Title: Si' An Ghealach (It is the Moon)
Author: GVB
Rating: R

**

When I saw him, my soul cried out to his with
all the power one creature can summon in
so short a space.

But he did not hear me of course.

I don't know why I thought he would, it
wasn't oversight or my desperate hunger
that clouded my thoughts until all else
became as dung under my feet, it was
because he was so beautiful.

I couldn't believe that he was not like myself,
unchangeable and more perfect than any flesh 
could ever become in their to be pitied "life".

The way he moved told me the story of his,
his passion and need. Almost all I needed to 
know.

He walked passed and away from me, unseeing
and merging as I would have with the shadows, 
blending and bending to their sweet beckoning.

Under the blinding white of the moon, he was 
more beautiful than any gift I had ever dreamed of.

I was made for the night. Long ago it had called
to me under the guiding hand of another. Under hands
that fed on me and then were used to have me feed.
But he, this one...

The night had been made for him.

As is wont with my kind, I followed him. He was not so attuned
to the darkness to know I was there. Tonight he was off
his in his own world, I assumed because of the trials of
the day now dead with the sunset. They showed in his face,
that beautifully angled jaw and mold of skin that begged
for me to touch it, and my heart broke for him, a pain I
had not experienced since...

...my birth to darkness. 

I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Antony- 
Anton' I prefer and I'm sure it won't surprise you that I am 
from that old, old country where so many of us spawn,
Italy. Leonid is the tiny town where my mother squeezed
me from her body. It is the town I grew up in and then left
at the tender age of fifteen to seek my destiny somewhere less
anonymous.

Strange that my destiny should anyway bring me to that 
unwanted but very necessary state.

I traveled to Verona and on to Vienna, where I died.

And was reborn.

We do that, we vampires. We are born twice. First from
our human mothers, and then from our vampire lovers.

I hadn't expected to be, in so many words, born again.

But tonight it happened as I looked at him. All previous
travels and thoughts, patterns to being and philosophies
that made up the thing that I was, were swept aside in me
as I watched his dark beauty and wept.

I made myself the color of night and stayed with him
on his journey home, for that is where I knew he was
going.


I loved him already.

**

Poor, young imbecile.

His wide eyed, stupid stare only angers me further
and my hand tightens around his throat until I
hear bones pop and he sags like a bag of wheat,
limply in my embrace.

The only other eyes that stare are his - My Beauty -
who looks up at me from the ground in disbelief
and...something else too.

I drop the dead child who had so foolishly (and
sightlessly) chosen this night to attack and rob
the object of my lonely heart's affection.

I wonder how many times My Beauty has walked this
particular alleyway - a shortcut to his humble dwelling
I was later to learn - on his way home?

I wonder how many young thugs had passed their
starving eyes over him, curious about his clothing,
his quick pace, what money he carried, what bars
he prowled, how his tastes ran as to sex?

This dead young man at my feet with the holed
shoes and blooded knife in his stiffening fingers, 
might have stalked My Beauty a dozen times, yet 
it was this particular night and this particular alleyway 
he'd determined should be the place and time to strike. 
With irony I am well acquainted and now so is he.

His final lesson. Mine just one of many.

How sad such lessons are for the dead - they have no
opportunities to practice what they learn. 

I myself do not care. For a vampire, all lessons and 
all things lead to one thing only: the need for blood.
It is our currency, our gold, our valuable commodity 
and the fresher, the better.

A vampire who has learned to survive long enough
to be able to feed on fresh blood each night and
yet remain unknown, safe and self protected, is considered
a powerful one. 

I'm old and have learned so many things in this world that 
almost nothing challenges me any longer.

Eternity consists largely of boredom.

But tonight I am faced with a new challenge as My Beauty is 
lying on the ground with a cut to his throat and no one to help 
him but me. And who am I but a vampire whose food is 
blood? Humans are sustenance, their blood is life and I 
am hungry.

I turn to the dead young man and contemplate 
feeding off of him yet, once dead, the blood so quickly
begins to thicken and there is nothing that turns the
stomach of a vampire more than congealing blood.

We do have standards you know. There, _there_ is a 
lesson in irony for you.

