Fallen

It is a glorious day and for once I appreciate it. The sun is warm on my face and I tilt it upwards to get the most of the rays. My skin tans well but I still have to be careful of burning. I am not attractive when my nose peels.

It is a pleasant walk through my grounds to the front gate. Until it opens all that it is possible to see through it is a swirling white mist. You have to know what to type into the panel at the side and you also have to be recognised by the DNA scanner before it will open anywhere, and it can open anywhere.

I press my hand against a panel which slides open. A fine needle projects from the bottom of the small chamber revealed behind it. I prick my finger on the needle leaving a tiny drop of blood. The panel slides back and glows yellow for a few moments before it turns green. I then type a code into the numerical keyboard and the mist swirls. The gate swings open and I step out into the world.

As my summerhouse exists in many places at once, so does my house. The summerhouse is one gate into the worlds beyond and this is another. The only difference is that while the summerhouse can take me to many worlds, this one can only take me to one. However, within this one world I can step out into anywhere I choose. Today I choose to take a slight detour. As I cross the bridge I find myself walking along an alley into a pleasant suburban street. I pause for a moment to orient and then set off again along the road to a pleasant suburban house, with a neat front garden.

There is no hesitancy in my step as I walk up the path to the front door and knock.

The door is opened a few minutes later by a middle aged man. He is a handsome man with neatly styled dark blonde hair and green eyes. He is dressed conservatively in dark slacks and a shirt and he has a pleasant if non committal smile on his face. He could be anyone.

"Can I help you?" he asks in a nondescript voice.

"I think so. I would like to talk to you about your son."

The man's eyes widen and the pleasant expression on his face falls away. "I don't know who you are," he says, "and frankly I don't give a damn. Whatever game you're trying to play forget it. Trust me, I am not a man you want to cross. I have no son. Now turn around and walk away."

"I am not playing a game. In fact I am deadly serious. I know you have a son; I have spoken to him, and that is why I have come to speak to you."

"I don't know what that little bastard has been saying about me," he hisses, "but I swear that if you say one word, just one word I will have you arrested for harassment."

"I have no intention of harassing you. I just have one question to ask you and then I will be on my way."

He gives me a suspicious look but relaxes his guard just a little. "What question?"

"It's a little sensitive so it might be better if we discuss it inside."

"Anything you have to say can be said here, and you're lucky I'm not slamming the door in your face."

"Very well. All I want is a name and address. Just one name and one address."

Now he looks confused. "I don't understand."

"I'd like to pay a visit to a doctor."

He narrows his eyes and peers at me, even more confused. "I don't think I can help you with that."

"Oh, I think you can. You see I don't want to visit just any doctor. I want to see a doctor who likes to fuck young boys and who isn't averse to carrying out butchery on the kitchen table."

For a moment he just stares at me, shocked by the venom in my voice, and then his face turns purple and he takes a step back. "I don't know what that fucking piece of crap has been telling you but I warn you -- get the hell out of here right now or I am going to call the police."

"Go ahead, and what are you going to tell them when they come and ask where your son is? Are you going to deny his existence to them too?"

"He ran away. That's not my fault."

"Did you report him missing?"

"No I... Just fuck off. Get out of here: right now."

"I don't think so." I reach out my hand just as he is about to close the door in my face, and touch his hand. Immediately he freezes and his hands fall to his sides. Gently I steer him backwards and slip inside, closing the door behind me. "A name please." I repeat softly.

Shocked he shakes his head and takes another step backwards. I smile at him and let my fangs descend. He groans but can't run because I am holding his hand and paralysing him. "Please... don't hurt me."

"Did your son say that? Did he beg you when the filth that you invited into your home... at a price, were beating and fucking him? Did he cry in your arms when he was ill and hurt, and beg you to take his pain away? Did you hear him cry out when he was being abused... 'Please... please don't hurt me'? Did you hear that? Did you? Did you?" As I speak I feel my temper rise and I slam him against the wall.

"I..."

"Did you?"

"Yes... yes I did."

"Then why did you stand back and do nothing? Why did you let your son suffer like that? Why did you let them hurt him?"

He shakes his head. "Is he dead?"

"No, he's not dead. He's being taken care of."

"He is dying you know. Even before he ran away, he was ill. I thought he would have been dead by now." He sounds terribly sad and for a moment I have compassion for him. Maybe he does love Bridge after all. Maybe he regrets. Maybe he... but he let those terrible things happen to him, he made him suffer, he made him bleed... he HURT Bridge.

"I know. I know everything. I know what happened, I know what you did to him and I know the price he's had to pay. And now I am going to pay it back for him."

The man stares at me with terror in his eyes and then something snaps behind his eyes and he slumps.

"You're right. I let it happen; I let it all happen. I was his father and I should have protected him. I should have taken care of him but all I did was hurt him. I know it made him ill, that it was my fault he was so hurt. I thought... I hoped... I hoped that he would come back so that I could look after him... at the end."

"There will be no end, not for him. I am taking care of him now and he is going to be just fine."

"He... he's going to live?"

"Yes, he is going to live and he's going to be well and he is going to be safe and happy."

"But he... how? He was too ill. He couldn't have..."I slowly and deliberately smile showing him my fangs. "Oh... I see."

"No, you don't see but you are beginning to get the message. Now I want that name. That's all I want. I want to find that bastard and have a little chat about how it isn't nice to do what he has been doing and make sure that he doesn't do it to anyone else."

"I... I can't..."

"I think you can."

"He...he'll kill me. He's a powerful man."

"Trust me... he's not as powerful as I am; and I really don't think you have to worry about him killing you." He looks into my eyes and sees the truth there. For a moment he looks frightened but then he nods, resigned.

