The vampire lowered her arms slowly, apparently enjoying Ben’s obvious surprise and discomfort. He remained frozen in place, staring at the redundancy of the sunlight he’d put his faith in. "You know what I am?" the vampire woman asked. Her eyes roamed over Ben’s body making him feel like he was being scanned by some kind of machine. It was like she was analysing every aspect of his body and assessing potential weak points. He tried to say yes, and although his lips did move, no words came out. Believing in vampires and wanting to meet one was one thing. Actually fulfilling that desire was a different matter entirely. Standing before her, Ben realised how woefully unprepared he was, and the tragic thing was that nothing could have prepared him any more than he was. He’d done all the research humanly possible without having an actual vampire to study. Now he was finally standing face to face with one, he knew how precarious his situation was. One wrong step and he would be the next body that was taken to the morgue. "What was that?" she asked. She looked at him with a mixture of amusement and pity, the way a lion might look at a mouse who’d wandered blindly into its lair. "Yes." To counteract his nerves, he spoke so much force that he nearly shouted the word at her. She bit on her bottom lip and let out a small giggle. She was enjoying herself. He wondered if she’d been like this with her other two victims. "Say it." "Yes," he said again. "No. Say what I am." His discomfort heightened her pleasure. It seemed silly to say the word out loud. He’d never accused a person of being a vampire before, and truth be told, he never thought he would get to, even if it was his dream. "Vampire," he said, at last, breaking the tense silence that had fallen over the room. A small smile crept onto her face. "There we go," she said, and her voice trembled a little. Ben looked at her in confusion, but her voice had not wavered because of him. Her hands were clenched into fists and her legs looked like they were having trouble holding her up. A small sheen of sweat had appeared on her brow. Noticing Ben’s gaze, she quickly stepped back and as the shade enveloped her she immediately gained more composure. "Oh, so the sun doesn’t burn you, but it does weaken you," Ben said. The excitement of a new discovery had seized him and for a moment he had forgotten his fear. He was an explorer in uncharted territory. A flicker of annoyance passed over her face and she quickly tucked it away. She was the predator in this scenario and predators kept their cool. "Why are you here? Obviously, you’re looking for me, but why? You’re too feeble to be a hunter. What kind of a moron would go looking for a vampire?" This was the moment. This was the opportunity for which Ben had longed for almost two decades. In the next few seconds, he would see his dreams realised, or have his heart crushed. He licked his dry lips quickly and swallowed hard before speaking. "The kind that wants to be a vampire." The words flew through his lips like a wish projected into the cosmos. She took a moment to consider his answer and then she tipped back her head and let out a great burst of mocking laughter. Ben felt his face burn with embarrassment and turn the same shade of red as her hair that was bouncing up and down with her shoulders. When she next spoke she did so in the voice people usually reserved for talking to babies. "You want to be a vampire. That’s cute. It truly is, but I don’t just give anyone the red kiss." "The red kiss?" "When a vampire gives a human their blood and turns them it is called the red kiss," she explained. "So, that’s how it’s done? By drinking your blood?" he asked, soaking the new information up. "It’s not done at all. Not for you. You don’t have what it takes to be a vampire. You’re not good enough." She threw her words out carelessly and he doubted that she knew how deeply they cut into his heart. Nothing compared to being told that he was not good enough for the one thing he’d wanted more than anything for almost his entire life. "You don’t even know me," he said in an angry whisper. In the moment he let his emotions creep over him even though losing his temper would not convince her to change her mind. She’d touched on a nerve, awakened his deepest insecurities, and he was powerless to resist the emotional backlash that rose up to meet her. She crossed her arms over her chest as she slumped against the far wall, fixing Ben with a bored gaze. "I know enough. I sized you up when I saw you last night. You’re the kind of person the other boys didn’t want to play with at school. The boy who didn’t grow quite as much as the others. The scrawny one. You always kept to yourself. Spent all of your time in the library. Probably kept bugs in jars. You were an inadequate child and you grew to be an inadequate man. Even here in this hospital, everybody else does the real work and you only clean up after them." Ben ball his hands into tight fists, his fingernails digging into the flesh of his palms. It wasn’t just the words she was saying that stung, but