Dancing in the Dark - 3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3.

My breath caught in my throat and I darted over to the vampire. He looked awful. His cheeks and eyes were sunken and hollow, his lips were pale and his whole face looked pinched. I reached out and my hand hovered over his face. I wanted to touch him. There was an IV attached to him, as well as a heart monitor and some other gadgets. I drop my hand and look over at the doctor.

“You need to take all of this stuff off of him. He needs to come home with me,” I say and Dr. Pierson looks nonplussed.

“So you know him then?” he asks.

I shake my head with a smile and say, “I have no idea who he is, but now that he’s stumbled across my path again I’m not about to let him go.”

“Well I can’t just let you kidnap him; I have a duty of care here. Besides that he’s very ill, he needs to be here,” Dr. Pierson says firmly. I laugh at him, and he gets pissed.

“Mr. Atwood this is not─”

“He’s a vampire,” my statement stops him midsentence.

“But . . . he’s . . .”

“Yeah, I don’t know what’s up with that,” I frown down at the comatose vampire. Vampires are never in poor health. I reach out to brush his hair off his face but my hand stops before I actually touch him.

“I have the means to care for him at home, release him to me,” I look the doctor in the eye. He evaluates me for a second and then nods and leaves. Moments later a nurse enters and starts to unhook the vampire from all the various machines he’s attached to.

My new house guest stirs as the IV is removed from his arm, and my hand finally descends onto his face, sweeping his floppy black hair off his face and caressing his cheek. As the back of my fingers trail down his cheek his eyes open. He stares up at me for a moment then smiles and turns his face into my hand and falls unconscious again.

I lift my fingers to his eyelids and pull them up just to check that what I saw was right. Yep. Left eye blue, right eye green. Wow. The nurse has finished unhooking my vampire from all the machines, and another nurse comes in with a wheelchair. They carefully shift him into it and then look at me for direction.

I shrug my shoulders, and then take the handles of the chair and push the wheelchair out of the room with a ‘thanks.’ Dr. Pierson is nowhere to be seen, so I stop at the ER desk on my way out and the nurse there hands me some forms, which I sign and then I take my new charge out to my car.

I lift him into the front seat, which isn't that hard because he weighs next to nothing. He doesn't stir as I put him in the car, or when I carry him to my apartment. I put him on the couch and then stand there staring at him for awhile. The nurses must have cleaned him up, and even as desperately emaciated as he is he’s beautiful. I don’t really know much about vampires other than how to kill them, so I’m not sure how he managed to end up in this condition. I’m not really sure what to do with him now.

The sun peeks up above the horizon and illuminates my living room. The vampire on my couch starts smoking so I rush across to the windows and draw the curtains. There are still bits of sunlight peeking through, so I pick up my new guest and take him to my bedroom. There are no windows there, I had them all boarded over when I bought the apartment. So I’m a little paranoid, so what?

I put the comatose vampire on my bed and arrange the covers around him. I don’t put him under them though, in case he wakes in a panic and starts thrashing. I change into my pajamas (yes, I have and love pajamas) and crawl in on the other side of the bed. I’m exhausted from the long night of work, and so it doesn't take long for me to fall asleep.

***

I wake up with a start when I feel teeth sink into my neck. I struggle for a moment, but the vampire is extremely strong and has me pinned. I relax into the bed and let him feed from me. I would have offered it to him anyway. I don’t know how much blood a vampire can take in one go, but when I start getting dizzy and my muscles start twitching and convulsing from a lack of oxygen I realize my vampire is draining me dry.

I’m not too worried, like I've mentioned before, I’m immortal. Being drained is a super uncomfortable feeling though, let me tell you. My heart is racing, trying to pump oxygen to my muscles, which are cramping and convulsing. My vision is getting blurry and dark, and my arms and legs stop responding as my body shuts down my limbs in an effort to save all the precious oxygen for my brain. I’ve realized by now the vampire is not actually aware of what he’s doing. I appear to have brought a revenant into my bed. Fantastic.

Eventually I pass out, and wake up in a world of pain. I don’t know how much time has passed, but when my body finally comes back under my control – sort of – I see that the vampire is back in his comatose state. He’s curled up next to me, one arm around my waist and tucked up so close to me that I can’t focus my eyes on him. Well, I can’t focus my eyes at all yet.

When I feel I can stand I drag myself out of bed and promptly fall flat on my face. Ok, apparently my legs don’t want to work yet. I drag and crawl my way to my fridge, and by the time I get there I can crawl on my hands and knees.

I grab a jug of orange juice from the door of the fridge and drink the whole thing down. That gives me enough energy to stand up and on shaky legs I raid my food supplies. I eat almost a third of the contents of the fridge before I slow down and try to take stock of what happened.

Ok, so a vampire who was acting as a delivery boy for some of my clients ends up in a hospital with a bunch of humans who don’t realise he’s a vampire because he’s sick. This vampire has no identification on him, just my name and number. The hospital calls me and I swoop in and take the vampire home.

I think about the dark alley I originally met the vampire in, and my first thought about how my employers were trying to kill me. Looks like I was right. It’s an odd way to try and kill me, but it would have worked. If I could have died.

So now comes the question of why they want me dead? Do they suspect my immortality and are trying to test it? Or did they just want the Madame of the brothel dead without having to pay for it? Either way, they are going to expect me to be dead, and are going to be coming in here sometime tonight to collect their now well fed vampire.

Well, shit.