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  Ask her out too soon, she will find someone better than you in the next few days and you will be left all alone, sipping Merlot in a gargantuan glass from IKEA watching True Blood reruns pretending you’re Eric freaking Northman. Too late and she will already be in her teddy bear PJs watching every movie Bradley Cooper ever made and you would just be a nuisance at that point.

  I mean, I’m as handsome as they come but even I cannot compete with that.

  Now that I had already graced the world with my presence and Valentine’s Day was drawing near, I had to have my shot at gooey chick flick style romance. So I arrange for her to have a meet-cute with me in a not-so-chance meeting at the local café. If it wasn’t for the barista’s exotic dark looks I would have had half a chance too. But at about the same moment that I decided to pour my sugar on her (accidentally of course), the barista decided to offer her free coffee and his phone number on a napkin.

  I ask you, how old is that routine right?

  So I had to actually rev up my act. I followed her and when we were at a place where I didn’t think getting slapped by a woman would be such a big deal, I called her by her name.

  “Briana!”

  She stopped, turned towards me. “Can I help you?”

  I looked at her, momentarily mesmerized by her human charm.

  “My name is Antaeus” I said. “I’m a vampire and I think I have fallen in love with you.”

  She looked at me for one instant disbelieving. Then she saw the little quirks on my physique – the cold pale skin and the dreadful puffy eyes. She waited a long time to answer.

  “Okay,” she said. “But you’re not going to kill me or anything are you?”

  Thank you, Pattinson.

  ***

  Women are a lot more complicated than what romantic comedies will tell you.

  They will decide days ago that they want banana toffee cheesecake when they go to so-and-so restaurant and then, right when you’re about to order, they will take a complete half hour to choose something entirely different. And that’s not all. Even when they order they will ask to make tiny alterations.

  Eventually they will go from banana toffee cheesecake to some exotic Caribbean fruit concoction you can’t even pronounce the name of and you have to sit there pretending you understand this.

  But they are also incredibly fun.

  They could be just sitting there, quietly watching the lights go by in the car and you will feel a kind of closeness, a kind of connection that only a woman can make you feel. They are just fabulous at making you feel good about yourself too. Or at least Briana was. I was having a lovely evening and she had been kind enough to compliment my old world manners and vintage clothing.

  She was just the loveliest person I have ever met. If she couldn’t tell Noam Chomsky from Aristotle so what?

  Intellect isn’t the only thing that makes a personality.

  Okay so part of it had to do with the ample front of her dress, if you catch my drift. Suffice it to say a corset would have been perfect on her. But she was lively and fun and she drank a lot. We decided to take a walk as the evening progressed and that turned out to be my folly.

  From out of nowhere it seemed, four vampires came around us, and cornered us into an alley. They were all flying and fangey and vampirey, hoping to scare the living daylights out of my human mate.

  “You should have been smarter Antaeus,” I heard a familiar voice speak to me.

  It was William, the one who worked with the vampire government and had abducted me.

  “William,” I said, my tone scathing. “You need to leave – now!”

  Instead of scaring him the line made him laugh.

  “Oh my God you are such a genuine little thing,” William said, taking the fangs away and standing down on the ground. “Aren’t you going to introduce us to your girlfriend?”

  “Not really.”

  William laughed.

  “Hi,” he said in the general direction of Briana and held out his hand. “I’m William. Actually Antaeus here owes us something, don’t you Antaeus?”

  And that’s when I remembered.

  Pardon me but like I said I happen to have a memory issue. Ever since I have turned there have been times when my memory had simply absconded, without giving me an advance notice. And that’s exactly why I sometimes have one of those revelatory moments, when the memory does return. This was one of those apparently.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  William came towards me and grabbed my jaw.

  “I’m sure it will come to you,” he said, jerking my head away. I couldn’t possibly fight four vampires, especially when one of them was much older and stronger than me. As I stood there, hoping he would leave, William turned and walked towards Briana.

  “If you remember, Antaeus,” he said. “Call for me.”

  And then he vanished. William is too quick a vampire even for other vampires. We are nothing in strength and agility in front of that powerful demon.

  And then I realized why William had gone off without any bloodshed.

  They had taken Briana.

  And I hadn’t even showed her my cherry flavored condoms yet.

  ***

  Briana was bait.

  It’s the simplest scheme. Take something I want to get something they want. But what they wanted wasn’t simple. It was the entire future of the vampire population.

  There was actually another reason that the vampire authorities were mad at me. I was in possession of this artifact – an ancient thing but very powerful. It is a ring that a witch put a curse on. This curse has the potential to kill every vampire on earth and naturally the person who possesses the ring and wears it, also has the power to use it for his or her evil purposes.

  Now, according to the records this ring should be nowhere near any vampire’s hands and only The Council should carry it. But somehow, William and his friend Athena, another powerful vampire, both found a way to steal the ring from The Council’s vault. I don’t know the details of their operation but I did find that out many many years ago.

  When I was in the dark hole that they held me in, I realized there was this one particular place which they guarded more than their lives. I was sure that was where they kept the ring. So I talked to someone and bribed them to get a friend of mine to steal it from them. Granted they could have also helped me escape but that would have been too obvious.

