Excerpt: Blood on the Gas Lamps

As I started walking I heard hoof beats behind me, though they soon joined me at my side. I glanced down at the charcoal hooves of the jetty steed, wondering if the rider had chosen it specifically for the color, though it was impossible to escape the dread that I would soon be gutted, slashed apart, trampled or bled to death. We walked in silence for a while. When I glanced up I saw the rider looking down at me again. “We are kin, aren’t we?”

His question surprised me. I thought I should say no, knowing that a creature like him was responsible for my miserable lot in life I did not want to associate with him. Yet his heavy voice sounded forlorn with his kind tone, asking an unheard of question that I somehow knew as well as if I had heard it a thousand times before, for it was the one phrase I always wanted to hear. Quietly, looking down, I said, “I suppose so. But if you know I’m not… human… then why did you try to run me over?”

“Simple mistake. I only saw you walking down the road from a distance and assumed you were a bleeder. It wasn’t until after I ran you off the road I realized what I really saw. Are you a fledgling?”

Puzzled and deciding not to risk giving myself away, I promptly changed the subject. “What made you think I was,” I flinched a little, “a bleeder?”

“Now, now, when have you ever seen a vampire walking down a dirt road like you are? I suppose you must have lost your sire a long time ago. I assumed as much.”

“I do alright.” He seemed to accept that, though I could only guess what he was talking about. The silence resumed for a while, but it was a more comfortable silence now. The rider seemed content to trot beside me, at least for the time being, and though he never said as much in words his posture assured me that he did not find me appetizing. Smiling with a sense of wonder I thought, He does not want to eat me, and I do not want to eat him. I had never met someone who I could walk with side by side without suppressing my secrete desire for blood, yet there we were and still it seemed impossible.