Ashes To Ashes

Tyler J. Hill 5004 35th Ave S. Seattle, WA 98118 206.708.4489 [email protected]

ASHES TO ASHES by Tyler J. Hill

Chapter One: Becoming I I woke to the hiss of distant traffic and the cold bite of small rocks and imperfections on asphalt. A steel drum rang in my head, a malevolent staccato beat meant surely to drive me back into unconsciousness. For a moment I lay there, face down in the dark, one hand beneath my belly, the other sprawled away from my body. When I opened my eyes, they seemed unable to focus, and I could not bring myself to stand, so sure was I the undulating pavement would knock me to my stomach again. I opened my mouth and let out a long, soft grunt of pain. With arms that shook as if they were nothing more than weathered twigs in a windstorm, I heaved myself enough to one side to roll on my back. The sky was a living thing, swarming with leviathan clouds. Tall brick buildings acted like visors to my vision. Though I could not remember how I came to this alley, how long I had been lying there unconscious, or even the last few days

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/2 with any clarity, for a moment all I could wonder was how dirty the ground was, and whether or not I would catch my death of cold. I was so hungry I could barely think. There was a dry, crackling sensation when I opened my mouth to groan again, and with a shaky hand I wiped away the substance on my face. I fingered the caking substance between my fingers. It looked like dried blood. Once I concentrated, I found a coppery taste on my tongue as well. I made the sort of noise a husband makes after discovering his wife has cheated on him—a noise of revulsion and deep confusion. I sat up and immediately regretted it, for my vision dimmed to a black barely discernable from closed eyes. I shook my head, trying to ignore the monkey that banged the steel bongo mercilessly in my left temple, and held my stomach which roared with emptiness. Two buildings on either side shot high up into the air and loomed over me, scowling behemoths considering whether or not to have me for supper. Graffiti ran like veins along their backs, some spelling out street poetry, some forming strange and exotic murals, some simply scrawling strange insults toward unknown foes. The concrete was covered in a fine layer of filth, and small rocks and chunks of mortar littered the ground. Near the doorways of the buildings sat large metal dumpsters, decayed from rain and neglect. Stacks of cardboard and bottles leaned against most of the bins, and loose trash filled the spaces between.

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/3 The silhouette of a man stood in front of the closest dumpster, and I let out a small cry when I saw him, scooting backward on my butt. The man had been looking up at the sky, but when I let out my yelp he lowered his head and regarded me a moment in silence. I sat on the cold asphalt, hands out behind me, not trusting myself to indulge my instinctual side that told me to run—an instinct that, for the briefest moment, seemed unbearable, and had my body been stronger I am sure I would have succumbed to it instantly. The man took a step forward into the ambient light, and the shadows fell from him as if he had discarded a cloak. He was a slight man of less than average height, and wore a black vest and a white pleated shirt that made him seem as if he belonged in a theatre troupe, or perhaps attending a classical music recital. What made me suck in my breath was how blood could so shatter such a mundane persona. There wasn’t much of it, barely enough to run from the top of his otherwise pristine shirt to the bottom of the V

in his vest, but it was enough to send me backward further on my ass.

Whose blood, I could not help but wonder; for I had been bleeding, too. “What the hell is going on?” I forced myself to say, attempting to put the inflection of bravery and anger into my voice, but I could hear the iron in my tone ping falsely. “Patience now, my son,” he replied in an accented voice that was nearly a whisper, holding up a hand and adopting a comforting expression. His pale face was gentle, with kind eyes and a slightly bent nose. He had a

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/4 van dyke beard that was slightly gray, and thinning hair that he kept closely trimmed to his scalp. Minus the blood, the combination of the vest and round, wire-rimmed glasses made me think of a very handsome yet mild school teacher. That thought caused my temple to throb violently again, and for a moment the fog in my mind had a patch of clear air. It came to me that I knew him. Fleeting images of the man sitting at a desk with me opposite, smoking a pipe. The same man over a chessboard, frowning as he corrected my move. Just as quickly, they were gone, and I was once again in a cold alleyway. “The haze will recede,” the familiar stranger said to me, taking another step closer. “Memory is sometimes shifted around in the aftermath. Think of it like a plane that encountered brief turbulence. The bags have fallen out of the overhead, and it’ll take a moment for you to get it all back in proper order. But don’t worry, it’ll happen.” Although I was unsure what exactly he was referring to, his words nevertheless comforted me, as much as I wanted it not to. His accent— Russian or Ukrainian by the sound of it—was soothing, and seemed to force me to respect him. And so, when he reached out to me, I took his hand, and allowed him to hoist me to my feet. My vision swam again as I stumbled to find my footing. My friend was a lot stronger than he looked, for I felt as if I had been lifted by Andre the Giant, and though I might have been close to a foot taller than him, he didn’t

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/5 seem to strain at the effort. There was something else about him, too. Something not quite right. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but he had a quality that was slightly left of normal. Not to mention the fact he had been standing over my unconscious body in the middle of a dark alleyway on a cold Portland February night. My eyes met his, and I knew I had been caught looking him over. “How did I get here?” I looked away quickly, pretending I hadn’t been staring. “I brought you to this place.” He shrugged, and stroked his beard with movements that seemed practiced but effortless. “Think. It’ll come back to you son.” I tried to concentrate, but a building hunger kept me from thinking clearly. It wasn’t as if I had amnesia, for there was much I could remember—I had been born and raised in Bend, Oregon, and moved to Portland five years ago to attend the State University to get a degree in History, and now was working on my graduate thesis. I had been on the football and swim teams at my high school, and still carried the semblance of a muscular physique. I recalled my childhood on Trap Court, my friends growing up, my strange but supportive parents, even my own face—broad features, dark brown hair buzzed to a half inch, green eyes flecked with gold, which was all said to make me unconventionally handsome, though I never saw it—but the closer I got to the present, the hazier things became. Mainly, it was the emptiness in my stomach that distracted me. I had never felt as hungry as I did at that moment, and I might have even called it

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/6 starving. I clutched my stomach, but it seemed as if my whole body ached with the desire to gorge, and I felt as if I might never be satiated again. I wanted to look away from the kind eyes that regarded me as a hand fell upon my shoulder, wanted to mistrust the expression of empathy. “You feel it, don’t you?” he asked, the slightest betrayal of a smile across his dry lips. “The hunger like fire.” In spite myself I nodded, still gripping my belly. It had become more than that, as well. My bones burned—all the world’s growing pains that I had never experienced were springing upon me all at once. God had casually reached down and enveloped me in one giant, ash-stained hand and was wringing me slowly, deciding whether or not to take me back to the pottery wheel and throw me again. Even my eyes burned, and no amount of blinking quenched them. I felt a panic beginning to well in me, and it was hard to talk. My words came out in chopped sounds. “What. Is happening. To me.” “Your body is adjusting to your new change, my son. The pain will pass. As soon as you feed.” The last word made me shudder. It seemed laden with dark meaning, and yet my body reacted to it as if I had been dying of thirst in the desert and heard someone say water. I wanted very much to be away from this man, and back to my apartment, where I could curl under a blanket to rediscover warmth and feast upon pizza until my stomach threatened to

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/7 burst. I turned and began stumbling down the alley, toward the comforting presence of cross-traffic beyond. Immediately, his accent slapped me and caused me to wheel back around. “You won’t want to go that way. Your hunger requires more—” a laugh “—immediate satiation.” “Go to hell,” I snapped. As the last word was still leaving my lips he was inches from me, so fast I had barely seen him move, and staring at me with eyes behind which there was now a sudden flame. The silky Russian voice was suddenly wrought iron, and made me think I would never see anything bright or warm again. “Don’t test me. The one thing you should never attempt in your new life is to set yourself against your maker. I love you as a father loves his child, but should you cross me I will destroy you as surely as dog that has turned his teeth against his owner.” I recoiled against the brick wall, attempting for a second to scramble up the sheer face of it. Most of what he said made no sense, and yet I knew that he would do exactly what he said. Giving a nod, I tried to relax my muscles, but the pain in my stomach kept my body tightly coiled, and I feared at any moment I might snap in different directions. “Okay.” I tried to look indifferent, but could feel my eyes begging him for help as well as distrusting him. “If you can get rid of this.” Without another word, he smiled curtly and gestured to the opposite direction as I had been headed, then slowly wafted down the alley. I rushed

