Vivienne

The cab driver gleefully took the cash from Vivienne and offered his services anytime she wanted, handing her a card in the process.  Once the vampiress took the man’s hand and shook it she quickly blew her cool breath on a well-defined vein for a split second, then pulled away.  Glazing over and swooning for a few seconds the gentleman started looking intently at the long, raven black haired lady stuttering, “I, yes, anytime you wish.  Day or night.  I will meet you here.”

Vivienne saw that the charm worked almost instantly and now would be open to any suggestion she made anytime he heard her voice. “We thank you.  Please drive safely.  I will certainly use your card here if I need to, Daniel.”  She winked and scooped the woman into her arms and started walking off.

The drive made it where the vampire had time to study the ID that was shoved in her stonelike hands.  It was a student card for the local community college with an address showing as well as the woman’s name.  “Casey Rivers.  You have managed to find yourself in quite a bad situation.”  Vivienne uttered into the night, crossing into a darkened corner of the sidewalk and heading straight for a black wooden gate that blocked most of the view into her home.

Holding on to Casey with one arm and casually unlatching the gate with the other, the two stepped through and onto the cobblestone walkway. Paved with blood red bricks, the unlit path wound up to the main door of the three-story home.  Blending with the night, the outside of the circular home was covered with ivy, surrounded by black walnut trees and bay oaks that leaned away from the ocean due to the wind pushing them to grow in a left lean. Moreover, the sweet scent of cut cedar that the house was built with, filled the air on the approach to the front door.  Vivienne’s home rose from the secrecy of the trees, exposing a shadowy silhouette by the moon's soft light.  The house was surrounded with stained glass windows appearing to be more for decoration than practical use, because the thick glass did not allow light to pass.  Left of the cobblestone path the driveway held a couple of parked vehicles, one being a red Lamborghini with a plate of HRTDOC, the other being a black BMW with its plate NGHTOWL.

Vivienne walked carefully, opened the door to her home and in the pitch black walked over the soft carpet and set Casey on her very formal sitting couch, before closing the door.  “Casey, we have to get you patched up, cleaned and sober.”  Vivienne muttered quietly to herself and continued to walk through the home she’d created for herself.  

Warm and inviting, The foyer consisted of a matching seating, with little pink and blue flowers on them,  twin torch lamps sat to either side, a light wooden table with a random assortment of knick-knacks that held no meaning, making the room appear off balance if studied closely.  On the wall, the hanging pictures were abstract and didn’t have any family or friend photos, just generic worldly scenes like the Pyramids of Egypt. Designed as a sitting room, Vivienne commonly used the room to greet, use her charms, then lure them deeper into the lair, thus springing her trap.

Silently making her way through her empty home, Vivienne reached the bathroom and flipped the light switch, spilling light into the unlit room.  Looking at the shelves close by, the vampire picked a soap with a light scent that would erase the smell that Casey currently had of cheap beer and sweat.  Dragging her new companion to the tub the night stalker wasted little time in undressing the woman and getting her into the basin, while filling it with warm water.  It was wide enough for two people and had a copper look on the inside for decoration.  At first glance the bathroom looked much like the foyer.  The toilet and sink matched the tub with its coppery appearance, the walls painted an eggshell white, the floor decorated in an expensive tile.  What broke the illusion started with the shower curtain made of fabric with imprints of moons and planets, childlike printed towels, and most importantly, no mirror.

“Well, look at that.  You went and hurt yourself a little more than you thought.  A dislocated knee, some simple scrapes and a sprained ankle.  Let’s just get that fixed up, shall we?”  The doctor smiled and said to Casey before walking down the hallway and into a small closet to gather her surgical kit.  When she returned, the vampire opened the contents and first measured out a healthy dose of anesthetic in the form of a topical numbing gel using it at the site where the surgeon would be working.  She considered giving Casey something for pain, but Vivienne could smell her new friend’s breath which was still heavily tainted with rum and beer.  Resuming her position over the damaged knee the elder vampire spoke,  “If you were lucid this would hurt like the devil.  Let’s get to work before the rum wears off.”  The surgeon then opened enough space around the knee to be able to manipulate it back into place with an audible pop.  Once the bone was back in its proper place, the surgeon cleaned and stitched up the site.  Testing the air and the wound with her keen sense of smell, Vivienne could tell there was no sign of infection.  She then wrapped the joint in a bandage and flexed it a bit to make sure that Casey’s knee would still function correctly in the long run.  Pulling the young woman from the tub, Vivienne dried her off and wrapped the ankle so it too would start healing.  The entire procedure normally would have taken forty-five minutes to an hour to complete, but this surgeon was inhuman and completed everything in under ten minutes.  