So I turn back to My Beauty and though I am sure you think
that I have considered making a meal of him, you are far
wrong.

Did I not just say I loved him?

I have had lovers and friends among the humans. But have I
loved a human? Not since I was a youth and lost the daughter
of my father's best friend. She and I were to spend our lives
together, but her father moved her away to England,....

But that's another story.

Beauty is injured and what I will do is help him, heal him, if
I can.

It has been a long time since I have thought of anyone
but myself. Centuries, eons since I have considered another's
welfare (we vampires are independent creatures) and I
am now left to look after his; this beauty. My Beauty.

Tomorrow I will learn his name and everything else
about him that I wish. I will begin to see his whole soul, I 
will revel in it I know, I will immerse myself and I doubt
if I shall ever come up for air again. 

Tonight I will save his life.

Not in the way you are thinking. No, not yet. I love the
way his skin is flushed with the blood in his veins and I will
not drain it. To have him immediately as one of us is tempting
but he is so perfect already it would almost seem redundant.

Besides, I have not had human lover in some time and the
anticipation in discovering him is too thrilling to cut it
short just to satisfy my hunger or heal him forever with
a vampire's gift of eternal death-life.					

Yet, though he _is_ just a human being with breath and beating 
heart, his eyes are more than flesh and his face more than
man. He has seen things, this one.

So it is difficult to decide how to go about this because
he is, as I said, staring up at me, bleeding from his wound,
a trickle of crimson fire from the volcano of him. He burns
me with a look and I am twitching with excitement.

As I stare and ponder what to do, I see in his eyes the typical
human disbelief and then as I continue to look I also
see, to my surprise and delight,  _belief!_

Without even an introduction, I pick him up and carry him
home. Because I am touching him, I see in his heart enough 
to know where he lives and we are there in moments.

He is groggy and the next day he will not remember the wind
in his hair or the sight of the houses below as I speed him
home through the crisp air. My presence surrounds him and we 
are invisible for those short minutes. It is a pity he does not know
this. I would have liked to have seen how containing that 
knowledge would have done to those perfect eyes.  Make him 
only more tantalizing I think.

By the time we arrive and I open his door, he is sweating
from fever, an illness I know nothing about. Does one become
ill from blood loss? I am excluding those who, of course, have 
_died_ from it under my special ministrations.

I find his bed chamber and after removing his clothing, settle him
under thick quilts. I do the same for both of us. He needs proper rest
without the encumbrance of draping's and also... 

..I wanted to see him and now I do and:

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. 

Washing and then wrapping his throat in strips torn from a clean
sheet, I laid down beside him, not touching, but to watch him sleep 
and ensure he will awaken the next morning.

I will be gone before then, before the first light. He will wake up 
and wonder how he got home, and then, after a time, he may 
remember some of our first night together. I'd like to think he will.
No matter. 

It is time for me to go as I see the deep blue of the night sky
streaking with the grey pink of morning. I fear nothing but
the sun. It is the moon I trust and it's cold fire that lights
my way. It's magnificent face that shines on my kind and
makes our night less dark, less death-like.

This warm, blooded human who sleeps fretfully, who by
his odor has mixed alcohol in that blood in great quantities,
is like that for me. Like a new moon to light my way and
let me see. I want to speak with him, I want to learn all
there is to know. 

I wonder why he was drinking tonight? I wonder why he 
walks alone? I wonder why he said nothing when he looked up
at me before and new who and what I was? 

I resist the urge to kiss him or pet him and instead, go to
the window, puzzled by the residue of glue on it formed
by the many markings of masking tape in "X", and turn 
back to see him once more before I must banish myself
to my own windowless dwelling far on the other side of
town. It'll take me only seconds to reach it, as my body
transmutes to mist and slips through the his window's 
cracks. 

As I leave he moans in his dreams. Perhaps, I indulge a 
wish, he dreams of me, and I moan inwardly in return
knowing he cannot hear me. That hurts me in my heart. 

I love him and want to know so much more. I want answers
to these thoughts. I need them, now, beside myself with
shock because in one thousand, five hundred years, I have 
wanted for nothing. Needed nothing but myself. And now
I find myself in a particular kind of agony for a man. I ache 
for him. I am actually frightened for the power he already wields
over me. Me. So, you see, I must know why.

