Chapter Text
ONE
THE FANGED NURSE
Elias morphs into a bat as soon as he’s done texting Ianna, his umpteenth attempt at getting a date. The transformation is fast, almost instant. It takes him only a few flaps of his wings to get to the small, cold fireplace and fly up the chimney. He’s done this exact routine hundreds of time by now, if not more, so he knows how much speed he needs to negotiate the abrupt bend in the tube without brushing against the gross pumice walls, and he knows how to recognise the signs of the resident owl’s presence, and how to scare it off when necessary. And today is his lucky day because that won’t be necessary: the coast is clear.
He is, after all, one of the best flyers in the family.
Executing the ascent without any mistakes, Elias emerges into the night at full speed. He produces a series of quick high-pitched sounds — ultrasounds, he recalls Father telling him, after having been scolded for interrupting an important lesson on hunting humans; one he was supposed to pursue for the taste of blood, one he was supposed to pay extra attention to for the sake of his survival, and not one he ought to sabotage in order to familiarise himself with the physics and biology of purposeless critters — that are completely inaudible to humans, and thus, inaudible to his new patient, Mr Meijer. The waves bounce back to his ears, and Elias locates the newcomer in mere moments. He’s walking at a confident pace down the boulevard, he’s tall (Elias guesses at least a head above his), and he’s strong (magnitudes stronger than him).
Another gym rat, Elias laments. Could he sigh, he would.
They are by far his worst patients, and for more than one reason. He didn’t expect to have so many of them knocking brutishly on his door, seeking his services, paying extra for sworn secrecy — which is pointless since he has no interest making his illegal business public — but here they come again and again, constituting almost two thirds of his income and a quarter of his diet. They’re loud, they ignore his instructions, and they always reek of sweat and Axe spray. It doesn’t help that he lives two blocks away from the nearest sport centre; his practice must be all the rage among the athletes of the René Collart Sport Centre doping club.
That being said, they pay well.
And that’s what he guesses Mr Meijer is there for: does he still have traces of excess steroids? are they detectable? can he take another shot? does Elias know a stealthier, stronger drug?
Yes. Yes. No. Yes, multiple, but he won’t say so.
The pedestrian signal light is red and will stay so for a minute at the minimum, giving Elias a good shot at observing Meijer from up close. He glides down, settles on top of a lamppost above the guy, and morphs into a cat, which grants him a vision more comfortable both in its colour range and sharpness. Just enough to really see what the man looks like.
There.
From his high vantage point, the first thing Elias sees is white.
Long, platinum white hair.
Looks shiny and soft, is the opening thought going through Elias’s mind, then he shakes his head and drops it even closer to the new patient.
Despite the confidence of Mr Meijer’s gait, Elias discerns doubt in his eyes. The man is alternating between absentmindedly looking at the traffic lights above his head and stealing glances behind his back. More details: one of his feet is nervous, repetitively tapping the pavement, and one of his hands can’t stop kneading his neck.
Such a level of stress is hardly a surprise — it must be his first time with a vampire — nor should it be detrimental to the safe conduct of the appointment. Though usually, those gym types only flinch after they see the fangs. Before, they gloat over how they’ve probably stabbed themselves with sharper and longer needles, and insist that Elias not hold back.
They all eventually regret it.
Mr Meijer’s anxiety might be a good change of pace for Elias, because it might match or surpass his own, and then, for once, he won’t feel so inadequate.
His tail starts swishing as he lets out an involuntary trill of curiosity and Mr Meijer instantly turns his head upwards.
Damn it!
Elias morphs back to a bat and flies up and up into the dark recesses of a roof, where he can still observe the man with stealth.
It’s alright. Patients think the lamp is malfunctioning, or that a bird chirped weird, or, rightly, that it’s a bat. Humans seldom know about vampires, and even less so the range of their abilities, so when they come asking for his services, they never suspect that the bat eyeing them from the corner of street was him. The supernatural eludes most of them.
The lights change to green, but the patient doesn’t notice right away; he’s still looking at the lamppost.
That being said, maybe Mr Meijer won’t be like the other humans.
A car stops next to the crossing, and he comes back to his senses and resumes walking. That’s Elias’s clue to fly back to his house.
Maybe this time, he won’t need a whole hour to recover his senses after the horrid experience of sucking a drop of blood.
Maybe Mr Meijer won’t taste repugnant.
***
What if he sees through her? What if he doesn’t like what he finds there? What if, what if, what if…
She shouldn’t feel as terrified as she does.
This Dr Lambeaux guy has got as much to lose as she does. Possibly even more. Angel doesn’t know that much trivia about vampire society or whatnot, but she can imagine that setting up a business that included normal, friendly contact with humans would at the very least ruin his reputation among his immortal peers, if not get himself hunted, and it would not grant him as much money as sucking dry a lanyard technocrat on their commute between the airport and the European Parliament once or twice monthly. All around, it’s a bad career choice. Which means Dr Lambeaux either has ulterior motives she cannot begin to guess and she’ll have to roll with those punches, or he is… a decent guy with a decent business.
He could’ve chosen to claim victim after victim, not a drop of empathy for human life, using threats and tricks to stay out of any hunter’s radar. He could’ve chosen to live like every other vampire.
But he didn’t. Or so he claims!
Correction: or so a bodybuilder who hangs out with Tom, Angel’s brother best friend, claims, after seeing this vampire nurse for a few weeks when he decided to mess with T and steroids.
Angel fiddles with the tip of the mechanical pencil in her pocket. These lines of thought don’t help her. She already took the appointment, she already walked all the way up here, she doesn’t have any alternative, and she will be starting estrogen tomorrow. She’s made her choice. She made this choice months ago. There’s no way she’d abandon everything — her life — because she’s afraid of Dr Lambeaux; a man she’s never seen, never interacted with through more than a few text messages, and who, by all accounts, runs a very popular business.
She’s still at his doorstep, still terrified, and now five minutes late, despite having arrived five minutes early, thinking, fiddling, dithering. She should ring, or knock, or whatever a rich-ass vampire thinks is the most polite gesture.
No. Right. No ring, no knocks, she remembers. She ought to message him, he said. To ensure maximal privacy, he added. She takes out her phone and types, occasionally stealing glances left and right.
Angel: Hello, I have an appointment at 6pm and I’m waiting in front of the door as you asked
Angel: I’m running a bit late
Angel: I apologise
Okay, this is it.
No turning back.
It’s like any blood test. Better, even, as long as she doesn’t have to see the blood. Or feel it leave her body. Or think about it in any shape of form. It’s like when her GP tested her for vitamin C deficiency: it’ll be quick, relatively painless, and if she doesn’t think about what’s inside of her and what’s coming out of her, it should be fine. Though this time the nurse and the needle are one and the same, and the needle isn’t a carefully crafted piece of metal, attached to a disinfected tube and a vial, but two fangs, two canines, sharp, white, and, hopefully, cleaned with a toothbrush of reputable brand.
Fuck. Not helping.
+32-485-550-036: Not a problem. Be there in a few moments. Please do not move :)
A smiley face? She chuckles nervously. Who is this guy?
Sounds are coming from the other side of the large mahogany door. She clutches the straps of her backpack, trying to use some kind of physical sensation to beat the panic rising in her chest. It doesn’t work. A clack, two clunks, and the handle turns, cracking the door open enough that Angel sees the mirrored wall on the right. And there’s no one in the reflection.
Of course there isn’t any reflection, that’s his whole deal.
