Chapter 9

Annotation: I´m sorry it took me such a long time to come up with the next chapter. Real life does sometimes turn out to create a writer´s block. But it makes no sense to go on with a story, when the words won´t flow from the fingers. So...here we are...:

It´s all about all that blood

Henry´s eyes were closed, his lids heavy by exhaustion and the sweet numbness of morphine. He wasn´t entirely asleep now, drifting on the border between doze and sleep. His over sensitive ears could hear Sally whispering to Aidan. Such a kind ghost, as she attempted not to disturb his healing sleep while they were watching over him...

Blood. Blood had become such a difference now. When he had been hurt as a human and had been licking at it in a reflex, it had tasted like plain iron, a bit rusty. Now his own vampiric blood was tasting completely different; strong, rich and intense. Neither coppery nor like iron. It tingled on the tip of his tongue, when he had unintentionally pierced it with his unexpectedly sharpened canines...fangs.

Henry sighed and pressed his teeth into the skin at the throat of the man. To his surprise he felt the skin break and the soldier groaned with pain and buckled wildly.

"Careful, Henry! Don´t be to hard with him!" Aidan tried to slow him down. He knew, that Henry was desperately hungry, starving. His body had to be aching with hunger, his veins feeling as if to be rolling inside up. Waking up for the first time from the turning process, a newly born vampire needed only one thing that could satisfy his hunger, could end the pain and the starving: Blood, blood and only blood!

Aidan had gone through that painful state too. When for the first time he had woken up as a vampire, he had felt an inexplicable hunger without the definite knowledge what kinda nature this hunger was. Unless a vampire´s instincts were taking over, leading the direction.

Henry lifted his head, his chin, his lips and teeth were covered in blood. His eyes were bled black and were shiny with pure hunger, his senses were running on overdrive. He was staring at Aidan, angrily to be interrupted and Aidan shook his head no, when he wanted to turn back to the man. He felt Aidan´s hands on his shoulders.

"What?! I´m...so...hungry!" he protested by Aidan was holding him back. He bent down to his ear;

"Easy...easy, Henry! Carefully! You won´t have to hurt this poor guy! He´s suffering, Henry!" Henry was inexperienced and about to rampage this guy´s throat in his unveiled hunger, completely unnecessary. Best was, when Henry was learning to feed neatly and with some regard from the very beginning.

"Easy, Henry...you´ll be able to feed enough! No need to cause him pain..." Aidan´s voice was in his ear. He was aware how much Henry was on the edge and he himself had rampaged throats, but there had been reasons; fights, hatred, his wife Suzanna being drowned. Henry would have to learn the differences, had to learn when he´d be allowed to give in, to let go...

"Calm down, Henry! Slowly...slowly..." The voice was comfortingly calm and he saw Aidan looking down onto the bite marks which he had made. The jugular vein was opened and the blood was running freely, driven by the desperately pumping heartbeat of the man. Aidan´s voice was coming like from a far distance, calm and low.

"Simply suck and lick, the vein is open...no need to hurt him any more!"

Henry looked at him, his tongue was moving over his lips when he was reveling in the unexpectedly rich taste of the blood. The very moment he had bitten down and the first gush of blood had hit his tongue, filling his mouth and he was running down his throat...it had been incredible. Henry was feeling, as if never before he had tasted anything being such alive, so rich and flavored like this guy´s blood.

When Aidan was feeling that Henry seemed to have regained some control, he nodded with a smile and let his son´s shoulders go. He so much would have liked to join him in feeding. But this was rather impossible, as Henry would need all the blood this soldier´s body was able to give.

"Eat, Henry...eat..." Aidan encouraged him, but staying at his side, when Henry bent down again to the man, pressing his mouth onto the torn flesh. He sucked and was gulping down the blood, his Adam´s apple was moving hard and fast. Aidan was watching him warily, ready to intervene if needed. Henry had completely forgotten about his surroundings. The world had shrunken to the body under him, the hot, red wave of blood, the pounding drum of heartbeats. Blood was all, the world was blood!

It was all about blood.

Nothing else...

Aidan sat down again into the small chair beside the bed, looking down on this heap of misery that Henry was. At least Henry was sleeping now under the morphine and hopefully he would make it through this, now that he had been feeding. He didn´t want to lose him! His first attempt to turn somebody had gone fatally wrong and he had felt such relief about the fact, that with Henry everything had gone well. Henry had woken up, he was hungry and he was feeding and his wound had been healed. These were definite signs that his body had made it.