the truth that they contained. Although he had never kept jars of bugs. "Don’t take it personally, I’m just laying out the facts. Vampires are at the top of the food chain. We stand above all other creatures. You’re the lowest of the humans. Giving you the kiss would be a waste." "Yes, but if I was a vampire then I wouldn’t be the lowest anymore. I’d use the power to become great, I’d evolve into something so much more than I could ever be as a human. Nobody would ever dare to push me around again," he said passionately. Erin’s lips curled down with pity. "If I turned you then you’d be the lowest of the vampires and you’d get snuffed out by some bigger, badder vampire before your first year was up. Despite what your mummy told you, everybody was not made equally. Some people are destined for greatness and others are made for obscurity. Spoiler alert; you’re the latter. The gift would be wasted on you." "Oh, because you’re such a great vampire?" Ben snapped, forgetting all about his goal and letting his anger govern him. "You’re hiding out in an abandoned hospital room. You feed off of people who are already dying and aren’t even intelligent enough to cover your tracks." "Don’t talk about things of which you know nothing," she warned, her eyes glinting dangerously. "Why are you even preying on people at all? You’re in a hospital. There are literally pints of blood conveniently stashed in a fridge that you could take." "The blood has to be warm, dipshit." "We have a microwave!" "Oh, yes, that would look completely normal, wouldn’t it? A strange woman standing in the staff room heating up a pint of blood in the microwave!" As she was shouting at him, Ben realised how ridiculous the conversation had become and began to chuckle. "What are you laughing at?" she demanded. "This argument is just so ridiculous," Ben admitted. "And you called me a dipshit. I never expected to hear a vampire call somebody a dipshit. It’s just so…modern." She glowered at him for a moment more before breaking into a reluctant smile. The genuine smile brought a beauty over her than had previously been clouded by her resentful demeanour. "I try to keep up with the times. Only stupid vampires get stuck in the past," she said. Ben nodded, seeing the logic in her statement. It was in a vampire’s best interests to blend in with society and that would be quite difficult if they behaved like somebody from a bygone era. "Seriously, though, what is all this about?" He held up the bottle of silver nitrate solution and swept his arm around the room to indicate all the equipment she’d stashed there. "And how did you not get caught when the police searched the place?" "I did get caught." She flashed a coy smile. "However, by the time the police officer left he had quite forgotten what he’d seen." She paused and the smile slid away. "But you are a different kettle of fish. You’re resilient for a runt. I can’t trust that you won't come back. I’m just going to have to kill you." Before Ben could utter a word, she swept across the room, almost too fast for his eyes to register. She seized him by the throat and slammed him against the wall. A pained groan escaped his lips as a blast of heat shot down his spine. Struggling against her grip was futile, her strength was unmatched by anything Ben had ever felt. It was like being in the grips of the Terminator. Acting on instinct, Ben used the only weapon he had at his disposal. He raised his hand, still clutching the bottle of silver nitrate solution, and brought it down on her head as hard as he could. The vampire winced and her hair bounced as the glass bottle shattered over her dome. Glass shards scattered everywhere. Some dug into Ben’s palm and tore it open. The vampire’s eyes dilated as soon as his blood ran free of his veins. The silver nitrate solution that had soaked her hair, ran over her face, and her desire turned to anguish. Her pale flesh pinked and sizzled. She screamed hideously as she released Ben and stumbled away from him. Frantic hands tried to wipe the solution off her skin, but every move she made only seemed to make it worse and her entire face was soon red and blistering, the skin peeling away like strips of paper. Ben ran across the room and grabbed two more bottles of the lethal stuff from the trolley. She cottoned on to what he was planning and snatched at his jacket to try and stop him. He turned as she grabbed him and flung the two bottles into her face. The liquid smothered her face like a miniature tsunami and this time she fell to the ground. She thrashed around, wailing in agony, and her flesh started to droop and fall away from her in sticky clumps. Ben made a small noise of revulsion as he tried to stop himself from vomiting. It was like a scene from a horror film come to life before his eyes. He looked back at the trolley and wondered if the syringes it held were filled with the same solution that had caused the vampire such torment. There was only one way to find out. He snatched one up, flicked off the cap and made his way toward the vampire. Her head whipped around and as