“You can come in,” someone says from inside. Dr Lambeaux, she guesses, sounds tired and airy, almost girly in a way, and for whatever sick reason, that makes her smile. She would kill for her voice to sound half as good. “Welcome. Please put on some overshoes and head across the hall, take the stairs up to the green door, then knock.” And when she finally feels ready to climb the few stairs separating her from the door, he continues, “One more thing, until you reach that door, try not to touch anything and do not speak.” He also sounds annoyingly French and posh.
“Okay,” she says, pushing the door open, but the word comes out a bit wobbly.
Inside, there’s no one.
“If you’re feeling a bit tense,” he adds — Angel questions whether vampires can read minds then recalls that, yes, some can, and Lambeaux never said he wasn’t able to, or that he wouldn’t read hers — “there are Mentos in the entrance hall. The little basket next to the mirror. I’ve heard they calm the nerves.”
She looks behind the door, in a desperate attempt to find the source of his voice, but he isn’t there either.
“Um, thanks,” she says towards the empty hall.
“You’re welcome,” the hall replies. “I’ll be waiting upstairs.”
First it was the smiley, then the voice, now the fucking Mentos; this guy — this vampire, Angel corrects herself — continues to catch her off-guard. She cannot, however, decide whether he does it in a good way or a bad way.
The hall in question is gigantic and dimly lit by a chandelier in such a way that Angel can barely make out the edges of the room. She still spots the basket of candies on a very expensive-looking table by the stairs and takes a step towards it, before immediately remembering Lambeaux’s warning about the overshoes. She will not anger a vampire first thing in his home. She puts them on, and only then lets herself be tempted by three Mentos.
That way, they’ll both be sucking on something.
She’s evening the playing field.
The other floors and doors she encounters on her way up pretty much all adhere to the same old, wooden, and polished taste as the entrance hall. Sometimes there’s a single candle drooling on a cabinet or affixed to the wall, letting Angel appreciate the Lambeaux forefathers’ portraits in all their masculine glory, Victorian frills and fluffs included. It’s only when she starts to wonder if the house is actually bigger on the inside than it is on the outside that she finds the green door, enriched by a single gold plate stating ‘Elias’.
And Angel wishes she’d taken more Mentos, or that she’d staggered their intake on the way, because they have melted, and once again she is terrified.
***
Elias: What about later this evening? Do you need me to bring anything?
Ianna: fuck
Ianna: fuckkk
Ianna: yeah no sssoorrry sweetie not possible either
Ianna: I’ve got a huge party coming up tonight!! and it’s, like, a cool party with kidibul and Emmy
how about the weekend after?
Elias: Sure. That’s fine by me. As long as we do it past sunset :)
Elias: And I would love to meet Emmy one day, she seems very nice from what you have told me :)
Ianna: she is! but don't you steal her from me!
Elias: Well, I have an appointment starting soon so I should get going. See you next weekend, then?
Ianna: ohhh new patient or regular?
Elias: New one! I hope I’ll make a good first impression.
Ianna: with you natural nerdy charm? course you will, anyone would trust a young, handsome, sheltered GP
Ianna: well I won’t keep you any longer then! off you go! byeeeeee sweetie ttyl
Elias: Bye!
Elias tucks his phone away hurriedly — the last thing he wants is being caught hopelessly texting a girl by a paying patient to whom he’s supposed to give his full attention — and looks about the room. The chair is ready, looking out the window in such an angle that Mr Meijer will see neither his own reflection and the absence of Elias’s nor the state of the living room, but a somewhat pleasant nighttime cityscape instead. No trace of any modern skyscrapers and a hint of Brussels’ most noble monuments poking above the other buildings; peaceful, busy, classy; one could easily be fooled and believe oneself transported to Paris! All the doors have been closed except for the bathroom’s, and even though he no longer sprays blood everywhere like a little child, Elias has draped a large towel on the floor to make certain the carpet stays pristine. You can never be so sure.
And Mother would hate to learn that Elias has been feeding inside the family home.
Elias just needs to drink two Zofrans before he can proceed.
So where are they?
“Pills… Pills…” He taps his breast pocket. No luck.
He’s pretty sure he hid them in the file cabinet, behind the brick-looking-and-weighing bestiary Father gifted him for his sixteenth birthday he never bothered opening, but they’re not there. Damn it. And the patient just knocked. Damn it again!
He turns on his heels, making a beeline for the door. Opens it. “Mr Meijer?” he says, smiling. “Please take a seat and make yourself comfortable. I’ll be there in a minute.”
There’s only one seat anyway, so he shouldn’t have trouble finding his way through the room, and Elias can go back to his search unabated.
Make a mental list. Now. It’s a no for the file cabinet, it’s a no for the bathroom vanity, it’s a no for the glass table. Next is the bookshelf. He pretends to scour a book with a big red cross on the back, something that looks medical, while scanning the five shelves. It’s a no again.
“Are you—” Mr Meijer starts, but the way Elias locked his gaze on his patient with inhumane speed must have scared the poor man off continuing his question.
“Yes, Mr Meijer?” he asks, slowly, offering him a strained smile. “Can I offer you a glass of water?”
Mr Meijer frowns. “No, thank you.”
“I won’t be long. I’m looking for, ah, my alcohol wipes.” Tough it pains him, he settles for forgetfulness. It makes him appear terribly unprofessional, but he can afford to look unprofessional, as long as he doesn’t wind up doing anything unprofessional, like upsetting Mr Meijer and the carpet with his last meal.
“Okay.”
“I won’t be long,” Elias repeats, this time a bit more sharply.
A solid minute passes, and still no Zofrans in sight, even though he’s looked in every cupboard, every cabinet, and even on the piano. To top it off, there’s now the matter of his patient’s prolonging presence: his smell; the call of blood; the need to feed.
Mr Meijer speaks again. “Isn’t that your box?”
Elias sighs, staving off the part of himself wanting only two things, either to tell his patient to piss off and leave him alone, or to jump him and suck him dry, because he knows from experience that it’s the hunger speaking. Instead, he turns, this time at a leisurely pace, and lays his eyes on Mr Meijer, who is pointing at a white and yellow Zofran box sitting at the foot of the chair.
Elias clicks his tongue. “It is.”
***
It was supposed to be a quick and discreet kind of arrangement, but as soon as Angel settles down and steals a glance at the vampire, she feels underdressed. Lambeaux’s costume has frills made out of linen and silk jutting out of his neck and cuffs, looking old enough that a touch would turn them to dust. Is she making a good first impression walking in in her rags?
Maybe the overwhelming darkness doesn’t help her making an accurate assessment. And maybe Angel is in over her head and doesn’t know how true millionaires and dukes dress nowadays. An oversized jumper and a pair of shorts might be stupidly chic, for all she knows.
She’ll stick to that fantasy for now. She doesn’t need to be stressing herself out to death about her clothes any more than the usual.
God, no, she really doesn’t.
“We need to be sure you’re not tensing up during the procedure, Mr Meijer,” Lambeaux says. “I have some numbing cream if you think that will be necessary.” His arm loops around Angel’s shoulder; he’s showing her a tube of what could’ve been toothpaste if she didn’t know any better.
She looks at it, then at Elias again. But she can’t make out his features through the shadows except for a few freckles on his nose and two white canines when he opens his mouth to talk.
His eyes are higher, Angel.
“Won’t that taste bad?”
