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Angeline In The Dark

Chronicles of a Vampire

J.L. Evol

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 I
The Lost Embrace

Angeline had been sitting for quite a while, sipping her Lady Grey tea slowly, with
occasional slurps, while she fumbled through the pages of the Lawrence Evening Tribune.  She
had read the front page article “Serial Murders Continue in Essex”. The report gave a vague
description of a witness and a possible suspect of the brutal killing. The witness was a male
vagrant (a picture had shown him to be drunken and venerable) who said that he had seen a tall
young man, possibly in his mid-twenties and wearing a solid black suit, quickly eluding the area
where he later found a woman’s body earlier that morning, just before dawn.  There had been
many of these killings during the past year, which had left each corpse characteristically
bloodless in the wake of its untimely death. There was something oddly familiar about this
story; the killings were inhuman. Moreover, they were all in violation of the vampiric law
against frenzying (a condition that entails a death sentence for the undead). Each victim was
found with their “throat torn away from their neck”. Their blood, that was once warm and red,
had coagulated to a cold black tar, encrusting the outer edges of their gaping wounds. This kind
of blood-letting was not of Angeline’s doing; she preferred to be discreet, as that is one very
important law abided by all vampires.

As Angeline rocked back and forth in the old gray wooden chair on the front porch of her
antiquated house, a particular recollection graced the dark shadows of her past.  She thought
through years of affairs that all occupied similar beginnings with tattered ends, tapered in pain
and regret. These countless years had produced countless faces and places; each one no more
significant than the last. Yet, there was the article, and the old man’s description that painted a
familiar portrait; a lucid image of a rogue vampire whom she had embraced not very long ago.
Oh, yes, Angeline knew of him very well; it had been almost a year ago when they had met; it
was last November in the commons…

He was tall and pallid, wearing gothic attire; however, a bit more urbane than these
recent years, which have insinuated a ‘Cyber-Goth’ vogue.  He wore a solid black suit that fit
loose in the jacket whose sleeves were rolled-up into the cuffs of the white button down shirt he
wore underneath, with the top buttons undone to reveal the pentagram that adorned his ivory
neck.   He had maintained an observable semblance; despite his translucence to the couple aside
of Angeline. He wanted to be mysterious, but  Angeline noticed him peering out of from the
shadows of the dormant Elms, like a raven, waiting for death.

It was sunless and very cold when they had become acquainted. Angeline was feeding
pigeons in the center of the commons, where there is a bench that resides underneath a dead
willow tree.   The winter flurries appeared quickly; it usually does not snow until the middle of
December, but it did for the first time that night, and the pigeons huddled together for warmth
within the dormant branches of an old Elm tree.  They would swoop down fleetly collecting as
many seeds as each one of them could handle in their hungry little beaks.  Angeline pretended to
ignore the young man, as she intended to be somewhat of a challenge for his company. He
sauntered over to her, quiet as a whisper as to not disturb the pigeons’ feeding.  He introduced
himself to her, and then asked if she would like to join him for a late-night cup of coffee and idle
conversation.  Angeline had thought about it only momentarily before she said, “Okay, but only
for a few hours, then I must return home-the night is getting older you know”.  That was fine
with him and they abandoned the commons and the pigeons, and walked to a quaint little cafe on
Buckhurst Hill…

The café was occupied only by a sleepless few; nonetheless Angeline and her newfound
companion had decided that the cold and dense night was much too beautiful to sit inside where
the light was bright and false. It was almost 3AM- rather late for Angeline, but she and sleep
don’t adhere to the darkened hours, since there is a certain luminescence only the night can
produce. So they sat at a small table outside and drank four cups of black coffee and discussed
the meaning of death, which he seemed to know a great deal about…

“Do you think death is final-in the way which we completely cease to exist”, Angeline
raised to him. 

“No. No, I don’t think death is final.  For example, I feel that there is change within
death...a cyclical event… a repeating process that never ceases.  We change constantly;
therefore I feel that we never truly die. We just keep growing into something else, like a
metamorphosis-but we still remain the same-if that makes any sense to you”, he keenly
proclaimed, trying to impress Angeline and arouse her intellect.

Angeline returned smoothly, “There are a great many people living in this world who don’t
believe in the after-life or reincarnation… She paused to sip her coffee carefully as to not let her
coffee touch her soft pink pout… “Be as kind as to indulge my intellect- What about them?  Is
everyone a part of this ‘cyclical’ event?” Angeline laughed outside of herself as to patronize the
shrewd man. She went further in posing, “How can I convince you that I exist?”