soon as her eyes found Ben, she pounced. She crashed into his chest and took him down to the ground, landing on top of him. The syringe slipped from his grip and rolled away across the floor. "I hope you’re happy with this!" she screamed, pointing up at her own ghastly face. Drops of burning liquified flesh dripped down onto Ben’s face and he turned away to shield himself from it. He saw the syringe on the floor less than a metre away. "I hope you’re proud because this face is the last thing you’re ever going to see!" Her hand grabbed his hair and pulled his head around so he was looking right at her. She was so hot from the burns that he could feel the heat radiating from her touch. His own face burned as each sticky lump of her’s landed. His fingers groped around on the floor as she took hold of his throat and began to crush his windpipe. He tried to gasp for air but her grip was so tight that nothing could get through. He wondered if she would actually crush his throat completely before he even had time to suffocate. But it was clear that she had other plans in mind for Ben. She opened her mouth wide and he watched her fangs slide down into place. His fingers found the syringe. His vision started to dim as the pressure on his neck increased and she forced his head to the side. The syringe slipped beneath his fingers. Sparkles danced before his eyes, partially blocking his vision. He managed to flick the syringe closer to himself, closed his palms around it and then jammed it into her flank. Her eyes widened with surprise as Ben pressed the plunger and injected whatever the syringe contained directly into her bloodstream. Her eyes conveyed her new anguish and she screamed loud enough to bring the roof down. Then the agony got the better of her. Her eyelids dropped, her grip slackened and she collapsed, falling off Ben and landing heavily on the floor. Ben remained on the floor breathing heavily whilst he struggled to regain his breath. His neck felt like it had been trapped in a vice and no amount of rubbing was making it feel any better. Even without her grip around his throat, he still struggled to draw breath. It was a wonder that nobody had come to investigate her screams, but screaming wasn’t exactly unheard of in a hospital. Besides, they were probably deep enough within the abandoned ward that nobody could hear them. Ben rolled onto his front, his midsection screaming with pain, and pushed himself up off the floor. The vinyl flooring was covered in broken glass and puddles of silver nitrate solution. There were little flaps of disintegrated vampire flesh dotted around too. That would be an interesting find the next time the ward was scheduled to be cleaned. The vampire was unconscious on her side, her chest rising and falling with each heavy breath. Her face was a disfigured mess and blood was flowing from the unhealed cuts that Ben’s attacks had inflicted on her face and neck. Vampire blood. Ben remembered that she had said drinking her blood would make him a vampire. The red kiss. If he took her blood whilst she was passed out then he could use it to become a vampire and then he wouldn’t need her any longer. An opportunity like this was unlikely to arise again, and she had already ruled out helping him willingly. Either he took the risk or accepted that his mediocre life was all he was ever going to get. He looked around for some kind of container to catch her blood in, but there was nothing. He could empty one of the silver solution bottles but that would take time that he might not have. He was going to have to take the blood directly from the source, as grim a proposition as that seemed. She had so many bleeding wounds that he was spoiled for choice. Carefully, he crept closer to her, frightened that any sudden movements might wake her. He didn’t know how long the solution would keep her knocked out. On his hands and knees, he lowered his face to her neck where she had a large bleeding gash. All he needed to do was clamp his lips around that wound and suck the blood straight from her body. The very idea of the act was unpleasant, but nothing worth having came easily. He closed his eyes and parted his lips. The irony of taking her blood in this way brought an amused smile to Ben’s face. He shook the smile off and got on with the task at hand. On impulse, he pulled away. He couldn’t do it. