Book One, Chapters 1 to 10

The Vampire's Daughter
Book One
Chapters 1 to 10

Copyright, 2003, 2004, 2005, Reuben Gregg Brewer, all rights reserved.

0001
His deep blue eyes shone widely as he looked at the little girl beside him.

"What's wrong with my mommy?" she asked him again.

His eyes darted down to the body over which he was kneeling. It was this child's mother and he had just killed her.

"I think she is dead," he said coldly, but it was obvious the little girl didn't understand. She got down on her hands and knees and tried to rouse her mother out of her deep sleep.

"No, child," the stranger said, "you cannot wake her. She is dead."

The little girl looked at him, sat down, and started to cry.


0002
For a long time the two of them sat silently over the body, neither knowing what to do or say. The little girl was too young; the man, meanwhile, had never been in this situation before.

He thought to himself, "What am I to do now? I must get rid of the body, but what about the girl?"

Luckily, despite the fact that he had just killed the girl’s mother, the thought of killing the little girl never crossed his mind.

"I cannot leave the girl here," his mind continued. "I must find someplace for her. There must be someone that will take her.

"That is what I will do. I will look up a child protection group. I am sure they have such things nowadays, they existed when I was a child—why not now? I will drop her off tonight after I deal with the body."

Although he had decided on the appropriate action, he continued looking at the body as if the little girl didn't exist. The little girl also remained in her own world as if the man didn’t exist.

Perhaps each hoped the other would go away. That things would go back to the way they were just minutes before. In reality, however, though neither knew it at the time, both of their lives were irreparably changed that night.


0003
"She isn't going to wake up is she?" asked the little girl, breaking the silence. She was beginning to sob.

"No, she is not."

As the child cried, the stranger began to feel an ache of sadness he hadn't felt in many years. He didn't like this pain; it reminded him of before. It reminded him of his humanity. Something he had spent years attempting to deny because of the inhumanity of his current existence.

A single red tear ran down his face, clinging to his chin momentarily before it let go and fell to the ground forming a perfect crimson circle on the pavement.

"Come, child, I must get you away from this place."

"I want to stay with my mommy."

"You cannot. You must come with me."

He rose, taking the little girl’s hand. Reluctantly, and with tears continuing to flow, she followed the stranger as he walked out of the alley.

The interesting thing, and one he would only realize later, was that he had forgotten about the body. He cared more about protecting this woman's child than about protecting himself. For by leaving the body, he exposed himself and many like him to the potential for great harm. But at that moment, these thoughts weren't in his mind.


0004
The stranger took the little girl to a brownstone in mid-town, just off of Third Ave. This required a short ride on the 6 train to get uptown. It was late, so there weren't many people on the train to see this odd couple.

A middle age man dressed in an old, but dapper fashion and a little girl of no more than four or five years old. Although this wouldn’t have attracted much attention, his pale color contrasted greatly with her pink hue, which was pinker then usual since she had been crying. He was dressed almost entirely in black, she in bright, primary colors. He was prim and proper while the heels of her shoes had little lights in them that blinked as she walked—this, by the way, was a constant irritation to him since his existence depended on secrecy and being able to move about unnoticed.

"What's your name?" the little girl asked.

"My name?" the stranger asked in return, a little surprised. He thought about the child's question for a moment, since he never even thought to ask her name, and finally responded, "I am called Sabastian.

"What, my dear, is your name?"

"Sabastian, that's a funny name."

"Well, I took a rather long time to decide on that name. I quite like it," Sabastian sputtered, taken aback by the girl's comment. He felt her statement had been rather impertinent.

"It's ok, but it's funny."

Reeling slightly from being told he had a funny name, Sabastian stated a bit curtly, "Well, since you think my name is so funny, enlighten me as to your name."

"I'm Susan."

"Well, hello Susan," he said, regaining his composure—after all he was only talking to a little girl. "It is a pleasure, no, an honor to make your acquaintance, even if you do not like my name."

Susan just giggled and wiped her eyes. She had stopped crying.

But it was the giggle that drew Sabastian in. It was the giggle that made him want to be with this little creature that he would otherwise wish to kill. It was the giggle that stirred in him the reality that he was going to leave this poor little girl in the arms of someone else before the night had ended. It was the giggle that reminded him that he had caused all of this to happen. It was his fault that Susan's mother lay dead in an ally in lower Manhattan.


0005
"No," he thought while sitting in the subway car, "I must find someone who can actually help this little girl, someone who can take care of this child. I cannot. Not as I am. Not as what I am. She must go, it is best for her." These thoughts strengthened his resolve, but deep within him he ached at the thought of leaving this little girl in the hands of strangers.

It was not so much that he loved her, that feeling would grow over time. He simply felt responsible for her because of what he had done to her mother.

This was an odd feeling for Sabastian. He lived alone and preferred it that way. Some of his kind formed little groups, covens is what they were called. He did not like covens. He had been in many in his early life. At that point he was weak and living in a group offered him some form of protection. None of the covens he was involved with, however, lasted very long. Some discord caused the members to fight with each other.

