The Last Vampire

by Tanja Neise

  “Robert needs a doctor, otherwise he’ll die,” I said, as decisively as I could, and reached for my mobile phone. As soon as I had the small device in my hand, it had already disappeared from my fingers. Shocked, I raised my head.

  “I'm sorry, Ma’am, but we can't have any more witnesses.” Aghast, I stared at Spencer, who switched off the phone and dropped it into his jacket pocket. What had I got myself into here?

  Panic was building in me. “But he‘ll die!”

  Dark looked me in the eyes, earnestly. “Yes, he will die.” Fearfully, I sucked in the air, which was suddenly far too tight, but it didn't help. There was no more oxygen in this room. Someone had to regulate the ventilation system. There was one of them in every modern room. My gaze darted around, restlessly, in search of the regulator. My world seemed to be turning upside down. “Unless he gets blood. And I thought you were a medical student?”

  “Yes, yes, and I am. But I’m at the very beginning of my studies and have no practical experience,” I explained, agitated.

  “Well, in my opinion, the only way he can be helped now is with a blood donation.” Dark looked at me from narrowed eyes, as if he was weighing something up in his mind.

  The quiet words seeped into my consciousness. “So he’ll have to go to hospital after all.” I, myself, recognised how cajoling my voice sounded. What was I supposed to do to get these people to reason here? I could not possibly wait until Robert had taken his last breath on this bed.

  Robert Tensington

  A lightness seized me and dragged me with it. I knew that the time had come. Finally, I could go and escape this never-ending anguish. How long had I waited for this? Hundreds of years! And yet I had never found the courage to take the step myself. But now I was free to do it. Nevertheless, I had the feeling I was leaving something important behind. Someone. I hesitated. Why? Fria suddenly came to me, stepping out of a fog. Fria, my wife. A human woman, like no one I had ever again met in my life. She smiled that innocent smile that I’d loved so much about her. My diaphragm trembled because I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I couldn't hear any noises, just as though we were both trapped in a vacuum here in this ominous fog.

  “Raphael,” Fria breathed my name. The name my mother had given me. I couldn't answer; I just kept staring at her without being able to move. “I’m letting you go and hope that you’ll be happy. Your time has not yet come. Go, live and love.” Sadness was visible in her eyes, and again, I could see her angelic smile. Fria closed her eyes and faded slowly but steadily away.

  Had I been able to, I would have followed my impulse and reached out my hand to her. But then I suddenly saw Olivia's face looking at me in horror. She was afraid. Afraid for me. What a bizarre dream, I still thought, as I sank back into the blackness.

  Anne Rumsfield

  The constant roar in my head increased, the more the wobbly state of my brain adapted to gravity. Nausea seized me and I had to control myself so as not to choke. When my eyelids fluttered, I couldn’t see anything. Darkness, nothing but darkness existed around me. Horrified, I noticed that my arms and legs were tied up so well that I couldn’t free myself on my own. What a shitty situation! How had I ended up in this predicament? Oh yes, my own arrogance had catapulted me right to where I was!

  At top speed, the memories of the past days shot back into my consciousness and stopped at one point. This vampire had taken me by surprise, had defeated me easily and without any effort. I had never doubted that I would emerge victorious in this duel, and yet it had happened. The defeat tasted bitter, like bile. Cold anger crept into my body. How could I have been so convinced of myself? The first rule I’d learned with the unit was never to underestimate my opponent. I had made an idiotic beginner's mistake.

  Where was I? The narrowness of the room told me that it was a box or something similar, but I didn't believe that. My instinct and sense of smell told me much more: that I was tightly bound and in a car. Tensington drove a luxury car that had a luggage compartment big enough to hold a person in it. It smelled of chemical cleaners and plastic and when I pressed my feet against the side, the metal noise it made reinforced my suspicion.

  The CEO of Centrodynamics and the dark vampire! In what way were these two men in league with each other? I’d seen Tensington seriously injured, or even dead on the floor, after triggering the explosive device. If he were a vampire, too, I would only have been capable of confusing him, which I had originally intended with the trap. I wanted to distract the vampire, Dark – just until I had put him out of action, so that I could later torture and interrogate him. I wanted to know everything about him.

