Amanda jumped up off the purple bed and walked up and down the room while trying to remember as much as she could about the conversation she had conducted with Mary. Apart from vague notions and denials, nothing of any real use came to mind, except for the fact that Mary had confirmed that Johann could possibly be found somewhere around Radcliff and that there was good reason to suspect that he might turn up somewhere near Mary’s home. This, she supposed, was at least a step forward in her effort to track down the elusive man, but she was also now fairly sure that this endeavour would be a waste of time: if what Mary had said about Milch’s feeding habits was true, the man could not really be considered a suspect.
Amanda had met others in the past who refused to drink human blood and who had opted not to retreat from the world. The first she met at the school, during a lesson. The purpose of the class was to show what choices vampires had when it came to trying to make a life in the outside world. They were told that the person brought before them was called Arthur and that he had chosen to live off the blood of animals several decades before. Over time, the man’s body had become heavily stooped, his limbs twisted and his fingers had curled into misshapen, clenched fists; he had also completely lost the ability to speak and, though Amanda would not admit it to anyone else, she believed there was a feral look about the poor man. The transformation that Arthur’s choices had brought upon himself had not affected his mental functions, something quite apparent from his mindful and cognizant gaze as well as the moving presentation he had written for the class, but it was also clear from his words, which were read out by the teacher, that he resented his form.
The teacher had also informed the class that the argument for the continuation of such a life had been somewhat undermined by the increase in the availability of donor blood in the time since Arthur had become a vampire, something which had significantly reduced the number of new abstaining vampires. She stated that a few vampires who had been living without human blood for hundreds of years had even changed their ways, something which had led to a slight reduction in the effects wrought on their bodies by their consumption of animal blood. However, she also pointed out that some, such as Arthur, continued to only drink the blood of animals as they still considered it to be morally reprehensible to consume that which was sourced from the human body. Amanda felt a great sense of respect for Arthur, for being able to live up to his own moral standard and to bear the consequences it created in terms of not only what it had done to his body, but his ability to interact with the living world. Indeed, the teacher informed the pupils that Arthur had been unemployed for almost the entire time in which he had been a vampire. However, Amanda knew she would not be able to follow the man’s example; she even doubted she would have had the strength to refrain from consuming human blood in the times prior to the expansion of donor reserves.
After opening the small hotel fridge and retrieving and emptying one of the plastic blood pouches she had brought from her car, Amanda wondered what motivated Johann to remain on the outskirts of Radcliff and to avoid giving into his hunger to drink human blood. The man was clearly an intriguing mystery. However, she had to accept that if Johann was anything like Arthur, it was unlikely that he would have been involved in the attack on Brenden: even the idea that he would assist someone to carry out the attack would not make sense if this was the case.
“There’s still the others,” she muttered, before picking up the next file.
***
Brenden sat picking at a carving on his desk. Letters had been cut into the wood to spell out the name Edgar and just alongside them was the date January 1850. Brenden wondered if the date was real, whether it truly had been carved more than one hundred and sixty years before he had entered the class, or if it was just a fake. The thought made him stop scratching at the edges of the large and ornate E of the name; it also led him to wonder who this person had been and whether it was possible, owing to what the carver probably was, that he was still around.
“Hey Brenden,” said David. “While we’re waiting for the others, let’s have a chat.”
Brenden looked up to his fellow vampire classmate and hoped that if he remained silent, the man would eventually lose interest and just leave him alone. An awkward silence seemed far preferable to the boy than anything David would say. Though it was true that David probably had more in common with Brenden than the other members of the class - and certainly than the imposing figure of Adam - he found it strange to be in a situation where someone such as David treated him as a peer; Brenden saw him as nothing other than another adult. Though it was not just this that bothered the boy, he just did not feel as if he had the
