Sitting on the doorstep, I patiently wait for her. All anxiety I have about her arrival is washed away like the sea crashing on the beach, instead replaced with hope.

I've been sat here for over an hour, staring at the black sky with the stars that flicker away like Christmas lights. I remember as a child, my father told me that when he was a boy in Sweden he'd spent many an evening laying in the field, watching the stars in awe at their beauty. I wonder, was Liten Vampyr with him while he looked at the stars?

When I think of my dad talking about his home, it makes me realise he has never really told me a lot. I never met his family from Sweden, we never went over there and they never came to us-there wasn't a lot of mention of what life was like for him as a child really. When I questioned him, he would simply say, "All I love and need is under this one roof", so I simply let it go.

I stop my rambling mind. I need to concentrate, I need to catch her before she gets upstairs to dad, I need to ask-no, plead with her to save him. If I have to crawl over broken glass and lick her boots to get her to consider saving him, that is what I will do.

As if my very thought of her had conjured her up, she was there stood in front of me. I'd not heard a single footstep as she had approached me, it's as if her step is as soft as a feather and her body is made of smoke.

I look up at her curious little face that is fixated on me blocking her way to her precious little Viking.

I can feel the sweat running down my back and my heart race as anxiety rears it's ugly head at the thought of asking her for the unthinkable. I know there is little point of small talk.

"I need to ask something of you".

Her head tilts to one side and she glances past me as if I'm already boring her.

"Dad isn't going to last much longer and ..."

She cuts me off. "I know. That is why I'm here".

Hope flickers in my exhausted mind, was she here to save him? Was that why she arrived?

"So can you help him?" I start to stutter like a nervous child on Christmas Day. "Your blood helped him the other day with the fever, could more maybe cure him? Will he become like you? How do we do this, I mean, how do you do it?"

She crouches down so we are at eye level. "That's not what I meant Oscar. I'm here to say goodbye".

The wind is knocked out of me like a blow to the gut.

"You could help him".

I hear the pleading in my voice that is high, and cracks as each word slips from my mouth.

"Number One, Oscar, I wouldn't be helping him. I'd be giving him a life sentence. Could you sleep at night knowing you'd turned your father into a killer; a killer with unquenchable thirst that never goes away. I have killed more people than you will ever meet in your lifetime, and if you think I haven't enjoyed it at times you're deluded, my kind lives for the hunt. Two, I've already asked him and he said no".

I wipe the sweat on my brow away on my cuff. " I know, I've spoken to him but he doesn't know what he wants; he's in pain, unnecessary pain that you could stop. I know he's scared because of what happened to you but it wouldn't be the same for him, he'd have us".

Her porcelain unreadable face cracks just for a second with the realisation I know about her. I see her mask slipping, but before I can see too much it's back up.

"You're right Oscar, but that's not the only reason, and you need to respect his decision. He has his reasons and they are his and his alone".

I stand up suddenly. She jumps back effortlessly, but her posture is that of someone who's ready to attack.

"And you're happy to stand back and watch him die".

Her body eases and her face softens, she walks in close to me and stands on her tip toes, then gently strokes my face. Her hand is as cold as snow and soft as a newborn baby. I don't flinch, as if I'm hypnotised by her green eyes that look at me with utter pity.

"Not one part of this makes me happy, Oscar, but it is the wishes of little Viking. In time you will understand, but not now. All we can do is be here for him, to guide him over".

My body starts to shake as the devastation and realisation  that we are out of road now becomes brutally real. Tears swell in my tired eyes and begin to run down my face.

"It's not fair".

She pulls her sleeve down and wipes away my tears like a mother would do to a child.

"Life is not fair, we make of it what we can. We try to carve out a few moments of joy where we can and that is what we need to do now for little Viking".

I step aside, head hung low and deflated,  to let her enter. She slowly passes, then waits at the bottom of the stairs. She turns to me.

"Come Oscar, we have an adventure to take little Viking on before the night runs away with us".

I sniffle, "He can't even stand".

A wicked smile spreads across her face, as if a plan has already formed in her mind. "Oh tonight he will do more than stand; he will walk".

We walk to his bedroom through the shadowy dark passages- that for the first time have morphed into a cold, repressive place, not my family home.

Dad's eyes light up as soon as he sees her, as if the room has been illuminated by her presence.
He tries to sit up but his body fails him. Before he can slump down, she is by his side and gently lifting him up to position him in a sitting position, as if he was as light as feather and as fragile as a snow flake.

"Little Viking, how are you feeling today?" She knew the answer to this but asked nevertheless.

He rolled his eyes. "Well, I'm just exhausted, Liten Vampyr. This old body of mine isn't slowing down, but now has completely stopped".

She smiles at him, "Well the body may have stopped but the mind is as sharp as the day I met you".

He laughs "I don't know about that, what do you think Oscar?"

I push the pain down into the bottom of my gut, and don't let my voice betray me. "I don't know if you've ever been sharp." I tease him, trying to keep the mood light.

She sits on the side of the bed and leans into Dad. "Little Viking, what adventures will we participate in tonight? Shall we dance until the sunrises naked on the beach whilst pouring vodka down our throats, or shall we steal a car, drive as fast as we can and see where the road takes us?"

My eyes bulge out of my head with every wild suggestion that slips from her deranged lips. If the cancer doesn't kill him, Liten Vampyr's adventure certainly will.

Dad is unfazed by his deranged friend, he simply laughs, which breaks into a rattled cough that shakes through his body as he struggles for breath.

Before I can get to him, she's already propped him up so he can catch his breath.

"Liten Vampyr, I would love to simply just go for one last pint with my son and my oldest friend, but I can't even laugh without being one foot closer to my grave".

She stood up to fetch his glass of water from his bedside unit to quench his horse throat from all his coughing. As she stands, she turns and winks at me, so quickly he wouldn't of caught it.

As her back was turned to him, I saw her left hand raise to her mouth, then she bit down on the tip of her finger.
Dark red blood pumps to the tip of her finger, she then traces around her lip with it as if she was applying lipstick.

Her already plump lips now shine with the moist blood.

She sits back beside him and passes the water glass to him, and he gingerly sips it. Once he has finished, he hands the glass to me and she slowly lowers him back down on the bed, his head perched slightly higher by the pillows.

She lays her head on his shoulder, her raven black long  hair spread across him like Medusa snakes, and I watch her breathe in his scent. A sad sigh slips from her mouth.

She lifts her head up, her eyes fixated on his, her hand strokes his unkept bristled face, then her tiny hand cups his tired face. She leans in and kisses him gently on the lips.

As she pulls away from their kiss, her forehead resting on his, I notice tears running down her face and trickling down on to his nose. "One last kiss, Little Viking".

Beneath her, he starts to shake, as if his whole body is vibrating; every nerve and vein in his body now pulsating with her blood, his eyes become wide and fixate on her- his pupils so large like sunken black holes in his head. The colour returns to his once washed out complexion.

But he can see through her. "What have you done?"

She wipes her tears away from his face. "You know what I've done, I've given you one last night, that's all. Let's go for that drink".