PANDORA

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “That isn’t me anymore,” I said, but my voice sounded frail. Even the desire to hunt collided with the first pangs of guilt my actions as a vampire had managed to summon. Two deaths had already begotten a dozen others. In my mind’s eye, the crimson thickened and pooled, beginning to drip from my fingertips as the blood of my other nameless victims joined Lydia’s. “This is all her fault,” I muttered, rising from my bed and forcing myself out of my room so I might seek nourishment that evening. “Why should I feel guilty for any of this?”

  I passed by Timothy in the foyer without asking his permission to venture out alone. Michael I ignored as well, even when he watched me pass, his lips curled in yet another sarcastic smirk. “What is it, Peter the Blind?” he called after me. “Having a difficult evening?” I bristled and yet, could not be deterred on my way out the front door.

  Death, death; all around me was death. A frightful cold descended into my bones, my mind so preoccupied, I barely heard Timothy yell for me at the front doors. Mercifully, he left me alone. I needed to drown out this macabre enchantment running loose through my soul, while being tempted further into the abyss. Scouring memory after memory throughout the course of the night, I tried to determine how I started down this path in the first place, but my initial attempts were in vain.

  It was not until I remembered Sabrina that I finally found the answer.

  Chapter Four

  The man who would become a killer found immortality in the most unlikely of places.

  It had been a coffee shop, situated a short walk from my work, and a regular haunt for the doctors and nurses between shifts. The mental image gradually filled with day-to-day nuances and idle details, from the arrangement of tables and chairs to the students who filled in the rest of the crowd, often busy with homework or mired in discussion. The thoughts I had once entertained materialized as well, including the night I found myself sitting alone, contemplating the state of my life. This is how she found me, my eyes distant while I mused with sadness over my relationship with Lydia.

  It was the perfect timing for a vampiress to lure her latest conquest.

  Lydia and I had been together for more than two years, and although I could not yet recall everything about our time together, I distinctly knew that things had changed by the time my dark dance with immortality began. Where we once knew such closeness, it all seemed to be slipping away, given over to the distance of busy lives spent immersed in differing pursuits. I brooded over the sands of time, noting their pace outran my quest for happiness.

  The woman who would become my coven mistress sat across from me, startling me away from my thoughts. Her lips pursed together, legs crossing as she regarded me with interest. “Can I help you?” I asked, raising an inquisitive eyebrow at her.

  She lifted a hand and used it to cradle her chin as her elbow settled on the arm of the chair. I remember being struck by the vivacious redhead, an air of distinction emanating from the way she held herself. “I’ve never seen such a young man appear as though he was holding the weight of the world on his shoulders,” she said. “You have me curious.”

  I shook my head. “Life,” I said, spitting out the best summary of my thoughts I could fashion. “I’m just thinking about life, that’s all.”

  “That’s a pretty weighty subject, Mister . . . ?”

  “Dawes, but please call me Peter.”

  “Peter,” she said, allowing my name to roll off of her tongue as if tasting it. She nodded. “My name is Sabrina. A pleasure to meet you.”

  I nodded in return and reached forward. “Likewise.” We exchanged a handshake over the table before sitting back in our seats once more. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around here before,” I said in the effort to make conversation.

  “I take it that means you’re a regular.” An amused glint danced across her eyes as they plunged deeply into mine.

  I did not mind the scrutiny, although I am certain I should have. “I’m a resident doctor at the hospital just up the street. I come here often.”

  “Ah, a doctor.” Sabrina looked at my hands, studying them as she spoke. “Steady, strong hands.” Her eyes lifted back toward mine. “And eyes that see a bit of death, I’m sure.”

  I winced at the reminder. “More than you can begin to imagine.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Beyond the operating table?”

