I met him in the last moments of August while London burned. Black, sooty rain fell from an orange sky as the ravenous flames consumed the South Quay Warehouses. The usual night sounds had given way to a cacophonous racket of alarm bells, shouting spectators, and the unnatural, demonic hiss of the steam-powered machines.

My Brougham had been rendered stationary by throngs of spectators, gathered to watch and cheer for the firefighters from no fewer than twelve steam-engines. Seeking a more private lane for my night work, I abandoned my carriage and driver and pressed eastward on foot, finally emerging from the crowd at the new Tower Bridge. It wasn't a bridge at the time, of course, merely a construction barge and a partially completed wall to hold back the fetid river tides.

It was in the formerly submerged, muddy hollow of the new river-wall that I found him. The site gave enough seclusion for the work I had hoped to attend, so upon seeing his form curled up in the shadows, I decided to investigate. It was indeed a man, though, to my disappointment, he wasn't deceased. I mistook him for an unfortunate victim of the fire — well, fortunate enough to escape the conflagration, but wounded enough to succumb on the banks of London's artery.

Lest anyone think I approached this victim out of mercy or other tender emotion, my motives were singularly scientific and improperly ghoulish. I was newly arrived in the professions as a physician, and had not always studied my craft on strictly legal cadavers. Finding this man in his vulnerable state, I was unsure of my intentions. Would I give him aid and comfort? Would I wait patiently for his eminent demise, or perhaps even hasten him towards it?

I approached, the ring of illumination from my lantern creeping ever closer until its light fell upon him. He turned his grim visage toward me with the speed of an alarmed animal. Seeing me, his gaze lingered for a moment on mine, and then the tension seemed to dissipate from him as if he realized I was not a threat.

Seeing him, my apprehension grew to levels beyond what I am normally accustomed. His clothing was scorched, and what I took for soot or mud on his exposed face and hands reflected red in my lamp light. It was, without a doubt, blood, and its source, an incapacitated woman at his feet. By her clothing, I marked her as a woman of the great city's unfortunate profession. I further deduced that he was neither administering aid nor extending his patronage.

Despite every urging of common sense my brain could muster, I found myself stepping nearer to the deathly couple. This startled the man a second time. He waved a dismissive hand in my direction and spake.

"You have nothing to fear from me, sir. Find your way elsewhere and think no more on what you've seen here." His tone and carriage were that of a man who knew with certainty that his words would be obeyed.

Again, I found myself surprised by my response. I stepped nearer still, and replied, "And you, sir, have nothing to fear from me. I am a physician, and might be of some service to you or... your companion."

He stood, and though he was shorter of stature than myself, gave the impression that he towered o'er me. Perhaps he expected I would cower or flee, yet I only returned his stare, finding him as curious as he found me.

I looked beyond him at the ragged woman in the mud. Upon closer inspection, I saw that her throat had been torn—not cut by a knife or razor, but savagely torn as if by a beast.

"You," the man said, astonished. "You see me for what I am. What manner of demon are you?" His blood-stained lips parted to reveal long, pronounced canines and pointed incisors. If the source of the woman's wounds had been unclear, the man's dentition erased all doubt.

"I am just a man, Sir," I replied, "but perhaps our similarities are greater than our differences."

"Similarities?" he asked. "For your sake, I pray we have none. My curse is mine alone, and heaven or hell willing, it shall pass with this wretched night."

"Curse, sir? May I again offer my aid to you? As I have mentioned, I am..."

"Yes, I know. A physician. A man. A mortal. How, then, Doctor, are you able to see me truly? For I bear the mark of the devil himself. Any man who looks upon me will see only another man, but you are not fooled by my guise. I must know why."

"Truly, I know not," I said, though I had an inkling of a notion. Above us on the Thames, a fire barge clanged past, steam engines roaring to power its pumps. I stepped within grasping distance of the fellow so I could continue our conversation without yelling. In a motion so swift that my eyes couldn't follow, he stepped around me, placing himself between the me and the street.

"I have an idea," I continued, turning to face him with great reluctance. My true interest was in the dead woman, and the changes that were happening in her body in the crucial moments following her demise. I supposed I would have the chance to study other dying and recently deceased subjects, and so continued my discourse. "My idea is thus: You and I are both creatures of death, so we are accustomed to seeing things without the glamours of false hope and blind faith."

In another blur of motion, he moved so close to me that I could feel his cold breath on my face as he spoke.

"Make no assumption that you know me, Physician. If you knew me, you would not tolerate my existence. And knowing me, if you would not seek my destruction, then I would certainly desire yours."

In the next instant, his hands were upon my head, lifting me into the air as if I were no more than a puppy. His touch was as cold as night, and it burned my flesh like frost.

"I can know the thoughts of a man with a look into his eyes," he continued. "Your eyes show me nothing, but your face... your face tells me enough. You wish to profit at my expense. This may come to pass, but not until you have served me first."

He dropped me into the mud, where I came to land upon the corpse of his victim. Not wishing to draw undue attention, I remained on that gristly seat while he recounted the most incredible and terrific of tales.

I had never put much faith in the supernatural, but faith is only required in the absence of proof. This man was no parlor trick, no spirit-channeling charlatan. He was a creature of the night. Nosferatu. Vampire. The proof was not in his words, but in his physical power, his speed, and the force of his will. His story, too, was too strange to be discounted.

#

For two and twenty years he had known about, and had fought to destroy London's vampire menace. This knowledge is a distinction he did not share with other mortal men, for the powers of darkness are strong with vampires. When one of their kind takes a victim, that person is completely lost to the mortal world, forgotten by all who knew him, unrecognized in portraits and likenesses, utterly undone.