  A vampire and a human being. This constellation aroused my curiosity and I intended on satisfying it. The only question was, how would I get out of this prison?

  Olivia Morgan

  “What’s his blood type? Maybe one of us could be the donor.” Immediately, I switched into doctor mode. I had finally discovered an opportunity to do something, even if it was only to check the ID cards of those present. For several decades, all relevant health information had been stored on chips in American citizens’ passports. I could read the data instead of sitting there doing nothing. I had already learned this in the first semester and was able to handle the technology very well. There was a good chance that one of us had the right blood group. “If Robert has AB positive, that’d be great, then his blood would be compatible with any other blood type. It wouldn't take us long to find it,” I euphorically explained to my counterpart.

  Dark looked at me in amazement, but as quickly as his face had taken on the stunned expression, the man returned just as quickly to his usual facial expression. Unmoved, he looked down at me. What was that all about? Did he want to make clear to me what he thought of me? “Don't worry, he can handle pretty much any blood type, as long as they take care of the donation.” A trace of sarcasm could be heard in his words, but I simply ignored it. If I argued with the guy now, Robert wouldn't be helped, either.

  Relief flowed through me and for a short time my knees felt like they were going soft, so much so that the tension dropped from me the moment I heard that he probably had blood type AB positive. Only this blood type was compatible with everyone else’s. That was a real stroke of luck. Perhaps we’d manage to get Robert enough donated blood in time and save him with it. “Well, then we need a transfusion, a doctor, a hospital, something. The bandages won’t keep him alive, at least not permanently. I've never been in a situation like this before, and we certainly don't have the equipment we need for it here, either.” I put as much emphasis into the words as was possible for me in view of this situation, yet my voice trembled uneasily. My hand wandered, as if by itself, to Robert's forehead. His skin was ice-cold. After I’d felt his pulse, it was clear to me that he needed help urgently and quickly. Dark had put several bandages on him, which I had to admit looked quite professional. But no one was responding to my words.

  Dark and Spencer weren’t even listening to me anymore; the two of them stormed through the apartment and closed the shutters as if the devil was after them. Up here in the penthouse, they were completely hidden and the sun was about to rise. So why were they doing something so irrational?

  Somebody had to be able to help me to steer the situation towards normality. I hurried into the adjoining room where Sally was lying. I urgently needed to talk to someone who still had a touch of compassion. My friend was starting to get colour in her face again, yet she seemed very weak. The shock was deep and the injuries on her leg had really got to her. But it would heal, and she would feel better soon. At least that's what I hoped.

  “Are the boys asleep?” Sally's voice almost broke at the short sentence as she was so powerless.

  “Yes, they’re still sleeping. Thank God! I cooked something for them earlier and gave them some cuddles. It's OK, considering the circumstances.” I breathed heavily, so as not to add too much hysteria to the following words. “You have to convince your insane Davy to call a doctor. Rober
t’s dying next door!” My efforts had been in vain, the emotional chaos that was raging inside me resonated in every syllable and Sally looked at me compassionately.

  “I'm really sorry, Liv, but I can't and won't do that.”

  Powerless, I let myself fall onto the edge of the bed. Had everyone lost their minds here? My heart hurt at the thought that Robert could die. I had only just found him, was only just about to open myself up to him. Something connected me with him. Something I could not deny. And that something had nothing to do with the amazing sex we’d had with each other, what seemed like a lifetime ago. My shoulder hurt; like a phantom pain, it burned in the same place as where Robert had been injured. I was clearly going crazy, but I didn't know how to escape this whole thing here.

  “Liv?”

  “What?” Aggression was replacing despair and I stared at my friend, full of spite. How could she possibly help let a man die? So far, I’d always assumed that Sally was one of the most compassionate people around me, but now I was afraid I was wrong.