  I met her eyes, and then looked away. “I’m not a surgeon. But yes, beyond what happens at the hospital.” I paused, reliving the most traumatic experience of my life without knowing why I was disclosing this to a complete stranger. “My parents were killed in a car accident. I was in the car, too . . . barely injured but for a broken leg. They might have survived as well, but . . . ”

  When I trailed off, I detected the slightest hint of excitement radiating from Sabrina. She spoke before I could acknowledge it. “What happened?”

  I looked back at her. “I didn’t know how to help them. It took an hour for the police to arrive and they lost too much blood. That’s why I became a doctor. I wanted to help people.”

  “Have you succeeded, Peter?”

  “I don’t know how to answer that question.”

  “Have you helped others avoid death?”

  I frowned, my gaze drifting toward my hands. “That’s the one thing about death, I’ve discovered. Even when you try to avoid it, it comes looking for you anyway.”

  “That it does, dear. The question is hardly whether it comes, but what it finds when it reaches you.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  She chuckled. “Some cower in fear when death looks for them, but others overcome it. They scoff at it and subjugate it, rather than surrendering to it. I rather prefer that attitude, don’t you?”

  “No one can subjugate death, Sabrina. It happens to all of us.” I paused as a peculiar thought entered my mind. “Now, if only there was some way to avoid it altogether. Then you might be on to something.”

  Sabrina grinned and allowed my comment to linger, savoring it before offering her thoughts in return. With that offhanded confession, I had sealed my fate.

  We had several discussions after that, whenever we chanced upon one another in the coffee shop. They always managed to come back around to the macabre what sorts of things I witnessed in the emergency room; the people who arrived beyond help; the people who were brought back from the brink. The constant stream of death and near misses I was forced to gaze upon each and every day. Her words poisoned my thoughts the more I spoke with her, until the evening she came right out and asked if I had ever treated puncture wounds.

  I laughed and took a sip of my coffee. “Like knife wounds?”

  “No, no, my dear,” she said. She raised a daring eyebrow at me. “I mean something like vampire bites.”

  The statement nearly caused me to choke on my beverage. “Vampire bites? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  Sabrina laughed, cupping her hand over her mouth in the process. “Oh Peter, let’s say for the sake of argument that I’m not." Composing herself, she cleared her throat and challenged me with her gaze, the corner of her mouth still curled upward in amusement. “Have you ever treated anything like that?”

  “No, Sabrina. I’ve never treated vampire bites.”

  Her smirk only solidified. “You find the idea incredulous, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do.” I scoffed. “Vampires are monsters in horror movies. They don’t exist.”

  “You’re certain of this?”

  “Oh please.” I nearly punctuated the statement by rolling my eyes, but something caused me to stop. A strange premonition had been asserting its presence in recent days. For as long as I could remember, there had always been a melancholy darkness shrouding my demeanor, but I never sensed it nearly as much as I did when Sabrina was around. It had begun affecting the way I looked at everything.

  My temper had had been surfacing a bit more readily. I was more distracted. My normally keen focus at work was given over to strange da
ydreams and notions, many of them dreadfully horrific. Just as soon as they would surface I would shake them away, but in that moment, sitting in the coffee shop, I sensed the chill in my soul attempting to wrap its bony fingers around me once more.

  “Think of it, dear Peter.” Sabrina’s voice drifted to me as though through a dream. “Being elevated beyond death. Fanciful or not, you have to admit it’s a tempting prospect.”

  I perked an eyebrow at the notion. Was it a tempting prospect? My thoughts returned to what I had been mulling on earlier and painted a frown on my face. “Yes, you’re right," I said. “Perhaps being a vampire wouldn’t be such a terrible thing.”

  Sabrina studied me intently. “What troubles you, Peter? Once again, I see the weight of the world on those shoulders of yours.”

  “Immortality,” I said, my gaze distant as I stared across the room. Thoughts of Lydia wove with whatever strange revelation had me in its throes. All at once, it caved in on me; her distance and our periods of separation. The surety I thought I had, being replaced by busy schedules and two ships passing in the night. Lydia’s own strange behavior with me, her absence, and the suspicious nature of it all. I shook my head. “Just when you feel as though you have something reliable something permanent it starts slipping away from you. I wish I could be immortal and not have to worry about . . . ,” I trailed off, struggling for the right word to encompass everything.