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/8 into step with him, realizing what it was about him that unnerved me. Despite the frigid air, no mist escaped from his lips. Though it was cold enough that car windows would have a slab of ice on them, cold enough that a homeless person risked death of exposure, I couldn’t see his breath. And, though I inhaled mightily and blew out a massive lungful of air, I couldn’t see mine, either. He looked at me from the corner of his eye and snorted but said nothing, and I was too fearful of another eruption to demand an explanation. My companion took two left turns and then a right through a series of back alleys, and suddenly we came to a dead end. A woman leaned against the shoddy fence that cut off the passage, smoking a long stemmed cigarette that hung from the tips of her fingers like a smoldering snake. She regarded us coolly, patting her platinum-blonde hair and then adjusting the impossibly short black leather skirt. She wore black mesh leggings and steel toed boots, and a halter top that looked two sizes too small for her rather impressive breasts. I came to a dead stop, feeling a boiling flash of red rising within me. “What the hell is this, god dammit?” The man laughed softly and continued walking, reaching out to the prostitute, who gave a false, professional smile in return. “This is your dinner,” he said in a playful voice. “I figured, who better than to pop your cherry with than a hooker?” The expression seemed odd and slightly forced

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/9 coming through his accent, but instead of being comical made me think of the death of laughter. The plain-faced woman looked at me with a raised eyebrow, and her grin became more sincere. “He tells me you’re 24 years old, and it’s your first time?” They both laughed. “Don’t worry, late bloomer,” she cooed at me, crooking her finger and adopting her best come hither look. “I’ll take good care of you.” My strange companion nodded at me encouragingly, stepping beside her. He seemed about to speak, and then with a violence that startled me even with his earlier outburst, he grabbed the girl’s wrist and twisted it toward him. She gasped and tried to wriggle free, and I could almost feel the bruises on her skin starting to form. Her dominator brought out a small knife from his pocket, and she let out a visceral scream. But then all he did was touch her arm almost delicately, creating a thin, straight cut, and put the knife away as quickly as he had wielded it. A small river of blood formed on her wrist despite the efficiency of the nick, and ran toward her palm. In a tone that cooed nearly as much as hers had, the man narrowed his eyes and said, “Come and get it.” As soon as my gaze fell upon the liquid black that tripped down her skin, my body took over my will. I resisted with every fiber of my mind, but it was if the feral side that lies dormant in all of us had suddenly been awakened. I stumbled to the whimpering prostitute, unable to tear my gaze away from the blood. I snatched her arm with both hands and brought it to

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/10 my lips, despite my best attempts not to. It was as if I was watching a horror movie with myself as the star. I could feel the terror from the woman who twisted underneath the grip of two men, I knew the horror in what I was about to do, but I could not stop. Perhaps I never really did want to. “That’s it,” came the accent in a quivering whisper, a suddenly wet voice filled with a disgusting excitement. “That’s it.” I bit into her arm, but did it strangely—I felt only my canines sink into her flesh, and my other teeth just rested against the skin. Instantly life filled my mouth, and I slurped noisily, prompting a cackle from the man hovering above. The taste of blood quickly melted into a fiery sweetness more intense than the hottest pepper and more refreshing than the ripest strawberry. I felt it course down my throat, and for the first time since waking I felt warmth. The woman hissed a breath inward when I first bit down, but her noises soon became ones of bliss, as if I weren’t chewing on her wrist but tonguing some private part of her. I felt a feminine hand stroke the nape of my neck. I broke away from her wrist, and for a moment thought I had been able to twist myself away, but then I looked up at the woman, who was now on her knees, held up only by the other man’s grasp, and saw her face flush with both pain and pleasure. I saw her chest heaving strongly and the pulse in her neck. The feral side of me launched myself on her, and together we fell to the damp pavement, entwined like lovers. I buried my teeth in her throat and drank again, heaving it down as if I might never stop. I was dimly aware of the accented voice encouraging me excitedly, the way a man might

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/11 talk dirty while voyeuristically experiencing sex. All I could concentrate on was the blood and the sensation of it on my tongue. I felt as if the world had stopped for a moment, all of man on earth and the angels in heaven pausing to watch me. My heart thudded in my chest and the warmth I felt turned into a flame that no heroin addict could feel on his best score. I drank until my throat was raw from blood, and kept on drinking. I drank until I thought I would sweat red and cry tears of crimson. I drank until no matter how hard I pulled, nothing more could come out of her. It was only then that the awakened beast in me mellowed, and I was able to grasp what I had done. I wrenched backward onto my knees and let out a bellow that did not echo against the brick walls but shook them. Wasted blood that covered my face flew in every direction when I whipped my head away from the lifeless bloody, and trickled down my chin as I heaved in a massive breath that I now knew I didn’t really need. The haze had not dissipated completely, but had finally rolled back, and the days leading up to that night were suddenly in perfect focus. “I guess that wasn’t the kind of cherry she thought would be popped,” the accent came. Professor Lowell Miroslav still stood over me, looking down at the two of us with a pleased expression. “You drank too much,” he said in a mockingly chiding voice. “You’ll have to me more careful in the future. We can’t have you leaving dead bodies all over Portland.”

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/12 I snarled and leapt to my feet, barreling into his shoulder and slamming him against the wall of the alley. An amused snort escaped him as he let himself be carried. I pulled away long enough to grasp him by the jacket between his neck and shoulders, and hoisted him up and knocked him against the brick a second time. “What the fuck have you done to me?” “Don’t you remember?” he managed. “You said you wanted to live forever. You said you wanted all the time in the world.” Suddenly I could see it, sitting in his well furnished office, playing chess and talking of history. I watched myself saying, I wish I could spend forever just doing this. I would spend lifetimes learning, getting to know history, writing music and contributing to this field. And Lowell had tapped out his wooden pipe and regarded me studiously, saying, May your wish be granted. “This is not what I meant!” I screamed at him, bloody spittle flying from my mouth and striking his face. “I didn’t mean this!” “There are prices to pay for such ambition,” he said hoarsely, laughing under his breath. “You made me kill her,” I howled, increasing the pressure on his chest. He shrugged under my grasp, meeting my gaze steadily. “No one will miss a hooker.” “Fuck you.” The anger in me became almost tangible, and I pulled away from him, with full intent to kill—for whatever killing him made me, it couldn’t be worse than what I had just done, and in some perverted way might have redeemed my heinous crime.

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/13 Miroslav sneered and grabbed my arm, and yanked me off balance. He moved in a flurry, and before I realized it I was against the far wall, head suddenly cold from the smack against the ground. He could have destroyed me right then, and for a moment I saw in his eyes that he meant to. He took three steps toward me, and then seemed to fold in on himself for the briefest of blinks. Then his sick smile returned, and he picked up the corpse of the prostitute in an exaggerated fashion. “I think I’ll dispose of this. But the next time you’ll have to take care of your own dirty work.” He turned from me and walked away brusquely. “I’ll let you adjust to your new self for a while. When you’re ready, you’ll be able to find me.” He rounded the corner, and I was left with only his voice echoing to me from the shadows. “Welcome to the real world. You’re Kindred now.” Unable to control it any longer, I wept on my hands and knees, attempting to vomit up the life I had stolen from another human being. Nothing came out but the sounds of a shattered soul. Eventually I sagged to the ground and curled into the fetal position, my body wracked with sobs that threatened to shatter me. I screamed and wailed and cursed the heavens and my sire, and my grief was like a requiem played by a single instrument. II Portland seemed different, somehow. Wherever I looked, it was like seeing a new city. Each familiar site that passed by the foggy cab window was not how I’d known it before. What scared me was not that it had

