Chapter Three
“Does your heart beat?” I asked this question because I couldn’t think of anything else to ask Danny Habba, the vampire. I was sitting down in the lonely black leather chair which faced the windowless wall to nowhere. What a lonely place his place was. It reminded me of a prison with it’s gray concrete walls and hard grainy cement floors Danny Habba was walking around strumming his guitar and there were no words for how handsome he looked. He looked, intense and consumed with the emotional cords that he plucked with robot fast fingers.
“No,” he stopped and walked over to me. He kneeled down, reached for my hand and placed it over the place where his heart used to be. His hands were cold, and when he let go of my hand a raised red burn was left stinging as if a bee had just stung the back of my hand.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.” His voice was sad and he kicked his guitar across the room. “I don’t have a heart and I don’t have a soul, Chastity Vase. I’m in pain right now because I need blood, I need to (he said the latter in a whisper) feed.”
I squirmed in my chair. The one window to the right of me had been spray painted black. There was a door over to the far left corner of the small room. But what use would that be for me against the vampire’s speed?
“If I wanted your blood, there would be no way at all that you could stop me from getting it.”
I watched him turn and direct his tall masculine frame toward the tiny white refrigerator in the corner.
“Would offer you a cold one, but I think you’d decline.”
Once again his voice was soft and in his throat. He bit the corner off of ten packs of pig’s blood gulped them down one after the other and stopped twitching.
“I twitch and my insides turn to acid when I need blood. That’s why when I touched you, I burned your hand .” He wiped a dark red almost black strand of blood from the corner of his chin onto the back of his hand ; then licked it off.
I noticed that Danny was wearing his stage outfit, the one that I saw him wearing the night that he collected all of those grammys’, nine I believe. He was wearing
tight black leather pants with broad gold stripes zigzagging down each side. He was wearing his trademark loose fitting gold silk shirt with hardly any buttons showing off well defined Pec muscles.
I wondered if Danny wore that same outfit all of the time? Did he ever get to change into something else. I bet he looked really great in jeans and a muscle shirt. I wanted to know everything that there was to know about Danny Habba. I had so many questions.
If he answered me fine, and if he didn’t fine, but I had to ask him.
“Do you ever kill humans, drink their blood?” I braced myself for the answer.
“Of course.” He didn’t bat an eye in admitting that he killed humans.
“Cold pig blood is a poor substitute for the real thing.. It’s like taking an aspirin when you’re in morphine pain.”
“You kill humans?” I asked him unable to accept that Danny Habba was a cold-blooded killer who stalked unsuspecting humans in the night and sucked them dry. I tried to understand why he did what he did.
I stammered, “be because you’re in so much pain at the time and the acid will kill you if you don’t get human blood, you’re just protecting yourself.”
“ You are partly right.” He addressed me from the corner of the room, where he’d kicked his guitar. He picked it up, kissed it and began to softly play. He tenderly stroked the strings, making them sound like words, wounded crystal clear words.
“I could exist on pig’s blood if I wanted to but I don’t want to. I like my blood warm and flowing. I like getting the last drop and feeling the surrender that comes from hearing the last breath stop fighting for air.” His eyes glowed and his handsome face was a hard mask of chiseled stone.
His face softened and he smiled . “ I know it sounds horrible, wicked, hideous, and cruel, but it is what it is and I am what I am, a vampire. A killer.”
“Then why didn’t you kill me?”
“I was going to do just that, kill you. I began following you the moment that I saw you walking around alone in the midst of the dangerous thunderstorm. You were carrying that metal umbrella. I was hungry, needed to feed and there you were, Chastity Vase, waiting to be gotten.”
“Then why didn’t you get me? You are a killer who loves your work?”
“ I never said love, I said am. I am what I am. I am A VAMPIRE WHO SAVED YOUR LIFE AND YOU OWE ME.”
“Owe you? What could I possibly do for you? Other than give you my blood ? ” I didn’t mean to say the latter. It just slipped out and Danny laughed as I placed my hand over my wildly pulsating throat.
