Emma, she was so sweet and she tasted like Vanilla…
The night was damp from the cold rain. Henry had pulled the hood of his sweater over his head. He was leaning at the wall under a protruding roof and lurked down the street that was almost bare of pedestrians at this time. After waiting and watching for almost half an hour he decided to walk over to another area before hanging around here any longer would raise any suspect. Not that any of the few people would really pay any attention to a young guy slumbered under a rooftop in a wet night.
Nowadays humans never paid much attention to their surroundings until anything became really suspicious and threatening. Former times were gone long ago when people had kept some natural instincts and awareness while being outside during the darkness hours. Modern people didn´t hunt anymore, they bought their meals in shops or restaurants nor were they used to be hunted themselves, being the prey on anybody´s menu, either human, vampire or predator.
Following any unaware person through the night, hunting them down, pulling the victim into a dark alleyway or backyard was so easy. Less easy was to get rid of the corpse afterwards properly because modern police service and their forensics were developed enough to find out the real cause of death when it was hidden only clumsily. A kill had become a dangerous task for every vampire and so Aidan had taught him how to feed under so much of control that the donor would survive. The Boston Community had built up a well running blood den in the Halloway Hotel where feeding was possible with all too willing donors.
Blood -letting was paid with…sex.
Descending from a time when vampires were thought to be monsters from the legends he had never imagined it that people, humans, could become eager for the special kind of attention by a vampire.
Henry was deep in his thoughts when he reached a barely lit street a few blocks away. The rain had started again and the wind added to the feeling of cold soddenness. With one hand he shoved the curls under his hood again and dove for the next door frame.
I should have stayed at home tonight… he thought. But the hunger had driven him out of the comfortable warmth of his rooms. He looked down the dark street and his eyes, and the more his ears, got caught by the voices of some people on the other side of the street.
Henry watched closer, hiding himself in the nearby entry to a shabby backyard. His vampire eyes and ears had no trouble with catching up the movements and the voices of three men and a woman. One of the men grabbed her by the arm and tried to pull her into a direction southwards. The woman tried to free her arm and she shouted at him, tried to beat her small bag into his face in the obvious attempt to get free from him.
"Lemme go! Let go you friggin asshole!" she shouted and used her whole rather slender figure as a counter weight to get away from the man. One of the other men grabbed her from behind her shoulders, roughly turning her around and smashing her against the moist brick wall of the building.
Henry heard her cry out from pain when her arm was smashed against the hard surface and accidentally fixed between the stones and her own body.
What had started as a harsh discussion between a woman who could be thought to be a whore and three men, obviously her to-be clients, turned out for Henry as a woman in distress, yes, seriously being in trouble. Her demeanor showed her to be the victim of an upcoming crime of rape instead of being mixing up with men who were used to get what they want, even when they had to pay for it.
Henry could have turned away, not mixing up with mortal affairs or he could have waited until these men would have finished their crime to turn his hungry attention to a helpless and maybe unconscious victim.
But instead he pushed himself away from his hiding place and walked down the street with more than human speed. It took him only seconds to reach the group. The woman was on the ground and one of these guys was half kneeling on her body, pressing her down and his fist and flat hand went for her face, beating it while she started to scream from the pain. The other man was crouching down, his hands pulling her legs apart to position himself onto her.
"Let me go! Bastards! Get away FROM ME!" she screamed but the third man laughed when the one on her chest bent deeper, growling;
"Shut her up! Shut this little slut up and we´ll have some fun with her! I never could resist such a slicky channel of hers!" he laughed roughly and pressed his hand onto the bleeding lips of the young woman.
Her desperate screams were choked under his dirty fingers and he enjoyed her buckling and fear driven twitching.
He never learned to know what got him when he was pulled away from the woman, claws ripping his throat open and he screamed for a mere second before his voice strings were pulled off and blood gushed out of the gaping hole that once had been his throat. He whirled against the same wall as the woman had been before, with the difference that there was a cracking sound when his skull crunched when he hit the cold bricks. His limbs spreading on the pathway like a puppet with the cords cut.
A mere second later the second man watched his own back when hands grabbed his head, turning his head around with inhuman force, snapping his neck.
The third man tried to run but when he jumped away from his victim he was grabbed with iron fingers and a fingernail cut his throat open from the left to the right like a razor sharp blade.
He gurgled and sank to his knees, his fingers blindly fumbling for his throat where blood shot out like from a fountain.
"It´s too bad about spilling blood nowadays but I would rather starve than feed from you!" Henry hissed into his ears before he pushed his trembling body forward where it ended flat, face down, onto the glistening sidewalk tiles. His blood slowly building up a pool that mixed with the rain water.
The young woman was too shocked to scream for help, now that matters took place right in front of her, any guy raging like the devil in human shape. She was lying flat on her back, staring at him thru the big foggy blur that was wavering in front of her burning eyes. The rain streamed onto her face now but she didn´t feel it, her breath a hard staccato and her heart beating wildly.
Henry stood over her, at her feet, looking down onto that young woman. His eyes were bled black, his fangs itching to fall again when her strong smell of blood made the hunger rising again in his starving body.
It would be so easy now to drink his fill.
She was still down onto the ground, helpless, roughed up and fear stricken. Blood was smeared over her fine facial features. She had what he could see, high cheekbones, a slim face with a delicate nose and dark brown eyes. Her hair was dark brown and long, hanging in tendrils around her face and over her shoulders. She wore Blue jeans and her jacket was brutally torn open and shoved to the sides in the fight, her shirt was a mess when the guy had tried to rip it away to get access to her breasts.
With trembling fingers she tried to hide her chest with the remains of the shirt and gasping with fear and effort she wildly struggled to shove herself backwards, away from the man who stood at her feet and of whom she didn´t know if to think of him as a saving angel or another male monster, ready to take her now after he had fought off her opponents.
This man with the hooded sweater, the dark jeans jacket and the curly hair looked as much as a new attacker with his strangely darkened eyes and his blood tainted fingers. Obviously he had ripped off a man´s throat like a wild animal with seemingly no more effort than to crunch an egg shell.
When he bent down a bit, reached a hand at her she shrieked back and her feet stomped the wet ground in an attempt to move her out of his range in sheer panic.
"NO! NO! Le´mme be! Oh please…let me live! I…I won´t tell anyone!..." she pressed out, her voice tumbling over in her fear.
Henry checked the surroundings fast.
The attackers of the young woman had chosen their ground all too well. The street was devastated at this time and they could have gone ahead to put their plans into action if not for Henry hanging out here by coincidence, stepping right into their path and to become a fierce enemy to them.
"Calm down…ssshh…it´s all okay…all is gonna be okay…"
"GO! AWAY! FROM me…!" she growled at him, her voice all panic. He could smell the stench of her fear on her and the smell let the hunger rise within him with animalistic force, shaking the bars of his inner cage. Whispering, growling at him to go and to take what was his.
His fangs itched to fall and he let go. His eyes turned bled black and he bent down, caught her by the shoulders and pulled her up into his arms.
With clenched fists she started to pound his chest in an attempt of desperate self defense.
Henry took back his head, with a swift movement he took hold of her wrists and warded her attack off. With the left hand he fixed her wrists onto his chest and slung the right arm around her shoulders and her back, pulling her into a tight embrace. She woke from her helpless stupor and started to scream, right into his face and nearly bursting his sensitive vampire hearing. Henry let go of her wrists, pressing her at his chest so she couldn´t move her arms and hands when his left arm clung around her upper back and with the right hand he had to made her stop screaming before anybody would get attention.
He pressed his hand onto her mouth area.
