STRANGE TAILS Abraham
Written by Lady Poetess egiggles at moose-mail.com http://www.asstr.org/~bbp
Please do not reproduce on any website without permission. This story has no resemblance to anyone dead or alive.
PROLOGUE
Hard muscular flesh glistened in the dim light as harsh guttural sounds of pleasure soared over the discordant sounds of the club outside the room. The violent creaks of the table accompanied the violent moans of the two men savagely moving their hips in an age-old dance of lust. The man driving that impossibly thick cock into the abused anus of the man under him was twice as large in size, his huge corded muscles straining with the effort as his hips pumped into the man under him in graceful and forceful rhythm that contrasted starkly with the sounds of pleasure coming from his well-formed and sensual lips. Each impact of his heavy ball sac against the buttocks of his lover caused the lover to cry out in pleasure-pain while the table creaked and the sound of flesh slapping against wet and feverish flesh filled the room.
As the man thrashing under this Herculean specimen felt his control break, he opened his mouth wide. In the dim light, his fangs seemed to take on an eerie luminance as he prepared to sink them into the vulnerable length of the muscular neck of his lover. "Et in spiritum sanctum, dominum et vivificantem, qui ex patre filioque procedit," the man at the top whispered as his right hand clamped around the vampire's neck with breakneck strength. He pulled his cock out of the vampire with a violent suddenness that caught the vampire by surprise. The vampire could move faster than the human eye could see but this lover of his was even stronger than his physique suggested. This man had the vampire face down, one hand pushing the vampire's face into the pillow as that cock of his once more speared the vampire's ass. Being taken from behind now, unable to see despite using his inhuman strength to try and break free from that man's hold, the vampire's snarl of fury was muted into the pillow. The man continued fucking the vampire's ass and the vampire's body couldn't resist succumbing to the pleasure that man was giving him. His control break and his rising terror mingled with pleasure he had never experienced this intense in the short two centuries he had roamed the earth. As that man's cock shafted him and hot molten cum flooded his violently convulsing ass, the vampire howled in his powerful orgasm. He couldn't feel the pain when the impact of lover's fist against his chest tore through layers of muscle and bone. He was already beyond feeling when his lover withdrew his bloody fist from the carnage of the vampire's chest.
He was the slayer. Abraham Van Helsing flung the vampire's cold heart down onto the torn body of his victim and coldly studied the gory mess on the table. After centuries of seducing and killing the vampires that walked the earth, he no longer had any emotions to experience after each successful hunt. He was the first vampire hunter and he would never rest - or be allowed to rest - until he had hunted down the father of the vampires. With Dracula's death, only would the vampire line be extinct. New vampires could be sired and Abraham would kill them but as long as Dracula existed, the vampire bloodline would always continue. Only with that foul demon's destruction would all the vampires be destroyed for it was his unholy hunger and demonic force that passed for soul that kept them walking the earth hungering for blood. The vampire who had died under him was just another one of the thousands of vampires that he had killed. He had kept the blissfully ignorant mortals safe from this one vampire but that deed was nothing as long as Dracula continued to exist.
Reciting the prayers that he knew from memory, he rolled the corpse of the vampire slowly fell prey to the decay that had kept at bay from its long dead body by Dracula's life force that had abandoned it the moment Abraham ripped the vampire's heart out of its chest. Soon all that was left of the vampire was a small stain on the table, the dust that was left of its existence scattering across the room the moment Abraham opened the door to make his exit.
ONE
Dr Robert Sean Leonard felt almost human that New Year eve night when he was forced to forgo the celebrations he had planned for that day (a good night's walk through the worst crime-infested part of the city where he would hopefully get to drain the blood completely from some crack dealer or two before settling in for the rest of the night with a good book, preferably that first edition of Chaucer that he had purchased from Christien Anholt for a sum equivalent to two months' pay). It was New Year eve, after all, a time for celebration and also an unfortunate time when drunks drove on the streets, desperate criminals struck, and the hospital bustled with more activity than its staff could handle. When 2005 passed on and 2006 arrived, Robert was surrounded by pain and misery with the scent of fresh blood giving him a jolt of alertness better than adrenaline ever could, and he was feeling damned good.
Sure, he was also hungry as hell due to the presence of blood all around him, but he wasn't some fledgling vampire who couldn't control his hunger. He had even gone without blood for two weeks once just to test how far his body could stand being deprived of nourishment, although he was so weak at the end of the period that he could barely walk straight. He wouldn't recommend that experiment on anyone. He had to hunt two times at the end of the period and had the cops suspecting that a serial killer was at loose when seven dead bodies showed up in the space of one night drained completely of blood. Robert had lost control that one time in the sixty or so years he had existed in this world as a vampire and he still felt a twinge of remorse at how much unnecessary work he had put the cops and the FBI through. They couldn't trace the bodies back to him, of course, and that was a blow to their reputations that Robert didn't wanted to fall on them.