Lambeaux chuckles. “I suppose. But never mind that; do you think it will be necessary?”
“If it tastes bad, then no.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.” Angel maintains her gaze on Lambeaux, who is looking back at her, waiting and biting his lip with his front teeth. “I trust you,” she adds.
“You do?”
“On this?” She gestures at him, for lack of a better option, then mentally curses herself, because she must look so stupid doing circle gestures around Lambeaux’s face like some sort of Jedi. “Yeah, I think so.”
Is it weird that she kind of does? Is she, once again, letting her walls down, because a man had the exceptional quality of having a pretty jaw and treating her like a human being? Since she entered the room and settled down on this uncomfortable wooden chair, Dr Lambeaux has been nothing but welcoming and worried; he’s been positively inoffensive. The whole alcohol wipes mix-up didn’t put Angel at ease, of course, but it means that, at least, if he’s going to botch his work, it’s not going to be because of ill intentions, but out of simple clumsiness.
And she can deal with that a lot better than ill intentions.
Then again, maybe she really is being mind-controlled.
“Okay,” he says. “Let’s review the compounds you’re looking for: testosterone, free and total?”
“That’s right.”
“Pretty usual.” Angel hears the sound of pencil on paper. “Estrogen?”
“Yes.” More pencil scribbles. “Estradiol,” she amends. “E2.”
“I can guess why.”
“You can?”
“Oh, but I won’t, don’t worry.”
If she didn’t know better, she would’ve asked him to say it out loud, so he’d stop calling her Mr Meijer every five seconds, but she cannot know whether he might pass that information on to someone, or if his guess is even accurate. Testing for hormonal levels can mean very different things for very different people. She won’t risk exposing herself. Not again.
“Progesterone?” This time he sounds more unsure, which comforts her in her choice of staying quiet. “I looked it up, and I should be able to detect it. But there is no reason your blood contains that substance, and in the case it did, well, this would be my first time testing for it so I cannot guarantee you reliable results. Is that okay?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Okay. Here’s how it’s going to happen: I’m going to ask you to attach you hair or gather it on your left side. Then you’re going to tilt your head in that same direction. I will insert my fangs in your neck and start sampling. The procedure is sterile, and I am not a vector for any kind of disease; no need for disinfection.”
So he did lie about the alcohol wipes.
“You’ll feel a liquid entering your bloodstream: that’s normal. It helps you deal with feelings of pain and unease, and it helps me liquefy your blood. We only want a few millilitres to get the best results, so it shouldn’t take more than twenty seconds. Afterwards, I will tell you the amount of each compound to the best of my ability. Then I will ask you to leave this room — immediately.”
He stops to make sure Angel understands that last part very clearly. She does, and she nods.
“Last thing. Please, do not ask for an extra compound after the sampling; now is your last chance.”
Testosterone, estrogen, progesterone; “just a snapshot of her current hormonal profile,” she read online. That’s all she needs to know. “I’m good,” she says and nods again.
“Any questions?”
“Will I see blood?”
“No.”
She lets out a breath. “Will it hurt?”
“It might.”
“Do I— Is it safe?”
“As safe as the conventional procedure. So yes, it is safe.”
“Will you leave marks?”
He starts speaking but retreats immediately. “No,” he finally says with a more uncertain tone, then he adds, “Not unless you want me to.”
“I don’t.”
“Then no. There will be two dots. White, with red centres. And they ought to fade away within twelve hours at a maximum. You might still feel two tiny nodules afterwards, but nothing visible.”
Angel is satisfied with these answers. She doesn’t want to wait any longer, so she nods one last time, turns away, grabs her hair and pulls it to the side, doing her best not to leave any stray locks in the way, and, as per instructed, she tilts her head. Then she waits.
There’s a moment of hesitation on Elias’s part before Angel feels his breath on her shoulder. It’s cold — colder than she imagined — and her body hair stand up. She closes her eyes.
The pain is instant, flaring through Angel’s whole neck. She has to hold on to the armrest with her whole strength to prevent herself from trashing about and elbow the threat right in the jaw. Almost as fast as it came, the pain recedes. She feels his hands holding her still. Something gets inside of her and something leaves. Her whole body relaxes.
Whoa. She blinks, once, twice, and giggles through her nose.
It takes a while before Angel realises that someone — Dr Lambeaux — is talking to her. “…about five micrograms per litre,” he’s saying. Too fast; can’t follow. “And I wasn’t able to detect any progesterone.” He rubs a warm towel against her neck. “I will send you the detailed results tomorrow.”
“That’s nice,” she drawls.
“Now—” he throws the towel to the side and gets up, “—I will ask you to leave the room. You may linger no more than five minutes in the hallway to recuperate, then I want you gone.”
For a moment, she massages her neck, looking outside.
“Do—”
“Please,” he croaks from the other side of the room, “leave immediately.”
She liked Dr Lambeaux a lot more before he sucked her blood.
***
Foul.
Foul.
Foul.
His stomach lurches and he staggers. Grabs the bathroom’s door frame in an attempt to break his fall.
It’s bitter, it burns. Five minutes is too long a time to wait. Meijer’s blood burns.
With another quick succession of uneasy steps, Elias reaches the toilet, presses both hands flat against the wall, and leans his head above the bowl, looking at the reflections of light shimmering across the water, ready to return everything he drank and ate and sucked — all at once.
He must look so laughable.
Vomiting won’t even fix it. Meijer’s blood is already running free in his veins, and will be doing so for a good hour before it’s being assimilated. Not up until then will the atrocious taste fade.
For months now, every feeding gets worse than the last, and this one is no exception. Mr Meijer’s was, by far, the most acrid blood he’s ever had to come in contact with.
His stomach lurches again, and a drop of saliva escapes his mouth.
Any moment now.
***
Oh, she’s trembling! Tonight’s the night!
She has the hormones stashed away. She got her levels checked. There’s nothing else in the way.
But before going home, which means seeing her brother Eric, his wife, and their kids, while making sure none of them catch her injecting about point fifteen millilitres of enanthate estradiol in her butt for the first time in her life, Angel stops at her job, at the René Collart Sport Centre. It’s close enough, she’s got the keys, and lights are out, meaning none of the other coaches are working overtime; not even Eric. She’ll be alone. That’s maybe not what she wants right now, but it’s what she needs.
Being alone, and doing something with her hands. Something to calm down.
Every climbing wall in the sport centre has a door — to inspect its insides, repair broken beams, or tighten the bolts — and one of them leads to a grotto, made of planks and unused holds, in which kids can play speleologist, sometimes breaking a few bones in the process. Angel doesn’t settle far inside, just enough to feel safe but no too cramped. She takes out her mechanical pencil, then she draws for a good hour.
Here she is once again to hide for a while and reflect: about her work, her transition, her transphobically insecure ex, and a million little things she won’t think about when she’s anywhere but here. About Elias Lambeaux, the strange vampire. The vampire living five blocks from her job, five more from her home. The real vampire who sucked her blood.
Holy shit.
Her neck’s still throbbing a bit. And when she brushes against the spot where he punctured her neck with his fangs, she can feel two fading bumps. No scab, no blood.
Holy shit.
The anxiety she’d been feeling before the sampling was nothing compared to the relief and, fuck it, she has to admit it, the pleasure that followed. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!
For an hour, Angel Meijer draws bats, green eyes sparkling in the night, and teeth, and when she’s done, and, honestly, can’t fucking wait another single minute to be on E and get on with her life, she leaves the gym by the same back door she sneaked through, smiling like a goof.