Who is my Dark Beauty? I must know. I will know.


***

Of course he was waiting for me the next night.

When I arrived (just grey mist at his window) he
was sitting on his drab chesterfield and I think
trying to convince himself that it had all been a dream,
the nightmare of intoxication.

He kept fingering his neck bandage though and so
he knew some of the events of the previous evening
had been real. But which parts?

My Beauty, resting in his typically north American
slouch, seemed lost in his own powdering and as
I watched his achingly lovely face, it twisted into
a form of grief I'd seen few times in my very long
"life".

That I had to prevent - seeing him in pain annihilated  
my common sense - and I entered stealthily as a fog,
and took my proper form somewhere beyond his field
of vision and watering eyes. My heart was breaking
for him.

"Please don't cry." I said softly.

He, of course, did exactly what I expected he would and
leap to his feet, drawing a gun that he'd had tucked
in behind him or at his side. I wondered if he always
kept his weapon so close and what the reasons were.

"Who are you? How did you get in here?" He demanded.

A nice voice, not a hint of snob. A low, slightly roughened
timber that wasted no time on perfect enunciations or
unnecessary words. He was like that, I imagined, his mind
working fast all the time and his speech almost but not quite
keeping pace.  

"Don't be alarmed." I told him and slowly seated myself in his
wooden desk chair by the window, so that the silver glow from
the moon and the gleam from the street lights would fall on my 
face and he could come to know my appearance as I have 
already drunken in his. And, yes, that was the cause of my own 
intoxication; his loveliness had made me drunk for wanting him.

What did he see, though, you might be wondering? An average
build atop average height. But I'd like to think that I was also
attractive to a degree. I had long very dark hair that I kept
braided and drawn back with a leather tie so that it hung down 
my back like a rope. I had dark eyes and swarthy skin, but my 
bone structure, I'm glad to report, was more refined than one 
might expect from a heritage so physically linked to the ancient 
Greeks. I had somehow managed to inherit the high, thin features 
of the British. Perhaps someone in my ancient ancestry had 
come from there.

I let him look at me in silence until recognition dawned in his
eyes. "You remember me?" I asked.

He nodded. "Why?"

I knew what he meant and I had been correct, he didn't waste
words. "You mean, why did I help you or why have I come back?"

"Both would be just fine."

"I helped you because you were injured." And now, my first lie to 
him (for the time being, it was necessary, I did not want to frighten 
him), "I came back to see if you were truly all right." 

He stared for a few more seconds and then reseated himself,
still holding the gun I was quick to note, just looking at me
as if he didn't believe his eyes or his ears.

"How did you get in here?"

I smiled a little. "Perhaps we should exchange names?" I requested.
When he didn't answer right away, I offered, "Antony, though I
prefer Anton."

"Fox Mulder."

"Unusual. And you prefer...?"

"I prefer you answer my question."

I sighed. Not only beautiful but stubborn. "Please, let's be honest
with each other. You already know the answer to that."

He settled back, eyeing me like one feline would another. 

"Don't you?" I prompted.

He nodded.

"So you know what I am." I stated.

Again a nod but after also a head shake as if all was still a dream 
and he wanted to wake from it.

"Why were you so upset?" I asked him, remembering the pain
I'd seen.

He stiffened. "I don't have time for this, whoever you are or whatever
you claim to be."

I sighed. So he didn't really believe. Not _really_. But time was, as
ever, on my side. I could wait.  

I allowed him a moment to gather his wits and then I asked gently,
"Please tell me."

We vampires have a certain ability I should have mentioned, and
that is the ability, through our voice, to illicit information. We speak
in a certain tone and others (humans) will speak the truths we're 
seeking. It is a useful trick.

He heard the voice and said, I'm sure, before he even knew why he was
saying it. "Scully's dying."

"And who is this Sku-lee?"

"Scully. She's my...a friend. She's in a coma."

I knew the term and its meaning. I may be ancient but I've kept up
on all the modern educational curriculums. "I am sorry. You must
love her."

That made him look up in anger. I could not imagine the reason.
"That's none of your business!"