  “Immortality can be as much of a curse as it is a blessing.”

  I scoffed, my eyes drawn toward her again. “I don’t see how that could be a curse. Everybody wants to live forever.”

  “It is the rare individual who can handle the responsibility of being something more than human, though.” She leaned forward in her chair, her eyes grabbing hold of mine in an unrelenting grip. “Mortals long for death without realizing it. Could you handle eternity, dear Peter? Would you accept it if it was handed to you?”

  My voice sounded queerly subdued as I spoke again. “I only want the things in my life to stop changing with the wind.”

  Sabrina’s voice lowered as well. “Things like your girl?”

  “Yes. Lydia.” I closed my eyes. “We used to be inseparable, but she hasn’t felt close to me lately. It seems as though we’re drifting apart and . . . ” I fell silent, unwilling to give voice to my fears.

  I opened my eyes in time to see Sabrina perk an eyebrow at me. “And what, Peter? Wanting different things, as often happens between two people? She in search of her pursuits and you, in search of permanence?”

  Her words struck me mute, but Sabrina continued as she turned her head askew to size me up. I felt her drift closer, provoking a shiver to run down my spine. “What do you desire, dear confused one? Permanence? Or the fickle love of someone who could cast you away at a moment’s notice? Which would you seek if the option to be immortal was a possibility?”

  “I don’t know,” I murmured, slack-jawed, as if in a trance.

  “What if I could grant it to you? Here and now, on a silver platter. What would you ask for?”

  “Immortality. I want to be sure about something for once.”

  Sabrina’s voice descended into whisper. “Then ask me for it.”

  My eyes drifted shut. “Give me immortality, Sabrina.”

  “Open your eyes and claim it, dear child. Find your surety.”

  My lids shot open. I stood and excused myself, mind swimming, compelled to do something other than sit there. Somehow, the discussion of what was lasting and what was transient gave me the inclination to head for Lydia’s apartment and clear the air once and for all.

  I would never look upon the world with mortal eyes again after that night. As Sabrina watched me walk away, she had her own set of plans and was poised and ready to exact them. She found a searching, lost young man and rescued a murderer.

  Now, Sabrina would train a killer out of me.

  Chapter Five

  The sound of rain beating against the windows provided backdrop to my thoughts. I had parted the curtains for a glimpse into the night, but this time, found no comfort in the new world to which I had been reborn. Within the recesses of my mind, the flashbacks spilling forth formed a contradiction I could not reconcile.

  These were no mere shadows slipping out from behind the veil; full-fledged memories took flight within my mind. Animated glimpses of my mortal existence played out, forcing me to visit with the old ghosts of twisted metal and death. Not that it was the first moment I recalled my parents were killed in a car accident. I remembered telling Sabrina about it in the coffee shop, but it had lacked any depth of detail. Now it was vivid. John and Marjorie Dawes gained life and lost it just as quickly as reverie gifted it to them. I was a petrified thirteen-year-old when they died, and their death changed the entire course of the rest of my life.

  My father, a veteran of World War II, met my mother in England and they married within months. Home became a farm in the middle of Pennsylvania and together, my parents created an environment of discipline and faith, one that possessed the warmth found in television shows and wistful paperbacks. I was a headstrong only child, but never had cause to question my parents’ love for me.

  It all ended in a car accident, giving birth to the real Peter Dawes.

  The ambulance carried me, the sole survivor, from the scene with a compound fracture in my right leg. It left an indelible mark on me, even after I was sent to live with my father’s sister in the suburbs of Philadelphia. An uncertain future as an orphaned boy in the care of an aunt and uncle he barely knew left me petrified as it was, but lingering memories of the accident also haunted me. The youth I once was relived the hell of watching two parents succumb to their injuries with crystal clarity even after the first of two surgeries to repair my broken leg. Tears were shed at the funeral, but no more after that. The rest of the time was spent ruminating on a fledgling form of survivor’s guilt.

