PredatoreSS
Hungarian Bride
by
Emma Gábor
Predatoress
Copyright © 2009 Emma Gábor
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without prior written permission, except as brief quotations embodied in reviews or critical articles. For more information contact the publisher:
Newmedia Publishing
P.O. Box 546
Montvale, NJ 07645
SAN: 253-293X
ISBN: 978-1893798571
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009922686
Contents
Swept into the Vortex
Dark Clouds over Transdanubia
Compulsion
Companions of the Night
Innocence Lost
Friendship Redefined
My Human Origins
Beyond Craving
Sampling the Town
Bloodmeal at the Colosso
Residual Corpses
The Arsenal of the Government
Zoltán and the Rife
The Spice of Variety
Deep Red Velvet
Deep Red Rose
Predation at the Castle of Frakno
Ladies’ Room Feast
The Delight of Being Understood
Lurking Suspicion
Manipulating and Lying
Capital Infestation
Topping off the Evening
Strange Aftereffects
Decisions in Sopron
Passion Restrained
The Heartbreak of Rejection
Feeling the Love
Ravaged and Emaciated
The Miracle of Compassion
Because He Loved Me
Hope and Vienna
Taking Vienna Down
Overcoming our Prey
Hideous Consequences
Excuses and Melancholy
At the Nimrod
The Barabás Solution
The Debreceni Samples
Barabás’s Attempts
The Luxury of Truth
Fearful Palpitations
Freedom Plan
Escape to Vienna
Arrival in America
Moving Toward the Rife
East 56th Street and Beyond
Betrayal
Power of the Heart
Disease and Control
Final Transformation
The Brilliance of Mortality
The Camp of the Undead
Discovering My Initiator
Ritual Celebrations of Partnership
Bittersweet
Death’s Stake
Mortality’s Sting
Forgive Me!
Swept into the Vortex
His pale skin dazzled rather than frightened me. I thought my visitor was part of the absurd logic of my dreaming mind as I lay asleep in the bed I have had since childhood. His angular, handsome face approached mine and his canines began to lengthen. I felt I was submerged in a fascinating nightmare and stared at him, paralyzed. A helpless numbness took over, even to my fingertips. I thought I must still be asleep. I could not move or summon up the energy to escape. It was a like a recent nightmare in which I was trying to scream but no sound came out of my open throat.
I managed a hoarse sob, which he immediately silenced with his hand. Please tell me this is a dream! The sharp pain and attendant sting as he wordlessly plunged his smooth, sharp fangs into the left side of my neck startled me into understanding that I was not imagining this. He lay on top of me to keep me still. I felt my warmth and vitality drain in seconds. It was replaced by a prickly, chilly nausea. I was enveloped in an invisible web. I was limp, unable to move, unable to struggle. He drank in intense silence. His dark hair caressed my right cheek like shiny raven’s feathers and I could hear gentle lapping sounds.
This first bite must have contained an anesthetic as with some snakes that paralyze their prey before eating them. Or like the venomous spiders that paralyze victims and cover them in silk to immobilize them. Like the tarantula that liquefies the animal’s insides leaving their exoskeleton intact. I felt my outer body was still there but something was missing inside.
At last he pulled away from my neck and looked me full in the face, unsmiling but at peace. His dark eyes were endlessly deep. I saw momentary compassion. Then he quickly backed away and departed through the window into the moonlit night.
The blood that spilled on my nightgown after his withdrawal was warm and wet. What was happening to me? Who was he? Something was horribly wrong! I felt sicker than I had ever been in my life. Maybe I should wake my parents and have them take me to Szent Erzsébet’s emergency room.
But as I was leaving my room, I felt as if I were swept into a vortex at whose center was a vacuum of tremendous strength. A whirlpool of irresistible force was drawing me in. My mind was falling down an endless flight of stairs. I felt disconnected from reality. Colonies of small bugs seemed to be crawling up my spine and through my veins and arteries, pricking and squirming. A powerful vibration strummed through my nerves as if I were a harp whose strings were played by invisible hands. It was agonizing and extremely pleasurable at the same time. I was filled with yearning. This force was driving me to do something—but what?
I went to the mirror in the hallway to check if I was all right. I saw nothing except my bloody cotton nightgown and darkness where my face, neck, and hands used to be. Terrified and trembling, I thought I must still be dreaming. Where was I? This has got to be an episode of the night terrors and I will wake up! Where was the Emma who had always been me? I could feel myself, and saw my hands, feet and body when I looked down—I just could not see a reflection of myself in the mirror. A new form of anxiety coursed through my body, an agitation I had never felt in my short life. I needed something to make it stop. Please, anything to make it stop!
I had to get out of the house! A relentlesss desire was driving me, pulling me, compelling me to do what? I could not resist this urge to go out into the dark, quiet streets of my sleeping town. I had not really known hunger in my well-cared-for life but I knew this was beyond the mere craving of the empty belly. My sense of smell sharpened as I caught a whiff of my own blood on my collar. Delicious and compelling! I wanted to smell the blood of others. I wanted to taste it. I had to taste it. More than just taste it. I had to drink it fully and satisfyingly. This was hunger for the very fluid of life, which had been drained from me and which I now knew I had to replenish. I finally understood. But even if I had not understood, this craving was so magnetic I was powerless to resist it.
I crept quietly down the stairs and out of the house into the cool blackness of the night, illuminated only by haloed streetlamps. In my haste I neglected to put on a coat but it did not matter at this point, for the shivering, shuddering iciness inside me was more frigid than the foggy atmospheric dampness. It felt like I was being carried along the streets by a powerful undertow. Disoriented, I seemed to float above the cobblestones without any understanding of my destination. I knew I had to be cautious because a girl drifting about in a white, blood-spattered nightgown in the deserted streets would attract attention. The prickling and tingling throughout my body was almost audible in its intensity. Something or someone must help me! Must give me relief or I must find it!
