Previously: One night, Dieter Hellstrom meets a mysterious woman who turns out to be (and also turns him into) something else.
He jumped upright in the dim light of the unfamiliar room. His muscles contracted with unexpected ease and his feet landed on the floor with a light thud. He felt weightless. He cast a glance back to the bed in which he had previously laid, surprised at the sight of the bloodied sheets. His memories were vague, distant and somewhat surreal. The large mirror in front of the bed suddenly caught his attention, and he started to examine himself in detail. The sight of his former wounds was not pretty and it suddenly filled him with rage at his own helplessness. With a violent gesture, he tore open the bloodied jacket and shirt, exposing the intact, porcelain white skin beneath them. He gasped in surprise and right then Milena suddenly appeared right behind him, a wicked grin plastered on her face.
„How... how is this possible? A short while ago i was dying, i know it! And now, look! I am alive!" he whispered.
„On the contrary, Dieter, you are dead. I'm afraid they killed you" she replied shrugging.
„Then what... what have you done to me?"
She stepped even closer and her long nailed fingers rested on his shoulders.
„The only thing i could do. I made you like me. A Nosferatu"
„What??" he asked, laughing softly. „A vampire? So you mean that now i am going to spend the rest of eternity wandering, drinking the blood of mortals?"
„Well, if you think I've made a mistake and you'd rather lie there dead, shredded to pieces in that basement... i can fix that" she said innocently.
„No, no!" Dieter said suddenly panicked, taking a step back. He scrubbed a hand over his face and his ruffled hair. „I just want to know... just tell me this: have i sold my soul to the devil? Are you... are you the devil?"
„If you really want to know... the devil is a very abstract notion" she whispered sensually in his ear „And you don't have a soul, Dieter. That's why i chose you"
He sighed and smiled bitterly. Milena's cold fingers gently caressed his jaw, turning his head towards the mirror.
„Never regret it, my love. You are just as i've always imagined you would be"
He stared blankly in front of him. The man in the mirror was strickingly beautiful, with mysterios dark blue eyes and pale skin, but it was just not him. Not him in the way he used to know himself. Yet it was not someone else, it was something else. The image grinned, revealing a set of perfect white fangs. A predator.
„So you would have done this anyway? Is this what you wanted from me?" he asked.
„Since the first time I saw you" Milena admitted. „You see, Dieter, a vampire can do pretty much whatever he or she pleases in this world, but the one thing we must always avoid is to create a newborn out of a wrong person. I've been looking for someone like you for a very long time.... I couldn't pick someone who wasn't meant for this."
„You mean someone who is not a hunter. Someone who is not a killer..."
She nodded.
Hellstrom was suddenly pleased with his entirely new situation. He didn't mind it at all, and the vague initial repulsion at the thought had vanished. All the unknown things he would have to learn excited his intelligence.
„So who do we hunt?"
„Anyone we please, and anyone who stirrs our lust"
„So I could just go after those who are responsible for my death and-"
„No, no, Dieter. Your life as you knew it is over. You are dead to the world, and you cannot go back to who you were, never. Forget all your human grudges. We do not hunt mortals in vengeance"
„But why not?"
„ A man you hate, a man you despise, kill him in any other way you want, but his blood you should not touch. It will make you sick. But we don't usually bother to kill for anything else but blood. We are above all that, we don't waste our time settling old scores." Milena explained.
Hellstrom sighed again and let his head drop on her shoulder. He did want revenge. Too bad he could not go back to his human life with his new powers. Of course he could not. But there would be compensations...
„You are weak. Come, let's go for a walk outside"
She took his hand and led him to an open window, from which they both jumped down, in the street.
„Wait! I can't walk around like that" Dieter said motioning to his destroyed uniform.
Milena briefly touched his chest and magically the clothes became intact.
„Can I do that too?" he wanted to know.
„Not yet. You are too young"
They strolled aimlessly for a while. Milena was silent, and Hellstrom was much too preocuppied with the exploration of his new, much sharpened senses, for any conversation.
„Wait here" she suddenly said, as she spotted a man who had just stepped out from a restaurant to enjoy a cigarette in solitude. She walked graciously to him and whispered something in his ear. His left hand dropped the cigarette and went around her waist as he chuckled. And that was the last thing the man ever did.
Dieter watched in complete fascination. He could have had the same fate when he'd met her, and she had drunk his blood too, except he was... chosen. His musings were interrupted by the thud of the man's body hitting the ground. Milena came back and her lips brushed against his, teasingly. He kissed her violently, inhaling the flavor of blood and feeling the thirst burning his throat.
„Why did you not save anything for me?" he pouted.
„We never share" she grinned. „You will have to hunt for yourself"
He looked forward to that, actually.
„I have one thing to ask you. Like... a last wish from my mortal life" Dieter pleaded.
„Well?"
„Can i at least go and pick up my stuff ? From the Wehrmacht base?"
Milena raised an eyebrow.
„Please? Just the books..."
She laughed softly.
„Sure... whatever"
Dieter was a bit nervous, being alone for the first time since his transformation, but he managed to slip completely unnoticed into his old room, where all his things were exactly the way he'd left them. He'd promised to take only the books with him. But then he'd gathered countless books in the time he'd spent in Paris. Finally he settled for a few favourite novels, stuffed them in a shoulder bag and he was out the door.
As he walked out in the large courtyard, a figure caught his attention. His driver, Sebastian, stood propped on one of the cars, leafing through the evening newspaper. He was alone, and no one else was in sight. Dieter's gaze narrowed as his nose caught the young man's smell. Sebastian had loosened his collar and the tie and Hellstrom could almost see the pulse beneath the delicate skin of his bare neck. He silently crept closer, until he stood right in front of the young soldier. The other man jumped slightly at the unexpected sight and his jaw dropped.
„Major, is that you??.... But i thought you were...." Sebastian trailed off and he rushed to put the paper aside, slightly cutting his finger with one edge.
„Ups! Biiiiiiiiiiiiiig mistake" Hellstrom chuckled.