I have met people – odd religious types, for the most part – who say that, in the afterlife, you have no memory of when you were alive. I suppose this does, in some odd way, make sense. Those who must be punished foe their sins would be sent to the most unpleasant place imaginable. To me, part of that would mean absolute despair, and I think those who are sent there do not deserve memories of better times to support them. Likewise, it would be unfair for those who are rewarded to be haunted by a lifetime on this cold, cruel world. Perhaps memory is obliterated at the moment of death.
    It was thus I first awoke to my existence among the ranks of the undead: with no memory of myself, no knowledge of what or where I was, no idea as to what my purpose might be. Confused and more than a little afraid, I stumbled out of the somewhat dilapidated building in which I found myself into a dark alley. I stopped and attempted to calm myself. Nothing was to gained, after all, by stumbling around mindlessly. Having schooled myself to a somewhat more reasonable state, I set about trying to discover who I was. As there was no mirror handy, I could not view my own face, but I could feel it with my hands. A thin, possibly noble face with a small, straight nose, well proportioned but oddly pointed ears, and high cheekbones. It was at my mouth that I encountered my first surprise; I had four elongated canines, two from each jaw. Though I knew not what purpose these might serve or if they were even unusual, they struck up an oddly ominous feeling in my heart. 
   I then moved onto my garments: a dirty brown smock, a pair of tattered dark-green brigga held up with a rope belt, and a pair of old leather boots which, judging by their condition, had probably been scavenged. I was a peasant then, though why I thought this I do not know. Then something else took me away from my self-examination.
    “What we got ‘ere then?” The speaker was an unclean man of about middle age. His hair was matted with filth, and he wore clothes similar to mine, though all in grey. What particularly attracted my attention, however, was the large club he was tapping against his left hand. Behind him, also dressed in grey, another dirty man, some years younger than the speaker, clutched a rusty dagger. The first man spoke again, drawing my attention back to him. “Got a few coins to spare, Guv’nor?” he sneered. I quickly patted down my vestments, searching for any possessions I might have. All the pockets were empty, however. 
    Knowing, somehow, that I was in trouble, I spread my hands in an apologetically placating gesture.  “Sorry” I said in as sincere a tone as I could manage. 
    “Oh well”, he said, smiling horribly. His teeth, I noticed, though yellow and unpleasant looking, showed no signs of those enlarged fangs. “I guess we’ll just ‘ave to settle fer bashin’ yer ‘ead in.” He didn’t seem to regretful of it. “Get him, Eric.” The other man, the younger one, nodded and move forward. It seemed I was deemed of a sufficiently small threat to leave to the novice. For some unknown reason, I was less frightened than I was irritated at being seen as a non-threat. Young Eric moved toward me, his dagger ready to flash forward. When it did, it seemed to do so with an unusual lack of speed. I could see that he was striking as fast as he could, yet it seemed to me that he was moving through water. I dodged to the right around him and lashed out with my fist. I meant only to unbalance him long enough to escape, but he moved as if a large rock had hit him, staggering sideways into the wall. I cautiously approached him, but before I had moved more than a few paces, something swept my legs out from under me. I looked up to see the older man, the one who had spoken, moving around to the front of me and raising his club, obviously intent on bashing my skull in. I could do little but lie there, for my muscles seemed suddenly frozen, like I had been turned to stone. The club went up, up, stopped, and flew down, down…
    And stopped suddenly. 
    It was a moment before I realised precisely why that weapon, before so eager to split my head open, had had a sudden change of heart; a hand, slim, with long black nails, had stopped it. The hand was slim and feminine, and looked decidedly delicate. Appearances, I have since learned, can be deceiving, however. This hand, fragile though it may seem, had just stopped a heavy club dead in its tracks. 