That is how it all began.
Dark Clouds over Transdanubia
Dear Reader, it will be easy for you to judge me, condemn me, and say that I have been evil. When you read my story, you might think at times that I had no heart. That I was a soulless liar, a manipulator. That I was a machine driven by selfish desires and pleasures regardless of the cost to others. You might say to yourself, “Ah, one more uncaring human animal, mindlessly destroying people for her own survival. Worse than an animal that only kills to eat and utterly consumes the carcass! In fact, most carnivorous animals are benign compared to her, for she was the mistress of living death.”
But, do not be so quick to pass your judgments on me, until you understand the truth of the matter. I never meant anyone any harm. Quite the contrary, I strove to hurt as few people as possible. Especially my beloved Zoltán. Zoltán, my husband, my love; the greatest source of happiness I have ever known as an adult. My dear, this story is to convince you that I only adored you, lived to see the light of the morning sun shining in your eyes, the cool Trans-danubian moon glowing in your face at night, to kiss you once again with the passion whose source is as powerful as the immutable laws of physics.
I sound insane as I talk to you, Dear Reader, and then address Zoltán in the same paragraph. But I am decidedly not insane. No, I am not an Edgar Allan Poe creation, tortured by the relentlessness of my thoughts, haunted by obsessions. My particular situation went beyond conscience and its infliction of guilt on an ever-active mind. Please understand. I was driven by forces over which I had no control. My behavior had been programmed into my DNA, into my blood. It was my destiny. There seemed to be no way of ending this progression of fate. Even suicide would not achieve the desired effect.
For I was immortal. Yes. Now you know. Do you think being immortal is a wonderful thing? Isn’t that what most people wish for themselves and their loved ones? No one wants to face the inevitable nothingness that proceeds after the body decays in a crypt or is consumed by fire in cremation. The death of the body and the possible nothingness that follows is a horrid thought to most humans, thus we have created all kinds of afterlife scenarios in our childish religious systems. Heaven, Nirvana, Seventh Heaven, Limbo, Purgatory, Hell, Hades, the Inferno! I know better! Only one form of living immortality exists—the perpetuation of my species—the Transylvanian lifeline of eternity—kept alive by the blood of mortals.
Yet I was in love with a mortal, my groom Zoltán. I don’t think you will blame me for not being totally straightforward with him about my condition, at first. Or maybe you will. But aren’t we all entitled to a bit of true joy on this earth? Is it so horrible to want love and to feel the thrill of giving love, of being in love? How would he have reacted to me if he knew from the outset that I stayed alive by drinking human blood and would have continued to stay alive as long as human life existed on earth and on other planets? Was it my fault that I was a vampyr? I did nothing in my own power or volition to earn that designation.
No. It happened when I was asleep in my own bed, where I had spent so many uneventful nights, sleeping well so I could tackle my studies in the morning. I did nothing to provoke it. My lovingly protective parents desired that my social circle be restricted, so it was not because I fraternized with a wild crowd. I was only (and was to remain eternal-ly) eighteen years old. I was less sophisticated than some of my peers and looked younger. But that had changed because of my experiences during my nightly excursions after that life-changing night. My appearance had taken on a smoldering quality at times and a deathly pale aspect at others. I lost my innocent demeanor. If you looked into my eyes, you would have seen depths of endless blackness that fastened and fascinated with a magnetic pull. This was not the case in my pre-vampyr days. Then my eyes had a soft gleam and trustfulness that came from a simple life devoid of profound experiences. It was a life centered on the happiness in my small family and my studies.
Please believe that I was deeply unconscious, the night my transformation occurred! I was peacefully dreaming under my goosedown quilt in my native Hungarian town in Transdanubia. Its name is Sopron. Sopron is not too well-known, except for its music festivals and the old town center. I always felt safe in our family house near the lush pine forest of Lővérek, where my father and I took frequent walks. My town was crime-free, with the exception of the occasional pickpocket. But that too changed when my life was overturned that night. I don’t think there is human alive who will condemn an innocent sleeping girl, yet my guilt persists.
My blood was extracted and feasted upon by a bloodthirsty, literally blood-hungry, being of human and yet inhuman qualities. Where was I at fault when the well-groomed, immaculate youth entered my bedroom, approached my quiescent form, and oh so gently inserted his fangs into my carotid artery? I was still semi-conscious when my lifeblood drained into his body and gave him obvious relief. But I still feel the guilt. I explain my story to you, Dear Reader, in hopes that you can exonerate me. I must explain my innocence, so you will understand. And perhaps you will see that I have redeemed myself.
At the time, the only vampyrs I had ever heard of were the creatures of myths and fairy tales, told to me by my school friends. Or by my older cousin, Eva, who spun sugarcoated versions of tales about Hungarian fiends, such as Elizabeth Báthory. She stayed with me on the nights my parents went to the opera in Vienna. At the time, even she was ignorant of a fact that most of the world knows: Vampyrs have no blood of their own. Elizabeth Báthory, the Blood Countess of Hungary, bathed in human blood, and even drank it, but her body always contained her own blood. She was not a true vampyr. They definitely must imbibe the blood of living humans because they have no blood of their own. Elizabeth killed and feasted on the blood of hundreds of servants and noblewomen but did not depend on this blood for her very survival. She drank blood as a youth serum and because she enjoyed inflicting pain, whereas the experienced vampyr has the nobility of character and depth of skill to inflict the least amount of pain possible.