Henry would be the perfect son, he had always been dreaming of, since he had started to feel lonely as an immortal. Bishop had been his maker, his sire and he had taught him everything , he had to know about as a vampire. Their personal relationship had been pending between a father´s love for his son to a son´s rebellion against his father. Aidan´s relationship to his maker was a long row of ups and downs... There had been mistakes on both sides and Aidan had been hopeful, that he could do a completely new start with Henry.

Meanwhile Henry´s fingers had become slippery and sticky from blood, because he was fixing the head of the soldier, while his teeth and lips were working the wound. The man was groaning weakly, but his resistance had subsided when the blood loss became more severely. Henry sucked and gnawed at his neck, gulping down the red, hot liquid. He heard the man´s heartbeat becoming erratic and slowly Henry found his own rhythm of sucking and swallowing, adapting to the gushes of blood which poured from the wound. The heartbeat was pounding in his ears like a distant drum, deep, resonant and hollow like reverberating in a bucket. This sound was filling him, vibrating through his own body and it was completely fascinating. Henry was totally focused on the drumming sound...

...the drumming sound that was subsiding, fading, like a drum which was sounding from a growing distance. Henry didn´t care for nor did he think about it. The blood was flowing more slowly by now and he had to suck harder, to fill his mouth with the red, liquid heat. The soldier didn´t move now, had stopped to buckle under him.

Good! No desperate defense anymore, Henry thought.

He felt the body of the soldier trembling under his hands and teeth for a last time, then the man went silent. Henry stopped, listening for a heartbeat, but there wasn´t any. Hastily he felt for a pulse at the throat. Nothing! The soldier was plain dead!

Aidan moved in closer, looking down onto Henry, who had turned his face to Aidan with an expression anywhere between guilt, astonishment and...utter satisfaction.

"I´ve killed him!" Henry brought out. "I´ve told you...I can´t kill...men"

"You´ve fed! I´ve told you that he´d die anyway...So it didn´t matter how...!" Aidan smiled at him and padded his shoulder. "You´ve to clean your mouth and your chin, Henry...ain´t that good when the guys from the CCS will show up here and you´re looking like mess!" Aidan demanded and directed to Henry´s lower half of the face.

Henry wiped over his mouth with the back of his hand and it turned red. He licked over it, enjoying the aftertaste of the blood. He felt steadier now, stronger and the blood was running through his system, filling him with new strength. Henry moved away from the corpse, obviously losing interest in it rather fast. He got up to his feet and to his astonishment any feelings of unsteadiness, dizziness or weakness were completely gone. He came to the conclusion, that it was the blood that was sustaining him.

Aidan saw the cognition running over Henry´s facial features. He verified it with a cold smile.

Good boy! Henry had gotten it! Finally...after all his hesitation and reluctance.

When Henry turned away, Aidan shook his head no, tipping his son on the shoulder.

"Hm...uhm, stop, Henry! Not that fast! Who feeds has to take care of the remains of his meal afterwards.!"

"What for?! You said that this guy would die anyway! So, what?" Henry gave back with a cold voice. It astonished Aidan, how fast Henry´s point of view had changed since before the turning. The pure vampire was breaking through the surface now...unveiled. It was definitely the vampire blood influence in Henry. Despite the fact that the turning had been completed now, he´d need further lessons. Henry was the first progeny he was able to create successfully. Another woman before had never woken up from the process and so Aidan felt allover luckily, that Henry was well at all.

"Henry..." Aidan began in a softer tone now "You´ll have to get rid of him! No way to leave behind a trail of corpses on your heels!" Henry nodded and looked down onto the soldier.

"But...hm, his throat looks like...it´s all disturbed..." he mentioned with a thoughtful voice. Henry felt uncertain about what he´d done, the uncontrolled way he had been feeding. Quite sure there would be ways to feed more properly, but what had been happening, had happened! Too late to argue about it by now. So...what to do? Henry thought.

"We´ll put him over, to the bushes and trees, hiding him there in a messy way. So if anybody will ask, what happened to him...it´ll look as if this poor guy made it out of the CCS alive, crawling over there and finally dying of mutilation by a dog or any predatory animal in the woods!" Aidan gave an evil smile. What Aidan was suggesting was sounding all reasonable, Henry thought. And he was glad that Aidan took over the leadership. Being a vampire now, was all completely new and surprising to him. And despite the fact that he felt running on vampire instincts now, he was feeling thankfully for some support. Aidan could look back onto a life experience of some 233 years...

Henry had been helping Aidan with handling the corpse, not being hesitating, but obviously now he was glad to do that as fast as possible.

Only a couple of minutes later. Aidan saw a group of men...soldiers...approaching from over the field.

He started to wave with his arms.

