"That was different. I knew what I was doing. I had experience. I healed his wounds. I altered his body, not his soul."
He turned to me. "Don't you see it's because I love Ralphe as much as you do that I want to give him this chance? If we can change him from the inside out, transform his blood, he will be like a child of Christ."
"Christ never knew of vampires," I warned. "You should not mix the two in your mind. It's blasphemy even to me."
Arturo was passionate. "How do you know he didn't? You never met him."
I got angry. "Now you speak like a fool. If you want to experiment on anyone, use me. You promised me you would when we started this."
He stiffened. "I can't change you. Not now."
I understood what he was saying. Suddenly I felt the weight of shattered dreams. In my mind I had been playing with a daughter who had never been born, and who probably never would be.
"You need my blood first," I replied. "The pure vampire blood." It was true he had to replenish the blood in the crystal vial, not before each experiment, but often. Old blood did not workit was too dead. I continued, "But what if your experiment does work and you do create a perfect being? I cannot give enough blood to alter everyone on this planet."
He shrugged. "Perhaps those who are altered can become the new donors."
"That is a huge perhaps. Also, I know people. This will be an exclusive club. It doesn't matter how good your intentions are now." I turned away and chuckled bitterly. "Who will be given a chance at perfection? The nobility? The clergy? The most corrupt will feel they are the most deserving. It is the oldest lesson of history. It never changes."
Arturo hugged me. "That will not happen, Sita. God has blessed this work. Only good can come from it."
"No one knows what God has blessed," I whispered. "And what he has cursed."
A few days went by during which Arturo and I hardly spoke. He would stay up late making models of molecules no one had seen, afraid to talk to me, to touch me. I never realized until then how he saw me asboth a gift and a test from God. Of course I had given him my immortal perception on the matter, but he had seen me that way from the start. I brought him magic blood and delicious sensuality. He was supposed to take one and not the other, he thought. He lost his intuitive sense that kept him from mistakes, I believe, because he no longer thought he was worthy of having it. He stopped praying to God and started muttering to himself about the blood of Jesus Christ. He was more obsessed with blood than I was, and I had it for dinner every few days.
One evening I could find Ralphe nowhere. Arturo said he had no idea where he was. Arturo wasn't lying, but he wasn't telling the whole truth either. I didn't press him. I think I didn't want to know the truth. Yet had I insisted he tell me, I might have stopped the horror, before it got out of hand.
The screams started in the middle of night.
I was out for a walk at the time. It was my custom to go out late, disguised, find a homeless person, drink a pint of blood, whisper in his or her ear, and put the person back to sleep. Except for evil priests, I didn't often kill in those days. The cries that came to me that night chilled me through. I ran toward the sounds as fast as I could.
I found five bodies, horribly mangled, their limbs torn off. Obviously, only a being of supernatural strength could have committed these acts. One person, a woman with an arm lying beside her, was the test one still alive. I cradled her head in my lap.
"What happened I asked. "Who did this to you?"
"The demon," she whispered.
"What did this demon look like?" I demanded.
She gagged. "A hungry angel. The blood" Her eyes strayed to her severed arm and she wept. "My blood."
I shook her. "Tell me what this demon looked like?"
Her eyes rolled up into her head. "A child," she whispered with her last breath and died in my arms.
Sick at heart, I knew who the child was.
Far away, on the far side of the town, I heard more screams.
I flew toward them but once again I was too late. There were more shredded bodies, and this time there were witnesses. An angry mob with burning torches was gathering. They had seen the demon child.
"It was heading for the woods!" they cried.
"We have to stop it!" others cried.
"Wait!" I yelled. "Look how many it has killed. We can't go after it without help."
"It killed my brother!" one man cried, pulling out a knife. "I'm going to kill it myself."
The mob followed the man. I had no choice but to tag along. As we wound through the dark streets, we found still more bodies. A few had had their heads ripped off. What was the mob thinking? I asked myself. They would fare no better against the monster. Of course mobs and rational thought are not complementary. I have seen too many mobs in my day.
When we reached the trees on the edge of town, Ileft the rabble to search for the monster myself. I could hear it, two miles-ahead, laughing uproariously as it tore off the head of an animal. It was fast and strong, but I was a pure vampire, not a hybrid. It would be no match for me.
I came across it as it ducked from tree to tree, preparing to attack the mob.
"Ralphe," I whispered as I moved up behind him.
He whirled around, his face covered with blood, a wild light in his eyes. Or I should say, no light shone there. His eyes were snakelike. He was a serpent on the prowl, searching for the eggs of another reptile. Yet he recognized mea faint flicker of affection crossed his face. If it was not for that, I would have killed him instantly. I had no hope he could be converted back to what he had been. I have intuition of my own. Some things I simply know. Usually the bitterest of things.
"Sita," he hissed. "Are you hungry? I am hungry."
I moved closer, not wanting to alert the mob, which was closing in. Ralphe had left a trail of blood. The stuff dripped off him; it was enough to make even me sick. My heart broke in my chest as he came within arm's reach.
"Ralphe," I said softly, all the time knowing it was hopeless. "I have to take you back to Arturo. You need help."
Terror disfigured his bloody expression. Obviously the transformation had not been pleasant for him. "I will not go back there!" he shouted. "He made me hungry!" Ralphe paused to stare down at his sticky hands. A portion of his humanity did indeed remain. His voice faltered on a lump of sorrow in his throat. "He made me do this."