The Blood That Bonds

Chapter 3

The Priest, the Seamstress, the Student





The Mansion. November.





Her half-vampire nature was affecting the withdrawal. The symptoms had persisted for several weeks before finally ceasing. Two had been forced to endure them, as she and Theroen realized feeding from him delayed her recovery. This was not made any easier by the hunger. Even if Two had been able to stand up to the heroin, she could not go for more than a day or two without feeding.

She found it frustrating. Theroen was more patient.

“A few weeks, Two, that is all. You are fighting it well. The symptoms are lessening. Soon you will be free of this entirely.”

Two knew this was true. Yes, she was fighting hard against the withdrawal, spending much of her time in bed with Theroen at her side. Yes, the symptoms were lessening. Yes, she would soon be free of it. It didn’t dampen her anger, her sense that it was profoundly unfair that she should have to go through this at all.

After a few weeks, Two had grown curious as to why her transformation was not progressing. She drank from Theroen routinely. Shouldn’t she be a full vampire by now? She had asked Theroen one night after drinking, sitting with him in a small parlor on the western edge of the mansion’s first floor. The room was dimly lit, the walls lined with leather-bound books, furnished with couches of crushed red velvet and dark mahogany. Theroen had explained that he considered the room ‘his’ and had cleared most of Abraham’s clutter from it long ago.

“No. Right now, I am only replacing the blood your body uses to power itself. Think of it like trying to gain weight. If you burn every calorie you take in, there is no change. When you take in my blood, your body converts it to a compatible form with its own. Right now, your blood is not complete.

“When I finish you, I will drain you as far as you can go, nearly to death. Then you will drink from me. Your body will be so desperate for the blood that it will absorb it without conversion. You will effectively replace your blood with mine. Over time, and with repeated feedings, that blood will work within you, changing you. Some of the effects will be immediate, but most will only be a shadow of the abilities you will one day possess.”

Two raised her eyebrows. “Repeated feedings?”

“Our strain of vampire is very powerful. The ruling class, effectively. But the nature of the blood differs from the other strains. Our fledglings must drink, periodically, from their masters, or risk reversion.”

“I can be human again?”

“You can.”

Two contemplated this.

“You’ll need to explain this all to me some day, Theroen. How vampire bodies work.”

“What I know, I will tell you. Unfortunately, Abraham has limited my access to writings on the subject, so there may be questions I cannot answer. I will try my best, though, and there will be many years in which we can learn, after you are complete.”

If I let you complete me, Two thought, but she found that this carried little weight. The idea that she could return to humanity was intellectually interesting, but she no longer held the belief that vampires were monsters. Not all of them, at any rate. She was no longer terrified by the prospect of becoming one.

If Theroen heard any of these thoughts, he gave no indication.

Two was not prepared for a lecture on vampire physiology at the moment. She was still too warm and content from the blood. It would put her to sleep. She changed the subject.

“Where is Melissa?”

She had seen the perky young vampire here and there throughout the past few weeks. Melissa would stop by periodically to say hello, although she seemed to have knack for catching Two at a bad time, and her visits were usually restricted to a greeting, a short expression of sympathy, perhaps a few questions. After “let me know if there’s anything I can do for you” (which Two believed to be genuine sentiment), Melissa would leave to hunt. For the past few days, though, she had been simply gone.

“Melissa stays in the city sometimes, if she’s in the mood. She will return eventually.”

“Ah.” Two lounged on her couch, happy to be where she was. Thoughts of drugs and needles, pimps and hookers were far from her mind. That life was gone. Dead. The last remnants of it had largely left her this week, with the end of the withdrawal. Her mind instead looked toward the future: a life of luxury and power. It seemed miraculous how quickly her life had changed.

Change: Two was wearing a pink dress and a diamond necklace that must have cost more than she had earned in her entire life. She had not put on a pair of jeans since her bath with Melissa, only a series of gowns and robes. Theroen had not forced these things on her. Two had chosen them. She enjoyed it, this expression of femininity, so rare in her previous life. She knew it wouldn’t last. She liked wearing jeans and a t-shirt, liked pulling her hair back into a ponytail and forgetting about it. But for now, she was content with the dresses.

Theroen rarely left her side. When he left, usually to feed, he was rarely gone for more than an hour, and he spent most of his time doing his best to make her comfortable. The withdrawal, it seemed, sometimes pained him more than it did her. His sorrow at seeing her suffer filled Two with an odd happiness. It proved that he cared.

“Is there anything specific you would like to know, Two?”

Two considered this question. For days now, she and Theroen had hardly uttered a word to each other. There had been little need. He could read her mind. His expressions, his touches, these were enough for Two. They had forever for talking, and in the time before forever she wished only to enjoy his presence.

Now, though, she was curious. “There’s a lot I’d like to know, Theroen. Where should I start?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“How very Zen.”

Theroen smiled, nodded, continued to look at Two in his direct manner. From anyone else, this would have set her slightly on edge. With Theroen it was simply natural.

“Who are you?” Two asked, smiling slightly.

Theroen nodded, as if he approved of the question.

“I am Theroen Anders. I was born in Norway, in the late 16th century. My family immigrated to Great Britain while I was still very young. It was there I met Abraham, there I felt the temptation of immortal life and succumbed to it. I haunted London like a bloodthirsty ghoul for more than a hundred years. The new world called, we answered, and have been here since.”

He raised his eyebrows, as if questioning whether this would suffice. Two smiled, shook her head.

“No, Theroen. Who are you?”

He grinned, expecting this.

“You’d have me condense four hundred years into an evening?”

“Four hundred years are four hundred years. A story’s a story, Theroen. It will take as long as it has to.”

Theroen looked into her eyes, and Two felt herself swimming suddenly. She gasped.

“Don’t fight.” Theroen’s voice, next to her yet distant. “Don’t fight, Two.”

Two breathed deeply. Stopped fighting. Floated. Descended.





* * *





His belief in God was unshakeable, impossible to destroy. It was the glowing light that directed his every action, his every thought.

Theroen had been a priest for less than half a decade, and he still loved God in the pure, glorious, righteous way reserved even in the clergy only for the very young. His black robes were only clothes; his faith was his armor, and Theroen cut through the sea of unbelievers around him without a fear in the world.

Two resisted this vision, incredulous. Theroen, a priest? It was impossible, this being who seemed so utterly comfortable with his vampire nature. Theroen reminded her again not to fight the trance. Sit, watch, understand.

