After Sundown

She stood on the far edge of the pier, staring down into the still, black water below. It looked cold, cold enough to numb her pain. Jump , she thought. All she had to do was jump and it would be all over. What did she have to live for, anyway? She had no family, no lover or any prospect of one, no friends to speak of. No job, no money. No reason to go on.



How long would it take to drown? Not long, she thought, since she couldn't swim. Would it hurt? At this time of year, the water would be cold - one sudden, gasping shock and she would probably be unconscious. As a child, she had been afraid of the dark, terrified of dying. She had slept with a light on until the summer her grandmother came to stay with them. Grandma Hansen had told her stories of heaven, of the blue-eyed, golden-haired Angel of Death who came to earth to escort the spirits of the dead into the next world.



As she grew older, she had stopped believing in angels. There were no such things as heavenly escorts.



There was no heaven, and surely life was hell enough for anyone. She found it strangely comforting now to believe that there was nothing after this miserable existence, to believe that she could plunge to her death and find peace in the endless black void of eternity. No more pain, no more tears, no more heartaches. She had achieved success once, and blown it big time. She wouldn't fail at this. One last success - and oblivion.



Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and let herself go. Just let herself go. And then she was falling, falling, the wind rushing against her ears, her arms involuntarily outstretched. It was, she thought, almost like flying...



Ramsey stood on the pier near the stairs, gazing down into the ocean, his expression thoughtful. The moon was reflected on the face of the dark water, a brilliant yellow that rippled and shimmered. He cast no reflection at all. But that was to be expected. He was one of the undead he had hunted all his adult life. Yet he could still see himself in a mirror. He pondered that for awhile, thinking how odd it was that a looking glass reflected his image but water didn't, and then shrugged. Still, casting no reflection in the moonlit water was unsettling, as if he no longer existed. A fitting irony, he thought, that he should spend eternity as the very creature he had spent his life destroying.



He grinned ruefully. In point of fact, he didn't exist anymore - at least not as anything the world would recognize. Perhaps the natural world - free-flowing water, the glowing moon - mocked his peculiar existence now. It was all like a bad dream, a nightmare from which he would never awake.



But did one feel that throbbing hunger in the middle of a nightmare? he wondered with grim humor, thinking it was just the sort of sardonic musing he had come to expect from Chiavari. He shook his head at the irony. More than just his wardrobe had changed in the past month.



But he wasn't thinking just then of his new Porsche, or of the new house he had acquired, all in this relatively short time. He had thought it would be difficult to convince the real estate people to come to their office at night to close the sale, but he hadn't reckoned with his new powers of persuasion.



His mood lifted, and he grinned into the darkness. His new house, located near the end of a quiet street in an old neighborhood, looked like something out of Dark Shadows . It was two stories high, with an attic and a basement. The windows were high and arched. There was even a turret on the southeast corner. It was, he thought, the perfect abode for a vampire.



The sense of power, of invincibility, flowed strongly through him, overcoming his lingering repugnance. With each succeeding night, each feeding, his qualms seemed to grow weaker. And his power to grow. Perhaps one day he would be as powerful as Chiavari.



A sudden movement on the far end of the pier interrupted his reverie.



With his preternatural senses, he had been all too aware of the young woman lingering there, easy prey on a cold dark night.



Now she was climbing over the rail, plunging toward the water, arms outstretched. Caught in a wash of silver moonlight, she looked like a raven-haired angel plummeting to earth.



She hit with a loud splash, disappeared for a moment, then bobbed to the surface like a cork, her hair spreading across the rippling water like silken seaweed. The tide was coming in, and it swept her toward the shore, her clothing dragging her under. He left the pier and went around to the steps that led to the sand. Hurrying now, his gaze swept the dark water. At first, he saw nothing, and then he saw her, her body tumbling in the tide that was carrying her toward the shore.



Wading into the water, he grabbed her by the shoulder. She was unconscious, no doubt from the impact of hitting the frigid water. There were dark smudges under her eyes. Her face was pale, her lips tinged with blue. She was far too thin. Kneeling, he laid her on the sand, took off his coat and wrapped it around her, then gathered her into his arms once again.



He stared down at her. He had not yet fed. The Siren call of her blood whispered to the hunger within him. He suppressed the urge, pleased by his power to do so. She was unconscious, weak, her life force feeble. To feed now, while she was unconscious, was somehow repugnant. More important, it would put her life at risk. Thus far, he had left all his victims with their lives. This frail waif would be no exception. He gazed at the planes of her face, bared and vulnerable in the moonlight, felt the damp swing of her heavy hair against his arm as he gained his feet. Looking at her filled him with a kind of aching tenderness. He would take her home, revive her, strengthen her. And then he would feed, at his leisure.



She woke slowly, reluctantly, surprised to find she was still alive. Where was she? It was too much of an effort to raise her head.



She was lying on a bed not her own.



In a room. Not her own.



Panic slithered down her spine when she realized she was naked beneath the covers. Jackknifing into a sitting position, she glanced around the room. Pale mauve-colored walls. Deep mauve carpeting. There was a large walnut dresser against the far wall, a rocking chair in one corner.



She frowned as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She didn't know where she was. She didn't remember how she had gotten there, but she was leaving. Now.