"Here! Over here! We are here!" Aidan shouted and a man at the top of the group directed over to them. When the leading officer reached Aidan and Henry, he looked over them with some astonishment. Aidan could read it in his face, that was showing an expression, as if the soldier had seen some ghosts.

"He! What´s up! You´re looking as if you´ve seen your grandfather´s ghost...!"

"We...we didn´t expect to find...anybody...alive. Not...after what we have found in the CCS!" The officer shook his head. "All that blood! There´s no single soul alive anymore...So we didn´t think that anybody may have survived...Glad to find at least someone!" The he heard a stifled scream from behind the bushes, when one of the privates stumbled over the dead soldier, the one that Henry had killed. For a a mere second Aidan hoped, that the ravaged throat would do!

The man came out of the bushes, his face pale and torn with disgust, directing back to the the trees.

"There´s another one...in there! His throat is ripped out, like all the others we´ve found last night...! Poor guy! The dogs must have followed him until they got him, when he tried to hide in the woods..." he spat onto the ground. "may the Lord give that I won´t get one of these Germans alive! We´d feed him alive to our dogs!" His voice was dripping with unveiled contempt and hatred.

Aidan kept his face under control, hiding his smile inwardly. The "dog thing" worked pretty well, those guys swallowing the bite. Luckily Henry felt so sated, that he had lost all interest in blood in the moment, Aidan thought. Newly turned vampires were an incalculable factor. Or a risk in human...mortal...eyes. Though Aidan was looking at Henry warily, ready to intervene the very moment when Henry would start to act...counterproductively. But obviously Henry kept himself under control.

There were no witnesses alive who might come up with the fact, that private Durham had been deadly wounded, yet strangely being alive!

Henry had simply sat down onto a tree trunk, watching the group of soldiers and their leading officer, when the man was talking to Aidan. Who was giving the impression, that they were nothing else but the lone survivors of a massacre. That seemed to work perfectly due to Aidan´s convincing skills... Better to let it to Aidan, who was much more experienced in it.

The officer turned to a private: "Take care of the poor guy over there...get you some help. At least we can return his remains to his family." War once get started, the war became a rampant feeder of the Grim Reaper, in thousands of soldiers dying on the battlefields. The PFC nodded and ordered another of his comrades for help to handle with the corpse. Then he returned to Aidan and Henry.

"We´ll get you outta here. The CCS is completely destroyed and not safe anymore to be rebuild. As the German frontier is moving in, the Medical Staff Command has decided to move the CCS to Cambrin"

"Okay, time to get away from here!" Aidan replied.

"You may have a doctor to look over you, if you want so and just in case you´ve gotten hurt during the attack, private Waite. The same is said for private Durham." the officer offered, when he saw the bloodied shirt of Henry.

"We´re quite okay, Major! Just wanna get back to where we belong..."

"Okay! we´ll drive over soon!" The officer stated.

One hour later they were on their way to a collection point of the US-Army.

The sun was high up in the sky meanwhile and the bedroom was filled with dim light that was falling through the thick curtains. Aidan felt incredibly tired now and when he thought about it, he came to the conclusion that he had been awake since the night before yesterday. To be correct he was awake since he had bargained the orphan´s fate with Suren. He had tricked them into the house that was sold over, immolating all of them by it. He and Henry had made it out of the house just in time and both of them have had burns. Henry had been weakened when they went to Suren. No clue how long Henry hadn´t feed anymore before. The wounds caused by the uninvite had been worse than his own, indicating that Henry was lacking of blood, probably since a couple of days. A bad condition to go into a torture like being skinned alive...

Aidan had been at the bedside the whole night long, watching over Henry. He had been staring at his son, trying to see any difference in his body´s condition. But any time he had given up to stare his eyes out in an attempt to see even the slightest change, watching his skin growing back without missing the smallest difference to the condition before. Aidan smiled a bit, when he had to confess to himself that he had been curious about how it would look like. Strange curious fascination..and it had absolutely nothing to do with the way a scientist would have looked at.

Aidan got up from the chair and rubbed his burning eyes before he bent over Henry. Carefully he peeled back the aluminum covered sheets and gasped with surprise.

Henry was looking so much better!

His skin had grown back almost to its old extend. There were only a couple of abrasions left where the damn knife had gone deeper than she might have intended. If in any case one could speak about any restraint or intention when it came to peel off ones skin in one piece...alive... Aidan growled deep in his throat.

Henry´s face had still some scratches and his hair hadn´t grown back by now, so his head was still bald, but this would change later. First things come first. When Aidan carefully laid his hand at Henry´s temple, his son´s lids fluttered and with a low moan Henry managed it to open his eyes.

