Bordeaux, France 1732

There was smoke coming out of a sewer nearby. The street was empty, as always after midnight in this cursed city. Its inhabitants were afraid. It was a demon they feared. A cold blooded killer. There was no moon tonight, no light shining on the horrid scene by the containers. Maybe it was for the best, it did not hurt me, I needed no light. I looked down on the street before bending down and touching the concrete. 
Sticky. Warm. 
Blood. 
I knelt beside my victim, my black boots slowly turning red from the liquid on the ground. 
Still breathing. Still amongst the living ones, not yet lost in the eternal damnation of the dark side. 
I studied his face. Horror. Equal parts horror and disgust. I disgusted him. I did not blame him. However, he dared not to move since, although I disgusted him, I was also his reaper. 
And oh, what I cruel reaper I had become. I enjoyed watching him slowly bleed to death. I enjoyed the light flickering in his eyes before he died. I enjoyed his pain. His last breath drawn, reflecting pain and horror was sweet music to my ears. The envy had tarred my soul apart, eating it from the inside until I had none left. 
I was not the antichrist, but Satan loved me like a son. 
As my victim's head fell back against the cold concrete with a loud noise of bones crushing, I smiled. 
Not until then, I bent down. Allowing my long, dark blonde hair to fall down over my face, covering my crime and the stiff body underneath me. I only tasted him, I was not hungry. Tonight...I killed only for pleasure. 
"Merry Christmas..." I whispered to the corpse. Even though it was dangerous - I might be spotted - I stayed for a while, reflecting over my deed. Only a minute ago or so, he had been alive. He belonged to the upper classes, no doubt, you could tell by his clothes and the expensive gold watch that glimmered in his pocket. 
Probably on his way to a hooker that could keep his bed warm on this lonely Christmas Eve. I despised him, but I did not despise him half as much as I envied him. He had been on his way to someone. Maybe it was someone who would keep him warm for a few franc worth of food. Nevertheless, it was still someone to seek comfort in. Oh, I missed the touch. The human touch. So soft, so gentle...caressing me. That was one reason to why I did it in the first place. I was lonely. However, Louis had not lived up to my expectations. Once a vampire, he could not make it undone. He was a vampire with a conscience, and that was something that could never end in his favour. He had turned into a bitter and tormented soul, without a ray of hope in his deep, intense brown eyes. 
I had given him an offer, and he had accepted. Had he declined, I had let him go. However, other regretful ones likewise, he had turned and blamed his creator for what he had become...a vampire.
That is what we were...vampires. No more...nor less. Yes, we were killers. We killed to stay alive, but we were nevertheless killers. 
I had given Louis five decades to change. Now that the change had not come, I could no longer hesitate to leave him. It was time to walk alone again. I must learn not to seek companions this way. I had been burned one too many times, I could stay no longer in Bordeaux.
I pushed away these thoughts with sheer will and stood to begin to make my way home. 'Home'...the word made me smile. However, a sarcastic smile that did not reflect itself in my eyes. I knew I had no home, I had never had. I did not know where my place was, but it was certainly not in Bordeaux with Louis. No matter how much I wanted it to be. 
It was cold, it always was at this time of the night. I had to remind myself to bring a coat tomorrow, I thought to myself while I listened attentively for human noises carried by the howling wind. That was the signal for my exit.
"I shall take my leave of you now." I said, nodding to the man on the ground. "It was delightful to meet you, but nevertheless, I have to bid you farewell." I smiled and put on my gloves, I was in no hurry since the noise was at least two minutes from here. I laughed a silent laugh before picking up my cane from the ground and walking down the street whistling with satisfaction. Anyone who laid eyes on me that Christmas evening would, no doubt, mistake me for the uncle to a little boy, on my way home to celebrate the holiday with my family.
Little did they know that neither Louis nor me celebrated Christmas. Louis passed because of his respect for me, although he did not entirely understand why. It was too hard for me to begin a tradition of Christmas celebrating. To me, Christmas had always been relatives from all around the province coming to get together, but unlike the average family, they had not come to greet us or to share the spirit of the season with us. At least not with me. My family always locked me in on Christmas Eve, as if they were ashamed of me. 
They sat down there while I was locked into the attic, not allowed to enter the rooms downstairs. Instead, I was binding my time writing poems. Every year, a new poem was carved into the soft stone of the attic's walls. That was a tradition I had continued with even after my birth. Alternatively, should we say...rebirth? 
Since I did not consider myself alive until I became a dark angel, a reaper of the mortal, and immortal myself, I shall hereby refer to it as my birth. 