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/14 changed since yesterday, but that it had always been as I now saw it, and it took this change in me to notice it. Though nothing had a physical tint of sickly green, this was the feeling I got from looking at my city for—in a way— the first time. The cabbie that had picked me up near the alley tipped the ash off his cigarette into the tray sticking out of the dashboard. “Rough night, pal?” He looked in his rearview at me, and I saw his eyes shift uneasily. The knuckles of his left hand, which controlled the wheel, were white. I knew he wanted an explanation of the blood—there was now so much more than when I had awoke on that dirty asphalt. I said nothing, resisted the urge to give him the finger or hiss menacingly, leaned my head against the pane, and watched the city pass by. It had always been a beautiful city to me. Now it was something dark, seething. As we crossed through downtown, passing over the Willamette River, the vaulted roads that ran over and under each other looked like stone spiderwebs, and our cab was a mite traveling down a single thread. The buildings on the riverfront, once high rises of manmade splendor, now unnerved me. They were the same in shape and material, but still different. The _____ building, an impressive structure with two glass spires rising into the air, seemed sinister. The other buildings crowded around it, monoliths of steel and mortar and glass, and they towered over the smaller river below, which now looked as if it ran with the concentrated ink of a squid. The bank of the river festered with corroding docks and shady-looking warehouses,

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/15 and the tiny figures that scurried down there seemed monstrous in their movements, little representations of my own inner demons. The layout of Portland is an interesting one. It is actually build around two rivers, the Willamette and the Columbia, which separates Oregon from Washington. On the other side of the border is Vancouver, which is technically its own city—yet for the people who live in here it is essentially one metropolitan area. Both cities smash up against the bank of the Columbia, and the river itself is all that keeps the two from physically touching. Three main bridges connect the two sides, and many people live in one and commute to the other. Oregon had no sales tax, and Vancouver didn’t charge the Portland residence for theirs. As a college student, I was able to live in Washington and yet go to school as an Oregon resident. I had always liked this uniqueness in our city. In my mind, it was what made us stand apart from everyone else. Now, as I we crossed the Columbia to Vancouver, where my apartment was, I felt loneliness, and a feeling of deep disconnection. It suddenly seemed to symbolize whatever was happening to me. As we sprinted over the deep, strong current nearly half a mile wide, I felt as if I was passing from one part of my life to another. I bit my nails and tapped my feet as the cabbie drove. I pulled at my hair, and dry-wiped my face again and again. The new life terrified me, and there was no place to put that fear. The cab screeched to a halt, and my head nearly ran into the glass partition. Annoyed, I looked up at the driver, and was about to say something

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/16 when I noticed his body language. “Uh, we’re here.” He spoke quickly, voice almost a whisper, as if the words had been so anxious to get out of his mouth they hadn’t waited for breath. He was jittery, and looking everywhere but back at me. “Thanks.” I stepped out of the cab and leaned close to his window. “What do I owe you?” The driver said in gruff words, “Nothing, nothing, no charge, it’s fine.” The cab lurched forward, and the engine roared as the car quickly sped up to what must have been forty-five miles an hour before it was at the next block. I hadn’t even shut the door; the momentum pulled it shut. I wondered how I had scared the man that badly. The blood on my shirt was one thing, but it wasn’t as if I was soaked in it—for all he knew I could have been in a bar fight, or simply taken a bad fall. Then I remembered how Lowell had disturbed me when I hadn’t remembered who he was. Was it possible that I, after what had happened, was now frightening in the same way? I shuddered at the thought, and quickly went inside. My apartment complex was a three story, sprawling, monochromatic structure that stood as a testament to mass production. Apart from the color —red—it looked exactly the same as the complex across the street—which was brown—and the one on the corner of the block—which was gray. It was the world that middle-management was created from, the homes from which came underpaid secretaries, corporate VPs whose titles were really only honorary, and everyone else who had given up on the dream of being alive

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/17 and settled down for the long haul of being an American. My neighbors were a tax attorney with two cars and two alimony payments, and an ex-Bohemian business broker who still spoke of revolution but drove a Mercedes and drown himself in a sea of television. Had I been able to find a cheaper place anywhere, I would have. That would require moving as far as Johnson City, and the commute wasn’t worth it. Imagine any one bedroom bachelor’s pad decorated by a man with old fashioned,

elegant

taste

and

no

income,

and

the

mental

picture

approximates my apartment. I lit the living room and hallway with tubular Christmas lights that gave the place a sort of tea dance 20s glow, which hid the dirt on the carpet if I didn’t vacuum for a few days at a time. Other than that I was two shades away from a clean freak, in part due to Monique, my girlfriend of just over a year who had managed to beat into me the importance of keeping a house clean and the toilet seat down. Though my apartment was no quieter than it ever was, I distrusted the silence as I locked the handle, the deadbolt and the chain. I stripped as I walked to the bathroom, collecting each discarded piece of clothing into a ball and throwing it at least toward the clothes hamper at the end of the hall. I turned the shower on as hot as it would go, a level that had always scalded me in the past, but when I stepped inside and began scrubbing myself savagely, I could barely feel the heat. In bed, I stared at the ceiling, covers uselessly enclosing by body like a cloth tomb. I could feel the heartbeat of the city; the traffic, the music, the

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/18 shouts between neighbors and enemies. I had never been a troubled sleeper. From the moment my head hit the pillow I was sound asleep, and always prided myself on the fact that I could nap anywhere at any time. Now, I counted sheep, tossed and turned, shifted my pillow from below my head to above it to completely away, but nothing helped. The frustration built in me until I felt it would be impossible to sleep at all. I threw back the covers and marched into the bathroom, snapped on the light by the pull down chain that hung from it, and gripped the sink tightly. I stared at my reflection, which was strangely pale. Never much of an outdoorsy person, I wasn’t a shut-in either, and usually had at least the hint of a tan about me. Now it seemed as if I had no blood in my face at all. I smacked my cheeks, pulled at my hair. “What is happening to me?” I demanded of my mirror self, but received no reply. I gave a low growl of disgust and pushed away from the sink, then headed to the fridge. I yanked a Corona from the half-empty six pack and stalked into the living room where I leaned against the window and looked out at what I could see of Vancouver. Through the Venetian blinds the world seemed hushed but inviting, and despite my years as a self-made scholar all I could think about was being outside. I tried to put my mind off of it by getting drunk, but as soon as I raised the cervesa bottle to my lips I knew I couldn’t take a sip. I’d never heard of beer going bad—stale yes, but not the way bread gets moldy—and yet I could have sworn I smelled something like

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/19 rotting wood. My stomach churned at the mere thought of having the beer in my stomach. That was pretty much the straw that broke the camels back. Put any man in a situation where he’s knocked unconscious by a friend, somehow turned into another form of himself, made to drink every drop of blood in a west coast prostitute, and keep him at a strangely comfortable level of chill with the promise of never being warm again, and you’ve most likely upset him. But never, ever tell a man you’ve done that to he can’t drink about it. I screamed at the top of my lungs and threw the bottle at my television set. The glass bounced off the corner of the TV and shattered against the wall between my bookshelves, leaving a water-balloon-like decoration of beer. I swung my left hand backward and swept the contents of my end table onto the floor, where they clattered around each other like small children looking for a place to hide from an ill tempered father who had suddenly exploded. I muffled another scream into a strange grunt, and collapsed onto the couch. I sat for a small eternity, trying to show physical signs of my rage, but somehow my body didn’t seem to want to function in tandem with my brain. My chest didn’t heave, and the blood did not race in my ears, which was always the way of my anger previously. In fact, I had to force myself to breathe the way you do if you’re paying attention to it. Every time my mind wandered and I remembered and started forcing myself again, it felt as if I hadn’t been breathing since the last time I had devoted my attention to it.