You already know, I thought I was dreaming as the intruder held my head still, and drank gratefully. When I came to semi-consciousness, his white shirt, thin black leather jacket, and pale skin dazzled rather than frightened me. But then, a few minutes after he left, I was compelled by an unknown restlessness to sneak out of my room and into the streets. This was not like me. I had a relationship of trust with my parents and didn’t do things behind their backs. Besides, it wasn’t my habit to wander out alone at any time of the night. My mother, father, or one of my older cousins accompanied me when I rarely went out after dark, usually to some school function.
In the dark, quiet streets in the early morning, I was now possessed of a new boldness, driven by I knew not what. I just knew I needed to fulfill the over-whelming urge. I understood the practicality of sneaking around, under these conditions. I hid in the recesses of buildings if the police were in the vicinity. If they saw my pale skin and white night-dress reflecting the lights of the street lamps, they would escort me home, wake my parents, and cause a stir that I could ill afford.
I passed Sopron’s old Fire Watchtower. A homeless family was sleeping near it, huddled together in its shadow. I could smell the blood of their sleeping daughter. I gauged that she was about my size and instinctively understood that her delicate body housed just the right amount of bright red fluid for my needs. My parents had taught me that wasting anything was a sin. To drink to the last drop was the sign of a well-brought-up child. I had always wanted to be good and make my parents proud.
Now this good-girl Emma quietly tiptoed to the side of the sleeping girl. Her dark hair was matted against her head, held by a greasy kerchief. She was sleeping face up, lips slightly parted, as she breathed evenly. I could smell the unwashed bodies of her and her parents in the cool night air, yet I was not put off. Like an infant who instinctively roots for its mother’s breast, I automatically zeroed in on the throbbing artery on the girl’s neck. How was I to take my evening blood meal and not disturb her parents? They were snoring in exhausted sleep, on their sides. As delicately as possible, I crouched down next to the girl and inserted my newly grown incisors into the soft, thin skin on her neck. I softly slurped the liquid. It had a salty, metallic taste. Her blood was not as thin as I had expected and it was trying to clot. I knew I had much to learn if I were to accomplish my task as efficiently as possible. Speed and accuracy were important in such a situation and I did not want to use force.
I felt instant relief as the girl’s body slackened. At last complete release from the unbearable anxiety and tension! The painful, stressful misery I had been acutely suffering just a short moment ago was gone. My hunger was gone. My distress was over. I was free from that throbbing, relentless need. The prickling numbness had also disappeared and I was flooded with peace. Now the air took on a velvety sweetness. The streetlamps, surrounded by soft halos of light looked supernaturally cheerful. My wellbeing and survival, for now, was secure. I lifted my arms to the starry universe and rejoiced in the calmness and serenity flowing through me.
Miraculously, her parents stayed asleep! I think this was due to my skill at my family’s favorite game of Spellicans. We played it sometimes after dinner. The object of the game was to demonstrate delicacy of touch in picking up thin wooden sticks thrown in a random manner, without budging the surrounding sticks. Also, I felt with my tongue that my eyeteeth were of a particular sharpness and fineness. This allowed for neat, as opposed to gory, penetration. My training in good table manners stood me in good stead as I cleanly took my meal, with no blood spatter on my face or clothes. I stood back to admire the neatness of my incisions, congratulating myself on the precision that would make a skilled surgeon proud.
I was pleased with myself that I could slake my hunger and thirst so efficiently. I could feel new energy continue to course through my body. It only vaguely occurred to me, in my blood besotted mind that I was destroying this girl in the same way that my life, as a mortal, had been destroyed. At that point I hardly realized that I had set something into motion, a fate like my own, destined to seek sustenance from the blood of the living.
As the tales reported correctly, vampyrs create more vampyrs to join their unhappy circle. Contemplating the loneliness of my future, cut off from the warmth of my own humanity, I fantasized forming an alliance for mutual assistance with this girl. But I couldn’t see how something like that could happen overnight. There was no social connection between us. Yet I was so lonely now. I had never felt this kind of loneliness. Isolated, satisfied but not happy, I was satiated but sad. Was I condemned to friendlessness now that I had this dark secret? I had to conceive other plans for the companionship I needed now, more than ever.
Compulsion
By now you are probably wondering why I am spelling “vampire” with a “y” and without the “e.” I have discovered in my research that etymologists have disputed the exact origin of the word “vampire.” Most sources, including the Oxford English Dictionary, derive it from the Hungarian vampyr, which in turn, is derived from the Turkish über, witch. I was not a witch in any sense of the word, not that I deride the Wiccan sisterhood. It’s just that I did not possess powers of either black or white magic. Neither was I a hideous ghoul, who plundered graves and fed on corpses. I needed living blood, not the stagnant substance in dead bodies. But, make no mistake about it: I needed it. In short, I was a being, much like the majority of the human race, driven by compulsions over which I had no control.
The obsessive-compulsive human is driven to repeat the same task over and over again, be it hand washing or locking and unlocking the door. Yet she is judged as being psychologically impaired and in need of therapy. The alcoholic is propelled to drink and flood his brain and blood with alcohol. The drug addict seeks to assuage his never-ending need for a fix by inhaling, swallowing, or injecting substances into his body. The addict’s days and nights are spent in endless pursuit of the substance of choice. I have heard that in the West, social programs and support groups abound to assist these mortals. My sympathy goes out to these slaves who are trapped and controlled by forces outside themselves. But where are the twelve step programs for vampyrs? No one looked upon us with compassion, even though we were less responsible for our actions than the aforementioned addicts. In truth, addicts could continue to exist without their self-abuse of choice as long as they eat food to support their cells and drink enough fluid to keep hydrated. Their health actually improves when they discontinue their compulsions.
