Author's Note

Beginning today and continuing for the next few Friday's fans of this Journal will be treated to excerpts from the 1st chapter of the novel Clot - the story of one tainted by Nicholas' blood...

           Blood. My life has always been marked by it. I have tried to avoid it, but in much the same way you are unable to shake your own shadow, I have had no success.

The beautiful, pregnant, woman asleep at my side has helped me face my demons and has given me more patient support than I have ever felt entitled too.  Still, most times I am confused and angered by my past. I have not made it easy for her. I have managed to find some distraction, if not the professional achievement we all feel driven to before we enter our thirties. This demonstrative sense of purpose and responsibility puts family and society more at ease I suppose. And if you’re one of the fortunate ones, you are left enough time to figure out what you are truly called to be. I just wish I knew what that was.

Nighttime is particularly bothersome for me. Its four thirty and I have been staring at the ceiling for at least an hour. Laying perfectly still, trying not to disturb my wife. I am not preoccupied with thoughts surrounding the birth of our first child or with being a father, though there are concerns. I have just always been restless at night. Lately though, I feel embraced by a faceless darkness. It is the same way I feel every time I return to the islands. The dreams are different now. Sometimes I’m not even asleep when I see the foreboding, faceless figure, beckoning me. My mother is another recent addition, standing at his side, silent and unmoving.

At my side, she stirs and opens her eyes for a moment. She is used to my restlessness. She kisses me on the lips and turns, falling again into a deep sleep. A smooth caramel colored shoulder is exposed and appears lighter against her dark mid-length dreadlocks. 

I want to be happier, to cherish her and this life more. I should. I have become a rather successful sports journalist and occasional broadcaster and I am starting a family with an amazing woman. But, the dreams and strange emotions persist.

Working my body and my mind in these hours is cathartic. At least that’s what I convince myself. The distraction and solitude helps me maintain pretenses and break the near fever I often wake with.

Slide

I would let this fever run its course, I had said to Louis and so I had immersed myself in the dream that was a life with Sophie. Early on in my existence as a vampire I had resented the seemingly divine presence of Eli for the judgment I felt was implied. Now he was a silent, non-judging presence once more and I tried to ignore what I had suspected for some time. Eli was a spirit apparition of my very own construct, a sense of morality held over from my mortal days.

Having this increased sense of power in no way diminishes your desire at times to do as you would like. What I wanted to do was live this fantasy without comment or consequence. Neither of course would be possible.

I cannot confess to knowing any more than you suspect in the ways of demonic beings only that their powers of persuasion and seduction are exceptional. Usually I am aware when such beings are attempting to gain an advantage, but I dropped my guard with this being that would be Sophie.

Because she could feel Sophie’s love for me she wanted me to be happy she said. That’s how it started.

“You are using what you have become to help others.” She would say encouragingly. “You must preserve your strength if you are to continue to protect them.”

She chose her words carefully. The ‘them’ she spoke of with concern was mortals of course, and had she said mortals or humans I might have cringed and perhaps even shaken myself out of my reverie.

I started hunting more frequently to ‘preserve’ my strength and spending less time with my brothers in the resistance to the thirst. She helped me chose appropriate victims, those who were themselves causing harm and distress to their fellow mortals. She taught how to easier identify those whose blood was tainted and convinced me it was still better if they did not continue to draw breath. It was becoming too easy to kill and tonight I killed a man who didn’t appreciate how much attention I was getting from his date. I guess the devil is always whispering in your ear and of late I was listening all too intently…