Whenever she gets home, Angel ties her hair in a low, messy ponytail — trying to make it look somewhat masculine — and untucks whatever top she was wearing. It’s a ritual she’s been adhering to for more than a year now, ever since Eric made a terse remark about her needing to cut her hair; in reaction to which Victoria laughed and added that, if she wanted, Angel could rock the 2000s Orlando Bloom look. Since she didn’t want to attract either her brother’s attempts to coax her into baldness or his wife’s outdated references, she started to pay attention to her appearance more.
But tonight’s the night, so she forgets all of that and unlocks the door and throws off her coat and doesn’t stop in the living room to grab a bite. She pauses. Counting hers, there’s only two pair of shoes on the ground, meaning only her brother’s here tonight. Good. No kids, no Victoria, probably staying over at the parents’, no better time. She sets off for her room on the second floor, flying across the stairs, making as little noise as she can, knowing and revelling in the fact that tonight is the night.
She locks herself in her room and makes a beeline for the stash, her old Risk board game. She opens it, and gets a hold of the estradiol vial, a syringe, and a handful of alcohol wipes.
After closing the curtains, she settles on her bed, leg crossed, and gathers the injection kit on a large, clean plate by her side.
Clean the vial.
Draw air.
Stab the vial.
Inject air and draw the liquid.
Now that the syringe is ready, Angel checks and rechecks for the right injection site, contorting her neck in the mirror with the zeal of an owl and — ouch, necks aren’t supposed to make that noise — none of its suppleness. She visualises a cross that would cut her right glute in the middle and pinches a sizeable section of the upper right quadrant. Her fingers slip three time before finding a position that works.
Clean the site.
Grab the syringe. Just like one of her pencil.
Breathe.
It’s now or never. She hesitated before messaging the vampire. Then she hesitated before meeting him. She hesitated before ordering the hormones. And now she hesitates before this. She can’t keep doing that. There won’t ever be a perfect moment, there’s just now, and whether now is good enough is a matter of fear, not perspective.
Besides, this isn’t the first time she’s been stabbed today.
***
Yesterday · 18:44
Ianna: soooooo, how was your appointment? who was it? girl? guy?? flu or cancer? were they cute??
Elias: haha sorry I'm not relaying any private information. I'm under medical secret.
Elias: But it went as usual! :)
Yesterday · 20:02
Ianna: ah bummer
Elias: how about you? was your party fun?
Today · 8:10
Ianna: my. god.
Ianna: yeah
Ianna: it was kinda crazy
Ianna: I mean not that great at first
Ianna: but then great
Ianna: then confusing
Ianna: then great again
Elias: I appreciate your vivid descriptions
Today · 12:28
Ianna: sorry! it’s hard to describe. so much happened.
Ianna: how about i tell you more in detail if we meet?
Ianna: and sorry for taking time to answer
Ianna: I’m having a busy one lately
Elias: not a problem, I understand. Still up for meeting next weekend then?
Elias: And why are you so busy, if you don’t mind me asking?
Today · 16:41
Elias: Or we can postpone if you’re not feeling it, of course.
Elias: How was your day at uni?
Today · 17:58
Elias: Hello. About next weekend, I am starting to get worried about a few details and I wanted to make sure that if we’re going to do this, we’re both on the same page. I'll cut to the chase: I'm simply not sure whether or not you're aware that I am a vampire. I’ve stated it in my biography, but sometimes people glaze over it, and despite my dropping many hints during our conversations, it remained a mystery as to whether or not you were aware of that fact or that you even believe it to be true.
Elias: It goes without saying, I trust, that I feed ethically and I do not want your blood nor your relatives’. Just so we are clear.
***
The Lambeaux’s home is even more gigantic during the day.
Two or possibly three times as big as Angel’s. Covered in ivy and old Art Nouveau balconies suspended by thin silver columns that gave the impression that, with the right mechanism, they could slide up and down the building’s walls.
Since yesterday evening, Angel keeps coming back to those thirty odd minutes with the vampire; his fangs entering her neck, the abrupt pain that followed, then the peace and the bit of euphoria that lingered. She didn’t have to see a drop of blood. Didn’t even faint! Instead, her body reacted in the weirdest, most embarrassing way, and she’s flushing just thinking about it.
And without paying attention, she jogged around the city centre and ended up stretching her leg right next to 16, van Oosterwijckstraat — the vampire’s house. Dr Lambeaux’s house.
Now she kind of maybe wants to go back.
Yeah, as much as she loathes to admit it — because it breaks her strong, hot baddie persona she’s so meticulously trying to build — she wants to go back now, and not for any practical reason but the thrill. And she will. But maybe not as soon as she’d wish. In theory, she’d have to wait at least a month before the next test, to get an accurate read of her new, stabilised levels and see how much she should adjust them, and that’s already a short estimate. She might be able to shave off a few days and schedule it in three weeks instead; still a long ways off.
That’s without talking about the changes she’ll have undergone by then. Angel doesn’t take half measures — the spike in estrogen should be drastic. And she doesn’t know how Dr Lambeaux will react to that. Will he notice? Will he support her? Will he object?
Chances are the nurse will suck her blood, tell her the levels in a monotonous voice, and kick her out without saying another word. Just like last time, when the stick in his ass grew thorns in the matter of seconds. Dr Lambeaux simply doesn’t seem to be the type to interfere with his patients’ lives. And maybe that’s for the better.
Her free hand has been resting on her neck again for way, way too long, and when she realises, she takes it off and flicks it as if she’d been touching glowing embers.
As she runs back home, she compromises. She’ll go back in two weeks. She’ll find a good excuse. She’ll find an excuse, period. She’ll message him.
***
Elias is parched.
He can’t sit down, he’s twitchy, he drinks and drinks and drinks and it does nothing to quench his thirst; it’s like the only thing he can think about is blood, and his next patient is late, and, of course, there aren’t any blood bag left because his brothers cannot keep their paws out of Elias’s already diminutive section of the freezer.
“Come on, come on, come on,” he prays at his phone, hoping, for goodness’ sake, that tonight’s patient sends him a message. “Come on.”
Opening the closet, Elias makes sure he’s got the right vest on, and checks for creases and lint — there’s none! because he already checked! two minutes ago! but there are only so many thoughtless, menial tasks you can do in order to simmer down before feeding, and he’s already laid out the towel on the floor, already turned off as many lights as possible, already dusted his room, already refilled the basket with Mentos. So, yes, he will go around in circles until something happens if needs be. And thus he checks the hem of his sleeves one more time, looks for missing buttons, loose threads, and—
His phone buzzes. Is the guy finally there?
No, just an add from one of his dating app suggesting him to go premium. Wonderful. Exactly what he wanted. He can’t wait to see who super, mega, hyper liked his profile with no picture of him. Only 29€ per month!
And still no trace of his patient. Damn it, he’s thirsty.
He pockets his phone, shuts the closet, reaches for his pharmacy, downs two Zofrans, sits down, and focuses on the sound of his breathing growing louder.
It’s been a recurring issue for him. His hunger has increased gradually to the point of rendering him unable to function normally without feeding at least once every week, sometimes even less; a far cry from how less his peers need. For the peaceful, ever-refined cadet brother of the family, it really is not a great look. Perhaps it’s the moon. Perhaps a late growth spurt. Perhaps his years of almost total abstinence are catching up to him. Thankfully, Father and Mother have yet to come back from their business trip to Spain, his brothers are all around too preoccupied pursuing parties, women, and blood, and his sister has yet to comment on the human guests Elias brings in every other evening. He likes to think it’s because he makes sure to get rid of any stench of blood lingering in the hall, the stairs, and his bedroom, however faint it may be. But more probably because she pretends not to have noticed. Bless her.