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to take the blood, but something about pressing his lips against her skin and sucking whilst she was out cold just seemed a bit rapey. Maybe she had been right and he wasn’t cut out for the vampire life. The very nature of a vampire was to take blood from humans. That was the very method of their survival. If he couldn’t get over his reticence and do what he needed to, then he was never going to make it as a creature of the night. Determined to prove her wrong, Ben leaned over, squeezed his eyes shut, and clamped his mouth over the wound that ran down her throat. He sucked gently, unsure of how it was going to taste. The taste of metal filled his mouth and coated his tongue. He gagged on the first few swallows and struggled to force it down. The blood flowed through his threat, relieving his pain and healing the wounds that the vampire had inflicted. As soon as the first drop made it to his stomach the organ contracted and tried to force the unwelcome stuff back out, but he resisted and forced more down, overpowering his body’s urge to vomit. After just a few sickening gulps the metallic flavour faded into the background and a peculiar sweetness took its place. He had never tasted anything like it before so he had nothing to compare it to. The only way he could describe the new flavour of the blood that was travelling down his throat was utterly euphoric. It brought every nerve it touched alive and soon his tongue, his throat, and his stomach, all begged for more. A fiery passion blazed to life and he sucked like a leech, pulling as much of the delicious substance from her veins as he could. Waves of ecstasy rolled over him, making him giddy with delirium. He didn’t even notice the vampire stirring until with a cry she flung him off her. Ben slid across the floor, the taste vanishing in an instant, and reality bombarding him. He stopped still, propped up on his elbows, blood caked around his mouth. He could feel a trickle of her blood dribbling down his chin and his tongue whipped out and lapped it up. "What have you done?" the vampire asked in a whisper. She was staring at him in horror. Shame inflamed his cheeks and burned his face. "I asked you to turn me into a vampire," he said feebly as if that justified his actions. "So you knocked me out and stole my blood?" she said, and then laughed as if it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. Now that she was awake, her skin had almost completely healed. Her face was whole again and her flesh was only slightly pink. The open wounds, one of which Ben had drank from, closed up as if they had never been there. "This is a first, let me tell you. I’ve never heard of a human capturing a vampire and forcing them to turn him before. If I didn’t feel like I was being eaten from the inside out, I’d actually be impressed." "Not quite the runt you thought I was?" he gloated. So much for her being at the top of the food chain. "You are. You’re just a sneaky runt." Her eyes narrowed. "I ought to kill you for that." "You can hardly get on the high horse; how many people have you attacked to drink their blood?" "Oh, look who’s grown an attitude. Maybe if you’d been more like this and less timid in the first place I wouldn’t have turned you away." "Is that all I needed to do? Just drink your blood?" Ben asked. She took a deep breath and let it out heavily, her eyes staring at him keenly. "I could kill you for what you’ve done," she said quietly, her voice dangerous and silken. "You already tried," he reminded her. "Good point. Yes, assuming that you drank enough of my blood, and it certainly feels like you did, that is all it takes. You just have to wait and see if you start to turn. Of course, even if you did drink enough, it probably won’t work." "Why’s that?" "For a start, the sun is still up. Vampires tend to be turned at night. But also because my blood is full of silver. Silver hurts vampires. What do you think will happen if you try to turn into a vampire using poisoned blood?" A knot of unease materialised in Ben’s stomach, growing heavier the more he thought about the implications of what he’d done. He hadn’t even considered that her blood was tainted with something that was deadly to vampires. And now that it was done there was nothing he could do. "What will happen?" "Maybe it won’t work. Maybe you’ll turn into a vampire and immediately die. Maybe you’ll end up being a sickly weak vampire who can’t even survive by yourself. I don’t know. Nobody has ever tried something so stupid before." Ben looked away from her, not wanting her to see the fear that was gripping every part of him. This was supposed to be the fulfilment of his dreams and every step of it had gone wrong. "What’s your name?" Her voice was gentle and Ben thought he heard a note of sympathy. "Ben," he said slowly, wary of some kind of trick. "Short for Benjamin?" "Short for Benedict," he admitted. He clenched his fists and waited for the inevitable “Bent-Dick” nickname to come as it always had from his bullies. But she made no jokes. "Fancy. I’m Erin." "Why are you telling me your name?" "Well, Ben, you’ve had your lips all over me and drank my blood. If that doesn’t put us on first name terms then I don’t know what will." "So you’re not going to kill me?" A flicker of hope awakened. "Not yet. I want to see what happens first. You’re like my science experiment. Let’s see if you survive the night and if you do then maybe I’ll kill you in the morning. It depends on how I feel." Ben glanced out the window at the orange sun that hung low in the sky and wondered if this was to be his last sunset, or simply his last one as a human. "So how does the transition work?" He glanced back at Erin and saw that she was watching him avidly, her eyes, which he noticed for