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/20 After a while, I resigned myself to being miserable and disturbed. I picked up my guitar and began to play. If any upside to this night existed, it was that my fingers were somehow moving much better than they ever had before. Songs I knew by heart but had always stumbled upon now flowed out of my instrument like water. The odd thing was, I didn’t feel any elation at my improvement—I barely found within me a sense of satisfaction. Midsong, I let my hand slip away from the neck of the guitar. I placed it on the floor, leaning against the couch next to me, then sat with my arms limp at my sides, staring up at the ceiling, the walls, and nothing at all. I didn’t blink, I didn’t swallow the saliva that should build up in a person’s mouth, I didn’t have a heartbeat, I didn’t breathe. It’s amazing what you can get used to, and how quickly to boot. Half in wonder, half in utter confusion, I sat with my body not functioning but still alive, and watched the night wane. As the sky before me changed from liquid black to a fine velvety blue, my eyes finally began to grow heavy. At once irritated that I would get only an hour or two of sleep and grateful to finally be nodding off, I pulled my legs onto the couch and let my eyes close before finding a comfortable position. The deep blue outside that would have shifted to a bright cerulean instead became a deep, silver-gray hue. Dawn had just begun to come, yet already it was uncomfortably bright in the living room, and I stood to shut the blinds. As soon as I did, the upper half of my body was now in full view of the windows before me. Before I truly felt the sensation of the sunlight falling upon my skin, I heard a strange sizzling noise, as if someone had begun to

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/21 cook bacon right beside me. Then I smelled a combination of burning hair and decaying plywood, and it was only then did I feel the searing pain that rippled across my skin. I looked down at myself to see my skin molting before my eyes. It was as if I were watching a recording of my arms left in continual sunlight for ten years, then replayed in super-fast speed. The skin reddened, cracked and blistered, and then began flaking away, revealing dead meat underneath that also began to burn. I let a shriek unlike any I had known before, and for a moment lost all control of myself. My body flew out of the direct view of the window, and hit the ground with a dry thud that seemed to accentuate the fact that I should have been bleeding but wasn’t. Instantly I was on my knees, scrambling into the bedroom, but as soon as I snaked inside I realized the sun was just as prominent there—the direct light would miss me, but as the day grew brighter it wouldn’t matter whether I was catching indirect rays or opening the door for the sun. Any other time I would have laughed at the words that escaped my mouth: “You stupid fuck. Sun kills vampires.” But it was the first time I had acknowledged my undead state for what it really was, and the danger to my life quashed any humor that might have existed. My voice was plaintive, desperate, but also with a dry tone to it that terrified me. It was as if the devil himself were mimicking my voice, which had been stolen from me the night I was turned. I headed for the only place in my apartment that provided some measure of protection. The bathroom existed in the center of the place, and

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/22 shared a wall with the bathroom of the adjacent apartment, which meant it had no windows to threaten my existence. I grabbed my guitar case and ripped it open. By the time I found the electrical tape I used for fixing the case, I had begun to whimper from the pain of the light bouncing off the toowhite walls. Then, in a mad scramble approximating a drunken crab, I raced into the bathroom. When I slammed the door home, it sounded more metallic than wood, as if I had slid the door to my own jail cell shut and threw away the key. Quickly, I snatched a towel from under the sink and stuffed it in the gap at the base of the entrance, then used the black tape to seal up the remainder. Only then did I begin to calm, thudding into the tub, barely feeling the cold ceramic that embraced me like a new mother. No taffetalined coffin for me, no comforting womb of earth; I was to be, it seemed, a modern vampire, sleeping out his days in a white, manufactured bathtub. Despite the terror I felt, once I was enshrouded in darkness I found it difficult to concentrate. Though no light snuck through the cracks in the doorway, I felt as if the sun was smothering my awareness and logic. Within seconds my eyes refused to open, and I began a long, spiraled decent into deep and troubled nightmares while my body waited for the day to pass. III Sleep was like a deep ocean of nothingness, and the dream was a cave fish I could barely see. It was almost more concept than actual dream, and yet it still would have shaken me to the core had I not been asleep. I stood

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/23 on the shore of the Columbia, only it was a river of not water but fire, and in it swam something that even the darkest of evil feared. My name was being called, but the more I listened to the sweet voice that called it the more I realized that it was not part of my dream at all, but that it came from the real world. I attempted to rouse myself from my torpid state, and for a moment found it impossible. My body refused to function until the sun went down, and it took all of my will to force it to do otherwise. I opened my eyes to the darkness of my bathroom, but their lids were eager to snap shut again, and I felt as if I’d have to resort to a Clockwork Orange moment to keep them from closing. My limbs were made of stone, and moved far too slowly. I heard my name being called from beyond the door, an insistent, inquisitive, “Sebastian? Sebastian!” over and over again. I bolted into a standing position before I was aware I’d even moved. What was Monique doing here? By all rights she should still be at work. Hesitantly, I approached the door. I removed the towel from the base, and though a thin sliver of light did shine through, it didn’t seem to be enough to harm me. I listened to her feet pad to and fro across the apartment. At one point, I heard the answering machine beep, and three messages from Monique played for the live version of her. Each demanded to know where I was—first my professor had called her, pleading to find me so that I could administer a test to the class of undergrads I was teaching. Then work had called, for I had never even arrived late, let alone done a complete no-show.

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/24 The third message she sounded extremely worried; we were supposed to meet for lunch, didn’t I remember? Only her messages played. Again she called my name, and this time her voice was startlingly loud, coming from just outside the door. I let out a hiss of surprise before I could stop myself, and she immediately responded. “Seb? Seb are you all right?” I started to reply, to stall her from coming inside, but it was too late. The apartment was meant for a single person, so there was no lock on the bathroom door. The electrical tape ripped open easily, for I had put it up to block light, not entry. Instantly the hideous sun flooded into the bathroom, a million tiny bushmen with spears and blow-darts intent on my head. “Shut the door!” I screamed as I wrapped myself in the shower curtain. I tangled myself in it too tightly and collapsed back into the tub, landing with a solid smack. I flailed, trying to fully cover myself with the curtain. “Shut the door!” Monique shrieked herself and instantly stepped backward, smacking the door shut behind her. “Seb?” she nearly sobbed, as if I had frightened her so badly she might never be emotionally stable again. Softly now came a knock, as if I was merely angry that she didn’t ask permission before entering. “May I come in?” “No!” I shouted, and then forced my voice even. “No, love, I’m sick. I wouldn’t want you to catch it.” Two cycles of silence played out before her answer came. “Oh.” Another cycle. “Well, is there anything I can do for you?” I had never been so closed off to her before, and when I was sick I usually crawled to wherever

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/25 she was to demand she take care of me. My alibi was a weak one, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it now except wince. “No, don’t worry about it, Mon. You go on back to work, and I’ll give you a call later tonight, is that all right?” Her voice was hesitant, and now contained a tremble of fear as well as a base of confusion. “Sure, Seb. I’ll...talk to you later.” I didn’t reply, and after a few minutes I heard her footsteps retreating toward the door. I took two massive breaths to try and calm myself, but the knowledge that breathing was now habit and comfort rather than necessity seemed to make my nerves worse rather than better. Despite all that, I hadn’t yet heard the front door slam home before my eyes closed again, and I once more descended into that dark dream of river fire and the creature beneath it, still awkwardly wrapped in my shower curtain. IV Always a heavy sleeper late to rise, and always drowsy for a full hour after my alarm beeped me into reality, I was amazed to find myself refreshed and alert the second my eyes opened. Even with all that had happened the night before and the frightening interruption in the middle of the day, I felt as if I had never slept so well in all my life. Tiredness suddenly seemed like a figment of my imagination, something that never really existed. Still, it took me a long time to unwrap myself from my makeshift blanket, and when I turned the light on I was shocked at what I saw. Fortunately my face was relatively untouched, but my neck and arms where