My head was so filled with thoughts that had haunted me for the past century, every Christmas eve that I almost missed the entrance to the lair that I called home. 
Although I did not expect to see Louis at home, waiting for me, my heart still skipped a beat as I laied a hand on the door and found it unlocked. However, I found no one at home. I was not disappointed; I simply poured up a glass of wine and sat down by my desk. The candles were almost burned down when I finished this year's poem. 
An ode to no one...
Simply because I had no one to dedicate it to. I buried my face in my hands, I felt so weak. I whished that Louis had entered the room in this very moment and found me in my infinite sadness. Maybe he had understood after all. Maybe he would comfort me.  No, I must not deceive myself with such thoughts. Not tonight, the sadness shall not defeat me tonight!
I stood too fast, tried to fight the light headiness that came with it before I went over to the piano by the end wall, and sat down to play. I played an ancient melody, forever forgotten in the mist of the modern days. I played and played. The piano was my only salvation in a world, which despised me. I had been rejected by my own creation. Damn Louis! Could he not see how I was suffering? 
I feared the world 'love' and I dared not to use it, but yet, I knew that that was just what it was. I feared it because I had not experienced it myself in my two centuries of eternal damnation. I had only known lust, until now. 'Lust' was not the appropriate way of labelling this new emotion. Had I desired him only in the flesh, I had simply taken him. 
However, I did not. I felt too strongly about him to ever hurt him that way. 
My hands danced over the keys of the black mahogany piano, I played with great skill. I had improved myself since last year. I had much time left to adjust my skill to perfection. I kept playing, but I did no longer play for the pure pleasure and bliss it gave me. I played because I did not want to admit to myself that I was only playing to bide my time until Louis would return. 
The melody slowly shifted into a darker, more tormented, desperate longing sound of pain. Reflecting my mood as clearly as a mirror. The melody rose to a crescendo of pain before it stopped in the middle of the final piece of my tribute to darkness. I could play no longer, my shoulders were shaking and, just as they did every year, the tears glimmered in my eyes before running down my pale cheeks. The sadness had overwhelmed me yet again. Just as it always did at this time of the year...
I needed the darkness, I needed the safe sanctuary of the coffin, I needed the hours of peace that sleep managed to give me. The peace that I had looked all elsewhere for without success. With the tears still burning inside my eyelids I lay down in the comforting darkness of Louis coffin, only so that I could vaguely sense his smell for a few hours before his return. I wrapped my arms harder around myself. No one else had ever held me, so I had only myself and my sadness to turn to in the expanding times of loneliness. I rocked myself to sleep to the sounds of my own desperate crying, longing for love. 
The last words that I uttered before I went into the blissful sleep I could not recall the following day. Nevertheless, they were the first words I had uttered in French for over a century. They were the confirmation of the emotions swirling around my heart. They were the confirmation of what I already had known.
"...Je t'aime...."

The words never reached whom they were meant for. I doubt that it had made any difference. They were forever drowned in the sound of the rain outside. Somewhere out there, he was still hunting...cursing himself for each soul that he put to rest in the eternal darkness. 
My poem remained on the desk even at his return...

...he did not even notice it...
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Little angel sitting in her tree. 
Little angel trying to break free. 
Little angel black she wears. 
Little angel no more tears. 
Little angel she never lies. 
Little angel wishes to die. 
She finds a place to sleep, 
for her soul so lonely and weak. 
Closes her eyes and cries, 
and finally her misery dies 
Little angel is no more. 
Little angel that I adore...
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