"Henry! Hm...how are you? Uhm...feeling any better now?" Aidan asked.

"Bit...better, Aidan...still tired, but..." Henry lifted his hand and moved it in front of his eyes. He stretched and contracted his fingers in an attempt to test if he could move without so much as pain.

"You got lots of morphine...had to shoot you half the box..." Aidan shrugged his shoulders in an excuse; "...at least you could sleep and heal finally I got you up here..."

The air in the bedroom was thick with the scent of iron. Blood that had dried on the bedclothes, the rug and...on the dead girls.

"Do you feel able to get out of the bed, Henry...? We have to clean up here, sorry, but all is a bit messy here...You can get clothes from me and we should put a cap on your head...until your hair has restored too..."

Henry carefully felt for his face, his fingers touching his temple and his cheek. When he found out that the pain had gone and his skin felt sore but had grown back, he smiled. Aidan pulled back the sheets and the covers, rolling them up to a pile he pressed into a garbage bag. The material had become hard and stuck with dried blood. The smell of it was still lingering in the room.

Very slowly Henry lifted his head and turned his face in direction of the window. He closed his lids in a reflex when the light hit his face with unexpected intensity. A low moan slipped from his lips and he turned his face to the side, away from the dimmed daylight.

Aidan cupped his chin with one hand and softly turned Henry´s face to watch him.

"Does the light hurt your eyes, Henry?" Aidan sounded concerned. As long as Henry kept his eyes closed, he couldn´t see if there was anything wrong with his eyes. Maybe a result of the massive blood loss and the large amounts of morphine. Henry had slept like almost dead and his movements indicated that he still wasn´t fully awake by now.

When Henry managed it to open his eyes and to look at Aidan, he could see that Henry´s pupils were still narrowed, a side effect of the morphine.

Okay, may take him some time to get running on his feet again...gimme him some time..., Aidan thought. At least his skin has grown back!

The was the most relieving point! Henry was alive and he would get any better, when he would be able to feed an additional fill!

Henry looked at Aidan, then he carefully turned his head to look around thru the bedroom. By his facial expression Aidan could see, that Henry was somewhat uncertain about the surroundings, not irritated, but he looked as if he had slight problems to put things together.

"Where...where are we...?" Henry asked in a low voice.

"At my home. Josh invited you in. You owe him a lot! Don´t forget this, please! Without him being so kind to invite you in, I won´t have known where to go with you. I think, I don´t overstate, when I say that without his invitation, you would be dead by now, Henry..." Aidan replied. "What exactly do you remember, Henry...? From...when on?"

"I remember, that we had gone to the hotel. Suren was there. We had some...dispute...and then you...you left me!" Henry grabbed with his hand for his forehead, softly shaking his head. His barely restored facial features were torn fearfully with the upcoming memories. Aidan crouched down in front of him, beside the bed.

"I...I don´t wanna...see...this...again. Can´t face...can´t face...that again..." his voice was trembling and Aidan could see tears swelling in the corners of his eyes. He wiped them off with the tips of his thumbs.

"You won´t, Henry! You won´t have to face and to go thru this again! Never ever! I promise you, Henry! You won´t! I´d rather die myself than ever let you go thru this again! Aidan pleaded with as much conviction as possible. He had made a terrible mistake! I should never have gone to Suren, asking her for accepting Henry back into the vampire family! I´m a friggin´ idiot! I know her such a long time that I should...no, not should...! But that I must have known that she would demand a terrible prize to be paid for eighty years of being grounded! There´s no such hell but the wrath of a scorned woman! It´s all my guilt! My fault! I should have taken Henry and we should have left Boston! We might have gone anywhere else...West Coast...Canada...anywhere else...out of the influence area of her and Mother! Aidan thought. It even would have been possible to get Josh into moving too! As I and Sally are his only...true...family!

Josh had told him, that he, Aidan, would be his only true friend by now! They had moved in together to have some familiarity. A club...a family of monsters...among humans. A home, a place where they can let go...living what they are...a vampire, a once a month werewolf and a ghost. This little family would even be able to cope with an additional vampire, when Henry would accept some rules. As long as Josh would accept Henry! Can´t trick Josh into it, but I may convince him...when I´ll give the guarantee that Henry will keep within the rules and behave properly!

"Where are we, Aidan? Can´t remember much...only that you came for me...I was...I was dying..."

"Can you remember Josh? He was at the door, when I managed it anywhere to get you up the stairs outside..." Aidan asked.

"Barely. But...yes...the man in the door frame...! He...invited me in! But...after that...don´t get much of what happened then..." Henry tried to put the events into a row that would make sense. "I can´t ...I can´t...remember much! I´m so sorry, Aidan!"