She stood, the covers clutched to her chest, swaying as a wave of dizziness passed over her. What had she done? How had she gotten here?



Pills. She remembered taking a handful of pills, leaving the squalid boardinghouse where she had been staying. Walking for what seemed like hours. Falling... Falling? And then she remembered the dark water beckoning to her, the wind in her ears as she tumbled over the end of the pier...



With a faint cry, she fell back on the bed, suddenly too weak to stand. The pier. She had jumped from the pier. She had wanted to die. Still wanted to die. Why wasn't she dead?



She gasped as the overhead light went out and the room went dark. Panic swept through her when she realized she was no longer alone. "Who - who is it? Who's there?"



Pulse racing, she peered into the dark, but she saw nothing, heard nothing but the frantic pounding of her own heart. Was it her imagination, or had she felt a breath of cold air against the back of her neck?



"Do you really want to die?"



"Yes. No. I don't know." She jumped as an unseen hand brushed her cheek. "Who are you?"



"I am no one."



"Are you the one who brought me here?"



"Yes."



She was afraid to ask why. Terror rose up within her. She didn't stop to wonder at this; she had been ready to die on the pier, had thought she had died in that last moment of consciousness when she hit the icy water that felt as hard as cement on impact, driving the consciousness from her. But she had not died. Why? So that she could die now? One thing was certain: she was closer to death now than she had been when she plunged off the pier.



"Have you come to take me?" she asked. "Are you the Angel of Death?"



A soft chuckle rippled through the air. "You could call me that."



"Grandma was right," she murmured, her voice tinged with wonder. "Will it hurt?"



"Only a little."



"I'm ready."



He looked down at her. He could see the pulse beating in her throat, hear the blood thrumming through her veins, smell her fear. Yet she lay on the bed, the blankets drawn up to her chin, her arms extended, her eyes closed, like a virgin about to be sacrificed to some heathen god.



She is yours. You have only to take her...



The voice of his hunger whispered in the back of his mind, urging him to feed the demon that now lived within him, to slake his thirst, to ease the coldness of his existence by filling himself with her life force, weak as it still was. His noble sentiment at the pier, of strengthening her so that she would not die, seemed a distant memory in the exquisite agony of this hunger. She wanted to die anyway. What would it be like to take it all?



"Angel?"



"I'm here."



"Please hurry. I'm... I'm so afraid."



The fear in her voice, coupled with an almost childlike trust, reached deep down inside him, stirring his best and worst selves. Moving swiftly, he knelt beside the bed and drew her into his arms, blankets and all. His fangs lengthened, pierced the tender skin at her neck. He closed his eyes and drank... and knew her.



She had no one. She lived alone. Once, she had aspired to be an actress. Once, she had dreamed of a romantic love everlasting. Then that love had abandoned her for another woman. Devastated, depressed, she had lost her dreams of stardom, drowned them in alcohol, burned them away in drugs. Now she was out of money, and out of hope... Her choice had been prostitution or death...



He drew back. Though the room was dark, he saw her clearly. She was thin. Too thin. There were hollows in her cheeks. He could feel each rib beneath the blankets that covered her.



And she was young, much younger than he had first thought.



"Angel?" she murmured.



"I'm here."



She lifted a trembling hand to her neck. "Am I dead?"



"No." He searched her mind for her name. "No, Kelly. You are not dead."



"I'm cold."



He drew the bedspread over her, lifted her into his arms - bedspread, blankets, sheets, and all - and carried her to the faded overstuffed chair in the corner. Sitting down, he cradled her to his chest though he doubted his body - his cold, dead body - could offer her much heat.



Gazing deep into her eyes, he whispered, "Go to sleep, Kelly. There's nothing to be afraid of. You are warm now, warm and safe."



He felt his mind connect to hers in that curious bond common between vampire and prey, felt that curious sense of power sweep through him as he bent her will to his.



Obediently she closed her eyes. "I'm not afraid anymore," she murmured. "Grandma was right. There's nothing to be afraid of."



"No," Ramsey said as he lowered his head to her neck. "There is nothing to be afraid of."



He brushed his lips over her throat, his nostrils filling with the scent of her skin, her blood. The faint musty smell of the river clung to her hair. But her blood was warm and sweet, infinitely sweeter and more satisfying than any he had tasted. The first taste chased away the coldness that gripped him, banished the hunger, filled him with a sense of euphoria. Sweet, so sweet.



He drank slowly, wondering that her blood did not repulse him, even as he cursed Chiavari for transforming him, cursed himself for what he was doing. He drew back a little so he could see the girl's face. She was, if possible, even paler than before. Her lashes lay like dark fans against her cheeks. Her breathing was slow and shallow. He had been so pleased the other night, proud of his self-control, of his ability to subdue the raging demon that now lived within him. Why was he having such trouble tonight? Why did the thought of draining her dry hold such appeal even as it sickened him?



He stared at the droplets of bright-red crimson at her throat. He had done that. He ran his tongue over his fangs. Long. White. Sharp. He had only been kidding himself.



Monster. The word rang out in his mind. He was one of them, a creature of the damned, doomed to prey on the blood of innocents.



And even as the thought crossed his mind, he bent his head and drank again.