Death stalked the corridors and the wards of the Good Hope Hospice -- most natural deaths, some not quite so natural. A place where people ended up when there was no good hope left for them.
Out of the darkness a lone man emerged, black jeans, black T Shirt, dark leather jacket --he seemed to be made for the night. Stefan looked up at the large plaque on the side of the building, smirking slightly -- "Good Hope Hospice -- Caring for the terminally Ill." This building was one of Stefan's favourite places.
Looking quickly around, he slipped into the main doors of the Hospice, the glass covered cubicle where the receptionist should have been sitting was empty. Stefan sighed slightly, sometimes it was just too easy to get into these places, he knew this building didn't even have CCTV. It mattered not to him, he wouldn't show up on camera anyway. Most of the corridor lights were off, only the essential ones left on. The Good Hope was frugal when it came to money, much preferring to spend its meagre funds on the welfare of its residents.
Slowly Stefan walked the silent and empty corridors, he'd been here many times before and knew where the most vulnerable, the sickest patients were. He entered a lift to go up to the second floor and this time as the doors opened he was confronted by a nurse, sitting at a desk, a pen poised above a chart. She started to stand, instantly alert.
"Excuse me!" she said starting to come from around her desk, an irritated frown clearly visible on her brow "Visiting is over, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
She got no further, with one wave of his hand Stefan said "You don't see me, go back to work." A blank expression crossed her face, she sat down and continued with filling in the chart, Stefan immediately forgotten.
Stefan smiled to himself, a cruel smile. He knew that this nurse would go about her duties and not once see him -- he had free reign of this floor, with its small private cubicle like rooms.
He judged his last visitor to be about two months previously, licking his lips he remembered the fun he'd had that time, four patients had died that night -- apparently succumbed to their various illnesses. To keep the costs down no post-mortems had been done on them, and no one would realise that these patients had actually died from severe blood loss.
He just had to be sure to keep the body count down, he recalled a not so enjoyable evening a few years previous, that night ten patients had died, but only three by his hand. It had caused an uproar in the hospice, it was unheard of to lose so many patients overnight. A male night nurse was charged later with killing the other patients with high doses of morphine. He'd told the investigating officers he'd been doing 'mercy killings' - 'Just like me' Stefan chuckled silently to himself.
So lost in his thoughts was Stefan that when he first heard the humming, it took a few seconds to recognise the tune Clair de Lune. It was very quiet but his sensitive hearing could hear the gentle tune clearly. He followed it to its source.
The door to the room was open just a touch, lightly he pushed it further open. Inside the small white room was a single bed, illuminated by a dull night light bulb. But it wasn't the bed or the light that had caught Stefan's attention, it was the female occupant of the bed. He moved further into the room.
Her eyes were firmly shut, and then he saw little earpieces in her ears and the CD player resting just above her sheet covered stomach. He could hear the music on the CD player, Clair de Lune, and she was humming along to it. Quickly he reached for the chart hung on the rail at the bottom of the bed, skimming it he read what he needed -- Inoperable Brain Tumour. He needed no more information, he hung the chart back and stared intently at the girl, his mouth opening slightly to let the canine fangs elongate into sharp points, his eyes going a feral yellow -- a vampire looking down at his next meal.
It all changed in a split second for Stefan -- the girl opened her eyes and looked at him, a mix of fear and surprise. And Stefan's long dead dried up husk of a heart received a jolt that it hadn't felt for many years. He shut his mouth, his face back to human. It was her eyes, he would realise later, her eyes were like pools of clear blue water, set in a face so pale it could have been made of alabaster, only dark circles under the eyes to mar the beauty. But now those eyes were staring at him, and he was standing there slack-jawed, like the village idiot, staring at her back.
She broke the spell.
"Hi" she said hesitantly "I think visiting has been over for a few hours, you'll get into trouble if Sister finds you here, are you lost?" Stefan realised she hadn't seen him clearly.
As she spoke, she took the little earpieces out of her ears and turned the CD player off, placing it on the small cabinet next to the bed. But her movements were slow and laboured, as if it hurt her to move quickly. Then she looked at him waiting for him to speak.
"I'm a volunteer visitor" Stefan said with a faltering smile, hoping that they had volunteer visitors in the hospice. "I get to stay after hours."
This explanation seemed to satisfy the girl. She nodded and smiled at him. Suddenly she hissed in pain, her eyes clouding over, rubbing the short blonde fringe that covered her forehead with unsteady fingers, and Stefan noticed for the first time that she had a side of her head shaved, the blonde hair just starting to grow back in, and a scar where she'd been cut.
Feelings he hadn't felt for many years flooded his body -- he wanted to comfort this girl, to ease her pain which was so tangible he could almost feel it too. Her whimpers brought him back down to earth and without hesitating, he sat on the side of the bed, gathered her up in his arms and tried to hold her. After an initial resistance to him she relaxed then laid her head on his shoulder, rubbing it against his shoulder as if to bring relief. Stefan could feel the pain tremors jolting through her body like small spasms.
"Thank you" she spoke her voice still husky from the pain but pulling back from him to lie up against the pillows behind her. "I'm waiting for Sister to bring me something stronger, before my head splits in two!"
Stefan nodded as he moved to the edge of the bed. He could offer her more than medication.
"Do you want a drink of water?" he asked reaching for the water jug and glass. She nodded, still with her eyes half closed and rubbing her forehead and not really noticing what was going on. Stefan half filled the glass with water, then turned and swiftly bit the inside of his wrist. A few drops of viscous red liquid dripped into the glass, swirling for a second before mixing with the water. His wound healed in seconds. He took the glass to her, then held it to her lips as she drained it. He sat back on the edge of the bed.
"The water is bitter?" she said looking down into the now empty glass and wiping her lips with her fingers. "I feel strange, I, I, What's happening?" she stuttered.
The effect was instantaneous as he knew it would be, vampire blood was stronger than human and would fight for control of the body, this would include fighting the cancer floating around her blood but such a small amount of his blood was short-lived and any more than a few drops at a time would kill. But for a few hours at least, she would be relatively pain free.
