Vampire politics, I thought to myself with disgust as I looked at my would-be executioner, Cain Tremblay. The tall, red-haired and alabaster-skinned vampire whom I've known for ages lay on the ground, bleeding and spent but not quite dead. Not just yet. We were in Ottawa's Vanier Parkway, right by the water, on a quiet summer night. Looking at me with a feral gleam in his eyes, Cain Tremblay bared his fangs.]
"You can kill me, you sick bitch, but I promise you'll be dead, my brothers will soon catch up with you," Cain Tremblay said defiantly, and I paused and smiled. I've got to give it to my fellow vamps, none of us likes to go down easy. If you were given the potential to live forever, you'd fight like hell to prevent that life from ending, I'm sure. All good things do come to an end, though.
"Goodbye old boy," I said, as I brought down my sword, and separated Cain Tremblay's head from his shoulders. A sad end to his 300-year-old existence, to be sure, but hey, better him than me. I waited for Cain's body to turn into a fine pile of dust, and then walked away. Another one bites the dust, I thought, as I took to the air, and vanished into the night.
My name is Khadija Hawar, and I'm a gal in a heap of trouble. Anyone looking at me would see a five-foot-ten, curvy young woman with light brown skin and long black hair. I was born in the City of Calgary, Alberta, to a Somali immigrant father and a white Canadian mother. November 8, 1978, that's when I first saw the light of day. I moved to Ottawa, Ontario, in September 1994 to study business at the University of Ottawa. I graduated in June 1998. On July 4, 1999, I died, and was reborn as a vampire. Life has been pure hell ever since.
Forget everything you think you know, the life of a vampire is nothing like what you might have seen on Buffy, Blade or True Blood. For the most part, Vampire life is boring. There are only a few tens of thousands of us scattered around the globe, and for some reason North America has the largest concentration of our kind. That, my friends, is causing problems.
In the movies, vampires stick together in little bands of lovers and friends, and life is one big party. In real life, we're solitary creatures. We see each other as competition, and tend to steer clear of one another. There are very few rules in the vampire community, beyond the fact that mortals aren't supposed to know about us. I killed Ismail Kader, the ancient Somali vampire master who brought me into the life of the undead. For this deed, I am considered a pariah in vampire society.
I had to kill Ismail Kader, seriously. The old creep turned me into a vampire against my will and thought he'd use me as a sex slave. Thanks but no thanks. In mortal life, I lived under the constraints of Islam. When I became an immortal, I swore to myself that I would be my own mistress, and have no master. Ismail Kader had to go. The problem is that the old fucker had about a thousand friends in vampire circles, and many of them swore to destroy me.
In the movies, vampires possess amazing abilities, and I might as well separate fact from fiction for you mortals. I am superhumanly strong, but nothing like that dude in Smallville. I could probably kick your ass and your buddies too, but I can't lift a car or punch through a cement wall. Actually, I haven't tried that. Maybe I can't, and maybe I can't, but I am not anxious to find out.
I recover quickly from injuries, and indeed I will heal from the kind of wound that would kill a normal human, but I am not Wolverine. I try to avoid danger as much as I can because, well, I don't like pain. I have ultra-sharp senses of sight, smell and hearing. The rest of my senses are as dull as yours. I possess levels of stamina far superior to an Olympic athlete's, but I do have my limitations.
Ladies and gentlemen, I may not be alive in the technical sense but I am definitely not a machine. I don't need air to breathe, since I am technically dead. I am a nocturnal creature and sunlight will set me on fire. That myth is true. I cannot fly but I can glide, like a bat, through the air. I can only do it for short periods of time. I am not Superman. If I spend seventy two hours without drinking blood, I can fall into a coma. After six days without blood, my body will start feeding on itself. Seven days without blood and I die, just like that.
"Khadija, where in hell were you? We've got deliveries to make," said a shrill, annoying voice belonging to Mariam Khan, a plump and matronly South Asian woman wearing an apron. Moments before, I dropped out of the sky and landed in the parking lot of Khan's Deli, a family-owned restaurant specializing in choice meats.
"Traffic was bloody murder," I said to Mariam, who grunted and said nothing. I smiled at her and hurried to the kitchen. One of the pluses of working for a restaurant like this one? I am a go between for this restaurant and the local butchers, and as such, I have access to lots and lots of blood. I drink animal blood, not that of humans.
How about that? A vampire who doesn't feed on humans. I bet you like me alright. There's a reason for that. One? I am smarter than other vampires and know that feeding on humans will attract attention to myself and eventually lead to my destruction. I fly way below the radar, literally and figuratively, that's why I manage to stay undetected.
"The boss lady nearly blew a gasket tonight," said a deep, familiar voice. I was in the middle of chopping up some meat for a special order when one of my co-workers interrupted my flow. I looked up to see Gary Jean-Charles, a six-foot-tall, dark-skinned and burly young Haitian man, smiling at me while slicing a goat's thigh bone with a cutlass. The brother is studying culinary arts at Algonquin College. His hobbies include reading Comic books, cooking and hitting on Somali girls.
"I had a good reason for being late, Gary," I said with a smile, and Gary shrugged and shook his head. I turned around and resumed chopping up the meat, though I could feel Gary's inquisitive and oftentimes lustful gaze on me. No need for a vampire's preternatural senses to detect that my co-worker here has the hots for me. Gary is cute, and when I was alive, I had a thing for burly, dark-skinned dudes, but not anymore.
These days, I live like a monk, and not by choice. Bad things happen when vampires hook up with humans. It never ends well. I like Gary, and prefer him alive. That's why I refuse to give the Haitian stud some of my Somali goodies. Besides, it's been so damn long since I had sex, I hardly remember how it's done. I wasn't exactly the most social female when I was alive.