    “Be nice”, a smiling female voice chided my attacker. I tilted my head back to see my saviour. She was slim, with skin the colour of polished marble. The outfit she wore was, to say the least, daring. What was little more than stockings covered her legs down to her supple leather boots. Her top was designed to hug her form and accentuate her femininity. I could not see her face at the time, due mainly to the fact that she had a fairly large amount of femininity to accentuate, and certain…attributes of said femininity made it impossible to view her face from that angle.

Please, I am trying to put this as delicately as possible. I don’t think that we need to pursue it any further, however.

My rescuer’s other hand flashed up and across the man’s throat and, although I could have sworn that the hand had been holding no weapon, the man suddenly staggered back, clutching his throat. Bright red blood welled from the wound. He fell onto his back, and was still after a few moments. A groan off to my left indicated that Eric was waking up. My mysterious rescuer was by his side in a flash, and a moment later there was a sickening crack. Eric stopped making noise after that, for some reason. Then the woman turned to look at me, and I got my first proper look at her. 
    It was impossible, as I have already explained, not to notice that she was a woman, no matter which angle you looked at her from. She had pale blonde stretching down well below her shoulders, organised in a tight braid to keep it out of her way. She had a small nose, high cheekbones, and full, sensuous lips. But what really attracted my attention was her eyes: once pale blue, but now oddly glazed, like those of a corpse. She cocked her head to one side and considered me for a moment, then jerked her head at the body of young Eric. 
    “You can have that one. You look like you need it”. Then she turned to Eric’s companion (whose name I never found out, even to this day) and rubbed her hands together. “Yum”. Then she knelt down beside him.

And that was my first encounter with Layla. She was one of the very, very few of our kind that I have ever considered with genuine affection and trust. I have wondered from time how things would have turned out if she had not stumbled across our little scuffle in that alley. I believe I would probably be a corpse. That was the first of several times that she saved my life. I just wish I’d been able to return the favour on that night when…
    But I am getting ahead of myself. It is a bad idea to tell the end of the story before you even get to the middle. It confuses the issue.
    Back to that alleyway, then.

  I had no idea of what she was doing when she first leaned over the man. It looked like she might be kissing him, which didn’t seem a very good idea to me at the time. I wasn’t going to argue with her however; she had just saved my life, after all. Besides, I was a little afraid of her, to tell the truth. The fact that she had just killed two fully grown, hardened thugs with apparent ease might have had something to do with that. I managed to hoist myself into a sitting position and back-pedalled until I hit something solid, looking for all the world, I am sure, like some monstrous, lop-sided crab. 
    When she had finished ‘kissing’ young Eric’s companion, she wiped her mouth on his sleeve. I could understand her wanting to wipe the dirt off after kissing the filth-encrusted criminal, but as his clothes were no cleaner than he was, using them as a cloth to wipe the dirt off seemed a bit pointless, to say the least. These trivial thoughts were driven from my mind, however, when she once again turned to me. 
    “Aren’t you going to feed?” she asked, again motioning to Eric. 
    “Wh-what do you mean?” I stammered in reply.
    For a moment, a frown creased her features, as if she couldn’t understand where the issue had become confused. Then the light of understanding lit in her eyes and she broke into a sudden, gleeful grin. “You’re a newby, aren’t you?”
    I had no idea what a ‘newby’ was, but I had something else on my mind just then. I noticed that her grin had one unusual feature: four extended canines, two from each jaw. Like mine. I had no idea what exactly was going on, but I drew some strength from the thought that I had something in common with this woman that I had not had with my two attackers.
    “What are you?” was the first question I asked. Perhaps not the politest greeting for my rescuer, but I had many questions, and she seemed, at the time, the one to answer them. 
    She gave me an appraising sort of look, then started to walk around me like she was sizing me up. “How long?”
    “How long what?” I replied. Although I had wanted her to answer my questions, I thought it best not to antagonise her too much, in light of the fate of Eric and his leader. 
    “How long since you woke up, silly?” she chided.
    “Not long. I…I woke up in there”, I said, motioning to the decrepit building in which I had first become conscious, “and then I came out here, and they attacked me, and then you came.” I finished in a rush. “Please, do you know who I am? Only, I can’t remember, and, well, see…” I floundered to a finish. 