"Stop! Stop screaming! I won´t harm you!" he growled in a dark voice. Not even the voice that makes you feeling comfortable with and he knew it. But she had to stop screaming!
She gurgled under his hand and he reminded, he forced himself, to be careful for heaven´s sake! He could easily break her neck or choke her to death with using too much of his sheer vampire strength. Humans were so breakable.
She winced with pain and twitched and buckled, her heart rate at a level he knew to be unhealthy over a longer time.
Her smell was intoxicating and he saw her jugular vein pumping with her pulse. Her blood was singing to him, the all so sweet melody of her blood that was pumped through her body fast and hard. Henry had no doubts that under normal circumstances she would react positively to the temptation a vampire was. When he had been newly turned he had found out that humans felt strangely attracted to the sexual temptation that emanated from vampires despite the probably deadly threat they might be.
Henry felt the hunger piercing his veins and still his intestines, his own heartbeat speeding up in anticipation of a feeding after such a long time. Sometimes he felt it amazing to give in the blind hunger, to let go and smell and taste the fear in a victim, enjoying it when they whined and struggled for their life and then to feed on them until the heart stopped. But mostly he preferred interactive partners, enjoying the taste of arousal in the blood when he had them in his bed or down on the pedestal like beds in the special cellar of the Halloway Hotel.
But this poor woman only smelled of fear and anger, her desperate attempts to get free and away from him on the level of panic.
He had to calm her down at all cost, he thought.
He wasn´t about to hurt her furthermore.
Whoever she was, she was young and beautiful and her blood tainted face rouse his pity now when he looked into her eyes which were widened by her fear. Her lips moved under his hand and he could feel that she was trying to open her mouth in the hope that she could set a fast bite that would force him to let go.
She was a fighter…
But way too weakened now to win a battle against a man/vampire/creature in her eyes who was so much stronger than any human being despite the fact that he was starving since weeks now.
"Stop! Stop that for heaven´s sake!"
Not even simple to sound convincing to a woman who felt herself fighting for her very life now. But what for? When he won´t get her down the situation would escalate.
Henry tried to reposition his grip around her back. He twitched when he felt her numb teeth digging in a slim strip of his palm but he had himself prepared for worse. So he only grinned and didn´t let go, not giving her the chance to bite her way out of his arms. He tensed his hand, his wrist pressing against her chin and pushing her head backwards a bit, covering her mouth to choke her screams.
"Shut up! Shut up!"
She winced with pain when his arm tightened around her ribs, her arm pressing into his chest. Her screams turned into a cry of pain and her face tensed with the pain. Henry looked into her eyes and there was nothing else now but pain. Anything was definitely wrong with her and it made him stop. Maybe the guys had beaten her violently before and she had injuries in the torso. Tears appeared in the corners of her eyes and angrily she shook her head to get her sight cleared but with no success.
"When you stop screaming or crying I´ll put off my hand from your mouth! I don´t want you to have other people get lured over here! You might attract other unwelcomed guys! This is a rather dangerous area for a woman alone at night time…!" he grunted.
It took a moment before she finally nodded, thinking over her chances to go on like this with any success. Maybe better when she gave in and looked for another chance of escape from this man who so easily had killed three men.
Both had been so involved in this fight that the woman didn´t see that one of the men seemed to go through a strange change, looking different from a dead human now. Henry saw it out of the corner of his eye and he turned around a bit so that the woman in his arms could not see what was going on behind her back.
"Damn!" he cursed under his breath.
One of the rapers had undergone a change after his throat was ripped out. The body lying onto the rain wet sidewalk tiles had developed a growth of hair that spread over his entire body and even his face, covering him in short dark fur and after a few seconds he completely turned into the shape and body of a dead wolf.
Werewolf.
Purebred.
Only purebreds turned into werewolf when they were killed. Josh would have kept his human shape if he would have been killed in human shape…
He should have smelled it, should have smelled the wolf on them.
But the situation and his hunger had made him kinda inattentive, additionally to the urge to come to the woman´s help. Henry had always kept some certain degree of control, had kept some respect for women aside his being a vampire. The time in which he had grown up and the education he had gotten by his father had always made him keep some restraint and taught him to be protective about them.
Slowly he lifted his palm from her mouth and inwardly breathed with relief when she kept silent. Tears were dripping down her cheeks and the salty water was mixing with the blood on her chin. Henry would have licked it off, felt the urge to go for her lips but he kept himself off. He grabbed her by the shoulders that were still trembling from the sobs and from her fear and anger at the same time. He gave her some space and the very moment she was able to make use of the minimal distance she grabbed for her arm and wrapped her hand around her forearm. Her face tensed again and Henry heard her hissing. Carefully he shoved her back a bit and his right hand was going for her fingers.
"Let me see!" he demanded with a voice as calm as possible.
"It´s…it´s…nothing! Let me be!" she brought out but her voice told him other than her harsh tone. She was tired, exhausted, shaken to the core of her heart and weakened. Finally she was seeking some comfort, regardless whoever was willing to do so.
"It´s not nothing at all. Let me see…I won´t hurt you…" he began.
"I was hurt by…" she protested.
"Not by me! I came to your help!" Henry interrupted her before she could accuse him for her situation. Her eyes looked up into his face that had won back some of his human composure now. She relaxed a bit and hesitatingly her fingers removed from her badly hurting arm.
Henry carefully moved his fingers over her forearm, feeling for the bones. She hissed unintentionally when it hurt. He looked into her eyes. The warm brown had become watery and she tried to press her lips onto each other to prevent herself from sniffing.
"This arm of yours is hurt…we should take care of it…looks like the bone is partially fractured…better to get you to a doctor…" Henry said and she looked at him, her brows knitting in an all over skeptical view. He couldn´t blame her for it after all what had happened now.
She made a step back, still in his slight embrace.
"What are ya talking about a doc? Why care about me when you almost got me killed too!? You killed these three men! You KILLED them! KILLED!" she spat at him.
"Otherwise they would have killed YOU!" he simply stated as if it meant nothing else, randomly talking about the loss of an old mop.
She stared at him as if he had lost his mind completely. Then she went on;
"What are you that you…you dared to? Guess you are no cop! Or any friggin James Bond, running around with a license for killing and killing people as you like or dare to decide by your own gusto?"
"You don´t even have the slightest clue what you´re talking about! These three…men had been killers. Didn´t you ever hear of the women who got killed after being raped. The rumors that two or three men grouped up in crime? There was serial rape and kill over the last months after a pause of almost five years. So maybe you didn´t ever hear from it! Guess how young you are." His voice was stern and his hand supported her arm.
She blinked and he couldn´t hinder her to watch over to the corpse that had…shape shifted. Her eyes became wide and she trembled and her voice was almost tumbling over when she directed over;
"What…what is it? WHAT THE HELL IS it?"
Henry decided it was time to protect her and use some of his compelling skills. He looked into her eyes, fixing them and his hand went for her chin, supporting it from beneath when he answered;
"It´s nothing but a very large dog! One of the guys had a dog at hand and he called it by when I fought him off! I had to kill it before the dog would have gone for your throat! Beside…" he had her full attention now, even if unwillingly and took advantage of it now, asking her for her name;"Beside what´s your name. At least I have a right to know now that I saved you from a bunch of serial rapers!"
"Smith. Emma Smith…" she dropped it in. Her voice trailing away.
"Okay…Emma…" he put his hand on her temple and stroked softly over it, felt how she trembled. She moved her hand to her eyes, wiped over them with the back of her hand to get the tears away.
"It´s all good…all will become okay again." Henry added when she looked into his now cerulean eyes.
