Mongoose

Mongoose

My Dearest Mathilda,

I apologize for contacting you in this fashion, but by this time tomorrow I shall be beyond reaching, at least for quite a while to come. I believe you know what I mean and I shall say no more on that topic in this correspondence. Perhaps we shall meet again, perhaps we shall not. But since you are the only one of our kind for which I have any feelings other than contempt, it is to you and you alone that I am passing along this warning. And perhaps also with this letter to try to grasp the enormity of what has happened to me. And to try and perhaps put into perspective the potentially enormous shift between our relations with upon those whom we feed. 

Or at any rate, with some of them.

For you see, Mathilda, I am frightened of them for the first time that I can ever remember. Yes, Mathilda, of them. Those stupid, blank-eyed, slow-moving, slow-thinking contemptible creatures. Given that we live for millennia, and that our memories fade and play tricks on us, I suppose it is possible that a creature like the one I met two nights ago could possibly have existed once before. But as much as decades, nay centuries, become crowded out of our memories, I can see no way that had I had an encounter like this I would have forgotten it. Not should a millennia pass, or a hundred millennia pass.

Fear and haste is making me unseemly, I now realize. Perhaps it would be best if I began with the encounter and what my peremptory investigations have revealed? And then moved onto the tentative conclusions I have drawn? Should I be correct and should you not wish to take the step I am planning, perhaps it will be enough to save you. In any event, I must state in the strongest terms possible that you should practice extreme caution.

The encounter occurred two days ago, just after twilight had faded and full darkness came down. I awoke, as usual, with no particular goals or desires. I had fed last three weeks ago and had only begun to tentatively looking into acquiring my next target. I had simply decided to lie on my couch and let the world pass me by, staring out the window. The ultimate predator, as it were, in repose. Stupid fool.

The voice came from behind me, on the edge of laughter, “Hey, Vampire.” Human, not our kind.

Yes, Mathilda, behind me. This creature had entered my den, entered my home and snuck up behind me. All without me registering any of it. I have no idea how he was able to do this, and I now find myself jumping at shadows, doubtless little different from them way they do. That one of them could do this to one of us is perhaps the ultimate indignity. I have given as much thought to this simple fact as I have to any of the rest of what follows, and I still have no answer. It is, I suppose, theoretically possible for one of them to enter a room without us hearing them, though very unlikely. And I must also admit the possibility that one might enter our space without being seen. Though, again, such a prospect seems so remote as to tag it as beyond belief.

But without being smelt? It is simply not possible. The smell of our prey is beyond our reason or theirs. It is elemental. It is at such a depth of our being that they could not hide who they are from it, even if they understood this most vital of our senses. In fact as I write this I sense the smell of them both nearby and at a distance.

Yet I did NOT smell him.

Of course I attacked. One of the few things they seem to be able to consistently get correct in their stupid fantasies and truly bizarre fetishism of our kind is our speed and our strength. No human could have ever moved quickly enough to get out of my way. And no human could possibly have stopped me from ripping their heart out of their chest. As you well know, I am considered exceedingly strong even amongst our kind. (And after that incident with Ambrose have not had any challenge to my territory. I assume he recovered?)

I hit nothing, though I knew exactly where in the room the voice had come from the instant it started speaking.

“Predictable, you guys are soo predictable,” the voice laughed. “Downright pathetic.”

I spun and attacked again, this time in a frenzy of rage. I first struck at the spot where the voice had spoken, and of course again struck only air. I then moved as fast as I could though the living room shredding furniture, blindly tossing books, bookcases, end tables, statuary anything, anything I could lay my hands on, in my desire to crush utterly this voice. Had I known then what I know now, I would have run as fast and as far as my legs could carry me. And it would have been in a frenzy of fear and not rage.

“Okay, playtime’s over.” That voice, I thought again, still in a paroxysm of rage.

Turning, I crouched to leap again. And then something grazed the back of my neck. The lightest touch,  it barely amounted to a warm breath of air. And yet it froze me in place, mouth open, legs bent, arms almost straight up over my head. I could not move.