"You won´t have to feel sorry about! I had to shoot you more than any normal amount of morphine, to get you outta the hotel, put you into my car and get you up here finally! You´re in the bedroom on the second floor, it´s Sally´s room...Sally, the ghost who you´ve seen in the morning...she talked to you, remind?"

"The...young woman...at least...she must have been young, when she...died..." Henry mumbled. Goodness, in relation to him or Aidan...everybody was young. He could remind her, the young woman with the slightly tan skin color and the dark hair. Must have some Asian in her. Asian like... No! He didn´t want to think at Suren right now! Not her! Sally...she seemed to be very nice. At least she didn´t run off with a scream when she had seen him...without skin.

"Her fiancé killed her! Overly jealous badass! He threw her down the stairs and she split her skull onto the first stairhead down here! She was a ghost when Josh and I moved in here. That badass died in jail after they sentenced him for life imprisonment. What spared him from ending up as food for me!" Aidan gave an evil laughter. He had put his hands around Danny´s throat once, baring his fangs right in his face...without finishing it! Obviously Danny had finished it by himself...in prison. Either by suicide or by murder, committed by any other badass in jail. Aidan couldn´t care less. As long as this Danny won´t haunt their and Sally´s home...

"Poor gal!" Henry gave back. "It´s a shame for her, as she seemed to be an intelligent, tough woman...from the little I´ve learned about her. At least she was friendly with me...other than any of the werewolves out there! Where is she gone...?"

"Sally?! She drifts in and out...al gusto! She appears and..." Aidan clicked his fingers; "...disappears like that...Whoop!" He smiled all over his face.

Werewolves. Urgh..., Aidan thought. Guess, you won´t be excited, when you´ll learn to know that Josh is a werewolf! Normally vampires could scent a werewolf from the distance, their wolfy...dog like scent or smell. But Henry might have missed it completely, due to the MST and the fact that he was stuck in a cloud of his own blood stench.

"Hadn´t there been no other room...than this one on the second floor? It was a hell...to climb up here...I thot, I´d never made it, Aidan!" Henry complained.

"I´m so sorry, Henry! I know, but all rooms are up here. Down there are only the kitchen and the living room. Guess you won´t have liked to spent your healing time on a plain, hardwood table surface! Couldn´t get you into the Suffolk County, ya´ know..." Aidan indicated the fact, that he won´t have been able to show up with a skinned-alive vampire in the Burn Trauma Center of the hospital...

Henry nodded in final agreement. He gave a sigh.

"You´re safe in here! You´re with friends...though I´ll have to get that clear with Josh first...you probably staying here for any longer time. The house you´ve been in before, burnt almost down and it´s restricted area now too! Guess, you´re having no place to stay at. We didn´t think about that before, as there hadn´t been any time left by the events. I have a place, a home to stay. So we have to come to terms in your case personally. I don´t wanna have you hiding anywhere in a dark hole...some eighty years is enough to be spent in a dirty lair..."

"I´ve spent my time in different places. Most of them were merely a hiding place, the less something you can call a...home...even on a low level. I´m not very demanding at all...for me it´s enough to have a safe, dry place to stay in. As long as it´s acceptable...and clean at least."

"I can´t get you a whole house, but we´ll find a place for you that will be better than any dirty cellar compartment. Any better than that overcrowded vampire asylum, that this Mickey sold for fifty bucks per head! I hope that Suren will pull his guts out, draping them around his neck, after he served her purposes!"

Aidan sighed and looked around in the bedroom.

"We´ll have to get some clothes for you, Henry...I´ll look thru my wardrobe...no prob."

"I´ve lost the few belongings I´ve had before everybody got...killed. All it had, went up into ashes that night before yesterday...I only had, what I was wearing when we ran from the house. And that´s in the Halloway in the moment. I don´t feel any urge to go back there right now...I don´t even own more than a handful of dollars, guess I´m running on a very low level in the moment..."

"I agree with you, Henry! No need to do so...I´ll take care of all, don´t worry!"

Henry must have been living rather from day to day, looking where he could get to blood, hunting the streets and dark alleyways for unwilling donors or from time to time...being feeding in a blood den. The secret group of vampires had built up a hidden system of sustain, forced to fly low under the radar, so the Boston family won´t get their hands onto them...until they brought them down finally, though...

Aidan had been living with the need to hide too, but never thru a time of eighty years. Henry had gotten it really worse and he had thought him to be dead probably, as he never ever heard of him since that night in 1933. Until he suddenly showed up on his threshold last week!