Moving her patient to an unused bedroom downstairs, the vampire dressed the drunk lady in a simple long tee to sleep in.  This room had the same odd features that the others had, such as the generic photos of far away lands instead of close friends or family.  Vivienne situated Casey on the giant bed covered in thick blankets and fluffy pillows before she quickly penned a note to her new guest in what looked to be almost perfect calligraphy.  

“Casey,

If by chance you arise before I do, then you can help yourself to any food or drink you would like from the kitchen.  I am happy to entertain you later in the evening as I am a natural night owl, and sleep during the day.  Please, do me the favor of not leaving before we have a chance to speak.  I sent your clothes to be clean and there is a full wardrobe in the room you are in, so help yourself to anything that fits.  You took a pretty hard hit to your knee, dislocating it.  I took the time to repair your knee so you might be a bit sore walking.  There is something for pain in the drawer below this note, as well as a set of crutches beside the bed.

I look forward to speaking to you more later.

-Viv”

Gliding over to a small lamp, the vampiress switched it on, illuminating the room in a soft yellow light, placing the letter and pills for her young guest to use once she came out of her drunken stupor.  Vivenne left the room only taking a quick glance back before closing the door behind her.

Walking upstairs to her poorly furnished and unused kitchen, Vivienne stood idly at the entryway knowing that her pantry and cabinets were empty and the refrigerator only held a few spare bags of blood. Things such as pots and pans were picked only for illusion so the night-stalker was not certain that they were even useful.  “This is the problem with trying to cater to a human.  They eat, drink and basically make a mess of things.”  Her lightly accented voice echoed through the unlit kitchen. “You are talking to yourself once again, Vivienne.”  She shook her head attempting to clear it of the thoughts that were disturbing her routine.  Routine had made it so that Vivienne knew down to the second what she would be doing from night to night.  Rise from her soil, respond to the large volume of texts, fly herself to the hospital and perform surgeries until the time for her to hunt, then go back into the soil.  The same routine.  Never changing. This current situation was out of her ordinary routine and that presented the black hole within her to rise up and make the vampire question her decisions and attack her sanity.

Fighting back the beast within her thoughts Vivienne opened her front door and thought about taking flight as a raven, but that lacked the means to carry food. Doing this chore required the slower human way, so she grabbed the keys to her sedan and headed for the closest grocery store.  Visiting one of the local twenty-four-hour markets, the vampire picked things that she knew were for certain times of the day, based on listening to others speak about breakfast, lunch and dinner and her own limited experience when she was alive over three and a half millennia ago.  During her shopping spree Vivienne noted that many things had not changed.  Simple things like eggs, bread, milk and even different meat for sources of energy were much the same.  Letting out a small chuckle the vampire noted the biggest difference was that people didn’t forage daily, everything necessary sat on a shelf and was always accessible.  Paying for her goods, the night-stalker left the store, and the vampire noticed that the dawn of a new day was fast approaching.  Time was not on her side so the doctor hurriedly placed the groceries in her cabinets and on shelves quickly trying to mirror how the items were on the store shelves.  Vivienne then took the time to drain the emergency blood that was in the refrigerator and took the containers with her down into her basement.

 Covering the smell of dank water and old mud Vivienne had designed the basement with extra cedar to camouflage the true purpose, her private abode.  Transforming into a cloud of gas and funneling herself through a knot in the wood and into a small hole, she wisped into a chamber that wasn’t on the blueprints for the home above it.  The lair was nothing more than a carved-out cave of pure soil and the root systems of the trees above.  It was deep enough that on occasion when the area would flood the water would seep up into the cave and leave the vampire nearly covered in water all night.  Vivienne didn’t care about the water level or even the disgusting aura that permeated from this space of death.  This was her place where she slept if she chose to, or worked out the issues with the black hole and insanity that constantly tugged at her.  The space did have one special part to it, a bronze container that was from another age, long gone.   

 Its contents held the soil from her gravesite back in France.  She didn’t truly need it, or require it like many human stories stated in fiction.  Just by looking at the metal pot, Vivienne knew that she was no longer human and forever destined to exist in the night. Feed and prey on humanity above her, with blood being her only real ally.  The world could be destroyed in a myriad of ways, and the contents of the jar wouldn’t change.  Whatever life she’d planned changed the moment of her demise. A life of marriage and babies, possibly growing old and seeing more children all died within her gravesite.  Her hazel eyes and brown hair had changed into ice blue irises to reflect the dead blood in her veins and her hair took the onyx color of the ground she laid in.  “Just a reminder, Vivienne, nothing more.” Placing the jar back in its tiny hole the old vampire laid down to rest for the coming night.