"I´ve never been sick…" she mumbled; "Not even…not even a damn flu! And now this…this…", her voice became uncertain; " this asshole…broke my arm!"
Henry´s ears stood on alert suddenly when she mentioned…
"Not even a damn FLU!"
This woman…she might… What a luck probably. Stumbling over clean blood by pure coincidence in a night in a devastated alley…
"That´s rather impressive. So you´re a healthy woman, for sure you got vaccinated against the flu, ain´t you?" he put in as casual as he was able now. If she was clean…she would be a gift to him. A gift he had to keep under all circumstances!
"No…no vaccination ever…never felt the urge for it for I never got sick from it…" her voice was calm and she seemed to talk simply to calm down herself by some random stuff. Distracting her from the threat, the fear and the pain she was in.
Henry felt dizzy a moment.
Emma was clean! Clean! He could get to her blood for a while without the deadly threat of dying from the flu!
It took him a moment to regain his composure before he bent down onto Emma, hiding his excitement with effort. Emma was afraid enough and it was a pretty wrong moment now to confront her with vampire feeding habits. The rain was still falling and both of them got soaked thru meanwhile. So Henry made a decision.
"Come on, Emma, I´ll get you to a doctor. I have a friend who works in a hospital and this should get an X-Ray. I´m so sorry I hadn´t been in here earlier to prevent it…" he bent to her ear and took in her smell. The stench of fear and adrenaline was wearing off a bit now that she was calming down. Emma nodded and he pulled off his jeans jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders, laying an arm around her so that she could cuddle against his chest when he leaded her out of the dark street.
At the next large and brightly lit corner he waved by a cap. The car stopped and Henry helped Emma inside.
"Suffolk County Hospital please." He addressed the driver. "It´s not all too far, Emma…there you´ll get examined and the doctor can give you any analgetic, for sure that pretty hurts…" he stroked her temple and she nodded. He hadn´t her under any spell in the moment, didn´t compel her by now. Obviously she became some more comfortable with the thought of getting treated by a doctor. Henry sighed low under his breath.
It took them some ten minutes to arrive at the Suffolk County and Henry lead her in, upstairs to where he knew to be the ambulance rooms. The hallway was occupied by a few people waiting to get medical treatment. He placed Emma on a seat and went to the desk with the nurse.
"I need a doctor for my friend…she fell and I´m afraid she broke her arm…"
"Okay, but you´ll have to wait. That´s no case of emergency and there are all these people ahead of you, Mr.!"
"Quite okay. We´ll wait."
Henry looked back to Emma who had sunken into the seat, holding her arm, her face tensed again.
"Does she have an insurance card of any kind?" the nurse asked.
"Wait a moment…" Henry went over to Emma, asking her;"Do you have any insurance card? The nurse wants it."
Emma shook her head no.
"Oh, your employer doesn´t care?"
"I´m still in education…my parents are living in New York! I can only send the bill over and…"
"Uh…okay…"
"I´m afraid they won´t do anything without it, won´t they?" Emma looked uncertain and sad. "So we better leave before they would…"
"There´s no one to chase you out. This is a hospital, no hotel!" Henry stated determined. He turned over to the reception desk again and the nurse looked at him somewhat doubtful.
"No card?...Any money ?" she tried to sound kind. Homeless often were troublemakers and the hospital had no legal contract with the social system for treatment of non-payers.
"I´ll take care of it. Can you try to reach Josh Levinson? He´s a nurse in here! I want to talk to him please. It would be very kind of you if you would beg him to come down here for a moment." Henry´s voice had become deeper, his eyes slightly darkening.
The nurse nodded and took her phone, checking the dial list and she called the ward Josh was working on. Henry heard the phone ring. It took a while until a familiar voice answered.
"Mr. Levinson…here´s a friend of yours. He begs you to come down to the ambulance rooms…"
"Aidan?" Josh asked.
"I dunno. " The nurse turned to Henry; "What´s your name?"
"Henry. Henry Durham."
"`kay. He says his name is Durham, Henry…"
He heard a moan from the other side of the line. "Okay…okay…tell him, I´m on my way down to you!" Josh sighed. The line shut down.
A few minute later Josh appeared in the room. He went straightly to Henry, his face stern when he turned him around, whispering;
"Okay, Henry! You ran out of blood? Listen, I can´t provide you with clean stuff. They would ward…kick me off job! Guess, you know what that means, Henry!?" He sounded annoyed whatever Henry wanted from him. Quite certain it was for blood. It was always for blood when it came to vampires!
Henry pulled him a few steps away; "I don´t ask you for clean donors, Josh!"
"What is it now?"
"It´s for…Emma. She broke her arm…she´s my friend. No vampire! I need medical treatment for her and she is only paid for this by her parents who are living in New York!"
"So you picked a girlfriend for you, huh?!" Josh looked over to Emma who was sitting in the chair like a heap of misery.
"Girlfriend…hm, not directly. I picked her out of a rather…dangerous situation. Three guys were about to rape her. Plain and simple and she broke her arm in it. She´s just some random girl I took care of!"
"Why didn´t you simply call the police?" Josh hissed low under his breath. "The cops are in for such stuff!"
"Cause it was me who…handled these guys. My way!"
"YOUR way! It means… you sucked them dry? Kinda off?"
"No! She was in danger, Josh. I left them where they were lying! They were killers and rapers all in one!"
Josh stared at him, biting his lower lip, "Means…you…you…" he moved his hand across of his throat in a determined and quite clear gesture; "you killed them! HENRY! Do you know what the heck this is gonna mean?!" He looked at Henry as if the vampire had lost his mind.
Henry bared his teeth in annoyance, good luck his fangs were retracted.
"They killed many. It had been werewolves, Josh! On the hunt for woman like for natural prey!" Henry defended his actions.
Josh grabbed him by the arm, pulling him more aside. Out of the hearing range of the other people.
"Aidan told me you had and are having sex with partners while drinking! Don´t tell me there isn´t rape in it!" he spat at Henry.
The answer was a dark growl under closed lips, deep from within the throat of the vampire.
"I never rape! And my eating habits are not to be discussed here and now, Josh!" Henry stared at him with eyes threatening to turn black again.
"What is it then you are calling me down here for? He?" Josh pushed his hands on his hips. He was not afraid of any of Henry´s vampire attitudes.
"Guess it had been a mistake to ask for you, Josh!" Henry shrugged his shoulders and started to turn away. Josh watched him for a moment before he roughly grabbed for Henry´s shoulder, turning him around to face him again. To his utter surprise he managed it without Henry so much as fighting him off in return.
"He! Ya gonna tell me what you came for!" Josh demanded.
Henry let out a deep breath and looked at Josh, the man who was best friends with Aidan, his maker.
"You saved my life and I know I owe you…I asked for you…hoping ya gonna do me a favor. But this might have been too much to ask for…"
"What favor? Tell me, Henry!"
Silence for a moment.
"I…I hired rooms for me and I may have work next month. I´m running short on money currently and so I simply thought…if you could make up for me meanwhile…her cost of medical treatment…"
"So you wish me to pay for this girl, Henry!? That´s…that´s kinda much, in fact!"
"I know I was wrong, Josh. Beg your pardon. We better gonna leave now…" Henry mumbled. He tried to free his shoulder from Josh´s grip but Josh didn´t let go now. Angrily he turned his face and looked into Josh´s face that was all but…certain now.