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/26 covered with hideous sunburn-like lesions, red and swollen and far too extreme to be natural. Not that anything about me was natural any longer, of course—as I lifted my upper lip to reveal two slightly too-pointy teeth where my canines used to be, teeth that would grow even longer as I began to feed, let me know that I was forever beyond the realm of the natural, unless that word was accompanied by the prefix super. As I studied what I thought were the worst areas—my shoulders—they suddenly changed, less torrid and blistered as they had been a moment ago. Instantly I felt the sharp pang of hunger, but ignored that fact and concentrated even harder than I had before. While I didn’t reverse the effects of the damage, I seemed to have somehow lessened it, though how quite escaped me. Though I would not pass close inspection by a medical practitioner, with gloves and a scarf—perfectly acceptable attire for February —I would be able to pass for normal. As if to punish me for my improved condition, my stomach voiced its displeasure by sending sharp empty pain through my abdomen. It did not growl, but instead give a silent roar that I felt more than heard. The need for food was not as great as it had been when I woke in they alley the night before, but I nevertheless felt as if I should find something to eat, and quickly, before the pain became any worse. Five minutes later I rushed back into the bathroom, this time to vomit into the toilet. The undigested chewed bits of grilled cheese and Dr. Pepper was mixed with large amounts of blood instead of the usual accompaniment

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/27 of bile and stomach lining. The food in large chunks, little asteroids floating in red space, and I cursed myself for even the attempt at eating. After all, vampires don’t like the sunlight and they feed on blood. That’s what makes them vampires. As coherent as my mind seemed, I still wasn’t consciously aware of what I did next—that is, as I left the apartment and walked down the semibustling city streets, I either had no definitive plan of where I was going, or fooled myself into believing I didn’t have one. I shaved the two-day old stubble, dressed in a blood-red silk shirt, the hue of which seemed oddly appropriate. Then I washed my hair thoroughly, donned my black leather jacket, and slid out my door and into the city. I walked along cracked pavement damp from yesterday’s rain, under the leafless branches of oak trees and the sky filled with full clouds waiting to wet the city again. It was only six o’clock, which meant I often passed by others, a lone figure in an overcoat returning from work or a couple locked arm-in-arm on their way to the cinema. As I passed each, they nodded, or smiled, looked away or altogether ignored me, but none of them reacted to me as if I were anything other than a fellow human being out for a stroll. When nodded to I nodded; when smiled at I smiled—not because I felt the urge to do so, as I once had, but because it was the prudent thing to do. None of these people were aware that past them walked a monster thought only to exist in wives’ tales and novels penned by the likes of Bram Stoker and those obsessed with passionless love and black eye-shadow. My face

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/28 had paled considerably, but on such a cold night it didn’t appear out of the ordinary—I could have approached any of them, asking for the time or directions, and before they answered I could have been upon them like the predator I now was, could have drained them of their life before they had a chance to grasp what was happening to them. The thought of my hidden power over these normal people at once elated and disgusted me, the latter sensation made more potent by the former. Monique lived a mile or so from my place far enough to take a cab over there but not so far that I didn’t feel guilty at spending the money to do so. Despite the generous fellowship I had been awarded to attain my Masters Degree at Portland State University I was living paycheck to paycheck, in part because I opted for slightly more luxurious quarters than I would have otherwise, but mostly due to the fact that I tended to lavish gifts upon my girlfriend. Young, I probably had no idea of what true love was, yet for my experience and in comparison to the other women in my life, Monique was, for me, the closest thing to it. We had met on campus fourteen months ago, one of those chance encounters read about in stories but rarely experienced. I had been reading Ray Raphael’s A People’s History of the American Revolution, one of the books in the series that Zinn began and edited, and she had been reading a collection of poetry by Sylvia Plath. We bumped, dropped out respective books, apologized profusely as we retrieved from the tiled corridor floor the wrong volume, and apologized once again as we switched books back to

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/29 their original owners. It was only then did our eyes meet, and if it wasn’t love at first sight, then it was lust and a keen desire to befriend one another at first sight. Accidental book dropping led to coffee, coffee led to the cinema, the cinema led to drinks back home, and drinks led to sex. Within two weeks we were practically inspirable, and had been ever since. Odd, considering how different we were. I was tall, broad and pale even before my transformation, Monique quite the opposite. Barely pushing five foot four, she was also thin and sprite-like, looking as if a stiff breeze might carry her away. She had smooth olive skin and chocolate eyes, and dressed in a classical elegance that never seemed out of place. She was neat, orderly, sweet as summer rain, and always wearing a blue scarf, regardless of the weather. I always felt the country bumpkin around her, even after all this time together, but somehow she felt content to be with me, and seemed, as couples go, perfectly happy. And so it could have been that I arrived at her doorstep just slightly before seven because I needed her comforting arms around my neck and her innocent, unquestioning gaze. She lived in a small studio flat in a sea of student housing, saving her own fellowship money from her MFA program toward better things, like books and decent food. Inside was a whole different world, however; she had a talent for decoration that rivaled her skill as a poet, and she turned a meager space into a labyrinth of colorful sections that would have cheered Edgar Allen Poe were he to come round for tea.

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/30 When she opened the door, she had a look of befuddlement on her beautifully elfin features. “Seb? What are you doing here?” Instantly I wished I had the foresight have brought flowers. “I wanted to see you, to apologize for earlier today.” “But I thought you were sick.” With an Oscar-worthy performance, I replied, “Must have been a twenty-four hour bug. Feel much better.” She stepped back from the door, eyeing me up and down with a wariness I hadn’t seen in her face ever before. “You still look a bit under,” she said, but allowed me inside. I realized how pale my face must have looked, and wished for—at least briefly—some circulation back in my skin. To my surprise, I felt my wish being granted, although it made my hunger slightly worse. It seemed I had new abilities in the wake of my change, ones I would have to explore more thoroughly later. When I looked in the mirror on the wall next to the door, I saw that my face was back to the way it had been in life. Judging by the scattered assortment of books and paper on the small table in front of the couch, Monique had either been reading poetry or writing it. “Come at a bad time?” She was wearing a smooth purple robe, and the obligatory scarf, and nothing else. I could see enough of her skin that I was instantly aroused, although not in a physical sense. She cinched the robe tighter and crossed in

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/31 the kitchenette, where a kettle was heating. “Of course not, babe. I was just going to have a bath after I finished up what I was reading.” I followed her closely, taking in the scent of her. She had a musky smell, like incense, the kind of smell that made me think of raw but tasteful sex. Despite my unnatural hunger, and how utterly creeped-out I was by everything that had happened, suddenly I had the overwhelming desire to have her, and as soon as possible. When she turned around to face me she was only inches from me, and had to look up at my face. Our breaths mingled in the space between us, hers genuine and mine manufactured in a semblance of life. She arched an eyebrow at me. “I guess you are feeling better.” Then she turned back to the kettle, ignoring my insistent yet respectful advance. I touched her elbow lightly, but she ignored the caress, fetching two mugs from the side cabinet and placing two tea bags in them. “You’re going to get me sick,” she said with a hint of playfulness. “Besides, I’m extremely tired. I had the day from hell.” I stood in mild shock, listening to her bad day as she fixed the drinks. Fourteen months together and we were still like rabbits, not missing any opportunity to make love. Though the before and after of it was always sweet, the sex was always there, because we were young and able to engage in it with such frequency. It wasn’t as if it was all we wanted, but it seemed a waste to pass up the opportunity. The flat refusal of coitus either meant that our relationship had finally plateaued to that place where passion

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/32 would give way to deep affection, or she somehow was intuitively uneasy of me in my new state. A twinge of frustration moved in my stomach, though I did my best to conceal it. But immediately on its heals came a wry sense of occult philosophy. I thought to myself, hang on a minute, weren’t vampires able to appear desirable when they wished, becoming sexual objects that were undeniable? Surely if I was to burn in the day, have a need to drink blood and fear garlic, I should possess some of the upsides to being the living dead! When Monique handed one of the cups to me, I concentrated on being the sexiest I could. I wasn’t sure if that was how I went around being vampirically seductive, but I was at a loss at how else to proceed. And apparently it worked, because as soon as she turned to me her breath caught, and I recognized in her the familiar spark of lust that usually proceeded a bit of tumbling about. Taking her mug as well, I said softly, “Are you sure you’re too tired?” I’d barely put the cups onto the counter before she jumped on me, slamming her mouth against mine with a slight grunt that comes from leaping atop a person. I took six massive steps backward, sliding my hands under her robe, lifting the whole thing up past her butt, and then fell backward onto the queen-sized bed in the far corner of the studio. The lovemaking began as it often did, with her atop me, stroking my short hair as her tongue danced a rough tango with mine. She let out little moans and noises from the back of her throat as we kissed, and ground her

