The last in line

Stephanie is twenty two and only slightly different from all the other graduates who pour through the gates of the university.  She is a vampire.

 

Exams are over and her friends are arguing over their holiday destination.  Some want Turkey, it’s cheap Steph she hears and it’s got the three S’s.  Two want to go canyon climbing in the Pyrenees but Stephanie Kingston wants to go to Bavaria, to wander in pine forests, to ride a horse down moonlit tracks with a wolf running at her side and – feast on passing travellers.

 

She discovered by chance that she is descended from a German count, with ancestors going back to the Dark Ages.  There is a castle, built high up on a lonely crag in the middle of the Black Forest, amidst towering conifers and plunging ravines with waterfalls cascading down.  This was how she liked to imagine it.  The German part was true which she had decided explained her fascination for and degree in mediaeval German literature. 

 

Her mother had died soon after she was born, fading away in the exsanguinity of childbirth, with a rare blood group for which an ambulance with a police escort was not fast enough.  So her father had brought her up, a tough, no nonsense man who had truly realised he had a daughter on her thirteenth birthday.

 

They had gone to France wandering in the Dordogne, eating in cafes and staying in any hotel or pension they fancied.  For a joke he had ordered Steak Tartare for them,

‘I’ve never had this, Steph, it’s supposed to be very good, but it is raw meat, very French.’ he added.  Matthew Kingston took one mouthful, spluttered, gagged and pitched it into a handy napkin.

 

‘Oh Steph, don’t eat it, we’ll have the chicken.’  He signalled the waiter.

 Stephanie was in a dream, she had discovered heaven.  She pushed off the carefully sliced onions and raw egg, ignored the salt and black pepper and let her salivating mouth enjoy the raw meat.  Her father watched in disbelief as her round shape of beef disappeared.

‘You don’t have to eat that, Steph.’ he repeated, but she ignored him and reached for his own plate.

‘Shame to waste it,’ she murmured.  She could feel strength and energy pulsing along her veins, filling her body with vitality.  But her long black hair was draped round her face and her eyes were carefully hooded.  Her father stared at her, breadcrumbs speckled on his lips.  He suddenly realised he had a daughter.  Dressed in jeans, trainers and a camouflage tee shirt, with the small tips of adolescent breasts pointing through.  He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.  For the first time Matthew felt the lack of a wife or mother, someone who could explain the facts of life to a daughter, with the niceties of female adolescence.  His knowledge of his daughter’s puberty was abysmal he realised.  Perhaps she had started her periods and that was why she needed the iron, from the meat.  Poor kid, no one to help her.  He harrumphed in a vague way, no time like the present he thought somewhat desperately. 

 

Stephanie had signalled the waiter, ‘Another steak tartare, no onions, egg or seasoning, s’il vous plait.’

‘Mademoiselle, with pleasure, it is the finest beef.’

Matthew had gone off the idea of Chicken a la saucy stuff.

‘Um, Stephanie, I hope it’s not to late but perhaps we’d better talk about,’ he thought wildly, ‘growing up, women’s problems.’

Stephanie gazed at him, and smiled, tiny specks of meat clinging to her sharp, even white teeth. ‘Dad, don’t worry, we’ve done it all in school, reproduction – the lot.  I’ve got samples if you ever need them.’

‘Samples?’

‘Condoms Dad, coloured, fruity, plain, you name it, we’ve done it.’

‘Done it!’ he said faintly.

‘Yeah, Miss went through the whole lot, start to finish, sex, conception, birth.  There wasn’t one of us wanted a baby after that,’ she lowered her voice, ‘and frankly, there isn’t one boy I’d let put his….’

‘Stephanie!’ he roared, outraged.

‘Well, you know, they’re all creeps in school, apart from Adam Jones in the Sixth form, and he wouldn’t look at third years, so I guess I’ll wait a while.’

‘Thank God,’ he was shaken.  Then a sudden thought, ‘Do you need any personal items, bras or things.’ he hissed.

She wiped her mouth with a napkin.  ‘No Dad, you’re allowance is enough for anything.’ She patted his hand.  Her nails were pinking up nicely.

 

When she discovered her mother’s maiden name was von Kaslow that did it.  Her father admitted under strong questioning that he had picked her up one dark night in a back street in Chelsea.  They had gone back to his flat and he had put vodka in her tall glass of tomato juice. They had shared the glass and managed to have sex before he passed out.  Magda had stayed with him, teasing, sexy and totally enervating. The birth of Stephanie had saved his life. 