But I needed to assure my very continuity with the blood of humans. My health would not have improved if I stopped. Do you understand? Unlike the alcoholic or addict, I did not introduce a foreign substance into my blood. I needed blood itself, regardless of the foreign substances it contained. Now can you see my point? I continue to harp on it because it is important for me to secure your agreement that I am not to be judged harshly or condemned in the court of public morality.
Your good opinion matters a great deal to me--especially after you learn of some of my nightly adventures. For you will think I was unnecessarily cruel if you do not understand how carefully I tried to keep the whole process as painless as possible. You will think I am evil for destroying others to continue my survival. I was not evil for evil’s sake! I was just doing what everyone else is doing on earth—surviving!
Every night I made my forays into the Sopron community. Oh, I was so cautious! I decided that I would select only sleeping adolescent girls. It was only later that I gained confidence in myself as a predatoress. By that time I also fed on the blood of young men. But I never preyed on babies or children. It was impractical anyway, for I would need several babies, or at least two children to provide the quantity that one well-developed young adult could produce. Also, it would be needlessly cruel and wasteful to vampyrize a baby who did not have the wherewithal to seek its own blood replenishment. A baby vampyr crawling out into the cobblestone streets of Sopron at 1:00 AM would be a sorry sight. Under the circumstances, I wanted to be as compassionate as possible.
My need for companionship persisted. Then the perfect solution struck me. Why not enlist my best friend Kati Debreceni? She would become my next meal, after my virginal experience with the sleeping homeless girl. Kati and I had been friends since kindergarten. Her shiny, straight brown hair hung in bangs over light brown eyes. She was a much healthier specimen than the homeless girl. Her family was part of the emerging upper middle class.
She needed me to help her prepare for a biology re-exam the next day. This was a good pretext for me to ask my parents if I could stay overnight at her family’s well-appointed townhouse. Though I was studying advanced courses, Kati found school difficult and often relied on me to study with her for exams. This time we might have to study later than usual. I had never spent the night away from home. After some discussion, my parents felt the occasion was fine. I also wanted to get them used to my spending other nights away from home in the future.
We reviewed all possible answers to any possible questions that would be on the test the next morning. Then we got ready for sleep. I hid my mounting discomfort. We were braiding each other’s hair, and began talking about Zoltán Szabó. Most of the girls I knew had yearnings for him. He was more than merely handsome. He had a look of penetrating seriousness, a graceful demeanor, and quiet charisma. He was several years older than we were and had an air of mystery, which was lacking in the few adolescent boys we knew.
As we sat cross-legged on her bed, Kati’s eyes sparkled as she told me of the secret notes she had been sending to Zoltán via courier. She scented them with the Queen of Hungary Water, and included poems such as:
“How long and how in secret it has been
That I have watched you through my down-turned eyes!
My lips have yearned to kiss your manly face;
My body longs to feel thy potent thighs!”
“Kati!” I laughed. “I didn’t know you had such physical passion surging through you. And what nerve to send poems such as this! Does he even know who sent them? This is mighty bold of you! Think of how you would feel if you were found out!” I began to look at her with a new kind of interest, as if the heat in her blood attracted me. “That part about the potent thighs is a bit much,” I said as I tried to control my laughter.
“Oh, no one would suspect me. You know how shy I have always been around the opposite sex,” said Kati as she blushed. “Besides, I saw him looking at you several times at the Festival of Ancient Music. I know because I couldn’t take my eyes off of him and was vexed that he seemed only to be attracted by you.”
Her blushes brought the blood to the surface of her golden skin in a most appetizing manner. I could feel the tremors of vampyric force rise and soon they would take over fully. One part of me was horrified that I was making plans to imbibe the sanguine fluid that brought such blazing color to my best friend’s cheeks. I felt the same longing I felt as a child outside the Sopron Cukrászda, one of our delightful pastry shops. I could feel the saliva pouring into my mouth as I used to gaze at the sugary delicacies in ornate display.
Now my dearest Kati Debreceni took on the aspect of a plump and juicy mákos beigli, our famous poppy seed moon cake. Ah, the moon. How I loved it now. More than the sun. Much more. And moon cake! What a fortunate appellation. I was happy, though conflicted, for I knew that I would be satisfied amply tonight. Only an hour more and we would be snuggling together under her eiderdown, her hand trustfully in mine as she drifted off to sleep. How lucky I was to have such a good friend. We shared so many happy childhood memories. To want to drain her of her plasma, blood cells, and platelets seemed harsh! Yet she would be a perfect companion for nightly excursions, so I wouldn’t have to be so alone in my horrific pursuits.
Kati was yawning, displaying the healthy pink lining of her mouth and gleaming rounded teeth as she lay next to me on the bed. She confided once more how insanely in love with Zoltán she was, placed her hand in mine, and instantly fell into a deep-breathing sleep. Her mother, Mrs. Debreceni, came into the room to bid us good night, bringing a plate of kifli with warm milk.
“Oh, I see our Kati is already asleep. How good it is to have you spend the night. Last night something dreadful happened which I’m sure you’ve read about it in today’s Kisalföld. It looks like vampyrs are making their way around Sopron. The police found what seemed like a homeless girl trying to capture and suck the blood from a teenage prostitute around the area of the Old Fire Tower early yesterday morning. Let’s hope we don’t have what happened about ninety years ago. It was a veritable vampyr epidemic in Sopron! Our town became famous throughout Hungary because of what happened in those days. Sopron was called ‘Odenburg’ then. I am glad for the name change, as I don’t want to be associated with those frightful goings on.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. It began to dawn on me that last night’s activities had far-reaching consequences for our town. Already my first victim was set into motion. I had to be careful. It was important that no one had seen me last night as they had seen the homeless girl. But what about tonight? I was going to turn my best friend into one of The Undead. I was going to eat the pastry and warm milk her mother so kindly brought to us. Her mother trusted me as a pal for her child and this is how I was to repay her! Be grateful that you do not have these memories on your conscience.