His parents. Mother, hair blonde, eyes blue, tall and broad through the shoulders. Lithe but full at the bust and hips, she was a picture of beauty standing at the window in Theroen’s tiny room, singing lullabies, whispering softly to her young child where they might someday go, what they might someday see.

Father, dark in hair, dark in eyes, like Theroen himself. Grecian in ancestry, but without the wiry curls, which had been ironed from his head by the passing of generations.

Theroen, child of no more than a year, black hair, brown eyes, his mother’s pale skin, the face a combination of features that would someday serve to make him a handsome young man. His face would make women shake their heads behind his back. A priest? Looking like that? A waste.

Theroen did not know if his memories of this time were accurate, or fabricated from stories and assumptions. He believed them to be honest recollection, but would never truly know. In these memories, mother and father fight sometimes. Living is difficult. The house is small, drafty, uncomfortable. The theatre has not called in weeks. They have no roles.

In London, though, there is work. Father makes trips there, auditions repeatedly, desperate, despairing. The alcohol is beginning to take hold of him even now.

He is granted reprieve when the notice finally arrives. An actor is needed. He has been called. At three years of age, Theroen said goodbye to the land of his birth, a land he would never see again.

Never? Two asked, pulling back from the vision momentarily, never in so many years?

Never has there been time, nor any great desire, Theroen answered.

It was a happy childhood. London before the industrial revolution, a thriving metropolis, dirty to be certain but still possessed of a remarkable charm Two could find no words to describe. Theroen, age nine, running through the streets ahead of his mother and father. Running to see the players in the square, the Italian entertainers with their puppets and music and dancing. Laughing and running, never seeing the horse bearing down on him, its rider as distracted by the sights and sounds as Theroen himself.

The horse tried to clear him, but failed. Theroen remembered the sharp crack of its hoof against his forehead, the blooming brightness in front of his vision. He remembered the second hit, coming as the back of his head connected with the cobblestones. The force of the impact was tremendous. He imagined that everyone in the world must have heard the sound of it.

All of this was clear in his mind, but Theroen remembered no pain. Only the flat, hard cracking sound and then rolling, horrified faces rushing toward him, the world graying, fading. His mother, tears pouring from her eyes, pulling at her own hair as if somehow in injuring herself she might heal her son. It’s all right, mamma, he wanted to say. It doesn’t hurt.

Darkness, then. The clip-clop noise of horse hooves, but this time he moved along with them. There were rushed, babbling voices, more weeping, a rough hand holding his.

Even Theroen could not entirely piece together the events that followed. Vast blank spaces lay in his memory, interrupted by photo-flashes of consciousness. A bed somewhere, his father sitting in a chair, looking out into cold London rain and weeping without realizing it. Rough shadow of a beard, unkempt hair. Staring and weeping. It was the most frightening vision Theroen could recall, worse even than when the bottle finally took hold of the man for good. Theroen had never seen the man looking so forlorn, would never see him so again.

Another period of blankness, and then his mother, leaning over him, wiping his forehead with a damp cloth. She was singing to him, those old lullabies. He’d asked for the songs to stop some years ago, a young man in a child’s body, no longer needing the comfort they brought. But now? Oh, now they were comfort eternal. He was so frightened. These periods of blankness terrified him. There was nothing, except the knowledge of nothing, and he thought for the first time in his mortal life that he might be coming to understand what death was.

Ah, if he could have cried out, he would have wailed. Little heart racing at the thought that there was nothing more, that there was no heaven, no God waiting for him at the gates, ready to embrace him and comfort him and help him to understand what it all meant, this mortal life.

More grey. Then the vision.

A doctor, a nurse, and his mother. She was arguing, fighting, weeping again. The doctor looked sympathetic, but firm.

“There is nothing we can do. We have bled him, tried every potent tonic known to raise one from unconsciousness. There is nothing we can do. He will drink broth, if we pour it down his throat, but he does not awaken. There is nothing we can do.” Over and over. A litany, a chant, a curse.

Behind them, like the coming of the dawn, a light was growing, so bright it burned his eyes. How could they not notice this? How could the go on squabbling with each other when faced with such a thing?

Through their arguing, he heard the sound, building and building. A rushing, driving sound that seemed to swell until it was near unbearable, as if all of the voices in the world whispered at once. The light throbbed and pulsed. Theroen wept. Fear, awe, confusion. Was this death, then? Perhaps his acceptance into heaven after his stay in grey purgatory?

Is that what you wish, then? It was all voices, no voices, a whisper on the wind, a chorus of screams. Theroen’s temples throbbed with it.

He tried to shake his head. No. No, this was not what he wanted. Death? He was nine years old. There was still so much to do, to explore, to see, to know.

You would live?

Thereon found he could answer the voice, could have spoken to it all along.

Yes. I would live. Until I am dragged, kicking and screaming, to my death, I would live.

So be it. Speak, Theroen. Call to them.

I cannot.

But he could, and did, opening his mouth, stretching his throat, peering desperate from his bed as the light and the noise receded.

“Mother …”

The word cut across the room, stopping his mother mid-sentence. She turned, the doctor and nurse staring with frank disbelief. There were tears again, now, welling in his mother’s eyes, but not those of anger and frustration and sorrow shed just moments ago. Theroen sat up, blinked, tried his voice again. He looked his mother in her eyes, took in her joyful weeping with that same calm that would be with him for all his life. He spoke from his bed, spoke for the first time since the horse had hit him, spoke for the first time since he had descended into the depths of coma, five months before.

“Mother, I wish to go to church.”





* * *





“From that day forward, there was no question in my mind what I was meant to do. I was meant to live, yes, but more than that; I was meant to communicate what I had seen to others. I had been sent a vision from God. A reprieve from death. You ask how I could be a priest? I ask you … how could I not?”

Two looked at him, somewhat astounded. A vision from God? She knew how it would be considered in this modern era: a vision from the subconscious. Nothing more.

Thereon grinned, picking this thought from her mind as he so frequently did.

“Is there any real difference? I woke. I moved. I spoke. Are these things not miraculous?” He paused, looked out the window, seemed to ponder for a moment. He looked back at Two and shrugged.

“People do not survive comas of that duration unfazed. There is brain damage, if not death. Yet I was fine. More than fine; I awoke with the clearest sense of purpose I was ever to feel, until the moment I first laid eyes on you. Ten years old, I began my studies. Three years younger than any before accepted to the clergy. Such was my fervor, so substantial my knowledge of the Bible within only a few months from when I awakened, that there was no reason to deny me.”

“And oh, how my father despised it …” The words trailed off, a bitter smile at his lips.

