Chapter 10: "Blood"

Gillian stood in front of the old mansion house, and looked up at the facade. The windows were covered in ivy, and the house looked like it cuddled in an green embrace.
Gillian climbed the steps to the entrance, with a feeling like coming home after a long journey but have become a stranger.
She rang the bell, and had to wait until steps were heard in the hall.
Light was turned on and the door opened.
A middle aged woman with a plump figure and severe hair stood in the doorway and looked at Gillian, frowning.
Gillian looked back with no less frowning.
"How dare you! Do you know what time it is," asked the woman and put her hands on her hips.
Gillian's eyes narrowed, "I want to see the professor ..."
"The professor is not expecting anybody," the woman said firmly, and tried to close the door.
Gillian quickly stepped forward and pushed her boots in the doorway.
Annoyed she looked at the woman. "What's that?"
"He expects me", hissed Gillian.
"Take away the foot," the woman said smugly.
"Only if you let me in!"
"This is outrageous", the woman said indignantly.
Gillian could have pressed the door open so that she would get in without problems, but she would have to push the woman aside, too. She wanted to try it peacefully first. "Please," she said. "Tell him that Gillian is here. He will want to see me."
The woman pursed her lips. "It's late at night. Come back tomorrow. "
"I will not go. If you don`t let me in, then I'll be waiting here on the doorstep. The professor will not be pleased when he finds out that you made me sleep on the stairs. "
Uncertainty flickered in the eyes of the woman.
She pushed the door a little further open, and finally let Gillian in.
"Well, I'll tell him you're here."
She waddled up the stairs.
From there, she called again: "Will you kindly wait here!"
Gillian grimaced. Who was that old Spinster?
When the woman came back Gillian could not hide a triumphant grin, as the woman had to grudgingly admit, "He wants to see you."
She followed her up the stairs and to the door of the bedroom of the professor.
The woman put her hand on the doorknob, and looked urgently at Gillian, "but only for a brief time. And don`t upset him! "
Gillian pushed the plump woman aside, pressed down the latch and entered the bedroom, which glowed in the yellow light of a bedside lamp like an amber cave.
The wrinkled face of the professor lay sunken into cushions surrounded by a ring of white hair, in a white bed. Beside him blinked and chirped multiple devices, one of which led away hoses and cables, which disappeared somewhere under the bed covers.
With his hand on the doorknob Gillian stood shocked, and looked at the old and weak man, while a slight smell of disinfectant and medicine came to her, and Gillian had to swallow.
The professor was seriously ill.

