by ghislainviau
“When the impossible is real, and the real is imaginary, boundaries and borders break down. Christina Moss ignores the constraints of common knowledge with blithe abandon, and weaves a tale of what might be, and how it should be if it were.
“Everything about Vampire of My Dreams is dark and cool on the warp, and bright and hot on the weft. The fabric of this tale will chill and warm you at once, an unusual sensation you will remember for a long time.”
—Don Dewsnap, Oak Wand Publishing
“I rarely read for pleasure but more to learn about my trade and to improve upon my skills. Not only did this book keep me intensely interested, it brought tears to my eyes — more than once. I don’t recall the last time a book had the same effect on me. Now that’s saying something.”
—Brad Fraunfelter, Science Fiction and Fantasy Illustrator
Copyright © 2010 Christina Moss
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Adamantine Publishing House
PO Box 6338
Burbank, CA 91510
First Edition: September 2010
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fi ctitious.
Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
ISBN 978-0-9828245-2-8
Cover Illustration: www.bradfraunfelterillustration.com
© 2010 Christina Moss
Interior Illustration: Christina Moss
© 2010 Christina Moss
Book Design: www.creativepublishingdesign.com Proofreading: Don Dewsnap
Printed in the United States of America This one is for my husband, Edward.
† † †
Vampire of
My Dreams
Terror coursed through the man’s body, and his heart was pumping fast as he tried to fl ee through the cold, dark night. Death was at hand and he always knew his would be gruesome, an inevitable outcome following a life of crime. He understood that very soon he would be dead but he ran just the same — instincts of self-preservation are like that.
His end did come fast, just as he’d predicted. A freakishly powerful force knocked him to the ground and his pursuer was on him. The cold hand on the side of his face shoved his head aside, while the other hand ripped through his collar.
He felt the fangs sink deep into his jugular and then he shook convulsively. Numbing feet and hands, then his slowed pulse signaled the life draining from him. He felt his throat being slit, and a moment later, he was dead.
Alexander, the nearly-two-hundred-year-old vampire, licked his knife clean and slipped it into the leather sheath. He stood over the corpse for only a second before walking away.
1
Vampire of My Dreams
He didn’t often feel elated but he did that night. However, his lift in spirits had nothing to do with his most recent kill.
On the contrary, feeding on humans was not an activity he took any pleasure in at all.
The thing that made him happy was the fact that he’d fi nished work early. That meant he could spend more time talking with Zoe and tonight was a special night, since it was her twenty-fourth birthday.
For the past six years he’d entered the human girl’s dreams a few times each week and they would talk — sometimes for hours. Zoe was innocent and beautiful but in all of those years, the girl knew Alexander only as a dream, and so the vampire had never taken advantage of her. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, it was just that it wouldn’t have been right.
That’s how he fi gured it.
In those six years he’d revealed to her so much about himself — at least about his life when he still had one — the life he’d led before he was turned. No one knew as much about Alexander as she. And he had discovered so much about her
— he knew her fears as well as the things that annoyed her, what made her laugh and what made her cry. But the one thing that Alexander discovered that most took him by surprise, was not about Zoe at all. It was about himself. He realized that he loved her deeply. And that was a signifi cant realization, given the fact that he’d never loved anyone, not when he had a life and certainly not since his life had been taken away.
2
Christina Moss
For years he’d carefully reasoned with himself that he couldn’t offer her anything of importance or meaning because he wasn’t human. He’d settled, instead, on being content with her friendship a few nights a week and he enjoyed her human perspective and companionship. And of course, she was beautiful with long dark hair, dark eyes and a vibrancy he had never seen in another.
It wasn’t easy, but time and again he’d managed to talk himself out of revealing to her that he wasn’t just a dream and that he really existed. If he told her the truth it was more than likely that she would reject him altogether, or so he thought.
Recently, however, things had begun to change. Zoe had mentioned Michael — someone she’d met at a gathering —
and Alexander feared that he would have to stop seeing her altogether. Therefore, something had to be done.
And so, Alexander was feeling elated because after refl ecting on it for a good long time, he’d come to an important decision. He’d decided that he would ask Zoe to go to a particular location when she was awake. He felt certain that if he asked her to, she would go somewhere at a specifi c time, then he would turn up. In that way, he’d reveal himself to her as a real being, not just a dream. He’d tell her how much he loved her and ask her how she felt about him.
3
Christina Moss
Five years later . . .
Zoe stood before the three-sectioned, full-length mirror and stared at her naked refl ection. She looked aged and tired.
But of course she did. She’d just been through years of absolute hell. People used to tell her she was pretty, but it seemed like a long time since anyone had told her. She wondered if anyone would ever tell her that again.
