A Dark Night

Chapter 3- A Double Rescue

Chapter 3- A Double Rescue

Ragon woke around dusk. For a moment he strained to sense Ari but there was no trace of the mortal he had rescued; instantly he knew that she was gone. He could no longer hear her heartbeat, or smell her scent; the house was silent. In a fury he rushed to the front door, blurring through the house as fast as he could hoping he was wrong.

“Fool,” he said out loud in a hiss.

He was not talking about Ari; he was talking about himself. Speeding around the house, he looked for her exit point quickly finding the small opened window in the spare bathroom. The moment his eyes fell on her escape route, he scowled. How stupid of him not to check it. For a moment he entertained the idea that she was ok, that she had simply escaped and was now enjoying her life as she had before he had taken her. The truth was that he could have let her go when he had rescued her, but he had not. Ragon was a vampire and with that came certain power over mortals. It was in his power to control Ari, to bend her to his will and force her to forget everything that had happened to her that night and then let her go. But this vampiric power was only possible after the mortal was bitten and the vampire toxin took over their nervous system. Part of him, the very small part which held onto his humanity, knew that what he really wanted was for her to be happy, but with him. The thought of attacking her, of revealing his true nature and biting her was unbearable, even though it meant that he had condemned her to suffer in his world. It was a selfish, irrational, and momentary decision and if anything happened to Ari because of it he would not forgive himself.

The attraction of a vampire to a mortal was not entirely unheard of, although in most cases such relationships ended badly. More often vampires wanting a continual blood source would take a donor or otherwise would promise immortal life to mortals in exchange for certain duties; mainly giving blood. In rare circumstances, newly made vampires would take a previous mortal lover and turn them so they could be with them. But it was entirely unheard of for vampires to seek out mortals purely for companionship; the logistics were just too complicated. The reason Ragon felt for Ari was not because he craved mortality or because he craved her blood, but for a reason that was entirely his own. To be truthful, he had only felt like this once since becoming the monster he was. Ragon was reluctant to think of his feelings for Ari as being love; for the sole reason that he didn’t believe vampires were capable of love. But now as he left the house that he had bought for his captive he wasn’t so sure. All he knew for certain was that he had to make certain that she was alright. Perhaps no one had found out about her, perhaps she was at her home now watching TV, trying hard to pretend that the last few days had been all just one big nightmare. Still, he thought as he raced from the house, what if she had been taken?

It didn’t take Ragon long to find, and loose, Ari’s scent. He had followed it along the driveway, up a hill, and onto a side road that serviced the main road. It was dark  so Ragon ran along the road with ease until suddenly, Ari’s scent vanished. One moment it had been there, and the next it was gone. Breathing in harshly, he forced the air surrounding him into his lungs realising how old the scent must be. His head hung in defeat, but as it did so he noticed two long tire skid marks along the road. Breathing in again, this time slower, he picked up the faint trace of something he recognised. At first he wasn’t sure,  so he breathed in deeply again trying to isolate the smell that he recognized from the sweet, fragrant jasmine that crept into his nostrils from a nearby garden.    

“Kiara,” he breathed after a moment; his worst fears realized.

Instantly he was running, blurring through the suburbs to a house he had hoped never to see again, while his mind stunk of memories of the vampire he hated. Kiara had been the first non-mortal he had met since becoming the monster he was or to put it more accurately, she was the one who had turned him. It was 1815, and Ragon was a soldier of the United Kingdom Army. Napoleon’s War against the kingdoms had bought him many enemies, and so the nations rallied to bring about his end of tyranny. 14 flags had risen against Napoleon and the first French Empire. Though the war had been coined the hundred day battle, Ragon did not live past the first 2 months. It had been a relatively painless death for him. One moment he was charging at the enemy and the next he was lying in a ditch, blood staining his dark blue uniform. No one could have told you how long he was dying for. Back then the war fields were the perfect scavenging grounds for the un-dead. Vampires, and other blood hungry creatures, searched the battlegrounds for easy prey. On one particular moonless night, a female vampire feasted on the many dead or dying soldiers. Kiara didn’t like the taste of cold blood, but it was a free meal and she was starving. She almost didn’t notice when she began taking Ragon’s life. Though his blood was luke-warm, it was only when her eyes locked on his that she realized he was still alive. They were open wide in horror, watching her drain him. It had taken her a second to decide not to end him, to decide that she wanted to keep him for himself,  so she changed him. The next night Ragon was a vampire. For a time he followed her, hunted with her, and laid with her, but he did not love her. When finally he decided to leave, many years after his transformation, Kiara was completely obsessed with him.