do not hunt infants. You told me yourself, ‘What’s the sport in one who cannot fight?’. Those were your words. Do you remember, Alastair?”
Crispin moved closer to the insane vampire carefully, intent on saving not only the baby, but all the children in this orphanage, though it would not be easy to do. Alastair had lost all sense of himself, his insanity taking him over the brink into an almost rabid state of being. The more brutal and senseless the kill, the more his inner demon was satisfied. There was little to nothing anyone could do to stop him. So, Crispin had made it his duty to track Alastair, as best as he could anyway, and try to intervene at each chance that presented itself. True, Alastair like all vampires needed to feed. But it was not necessary to decimate entire villages, entire families, even one person for that matter in order to sustain oneself. One could feed without causing death, but for the time being, until Crispin could find a way to contain Alastair, he’d accept one death at Alastair’s hands instead of many senseless kills just for the sake of killing, that had become Alastair’s preference.
“Leave me,” Alastair croaked, low and deadly as he brought the infant closer to himself.
“Have you truly fallen so low that you would rather bleed defenseless babes than those who make the hunt itself truly exhilarating?” Crispin asked haughtily.
“Perhaps I’ll hunt you,” Alastair threatened slowly, calculatedly.
“You know you cannot. Look at me, Alastair. Do you not know me?” Crispin asked, holding his hands out from his sides for Alastair’s perusal.
Alastair dropped his hands to his sides, the infant still dangling from Alastair's grip on one of his small ankles. Alastair looked at Crispin, his brow furrowing. He didn’t want to admit he didn’t know this vampire, because apparently the vampire knew him. The male seemed familiar, but still, he wasn’t quite sure…
“You should know me. You created me. Long, long ago. You made me what I am. Do you not remember?” Crispin pressed.
Visions of a young man, in the throes of passion, his lover beneath him, both totally oblivious to the threat that watched them silently in the very same room began to fill Alastair’s head.
“I’m Crispin. Remember? You attacked and I fought you. Near death, I fought you still. Then you said you were bored with the fools you were forced to suffer eternity with, so you made me like you. You said I would make eternity interesting at the very least.”
“Crispin,” Alastair mumbled, his fractured mind trying to put the pieces together. Then he smiled. “I killed your female,” he finally said, reveling in that fact.
“She wasn’t my female, but you did kill her. Right after you forced me to feed from her to complete the change you put upon me.”
“I gifted you the change!” Alastair screamed, his filthy, greasy hair rustling with his movements, spittle flying from his dirty, bloodstained face.
“Did you? Well, then doesn’t that make you my benefactor? Perhaps my gracious benefactor would care to gift me the babe you hold, then together we can go out and feast on the night,” Crispin invited. “Prove to me that the great Alastair, one of the oldest of us all, hasn’t fallen from grace as the rumormongers claim,” Crispin taunted gently. Dealing with Alastair was an act akin to walking a tightrope one hundred feet in the air. He was completely insane, any little word could set him off, and had. Crispin had detested his existence for so long he was almost thankful to have a new focus — keeping the vampire who’d made him a vampire in his own right, from slaughtering innocents whenever he could.
Alastair looked down to the now screaming baby dangling from his hand by one leg and lifted it to inspect it once more. “Why won’t it shut up?!” Alastair asked exasperatedly. Then he looked at Crispin. “You may have the damned thing!” he said, tossing the baby carelessly in Crispin’s direction. “I’m away to find more entertaining prey. You tell the gossipmongers, they are next.” In the next moment, before Crispin even caught the screaming baby, Alastair was gone, seeming to have evaporated into thin air.
Crispin lunged forward rushing toward the baby, barely catching the child before he hit the floor. He caught the child up in his arms and did his best to soothe the child as he walked toward the small group of young children huddled in the corner watching him. Some