Two was about to speak when the howling began. She jerked around instinctively, knocking a pretty crystal ballerina off the table by her couch. It thumped into the plush oriental carpet, unhurt. Two stared out the window. In the reflection of the lamplight she saw Theroen shake his head. He reached down to pick up the figurine, studied it for a moment, set it back on the table. More howling, and Theroen looked toward the window again, his eyes full of remorse and pity.

“What is it, Theroen? I’ve heard it before.”

“I am Abraham’s son. Melissa his daughter. That? That is nothing more than a diabolical experiment. Daughter? How could she be? To say so denotes some sort of humanity, and all of that has been lost.”

Two looked at him, confused. “There’s another vampire?”

“There are many others. Of Abraham’s line, though, there is only one more to tell of. One more you have not met. An attempt that should never have occurred. His arrogance …” Theroen trailed off. Two had rarely seen him truly angry, but he appeared so now. He shook his head again.

“Her name was Tori. She seems still to respond to that, so that is what we call her. Aside from the shape of her body, this is the last piece of humanity she retains. I do not know why Abraham chose to make her. After Melissa … how he could possibly have expected a normal fledgling, I do not know. I don’t think he really did. I think he simply wanted to know what would happen.

“I took the girl from her school. I brought her to him. I did not ask any questions of Abraham, and am not sure I would have even if I had known what he planned. Not then. Now? Who knows?

“His blood is too powerful. The curse of our line … We make few fledglings, and have a limited window in which to do it. Abraham was nearly too old when he made me. Yet even after Melissa, he gave his blood to this girl. He gave it to her very quickly, nearly drowned her in it, and it destroyed her mind. She is, in some respects, the perfect vampire. Alert, aware, incredibly fast, stronger even than Melissa, who is many years her senior.”

Theroen glanced again out the window, then back at Two, smiling without humor. “Tori can be counted on for three things. She loves to hunt, she loves to kill, and she loves to – as mortals so callously put it – f*ck. It is appropriate terminology. There is no love involved for her.”

“Another vampire with an active sex life …” Two raised an eyebrow.

“It’s an uncommon strain, even among our type, but it seems to have lain dormant in Abraham. He himself is incapable of that mortal act of love. Yet his children, all three of us, are very much alive below the waist. These pleasures pale, of course, to that of feeding, but when mixed together appropriately …” and here he glanced at Two, “they can be quite pleasurable indeed.”

“Will I get to meet Tori?”

Theroen grimaced. “Yes. At some point, I suppose, it’s inevitable.”

Two was contemplating Theroen’s description of Tori, neither speaking, when she sensed a third presence in the room. She looked up at Theroen, who closed his eyes and sighed. His expression was grim.

At the door stood Melissa, and yet not Melissa. She looked different, somehow. It wasn’t the style of clothes, or the hairstyle. These remained the same. The set of the body, perhaps? There was darkness behind her eyes.

“Hello Missy,” Theroen said without opening his eyes.

“Theroen. Come hunting with me?”

“I’ve already gone.”

“Would it have mattered?”

Theroen shook his head. “No.”

“You never hunt with me.” Missy’s tone was dry, emotionless. She was only stating a fact.

Theroen glanced up at her. “I never do.”

“But you’ll hunt with that perky, jabbering bitch, when she’s got control of my body.”

Theroen nodded.

“And you’ll hunt with this … half-mortal … thing. Someday.”

“Enough, Missy. Watch your tongue.”

“Or what? You’ll hurt me? I’ll let her back in while you’re doing it, Theroen. She won’t understand. She’ll cry.”

Two watched all of this, fascinated and amazed by the change in the vampire girl. Even the tone of Melissa’s voice was different. The vampire turned to her suddenly.

“Quit staring at me, or I’ll rip your eyes out with my teeth,” The words were almost casual. Two looked down at the floor, her pale face coloring slightly. She was not afraid, exactly, but aware that vampire society seemed hierarchal, and not wanting to break any codes of conduct. She assumed it was the right thing to do.

The air in the room seemed to go cold. Theroen’s anger was palpable. He stood slowly, and Missy immediately moved backward a step, glaring, defiant.

“I would no sooner do physical violence to you, Missy, than I would to Melissa. Or Tori. Or Two. I do not enjoy causing harm to others of my own kind. To anyone. But you will not threaten her, at all, let alone in my presence.”

“Who are you to command me, brother?”

“I am not your brother, Missy. You are an aberration. A mistake. A product of powerful blood on an unsuspecting brain. That body belongs to Melissa. You are merely a parasite that refuses to die.”

Missy made a snarling cry of outrage and threw herself at Theroen. Two leapt off of her couch, pushing herself into the corner. She didn’t want to be watching this. Surely blood would be spilled.

Yet Theroen merely caught Missy’s arms, dragged them to her sides, pulled her face up to his, locked her with his eyes.

“Does that hurt, Missy? Do I even need to lay a finger on you, when the truth will do so well?” Theroen’s voice was still calm, still collected. He seemed almost disinterested.

Missy had no answer to his question. Theroen let her go, and she slunk back to the doorway.

“Go. Hunt.” Theroen’s tone implied that the dismissal was beyond argument.

Missy opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, whirled on her heel, and departed.

Theroen took a deep breath. “And now you’ve met Missy. What do you think?”

Two shrugged. She returned to her couch, sat down, smiled slightly. “I think she’s a bitch.”

Theroen laughed. “Yes, a bitch. That’s exactly what she is. Such a shame. Melissa could have been an incredible vampire. I’ve never met another whose essential goodness was so utterly untouched by the transformation. In my darker moments, I almost believe Abraham made her solely to attempt to destroy some of that goodness.”

“She doesn’t seem like his type. Neither of them do, really. I’m not sure anyone is.” It still seemed foreign to Two, speaking of “them” when referring to a single body, but she had seen more than enough proof of Melissa’s dual personalities.

“No, no one truly is, but Missy is certainly much closer than Melissa. I can’t claim to fathom Abraham, and I’ve served him for nearly half a century. No, Melissa is not what I would have expected from Abraham. Perhaps he saw in her the potential of Missy, and expected the change to bring it out completely. Perhaps it would have, if his blood was not so strong.”

Howling again. Two looked out the window into the night.

“I think I want to meet Tori,” she said. “It’s weird, knowing she’s out there but never seeing her.”

Theroen smiled at this, shook his head. “No you don’t.”

Two raised her eyebrows, leaned forward, set her elbows on her knees – giving Theroen as ample a view as her chest could provide in the process – and smiled, batting her eyelashes.

“You’re not going to let me?”

“No, and if you insist on trying anyway, I will have to stop you.”