He wasn't a good guy. He didn't see himself as some cool vampire like some Anne Rice hero either. The humans around him would be surprised to know that he could walk in sunlight, he could tan like the rest of them, he loved garlic, he hadn't prayed in a long time but he didn't mind walking into a shrine or temple of any religion, and he was wearing a crucifix right now because he liked how it looked on a chain against his neck. Robert didn't like killing people but he didn't want to die either so he fed on people that nobody would miss, like criminals, killers, and other kinds of victims that no one would miss too much. That was a safety measure for him instead of a moral one. He didn't want his life to be disrupted by people trying to hunt him down.
He was a doctor when he was attacked and turned by a vampire who sneaked into the hospital in 1948. He still looked like that brilliant and handsome young doctor that he was back in 1948 although he had many identities since then. One thing constant about him was that he was always a doctor. He loved his job, although the irony of his situation was not lost on him. He was, after all, man's biggest predator in a work dedicated to saving man's life. He was the wolf in the sheep pen. He secretly enjoyed smelling and seeing the agony and diseases around him even as he worked his ass and brain off eliminating them.
"Happy fucking New Year, everybody," Dr Linden Ashby said as he threw his head back and gulped down the apple juice bought from the cafeteria. "It's nice spending ten seconds of partying with you guys but I have to get back to work."
"It's been a pleasure," said Dr Alexis Denisof dryly as he ran his hands wearily through his hair.
As three doctors who also happened to be openly gay, Robert instinctively bonded better with them the moment he stepped foot in here as a new doctor who supposedly had just graduated from medical school. Linden looked more like a rugged action hero than a doctor and he had charm and patience to make him a popular resident while Alex was dry, sarcastic, arrogant, and tolerated by the others only because he was so fucking smart that he was studying to be a neurosurgeon, working in this hospital, and lecturing at John Hopkins where he was also studying. Robert had never seen someone who was a better medical prodigy than Alex. Alex, unfortunately, was aware of how smart he was and he rarely let people forget that. It was Linden's easy-going way with people that allowed that man to overlook aspects of Alex that offended people and became Alex's best friend and supporter in the hospital.
But it wasn't Alex that bothered Robert. It was Alex's boyfriend Luke. Luke Wilson, in fact, was walking towards them right now. Alex smiled, a genuine smile, as he stood up to kiss Luke welcome. Luke brought some dinner - or what would have been dinner since it was now past midnight - which he often did whenever Alex called home and told the man that he was caught up with work in the hospital. Luke was nice enough to bring enough food for Alex to share with others, which was why he was allowed more access to Alex than any ordinary person would be given, but Luke was no ordinary person.
The first time Robert and Luke encountered each other, they both knew what the other person was. When Alex unfortunately left them alone, Luke nearly ripped Robert's heart out of his chest. Robert, as a vampire, could never hope to stand against the holy powers of an angel, and Luke, even as a fallen angel who had lost all of his powers, had enough residual strength to pin Robert to the floor before Robert could even react. Alex's return forced them to pull apart before Luke succeeded in destroying Robert completely, but Luke had warned Robert that should any harm befall Alex, he would finish the job. Luke would have destroyed him anyway, Robert suspected, if Luke hadn't seen Robert working his ass off here and reluctantly believed Robert's assertions that he wasn't going to harm the people who came to him for help. But even now, there was animosity between them. The scars of Luke's fingers of the wound that ran three inches deep into Robert's chest itched as Luke turned his wary eyes on Robert. Robert fought the urge to scratch at his chest scars as he smiled at Luke. He didn't mind Luke but he couldn't help being intimidated by someone who could destroy him. It wouldn't even a fair fight, damn it, because his own strengths as a vampire could never come close to being equal to Luke's severely diminished strengths.
