(OOC: So…after four years I return. Though I hardly believe I am remembered and if I am I hope I am remembered fondly, that how ever I sincerely doubt. But I rant, I’m looking for some one to join me in this little story which begins on a cold winters night and as I do not have the guts to invite people who may or may not remember me I simply ask that those who are interested in joining send me a brief PM and showcase writers talent for clearance to join.)


Cruel Is The Night ~ Chapter 1

The moon rose full and fat, and like a silver coin it glistened against the black velvet sky and one by one the stars began to sparkle. The night sky and all its beauty shined its pale light upon the world and all the shadows in the corners grew deeper, longer, more haunting and more dangerous. Far down bellow, in a city cowered with a thick blanket of pristine white snow the man made lights that chase away the shadows came to life one by one. It was the neon signs, the street lights, the apartment windows and the large billboards that covered the skyscraper facades that flashed and blinked and showered the people with their cold sterile touch and blocked out the beauty and the horror of the night.

The air was cold, and each breath chased a cloud from your lips, each touch of the wind like the colder fingers of a dying lover, the sort of cold that freezes you to the core and chills your very soul. It leaves you trembling for hours after you get home, leave your lips blue and your fingers oh so painfully numb. It is the sort of weather in to which any decent human being would never dare to walk, only the desperate walk the night in this sort of weather. Only those who need to escape from something or someone, or those who have no where to go will skulk through the streets and alleys when deaths breathe hunts in the shadows and tugs and tears at your cloths as soon as you open your door. This is no weather for decent folk; this isn’t weather for any one. Now look, like big, cold wads that caress your skin with the most gentle of touches and bring smiles to all the children, looking at them through the windows they begin to fall…snowflakes.

In the cracks of this giant city, this dirty, humanly lit, cold city, there is the sort of beings from whom you shy away, you shudder under their dead eyes and your heart whimpers with freight when they reach out with long, trembling, bony fingers, mouths wide open begging you for food, for money, for a release from their wretched existents for but a single moment. The homeless flock in the alleys and abandoned tunnels, they huddle together in cardboard villages with news paper blankets and stay where they are supposed to, where they know that they are safe. Some alleys how ever, are always empty, always dark and always eerily silent. The homeless won’t go there, because they know that they are dangerous, and those wise in the ways of the street stay clear of that which frighten the homeless.

One of these alleys that cut its way like a wound between two towering spires of the urban landscape is not much for the eye to look upon. With the bare eye you can see from one end to the other, but just barley, the only source of light is a little emergency exit sign hanging out from one of the buildings and it does a poor job off illuminating the narrow street. In the dim green light one could see two large dumpsters, swelling with trash and bloated black bags of garbage, one would see the fire escape ladders that dip down from the darkness that looms above the alley, or the figure that sits huddled under the light.

The figure, oh what a pathetic, wretched being he is. His starved body is draped in raged, his pale skin cowered by dirt caked hand outs, the over sized white shirt hangs lose from his thin and twisted arms, the pants, more patch work now then what is left of the original pants are held together at the waist by a string of rope. A sailors blue over coat with the bronze buttons and decorations pawned ages ago is tightly wrapped around his form and trembling, bone like fingers struggle to keep it shut so that the wind won’t get in. Around his face is wrapped a ratty old scarf that once might have been bright in all the colours of the rainbow, but now it’s all washed out and grey and dull. To crown this beggar king, a crow that suits his stature, a simple hat pulled down over his scalp and ears.

This ragged beggar, scorned by life, starved by those who wish him ill, tortured and tormented, sits there with his broken legs, his crushed hands and shattered jaw and stars at the sky with slowly fading light in his deep, velvet blue eyes. His thin, parched, frozen lips part and the word is but an exhaled whisper, a death rattle more then spoken wish as he makes his final plea.

“Help…me…”

The weather was getting worse. The stars, that had been shining as bright as the diamonds from that old nursery rhyme, were now only peeking out in patches. The high, pale lavender clouds that brought the snow were eating up the stars' glory. The moon was only making the occasional half-hearted attempt to even show her face. The snow was everywhere as it struggled to cover all of the sins that this city was always trying to hide. Yet, it showed the every footstep of anyone unlucky enough to be caught outside. Shoppers from various stores that lined various blocks spilled out into the snow as shops closed down for the night. Employees eager to get somewhere warmer and leave the daily grind behind, hustled away as quickly as they could. The cars that ran everywhere in this crowded, noisy place had already turned the snow on the streets into mucky, greyish slush that splattered every surface that it came into contact with. The streetlights showed dull, lifeless versions of the people racing about, the passing cars and of what no one wanted to see or acknowledge; this place was mostly likely some version of Hell on Earth.

Staring up at the sky, she knew that she shouldn't be here. She should have been home where they thought she was, rather than struggling to regain her bearings in all of this freezing snow. The buses had only gotten her so far and now she had been walking for what seemed like hours, looking for landmarks that would get her back on her path. She knew that she should never have decided to go to the party on the other side of the city, even if she thought she would be home before anyone else. Looking at her cell phone, she groaned and pulled her coat a bit tighter. Her parents and her little brother would be back from that stupid movie at almost any time, even if they had stopped for food after they saw it. And then she would be dead. No, scratch that, she thought, it'll be worse than that...she'd be grounded. She picked up her speed a bit and looked down the alley. The heavy black coat, hat and gloves she wore barely kept her from crying in the cold as she turned in.

It is a long, cold, quiet slashing path. There didn't seem to be any traffic and none of the beggars that haunted some of the other places in this rotten city. They didn't bother her as much as they did her parents. It was more of a feeling of guilt because she couldn't help herself right now, let alone anyone else. She hated not being able to help at least a little bit. All of these thoughts that she had swirling around in her mind helped to block out the stark, barren landscape around her. The eerie silence of this dark place was almost peaceful in comparison to the rest of the city that she had so recently come to. There was nothing remotely like this in the little country town she had grown up in. She slowed her pace a bit, but kept walking as she clutched her cell phone in one gloved hand. The numbers 9-1-1 were displayed on the screen, waiting for her to push one button that would hopefully bring help.

As she neared the only bit of light in this alley, she noticed a being crumpled underneath. He looks like one of the hundreds of other homeless that wander this place, but he is here...alone. She sneaks a bit closer and hears a plea escape from between his frozen lips.

“Help…me…”

"Oh...oh,my god...", she whispers as she presses the button on her phone. It seems she waits an eternity for something to happen as she looks into endless blue eyes.

His hands tighten in their iron grip of the coats hems, broken fingers creak as bone grinds bone to powder insides his hands and muscles snap as they; frozen and stressed give way for wear and tear and break. The pain shoots up his arms and fills his already shattered mind with white hot flashes of pain that for but a moment dulls the rest of his aching body. A cruel hand had worked this man; a single glance was enough to tell, not only where his hands mangled chunks of useless meat, his entire body was a wreck and he felt every bit of it lurking underneath every new sensation of suffering. Shattered knees to keep him from escaping this crypt that they had chosen for him, his hands and elbows ruined so that he could not fight back, his jaw snapped of its hinges so that he could not call for help, oh what glorious torture he must have lived through.

Death began to coil its iron grip fingers tighter and tighter around him, he could feel her cruel touch embrace him, how she swallow up his entire being and soon he would be no more. He had always thought that he’d be ready when his time came, that he would leave this world with grace and dignity. Now that his life (a cruel joke to call it such) flashed before his eyes he saw nothing but misery and pain, of strings pulled and puppets playing out their games against one another. He felt so cheated and so tired, he did not wish for it to end like this, dying on an empty street like a no good bum. Oh how the mighty had fallen, one day you are the prince and the next you are not even fit to be the dirt under his boot.

Blind to see his salvation approach, deaf for her heavy steps and ragged breath, he was blissfully unaware that his plea was heard and would perhaps be answered. As the shadow crept over him he felt instinct and fear grip his heart, and shame, oh the shame that washed over him when he, the beast that he was, wanted to curl in to a ball and shy away from the approaching figure that could be his way back to life, or his bane. But he couldn’t, he was too weak. Instead, he just stared at the sky until it vanished behind a face, and a pair of eyes…he would remember those eyes.

The face she stared in to was far from its former glory, thin deeply sunken cheeks that clung to high cheek bones and twisted his young looks in to a mask of wrinkled age, his thin nose and cheek where bruised and broken, ruining what beauty he might have had. The haystack of bushy black hair clung to his face, caked with frozen blood, water and snow. His dry, cracked frozen lips where parted only slightly and hung askew, further distorting his already malformed face. But his eyes, oh they had not been ruined. Deep wells of dark velvet blue, like a clear night sky when the moon is full and all the stars are out. They where filled with a desire and thirst that where out of this world and they became haunted and wild when their gazes met, as if the had finally found the spring in which to quench his thirst

Again he whispered with a broken voice, hoarse and cracked from fatigue and pain. But his voice was so faint, his words where only heard as a ghostly whisper under the wind and even so close it was impossible to hear his please…she’d need to get closer.

"9-1-1, what is the nature of your emergency?" a bored, tinny voice came over her cell phone. She almost didn't hear it because she was lost in the depths of those alluring eyes. When she noticed that he was trying to say something, she also became aware of the voice on the phone.

"Uh, yeah...uhm, I need help. There is someone here that has been hurt...I don't know....I just know that he is in bad shape..." she began as she noticed him gripping his rags tighter around him. She mechanically gave answers to the question that the emergency operator was asking. She worked to unbutton her coat so that she could cover him until help arrived. Her heavy coat is still warm from the heat of her body as she kneels down in the snow to tuck it around this fallen stranger. A few of her chocolaty brown curls slipped forward from behind her shoulder. She notices that his hands are in bad shape and that her gloves would never fit on them. Yet she pulls off the velvety gloves and gently wraps his broken hands in her own warm, delicate ones.

"Don't worry. Help is on the way. I will stay right here with you until they get here." she explains carefully as she lays her cell phone on the ground beside her.

She is shivering from the wind's icy knives that are threatening to slice her apart, but the fact that this man might not survive without her help keeps her from taking back her coat. She has decided that she must do what she can to help him. So she looks very closely at him with her turquoise-green eyes and starts talking to him once more, knowing that it might not be what she says. but that she keeps talking to him.

"Please stay with me. I'm doing everything I know how, which I know isn't a lot, but I am hoping that it will help until someone gets here to help you better than I can. I know that you're not well and I don't know what happened to you, but I will stay..." she took a breath and paused in her panicked ramblings. "Oh, yeah...my name is Ella. Actually its a lot longer than that, but that's what everyone calls me. Can you try to tell me yours so that I don't feel so silly just rambling at you..." she says in barely a whisper.

As she leans down to hear his response, she momentarily lets go of his hands so that she can brace her hands on the ground and not topple onto him. She waits for his response...