Either way, if his thirst continues to act up, that peace won’t last.
It takes an eternity before the patient texts him an apology for the delay. Then, in a fit of absolute foolishness, he rings the doorbell.
Great. That adds a good five minutes and a detour through the back entrance. And Elias can’t even seize the opportunity to get a good look at the patient. Now he’s got to stay here to open the courtyard gate from the intercom.
If everyone was as thoughtful and patient as Mr Meijer…
Ugh, why is Elias thinking about him again? It’s been almost a week, and while, yes, he had great hair and a striking visage — one he’s sure his sister would call handsome, and Elias wouldn’t disagree, though he’s not sure Mathilde is into long-haired men — it was just a patient like any other. Blood like any other. Sole difference is that he didn’t come late, didn’t ignore his instructions, didn’t reel of Axe, didn’t make a fuss; Mr Meijer was just nice. Apparently that’s rare enough to get stuck in Elias’s mind.
He gets next to the device, unlocks his phone again, and pastes in the backup plan message.
Elias: Hello. It was explicitly stated not to ring. Don’t worry, though, just stick to the following script:
1. Wait at the door.
2. Most likely, a young French woman will answer you but won’t open it.
3. Whatever she says just tell her something along the lines of: “Sorry, I think I got the street wrong.”
4. When appropriate, go to your right, around the block, until you find a gated corridor to the inner courtyard.
5. Only then, send me a text, and I will open it for you.
Please try and stay quiet and act as if you were supposed to be there. Imagine you are a janitor.
One of his siblings would have added, please, hurry, followed by a witty insult, but Elias is thirsty, not barbaric.
+328114000: Hey sorry man mb
+328114000: Yeah some girl told me to fuck off in french basically
+328114000: Is she your girlfriend?
+328114000: She sounded upset, you should look into that. Friendly advice!
+328114000: I’m here, can you open the gate
He presses the button with a grunt. Good grief, he needs the blood. Now.
+328114000: k thanks
Elias strikes out of his room in a hurry, morphing into a cat, then leaps from cupboard to newel and down to the first floor’s carpet.
So Mathilde saw the guy. That’s the second time this month. Third, if you count Tuesday night’s fool who threw rocks on her window while she was studying. Though Mathilde thought he wanted to court her, she nonetheless texted Elias about it, warning him about the brutish rock-throwing juice box and how hard she fought against herself to not invite him in for a deadly makeout session. He should be proud of her, she added, for acting so magnanimously.
And he was — proud — but when said juicebox came upstairs, he made sure to bite slowly and shift his fangs sideways inside.
Landing in the corridor, Elias wobbles and his vision narrows — the blood thirst is getting unbearable. He jumps to the knob in a practised gesture that opens the door, but trips on it and has to morph into a bat to catch his fall. Disoriented, he slowly stations himself on the closest chandelier.
His patient doesn’t wait, no, that would be too damn polite! He barges inside, looks about, and types what looks like, creepy house lol, on his phone, before Elias can say anything.
To make matters worse, the pungent smell of blood invades the room.
Damn it! Does this guy have an open wound? It reeks. The neck is metres away. A flap of his wings and Elias can finally quench his thirst. A flap and that guy is dead.
Slowly, the patient proceeds, leaning his head forward, looking part terrified, part excited. Not getting any overshoes. Not knowing on which door to knock. And surely about to make everyone’s evening terrible. Especially his own. So, finally, Elias speaks and goes through the onboarding procedure, albeit an abridged version. Doesn’t even tell him about the Mentos.
“So,” the patient eventually says, once he’s seated in Elias’s lounge, “just so you know—”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Elias cuts him off. The longer they talk, the worse the sample will be. He’ll have to retort to drastic measures, like being brusque and cut his patient off. “You don’t have to tell me anything about anything. Because you don’t want your insurance to know about it, because you’re taking drugs, because it’s cheaper, because you live close by, because you like my face — I don’t need to know why you’re here.”
“No. It’s my blood. I—”
Elias knows where this is going. “Let me walk you through this: this—” he rolls up his sleeve, his pale arm sticking out around the patient’s shoulder, “—is because I am dead. Yes, your blood will go into my body. But rest assured it won’t have any ill effect. Whatever you got, you won’t transmit it. I am already dead.”
The patient stays silent.
Elias can barely stand up.
“Are we doing this?” he asks, in a last attempt at sounding serene and affable.
“Yeah,” the patient says with a start. “Yeah, sure, whatever, man.”
“Okay. Just relax.”
Elias doesn’t want to lose any time asking if numbing cream is necessary, so even though the taste is atrocious, he lathers some, and directly segues onto the compounds. Testosterone, DHT, hemoglobin, and various designer steroids, he lists. The patient nods at each item and asks a few questions, to which Elias answers monosyllabically.
“Ready?”
The patient looks at him, then his smile, and his eyes widen. He says “yeah” one more time, and Elias doesn’t wait any longer. He kneels. His teeth puncture the skin and the thirst goes away. Leaving place to nausea.
He’s thankful he can’t see his grimacing, contorting, distorted reflection on the window opposite to them. The guy tastes atrocious. Stronger than Mr. Meijer’s.
He closes his eyes. His stomach might give any minute now.
Ugh. Keep it in. Get the results.
“Fuck, man! That hurts!”
Come on. Just one more drop.
“Hey! Fuck.”
Done.
Elias pulls out and makes a mental note of the precise dosage. DHT is higher than usual. Hemoglobin is higher than usual. Testosterone is through the roof. This guy is a reckless doper.
Yes, he figured as much.
He staggers away from the chair. “What the fuck was that?” the patient whispers, hand on his neck. “You’re fucking crazy, man. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. There’s blood everywhere! Look at that.”
“I’m sorr—” The urge to vomit compresses Elias’s stomach, cutting off his apology with a guttural retch. Fluids leak out of his mouth. He careers to the bathroom, almost tripping on the bath mat. He looks around, then another contraction forces him to pour everything into the nearby sink, filling it with nothing else than a mix of bile, saliva, and blood.
Adding insult to injury, the patient decided that this was the most opportune moment to step into the bathroom.
Go. Away.
A vampire who hates blood. What a joke. Elias is debasing himself. Desecrating the Lambeaux family name.
“Uh, you alright?” the patient asks.
Good timing for another contraction.
Fighting with his stomach as much as he can, Elias holds it in, and slowly tilts his head up. The man is standing at the door, reflected in the glass above the sink, a hand on his shoulder, streaks of blood streaming down his shirt.
“G’way,” Elias mutters.
“What?” The patient steps closer, frowning. It’s a simple instruction. Just. Leave. Does this guy enjoy Elias’s humiliation? “Did I… do that to you? Is my blood okay? Am I sick?”
“We’re—” A little pocket of fluid stuck in the back of Elias’s throat escapes into his lungs, which forces him to cough it out by reflex, causing an instant contraction of his stomach. That one hurt. “We are done,” he says. “Please. Go away. I’ll—” Retch. Vomit. Spit out the bile. Look back. “I will text you the results.”
“You sure you…”
Elias retches again. “Yes.”
“Okay.”