"Perhaps. But it is clear you do. It is there in your face for all to see."

He"Hrumphed" me. "Yeah, well, it's my fault she's where she is."

I was unsure at that point, how to help him in his problem. To we
vampires, a human death is as insignificant as falling leaf. Billions
of humans, all eating, drinking, making love and then dying. Millions
dying every day from ripe old ages of fifty, sixty, seventy, or if they
are blessed with special prowess, eighty or ninety. Hundred of
thousands of them dropping even younger from that because of 
disease or war - humans killing humans - children and babies
starving because of the greed of their governments, millions of other
unborn children being snuffed out by their mothers...

Humans, they live for a few measly decades filled with greed and
sickness, confusion and hatred, and then they die. By the millions,
they drop like flies.

You comprehend?

To a vampire who lives for hundreds or thousands of years and kills
only those it needs to survive (and by the way, I never kill the young,
beautiful or innocent), learning the finer disciplines, philosophies,
joining the pool of elite thought, living all in all peaceful lives, the
death of one human being is, well,...not enough to turn our head.

But this was different because this human, "Scully", was a human
Fox loved. Fox the human. Yes, I suppose you could say he is just
one more, but if you could see him as I do, you would understand
why I cannot turn my head away from him, or my thoughts, even for
a moment.

I cannot completely explain it myself really. All I know is that
it is and I loved him more each minute in his presence, each time we
spoke. I longed to kiss him but didn't.

"Can nothing be done for Scully?" I ask him, and his eyes glare at me
hatefully though the hatred is directly elsewhere I noted. No doubt to those
who had done this to her, those who really were at fault.

"No." He lay his head against the back of the couch and briefly closed
his eyes. He was exhausted, I realized and I wondered how much sleep 
he had gotten the previous night. His voice was sandpaper. He was tired 
and breathless and resigned to fate but not done with. He was not finished
yet. "No. But whoever did this to her, I'll find them. I'll make them pay."

It was odd and erotic how he said it, a simple statement of fact. There
was no implication of macho bravery or god-like revenge in the words.
Even his tone was neutral, as if we were discussing the weather.

He slept after that, and I covered him with a thin blanket and made my
departure. I was terribly hungry. One night without a feed can do
a vampire in if he's not careful.

For the next few days I left him be. I fed at night, I roamed the streets, always
not very far from him and his roaming. No one would ever touch him again
with the intent of doing him harm. Not as long as I lived. Not as long as I loved
him and I could never imagine that ending.

One night, he met with a man in the basement of the hospital where Fox's
Scully was dying. It was then I realized how much he indeed loved her.

That revelation and the events that followed would turn out to be the greatest
challenge of my centuries long life.

***

"I can give you the men who took her. These
men will never be prosecuted, Agent Mulder.
They believe you have information they need 
hidden in your apartment. At seven thirty tonight
they will come. You will be waiting for them, with
deadly intent."

I heard the dark man's words said to Fox that night,
because I was there listening in the shadows - but 
a shadow myself - as the mystery messenger offered 
My Beauty the revenge he sought. They had murdered
his love and to him, as to me, they should die.

Justice. He believed in it as strongly as I did. 

She was not dead but I could smell the death on her. I 
could feel it and see it in his stricken eyes.

Yes, I was there in that sick room with him, invisible
to him.  He kept looking at her with an expression
that broke my heart again and again until I had to 
turn away to keep my own control and not on him
weeping. I could not afford to betray my presence
then. Not in so exposed a place.

But Fox did not wait in his dark apartment in order
to take the lives of those men - what they deserved. 
Instead he listened to the voice of another and kept 
vigil all night over her death bed, only to return to 
his apartment the next morning to find it in shambles.

They arrived, just as the messenger had said, at 
seven-thirty P.M., just after Fox had left for the hospital 
and his dying lady. I followed him back there to 
ensure his safe arrival. 

Then I flew with the wind back to his home and killed 
them for him.

I was not expected naturally and weren't they surprised
to find a vampire in Fox's apartment and a hungry one at 
that! 

A valiant fight they put up, yes, but not one drop of 
their thin, cold, pitiful excuse for blood did I spill as I 
drained them both and then disposed of their bodies in a 
nearby river.

