Into The Blackest Night — Dee Phillips

“Standing under the harsh glare of the lonely streetlight, I knew I looked stunning in my ruby red satin dress. My shining black hair flowed smoothly down my back to my waist. My bright green eyes were outlined in thickly mascara-ed black lashes giving me a coy, sexy look and my full lips were painted a shimmering crimson. The satin dress flowed smoothing over my lithe body, outlining every curve of my slim figure. I looked beautiful and enticing. That was the idea. The better I looked, the better chance I had at attracting an innocent victim. I was the lure that roped them in, the vamp, the seductress. I didn't like it -- in fact I hated it -- but it wasn't my idea.
The street was no more than an alleyway really, tucked away behind some failing warehouse district just off the harbor in the small city of Thunder Bay in northern Ontario. The alleyway between Simpson and Hardisty streets was the type found in declining districts everywhere, where only derelicts and unsavory characters would chance to visit. There was a small hotel nearby, dingy and decrepit looking, where I supposedly would take my ‘mark'. The whole area looked like a mugger's paradise with dirt and garbage piled up in crumbling doorways. If I wasn't who I was and knew what I knew, I would probably be afraid to stand here. But as things were, I was in no danger whatsoever. In fact I was part of the danger.
I looked down the dim street with a bit of a frown on my face. I was the only one ‘working' this particular alleyway. Most of the real prostitutes favored the busier cross street about two blocks down. At the moment, there was no activity in my alley. No one was in sight. There was just a scrawny stray orange cat rummaging through the trash bins a few feet in front of me. His small pink nose emerged every so often to get a whiff of fresh air. A slight breeze caused bits of ragged paper and dirt to float around and brought a slightly sickening smell to assault my nose. It wasn't pleasant, the smell of the garbage mixed with the unclean gutter odor, but I had withstood worse. My nose hardly even crinkled. What was this to the smell of death that I constantly lived with?”

It wasn't easy being a vamp. A vamp was a seducer, a temptress...and that was what Valerie was. She was the vamp that lured innocent victims to their deaths, all for the hunger and satisfaction of the vampires she served. Oh, how she hated it! But what was she to do? It was all she had ever known, and it was what had kept her alive all these years. How could she survive if she didn't 'vamp' for the vampires? She was trapped in a lifestyle that tortured her very soul. It wasn't until Jonathon came along that she had any hope of any other future. With Jonathon she found love…