure or her finger off of the trigger, Mirra slowly reached out blindly and fumbled for the little lamp on the milk crates switch. The room was suddenly illuminated, and the brightness of the dim light made her eyes blink.

Mirra had had many dreams about men breaking into her house and in each one there had been a fearsome blood bath with bullets flying through walls and rough looking thugs brains blown out by her own hand, but never had the robbers looked like him.

A gasp escaped her lips as she recognized the form. It was him! Somehow she had known it would be the man from under the street lamp at the stop sign. The man at her car window. The man of her dreams. The man who struck fear in her heart.

He stood in the portal to her bedroom dressed exactly as she remembered. He was wearing a black calf length coat that looked to be a London Fog. She had no idea why she was concerned with where he shopped at a time like this, but the detail stuck in her mind. She could see the black suit coat that covered a dark gray oxford shirt. The gold buckle on his black belt was the only color added to his attire. His black slacks were immaculately pressed and his polished shoes reflected the light.

He spoke. “Keep the gun trained on me if it makes you feel better, Mirra, my dear, but please calm down so you can consider what I’ve come to say.” The words sounded like an indulgence, and he smiled slightly. The endearment he used sounded heartfelt and he waited for her to decide whether to shoot or scream or both. She did neither.

She didn’t know what kept her from pulling the trigger. Maybe it was something in his eyes, maybe something inside… but she didn’t fire. Her fear didn’t subside either. Instead a new one arose from within her, deep and dark. She recognized this something within herself. She wanted to hear what he had to say. Never once did she let the gun falter; she kept it aimed directly at him. Her eyes were always on him, waiting for any movement, waiting for him to prove himself to be the son of a bitch she thought he’d be. Never in any of her nightmares had someone broken in her house and wanted to talk to her. Maybe that was what threw her off guard. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be, but the horrifying reality was that it was happening. She didn’t know what to do. She just stared at him. For some strange reason, something inside her stirred. She stared at the outline of his face, his chiseled features, the way he stood there so confidently, nonchalantly even. No mass murderer or rapist or common thief could stand there so charismatically, so confidently. Every single ebony hair was precisely in place, his penetrating steel blue eyes aimed directly toward her. For the first time, she realized her nakedness and thought about pulling the covers up, but to do that she would have to relinquish half the hold of her gun that she aimed directly at him. Eventually, her childhood teachings won out and modesty demanded she take her left hand and pull the covers up to her neck. She also pulled her knees up to her chest as well.

“Who are you?” The voice echoed in her mind from far away. Some subconscious part of her realized that the words had come from her lips, but the same part of her deemed that impossible. The voice had been too calm, too cold, and too full of rage to be hers. She felt the anger well up inside her like molten lava, waiting to erupt. Rage at the violation of the sanctity of her house, her bed chamber. Rage that this man stood before her so calmly, patiently, without even a hint of fear.

“I am Drayden, you know exactly who I am.” The rage began to subside. It was the way he spoke to her, the tone he used, like he cared for her, like he knew her, like he wanted to talk to her, understand her, and wanted to be near her. He slowly began to calm her even as she still kept the gun trained on him. “Mirra, I’ve waited a long time to come to you. I've come to give you the choice you've always wanted to make."

Something inside her snapped, “I wanted you to give me a choice? I don’t even know who the fuck you are!”

The fire in her eyes and her southern accent made him smile. In her rage she looked so beautiful sitting in her bed, trying to use an Indian design comforter to hide her nakedness. She tried to appear like a steel fortress, but down deep inside she knew the reason she hadn’t fired the weapon was because it was useless. She wasn’t someone who was afraid to pull the trigger and kill a man, she simply knew she couldn’t kill him. He knew she was brave or she would have shot out of fear and instinct and screamed bloody murder like so many women before her, and that would have pissed him off, really pissed him off. No, she was meeting his expectations, and that caused a smile to come across his face; not a sneer, but an actual smile. For the first time in generations he was actually happy. He knew that he’d been right. His patience had been rewarded.

"Think about what I'm offering you, Mirra. You have always known me. You have always wanted what I have to offer. You long for it. Make any arrangements you think are necessary. Have a good night's sleep, my darling," he commanded. "I'll be back for you." With that, he was gone; he simply vanished from her doorway. Mirra sat dumbfounded and stared at where Drayden had been. She had no idea what to do. She was still holding the gun, sitting up in bed, wondering what she had gotten herself into. For some reason, she couldn't think about it right now. Her eyelids were so heavy, all she wanted was sleep, merciful sleep. Drowsiness overcame her and a dreamless, restful sleep overcame her, just as Drayden had commanded.

The alarm jolted her awake. She reached over to hit the snooze and to her amazement, her gun crashed into the alarm. She had held it all night. Her lamp was still on, too. With perfect clarity, she remembered the night's event. Mirra tried to tell herself that it must've all been a dream, but she couldn't convince herself of it. Somehow, she knew it had been real. Drayden was real and he was coming for her. The thought made her whole body shiver. She had no idea what to do or who to turn to. The cold reality of it was that there was no one to turn to, no one would believe her… not even Jamie. She desperately wanted to call her and tell her best friend what had happened, but she couldn't. The disbelief in her eyes the last time she'd spoken of a real vampire had hurt Mirra too much. She couldn't stand to look in Jamie's eyes and see her think she was loosing her grip on reality. There was nothing to be done. Mirra resolutely got out of bed and dressed for class.

The mechanics of the day kept her thoughts off of him as much as anything could. Her classes were a tough distraction. Even her cadaver lab class which she usually loved, wasn't cutting it. She found the intricacies of the human body fascinating, but today, nothing could shroud the cloud that covered her. Mirra made it through that day and the next. The week chugged along, and she honestly began to believe that it had all been a dream. She buried herself in her schoolwork and created a routine of practically living at the library. Friday was a hell day for her with two exams and she was ready for the weekend. She stopped off at her favorite burger joint for dinner, then grabbed a case of Bud Light at the Quick Trip before heading home to relax and unwind. Mirra propped her feet up on the coffee table and watched one of her favorite movies at home. She even busied herself with cleaning house, a chore she despised, just to keep herself occupied. Nothing worked. She grabbed another beer from the fridge and wondered outside. Mirra sat in her green plastic lawn chair in the back yard sipping a cold beer, trying to get the thoughts of the dark stranger out of her mind. She exhaled and watched the smoke drift in the wind. It was just past twilight and the moon was nearly full tonight. She searched the sky for familiar constellations, but she knew that in the city, there wouldn't be any. That was one thing she missed about the country – the nights. They were so peaceful. The sounds of whip-poor-wills, frogs, and crickets were comforting and soothing. She even loved the lonesome call of the coyotes and the excited way the dogs of her youth would answer. Night time was soothing for Mirra. She had always been a night owl. Her internal clock would much rather stay up half the night and sleep until way past noon which always pissed her dad off.

She looked at the red ember of the cigarette as she twirled it in her hand and took another swallow of Bud light. Mirra sat her beer on the rusty green wire mesh patio table next to her overflowing ashtray. Suddenly, she knew she wasn't alone in the back yard. The hair on the back of her neck pricked up and goose bumps broke out all over her body. Her animal instincts were at work straining her body's senses, warning her of danger. Even before her eyes saw him, she knew he was there. She looked up at the dark man with a start. He was threatening, yet disarming, as he just stood ten feet in front of her on the patchy lawn where he definitely had not been a minute earlier.