Two considered this. It was unlike Theroen to deny her a requested indulgence.

“Why?”

“Tori is not friendly.” No elaboration. No change in Theroen’s expression that might have helped to explain his unwillingness to expose Two to this woman. Two pressed on.

“I know what she’s like. I told you about the dream. I can handle it.”

“That was not a dream, Two. Tori throws off mental images like sparks from a fire. That was very much a real event that you witnessed that night, and I can assure you she’s even less pleasant in person.”

“I can handle it!”

Theroen sighed. “It’s not your ability to handle it that I’m concerned with. It’s my ability to handle Tori. She doesn’t like vampires, other than Melissa … or Missy, she doesn’t seem to know the difference. She tolerates me only because it is clear that Melissa likes me. She will not set foot near Abraham, although he is the only thing I am currently aware of that she fears.”

“So, she may not like me.” Two was unfazed. She had dealt with women who didn’t like her before, had knocked out teeth when necessary.

“You do not understand, Two. Tori is a machine; an engine of destruction. She is built to kill, and she is remarkably capable. If she decides not to tolerate you, she will attempt to kill you. Previous experience has taught me, quite harshly, that even I am not necessarily fast enough to prevent her from doing so. Abraham’s visitors were … quite upset.”

Theroen pressed his palms against his eyes momentarily, sighed, shrugged. The gesture was oddly human, oddly endearing. Two smiled.

“Okay, Theroen.”

“Someday soon, Two. I promise. But not out in the woods and not unless she’s fed. I want her to see you through a window first or, better, a set of bars, before you come face to face.”

“Would you cage her?”

Theroen laughed. “I don’t know if I would. I doubt that I could. Trying to force an ordinary vampire into a cage is hard enough. Tori …” He shrugged, letting the thought carry.

Two got up, walked to the couch he sat on, and reclined against him. He traced the pink silk of her gown from shoulder to neck with a finger, placed his hand under her chin, and brought her lips to his for a small kiss.

Two sighed. “I feel so … girly around you,” she said at last, laughing at herself. Theroen grinned, said nothing, traced the contour of her breast with his fingertips. He was not looking at her, but rather at her reflection in the window, blurred and indistinct. She watched him watching her, and considered the life they might lead together.

I’m ready, she thought.

Two took a deep breath, asked what she wanted to ask. “Finish me?” The words seemed to hang in the air for a moment before sinking, given weight by their implication.

“I would not have offered you a choice,” Theroen said after a moment, “had I been able to do so on the first night. I was … rather arrogant, really, in my desire. Now? Two, you must mean it with all of your heart and soul.”

How can I ever be sure? Two thought to herself. How could anyone ever be sure?

But what was it that she was leaving behind? Drugs and prostitution, beatings, the constant humiliation heaped upon her by her desperate life. Even if she was free of the drug, now, what else did she have to go back to? There was no home, no money, no support save that which Rhes and Sarah might offer out of pity. Did she want to return to a life of picking pockets, shoplifting, breaking into cars? Theroen was offering her escape.

She was not tempted by the money, the clothes, the fast cars, the expensive furniture. These things mattered little to Two. Here though was a chance for love and redemption. Everything she could possibly desire was here in this mansion, on this couch. The blood was here, and if it held power over her now, half-complete and unable truly to taste it as a vampire might, then what might it be like once the transformation was complete?

“Love and lust, passion, need … it is all things, Two. Yet it is nothing more than another drug in the end. It is not the blood you need to accept. The blood pushes itself upon you regardless, and you will do whatever is necessary to acquire it.

“You ask me to make you a destructive force. A tornado. A fire. A flood. A thing beyond the scope of mortal comprehension, who kills at her whim, because it is her nature to do so.”

Still quiet, but wasn’t she now simply giving Theroen the chance to say his piece? She could feel the desire growing within her. The taste of what he offered: the blood, the escape, the strength to put her past behind her, the possibility of all this and more was intoxicating. Theroen’s words of caution seemed weak by comparison.

“You will have to kill,” Theroen said. “Oh, Two, you’d be such a vampire. Lover, fighter, mother, killer. It’s all in you. I sense it. Yet I can no longer blindly force you down this path. You must lead yourself. You …”

Two put her fingers on his mouth, turned her head, locked her eyes with his.

“Theroen. Finish me.”

He paused a moment longer, looking into her eyes as if searching for some fear she might be hiding. Two knew that all he would find there was truth. Indeed, Theroen smiled at her, and nodded.

Strong arms, lifting her, carrying her toward the bedroom. Her arms were around his neck. In this short moment, Two bid her mortal life farewell. Pain, anguish, hatred and despair; these were the hallmarks of this life, a dark void lit only by the occasional candle of friendship, an almost nonexistent light. What chains bound her to these things? Two fled without moving, fled on Theroen’s feet, toward the bedroom and away from the darkness that had oppressed her since her first memory.





* * *





There was pain, but not like before. Theroen’s teeth pierced the flesh of her neck, but to Two it seemed minor. Far away. The pain was a vehicle to an end result that she truly craved.

“Ah …” the slightest sound as she felt her blood begin to flow. No pulsing climax this time, only a bittersweet ache of desire. This act was no culmination of lust, but rather a final act of love. Two sighed, feeling tension leave her. The draining sensation increased, seemed to swallow her. The thudding of her heart, the deep rush of her breath, these things soon brought her to a state of near hypnosis. Theroen held her gently in her swoon, drinking, his lips against her neck, judging her pulse. Waiting. At last pulling away.

Two looked up, eyes half-lidded. Breathing seemed difficult, but the sensation was so far removed she could not be sure. The world was grey and dim. Theroen’s eyes alone seemed to shine out at her. She heard herself say something, the words lost instantly. She would have to remember to ask Theroen later what it was, what she’d said.

Is this death? She had time to think. This apathy, this dimness? Her heart pumped in her chest for what felt like the first time in minutes. Weak. Two could not keep her eyes open.

A voice, whispering. Drink. Drink. And there was pressure at her lips, and warmth, and a deep rushing sound which seemed to swell in her ears until it vibrated through her entire body.

Theroen felt Two’s arms tighten around him and breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment he had been in mortal terror that he’d killed her before she had a chance to drink. Her words to him had shaken him quite badly, more so for the fact that she clearly had not heard them herself.

He’d made the cut at his throat immediately following her declaration, and pressed her lips to it, imploring her to drink. He felt now the force of those lips, burning like heated iron, felt the draining of blood, enough now that her change was assured. He was dizzy. Trace amounts of the drug must still have remained in her. It was no worse than dining on a young woman filled with red wine, or warm brandy, though, and he had done both.