Josh seemed to be at war with his inner self as had happened so often in the past, as Aidan had told him. Not enough Josh had been fighting with his inner wolf but with his fate as well. There was an expression of turmoil in his face and Henry tried to pull free again with determined but soft force. HE could have hurt the man/wolf so easily now but he didn´t want to. Josh had saved his life when giving him shelter the day Aidan had placed him on their threshold, dripping from blood, bare of any skin and going to die soon if not for blood for a healing. And he had saved him the second time when it came to help him to get free from Mother´s deadly lair.
And now he had dared to ask for a favor by himself.
Josh was right. It was much what he had asked for but Aidan´s friend was the only man he could trust to since the flu had taken Boston vampires in its deadly embrace. In the fight for clean blood even vampires were going to lengths without any restriction for their own kind. Each source of clean blood was defended bitterly, even killing each other when felt necessary. And werewolves were taking advantage of the fact that the vampires were to face their extinction. What once had been a rare thing; fighting and hunting down vampires in the nights before and on full moon, had changed to a kind of entertainment…of sports. In this way it had become equal to the great hunt the first European invaders started on the buffaloes and doves on the American continent in the early 19th century. Ages old natural quarrels threatened to escalate in war now that two superior to human species went into open war.
And these guys he had killed this night had been violating old rules when spreading their deadly attention over to human women. Never before, at least as he knew, werewolves had hunted down women as their prior target. Occasionally a werewolf killed a human being rather accidentally when meeting each other by coincidence in the nights they were turned werewolves, were wolved-out. This night was the night before full moon and Henry knew that in the few nights around full moon werewolves had a larger strength than humans, even strong enough to fight vampires. But consciously hunting human women intentionally only for raping them and killing them afterwards as fun…
One of them had been a purebred, the others were turned ones, maybe his childes as they hadn´t turned into wolf shape after dying. Henry fully understood that Josh felt anger about the kill of what, to some certain degree, had been part of his own kind. If not now but in the past they had been equals to Josh even when Josh had tried to suppress it.
Henry breathed deeply and tried to calm down a bit, watching Josh as he chewed on his lower lip. Finally the former werewolf seemed to come to terms with himself and he took Henry´s arm, pulling him aside.
"Okay, Henry…I´ll advance you some money…for her!"
"Thank you, Josh! She´ll give it back to you as soon as her parents will send it over to her."
Josh nodded; "Let´s go! I guess your lady is waiting!"
They went to the nurse and Josh bent over the desk.
"I will advance her costs at first." He said to her. The nurse nodded; "Okay, as you like, Mr. Levinson. May you hand this over to her?" she reached him a clipboard with some form sheets on it. "Please fill in the forms and tell her she has to wait…uhm…approximately some two hours…it´s crowded in here as you see."
Josh nodded and together with Henry he went over to Emma.
"We gonna need some data from you…" Josh looked into her face and she lifted her head with a hiss, wincing from pain low under her breath, her hand wrung around her injured arm.
"I…I guess…won´t be able…to write yet…" she whispered.
"I´ll do for you…!" Henry said and took the seat beside her again. He looked deep into her eyes and her tensed face. "Is there strong pain…?" he asked in a hushed voice.
"Damn hurts…" she whispered and swallowed hard.
"Can you do anything for her, Henry? I mean…you´d been gonna do that mind thing of yours pretty well on your…meals…" Josh whispered so low that only Henry could hear it. When Henry was good at convincing his victims into willing into sex against blood feeding then he should be able to reduce her pain at bit at least until the doctor would take care of her, Josh thought.
Henry smiled ever so slightly and put the clipboard aside. He turned over his full attention onto Emma.
"Emma! Emma…look into my eyes!" He fixed her eyes with his view. She stared into his face and he laid his fingers at her temples. "Relax…relax hon, look at me…yes! Ya´re doing a pretty good thing, Emma! I´m with you…relax…yes…easy…easy…ssshhh…it´s all good…" he stroked her temples and felt her shudder a bit under his hands. "Emma, honey! There´s no pain…it´ll slide away…away…yes…you´ll relax. Deeply relax and the pain will be gone now…it´ll all good again soon…don´t be afraid of me! I´m your friend, my love…!" His voice had become seductive, comforting.
Josh watched him warily. For his taste this was now going too far.
"Henry!" Josh warningly whispered. "Isn´t that a bit too far with her? I mean, she´s gonna …and you shall cease her pain, not more…!"
Henry shot him an angry view, growling; "I know what to do. That´s none of your business, Josh, but you would be able to do instead!"
"she´s not your food source. Henry! Keep yourself in!" Josh spat back, a bit pissed off.
Henry was beside his ear, hissing; "She is!"
As fast as he had stood up he was sitting beside Emma again as if this never had happened.
Josh stepped back and shook his head, staring at Henry in disbelief. Aidan´s son had picked up this woman, a couple of seconds ago telling him, that she was simply some random girl he had saved from falling victim to a crime. And now…? Josh watched as Henry stroked and padded Emma´s temples, his long and slim fingers fixing her head between his caressing hands and his voice had lowered down to a whisper, his eyes gone black.
Emma looked at him, her shoulders slightly twitching under the sobs and Henry´s thumbs wiped over her cheeks, wiping them away.
"Are you still in pain? Is there pain, Emma?" he softly asked her, his look soft now despite his darkened eyes. To a stranger Henry looked like nothing but a caring and concerned friend.
Either he was very good in deception, what Josh didn´t doubt since he was used to vampires, or Henry really felt something for Emma.
Henry saw that her eyes had gotten now this slightly shaded expression that indicated that the compelling worked on her. He laid his right arm around her comfortingly, pulling her a bit closer to him. Her head sank to his right shoulder and she cuddled into Henry.
"Is she any better in the moment, Henry?" Josh asked and watched her warily.
"Yes…she´s relaxing a bit. Looks like her pain subsided a bit at least…" Henry answered in a low voice.
Henry knew that he was deep in Josh´s debt; with his life and a lot more. Josh had given him shelter in a desperate situation, once reluctant, then, when he learned to know him better…a bit more open minded. When he had come into Josh´s home, desperate, skinned, almost unconscious and almost bled to death…a 99% dead vampire, even for an immortal creature, Josh might have denied him access if it had not been for Aidan´s friendship and Aidan being his maker/father. No reason to act hostile now to the man/werewolf who had also saved him from Mother´s lair where he had been hung from a hook like vampire meat in a vampire slaughter house to die slowly and painfully.
Josh looked at him when Henry searched eye contact with him. Henry wasn´t certain anymore if Josh would keep his financial support upright after the last minutes. Normally he wasn´t used to beg for anything and maybe his last remark had thrown away his chances with Josh. He had made it through eighty years out there on Boston streets and he had become way more tough and cunning by it, used to take what he could get. But Josh was somebody he could count on and Aidan´s friend acted out of friendship and good will…
"Why are so angry with me, Josh?" he asked in a hushed voice.
Obviously Henry wanted to make good for something now, Josh thought.
"I´ll tell you, Henry! I´m not going with the way you´re handling her…" Josh directed to Emma who obviously had slipped into a nap in Henry´s arms. Exhaustion must have taken over now and even a vampire might be a better choice or refuge than any of these guys outside who had gone for her like a toy that was to be thrown away when play was over.
"…you can´t make her your walking blood bag, your meal on legs!"
"I would have taken my fill long ago the very moment she confessed to me the cleanliness of her blood, Josh! But I didn´t! And why did I resist despite I´m starving since weeks? The vampires are dying out there from the damn flu. You haven´t seen what I have seen, Josh! It´s not friggin gonna make you ignorant when there´s death around you. Some good friends have even died in my arms and every ever so small sip from a tainted source means your ultimate death! I´m sorry but I doubt that you can imagine what that means, Josh, even when you have seen people dying in hospital out of different reasons… We are to face our ultimate extinction with the flu! Also when humans see us as monsters who deserve nothing else but destruction but for us it´s equal to an extinction of humankind!"
