Immortal Huntress
Nothing moved in the deep shadows as he walked along the street just before midnight. He was alone as usual, but something felt off. A strange presence was lingering in the cold, night air. He could only discern the distant cries of hunting owls and the closer moaning of the never-stopping wind, but he sensed something, just beyond the possibility of understanding. Shy moon had hidden her pale face behind the accumulating clouds when she appeared in the thick darkness that was surrounding him like a veil.
A thrill ran through his body, a feeling almost forgotten during the ages of immortality. Not because of the cold, that he had not been able to feel for many decades past. Yet he trembled, though he could not find the reason.
After terrible minutes, the fear passed, leaving only an unexplainable memory. As he strode on, aware of every rat running in search of food, every cat hunting for unsuspecting prey, he could not find the source of the recent experience. Time passed, the dawn was closing on, and he also had to find a creature to feed on its blood, lest he starved during the coming day.
Luck was not on his side that night. The streets were as empty as the pharaoh’s robbed tomb, not even a milkman or a prostitute in sight. He bit his lip as the thirst grew. He had to drink.
He saw her. The most beautiful human being he had ever seen. She was strolling, not bothered by a thousand possible dangers awaiting a girl alone at four in the morning. Strange, but he was far too hungry to analyse. He approached her like a shadow, not aware that her movement was as silent as his own. For a second, he stood right behind her, smelling the sweet perfume of her shampoo. He lowered his head to reach her swan-like neck, almost wishing that he did not have to rip open the velvet skin. Almost.
She whirled to face him. In her deep, black eyes, there was no fear nor surprise. Unlike in his own, which must have shown how stunned he was. For the first time in his too-long existence, he had met a creature resistant to his hypnotic powers. He knew she smiled gently, although he could not see her lips in the obscurity of the backyard they stood in.
She was no human, of that he was sure. But what was she then, for she was not a vampire like himself? Less likely she was a ghoul, for they always smelt of dead bodies, no matter how much perfume they used to hide their odor. She touched his cheek and stared at him. She was warm as if she were a living thing, but his instinct told him it was otherwise. Not a word was spoken for so much time that it felt like hours.
The moment she embraced him, he knew her true nature. Immortal Huntress, the one that could never be beaten nor destroyed. The legends of her circled among the creatures of the night, never believed and never denied. The rumor had it that she was the only creature of the night able to walk in the burning rays of the sun. Her prey was the vampires, whose blood did not carry the stamp of life, which appeared too potent in humankind. The Immortal Huntress kept the balance between light and darkness, always impartial to either side.
He was doomed, and he realized it as her snow-white fangs cut right into his body, opening his veins, in which ran stolen blood. He did not try to resist, fascinated like a bird staring at the steady swinging of a poisonous snake. She drank gently, sucking slowly the life-giving crimson liquid. Her right hand played with his long dark hair while the left held him tight around the waist. He could understand her ecstasy, the feeling he knew but too well. He was weakening, but she did not let him fall. The world danced before his eyes, the sun was about to rise, and the huntress was about to finish her feast.
She had not intended to kill him after all. Of course, if you could speak of killing someone who had been dead for ages. She kissed him, and he fainted. As he sank into oblivion, he was certain that he would never wake up. The nearing dawn would bring an abundance of lethal sunlight.
“I survived the meeting with the unholy huntress,” thought the vampire, coming to his senses in a dark room well hidden from the rays of the sun, not far away from the place of the feral encounter. He never met her again, but he kept her in his memory as proof that legends held a grain of truth.