“Leave.”
“Okay, okay, Jesus. I’m going.” He turns around. Stops. Looks about the living room, settling his eyes on the glass coffee table and picking up something from it. “I’ll take this,” he says, holding up a towel and a clean overshirt towards Elias, who nods in response. The patient nods back, and there is one last awkward silence, then he decamps.
Finally. Good riddance.
Elias lingers in the bathroom like this for another hour, gradually getting his senses back. He gets out only once, to get the box of anti-emetics. It helps. Only a little, but it helps.
The rest of the night is spent carefully inspecting the house from cellar to attic, washing and vacuuming any trace of the event. In the end, there are only a few drops next to his door. Mathilde notices the stench, but is easily mollified by a story about a faulty blood bag. Elias is now convinced she’s only pretending not to notice. There’s no way she didn’t hear or smell the patient. His cries of pain were louder than that of the average gym rat and his blood was so thoroughly potent.
Nausea doesn’t leave Elias until cockcrow. And when he’s finally done cleaning his flat, he checks an unread notification on his phone.
+328114000: creepy house 💀
***
What a week.
Angel wasn’t ready for the hormones to hit already, of course — online, every post recommends to keep realistic expectations for a good reason; that shit is slow — but they did hit nonetheless. Not in any physical way yet, sure. Though she wondered once if the pulsing sting in her chest was due to a very generous boob growing factor, or if the intense outdoor climbing lesson she taught the day before was too hard on her pecs. No, it’s her mind that’s going through it.
Her emotions, all over the place.
Angst, melancholy, excitement — even though those used to be rare occurrences up until now, she’s gone through them all in a handful of days. She’s gone through them multiple times, and more often than not for stupid reasons. A learner misses an important safety check before starting to climb: she feels her heart threatening to break her ribcage. A young, beautiful, straight couple comes by and nail the hardest route in a flash without arguing once: she feels like crying and begging them, knees on the floor, to teach her how to succeed in her love life. And now, as she sets off to work, she receives a single message from Dr Lambeaux that almost sends her skipping on the pavement like a schoolgirl and launching her duffel bag in the air.
Do other women have to deal with that all the time? God, they’re incredible. Props to them.
Since Monday, she’s been figuring out the structure of the SMS message she’d send the vampire to convince him to move up her next appointment, aiming to come across as pragmatic rather than desperate. She doesn’t want him to get the wrong idea. That Angel wants back almost exclusively out of curiosity, not necessity.
Even if the wrong idea has a modicum truth. Big modicum.
And none of that mattered, because it’s the vampire who messages her first, early in the morning, rendering her excited to the point of being a danger to herself.
He asked her if she was planning on returning soon, something about organising his schedule and prioritising patients in need — not important. She resisted shouting a cry of joy or breaking a street lamp with a celebratory swing of her duffel bag, opting for a smile.
She books a sampling the next day, only about a week after her first. Her levels won’t even be half of her initial goal, but never mind that. There still are tons of good reason to test early: maybe her vial isn’t manufactured correctly? maybe there’s some contamination? maybe concentration is wrong?
Sure, she didn’t bother to check if they are valid reasons, but she’s pretty sure it’s not a bad idea.
She’s being forward-thinking, really.
***
Mr Meijer is now the only one who can stop a complete catastrophe from happening. If he’s late or doesn’t show up this evening, Elias will have no other alternative than go out and murder someone.
His last kill was eleven years ago. He’s rusty. The victim will hurt. And news of his blundered feeding will make the round of Brussels’ vampire spaces in no time. It’s his worst option.
His second-worst option is asking his unfruitful date Ianna for a go, but they don’t talk any more, not a single message since he reminded her of his vampirism. And, well, she is a woman. Last time he fed on a woman was eleven years ago.
No blood bag. No other patient lined up for a couple of days. No one else he can trust.
Here’s hoping Mr Meijer won’t let him down.
***
“I’m surprised,” Dr Lambeaux says, in a slow, steady voice, reminding Angel of her grandfather and the way he seemed to sip an imaginary cup of tea between each of his words, “that you required another sampling this early. It’s not usual for my patients.”
Dr Lambeaux welcomed her in about the same way he had the first time. She texted him. He opened the big mahogany door. She walked up (overshoes on, and pockets full of Mentos). Only difference, he was waiting for her, standing still, in the middle of the door frame, bathed in gloom, only lit by the full moon behind him.
Bit creepy, if you ask her, but then again, vampire. Boo! Woe upon thee, and all that jazz. Creepy is to be expected.
“Yes, erm,” she says, taking off her jumper and laying it on the glass coffee table, “first time was just to get the base levels. This time—”
He puts a hand on her shoulder. “Please,” he says, his voice back to being all soft and airy, “don’t tell me what I shouldn’t know. Your privacy comes first. My comment was unprofessional. I’d be grateful if you would forget I said anything.”
“Oh,” she says. “Sure.”
It’s the first time she gets to see his face with so much clarity, and it’s as pretty as faces can come. Even a notch above. Bushy eyebrows, little up-turned nose, and those green eyes. God, she can’t believe she’s actually crazy enough to think this, but yeah, he is pretty. A far cry from the hideous and ghastly monsters depicted in the old bedtime stories. He’s still dressed like a character from Bridgerton, this time wearing a greener outfit, with, like, lapels and stuff — she should learn the vocabulary, or ask him the next time, as she plans to come back regularly — his short black hair is carefully groomed, and he still got those sparse freckles. And you know, maybe he keeps his lights off because his face is too effing cute for his patients to take him seriously.
Thank God for the full moon.
Though that also mean he sees her. Does he notice anything new? Does he sees her hormonal acne, the beard shadow, the razor burns? Shit, she shouldn’t have put on her tank top again. It makes her look like a dyke or a fag and either way it’s not because Dr Lambeaux isn’t her brother that he wouldn’t freak out if she’s presenting too fruity for his taste. And if he does freak out, she wouldn’t stand a single chance.
Or maybe she just looks like a regular guy.
Well, scratch that. Fuck the full moon!
Lambeaux’s hand leaves, and he walks towards the back of the room. “I’ll be there shortly. Make yourself comfortable.”
Thing is, she almost explained her hormonal situation last time, and she might very well give in and do it today, because once again, for whatever sick, depraved reason, Dr Lambeaux is sweet, he’s putting her at ease. He really does not seem to be that kind of guy, at all. And if she’s to come here every week or so — each time with a little more fat in her buttock and chest, and a little less testosterone in her bloodstream — she’ll have to tell him something eventually. And that something is either the truth or the gender flu. It’s only a matter of time.
Angel takes off her jumper while Dr Lambeaux downs two pills, with a glass of what appears to be water.
That would be one more pill than last time.
He then guides her to the chair. The same uncomfortable one, with the same towel underneath, facing the same gridded window. She remembers the panorama she can get from there; the roofs and balconies cascades down towards the city centre and around a lush and colourful little park across the street. It’s rare for a flat in Brussels to have an interesting view, let alone a pretty one.
“Numbing cream?” he asks.
“Oh no!” she says with a small laugh, and immediately puts a hand on her mouth to hide it. Jesus, get a grip, Angel! That’s not the trans part you should be worried about oversharing, it’s your newly blossoming vampire kink. “No, thank you,” she corrects herself, turning back to face him. “That’s, huh, quite alright. Didn’t feel a thing last time.”
“Really?” He smiles. Just a little. Enough to dry Angel’s mouth. Enough for the fangs to show. Those are going into her. “You’re a tough one.”