"You don´t wanna discuss with me right now the very right of existence itself, ain´t you, Henry?!" Josh knitted his brows and his fingers clenched. Henry was right. He couldn´t imagine losing Aidan, his friend and comrade in the preternatural. And Henry was Aidan´s son! Hadn´t he the same right like Aidan like everyone, a right to live his life as long as it doesn´t mean killing…?
"I´m sorry when I sounded rude to you, Josh…but I…If ever you will understand me…I´m desperate…!"
"But she is human, Henry! And you have to respect her very will."
"Josh, I´m in control. Always. I won´t harm her, Josh. By no means…but she may become my saving angel and I won´t let go! Not after all…and Emma, she´s so sweet…I could have taken my fill long ago but I care about her and that is more than anyone could ever expect from a vampire in urge, Josh!"
Josh chewed on his lower lip, his hands clenched into each other, than he scratched his stubbly beard. He had very mixed feelings about letting Henry have his way with the young woman but it had been Aidan who had snapped necks when things had run out of control, not Henry. And maybe Henry was right with it. At least Emma seemed to have relaxed a bit and she seemed to feel comfortable with Henry. The fact that she had escaped a deadly threat had made her flee into the first arms that promised protection and a relative safety to her. Being a human she was far not able to shake off such an incident like dust from her dress. She was rather traumatized, additionally or foremost to her physical injury and Henry saving her presented the one force that was able to protect her from more danger.
"Okay, Henry…but please, I beg you…handle her with care and respect. Don´t betray her trust into the man who saved her life! You can understand that I feel pretty mixed up with the imagination to handle a human woman over to a starving vampire! I dunno know by myself why I`m approving this! I would never forgive myself if any harm happens to her. Oh my God…" Josh sighed and grabbed for his forehead; "How far has this brought me over to the other side?! Who am I that I´m giving my okay to this?"
Josh looked desperate and Henry put his free hand onto Josh´s right wrist, a gesture of confidence.
"She´ll be safe with me, Josh. Believe me!"
"First and foremost! Protect her from the others of your kind! If they learn to know she´s clean blood…" Josh could very well imagine what would happen if other vampires would find out; they would descend on her like famished monsters. What they really were by now! And Emma´s blood would stick on his hands!
Sitting apart from the other people waiting in the room and Emma seemingly being under Henry´s influence, call it mind control, they could allow themselves a rather open talk. Emma softly moaned in her light sleep and Henry looked at her, comforting her temple with soft fingers, the other hand protectively lying around her hurt arm.
"It´s okay…try to sleep a while when we are waiting, Emma. It´s okay…I´ll stay with you…" he whispered and she blinked and her eyes fell shut again at his shoulder.
"How far do you have her…I mean…the mind control thing…" Josh whispered to Henry.
"I only did it on her as far as it helps her to relax and makes the pain subsiding as far as it´s possible without medication…Don´t worry, Josh!" Henry smiled slightly.
"I don´t worry! I hope she´ll have no reason to worry for herself, Henry…"
"She won´t have to, Josh!" His voice barely audible to prevent Emma from waking up now that she had slipped back into the sleep of exhaustion in his arms.
Josh nodded and shot a look over to the reception desk where the nurse called in the next patient. Anybody was to sign up the data entry form for Emma, point seven; assumption of costs.
"Okay, Henry…gimme the board…" he directed to the clip board that Henry had set down beside their chairs. Henry reached for it and handed it over to Josh who inserted himself for the costs.
"Okay. That should do…" he mumbled and gave it back to Henry who looked onto it for a moment. After all what had happened he felt astonishment and a hint of bewilderment that Josh had decided to take over for him.
"Thank you so much, Josh…I´m deep in your debt!
" Henry brought out. "I…I´ll pay it back as fast as possible when I´m on the job…"
"You´re welcome, Henry!...I…I only wonder since what I´m doing here…" He never had expected that his friendship with a vampire and a ghost would lead him to do…and worse…accept things he never ever would have accepted before he himself was turned into a werewolf… To some certain degree this had become his personal voyage into…darkness. The contact with the world of preternatural had changed up his mind, his thinking, had kind of compromised his conscience…
The door had been fallen shut behind him the very moment when he had mumbled his "Mi casa e su casa" to a 99% dead vampire on his threshold.
"Guess you made me gonna pay for your food, ain´t ya?!" Josh uttered; "…but that hadn´t been the first time and guess it won´t be the last one as I know you and me. If it won´t be for you being Aidan´s son, I would have kicked your ass into the next pile of stakes, Henry!"
Josh grinned at him.
"Aidan would go mad about it…!" Henry answered and Josh shook his head.
"He would pump my ass with a whole mag of silver bullets and then it won´t matter if I´m wolfy boy or not!" Josh shot back. "Okay, call me when you´re ready. I have to go upstairs again now, my shift isn´t over yet and first of all Mike will kick my ass if I don´t move called part up again very fast. Our ward is stuffed up under the ceiling!"
"Okay, Josh. I´ll call up when we are ready here…"
One and half an hour later the nurse at her desk called up Emma. Henry softly shook her by the shoulders, mumbling a low; "Wake up, Emma…it´s your turn…" She had slept meanwhile, waking up in between and slipping back into her doze again and again.
Emma woke up with a start, disorientated for a few seconds before she became fully aware of her surroundings. Henry smiled at her reassuringly and stroked a tendril of her brown hair back from her face.
"Emma…come on…I´m gonna help you…" He smiled at her and she blinked, adapting to the brightness of the room into which Henry leaded her when the nurse had opened the door.
"Can…can you please stay? With me…?" she begged in a low voice, barely audible but to him.
Henry nodded. He hadn´t compelled her into anything but relaxing and feeling less pain. Her asking him to stay with her came by herself. Obviously she felt a certain safety in his presence.
The doctor, a young man, directed to an examination table.
"What can I do for you, Miss?"
"I…I´m afraid…my right arm is broken…I slipped and stumbled against a brick wall…God, I don´t know how that could happen…" she uttered.
"Sometimes luck simply seems to leave us…" The doctor smiled; "I´ll do an x-ray to see what happened to your arm, Mrs. Smith…In case it´s uncomplicated we´ll fix the fracture and you´ll get a cast for about three or four weeks. None of that heavy plaster casts like in the past…the only disadvantage of the modern casts is that they can´t get autographed so richly and simple!" The doctor smiled at Henry; "You won´t imagine what tralala patients make when we finally have to cut down their autographed casts. As if you´re gonna burn up a Rembrandt!" He laughed a bit and even Emma smiled slightly when also Henry could hear her heartbeat speeding up by her rising nervousness.
"All will turn out okay, Emma…" Henry whispered into her ear.
"Please follow me…!" the doctor said and in the next room, a rather small chamber, Henry helped Emma with stripping down the jacket and the shirt. He urged himself not to stare at her well formed breasts. She was rather slim and wore a black lace bra. Her upper arms were slim but the muscles taunt. She was a beautiful young woman in the common sense. None of these hunger hooks like the fashion models, he thought when his view traced down her shoulders and her back when she followed the doctor into the x-ray chamber.
After a couple of minutes the door opened again and the doctor came out with her, a bundle of x-ray images in his hands. He put the images at the wall screen and watched them thoroughly.
"Hm…you´re a really lucky one, Mrs. Smith! The cubit is partially broken but not totally, so we don´t have to fix that in a narcotic state. I will set you a local anesthetic which makes your arm numb and then I´ll fix the bone and getting you a cast…Are there any allergies known to you, especially for anesthetics?"
