All the Legends Say So

The blood dripped down the chest of the woman, her body limp in my arms. My teeth released her neck, leaving behind two dots of red. I let her fall to the ground, her thick clothes muffling the thud. The life I had taken now reverberated within my sterile veins. I had indulged my craving, drank it all up and reveled in the power I held over the warm, delicate body. I breathed in the night-soaked air. I did not need the remnant of a lifelong need—yet it was a habit.

I felt the liquid trickle from my mouth past my jaw, so I brushed it away with my thumb. The skin of my hand, alabaster both in color and feel, glittered in the moonlight. No, not like that Twilight abomination of my kind I once caught a glimpse of in the cinema—the glitter was subtle, the kind of glitter a marble surface gives off.

The woman’s body lay there, cold like the cobblestone underneath. She had already breathed her last breath. I could sense the death in her. She was no longer of use to me.
I walked up the path to a suburban bungalow and rang the bell. A woman in her thirties answered the door, angry and disheveled in her nightgown. She rebuked me for coming amid the night and demanded to know why I tore her out of sleep. I stretched my lips into a smile, my fangs under the front door light.

“Let me in,” I said, and my magic seeped into her.

Her frown slackened and she greeted me warmly, like an old friend, ushering me in.
Once inside the ornate entrance hall, my eyes caught a mirror on the wall. It reflected my handsome face and neatly pulled back dark brown hair. I admired myself for a few seconds, for I remembered that I had forgotten to admire myself in my own mirror this morning. I ran a finger over my perfectly sculpted jaw and adjusted my black cloak on my shoulders. After I had become a vampire, I rid myself of all the imperfections that I had as a human. Gone was the unclean skin, the crooked nose, the wrinkles on my forehead. I was mesmerizing.

The woman asked what I was doing, so I drew a fist through her skull, crafting a hole in it. I pulled my hand back and licked off the blood, and her body slumped to the ground. I then got on all fours and sank my teeth into her soft flesh. I gulped it all down wildly. For how unpleasantly she initially behaved, her taste was divine.

I walked up the path to a small, decrepit, yellow house and rang the bell. I had to ring three times to wake the owner’s attention. A drunk, middle-aged man leaned into the doorframe, a bottle in his hand. His eyes were squinted, and I wondered if he saw me as my menacing, elegantly styled self or just a blurry figure. He cursed at me and asked what I wanted.
“Let me in,” I said, but did not smile. That cursing was uncalled for.

His jaw went slack, and his eyes relaxed as my power hit him. He finally shut his big mouth. He stepped aside and let me in.

A woman, visibly the drunkard’s lover, called out “Who is that, darling?” and came stomping down the steps. She halted when she saw me. Her mascara was running down her cheeks, her lipstick smeared across her mouth, and she stood there only in her lingerie against the frigid air wafting in from the door.

I smiled, drunken with desire. I left the man standing there aside and walked towards the fair lady. I enchanted her with my magic and pulled her to my chest. Her blood burned on my tongue—a sweet, sweet spice. She was clearly drunk too. I drained her dry and savored her lips, so plump, moist, tender.

Tender just like hers when we kissed too much.

I let go of the woman’s body and turned to the limp drunk man. I pierced his mushy neck laden with bruises and liquids of piss and vomit. The taste was unpleasant, but I bore it in favor of what was to come. Once the thick, sweet blood overflew my mouth and spilled over the man’s chest, I moaned with pleasure and glee. Soon the man was drained to death, and I had nothing more to suck. I was outside the house before the man’s body hit the ground.
I walked up the path to a large mansion, not much smaller than my own, and rang the bell. I heard a voice inside call for “Mandy” to go open the door. Mandy did as she was told, and I was standing face to face with a crossed teenage girl. She asked what I wanted, or rather, spat it out. I disliked her attitude.

“Let me in.” My magic engulfed her and soon she was smiling at me and singing praises of my grandeur as she invited me to the fancy entrance hall of her family palace.

Her parents were in the living room and a younger boy, most likely her brother, was sitting at the nearby kitchen table. A baby wriggled in the father’s arms and the mother had a rattle toy in her hand. I let my claws appear and sliced a line through Mandy’s neck. Her head fell off and left her body standing upright, like the horseman from the legend of Sleepy Hollow.
“Oh my God!” the mother wailed in terror.