Nothing could have been more surprising as to see the long lost son alive. In the first moment he had thot to hallucinate, to see a ghost as well as vampires didn´t come back as ghosts, once they died their real, final death. So it was told.

"I...I should have protected them! I have been their leader...!" Henry suddenly came up with.

"Who? The orphans?"

"Yeap! I met some of them at certain occasions...a banished among banished...one by one...I could...kinda...re-organize them...bringing up some benefits one only has in a group, a community..."

"You mean...you were kinda up for a...rebellion?!"

"No! No uprise! Only getting them together to make their and my life a bit better. As a structure helps to survive, even when you´ll have to hide. We could give each other shelter, helping out with the most needed things. And then I couldn´t protect them finally! They trusted me!" Henry gulped down hard.

"You couldn´t finally protect them for all time! Not here in Boston! Not at the East Coast! Mother or Suren would have gotten their hands on them any time, sooner or later. They were Bishops orphaned childes! He made them! YOU didn´t make them, you only led them together. They should have been gone a long time ago, when Bishop went! They had no future! At least not here in Boston! You did what you could, but they had no future. As I said; when they´d stay here, Boston would become a resting place for their ashes! Even I won´t have been able to prevent it! As Mother was determined to eradicate them!"

"I feel it to be my fault..." Henry gave back with a torn face.

"I have had contact to them, before I learned to know that you´re still alive, hiding among them and with them! They even didn´t tell me about you, didn´t tell me that you became kinda their leader. I killed Bishop, so I had to take care of them after he was gone. I didn´t want them to be dead, but I knew, that Boston would become too dangerous for them. The latest when Mother returns to inspect her territory! As Bishop had made them out of the intention, to break the rules! He wanted the vampires to walk Boston as the leading species! He wanted to end the centuries old game of hiding and feeding! He wanted them to...reign the humans. Like an emperor! The superior species that owns Boston! And the humans becoming their prey in the sense of slaves...Like this mad Russell Edgington of True Blood...just in case you watched some TV any time..."

"Ain´t got no time. For watching TV. The less any ridiculous vampire show!" Henry grinned and twitched, when the barely healed abrasions at his temple were still hurting. In a reflex his finger felt for the abrasions, but when he looked at his fingertip it was dry. No soaking blood anymore. An amazing difference to the moment when Aidan had come for him in the Halloway. He had been soaking wet with blood. Soaking wasn´t just the right word for it, as he was literally...swimming...in his own blood. Swimming in...what was at least left over and now coming from his body. If any further blood would be inside him! As most of it was spilt everywhere...on that foil...on the table and in darkly glistening pools under the table. Strangely enough he could hear it dripping down from the table´s edge and the drops were landing in the pools on the ground with a soft thud. Like the water, that was dripping down from the ceiling of a cellar, he once had been hiding in. Anyway Aidan had gotten him down from that table and his feet have seemed to stick to the ground, wading thru these pools. The air had been thick with an iron...stench.

All that blood...

Aidan could see it in Henry´s face, could read it from his sudden absently view, that his son was inwardly suffering from the terrifying memories, which tortured him. Even for a vampire it won´t be easy to get rid of them and only time might tell, what he was carrying on with him... Vampires were meant to have no soul, but they had a functional brain and a functional body, even when some certain organic functions changed with the turning. Their intestine system didn´t metabolize common food, there was no need to poop or to use the toilet, but they were still breathing. Aidan was aware, that a body exited some stuff in gaseous state. Human´s inhaled oxygen, giving off carbon dioxide and water vapor and a whole lot of more complex gases. So a vampire´s body might give off substances thru the lungs, which weren´t exited via the bladder or the anus.

"Give me some time, please, Aidan!" Henry mumbled when he saw, that Aidan was intensely looking at him.

Aidan bent down when Henry carefully sat up in the bed. His fingers were digging into the aluminum covered sheets, which were covering the bed. Aidan shoved his arm around Henry´s shoulders, supporting his back.

"Slowly! Be careful, Henry...Guess, you´re still weak from the recovering...and don´t forget that I had to shoot you half the box of morphine! I can see it from your pupils, that you still have some of it in your system..." Henry´s pupils were still narrowed...not so small like pinheads...as mostly could be seen in junkies, but they didn´t react much when Aidan shaded Henry´s eyes for a test. "Feel dizzy? Any side effects lasting..?" he carefully added.

"My...skin feels still...sore...like from a slight sunburn...but at least...it has grown back!" Henry gave back with a smile.

"I never had doubts about it, Henry!" Aidan´s voice sounded convinced, but inwardly he knew that he had only been clinging desperately to his self-reassuring, that it couldn´t end up other than Henry healing and finally being restored to his old self. Hope dies last! It had kept him upright, had driven him forward in getting those unfortunate girls in from any of these clubs in central Boston...