"No..none…I know of…" Emma uttered nervously.
Henry turned to the doctor; " Any minds if I accompany her?"
"Uhm, we have to do that under x-ray control."
"Oh of course…" Henry nodded and bent down to Emma; "I´ll wait in the next room. I won´t leave. Okay?"
Emma nodded slightly and sighed.
After some ten minutes the doctor called him in again when he was putting a modern cast around her arm.
"How do you feel, Emma?" Henry asked her while she was lying on the table.
"I…I´m simply…soo tired…" she moaned.
"Any pain, dear?" For sure the anesthetic tilted the pain for now but she would have pain again when the medication was wearing off.
"I can prescribe her something in case Mrs. Smith gets pain when the anesthetic wears off…" The doctor declared.
"Okay…just in case…" Emma mumbled and turned her face to Henry who was standing at her left side. The doctor finished the cast and Henry helped Emma to pull on her shirt again, hanging her jacket around her shoulders when they left the ambulance room.
Henry looked deep into her eyes; "You gonna walk on your own? Feeling steady or shall I get you a wheel chair to the entrance…?" he asked her when he supported her to the waiting area, placing her on a chair again.
"No, guess…I´m okay…" she mumbled; "…kind of…" she added, her voice trailing away. Her tone made Henry look into her face with a hint of concern for what he had to crouch in front of her. His hands softly cupped her face and his voice was his normal one, when he replied;
"But that doesn´t look like that to me…Take a rest, Emma, before we will leave. I´ll call us a cap. I´m sure this night has been too much for you." His fingers stroked her temple and she looked into his face with the cerulean eyes. In her mixed up composure she didn´t remark the obvious changes in his eye color, the back and forth from blue to black to blue.
"Where do…we go to…?" she whispered, her voice slightly trembling.
Henry´s mind worked with high speed.
He had to get her into his rooms, no way! If Emma would leave for her own home he wouldn´t be safe to get her back next time with still clean blood. She might catch the flu and then she would be useless to him, his only safe source since weeks. Josh couldn´t provide him with clean blood from donors from the hospital.
Emma was his only chance to get back into tracks relatively. He had to keep her under his special surveillance under all circumstances! For sure; Emma was a beautiful and nice person and he felt some natural attraction to her but first of all she was…
…his key to survival over the next time.
Either she would follow him home or he would have to put some mental force on her. She was receptive to his compelling skills, this she had proved before, but keeping her under control by compelling all the time would be unsatisfying, even when possible.
So he decided to take advantage of her situation and her mental state.
"I have rooms…I think it´ll be better when you´re coming home with me…You need a bit of assistance…" Henry directed to her right arm in the cast. "And you have gone thru a crime…I won´t have a good conscience to let you go back at home and then staying alone in your rooms. Not after what had happened, Emma…" he stroked over her cheek and temple, his other hand resting onto her hands in her lap.
When she would come with him willingly it would be much easier; for him and for Emma. Better to simply convince her than to force her with vampire skills. The more she would trust him, his good intentions, the better for her mental health…
"Sounds…reasonable…I…I´m so sorry I´m such a troublemaker for you…For sure you were on your way to another appointment….and now I have taken all your time…" she whispered.
"I haven´t been out for another woman, I simply was…let´s say…in the right place at the right time." He smiled at her, his fingers playing with her tendrils.
Emma looked tired, exhausted and shaken to the base.
A bit of comfort won´t be wrong for her by now, he thought.
"Or do you have a friend or relative you could go to in Boston?" Henry did all but not hearing a yes now! When she was a single it was way easier to keep her off!
"No, not now. My parents are living in New York and my friend…I broke up with him a couple of weeks ago. Mom liked him but I could not imagine to go on with him…for a longer period…we…we were to different at least…" She sighed and took a deep breath. "Maybe when I won´t have ended the relationship I won´t have gone out tonight all alone. I…I didn´t know for myself why I was strolling along there, my thoughtlessness leading me into this devastated corner of Boston….Oh my God!" The sudden realization that she could have died tonight, hit her with full force.
Tears started to run down her cheeks and her shoulders were trembling with the sobs. A waiting patient nearby gave her and Henry a questioning look. Henry waved a negation at him.
"It´s all okay. Thanks…" he gave back in a hushed voice and the man turned his attention back to the reception desk.
Emma was sitting in her chair like a heap of misery and suddenly she felt Henry´s arms wrapping around her shoulders carefully, paying attention to her arm. His face was only inches away from her and she could feel his rather cool breath onto her face. His eyes full of true concern.
"You better will come with me, Emma. I don´t wanna have you alone at your home in this constitution…you´ll feel better with someone around you, a person you can talk to if you want or at least sleep in the consciousness that there is someone around you to give you some safety and to protect you…" Henry urged her with soft pressure. It was no compelling, just true concern.
He carefully wiped the tears from her cheek and cupped her chin.
"Is that okay for you, Emma?"
"Ye…yes…I…maybe you´re right…I don´t feel well tonight…alone…" She looked at Henry and even when he was unknown to her his manner was comforting and he was so concerned about her…Any companionship tonight was better than being alone at home with her fear and her panic stricken mind, she thought. After almost getting killed by these guys she was afraid of being alone in any room, even her own.
"What…what about…your friend…?" she uttered, searching urgently for any distraction. Henry´s face was directly hovering in front of her face. A smile appeared around his lips and he pulled off his cell phone from his jeans.
"He was…he said you should call him when ready…" she went on in a low voice. Her hand slipped onto his left forearm, he felt her fingers shaking when she was clinging to him like a drowning man to a straw.
"I do, Emma…it´s Josh, my friend, he works here and he signed up for your treatment…He´s such a kind guy…" Henry dialed Josh´s number and it took a while until Josh answered the call from the ward.
"We are ready to leave, Josh!" he began.
"What´s up with her? Did it turn out all right?" Josh asked.
"Relatively. It´s not that worse as I thought before. Her cubit is partially broken, the doctor fixed it and she has gotten a cast… Three to four weeks the doc said…"
"What are you going to do…with her…?"
"What? What am I not going to do with her, Josh?" Henry answered Josh´s question with a counter question.
"Uh. Listen, ya know what I mean, Henry!"
"She will come with me tonight, I offered her a room to rest. She really needs to come down now! Her nerves are lying blank what you can imagine after almost getting raped and killed…"
"Don´t dare to do her any harm, Henry! I warn you! Or I will make spit roast outta you!"
"Josh! Emma is precious to me! I won´t harm her nor allow anybody to try! She´s safe with me!" Henry shot back, his voice a bit annoyed, hiding behind his human mask.
"So safe as one can be safe with a starving vampire! I hope I didn´t sell my soul to hell with letting her within your orbit! I won´t forgive myself! The less I would forgive you!" Josh hissed into the phone when a nurse came nearby, his hand cupping the speaker.
Henry heard that Josh´s voice suddenly became low, obviously anybody was near him in the hallway.
"Okay, I´ll take care for her. Thanks for your signing up for her, Josh. See you later…" Henry answered.
"See you, Henry!" Josh smiled. "Till later when you´re running out of stuff again and ya´re dropping in for a new bag on legs!" he added after he had hung up.
Henry turned back to Emma, a smile on his face. He bent down to her.
"Do you feel steady…any better now, Emma?"
"A…a bit. I´m so tired…can you call me a cab?"
"For sure. The nurse can call us a cab and we´ll drive home. It´s pretty late and you need to sleep, not this dozing in a chair…At my home there is a bed and you will sleep better in the presence of me around…!"