His eyes stare with a mixed look of confusion and longing, like a child who can not comprehend the fact that he really did get that bike for Christmas, that red one he had always wanted so badly. Right now she was his red bike, that one thing that he could not believe or phantom, something so unreal that you might as well call it a miracle.

The coat that wrapped around him felt like an iron maiden, the sensation of it wrapping around him causes his senses to scream and assault his mind, but he was to far gone, totally numb and beyond reaction. He couldn’t even appreciate the warmth that she sacrificed for him not in the sense that he should, but he would remember the gesture and treasure it. He winched noticeably and gasped as the gloves wrapped themselves around his broken hands and for a moment his eyes rolled in his head, the world began to darken and for a split second he was certain that he had died.

Ella

He heard a name, her name? She was so close now that she was all that he could see and she invaded all his senses, her voice, the warmth and life that radiated from her, those large green eyes and the scent, it filled his nose and lungs and made his head swim in a haze of hunger. The closer she leaned the stronger the scent, the louder the sound, the more inviting she became. Inside himself he could feel the beast roar and rattle in its cage and he felt how instinct washed over him and drowned out all the pain and all rational thought.

His lips where close to her ear and as he spoke his breath dances against her skin, a breath colder then the wind that howled through the alley. His voice was cracked and broken and even this close it was near impossible to define what it was that he said.

“…Jonathan…” He mumbled his name and gave in for temptation. Slowly his broken arms began to rise, they wound and snaked their way around the form before him with a strength that should be impossible for some one so broken and cold. No living man could move in such a condition, but then again he was not driven by a living mans motivation. What moves his broken arms was the same thirst, the same will and desire that could make dead man rise from their graves and live again, a thirst that made monster out of what once had been men.

With his arms wrapped like a noose over her shoulders he pulled her down and cried in pain as he forces his shattered, unhinged jaw to open up as wide as they could and then he locked his pale, thin lips against her neck and closed his eyes. Like warm rivers he could feel the blood pulsate through her veins, he could taste it, that sweet nectar of life through her skin and he felt each beat of her heart against his lips.

Ivory needles graced her skin and he let out a deep, primal growl as he let them slowly pierce her skin and muscles, tear through flesh and veins to get to her blood. Her wish to help him, her desire to do a good deed and to save some one from death, he found it slightly amusing that she would get to fulfil her wish, but perhaps at a much steeper price then she had first thought.

"Jonathon..." she repeats softly and slowly. "Jonathon, please try not to move...I'll stay close until help arrives." she explains as his arms close around her. She shivers again in the cold as the wind caresses the two of them.

As he begins to pull her closer she has no idea of the danger that she is in. Her overwhelming need to help this person, this one lost soul, might well cost her everything. She mistakes his closeness for a desperate need for more warmth and attempts to get a bit nearer to comfort him. His sudden cry as he nuzzles into her neck startles her and she begins to draw away for a second. As he pulls her in again, she is worried about what is really happening here. His fangs pierce her neck as she struggles against him.

"Jonathon. Jonathon...no...no...NO!!!" she cries as she pushes against his broken body with all her might. She cannot break his hold on her, no matter how hard she tries. "What are you doing?" she asks, confused as she feel something warm sliding down her neck. She places her hands upon his chest and shoves with all of her diminishing strength. "I was only try...trying to help...you...to help...please...don't..." she pleads as her world starts to dim around the edges.

The coldness that has been swirling around her, like the snowflakes in the rest of the city, is threatening to engulf her. She can hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears, starting to slow. She barely notices the noises that Jonathon is making at her throat. Her thoughts go back to the fact that maybe being grounded for sneaking out wouldn't have been so bad. Inky black splotches are starting to cover her vision, enough that she is unaware of the sudden flood of bright, white, glaring light that fills the alley as the police cruiser pulls in.

The thick, rich taste of blood filled his mouth as it came pouring from her wounds, it was his drug, his poison, and like the addict he was he gorged himself upon her life. Every droop was lapped from the needle marks upon her neck, and guided down his throat in a boiling river that gave him back his strength and power.

As she struggled he grew stronger, and his arms tightened further. His embrace around her frail form was unrelenting and his fangs dug deeper and deeper as her pleas fell on deaf ears. Who was he to care for her? She was food and he was the hunter. He felt no remorse for the cattle, though he had to admit he treasured and valued her effort to save him but guilt was a feeling beyond him.

He felt how the life began to slip away from the young woman and slowly his arms eased from around her body and his embrace loosened up, his blood red lips broke away from her neck and his ivory fangs where torn out from the deep wound left behind by his assault and with a junkies desperation he licked the wounds clean just in time for the blinding white lights to catch him like a rabbit in…well headlights.

Jonathan looked up and stared down the metal beasts that where the police cars, their blaring sirens and red and blue dancing light scrambling his senses and sending a sensation of being trapped in to his instinct driven mind. More monster then man he reacted as any cornered beast, and took to flight.

His arms unfurled around the girl and slowly he lay her down to rest in the snow, his motions so slow, so calculated and calm and never did he move his eyes from the now watching policemen that where climbing out of their cars, unsure of what to make of the situation.

“Salvation comes for those who earn it and you dear saving angel seems to have earned yours...” He whispered in to her ear, his voice now healed, just like the rest of him. It was thick and rich, deep and dark and like silk to the ear and even as a whisper it trembled with a monsters roar.

The policemen began a slow approach, hollering and asking questions, raising threats and preparing to take down this obvious deviant who had attacked this poor girl! But they where to slow, before their eyes they saw how the figure made a leap for the dumpster and landed on top of it, only to in the next second bounce of its metal lid and up to the first level of the fire escape and quick like a spider he vanished up in to the shadows above, not even making a sound as he made his way up the stairs. They would have taken up pursuit, was it not for the girl laying there, pale and bleeding in the snow.

Ella was vaguely aware that she was being laid in the snow. Her world had gone from one of pain and utter confusion to a view of the high clouds and brilliant stars. She couldn't remember how she had come to be here, just that she was feeling so very tired. She could see the random snowflakes that meandered past the buildings on their way to join the others as they piled in small drifts in the alley. Her eyelids felt as though they were made of lead, they were just so heavy. As they decended again she felt warm breath on her neck as a voice spoke into her ear.

“Salvation comes for those who earn it and you dear saving angel seems to have earned yours...” the words rippled and slid across her fading consciousness. In that moment Ella knew that if she survived this night, she would always remember that voice. And she knew, as her eyes closed again, that the one that had uttered them was gone.

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(Time has passed)...her eyes are brutally peeled open by someone yelling at her and shining a light at her. She cannot see anything beyond that glaring light waving back and forth. She doesn't like this person or the fact that they sounded as if they were screaming from under water. Or maybe she was underwater? She couldn't understand anything that they were saying to her. She tried to focus on this vile being, to tell them they sounded strange and they should leave her alone. All she could see was light, bright and ugly. The darkness had felt so much better and now she had decided to allow herself to drift back into it.

________________________________________________________________________________


(More time has now passed)...She begins to stretch a bit as she begins to leave her sleep and nearly screams from the pain. Her mother is sitting in an uncomfortable chair next to the bed. As Ella stirs and gasps, her mother looks at her in amazement and then runs to the door to call for the nurse. People seem to rush in from everywhere as her brain struggles with the fact that she is tied to several machines by a dozen cords and lines and her body feels like she has been beaten with a stick. As all of these well meaning attendants start to check her over, she notices her mother standing by the door of the room, crying.

It is explained to her that she would likely be feeling groggy for a few days as her body recovered from its trauma and that so far everything was going very well. An eternity seemed to pass before all of the nurses and doctors are finished checking her over, asking a million different questions and finally leave her alone with her parents. The looks that her mother and father are giving her are a mix between joy that their daughter has been given back to them and a muderous rage that is hidden from all but their offspring. She tries to speak first, but as usual her mother beats her to it.

Her mother is cradeling her hand and softly stroking her hair. "Helena, we are so happy that you're going to be fine. We really thought we were going to lose you. What did you think you were doing there in the first place? Why weren't you at home where we left you? What possessed you to be walking around in a city you barely know, in weather like that? No one has ever found your gloves, what happened to them? What if the police hadn't found you when they did? What..." her mother rambled in a breathless pattern that Ella soon tuned out. Her father just stood beside the bed, silent as he waited for his wife to run out of steam. It took a few more moments before that happened.

"Helena..." he started in his slow, comfortable way, "your mother and I are glad that you are going to be okay. The doctor has said that they want to keep you for a couple more days for observation, just to make sure that all is well. We will discuss everything when you come home. You need to rest until then to regain some of your strength. They said that you lost a lot of blood in the attack and that you're very lucky to even be alive. So, get some sleep and we will see you in the morning." After each of her parents kisses her head and her mother wipes away the few tears she has shed during her rambling speech, they leave her alone.

She is alone. Her thoughts start to wander back to the events that landed her in this bed in the hospital. Those traitorous eyelids of hers start to drift closed again as her mind works furiously at the details that seem just beyond her reach. She tries to make sense of everything that everyone has said to her since she woke up. Her mind is whirling it all around and around. A deep, whispering voice seems to drift from her memory over her as she begins to fall asleep.

"Jonathon..." the name escapes her lips as she bolts back into the confused reality that he has left her in...

His escape had been short, he didn’t need to run far to lose men who did not pursue him. With quick steps he climbed the rusted old stairs. By all logic the rickety old structure should rock and creak under the force of his steps but he is light as a feather carried on the wind. The impressions left behind by his boot clad feet are not even a millimetre deep and are eradicated with the first breath of the night. He chase past lit windows as he escape but he steal quick glances of what would be called life.

He shoots past a family, huddling together on a couch, watching TV so cute and adorable, it almost makes him feel sick and that flash of panic in the mothers eye’s as she spots the shadow flash by the window for a second is the only thing that keeps him from making his escape through their window rather then past it. The next window has a young couple arguing and he can hear their shouting match even after two more flights. He doesn’t even bother to look in to the windows any more, his belly is full and he feels strong again and there is no need to tempt one self with what you won’t give to yourself.

He comes up to the roof and once there he stops and looks back down on what he left behind him. So far bellow him little Ella is being taken care of by bumbling policemen who are soon joined by the ambulance that the girl had called for him. Lucky her, she had really saved her own skin.

While looking down, Jonathan unconsciously licked his lips, the blood still upon his teeth and skin was gathered at the tip of his tongue and savoured, so warm, so deep the taste. He swallowed hard and let the last droop roll down his throat and join the rest of her vital fluids that where already working it’s miracle on his dead body.

With one last stolen glance at the ambulance he waved goodbye to those who could not see him and vanished in to the night. He was going home, he needed a change of cloths and some time to think, and he had just thwarted death once again and was eager to find some semblance of safety so that he could get back on his feet.