“Take me home with you. I don’t eat much,” he laughed but his eyes were serious. He wanted to come home with me.
“What’s wrong with here, wherever here is?” I didn’t have a clue where he’d brought me.
I was kind of surprised at his request to come home with me; really but not really because I was in a realm, void of reality and normalcy. I was in a realm where vampires existed and young girls knew them for the blood thirsty killers that they were and yet still wanted to trust them and be near them. I wanted to spend time with Danny. I loved being near him. When he came close to me; it just set my heart pounding ! How I wanted to stay around him.”
“That can be arranged,” he said smiling and staring deep into my eyes.
He stood there, his guitar in hand gazing at me with those fabulous eyes of his. I realized that he was assessing, reading my mind. How long had he been doing it, and what had I been thinking that I did not want him to know?
“Someone’s trying to kill me and I need a place to hide because I’m not ready to die! I want to live!” Danny Habba confessed, almost pleaded with me to take him home with me.
“Who wants to kill you?” I definitely didn’t see him as a victim.
Danny picked up his laptop and opened it. I watched his fingers striking the keys .
“Him! He wants me dead!”
He placed the laptop in my lap and I was staring down at a picture of music mogul Jake Lars.
“First of all you’re already dead and Jake Lars is the man who put you on the map and made you into a world famous star when you were alive and he thinks you’re dead.
No one was more devastated over your untimely death than he was . The man called you his son and went into mourning and left the music industry to grieve when you wrapped yourself around that pole. I read all of this on your fan site. I know that I’m not really thinking clearly and my perception of what is going on around me is not absolutely solid. But what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Jake Lars is the world’s oldest vampires and he --”
I cut Danny off, this was getting weirder by the minute. Was I now suppose to believe that Jake Lars a man that was known to have the Midas touch and who was so famous that his life was an open book was a vampire? But not only a vampire but the
World’s oldest vampire?
“He’s a vampire alright and he wants me vampire-dead as in staked, beheaded , left in
the sun to dry up and die! I don’t have any reason to lie to you Chastity Vase. If you can see me standing right in front of you and I’m suppose to be dead but clearly not then why so much trouble with seeing that punk Lars for what he is?”
This whole thing that Danny was saying was incredulous. Jake Lars!! Everyone loved Uncle Jake. He contributed to animal charities. He helped the needy and the poor. Every year he opened his house up and let the needy people come in, he made sure that he found homes for them. He took them off of the street----some of them he kept with him and they worked for him. Why was Danny making up lies on Uncle Jake?
Danny was angry with me and blood began to ooze from his eyes.
I didn‘t for one moment think that the blood that was dripping from his eyes meant that he was crying tender bloody tears. Rage! Rage! Vampire rage was what Danny Habba was feeling against me right now and I wondered if the rage would push every bit of Danny away and cause the vampire to kill me.
“Are you going to take me home with you are not ?” He dropped three drained bags of pig‘s blood on to the floor then swiftly bobbed his head from left to right snapping his neck.
“You owe me and if we ’re going to go to your house, we need to go before night.” He said through clinched teeth . He smiled but it was forced; he tried to squelch the anger that he felt for me. It was apparent to me that my doubt meant betrayal in his eyes.
“Before night?” I asked as tenderly as possible trying not to further enrage him. But how was he a vampire going to go out before night?
“I got this in the middle east.” He stressed , yanking down one of the sheet-sized heavy curtains surrounding his bed. “The black color is darker than coal, blacker than anything on earth and it repels the sun,” Danny stated flatly still irate.
“Are we going to your house Chastity Vase and are you going to invite me in once we get there?” Danny Habba was draped from head to toe in a cloak of the blackest blackness. I could not see his face. Absolutely none of his skin was visible.
What choice did I have? I’d already witnessed first hand the bleeding eyes when he became angry. If I said no, what reason would the vampire have to keep me alive?
“Yes we are going to my house but you have to promise me----- you must stay down in the basement once we get there.”
“I will, I’ll let you have your privacy--no one understands the need for privacy more than a vampire.” Danny Habba promised but could I believe him?