"Normally…uhm normally I´m not…I mean…I´m not the woman who simply spends a night at an unknown´s man home as a first step…!" Emma mumbled and with her healthy hand she stroked through her long hair in a gesture of embarrassment. Henry smiled at her;
"I know! It´s quite okay, Emma!"
"I only made trouble for you until now!" She sounded guilty.
"No, you won´t! As I told you before, I had been hanging out in the streets because I needed simply some fresh air after a long day. I haven´t been on my way to any other woman, Emma…there´s no other woman around!" He was comforting her shoulders with his fingers and she simply gave in. No compelling needed.
"Okay…I´m glad to get outta here as fast as possible…Any which way to…"
Henry went to the reception desk and came back a moment later.
"The cab is on its way…a few minutes she said!" He took the place beside her, his hand lying on her left wrist.
His fingers felt her pulse wave pumping the hot red blood directly under her delicate skin. The slight vibration of it at the tips of his fingers made the hunger rising within him and unintentionally his fingers slipped around her wrist completely. Henry had to fight the inner beast back behind the bars of its cage, had to reign in the urge to lift her wrist to his lips and bore his fangs into it which threatened to fall. He lifted her wrist softly to his nose, closing his other hand around and he sniffed at it, inhaling her decent and tempting scent. The strong smell of fear and adrenaline, of panic, had subsided and he could smell her real essence.
It was sweet and with a hint of vanilla and Henry thought for a moment how it would be to really taste her.
He felt her shudder a bit when his cool lips touched the back of her hand but Emma didn´t retract her hand.
To have her in his bed and taste her blood in the thralls of passion, to taste her for the first time since he was starving so long…
But he had to give her time to adapt. Henry was so eager for her blood but after all what she had gone through he couldn´t simply pull her in his bed to have his way with her. She had been almost raped and killed by these friggin werewolves and won´t it have been for Josh who was friends with Aidan and by now also with him… He would have gone out and hunt down werewolves like rats.
But as it was with humans it also was with werewolves. There were good guys and bad guys. He know vampires who were friends with a werewolf…a guy called Pete who preferred to live in a mobile home with a front tent…hanging out most of the time in the open woods, living like a hippie from the 70s. This guy was peaceful and most of time he talked about his terms of relation with his inner wolf… Henry smiled at the idea, but Pete never did any harm to them nor participating in this natural born enemy thing
His thoughts were interrupted when the nurse called him by his name, telling him the cab was waiting now outside for them.
They left arm in arm, Henry supporting Emma, his arm hooked under, his free hand carefully wrapped around her arm in cast. Outside he helped her in the waiting cab, giving an address and a number to the driver. Emma was placed in the passenger´s seat and Henry took the backseat. This would give her a slight chance to jump from the car but he thought her to be that convinced to go with him that she won´t try tonight. And as a vampire it would be easy for him to catch up with her faster than with human speed.
No chance for her to escape! Fact was that if Emma won´t stay with him willingly he would have been forced to compel her, practically making her his private captive!
His very life would be up for discussion!
But in the moment Emma seemed to be a nice woman in general who he might become friends with. This would make things much easier. He had been alone over a very long time and his last relation, love affair, with a woman had been Suren, back in the thirties, before she had been grounded for eighty years and Aidan banished him from the Boston family. Aidan has had a relationship with Celine, a mortal woman over a long time. She had been fully aware of what he was. Sharing a real relationship, a love, with a mortal partner meant the human to know what he was and accepting it! But it also meant to live with somebody to see him/her grow old and finally die if a vampire won´t decide to turn the human.
Henry´s thought were going to a probable future with Emma, thinking it over and over again. He was a lonely soul, walking the streets of Boston and other cities since decades, searching for blood and deep in his heart he was longing for somebody to share his existence with him as a mortal.
He looked at the back of her head while the cab was driving through the dark streets. Emma was young…so young. She was a single woman with a lack of contact to others, her parents living up in New York City. She seemed to share only a few contacts, no human man in range to cross his path. Henry had checked her registration sheet and theoretically she made the optimum of a person to keep hidden from the public. Setting up a control system on her would be easy…best to make her feel being his love interest! Maybe it would be possible to develop a real relation with her, if she was willing to give in. To fake a love was possible but Henry rather wanted to prefer a true relationship in which trust was the base.
He was a survivor and he had gone to lengths for his life, even faking and deceiving humans when it was necessary to survive.
But he was longing for some happiness around with someone.
When the taxi stopped at a sidewalk, Henry slipped out of the car, opening the door for Emma. She turned her face to him, looked up into his face that bent down into the car, his hands stretched out to support her.
"Are we…? You´re living here…?" she asked and directed to the front of a house.
"Yeap, here we are, Emma…" They cab had stopped in front of a modern house with a naturally colored brick wall, a garage door beside the entrance that was protected by a large metal awning. She could not make out much in the darkness and the rain that was falling again, but there was a number beside the door that was lit up by a lamp. Anything…anywhere with a number
…2250
Emma had no clue where they were, which street, the less in which part of the city. Her knight in shining armor had brought her to a house deep in the night and normally she would have called herself a totally mad gal following a man she knew nothing of to his home. But the area looked civilized, none of these corners or areas of Boston where dark individuals were lurking from dark and narrow alleyways, hiding their rather criminal activities…
She felt Henry´s hands going for her forearms, carefully handling her arm in the cast and he supported her to the entrance, parking her under the large awning before he hushed back to the cab to pay the cabdriver.
Within seconds he was back at her side, behind her back, his hand going for the keys, unlocking the door and opening it to a large room. His hand switched the lights on and she found herself in a small hall that opened to a large room, obviously a living room. The furniture was of modern style, comfortable but none of this post modern designer materials. The room was exuding some coziness and Henry led her over to the couch.
"Make yourself at home, Emma…I´ll get you something to drink…"
Emma looked at him, her face tensed a bit.
"I…I don´t want drink…alcohol now!" she brought out. What if this guy was going to make her drunk for his own purposes?
"Of course not, Emma. You got medication! I would be mad to give you any alcohol now!" he denied her fears.
In the closed surroundings of his home her smell grew stronger. The smell, the promise of the blood running under her delicate skin… The tease was more intense now that she was here, away from the large hall of the hospital where her smell had mixed up with those of the other people around and the strong medical smell of the hospital.
Henry felt his eyes darkening, his fangs threatening to fall.
Abruptly he turned away from her. For sure Emma would panic again when she would see his vampire face with the unveiled expression of hunger. He pressed his lips onto each other, gulping hard and when he felt himself under control again he turned back to Emma, his breath slowing down again and his heartbeat became more slowly again.
Her smell and her whole appearance were such a tease for him and Henry was aware that it would be much more difficult to keep self-control with her than he had suggested before. His fists were clenched and he felt the tips of his nails dig into his palms so hard he meant to hear his skin crack. Hectically he watched down onto his palms where a thin line of blood droplets appeared. He wiped his palms over the back of his shirt, under his jacket and looked at Emma;
"I should get you something to drink…Do you want some coffee or…?"
"Coffee?...No…if you´re gonna have some water for me…The air in the hospital is so dry always…" she answered while she sank back into the upholstery of the couch.
"Okay!" Henry went into his kitchen to get a bottle of mineral water from the fridge.
Emma sank back against the back of the couch, her head tilting onto the upper edge. Her eyes fell shut for a moment and she tried to calm down her erratic breath. She felt slipping into a doze and woke up again with a start when the sound of a glass being put on the table brought her back into reality. She opened her eyes and saw a large glass of mineral water in front of her.