(Much later) Graceful like a cat he walked upon the windowsill, no mean acrobatically feat as it wasn’t even broad enough for his entire foot to get a proper grip and it was cowered in slippery snow and glassy ice how ever undeath came with many blessings and curses, one of them being a body that could be light as a feather or heavy as a mountain when it suited you and it made tricks like this in to second nature. Another trick was to hunt by your nose, an acute sense of smell allowed him to track a familiar scent for miles as long as he had something to help him filter through and hone in on the intended scent…the ideal item of course an article of clothing that would be worn close to the skin.

Jonathan’s eyes where locked upon his own hands and the gloves which he had pulled over them. That girl had given them to him, to warm his broken hands, now he wore them rather proudly, like a trophy, even though they where a few sizes to small for his large hands. Ella’s scent where strong upon them and he had followed his nose from their first encounter to here after returning to the scene, after all she had saved him once, maybe she could save him again?

He came upon the window leading to her room and with one swift motion slid it open, brute strength breaking the lock that kept the window shut.

There he stood now, like a giant bird of prey, taking up the entire window. He crouched in to the frame and just sat there, watching the young woman who had brought him back from the brink of death recover from the wounds he had inflicted upon her, waiting, watching, biding his time.

A month has passed for Ella since she was released from the hospital. It has been a month of unhappy adjustments. Her parents crowd her and watch her closer than they ever did when she was a small child. She had been a decent student who didn't draw a lot of attention to herself but now her teachers watch her when her parents can't. Once she had been able to walk down the halls without much of an issue and now her classmates have almost made a sport out of sidelong glances and whispers. Even her younger brother, Alex, seems to be watching her. Of course when he is watching her, it is like he is waiting for her to run screaming from the room or for someone to jump out of the shadows during dessert and attack her. He keeps asking her questions, but she has no answers for him. Hell, she doesn't have answers for herself yet. There are too many holes in the few things that she remembers from that night.

The worst thing for Ella, though has been the restless nights. She begins to drift off to sleep only to have fragments of memory float by. As she struggles to grasp at them, she will usually come crashing back to consciousness. She has wandered back to that alley a couple of times, but she couldn't bring herself to walk past the cold, gaping entrance. Everything has been feeling odd and disjointed. The bits and pieces that she can recall don't seem to make any sense. A gorgeous pair of eternal blue eyes, a voice that wrapped her in silk as she lay dying in the snow and a name. Jonathon. Would she ever pull it all together enough to understand?

Tonight she thought that if she left her small TV on the sounds might be able to lull her senses enough so that she could finally sleep. She has tried this tactic now and then and her parents have come to accept the noise. She has cuddled up under her overstuffed down comforter, laying on her side, facing the TV. She has closed her eyes and started to drift off...

As her window snaps open, so do her eyes. She rubs them to clear her vision. As she sits up and looks towards her window, she stares at the figure there unsure of what to say or do...

His blue eyes are fixed upon the figure that rises from under the heavy blanket and a small smile spread upon his ash grey lips. The scent he had trailed had been the right one and finally he had found her home, her little haven, her nest. And now like a bird of prey he was watching her, sizing her up, measuring her room and by extension, her.

“Don’t cry out child, don’t scream nor fear, I am the only one who is here…” Jonathan spoke with a rhyme to his words that seemed so out of place when it came from the hulking shadow that crowded her window. “I am hope you do not mind that I invade your haven, just like the ghastly raven from poems of yore, how ever unlike it I must implore, invite me in or you will see me…” The smile upon his ashen lips grew wider still. “Never more”

The creature in her window was nothing but a black shadow that contrasted itself just barley against the black night sky outside, its cloak of shadows only broken by the few sparkling flakes of snow that caught stray rays of light from the T.V and glistened in the otherwise dark room.

(ooc: Short post today...sry)

At first she cannot see so much as hear the being that is lurking in her window. The cruel, cutting wind is blowing tiny snowflakes into her room where most land on the small white bookcase that rests in front of the window. She notices that this figure has a foot near her small collection of snowglobes that clutter the top of the bookcase. Classic views of New York, London, Rome, Paris, Disneyland and several other places are forever stuck in miniature and encased in its own little ball of liquid and swirling confetti. She blinks a couple of more times and takes a breath in order to clear her head. It almost seems funny to her that her snowglobes are being dusted with real snow. Funny how the mind works...

The odd words this person is saying are not making a lot of sense to her fuzzy brain. There is something that makes her realize that she has heard this before. No...not the words. She has read The Raven and a lot of Poe's other works before...its not the words. She suddenly realizes what has struck the chord in her mind. It was not the words, in that she was correct. It was the voice that was delivering those strange phrases, the same voice that had been accompanying her confused thoughts throughout her recovery. It is a deep, rich sound that she heard as it slid across her as she was staring at the stars and laying in the snow, dying.

The flickering of the TV has illuminated him in its distinctive blue glow, but it was hard for her to see many details other than the size of the hulking figure perched at her window.There was a name that came rushing to the front of her mind as soon as the voice was recognized. "Jonathon." she whispered almost silently. Yes, that seemed right. "Jonathon?" she asked barely above as whisper.

In that moment her world seemed to hold its breath while waiting for the answer to that one single question...

Another flash from the TV and its bright blue light illuminated his features, the young pale face, not a day older then twenty, a mane of wild black hair and those large, blue eyes that drilled in to her, and his smile, the curious, childish smile that rested on his thin, ash grey lips, like stolen right the face of the Cheshire cat. He was swept in a long black coat that he held tightly wrapped around himself to ward off the snow and biting wind that still chased over his back and tried to sneak down his collar.

“Ah, so then you remember my name?” Slowly he reached out with long slender fingers and grasped one of the globes by his feet and slowly he began to twist and turn it, the flakes inside dancing up in to a storm that swallowed up and ate the New York skyline and perfectly mimicked the snow storm that raged around the house. “And I remember yours, Ella was it not? A pretty name, now Ella, repeat after me, Jonathan, you’re welcome inside”

His voice was steady and secure, but hinted at just a bit of urgency…

Slowly, she pulls her legs to the edge of her bed, still holding her comforter like some sort of downy shield against this intruder. She switches on the small black porcelain lamp that sits on the little white nightstand beside the bed. Suddenly the room is thrust into a much harsher relief than it was when only lit by the TV. Everything that she has in this room is on display now. On the top of the bookcase next to her snowglobes there are stacked a few books that she had recently finished reading. There were several dozen more books over different sizes and colors scattered in places around the room and overloading the bookshelf. There are a few stuffed animals that have survived childhood, or hold sentimental value, placed on a black lacquered shelf near her bedroom door. There are posters of a few of her favorite movies cluttering one wall and and a medium sized oil painting of blue roses, in an ornate antique frame over her bed. There is a small scarlet padded window seat cuddled up to the uninhabited window. There are a couple of old patchwork blankets folded and settled under a mountain over vastly different colored and patterned pillows. As she looks around it is almost to assure herself that this is still her room and she is not in another endless nightmare. She slides her bare feet to the small, white furry rug that lays on the chilly wooden floor next to her bed as she stands to look at this person that has invaded her little world and lays down her comforter.

"Would you please put that down? It was a gift from my aunt and uncle. I would really hate to have it broken." she begins, sounding a lot calmer than she is really feeling at this moment. Her world was having some difficulty finding a balance point right now, but she continues to speak. "I have some questions. A lot of them actually...and I think you might be the only person who can answer them for me." She is searching those endless blue eyes that have been watching her every move. She doesn't know exactly what she is looking for, just that there has to be something there that might begin to explain things for her.

Ella walks towards the end of her bed and sits on the cushioned top of cedar chest at the foot of her bed. " Could you please close that window behind you? It is still freezing out there. Since you have apparently tracked me down and gone to all of the trouble of breaking into my room, why are you bothering with needing me to repeat something like that? Is this a game of some sort? Track down the girl and torment her in the middle of the night? And of course I remember your name, even if you look nothing like you did when I first saw you. Your name is about the only thing that I can remember clearly from that night."

Most of the time she is able to think and speak logically, but not around this guy. Her thoughts seem to scatter more easily than autumn leaves in a breeze when she has the chance to look into his blue eyes. There seems to be something lurking just below the surface that she cannot seem to grasp. It is driving her completely crazy. Maybe she should return the favor? She draws her feet up under her body as she continues to look questioningly at her uninvited guest waiting to see what his next move is going to be...

Jonathan’s eyes trailed slowly up and down the girl as she moved through the lit up room, cocking his head to the side like a bird when it watches its prey as soon as she discarded the modesty offered to her by the thick blanket that now lay on the floor. She was prettier then he remembered, though younger, or perhaps it was just the room? Again he shook the snow globe and watched the insides swirl in to a snow storm. “I am afraid I can not answer your questions, nor comply with your wishes of closing the window before you invite me in. I don’t intend to have this conversation while clinging to your windowsill, shouting over the blizzard through a pan of glass…” Slowly he put the snow globe back in its place among the others.

The girl was interesting, so calm and collected despite the shadow that had appeared in her window, claiming to be the creature that obviously lured her in and then attacked her! So she was both brave and pretty, as good features as any he supposed, perhaps she would have a sense of duty and guilt as well, if so then he was certainly in the right place to be.

He continued to watch her with his big blue eyes and waited for a reply, impatient and cold he decided that perhaps the best way to speed things along was to throw an olive branch and offer at least some sort of answer to her. “I can how ever assure you that I am not here to torment you in any way shape or form and after being invited I promise you that I will gladly answer any question that you might have…now please, invite me in, it’s getting cold”

Ella is watching him with a mixture of awe that is touched by a creeping fear. Trying to keep a calm and collected facade is getting harder by the second. She is fairly sure that she knows some of what there is to him. With that she is almost positive that he is unwilling to show her and she is not sure that she can trust him. Yes, he has offered to answer her questions, but after what has already passed between them, she is not sure if that is just a ploy to come inside or if he is really being honest. There doesn't seem to be a polite way to ask and he is rather anxious about coming in. Has he come to use her as a safe haven? Is he in trouble and does he need her help again? These questions swirl around in her mind as she reaches for the remote for her TV, with her finger on the "up" end of the volume. Then switches the channel to an action movie with a lot of gunfire and explosions. She looks at him again as a little smile finds her lips.

She is not sure if she wants to believe any of what her mind keeps saying about how the whole thing adds up. There is just no other way to explain all of the odd fragments of memories of what happened to her in that dark alley. His appearance is a huge unexplainable change that just seems to confirm the thought. And then there is the disbelief that the police showed about his amazing, miraculous escape. All of the things that she has pieced together starts with him in an alleyway, alone, broken and dying. She wanders across his path as she is trying to find her way home and does everything in her limited power to help him. She bundles him in her coat and as she is trying to reassure him that help is on the way, he viciously attacks her. She loses a huge amount of blood, but there is barely a trace found anywhere in the alley. There is damage done to her neck, but in a short amount of time it has healed almost back to perfection. She will probably even lose the tiny scars that remain within a couple of years. Ultimately she saves him while almost getting herself killed in the process. Her eyes are still watching him as her mind is all but screaming the word that she believes is the only explaination.