The privacy fence was old, but solid, eight feet tall, and it ran the entire way around the back yard. The gate was padlocked from the inside and the patio was built directly out of the middle portion of the old wooden house. She had no idea how he could’ve gotten where he was by any ordinary means, and her dreaded conclusion was that he was no ordinary human being. Hundreds of thoughts raged through her head. She flung them out as fast as they came, but one kept coming back to haunt her… “You’ve always wanted to meet one…” “LUDICRUS!!!” Her mind screamed at itself. Yet, there he stood, big as night and sexy as hell.

He said nothing and Mirra swallowed hard. A cold shiver ran through her body, followed closely by another. Her mind swam, trying to derive her escape. There was no way for her to get up and beat him in the house and lock the door. She had no weapon, save the lit cigarette in her right hand, so she took a drag off of it and tried to think sanely. Breaking the beer bottle and using it crashed through her head, but something told her there was no escape. A serene sense of calmness washed over her.

His teeth were brilliantly white and gorgeous. Mirra had always had a thing about men’s teeth. She couldn’t stand to be with a man who didn’t have what she termed sexy teeth. White, straight, and even better, pronounced, pointed canines. Tom Cruise was her favorite actor for that singular reason.

Old Def Leppard tunes oddly permeated the night air from her radio in the kitchen. What once seemed soothing, now seemed like an insult to his presence. On some level, she knew exactly what he was, and he knew it. She did and did not want to acknowledge that realization.

Somewhere, from deep inside, she found the strength to calmly take another drag off of her smoke and stare at him. He seemed impressed that she hadn't freaked out at his presence and the glint of a grin slid its way across his lips. Mirra exhaled as he took a step toward her.

His voice was deep and musical to her ears. “Are you ready?”

Those three words struck fear in her heart. She wasn’t sure. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. This could not be happening. She knew exactly what he was and what he had come for, but couldn’t believe it. All her life she had said she wanted what he was offering, but now that he was standing right in front of her she was terribly, horrifyingly afraid. “Be careful what you wish for,” the thought came involuntarily, “You just might get it.”

He was tall. Probably six foot six, she guessed. His shoulder length ebony hair framed his rugged face, making it seem too pale for his hair and his clothes. It seemed to almost glow in the semidarkness. His lips were full, kissable lips and his eyes were dark cerulean pools set upon masculine jawbones. His neck was thick, muscular, and save his huge, unjewelled hands, this was all of his skin that was visible. His silk shirt was so dark it was ebony. The only thing even remotely shiny about him was the belt buckle that lay against what she knew was an achingly taut abdomen. His slacks fit him well. Even his black shoes shined and seemed to announce a presence of money.

He took a step toward her and instinctively, she tried to push herself through the back of the chair. She was definitely afraid of him, and definitely attracted to him. His voice was like masculine music to her ears. "I have waited long enough for you, Mirra." It was a simple fact, the way he said it. He kept coming. He was before her now, extending his hand. “Come to me, my Mirra.” It was a command, and for some reason unknown to her, she obeyed. She felt herself rise from the chair and stand before him. Slowly, she saw her left hand outstretch to meet his and was aware that her right hand had dropped her cigarette. She looked up into his eyes. They were deep blue, like the icy depths of they ocean, and they were sparking, sending out tiny bolts toward her. She could get lost in those eyes. This man possessed something that no other man ever had. And Mirra knew exactly what it was. A million questions were racing through her mind, but she couldn’t look away from his gaze.

To him, her eyes looked like a child’s eyes, still yet, but he couldn’t wait for her any longer. He had waited ten years for her and that was long enough. He guided her to the patio door, never taking his eyes off of her. With her right hand she slid the glass door open and stepped inside, leading him in without a word. His shoes made no sound on the old yellow tile floor as they walked straight through her unkempt kitchen, past the fading, peeling floral wallpaper, and dirty dishes down the dark, narrow hallway to her bedroom.

The house was cool and her bedroom a mess, as always. The bedcovers were in wads on the bed and spilling off onto the old brown shag carpeted floor. Jewelry she rarely wore and childhood trinkets were scattered amongst perfumes on the dresser. He took no notice of these things. Drayden squeezed her hand and she turned to face him. No more than two feet were between them, and the electricity in the air was palpable. With his left hand still in her right, he stroked her dark curls away from her face. His touch was ecstasy and she closed her eyes. His thumb caressed her cheekbone and he tilted her chin so that her face was raised to his. Mirra opened her eyes for a moment to look into his. Drayden's eyes were on fire. On fire for her!

He pulled her to him and kissed her in a way she had never been kissed. She thought he might crush her as his lips overpowered hers and his hands pulled her against his hard body. Mirra put her hands around him and reached over his shoulders to pull at his duster. It slid off of him like water. The black silk shirt underneath was liquid beneath her fingertips and she almost melted as his tongue possessed her mouth. Her eyeballs rolled back in her head beneath closed lids and she thought she might faint from his kiss. It was a good thing he was holding her so tightly, or she might fall. It seemed like they kissed for hours, and she was lost in his embrace. His hands slowly roved up and down her back and buttocks. Vaguely she was aware that she was wearing cut off jeans and an old t-shirt. This struck her as an odd contrast to his attire. Thoughts flew in and out of her mind like lightning, one following the next, without answer. He enveloped her mouth with his and took her breath away. His hands roamed her body, and pulled her shirt up. He broke the kiss only long enough to pull it over her head before he claimed her mouth for his own again.

Another obscure thought flew through her head, I wish I was wearing one of my good bras. Mirra’s mind was dulled with the sweet sensation of his tongue. Never before had a man kissed her like this. It was as if the room swam and her body was weightless. His kiss left her mouth and his lips began a hot trail down her throat. Instantly, terror broke out within her and she immediately stiffened. The moment was gone. Fire as cold as ice ran though her veins, and for the first time she was scared of him. Drayden felt her tense and backed off. He lifted his lips from her body and looked deeply into her eyes. There was something in her eyes, something that he sorely wanted to possess. Mirra impressed him. She had shown no fear of him until now. That was good. If she had screamed or bolted for the door when he appeared, he would have killed her like thousands before. But he knew she was different. She was strong, and special. She wanted to be like him. Her soul had called to him, and he had answered.

He looked down at her and locked her eyes. “You want this,” he said. “You’ve always wanted this.” His voice was deep and throaty. His eyes had a feral glow that they hadn’t held before. The vampire hadn’t known it would be this hard. He wanted to take her now, but that wouldn’t be fair to her. He loved her, as much as it was in his power to love. He had watched her and grown to love her over the years. He had watched over her and saved her from harm on two separate occasions. She was his. He wanted to protect her. He wanted to claim her. Yet, he wanted her to keep her innocence. He wanted more than anything to please her and give her what she secretly desired most.

The animal within him was chained for the moment, but he knew it was there, gnashing its teeth, wanting to get out. He could control himself with her, just this once, he told himself. After this night, she would be strong enough to handle his power, if she survived. Then, he could be as rough with her as he wanted. He had to restrain himself tonight, though. She was only a human.

He backed off of her in the soft light of the room, but kept his hands on her thin waist, massaging her olive skin. He stood in front of her and waited. She was so lovely, standing there so frailly, barefoot in button fly jean shorts and a pale yellow bra. Timidly, she reached out toward him and let her hands run over his chest. He was strong. The black silk felt wonderful beneath her fingertips. She closed her eyes and let her hands roam all over his chest, down to his abdomen and back up again. She felt his shoulders and strong biceps through the silk and it felt oh, so good. She wanted to see what was underneath that shirt. Suddenly the silk was too much in the way of her fingertips. She wanted to feel HIM. Slowly she undid his top button, then the next, and the next. She spread his shirt open wide to reveal a chiseled chest, carved as if from marble, sent from the gods. She let her hands meander over this glorious skin and slowly pulled his shirt up out of the prison of his pants that kept it trapped against his body. She slid it down over his arms and slowly walked around him, stopping when she got to his back.