Robert took his leave of those two so that Luke could enjoy being with Alex in peace. In a way, he envied those two. Since meeting Luke, he began to wonder whether the divine authorities, which he now knew to exist, would somehow listen to him if he wanted to ask them to see how he wasn't a typical vampire like his bloodthirsty kin and allow him to find a companion to spend the rest of eternity with. Anne Rice was right about one thing when it came to vampires: being one meant living a bloody lonely existence, especially when he was not like the other vampires. He didn't believe that it was his place to rule the humans. Hell, he didn't want to rule over anything at all! All his life he wanted to be a doctor and save lives so that he would prevent the unnecessary deaths of his parents and sister from happening again and being turned into a vampire never dampened his ambitions. He would never be someone destined for great things like Alexis even if he might be almost as brilliant as that man, but he was okay with that because he didn't want fame or recognition, just a chance to save a life that might be lost otherwise. He had learned in the following years to be a surgeon and he planned to get formal training to be one in his next identity. He had forever. He could even be a pathologist or a neurosurgeon if he chose. In a way, he was excited as hell at the opportunities to learn that forever afforded him. But yeah, he was lonely. He hadn't had a lover for nearly three years now because the allure of sex without emotional attachment wore thin after his eighty-seventh birthday.
His thoughts were interrupted when this sensation of disquieting tingling seized his brain and caused him to reel slightly. Leaning his body against the wall as he tried to catch his breath, Robert realized that his vampire sixth sense was warning him that one of his kin was close by. That could only mean trouble, he decided. Well, if that vampire thought that the patients and the staff of this place were easy prey, Robert would prove that vampire wrong. His fangs lengthening in anticipation, Robert tried to tell himself that he could be wrong or it was probably a vampire needing genuine medical aid. Oh well, he would find out soon as he increased his pace in the direction of this other vampire.
TWO
That woman was no doubt a prostitute, a perfect victim for a vampire because no one would miss that woman or investigate seriously into her death. There was a good reason why no one ever found Jack the Ripper, or learned that Jack wasn't a murderer of human beings as much as a murderer of vampires. Robert sighed for the woman when he saw the puncture marks on the woman's neck, barely visible among the blood soaking the woman's body unless one knew how to look for them. Apart from the blood soaking her clothes and drenching her skin, there was hardly any drop left in her rail-thin body. Yet there was enough blood in her to allow her to turn into a vampire. Either the vampire that feasted on her was careless or the vampire deliberately wanted her to turn. Robert wondered what he should do. He could use a scalpel and cut out her heart but he didn't know how to respond should the other hospital staff saw him and asked him what he was doing. "I'm just cutting out her heart before she turn into a vampire and kill all of you," he could say but he didn't think that would be an answer that they'd like to hear.
Oh well, it was now or never. Robert opted for a less troublesome manner of disposing the vampire-to-be. It was a riskier method but Robert was a doctor and his vampire senses allowed him to hear her faint heartbeat. He knew just by listening to her heartbeat throbbing in his ears where her heart was. He could even picture it beating through her chest. Fingers tightening around the scalpel in his hand, he lifted the blade and quickly plunge it with all his might through bones and skin right into the dead center of woman's heart. Another quick plunge of the blade severed the woman's aorta. In five minutes, Robert had cut off the heart from the rest of her body without removing it from her body. "Rest in peace, madam," he whispered to her as he calmly wiped some blood that managed to hit his face with his hands before licking them clean.
As his bloodlust ebbed to a more controllable level, he realized that his sixth sense was still tingling. There was someone else here, someone watching him. Robert couldn't detect where this person was, however, which worried him because he normally could detect humans with just a sniff of the air, being that he was their predator evolved to hunt them down for food. Could this creature be another vampire? Still, Robert detected no hostility from this creature and he decided that it was okay for him to leave the room. He had enough adventures for tonight and there were still many hours to go and the sick and the injured to tend to before he could sleep for a few hours. But try as he might, he couldn't shake off the unease he felt at being watched by an unseen creature. The unease. and the thrill he tried not to acknowledge.
Robert didn't know why he tracked down the vampire but it was something that he felt he had to do after he had killed the vampire's victim in the hospital. It was one thing to turn someone like him into a vampire, he thought, because Robert was a pretty nice guy considering everything, but he didn't like the idea of some upstart contaminating his territory and risking Robert being dragged into the mess should this vampire made a wrong move and targeted the wrong victim. He still had some ten years more before his agelessness forced him to move on and assume another identity and he intended to enjoy this current identity of his as much as possible.
But while he didn't know what he would do when he met this vampire, he was aware of how his sense of unease intensified with each step he took into the darkened apartment block. The same sense of unease that he felt when he was being watched earlier mixed with the same of disquiet he felt at the proximity of another vampire to him and the resulting chaotic emotional disturbance in his head was causing him to struggle just to clear his head. He was unused to such mental disturbances because he tried to stay out of the way of his kin and if this was how it was going to be when he went up against another vampire, he resolved not to repeat the experience in the future.