the first time were an incandescent hazel colour, were narrowed with keen interest. Her hair, which before had simply been red, now had the magnificence of fire. He could see not just her beauty, but also her flaws. Every imperfection her face housed seemed to be on display to him, not that any of them diminished her beauty. It was like watching a movie in high definition for the first time. "Your eyesight has improved?" she asked lazily. Ben nodded, in such awe that he was unable to speak. "Then it’s started. Enjoy it because once you get used to it you won’t notice all the wonderful details anymore. Well done, Benny, you’re becoming a vampire." A cacophony of sound assaulted Ben’s ears. Footsteps pounding the floor, hospital machines beeping, people chattering, laughing, crying, lights buzzing, trolley wheels squeaking, pens scratching on paper, computer keys clicking, phones ringing, tablets pinging, cars roaring, alarms screaming—all of it drilled its way into his ears, widening the canals to allow more sound to penetrate his skull until a jumble of noises bounced around like a swarm of angry bees. He pressed his hands to his ears and tried to block the noises out, but all that did was muffle it. Erin was saying something, but all he could hear were garbled sounds being added to the racket around him. His ears felt like they were going to start bleeding any second, and just when he was ready to rip them off, the torture ceased. The sounds separated and returned to their normal levels. No, the volumes were still elevated, but it was bearable. "Your body is changing," Erin said quietly. She stared at Ben impassively as if she’d seen this transition a hundred times already. Maybe she had. "I didn’t expect it to happen this fast," Ben said, his own voice sounding far louder than it should have done. He looked out of the window at the luscious grass that seemed to glow in the golden light cast by the setting sun. It was a more vivid green than he had ever known and he could hear the blades moving in the light wind. "It’s only just started. You won’t think it’s fast when the worst of it hits you. Trust me on that," she said. "What do you mean the worst of it?" he asked, a tiny pebble of anxiety formed in his belly. "You’re transcending humanity now, Ben. Your body has to reprogram its entire genetic structure. Your stomach needs to transform so that it can harvest blood. Any traces of sickness within you, no matter how small, must be purged. Your skin, muscles, and bones will be toughened. Your muscles will flood with an iron power. Every single cell, every single atom will mutate, to make you faster, stronger, and more resilient than a human. Your ageing genes will be attacked and shut down. And you will feel every little bit of it." That pebble of worry rolled itself into a great big boulder. A chill swept through him and he found himself needing to sit down very badly. "How long will it last?" His voice sounded faint and feeble like it was coming from somewhere far away. "Hours." Ben tried to ignore the lyrical glee that danced through her words. ‘You should stay here for the transition. Anywhere else and you might attract attention and end up in the back of an ambulance, and believe me, the last thing you want is doctors taking a look at what’s going on in your body. You’ll end up being some scientist’s research subject for the rest of your life, and if this goes the way you hope it will, the rest of your life is going to be an awfully long time." Ben glanced over at the door and tried to think of any other place he could lock himself away where nobody would stumble across him, but he could think of nowhere. "I don’t want you to see me cry," he confessed. She already thought he was weak and pathetic, crying in front of her would only make that worse. "You aren’t going to cry, Benny." Her lips twisted into a cruel smile. "You’re going to scream." He walked over and closed the door, shutting himself in the hospital room with Erin. After seeing the malicious sneer on her face, he was determined not to give her the satisfaction of hearing him scream. He would suffer in silence just so she had no reason to gloat. He would show her how badly she had misjudged him. He had no idea how wrong he was. Suffering in silence was not an option and Ben howled like a man turning into a wolf for the very first time. Erin had been truthful and he felt every single change in his body. It was like every one of his cells was being split in half by the sharpest, slowest scalpel, and then fused with something new. Something that burned with a fire that no human could ever produce. He doubled over, falling to his knees as powerful screams flew out of him. Invisible hands groped around inside his body and twisted and turned all his organs as if they were made of putty. The agony was prolonged for hours and every minute that he suffered felt like an entire day. This must have been what medieval torture had felt like. But he endured. He was curled up on the floor in the foetal position, screaming and blubbering like a helpless baby, but