Chapter Two
"Do vampires have dreams?" Dr. Kennedy asked Aviva.
"I suppose," she said. "Except, the dreams are reality, bits of the future. When we dream, we can see the future. Our unconscious selves know what will happen to us. I live in a world of reality, not fantasy, however romantic it may seem to you."
"Tell me more," he whispered suddenly. "I want to know what happened." He closed his eyes, and shook his head. Did he really believe what she was saying? No, no, he couldn't believe it. It was fantasy, no matter what she said. Coming to his senses, he lit a cigar and leant back in his chair, ready for more to come. But instead of getting what he wanted, there was a knock at the door, and a head poked in.
"Time is up," woman said. "Your next patient is waiting outside." Aviva stood up, and seemed almost relieved the get out of there.
The next day she was brought in, and began where she left off.
"I became accustomed to the lifestyle of a vampire fairly quickly. Every night we would feast on whoever crossed our path that seemed somewhat drinkable. I can never forget my first kill, and how the blood tasted on my tongue. Though it was incomparable to the taste of my maker, whose name I soon found out to be Reznoré.
" 'Come,' Reznoré had said my first night as a vampire. 'It is time to teach you the ropes.' I followed him, slightly fearing what was to come, and eager to know what exactly the 'ropes' were. We exited our hideaway and entered the busy streets of Paris. He led to me the area of Paris where the rich enjoyed their lavish lives and the poor tended to lurk in the shadows, for if they were caught in that area, they would be carted away by the police under suspicion of crime.
"We found my first meal then.
" 'Follow me,' Reznoré whispered. His fingertips were resting lightly on the brick wall of an opera house. I could hear voices inside. I heard shrieks of chorus and wails of song. There was a beating of a drum that shook the ground slightly. Reznoré peered around the corner. We stood in the alleyway in between the opera house and the drama theatre. The street was busy with the wealthy. Ladies were dressed in gowns of velvet and silk, and men wore long tailcoats with their respected family emblems embroidered on the collars.
"Reznoré swiftly moved forward into the crowd.
" 'Reznoré!' a voice yelled. A red headed girl stepped forward from the bustling throng of people, and leapt into his arms.
" 'Lila,' he whispered.
" 'Oh, Reznoré, I haven't seen you in ages. Father is in a constant anger, always cursing at you and questioning me on where you could be. I tell him I do not know, but he persists…' she staggered on her feet. 'And who is this?' she asked, tilting her head to me.
" 'This is Aviva Fleur,' Reznoré said. Lila curtseyed and laughed giddily.
" 'Don't I look just royal?" she asked. I stared at her, not knowing how to answer. Yes, she did. Her dress was a deep shade of purple, and lined with golden lace. Her corset was tied tight, and above it, her plump chest hung out of the sides. Her hair hung in a thick braid, and was lined with pearls and amethysts.
" 'Of course you do,' Reznoré said politely.
" 'Reznoré!' a booming voice exclaimed. A large man with a long graying beard pushed past his daughter to stand in front of Reznoré. 'You thief!' he cried out. A vein was throbbing in his throat. He was very tense, and now, I was very thirsty. I gave a soft moan. Reznoré glanced at me before addressing the man.
" 'Sir Edithlan,' Reznoré bowed deeply, 'How may I be of service to you?'
" 'Don't try to keep up respectable pretenses!' the man yelled.
" 'Lower your voice,' Reznoré said with an even tone. His face became cold. Sir Edithlan looked afraid for a moment, but then took back his angry tone.
" 'How dare you do this to me! How dare you leave me in this time!'
" 'What did I do?'
" 'You know very well what you did! Now if you don't give me back what you took I will report you to the police!' Reznoré's eyes looked tense.
" 'Can we discuss this someplace more private?'
" 'Come,' the man spat at Reznoré. We followed him to a pub named Horse's Cutoff. Inside, the man requested a back room. We followed the bartender to a corridor in the back of the pub where four doors lined both walls. The bartender unlocked the seventh door. Before shutting it when the four of us were inside, Reznoré whispered to him, 'Do not disturb us, we do not want any drinks just yet. Edithlan began raving immediately when the bartender left the room, not noticing Reznoré lock the door swiftly, secretly.