"His name is Richard Pfanning. He lives on the other side of the river, a house called Brierwood, near the church."

"I will find it."

He nods, knowing what is going to happen next and accepting his fate. "Will you tell him something for me?"

"What?" I hadn't expected this. I was expecting him to fight, to curse, to plead. This calm acceptance is disconcerting.

"Will you give Mark a message from me?"

Mark? So that's Bridge's real name. I like Bridge better. "It depends on what it is."

"Tell him I'm sorry... and that I love him. I always loved him."

I have to laugh at that, I can't help it. "Loved him? You never loved him. I love him. I will take care of him and I will kill anyone who hurts him or tries to hurt him. That's why I'm here."

"It's no more than I deserve," he says and bows his head, baring his throat to me. "But," he adds as I sink my fangs into his neck, "I do love him, I always have." He says no more. I drink a little from him and am surprised that underneath it all his blood is not that of an evil man. Nevertheless it does not please me to take too much and I will not drain him. Instead I pin him to the wall with my body and pump my venom into him, sinking him deeper and deeper until his heart slows and then stops. Then, without a second glance I walk out of the house and dismiss him from my attention.

Brierwood is a big house, set back from the road in its own grounds. There is a locked gate but such things are no problem for me. There is no door or gate anywhere that can keep me out.

The door is opened by a woman in a neat suit. I assume that it is staff rather than family. I ask politely for Dr Pfanning and reply to the polite enquiry that I wished to speak to him to a former patient who is now in my care. With no further question I am invited into a spacious lounge and asked to wait.

I sit and smile. Of course I have not been playing fair. Bridge's father I dealt with straight because I wanted to watch him suffer and, to some degree I wanted to see emotion in him; I wanted fear and pain, I wanted revenge. However, here I have no such desire, not for any of them and so I use unashamed mental manipulation to persuade the employee to run off and fetch her master without having any real idea of who I am or what I want.

Dr Pfanning is a surprise. He is young, tanned and handsome. I wonder why a man such as this needs to pay for sex.

"Can I help you?" he asks smoothly after shaking my hand

"I'm sure you can," I respond with equal smoothness. "Can we speak somewhere more private?"

He gives me a look that clearly wonders what someone as young as I seem to be wants to talk to him about regarding a previous patient. I watch a flash of fear shoot through his eyes and disappear. He dismisses it. No matter, it will return soon enough.

He shows me into his study and motions for me to sit but I decline.

"I understand you wished to speak to me about a former patient who is now in your care. May I ask in what capacity?"

"Love."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I am caring for him because I love him."

"I...see. Perhaps you would like to give me his name and I will see what I can find in my files, although you will appreciate that any private information will be confidential and I will not be able to reveal it to you."

"Oh, don't worry. I don't want any information from you. I said that I wanted to talk to you about him, not that I wanted anything from you."

He looks confused. "I don't understand."

"Neither did he."

"Excuse me."

"He didn't understand. He never understood why he was used and abused the way he was, or why his father betrayed him as he did. Why men like you hurt him when all he wanted was to please. Did you enjoy it? Do you like fucking children? Not that he was a child, not as such... he was sixteen right? Or thereabouts. So it didn't matter did it? And what about when you drugged him and cut into him to repair the damage some other fucker just like you did to him? I'm sure you didn't enjoy that but it must have given you such a feeling of self righteousness... to be patching up the little whore."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he says coldly, "and I think it would be better if you leave now."

"Better for whom? For you? Sorry, I don't give a fuck about you."

"What do you want? Money? You'll never prove any of it."

"I don't want to prove it because I know it's true and there is no else I care to prove it to. I don't want money, I don't want explanation and I'm sure as Hel I don't want an apology, which I suspect you would never give in any event. I have been ruthless and cruel. I have been cold and heartless and I have killed for pleasure more than once. I understand you and that's why I have nothing to ask of you, nothing at all."

The good doctor glowers at me and tries to intimidate me with his greater stature. He thinks I'm a boy. I can't help but laugh in his face.

"I am not a helpless boy Dr Pfanning. I am not half dead with illness and pain. I am not what I seem at all. More than anything I am not for sale."

"What do you want?"

"You, Dr Pfanning; that's all, just you."

"I don't..."

"You hurt the man I love. You took advantage of him. You abused him and debased him and butchered him. Worse of all you knew. You knew how ill he was. There was no way you could not have. You did tests, you knew about the STD's and you had to have known about the cancer too... but you did nothing to help him."

"What would you expect me to do? He was a whore."

"He was a boy; a hurt, confused and desperately ill boy... and you doomed him."

"My heart weeps. I doubt that anyone else will. One less diseased whore in the world is no loss to anyone."

"It would be a loss to me."

He gives me a look that says 'who the fuck are you?' and turns away. He barely gasps when my hands slide around his throat and he collapses. I am blindingly angry. Bridge's father was pathetic but this... this animal is in no way sorry for what he's done. He looked at me with such disgust on his face when he spoke of Bridge... he doesn't deserve to walk the same earth... and so he won't.

I look down at him, at his shocked eyes, his immaculate hair, his pristine shirt collar. "You are nothing compared to him. You almost destroyed him but he is too strong. You don't deserve ever to have breathed the same air as him. The thought of your hands on his body, what you did to him...Think of this in your last moment. He didn't die. He won't die. He will live on, long after your body is cold and buried deep in your grave. You didn't deserve him and he for sure did not deserve you.

And then I take care of him. It is messy and brutal and I enjoy it enormously. Afterwards I let myself out of the house and simply walk away.

Bridge will never know what I have done; he doesn't need to. He would forgive... has forgiven. He is better than me. I was getting soft; I am getting soft, but it's nice to know I haven't lost my edge completely. A good morning's work I think. And now on to my next item of business.