A Tree That Sprouts Roses And Drips Blood.

Chapter Three.

How had i ended up on a phantom balcony with a....Whatever he was?!. You see that was the part that had me jittering around the house. Too afraid to go asleep, for what i might see in my dreams or what I might wake up to. I didn't need a closer look or medical proof. I just knew he wasn't human. There was no going back now, I realised. My life stretched out in a harsh timeline.

First a youth of adventure and paranoia, then if that didn't kill me first, an old age lived in straight jackets and padded rooms.

I knew it was dangerous. I knew he was dangerous. I knew that room was dangerous. But none of these revalations stopped my feet, as they climbed sluggishly up the stairs. Towards the blue abyss, where i was sure death was waiting. Whether it was the death of me, or just my insanity, i didn't know. Both seemed irrelevant.

I stood opposite to the door of the room, feeling a certain energy radiate from it. Calling out to me like a siren to her sailor. And just like that sailor, I was helpless to it's draw. My hand closed around the cold brass of the handle and i took an unsteady breath. The handle twisted and the door yawned open into, nothingness...?

Flat black greeted me, an endless expanse of it. Devoid of any substance or living thing. Confusion crept over me, then unease, as the frame of the door began to dissolve into the nothingness. Suddenly an explosion of colour skittered across my vision. Like a handful of butterflies thrown carelessly by a child. The colour settled into solid blobs, that floated feintingly in the darkness. Music flooded my head, floating from a diffrent time, a diffrent era, to taint my thoughts with it's hypnotic sound. The colours seemed to throb to the music. It was amazing thing to watch as they twirled, becoming more submersed in eachother. Their borders ceased to be and they throbbed and twirled as one. A living, breathing organism. The twirling sped and so did the throbbing, til it was no longer just colours. Their forms grew arms and legs, then finally faces and hair, fingers and toes. They whirled in elegant circles. Some where women and some where men.

They began to dance. A dance of olden times. All the while i stood staring. The womens skin widened and washed with shades of pink and orange, til each woman donned a gown of pure beauty. The men waltzed in black suits, cloaked in long brown coats and their shoes shone bright.

Now the small room that had been my grandfather's bedroom, a balcony and the place i was asscerain i would die, was an endless ocean of flat black, interrupted intermittedly by the whirl of sixteenth century dancers.

My mind was split. One side tiaking in every whirl, every splash of colour. While the other was refusing to believe it was happening. There was only one thing that both sides agreed on. That this was singlehandedly the most beautiful thing ever to grace this universe. Maybe i had imagined that balcony, that beautifully dangerous man, because i couldn't imagine something so sinister coexisting with this.

Or maybe I didn't imagine it. Or him.

A movement caught my peripheral vision. A splash of white moving professionally through the crowd. I turned and my heart sputtered and stopped for the briefest of moments. There he was. The dangerous man. And he was heading straight for me, a small smile on her face. He had a white cloak draped around his shoulders, the kind of white that glowed. Underneath I could see the folded collar of a white suit. His feet were encased in black/blue leather shoes. The blood had been wiped clean from his face and none stained his clothes. His hair was still the intentionally messy disarray I had remembered, but his eyes had changed. The red ring had dissolved and a soft green regarded me now.

"Why Anna", he began in the cadences of an earliar time, "How cold you must be", he mused, unrolling his white cloak.

"Not really.", I answered flatly, feeling almost in a trance-like state.  

He still continued to hand me his cape, even though I'd refused. As I pulled on the cape unthinkingly, I glanced my clothes. My artfully faded jeans had dissappeared, along with my sweater and I was now dressed in a flowing gown, like that of the other women. I wondered down at it, my hands tracing the embroidered flowers on the silk and continuing up the bodice, to where it enclosed my neck in lace.

"Where..?", I floundered, my hands fluttered towards my elaborate dress.

"Never mind that", he replied, "When you go back, your normal clothes will return".  

Not wanting to turn my back on him, I yanked myself back through the space where the door should be. The radiant silk of my dress faded to be replaced by my old jeans. The dancers, the endless darkness and the dangerous man stayed where they were, but the blue abyss merged behind me and I didn't feel quite as vunerable. I took one experimental step back through the door and half of my body was covered in silk and surrounded by darkness, while the other stayed familiar and backwashed in purple. I stepped all the way back through the frame of the door and it dissappeared, along with the blue walls and my clothes.

"Well, I must say Anna, sixteenth century really compliments you", he noted, asessing me from head to foot. Some might say a king surveying his land.

"Well...emm..?".

He'd mentoned his name before..Oh what was it? I remembered it was old fashioned and quite unusual? Demetri..? Demetrio.?

"Demetrio?".

He knodded and I continued.

"Well Demetrio, what you say dosent matter to me, because I'm certain this is all a dream", I gushed.

"Hmm...brave words, from a brave mind I might add".

He leaned closer, one hand outstretched, as if to stroke my cheek. But instead his hand snaked to the back of my neck and he jerked me to him. His hand left my neck and took a lock of hair between it's fingers instead. Bringing my hair close to him, brought me close too and I was overpowered by his smell. I couldn't place it. Lilac, honey and sandlewood, somehow all harmonious. It was the most potent aroma in the world. Delicately he lifted the piece of hair to his nose and breathed deeply. He smiled slightly, then dropped it and it swung loosely back to it's place among my other hairs.

The whole time I stood still, watching and waiting for something. It was like I was paralysed by his mere presence. His scent was everywhere by now. It clouded my brain, frying it completely of any thought, except how wonderful he smelt. How wonderful he was.

He leaned towards me, a smug smile pulling up the corners of his mouth. This is it, I thought, he's either going to kiss me or bite me. Bite me? Why had I thought that? Maybe it was how sharp his canine teeth were. I remembered the blood around his mouth. The unbelievebly fast turn. The red ringed eyes. The voice. The inhumanly good looks. The smell.

My grandfather had told me of such men. He had a word for them too. Vampires.

His advance stopped abruptly and I could have sworn fear had flitted across his face as the pieces fell together in my head. I stepped away. But he shadowed me and the distance between stayed the same. I turned quickly for the door, feeling its invisible frame. But he was standing in the way, like the last time.

"Please Anna", he pleaded, "let me explain what I am!".

"I know exactly what you are!", I raged, surprised I wasn't shrinking to the ground in fear, "You murdering parasite. Your kind killed my grandfather...and I never believed my father that you did".

I almost cryed. It was all true, Dad was in a mental institution for nothing.

Demetrio was staring intently at me. Big green eyes. And I could feel my resolve wavering. Vampires weren't that bad, were they?

"No!", I screamed shoving at him and scrunching my eyes closed. Granddad had warned me of their compulsion.

I shoved him again and ran for the door. This time he made no attempt to stop me. Once again I tumbled into the blue abyss, slamming the door of my worst  nightmares behind me.