 

Other people, well most people, develop wisdom teeth in their late teens.  Stephanie didn’t bother, she concentrated on acquiring a sharp pair of canines.  They were slow coming, but now she felt they were ready.  Not only that, her vitality was at a low ebb, her body was rejecting the bloody liver and hearts that she bought. There was a desperation in her for blood and to get strong before she went to Germany.

 

She was with a group of university friends strolling along the Arcade and as they turned a corner she heard Rob Willis say,   ‘Hey let’s do that, it could be a laugh.’ 

 

They were up against a Blood Transfusion van and she shrunk back in alarm.  There was a large sign BLOOD DONORS NEEDED!  She was the one who needed the blood!  She knew Rob lived in a happy cloud of cannabis most of the time and to him even exams were a laugh. She felt herself jostled,

‘Last one in’s a dummy or they buy the drinks tonight,’ called Adrian.

‘I’m not, I can’t …not now,’ stuttered Stephanie, but it was too late. 

In two seconds she was sitting on a chair in front of a desk with a nurse in a starched white dress.  Stern eyes surveyed her,

‘Name,’ was barked.

‘Stephanie Magda Kingston,’ she whispered.

‘Speak up, do you know your blood group?’

Stephanie shook her head.

‘Hand,’ and her hand was snatched and a small pencil attached to a box  pressed to her thumb.  The pain shot through her arm and reached her heart.  She thought she was going to die.  

 

Dimly she heard a voice, ‘Any recent illnesses, any known…?   Oh no, another fainter, come on.’ She was helped up and taken to a cubicle, sectioned off with curtains.  Stephanie subsided onto the bed, grateful for the privacy.  Mist whirled and swirled around her head. 

 

She heard murmurs, ‘Another one.’ There was a scuffling in the next cubicle.  She lay back and waited for the throbbing in her thumb to lessen.  After a few minutes she cautiously sat up and tweaked the curtain aside at the back.  There was another bed with a prone figure, he had a pale face and seemed to be asleep – or unconscious.

It was Rob! Grinding her teeth with excitement she inched towards him, instinct telling her what to do.  She moistened her lips with saliva, bent over him and delicately licked his neck at the pulse point.  He stirred, but she worked on, the x factor in the von Kaslow breeding numbing the prick of her teeth as they sank into the skin.  As she felt the blood well up, she sucked in ecstasy.  It was hot and salty and tasted of pure, neat iron.

 

The clatter of approaching footsteps alerted her to danger and with a last lick of her tongue, she straightened up flicking his long hair down over the puncture wound.  She darted back to her cubicle and sat down demurely.

 

‘He’s still out,’ she heard, ‘We’ll have to send him home in an ambulance if he doesn’t recover.  It could be his condition.  The scratch test showed an infection there, so he’ll have to have a letter for his doctor.  He certainly can’t donate today. These students…’ the voice died away.

 

Stephanie stared in horror at the curtain.  Rob Willis, happy go lucky, yes, too happy go lucky.  Both sides of the track they said he was and she’d just sucked his blood!!   He might be HIV!  In a daze she walked out, pushing the curtain aside.  She ignored the calls of the nurse, something about being group A, if she was interested.  

 

She got to a bench, shivering in the sunshine.  What now?  She couldn’t go to Germany preying on innocent travellers, that wouldn’t be fair, passing on HIV.  A lick of Von Kaslow saliva was one thing, it didn’t last, but she couldn’t pass on AIDS.  And she’d planned to start on the Channel crossing.  There might have been seasick passengers who had passed out on the deck.  What a disappointment.

 

Her mind seething Stephanie tried to think of alternatives but they all sounded too complicated. Imagine trying to make a hole in a person’s neck, push a straw in and then suck the blood.  I don’t think they’d let you do that she decided.  It needs the numbing effect of the saliva to stop any feeling and that would go into their blood stream.   And now she might be HIV. 

 

She wandered down the road, and suddenly came to the realisation that she must have a baby, preferably a girl before she became ill.  She must carry on the von Kaslow tradition. There would be no lack of offers, she knew that,  (for the sex part anyway) so she must choose the man who would be most suitable and definitely not a vegetarian. 

 

Her mind deep in thought, wondering who would like the job, she stepped off the curb, looking to her left and seeing it clear. The 27 bus thundered round the corner from the right, running five minutes late. Brakes squealed and people screamed and shouted.  Stephanie was tossed and flung.  Her crumpled body lay on the road, with her head pillowed on someone’s coat. 

 

As she lay dying she saw the tall dark green conifer forests of her spiritual kingdom and black shapes with billowing capes beckoning to her, their white teeth flashing and eyes glowing like rubies.

 

Her friends stared in disbelief at Steph lying on the road. She was smiling, and in the elm tree nearby a raven cawed the throaty notes of death.