  A ring gone on the other hand, people barely even notice. Since William and Athena were working against The Council already it was obvious they would not have much help. So basically I know where the ring is, I know who has it, I just don’t think it would be a walk in the park to go get that thing from him.

  After all he is a vampire slayer.

  ***

  “For goodness sake I’m a vampire slayer!” Rodney yelled. “At least show me some respect! Don’t just fly in uninvited into my home like that! What if someone sees you?”

  “Rodney you know I have good eyes,” I told him, trying to assuage his fears.

  He still looked uncomfortable.

  Rodney is fifty four and he has some mental disease where they become all paranoid. Granted he spent his life as a vampire slayer which calls for a bit of paranoia at the very least but Rodney does sometimes overdo the whole thing.

  How Rodney and I became friends is a long story.

  Well okay so it’s not that long and I basically just saved his life from a vampire.

  I suppose that’s somewhat brave but you know how I am.

  Brave is my middle name.

  Okay no actually that’s not true and I already told you Naiveté is my middle name but you get the drift. So I saved his life and we had a drink together and we became best friends.

  Probably not best friends but well, friends.

  “Where have you been all this time?”

  “They potioned me Rodney,” I told him. “I just woke up.”

  “So why are yo
u here?”

  “Okay here’s the thing. I was just hanging out with this girl, and well, you know its Valentine’s Day and I wanted to just show her a good time. And William and his guys pounce on us. They took Briana! Now they want me to give them the ring in return.”

  “What ring?” Rodney said but his own memory answered him soon enough and understanding fell all over his face.

  “Yes,” I said. “That ring.”

  “But isn’t that basically the same thing as handing out invites for a mass vampire execution?”

  “Yes,” I said. “That is why I have come to you. I want you to do your vampire slayer thing and get the girl from the bad guys.”

  “I’m fifty-four!” Rodney yelled. “I can’t bring no princess back from the dragon’s mouth!”

  “Wow,” I said, not expecting this. “I was really hoping you’d go all slayer mode on their behinds.”

  “Yeah well that isn’t happening.”

  I thought about this.

  “I can’t give them the damn ring,” I said. “It’s like signing the death warrant of every single vampire on the planet. William and Athena have some major earth shattering plan up their sleeve which can’t be good for humans either.”

  “You know what,” Rodney said. “Present trumps future. Go save the princess right now. You can save the world later.”

  ***

  Many, many hours later, I was fishing the ring out from some dingy old gravesite.

  Rodney had dumped the ring here just in case. At first he couldn’t even remember the right address. Vampire slayer types tend to bury a lot of crap. I had imagined he would get all dangerous stake-y demolisher when I turned up but he barely looked up from his rotgut.

  All the while I wondered if I was even making the right call.

  Briana could leave me tomorrow and it would be over, but the ring will never leave me. And yet, I kept picturing her face in front of my eyes every time I had second thoughts. And please since I am not a human do not expect me to go all emo-good-vampire and save a human life because well I’m a good person and all that.

  No one does that anymore.

  I told myself I had to think rationally but it just wouldn’t work. My mind was still being dragged down by her beautiful melodic voice and her luscious brown hair. I couldn’t live in a world where there was no Briana. Yes vampires do fall in love easy I suppose, haven’t you read all those vampire novels?

  It s like I always say: fiction is hardly ever fiction.

  And then my hands touched something soft. The black shiny velvet of the ring pouch was beautiful with a real diamond pattern all over it. I opened the pouch to reveal the ring and it was a thousand times more breathtaking than the pouch.

  But Briana as it turned out, was a lot more breathtaking than even diamonds.

  ***

  “Let her go,” I said. “I have what you want.”

  “How about I see the merchandize first?” William asked, his face all evil grins and really just annoying.

  Briana was in the arms of one of William’s side kicks, her mouth gagged and hands tied in front of her. Even in this moment, her hair a mess and make up running down her face, I felt as if she was the most beautiful creature in the universe. I took out the small velvet bag from the back of my jeans. The minute William saw the diamond markings on it he was stunned.

  “Here it is,” I said, waving the pouch at him. “Now let her go and this is all yours.”

  William waved to his sidekick. The signal must have meant let her go, which he did. He untied her hands and removed her gag. She came towards me, afraid, her steps cautious and the minute she was close to me she came into my arms. I cannot explain how amazing that felt – her body wrapped against mine like that – it was the best feeling in the world I tell you.

  I was glad I had chosen her over some century old artifact.

  “Now hand it over,” William said.

  I threw the pouch towards him and he caught it, vampire vision and all that. When they were gone, Briana looked up at me.

  “Why did you give it to them?” she asked like a true heroine.

  “Because they would have killed you.”

  “But what about the whole vampire execution thing?”

  Obviously they had been talking to her.

  “Cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “Why’d you something like that Antaeus?”

  I smiled.

  “Because I want to celebrate this V-Day and every other V-day henceforth with you and only you, my love,” I said, in true old-fashioned vampire essence.

  She hugged me even tighter.

  THE END

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