Had my Fox known about it, two exsanguinated bodies
with bite marks on their throats would have made an excellent
X-file investigation for My Beauty. 

However, the next day his lady awoke and he was consumed 
with joy at her steadily improving health, so it was just as well.

She got well and though it took him away from me, the
joy on his face was enough to quell my jealousy and passion
for him. Just enough that I could let him go, though, in
actuality, letting him go was not my choice at all. The 
challenge did not lie in letting him go, the challenge 
was _how_, in what manner, personally, was I do it? 
How to do it with the all the flare and the power 
of a vampire?

How to do it exquisitely?

The circumstances under which it occurred were, shall
we say, unusual, and in the end, there really was only one
path to take.



***

My Beauty's Scully recovered and returned to work with him
and their very next case, just as her strength barely returned
in full, was the investigation of a series of extortions; Bearer's 
Bonds; investment skimming. All that sordid dirty dealing and
obsessive money grubbing some humans live for. 

Finally, their case came down to one individual whom they 
went to interview after hours at his place of work which was, 
not surprisingly, a bank.

They had no tangible evidence against the man you see, so
they were sent to interview him only. I was very angry at their
employer for sending them out so soon after her illness, with
her still so weak and him still so vulnerable over her weakness.
I could see his constant worry and he would look her way again
and again to gauge her endurance. I could read his unspoken
questions: Is she all right? Should we take a break? Should I insist
she eat something? Is the case too strenuous? 

I considered their "Skinner" for a meal, but knowing Fox's
deep respect and admiration for him I decided to let him be.
"Everyone takes orders from someone." He had said but he 
was wrong.

Vampires do not.

"Excuse us, Mister Reynolds." My Beauty started the conversation
with their suspected extortionist by stepping forward and extending
his hand with identification open. 

I could see the man was already nervous though not by any outward
sign that Fox or his little lady could distinguish. I, by nature, saw 
much more than they. Mister Reynolds' heart rate had suddenly increased
and his nerve endings were on fire. These were more than jitters
brought on by an interview with two F.B.I. agents, these were the 
reactions of a guilty man. 

Not wishing to betray my existence to My Beauty's partner, I could 
do nothing at that moment but cry out in my mind to Fox Be Careful!

He did not hear me of course. He did not believe in me, after all,
though he had claimed to that night. Even beautiful Fox, despite 
our conversations and my appearances at his home, still doubted 
my existence. He'd convinced himself that I had been a manifestation
of distorted mind and vision brought on by a lack of sleep. Only 
recently, since his partner's release from the hospital, had he been 
sleeping through the night again. It was wonderful to see and a sweet 
delight to journey there after a night of feeding to watch him slumber, 
at peace for the first time since I first saw him only a few weeks before.

This man, this fat, balding Reynolds, spoke, "Well, if the Bureau wants 
to check the Bank's files or question any of my staff they are welcome 
to. I have nothing to hide."

That was sure indication that, indeed, he _did_ have something to
hide. The guilty protest too much. 

I was listening to My Beauty's response and assurances of "thank-you,
it may not come to that." as Mister Reynolds lead us all passed the still
open vault.

I was over a thousand years old and yet I was stupid that night. Could
I not have seen what was in Reynolds mind? _Should_ I not have? 
The answer to both was a resounding yes! 

Reynolds stopped before the vault and looked in, as if to show us all:
See? There is nothing hidden here!

My only excuse for my stupidity was my lovesickness I think. Almost 
my whole mind and body, so focused on Fox, was numb to all else 
and I - idiot! - followed as a shadow, a breeze, a slightly chilled bubble 
of air that no one noticed. 

And I, ridiculous, thousand year old fool in love that I was, did not think!
When I am mist, I can do nothing! I am helpless.

Reynolds pulled a gun from his suit pocket, aimed it at my sweet Fox
and pulled the trigger. Fox, my beautiful Fox, fell forward into
the vault with a hole in his lower back, bleeding onto the floor. And
soon, his little lady partner, followed him with one in her shoulder.

And me, Reynolds could not see me, he did not know I was there.

