Little Girl Blue
The vampire dove down, passing close by each of the high-rise buildings. He couldn't recall his sonar map from his absent memory, but he could smell where he'd been.
It took him a while to trace back over his scent because it seemed to cover every square twenty metres of the city.
Finally the trail ended at one of the bridge towers. The vampire flew in through the window and reformed in the centre of the stone floor. The tower with all its windows above had a nice wide and open air feeling. 'Wow, this is perfect. I must be rich.' Curious he crossed over to the corner where books filled the walls. 'How old am I?' He didn't actually feel old enough to have so many books in his own name. 'Maybe I'm just a bookworm.' He shrugged. 'Ah well, no matter.' He yawned, looking up to the windows. The sky was brightening with the approaching dawn. He changed into a bat and circled up to the roof to find a place to roost.
"Dad?"
A little voice from down below stirred him from his sleep. He blinked groggily down at the floor. A duckling stood there in the centre of the place. 'Not good.' He focused his attention on her. 'Sleep.'
She yawned. "Dad? Where ... are you?"
'Highly resistant!' He issued the order again and this time she crumpled to the floor, falling fast asleep. The vampire breathed a sigh of relief and flew down. He knelt down beside her.
'How do you know my lair, little girl?' He groaned at his mistake. 'But of course she won't answer me now because I've just put her to sleep!'
'I guess I'll just have to figure it out myself.' He stood up and retraced her steps. They led back to the table. On it was a strange bottle that had not been there before. He picked it up and figured out how to open it within a moment.
It was juice, freshly made and it smelled fantastic. He gulped it down greedily.
It was a long moment as the vampire stood there, bottle in hand, trying to understand all this information. The little girl had made the juice for him. But the little girl was not his. Or had he stolen her to keep for himself? The notion twisted his stomach. He searched his mind for a better idea.
His memory was full of nothing, but his instincts were still functioning. He could piece in together what he might have done based on how he felt.
"I'm selfish." He resolved, putting the bottle down and moving back to her side. "I stole you to keep for myself." He sighed unhappily. 'That was a wrong thing for me to do.' He didn't feel good about it. He picked up the duckling and held her close. 'She called me "dad"." In her slumber she sighed softly, snuggling against him.
"Mine." The longer he held her in his arms, the more selfish he felt about her. "My little girl ..." The vampire moved across the tower to the little room in the interior. A bed and a Lupisei plant greeted him. Lupisei was sizeable, it's large black leaves stuck out in all directions but its attention was all on him.
'You are not well.'
'Hello to you too, Lupisei.' The vampire tucked the girl into the bed beside the companion plant. 'I'm fine.'
'Stay here, my friend. Let me help you.'
'I can't; I need sleep. Look after her for me, Lupisei.'
He stroked the child's hair from her face. A song popped into his mind out of nowhere. "Rest your head, little girl blue. Come paint your dreams on your pillow ..." His voice choked on the rest of the words, feeling like a guitar string had struck him with their incongruence. He backed away from her and closed the door behind him. He turned back into a bat and flew back to his roost.
When he next woke the vampire listened for her heartbeats only to discover that his confiscated child had vanished as mysteriously as she had appeared. Clearly she was very strong willed to have woken herself up. It made him feel good, knowing that his little girl was so strong. But really, he couldn't keep her. It wasn't right. He stretched his wings and flew out of the window and into the dying sunset. He had to do the right thing. He was obliged to return her to her parents.
It took him till an hour after it was properly dark to find the little girl's path again. Now that he had it, he changed out of bat shape and in shadow form, he followed along the pathway.
The school.
The park
The house
The cinema
The arcade
The cemetery.
The vampire turned in to South Hill cemetery and glided along the white gravel pathway. Finally the child's trail stopped at a set of plaques.
Steve and Hillary Waddlemire
Lost but not forgotten
There were flowers in front of the nearly identical plaques.
Professor Henry Waddlemire
Loving grandfather to Gosalyn
"Gosalyn." The vampire stood there silently looking at the Waddlemire graves in the shades of the evening. Tears clouded his eyes. "I've walked in on my own horror story ..." He sobbed. "What a horrible, selfish person ..."
He wiped his tears away. "... I was a horrible person. I used to be that person." He consoled himself. "But he's gone now. I can be a better person than that. I will do the right thing from now on because that's who I am now." He nodded solemnly at the grave stones. "I will not cause a thing like this again." He clenched his fists. "For Gosalyn's sake. I will not be the thing she fears."