  “You have to listen to me.” Sally's words were wafting forcefully over to me. “Come, slide a little closer to me.” Her hand patted the space directly beside her on the mattress, and I sat down next to her. What else could I have done? Should I have refused and then disappeared from this apartment? Should I have left Robert with his alleged friends, to forget him as soon as possible?

  The smell of blood was in the air, ripping me out of my thoughts – back to reality. Sally must have lost a lot of it, if I could even smell it. The metallic aroma floated through the room, causing me to feel slightly nauseous.

  “What's the matter with all of you, Sally?” Desperately, I put a hand on her forearm; she trembled, but again, I only got a pitiful look. “Don’t you see that he’s dying? Are you all so heartless to just let this happen? I don’t understand you!” My eyes began to burn; resolutely, I pushed the tears away; that wouldn’t get me any further and would help Robert even less. I was slowly running out of arguments. The people in this apartment were obviously mentally ill. Perhaps they belonged to some obscure sect. Such a thing probably existed – blinded souls who thought they would end up in hell if they tampered with God's craft through medical intervention.

  Sally grabbed my arm and her cool hands enclosed my fingers mercilessly. Something bad was coming now. I just knew it. Sometimes we humans have a sixth sense. You perceive something that’s there, but our other five senses cannot grasp it – a kind of intuition, a premonition. In certain situations we notice things that are not tangible to others. Nowadays, we know that there are clairvoyants and telepaths. The world population used to think this was nonsense, but at that time it was also assumed that vampires were a product of fantasy, too. Well, and I, Olivia Morgan, accordingly possessed an extraordinarily pronounced form of the sixth sense. Is that actually the seventh sense – if I have these extreme fears and know precisely that danger does lie ahead? Yet this had nothing to do with my danger radar, but rather, with that fine antenna, conventionally called the sixth sense. Sally was about to say something that would rip the ground away from under my feet. I felt it very clearly. “We know he's unwell, very unwell. Robert needs blood, that's the only thing that can help him. On the way here he was in my arms and I could see the life slowly slipping away from him.” Her shoulders slumped down and she stopped talking.

  Had I been wrong? I could have sworn that Sally wanted to tell me something very important. However, I pushed the thought aside because there was a rage inside of me that wasn’t letting me think clearly anymore. “Damn it; if you know that, give me your phone so I can call a doctor! Spencer took mine away from me.” I got out of Sally's grip and jumped up from the bed. I almost felt like I had to stomp my feet to emphasise my words. I was desperate, powerless and, slowly, I was going mad. “Dark said he could handle any blood type, but for this kind of transfusion we need a doctor. I can't do it. We don't have enough medical equipment here.”

  “Just calm down. You're on the verge of hysterics.” Sally had struck a strict tone at that moment. But the next words feebly left her mouth. “It isn’t what you think. Calm down and listen to me.” I’d been doing that the whole time! They weren’t listening to me! “Sit down! What I have to say to you, one experiences better with a chair under their bottom.” Aha, now she was finally going to speak plainly. So my intuition hadn't betrayed me after all. I sat down, obediently. “Liv, Robert Tensington is a vampire,” Sally let the bomb drop so suddenly that I suffocated.

  A vampire? Of course. Now everything was clear. Clear as day!

  I became very calm, because suddenly I had realised what this was. I was probably lying in my bed dreaming. None of this could be true. My fantasy had always been very pronounced. And vampires had been in it all the time, since my youth. My mum had had to convince me of the reality several times, if I had been scared at night and had lain in bed screaming. It had taken a lot of persuasion to calm little Liv and assure me that it had been a dream and not a memory that had made my heart race. But this was something of entirely different proportions.

  “Do you understand what I’ve told you, Liv? He needs blood. I’d let him drink from me, but first of all I lost too much myself. And secondly, he wouldn't tolerate it.” As if on command, she became very sleepy, and I was about to fall into hysterical fits of giggling. This was all crazy! Maybe it was Sally fantasising due to the high blood loss, and not me.

  “This is one of the most realistic dreams I've had in a long time.” Grinning, I was shaking my head when Spencer came into our room.