She longed to kiss him, so she pressed her lips against his shoulder blade and felt him revel in it. His head tilted upward and his arm muscles got even harder. She stayed there, raining little kisses on his back and shoulders for what seemed like an eternity. He wasn’t used to having to use such restraint. Finally, she worked her way around to his chest again and began to kiss him there. Her tongue ran little circles around his nipple and when she opened her eyes to look up at him, it was all he could take. He grabbed her by both arms, picked her up, and crushed her on the bed. He took her mouth again and ground himself against her. He could feel his fangs beginning their descent and forced himself not to think about the sweetness of her blood. His tongue licked her neck and blazed a trail down to her breasts. He could feel her tense as he passed her jugular and that helped him cope, at least for the moment.



Mirra came to lying naked in the bathtub and had only a moment to realize it before the most intense pain she had ever felt overtook her entire body. She tried to clamor out of the tub to hit the toilet before the vomit exploded from her mouth but didn’t make it. The hamburger she’d had for dinner leapt out of her throat and heaved on the old green linoleum floor. The nausea was one huge wave. There was no stopping it. She retched until she was sure her insides were going to explode. She had almost got her head into the toilet to avert some of the mess when she realized something even worse was coming. She stood up and traded her head and her butt places just in time. She grabbed for the trashcan and puked into it while at the same time her bowels voided everything.

Mirra had never been this sick in her entire life. She’d had some forty-eight hour viruses in her time that she’d thought had wanted to make her die, but this was something entirely different. She was dying. Her body was getting rid of everything in it. The vomit had gone from food stuff to that yellow stomach acid color and she was now down to puking up the most bitter tasting green bile that her gall bladder could produce. The cramps in her stomach made her want to scream, but she couldn’t even get a breath to scream because of all the fluid pouring out of her mouth. The thought occurred to her that she hadn’t inhaled a breath in who knows how long. She couldn’t stop retching and she felt like her asshole had exploded. The pain was excruciating and her body was doubled over from it. Mirra fainted.

When she roused this time, she was lying in a pool of her own vomit and feces in the floor. Her hair had chunks clinging to it and she didn’t want to know what it was. The smell made her want to puke again. The urge rose soundly, but there was simply nothing left in her body to void. She flushed the full toilet and prayed that it would all go down and reached for the toilet paper to begin mopping up some of the floor. She used two rolls of Charmin and got up most of the mess then threw a towel down on top of it, sprayed the Dollar General Store version of Lysol all over the place and stepped into the tub and pulled her tropical fish shower curtain.

The hot water of the shower sprayed down on her and she let it sting her face. It felt wonderful. She wasn’t brave enough to run her fingers through her hair yet so she turned around and let the river of water rinse through it for several minutes before reaching for the bottle of shampoo. She was in mid lather when her mind finally returned. Where is he? What has he done to me? She blushed at the thought of making love to him, a complete stranger. What in the hell have I done? The thought came unbidden of his strong hands caressing her body, the feel of him inside her, making her come again and again like no man ever had. She shivered at the thought and smiled.

Mirra stepped out of the shower after having washed her whole body a good three times and threw another towel on top of the original just in case. She coated the room again with Lysol, brushed her teeth soundly and combed through her wet hair. The bathroom door opened into her bedroom and she walked out to find him lying on her bed fully clothed, looking just as fresh and handsome as he had standing out on her patio in the night air. She shut the bathroom door behind her quickly embarrassed of the smells that must still be emanating from it before she realized she was stark naked. Now she didn’t know what to be embarrassed of most. The fact that she was naked, the smell, or that she had just given her body to a complete stranger. Mirra mustered up all of the courage that she had to walk toward her closet thinking only of hiding herself in her ratty old blue terrycloth robe, but his voice stopped her cold. “Mirra, my love, come to me.”

She turned to him. He had risen and was standing beside her bed. The covers were a shamble strewn all over the floor and the sheets were in wads. Mirra had to step over a pillow to walk toward him. It was then that she noticed the dark stains on her bed. She knew what it was and it scared her. What had she done?

“Mirra.” The sound of his voice drew her mind toward him; nothing mattered but the deep sound of his voice. She looked into the dark pools of his eyes and nothing mattered but him. She waited.

Her lover held something out toward her. It took her a moment to break the link between their eyes before she could focus and figure out what it was. It was a simple black dress. “Let me help you.” His right hand touched her shoulder and Mirra remembered the fire that hand had instilled in her earlier and she shivered. The dress slipped over her head as she raised her arms. The strong hands that gently touched her shoulders to turn her around so he could zip up the back made her head swim with emotion. He slowly caressed her arms and kissed her neck, making Mirra want to swoon. Involuntarily, she fell back upon his muscular silk encased torso and sighed. She felt her nipples straining against the soft fabric of the dress and desire swept though her again. Mirra turned to face him and the kiss they shared was enough to make her exhale deeply. Oh, she could fall in love with this man so fast. She wasn’t thinking clearly.

“Where did this dress come from?” she asked, not really meaning to speak out loud. How had he known her size? He hadn’t been carrying anything outside on the patio.

“Here, my dear,” he said holding out black lace panties and black high heeled shoes toward her. She sat down on the bed to finish dressing and he began to speak. “I bought it for you. I knew you'd be even more beautiful wearing it.” She looked up and he was holding his hand out toward her once more. Something glittered. She stood up so he could place a delicate gold chain around her neck and looked down to find a perfect diamond shining up at her. She smiled. He began to speak as he took her hand and lead her from the house. “You are gorgeous, my angel, and I have been waiting for your company for far too long.”

They walked out the front door and down the brick walkway. Mirra turned to him and said, “Wait. I have to lock the house.” He seemed surprised at her silly notion.

“Mirra, this life you had is gone. I have given you a better one. Forget all that was and simply be with me now.” She accepted his words and turned her back on her home and her possessions.

“I hurt,” Mirra realized that something had been growing within her and the pain was back, but different. Her head was beginning to ache and she felt weaker than she had after her shower. The pangs in her stomach were getting stronger and her temper was flaring. He was acting as if nothing were wrong when she knew something was terribly, terribly wrong with her. The night seemed different, more vibrant, more alive, more everything. She could detect noises coming from everywhere and she could see as well as she ever could in the daytime. The wind seemed to whisper to her skin, but all that was drowned out by the terrible gnawing growing inside her.

“I know, Mirra”, he said soothingly, “I’m going to give you something to make it all better. Just get in the car and I’ll explain.” He spoke to her as if she was a small child and his voice seemed to stroke her like she was a kitten. Mirra complied. He started the car and pulled away. “Look in that envelope, Mirra.” She took a little manila envelope from the dash and opened it to find pictures of a woman lying in a hospital bed. Her face was bruised, broken, swollen, cut, and gashed. Her arm and leg were both in casts. She looked like hell warmed over.

“Did you do this?” Mirra asked hesitantly.

“No.” Drayden answered. “But you’re going to kill the bastard of a husband who did.” He let his words sink in before he began again. “You know what you are by now, Mirra. I’ve given you the gift you always dreamed of. Immortality. But, it comes with a price and that price must be paid in blood. I’ve found that at first feeding on the guilty makes it easier to pay that price. So, I’ve chosen her husband to be your first. He is an animal. This isn’t the first time he’s beat his wife, but it will be the last. The hunger you feel growing within you must be sated.” Mirra listened, detached, as Drayden explained how it was to be done.