Turning around was a bad idea. She swallows and sets herself back in position. “I guess, yeah.”
“Testosterone, free and total?” he asks. Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to have caught her reaction.
“Mh-hm.”
“Right. Estrogen?”
“Yes.”
“No progesterone?”
“No.”
Dr Lambeaux writes down on a piece of paper. Probably something along the lines of my patient’s a lunatic obsessed with sex hormones, perhaps one of those gross sissies! He wouldn’t be that far out.
“I mean I had, like, zero last time,” she continues, grabbing her hair and setting it aside, “so I don’t see why I’d have some today, you know?”
The vampire gets down to her level. His breath is on her neck again. “I will take your word for it,” he says. “Good, hair to the side; that’s perfect. Do you remember how this works?”
“Tilt my head. You— you know, you do your thing. Then you give the results, and I have to leave. Immediately.”
After some hesitation, he says, “You remember.”
“It was a week ago.”
“I am not used to regulars.”
Oh, she’s not crazy — he really is cute.
“But never mind that. We are in position, and I have the compound list. Do you have any questions?”
Can I come back every day? Don’t you want to bite elsewhere sometimes? Are you single?
“I’m good.”
“Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“Well then.”
Her heart’s pounding. It’s going to happen again. She’s sitting there, in one of the most opulent houses she’s ever set foot into, about to have her blood sucked by a vampire. A vampire! Her brother would see red.
He lays his hand on her shoulder again, leans forward, and his teeth sink under her skin.
Holy shit. What a fucking rush.
***
“Mmh…”
Before a sampling, Elias has to prepare. There are the antiemetics, of course, and the towel, and his positioning within the room: behind the patient and close to the bathroom. For a while now, he’s been keeping an empty vase on the glass coffee table, in case things take a turn for the worse. He thought about using it last time, with the late, nosy patient, but in the heat of the moment, he realised a sink was ever so slightly more appropriate than a vase. He’ll sell it; a salad bowl is probably more fitting. More space. Less splash action.
“Mmh…”
There is mental preparation as well, and it’s proven to be the most important part. Feeding on the go, without proper measures, increases his nausea tenfold. He cannot plant his teeth willy-nilly in any passerby’s throat. He needs a moment. Expecting the taste, holding his breath, focussing on parts of his body other than his mouth and latch on what they feel. Sometimes, he pinches his nape with his free hand.
“Don’t…”
And he did all of that, bar the pinching, before going for Mr Meijer.
“…stop.”
It was ineffective.
Ineffective in the sense that it was completely unneeded. Ineffective in the sense that all those safeguards weren’t enough to prepare him for Mr Meijer’s blood. Ineffective in the sense that it had wasted him time and two Zofran.
It tastes fine.
Elias closes his eyes, squeezes Mr Meijer’s strong shoulders a little more, and draws another swig.
Not even fine. Sweet and earthy, like a well-aged wine. It does the job it was supposed to do — quenching the thirst — but it’s tolerable enough he can indulge in a fit of gluttony. Gluttony! He’ll be damned! Gluttony, for the first time in years!
No. The first time in decades.
That is not to say Mr Meijer tastes good in any shape or way. Not really. There is that usual stench, pulsing in the background, like a grandfather clock preventing you to sleep with its incessant, loud ticks and tocks, orchestrating the symphony of taste. It’s still there and it still reeks and it still makes Elias’s stomach churn and writhe. He wouldn’t willingly seek out blood that tastes like this, if he had better alternatives.
If he had better alternatives.
But that stench is, surprisingly, muted, and there’s something in there, a compound that has a taste like no other. An ordinary vampire seeking gratification and nothing else would perhaps not detect the difference. It’s subtle. But for Elias, subtle is already exceptional.
What in the world could it be?
“Holy shit, man, ziek!”
The comment snaps Elias out of his daze. For a good while now, Mr Meijer has been resting his head back on Elias’s shoulder, lolling slowly left and right, moaning softly by his ear. A level of proximity he wasn’t prepared for at all. He lets go, and Mr Meijer squeals when the canines pull back at an angle, leaving a scratch.
“Sir?” Elias says, catching his patient’s lax head.
“Mmh.”
“Sir?”
“Haha, yeah?”
“Sir, are— are you alright?” He’s been feeding for way too long. Mr Meijer’s going to die of anaemia if he continues. He’s already on the verge of coma.
“Sure.” And as if only now were he hearing the kind of sounds he’s been making since the sampling began and noticing the hand preventing his head from falling limp against the back of the chair, Mr Meijer stands straight and the capillaries in his cheeks and ears expand. “Jesus,” he stammers, “sorry about that. I…” His shoulders sag. “Gotta leave, right? Like, immediately.” He uses a stern, deep voice. Way deeper than usual. It reminds Elias of Father, only more caricatural and less controlled.
Is that how Elias sound? It’s positively awful.
“Actually, no.”
“No?”
“I haven’t— Oh, pray, forgive me; this is embarrassing. You see, I made a mistake; a small lapse of reason, if you will. And I haven’t exactly got all the compounds yet.” Or any, for that matter. Elias was too preoccupied with the sensory whiplash, the muted stench, the mystery compound. It was as if he could walk for the first time, after years of being bedridden, as if he could breathe fresh air, after having been trapped in a basement for a lifetime. He felt like, this time, feeding brought him life. Exactly as Father described the experience to him during one of his lessons. The sort of experience that gets a visceral, thick, and satisfied sigh out of you. Like an icy cup of water after a day in the desert. And in the midst of all of that, Elias didn’t find the time to fulfil his role properly, didn’t even think about it. He clicks his tongue. “A foolish mistake on my part, of course. And it goes without saying that I will fully reimburse the appointment. My sincerest apologies for this inconvenience. I understand you may feel unwell after this, so you may leave. But no, not immediately. When you see fit.”
“That’s it?”
“Erm, yes, sir. That is it.”
“Hypothetically, you’d just need to go back and suck a little longer?”
“Y— yes. That’s right. I suppose so. But I don’t know whether—”
“Well, sir, respectfully, that’s fine. Mistakes happen. Stop worrying and just go for another round. Here—” he tilts his head, and lets his hair slide across Elias’s resting hand; it’s soft but it tickles, “—use my left side. Help yourself, and santé,” he adds with what Elias could only describe as a sorry little laugh.
Mr Meijer’s nonchalance quite literally stuns him. In years of practice, Elias never met a patient this cheery, let alone a patient this cheery right after a sampling. And he isn’t exactly sure how to handle this novel situation.
“Come on! This blood ain’t gonna suck itself. Need a hand here!”
Elias isn’t sure how to handle Mr Meijer. In general.
“Yes, yes,” he says shortly, “absolutely. Are you ready?”
Mr Meijer nods, and Elias doesn’t wait for a clearer confirmation. He dives back inside.
Truth be told, he won’t complain. He is curious, and curiosity is preferable than the usual disgust and the occasional revulsion of all the previous feeding. It’s the first time in years that a sampling is easier than the one that came before. So, no, he won’t complain because, he cannot deny it, he wants to taste Mr Meijer’s blood again. Badly.
And if a man gives you his neck and asks for your teeth, there isn’t a single Lambeaux in their right mind who would consider refusing. And if, on top of that, the man in question is as considerate as Mr Meijer, and that he tastes a bit like wine…
A cocktail of conflicting flavours rushes in. The positive ones barely outmatching the negative. And that peculiar mystery compound, that sweet aftertaste, it’s still there.