  “Spencer?” said Sally, and immediately the chauffeur stepped next to the bed. “She knows.”

  The nice man turned to me. “Ma’am, thank you so much for wanting to help us! The boss needs you badly.”

  “Sure, I'll come and let him drink my blood.” I said, acting dramatically, and opened my eyes wide. “He's probably immune to the vaccine and I'm saving his life with it. Hey, wait a minute, are vampires alive at all?” Now I couldn't hold back the giggling anymore. Cackling like a pubescent girl in a horde of other teenagers, I ran after the chauffeur. Looking for help, he looked around for Sally.

  “It's all right, Spencer. Miss Morgan’s probably in shock.”

  He briefly shrugged his shoulders. I wondered what else my idiotic brain would do.

  “Ma’am, he's by no means immune to the vaccine,” he said.

  Still grinning, given the absurdity of the whole thing, I asked: “And then how does it work? Do they have an antidote ready?”

  Spencer shook his head. “No, we've been trying for years to make such a drug, but we haven't been able to do it yet. But we won't give up, and are continuing our research. One day we’ll have a serum in our hands that’ll save the vampire community.”

  “We? Are you also a... a vampire?” Vampire community? How many of these ‘undead’ were there in my dream? Undead? At that very moment I remembered that Robert had had a pulse. And his hot body had warmed me when I had pressed my naked body against his.

  “No, but I'm still part of the vampire society.”

  Aha, now it was getting really confusing. I saved myself the trouble of going into it, so I asked the obvious. “And how exactly is your boss supposed to survive by drinking from me?”

  “You haven’t been vaccinated. Your blood is pure, like that of the Virgin Mary.” Smiling, he turned to me and opened the door to the room where his boss was lying.

  Before my eyes fell on Robert, a number of thoughts were whirring through my brain. Pure? That was absolute nonsense! Every child was vaccinated within a few minutes after birth, so that such an apocalyptic catastrophe could never again befall mankind. And this had been practiced for considerable time, as long as I could think. It was impossible that I hadn’t been vaccinated. What was I doing here? Was I seriously breaking down the facts of this dream into its individual parts? At some point, I’d have to wake up and laugh at myself in the face of the idiocy that was raging in my subconscious. Shaki
ng my head, I walked past Spencer and decided to approach the whole thing a little more casually. After all, it couldn't hurt to play along and see where the story would take me.

  I came to a standstill at Robert’s side and admired myself for my truly brilliant dream. It was really bubbling over with attention to detail. The man I had miraculously fallen in love with looked horrible, but now I knew better. I knew what I was seeing here wasn’t real. Did Robert even exist? Since when had I been dreaming? But the resolution to play along and to see where this fantasy would lead me was becoming more and more difficult for me, because the thought that I might have imagined it hurt me more than I liked. “And now?” I asked Dark, amused, who was watching me, sceptically. He seemed like a panther to me, a black, shiny predator waiting to kill. Kill? Me? Or Robert?

  The next moment Dark was standing in front of me, raising my arm. He held it tight. It didn't hurt, but he left no doubt that, if necessary, he would hold me in place by force, in order to actually ensure I accomplished the task I was supposed to. I hadn't even noticed him coming to me, even though my eyes hadn't wandered away from him for a second. Strange. I was certainly not consciously controlling the events here in this dream.

  “Thank you, Olivia. This will save Mr Tensington's life. You, and only you, will be able to save his life. He’s too weak, hasn't drunk human blood for decades. He’s almost a human being himself, and without you he would perish just as miserably. He’d bleed to death like a weak human. That’d be a real shame for him, and for all of us.” Dark gave me a smile that somehow didn't match the sentences he had just spoken. After all, I too, was just a weak human like that. And I noticed that I had never seen a smile on him before, either. I smiled back carefully, aware of who was standing opposite me. Suddenly huge fangs came out of his jaw and with one of them he slit open the vein on my wrist while I was still busy opening my eyes wide and thinking of an intelligent answer.