The door was unlocked. Robert stealthily walked into the room, his night sight allowing him to see the room clearly without the aid of illumination. His ears however detected the unmistakable sounds of violent fucking. Vampires were seductive creatures so Robert wasn't surprised by the sounds. While he usually would remove himself to grant the couple privacy, he didn't think the vampire would let his lover live after the grand finale so Robert might as well break up the happy couple. He steeled himself for the awkward embarrassment that he knew would arise and walked into the other room.
He stopped dead in his tracks.
A vampire was in the room. Robert instinctively sensed at once that the vampire riding his lover on the bed was one of his people - an angelic young man with slim and muscular physique who had his head thrown back and his mouth wide open to reveal the man's fangs. The man the vampire was riding was what caught Robert's eyes and took his breath away. From the thick and seductive pelt of dark fur covering the man's incredibly muscled torso to the glistening dark cock that was visible every time the vampire glided upwards on that powerful fleshy shaft, that man was, to Robert, the perfect specimen of masculine beauty and virility that he had seen. Immense strength radiated from this man's powerful biceps and triceps as well as this corded thighs. The man was pure raw sexuality in his muscular yet slim physique. Robert's fangs lengthened instinctively as he felt this powerful urge to destroy the vampire and claim this man as his own. He wanted to turn the man into a vampire so that the man would be his for all eternity.
Before he could react, the man calmly snapped the vampire's neck and at the same time with deadly grace buried his hand into the vampire's chest. The vampire couldn't even scream due to his broken vocal cord when the man tore the heart out of his chest. Robert knew then who that man was: the vampire's tormentor, the incubus, the seducer of the seducer of mortals - Abraham Van Helsing, the destined destroyer of the vampires as foretold by the legends. Sheer terror mingled with awe as he recalled when he had learned when he first became a vampire and traveled the world looking for knowledge about his kin. Abraham was the first vampire slayer just as Dracula was the first vampire. Abraham had sworn vengeance of all vampires after Dracula killed his wife and he still walked the earth after all these centuries to carry out his sworn vengeance. Robert heard and learned from those ancient monastic vampires that preferred to seek refuge from the world in remote monasteries that Abraham was considered one of the most perfect ideals of human male created by God and it was only he who could seduce a vampire into losing his or her senses. In short, Abraham was irresistible to vampires and therefore a very deadly killer because of that. Thousands of powerful vampires died at his hands and more minor vampires met their doom by literally losing their hearts to Abraham. Robert knew now that it was Abraham Van Helsing who watched him kill that woman in the hospital.
What could he do? Apologize for intruding and take his leave? Robert couldn't even take his leave silently when Abraham turned to stare straight in his eyes. He wanted to flee but his feet were rooted to the ground as his brain seemed to have become paralyzed in the presence of the legendary vampire slayer. He could only watch and gulped as Abraham casually tossed the destroyed vampire off the vampire slayer's body and walked towards Robert. Robert's knees trembled as his eyes feasted on that hirsute and impossibly perfect muscular torso that tapers into a slim waist before flaring out into muscular thighs. From those deliciously large erect nipples to the still tumescent cock throbbing at Robert in invitation as it glistened with residues of semen and blood, Abraham Van Helsing was more perfect in Robert's eyes than Hercules and Atlas, legendary examples of the perfect men, were supposed to be.
"You killed your own kin," Abraham said in a sensual baritone. "I saw you beat me to the task the other day." The man sounded amused. "And I watched you work subsequently to save the lives of the people you are supposed to feed on. What are you, vampire? I can't figure you out."
"Don't kill me. I need to keep supervising a couple of post- surgery diabetics for the next few days," Robert managed to say although his voice was raw from desire battling with fear to take over his senses.
Abraham only kissed him as an answer. Robert opened his mouth and let the other man's tongue possess and conquer him. He groaned into the man's mouth and was startled to hear an answering groan of equal intensity. When Abraham's arms tightened around his waist, it was the grip of a man fast losing control as Abraham drowned in Robert's kiss. Robert was drowning too from the delicious sensation of Abraham's tongue exploring his mouth and tasting him. He felt hands roughly pulling at his belt and he helped Abraham unfastened his belt and push his trousers down. He then screamed when Abraham lifted Robert with his arms and Robert wrapped his thighs against Abraham's powerful torso while Abraham urgently thrust his hips up while pulling Robert down on his powerful erection.