Melissa’s voice at the door. A gasp of surprise.

“Oh!”

Theroen gestured to the chair beside the bed, careful not to disturb Two, now locked so tightly to his neck that he would have to pry her off. She was gasping for breath here and there, whimpering slightly, still lost in swoon. Her thirst would be far greater than ever before. It would take time to satiate her. He heard Melissa sit down, felt her take his hand and press it to her cheek.

“I’m so happy for you, Theroen.” He felt her muscles stretch as she smiled.

But he could feel tears there, too.





* * *





Darkness, my love. All I see for us is darkness.

Two’s voice, Lisette’s words. Had she not whispered this exact prophecy more than three hundred years ago, tears coursing down her cheeks, reflecting the moonlight like rivers of silver? Bare skin, sharp fangs, joined at the waist, joined at the neck. Dull throbbing, dull roaring, the blood, the skin, the tears, and then that whisper.

And all that had followed.

Tears at his fingertips. Melissa weeping, he knew, for the beginning of the end. Theroen had betrayed her at last, as they both had known he would someday do. How was she to live as Abraham’s servant? What was left for her now that Theroen had Two? Only Tori, and the darkness at the end of the hall; madness on either side greater even than her own.

Tears at his throat. Two’s? Lisette’s? Theroen drifted between New York of the 21st century, and London of the 17th, and heard again those words. Darkness. Darkness.

Who better to speak of darkness than those forsaken by the sun? Who better to voice those words than a vampire?

“I would make her my bride.”

“You will do no such thing.”

“You cannot hold me forever, father.”

Theroen felt himself reaching the limit of his strength. Two had drained him as much as he dared allow. He unwound her arms from his neck, pushed her lips from his wound, pushed her words from his mind.





* * *





Consciousness came to Two like layers of red gauze being lifted from her eyes.

She could feel Theroen’s arms around her, holding her safe, as the blood rushed and roared. It burned her veins, as her empty body sought to replenish itself, but the hurt was far away. Unimportant.

She spoke his name, forced her eyes to focus, looked around. Melissa, too, was here now. Not Missy. Two could tell solely from the expression on the face. Melancholy, and yet filled with happiness. Tear tracks were drying on her cheeks. Missy could not have looked like that if her life had depended on it. Two coughed. “I’m thirsty, Theroen.”

Melissa laughed at this. Two felt Theroen take a deep breath.

Two put her arms behind her, took her weight away from Theroen, and glanced around. The light, previously dim, now seemed much brighter. It was not overwhelming, but the change was drastic. Melissa stood in a corner now, smiling in a way that said she knew precisely what Two was experiencing. Two flexed the muscles of her arms. Theroen watched her, his uncanny calm returning once again to mask whatever he might be feeling.

“How do you feel?” Melissa asked. Her grin said she knew.

“Thirsty. Hungry. Strong.”

A pretty laugh, and Melissa glanced at Theroen. “I think the young lady’s in need of a drive, Theroen. Time to show her what she really is.”

Theroen stirred as if waking from deep contemplation. He turned to Melissa. “And what are we, really, sister?”

Melissa’s smile didn’t waver, nor did it turn bitter or cynical. She raised her eyebrows a bit, eyes gleaming. “I believe we are predators, brother.”

“Ah. Yes. That we are. Do you understand this, Two?”

Two considered. “Does it matter who I drink from?”

“Not so long as their blood is untainted.”

“Or relatively so,” Melissa chimed in. Theroen sighed, and her smile widened momentarily. Two looked out the window, thinking. One name came immediately to mind.

“Not tonight.” Theroen’s voice was flat. Two turned to him.

“Why not?”

“He’ll wait. There will be time to avenge the wrongs of your past, Two. Tonight is about your future.”

“Who would you have me kill then, Theroen?”

“There are twelve million people sleeping in that city, Two, and several hundred thousand between us and them. Pick one.”

Two mused, looking frustrated. Melissa watched, obviously confused, but not yet ready to interrupt with questions.

“You confuse the mortal desire for revenge with some sort of higher purpose, Two. You will have it, but not tonight.” Theroen’s voice carried no judgment. He was simply stating the facts.

Two looked over at him, swallowed, closed her eyes momentarily. This was not what she had expected, exactly. Theroen’s calm description of vampirism had seemed so clear, so easy to accept. She had expected to come through to the other side believing in it as thoroughly as she had when she asked him to finish her. She had not expected this nervousness, this concern.

“How do you mentally prepare yourself to kill someone?” Two’s voice was plaintive. “I thought that … when I was finished, that I’d just want it. That I wouldn’t care.”

Theroen shook his head. “No, not at first anyway. Eventually you will come to understand, or to rationalize … it depends to whom you talk. At first it will likely be hard for you. I do not think, though, that your current thirst will let you wait, and that is perhaps for the best.”

A moment passed. Two sighed. He was right.

“There was a town, in a little valley, surrounded by trees. I saw it on the night when this all started. You took me there.”

Theroen nodded.

“There, then. If we’re ending what was started that night, we might as well do it there.”

Theroen stood and grinned. It was like sun breaking through on a grey morning. “A good idea. We shall go there. As beautiful as you look in that gown though, Two, I think you may find your old dressing habits more suitable to this line of activity. I will meet you in the garage.”

He departed. Melissa remained.

“Who did you want to start with, Two? Who were you talking about?”

“Someone I should probably just forget.” Two opened the closet and peered at the clothes within. “Someone who maybe deserves worse than even I can give him.”

Melissa raised her eyebrows, then shrugged. If Two didn’t want to talk about it, that was okay. She turned to leave.

“Will I see you there, Melissa?” Two did not turn to look, but her voice betrayed more nerves, more fear, than perhaps she had intended.

“Do you want me there, Two?”

“I’m going to cry, when … I hate crying. Theroen’s been doing this for so long, I don’t know if he understands anymore. He’s …”

“He’s above it all.” Melissa understood. Two could hear it in her voice.

“Are you?”

“Nearly so, but I still remember. Two, I’ll be there if you want me to be there.”

“Theroen’s car won’t fit us.”

Melissa smiled. “I have cars of my own. A pretty little turquoise BMW, for one. I know where you’re going.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Is it hard for you to ask, Two?”

Two nodded.

“Then I’ll ask. May I come with you, Two? I’d like to be there, but I thought you might want only Theroen.”

Two turned to her, smiled, clearly fighting against tears. “Yes. Thanks. I’m scared, Melissa.”