With what looks like a sigh and almost a shrug, (but is in reality more like a deep breath to calm herself) she says in an even and quiet voice. "You will be invited into my room...after you answer one very important question."

To her it feels like the world is sharper and brighter than it has ever been. She can hear each distinct sound made in the house where her family is sleeping, to the street that runs in front of the house and throughout the neighborhood that lays outside her window. She can almost count the snowflakes that have blown into her room from around the figure perched in her window and the ones swirling around in her snowglobe of New York. She can feel every line and crease in the t-shirt and pajama pants that she is wearing and the small shiftings of the air currents in the room. And it is all because of the adrenalin that is pumping through her body as she prepares to ask the question that has been brewing in her mind since shortly after she woke up in the hospital a month ago.

"Jonathon, please answer me honestly." she starts as she looks at him closely to gauge his reaction to her next question. A question that will prompt her decision to allow him in or not. A question that she is using to see if he is willing to be truthful with her, or if he is just going to use her again. It is a question that she is sure she knows the answer to, even as the logical part of her mind rebels at the possibility of the truth of it. In a voice that almost shakes, Ella asks the question that will change her reality forever. "Are you a vampire?"

Now that his face was in full light the twinkle in his eye and the smirk that tugged at the corner of his lips couldn’t be hid from her and his face was twisted in to a delighted mask as she struck her deal with him. He where to answer her question, and then she would welcome him in to her home, that was the deal, that was the wording, that was the loop hole!

“Am I a vampire?” he repeated the question, his eyes narrowing in to two thin blue slits, his head rolling over his shoulders as he pondered how to word this sensitive reply. Not once had he made an effort to conceal his true nature from her, he thought it obvious since their first encounter but then again shock and the amount of blood she had lost had probably left the whole encounter shrouded in a bit of a haze, he wondered just how much she really remembered or if she had a clue as to what she had actually done?

“Yes…I am a vampire.” The pale “young” man replied and then in one quick bound leapt from the window and landed, light and graceful as a feather in the middle of the room. Finally he was free to enter the grounds! A dirty trick had been played upon the girl by the undead but the ward against him was broken and he was not about to sit out in the cold any longer and wait for formalities. Now he stood there in the middle of her room, towering over her.

Up close Jonathan was a real sight to behold, he was tall enough to cast a shadow over any one you’d ever seen, with broad shoulders but an otherwise thin, lean built. His face was as if carved out of marble, smooth cheeks, high cheek bones, a sharp shin and large blue eyes, thin grey lips and skin as pale as the snow outside and crowned by a mane of wild black hair. All of it rather neatly wrapped in a long black coat, a white dress shirt and creased black trousers, polished boots and his hands stuck deep inside all too small gloves.

“And I thank you kindly for inviting me in to your home…” He bowed down at the waist in a graceful, well practised motion that had been worked in to his spine since mortal days since long ago passed and forgotten by history and time. “…a welcomed escape from winters cold touch and stabbing winds…” Jonathan finished speaking before he once again straightened out and looked down on her while sliding the gloves from his pale hands.

Yes…I am a vampire."

The instant that those words are shot out into the air, she knows that nothing in her life, as short as it now might be, is ever going to be the same again. As he stands over her, she takes a moment to lower her head, close her eyes and fight back the sudden rise of tears that seem to come out of nowhere. After all that she has done to help this person, is this where she is going to die? And has she condemned her family to a similar fate? Her mother always said that her good intentions were going to get her into trouble, but Ella never wanted to believe it. A slow, deep breath and a few quick blinks of her eyelids to push away those tears and she cautiously looks up at him. She turns off her TV and lays the remote on the bed behind her. She is afraid of what is going to happen now.

As Jonathon bows to her and thanks her for allowing him in, she rises from her seat. She is going to ask her questions and deal with whatever happens on her feet, not cowering like girls do in horror movies. He unfurls from his position as she pulls herself to her full height. She has never been called small of stature and several rude names have been thrown her way from petite girls at her new school. Amazon is usually the first one that pops out from girls who are barely bigger than the kids at the middle school. And she has never been inclined to play basketball. Why is it if you're tall do people automatically assume that you play sports and that one in particular? Her mind is racing with random thoughts as she realizes that the top of her curly head barely clears the level of his shoulder and she very could easily hide behind him. It is the first time that she can remember feeling small in comparison to anyone and it is intimidating in its own way. Her father is still only a few inches taller than she is and her mother has to look up to her when they talk.

Her eyes begin an their own level, which is in the middle of a very elegant and expensive white dress shirt. Slowly they work their way past the huge expanse of shoulders, graceful neck and past a chin that many in Hollywood pay surgeons to get. The wayward black hair that is flying about him simply adds to his illusion if size. Not that he needs any help in that department, she thinks to herself. Yet, it is to those eyes that her own return. Those eyes of beautiful, deep, almost velvety blue. The ones that she looked into as she chose to help save him. The ones that she saw for instant as she was laid in the snow. The very ones that have haunted her since she woke up in the hospital bed.

She turns for a moment and looks around her room, what might be for the last time. So many of the books scattered around the room are now tales of vampires. Her parents figured that it might be a phase that she has been going through after the attack and the strange circumstance surrounding the whole thing. How could she explain that she was reading out of curiosity and the need to explain things to herself? After all, she never expected to see Jonathon again, so she was not counting on having a vampire to ask questions of. The books are ones that range from case studies to folk tales to fiction, all have good, useful and sometimes amusing information in them. And the very first and most important rule is to never, ever invite one into your home. There are a lot of other rules that go racing through her mind, but since she didn't listen to the first one, she doubts that any of the others are going to apply now. Besides, as her mother often said when did she ever listen to good advice? Damn it, she really hates to admit that her mother might have been right on something.

Ella turns her eyes back to Jonathon's. Now that she understands exactly what he is, but not what is happening here. She prepares herself to ask the question that she has figured would be the appropriate one and for the moment leave her destiny in his hands. If she survives the next few minutes, she has others, as she usually seems to. But for right now, she has only one.

"Now that you are here in my home, what are you going to do?"

He studied her with a curious look in his eyes; she was so amusing this little mortal thing. The scent of fear hung in the air like a thick mist, he could almost taste it, and that look in her eyes! As if she knew for certain that death was waiting for her, he found himself wondering if perhaps she would be disappointed when her expectations would not be met?

Slowly his eyes began to wander around the room, blue orbs scanning over cracked book spines and piles of paper bound knowledge, myth and legend. So she had been on to him already? That was good, then the news where more a matter of confirmation and hopefully she wouldn’t lose her mind to freight and panic and run screaming for help, he had not come here to kill and he hated when well plotted schemes fell to dust because of the unpredictable nature of anything possessing free will. Of course free will was easily subjugated and could be dealt with in all manner of ways but he had hoped to keep his hands clean and the pile of bodies as low as possible.

The gloves slipped easily off his hands and he flexed his newly liberated digits a few times, enjoying the feeling of freedom now that the skin tight gloves where gone. “Now that I am in your home, I will do what I came here to do…” Jonathan’s long, thin fingers coiled tightly around her wrist and turned her hand palm up and then placed the gloves she so kindly had sacrificed for him in the palm of her hand and then guided her fingers in to a fist around them before letting her go. “To return your gloves, you were very kind to give them up to a stranger despite the cold and the wind.” He spoke in a low voice, almost whispered so that no one else would hear him.

“You thought that I was here to kill you no?” The question came in a mocking tone and with a look from those velvet eyes that tried to feigning hurt feelings that weren’t there and perhaps a wounded pride. “I am every bit the monster you think I am little girl, but you’re not dying tonight.” He assured her, and despite his low and mocking voice, there was just that slightest hint of honesty hinted under the surface of his words.

No, he wouldn’t kill her nor any member of her family, not tonight, in fact he would rather see he left this place without killing any one at all, he imagined that after all this girl had given up for him and after all the kindness, he might just feel a pang of guilt when licking the blood from his hands.

“Any more questions? I believe I promised to answer them for you where I invited inside?” A promise was a promise, and Jonathan was, if nothing else, a corpse that stood by his word.

She stands there, fascinated as she nervously watches as the whole scene is playing out. Fear causes her heart to beat a little faster, but she is determined to stand her ground no matter what happens. She knows that something is coming. His hand reaches for her own...and places her missing gloves in her upturned palm. He curls her fingers around the fluffy, black gloves and releases her. Nothing more, nothing less, just enough to send her whole world reeling. She quickly blinks a couple of times.

"You came to return my gloves?" she stares down at them in disbelief. It is almost more than her overactive imagination can handle. A simple courtesy. She looks from the familiar gloves in her hand and then back to Jonathon. There is almost a look of confusion on her face. "You tracked me down a little over a month after everything that happened, to bring my gloves back to me?" She looks at the gloves again.

A slow creeping smile spreads across her face as her entire countenance lights up. A giggle escapes her lips and she puts her hand up to try to stifle it. It bubbles up and another tumbles out and after a moment, she is laughing. She sits back down on the top of the cedar chest as she is rocked by nearly silent laughter and fans her face with her gloves. Seeing them whipping by her face sends her into a deeper fit of humor. It takes a couple of minutes for her mirth to begin to die down. All the while she is looking from between her gloves and then into Jonathon's eyes. I could lose myself in there if I was given the chance, she realizes as the last of the giggles dies away. The sense of fear that she has carried through this meeting has just evaporated. She has read every legend, story or essay dealing with vampires that she could get her hands on in the last month. None of her books could have ever prepared her for this situation.

"Sorry...I don't know why that struck me as funny, but it did. I am actually grateful that you brought them back to me. Thank you." she said, a smile still plastered to her face. "I guess...I uh, guess that I was expecting you to leap in here and finish what you started in the alley." She looks at him, almost guilty because of her presumptions. "I am sorry if I was wrong about you, but you have even said yourself that you are a monster. If you call yourself that, then what am I supposed to think?" she raises an eyebrow at him and continues her thought. "Maybe I was under the impression that eating people was kind of like fishing and that means that I was the one that got away. Any real fisherman cannot handle the thought of the one that got away. So, I figured that you had to come to find me and...well, you know...finish it." She felt very siily for ramblng on and about the things that she was saying, but she couldn't help it. She felt that she needed to get it all out in the open, since he was here and all.

"So, you have brought me my gloves and you are willing to answer my questions?" she says. Realizing that she is going to get a nasty cramp in her neck from looking up at him while sitting on the chest, she makes him an offer. "You may have a seat if you like and then we can get to those questions." Ella sensed that she might learn a few things from all of this, if she could keep her mind on the information that she wanted and away from the mysterious thoughts she kept having about Jonathon's eyes.

