Reccolection

Each morning I would awake with a little more of what I now know to be my memory. A battlefield - Agincourt, I think. So much death, so much blood. Iron and steel plating wrapped the bodies of a thousand soldiers, their eyes telling of the secret knowledge that only the dead can know. The knowledge that there is nothing else. The knowledge that it was all a terrible lie. The world's greatest mendacity, is that righteousness in this life would ensure eminence in the next, because as I have already told you, there is no next life. This is it. There is no great maker, no divine being. Humanity was simply a freak occurrence of nature - an odds against impossibility that became possible. The more I dreamed, the more I remembered until the fifth day. I had become weak. I had lost the use of my limbs completely, and I knew that I was dancing a slow dance with death. Lisa entered the room with a bowl of soup and a look of great sadness. She was wearing a low-cut, silk night-gown. Lisa had come to feed me, but the bowl was empty. She, like I, knew that this would be the last time that we would see one another. She knew what she would have to do and she chose my life - the life of a stranger - over that of her own.

She sat beside my bed, and tenderly placed a kiss on my forehead. Then, she leaned across and rested her head on my chest. Even at the brink of death, her thoughts were of making my painful task that little bit easier. As I sank my teeth into the sweet scented skin of her neck, I recalled the emotions of a thousand years. And then I experienced something else: something that I had never experienced before. I know now that it is untrue that a vampire cannot weep. For as the sweet blood flowed from her veins into mine, I wept the tears of ten centuries of sadness.

Your expression betrays your thoughts. You think that I'm... deranged, I think is the word you are looking for. It doesn't matter. That is why I never told the story to the court. At the first sign of insanity they would have packed me away to some hospital and forgotten about me. But I can't allow that to happen. I must be put to death. It is an integral part of my plan. I have no desire to be hunted; I am tired of running. So it is best that I die for the crimes you say I have committed. Lethal injection: they say it's the most humane way, but as you and I know... there is only one way to kill a vampire.

I told you before that there are no restraints that can hold me. The truth is I broke free of them the moment I sat at this table with you. I also told you that there would be a price to pay for the knowledge I have given you. I am very weak you see, and to be able to resurrect after my death, I really must regain my strength.

Don't look so worried; you won't feel a thing.