A booted foot, in no haste at all, casually placed itself upon my back, and pushed. I toppled over, landing  on my forehead, my knees and finally on my side.

“Good stuff, isn’t it, pal?” I could do nothing. The booted feet shuffled around me. I could hear a chair being picked up from the rubble and set upright.

“You’ll have to pardon my manners for not joining you as you are now. You certainly do cut a splendid figure, vampire, spread out as you are.

“Well, you’re doubtless asking yourself what this is all about, who I am, how I managed to pull all this off, that sort of thing. But, nah, I’m just going to kill you .Sorry about that. Your story ends tonight. I do gotta catch my breath, but once I do that its all over for you. Nothing personal, vampire. Strictly business. You’ll make a nice round 24th one of your kind I’ve done in these last twenty years or so.”

I finally got a good look at the one responsible for this, this, whatever term is appropriate for the condition that I now found myself. He was as nondescript as it is possible to be. Average height, average skin tone, brown hair going to grey, the clothes of a workman and the accent to match.

I found I could move my lips, “How is…this…possible?” I gasped.

“Hey, you’re a strong one,” he laughed. “Most of ‘em can’t do that. In fact some of ‘em die just from the paralysis. But, nope, I already said I’m not telling you nuthin’. ‘Don’t ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies,’ is what I always says.”

“Anyway, I got my breath back, and I dunno but that somebody heard that racket you made and is gonna call the cops. So, I’ll just kill you now and be on my merry way, Mister twenty-four.”

He stood up and walked over to me, not in any particular rush and certainly in no fear. He reached out casually and put the palm of his hand on my forehead. He put his face close to mine and whispered, “Don’t think this’ll hurt a bit, actually.”

He then did a half-giggle, half-snort and closed his eyes, obviously concentrating.

He was right. It did not hurt. It was Pleasure. Pleasure as an absolute, a searing, screamingly white-hot, overwhelming frightening sense that rips apart all sensation before it. It ripped through my being, filling my mind. I could not stop it and I did not wish to stop it; it was killing me and I begged for more. The pleasure our kind get from the hunt, and the capture was as a candle is to the sun before this.

At some point he must have stood up and left. I assume the police never came, though in all honesty I have no idea. At some point whatever it was that had frozen me in place must have worn off. And at some point the sense of capital-P Pleasure began to recede. And, obviously, he made a mistake, though I now wish he had not. This overwhelming sense of Pleasure remains with me to this moment, and were he to walk through the door right this minute I have no doubt but that I would get down on my hands and knees and beg him to do it again. I fear I now suffer from what in a human would be considered addiction…and think of what would happen if this one realized that not only could he kill us, with the judicious application of this he could control us, and set us one against the other.

And though his “treatment” did not kill me it has for all practical purposes left me a cripple. I who was once the strongest of our kind I have ever encountered is now doubtless the weakest, at least for the present, though I have a sinking feeling this affliction will not pass soon. My senses once quite acute have been overloaded, though they of course remain far superior to that of any human. I am weak, I hold a “plum” territory and doubtless it will not be long –perhaps not even a decade -- before another seeks to challenge me for it.

And, yes, and most shameless of all I would crawl before him and lick his feet for another round of such pleasure. I dare not look for this man on my own – though I honestly hold no hope I could find him.

Though I shall be removing myself from the scene for decades, perhaps centuries to come, Mathilda I must not only warn you of what has now appeared on the scene, I must express my most fervent hope that you try to rally our kind to fight this thing, this monstrous presence. I admit that I hold little enough hope that you will ever be able to do any such thing. Our kind is a breed of solitary hunters, extremely territorial, proud of our prerogatives, quick to take offense and long to hold a grudge. I can but hope that you are able to find these others he has killed, and somehow build a coalition to seek this abomination out and remove it from the earth.

Though it doubtless is pointless speculation, I also cannot but wonder how this, this thing came to be. If it is some sort of human evolutionary leap, it is also quite possible that this creature is not alone in his talents. After all, we are not them, and they cannot become us, despite the stupidity of their popular culture. The natural order is for us to hunt and kill them, not for this. Or so I hope.

And on that note I leave you


With affection,



Dermott