"Edithlan yanked a chair from the long oak table and sat down into it so hard there was a loud crack. Reznoré pulled two chairs for Lila and I, and then sat down next to me, facing Edithlan.
" 'Ever since Evelyn died, you have been nothing of a nuisance. It's as if you had the whole thing planned out. You came, you said that you could help the pain, but you didn't. You worsened it, and stole our money. I knew it was disappearing ever since you came along. Little by little, month by month.'
" 'Father, what are you talking about? You never told me that after mother died our money was being lost!'
" 'Hush!' her father said to her in a warning tone. 'Do not speak until you are asked.' Lila huffed in her seat.
"Reznoré stood up. He had a look in his eye. He looked like a monster. He looked demonic. How could such a perfect face look so daunting and intimidating?
" 'Your suspicions are correct indeed,' he said smiling deviously. "I did steal your fortune, and I will continue to do so, slowly, until you have nothing left.'
" 'What do you mean, Reznoré? What are you saying! That's absurd!' Lila shrieked. 'It can't be true!'
" 'It is,' Reznoré said, rounding to Lila. He touched the puffed sleeve of her dress, and pulled it slowly down her shoulder.
" 'Get off my daughter!' Edithlan yelled, standing up so swiftly that his chair went flying backwards into the wall, where it collapsed into a piled of rusty wood and nails. Reznoré wrapped his hand around Lila's neck and lifted her into the air. She screamed. Edithlan began to advance toward Reznoré.
" 'Stop him,' Reznoré said calmly to me.
" 'I can't, he's too big,' I exclaimed. But suddenly, I understood. I was a vampire now. I could take down anyone who stumbled into my path. I grabbed his wrist, and dug into it with my nails. He bellowed in pain, and fell to ground. I had ripped through his skin, through his veins. I kept digging in. The man kicked and screamed on the ground. I felt his bone, and pulled away, repulsed by what I just had done. I felt tears stream down my face.
" 'Come here, Aviva,' Reznoré whispered. I went to him. The girl was stripped naked, her body lying unconscious on the floor. The man screamed from behind me, a bloodcurdling scream. He had apparently seen his daughter lying there. Reznoré bent beside her, and lifted her. Her head bobbed on his arm. He placed her on the table.
" 'Turn the Edithlan to face us,' he said. I spun him around with relative ease. 'Now, bind him with this rope.' He threw me a long coiled twine, and climbed on top of Lila. The man shuddered as I bound him. When that task was finished, I stood beside Reznoré and the girl, trembling. What was to happen next? Reznoré took my hand in his and pulled me onto the table. He was in between the girls spread legs, and I was next to her head. Edithlan had a perfect view of us. The girl moved abruptly, and coughed. She opened her swollen eyes.
" 'Am I dead?' she whimpered.
" 'Yes,' Reznoré whispered.
" 'No you're not!' her father yelled. She closed her eyes, ignoring him.
" 'Oh, father, the things you say,' she raved madly.
" 'Get up! Get up, Lila! Run! Save yourself! Get up! Run! Run!'
"Reznoré chuckled. He lifted her wrist and handed it to me. 'Drink,' was all he said. He did not have to say it twice. I knew what I had to do. I knew that this was her fate. I was at perfect peace with the world and myself. This was nothing. It had to happen. My body had stopped shaking. I took her wrist, and felt at the milky white skin. The moment I sunk my teeth into her flesh, she began to scream. Edithlan was screaming for her to escape. Reznoré licked her nipples.
" 'Get off of her!' screamed Edithlan. My tongue lapped in her blood. I clamped my lips to the wounds which my fangs had left and sucked hair. I felt the blood fill my own dry, hollow, veins purging them out, relieving me. The girl began to quiet, as well as her father, who had begun a string of sobs. I felt her life go, and felt my head get light. Reznoré pulled my head up gently.
" 'Do not drink until death. Death might take you down with it.' He smiled, and stroked my cheek lightly with his finger. A million questions flooded my head. I wanted to know how he had stolen this family's fortune, and why? Why had he chosen this family to corrupt?"
Aviva then was quiet. Dr. Kennedy was stunned at what she had told him. How could she have concocted such a strange story?
The girl lit another cigarette and closed her eyes, inhaling its goodness.
"I'm becoming less divine as the days go by," she whispered, her eyes clamped shut. "There's almost no trace left of the creature that I was." She opened her eyes suddenly and looked up at the ceiling.
