Naked Came the Vampire (Hypernaturals 1)

Air West

"You OK?" Jessica asked. I looked over to the plane and through the still open doors where the bodies are stashed. I know I sounded super depressed, but I could not summon anything else. "No." I looked back at my love. "I hope I never am, Jessica. Not about this. Even if it helps me with the Council."

I know Jessica has been here too, so I did not rage about it. I am not really the raging type anyway. For all my depression about killing and my part in it, I am oddly glad Helen was able to kill one of the two guys from our first little plane ride. She probably would have preferred to kill the one that wanted to turn her into a dreidel. So nice she left him for me.

Jessica decided this to be a teachable moment. "As Vampire, you do not need to kill to live. To eat I mean. To keep the secret, yes, but not to live. What Vampires used to get from humans as far as required sustenance we can get other ways." She looked thoughtful, considering a puzzle "Though we won't know your exact needs until you are older. Feeding on me seemed to satisfy you as well: maybe you will never feed off a human. Who knows? No matter what, your compulsions will be less frequent than for females. For me."

I looked confused. We have covered this ground.

"I am not being random here." Jessica assured. "For better or worse this is a part of being a Vampire. I won't say that I am proud of you Adrian. I will say that I am relieved that you were able to do it. That when the time came, you can do what is needed. More importantly than that: I am also very deeply happy you did not enjoy it."

Jessica gave me a very serious look, making sure I am giving her my full attention and drilling in her next point. "Like it or not, you are stuck with me for a while. I can be with someone who can do what is required. I cannot be with someone who likes killing." She looked at the ground, her shoulder slumping slightly. "How you feel about that, and me now, after all this is another subject. I hope you don't think me evil now that you have killed and seen me kill."

I looked at that sad posture. "You will never be evil to me Jessica." She needs to understand that! "It is only that knowing what needs to be done, and doing what has to be done are two different things, and I am not sure I will ever be able to kill without feeling like I am tearing away a small part of my self along the way. Also: I lied to Danny. And Lori. Again. I hate that."

Jessica nodded. "I know. I told you about my husband, and how I went back to see him. I am not proud to say that I went back thinking I would kill him. I hated him as I have never hated anyone. I blamed him for killing my baby — yet as I watched him die I felt no happiness in his death. I stayed there knowing he would die soon, and I thought I wanted to see that. When he finally did pass away racked in pain and knowing I was there, I felt no pleasure in it. No release. No joy. It was empty. On the other hand, it would have been a mercy to kill him, and I did not do that either. I sat there and watched a man I hated for years die, and I felt nothing at all, other than disgust at myself for having felt the need to even be there. I was new. He was nothing."

We are not a happy group this evening, for sure. "Not killing him does not make you a killer, Jessica. That's not 'death by omission'. You were in the very most literal way different. You moved on already and just did not know it yet. You changed, not only because of Vampirism. Your life as a school teacher. Your independence. Your relationship with Helen as a friend AND lover. All of that. You went back to kill a man you hated but now he was a pitiful stranger to you. You changed in ways you did not understand yet, but you were also still you. You mourned your child, but you realized you were never going to get them back by doing anything to that husk of a human."

I looked up at the dark night sky and its bright hard stars. It looked cold, and even though I am not really cold, I shivered slightly. "Probably I am that way now: Changing inside and not knowing about the change before it shows up in some new way. My brain is being rewired. I have a different brain now! That has to change who I am in some way. Same for you. I have no idea how many humans you have killed in your one hundred twenty-three years, but I do not believe that you could love a persons death, no matter how much you hate them. No matter how much they needed it." I tilted my head at our cargo of human carrion. "Exhibit A".