Christopher Pike - The Last Vampire 06 - Creatures of Forever.pdf

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The Last Vampire 06
Christopher Pike
1
I am a very powerful vampire. In the recent past several encounters have served to increase my
abili-ties. My creator, Yaksha, allowed me to drink his blood before he perished. Yaksha, who originally
made me a vampire five thousand years ago, was much stronger than I was. His final transfusion of blood
heightened my strength as well as my senses, both my physical senses and supernatural ones. After that
my blood was mingled, through the secret of ancient alchemy, with that of the divine child. I am not
exactly sure what this child's blood did for me because I am still not sure what this child can do. Yet it did
make me feel stronger, definitely more invinci-ble. Finally, before she died, my own daughter Kalika gave
me her blood in order to save me. And this last infusion has done amazing things for me. Really, I feel I
have become my daughter, the irreproachable Kali avatar, and am capable of anything. The feeling is
both reassuring and disturbing. With all this in-crease in power, I have to wonder if I have grown any
wiser.
I am still up to my old tricks.
Killing for kicks, and for love.
In a sense, since vampires are considered dead by living beings, I killed my friend, Seymour Dorsten, by
making him a vampire. But I only did this to prevent his certain death. I have to wonder if Lord Krishna
will forgive me this—the third exception to my vow to him. I question if I am still protected by his divine
grace. Actually, I wonder if Krishna has allowed me to become so powerful because he no longer
intends to look after me. It would be just like him, to bestow a boon and a curse in the same act. God
has a wicked sense of humor. I once met Krishna and still think about him.
At present I sit in a bar in Santa Monica with Seymour on the stool beside me. We are drinking Cokes
and chatting with a young lady, but Seymour is thinking of blood and sex. I know his thoughts because,
since drinking my daughter's blood, my mental radar has become incredibly sensitive. Before I could only
sense emotions, now I get all the particu-lars. And I know that while Seymour flirts with the young lady,
the guy at the end of the bar, with the swan tattoo on his left wrist and the shine on his black wing tips, is
thinking of murder.
I have been watching this guy since I sat down, quietly reading his mind. He has killed twice in the last
month and tonight he wants to make it number three. He prefers helpless young females, who silently
scream as he slowly strangles them. But even though I try to catch his eye—smiling,winking—Iam not
successful and that puzzles me. I mean, I am cute and helpless looking, with my long blond hair and clear
 
blue eyes, my tight blue jeans and my expensive black leather coat. But I intend to kill this guy, oh yes,
before the night is through. He will die as slowly as his victims, and I will not feel a twinge of guilt.
"So what do you do when you're not partying?" the girl asks Seymour. She is pretty in a lazy sort of
way, with short red hair that has been cut to mimic that of a popular magazine model, and nervous glossy
lips that need to be moving, either talking or drinking. She is currently drunk but I do not judge her. Her
name is Heidi and I know to Seymour she is the second cutest thing in the world. Since becoming a
vampire, he has conquered his virginity and then some. But I haven't slept with him, and I suppose that is
why I'm still a goddess in his eyes. Seymour leans close to Heidi and smiles sweetly.
"I'm a vampire," he says. "Every night is a party to me."
Heidi clasps her hands together and laughs heartily. "I love vampires," she says. "Is your sister one as
well?"
"No," I interrupt. "I have a day job."
"She works undercover for theL APD,"Seymour continues. "She's really good, too. Last week she
caught this thief in the act and blew off the back of his head."
Heidi frowns, her lower lips twitching. "Do you carry a gun?" she asks me.
I sip my Coke. "No. My hands are lethal weapons." I know Seymour intends to sleep with this girl, and
I don't mind. But I don't want him to use his eyes to manipulate her into bed. This is a warning I have
repeatedly given him, that his vampiric will cannot be used to dominate human will in order to gain sex.
To me, that is just another form of rape, and so far Seymour has obeyed my rule. Also, I have forbidden
him to drink from his conquests. He lacks the skill and control to stop feeding before he kills a person.
For that reason, when he has to drink blood, he does so with me beside him. But unlike Ray, Seymour is
not squeamish about blood. He loves being a vampire so much so that he should have been born one.
"Doyou know karate?" Heidi asks me.
"She is a walking Kung Fu machine," Seymour gushes.
I stand and cast Seymour a hard look. "I am going to go talk to this guy at the end of the bar. I'll meet up
with you later. OK?"
Seymour understands that I intend to kill this guy. He is not squeamish about blood, but death still
disturbs him. We have never actually killed any of his meals. He pales slightly and lifts his glass.
"Let me know what you're up to," he says.
"Good luck," Heidi exclaims as I step past.
"Thank you," I say.
The guy at the bar notices my approach and makes room for me. Sliding onto the chair beside him, I bat
my long lashes and smile innocently. I am sweet, the type I hope he enjoys.
"Hello," I say.
 