"I should just say tell me everything, but that could be quiet a long conversation. So, if you're up to it, then please start at the beginning or wherever you want to. How old are you? Where are you from? Who changed you? How did they do it?" taking a breath in the middle of her interrogation, she realizes that she fires off questions like her mother. "What happened to you to leave you in such a condition in that alley? Would you have really died if I hadn't found you? Would you have really killed me if the police didn't arrive when they did? How did you find me? Why did you bring me my gloves?"

She stops and looks expectantly at him and waits for his response...

Jonathan thought that he would be ready for anything the girl could have done, if she ran he was faster and would have blocked the door before she could blink. If she had screamed his hand would have been pressed over her lips before the first little squeak slipped out of her throat. Threats or aggression would have been met by the same coin and he was fairly certain that he would have won that match without much of an effort. How ever he had not been prepared for the girl bursting in to a fit of laughs and giggles! He actually felt a bit lost and confused by the whole situation, it was quite a long time ago since somebody had laughed at him in quite this manner, usually all he would hear was throaty cackles of mockery, this was something entirely different and he didn’t really know how to react. So rather then do anything, he just stood there and watched her with an arched brow while waiting for her to settle down. ’Easily amused little creature aren’t you?’

“I’m glad you find my courtesy amusing, most show no reaction at all to such things these days” He remarked casually as he trudged about the room, looking for that seat she had offered him. To sit upon the bed was out of the question, men either slept or entertained women in them, they don’t sit on them. The pillowed and dolled up chest that the girl was using was not an option either, far to close to the perky little thing for comfort. No, the window, the vacant one filled with pillows, it looked rather comfortable and in a sense, quite theatrical, it would be a nice place to sit and divulge any secrets that she might call out and question. It only took him a few quick, long strides to cross the room and then settle down on the crimson cushion that sighed softly under his weight.

“You have many questions, all of which, believe it or not are linked together, but let’s answer the simple ones first.” He cleared his throat and pondered just how to word it, admitting your own weakness and inability to care for yourself was never an easy thing to do, especially not to those that have saved you. “Would I be dead if not for you?” He tasted the bitter answer before it even left his lips. “Yes, more so then I already am. And to answer your next question, were it not for the police then yes, you would be dead as well, fortunately for you they arrived at the scene and you live. But as I said I’m not here to finish you off, I’m a monster I will admit that, but I am not a senseless murderer and I avoid killing when I can. Corpses draw unwanted attention so even if I had a fisherman’s sense of pride I could not afford to act upon it.”

And then, with a casual wave of his hand he waved away the whole thing as if the topic at hand had been the most casual things in the world, he might as well have spoken about the weather or the news for the day. “Now as to the state I was and what got me there, it is by chance related to all the other questions you asked. I am how ever afraid that my story won’t be quite as fancy as modern fiction, I was not a noble, knight or any one that mattered, I was a young and foolish boy who made a living through theft and misdeeds and got what was coming to me when I fell in to the arms of a bar wench and a whore whom after taking my money took my life and made me what I am today…and that was…531 years ago, give or take a month…” He had spared her the details, or did her spare himself the ordeal of remembering it all; he pushed such nonsense thoughts aside and pushed down that cold lump that had formed in his throat and the quiver in his hands.

“Disappointed yet?”

Ella has realized that she has botched this entire thing by bursting into her giggle fit. It wasn't as if she could really help it at the time. It was just that nothing was going as she imagined and she was relieved. Apparently, her relief decided to manifest itself in laughter rather than a slighlty more mature or dignified way. That's just the way with bouts of laughter though, sometimes they just pop out of nowhere, she thinks as she watches Jonathon pushing aside pillows to sit on the cushioned window seat. She listens intently to every word that he utters. Questions are forming in her mind, as usual. She waits until he is finished speaking before she settles herself more comfortably on the chest and prepares to launch into this conversation.

"First of all I do sort of owe you an apology for my reaction. Maybe an explaination and an apology are more in order. It isn't that I find it amusing that you brought me my gloves," she starts, laying the fluffy things on the foot of her bed. "It was just that from the first moment I saw your shape in my window, my mind started running through so many things that might happen. My parents regularly tell me that I have a very active imagination. This time it really got the best of me. I admit that I was afraid and I didn't know what was going to happen. Your gesture was very kind, thank you. I guess that I was just so relieved that none of the terrible things that were in my mind were going to become a reality, that I couldn't help it. It was sort of a tension breaker for me. It wasn't supposed to be an insult to you. Honestly..." she nibbles at her bottom lip as she thinks about the next thing to discuss.

"531 years?...wow, that's a lot longer than I imagined. I guess that I still wasn't thinking in centuries when it came to you. I understand in stories and stuff that vampires don't physically age past the time when they changed. It is a whole new thing when seeing the reality versus just reading about it. How do you manage to live for so long and find new things to stay interested in without going crazy? I mean since the late 1400s there have been so many changes in everything there is a lot to see and learn. There are so many things that you have been around for...it must be...amazing." her voice trails almost to a whisper as the full extent of his years finally sink into her mind. "And after what you said, do you really look at this state of being as a penance for the way you lived your mortal life?"

Almost uncomfortable with what she blurted out, she grabs her blanket from her bed and tucks it around her legs and lap. "No, I am not disappointed with what you have told me. Why would I be? I have asked some questions and you have answered, more or less. I am just an unusually curious creature and am always asking questions. So, as my family does when I become annoying about things, just tell me and I will change subjects. Like you did...how did you get into the state that put you in that alley? I am glad that I helped you. But you said that you try not to kill, yet you would have killed me. Why?" She looks to him with her large, odd colored, green eyes, there is almost an injured look hiding in them. "Can't you take enough blood to sustain you without killing someone?"

Without waiting for an answer, she flings the blanket back to the bed and starts pacing around her room. "Or was it just because you needed more because you were hurt? Or did you just didn't want a witness to what had happened to you? You know, I almost didn't go down the alley in the first place. It was a scary place and I was already in enough trouble." she has a habit of waving her hands around as she talks, especially when passionate about the subject. "I mean, I had wandered around trying to get home before the family because they thought that I was here. In fact, no. I had gone sneaking out to a party where the one guy, in the enitre school, that I happen to think is cute was going to be. I saw him long enough to see that he has no idea that I exist and so as angry with myself as I was, I left. The buses in this place are confusing and I got lost. Then I found you...and then everything got really messed up." Now she seems to be talking to herself rather than her guest. As she realizes that she is babbling on, she notices that she has stopped walking. She is standing right in front of Jonathon.

Her voice is soft and almost pleading. "In a way, it still is sort of messed up...I mean, no matter what happened in the alley and after...I kept hearing your voice. I have never forgotten the color of your eyes. I nearly died and the two things that haunted me were things about you."

"Explain that to me..."

The words fell from her lips like rain from heaven and it just wouldn’t stop pouring. He listened to every word she said, took in the tone and the feel, sucked up the emotions of a bumbling girl nearing the end of her teens who had just gotten her perception of the world turned upside down by a short string of words that no one would believe on a good day. It amazed him, how much noise some one so tinny could make without repeating themselves, and all the questions, there where so many of them and not once did he have time to reply. The questions surprised him though; they weren’t what he expected to hear. He always figured that people would ask about the obvious things, what kills you, what hurts you, what is it like to be dead? This girl was asking things about him, not about what he was…or well some of the questions where about what he was but they still some how managed to link back to who he was.

“Well it sounds like you where having quite the night when you happened upon me, perhaps I was just the last thing needed to make it in to a nightmare? People tend to remember their nightmares and dwell upon them.” He shrugged his shoulders and then began to rummage through his pockets, obviously searching for something that he knew should be there, but without knowing exactly where it was. “I really have no answer for you on that topic, how ever I will tell you why you survived thanks to the police and not my own well wishes towards you…” His face lit up with a small pleased smile as he seemed to find what he was searching for. “Because I like all of my kind are slave to our urges, we are creatures of our vices and will act upon them. And I was, and I hate to admit it, weak, even starved as I was a pint or two of your blood would have been enough…” He fished a small, beaten package of cigarettes from an inside pocket of his coat. “But I succumbed to hunger and instinct, I wanted to gorge my self on your life, I wanted every droop of it and then to feel you die in my arms, simply because it is in my nature to long for such things.”

Again he began to rummage through his pockets in search of something hidden from his memory. “Which leads me to your other question, no, I don’t believe I have become what I am to punish me for what I did in my life. If I was to be punished for those things I should have been hung or had my throat slit, not turned in to something worse then I was and given an eternity to keep on doing the same.” Once again he found what it was that he was looking for and pulled out a small Zippo-lighter that looked as if it had been through hell and back. The steel casing was worn and scratched, and what ever motif that had been painted on it had long ago succumbed to wear and tear, leaving only chromed steel behind. He put a cigarette between his lips and then tucked away the package and flipped open the lid of the lighter.

Mid action he caught himself and looked back at her through the wild mess of bangs that feel from his scalp before he pushed it back out again, clearing his face from anything that would obscure it.

“Mind if I smoke?”

"As long as you open the window behind you, I don't mind. Its not really like its going to kill you, right?" she smiled as she still stood in front of him. "And as long as the window is open, my parents won't know and then they won't want to kill me." She continues her pacing around as she works back into the conversation. "Yeah, that night that I met you was sort of bad. It wasn't like I had planned it out to be at all. Then again, that is kind of how things go, especially when I try to plan them." she has wandered over to the wall covered in movie posters. She turns back towards him. " As for remembering nightmares, I guess that could be true, but I usually remember everything. Dreams or nightmares, it doesn't matter. I seem to be able to recall most of the details long after I wake up. So, yeah, I guess that could be the explaination of what happened." Not that she really believed that, but it was better to accept the answer that she was given, instead of letting her imagination run away with her yet again.

She decides to quit pacing and goes to sit on her bed. She picks her gloves up from where they have fallen on the floor and puts them on the nightstand. She sits on her bed with her blanket thrown over her lap so that she can continue to look at Jonathon, but not flit around the room like a caged little bird. "Are all vampires slaves to the urges that they feel? And is it just a whim that is acted on, or does it need to be a real urge? Do they act upon them easily oor do they attempt to restain themselves? You've said that you prefer not to rack up a lot of bodies because they can lead to questions that you don't want to answer. Have you had problems like that before? And is it really hard not to act on something that you feel so strongly?"

Playing with the edge of the blanket, she continues to ask her questions. "Has your entire existence been filled with you doing bad things? And do you still have the capacity to feel real emotions?" Realizing that she might be treading on ground that was a little to personal, she tries to find a new subject that might not be so touchy. "What kind of things do you like? I mean, as long as you have been around, you have to have developed favorite things, right? So what do you like? What kind of things do you hate? Can you eat real food and enjoy it? I personally can't think about missing out on a good hot fudge sundae without being a bit upset."