Abraham had his feet planted wide on the floor for balance while every muscle in his body tensed with the effort as his hips began pumping in rhythm to the lust throbbing in every inch of his thickly-veined cock. As that cock drove in and out of his velvet heated ass, Robert wrapped his arms around Abraham's neck and shoulders as leverage for him to move his crotch up the moment Abraham withdrew and down the moment Abraham plunged back deep. They soon found a comfortable rhythm and they resumed kissing so that their tongues mated with the same rhythm as Abraham's cock steaming in and out of Robert's widely stretched asshole. Robert was hurting as his ass was stretched to its limit but the pleasure was equally overwhelming as Abraham's cock was hitting sensitive spots so high up inside him like no cock ever did while stimulating his prostate to overdrive. He sobbed with the effort of trying not to sink his fangs into Abraham as he rode that man even as Abraham rode him. Their pleasure erupted in a powerful maelstrom that had Robert drenching both their chests and even Abraham's face with his ejaculate while Abraham poured himself into Robert completely with abandon.
Abraham took Robert from behind next, with Robert lying face- down on the bed and begging that man to fuck him wilder until Abraham drove them both to another powerful orgasm. Only then did their insane lust ebb slightly and Robert now slowly rode Abraham as they fucked in a slower pace to cool their feverish skins. Robert thought he'd go crazy fighting the urge to feed on Abraham but it was easier to control the bloodlust than he expected when Abraham feed his other hunger so well. He couldn't help feeling some genuine fear whenever Abraham roughly pinched his nipples and squeezed his pectorals in a bruising urgency, for he couldn't stop those fingers from tearing through into his chest to rip out his heart. But he didn't sink his fangs into Abraham's exposed naked flesh and Abraham repaid the favor by letting Robert keep his heart.
"How many vampires have you fucked today?" asked Robert as they tried to catch their breath, having lost count of how many times they have wrestled and fucked in the room in every conceivable position.
"Two, counting that one you saw me with," Abraham answered. They both knew that none of those vampires survived the encounter.
"I would have never known that you've fucked twice before meeting me," said Robert simply, feeling no remorse at all at fucking the killer of his own kind. He was such a bad vampire, he thought in bemusement. "You're a horse, Abraham Van Helsing, especially for such an ancient bastard."
"Ancient?" said Abraham with a laugh that surprised Robert. "I'll show you how ancient I am."
As Abraham slowly fed his relentless erection into Robert once more, Robert couldn't help wondering how they arrived at this spontaneous chemistry where they were easily teasing and laughing with each other, especially so soon into their meeting. But all thoughts were shattered when Abraham once more drew pleasure so easily from both their bodies. Robert made Abraham groan with surrender when he decided to play as dirty as the other man was doing and tightened his ass to milk that man for all he had to give. They were both so well- matched in lust and stamina that it was way past dawn when Abraham laughed and told Robert that Robert had won their first battle.
THREE
"Why didn't you kill me?" asked Robert in curiosity when he looked into Abraham's eyes. Abraham's cock rarely left Robert's body in the hours they had together since the first coupling. Robert was too dazed in those moments to do anything but to enjoy the ride. Now, however, they were both having dinner and Robert wasn't distracted by Abraham's fingers, mouth, and cock to think.
"So many questions," said Abraham as he watched Robert eat. It unnerved Robert at how Abraham seemed genuinely delighted to see Robert do mundane things like eat and drink even as it thrilled Robert. "I like Abraham. You can call me whatever you wish, though." He flashed Robert an irresistible smile that made his ruggedly handsome face even more devastating on the eyes. "I didn't kill you because I can't figure you out. I should kill you. You're a vampire," he said. "But you're. not."
Robert felt genuinely sorry for the conflicted emotions he was causing in Abraham. "I'm sorry," he said.
"Why are you sorry?" asked Abraham quietly. His voice was free from accent but he spoke like a cultured gentleman in Robert's ears.
"About what I am and about your wife," Robert said. "And also, about how hard it is for you to enjoy being in my company."
"I enjoy being in your company."
"Really?" Robert took a moment to enjoy the pleasant delight that statement aroused in his undead heart. "But."
"Yes, I also hate myself sometimes for that," Abraham said, "but it's hard to remember what you are when I'm with you. Just watching you care for your patients, seeing you taking delight in living when you're supposed to be undead." He shook his head in confusion. "I've never seen someone more alive than you and I don't understand how that can be."
"You've known me for a week now," Robert told him. "You should see by now that I'm not the typical vampires that you kill. Why don't we just go separate ways and forget we ever meet each other? Let me enjoy what time I have left until you kill Dracula."
"You still kill humans."