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/33 pelvis against the flat line of me. Though I grew erect, it took a conscious effort, which had never before been necessary. Yet my need for Monique surpassed any problems I might have had with my water works—I tossed her to the side of me and rolled, coming to rest atop her body and between her legs. I pleasured her in every way I was able, first with my fingers, then my mouth and tongue. She squirmed and gasped at my touch, at times biting her hand or gripping the mattress in an attempt to keep from getting too loud for her neighbors. Her skin felt like butter, and I enjoyed the touch of it. In fact, I felt everything like I never had before. As if becoming what I now was had also fine-tuned my tactile sensations, and the simple act of touching her chest as it heaved mightily with pleasure was more physically enjoyable than it ever had been. When I entered her finally with my manhood, Monique clasping my butt with both hands and pulling me in tightly while emitting a deep, throaty cry with her head thrown back, it felt as it never had before, like the best sex in the world. The problem was all of this was purely physical. The emotion was startlingly absent. We think that sex can be meaningless, but I leaned as a vampire that it never is—even casual sex is filled with emotion. Whether it is the release of sexual tension, the fulfillment of burning desire, or the sweet taste of two who truly love one another, emotion exists, and in most cases predominates the activity, even if it is disguised as a physical sensation. But for me, now, it wasn’t there at all, and despite how good it felt, I took no satisfaction from her body writhing under me like an untamed horse. As I

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/34 pumped into her with rhythmic thrusts, I could only concentrate on her neck; the rise and fall of the windpipe as air was gulped in tremendously and then let out with a sigh of desire, the steady pulse of the jugular vein made more visible by her extended neck. I stared at it with desire unparalleled even by the best sex, and I felt an odd ache in two of my teeth as they grew just like my erection had. When I leaned in and bit down on her neck I surprised myself, but Monique didn’t seem to notice—in fact, as my two teeth pierced her skin, her body shook fiercely and she let out a cry louder than any she had ever given before. As I sucked the blood trickling out of those two holes she reached orgasm, slapping and clawing at my back while convulsing wildly beneath me. She uttered profanity I had never heard leave her mouth, and held me so tightly I though I might burst. I had barely begun to drink when I realized I had to stop—were I to do to Monique what I had done to that prostitute I would surely go mad. I broke contact, careful not to leave any blood trickling onto the bedsheets, and without knowing why I licked the wound I had just created. I did this the same way a man who has never seen a toilet would put the seat down after using it—the act was engrained in me, and it was like remembering something I had forgotten rather than discovering something new. As I ran my tongue over the bite mark, Monique squealed in the way she did after I existed her after sex, and when I brought my head away I found no trace of blood on her neck, no mark that I had been there.

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/35 Monique went limp under me, laughing slightly at such unexpected pleasure. “That was...amazing,” she breathed, still trembling slightly. Nearly immediately she entered a peaceful sleep. I wrenched away from her, horrified at what I had just done. Had I come to her apartment with the intent to drink her blood all long? My respect for Monique was something I felt stronger about than nearly anything in my life, and yet I had just used her like a cheap hooker, a fact made worse by the cheap hooker I had used and killed the night before. Worse yet, I had not drank much blood—despite my revulsion, I still felt the torrential, bestial hunger in me like a separate being begging me to feed it. The second I looked back to Monique’s sleek form dozing atop the rumpled covers of her bed, I felt the sexual urge rise up in me again—but now, as I paid attention to it, I realized that the desire was a phantom pang, a sensation that masked the true motivation, which was to sink my teeth into her flesh and drink again. I feared that if I looked to long I would be unable to help myself. I darted around the bed, snatching up my clothes, and then walked awkwardly to the door as I reassembled my outfit, nearly falling over when I try to move and put my pants on at the same time. I flew out of her flat and down the stairs, and burst out into the darkness of Vancouver none too soon. I looked up, missing the mist of my breath, and studied the light shining through her windows. I could remember everything about her, and why she was so

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/36 unearthly wonderful, yet lacking was the actual emotion of love, and despite my best efforts I was unable to conjure up anything but the fleeting shadow of it. V I walked around for hours, with no purpose or direction, hands deep in my jacket pockets although I had no need to stay warm. As time passed fewer people crossed my path on the streets, until I only encountered another soul every few blocks, taking random turns and backtracking occasionally. When I could see no one in any direction for at least a few blocks, I tried some of the other tricks that might have been gifted me during my miraculous change in to vampiredom. I tried to turn into a bat the same way I tried to turn sexy, by willing myself to do so. Then I flapped my arms and made little screeching noises, hoping the imitation would help with the transition. I tried to stretch the shadows of myself washed onto the concrete by the streetlamps, even making my fingers move in creepy, unnatural patterns, but nothing proved successful. I kicked a rock down the road before me and gave up on discovering new and exciting powers, and let myself sulk. Amid my twisting and turning through the city, I somehow arrived on Main Street. Here Vancouver was still alive, if not bustling, with college students and young professionals letting their hair down. I was thankful I had dressed in semi-nice clothes, so I didn’t look out of place wandering between the well dressed couples that flirted with each other as they stumbled home from bars to spend the night in strange arms. It was there that I heard the

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/37 pulsing, sensual music of Mestizzo, the most frequented club on this side of the Columbia, and was instantly drawn by the heartbeat it gave off. The music enveloped me as I slid between the double doors into the sultry darkness beyond, different from the dry, crisp night of outside with its streetlamps and headlights. Everything in here was an orange glow, not actual fire but accurately mimicking it. The restaurant section to the left was closed, chairs resting upside down on the tabletops, but the club was a massive body of sweaty skin, bouncing to the beat of a Latin techno rhythm. On the dance floor, near the DJ’s impressive set up, people jumped and clapped and danced in a way I would never be able to master. Farther away, more spread out, couples moved in animalistic closeness to the music, caressing with their hands and fondling with their eyes as they moved. I could nearly taste the pervasive smell of people, sweat and heat and cramped spaces wafting up through the rafters and out of the front doors. There were less inviting areas, of course; in every corner there was a collection of shadows that looked alive, watching the dancers waltz with sexy grace. It provided an alluring sense of danger and mystery, and I was lured in as quickly as any opportunistic raven would be to a uneaten corpse with no large predator in sight. As I took slow steps down the small flight of stairs that descended to the dance floor, I decided to invoke the same trick I had pulled earlier with Monique, willing myself to be more noticeable, more desirable. The effect was instantaneous, for as I passed through the throngs of people nearly

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/38 everyone paused to look at me, either with respect or a craving they did not understand. They parted for me, though occasionally a deeply tanned woman or a pale skinned girl would reach past her own shoulder to touch my arm or sleeve lightly, even if they were seated or standing with men, who didn’t seem to mind what their ladies were doing. I passed among them like a wolf among sheep, at least a head taller than everyone else in the club, and felt like a king. Mid-stride I was approached by a tall woman—easily five-eleven—who looked Cuban and Italian. She had curves that would make an hourglass seem like something in a ________ painting, and the stress she wore seemed at least a size too small, not so much that she threatened to burst out of it, but enough so everyone in the room could see exactly what she possessed. Her black stilettos clicked even over the pulsing music, and when she reached me without hesitation she draped an arm around my neck and said in a throaty voice, “I’m Katarina.” I looked down at her, unable to stop myself from acting as haughty as I had somehow made myself appear. “Yes,” I agreed, running my eyes over her like moist lips. “You are.” She gave a smile so impish I nearly expected her to morph into the Cheshire Cat and led me by the scarf onto the dance floor. The DJ apparently noticed her ascent into the spotlight, for the music suddenly shifted to something less electric sounding and more salsa-like, though with an