Two minutes later Drayden pulled the car over to the curb, got out and vanished into the night. Simply vanished. One minute he was there, and the next he wasn’t. He’s gonna have to show me how he does that, Mirra thought absently then another pain hit her, stronger than ever and she followed her feet to the door of the house. Despite the hour, the light was on and the TV was blaring. Mirra knocked and waited. The door opened and she beheld a balding man with a spare tire for a stomach. Ironically, he had on a dirty wife beater and jeans. His feet were bare. A few days growth of beard struggled out of his acne scarred face but the veins on his neck were all that Mirra really saw. His blue eyes were cold as he stared at her.

“My car ran out of gas,” Mirra explained. “You’ll let me in to use your phone to call someone to help me won’t you?” She held his eyes and turned the question into more of a command.

He held the door open for her and said, “Sure, come on in.” The place was a shambles, but Mirra felt the animal within her now. She knew it would do what she could not. He turned his back to lead her into the living room and the fury within could not be contained any more.

She imagined she could hear his heart pounding, the blood pounding through his veins, and that was enough. She could feel her mouth changing. On some subconscious level, she knew her teeth were changing. Her fangs were descending, razor sharp and she flicked her tongue against one. It excited her. His back was hairy and disgusting but she leapt on it anyway and sunk her new fangs into the right side of his neck and amazingly hit the carotid artery. The hot liquid spurted into her mouth and she didn’t even hear his scream. The vampire was in full control now and it was good. The blood tasted hot and thick and drowned out the dirty salty taste of his skin on her mouth. It flowed down her throat and she wasn’t even aware of swallowing. The man grabbed at her over his shoulder in a futile effort. He tried to bang her up against a wall, but there was no way she was letting go now. Her legs were wrapped around his paunchy waist and her arms were tight as vice grips across his chest. She began to squeeze and suddenly, miraculously, he had no air left with which to scream. She had learned something already, though she barely recognized it through the blood.

The blood. There was nothing except the delicious crimson river flowing slower and slower down her throat. Its coppery taste felt like ecstasy on her tongue. Mirra’s mind was not her own. It belonged to the beast within her and she didn’t even care. All that mattered was the blood. The images of the warm red flow brought warmth to her body, spreading out, taking its glorious heat with it. It was like pure happiness, warm sunlight shining throughout every cell. Mirra had never felt anything so good in her entire life. Never known anything could feel so exuberating. Heaven couldn’t feel this good, could it?

He collapsed to the floor with her still attached to his throat. The flow of blood had stopped and she was instantly mad that there wasn’t more in this sack of wife beating shit. The new vampire got off of him and kicked him in the back because there wasn’t more. Mirra wanted more. She kicked him again and again, beating his limp corpse. Suddenly, she stopped. What was she doing? Her mind returned to some semblance of her own. What was she doing? She wheeled to flee the house and saw Drayden standing in the doorway. How much had he seen? Enough from the look on his face. He was smiling at her, like a proud father seeing his son hit his first game winning homerun. Mirra didn’t like that smile.

He was waiting for something. Then it hit her. He couldn’t come in. She wondered if that was really true or if he was just being old fashioned, but she humored him anyway and motioned him inside. She needed his help now. “What am I supposed to do with the body?”

Drayden stood over the lifeless wife beater for a moment surveying his neck. “I think that this had better look like a chainsaw accident, don’t you?”

For the first time, Mirra looked at the man and was horrified at what she’d done. Practically a quarter of his neck was ripped away! When had she done that? She didn’t remember doing that! She’d just daintily sunk her fangs in his artery and sucked hadn’t she? How in the hell had that happened? The flesh was ripped and jagged and there was a gaping hole where his neck should’ve been. She looked up at Drayden and felt all of her newfound blood drain from her face. What kind of monster was she? What must he think of her? Drayden said nothing else, grabbed the man’s arms and effortlessly drug him out into the back yard under an old tree. Mirra followed soundlessly.

Drayden left her standing beside the body and went back in the house to search through the garage. He returned only a minute later with a ladder and a Poulan chainsaw in his gloved hands. He promptly drug the saw through the man’s neck, making sure to coat all the tines with his remaining blood. He threw the chainsaw down on his neck carelessly and placed the old rickety wooden ladder against tree. Drayden stepped up on it and used his hand to break one of the high rungs in two. Mirra was shocked at how easy it would be to assume that the wife beater had been going to trim his tree, broken a rung on the ladder, and fallen down on his chainsaw killing himself.

“Let’s go, my sweet.” Drayden held out his hand to her and she gladly accepted it. He led her to the doorway of the house, but before they walked in, he removed a silky red handkerchief from his pocket, gently wiped her face, and gave her a kiss filled with passion. He pressed his body next to hers and she was immediately aroused.

Drayden broke the kiss and calmly wiped off the door handle. He turned and strode into the house, surveying the damage. He straightened the pictures on the wall, righted an overturned end table, and placed the contents back on it. There was amazingly little blood on the linoleum floor. Mirra watched as he cleaned up the droplets and surveyed the scene. “There,” he said triumphantly, “No one will be the wiser and his wife can collect double on her accidental death life insurance policy.” The master vampire grinned, “She owes you a great debt, my dear, and she will never know it.” Drayden locked the door from the inside, turned and strode out the back door, shutting it behind himself and Mirra.

Standing in the backyard near the corpse, he removed the gloves and placed them in his pocket. “How do you feel?”

Mirra considered the question for a moment. She should feel like someone whose soul was burning in hell, but she didn’t. She felt more alive than she had ever felt in her entire life. Power flowed through her very essence. She could feel it; she reveled in it. A mutilated corpse lay on the ground not ten feet from her and she had done that… taken another persons life. She should feel horrified, but she felt elated. There was nothing that she couldn’t do! She whirled around and hugged Drayden. “I feel utterly free. It’s the best feeling in the world! I want to do everything, see everything… I want you to teach me everything.”

The smile on his face was one of genuine happiness; a thing that had eluded him for years. He knew his patience had paid off and she would be worth the wait. Drayden took her hand in his and together they leapt easily over the wooden privacy fence that shielded their earlier work. Hand in hand, they raced through the night.

As they strode through the neighborhood, Mirra noticed things that had never been there for her before. It was as if the night had come alive once and for all just for her. She heard the leaves when they fell from their branches, she heard and smelled the chemical bioluminescence of the fire flies before they illuminated, trying to attract a mate. The night was a wondrous world to her, new and exciting in each little detail. Before she knew it, Drayden was opening a car door for her and she stepped inside. He drove and she rode, not paying any attention to where they were headed. She barely noticed him roll down his window and press in a code of numbers to make a wrought iron gate swing inward as they drove up to his home. It wasn't quite a mansion, but it was a very luxurious house, to say the least. When they stepped out, Mirra was greeted by two of the largest rottweilers she'd ever seen in her life. With one word from Drayden, they backed off of her, committing her scent to memory.

As they entered the house, Mirra found herself staring at all of the treasures he proudly displayed. Works of art, she supposed to be originals, were abundant and the place looked like something off of the TV show Life of the Rich and Famous. Drayden found her astonishment mildly amusing. "You'll get used to the finer things in life all too soon, my sweet," he grinned. "Come now, dawn approaches, I'll show you where we sleep."