"For nourishment," Robert said. "Come on, human beings eat chicken, does that make them evil for killing and eating those harmless fowls? Of course, I understand your vengeance as I would no doubt feel the same way if someone harms the person I love. But you've seen me hunt, Abraham. Can you honestly say that I take more pleasure in my feeding than the basic relief of having sustenance?"
He took a lunch break from work the other day - "lunch break" meaning that he had lunch at around six in the evening - and was enjoying his victim, a man who offered Robert two pints of blood a week in exchange for a monthly payment of six thousand dollars, when he saw Abraham watching him feed. He still couldn't get his predatory instincts to detect Abraham's movements, much to his mild annoyance, and he was therefore not surprised to find that Abraham had followed him all the man to his food's place. Abraham's face was devoid of expression. Robert didn't want to push the matter further at that point and just told Abraham, "It's easier to have a steady source of food when I'm busy at the hospital. I don't have time to hunt."
Now, Abraham told him, "You make everything sound so simple and logical."
Robert couldn't see any possible direction of his current affair with Abraham that could end up at a happy ending. "It is also simple to walk away from me, Abraham. I don't want to be the Delilah to your Samson. You have a mission and that is to destroy creatures like me. I just want to be a doctor, the best doctor I can be. I didn't want to be made a vampire and I refused to let my being a vampire stop me from living the life I want to have. My only regret is that I cannot have permanent friends and lovers I can call my own. I always have to keep moving." He smiled humorlessly. "Sometimes I wish I'm not a vampire so that I can keep the life I am so happy with." He looked wistfully at Abraham. "Sometimes I wish that we are normal human beings so that we can actually figure out whether we have any chance at making it outside the bedroom."
"I never expected to see someone like you in a place like this."
Abraham Van Helsing looked up at the man who had walked into the chapel of the hospital. He saw a mild-mannered ordinary- looking tall man who wouldn't stand out in a crowd. The man was human now but Abraham's trained eyes could see the residual aura of divinity that still emanated from the man's very being. Once an angel. always an angel. "Greetings, seraphim," he said, rising to his feet out of respect of that former divine being.
The other creature smiled. "I was not a seraphim, definitely not, oh no. I was actually a lowly minion of an archangel whose name I can't reveal to mortals. If you do meet my superior, she has a long list of my flaws to show you, foremost being that I am mortal enough to fall for a human being. I gave up my divinity and am now living as a human being. One day, I will die and be judged like all human beings. Is that what you want to ask me?"
Abraham nodded.
Luke Wilson kept his smile in place although inside he was in awe of actually meeting the infamous Abraham Van Helsing. He was telling the truth when he told Abraham that he was once a lowly divine being who was the equivalent of an office boy in a giant corporation, but even lowly divine beings had heard of the dark and tormented human who lost his soul and mortality to pursue his quest of vengeance. Luke was seeing that man for the first time and he was impressed. Abraham was tall and bore power like a dark fallen angel who still held some spark of divinity despite being corrupted by darker desires. When he heard from his old colleagues who still kept in touch for old times' sake that the vampire friend of Alex was having a sexual relationship with Abraham Van Helsing - the heavenly grapevine was abuzz with this scandal - Luke felt a curious need to see what this man was like himself. Now he had a hunch that Abraham was all he heard of and more.
"I can't find any answers. Have they abandoned me?" asked Abraham.
Luke shook his head. "I don't think they ever did. I don't have inside information and even if I do, I am forbidden to use what I know to meddle, being that I am human now. But I can tell you that I don't think they ever wanted you to pursue Dracula. You mistake your own vengeance for divine calling." It was typical human folly, he thought wryly to himself, to assume that they had divine authority backing them in an action that they placed huge significance too.
"Are you saying that I live this long because of my vengeance?" Abraham asked. He was calm in all outward appearances, but there was no mistaking the tormented anguish and confusion in his eyes.
"Perhaps, I don't know. Life is mysterious, even more so when I view it through mortal eyes." Luke chuckled. "I learn to appreciate life and my former employers' ways of handling things more now that I am at the other side of things. I believe you are experiencing the same thing, although it's strange that you are doing this with a vampire while I did it for the love for a human being."
"Who says I am in love?" Abraham protested.
"I'm in love," Luke told him gently. "I've been in love for a long time now with Alex. I know another kindred spirit when I see one. Hate can fell an angel like Lucifer, but love can also fell an angel. or a slayer."
"He's a vampire," said Abraham, but to Luke's ears it was a soft anguished protest of a man whose confidence was rocked to the core. Luke wouldn't pretend to know what it felt like to have one's entire belief system shaken and uprooted because of the foibles of the heart but he was willing to lend Abraham an ear and a helping hand in his best capacity. "He is evil."