Unfortunate girls...

He had to get rid of the corpses urgently! The two dead girls were still lying in the bedroom, neatly wrapped in layers of sheets and a plastic foil...

The will have to be gone..., Aidan avoided it to call it disposed, as these were still humans, even when being plain dead and they were no common garbage...before Josh comes back from his shift, he thought. Last time he had made use of a clean-up, had been when he meant to have accidentally killed Rebecca. Though Bishop has had his hands in that pie, turning her into a vampire instead. Aidan was asking himself, why it had slipped from his attention, that Rebecca had been still alive, when he called for a clean-up. As a nurse he should have been able to undoubtedly determine, if she was dead...or only deeply unconscious by massive blood loss... Obviously he had been too shocked by his loss of self-control to keep with his well trained nurse skills. Eventually he was a nurse since World War One, even when he had to change work in a proper intervals, before anybody might find out that he didn´t age normally... Aidan smiled inwardly by the thought. Immortality had its own little problems to be taken care of.

Josh had literally fled from home, shoving in an additional shift...just to escape the scene. For good he won´t have problems to cope with someone so severely hurt, as in the Suffolk County he was also working in the trauma room, when there was need. And in the ER, Josh wasn´t the one to run out by the sight of patients in a disastrous state. They sometimes even got in severely burnt persons, as the Suffolk County had a burn trauma center. So Henry wouldn´t have been all too far from any of these trauma victims.

Josh´s reaction was more due to a; that´s a vampire, it´s your son...and I don´t wanna be responsible for and the less involved into anything, that has to do with the restoring of a skinned...undead. So Josh had gone off, hiding at work...and letting it all to Aidan, as there was only one thing, that would help...excessive amounts of...blood!

Aidan couldn´t blame Josh for being afraid, that this would definitely run out of control. Josh might have known, though Aidan had closed his eyes from the rather reasonable option, that feeding Henry could end up in fatalities...

Aidan shot a look over to the window where he had laid down the girl´s bodies. For a long second he stared at the curved shapes, as if he was afraid, that they might suddenly move a limb. But they were completely motionless, plain dead... Again, since he had become a vampire, he had reached the point of no return. Again, once again...uh, he had lost count a long time ago...as he once had claimed to a certain, then mortal, private Henry Durham...

That night in 1918 in France...

All had run out of hand back then. Ending up in a rampage...that finally provided him with what he had always longed for: a son...a childe.

He felt no regret.

Not then and not now.

He didn´t intend to kill these girls by feeding Henry with their blood. It had turned into, what he called it...a feeding accident. Then, for a mere second, a thought shot to his mind: Sally had been killed in this house, becoming a ghost and haunting this Danny. He, Aidan, had killed these girls, so they died violently...same as Sally! What meant...a cold shudder made its way down his spine...these girls...

...might haunt him!

Angrily he shoved the thought aside. He had to concentrate onto other...facts! Getting rid of the girls properly, getting Henry a place to stay, cleaning up here, so Josh wouldn´t get any sight of the full extend of what had happened in here. As the bed was a mess, the covers ready for the oven, the rug was stained with whose blood so ever. The bedroom...Sally´s former room...was more equal to a crime scene than to anything else.

In the Halloway they had fed blood-play style. But the rooms were prepared for that. Feeding, blood play, sex in exchange for blood. Clean-ups wouldn´t have turned out rather problematic there, although death very rarely occurred, as the women and men in there, being the donors, did this by own intention and out of free will.

The rule was: we feed, but we don´t kill.

It was only once brutally violated: when the Dutch Elders decided to have it the old way with the unsuspecting donors.

To distract himself and in order to get things in a row again...before Josh would return...Aidan turned to Henry again.

"Do you feel able now to get out of the bed? I have to clean up...ain´t that good, when Josh comes home from shift and it´s all still a mess up here..."

"Guess...I´ll make it out of the bed..." Henry tried to turn around carefully...rolling over to the left side and Aidan grabbed for his shoulders, supporting him, when he moved his legs out of the bed for the first time since yesterday evening. Henry gasped, when the world was becoming unsteady around him. A wave of dizziness swept over him, making the surroundings fade around him. Henry took a rest, taking some deep intakes of breath and then the room was clearing up again and he turned around until he was sitting on the bed´s edge.

Aidan looked over his son, checking him for any remaining wounds, but for some abrasions at his temples and a slightly reddened skin on his hands, there were no remaining wounds. Henry had almost completely healed!