The father’s face lost all color. He handed the baby to the mother and stood up shakily. He stared all his sorrow into my soul. I read his mind and learned that he was going to run to the drawer and pull out his gun. Except he was not going to do that, for my magic had him frozen to the spot. The same fate met the mother and the son—I even decided to paralyze the baby. Terror was enticing but I hated that it always came with screaming. I despised the sound. This way, I could revel in their fearful faces and not suffer the blast of their vocal range.

I drained Mandy first, which proved to be a quick and easy feat given her lack of a head. Then I drained the father and the mother, both bland and unimpressive. They must have been that way in life. I then walked up to the son and looked at his curly brown hair and freckles. A flash of similar, but ginger hair and freckled face went through my mind, and I staggered backwards with a gasp. I regained my composure, closed my eyes, and sank my teeth into the boy’s flesh. It was delicate and smelled of dirt and trees. He must have been climbing them. The ginger boy was in my mind again, climbing up a tree too tall and wide. I heard my own voice shouting at him softly: “Careful, Denny, you may fall.” I reached out my hand after him, prepared to catch him in case he fell.

I jerked back and almost puked up the blood I had drunk. Thankfully, no such thing happened—such bodily functions did not happen to me anymore. Thank fuck.

I killed the boy with my power, silently, simply by stopping his heart, and went to the living room, where the toddler lay in its dead mother’s arms. Its skin was smooth and pale, like a porcelain doll. I assumed it was a girl, based on the tiny pink dress and pink bow in her barely-there hair.

I pushed back against my hesitation, and bit into her collarbone.
Horrid mistake.

I saw her on the ground, wailing and stretching her small hands out toward me. I was splayed out on the ground, the cool tiles pressing against my cheek. I stretched my hand toward her, but I was too weak to even shout her name.

But I thought it. Evangeline. Evangeline! Please, don’t hurt Evangeline!

But he did not care. Even if he heard the pleas in my head, he did not care. He was there, at the door, with his long cape glistening in the dim light of the corridor lamps. And then, in a sharp flick, he was not at the door but at the crib, bending down to pick up Evangeline. He tore off her limbs as I watched and cried, unable to move. He then laid down next to me and drained me of all my blood, cackling at my sobs and chokes, whispering “Her young blood was the sweetest.”

I spat out all the blood and was stuck coughing and spluttering. I felt like forever had passed before I got up off the ground and wiped my mouth. My magic squeezed the baby’s heart, but I vanished from the living room before it pumped the last gush.

I pondered what happened to me. In the past, I got flashes of memories of her—Cecile, whenever I drank the blood of a young blonde woman. So, I stopped feeding on those. Then last month, the alcoholic’s lover’s lips reminded me of her again. So, I resolved to quit drinking from plump-lipped young women. I even considered leaving out all women and only feeding on men, should a memory of her come to me again. And this night—I realized—was different. I made a unique choice. The reason I saw them—Denny and Evangeline, tonight, was that this was the first time I drank from children. I decided to never do so again. The memories were too distracting.

I walked up the path to a small, isolated farmhouse and rang the bell. An older man cracked the door open and peeked at me.

I smiled, well past the capacity of a mere human’s face. “Let me in,” I said and wanted to send my magic at him but then I sensed it. I wanted to slap myself with both hands. This matter should have come up beforehand, I should have ascertained he was susceptible before I even stepped foot on this farm.

The farmer smiled, and I hated to read mockery in it. “You must be on the prowl,” he said.
I said nothing—What should I have even said?

But he continued: “I know what you are. I’ve met the likes of you before. Most of ‘em tried the same trick—never worked on me.” The farmer let the door widen and leaned against the doorframe, too comfortable for my comfort.

“I guess you’ll kill me now, suck out my blood, torture me, whatever. Might as well be you. Heck, I’m gonna die soon anyway.”

“What do you mean?” I snarled. “What do you mean you’re going to die soon?” Was he ill? I loathed the taste of sickness. I employed my power to sense him, and it confirmed to me that this man was riddled with the most despicable of diseases.

“Cancer?” I asked in annoyance.

The old farmer took a drag from a cigar I had not even noticed he was holding and nodded. “Yup, the fast ticket out.”

I snarled in rage. I wasted my time for nothing.

The farmer spoke on. “But you don’t have to do this…” he gestured vaguely with his hand in the air, “… whole beast thing. I haven’t only met vampires like you. I’ve also met some great ones. They were normal. No snarling, murderous bullshit. They behaved humanely, only they were above the dread of life, because they had little to lose. Certainly not their lives if they weren’t outright running to the sun.”

