Robert could almost taste the blood. Still, after these hundreds of years, each hunt felt fresh and new. He anticipated the sweet thickness that would flow from her veins.
The young woman had fallen deeply under his spell. Her mind and will had already become his, and she'd never remember what was about to happen. No one else knew that, though. They'd see only the couple leaving the club, with her a little unsteady on her heels. Robert started to ask the doorman for a taxi, then saw horror in the woman's face. Just past her, reflected in the door's glass, he saw the truck careening out of control. He shoved her, hard, out of the way. He later learned that she broke her wrist when she fell. The truck missed her, though, so only Robert's body slammed through the glass and metal of the club's facade.
Pain. He woke to pain. Voices, sounds, smells -- his mind couldn't form thoughts, only experience raw sensations, and soon not even that. Even within the pain, he sank into darkness again.
Next time Robert woke, the pain was still with him. Voices had meaning, though; he could make out words in the hall outside. Sounds carried meaning too, medical beeping, footsteps, mechanical sounds. And the smells -- something antiseptic over the dark scent of bandaged blood. His blood.
He shifted and moaned as unwilling joints and muscles resisted. Sounds of fast footsteps, and a nurse's voice: "Rest, Mr. Andrews. You need to sleep." Something with a needle, and her hand on his arm until the world went dark again.
Robert woke again, to daylight this time. He squinted against the brightness as he tried to make sense of the voices.
"This can't be right. Are you sure this is the right chart?"
"Doctor, I've been trying to tell you. I've never seen anything like this. He -- Look, he's waking up."
"Mr. Andrews? Can you hear me?"
Nod, and even that hurt.
"You're a very lucky man, Mr. Andrews. For a while there, your injuries looked pretty bad. I'm happy to say they weren't nearly as bad as they looked at first."
Robert thought to himself, they were bad, OK. If they looked that bad, they were that bad. He'd felt this bone-deep ache before, as his body worked to repair some serious damage. Already, the ache had turned to nagging itch in a few places, a sure sign that healing was well along.
"We'll have you back on your feet in no time, maybe a couple of weeks. For now, you just take it easy and leave everything to us."
He'd leave soon enough, probably a day or two. For now, though, he needed to take stock. Robert knew the feeling of broken ribs, but those were almost healed. Arm in a cast, raised above his head -- there must have been swelling, but the break would be gone soon. Twinges and itches along his side meant some kind of superficial wounds, probably stitched. Something deep inside, too. There must have been internal injuries. That would scare the doctors, he knew, but didn't mean much. For people like Robert, anything that didn't kill him outright would heal inhumanly fast.
As he took stock, his heart fell. People like Robert -- vampires, if you must use the word, or vampyres -- could heal from almost any injury, with one exception. His tongue probed his mouth, and felt only smooth, raw wounds where teeth had been. Impact had shattered his mouth, leaving only broken pieces that couldn't be saved. Teeth never grow back. Without them, he couldn't pierce the skin of his prey and feed on their blood. In ancient times, that had been the ultimate punishment for one of his near-immortal kind: to have their fangs broken off, to starve an inch at a time, until the years left his undead husk comatose, unable to die but with no energy left to live.
Despair lay near by, but it would catch up to Robert later. First, he needed to leave the hospital before the doctors realized his un-human nature, then leave Robert Andrews behind. Even in this world of interlocking proofs of identity, it was still possible to become someone else. He already had papers stashed away that would prove him to be Robert O'Donnell -- not the Robert Andrews who healed in days from injuries that would have killed or crippled a mere human.
Days later and thousands of miles away, Robert swirled deep red wine ("Bull's blood") in its glass. Food and drink did nothing to sustain him, although he enjoyed the flavors. Only blood, fresh blood, drawn from a living body could keep him going. He didn't need that much -- his prey died only when Robert had reason to kill, and that hadn't happened in centuries. And, because secretions from his mouth affected his prey's tissues, blood from knife wounds, for example, could not sustain him. He had to draw the blood directly, his saliva mixing with the human essence.
So, he sat, swirling wine in his glass. Young and vital humans, his needed prey, bustled around him, arm's length away but forever beyond his reach. He could feel their warmth, smell their human scents -- rage and frustration kept depression at bay, at least for the moment, but Robert didn't know how long he could last. The young woman at the next table, her rich scent tugged at his hunter's instincts. Blood, the scent of blood called out to him. His animal senses, far keener than humans', picked out the odor of her menstruation. That aroma launched urges within him that his broken mouth could never fulfill.