“Does your heart beat?” I asked this question because I couldn’t think of anything else to ask Danny Habba, the vampire. I was sitting down in the lonely black leather chair which faced the windowless wall to nowhere. What a lonely place his place was. It reminded me of a prison with it’s gray concrete walls and hard grainy cement floors Danny Habba was walking around strumming his guitar and there were no words for how handsome he looked. He looked, intense and consumed with the emotional cords that he plucked with robot fast fingers.
“No,” he stopped and walked over to me. He kneeled down, reached for my hand and placed it over the place where his heart used to be. His hands were cold, and when he let go of my hand a raised red burn was left stinging as if a bee had just stung the back of my hand.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.” His voice was sad and he kicked his guitar across the room. “I don’t have a heart and I don’t have a soul, Chastity Vase. I’m in pain right now because I need blood, I need to (he said the latter in a whisper) feed.”
I squirmed in my chair. The one window to the right of me had been spray painted black. There was a door over to the far left corner of the small room. But what use would that be for me against the vampire’s speed?
“If I wanted your blood, there would be no way at all that you could stop me from getting it.”
I watched him turn and direct his tall masculine frame toward the tiny white refrigerator in the corner.
“Would offer you a cold one, but I think you’d decline.”
Once again his voice was soft and in his throat. He bit the corner off of ten packs of pig’s blood gulped them down one after the other and stopped twitching.
“I twitch and my insides turn to acid when I need blood. That’s why when I touched you, I burned your hand .” He wiped a dark red almost black strand of blood from the corner of his chin onto the back of his hand ; then licked it off.
I noticed that Danny was wearing his stage outfit, the one that I saw him wearing the night that he collected all of those grammys’, nine I believe. He was wearing
tight black leather pants with broad gold stripes zigzagging down each side. He was wearing his trademark loose fitting gold silk shirt with hardly any buttons showing off well defined Pec muscles.
I wondered if Danny wore that same outfit all of the time? Did he ever get to change into something else. I bet he looked really great in jeans and a muscle shirt. I wanted to know everything that there was to know about Danny Habba. I had so many questions.
If he answered me fine, and if he didn’t fine, but I had to ask him.
“Do you ever kill humans, drink their blood?” I braced myself for the answer.
“Of course.” He didn’t bat an eye in admitting that he killed humans.
“Cold pig blood is a poor substitute for the real thing.. It’s like taking an aspirin when you’re in morphine pain.”
“You kill humans?” I asked him unable to accept that Danny Habba was a cold-blooded killer who stalked unsuspecting humans in the night and sucked them dry. I tried to understand why he did what he did.
I stammered, “be because you’re in so much pain at the time and the acid will kill you if you don’t get human blood, you’re just protecting yourself.”
“ You are partly right.” He addressed me from the corner of the room, where he’d kicked his guitar. He picked it up, kissed it and began to softly play. He tenderly stroked the strings, making them sound like words, wounded crystal clear words.
“I could exist on pig’s blood if I wanted to but I don’t want to. I like my blood warm and flowing. I like getting the last drop and feeling the surrender that comes from hearing the last breath stop fighting for air.” His eyes glowed and his handsome face was a hard mask of chiseled stone.
His face softened and he smiled . “ I know it sounds horrible, wicked, hideous, and cruel, but it is what it is and I am what I am, a vampire. A killer.”
“Then why didn’t you kill me?”
“I was going to do just that, kill you. I began following you the moment that I saw you walking around alone in the midst of the dangerous thunderstorm. You were carrying that metal umbrella. I was hungry, needed to feed and there you were, Chastity Vase, waiting to be gotten.”
“Then why didn’t you get me? You are a killer who loves your work?”
“ I never said love, I said am. I am what I am. I am A VAMPIRE WHO SAVED YOUR LIFE AND YOU OWE ME.”
“Owe you? What could I possibly do for you? Other than give you my blood ? ” I didn’t mean to say the latter. It just slipped out and Danny laughed as I placed my hand over my wildly pulsating throat.