She stops. Her eyes snap from where her hands have been playing with her blanket to where her guest is sitting quietly on her window seat. A thought has crossed her mind that she doesn't like. The words just start to tumble out before she can even try to stop them. "Jonathon, since you've brought my gloves back and answered a few of my questions, does this mean that you're going to disappear when we have finished talking? Are you going to go from my window and never return?"

Ella sits on the edge of her bed, looking over at the man reclining so casually in her room. The corner of her comforter is tightly clenched in her hand as she waits for his response.

”My existence has been filled with me doing what i have to do to survive, and when you are young and dumb and a monster, you make a lot of bad choices, so yes, I will admit to having stacked up a few piles of dead bodies. But that’s how we learn, we make bad choices, we survive them, and we learn from them.” He pushed open the window with a light push, and let his finger spin the thumbwheel that scrapes against the flint with that oh so characteristic sound, the sparks fly and the wick catches fire. In a swift and long practised motion he lights the cigarette and closes the lid with a metallic “click” the flame dying as it’s starved of oxygen inside the darkness and he tucks it away in the pockets of his trousers, where he of course will forget it until its needed again. He takes a deep drag of his cigarette, lets the toxic grey smoke slowly crawl down his throat and in to his lungs, he feels the burning sensation of hot air fill his chest and how that first little kick of nicotine begins to spread through a system that is long dead and only accepts the poison because he forces it to do it.

He pulled the cigarette from his lips and watched the embers slowly crawl down to consume the paper case and the tobacco and watched how the smoke slowly rose like a pillar towards the ceiling, only to curve and get sucked out the window. She had posed a good question, one he had not pondered for quite some time. “Do I still feel real emotions?” His thin grey lips slipped in to a thin line and with a deep sigh he blew out a thin jet of smoke that for a brief moment clouded his face and his wrinkled brow, twisted by deep contemplation, his eyes appeared to be so far away and distant while he weight the answer on the tip of his tongue. “I like to believe that I do, after all, to answer your other questions, I still enjoy a good meal, fine drink and music, I like the theatre, going to the movies and listening to music. I loath being out in the cold but I adore watching the snow fall. I feel both joy, bliss and excitement, I feel hate, rage and loathing, I think if I met the right creature I could quite possibly even feel love But do I feel guilt or remorse for killing or devouring life or for acting like a bastard and a prick when it has suited me to do so? No, not at all, but if that is because I’m what I am, or because who I am I couldn’t tell you.”

The cigarette was then once again planted firmly between his lips and he took another deep drag and then puffed out another cloud of smoke, this time through his nose, like a slowly breathing. As if catching himself day dreaming his head snapped up and he stared with his large eyes at Ella, again, tilting his head in that bird like manner, inspecting her, his eyes drilling in to her as if he tried to see in to her very core. Now what was this strange behaviour in her? He couldn’t understand it, couldn’t read it, just minutes ago she had been terrified that he was going to hurt or even kill her or her family. She even admitted that he might be the stuff of her nightmares and that he haunted her like one, even so she now seemed afraid of him leaving? Wouldn’t the natural response from her be to have her answers and then wish him away when her curiosity was saturated?

“You are a curious little thing…I can not understand…are you wishing for me to leave and never to return? Or are you telling me that you would want me to come back, even knowing what I am?” Jonathan spoke through clenched lips and kept on watching her, waiting for her reply, not once even blinking.

Ella meets his unblinking gaze with a steady look. She is as twisted up by this whole situation as her words and thoughts had been all night. The fact that he is looking at her like she is a specimen under a microscope hasn't been helping her frame of mind. Her mind is another problem altogether. It keeps wandering back to the nice, pleasant thoughts of Jonathon's eyes, his voice...the things that she has remebered from that first night. Things that seemed to wander in and mess up whatever it was that she was thinking about at the time. There are things that she wants to say, but her brain has been working overtime just to keep the few things coherent that she is managing to say. She just doesn't know the best way to proceed now, so she figures that she should just let the words flow out as they will and hopefully they might make some sense in the end. And not piss off the vampire sitting in her window seat.

She pulles the blanket back and rises from her spot on the bed. She tries to put her mind and emotions in order before launching into one of the verbal tirades that she is nearly famous for. Her parents have said that she was always like a bottle of soda. She was fine as long as she was left alone, but there is an explosion that was inevitable if she was shaken. She has never liked that little analogy, but somehow right now she could see the truth of it. Her little world had been shaken up like her snowglobe, but the chaos in that little orb has finally died down. Hers is still simmering and swirling just below the surface.

"Okay, so maybe I am strange, but that isn't always a bad thing you know." she says with a little shrug of her shoulders. "I'm sorry if I have confused you because of all of the things that I have said. It might have been worse, were I able to voice all of the things that have flown through my mind since you woke me up. Its just that even after everything that has happened and been said, you are still willing to sit and answer my questions. My family doesn't even do that for me and there is no one else that I know of who could handle even half of the questions that I have fired at you." she is walking around the room again. "I don't know exactly what I expected...no, I guess that I expected you to kill me. I have already told you that. Since you said that you aren't going to do that tonight, I thought that maybe I could talk to you. You have been around for a long time and I have an insatiable curiosity about so many things. As long as I know that my family and I aren't going to be harmed by you, then no, I wouldn't mind if you came back, no matter what you are."

She comes to stand in front of him again, almost breathless from her speech and her laps of pacing around the room. "So I wanted to know more about you. Maybe I want to know what it is like in your world. Maybe its because I am tired of being the only one in mine and I am looking so hard to just have someone that I can talk to...I'm just tired of being the only one who is so, lost." There are tears that start to shine in her eyes as she turns away. She pauses for a moment as she takes a breath. "God I really don't know why I said that. I'm...sorry..." her voice is nearly a whisper. She turns back to face him. Her mind is racing so fast that she cannot even hear what she is saying.

"Jonathon...thanks for being nice enough to sit for a bit and talk with the mixed-up little freak. I appreciate it more than you will ever believe. You can stay now, if you like. Or leave it that is what you prefer. If you decide that you want to come back here, then do. If not, then I'll understand, don't worry about that." she sighs as she looks into that eternal blue stare as if she is memorizing the details that she finds. "The events that happened in the alleyway are in the past. We have both survived and that is, I'm guessing, the important part. I am happy that I was able to help someone that was in need, even if it wasn't the way that I had planned when I first stumbled across you. I don't blame you for what you did. Its a survival thing. I am still a little awed that you brought my gloves to me after all, but I'm grateful for it. And you have patiently answered my questions. So, now you can do whatever you choose to do. I will leave it all up to you." she gnaws on one side of her lower lip. It slips from between her teeth as she continues. " And in my opinion, from what I have seen tonight, you are not the monster that you have claimed to be."

Ella, finally silent and emotionally spent, holds her breath as she waits for his decision.

He flicked the dying cigarette out of the window and then closed it behind him before getting up, rising to his full height so that he once again dwarfed the shaken girl with his towering presence. Slowly he raised a hand and placed it atop of her very confused and busy head and then ruffled up her hair before gently pushing her towards the bed. “Don’t you know, silly little goose, nightmares don’t go away. They linger behind in shadows, under your bed, in your closet and inside your head. They will flying through your window on leathery wings and settle on your bed to haunt you.” He let out a soft sigh and then scratched the back of his head as he began to look around the room once again; his eye’s searching for a special little something.

“But some times, nightmares come to stay…” He slid the long black coat from his shoulders and let it fall to the floor in a raffling of cloth and made a neat little black pile behind him. “You are strange and you are curious, you make me curious to. Any one else would have taken the chance and asked me to leave, yet you seem to invite me in to stay the night. How ever I doubt you have any place to store a man, but perhaps you have somewhere to store his cloths?” He arched brow while watching her. “Day is drawing near and I grow tired, and thus I need to rest, which I also believe goes for my lady host as well.” With a snap of his fingers he unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt. “And I will ease your mind further, I even promise to be here when you awake, I’ll even be here when you return home from…” His brow furrowed slightly. “You go to school to do you not?” He waved dismissingly with his hand to wave the thought out of the air. It wasn’t really obvious at first, but his movements where becoming increasingly sluggish and slow, and the light in his eyes seemed to be slowly fading and his eye lids where becoming heavier by the second.

“I’ll even keep answering your questions tomorrow…but now I really need to rest…what would your parents be most forgiving about finding hidden in your room, a bat or a dog?” Perhaps an odd question, if you forgot whom you where talking to.

If it was in his nature to do so, he might have tried to calm down the girl, try to comfort her in her confused state rather then add fuel to the fire. But he couldn’t grip the situation, it felt so lost and foreign to him that he simply had to act on instinct, and it drove him to his current and most basic need, to rest before day break, to get to somewhere that he could hide so that the sun would not get to him.

She almost squeaked in fury as he ruffles her hair. No one has done something like that since her grandfather did when she was 7 and told him that she was old enough to help with the animals on the farm. "I have no fear that in a couple more years you'll be able to take care of all of these critters all by yourself, Ella-mine." her grandfather's words came back to her in a flash. The time had never come for her to really help out. Her grandfather had died later that same year and her grandmother had sold the farm to move to a retirement home so that she wouldn't be a burden to any of her children. There were times that Ella really missed the way things had been when she was a kid.

"I am not a silly goose. And I never said that, you...were...a...nightmare..." she starts to say something else but is shocked into silence as Jonathon starts to undress. She is staring at him in utter confusion until his words wander into her confused mind. "A bat or a dog?" the gears of her mind have never moved this slowly before.

"Great, show me one half naked vampire standing in the middle of my room and my brain goes to mush." she thinks to herself. "Of course show me any great looking half-naked man and I would probably go stupid."

"A bat or a dog?" she repeats again, menatlly shaking herself. "Your choice. My closet is big enough for either form and the sun doesn't go near its door. Its where I will put your clothes anyway." By pure force of will, she turns away while he finishes what he is doing. Not for modesty, but to preserve her own mental state for the moment.

"As for school, yes I usually go, but not for much longer. Early graduation and all that...anyway, today is Saturday, so I don't have to worry about it. As for my parents coming in here, I doubt that they will. They usually don't disturb me while I am in here and since I have been having trouble sleeping, then the most they will do is looking in on me to make sure that I am actually here. After the night that I disappeared to the party and ended up in the hospital, they check in on me alot. You'd think that I was a baby again, instead of almost an adult."

She notices he is getting sluggish and opens the closet door for him. "Even if it is open a bit, you should be fine inside."

She crawls into her bed and pulls her blankets over her. She starts thinking back over this very strange night and that after everything that has happened, there is no possible way that she can rest. She wiggles around to get comfortable and as she hopes that Jonathon has found a place in her closet to be able to rest, her eyelids float down as she falls asleep.

”So I am to sleep in a closet…how nostalgic…” He mutters to himself and then slips in to the darkness of the closet, the door closing behind him. He was too tired to think straight, one of the downside about death was that your body really didn’t function as it should. If you where hungry, you where always starved, if you where tired you stood on the verge of collapse and he didn’t want to sleep standing up inside a closet all day, and if some one opened the door it would be a rather embarrassing first encounter with who ever was on the other side when he fell out and over them.