  “Of course you exist! I can see you, can’t I?” He quipped in disbelief that she asked
such a ridiculous question.  He chuckled a little and said, “What an eloquent and beautiful lady
you are… you must be a very old soul indeed! So, do you want to leave here and walk around
the cemetery- or are you afraid of a little death?” Angeline had begun to grow weary of this
communion and she wanted to end it before the sun appeared above the horizon. Her hunger
had grown stronger by the hour, and the hours had passed by quickly that night. But there was
something about him that was riveting. She was drawn to his coal-black eyes and his calm witty
persona, and was subsequently lost within the burning embers of her lustful thoughts, and
subdued by the tranquility of his distinguished company. They had left the cafe and walked down
Buckhurst Hill to the corner of Queens where there is a dark pavilion of moss-covered Willow
trees across the way that canopies a large section of the Lawrence Cemetery…
   The cemetery is enfeebled, but it has stood the test of time in its five-hundred-year-old
permanence of grey stone and decrepit earth.  It is the final resting place for over three hundred
pioneers, townsmen, soldiers, and some accused of heresy.  It is also a communal place for
aimless wanderers who drift amongst the witching hour: Those in need for sanctuary, and a
sacred place for those who immerse themselves in dark magik.

  … Fair-skinned and lissome Angeline and her genial escort walked around a small
grassy pond until they had arrived at an old iron fence that surrounds the entire cemetery (There
is a gap between the wrought iron gate and the adjoining stone wall that is wide enough to walk
through quite easily). Suddenly he heard a loud crack and a rustle within the trees that sounded
unnatural; it could not have been a bird, and there is not an animal that could have made the
sound that he heard. He was hesitant to follow Angeline any further, as he snatched away his
soft warm hand from her smooth frigid palm…

  “Look, I have something to show you, but we have to go through a little death first,”
implored Angeline.  He returned to her in playful contempt, “Does death really have to be
synonymous with our companionship?” 

    He
was seemingly dauntless, but then had proved to be more vacillated than he initially led
Angeline to believe. She had read his thoughts, and he was desperate for a way out of his
hardened life that would ultimately serve no eternal reward of immortality.  Angeline could also
sense a great pain that lingered deep inside him.  It was the type of pain that never seems to
subside- a pain that dulls the nerves in its mortal consistency. Yet, he was intrigued as to what
Angeline had to show him. He followed her passed the cemetery and up the hill and to an old
abandoned house that was nestled in the shadows of the branches of willows that covered its
ramshackle courtyard. The door to the old house was wide open. The house was a common
place for homeless wanderers who sought refuge from the cold streets and of the harshness of an
unyielding society.

“So, what now… show me this death you’ve been talking about…show me this so-called ‘pain’
and enlighten me”, he keenly entreated while he rubbed his hands together to generate heat.
Angeline looked unto him with her comely blue-grey eyes and took his warm hand into her soft
cold palm and led him through the darkness to a small room off from the corner of an antique
Dutch oven covered with cast-iron pots and rotted fire wood laden with years of soot and dust.
The room did not have a door covering its wooden frame and was dark and void.

“Damn your hand is as cold as death!” He proclaimed in a facetious manner. 

  She wasted no time in hinting to him what her intentions were…

“Life is death in the darkness of existence. I can take away your fear of pain and of death; of
me… you have lived a hard life… I can ease your suffering and show what ‘living’ is all about.”

“I never told you that I was afraid of death…I never said that I had any fear at all- especially of
you!”
“I know that you are fronting; I can see that you are uneasy in your skin. I can read your
thoughts- I’m kind of good at that sort of thing.”

“Okay, so what am I thinking about right now?” His eye squinted in doubt as he had attempted
to deceive Angeline by pretending to draw a blank, but he was really thinking about how she
could have known …like she could smell it leaking out of his pores, like the sweat that had begun
to bead on his forehead. He concentrated very hard on drawing a blank.

“You are trying really hard to draw a blank, aren’t you?” She sharply asserted.

“Jesus-shit- you really are a psychic!” He exclaimed, wiping the sweat from his forehead in
disbelief that his effort to be thoughtless was futile.

“A vampire- I’m a vampire.” Angeline sighed in the discomfort that he had not accepted or
caught on to the fact that she is indeed a creature of the night. She was not a human claiming to
have magical powers. She felt insulted by the patronizing, almost conceited nature of his mortal
being. Angeline was not sure that she wanted to turn him; the relationship they would have to
share (she would have to teach him all of the ways and laws of The Kindred) would be binding,
which was what Angeline had thought that she wanted. For a moment, she recalled the last time
she felt the warmth of the daylight and of human hands upon her face (the last time she had felt
love). She had no desire to remain alone in a world where life and death were constant amongst
her immortality. And her loneliness had provided its own consistencies beyond the mortal life
she had once lived, and let die still in her youth. Angeline yearned for companionship, although
she could no longer feel the romance that was often attached to it. Alas, emotions are
nonexistent in the vampire, but they are often reminisced. She wanted to taste his blood while it
was warm and alive, but she could not embrace him against his own free will…

“You have a heart condition, yes?” She acutely blurted.