"That's what I said when I first met him. I nearly killed him until my instinct cut through my initial rage and told me that Robert wasn't entirely devoid of humanity. I can't say I really like him at this point since he is, after all, a vampire and I will need some time to get used to that fact, but I do know that he never deliberately sets out to harm people. He feeds on human blood but he also saves lives voluntarily. He loves being a doctor, I can see that, and he sometimes works until he can't stand straight." Luke placed his arm around Abraham's shoulder and nodded at the altar. "Those people up there don't see things entirely in cruel black and white, Abraham. Everything is created for a reason. There is a reason why Robert is a vampire just as there is a reason why he is unlike anyone you've ever known."
"I find myself thinking that he's a good man when he's a vampire," Abraham whispered. He shuddered as his memories hurt him. "They killed my wife and my unborn child. I can't love Robert. he's one of them. but I find that the more I'm with him, the more I forget what he is."
"Maybe your fight is with Dracula, not Robert. He never asked to be made into a vampire, he once told me."
"He told me that too," Abraham said, anguish tangible in his voice.
"So your battle is not with Robert then," suggested Luke. "If loving him is eating you up like this and you want to keep fighting with the vampires, you should seriously consider leaving him before you weaken and get killed as a result. Every vampire must be on alert by now because if the people upstairs are aware that you're seeing Robert, so will Dracula."
"What?" asked Abraham in surprise.
"Don't you know?" Luke asked Abraham, surprised himself. "Dracula himself turned Robert into a vampire. Robert is the only direct descendent of Dracula in this world at the moment so Dracula has a closer bond to Robert than Robert suspected. Oh, he knows that you are with his son, I can bet you that."
"He didn't. of course he wouldn't know how to tell me," Abraham said. He raked his fingers wearily through his hair. "He kept telling me that I should leave him but I keep hesitating. He was warning me to leave before his sire found him and me."
Luke smiled sadly at Abraham. "You aren't the only one who's suffering from love then," he guesses. "I think the vampire is, too."
His father was a magnetic and handsome man, almost a match for Abraham's magnetism, Robert reflected as he watched his sire pace the room. "I know you are disappointed in me not changing Van Helsing into our own, but we both know that I'm not a good son," he said glibly. He was rewarded with a backhanded blow on his face that sent his crashing against the wall.
"I won't be used as a bait to lure Abraham to you," said Robert as his wounds began to heal as quickly as they appeared.
"I'll just have to kill you then," Vladimir Drakul, known more popularly as Count Dracula, said with deceptively pleasant demeanor. "I wouldn't have made a sniveling coward like you one of my kind if I wasn't so careless back then. Maybe I should right my mistake."
"Maybe. He'll kill you now that you're here and I will die anyway as a result," said Robert.
He had to think of something. Dracula was so confident of his strength that he didn't bother to incapacitate Robert in any manner. That was foolish of his sire, Robert supposed, because underneath Robert's normally easy-going nature was the hunger and the predatory tendencies of a vampire that he kept suppressed under the veneer of humanity. Now, his fear that Abraham would get killed was causing his veneer to be slowly ripped off his bestial nature. His fangs had already lengthened the moment his sire showed up in his apartment.
Both of them sensed the approach of Abraham at the same time. Dracula grinned with anticipation. Robert sensed the gathering strength in his sire's form and staggered in shock when he realized that his sire's powers far outmatch Abraham's. Abraham's strength was fuelled by vengeance and hatred while Dracula's powers came from pure darkness that Abraham could never begin to fathom. This would be worse than Robert trying to fight off Luke. While light always extinguish darkness like the way the world intended, pure darkness will obliterate any flickering light in Abraham's soul. Abraham would never survive a confrontation with Dracula. This Robert knew now.
"Dracula! Face me, damn you, let Robert go," Abraham Van Helsing shouted as he opened the door. As Dracula pounced, Abraham held a crossbow aimed at Dracula's heart and fired.
Robert shrieked in agony as the silver tip of the arrow, blessed by a true and holy priest, pierced his sire's heart. He could feel his sire's callous disdain for him and realized that Dracula's agony was deliberately channeled to Robert so that his sire wouldn't feel anything. Abraham realized this too and he was mortal and therefore foolish enough to hesitate, not wanting to hurt Robert. Dracula struck then. But Robert wouldn't allow his sire to destroy Abraham. With all his strength that he never knew he had, he morphed his human fingers into bestial claws and tore into his sire's chest. His fingers bled at the impact against Dracula's ribcage and Robert screamed as pain he never could imagine existed tore through his body. But he had to save Abraham and this one determined resolve kept his strength steady as his fingers finally closed around the pulsing heart of his sire. He ripped out Dracula's heart and finally died with his sire. His last sight and sound were Abraham's anguished face as the man screamed Robert's name as he cradled Robert in his arms. He wanted to tell Abraham that Abraham should be fine now as there would be no more creatures that he hated in this world and that he loved Abraham but he was already slipping into the darkness.