No instead he decided to take on a more discrete guise, one that would go almost completely unnoticed unless you paid close attention to detail and poked around inside the closet. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, he hated to change shape…it was noise and painful and the alteration of your perception always took some time to get used to, even after five hundred years.

From inside the closet came a horrible sound, a loud creaking, followed by loud snaps and cracks and then the sound of cloths falling in to a pile. Inside, the tall, pale vampire had turned in to a creature, no larger then the palm, with soft brown fur and large black wings, pointed ears and a snout for a face lined with sharp fangs and tinny, still blue beady eyes. In short he had turned himself in to a vampire bat.

He took flight until he reached the clothing rack and landed on a pile of sweaters which he then proceeded to crawl in between, they would make a comfortable and safe temporary nest. Even if some one came in and opened the door he would be out of sight and out of the sunshine.

Slowly his eyes sank shut and he fell in to a deep dormant state, his last thought before darkness swallowed him bouncing about inside his mind. ”…strange little things they are…"

Ella rolled over in her half-awake state to realize that her bedroom door had just closed very quietly. As her mind comes fully awake and realizes the danger of having an unexplainable visitor in her closet, she sits upright in the bed. Nothing in her room seems to be disturbed. She throws her heavy blanket off and climbs out of bed as she looks at the clock on her nightstand. The glaring red numbers are staring out at her from the little black face. Just after 3 in the afternoon. Wow, that's the first time that I have really slept since I came home from the hospital. she thinks as she walks to her closet. She quietly opens the door. Other than the pile of clothing on the floor, there is no sign of Jonathon. She takes the time to fold the clothes laying in the bottom of the closet and sets them on one of the shelves. She hangs the coat that he wore on one of the many hangers. Taking his disappearance as a good sign, she quietly closes the door and heads for the kitchen in search of something resembling breakfast.

(Later)

After spending a usual day dodging requests for outings from her family, Ella has finally retreated to her padded window seat. One of the old blankets covers her lap and a book is in her hand. She is watching the clock and the world outside her window rather anxiously. The last hour has past by so incredibly slowly that there were moments she could have sworn were moving backwards. She has read and re-read the same paragraph at least four times in the last half an hour. She has left the closet door open just a crack and is waiting for the moment when Jonathon makes his appearance.

Her family has gone out for dinner, with the notion that they will be bringing her something back. She just knows that there was no way for her to survive a night out with her parents and little brother without screaming and going completely insane. So she is sitting and waiting to find out what tonight will bring...

Slowly the closet door crept open and from within the shadows emerged the tall pale vampire from the night before. The sun was still out, but just barley, its last rays danced through the window and over his pale face and he raised a hand to shield his eyes and gave a low groan of discomfort while a fished out a pair of perfectly round, black shades to place on the bridge of his nose and block out the light from his sensitive eyes. He yawned and stretched out his long, slender limbs that creaked and cracked quite loudly as stiff joints and tense muscles where brought back to life after a day of rest. Looking at him now, he could have been any one who just liked to sleep in late, how ever the illusion was shattered by the sharp fangs that he bared when he yawned. From the canines and back on both the upper and lower side of the jaw his teeth had long ago changed in to specialised fangs, perfect for shredding and then holding down a pray to prevent its escape…one of the many tools of this creature that embodied both the hunt and the kill.

Through the darkness of his glasses he spotted the girl that for now was his land lady, sitting in the window that he himself had occupied the night before. The image was as if taken right out of a add or a cheesy novel and he couldn’t help but let a low chuckle bubble up from the depths of his throat as he slowly began his approach, each step totally soundless.

“Good evening…” Jonathan proclaimed with an accent obviously borrowed from every actor to ever take the stage as Dracula, a poor imitation of a roman break to the queens English. “…another night is here, and with it the dead rise once more…” He threw out his arms to the side in a very theatrical manner that made his long black coat flare up around him and flutter as he chased through the room. “To an existence just as dull and grey as every one else’s, I might add.” He said and then came to a halt just beside Ella and leaned down to peer at the book she was resting in her lap. “So…what are we reading tonight, something deep and profound i'm sure?””

Ella hears as Jonathon wanders out of the closet. She doesn't turn her head so that she is not confronted with the same moral dilemma that she was last night. If he is still undressed or even partially undressed, would she have the sheer force of will to look away? Or would she very happily ogle anything that was on display? She figured that it was better not to have the temptation. As she hears his coat flutter as he is moving about the room, she sneaks a quick peek to make sure that it is safe for her to look in his direction. Okay, one fully dressed vampire...whew. she thinks to herself, still unsure of her reaction to anything less.

"I doubt that it is that deep or profound, as you put it. Its just one of my favorite novels. It's called The Masters of Solitude and its by Marvin Kaye and Parke Godwin." she looks up at Jonathon as she explains. She folds the corner of the page down to mark her place, before setting the book down beside her. "Ever heard of it? Or there is this one that I was studying earlier." she says pointing to another book on the seat. "Its chaos theory mathematics. I have to study that one a bit more before vacation."

She stretches out on the seat and pushes the blanket off of her lap. Then she does something very odd. She stands on the window seat and faces Jonathon. "There, now I can talk to you and not feel so damned tiny. You know, this is the first time that I can remember feeling small since I started growing." She smiles at him. She is very comfortable with him, in spite of the way that they met. She knows that there should be something in her brain that should be screaming and whimpering in fear, but there isn't. There really is no explaination for it, so she tries not to examine it too closely at the moment.

Resting her hands on her hips, she looks to her guest. "So, should I ask you what is it that you have planned for tonight?"

He shock his head when she explained about the novel, he would have to confess that he had indeed not heard of it. Though he was rather impressed by the thick volume on chaos theory, he was about as well versed in the arts of science as tree stump rotting out in the woods but he had not escaped hearing the rather simplified explanation of the butterfly effect. The whole thing had made his heart hurt some time way back in the late eighteen hundreds. He had long ago abandoned science and all that it stood for, it was something that came natural to him, after all he was a animated corpse that got sick from sunlight and could turn in to a bat…he always wondered how science would explain that one when they finally managed to get their hold on a sample of the undead.

“Well, I believe I promised to answer any and all the questions you might have and that I would be here for the evening, how ever…” The ash grey lips twisted in to a wicked grin that once again barred his horrible fangs and his eyes narrowed in to thin slits. “Before that I need to feed. Now that leaves you with a number of choices.” As she was levelled with him looking in to her eyes was not a problem and he kept his eyes fixed on hers as spoke slowly. “Either, you wait here like a good little girl, and I will return shortly or you decide to be a nuisance and follow me when I prowl for a prey…” Then he slowly raised a hand and caught her chin in an iron hold between his thumb and forefinger, his skin void of any warmth, cold like the touch of steel. “Or you save yet another life and sacrifice yourself once again.”

A little test, a game, a cruel and wicked sport. He had promised to answer all her questions and to remain here, how ever he had never promised to be anything but what he was. Jonathan wanted to see if she really was as confident and secure as she seemed to be, if she truly trusted him as fully as she let him believe.

She listened to him as he started to speak. But as soon as he touched her it as like her entire world was once again tossed upside down. He stood with his fingers gripping her chin and his wonderous blue eyes boring deep into her own greenish ones. It made her feel like her reality was warping and that nothing she was experiencing was real. It was like the adreniline rush from the night before all over again. The outlines of things stood out way too clearly for this to be the real world and the colors were too bright. A very strange sensation.

It took her a couple of minutes to finally follow his words. Once they struck her frozen thought processes, she almost recoiled at them. And an instant later she was wondering exactly what her answer was going to be. Could she let him wander away to find his meal and knowingly endanger the existance of another human being? No, she knew that she couldn't bear to have that happen even before the question had finished running through her mind. She just wasn't sure that she could go through that again, knowing that she might die at his hands. She didn't know if she felt safe enough to allow that to happen. She knew that he had said before that it was only a small amount of blood in order to sustain him, but what happened if he gave into the pleasure of feeding? Would he go too far and end her life this time?

Her eyes lit up as an idea popped into her head. Maybe, just maybe this thought might save her from having to find out exactly how she felt about all of this and solve the issue of Jonathon's thirst. It was just going to take a moment to find out the true mechanics of this hunger of his. "Do you have to have your 'dinner' straight from the tap? Or can you have it in a sack-lunch kind of form?" she is standing there, not daring to move a single muscle while she waits for his answer.

He shuddered visibly and his smooth face twisted in to a mask of disgust and his fingers tightened their grip on her chin as he tugged her face closer to his. They where only an inch apart and his ice cold breath washed over face with each word that he barked. "You ask me if I could drink something fetched from a hospital or the like?" His eyes smouldered with rage as if he had been scorned and heavily offended. "Would you feed your house guest spoiled meat or any other rotten, decaying food?" Jonathan freed his grip on her and took a few steps back, his shoulders trembling as another shudder ran through his body.

He had seen a number of his kin fall victim to their own guilt and resort to such methods, to only drink from bottles, bags or animals. They threw away what they where to try and pretend to be humans, a wasted worthless effort that always ended in tragedy. He was not about to embark on even the first step on such a road down self destruction.

"If that is what you have to offer me then I’d rather you caught me a sewer rat to suck upon, at least then the pungent taste is not from rot but from the host." He began to pace the room, apparently very upset by the mere notion of drinking from anything but a living prey. “If that is how you intend to feed me then I won’t have it. I will still keep my promise though, I’ll keep on answering your questions, but I will feed first.” He headed for the window at a quick pace, eager to get out of here before he did something that he would regret.

He moved to the same window that he had broken in through the night before and slid it open and then threw a glance at the girl, fire and brimstone still crackling behind his velvet eyes. “The pride of monsters is easily scorned, because pride is one of the few things they have, never forget that little girl. Other monsters have not promised not to harm you.”

She begins to panic as Jonathon's fingers tighten on her chin and then pulls her so close. Her mind races with what she can say or do. She knows that there are so many things that she might be able to say, but there is nothing that she could ever do that would save her if he decided to act against her.

As his words crash into her, she understands that in her curiosity she has offended him. She knows only what she has read and there are many places that it is mentioned that his kind can survive without human vitae. She just didn't know that it would be a matter of such intense pride. Feeling scared, indignant and upset about her blunder, she watches as he flaps around the room before heading towards her window.

"I was asking a question, since I don't know any better." her voice trembles a little, but she continues. "You were the one who said that you would answer any questions and then you act like I am a monster for asking it. I invited you in here after everything that has happened and I am trying my best to be able to understand all of this. I just don't seem to be doing a great job of it." Her voice starts to rise a bit as she gets deeper into the conversation. "As far as pride being one of the things that monsters have left, at least they have that. Some of us seem to be willing to sacrifice that and any sense of self-preservation just to learn something or to try to help someone in need."