Now that he was more powerful, he didn’t need the protection of a group. In fact, he could destroy most of the covens that existed throughout the city if he so chose. They knew that and left him alone so long as he left them alone. And he did leave them alone, despite the ridiculous governance body they had created and the silly rules they attempted to enforce. The governance body, which consisted of the heads of the three strongest covens, called itself the Tribunal.

The Tribunal had initially attempted to involve Sabastian in its business, but he refused. He didn’t want to bother himself in another group that would eventually disband. He had seen similar governance attempts in the past and all had failed within a short period of time.

The Tribunal, though, seemed to be different. It had persisted despite conflict and change within its members. Perhaps it was the time in which they lived that allowed the Tribunal to survive, Sabastian didn’t really care.

For the most part, the rules were common sense. None of them interfered with his lifestyle so he simply didn’t care about them. He had, however, broken one rule that night: Never let anyone find your victims. Although Sabastian wasn’t thinking about the rule at that moment, or the body that the police had just found in an ally in lower Manhattan, the Tribunal was well aware that someone had broken their rules.

********************************************************************
You can buy all of the books in
The Vampire's Daughter series
at the V'sD bookstore.
********************************************************************

0006
In the brownstone, though really a white building, Sabastian took Susan into a parlor filled with books. It wasn’t a library, but every wall had a bookcase. The couch, chairs, and tables were covered with reading material. Books, magazines, newspapers filled the room. There was only one empty space, a rocking chair with a lamp next to it.

“Stay here,” Sabastian told Susan, as he cleared a portion of the couch.

"Yes."

"You can read this," he said as he handed her that day’s edition of The New York Times.

"I can’t read this," she said, though she took it anyway. “Do you have any crayons?”

“Any what?”

“Crayons?”

“No. Will a pencil do?”

“Sure,” she answered with a smile and wiggle.

Sabastian walked over to his desk and got a pencil. On handing it to her, he said, “I have to go find something, stay here.”

“I want you to draw with me,” she said, looking up at him with a smile.

“I need to...” he trailed off. “Fine, I will stay for a moment.”

Shifting to the floor in front of the couch, Susan spread out the paper and began to draw on it. At first Sabastian was tempted to say something like, “You cannot draw on that, it is The New York Times” or “That is for reading, not drawing,” but he didn’t. He simply stood and watched as this small child drew crude pictures on the newspaper.

After a few moments, she looked up and patted the ground next to her. Without thinking, he sat down next to Susan on the floor in front of the couch. She slid across the floor so that the entire side of her body was touching his.

At first Sabastian attempted to move away, assuming that, as a child, she wasn't aware that she had encroached on his space, but as he shifted his position so did Susan. "I suppose she wishes to sit this close," he thought. "How odd."


0007
Although most children would have gotten bored very quickly with drawing, especially if they had only a pencil, Susan did not. She was used to entertaining herself and she was used to having very little with which to be entertained.

Susan was so self sufficient because her mother was not particularly attentive. In fact, it often seemed as though Susan’s mother didn’t even care that Susan existed. Perhaps this was because her mother was a drug addict or the fact that she didn’t even know who Susan’s father was. Maybe her mother grew up in a bad situation and simply didn’t know how to be a good parent. Whatever the reason, Susan was very good at being left to her own devices.

As she was drawing she talked. She often did this to keep herself company. She felt very lonely when there was no noise, and talking comforted her. Sabastian simply sat and listened.

She was talking about what she was drawing and then spoke to the drawings, interacting with them as if they were friends. She would draw two or three things on a page and have them talk to each other.

Her stories were not fanciful daydreams about castles and princes or oversized animals and their owners, they were a sad recounting of things she had been told by her mother.

She said things like, "I told you to shut up," and "I don’t love you, I don’t even want you." The worst things she said involved her mother negotiating with someone for drugs. This scene involved bartering Susan, and visibly shook Sabastian.

The images she drew were also painful to see. They recounted events in Susan’s life that were nearly unspeakable, but mostly centered around abuse and an absent and unloving mother.

Eventually Sabastian had heard enough. There was nothing he could do to help this little girl, she needed to be with someone else.

"Susan," he said quietly, "I have to go look for something. I will be right back."

"Sure," she answered looking up with a smile.

Having been privy to her inner thoughts, it was little wonder to Sabastian that Susan hadn’t been more upset at her mother’s demise. He now felt that, perhaps, he had actually done this little girl a favor.


0008
Sabastian walked up to the second floor. Although most people would have had bedrooms on this floor of the brownstone, it was mostly storage. Sabastian slept in the basement of the building and lived on the first floor. The third floor was, essentially, empty.

"I need one of those yellow books with the addresses in them," he said out loud as he took the last step.

He was, of course, speaking of the phone book. Although he had never had a phone, the books had been thrown at his door regardless. Something of a packrat, for years he had simply put them in a room and forgotten about them until he realized they had a value.