He opened his eyes. With a shock, he realized that he was alive. and the beating he heard in his head was that of his heart. His heart hadn't beaten like this in a long time now. Robert Sean Leonard realized that he was in a hospital and. he was alive. He knew deep in his bones that he was human. Was his entire life a dream? He touched his face in disbelief and laughed when he felt stubble growing on his chin. His hair had never grown in length since he was a vampire but now, he was growing stubble. He had to buy a razor and shave. hysterical laughter welled inside him as he tried to get up only to realize as he winced with pain that he was still unsteady.
The door opened. Robert finally laughed when he saw Abraham Van Helsing standing at the door with a giddy expression of relief on the man's handsome face. "You're awake," the man said. Like Robert, Abraham had stubble on his chin. Like Robert, Abraham's hair hadn't lengthened for a long time now. They had both become humans. What happened? "Robert, fucking hell, I'm so worried. I thought you have. and I can't." Abraham tried to control the sob rising in his voice as he ran forward to take Robert in his arms. Robert closed his eyes and thought he was in heaven that was Abraham's comforting muscular embrace. Wetness soaked the fabric of his shirt at the shoulders and Robert realized that Abraham was crying in relief.
"I love you, Abraham," he whispered into the man's ear. "We won't have forever now but I love you and I hope you'll love me back."
"Oh, Robert, you know I love you," Abraham told him as he held the man's face in his hands to look into the man's eyes. "I have loved you the moment I saw you working at the hospital and couldn't figure out why a vampire would care so much about the people around him, I know that now. You taught me what it meant to be human again when I've forgotten. I love you so much, Robert. Please forgive me for not being there to save you from Dracula."
Robert chuckled weakly as his sides still hurt from the pain of having his heart - or rather, Dracula's - ripped out of his chest. "You silly man, I saved you, remember?"
"Yeah," Abraham said with a smile. His eyes still were bright and his tears still fell unchecked down his cheeks. "You saved me, Robert, from myself as well as from Dracula. I will never forgive myself for the hurt I caused you."
"There's no hurt," Robert said as he placed Abraham's hand over his beating heart. "Not in my head anyway," he confessed with a weak laugh. More solemnly, he told Abraham, "So we're now officially in love?"
Abraham smiled and leaned forward to kiss Robert.
EPILOGUE
"Happy New Year! Thank fucking God that we get a few minutes of peace this year," Dr Linden Ashby said as he sat down at the table in that narrow staff room and helped himself to a box of crackers. He cursed when he choked on his first bite. He scrutinized the box and cursed again when he realized that the crackers had bypassed the expiry date printed on the box.
Dr Alexis Denisof laughed and passed Linden a packet of nuts. "These are nice. I've tasted them myself."
Dr Robert Sean Leonard smiled in contentment as he watched his two friends joke and argue while sorting over the sorry selection of snacks in the fridge. They perked up when Sean Patrick Flanery, Linden's lover who also helped manage the hospital cafeteria, showed up with some hot pies. "Am I late?" said Luke Wilson when he joined them a few minutes later with a cake that he had baked. And walking in behind him was Abraham Van Helsing, who now was in partnership with Luke at starting their carpentry firm. Together with a young man named Bruce Michael Hall they had already sold several pieces of furniture to stores that requested for more. Sometimes Abraham grew restless with unaccustomed peace and quiet in his new life but he found enjoyable ways to exorcise his restlessness in bed with Robert.
Abraham bent over to brush his lips over the tip of Robert's right ear, causing Robert to shiver involuntarily with delight. "I want to see you alone," he whispered into Robert's ear.
Ten minutes later, Robert pressed his palms against the wall in the narrow broom closet and muffled his cries by pressing his lips against the wall as Abraham's powerful hips pummeled his taut butt cheeks, his lover's thick cock spearing in and out of Robert's hungry asshole. Abraham whispered urgently how much he wanted Robert and how he missed that man in the seven hours since they last had time for each other. When the new year arrived, Robert was having a powerful climax while Abraham was spurting a huge load up his ass. He couldn't imagine a better way to celebrate fucking New Year's Day.