"Emmanuel Cole" by Amanda Jean Timmerman

The blond man saw the impending cloud of dust and cursed.  On the sand lay the young burnette, as she would lie for another hour at least.  He cursed again.  He should never have done it with the outlaw band in the area, but he had been hungry, so hungry...  And her blood had been sweet and warm, untouched by any of his kind--a trait that was increasingly harder to find in this day and age.  Time was when those who were attacked by vampires once never experienced it again--they never experienced anything again.  Nowadays though, with such limited resources, there was little choice but to let victims live to be fed upon time and again.

Emmanuel Cole, the blond man, looked up again at the horizon.  The dust cloud was much closer now; soon he would have no time.  His victim was still helpless on the ground.  If he left her, the brigands would brutalize and kill her.  It shouldn't bother him--he had killed before when he fed--but it didn't feel right leaving her to die.  Emmanuel cursed for a third time and bent down to scoop her up.  Though he was short, he was heavily muscled, and the young woman looked like an oversized doll cradled in his arm.  He did not even put down the Winchester rifle he held against the opposite shoulder.  Turning, he shut his eyes and spat out a few angry words in a strange language, then stepped through the resulting black portal and into nothingness.

 Okay, so this is my entry for the cross-genre contest over at Seventh Sanctum.  Emmanuel Cole (named by vampire name generator) is a "vampiric rifleman".  Here is the description from the general person generator:  "this angry man has deep-set brown eyes that are like two acorns.  His fine, straight, neck-length hair is the color of bleached bone, and is worn in a bizarre style.  He is short and has an overmuscled build.  His skin is pale.  He has a domed forehead and a small mouth.  His wardrobe is unconventional."  So here he is.  He came out a bit more rambo-looking than I was going for, but it suits him.  I was also trying to make him more evil, but he refused and told me that he was a lot of things but evil wasn't one of them.  So the above is his story.  Yeah.  Hope you liked!

ps here is the link to the contest:  http://www.seventhsanctum.com/contests.php