The only strange sight was his still bald head...but his hair would grow back too! First things come first, Aidan thought. Even a vampire´s body kept up some rules. It was, first of all, necessary to restore the complete skin, before new hair would grow in. Also hair was, by its nature, biologically seen an extension of the skin. Vampires could even grow a beard, the same as every kind of body hair...even on the intimate areas.

"Do you...do you have some clothes for me?" Henry asked him.

"Of course, Henry...meanwhile..." he reached him a bottle of mineral water. "You should drink some water...your body has lost more than only blood. I have hung you two bottles of Ringer solution while you slept, but you´ve lost lots of liquids..."

"I...I want to thank you so much, Aidan!" Henry looked at him and Aidan closed his arms around Henry, pulling him into a tight hug. "Without what you´ve done, I won´t be alive!" His head was resting on Aidan´s shoulder and he felt Aidan´s finger stroking his neck and his temple. He sighed deeply and felt his eyes burning. Henry swallowed hard and Aidan took his head back a bit, so that he could look at him.

Aidan felt a dry know in his throat too when he read the painful expression in his son´s face.

He could have lost him more easily than not, when he had seen the vivid results of Suren´s revenge on Henry. There had only been a slim chance, thinner than a hair, that he would survive this torture after all the unimaginable amounts of blood which he had lost. Suren had survived eighty years of being grounded, with no success to even a single drop of blood all over the time, but she hadn´t been...skinned. And Suren was some seven hundred years old, way older than his son. It was worse than vague to compare these situations. Aidan didn´t know if a vampire that young like Henry, could die by such a massive blood loss. Vampires died by being staked or being burned up or decapitated...

Aidan gulped down hard and pressed a long kiss to Henry´s forehead.

"I...I couldn´t have known how to go on, when I´d have lost you, Henry! I love you, as you´re the only one I have...You´ve become the son I always had been wishing for, Henry...!"

"I love you too, Aidan. I´ve been alone for eighty years...I didn´t dare...to search for you before, but I´ve always hoped , that you would be glad to see me again...that you won´t ward me off..." Henry mumbled with a low voice.

"I didn´t know if you´re still out there anywhere, Henry! I never gave up on hope that you might show up any day again. In the core of my heart I never had any doubts...even when my reasonable mind tried to trick me into the opposite..." Aidan sighed and hugged Henry tightly.

"Sometimes you have to give your reasonable mind some kicks!" Henry looked at him and laughed with a low voice.

They shared a long moment with each other, before Henry finally sighed slightly and cleared his throat, before he went on.

"I...I should get out of this bed and get dressed, before anybody does come for...the clean-up. And before...Josh comes back. Maybe I should better be gone before he comes..."

"You won´t have to run from him, Henry! Just in case...I´ll talk that out with him. And I don´t wanna have you hanging out anywhere in the streets, without a place to go to..." Aidan reminded him of the fact that Henry didn´t have a place to put his head on.

"I´ve made it eighty years out there!" Henry grinned at him. "Gonna need any job and rent me some rooms..."

"We...I can´t rent you a home...Josh and me, we´ve been moving in together...not only for our friendship but for sharing the rent too. But I´ll find a solution for you, Henry!"

"When your friend Josh finds out, what happened in here...guess he won´t like to see my face again so soon!" Henry gave back.

"It wasn´t YOU who killed these girls! It had been ME...me alone. You´ve only fed on them before...and afterwards. When anybody has to explain anything to Josh, than it´s definitely me! ME and nobody else!" Aidan laid his hands on Henry´s bare shoulders and looked him right into the eyes.

To prevent any further discussion, Aidan nodded and got up on his feet again and walked over to his closet. He started to search through his wardrobe and brought out a gray shirt, a gray hoody sweater and a blue jeans, some socks and Henry´s booties, which fortunately he had brought in back from the Halloway´s, though the makeshift torture room had been a chaos. Then he reminded, that...Henry´s hair would need some time to grow back. Anywhere on the upper shelf he found a purple-blue woolen hat.

Henry carefully had made it out of the bed, he opened the bottle with mineral water and started to gulp down big sips. He wiped with lips with the back of his hand.

"Feels good to be back in the game!" Henry grinned. "Man, I never enjoyed simple water that much like right now!" He raised a toast with the bottle to Aidan, emptied it in one gulp.

"You´ve lost more than only blood! There´s more of it in the kitchen, if you want, Henry." Aidan reached him the clothes.

When Henry had come into their home, he had been a dripping wet,...as Sally had so eloquently put it...meatsicle.

"I will not be baby-sitting your meatsicle..." she had coldly stated at the sight of a ninety-nine percent dead Henry. Finally she had been watching over Henry, together with Aidan, half the rest of the night, though.

To be continued