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/39 undercurrent of string and bass instruments that it had a dark, moody flavor that hinted of a stormy relationship or an adulterous affair. Katarina began moving extremely quickly, grinding up against me and moving away just as quickly. Though I knew little of such sensual dance, I had taken tango lessons in high school for drama, and ballroom lessons with Monique as a birthday gift—a fact which sprung on me unrequested so that I could be tormented with the fact that while I was dancing with this vixen before me, Monique was fast asleep, partially empty of her blood. My year as the lead guitarist in a band had also taught me how to move to music well, so although Katarina danced in a style I could never hope to imitate, I was able to keep up with her in my own way, and with the awe I somehow inspired in others, no one seemed to notice the fact that I wasn’t dancing as well as she. The song ended with a tumultuous climax of horns, leaving Katarina hanging from me, one leg wrapped around my butt, chest heaving mightily, her long neck exposed by the way she arched away from me, one hand around my neck, the other over her head and pointing toward the ground. I stood without breath, looking as if it had taken no effort on my part to keep up with the dance, and resisted the urge to take the spoils right then and there. The silence was filled with applause, and I realized that nearly everyone had stopped to watch our dance. I would have blushed if it hadn’t taken effort, and ended the appeal that I had forced to ooze out of me. Nearly immediately, everyone turned back to their drinks or the music, each

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/40 likely thinking that they had seen all there was to see from this magnificent couple. Katarina was glowing with pride, obviously thrilled to be the center of attention, although I doubted such an event was rare. Although I had ceased the power in me that inspired such awe, Katarina still looked at me with smoldering eyes, and she fingered the hair at the nap of my neck. “Thanks for the dance.” She was still a touch breathless, and the comment was by no means a farewell. Later, in an alley disturbingly similar to the one of the night before, Katarina’s skirt hitched above her hipbones, I thought of Monique. Although I hadn’t penetrated the dancer in the traditional sense, a scene of lovemaking between Monique and I replayed in my mind. As I lapped up the blood that sprang forth so readily, I heard not Katarina’s moans but my girlfriends. I felt as a man cheating on his wife, having to resist calling out her name while fucking the stranger beneath him. When I finally released the dancer, and she had laughed as she pushed her skin back down, asking, “And now to my place?” I barely managed to keep the distain from my voice when I told her I now longer had the energy. VI I found myself alone once more, unable to return home, for all that awaited me there was silence and a bathtub. Again I roamed aimlessly along the streets and byways of Vancouver, Portland looming just a river away. Now that I had drank my full, the darkness of the darkness was starting to

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/41 get to me. As if I was listening to a Dean Koontz book on tape with tiny headphones while I walked, everything had become sinister. As I crossed by houses and the small gaps in between, the rustling of bushes made me jump and turn around. The people I passed—when people I did, for it was getting on in the early hours of the morning—were harmless to me, but there was something else, a nameless fear, that stalked me like time once did when I was still mortal. When I passed by a lighted carpark, for a moment I saw the sinister face of some writhing red thing before realizing it was just a strangely shaped rear view mirror decoration hanging happily between the seats. But my jumpiness wasn’t purely internal—on two separate occasions I know I heard a slight footstep that fell too late after I halted suddenly to be missed, and the entire time I felt watched. Suddenly, it was four thirty in the morning. I panicked as I realized that I had just begun to grow drowsy. Somehow I had wandered into a deeply residential area, so I had to leap over a low fence and sneak up to a window to find a clock. When I did, I realized the precariousness of the situation. I immediately rushed toward more urban areas of town, but I knew it was a futile effort—I was so far away from my home it would take me half the day to return there, and cabs stopped operating in Vancouver after two if I remembered correctly, unless you phoned one specifically or came from Portland. To call required a phone, and apart from breaking into a home— which I had no proficiency at doing—the nearest was a mad sprint away. As much as I feared my new state of being, as much as I loathed it, a fierce

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/42 streak of survival painted across me like a fever, and the sheer terror at being greeted by the sun sent me into half-raving hysterics. Though no longer confined to the limits of human stamina, I knew running was a useless gesture, and before long slowed to a walk, turning every which way. I was in an area slightly less suburban but not enough so that payphones greeted me readily—and even if they had, calculating the arrival of the sun versus the time it would take a cab to venture all the way out to find me and take me to my apartment, I would be racing the dawn. I looked around frantically, not daring to hope for some miraculous means of protecting myself. I found my answer, though I immediately wished I hadn’t, or at least there had been another option. For while I saw no abandoned shack to hide in, no for-sale house I could hole up within the bathroom, I did see a large, circular metal plate in the middle of the street, with large, Courier New letters that read CITY

OF

VANCOUVER.

Without the time to hesitate, I dropped to a crouched position and lifted with my legs the sewer cover. Startlingly the thing rolled up and back easily, as if made of aluminum foil rather than wrought iron. Either the things were simply deceptively heavy to ward off pranksters, or I didn’t know my own strength. Strength was a quality of vampires—perhaps I had somehow grown in muscle-power as well as sexiness. I had no time to think of such perks. I quickly crawled into the hole, a round cylindrical chamber that plummeted straight downward into a palpable darkness. I retuned the manhole cover when I could barely reach the circle,

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/43 yet once again the thing moved easily. Suddenly I was encased in a milky black that seemed to tickle me as I moved lower. I crawled down the metal handrails for what seemed like fifteen minutes before I heard the splash of water and the wetness of liquid spilling into my shoe. I quickly looked around, and was only able to make out faint construction paper cutouts of shadow on shadow. Soon enough I found what I judged to be a walkway, and stepped from the ladder run to the paved surface, circumnavigating the water with everything but my left toes. I had never been in a sewer before, and now, walking in little shuffles as if my ankles had been chained together for some walk to the death chamber, I wished that I could still say that. Trickling water rushed from over my shoulder passed me, and though it was a shallow stream there was an undercurrent of echoes that reverberated against the round walls and carried the false promise of a flash flood that could come at any moment without warning. I also heard the squeak and shamble of rats, who could not have been more than a foot away from me. Visions of giant Shelob spiders spinning webs to catch her next Frodo swam in my head, and I braced myself to encounter large cobwebs filled with half sucked Orcs and rotting animals. And the smell. The worst thing about it was that it wasn’t half as bad as I expected—at some point during any life, especially during childhood, you smell the terrible smell of human waste. In messy bathrooms, at frat parties. And these scents were always rank, pungent with a freshness that brought chaos to the nose. Here, however, everything was awash with age, all of it

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/44 subtle, but inescapable. There was no way and no place to breathe that would give me a moments release, and it was like trying to breathe under a pile of dog blankets. I heard a faint metal scraping from behind me as wheeled around, barely containing a whimper between my clinked teeth. The scrape came again, and for one horrid moment I actually saw that giant spider lurking in the distant shadows, judging me silently as she slinked steadily closer. It was of course nothing more than a figment of overactive sense of magic, an imagination further fueled by the fact that I was now one of those storybook creatures. Nevertheless, I scrambled away from the phantom Shelob, rushing headlong into a darkness that clung to me like the thorns of blackberry bushes. Before long I forced myself back to a more reasonable pace, laughing at my own jumpiness. After all, it was only a sewer; horror movies aside, nothing sinister lurked here. The thought had barely bubbled up into my consciousness when I noticed a tiny shoot off the main tunnel. Most likely I had passed dozens of these, but the gloom was so thick I hadn’t seen them. This one was brought to my attention only because I detected the faintest of light burning from a far distance, almost indistinguishable from the false specks that swim across your eyes, but those specks were no longer on me, for they required life to thrive, so the light could be no trick of the vision.