This time, though, Elias doesn’t dawdle, and he tallies the compounds.
Something isn’t right.
Something is, actually, very, very wrong.
He lets go.
“Did you add a new substance to your regiment?”
“Mmh, what? What remi— huh, remi— huh, what? I mean, yeah, of course I did, silly.” Mr Meijer laughs again, with that same uncertainty, then he continues, seemingly getting his senses back, “But you should know that, right? Because that’s what you do? And, erm, sorry for calling you silly, sir.”
“Right.” He dives back in.
“Wait— Oh, okay…”
He tallies again.
“That’s nice,” Mr Meijer whispers, “yeah.”
Testosterone is at an all-time low. Estrogen is at an all-time high.
“It’s good,” he continues.
It’s as Elias suspected.
The muted stench is testosterone. The mystery compound is estrogen.
It’s as he feared.
***
“Are you comfortable?” Dr Lambeaux asks her.
She doesn’t look at him.
At some point, he had to pull out. Even a human like Angel would know that much. Another minute, and she was going to faint, or worse, drop dead on the hand-knotted wool carpet, her pooling blood ruining the little hand-knotted dog at the bottom — no one on earth with half a heart would want anything bad to happen that furry bundle of joy. So, as much as she hated it, the getting sucked had to stop, and the hanging out awkwardly waiting for her to be able to walk again had to start.
Rendered even more awkward by the fact that Angel cannot, for the life of her, look at Dr Lambeaux.
Not even because she’s embarrassed, although, undoubtedly, she is. She fucking moaned and asked for seconds, when it paused she whined like an untitled brat, and when it resumed, her downstairs exploded. Honestly, she should be mortified. If she was worried of sounding too fruity for him earlier, now that worry is completely and utterly shattered. But the reason why Angel can’t look at the vampire, now that she’s slowly recuperating, sprawled out on his sofa and chipping away at the steaming cup of tea and a heap of speculoos he gave her earlier, is not because she’s got the hots for him. It’s because he didn’t wash his face.
Two shiny red streaks of blood, streaming down the place where his fangs met her neck.
Her blood.
The image of Dr Lambeaux calmly listing her amounts of testosterone and estrogen while those two drops of blood — her blood — trickle down his chin is seared in her mind. She can’t get it out of it. Every time their gazes accidentally meet, it jumps at her and she gets cold sweats. It’s repulsive. She hates it.
And the worse thing is, she should probably get used to it.
With her free hand, she pulls the hem of the warm shawl wrapped around her shoulders. She never noticed how cold his flat was until now. “I should go, shouldn’t I?” she finally says, dodging his question. She is comfortable. Like, really comfortable, like she’s riding a fucking afterglow, but no way she’s gonna tell him that without sounding like, well, like something she doesn’t want him to think of her.
Yet.
She goes for another sip of her tea. It’s a pity she’s almost done; it tastes wonderful and it makes her toes tingle. It’s no Twinings, Dr Lambeaux told her, but he grows and brews the leaves himself. A man after her own heart, she longed to reply.
Jesus. Down girl! Too soon!
And isn’t it frowned upon? A doctor and his patient? Something about power imbalance and paychecks discrepancies? Isn’t he at least a hundred years old? Her friends would probably not approve; they would tell her she needs a therapist and more restrictive filters on dating apps. Frustratingly enough, experience would prove them right.
The vampire answers, “As you wish. Today is special, you see. I—” And then he stops. Angel hears him fiddle with a piece of paper on his desk. He’s been doing that for a while now, though she wonders if he’s just trying to kill time until she leaves, or if there really exists a task requiring someone to turn blank pages over and over without ever writing anything on them. Vampire taxes work differently, she guesses. Maybe they standardised the use of invisible ink. “Well,” he continues, “you’re actually the last patient to come by today, so there is no need to hurry. Take your time and rest; my mistake directly put you in a dire state, and as a medical practitioner, I’d be terribly ashamed of myself for casting out an ill patient. So, yes, I insist, take your time. Let the wound rest.”
Oh dear, that dude can’t lie. It’s like he’s suddenly reading a script.
“Thanks,” she says flatly, suppressing a snort.
“You’re welcome.” He searches for words. “It’s only natural.”
Hazarding a sideway glance towards the vampire, Angel catches him looking at her, then away.
Something happened to him today, something weird and unexpected, something that had to with her. No wonder he’s being dodgy.
She finishes her drink and puts the empty cup on the coffee table. Usually she would t’s not clear exactly which of the several closed doors Dr Lambeaux went in to prepare it — she was still feeling a bit wonky at the time — and she’s not comfortable enough to try one of them at random and hope to find the kitchen, even less so to ask him which is which. By nine, she feels good enough to stand and walk, so she checks for visible marks on neck with her compact then pulls jumper out of her duffel bag, preparing to leave.
Dr Lambeaux stopped pretending he was filling paperwork, now fixated on his phone. He washed the blood off his face when he made for the bathroom in a hurry unexpectedly — do understand that a hurry, in the case of a formal type like Dr Lambeaux, just means a stiff trot — so Angel can look at him again without feeling like throwing up. “I guess this is it,” she says. “Thanks for the test, the sampling, and the, uh, hospitality and everything. It was nice. Oh right, I should send you the money right now, shouldn’t I? So I don’t forget. Do you have QR code thing? I got some cash left also, but I don’t know if there’s enough.”
The vampire takes his eyes off his phone. “Don’t worry about that; I did say this one was free.”
“Free?”
He nods. “Are you feeling okay now?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I am. I’m as good as new.” She chuckles and hits her chest two times, as if that would prove her point. Then she walks by the door and opens it. “Goodbye, doctor”
“Feel free to refuse me an answer,” he says, still fixated on his phone, “but… may I know your name?”
“It’s Angel. Friends call me Angie.”
“Right. Thank you.”
She smiles at him, but he doesn’t notice, still on his phone.
“One last question,” he says, and this time he looks up, “and I promise I’ll let you go after this one.”
“Yeah?”
“Will you come back?”
“Oh yeah, I think I will.”
He’s got a pretty smile too.
***
Tuesday · 17:58
Elias: Hello. About next weekend, I am starting to get worried about a few details and I wanted to make sure that if we’re going to do this, we’re both on the same page. I'll cut to the chase: I'm simply not sure whether or not you're aware that I am a vampire. I’ve stated it in my biography, but sometimes people glaze over it, and despite my dropping many hints during our conversations, it remained a mystery as to whether or not you were aware of that fact.
Elias: It goes without saying, I trust, that I feed ethically and I do not want your blood nor your relatives’. Just so we are clear.
Yesterday · 18:30
Ianna liked your message.
Ianna liked your message.
Today · 20:54
Ianna: hey no, that's no problem at all sweetie!!! thanks for letting me know!
Ianna: you’re valid! <3
Ianna: when I said come as you are, I MEANT IT!!
Ianna: but god god GOD
Ianna: so
Ianna: about tomorrow
Ianna: and this has nothing to do with you being a vampire, I swearrrrr 🙏
Ianna: but we may have to cancel the plans lmao
Ianna: I'll tell you when I got some free time next week
Ianna: don't get me wrong, I still want to see you
Ianna: but yeah tbh I don't know if I'm in a dating mood here
Ianna: nothing wrong with you ofc slay haha
Today · 21:03
Elias: Not a problem. I understand :)