Drawing closer to the mortal aroma, Benedikte’s own skin absorbed the prey’s heartbeat, just as it did every time the vampire lurked near this man. Once again stunned by the awakened sensation—none of his food allowed him such a pleasure as this—he halted, clutching his belly. This echo of what Benedikte remembered to be life wrenched his stomach into painful knots of estrangement.
It had been so long…. How many years had passed since he had taken the blood oath? More than two centuries now? And how long since he had abandoned Tereza for these exquisite compulsions that had changed him from the rough, yet moral and Godly husband he had once been, to this: a lost creature who wandered the earth, glutting on blood and sin while searching for a way to alter the pattern of his nights, to feel alive once more?
And how long since Tereza had passed out of this world to leave him behind, never to allow him the opportunity to finally conquer his shame at his new appetites, to leave the shadows outside their home and approach her, to invite her to exchange with him and ease his sorrows?
Benedikte leaned against the bole of a tree, adapting to the wonderful shock of connecting with this human. Over the gloom, a wolf keened while moonlight drifted down through the branches, blading the ground with faint light.
Slowly, the pulse of the mortal insinuated itself into Benedikte’s very veins. He followed the call of it, the thud enrapturing him, guiding him to a clearing in which a man sitting on a log held his hands out to a fire.
The light hushed over the brown hair flowing just past his shoulders. His bearing was that of perhaps a Magyar, one of many Hungarian conquerors who had stolen this land and called it their own. Yet the human wore clothing that contradicted this assumption of superiority: a longer coat hewn of coarse fabric, perhaps a Moldavian weave; breeches; low-heeled, practical shoes.
Though the fire’s flames repulsed the vampire, this male still drew him.
Benedikte had first discovered him entertaining a small crowd on the outskirts of Cluj, where he had been made to flee when an old woman cried out in fear at the sight of the fire he had conjured from air.
“Sorcerer!” she had branded him while men chased him and his baskets of tricks into a copse of trees.
A magician. A being who proved that what the eye saw was not always what existed in reality.
Benedikte, who had served as an audience for a collection of performers during his wanderings, was enthralled by this man’s kind. How this variety of person lived another identity onstage or how they fooled the eye with costumed playacting enchanted him. In truth, the vampire craved the same magical escape from himself, some nights.
All nights.
After this sorcerer had been driven from Cluj and before certain attack from the community could follow, Benedikte had stalked the male: through the woods where he had sheltered himself to avoid detection, on the fringes of towns where he earned his meals. All the while, the vampire had remained spellbound by what the human had done with the fire—controlling it. The audiences had been utterly transfixed, and Benedikte so wished to hold that same power in his own hands. Perhaps he could absorb this sorcerer’s secrets, just as he had taken in centuries’ worth of education during his wanderings.
In the dark of shadow, Benedikte carefully breathed, softly and undetectably, as he watched the human. More than anything, he wished to find another being who would not turn away from him once they discovered what magic he held, as well. Long ago, his brothers had all scattered to the winds, pursuing their own lusts, though their blood vow assured they would come together if their maker ever summoned them.
Now, while the fire sparked, the sorcerer stiffened, as if sensing Benedikte. Quickly, he turned about to discover the vampire waiting under the black of the branches. On the human’s lap, a cat arched to a feral stand, hissing, baring its teeth.
With one hand, the man reached into his far coat pocket. With the other, he lay a vigilant palm upon the feline, restraining the animal while awaiting Benedikte’s reason for approaching.
“Good evening,” the vampire said in his mother tongue. He had learned many languages during his travels, but these were the words that would always come first to him. “I am sorry to intrude, but I was seeking light in this darkness. I mean you no harm.”
Stepping into the glow, Benedikte compelled the human to accept him.
The sorcerer narrowed his eyes, his clear gaze taking in this stranger’s refusal to don a periwig as fashion dictated. Scanning the rest of Benedikte, the man assessed the vampire’s simple justau-corps, which covered a linen waistcoat, and the cravat he favored, all of which spoke of modest means and a genuine apathy for the style of the day.
“Do you hail from a nearby village?” the sorcerer asked, his tone uneasy, though it did not cover an accent tinged with educated refinement.
“I am not from any village.”