The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

The incessant rain hammered the gray streets of Soho, and ran down the dirty facades of the buildings like bitter tears.



Valentine muttered to himself as he walked the familiar streets from Totenham Court Road underground with his eyes closed. Obscenities filled the chill air around him; he despised the cold stab of the London rain, and the way it was only ever half-dark here. He cursed the sulphurous pollution of the street lights and the pulsating neon signs of the strip clubs, sex shops and porn theatres - he was still aware of their infection through his closed lids and hated that there was flashing lights where there should have been darkness.



Valentine stepped over the threshold of his club and flicked the lights on. He sighed heavily...



Another night ahead watching all these fop fucks prancing around in their purple velvet and black lace, their clown white melting off and running down their faces in the heat of lights and bodies. And the way they smell. They smell like pigs to me. Like cattle. Animals. Even the clean ones smell like piss and shit and sweat to me. I fucking hate them.



Although the lights were soft, dim, he squinted as if they hurt his eyes and glowered over his shoulder at the innocent light switch. He walked over to the bar and tossed his keys down onto the liquid-black granite counter.



“I knew I would find you eventually.”



Valentine spun around in the direction of the voice. It wasn’t just hearing his voice that startled him, but the fact that he had not immediately sensed the presence of another being in the club with him. He'd been around his clientele and nobody else for too long. They'd dulled his senses, made him soft, made him like them. He was no longer the predator he used to be. Living with them, being near them, had made him only a fraction of his former self.



That voice was unmistakable. By the time he’d turned around and the realization had hit him fully, his blood had frozen in his veins. The souls of his feet and the palms of his hands felt as if they were freezer burned; he was unsure whether the sensation was heat or cold. He swallowed hard and tried his damnedest to put forward airs of coolness, and calmness, and nonchalance. He tried, but he knew he would not fool the man who now stood before him, a man he had not seen for decades, yet knew he would see again…someday.



Over the years he had almost learned the art of forgetting the fear a mere mention of his name instilled in himself, and anybody else who knew of him. But those years withered and died, dissolved in a heartbeat, and left behind them an overwhelming nausea in the pit of his gut.



Why did you come back? Why are you here? What do you want? I don't want you here? Why don't you crawl back under your rock, you sick fuck?



"Questions, questions, Valentine. I've not even taken my coat off yet. And you've not offered me one of your fine beverages. Some Maitre'd you are."



Although Valentine hadn't uttered a word, the other man had read his thoughts. He hated it when he did that. Valentine broke out in a corpse-cold sweat. He could feel his body quivering as he stood looking at him, instantly under his spell once again.



“Vivant. I thought…”



His name on his tongue tasted like a bitter flavor.



“Thought what, Valentine? That I was dead? No; I’m not dead, well, I am, but you know what I mean,” Vivant told him with a broad smile bereft of any warmth or levity. His feral grin revealed the gleaming tips of his stark-white fangs.



Valentine was even paler than usual, and tiny beads of sweat sparkled on his brow and upper lip in the dim and dusty light inside the club. Valentine’s unease pleased him immensely; he was happy that he could illicit such a strong reaction from his old friend after all this time.



“I won’t be alone very long, so if you’re going to kill me, just do it before somebody comes in and clean up the mess. We’re opening soon.”



Vivant’s laughter broke through the silence. He slapped the bar with his open palm to punctuate his hysterics.



“Oh, Valentine; you still make my belly ache with laughter,” Vivant said, rubbing at his stomach. He stopped laughing abruptly.



“If I wanted you dead, Valentine, you wouldn’t be standing there almost pissing yourself with fear,” Vivant told him. He stared at Valentine with soulless eyes. Valentine had no doubt that he meant what he said and he knew that he still stood there in his own club only by Vivant’s grace. But what bothered him more than being killed by Vivant, was why he was here in the first place. What bothered him the most, was what he wanted.



They stood looking at each other across the edge of the bar for what seemed like eternity. Valentine still didn't know what he wanted, and was still afraid to ask.



"You'll be wondering what the hell I'm doing here, no?" he asked Valentine.



"Of course I'm wondering what you're doing here. We've not seen each other for decades. What is it you want?



"I want you, Valentine. I want you back."



Valentine stiffened at his words, the hands at his sides contracting into fists, shoulders drawing up as his muscles all became taut, tense.



"I'm not sure what you mean." Valentine tried his damnedest not to stumble over his words, not to show his fear.



"Yes, you do. Don't be coy - it's unbecoming on you. You know exactly what I mean. Tell me, have you ever felt the way it felt when we were together? Have you ever felt that bolt of electricity that shoots up your spine and into your head with so much pleasure it feels like you brain is being fucked, with anybody else except me? You miss that. I know you do. You could spend years protesting that you do not and I will never believe you. I'll never believe you because I know how it feels. And I know I've never felt that again. I've never felt it without you, Valentine."