“Take me home with you. I don’t eat much,” he laughed but his eyes were serious. He wanted to come home with me.
“What’s wrong with here, wherever here is?” I didn’t have a clue where he’d brought me.
I was kind of surprised at his request to come home with me; really but not really because I was in a realm, void of reality and normalcy. I was in a realm where vampires existed and young girls knew them for the blood thirsty killers that they were and yet still wanted to trust them and be near them. I wanted to spend time with Danny. I loved being near him. When he came close to me; it just set my heart pounding ! How I wanted to stay around him.”
“That can be arranged,” he said smiling and staring deep into my eyes.
He stood there, his guitar in hand gazing at me with those fabulous eyes of his. I realized that he was assessing, reading my mind. How long had he been doing it, and what had I been thinking that I did not want him to know?
“Someone’s trying to kill me and I need a place to hide because I’m not ready to die! I want to live!” Danny Habba confessed, almost pleaded with me to take him home with me.
“Who wants to kill you?” I definitely didn’t see him as a victim.
Danny picked up his laptop and opened it. I watched his fingers striking the keys .
“Him! He wants me dead!”
He placed the laptop in my lap and I was staring down at a picture of music mogul Jake Lars.
“First of all you’re already dead and Jake Lars is the man who put you on the map and made you into a world famous star when you were alive and he thinks you’re dead.
No one was more devastated over your untimely death than he was . The man called you his son and went into mourning and left the music industry to grieve when you wrapped yourself around that pole. I read all of this on your fan site. I know that I’m not really thinking clearly and my perception of what is going on around me is not absolutely solid. But what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Jake Lars is the world’s oldest vampires and he --”
I cut Danny off, this was getting weirder by the minute. Was I now suppose to believe that Jake Lars a man that was known to have the Midas touch and who was so famous that his life was an open book was a vampire? But not only a vampire but the
World’s oldest vampire?
“He’s a vampire alright and he wants me vampire-dead as in staked, beheaded , left in
the sun to dry up and die! I don’t have any reason to lie to you Chastity Vase. If you can see me standing right in front of you and I’m suppose to be dead but clearly not then why so much trouble with seeing that punk Lars for what he is?”
This whole thing that Danny was saying was incredulous. Jake Lars!! Everyone loved Uncle Jake. He contributed to animal charities. He helped the needy and the poor. Every year he opened his house up and let the needy people come in, he made sure that he found homes for them. He took them off of the street----some of them he kept with him and they worked for him. Why was Danny making up lies on Uncle Jake?
Danny was angry with me and blood began to ooze from his eyes.
I didn‘t for one moment think that the blood that was dripping from his eyes meant that he was crying tender bloody tears. Rage! Rage! Vampire rage was what Danny Habba was feeling against me right now and I wondered if the rage would push every bit of Danny away and cause the vampire to kill me.
“Are you going to take me home with you are not ?” He dropped three drained bags of pig‘s blood on to the floor then swiftly bobbed his head from left to right snapping his neck.
“You owe me and if we ’re going to go to your house, we need to go before night.” He said through clinched teeth . He smiled but it was forced; he tried to squelch the anger that he felt for me. It was apparent to me that my doubt meant betrayal in his eyes.
“Before night?” I asked as tenderly as possible trying not to further enrage him. But how was he a vampire going to go out before night?
“I got this in the middle east.” He stressed , yanking down one of the sheet-sized heavy curtains surrounding his bed. “The black color is darker than coal, blacker than anything on earth and it repels the sun,” Danny stated flatly still irate.
“Are we going to your house Chastity Vase and are you going to invite me in once we get there?” Danny Habba was draped from head to toe in a cloak of the blackest blackness. I could not see his face. Absolutely none of his skin was visible.
What choice did I have? I’d already witnessed first hand the bleeding eyes when he became angry. If I said no, what reason would the vampire have to keep me alive?
“Yes we are going to my house but you have to promise me----- you must stay down in the basement once we get there.”
“I will, I’ll let you have your privacy--no one understands the need for privacy more than a vampire.” Danny Habba promised but could I believe him?