For the first time, Mirra realized how lethargic she was becoming. But something else crept into her mind that terrified her. Coffins. Vampires slept in coffins. She couldn't handle that. Drayden took her hand, led her down a secret passageway in the library, through the wine cellar, through another hidden doorway, into his bedchamber. To Mirra's relief, there were no coffins in sight. In fact, the room was as tastefully decorated as the upstairs. The huge king size four poster bed was a welcome sight. So welcome, in fact, that she flew to it and bounced up and down on the downy softness. She pulled back the comforter to find satin sheets and wiggled in their softness. She smiled invitingly at her new man. Instantly Drayden was at her side, holding her tight.

Outside night was loosing the battle to the dawn as the first rays crept over the horizon, and Mirra didn't know it, but she was feeling the effects. Sleepily, she lay with her head on Drayden's chest. Before she drifted off, she said, "Thank you, Drayden, thank you." Drayden would remember the first time she said his name for all eternity. She was thanking him. That made it all the sweeter.

Mirra awoke with a hungry gnawing feeling in her stomach; her need to feed was intense. She sat up and realized she had slept on Drayden's chest immobile all night long. That was something she never did. Mirra's sleep pattern was horrible. She had always been somewhat of an insomniac. She tossed and turned and moved all over the bed in her sleep, but not last night. Last night she had literally been dead to the world. She cracked a grin, Well, it wasn't really last night, was it? This vampire thing really did agree with her body's metabolism. If you didn't count the hunger she awoke with, she'd never slept better in her life or felt more rested. She had Drayden to thank for that. She looked down at her sleeping lover. Her feelings for him were more powerful than any she had ever known. He had captivated her, body and soul. Mirra reached down to stroke his face, gently, lovingly.

Instantly, Drayden jolted and threw her with all his might. Mirra flew across the room, cracking her head against the rough hewn stone wall. A jagged piece of rock pierced her skull from the back and blood began to pour from the opening. Her head was literally split open in the back; her body lay crumpled on the floor and her eyes began to glaze over as she looked up at Drayden. He had sprung out of bed and was standing over her with the most feral red glow emanating from his eyes, murderous eyes. It took him only a second to realize what he had done and his look changed from deadly to wildly concerned.

"Mirra! Mirra. Oh, Mirra. What have I done?" He picked her listless body up and saw the damage he had caused. She was dying. She was too young to withstand such a blow. She needed blood or she would die. Her body couldn't heal itself fast enough yet. She'd only fed once and the injuries he'd imposed on her skull and brain was vast. Her head lolled backward and blood streamed.

Drayden sat down, holding her head in his lap and did the only thing he knew to do. He used his teeth to slit both his wrists and willed his body not to repair the cuts. He put one wrist to her mouth and pressed the other to the gaping hole in the back of her head. His blood was strong, but was it strong enough? It had to be. Her blood was still pouring like rainwater out the back of her skull, so he flipped her face down and watched as his blood dripped into the crushed indentation that used to be her cranium. He watched it heal where ever it touched and he ripped the slit in his wrist even more to pour his lifeblood directly in the gap to her brain. He felt her tongue begin to lap at his other wrist, then she began to drink as he rubbed his blood around the edges of broken bone. Her beautiful curls were soaked in crimson and he had no idea what this would do to her. Minutes dragged by as he felt Mirra began to really suck at his wrist. Her pull on him was one that was desperate. The vampire within had taken over. Drayden felt his head go light and became groggy. He knew she was draining him, but his guilt let her drink anyway. Finally, the creature inside him made him tear his wrist from her mouth and he fell over backward on the floor.

Drayden knew they both needed blood, she worse than he, and they needed it fast. With his last remaining energy, he summoned up the strength throw her over his shoulder and headed out into the night. He drove his car with reckless abandon, heading quickly to where he knew there was always sustenance. He pulled over to the curb, motioned a girl to him, waved some money at her and she climbed in his car quickly. He drove away, not far, just to an alley a few blocks south. He got out and the whore followed. He had her body drained of blood and thrown in the dumpster in less than three minutes. Drayden felt much better. He looked around for another meal. Mirra needed to feed, too. She was still unconscious in the backseat, oblivious to the world.

Drayden walked away from his car toward the park where the junkies and hookers always were. He saw a blonde walking alone and decided to take her. He followed her. It was like stalking an inanimate object, it was so easy. She was oblivious to all the things around her and even if he hadn't possessed stealth, it would've been easy to take her. Some things were just too easy to do. He left her lifeless body in the bushes and felt like his old self once again.

Now, he could think of taking care of Mirra. It took him a few minutes to locate a young man wanting to earn his next fix. Drayden flashed his cash and the junkie followed him back toward the alley where his car waited. To his amazement, he saw Mirra stand up from behind the dumpster in the alleyway and stride purposefully toward them. He noticed the scent of death in the air and saw part of a hand on the ground on the side of the dumpster she emerged from behind. She walked right past Drayden and up to her prey. She locked eyes with him for only a moment and Drayden heard her subliminal command, "Be still." Mirra grabbed him and latched on to his throat, all the while repeating the telepathic command, "Be still. Be still. Be still." She had the male drained in minutes and dropped him where he stood.

She stepped over his lifeless corpse and strode purposely forward out of the alley while calling back to Drayden, "Take care of my messes." Mirra was on the prowl and would not be sated for some time to come. She cleared the park of whores and junkies that night, raining her blood parade down on them like a possessed maniac. The blood lust had taken over, and she let it. By the time it was over, she had killed seven people mercilessly.

When Mirra returned to some semblance of herself, she sought out Drayden. "Keys," she stated and held out her hand expectantly.

"Mirra…" he began, but she cut him off.

"Keys," she demanded, staring him squarely in the eye daring him to deny her anything. Drayden reached into his pocket and withdrew the car keys. He handed them to her and she turned without another word and left him standing there wondering how he was going to dispose of nine mutilated corpses.

Being a vampire in this day and age was as much about cunning and art as it was about the hunt. One couldn't just leave bodies lying about with their throats ripped out, all drained of blood. Drayden knew the area fairly well, though, and came up with a plan. He took the bodies two at a time to an old abandoned house not far from the park where the homeless usually camped. He killed the one vagrant who was in the house just for good measure. He was mad at Mirra for her leaving him all the dirty work. When all the bodies were inside, he stole gasoline and matches, soaked the bodies, and set the house on fire. He turned from his handiwork and headed home.

Mirra found Drayden's house without any trouble, but couldn't remember the number combination to open the gate, so she left the car sitting in the drive and jumped the fence. The dogs were at her heels at once, but did not attack. She let herself in the house and made straight for the first shower she could find. She was filthy. Dried blood was caked in her hair, under her fingernails, and on her skin. Her wounds had healed perfectly, but her pride was definitely damaged. How could he do that to her?

Mirra wasn't at all satisfied with the shampoo and conditioner in the bathroom. It smelled like Drayden. She wanted something lighter, more feminine, but it would have to do. She had almost calmed herself by the time she heard him enter the house. She remembered the way his eyes had changed from deadly to concerned when he realized what he had done to her. Did that really make a difference? What kind of monster bashes his woman's skull in for stroking his face? "His woman? Is that what I am?" She wondered. "Am I his mistress, his wife, his girlfriend, his playtoy or what?"

Mirra stepped out of the steamy shower to find Drayden standing there, stripping down, ready to get in with her. He was filthy, too. "It's all yours," she said coolly and began to towel off. For some reason, she wasn't ashamed of her nakedness in front of him anymore. She knew she looked good, and wanted him to know it. Drayden stepped past her and into the shower. He knew better than to start this conversation with her just yet.