And I, in shock and grief for my injured Fox, stepped into the vault,
kneeling down beside him, materializing right there before Reynolds'
eyes. I turned to face him, intending to rip his throat open and leave
him to die for his unforgivable act, for hurting My Beauty, not even 
wanting his blood. Truly, the thought of tasting his lying, murderous, 
guilt-tainted ice-water made me ill!

Reynolds, seeing someone materialize out of thin air, turned white. His
eyes big, round saucers, he gasped and swung the vault door shut with
a mighty heave. I heard the many electronic locks 'whirr' as we were
sealed in.

You may ask, why did I not simply dematerialize again and exit through
to the other side?

There were no cracks is my answer. Vaults have no rotting rubber
trims, at least this one didn't. They have no windows, no air vents, no 
holes in ceiling tiles through which to seep as gas. They are perfectly 
self contained, completely sealed, impenetrable metal boxes. 

I was as trapped as my bleeding Fox and his bleeding partner.

I turned my Fox on his side, checked his wound. The bleeding had 
slowed, but not stopped. His partner had fared almost as well, but 
she was not conscious as my Fox was.

And I? I was uninjured but for being trapped as they were. 

Surely you understand the difficulties this presented? I was now
visible to both of them, we were trapped and I had no illusions
that Reynolds would change his mind and release us. The evening
would wear on, turn to night, my blood would thin and begin to
vaporize through my pores and then would begin a hunger no 
human can possible understand without personal experiencing it.

If the dead hunger, if corpses for centuries rotting in their coffins 
or stony pits felt hunger, this is how they would feel it: this, this
gnawing, painful, mind torturing monster of need that does not leave
one alone for even a second until it is satiated.

A vampire's need; a starvation that can drive us to insanity and
desperate measures.

The hunger for fresh, warm, human blood.

I cradled Fox in my arms. He was awake
and looking up at me. I think he recognized
who it was who was holding him. I think he
was grateful for it even though his mind was 
not on me at all.

"Scully?" He whispered, it came out hoarse
and painful sounding. His blood continued to
soak through his shirt, run down his back and
drip to the metal floor. I'd gently removed his
coat and suit jacket moments before. I was a 
vampire, I knew how to heal myself and I knew 
how to create other vampires.

I did not know how to help a human being.

"Shhh, do not speak. You are injured."

"Scully?!" He asked vehemently.

I was resigned to the knowledge that he would not rest until
he knew. "She is not uninjured but she lives. Not as badly
hurt as you."

"Who are you?"

"You remember, I'm sure, but it is just that you still do not
believe. I told you who I am and since it is not my practice
to lie, you may be assured it is the truth."

He shook his head back and forth once. "Not possible."

"Oh? Yet here I am." I only had to let him rest his eyes
on me long enough and he would come to accept my
words for what they were. And me for what I was.

"Why?"

"Why did I follow you? Why do I love you?" I did not know
what questions he asked, he had no breath to ask in detail,
but I am a good guesser. "I followed you because I felt
you might be in danger. I do not wish to see you in danger 
because I love you."

He shook his head, puzzled.

"Rest, Fox. Let me speak for a time."

The pain, evidently, was enough for him and he did.

"That first night I saw you, when I saved you from the
robber, it wasn't  because I was lonely or feeling virtuous,
it was because you were the most beautiful thing I had
seen in centuries. My first thought was to make you one of 
us, but for reasons even I cannot fathom, I didn't." I wiped
his sweat from his face with my hand. He was white. "You
are losing more blood." I said.

I had a revelation at that moment, if I may be so bold. I 
wondered if could save him and perhaps, if my idea was
correct, perhaps I could do it without tainting him with a 
vampire's lack of soul or need for blood. It was that
or watch him die and that I could not bear.

Using my thumb-nail, I sliced open my wrist a half centimeter
and placed it to his mouth, not for him to drink any great amount
but just to rub some of my own essence on his lips. Smearing
my own blood on him, his tongue darted out to lick the offending
fluid and some of it escaped down his throat. I waited.

Almost right away, he seemed stronger. The color was returning 
to his face, telling me that he was indeed not becoming a vampire 
but, ironically, by virtue of tasting a vampire's undead blood he
was reacquiring the look of humanity. And it was my joy to 
know that he would live another day as a human.

I had saved him. 