We chatted a bit more as I sipped gently at the warm milk and took small bites of the fragrant kifli. My appetite for human foods, even for pastries that I enjoyed so much in the recent past, was declining. Not to draw suspicion or comment, I ate but it was a painful chore. My only desire was for blood, like a Masai warrior thirsting for the warm sweet liquid flowing from his cow’s veins. These human foods, such as bread, meat, vegetables seemed as unsatisfying to me as porridge to a tiger.
Mrs. Debreceni told me of the famed Odenburgian, Count László, who wreaked havoc with the population of the town and the surrounding countryside during her mother’s youth. “But now we are called ‘Sopron’ and have left that all behind us, I had hoped. My dear Emma, you have no idea of the horrors we all felt, knowing that there had been a creature among us who feasted on human blood. Why am I even bringing it up just before bedtime? It was all so horrid. I was only a little girl when I heard the stories. But they created a lasting impression on my imagination. I was terrified by the whispered stories, and suspicious shadows all around me. The adults wanted to spare my innocent ears when they sat around on gloomy nights telling the stories, but I heard plenty! Almost every night I cowered under the covers, hoping I would be safe.
“My dreams were almost as bad as the reality could have been. At times, I wanted to get it over with, to be finished with the constant terror. Yes, as a child, I contemplated suicide, because of what I had seen one day when I went into the marketplace with my grandmother.
“We were walking by Orsolya tér, just passing Mária fountain, early one spring morning. Ever since that day, I have never been able to pass that place without the memories flooding back to me of what I saw. Around the figure of what looked to be a sleeping teenaged girl, stood a crowd of various townsfolk. It seemed strange that the girl would be asleep by herself out in the open as she was. Where was her family? She did not look homeless, but rather well taken-care of, in the manner of the upper middle classes. As a policeman shook her to ascertain her state of life or death, she turned and plunged her teeth into his wrist and began to drink thirstily!
“My grandmother tried to hide my eyes by covering my face with her shawl. But I could see it all through a gap. The policeman was trying in vain to detach himself from the powerful suction the girl generated as she fastened her lips around his wrist. I had heard stories of vampyrs always seeking the necks. My school friend Zsuzsa told me that vampyrs fastened on necks, where the blood flow was more abundant because the arteries were large. I was amazed that this powerful police officer could not extricate himself from the persistent attachment of this dainty, almost thin, girl onto his appendage. Moreover, the rest of the crowd did not come to his aid, but rather, dispersed in fear. Who knew what the policeman would do when the girl had her fill of him?
“My grandmother hurried me away, my face still covered, as I tripped over the cobblestones and curbs. I asked, Grandmother, ‘don’t you think we should do something to help the policeman?’
‘No, my dear, we need to leave as quickly as possible. Don’t tell your mother or father about this or they will not let you go to the market with me again.’ I promised, but never forgot that day! And now this—again, with a teenage girl!
“I never wanted my Kati to go through that kind of terror as a child and have protected her from hearing such tales. It is all in the past now, yet the emotions still haunt me. Let me stop before I frighten you and disturb your sleep, Dear Emma. Sleep well, my sweet child. I will see you in the morning.” With that, she leaned over, kissed my cheek, kissed Kati’s cheek, and moved towards the door.
At last she was gone! I waited an hour, hoping that the household would be in slumber, but my hunger for the rubicund fluid of life was escalating. As an added precaution, I walked quietly down the dark corridors. All was silent except for Kati’s father’s light snore through thick wooden doors of her parents’ room. I returned to the sleeping form of my best friend. I lightly placed my lips on the throbbing artery in her smooth neck. “Dearest companion since childhood, I have always loved you. I love you even more now, in a different way. I need you now for my very existence. I want to make you part of my Sisterhood of Blood, so that neither of us will ever be alone. Together, we can wander the nights in search of our prey, sharing our discoveries and conquests. I have never begrudged you anything and don’t intend to now. I will now bestow upon you the agelessness and timelessness of your new species.”
I then gently and quietly inserted my lengthening fangs into her neck. I marveled at my own finesse. This was no clumsy blood bath. I performed neatly and precisely. You might say there was a quality of professionalism that may have been unmatched in vampyrical history, given that this was only my second bloodletting. I drained her blood before she had a chance to awaken or to understand what had happened to her. When she finally rose from the bed, she was already a new creature, driven by new desires. She held me close, kissed me silently, opened the door and vanished into the night. For now, she too had to slake the driving thirst that would not allow her to rest until it was satisfied. I held off from accompanying her. That would be for tomorrow night. We now had all of eternity together.
Companions of the Night
After that night of conversion to her new identity, Kati and I were indeed companions of the night. Other teenage girls of our acquaintance shared innocent pastimes such as going to the Sopron Pláza to see the latest movies, shopping in the Old Town, walking around the Lővérek Hills, sipping mélanges, eating palacsintas (Hungarian crépes) at sidewalk cafes, and studying. We spent most of our time together after the town had gone to sleep. We noticed that the bright daytime sun was too sharp for our tender eyes. The soothing darkness of the evening was much more comforting to us. For that calming lack of light also signified that our feedings were immanent. Our restless craving would be put to rest once more as we imbibed the lifeblood we so desperately needed to still our pain.
