The Journal of Michael O'Shane

Journal Entry – September 12, 2008

I never thought I would be having the discussion I did tonight with Katerina, or that she would respond as favorably as she did. As strange as this is to confess, I think I might be infatuated with her.

Her mortal heart still beats with blood running through her veins, but the woman I have started to become acquainted with more and more these days might as well possess fangs. Nothing I told her about being a vampire deterred her from pleading with me for entrance into our coven. What’s more, in her, I saw something of a reflection. As I consider our talks, I can’t help but to think of what happened to me over a hundred years ago.

When I agreed to accompany Sabrina to Dublin, I did so after she revealed what she really was. That was a part of the bargain. Travel the world with a beautiful Irish lass, who by then was well past a century in years herself, and indulge my desire to sample from the nations of this world until engorged with culture and language. However, I had to surrender my mortality. We sat by the banks of the Abhainn na Feoire prior to leaving Kilkenny and she smiled wide in the moonlight, revealing her fangs lest I question her sanity for saying she was a blood-sucking immortal. We had stories of the dearg dur in Ireland, but to see a vampire with my own eyes.

Suffice to say, the first glimpse caused me a start.

Sabrina never forced me to do anything. The offer was presented and left on the table for my consideration. She would be leaving the next evening on a train bound for Dublin and intended to venture into Britain and mainland Europe from there. By the next time I might see her again, I would be an elder man if I ever saw her again at all. Despite the youthful appearance I have always had in my favor, I knew I was waist-deep in the best years of my life.

I found myself on that train platform the next evening, after I convinced myself I would be surrendering my mortal life for immortality. I held myself much differently from that point forth. During the train ride to Dublin, neither Sabrina, nor I, said much until she looked at me and asked if I was offering the world a parting glance as a mortal. I told her the truth when I said I had already done that when the sun set.

We secured a temporary residence in Dublin and ventured into a pub for what had to be the most sobering discussion of my entire existence. I still recall the look in her eyes as she offered me one, final chance to escape. I know why she did it. After the failure of my oldest immortal brother, Patrick, she didn’t want to have the added failure of Professor Michael O’Shane. Even if what she said to me about the transaction about to take place would have bothered me, the way she smiled at me and removed my spectacles from my eyes would have dispelled all doubts.

The look in her face hinted at love. Perhaps not the kind of love bards such as my brother would pen about, but when she said, “You are going to be the boast of all immortal kind, Michael,” our relationship took on a whole other tenor. Beforehand, I wanted her in that way men want women in order to sate their carnal lusts. That was the first moment I wanted to make love to her.

A strange backdrop to being told you would be bled to near death and then forced to drink her blood in return. I chuckle at the thought of it. Something that should have troubled me as a mortal didn’t trouble me because I kept looking at her as the woman I would be seeing the sights of the world with for all eternity. I found a peculiar beauty in tasting her blood and marrying myself to her darkness. Before returning to our room, Sabrina sought out a victim in preparation for turning me and I watched the hunt with awe. She was an elegant creature with lethal precision and I loved even her viciousness.

I kissed her in our private quarters and told her my intentions. Yes, bite me. Turn me, Sabrina, but let me enjoy your body with mine first, so that my last memory as a mortal is of making love to you. It didn’t take but a few minutes after we came together for her teeth to drive into my neck. “That is a warning, beloved Michael,” she said after a brief drink. “I am soon to take more.”

I only smiled at her as we laid on the bed. “How do I taste?” I asked her.

Her teeth were yet coated red when she smiled. “Like a gentleman who has been trapped in the body of a commoner for far too long.”

“Make me your gentleman,” I said. I touched her head and coaxed her close to my neck again. “I want this, Sabrina. Do it to me now.”

What followed is predictable, of course. She bit me again and this time, I felt mouthful after mouthful of my blood leave my body until the room began to spin and a chill told me I was dying. I almost had my eyes shut when drops of blood hit my mouth and my lips parted to accept more. As sleep took me under, I already felt drugged with deep magic and died only to be reborn again.

I told Katerina all of this, knowing she was not naive to our ways after being a spellcaster for the Supernatural Order since she was thirteen. In some senses, I have felt pity for the girl. She was born with the power to divine and has never known the ignorance of being an ordinary mortal in an unaware world. She told me she recognized the very first vampire she cast eyes on for what he was and found him beautiful. Much the same as I found Sabrina beautiful as she engaged in the most monstrous of acts. And as she spoke, Katerina looked at me in that manner that must have been painted all over my face when I spoke with Sabrina in Dublin.

Wonder. Amazement. Adoration.

“You would be bound to me as your master,” I warned her.

Katerina said, “I know.” And in those two words, she said much more.

Sabrina is deceased. Even if not dead in body, her spirit died many years ago when ambition for power robbed her of that beauty that could dance across continents and imbibe culture the same way she drank blood. Watching her take victims transformed from witnessing a sensual, fallen angel into beholding the devil extinguish life like spitting on candle wicks. For many years, I mourned her death before she even met her end. As I think about Katerina, though, I see the light of her soul and think perhaps one day I might see a beautiful killer once again.

I have to consider this matter further. So I am assured I am not merely considering this as a lonely man in need of a companion.

Dá fhaid é an lá tiocfaidh an tráthnóna. No matter how long the day, the evening will come.

Sláinte,
Michael