Even his bleeding hole slowed and stopped.

I was a vampire, made for killing and I had broken my programming
and saved a life instead.

By saving Fox, I changed him from dying to living, and I changed
myself from a creature that kills to one that can save if only he
wishes it.

I was reborn that night in the vault for the third time.

***

I pulled Fox's small flashlight from his coat 
pocket and switched it on. We were encased in 
absolute darkness and though I can see in the dark, 
I knew he, of course, could not. He would want the 
light.

But I could have gone on like that forever. Him
in my arms in the dark and never parting for a
moment. He teaching me, showing me the things
I had forgotten. Simple human things - the small
and treasured things I had so eagerly thrust aside 
as a youth when I'd embraced my first vampire lover
and rejected human life for all time. I had been an 
impetuous youth. New to Vienna. New to living and
dying. 

By staying with Fox, I could be born and reborn 
again, either by blood and my undead life reaffirmed 
by killing another or by the giving up of blood, saving
another and my heart renewed. With Fox I would have
the best of both worlds. 

I swear to you, that night watching Fox's life
made sure by my own hand, it made me feel
almost human again. I could almost smell					
the soft skin of him, his clothing, his sweet
breath on mine.

Vampires smell nothing but blood and death,
did you know that? It is one of the things we
sacrifice to become undead.

Now, with my nostrils filled with the sensuous
and thrilling perfume of Fox, I wonder if this vampire's
existence was worth it. What other wonderful
sensations had I given up that I no longer even 
remember?  



Fox was struggling to sit up. He did and scooted
away from me a foot or two, then turned to go
and check on his lady. I let him. Really, I could
not have stopped him.

Night had arrived and my hunger was growing.
Because I could not satisfy it, I was weakening
and would not have been able to touch him or help
him help her. So I watched.

He lovingly checked her wound, removed his own
blood soaked shirt, tore it in two and pressed one
balled up half on her bullet hole, the other half he
wound around her shoulder to hold the first piece in
place.

Her wound bled little. I could smell it clotting.

Then, to my poor heart's delight, Fox crawled back 
and sat near me. He was curious.

"Yes, yes I know." I said. "You want to know who I am,
Fox. You want to know where I came from and why
I am here and in particular why am I here with you
in this absurd iron box?" I smiled and felt the skin
around my lips chaffing. My hunger burned like a great
pit of lava. The odor of his Scully's blood was mouth-
watering.

Fox stared, mesmerized by me, I'd like to think, but in 
reality I believe he was just too shocked to form words. So 
I continued to speak while my skin wrinkled and pulled.

He could see the change in me already and his eyes were
roving about my body - a thrill! - taking in the young creature
who was aging and wrinkling, drying up - right before his eyes
(while I took in the naked form of him, young and strong and
perfect in skin).

That was my only regret at the sacrifice I'd made to save him; 
that I would die ugly and he would see and remember me that
way. 

I still had strength to reach out and touch his face, soft, gorgeous 
and wrinkle free still. "I wanted to make you like myself, but I 
think you would not have survived it, Fox. Oh, you would have 
lived through the Great Change but you are so...sensitive to the 
pain of others. Perhaps that's what drew me to you, besides your
beauty, and is also what stopped me from granting you this dark
existence. I think you would have died a little with each kill, with 
each drop of blood spilled or consumed. In the end you would 
have denied yourself just as I have done."

I glanced over to his sleeping partner as my hunger grew
to the intensity of a thousand screams in my heart and
mind. My body begged me to crawl to her and drink my
fill. To kill her. But I loved him so much that I could not bare
to touch his lady for fear of what it would do to him. Not even to
save myself.

Fox taught me to love another more. This was my chance to 
redeem my undead life perhaps, to show him that I was
also capable of such depth of feelings. I wonder how far this
redemption will take me? Not to heaven, from there I am banned.
Not to hell for that is reserved for condemned _human_ souls.

There is a legend among vampires that once the un-dead power
is gone, the blood vaporized and the body reduced to nothing,
a vampire's soul wanders the earth for a time until it too, disappears
forever. I suppose it is fitting. Our final punishment for seeking 
eternal life by such a perverted method should be, I can well 
imagine, eternal death. It is almost fashionable, wouldn't you 
agree?