    She shrugged. “I don’t know who you are, but I can tell you what you are.”
    I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but then any answers right now were welcome ones. “Okay then. What am I?” 
    “You”, she said calmly, “are a vampire.” 
    No. It could not be. It was not possible. And yet, it made sense: the strange teeth, the unusual speed and strength, and her liaison with Eric’s partner in crime – not kissing, but feeding.
    I sat back down rather rapidly at that point. 
    She dragged the quickly cooling corpse of Eric over to me by his hair. “Here”, she said, “newbies are always hungry. Feed before you waste away.” 
    I looked at the body, then up her. “How?”
    She sighed. “That’s what those fangs are for, boy. Bite him – the neck is usually the best place, but his is broken, so just above the heart is probably better. Then suck all his blood out and swallow it down. That’s all there is to it.” She ripped his smock off and offer me his chest. 
    I followed her instructions, and rather distastefully bit into his breast, just over his static heart. The blood welled up and flowed down my throat. It was as if pure life was coursing through me. As I fed from him, I felt all his strength and life flow into my undead body. It warmed my flesh, returned lost strength to my limbs, and heightened my senses. It cleared the clouds of fear and confusion away from my mind. This was how it was meant to be: I, the predator, feeding off this weaker creature, taking its strength and life force into myself. 
    As the last drop ran down my throat, I felt a strange force grip me. It started around my heart and radiated outward, a fire that did not burn my skin, spreading through me and bringing new strength to my body. Looking down, I saw a golden light rippling across my chest and along my arms and down my legs. When it was finished, I looked up at the woman, to see her smiling slightly, as if at seeing a loved one experience a joyous surprise. She seemed about to say something, when we were interrupted.
    “Who cried out down there? Is everything alright?” Me and the woman stared at each other blankly for a few moments that seemed to stretch on for hours. “Answer in the name of the Sarafan! Who’s down there?” When we still did not reply, the man spoke to one of his colleagues. He had lowered his voice considerably, but I still heard him quite clearly. “Bring a torch, Dine. I’m going in to see what’s up.” These words seemed to be what finally spurred my rescuer to life. She grabbed my wrist and started to pull me down the alley, away from the voice. I quite gladly went along; being discovered next to the corpses of two men killed in self defence was one thing, but having their blood upon my lips was quite another. 
    We fled from alley to alley, avoiding open streets wherever possible. She eventually led me to a tumble-down old building very similar to the one within which I had awoken. She led me inside, closing the door softly behind her, and we crept across a large open room to another door. This door opened onto some stairs that led downwards. At the bottom was a small passageway, where she took me to the left and through one last door into a small room.
    “Where are we?” I asked my new – and only – friend. 
    “Home, sweet home”. 
    ‘Home sweet home’ was a small room in the basement area of an abandoned warehouse. It had one bed, a bedside table with a small lamp, a desk and chair of polished wood, and a bookshelf in one corner holding a mixture of books and small trinkets. It was a compact, secluded little place where one of our kind could hide away happily in the day and not be disturbed. A sudden realisation hit me, and I voiced a question most polite people ask the very minute they meet.
    “What is your name?”
    “I am called Layla. What is yours?”
    As far as I could remember, I had no name. I reached back into what shreds I had of what might have once been a memory. Some disconnected images flashed before me; a beautiful young lady with red hair dressed in green; a large, dilapidated house, once an indication of its owners’ wealth, now an abandoned ruin; a lake of boiling acid where nothing can live; and a name – whether mine of somebody else’s I did not know, but it would have to do.
    “You can call me Michael”. I have used many names over the years, but I have always accepted that as my true name.
    “Well, Michael”, she said with a wicked grin, “welcome to the world of the undead. We hope you enjoy your stay. I found you, so I will be your teacher until such a time as I deem you capable of looking after yourself.” She giggled girlishly. “Now who do you want for dinner?”