An icy chill went through her, and she grabbed her white bathrobe from the hook on the wall and wrapped it around herself. It was just her own unfortunate luck that her divorce was fi nalized that very day — on her twenty-ninth birthday.
She shook her head in disgust. A year of engagement was followed by four short years of marriage. She wondered how so much could go wrong in such a short time.
Analytically, she understood that it wasn’t her fault. Emotionally, she felt guilty and spent.
Having no experience herself with drugs or addicts, she couldn’t have known that Michael had already been addicted 5
Vampire of My Dreams
to meth when she’d fi rst met him fi ve years earlier. He’d hidden it well but she felt stupid just the same. Stupid that she hadn’t suspected anything strange about his behavior — not while they were dating, not on her wedding day, and not even for the fi rst year or so of their marriage. It wasn’t until he’d begun losing weight, acting frantically and staying up until all hours of the night (doing who knows what in the garage) that she knew something was terribly wrong.
It was the rapid deterioration that alarmed her and that’s when she really paid attention. She thought he was ill so she pleaded with him to go to a doctor. No sense could be made of it — he just wouldn’t go. One clue led to the next and the discovery was made. Discovery was followed by confrontation, research, the broken promises and failed attempts to rehabilitate him. It was somewhere during that process that Zoe had lost, one by one, all of her friends. They’d become repulsed by his transformation
and outraged at her for wasting her time with a hopeless addict. As painful as it was to lose her friends, Zoe knew she had to do everything in her power to save Michael.
After all, marriage vows meant something!
But even she had a breaking point. The decision hadn’t come easily, but it had become clear after a time that he didn’t want to change, even if it killed him. That’s when she knew that staying with Michael would only result in her own destruction. As devastating as it was, she’d fi led for divorce.
At least one life would be saved.
6
Christina Moss
The fi nalization of her divorce was signifi cant. It was the end of her stint in hell. But it was an unhappy ending, and it left her feeling empty and defeated.
Even under the thick bathrobe, the cold of the late autumn night made her shiver, so she opened the bottom drawer of her bureau and pulled out her fl annel pajamas. She hadn’t worn them in a long time. She quickly put them on and rewrapped herself in the bathrobe before bending down to slide the drawer shut, but before she closed it she noticed an old blanket. She told herself that she’d have to go through her things and throw away some clutter. The blanket was quickly pulled out and tossed into the corner to remind her to clean out drawers and closets the next day. It gave her something to look forward to — cleaning, a sort of therapy in itself.
She raised her foot to close the drawer and that’s when she spotted it — the large tattered and torn manila envelope that had been sitting underneath the blanket. She inhaled suddenly and with swelled emotion said aloud, “Oh, Alexander! Where have you been?”
Zoe withdrew the envelope before sliding the drawer shut.
She sat down at the edge of her bed clutching the package, and an avalanche of memories returned. How long had it been since she’d dreamed of him? Alexander, her handsome and imaginary guardian vampire.
7
Vampire of My Dreams
She looked into the distance at nothing but memories and squinted in concentration. A smile fl ashed as the vague dreams resurfaced. But the smile quickly faded when she remembered why she had subconsciously invented him in the fi rst place — she needed him in order to get through the unimaginable pain following the tragic events of a fateful birthday eleven years earlier. That was when Zoe fi rst began having vivid dreams of Alexander.
The dreams had begun after her parents had been bru-tally murdered in the very house she continued to live in to that very day. She’d witnessed the violence but had been knocked unconscious before the rampage ended, and woke up in a hospital. It was the day she turned eighteen.
That night and the following day were fi lled with homicide inspectors, medical exams, police interviews, forms to fi ll out and the media assault. She’d arrived back home the next night — alone and broken. After crying for hours she’d fi nally fallen asleep.
That was the fi rst night she dreamed of the vampire. Then she continued to dream of him two, sometimes three times a week. But then the dreams had stopped, and when they did, Alexander had faded from her mind and the only records of Zoe’s conversations with him were written in six journals now tucked away in the large manila envelope she held in her hands. And she hadn’t viewed them since. She’d forgotten all about Alexander — such is the nature of dreams.
8
Christina Moss
It was still early so she stepped into her slippers and with the envelope in hand, she headed downstairs to the living room. After removing the screen from the fi replace, she grabbed some old newspapers that she’d rolled up and tied into knots a few nights before. Zoe tossed eight or ten of them onto the hearth, then placed four logs over them.
She reached up to the mantel and found the box of long matches. After lighting one she held it under the newspaper ends until they fl ared up nicely, and then carefully replaced the screen.