Mirra was dressed in the only thing she could find by the time he was out of the bath. Drayden strode buck naked into the bedroom to find her wearing one of his silk shirts, lying on the bed. She seemed tired and resolute. He seized his opportunity and sat down beside her. "Mirra, I haven't woken up with anyone in an eternity. I just reacted out of instinct. You've got to know that, don’t you? I know you do. You're just mad, hurt." He said this staring at the carpet, then he turned to face her and waited until she looked at him. "I'm sorry, Mirra."

She believed him. The look on his face said he was telling the truth, even that he loved her, but Mirra had no idea how much it cost Drayden to say those words, to admit that he had done something wrong, to admit to feeling defenseless, and to show his feelings for her. It was as if he was less of a man, to have to explain himself to his fledgling female, to have to apologize for hurting her and to show her his true feelings. It hurt the vampire inside him and he hadn't realized how much of his pride it would cost him until the words were out of his mouth. It was a mistake he would not make again. It gave her some sort of power over him and he did not like it at all. He was supposed to be the one in complete control, and too late, he realized that he had given the power over to her.

Mirra wanted to pout and milk her injury for all that it was worth, but something told her it was best not to. There was something in his demeanor after he spoke to her that said she had better not. She rolled over on her back and scooted over to put her head in his lap. She kissed his naked stomach, looked up at him and said, "Just don't ever hurt me like that again, Drayden."

His eyes were different somehow. She didn't know what had just happened, but there was a coldness to them that hadn't been there just moments before. She chose to ignore it and stuck her tongue in his belly button playfully. They wrestled on the bed and Mirra giggled.

The sound was music to his ears. That was what he wanted! Her life, her vibrance, her happiness all around him. He straddled her on the bed, pinned her hands above her head, and looked down at her smiling face. It made his dark heart soar to see the adoration for him in her eyes. He drank it up like it was the nectar of life. This time, he would make love to her and hold nothing back. He would show her what her vampire man could really do.

Drayden teased her mouth with his tongue, then, kissed her deeply, he wanted her to need him so badly. When he touched her ear and kissed the side of her neck, he realized he'd found her weak spot. The slight electric tingle he felt emanate from her body told him that this was one of her greatest erogenous zones. He spent minutes there, licking and kissing and sucking on her earlobe and neck. The sweet purring contented sounds that rose from her throat told him he was lighting her fire. He could feel her press upward toward him and the monster within him grew.

He sat up, still straddling her and ripped his shirt she was wearing to reveal her perfect breasts. The nipples were standing taught and erect, begging to be kissed, so he obliged. His tongue traced little circles of temptation around one, circling ever inward toward the peak. When he flicked it with his tongue, he heard her intake of breath. With his right hand, he squeezed her other nipple and she arched toward him. He took her breast in his mouth and sucked. His left hand was in her hair, tangling it around his fingers and pulling her head back while his right was toying roughly with her other breast. He could feel her excitement and he enjoyed knowing he was the one bringing it to her.

He slid down her stomach, kissing her beautiful skin, trailing little kisses mixed with tiny bites down her body. Both of his hands were caressing her breasts as he slid his head down between her legs. He nudged her thigh with his shoulder and she opened her legs farther for him. His tongue darted out and flicked her where she wanted his touch most. Drayden could read her thoughts, sense what she wanted most and he was glad to indulge. She was wet, wanting him to give her pleasure, begging him to lick her, touch her, caress her, possess her.

He reveled in the fact that he was the one in control. He would decide when to give her what she needed. He licked, and sucked, and stroked and brought her almost to climax before he moved his head and began to kiss her thigh. He heard her thoughts scream No! Give it to me, and he smiled as he bit into her thigh to take a little of her blood. The animal in him wanted more, but he could contain it. He pushed himself up on her and kissed her again. She writhed under him, pressing her sex against him. She was begging for him to take her, to give her the release she needed. He used his thighs to coax her legs apart and he felt her wetness against his throbbing cock. He wanted her, too, but wasn't willing to give in to her yet. He teased her more, stroking himself against her, but not penetrating, not going where she wanted him to go. He could hear her thoughts, she wanted him to take her now, her body was quivering with desire just for him.

He raised off of her just enough to let the head of his shaft slide into her opening. She thrust upward, wanting all of him, but he matched her and pulled away. It was all he would give her now. The head of his swollen member slid playfully in and out of her, driving her crazy as he licked her neck and thrust his tongue in and out of her ear.

To Mirra, it seemed like an eternity. She wanted him to give her release so badly, she craved it. Her nails dug into his back and she grabbed his ass to try to force him all the way into her. She wrapped her legs around his body and used them to pull him toward her, too, but Drayden was strong… and in control. He teased her for what seemed like hours to Mirra, taking her almost to the top before backing off. Drayden knew when she was at her peak again, he smelled her pheremones and finally gave in to the urge. When he did, the force he used to plunge himself into her was inhuman.

When Drayden drove his entire shaft into her, Mirra's body exploded in pain and release. It was a climax like she had never felt before. With her eyes closed, she saw little white stars explode on the back of her eyelids and she felt herself drifting upward as in a dream. Waves of orgasms shook her body and she felt her insides pulsing and throbbing against him and he drove himself in and out of her. She came and she came and she came. Drayden wouldn't stop. He thrust himself into her over and over, each time harder and deeper than the last.

Mirra's climax was over, but she was still quivering and shaking and Drayden wouldn’t stop. He was hurting her and liking it. She wanted to tell him to stop, the pain was intense, but she couldn't. Something else was rising in her again. She felt it coming like a dark wave. Her nails dug in the flesh of his shoulders and she smelled his blood. Oh, God, Mirra thought, I'm coming again. Drayden pounded against her harder, deeper, and faster. His body was a machine, ever demanding more from her. The crescendo in Mirra's mind and body drew to a peak once again, and she knew this would be the mother of all orgasms. He drilled himself into her and the pain was as delicious as the blood. She felt herself bite his neck at the second his fangs pierced her throat. Their bodies were one. Thrusting, sucking, pounding, bleeding, taking in something she had never known could've existed. The pleasure and the pain became one and the experience was ungodly. Never before had she felt such ecstasy. Her mind swam and she wondered if she even blacked out for a minute from the sensations flowing through every single cell in her body. There was no way anything on Earth was ever supposed to feel this perfect, this magnificent.

Drayden lay on her, his entire body spent. He felt his fangs retract and he licked her wounds with the last remnant of his strength. He was amazed at how he'd lost himself in her. He smiled. She was his. He felt the love radiating from her, and reveled in the fact that the little aftershocks of orgasms that rattled her body were all because of him. He lifted his head, looked deep into her eyes and kissed her deeply once again. She wrapped her arms around his body and clung to him. He felt her gratitude and her smile in her kiss. When daybreak found them, their bodies were still tangled together and they slept as one.

Drayden awoke before Mirra and unwound himself from her sleeping embrace. He was in the shower when she joined him. The satisfaction she felt from his lovemaking the night before was still evident in the way she looked at him. He smiled at her. He had forgotten how good it felt to be needed and wanted. The human side of his emotions hadn't been tapped in far too long. The only needs he had felt for centuries were ones of blood and survival, not ones of emotion. It was strange, but he liked being put on a pedestal by her.

She snatched the shampoo from his hands and lathered up. "You realize of course, that if I'm going to live here with you some things are going to change, don't you?" She playfully wagged the bottle in front of him. Drayden wasn't sure he liked what she said, but he did like what she did next when she went to her knees for him in the shower.

Drayden was dressed by the time Mirra was done in the bathroom. She came out of the bathroom nude and stood there in front of him. "Do you have any idea what I'm going to wear tonight?" she asked.