“It will be beautiful, Two. You’ll understand soon. I’ll see you in town.”

It was only after Melissa had departed that Two thought again of that look of melancholy, those tear tracks on her cheeks.





* * *





Theroen leaned against the edge of the Ferrari, staring out into the night beyond the light spilling from the mansion’s garage. On the perimeter of their land, a twelve-foot wrought-iron fence served to dissuade most random visitors. The persistent few found the yard patrolled, during daytime hours, by a pack of vicious Rottweilers, mammoth dogs with jaws capable of crushing human bones to powder. Those who chose to leap the fence at night rarely made it to the front door before Tori found them.

The mansion was not without human visitors, though. Abraham maintained contact with men in high places, mortal and immortal alike, though for those of the former type he disguised his own nature with both costumes and hypnosis.

There were the servants, as well – Men and women who arrived once or twice a week during daylight hours to clean the house and tend the grounds. The Rottweilers knew them, and allowed them entry. They were unaware of the nature of their employers, and knew only that some rooms were off limits, locked to them. They were paid very well for their discretion, and Theroen had never had any dealings with them that were not pleasant. He met with them periodically, during the early morning hours, fighting off the sleep and the pain of the sunlight, in order to read their minds and be certain of their loyalty.

Some vampires kept servants – slaves essentially – in thrall to them, bound by drops of blood and convinced that someday, if they behaved properly, they too could become vampires. Absurd, of course: the vampires of all but the Burilgi line were very picky in their choice of fledglings. Having become a servant to another creature in itself made these thralls the most unlikely choice for an heir.

“Hypocrite.” The tiniest whisper of his own voice, a bitter smile. Was he not a servant to Abraham? Had Two not been a servant to her pimp? Was she not, now, his own servant, dependent upon him for instruction and for blood?

This last he doubted, and this gave him satisfaction. Two had been the proper choice. She was with him out of desire, not desperation, and would remain so for as long as such desire continued. This might be a decade, might be a millennium. Regardless, it was more pure than the bond that held him to Abraham.

He believe that, with luck, it might last half a millennium or more. Long enough, perhaps, to finally bury Lisette.





* * *





The dresses had made Two aware of her own femininity. These clothes made her aware again of the raw physical appeal of her own body. Tight, slate colored jeans; a stretchy, white shirt showing off the slimmest crescent of her abdomen; a black leather jacket. She felt strong, comfortable, desirable. Theroen’s double-take as she entered the garage reinforced this.

“Be still my heart,” he said as she slipped into the leather interior of the Ferrari. Two smiled. He sat down beside her and started the car. “Is Melissa coming?”

Two nodded, then bit her lip. “I asked her to. Or she asked me, but I wanted … I’m scared, Theroen.”

“I understand. You need not fear, Two. We will be there to help you.”

Two’s newly enhanced senses were better able to cope with the speed of the Ferrari, but still the world was a blur. The car glided along the dark roads, top down, the sound of the wind like the crashing of a waterfall. Two’s hair streamed out behind her. She felt the big, stupid grin back on her face despite the evening’s forthcoming events, and was glad for it.

Behind them, now and then, there was a flash of lights. Melissa’s roadster could not hope to compete with Theroen’s, but it was by no means a slow car either, and she drove it with an abandon that concerned even Theroen. At one point he slowed somewhat, and she caught up with them immediately, pulling alongside, grinning wildly, barely watching the road. Theroen stomped on the gas pedal, flying ahead of her, and slowed again. Melissa pulled back to their side, middle finger extended, laughing.

His words, made audible by the force of his thought, cut through the wind. “Please do not feel we’re making light of this, Two. It is just that we are both excited nearly beyond containment. We cannot help being joyful. We know very well what you are soon to experience.”

Two, who felt that the closest Theroen might approach to “excitement beyond containment” was mild enthusiasm, remained skeptical. She was not offended, though. Quite the contrary, Theroen’s games with Melissa helped to ease her mood. These beings had been doing this thing for hundreds of years. If they could take it so lightly, perhaps their words about the effect of the blood were true.





* * *





They covered the fifty miles to the small town in less than half an hour, came to a stop in the parking lot of a small park just outside its boundaries, shut off their engines, got out of the cars. Melissa was giggling like a little girl, perched on the hood of her BMW, looking at the two of them.

“I love this century! We don’t do that nearly enough, Theroen.”

For his part, Theroen was smiling broadly. He nodded.

“I don’t know how the hell you guys do it.” Two was also smiling. She felt out of breath. “I couldn’t see a thing.”

“You will continue to change as the blood works on you body, Two. In a few decades, you may be able to drive like Melissa.”

“No one drives like me!” Melissa laughed, leapt to her feet, twirled circles on the road in the moonlight, staring upward at the stars.

“Well, perhaps not exactly like Melissa,” Theroen conceded.

“I’m thirsty. Who’s going first, here? Two? Theroen?”

“What about you, Melissa?” Two questioned.

“Nah. I’ll wait and go into Manhattan. I might take an appetizer up here, but what I really want is to find some cute little sixteen year old thing with big boobs and too much makeup. I’m going to get her all drunk and seduce her.” Melissa’s smile had a wicked edge to it. Two looked at her, eyebrows raised. Melissa laughed at the expression.

“What? All vampires have to be like mister ‘no, heterosexual food only, please’ over there? I’m equal opportunity, bed and blood. Whatever strikes my fancy.”

Theroen put a hand to his brow and shook his head, but Two could see humor warring with, and eventually winning out over, the look of disapproval he was attempting.

“I guess I’ll go first.” Two sighed. Theroen touched her cheek lightly, smiled, turned and began to walk down the road. Two and Melissa followed. They moved toward the town, and the unsuspecting humans who slept there.





* * *





“This reminds me of my first time,” said Melissa as they walked. “I mean, not with a guy but, you know, like drinking blood and everything. After Abraham made me, he sent me out with Theroen, and said he could teach me everything I needed to know.”

“I am more your patron, in most ways, than that ancient—” Theroen began. Melissa interrupted him.

“We know how you feel about Abraham, Theroen. Shut up and let me tell my story!”

Two laughed. The expression on Theroen’s face was typical of an older brother: exasperated, and yet she saw a great deal of love there as well.

“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, Theroen took me to the city, took me to a brownstone. Hmmm … maybe I should start at the beginning?”

“Will it lessen the deluge of words you no doubt have prepared, if you structure your thoughts first, I wonder?” Theroen’s voice was wistful as he looked up at the stars. Two laughed, then clapped a hand over her mouth, looking at Melissa with bright eyes.