still, he refused to give up. Each wave of pain that swept over him made surrendering seem like an appealing option. Somehow he knew that if he wanted, he could just close his eyes and succumb to the agony, and then merciful Death would sweep him up in their arms and carry him away. But no matter what Erin thought of him, his resolve was titanium, and he would persevere. He was amazed that his screams never attracted the attention of anybody passing by the abandoned ward, especially since the hospital was on high alert. He must surely have been audible from outside the ward. But nobody ever came and he was left suffering all night, with only the gloating vampire to keep him company. No matter how great the pain got, he never forgot she was there. She would not let him. When the pain first kicked in she did nothing but add to his distress with her sadistic comments. She waited until the pauses between Ben’s screams and then said things like, "That’s exactly what you deserve," and "That’s where you truly belong, Benny, grovelling on the floor like the runt that you are." But after several hours had gone by and they were in the height of the night, her scornful remarks turned to words of encouragement. "It might seem easy to give up now, but look at how far you’ve come, and how much you’ve endured. See this through to the end and become one of the elite. Only the strongest make it all the way. Only those who deserve the red kiss can survive its taste." It shamed Ben to admit it, but her support may well have been what stopped him from throwing in the towel. In those last few hours, all he was was pain, and all he wanted was for it to end. But Erin was his undead cheerleader. Even though she had tried to kill him just hours before, she lent her strength to him and pulled him through the darkness. If he hadn’t known better he would have said that they were bonding. By the time it was done the sun was starting to rise even though Ben had never noticed it set. A ray of reddish-golden light fell in through the window and landed on his quivering form as he huddled on the ground drenched in sweat and totally spent. "Is it done?" he said, speaking each word on an exhalation. "Almost," Erin replied. She sounded as ravaged as he felt. "There’s just one more thing to do and then you’ll feel like you’re on top of the world." The idea of any more pain was enough to send Ben into a spiral of despair but at that moment the door creaked open. "What the…" the newcomer said. With a great effort, Ben managed to turn his head to see who had discovered them. It was a man in a dark security uniform, not one of the guards Ben was familiar with. He must’ve been one of the new ones who’d been brought in because of the two murders. Congratulations to him because he’d found the culprit. "What happened to you?" he asked, seeing Ben in a quivering wreck on the floor. "Do you work here?" He stepped forward but seemed hesitant to get too close to Ben in case he had something infectious. Ben nodded, issuing a feeble groan through his lips. The guard knelt down by his side and cast his eyes over him. "I thought this area was closed." "Only to the patients," Erin said. Whilst the security officer was distracted by Ben, she had stepped around him, barring his way back out of the room. Now that the guard was closer, Ben could hear his blood pumping through his veins. The steady beating of his pulse sang like a Philharmonic orchestra. He could feel an answering call from somewhere within himself as if his own pulse was harmonising with the officer’s. "Oh, right." The guard knelt down by Ben’s side, took hold of his shoulders and eased him up into a sitting position on the floor. "Do you need a doctor or what? What is going on here?" Ben’s eyes were level with his throat. The artery in his neck was throbbing hypnotically just a few inches away from Ben’s face. For the first time he realised how terribly hungry he was. A great chasm of emptiness sat inside his abdomen and it demanded to be filled. Ripples of pain shot over his midsection. As he looked at that little jolting pulse his tongue flicked out and licked his lips. "This is the last step, Ben," Erin said quietly, almost in a whisper. "Ben?" The security officer repeated, his eyes widened with alarm. "Benedict Blake? They’re looking for you. Hold on." He reached for the radio attached to his belt, but he never got to it. Erin shot forward, seized him by the wrist, and yanked his arm behind his back. The officer screamed, more in surprise than in pain. Erin planted her free hand on the back of his head and forced him forwards, pushing that little pulsing point on his neck right under Ben’s nose. All Ben could hear, all he could focus on, was the thrumming of his blood. He felt the shift in his mouth as, for the first time ever, two fangs descended. He acted without thought, without willing it, totally on impulse. He pounced on the officer. Where he got the energy he did now know, but he suddenly had enough strength to hold him down against the ground as he buried his fangs into his carotid artery.