It was painful, this new life of ours. Or should I say, this life beyond death. Most vampyrs would describe our hunger as a chilling, burning, sharp cramp all over one’s body, on the surface as well as deep within each organ, to the marrow of our bones. It is not like human hunger, localized to the hollow stomach’s uncomfortable protests. Along with it comes acute mental agony until we are assured that our next meal is at hand.
The logistics of locating and then seizing our prey were complicated. Neither Kati nor I had any experience with breaking and entering, obviously. How obedient and quiet we were, as girls, within the strictness of our families and social system! Knowing something about this subject, or even thinking about it, was beyond our imagination. Yet breaking and entering is precisely what we needed to do to obtain our nightly feeding in many cases.
At first we devised a plan to dress as boys. We logically concluded that it would be much better to disguise ourselves altogether. But later we agreed that looking just like ourselves would disarm any policeman or authority figure who would happen upon us in our after-midnight excursions. We are harmless-looking. Perhaps the officer would be concerned that two young ladies are out so late, he would hasten us on our way home—but if we were boys, he might suspect we were up to mischief, especially if captured on strange premises or, worse, inside someone’s home.
Yet our first night out together as a team, we did not break and enter. We decided to feast upon the sisters, at whose home we were always welcome, instead. They were close to our ages and we had known each other since we were in Széchényi High School. Golden-haired Gizi was a juicy-fleshed 17-year-old. She was the slower moving and the quieter of the two. She had womanly grace and did not need to try too hard at anything. Her beauty sufficed under most circumstances outside of school. Black-haired Eszti was the coltish, fine-boned, 16 year-old sister, whose sense of humor tended towards sarcasm and boisterous fun. She was angular, while Gizi was rounded. Her nose came to an elfin point, while Gizi’s was rounded at the tip. This gave Eszti a mischievous look sometime, while Gizi’s looks resembled a peach, ripe for consuming, in her rounded succulence. The girls were a good choice for us, as their parents were visiting Lake Balaton and they were alone for the week.
We knew that we could not invite ourselves over to spend the evening, for then they might have told their parents or others. Kati and I did not want anyone to suspect us as the cause of their future transformation into insatiable Wanderers of the Night. So, we decided to drop in unannounced after supper. We would bring a box of krumplicukor, the old-fashioned Hungarian potato candy of which Gizi was particularly fond. Eszti despised that native treat, but we knew we could intrigue her with talk of Zoltán, in whom she shared our intense interest. She had declared upon occasion that she would never love any one more than Zoltán and would rather die an old maid than have any other man. We laughed at the finality of this statement, coming from a 16-year-old. How did she know what she would feel even a year from now, no less for the rest of her life?
As we approached the sisters’ house from the street, we admired the traditional straight gable and pitched roof that the family had preserved from days gone by. I loved our little town and so did Kati. Now our love for the town and the people in it had taken on a new emphasis. In another minute though, Kati and I began a testy, irritable discussion about our plans. “Emma, have we decided who is going to take whom?”
I said, “I thought I would take Gizi and you would take Eszti because her feelings for Zoltán are so much like yours.” The derision on Kati’s face was so unlike the Kati I had known, I almost forgot to blame myself for being the cause of her situation. That is the only thing that stopped me from taking her scorn personally.
“What kind of reasoning is that, Emma? Gizi is plump and juicy. Her blood will be rich and easy to access. Eszti is too wiry. I will have to work like hell to sup on her blood and, after all my effort, the blood will still not be as substantial. Do you think it’s right that you are appropriating the choicest morsel for yourself? This new vampyrical nature of yours is turning you selfish. Look what you have done to me. The least you could to do to compensate would be to let me have first go at Gizi.”
I realized she was correct. I, who had cherished and nurtured the qualities of unselfishness and generosity instilled in me by my parents, was becoming greedy as my hunger intensified. Of course I wanted the easier of the two sisters all to myself. But that kind of thinking would be destructive to my future alliance with Kati. We could be much more effective as a team than alone, sharing our spoils like a wolf pack. On the other hand, the concept of sharing felt inimical to my new ethic, in the tradition of the solitary predatoress.
“You are right, Kati, this recent bloodlust is overriding all my altruistic tendencies,” I said. Yet I continued in my selfish rationalizations, trying to sound logical in my next attempt at putting a good spin on it: “Eszti is like cserkész sausages that you enjoy so much. Granted, cserkész is thin and dry. But you have always said you loved its chewy resilience. It’s a great energy-boosting nibble. Five thousand Hungarian Boy Scouts can’t be wrong in making it their snack of choice on forest treks!
“Kati, you know I have always preferred gyulai sausages, moist and juicy, like Gizi. There is nothing more to it than that. It’s just a preference sort of thing.”
“Emma, I can see through your self-serving reasoning and it does not work with me. Let’s agree to split the girls evenly, with me starting on Gizi and you starting with Eszti. Then, midstream, we will switch and complete our meals.”
“No,” I said. “I am one day senior to you in our new life as vampyrs and I am your initiator. The unwritten law of seniority applies. I don’t want to finish with Gizi after I have been sucking on Eszti’s meager flow. How do I know anything will be left? I will be working away to extract a few mouthfuls, while listening to you freely drinking from the flowing fountain! I don’t even trust that you will switch over when the time comes.”
Our conversation vexed me so, I almost called the whole encounter off. How silly of me to think that I could share my nightly excursions or that I would be better off with a partner. Maybe after this night, I would always be alone, free to choose my food sources without the reproach of, or consideration for, Kati or anyone else.