I snarled again, to spite him. “What do you know about my kind?” I bellowed, but the man was still not intimidated.

He snorted a laugh and said: “More than you’d think. For one, I know you fuckers don’t actually need to drain people till they shrivel up like old paper. One drop of blood is enough to sustain you for a month. You don’t need to kill people to survive. So why did you decide to go down that path?”

If I hadn’t remembered the farmer was ill, I would have blasted his head off and drunk up from his neck. But I managed to compose my voice into calmness and said: “What are you saying, mortal? One drop of blood? Are you insane? This is precisely what vampires do. We are creatures of the night, feasting upon the blood of you mortals without pity. We must drain you all to survive.” I could not believe this man was questioning the way of my kin. This way of life was natural for us. All the legends said so. We vampires had to kill to survive, and so our nature made us ruthless killers. He certainly was that way. He batted no eye at my misery. It was definitely his nature. Why else would he do such a horrible thing to me? He did not have a choice. The vampiric curse took over his mind. He was doing what he was meant to do. And I was doing the same.

The farmer laughed again. “If you don’t believe me, try it. Try only drinking a drop of blood and sparing the person. You’ll see that you’ll be fine.” He took a drag out of the cigar. “They got you young, huh? I mean, not that it matters, you vampires can change appearance at will.”

I felt anger boil my nonexistent blood. “What foolish things you are suggesting! And to dabble in my past! I shall slice your throat at once!” But I could not stop the memories from resurfacing. I saw them dead on the floor, Cecile’s blonde hair soaked in blood, Evangeline’s lifeless torso… I saw myself at the table, wondering why I was still seeing, breathing, walking, wondering why they all died but me.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, slice my throat, sink your teeth into it, hiss while you’re doing it—all that shit,” the farmer mumbled amusedly. “I just want you to remember—this whole scary Victorian era shtick is completely unnecessary.”

“No, quite the opposite—it is completely necessary,” I said. “You don’t know a thing. You think that just because you have learned a few facts about vampires you now have the upper hand? What a moron you are. Most things you said were untrue. And it is in fact such a simple thing. If only you listened to the tales of our kind and were vigilant.”

“The fairytales are bullshit,” the farmer said and blew out the cigar smoke. “Of all the vampires I have met, you are the only one acting like Stoker’s Dracula.”

“Well, then you have either met some charlatans pretending to be vampires,” I said, “or you have met none at all and you have just made it all up.” I had to admit, the farmer did get some things right about vampires. Such as our aversion to the sun or the fact that we could shapeshift. But those were only common knowledge, or he could have been lucky with his guess. If only I could read his mind. But with these unsusceptible ones, that was impossible.
“And have you ever met other vampires?” the farmer asked.

A fiery feeling shot through me once more. I was utterly crossed. This man had absolutely no humility. Well, come to think of it, I have only met one vampire. The one that changed me. And took my family. And there lay my answer—he was exactly like me, and I was exactly like him. I needed no other vampires. I was fine on my own.

The farmer had to see my hesitation, and he laughed again. “You haven’t, am I right? At least not the kind I have met. You know, the ones that don’t conform to the stereotypes.” He took a drag out of that disgusting cigar. He then said: “I might not be a vampire, young lad, but I can sense some things about you.”

A shiver passed down my back. He sensed things about me? This man was fucking creepy. But he was not a magical being. I would have sensed that. And to call me a young lad? As if I were a pubescent boy? A human boy? This man was insufferable.

I managed to compose myself and said: “Then let’s see how you can sense me with your nose shoved up your arse.”

The farmer cackled and then scrunched up his brows. “Jeez. Something must have really messed you up, huh?”

I breathed in the air of spite and let it out through my nose. “Nothing has messed me up at all. I have simply become a vampire and left all my pathetic human habits in the past.”
The farmer smirked. “And yet you still breathe the air you do not need.”

I wanted to threaten him with death again, but then I remembered he was indifferent to it. I breathed angrily in and out my nose, making sure to look terribly menacing with my scowl. I had to look menacing; vampires were always menacing.

“I can see your grief, lad,” the farmer said, his tone somewhat warmer.