"We are reborn each night, like the moon, Fox. You have been
my more beautiful moon. Through your life I will be born again
in a way." At his puzzled face, "I wish I could make you understand."

I felt very tired and lay down to rest. My body was stiffening and
I could feel the cold of the dead creeping in to my steadily
thinning blood. In my dying imagination, I saw a vapor of red 
surrounding me, clouds of blood ready to be blown away with
a puff from God's mouth.

I tried again, a simpler explanation. "The moon calls us, we
vampires. It calls us and we go. You were like that." 

I stroked his skin, caressed his lips with a thumb, reveling in 
the softness of them. "But now, it has become nothing more 
than a rock in the sky to me. You have done that too. It is a 
power, it is in the moon. It is in you also. You are It."

Fox shook his head. "I don't understand." He whispered and 
the anguish in his voice for me warmed me through for the last
time. I loved him so deeply, all my hunger left and all there was
to contemplate was his handsome face and perfect presence
easing the ache of my having to leave him behind. 

"I wanted you." I said. "I wanted to kiss you." I told him.

He searched my eyes and then gave me his own gift, a sweet,
sensation washed kiss on my mouth, my mouth that was a thin 
wrinkled line in the collapsing skull-like face of a ancient man. 

What courage he displayed in that gift.

And then, breaking my heart bitter-sweetly in two, he gave one 
more gift to me: Fox cried.

Just two or three single tear drops. That was enough for me.
It was all I needed to carry me through whatever existence or
oblivion lay ahead. 

"I love you, Fox." 

He should be made to forget me. I had considered it a 
moment before and now his tears decided it for certain. 
Remembering me would only complicate his life. 

My hand, now only yellow skin over bone, reached up to 
him and he took me in his strong arms, cradling me as I 
had done him. I passed my ugly digits over his eyes and face. 
He would sleep now and I would be no more. He would 
wake up and know nothing of Anton. That was as it should 
be.   

His lady had never seen me and so that was all that I needed 
to do and dropped my hand. 

It was done.

My last gesture as a vampire. Or perhaps my first as something 
else.

*******


He woke up in a hospital. My Fox. My Beauty. He did
not remember me at all. That was what I wanted but still it
hurt to know.

They were debriefed regarding the events in the bank, how they 
were finally rescued, how Mister Reynold's was caught trying 
to emigrate to Denmark.  

And how, strangely, a pile of old very dusty clothes were 
discovered in the vault with them.

Fox and his lady could provide no explanation as to their 
origin.

I chuckled at the frown on the face of the man they called 
Skinner. He did not believe. What a skeptic! I mocked.

*********

"Mulder."

She called him Mulder but to me he would always be My 
Beautiful Fox. My shining moon. Si' An Ghealach!

"Mulder, I had the dust particles analyzed. You're not going 
to believe this."

Don't be too quick to judge, little lady with the fire hair.

"They're human."

"Human? As in human remains?"

Human?! I cried out shocked. And then.... my soul had 
been vampire, but perhaps my body had not. I did not know,
there are no legends about that. 

"Yes, But I can't begin to guess how in the world they got 
into the vault. No one in the bank knows anything about 
the clothes either."

"This sounds like an X-File."

I could not help but laugh at my delightfully curious Fox. 

"It gets better, Mulder."

"Do tell."

"The dust, the remains, as strange as they are, there is 
something even stranger about them."

"Pinch me!"

His lady stepped close to him and placed a small transparent 
vile in his hand. A souvenir perhaps? A curiosity? 

I prefer to think  - a keepsake.

"The remains are nearly sixteen centuries old."


I smile when I see the shock on his beautiful face. And it is 
for the last time as I join the invisible gusts outside their 
window and fly away on the night wind.

***

I would ask you one small favor. 

As you have heard me whisper in your ear my story of how I 
met and fell in love with Beautiful Fox, please remember my 
name and someday, if you should you pass him in the halls of 
his Bureau or stroll by him on the street, step up to him and 
whisper it - "Anton'" - in his ear.

Just once. 

I know he will not understand but I would like you to try, just
for me. 

I loved him so much, you see.

**

END.