He actually consulted the books from time to time when he was particularly interested in a person. It impressed him that he could simply look up a name and find where the person lived. "What wonders this time has," he would say every time he looked in the book.

It made sense to keep them near the maps because once Sabastian found a person’s address, he could shift gears and actually find their location on a map. He thought that it would be more useful to look up an address and then find the person that lived at the address, but that was more an aspect of his needs. And, since he didn’t have a phone, he didn’t realize you could ask the operator for this information or, for the more technically savvy, use the Internet for the reverse look up.

Tracking people was something of a pastime for Sabastian. He was old, and no longer needed to feed every day. In fact, he could go weeks without feeding. It was now more sport than necessity. There were times, such as tonight, when he simply found a victim, but with others he would build up to the kill. He would spend months, even years, tracking a victim and plotting a way to make them "disappear" so that no one would question their death. This room was often the start of the process.

You could see the maps and lists for each victim bundled in neat little packages. He kept every one of them. While some of his kind only relished the kill, Sabastian relished the hunt. In fact, there were times when he hunted, but did not kill. Although he didn’t dwell on these endeavors or on the reasons why he chose not to take his victim, it was his humanity that stopped him.

It was that same humanity that stopped him from killing Susan. It caused him to want to find someone to take care of her instead of leaving her alone on the street. After thinking the idea through, however, he realized that most, if not all, realistic options would be closed at two o’clock in the morning. He had to make a choice, keep Susan for the day or bring her to the police.


0009
Sabastian knew that keeping Susan for the day meant he would have a person wandering unchecked about his home. Although she was young, it could be very dangerous for him—and her. If he turned her in to the police, he would likely be asked questions for which he wouldn’t have satisfactory answers. This would expose him to dangers from a different angle. And he would have to wrap things up quickly to be back before dawn.

It was during this internal debate that Sabastian remembered the body he had left in the alley.

“No, no, no,” he said, chastising himself for making such a stupid mistake. He had left it completely exposed in the middle of the alley. Sabastian decided that he should hurry back to the alley and hope that no one had found the body, though he doubted he would be so lucky.

“The child, what do I do with the child? I can leave her here, but then I must keep her for the day. I could still drop her at a police station, but I don’t have time to spend explaining things about her and myself to a police officer. I have no choice, she must remain with me.”

He ran down the stairs and into the living room. He found that Susan had moved herself to the couch and was sleeping. “Thank God for small blessings,” he thought as he grabbed a blanket and put it over her. She was sound asleep.

Moving quickly, he left the house and headed downtown. He ran, knowing that it would be quicker than taking a subway.

As he approached the alley, he saw police lights and knew it was too late. He walked slowly up to the small crowd that had gathered and watched what was happening.

Turning to a bystander, he asked, “What is going on?”


0010
The bystander told Sabastian that a woman had been killed in the alley and that rumor had it she had been drained of all of her blood. This, of course, was no surprise to Sabastian being that he had killed the woman. The man went on to explain that the police had been asking questions about the woman but that no one seemed to know her.

This was a comfort to Sabastian. He had sensed that she was a loner, though he didn’t realize she had a child, and killed her because he believed no one would notice if she went missing. That said, leaving the body for the police to find changed everything. But at least there wasn’t anyone to talk about Susan.

He watched as the police went about examining the murder scene. They were taking the obvious steps, blood samples, photos and the like. One detective, however, was focusing a great deal of attention on the woman’s neck.

"This is some job," he said to the photographer. "Ever see anything like it?"

"No," was the reply as the photographer snapped another photo. "There are no other wounds and practically no blood around the wound or the body. It’s like she was sucked dry from that one spot.

“Like a vampire or something," joked the photographer, as he looked up at the detective.

"Well, I don’t know if I believe that, but I’m sure that's what the papers will say tomorrow," responded the detective. "I can read it now, 'Vampire in Manhattan!' The captain’s going to love it."

"I’m just glad I’m not the one who has to report to him," said the photographer with a wry smile.

"Thanks, I’m glad to know you care about me. Hey, could you take a few of the crowd?"

"Why?"

"Being that I don’t believe in vampires, I’m guessing some real sick son of a B did this. I doubt he’s dumb enough to leave the body. He wanted us to find it. He wants us to believe he’s a vampire. I think he’s in there watching, getting his rocks off."

"I see what your saying, John. That’s why they made you detective and why I just take pictures."

"No, you take pictures because you’re scared of getting shot. Be subtle about the photos, I don’t want it to be too obvious."

"I am the model of smooth," the photographer responded, with a little hand gesture. Then, under his breath, he noted, "You’re right about the getting shot bit. It’s much safer behind the lens of a camera. I don’t have to deal with the sicko that did this."

Jump to chapters 11 to 20...

********************************************************************
Make sure to check out
the V'sD bookstore to read all of the books in
The Vampire's Daughter series.
********************************************************************