The woman outside was a nurse.
"Gillian ...?" the professor said in a low and husky voice and a smile crossed his face. His old dim eyes tried to discern in the gloomy room. "Is it really you?"
Gillian felt a lump in her throat.
"Come closer ...", the professor asked, waving weakly with one hand, a drip attached.
Gillian closed the door softly behind her and approached the bedside.
The gray eyes of the old man looked up at her. "Gillian ... you come back after all ..."
Gillian took his hand and squeezed it. She swallowed. "Sure, I have promised ..."
The professor closed his eyes, and a peaceful expression came to his face.
Gillian sat on the edge of the bed while she was still holding his hand. "Professor?
What`s wrong with you? "
His eyelids fluttered and he looked up at her. "My time has come, Gillian."
Gillian felt tears high-rise in her. "No ..." she breathed.
Tenderly, he looked at her. "All right, my dear. I've lived my life, and as you know, I was not a child of sorrow ... "A cough interrupted him.
Gillian watched helplessly as his body tensed. Then the cough was over.
He smiled at her. "Were you successful? Did you find the grave?"
Gillian swallowed and could only nod.
"Aaah, that's good ..." he sighed.
"At the grave was an inscription: Lucem demonstrat umbra."
He smiled. "A beautiful grave inscription. Too bad that I do not now will be there, when you publish ... "He looked at her. "You will write the study, don`t you?"
Gillian shook her head. "I can not ..." she whispered.
The old man frowned, "Gillian. Promise me. Promise that you will write this work. If only to please me. "
Tortured Gillian shook her head again.
The old man was clearly upset now: "You have to believe in you. You can do it, you're such a clever girl, Gillian. When I think of all the knowledge that I can not teach you now ... it's a waste, life is too short ... I can not ... could not ... could not write it all down ... I want you to finished it want you to go on ... " He was hyperventilating now, and Gillian tried to reassure him: "Allright allright ... I will do it ... " She grabbed a breathing mask that hung at the head of the bed, and pressed it on his face, panting as the old man was breathing.
She listened as he got breathing difficulty, as it rattled in his chest.
He looked at her with watery eyes, but seemed to calm down.
She carefully took the mask back down, as his breathing was regular again.
Weak he smiled at her. "I'm sorry. I should not rushing you. You have your own will."
Gillian looked ashamed.
The old man raised his hand and stroked her trembling cheek. "It's just that I am ashamed that I initially made advances to you. I should not have done that. You are different from the others, Gillian. "
He breathed rattling. "I have in my life, God knows, missed nothing ..." his voice was a whisper now "But you ... you were like a daughter to me."
He closed his eyes.
The lump in Gillian's throat became bigger.
Tears pushed up from deep below.
She laid her head on the chest of the old man, and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Richard ... Please ... please do not go ... don`t die!"
She sobbed.
She buried her face in his plaid pajamas and listened as his breathing became more shallow.
"No ..." Gillian moaned tortured. "I've never had a father. You can not die ... please ... do not leave me alone ... "
Desperate, she could feel his heartbeat fluttering like a small bird under her hand.
"No!" Gasped Gillian and her head came up. She grabbed the old man by the shoulders. "I need you! You can not die, I've done something bad ... Richard, I do not know what to do ... there's something in me ... inside of me … I'm so much scared, please do not go!"
But the professor was no longer listening.
Gillian's hands dug into his shoulders. His heart was getting weaker, in a second he would no longer be present, and there was nothing she could do against it...
Nothing.
Except ...
Gillian leaned down and pulled Richard towards her. He weighed almost nothing, his head hung back unfounded, as Gillian sank her fangs into his throat.
Without any effort her sharp teeth slashed his skin, and blood flowed lazily from his carotid artery into her mouth.
Since his heart had almost given up to pump, Gillian had to suck strongly to transfer his blood into her.
She swallowed bravely while tears of blood ran down her face.
During her last few sips his heart just gave up.
He died while Gillian was still clutching him and sucked up the last bit of his blood out of his body.
And with the last drop something else ran down her throat.
Gillian closed her eyes and forced herself not to sob.
Then she let the professor go, and laid him gently back on the pillow.
She squeezed his eyes shut.
Her heart fluttered, like a caged bird.
With her left hand she turned off the beeping and flashing devices, and pulled the needle out of his arm.
With her right hand she still clutched his hand.
She had never done this before.
Not like this.
But she remembered very well how Larten Crepsley had once told her, that it was possible to make a man live on who was close to death, by taking his memories into yourself.
By drinking all his blood at the time of his death. Gillian remembered the words of Larten Crepsley like it was yesterday: "When we drink a man all his blood, we take his soul in us. We take his thoughts, feelings and memories in us, and can thus be live on what would otherwise be forgotten. To drink the blood of friends who are close to death, and keep that way their memories and experiences alive, this is truly a good deed."
Gillian sniffled and looked down at the face of the professor. If that was a good deed, so why she felt so miserable then?
God, how she wished, Larten was here.
She cleaned her face of the bloody tears.
Then she set out to inform the nurse that the professor had died.

She did not stay until the funeral.
She rather just hit the road.
While the nurse still jittery examined her deceased patient in the bedroom, Gillian went into the library of the professor.
She switched the lamp with the green screen on his desk and walked over to the bookshelf, which she knew that behind it was the vault.
She turned on the lock until the correct combination was entered, and took out the papers.
The parchment with the original from the library of the vampires she put under her clothes.
His Last Will she put on his desk, unread.
Then she opened a drawer and pulled out a file. It was her file. She threw it into the fireplace and lit it with a match.
After she had destroyed all traces and evidence of her person, so it was as if she had never lived here, Gillian made herself ready to go. With her hand on the light switch, she looked one last time around the room. Her eyes slid over the many leather-bound books on the walls, on the messy pile of papers that lay on the window sill, and his reading glasses, which was handy at the red leather base, where he had last put it.
At a sudden inspiration, Gillian moved once again to the desk drawer, and took out a closed bottle of whiskey.
She put it in her backpack, and turned out the light.
Gillian silently glided down the stairs, and slipped like a shadow in the night out of the house, passing the nurse who informed the doctor and the authorities on the phone, that unfortunately the professor of ancient languages and mythology had done tonight his last breath.
Outside Gillian stopped once on the sidewalk, and looked back towards the house.
She pulled out the bottle of whiskey, unscrewed the cap and put the bottle to her lips.
To you, Richard. The only father I ever had.
She tilted her head back and let the fiery drink run down her throat.

Deep down inside of her something remembered the flavor and taste of it and sighed with pleasure.