"Norman" by Kortnee Bryant

            There is a legend that a vampires soul can be saved, reclaimed from the demon that taints and corrupts it.  It is a romantic legend of a true love willing to sacrifice herself for the man the vampire is without the demon.  It also happens to be true…

            When Norman first found her, she was a peasant in London during the reign of Henry V.  She was beautiful under the dirt and threadbare clothes, kind and generous with the little that she had.  She was an orphan and worked as a maid for the local baker.  He courted her and won her away from her position, he offered her everything and she loved him.  She swore she would go anywhere with him but he never told her he was a vampire.

            She found him one night with his fangs sunk deep in the neck of one of their neighbors.  She ran from him, confused and certain he was a monster.  With no idea of where she was going, she slipped and fell into the Thames.  Her bloated body was discovered the next morning and Norman was devastated.

            He found her again, 20 years later.  With a desperation he couldn’t believe he possessed, he wooed her and won her heart again.  The first time they made love, she remembered her last life.  She was sorry she’d run from him and she did love him.  Her nerve broke soon after and she ran again.  She was set upon by robbers and murdered for the gifts he’d given her.

            And so it went down through the ages.

            No matter what body she was born into, her sought out her spirit, desperate to save his soul and have more than a few years with her.  He devised new and elaborate ways to keep her safe but she was taken from him by war, famine and acts of God.  He managed to keep her for forty years once, locked in a tower where nobody could harm her.  She started refusing food and drinks and died a short time later.  She hadn’t spoken for ten years before she died.

            He began seeking her out younger and younger, removing all of the influences in her life that could turn her against him.  When she was born in 1949, he started systematically killing her family and friends, anybody who would help her run from him.  He took her when she was 16.  She turned to drugs and overdosed two years later.

            When she was born in 1980, he sought out a wizard who cast a spell to make her remember him.  She would know him and seek him out, he was sure of it.  Theirs was a love that would last for all time.  He watched her grow and become a woman.  She was strong and he was proud of her.

            Eventually, he could no longer stand to stay away.  He approached her one night when she was 25.  It was the middle of July and she wore long pants and a jacket.  She recognized him the moment he stepped from the shadows.

            “Hello, Norman,” she said.

            “Hello, my love,” he answered.

            “Leave me alone this time, Norman.  I’m through killing myself.” Her hands were in the pockets of her jacket.

            “I’m glad to hear that but I can’t leave you alone, love.  I cannot bear to be separated from you.”  He began walking toward her slowly.  “I love you so much.  I died a little every time you did.”

            She pulled a gun from her right jacket pocket.  “Don’t make me hurt you, Norman.”

            He stopped walking.  “I have never offered you violence.  You are too dear to me for that.”

            “I mean it, Norman.”  She stood there, unmoving and unmoved.  “I’m not the girl you knew.  I’ve changed and so have you.”

            “You love me.”

            “Always,” she nodded.

            He began walking toward her again.  “Then we must be together.”

            “No closer, Norman.”

            “You don’t want to hurt me.”

            She shot him twice, sending a bullet through each of his kidneys.  They expanded on impact and half of his gut was blown away.  He fell and gasped from the pain.  Already his wounds were healing.  “Yes, I do.”  She shot him again, this time in the leg, blowing a hole in his femoral artery.  The blood loss was weakening him.

            “What will you do without me?” he asked.

            “Live,” she aimed the gun at his throat.

            He thought back over the last six hundred years and nodded.  “Yes, you should do that.”

            “I hope you find peace,” she emptied the gun into his body.  Her tears fell on his corpse as she set it alight and the demon let go.

            The body burned quickly and left only a pile of ash.  She’d loved him for the last six hundred years and would long for him the rest of her life but every soul deserves rest.  Maybe, this time, she would join him in peace.