In truth, Drayden hadn't thought about it. Last night hadn't gone exactly as planned and the one dress he had bought for her was ruined. The look on his face was answer enough for Mirra.

She pillaged through his closet, amazed to find that all his clothes were basically the same. She found a black suit jacket, put it on, followed by her black high heeled shoes. She looked amazingly sexy to Drayden. The V cut of the coat revealed the innermost portion of her breasts all the way down to her navel and the back of the jacket left just enough to the imagination.

"Let's go shopping!" Mirra's eyes sparkled with mischief as Drayden grabbed for his wallet.

As soon as they entered the mall, Drayden realized his mistake. He'd never been shopping in a mall and never wanted to. What had he been thinking? Mirra grabbed up various lotions, perfumes, and hair care products and placed them on the counter. Drayden paid in cash and they moved on to the next store. It was all so mundane. He hated it.

The next store she drug him into was a lingerie boutique. At least he could deal with that. He even picked out a few items for her. She surprised him by flashing a sexy red see through number at him from the dressing room. He liked what he saw.

When she tried to take him into another store, he begged off and handed her his wallet. Mirra understood and let him go. She was having fun. She had never been able to just go into a store and buy whatever she wanted and damn the price. It was nice to shop without restrictions. The snob lady at the counter looked down her nose at Mirra wearing the red bra under a man's suit coat and looked at her like she was a common tramp. Under ordinary conditions, the look from the lady would've made Mirra self-conscious enough to slink away, leaving the store in shame, but not anymore. She stood tall and confident in her six foot tall frame and ordered the woman to find her a black dress. The woman complied and led her to that section of the store and handed her what she wanted. Mirra had the woman wait on her, handing her dress after dress in the fitting room until she was satisfied. She left the store wearing a short lacy red dress.













"Fuck you and the horse you rode in on". It was the only thing she could say. It was childish and illogical but she had no other words to express the way he made her feel. To say more would've exposed her true feelings for him and she wasn't about to do that. He was the most cold unfeeling creature she'd ever known and to show him exactly how bad he'd hurt her would destroy her fully. What was left of her true self wouldn't allow her to do that. Some pride, some dignity of her former self had to remain intact for her to survive. She couldn’t tell him how badly she needed his acceptance, how badly she needed him. He wasn't able to connect with her on any level. Not emotionally or physically. That was all that they had and now that was gone too. Once they'd made the earth move, but now all that was left was a shadow of the past. She couldn't tell him how much she needed him, how badly she wanted him to love her. She couldn't tell him that she wanted him. That she needed his touch, his kisses, his embrace; that she'd longed for him her entire life, even before they'd met. She wanted to be strong and not cry in front of him. Tears were an unacceptable weakness. She was done crying over him. She was done crying about her life with him. It was time to move on. Time to start again. Alone. Always alone. Mirra realized that was how she'd been her entire life. Alone. Even when she was with somebody, she'd been alone. She made up her mind to embrace the vampire existence, after all they were meant to be alone weren't they? Solitary creatures of the night, destined to roam the earth alone for eternity? The hate welled up within her again. Now, because of him, she couldn't even die like a normal human. She had to face forever alone. Always alone. Without what she needed most. Someone to love, someone to share her life with. Someone to confide in, to share her deepest feelings with. Someone to love.

Drayden knew that he'd failed her, but couldn't bring himself to admit it. The creature inside him was too strong. His male vampire pride made it impossible. He was a perfect creature, wasn't he? He was loosing his one love, and yet, he couldn't admit that he had any fault in the matter. He looked at Mirra's perfectly beautiful face and saw the rejection in her eyes. He did the only thing the vampire in him knew to do. He struck her square in the face with a force so hard that it made her eyeball come loose in its socket. "How dare you speak to me like that?" he roared. Before she could react another blow from his iron fist stuck her on the opposite side of the head, jarring her brain and threatening to make her eye come out of her head. Blood poured from the socket. He whirled around and kicked her as hard as he could in the abdomen. The force doubled her over and threw her backward into the brick wall of the building. Mirra felt the bones of her spine crack as they broke cement and bricks.











It was all going by too quickly now. Mirra peered through the window at an old woman, surrounded by her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. If she were capable of tears, they might flow now. Jamie looked so old. Her best friend was fragile, decrepit, and dying. Where had all the time gone? A human's life was so fleeting and fragile. Mirra wondered if they knew that. She longed to talk to her just one more time. For what? Old times sake? She didn't know. She just needed a friend to talk to. The air was cold, but Mirra couldn't feel it. Frost on the pane of window glass told her it was. Her breath would not come out warm to show up in the night. The black clothing she wore perfectly blended her into the shadows, all save her face. It was white, she knew, too white, bloodless. It had been sixty years since she had seen her old friend and Mirra realized she had almost waited too long. Jamie's body was old, flabby, wrinkled, and bent. Mirra's was just as beautiful and supple as it was the day she was reborn. She wished the family would hurry up and leave. She had wasted so much time in coming to see her and now, she almost laughed, she was being impatient over a few measly hours. Jamie did have one thing that Mirra coveted, though. Love. Love of all those family members born of her. A legacy that would carry down. What was she thinking? Mirra knew that legacies of humans never lasted. They forgot all too soon. Soon Jamie would be nothing but a picture in a family album, her youth and vibrance all forgotten… remembered by grandchildren as an old lady in a chair. Mirra remembered her differently and it almost pained her to see her this way. It was as if she wasn't even the same person she loved in her youth. The best friend who always got right into the thick of trouble with her, dating boys, goofing off, drinking, and running around had vanished and this withered old woman had taken her place. Hours passed slowly for Mirra that night. She couldn't stand to watch the happy family in the house so three times she disappeared into the night and fed, just to be doing something. She was gorged with blood by the time the family finally left and her face almost seemed to be the right color when she calmly walked up to the door. Mirra knocked, then held the knob, not wanting Jamie to open the door and see her as she was. She was afraid her old heart would shudder and shake and she would be the death of her old friend from shock. Mirra heard the old lady dragging slowly toward the door and felt the turn of the knob in her hand. Mirra felt the gentle tug inward, but held the door closed. She sensed surprise on the other side. Mirra spoke. "Jamie," and waited.

"Yes, who is it?"

"Jamie, now don't freak out, ok? It's me. It's Mirra." She waited. She could almost hear the clogs of the old mind turning, trying to understand. Mirra spoke again. "Jamie, it's really me. I came back to see you. Please, just hear me out and then I'll let you open the door, ok?"

"Mirra's dead" came the flat reply. "Go away!"

Mirra's mind flew, trying to think of something to convince her best friend. "Remember that night, me and you and B.J. and Tommy went out to the grave yard drinking Mad Dog 20-20 and we went and bought that French tickler from the convenience store and you sat on a tombstone and tried to put it on him and he didn't know what it was?" It was a ludicrous memory, and she had no idea why her mouth had picked that particular night to dredge up, but somehow, it seemed to work.

"Mirra?! Is that really you? After all these years? Come in! Why are you holding the door? What's going on?" There it was. The invitation was given. Mirra could enter this house anytime she so chose, but still she remained outside.

"Jamie, I don't want to shock you. You have a bad heart, you know. You have to stay calm, alright?" Already Mirra could sense the pace pick up in her old ticker. She didn't know if this had been a good idea or not. But, selfish as she was, she wanted to see her old friend.

"What are you talking about? Get in here, girl."

"Jamie, remember my fantasy? Remember the dark man I told you about that night in Dallas? He was real. The cameo was real. It is all real. Can you handle that?"