Zoe positioned herself comfortably across the sofa, reached back and pulled the chain to light the lamp on the end table behind her. She looked at the envelope. There was, at fi rst, a fl ash of doubt about venturing into the past, a past even more painful than the present. But a sudden vivid memory of Alexander’s smiling face returned, with his bright eyes, white teeth and two long fangs. He’d always had a big smile and contented look after his feedings. Then, she recalled (unable to suppress her own smile), he only came to her dreams after his feedings, so as not to be tempted to bite her. If nothing else, he was a considerate vampire.
It was with those pleasant memories that she emptied the contents of the envelope onto her lap. The journals were numbered one to six. Zoe picked up the fi rst journal, opened it to page one and began reading.
9
Vampire of My Dreams
† † †
For all the horrifi c darkness that has befal en me these past forty-eight hours, there was one beacon of light and it shined on me, of all places, amid the intimacy of a dream.
Last night I had a conversation with Alexander, a vampire. He began as fol ows, “Forgive me for intruding on your night, but I had to know if you’re okay. Did he hurt you?”
The soft but deep voice was next to me. I rol ed over and there was a man in my bed. But I wasn’t frightened. Dreams can be like that.
“Not physically. Is that what you mean?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your name?” I asked him.
After some hesitation, he said, “My name is Alexander.
I’m sorry I didn’t arrive sooner last night. I heard the gun and rushed in, but by then there was a second shot. I pushed you out of the way before he fi red off a third. I don’t want you to worry about him. He’ll never bother you again.”
“What did you do to him?”
Once again he hesitated before answering, “He’s dead.”
“How did you kil him?”
“I’m a vampire.”
“I see.”
10
Christina Moss
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Zoe.”
That was the fi rst time he smiled at me. It was a good smile. “Do you know what your name means, Zoe?”
“No.”
“It means ‘life’.” He sighed contentedly and then said, “You should rest. I can stay beside you until just before dawn.” He was on his back with his hands clasped behind his head and his ankles crossed.
“Okay. But tel me, what does your name mean?”
“It means ‘protector’. I can smell your tears. You were crying earlier?”
“Yes.”
“You should sleep now.”
“I’d much rather talk to you.”
“I can tel you’re tired. If you sleep now, I’l return another time to talk to you if you’d like.”
“Please do. I’m so glad you came.”
“Me, too. Sleep wel little Zoe.”
† † †
Zoe looked at the burning logs, and remembered how Alexander had returned to her dreams two or three times a week, for the next six years.
11
Vampire of My Dreams
Zoe put her journals on the coffee table. Then she got up from the sofa, poked a log into a better position in the fi replace, and went into the kitchen to make herself some tea. She considered all of the things she’d “learned” from Alexander over those next six years. He was born on the twenty-fi rst of February, eighteen hundred twenty-nine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He moved to Chicago when he was twenty-four years old. It was there that he’d met and worked for Edward Rucker and Allan Pinkerton at the North Western Police Agency. After that, he’d become a private investigator — and she surmised, a very good one.
She’d even looked into some of his stories of crime solving, and sure enough, they were all one hundred percent accurate.
But Zoe knew that she must have heard those same stories in school or seen crime reenactment shows on television over the years. She’d just forgotten the source. They were old memories bubbling back to the surface by way
of her dreams.
Zoe understood that Alexander never really existed.
If there were, however, a perfect therapy for what she’d been through, her dreams of him were that therapy. And just as she’d loved certain characters in books and in movies — all fi ctitious — so she loved Alexander.
She loved him most of all.
12
Christina Moss
Eleven years earlier . . .
Alexander left the bar just after midnight. There wasn’t any action there, so he drove down the road a ways smelling out criminals. He’d been at it so long he could sense wrong-doing a mile away. Normally he would pick a large city, secure his daily resting place and spend a few nights talking with people. It was never long before he’d trace down some planned crime.
He’d long since learned to fi t in among the seedier offenders just as well as the richer and classier criminals. Crime was crime, as he saw it. And if he had to spend eternity cursed as he was, he’d at least make himself useful. He’d rather stretch out on a sandy beach and wait for the sun to come up and have its way with him than go around indiscriminately slaughtering innocent people for the sake of nutrition. In life he was a crime fi ghter and regardless of his necessity to feed on human blood, he just couldn’t bring himself to then commit senseless murder in his afterlife. The criminals he killed deserved to die. At least that’s how he had it fi gured.
13
Vampire of My Dreams
He only needed to feed twice a week, so he had plenty of time to fi nd some action. He’d ironed out his methodical system a long time before and it was still working for him — hang around, have a drink and strike up casual conversations with person after person after person. Always act friendly, in a stupid sort of way, and always pay attention. Alexander knew that sooner or later someone would brag about a planned crime they had knowledge of or were planning on perpetrating themselves.
On the rare occasion that it didn’t work, he’d simply ask where he could buy some drugs and he’d have his lead.