  Had I been a doctor, the possibility existed that I could have saved them. After musing on this notion, my mouth opened with questions for my physician during my postoperative examinations. How did he come to practice medicine? What type of schooling did he receive? The singular motivation to become a doctor possessed me and the humanitarian who emerged from the carnage of a mangled automobile held a near religious passion to save souls with a stethoscope and scalpel. Everyone I met from that point forth saw the would-be doctor and extolled my determination.

  Now, I murdered the lot of them with my teeth.

  Exhaling a sigh, I shook off the litany of thoughts, reminding myself I had not ventured out for sustenance in two evenings. When Timothy had knocked on my door the previous night, I had brushed him aside and drawn the lock before my decision could be challenged any further. He had looked off-put, perhaps even wounded, but any guilt I might have experienced was overshadowed by the turmoil in my soul. Rising to my feet, I fetched my coat, grateful the muscle memory of keeping up appearances had already taken root. Within moments, I found myself outside, seeking out would-be prey.

  Soon enough, the warmth of a fresh kill coursed through my veins, a small piece of sanity amidst the chaos. Hands buried in the pockets of my coat, my gaze jumped from one building to the next as a steady rain pelted me with cold drops of moisture. Walking had been a favored pastime as a human, and as I progressed farther into the city, I hoped it might clear my mind then as it had in years past.

  Instead, I found myself pondering Lydia’s murder again knowing this had been that act which birthed the being I was now. It seemed a macabre crescendo to what had been a two year love affair. Try as I might, though, any memory of our happier times seemed purged, leaving me with an incomplete picture of a shattered heart. Perhaps my swipe for her necklace had been the bitterest act of all.

  Immediately, my footsteps ceased, right as the steady rain turned into a downpour. Strands of my hair dripped and my coat clung to my frame, but memory of that necklace proved to be more important. “Timothy mentioned my wallet,” I said aloud, furrowing my br
ow at the thought. Had I dropped the chain after ripping it from her throat, or shoved it into my pocket? Through the haze of trauma, I could not remember either way. But if there was a chance I still had it . . .

  I turned, heading back for the estate before I could stop myself. Feet splashed in puddles and by the time I made it back inside, rain drenched me from head to toe, but I was a man on a mission. Weaving around the other vampires, and pushing through the crowded common area, I found Sabrina and waved for her attention.

  She turned to look at me, stopping abruptly once she took in my appearance. An eyebrow lifted, the rest of her expression remaining neutral. “My son, did you forget an umbrella?” she asked, drifting away from one of my siblings while offering him a parting nod.

  My gaze fell to the other vampire, a swarthy, tall fellow whose name I struggled to remember. As he nodded in response to Sabrina, it finally dawned on me; Aaron glanced at me briefly and raised an eyebrow before blending into the rest of the crowd. I waited for him to make it out of earshot, eyes jumping between him and Sabrina before settling on the latter. “No,” I said, before realizing the state I must be in. “I mean, yes, I did, but it doesn’t matter.”

  An amused grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. She rested a hand on my shoulder, using her grip to turn us in the direction of the foyer. “My, you are in a fit tonight. Timothy said you’d been acting reclusive lately. I was beginning to worry.” Her touch continued to linger.

  “I’ve had a lot on my mind. That’s actually part of why I wanted to talk to you.” I paused, working to posit the question to her as cautiously as possible. “After I was turned, when you took my old clothing . . . What happened to my personal effects?”

  Her fingers might have tremored as we began a sedate stroll from the common area. Lifting her other hand, Sabrina tapped her long nails against her chin. “What happened to your personal effects?” she asked, repeating the question. A shrug provided its punctuation. “Honestly, I have no idea. Your clothing was covered in blood and the rest were just human trivialities.”