My scowl deepened and I said: “Stop acting like a fool and trying to guess things about my life. You are a mere human. You cannot read my mind nor my past. I, on the other hand, can read anything about you.” I was lying. Once more—those like him were unreadable. I had come across a human man like this farmer in the past and I have asked my magic why he was that way. My power had told me that he had a potential for magic—that he could turn into a magical being, including a vampire. I have not really remembered the entire hierarchy of magical beings or the methods of magical activation, for I was not interested in turning anyone. I pondered why the farmer hadn’t asked one of the vampires he had allegedly met to turn him. I wondered if they even told him about his potential. Not that it mattered, for again—I had no intention of turning this creepy old man into a vampire. Who knows what absurdities he would do then with that power. Just like I had done with the man in the past, this farmer’s fate was sealed.

The farmer scoffed, put a cigar in between his chapped, old lips and said: “So please, read me.” He gestured to himself.

“You’re not worth my time,” I said. “There is surely nothing interesting about you. You are just a farmer. A human farmer. I only bother to read lives that promise thrill. Yours promises the dullness of the sky above.” The sky was a dull dark blue tonight, with barely any stars. As dull as the farmer’s clothes and complexion.

He smirked again. I loathed that smirk of his. It always revealed his three missing teeth and the rotting rest. “I’m not going to argue against that,” he said and blew out smoke. “So, Mr. Vampire, since you have decided to be the stereotypical bogeyman from the fairytales, are you going to suck me dry and leave me at the doorstep for my neighbor to hopefully find my body one day?”

“No,” I said. “You reek of illness. You reek of humanity.”

“Gee whiz, I haven’t noticed,” the farmer snorted, that cigar in his mouth again.

I frowned. “No. I didn’t say I wasn’t going to kill you. I will simply not suck your blood. It’s infested with that cancer of yours.”

The farmer cackled again and said: “Well, you may do as you please. You are, after all, so much more powerful than me, right?” He took the horrid cigar out of his mouth and reached with his other hand inside the neckline of his shirt. “But since you are a vampire, Mr. Vampire,” he pulled out the embellishment of his necklace I had not even noticed was hidden in his shirt, “you’re afraid of this, right?” He showed me the pendant and I hissed and jumped a few steps back when I noticed it was a cross.

The farmer laughed a full belly laugh and I hissed again. That disrespectful, cocky idiot. He then tilted his head and said: “But why are you afraid of it?”

Well, what the fuck did he think? Because it hurt us. It stung and burned us to look at it and… Then I realized that I have never been hurt by a cross. I have always just… ran away upon seeing one. But if I were to come close to it, or touch it, I was certain I would get burned. All the legends said so.

“It doesn’t really hurt you,” the farmer said. “You’re just tricking yourself into it.” He tapped a finger at his temple. “I know. Those other vampires told me.” He smiled with his mouth open, and again there were those horrid teeth.

My insides were boiling with anger yearning to be unbound. To be unleashed upon this pitiful creature of a man.

The farmer motioned with his hand towards himself. “Come on. Come back close again. This won’t hurt you. It’s just a pendant. Why? Is a powerful vampire such as yourself afraid of a little old cross?” He was mocking my way of speech now, I saw.

I growled and let out my teeth, and in a gust of wind that swept up fallen leaves from the ground, I was before him again. My claws slashed through his neck. His head landed on the ground and did a few soggy flips in a pool of blood. It remained lying face up, with that despicable, revolting, open smile of the farmer carved into his face. I did not want my victim to die with a smile. I wanted all of them to be pale with terror at the sight of me before their last breath puffs. I ordered my magic to twist the corners of the farmer’s lips down, and to ascend his brows. Now the face no longer bore signs of merriness, only fear.

The moonlight gave the cross on his chest a faint glimmer. His body lay right at my feet, and yet I did not feel any pain. It must have functioned only upon direct contact then. As I had read in the legends, many hunters burned vampires by touching their skin with their wooden crosses. Or perhaps that was the issue. This cross was not made out of wood. It looked metallic.

I reached out my hand to touch it, to see if it would burn me, but only an inch away from the cross, I retracted my hand and growled. It was not worth it. Why would I want to get burned? My loss of the sensation of pain and pressure that came with vampirism had been a blessing, after all. What was I thinking? Descending to such masochistic measures. It was truly him, the farmer. He had muddied my head with his devilishness.

With a final repulsed snarl over his illness-riddled body, I turned around, called upon my bat wings, and soared towards the silent sky, in search of a mortal who was going to let me in.

Credit: Genevieve Gray

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