I stopped and grabbed Kati by her upper arm, surprising myself as I hissed, “I will take Gizi! You will take Eszti. She has plenty of blood for your second night out. Don’t be so avaricious! You will have many nights ahead of you for all of eternity. Now it is very important for us to maintain a light-hearted approach to the whole situation so as not to make the girls suspicious. Remember, this is not your last night on earth or on any other planet, so stop acting like it is. Last time I checked, the population of the Sopron-Györ-Moson area alone was over 425,000. Surely you will have a great assortment from which to choose every night of the week. So stop acting like this is your last meal on earth!”
Kati looked at me with great resentment but then softened. “I was a fool to argue with you. As the old Hungarian proverb says, ‘A prudent man does not make the goat his gardener.’ It was stupid of me to think that you would help me by leading me to a blood harvest when your goatish greed drives you to consume the lion’s share. I hate the old Hungarian proverbs my grandmother always belabored, but another one applies here: ‘An ox remains an ox, even if driven to Vienna.’ That means you are a greedy, vicious, non-human whose beastly lust supersedes the fact that you look like a respectful, kindly young lady.”
Really, this was too much! I wanted to get in the last retort. “While we are on the subject of Hungarian proverbs, Kati my dear, how about the one my grandfather taught me: ‘A crow does not delouse the ox to clean him, but to feed himself.’ That is what is known as enlightened self-interest. I thought that bringing you along would be an asset to me in my quest to feed myself. In return, I could be helpful to you in your initiation into the life of the Undead. Instead, you are turning into more and more of a problem on this expedition. I mean, I love you as a person but as a vampyr you need to go along with the program and trust that I know what I am doing.”
Kati sighed as she gave into my unassailable reasoning, “Oh, all right. Let’s stop with the oxen proverbs already! This is post-Communist Hungary. There haven’t been any oxen around here in 75 years! Let’s do what we can for ourselves tonight and tomorrow we can consider setting out on our own.” Thus, our innocent friendship had been transmuted overnight into an adversarial relationship. At that point I realized I might have been wrong about being companions for eternity.
Innocence Lost
We knocked at the thick wooden door of the Kovács family’s comfortable middle class townhouse. After a brief, heart-pounding moment, Gizi appeared and opened it with Eszti by her side. “Why Emma and Kati! How cool of you to visit us! What brings you out to see us tonight? What do you have there? Oh, krumplicukor! Come in, come in!” The exquisite bone structure of her face was obscured only a little by the thin layer of adipose tissue that overlay it. She and Eszti both were quite the beauties, each in her own way. Gizi, however, had a glow that came from within, while Eszti made a darker impression because of her mental reservations. Cheerfulness and sarcasm rarely mix in the same nature.
I saw then that Gizi’s neck might present a problem because of its thickness. I couldn’t gauge how deeply buried was her carotid artery. Eszti would be a piece of cake, so to speak, compared to Gizi, even if she was thinner and offered a less bounteous harvest. Only a very thin layer of skin covered the prominent arteries and tendons in her neck. Maybe I was a fool for arguing with Kati over Gizi. Eszti might be an easier meal after all. Besides, I had a feeling that Eszti would taste more like bittersweet chocolate as opposed to Gizi, who probably would be more like milk chocolate, if you were to use chocolate as a comparison. I have always been a fan of dark chocolate. Yet the difference between a juicy, spicy kielbasa-like gyulai and the chewy cserkész was a more apt comparison for my purposes.
Eszti remarked as Gizi tore open the package of krumplicukor. “Only we Hungarians would think candy made from potatoes is a good thing. Who else would think such a bland, tooth-breaking concoction worthy of enthusiasm? I’m surprised you didn’t bring some Zwack Unicum to go with it! What a great combination: The tasteless with the bitter!” She was referring to a drink we Hungarians swear by as a stomach strengthener, an acquired taste.
Gizi rebuked her sister. “Eszti, stop being rude. Emma and Kati are our guests and they brought me something I like, regardless of what you think of it. You don’t have to eat any of it. I assure you, I will eat it all. And stop putting Hungarians down! We have a great cuisine, honored all over the globe, and rightly so. Just because you are obsessed with America, doesn’t give you the right to turn up your nose at our traditional goodies. America is the capital of junk food, so I don’t want to hear any more about it!”
She turned to us and laughed, “Eszti talks day and night about America. If it’s not America, it’s Zoltán! Just before you arrived, she was fixing a drink called ‘The Mad Hungarian.’ Can you believe this? Someone in America dreamed up this name for a drink that consists of two shots of coconut rum and root beer, whatever that is! Most Hungarians have never been near a coconut. They wouldn’t know what you are talking about if you mentioned coconut rum, no less root beer. Is it rum made of coconuts and beer made of roots? We were trying to approximate both ingredients when you arrived. She was mixing Huburtus with mashed marzipan and plum pálinka. Want to try it?”
We sat at their kitchen table while Eszti poured tiny, decorative ceramic cups of her Mad Hungarian. Kati had been silent until she sipped the strange brew. I could tell she was distracted by her thoughts of how we were to overcome the sisters. I saw that it would be easy. If they kept drinking this heady stuff, they would fall into a deep sleep. It was up to us to stay in control. This would not be difficult, as the drink was vile, although it did have an alcoholic kick, something I was not used to. Kati stood up, lifted her cup, and toasted, “To Hungarian men!”
“Oh really?” asked Eszti, “What brought that on from out of nowhere? Don’t you mean, to one Hungarian man in particular—Zoltán Szabó? If so, I’ll drink to that!”
I gave Kati a meaningful look when I saw her raising her fourth little ceramic cup to her mouth. She needed presence of mind to complete her night’s responsibilities. I interrupted, “Kati, I thought you told me plum pálinka triggers your allergies.” I took the cup away from her with a laugh but also gave her a serious look. It occurred to me that all this alcohol in everyone’s veins could have an impact on our blood meal later on, perhaps diluting the nutritional impact. Gizi and Eszti gave me a quizzical look. They had never seen me act bossy.
