“I will go back inside and return to sleep,” repeats my neighbour, he sounds like he’s in a trance. Then I hear his door close, the lock flick over and he’s gone. It’s quiet again. Except I can hear a vague scratching sound. What the hell is that? A moment later my heart jumps when the bathroom door opens and Ethan steps inside.
“How did you get in?” I ask, stunned.
“I have my talents,” he replies, nonchalant.
“Breaking and entering is illegal you know, I could call the police.”
“Ah, but you see there was no breaking involved, I merely entered. Go and check the lock and see for yourself.”
“Ethan,” I say, tired and weary. “Will you please just leave and let me rest?”
“I wish to speak with you about what happened tonight,” he says as he stands in my bathroom doorway, tall and threatening as a hunting tiger. “But could we please go to another room?” he continues. “This place reeks of blood and death.”
“Well,” I reply, “you’d know all about that now wouldn’t you,” my voice is snappy, desperate almost, and my stomach churns at his use of the word blood. The image of it is far too fresh in my memory.
“It goes with the territory I’m afraid,” he replies gravely.
I grab a piece of tissue from the holder beside the toilet and do my best to dab the cold sweat fr
om my forehead.
“Wait a minute,” I say, my thought processes finally catching up. “What do you mean my bathroom reeks of blood and death?”
“A man took his life in this very room did he not? You may have washed away the evidence of that act, but for one of my species the scene is as it was before any of his blood ever got cleaned away. I can smell and sense it all around me.”
That must be another special ability of vampires, they know if blood has been spilt in a particular area. My stomach clenches, heaves, trying to make me be sick again, but there’s nothing left inside for me to throw up. My head tilts to the side of its own volition, like a wilting daisy. Then, without even a passing second, Ethan is crouched before me, he picks me up and I allow him to do so.
He may be a bloodthirsty killer, but right now my options are to either spend the night on my cold bathroom tiles or allow a vampire to carry me to my bed. I decide to go for the latter option. Yes I’m selling out, but there are times when a person has been through so much that they no longer hold the conviction nor the inclination to do what is morally right.
I submit to his strength, his lean, comforting arms, his charade of protection. I should not be taking the easy option. But God, as Ethan pulls back the duvet and lies me in my bed, I don’t think I care any more about good and evil, vampires and slayers. All I want to do is sleep for a month. A year. A decade.
I lie back and sink into the pillows, as I feel Ethan removing my boots. The heavy weight of them drops away as I hear them fall to the floor. He then sits me up and takes off my jacket. I allow him to manoeuvre me as though I were a rag doll.
“For modesty’s sake,” he says in a gentle voice. “I will leave you in your dress.”
I’m consumed by a mixture of exhaustion and stark wakefulness, and if I had any energy at all I’m sure I would have something to say about Ethan mentioning the removal of my dress. However that doesn’t happen, because a moment later I drift off into a deep and heavy sleep.
I don’t wake up until well into the afternoon hours the next day. My eyes are crusty, my throat is dry and I’ve been drooling on my pillow. As I turn over I hear paper crackle from under my head. I reach beneath my hair to find a note. From Ethan. At this moment all of my memories from the previous night suddenly come crashing down on me.
I had vague nightmares of slaughter. Snap shots of the fight between Ethan and the slayers mixed up like a surrealist painting with the imagery of a butcher slaughtering pigs in an abattoir. I suppose that was what Ethan had been doing, because compared to his superhuman strength those slayers were akin to pigs in a slaughterhouse.
I take the note and do my best to de-crumple it. It’s written in a severe joint script, the handwriting of an earlier era I presume. It reads:
Dear Tegan,
The approaching daylight meant that I could not wait for you to wake up.
There remains much for us to discuss. Particularly in relation to your new
place of work. It would please me if you came to the club this evening at
six so that we may finalise matters.
Yours Always,
Ethan.
P.S You are even more delectable when you sleep.