Henry kept himself from sitting beside her on the couch and so he took the chair on her right side. He sank back, folding his hands behind his neck, his fingers absently playing with the tips of his curly locks. For a moment he looked at her and none of both said a word, before Henry broke the silence. Emma seemed to be shy and she didn´t give the impression that she was a rather forwardly woman when it came to men.
"Okay…you should drink, Emma…for sure you lack of liquid…" he tried to calm her down, playing on his former education as a medic.
"Ya´re a nurse, Mr…uhm Durham…? Is that right? Durham?" She was not certain if she had gotten his name correctly when the nurse at the desk had called him by.
Henry nodded with a slight smile; "Yes, Durham is correct, but call me Henry simply…!"
"Is…uhm…you…uhm, I mean…you…Some people…they don´t like their…family´s name…" Emma tried it and her cheeks were flushing a bit when she tried to sound casually and not being insulting. On the other hand she didn´t want to be intruding.
"No. No Emma! I´m quite okay with my name but I´m so rarely called by it that I´m totally used to only being called Henry. Everybody who knows me calls me by my first name…" he smiled broadly.
The smile in his face with the cerulean eyes was washing away her fear that she might have insulted him unintentionally. Emma tried to arrange her thoughts and she felt her cheeks blushing a bit. The assault onto her and Henry´s sudden appearance on the…battlefield… had left her with a rarely experienced confusion. When she tried to recollect the details…what happened first and what came after Emma got the slight feeling that the immense stress had left her memory in a chaos. But she had heard that victims of accidents or crime often suffered from a temporary amnesia, a natural act of self protection for the mind when the events became too tremendous to cope with without suffering any serious damage.
When Emma came back from her thoughts she looked at Henry who was sitting again in the chair beside her, watching her with some slight concern but an expression of kindness on his face. She felt totally uncertain about what she should think about this guy who picked her up in an alleyway. Something in her rational mind told her to be careful with Henry.
He had picked up her amidst a life threatening situation, obviously being the saving angel, her knight in shining armor. But he had been appearing so fast on the scene that she couldn´t differ whether he had been jumping from a car or a nearby house entrance or if he had come running down the street when he got sight of a woman surrounded by a bunch of rapists. But she had been in danger from the very moment she had gone into their trap, so that she neither had time nor the coldness to look where he came from. Despite the fact that she had played through such a situation in her mind so often, the calm security of a familiar home was another area to think about than finally reacting in a real life situation when the heart was beating wildly from panic, the eyes were searching for an escape and her mind was cringing with fear, silently crying for any help by whomsoever! Being honest to herself she had to admit that all well thought strategies had gone down the drain when the men had her on the ground, this guy sitting on her, about to…prepare…her for his abettor.
Anywhere in her mind were foggy memories of a fight. A fight he had gone into so fast and with the result that the men were on the ground themselves faster than a human could do normally. But her rational part of mind went on to tell her that Henry maybe was simply a very well trained and experienced fighter like this Belgian guy…what was his name? Jean Claude van Damme? Any of these martial arts guys they were so familiar with from the movies.
She should be careful about this man she barely knew anything about, her instincts warned her but on the other side he had treated her with kindness, had taken care of her after the fight and obviously Henry´s friend was trustworthy because he eventually worked in a hospital as a nurse! Nurses were thought to be caring people and everything else but dangerous to anybody. As a result this man won´t be friends with a dangerous guy she tried to calm her mind. Nurses didn´t make friends with killers, even when at least anything like a large dog was killed in the fight. Emma had no clue and couldn´t bring herself to a decision where suddenly this large and dark haired dog had come from. Probably it was the dog of one of these guys, a kind of animalistic hunter and guard to them. Most people were afraid of large dogs and so they maybe used it as a weapon to bring their victims under control.
It was the only reasonable explanation for its appearance in the fight out of nowhere and all out of a sudden. A hot shudder ran over her back when any corner of her brain brought up an image from a long forgotten legend or had it been anything from a movie she had once watched?
A man turning into a wolf like thing, shape, creature at full moon…
She laughed out loud and Henry looked at her when her laughter sounded almost hysterical…
"Emma, what´s up?" he sounded concerned, watching her more closely, when Emma giggled behind her hand in front of her mouth. He could hear that she laughed out of nervousness, not the human laughter that indicated joy and fun about anything. Within a second he was in front of her, his hands going for her shoulders, comforting her. Emma laughed and her hand fell down and suddenly her laughter broke when her shoulders trembled, the shaking turning into a shudder. Her lips twitched and opened and she started to sniff and to sob. Tears were running down her cheeks when she started to cry suddenly.
Henry smelled the turning in her and for a moment he stood still, his hands on her shoulder and back and he breathed into her hair before he closed his hands around her and pulled her crying form into a comforting embrace. She was trembling in his arms and he smelled her human scent, it was so strong that it threatened to overwhelm his hunger ridden body.
The burning in his veins grew stronger until it reached the level of a fire and he swallowed down a growl that grew in his throat, his face was tensed with an expression of pain and desire for a moment and it took him much effort to regain control again.
When he felt himself capable of control again, his view went down her slim figure, trailing over her ruined and dirty shirt down to her dark blue jeans and the simple black pumps. At her left temple was a bruise that developed its full size now, shimmering in multiple colors. A dark violet and ugly stain on her soft and light-colored skin. His finger softly glided over it and her eyes twitched when he did it.
"Damn guys!" he cursed and looked at her with pity. His eyes threatened to turn black again but he fought it down. He smiled slightly and watched her into the eyes.
"You might want to clean you up, Emma. I have a shower in the bathroom, over there...you can make use of it..." Henry directed to the door at the end of the small corridor.
"I...I...maybe you´re right, but...I don´t want to make you more trouble..." she answered in a low voice with a hint of guilt.
"No way, honey...Don´t worry...I want you to feel somewhat more comfortable..." Henry carefully directed her over to the bathroom door, opened it for her and switched on the light.
"There are towels over there on the hooks and you will find everything beside, Emma..."
She didn´t ward him off, nodded only and when she tried to get rid of her shirt with only one hand, she moaned with anger when her arm got trapped in the sleeve.
"Let me help you..." Henry was suddenly behind her, carefully grabbing for her shirt and pulling it over her head. She blushed a bit and fumbled for her jeans with one hand.
Henry swallowed down a smile in an attempt not to make her feel embarrassed about her semi-helplessness. Emma was fairly handicapped with her arm in cast.
"Will you let me help you, Emma?" he asked her in a hushed voice. His face was bent over her shoulder and she felt his cool breath at her ear. For a moment it seemed to be cooler than normal but his voice made her stop thinking about.
His voice made her stop to think about anything in general.
His voice was soft and comforting and his hands went down to her hips. Emma sighed and lifted her hands so far he could get hold of her belt.
"Shall we...?" he whispered with a slight smile that she could see in the reflection in the mirror above the sink. Emma nodded with a sigh. She would manage the belt but stripping down the jeans with only one hand would be a real challenge, if not impossible but at least cumbersome. She felt a bit dizzy and a wave of weariness crept up from her feet to her head. The events of the evening were starting to take its toll on her and the thing she mostly wanted now was to be cleaned up and lying in a bed. Which one would be irrelevant now. Henry had suggested that she would be safe in here with him.
Being honest to herself she had to confess that the attack had somewhat shaken her to the inner core and spending a night alone at home, even when it was her own home, wasn´t the best option now.
Henry had saved her from this guys and offering her some shelter instead of lying in her bed alone, lonesome and falling prey to any nightmarish dreams...like in her childhood... This imagination made her shiver unintentionally.
tbc