“You’re no better than he is.” Melissa tossed her hair playfully. “Fine, fine. If you don’t want to hear my story, we’ll just walk in silence. Or maybe Theroen could think of something more structured. Accounting, or law, or something.”

“I want to hear the story, Melissa. Honestly.” Two tried to look apologetic, succeeded only in half-stifling another burst of laughter.

“I don’t know how Abraham found me. Neither does Theroen. Or if he does, he won’t tell me. I don’t know why he made me what I am. I was twenty-three, working in a garment shop, making clothes. I was a seamstress. It was eighteen-seventy-two, and they paid me two dollars a week. Can you believe that?”

“A week?”

“A week. I lived in that dirty, rat-infested pile of bricks in Brooklyn, and I worked for two dollars a week. My whole family worked there, except my father. He died when I was just a little girl.

“When I said I loved this century, I meant it. It’s so clean now! Even Manhattan. Even the dirty parts. The streets aren’t filled with mud and manure. I can drive my pretty little car wherever I want to go. I can buy perfume and beautiful clothes and, if I want, I can walk around in nothing but a bikini, and no one will even say anything. Girls do it in the summer all the time.”

Two found it fascinating, this new take on what seemed to be such mundane aspects of life. She realized that even given her love of art, she had remained wholly grounded in her 21st-century world. Melissa was not of this time, and her amazement at things Two had always taken for granted was refreshing.

“One evening as I left the building, there was Theroen, standing in front of me. He said that my presence was urgently requested by a great lord, and beckoned toward a carriage. Even then, he had a taste for fast vehicles. There were six huge horses tied to that carriage, each of them worth more than I would ever earn in my life. Big wheels with wooden padding on the axles to remove some of the shock.

“It still bounced and jostled something awful, but he drove it like a madman anyway. Oh, of course I went. There was no doubt that he did represent some wealthy lord. The carriage alone proved it. And when the rich beckoned, well … it was always wise to follow.

“I was totally unaware of what was going on right up until he put his fangs into me.”

She looked at Two and shook her head, her smile sad. “It was pretty disgusting, but it didn’t stop me from, you know … like right then and there.”

Two nodded, glanced up at Theroen, her face coloring slightly. Theroen seemed absorbed in contemplating the moon.

“He drained me all the way, and then gave me some of his blood. I didn’t wake up like you did, though. No, his blood was … it hurt me. Really badly, actually, even though he gave it in three or four doses. I remember I was screaming, and then it was dark, and then it was four days later, and I don’t remember any of them.”

Melissa’s voice, normally so happy, now trembled.

“I can’t even feel her!” She cried, then bit her lip in frustration. “I only know she’s there because Theroen tells me about her, and because sometimes I wake up and I know it’s been more than one day. I’ll wake up in new clothes. I’ll wake up and find horrible pictures spread out on the bed. She likes terrible things. Things with needles and knives and hooks. I’m only glad I can’t remember how she eats. I don’t want to know.”

“She is not a part of you, Melissa.” Theroen’s voice was soothing. He was still looking at the moon.

“Really, Theroen? She cut me, the other day. She cut me from the back of my wrist up to my shoulder, half an inch deep, and then … went back. Let me in. I woke up all of a sudden, standing outside in the woods, with my whole arm feeling like it was on fire, pouring blood. Poor Tori was having conniptions. I don’t know what I was being punished for.

“She hates me. She hates me because she can’t escape from me, and if she can’t escape from me, then she must be a part of me.”

Theroen was quiet. He turned away from the moon, looked down at the road. He seemed to have no answer to this.

Two spoke up. “If she’s a part of you, Melissa, she’s a part that was supposed to be buried. Abraham’s blood woke her up, but she’s not a part of you that was ever supposed to … to function. She’s like a set of wisdom teeth that never come in, but never need to be pulled, except Abraham pushed them forward. She’s like a benign tumor, except Abraham made it malignant. You see?

“We’ve all got parts of us that are dormant. They don’t affect us, even subconsciously. But I guess the right shock can wake them up. But she’s not a part of you, she’s a wrongful addition. You were already complete to begin with.”

Melissa seemed to take some consolation in this. She stopped, hugged Two, and kissed her cheek. “Thanks. I thought I was supposed to be tagging along to comfort you!”

Two smiled. “You are. Glad I could return the favor.”





* * *





The trio crested a hill, stopped for a moment, looked down upon the town below them. Melissa turned to Two.

“I swear to God, I don’t know why Abraham makes us live so far outside of the city. Look at this. It’s eleven o’clock and almost every light in the town is out!”

Two shrugged. Behind her, Theroen laughed.

“That is precisely why he has us live so far outside of the city, Melissa. It allows us some privacy, away from prying eyes. We lived in Manhattan during the first century we spent here, and it caused us nothing but trouble. I personally had to dispatch four intrepid vampire hunters, and one priest.”

“Priest.” Two looked up at him. “You never finished telling me about how you became a vampire, Theroen.”

“Did you tell her about Father Leopold?” Melissa laughed, peals of silver in the night.

“Father Leopold.” Theroen’s voice held a smile as well. “No, I don’t believe we reached that point in the story. Father Leopold is almost personally responsible for my vampirism. I say almost because modern science and psychology have helped me to understand that his actions were probably not entirely under his control.

Two looked at Theroen, head tilted, saying nothing. Melissa sat down on the curb under a streetlight, leaned back on her arms, stretched.

“We have time, Theroen,” she said.

“Are you that anxious to hear it again, Melissa? I recall – only a few years ago – you shouting something along the lines of ‘forget that dead pope’ at me.”

“That’s only because you were in one of your theological phases, with all the questioning about God and all that crap. I was tired of it.” Melissa’s teeth gleamed, her smile having returned from its earlier departure.

“Ah. Yes. God and all that crap. Exactly what I was obsessed with at the time Abraham brought me into darkness.”

“He talks like some Goth poet wannabe. Have you heard him talk about sex?” Melissa’s tone was conspiratorial, but Two knew Theroen had heard it, despite appearing not to notice. She covered a smile with her hand.

“Father Leopold had one outstanding flaw that put him somewhat at odds with the church, though he had gone to great pains to make sure the church was unaware of it. I would likely have been his undoing, if not for my encounter with Abraham. Father Leopold, it turns out, was very fond of young men with a fervent belief in God.”

“Oh, no …” Two was smiling, shaking her head.