“I have an idea. Let’s talk about Zoltán,” said Eszti. She was getting silly now. She was giggling and her deep brown eyes were dancing. The candlelight shone in them. “He is going with our brother András to Club Colosso this Saturday night to hear Omega-három band. I’m begging our parents to let us go. They will be back from the lake by then—but they will be expecting us to stay with our little brother, Anton. I wish I lived in the USA—where I could go out any night of the week and not have to stay home and watch my little brother. I see in the cinema how the girls live over there. There’s such freedom! Did you ever see that movie Buffy the Vampire Killer? If only I could have that kind of life!”
Gizi was smiling at her sister. The brightness of her glowing cheeks hinted at the blood coursing beneath the taut skin. My God! Is this what I have come to? I see my good friends as no more than bags of blood. No more than receptacles of the fluid that gives me relief. I cannot glory in their aliveness and only wish for unconsciousness to overcome them so that I may have my way. Their conversation, which used to be enjoyable, is now tinged with tedium as I count the frightful hours until they are in my power. I was disgusted with myself yet could not stop this force that had taken hold of me.
Gizi had the kind of beauty that made few demands, other than its inevitable admiration. One couldn’t help but look at such planes and surfaces with a feeling of pleasure and wonder. She carried herself smoothly, erectly, at home in her womanly form. I was glad that Kati and I had settled the debate and Gizi was to be mine tonight. I had read about primitive tribesmen eating their enemies in the hopes of receiving some of their energy. In this case, I hoped I could siphon off some of Gizi’s radiance along with her blood. I was already beginning to feel weak and out of sorts and longed for her with a passion that was strange to me.
“Well, what do you think of Zoltán, Kati?” asked Gizi, completely unaware of the turmoil going through my mind.
“I’m crazy over him,” said Kati. Eszti gave a whoop and laughed.
“I could write a whole song to him,” said Eszti. “And, actually, I did.”
She stood up and started playing air guitar to the tune of Werewolf of London:
“Ah-ooooo Zoltán Szabó!
Ah-ooooo Zoltán Szabó!”
We all got up to dance and made sounds like mock werewolves. Eszti then did something uncanny—she began acting like a vampyr, pursuing Kati as if she was going to bite her neck. How ironic that in a few hours, the role-play would be reversed, with real consequences for both; an innocent pantomime, prefiguring the indelible future.
Friendship Redefined
After much singing, dancing, and drinking Gizi, Eszti, Kati and I all fell into an exhausted heap on the brown corduroy sofa in the living room. I signaled for Kati to wait until we were sure the sisters were quite unconscious. Both were breathing the long, relaxed breaths of sleepers in the third stages of sleep.
I wanted to teach Kati the etiquette of clean vampyrical feeding. I could see from her impatience that she was not going to pay attention to the techniques unless I was very strict with her. I did not want a gruesome bloodbath. If Kati goes out on her own and makes a mess of it, that is one thing. But I don’t want to be associated with, or be witness to, amateurish behavior. Especially where our friends were concerned. Kati had an impetuous quality, which was charming in our human life but had no place in the realm of the vampyrs. Precision was important to the stealth our new vocation required.
I gestured to her to keep quiet and waved my hand to make her wait and watch me. I softly bared my extended fangs. I quietly and gently inserted them in Gizi’a throat. Ah, what pleasure! Finally, the numbing drive for blood was being fulfilled. In seven long pulls, I drained most of Gizi’s lifeblood from her still-warm body. I relented a little. “Here Kati,” I said, as the warmth and ease from the relieving fluid coursed through my own veins. “You can finish her off. Then I will start Eszti for you, since she will be tougher. ”
Kati agreed. Her normal good humor was being replaced by the ill-at-ease fogginess of the pre-feeding cycle. I am referring to the physical and emotional state in which vampyrs exist before we avail ourselves of our next bloodfest. Everyone has experienced that groggy state of torpor after arising from a mid-afternoon nap: That half-alive dullness of mind and senses. Yet you are acutely aware of loud noises and other disturbances. It is a combination of crankiness and malaise. This is what we feel every night when our feeding time nears, except there is a component of anxiety that puts an edge on it. We are like the lionesses pacing their cages in the zoo, smelling the raw meat that approaches in the zookeeper’s pail. But there is no energy, just restlessness in our bodies.
Unlike the zoo’s lioness, we are not so lucky as to have our meals brought to us. We must go out every night, slaves to our unbidden desires, to obtain our sustenance. Furthermore, the captive lioness innocently gobbles down the muscle tissue brought to her with no further consequences to the dead animal that sacrificed its life so she could continue her caged existence. But what we do is transmute our food source into one of our Population of the Night, turning our meals into our very own competition for our next night’s food supply. Even a lioness in the state of nature, though driven by the same hungers, cannot lay claim to that phenomenon.
I was acutely, and somewhere deep in my human heart, sadly aware at this point that we were turning Gizi and Eszti into vampyrs too. I realized that they would need to depart from their comfortable home that very night to replenish the supply that Kati and I had diminished. Having been good in math at school, I also realized that if this type of activity kept up every night, the number of vampyrs in Sopron would increase exponentially until the town would be populated by nothing but our blood-sucking ilk in five years. I had already seen that I would have to branch out my feeding patterns to include more than just teenage girls. It also occurred to me that we would have to make our excursions into other areas of Transdanubia, such as Győr. Maybe we could cross over into Vienna, where the butter and cream-fed flesh of its citizens might provide a tasty treat.