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/45 The cat in me could not have its curiosity quelled by all its dead brethren. I held a breath I didn’t really need and, ignoring the more sensible side of my brain doing its best impression of the Lost in Space robot, I slid down the side tunnel toward the light. I moved as silently as I could, wincing at every tiny scuff or squeak of my sneakers against the wet and eroded surface under me. As the light grew, I recognized it as one of those new duralamps, meant for camping, that simulated a lantern, actually containing a powerful but gentle lightbulb. A few seconds later I was upon the lamp, and my jaw went slack to make room for an entire foot with a few flies to spare. The walls had suddenly ballooned, and I stood in a space perhaps ten feet high and twice that in every direction. And in the large manmade cavern was a modest but pristine living space. There was a large bed and nightstand, a living area with a plush armchair and reading lamp, a collection of perhaps four hundred books stacked in all areas, usually on shipping flats or worn blankets. It looked like the quarters of a well-to-do vagrant: the gadgets that I saw were new and expensive, and despite the lack of bookshelves the volumes themselves were all hardback, mostly leather-bound, and looked like they belonged in a mansion’s library. I crossed over to one of the stacks and opened the cover on the top book, and was amazed to find it had been published in the late 1800s. Surely this book was worth something, and there were others in the collection that

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/46 looked more valuable than that one. I caressed the spine, marveling at a piece of history. The cuff to the side of my ear was heard more than felt, but I still went spinning into the thin pleat of water that separated the two halves of the living space. I rolled to one knee, and would have been proud of myself for my quick recovery if I hadn’t seen the countenance of the thing before. A bestial thing it was, large a brutish, with a thick neck and huge arms that bulged with their own muscle. Over those arms and indeed over all of the mostly bare body—the thing wore only a pair of shorts, apparently having ripped off its shirt a moment before striking me—was a sickly, gray mat of hair not strong enough to cover the skin. Worse was the face, a hideous mockery of a human, with pockmarks on its skin so massive they became craters and volcanoes upon the still-forming earth, threatening to burst forth molten-liquid from beneath the craggy surface. It possessed teeth, but they were all large and pointy, as some bogyman’s might have been, and they came down at odd angles, as if so ashamed to be in the things mouth they refused to form even the semblance of rows. As soon as I saw the creature, my revulsion aside, the same part of me that craved the drink, the same part of me that seemed to have been sleeping all my life and had suddenly woken up, now screamed in what I associated with horror. It instilled in me the overwhelming desire to flee, to escape this terrible monster by any means necessary. The thing before me seemed to have a similar reaction, but where mine was retreat, his was raw

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/47 violence, for his all-too-human eyes brimmed with uncontrolled rage, as if all of the rage and hate it had built up its entire existence was suddenly put upon me, the new scapegoat for its miserable lot in life. It roared massively, the way a bear might, and charged me as I turned to flee. It moved preternaturally fast, but somehow I managed to move even quicker, scaring myself with my own speed. The creature’s hands crashed into the air where I had been, but I ducked below them and pivoted away, heading back the way I had come to the larger tunnel beyond. “I’m gonna rip out your ’eart!” the thing hissed in a Gloushire English accident. For all of its hideous appearance, the voice was as human as can be, but still dripped with vengeance that it meant to extract upon me. A third shape now appeared, a blur of movement that made me think for a moment a small whirlwind had appeared within the sewers. It caught me by the cusp of my collar, despite my newfound super-human quickness. It then stepped between me and the approaching monster, and in a wily, beautifully seductive voice a woman said, “That’s enough, Eric.” The woman who had been seemingly born from the shadows then slapped the thing hard across the face, bringing it up short, although it still seethed at me over her shoulder. Although her movements were feline and graceful, something about her, perhaps the steel-gray streaks in her otherwise black hair, reminded me of a wolf on the prowl. Against all logic, I thought this slight woman more than a match for the huge beast that swelled up before us.

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/48 “Wha are you doing ’ere, Tala?” the man-thing hissed, sending bloodspittle from where it had apparently bit its own lips with anger. “You have no business in my sewers.” “Vancouver is still Manelin’s domain, Sewer Rat,” the woman Tala shot back, standing straight and tall and proud. “I come and go where I please. I haven’t fed in your area. I was merely following the whelp.” “Well, the whelp deserves wha I was goinna to give ’im,” returned the thick accent. “’E was messin’ about in me place.” “He belongs to Miroslav. He’s freshly touched.” “Ain’t no excuse for bad manners. Where’s ’is sire, then? Got betta things to do than look afta ’is own kid, does ’e?” “None of your concern, Eric.” Tala turned her fine features toward me. “Come along, kid. Let’s get you away from here.” “Oy!” Eric smashed a piece of fine oak furniture that had previously held a Sony boombox. “I ain’t trough wif you yet, boyo.” As if it had been her intention to do so all along, Tala turned mid-stride and came around to face him. “Yes, you are. You owe me, Eric, and I won’t think kindly of you in the future if you spite me now.” It was hard for me to tell for sure because of the twisted face, but it looked as if Eric suddenly wished he were elsewhere. “All right, Tala. I’s just ’avin’ a bit of fun, you know. Got no ire t’ward the boy.” “See that it stays that way, until he’s old enough to know what he’s doing.” Without another word, the woman took me by the elbow and led you

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/49 out of creature’s area. Walking so quickly I had trouble keeping up with her despite the foot of height I had in advantage, she said, “What the fuck possessed you, wandering into a sewer?” I tried to wrench free of her grip, but it was like trying to break open a walnut with my front teeth. “How was I supposed to know that thing was down here?” She shot him a look in the receding light, a glare so powerful it could have produced its own illumination. “First of all, whelp, that ‘thing’ has got friends, ones that wouldn’t hesitate to cut you to nothing, so be careful what you call him. Second, hasn’t your sire taught you a damn thing?” “My what?” Tala shook her head and didn’t answer straight away. As we entered the main section of the sewer again, she muttered as if to herself, “I always thought he was crazy, but...” She turned to me abruptly. “Look, this isn’t the way things are done. The guy that turned you into a vampire—it’s called the Embrace—should be taking responsibility for you. For today, stay down here; it’s nearly light out, so you don’t have a choice. But for fucksake, stay away from Eric’s pad. He’s likely to feast on you if he finds you down here. The moment the sun goes down, get out of here. Find Lowell Miroslav, and demand he show you how things like this done. I’m not going to stick my neck out for you again.” “Why were you following me?” I demanded, somehow unable to thank her for no doubt saving my life.

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/50 “You were a curiosity. Never thought Miroslav would sire anyone, let alone a showboat like you.” My back straightened despite my fear of this beautiful woman. “Showboat?” “You practically carved into your forehead ‘I’m unnatural’ at the club.” “You were there?” “You’ve got a knack for the obvious, don’t you, dipshit? Listen, powers like that aren’t meant to be flaunted. You’re going to cause a Breach acting like—” She cut off harshly, and shook her head, hands on hips, staring at me with something close to sunlight. “Why the fuck am I explaining this? It’s not my job. Look kid, you’re cute, and I like your style, but you’ve got to get your shit together. Find your damn sire, okay?” She eyed me up and down once before turning away. “Maybe we’ll meet again when you aren’t so flush.” “Where are you going?” I called after her, fearful to be alone but also insanely curious about who she is. A vampire like me, obviously, just as was that creature in there, and I craved contact with others of my new kind. “It’s almost daylight!” “Don’t worry about me, whelp,” her voice came back to me from the darkness she had entered. “Worry about your own pale skin.” I called out her name twice, but she was gone. I slid against the wall, then thought better of it and retreated back toward the manhole cover I had descended from to remove myself farther from Eric. My body began to act sluggish as I walked, and soon it became an

Hill/MEN OF BLOOD/51 act of sheer concentration just to stay standing. I doubted I risked sunlight exposure down here, but still found a nook where I was unlikely to be spotted instantly by any maintenance men with flashlights. I hugged myself as I lay upon the cold damp floor, and took two breaths surely for comfort. I dreaded the sun, but almost equally so I feared the next coming darkness.