There was silence on the warm side of the door as the old lady took in all of what she was saying. Seconds slid into moments and moments into minutes, then she said, "I'm ready. Come in whenever you want." Mirra felt the knob's release and heard her turn and shuffle back across the carpet and sink into her old Lazy Boy.

Jamie looked up as the door swung slowly open, and there stood her best friend in the entire world, looking exactly as she remembered her, sixty years ago. She sucked in a deep breath and sighed. Mirra was the epitome of beauty. She was even more beautiful now than she had been. There was a charisma, a confidence, something about her that was attractive from the core. Jamie struggled a bit to stand, then held out her arms for the first true hug that Mirra had received in a long, long time. Mirra moved too quick, she realized as she embraced her old friend, that had shocked her. But she stood there anyway feeling the warmth of her old friend's body hugging her. Jamie's scent had changed drastically, though. No longer was it one of Liz Claiborne perfume and chlorine from the swimming pool. It was an old smell now. Mirra tried hard not to notice, but ended the embrace anyway. She took a step back and allowed Jamie to sit back down before she perched herself on the couch next to her.

"I can't believe my eyes." Jamie said. "I thought you were dead. You let me believe you were dead all these years." She said accusingly.

"I am dead, Jamie," Mirra said softly. "Undead." As soon as the words were out of her mouth she instantly regretted them. She saw the pulse in Jamie's neck jump erratically.

"I can't believe you really did it. It's what you always wanted. Eternal youth, you got it, eternal beauty, you got that too. I must be loosing my last marble," Jamie ended with a grin. "I can't really be here talking to you like this."

Mirra was so thrilled at that grin. It was the grin of Jamie's youth trying to escape from the old softened face. It was still her, still her best friend from childhood. The one person in whom she could confide all her deepest darkest secrets was still here. "He was real Jamie, the guy I told you about in Dallas. He was what I thought he was. He turned me and I haven't looked back, until now. I'm sorry. I had to come see you. I'm sorry it took me so long, but you don't just tell your best friend you're a vampire everyday. I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't know if you'd want to know. He told me I could never tell anyone. Ever. He said we had these rules to live by and they couldn't be broken. I'm so sorry." The words were a jumble, flowing senselessly from her mouth. "I left him." The last statement was seeped in regret.

"What happened?" Jamie asked. "Tell me everything. I've got to know. You don't realize what you are putting me through right now do you? It's just like old times. You telling me your problems and me trying to help you work them out. I've missed you, Mirra. I really have. It's good to have you back." Mirra knew this was a mistake the instant she heard those words. She shouldn't have come. He was right. You can never go back.

"I don't know. It's all a blur really. Truthfully, I didn't even notice the time passing until I left him. A lone vampire is a very bad thing, Jamie, a very bad thing. It's the worst thing. You don’t know fear until you're faced with eternity all alone. No one to talk to. No one to share your existence with. No one to listen to. No one to be with. Eternity, Jamie, can you begin to fathom that? Eternity. Alone. It's too horrible to think about. It makes living meaningless. Nothing matters. Why bother? I'm sorry. I think the vamp in me tends to make everything one hundred times better or one hundred times worse, depending on what it is. I don't know. I don't know why I even came. You can't help me. I just wanted to talk to you one last time." She lowered her head. Hearing the stupid words come out of her mouth made her want to stick her fist through the wall. She sounded like the Grand Marshall of the Pity Party Parade. Mirra hated weakness, and she had just laid her greatest fear at her friend's feet.

Jamie reached over and laid her hand on top of Mirra's cool one. She waited until Mirra made eye contact with her, then she smiled. "I know why you came. You just needed a friend, that's all. A friend."





It was a gorgeous night. Black and chilling. Mirra strode through the darkness in her tight little dress that left very little to the imagination. She inhaled the fragrance of the city as she walked through Central Park, drinking in the comforting noisy stillness. The stars were obliterated by the city, but Mirra couldn't find it in herself to mind; the city offered so much in trade.

Tonight she was going to see her very first opera. The thought thrilled her. It was something she never thought she would want to do, but now the possibilities were endless. She could experience everything she ever dreamed of. Except one, her mind whispered. She shrugged the thought off; there was no use thinking about that. She turned off the cement path and broke into a blur as she hurried to erase the thought from her mind. She flew to the street she wanted and stood there waiting expectantly for Drayden.

Mirra gazed upward again and saw nothing but blackness holding down the stories and stories of buildings that loomed upward. Drayden appeared beside her and pecked her on the cheek. She smiled at him. He was really too handsome in his custom made tuxedo. He took her hand and led her toward the opera house. The man at the door, she didn't even know what to call him – not a ticket taker, but something of that effect, looked almost knowingly at her. Mirra felt it again. That sense of being out of place in the world. She shook her head and entered the grand entranceway and took in her surroundings. The grand chandelier that greeted her was breathtaking. Plush carpeting, velvety furnishings, carved mahogany, and stone statues took up residence here to give the hall a feeling of elegance. It worked. At least for Mirra it did. She wondered if she would ever feel not so out of place at the ritzy circles Drayden liked to haunt. She doubted it. He led her to his box just before curtain time. Everyone here was so sophisticated. Mirra wondered if there was such a thing as a finishing school for vampires. She watched the performance, but not as much as she studied the people in the audience. How long would it take for her to pass as one of the wealthy, she wondered. That old stuck up, blue blood, aristocratic attitude… could it be acquired?

Mirra left the opera with the same feeling of sadness. She didn't belong. She hadn't liked the opera, and that was sorely disappointing to her. She couldn't tell Drayden that, though. She knew him well enough now not to risk his displeasure. He expected her to like certain things, do certain things, behave in a certain way. True, Drayden heaped presents on her and never lacked giving her things he supposed she would like, but he never really wanted to know the real Mirra.

He did have one thing about her right, though. He knew she wouldn't kill just to be killing. He always did the research and gave her victims to feed on that were deserving of death. He knew Mirra wouldn't murder innocent people. That was one consolation about being a vampire. Mirra welcomed the ability to judge the wicked and make them pay for their sins. She had no qualms about killing murderers or rapists or people without morals. To her, she was doing the world a favor. Her favorites were the ones the justice system had let fall through the cracks. Bastards that were guilty as hell, but because of one technicality or another, had to be released back on the streets without any punishment whatsoever. Mirra had no problem ridding society of those people. In her mind, she was the ultimate judge, jury, and executioner and no lawyer in a three piece suit could get a criminal out of her cold grasp.

"I want to see Paris," Mirra turned to face Drayden, saying what she knew he wanted to hear. He loved traveling and showing off his favorite places.

"Then Paris it shall be, my love," His smile was genuine. "You loved the opera tonight. I knew you would."

Mirra smiled back at him happily. It wasn't in her to tell him that she thought it was pretentious and boring. "Of course, you knew I would. Thank you for taking me."

"I'll take you again when we get to Paris. I think you'll love it even more in France. I know I do." He fumbled in his coat pocket and withdrew a small box. "I have a gift for you, my love. To celebrate your first opera. I know you'll never forget it."

Mirra took the box from his outstretched hand and beheld the shining diamond choker inside. It was indeed breathtaking. "Oh, Drayden, it's beautiful!" She exclaimed. He took it from her and clasped it around her delicate neck from behind. His hands held on to her shoulders and squeezed gently. He uttered something to her in French which was smooth and soothing. The world seemed to melt away when he talked to her like this. Mirra closed her eyes and let the feeling of him invade her soul. He made her feel so beautiful, so wanted.

COMMENTS

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wayne
07:55 Jul 10 2008

awsome story you had me mesermised as i read it

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