Valentine tried hard to swallow but his mouth was dry, nervous tension obstructing his throat. The nerves in his lower abdomen stirred as Vivant's words triggered his memories. And he remembered in glorious hues of red. As he thought back to those times he could not stop himself from sighing. A low growl made its way up his throat as his primal nature began returning, triggered by remembering he and Vivant on their legendary hunts. He remembered both of them lying on their backs, chests heaving with exertion, soaked from head to foot with fresh blood and picking shreds of flesh and clumps of hair from between his teeth. He remembered having a human heart in his hands, staring at it with fascination and squeezing the last of the contents of the organ into his mouth. And he remembered the two of them, fangs locked into each other's veins and feverishly drinking in the potent vampire blood. No sensation on earth - human or vampire - could compare to that of one vampire feeding from another. The sensation was beyond bliss, beyond sex and sensuality. The sensation was beyond the religious ecstasy of the stigmatic feeling Christ's pain and suffering. It was, quite simply, beyond compare. His cock stirred and he had an intense urge to put his hand down the front of his pants and start stroking it. He wanted to grab Vivant by his tousled black hair and make him sink his fangs into it and drink from him.



A knowing grin spread across Vivant's ruddy lips.



"You don't have to lament the passing of those days anymore, Valentine. I'm back. We're together again. And we can feel what we once felt again."



Tears welled up in Valentine's eyes as he realized he was again powerless to resist him. His mind and body screamed at him to be strong, but the vampire heart that beat inside him told him to go out into the night and be what he was supposed to be - a ruthless killer, a murderer, a beast. The feral heart that beat out a tattoo inside his chest told him to go out into the night and be the only thing that he could be - a vampire.



Valentine walked, stepping heavily across the floor, and slumped down on a low stool at a table in a corner of the club. He had no idea what he was going to do. He was torn inside, a war raging in his head between the man he was now and the beast he knew he could be. And he knew which one was stronger. He knew which one would be triumphant. Questions filled his mind and his brow furrowed as a satisfactory answer evaded him.



What is it that stops me from being what I am and doing what I know I want to do?



These humans do nothing but make me insane with their smell and their falseness and their pretense and their...their...everything!



I'd love to run rampant through this club when it's full to capacity and slit each and every throat from ear to ear and bathe in the arterial spurts that would paint the walls a beautiful shade of vampire red.



"So, come with me then, Valentine. Don't just dream about the old days - let's live them again. Let's be more than we were even then. We're older now, stronger, more powerful. The world is at our feet and there is nothing beyond our grasp. It is all there for the taking and if you want it, all you have to do is reach out and take hold of it. Come with me."



Vivant held out his hand to Valentine, crooking his fingers toward himself in a come here gesture. Valentine didn't move; he sat there, body rigid, hands on his knees and his fingernails digging into the flesh on his legs. He still tried to resist him, still tried to deny Vivant his dominion over him, but he knew it was futile.



Valentine rose, shoulders slumped, his head heavy, defeated by himself and his own desires. He put his hand in Vivant's hand.



Vivant's grip tightened around his fingers and his eyes changed.



His eyes, he remembered, only changed when he was in a state of blind rage.



Valentine watched as the near-black of Vivant's irises bled into the whites turning them dark and the iris flooded with scarlet color. His pupils became feline, elongated and a snarl curled his upper lip and showed Valentine a stab of keen white enamel.



Before he could blink, Valentine was slammed into the club wall with such a brute force that each one of his ribs shattered and he felt sharp shards of bone protruding through his skin and the heat of his own blood running down his front. Immediately, his bones began to knit back together again and within seconds he was new again, unharmed.



"You think it's going to be that easy, you fucking prick?" Vivant's voice emerged from a growl that rumbled in his throat.



"But...but...I thought..."



"You thought you'd just swan back in and everything would be rosy in the garden and we'd go on our merry way and fuck and suck our way through eternity, right? Wrong. You've got some fucking explaining to do. And if I'm not satisfied with your answers, then...well, let's just say your answers had better be satisfactory, you understand me?"



Valentine knew that he was serious.



"I asked you a question - do you understand me?" He asked again.



"Yes, I understand. I'm sorry, Vivant."



"Sorry? What for? Trying to kill me?"



"Yes, I'm sorry for that. I had no right to do it. I just

wanted to get away from you," Valentine said.



"You could have just left me a fucking note! But no, you had to try and kill me. Why did you do that? Were you that afraid of me? What did I ever do to you to make you hate me so much?"



Valentine was ashamed of himself and looked down, toed the pool of his own congealing blood that lay on the floor at his feet.



"I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say. But you do know what you did, Vivant. But, I know I don't deserve your mercy, so if you're gonna kill me for what I did, so be it. I won't struggle. I accept my fate."



Vivant looked at him with a horrified look.



"What? Jesus. You've been amongst mortals way too long. Once upon a time, I'd be watching your eyes change right now."



"I'm glad it's finally over. I've lived with the fear of you coming back for so fucking long that I nearly forgot what I was afraid of," said Valentine, and laughed bitterly. "I just want it finished. So finish it now, Vivant. Kill me."



"You'd like that, wouldn't you? Ever the fucking martyr. Well, fuck you; if that's what you want, I'm not going to give it to you."



They stood glaring at each other. Valentine was determined not to give Vivant the fight he wanted and Vivant was desperate for each of them to draw blood and tear strips of each other in a passionate, obsessive battle of wits and fists.



But as they stood there, eyes locked together, minds reading each other, they both knew that it was futile to resist. A bond that can never be broken was between them - the bond of father and son, the bond of brotherhood, of lovers, of family - the bond of the maker and the child. These were bonds that had withstood ultimate betrayal, loss, loneliness and the expanse of decades. But in the moments as they looked at each other, the years disappeared into history and this night - the night they were brought together again - was just the beginning.