“Um, how did you know that? So you ARE psychic- and a vampire. You know, like in the
game?”

“Yes, yes-I know that game. I played it once, actually-it was fun. I had played the game
Life too, but I didn’t like it as much. And I know your life has not been very kind to you:
hospitals, doctors and your current prognosis. Actually, Micah, I have been going to the
commons to feed the pigeons just to see you there. I first noticed you a couple of weeks ago.
You looked like a raven waiting for death”... She laughed, flipping a long ebony lock of hair
away from her face. …“You always perch yourself on that bench under the dead Willow tree
and watch everyone else smiling and holding hands with someone-just not you. You are afraid
that you will never find love and that your time to do so has run out. I know how unhappy this
makes you; I have noticed this and I want to ease your pain and suffering. I am offering you a
chance to live free of illness and in disregard to the natural law.” Most of all, Angeline wanted
his companionship-for her own selfish reasons.

He was shocked and impressed. “I have never told anyone about my feelings…but you
know me, like I’m a book to you or something. But you don’t know how it feels to be me, though.
I mean, I want to not feel any more pain. I’m so sick of being sick and tired- the “sickly Goth
guy- or like you said, “A raven waiting for death.” I’m so damn sick of being the guy people feel
sorry for. For once it would be nice to be powerful instead of weak.”

Angeline had noticed that the room was no longer as pitch as it was moments earlier,
and that there was an orange light that had begun to poke through the wood slats that covered
the window.

“I need your consent-quickly, because it is already coming to dawn. What is your

choice? Either way you will die tonight.” She assured him.

“What about my soul? I don’t want to be lost forever.” He was pathetic and tried not to let his
voice quiver in the tremble of his lips. His eyes welled up with tears, and a single drop fell from
one corner as he feared he would loose the only part of himself that connected him to being
human-his morality. Angeline assured him that there was “no need to fear what was considered
moral in the minds of human imperfection…

…Nonetheless, the soul is nothing but a conscious-a vessel of morals that do not exist passed
your own mind… and a heart that will no longer beat…ticking away all the minutes in time. I
could teach you many things, and show you the fruits of eternal life.”

Angeline moved closer to him and licked away his tears. Their salinity reminded her of
the human emotions she once possessed; those that she had left behind a long time ago. She
held him in her arms and looked at him, deep in his sullen eyes, and she could tell that he had
made his final decision…

“Life has not been very good to me…go ahead and take Me.” He looked unto Angeline’s soft
white face. Her eyes were fierce as she revealed her fangs, and he was not afraid. She held on
to him with her seething hands and said to him…

“This will be painful at first-but I promise that it will not last and you will never die.”

He screamed and writhed in pain as the embrace had begun to take a hold of his final
breath. Micah had died. His body lay limp and cold and heavy upon the dusty wood floor.
Angeline moved into the shadow that escaped to the corner of the room from the upcoming
sunrise that had become a sudden threat. She watched as Micah’s body twitched and shook
fervently as her blood proceeded to course through his pulsating veins. He was born.

The sun began to rise and time had grown dangerously short; Angeline had to retreat to
her haven before the light of the day or she would burn in its purity. Micah had risen to his feet.
A single ray of light had graced his face and he had quickly turned away from it, as it had no
longer provided solace to his new inhuman form. The sunrise had drawn more near.

“How do you feel?” Angeline inquired from the darkness of the shadow.

“I’m hungry.” His voice sounded weak, and he looked peaked.

“There is no time for that now- we must go quickly-follow me.”

“No. I’m hungry-I feel too weak.” Angeline had not thought to have a fresh supply of blood for
her would-be companion.

The sun had finally risen to the horizon. “We have to go now-hurry!” Angeline was in a
panic and could not wait for him. The only thing that mattered was her safety; she wanted to
care about his, but she feared that he would cost her the chance for sanctuary. “Come on!”
She demanded once more.

“Go! I will find you later.” He urged, hunched over in sickness, clinching the sides of his body
in agony.

“No-I’m responsible for you now!” Angeline exclaimed.

“Forget about me, Angeline-leave me.” His voice had changed from the gentle tenor of before
to a disheartened growl. “Go now-I’ll find you later!”

Angeline felt helpless and had no choice but to leave the new kindred to his uncertain
refuge. She left him quickly, and had returned to her sanctuary where she would rest and try to
forget about the mistake she had made. She had turned a man…embraced him and then let him
slip away, not knowing for sure if he would ever return. She wanted to forget. Yet, there was the
recent murders; a frenzied vampire who knew nothing about the laws of The Order. And the
chance that other kindred had seen her that night; it had been on her mind from time to time.
Angeline had made a mistake that she had to fix before the both of them would face a certain
death; a death more painful than that of mortality.