She is still standing on the padded seat, her arms now crossed over her chest as she glares towards him. "I know that I do not want another person to have experience the fear and the pain of one of your feedings. But other than offering you myself once again, what else is there? Either live through that or to have the guilt of knowing that I have condemned someone else to it?"

Her arms have come down to her sides as her hands are balled into fists. She is almost yelling at him at this point and she is glad that her family is out so that this little exchange will not be overheard. "I know that no one else has promised not to harm me and yes, I am now very aware that there are monsters out there. I might be naive, but I am not stupid. So, go and do whatever it is you need to or stay and I will do what I can to help you, even if it is against my better judgement."

She flings herself down onto the seat that she has been standing on. She grabs her book from where it sat and opens it back to the page that she had been reading when this started. She is not even able to see the words on the page in front of her as she waits for him to make his decision.

Jonathan found himself, for the first time in quite some time, at a loss for words and actually filled with a feeling that, if examined closer at least in some aspects resembled shame. The girls outburst was fully warranted, she had only asked a question, and he had promised to answer them, she had not tried to force anything down his throat or even suggested that she would serve him in such a fashion…she had only asked if it was possible. Like a child he had thrown a tantrum for no reason and made quite the fool of himself in the process. She not been the one to assault his pride, no he had managed to tear a wound in that one all by himself and with bravado.

His large imposing figure shrunk together as his shoulders slumped and his head sunk down low and he seemed to almost melt in to a heap on the window sill, one hand clutching his forehead. The rage had flown out the window along with the reasoning behind it and only left a shamed and rather embarrassed prince of the night behind that now struggled with how to redeem himself from such a new low point in his behaviour. Jonathan forced himself to climb back up and corrected his coat and the collar of his shirt while clearing his throat with a short cough, not that he really needed it but some human behaviour and habits simply wouldn’t go away, even after centuries of unlife.

“You’re absolutely right…” He brushed a hand through the wild thick mane of black hair and thanked the stars that the shades covered his eyes so she couldn’t see that he was unable to lift his eyes from the floor. Fangs ground against each other and he swallowed his pride and bowed down deep, just like he had done the night before. “…my behaviour was uncalled for…” When he unfurled he slipped the glasses from his face and shut the window he had just opened and sunk down on the window sill, toying and twisting the glasses in his hands, his eyes fixed on the floor by his feet.

“So…you say you’d feel guilty if you knowingly let me go out there and feed on some one else, So much so that you'd even put your own life at rish?” He wanted to lead the conversation away and just pretend like this little embarrassing episode had never happened. “That’s very strange…and noble of you…” He put away the glasses; with his back towards the fading light it didn’t sting his eyes so he wouldn’t need them. “Why would you do such a thing?”

She just continued to sit there, with her book in her lap. Her eyes are resting on the page in front of her even though she is not looking at the words. She has read this book so many times she should be able to recite it verbatim, but she cannot even contemplate forming the first words. Her fury seems to be seething just below the surface. It really is a wonderful cover for the fear that should almost be visible. She is shaken to her very core by what has just happened.

As his words begin softly, she turns her head to look at him. He bows low as he makes his apology. Mollified somewhat, and assured that she was not in any immediate danger, she turns her body in the seat until she is fully facing him. She closes the book, but keeps it in her lap so that she has something to grasp to keep her hands from shaking. She contemplates his words for a couple of minutes as she tries to find the best words to explain her point of view.

"I don't know how to explain it. I have always been one of those people that goes out of their way to help someone in need, as you should know by now. My mother has made the comment that in a past lfe I had to have been a saint because there is no way that a kid my age should have the driving need to help people the way that I have always done. Call it odd or noble or whatever, its just the way that I am." she shrugs her shoulders and looks back at Jonathon sitting at her window. "I didn't mean to upset you by suggesting that you shouldn't eat the way that you want to, but I would really feel guilty if I let someone else do it."

She sighs and blows the air out from between her lips with an audible sound. She lays the book aside again and stands up. She looks at Jonathon as she walks over to where he is sitting. "I am scared...no actually its closer to terrified, to tell you that I will put myself here for you to use. I know that you have said that I will be putting my life at risk, but I remember that you also said that you didn't have to take that much. So, do whatever it is that you need to do." she stands there looking down at him and tries not to show her fear while she waits for him to make the decision that only he can make.

”I only take what I need…” Again, how ever this time very slowly, he raised his hand and let his fingers coil around her wrist in a gentle hold. He lifted her arm and turned up her hand once more, exposing palm and wrist to plain view. “…and what I need is far too little to kill you…” With the tip of his finger he reached out and pressed it against her wrist. Underneath her skin he could feel the warm rivers of life run as wild as the beating of her heart. The tip of his finger traced along the veins and arteries that ran through her arm, his eyes looked upon her skin as if he could see right through it and scout the source of his nourishment.

“At most…the world might be a little fuzzy around the edges…I wouldn’t know, I was bit once and died.” He tore his eyes away from her arm and looked up at her, his big eyes once again watching her with that curious look. “So you would really let me bite you, feed from you, despite your fear?” Now his roaming hand came to rest at her elbow, and strong fingers coiled around the joint. He now had her forearm in a steady grip and he slowly arched a brow while watching her.

“I won’t let you die, I owe you that much and more, and say but a word and for this night I’ll feet upon a rat, to save you from both horror and guilt, but only this once.” His grip tightened. “Or will you let me tear in to your arms with razor fangs and drink your blood? Who knows what would happen if I did? You’ll live you have my word on that, but otherwise it is all a big mystery, even to me, every one seem to react differently to our bite.” Perhaps he could replace her fear and terror with curiosity, even if only momentarily, but if she wished to he’d make good on his new promise, after all he owed her as much.

Ella stares at the entire process as Jonathon's hands are on her arm and his eyes staring at her. Even as he offered to dine on a rat, for her sake, she could almost hear the revulsion in his voice. She knows how this is going to progress, but not exactly how this will end.

"I have said that I am willing to let you feed from me. I have your promise that I will survive it. I will take you at your word." Looking as deeply into his eyes as she can without losing herself, she nods.

Once again her curiosity is going to lead her down a path that she would never have imagined taking.

"Jonathon, go ahead."

She had made her choice and words no longer mattered. He closed his eyes and leaned in close, his ashen lips brushing lightly against her skin, easily mistaken for kisses. How ever to Jonathan it was simply hunting, searching for that best place to dig in. A few inches above her wrist he came to a halt and as his lips parted, his beautiful mouth turned in to a horrible drooling maw of loud growls and long sharp fangs.

His fangs sank through her flesh, dug deep in to her arm and sliced through arteries and veins. With his lips forming a tight seal against her skin, preventing any of the precious red liquid from escaping as he began to drink. The taste flooded his senses and blocked out everything else, the warm feeling of life spread through him like a fire out of control, with each beat of her heart another wave of blood flooded his mouth and he drank it down greedily.

Ella is standing transfixed as Jonathon's mouth slowly explores her upturned wrist. The touch he uses is so light it almost tickles. She knows that there is a chance that this could go very wrong, but her overwhelming need to help someone has put her here again.

As he finds the perfect spot and starts to growl, she thinks about recinding her offer. Just for a split second does she panic enough to try to move. His grip on her arm is too tight and his movements are too swift for her to accomplish much. So she stands there as the pain floods into her brain. It nearly drops her to her knees. Only his grip on her arm seems to keep her upright.

But even as she is experiencing the pain, her overwhelming curiosity makes her watch as he feeds. His hands holding her arm into the perfect position for this feeding...his lips pressed against her skin...the look of bliss on his face as he drinks...after a moment there really isn't any pain...just the twinges of lightheadedness...

She hopes that he remembers the promise that she would not come to harm from him. And she waits for him to be finished as the edges of her room start to dim a bit.

"Jonathon?"

The sight is like from a horror movie and the sound like from the most horrible of nightmares. As Jonathan wrestles himself lose from her arm the wounds left behind by the rows of fangs that line his mouth are critical to say the least, long lacerations run in two perfect, jagged lines across her wrist, blood bubbling up from the deep cuts in her flesh and spilling on to her skin. But then the wounds begin to close, tissue stitches itself together and grows back, regenerates and conceals the wound, fixing her up to near perfection, leaving only think pink scars that in a few days will be nothing but a memory. With the tip of his tongue dancing over her arm as he laps up the last of the blood, each exhale followed by a now warm wind from the depths of his being and a growl from some even deeper and darker place.

Finally he lets go of her arm, his fingers having left just a slight tint of bruises on her skin. For a brief, fleeting moment, his skin shimmered with a sun burned tan, his lips grey red and his breath against her hide and the touch of his wingers where warm, as opposed to the grave chill that otherwise radiated from his being. The blood spread through him, returned life to his dead body for just that one wink of an eye when it coursed through him and worked its mystical power. But then it was all gone and the guise of life vanished, leaving only the animated corpse behind once again.

A heavy, content sigh passed his lips and the last of life’s warmth escaped in a thin white cloud. Slowly his eyes trailed from the marks he had left on the girl’s body, up to her face and to her green eyes. His promise had been kept, she would live, she would perhaps be a little fuzzy for a while but she would be fine. He had only taken a little more then what they take from you at a donor’s clinic…how ever he didn’t have any cookies or juice to serve as payback.

“Do you still live?” He asked, if he was serious or if he was mocking her was unclear by the tone of his voice, but the blood stained and rather satisfied smile that played over his lips could perhaps help in the interpretation.

Ella sits on the edge of the window after Jonathon has let go of her arm. She is watching her wrist as if she cannot believe what has just happened. Her arm is intact, but there are small marks that might stay. The bruises will fade fairly quickly, she has always been a fast healer. She flexes her fingers almost experimentally as if she expects them to move different now. She looks to him as she hears his words.

"Yes." she whispers softly. "I am still alive." her mind is working over the events of the past few minutes and his sarcasm is nearly lost on her. "Do you have to eat that much every night?" she asks, still barely above a whisper. Her arm is fine other than the couple of little marks. Her head is swimming a bit, but she is working to get everything under control. At least she isn't going to pass out. She looks at the floor as she maintains the fact that she is not going to faint. After a couple of minutes, the world had settled into its normal patterns and she knows that she isn't going to keel over.

"Wow...so now what is the plan? Do you really want to stay penned up in here and answer questions all night? Or is there something else that you would rather be doing?" she figures that she should find out what he has going on for the night.That way she could figure out what her plans would be. Was he actually staying to answer more questions? Or was he leaving so that she would have an evening to spend with her family, like way too many that she had spent since she had gotten out of the hospital. A moment or two later as if almost by magic, she hears the front door of the house slam open.

"Ella, we're back!" her little brother screams from downstairs. "We brought you food. Come and get it!!!"

Her eyes snap back to Jonathon as she hears the commotion from down stairs.