"Good evening," he replies. He is terribly good looking, and young, twenty-two at most, with a Rolex on
his wrist to cover his tattoo and a seductive smirk on his adorable face. His hair is longish, brown and
curly. "What's your name?" he asks.
"Alisa,"I say, not being too secretive because I know he won't live long enough to repeat it. "You?"
"Dan. What're you drinking?"
"Coke. I'm on a diet."
He snorts. "What kind of diet is that?"
I laugh softly. "An all-sugar diet. Do you come here often?"
He sips his scotch. "No. To tell you the truth, this place bugs me."
I'm already tired of making conversation. I just want to kill him and be done with it. Since inheritingK
alika's psychic abilities, I have gone out of my way to kill a few bad apples. Of course, I have no
intention of making it my life's work.
"Do you want to leave?" I ask.
He acts surprised. "Who are you?" he asks, with an edge to his voice.
I catch his eyes. I have a very strong stare. Just by looking at metal, I can make it turn to liquid. I pitch
my voice so there is no way he can refuse my invitation.
"Just a girl. You're looking for a girl, aren't you?"
He finishes his drink and stands. "Let's go," he barks.
Out on the street, he walks fast toward a car he never seems to find. I have to adopt a brisk pace to
keep up with him. People move past us in the dark, the nameless faces of a humanity I have known
forever. The summer air is warm.
"I have a car if you can't find yours," I finally offer.
He shrugs. "I just thought we'd take a walk first, get to know each other."
"Fine. What do you do for a living?"
"I'm a plumber. What do you do?"
"I'm an artist."
He is amused. "Oh, yeah? Do you paint?"
"I sculpt. Statues."
He gives a wolfish grin. "Nudes?"
 
"Sometimes." It's so nice to get to know each other.
Yet there's something wrong, more than the obvi-ous. He's not at ease with me, and his discomfort goes
beyond his thoughts of wanting to murder me. He fantasizes how my bright blue eyes will dim as my brain
dies beneath his grip. Yet I am more than just another victim to him.
He is afraid of me.
Someone has told him something about me.
But who that someone is, I don't know. My concen-tration is divided between Seymour and my
situation. Yet I don't know why I should worry about Seymour. Certainly Heidi is not going to harm him.
I scanned the girl's mind for a few seconds when I met her and there was nothing in there but thoughts of
drink and sex. No, I tell myself, Dan is all that matters. I wonder where he's leading me, who we'll meet
on the other end. He makes a sharp left into a dark alleyway. Naturally, to my eyes, everything in the
alley is perfectly clear.
"Where are we going?" I ask.
"My place," he says.
"Can you walk to your place from here?"
"Yeah." He pauses and studies me out of the corner of his eye. Although he's striving to act cool, his
breathing is rapid, his heart pounds. He definitely knows I am more than I seem, more dangerous than a
cop with a gun. But he doesn't know I'm a vampire. There are no images in his mind of my drinking his
blood. But the farther we walk, the more difficult his thoughts are to penetrate—another mystery. Yet I
know he is worried what will happen with me in connection with another, how our meeting will go. This
other, I sense, is also dangerous, in the same way he thinks I am.
The other is close. Waiting.
Are we going to meet another vampire?
There should be no other vampires, other than Seymour and myself.
I smile. "Do you live alone?"
"Yeah," he says, and his hands brush against his coat pocket. I realize he has a weapon there, and
wonder why I didn't spot it before. The gun must be unusually small, I think. But when I sniff with my
nose, I detect not even a trace of lead or gunpowder in the air, and I can smell a bullet from a quarter of
a mile away. My questions pile one on topof the other, but I am far from ready to walk away from the
encounter. There is a puzzle here—Imust solve it.
"I live with my brother," I say.
"The guy back at the bar?"
"Yeah."
"He doesn't look like your brother." There is a bite to his remark. For some reason, Seymour is still very
 
much on this guy's mind. Why?
"We had different fathers," I say, and my own hand brushes against the knife I wear in my belt beneath
my black leather coat. Nowadays, I can kill a man at better than a mile with my trusty blade. Even good
old Eddie Fender, a psychopath if ever there was one, would be useless against my new and improved
reflexes.
Dan snorts. "I never knew my father."
That is one truth in a string of lies.
There is a warehouse at the end of the block, a shabby affair built to house dirty equipment and sweaty
workers. Using a key, he opens the door and we go inside. The warehouse is chock full of shelves of
metal gear, the nuts and bolts of larger pieces of machinery. There is a pronounced smell of diesel fuel.
The yellow lights, coated in grime, are few and far away. The shadows seem to shift as Dan turns toward
me. If he reaches for his weapon, I will put a foot in his heart. Already, I think, I should kill him. Yet I
want to know why he has brought me to this place, who the other is. Even though I reach out with my
mind, I sense no one else in the building. He studies me in the poor light.
"Are you really an artist?" he asks. His curiosity is genuine, as is his continuing fear. He wants the other
to arrive soon, so he can return to the streets.
"No," I say, "I lied."
My remark unsettles him. He thinks about his weapon—the small something in his coat pocket. He shifts
uneasily.
"What are you then?" he asks.
"A vampire," I say.
He smiles, a lopsided affair. "No shit."
"Yeah. It's true." Still staring at him, I begin to move around him. He feels my eyes—Ilet the fire enter
them, sparks of pressure. Sweat appears on his forehead and I continue. "I am a five-thousand-year-old
vampire. And you are a murderer."
His upper lip twists. "What are you talking about?"
"You, Dan, your private occupation. Because I'm a vampire, I can read your mind. I know about the
two girls you killed, how you strangled them and then ate a big red steak afterward. Killing makes you
hungry—that's one of the reasons you do it. That's opposite of me. I kill to satisfy my hunger." I reach out
and finger the sleeve of his shirt. "I'm thinking of killing you."
He brushes my hand away. Yet he doesn't go for his gun. Someone has warned him that could be fatal.
"You're insane," he says angrily.
I laugh softly. "You don't mean that, Dan. Someone told you I was different so you're not completely
surprised by what I say. I want to know about that someone. If you tell me now, tell me everything you
know, I might let you live." Once more I reach out. This time I touch his left ear, but before he can swat
my hand away, I pinch it. Rather hard, I think. He is in pain. "Talk," I say softly.
 

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