"I know," I said miserably."You've explained it to me. And I know we don't hurt those we drink from, not unless we drink too much. But..."I shrugged unhappily. He sighed."Very well. It is hard, especially when you are only a half-vampire and the hunger is not so great. I will let you abstain this time. But you must feed soon. For your own sake."
He returned to the cut and cleaned away the blood-which had been leaking out while we were talking-from around the man's leg. Then he worked up a mouthful of spit and slowly let it dribble over the cut. He rubbed it in with a finger, then sat back and watched. The wound closed and healed. Within a minute there was
nothing left besides a small scar that the man probably wouldn't notice when he awoke.
That's how vampires protect themselves. Unlike in the movies, they don't kill people when they drink, not unless they are starving or get carried away and go too far. They drink in small doses, a little here, a little there. Sometimes they attack people out in the open, as we had just done. Other times, they creep into bedrooms late at night or into hospital wards or police cells.
The people they drink from hardly ever know they've been fed on by a vampire. When this man woke, he would remember only a falling red shape. He wouldn't be able to explain why'd passed out or what had happened to him while he was unconscious. If he found the scar, he'd be more likely to think it was the mark of aliens than a vampire.
Hah.Aliens ! Not many people know that vampires started the UFO stories. It was the perfect cover. People all over the world were waking up to find strange scars on their bodies and were blaming it on imaginary aliens. Mr. Crepsley had knocked the scoutmaster out with his breath. Vampires can breathe out a special kind of gas, which makes people faint. When Mr. Crepsley wanted to put someone to sleep, he breathed into a cupped fist, then held his hand over the person's nose and mouth. Seconds later they were down for the count, and wouldn't wake for at least twenty or thirty minutes.
Mr. Crepsley examined the scar and made sure it had healed correctly. He took good care of his victims. He seemed to be a nice guy, from what I'd seen of him- a part from the fact that he was a vampire!
"Come," he said, standing. "The night is young. We will go find a rabbit or a fox for for you."
"You don't mind me not drinking from him" I asked.
Mr. Crepsley shook his head. "You will drink eventually," he said."When you are hungry enough."
"No," I said silently behind him, as he turned to walk away."I won't. Not from a human. I'll never drink from a human.N ever!" I woke up early in the afternoon, as usual. I'd gone to bed shortly before dawn, the same time as Mr. Crepsley. But while he had to stay asleep until night came again, I was free to rise and move around in the daylight world. It was one of the advantages of being only a half-vampire.
I made a late breakfast of butter on a bagel - even vampires have to eat normal food; blood alone won't keep us going - and plopped down in front of the hotel TV. Mr. Crepsley didn't like hotels. He usually slept out in the open, in an old barn or a ruined building or a large crypt, but I was having no part of that. I told him point blank after a week of sleeping in the cold that I'd had enough of it. He grumbled a bit, but finally gave in.
The last two months had passed pretty quickly, because I'd been so busy learning about being a vampire's assistant. Mr. Crepsley wasn't a good teacher and didn't like repeating himself, so I had to pay attention and learn fast.
I was really strong now. I could lift huge weights and crush marbles to pieces with my fingers. If I shook hands with a human I had to be careful not to break the bones in his fingers. I could do chin-ups all night long and throw a baseball farther than any grown-up. (I measured my throw one day, then checked in a book and discovered I'd set a new world record! I was excited at first, but then realized I couldn't tell anybody about it. Still, it was nice to know I was a world champion.)
My fingernails were really thick, and the only way I could cut them was with my teeth; clippers and scissors were no good on my new, tough nails. They were a pain: I kept ripping my clothes when I was putting them on or taking them off and digging holes in my pockets when I stuck my hands in.
We'd covered a lot of distance since that night in the cemetery. First we'd fled at top vampire speed, me on Mr. Crepsley's back, invisible to human eyes, gliding across the land like a couple of high-speed ghosts. That's called flitting. But flitting is tiring work, so after a couple of nights we began taking trains and buses.
I don't know where Mr. Crepsley got the money for our travel and hotels and food. He had no wallet that I could see and no bank cards, but every time he had to pay for something, out came the cash.
I hadn't grown fangs. I'd been expecting them to sprout and had been checking my teeth in the mirror every night for three weeks before Mr. Crepsley caught me.
"What are you doing?"he asked.
"Looking for fangs,"I told him.
He stared at me for a few seconds, then burst out laughing. "We do not grow fangs, you idiot!"he roared.
"But... how do we bite people?"I asked, confused.
"We do not,"he told me, still laughing. "We cut them with our nails and suck the blood out. We only use our teeth in emergencies."
"So I won't grow fangs?"
"No. Your teeth will be harder than any human's, and you will be able to bite through skin and bone if you wish, but it is messy. Only stupid vampires use their teeth. And stupid vampires tend not to last very long. They get hunted down and killed."
I was a little disappointed to hear that. It was one of the things I liked most about those old vampire movies: The vampires looked so cool when they bared their fangs.
But after some thought, I decided I was better off without the fangs. The fingernails making holes in my clothes were bad enough. I would have been in real trouble if my teeth had grown and I'd started cutting chunks out of my cheeks as well!
Most of the old vampire stories were untrue. We couldn't change shape or fly. Crosses and holy water didn't hurt us. All garlic did was give us bad breath. Our reflections could be seen in mirrors, and we cast shadows.
Some of the myths were true, though. A vampire couldn't be photographed or filmed with a video camera. There's something odd about vampire atoms, which means all that comes out on film is a dark blur. I could still be photographed, but you wouldn't get a clear photo of me, no matter how good the light.
Vampires were friendly with rats and bats. We couldn't turn into them, as some books and films said, but they liked us - they knew from the smell of our blood that we were different from humans - and often cuddled up to us while we were sleeping, or came around looking for scraps of food.