Dr. Kennedy stared at her, unbreakably concentrating on her face, on her eyes. Those eyes. They were something else. And as he stared at her, they began to change. The colour began to drain from them, her pupils seemed almost dead. He jumped up from his chair and pointed his finger at her accusingly.
"How did you do that?" he demanded.
"What?" she asked, her face mixed with a confused, and surprised look.
"Your eyes!" he exclaimed. "They're different! They keep changing!" And what he was saying was true. The vivid green began to become gray, and then it became vivid again. "Why do they do that!"
She stood up. "I don't want to talk about it."
"You must," he said seriously. She started to walk towards the door, but the doctor jumped in front of it, spreading his arms over it. "You can't leave!" he said. "There's something wrong with you."
"Our session is over," she said calmly, pointing to the clock that hung above his desk. She reached for the doorknob, but the Dr. Kennedy grabbed her wrist.
"You're not leaving," he said.
"Let go of me," she whispered. "I've had enough of this." Dr Kennedy grabbed her other wrist. She stared in his eyes, and then, jammed her lit cigarette into his hand. He let out a yell of pain and let go of her hands to tend to his wound. She bolted out the door so fast he hardly saw her as she flew by, but her heard the swoosh of the hospital robes as they clung loosely around her body.
He sat on his chair, and began to look through her records frantically. There was no birth certificate. He began panting. He was losing his breath. What if she was telling the truth?
"No!" he whispered to himself. "Her story isn't true. It can't be!"
She was brought in the next day, two men in white suits holding each side of her. Her head was down, and her hair covered her face. She was seated on the couch, the two men on either side of her.
"Leave," he said to them.
"But we're under strict orders to be with her. She had outbursts last night. She almost killed her roommate."
"Leave," Dr. Kennedy said sternly. The two looked at each other, shrugged, and slugged out of the room. Aviva pulled her legs onto the couch and crossed them. She bent over and hid her face.
"Aviva," Dr. Kennedy began, "I'm sorry about yesterday's… experience." She didn't respond. "I don't know what got a hold of me. It was just so peculiar, you know, how your eyes did that. I never believed in the supernatural, and all of a sudden you come in. I didn't believe your story at all until that moment I saw your eyes. It scared me." The girl sat dead still, not a sound came from her body. "Don't you understand?" he said to her. "Don't you understand what it's like to be in my position? I hope you do." He took in a breath. She was being completely unresponsive. He knew better than to call a more expert doctor. She chose him to reveal her story to. He could not betray her secret.
"So what is this I hear? You tried to murder your roommate last night? That isn't good. I heard you tried to bite her. I heard you tried to suck her blood. I know what happened yesterday in my office was completely out of line, but that doesn't mean you pull a stunt like that. You have your entire life ahead of you. Why would you want to do things like that so that you're kept in this hospital longer? Don't you want to leave? Don't you want to get on with your life?" Dr. Kennedy sat there for half and hour, talking to her, trying to motivate her to talk to him. She just sat there, in that awkward position, not moving, not making a sound.
"Aviva, I must ask you again, why? Why did you try to kill your roommate?" She did not respond. It was no surprise. He sighed, and swung his chair around and stared at the clock on the wall. "What am I supposed to do with the rest of my time with her?" he thought to himself.
"You don't understand what it's like!" she shouted. He spun around, and saw that she had stood up, and was shaking with anger. Her eyes were dead. Her fists were clenched. "I'm dead!" she screamed. "I'm completely dead! It's over! I'm not immortal anymore."
"But you already knew that," he replied. "The first day you were here, remember? You said that you weren't one anymore. What is the big surprise?"
"I was unsure myself," she whispered hoarsely. "As long as my eyes were still green, I was a vampire… But now? Now I am dead! Dead! Dead as dead can be! And I thought that I had a shot, one last chance to regain my power, by sucking the blood of a mortal. But it didn't work. The blood tasted like nothing. I did not feel the same nourishment as I did before. I am human! I am dead! The blood, it tasted like salt and water, nothing more. I am dead! I am human!" She collapsed onto the seat behind her, and curled into a little ball, weeping, and repeating the same words, "I am dead, I am human, I am dead, and I am human."
Not knowing what to say, Dr. Kennedy dismissed her.