He spoke of the vampires he'd slain, and explained that the most efficacious and reliable means of accomplishing that end were through the greatest forces of nature. Exposure to flames and direct sunlight destroys them, and submersion beneath naturally flowing water paralyzes and renders them impotent. He also spoke of the ever-increasing number of innocents who gave their lives to his cause. As his tale unfolded, I realized that many of those innocents had fallen to his hand. For my part, his terrible secret was of little consequence. I was a man of science and fully understood that sacrifices must be made for the greater good. If one must fall to save a hundred, so be it.

In his first battle against the undead, he made the horrible and ironic discovery that drinking the blood of a living human granted immunity to his enemies' beguilements. One of their fallen and dying victims had landed atop him, and her blood flowed thickly into his mouth. Swallowing the burning potion of life, he saw his attackers transform before his eyes. For the first time, he could see them as they truly were: the spawn of Hell.

His quest began with the vampire who had turned his sister and killed their three dinner guests. Afterward, the vampire's curse obliterated his sister's existence from the memories of even her family and closest friends. She was forgotten by all. All but him, thanks to his cruel elixir. As repugnant as his task was, the only way he could identify and slay a vampire was to become like one. He had to kill and drink the warm blood of an innocent.

So it was that he passed his first week as a vampire slayer, and then his first month, year, and decade. Each time he murdered someone, he also eliminated a vampire from his city, saving many countless other lives. Each sacrifice made the next one easier, until finally, the death of any single human was no longer a burden. He passed years in this manner: killing people, drinking their blood, killing vampires. He had become more of a menace to the people he protected than the creatures he protected them from.

Realizing this, he undertook to destroy two large populations of vampires in a single night. That lead him to the South Quay Warehouses and Dry Docks, where the creatures nested during the daylight hours. When he could find no more to slay at that location, he set fire to it to deprive those who fled of a safe place to return before dawn.

The second vampire nest would burn in the early hours, and if half the city had to burn with it, then such were the costs of righteousness. Did not God, himself once destroy Sodom and Gomorrah when those cities' iniquitous residents were beyond saving? He prayed London was not yet so far gone.

Thus we came to the service he required of me. His attack on the first vampire hive and its fiery destruction came to an unfortunate end when a surviving vampire attacked and turned him. This occurred shortly before our introduction. Since that creature was still alive, he was under its thrall and could no longer take up arms against it. He gave me the address of the surviving lair and bade me bring fire to it, and end the vampires' dark reign over London once and for all.

"Go without delay," he said, naming the address. "There you will find preparations have been made for this deadly event. The Western gate will be closed, but not locked. In the maintenance shed, you will find bombs made of gin and rags. Light them and throw them into the cellar windows. Over two hundred tons of coal lay there, awaiting your spark."

I must admit a certain excitement at the prospect, but also a substantial aversion to spreading fire in the city where I lived.

"What of you, Sir?" I asked. "You would have me destroy these creatures on your behalf, yet you are one of them? Dare I leave you behind? We both behold the kind of tragedy that you are capable of inflicting." I glanced down at the body I was sitting upon.

"You ask if you should destroy me before you depart?" He nodded and made a coughing sound that might have been a laugh. "This is how I know you will do what must be done. You are correct. I should not be spared, and I have made arrangements for my own end. If you succeed in your task, I will be the last vampire in London. You will return and destroy me. Every passing moment I lose more of my identity and humanity. The evil of my curse will transform me before sunrise, so this task must completed by then." He dropped a leather pouch into my hands and waited while I removed a thin silver chain.

"I have no need of treasure, Sir," I said.

"And I give you none. My kind is powerless against even the thinnest length of silver. You will secure me here with this chain so that I may not flee. In the case that you do not return, I will remain bound to this spot and the rising sun will finish the job. If you do return, you will have the satisfaction of witnessing my fate in person."

I did as he bade, and was thoroughly successful in the venture, starting a second fire as the first smoldered. It quickly spread to the coal warehouse and generated enough heat to reduce the entire block to ash. The already exhausted firefighters were joined by every engine that could reach the blaze, along with every policeman and able bodied man who could volunteer.

While the city fought for her life and the vampires were obliterated, I returned to the Tower Bridge construction site and found the last vampire awaiting my arrival. We talked until the sun's early light painted the Eastern sky. I admitted to him that I dallied on Buck Lane before going to the lair, and that I had elected to try his method of protection, much to the chagrin of Polly the prostitute who gave her blood to my cause. This angered him, but I thought a hint of hunger also betrayed itself in his face as I spoke.

My driver arrived before the sun, and against the vampire's wishes, we loaded him into my Brougham and delivered him in safety to the country estate I had leased. My appetite for blood had been whetted, and I was not yet ready to dispense with my new companion. Instead, I deposited him in the swift stream that crossed the boundary of the estate. Bound by silver and wrapped in canvas, he passed his hours and days and months drowning instead of doing as I asked and turning me into a vampire. Such was his dedication to protecting his people from the likes of himself that he endured continual suffocation without the release of death.

I couldn't wait for him to acquiesce, however, and by the time he finally agreed to my terms, my victims numbered nearly a dozen. Five of them became quite famous. I even earned a nickname that spread across the newspapers, and in time, across the world.

After he turned me, I left him to suffer in the waters of that stream for months. He had gone quite mad by then, but when I finally decided to end his tortuous existence, I found him missing. Perhaps he simply washed downstream. Perhaps an animal extracted him from the water, thinking to find a meal. A hundred and forty years have passed since that late August day in 1888, and I have never learned of his fate. I hope I never do.