“It took five years. I was under his tutelage for that long, from the age of eighteen to twenty-three. I can honestly say I never knew, and never saw it coming. We were closing up the cathedral for the night. It was dark. Empty and warm. I have the suspicion that Leopold may also have been availing himself of some drink that night.” Theroen paused, rolled his eyes. “I assure you, there are few things more surprising in life than an unexpected kiss from a middle-aged priest. One of those things, though, would be the feel of his hand pressing against your groin.”

Melissa exploded into laughter. Theroen coughed, seemed to be holding back laughter of his own. He shook his head. Two grinned, nodded. “I imagine that’s the case.”

“The vampires I know are sexual creatures, barring Abraham, and they don’t necessarily adhere to traditional sexual values.” Theroen glanced at Melissa, who waved at him, still giggling. “Learning more about sexuality since my days as a priest has … opened my eyes significantly. I would not be bothered at all, at this stage of my life, though I can’t claim to have any particular attraction to men of any age. But then? I was horrified. Here was the man who had taken me under his wing, taught me many things about the good book, solidified in me my belief that I wanted to be ordained and helped me see it through …”

“And there he was trying to cop a feel in the middle of a f*cking church!” Melissa rolled backwards in the grass, clutching her knees to her chest, laughter renewed. “It’s not that I care, I just … I can picture Theroen’s face. Oh my god, I’m going to die.”

“I was actually so startled that, in my confusion, I asked him if he was hurt. As absurd as it was, my brain had decided that he was perhaps having a stroke or heart attack, and had simply fallen against me.”

Melissa howled laughter at the moon. “Stop it, Theroen! My stomach hurts!”

Her laughter was contagious, and Two found herself joining, although she did not find the scene that Theroen described to be nearly as amusing as Melissa. Funny, sure, but perhaps the age she had lived in had inured her to these things.

Finally, Melissa’s laughter died down. She lay on the grass, looking up at the night sky, gasping for air and breaking into giggles here and there.

“May I continue?” There was a half-smile on Theroen’s lips.

“Yes, please.” Two looked back to him.

“I’m sorry, Two. Really. I mean, it’s Theroen. Anyone else, it wouldn’t be that funny. You know?”

Two smiled. Nodded. She knew.

“When I was finally able to accept what had happened – and no one had moved, mind you. We both seemed frozen after I had stepped away – I shouted something about God’s wrath and stormed from the church. I could hear Father Leopold stammering, shuffling behind me, calling me back, but it was far too late for that. I was in the London streets, the night was still early, and I let the crowd swallow me.”

“I walked for some time without really thinking of anything other than the punishments God would surely hurl down upon Leopold. Plague, a rain of fire and brimstone … something. And yet, the longer I walked, the more I came to realize that this, of course, could not have been some spontaneous conversion on Leopold’s part. He must have been fighting his urges for quite some time before at last giving in, and for all I knew, I was not the first he had approached.

“How was it possible? How could God permit it? How could He let this man, filled with such impurity, become not only His servant, but the head of a large cathedral. It was impossible. Yet it had happened.”

Theroen was looking at the moon again. He smiled.

“Eventually my wandering led me to a graveyard. Chance? Fate? I don’t know. I could not remember the path I had taken to get there, but it mattered little. I sat with my head bowed on a stone bench for some time, until finally I implored God to deliver me from this confusion, and light my path before me.

“God did not answer, but from the darkness beyond the graves a voice whispered to me. Abraham’s voice.”

Two shuddered. Her brief meeting with Abraham was still crystal-clear in her mind. She wondered if it would ever fade.

“Unlikely,” Theroen said. “He has that effect on people. I remember this first meeting with him like it was yesterday.”

“You remember everything like it was yesterday, and stop reading her mind. That’s not fair.” Melissa was sitting up again, leaning her elbows against her knees, chin resting on her palms, grinning at them.

“My apologies, Melissa.”

“You’re just a big showoff! You know Abraham has to be close to people to do it, and you know I can’t do it much at all.”

Theroen shrugged. “It is a gift I am thankful for. I will be curious to see if I have passed it on to Two.”

“He got all the good genes,” Melissa said. “I’d be jealous, but I don’t have to talk to Abraham, so I figure it’s a fair trade.”

“What did Abraham say to you, Theroen?” Two was filled with curiosity. She could not imagine Theroen, or at least the young priest he had been, willingly accepting the vampire life.





* * *





“If ever your God was listening, little sheep, he has long since gone deaf.”

The voice was no more than a whisper, but it cut through Theroen like a white-hot blade. He sat up, thoughts of Leopold’s actions forgotten, hair on the back of his neck standing on end, adrenaline surging through his veins. The depth of the voice, the malice it contained, was unlike anything Theroen had heard before. He groped at the edge of the bench instinctively, searching desperately for defense against this sudden assault on his courage.

After a moment, he found his shield: anger at the words themselves. Theroen stood, eyes burning into the darkness.

“What creature might speak so to a man of the cloth? Show yourself!”

A chuckle. Unearthly. Theroen was gripped with an animal urge to turn and flee, to simply run as fast as he could in a straight line away from this spot. He resisted.

“Show myself? Would that you knew what you ask, mortal fool.”

“I ask not. I command. I command with the word of the Lord.”

“That word means nothing to me, even should He make such demands of me in person. Run, little priest. Why don’t you run? You lie in mortal peril, and you know it.”

“I shall fear no evil.”

More laughter. “No? We shall see. I answer your demand, priest.”

In the shadows there was movement, red eyes opening in the dark. Theroen took an involuntary step backward. His knees hit the bench, forcing him to a sitting position. Before he could regain his footing, the creature was upon him. Theroen saw only blurred flashes, so quickly did the thing move. Talons now stretching to him, and then an iron grip around his midsection. Red eyes. Gaping mouth. Sharp white fangs. He beat at the creature with his fists, and it seemed he beat upon the stone of the cathedral walls themselves.

Warm breath against his ear, sharp points against his neck.

“I shall fear no evil!” Theroen cried, terrified and desperate. “Save me, oh Lord!”

The creature paused, and that horrible laughter came again.

“Your Lord is busy, perhaps? I bring you death, Theroen Anders. You gave your life to your church, and what has it given you back? Betrayal. It is the way with all such institutes of faith. The Pope in his Vatican stronghold sells indulgences to his people; they buy salvation with gold and diamonds. The English navy is little more than a band of pirates, licensed by the Church. The man to whom you entrusted your soul preaches the evils of debauchery and lust, and yet has spent these last years lusting only for his disciple. For you.

“The church has failed you. It has taught you nothing that you did not already know for yourself. Man is corrupt. Man is evil. And if man, Theroen, is created in God’s image, then is not your God corrupt? Is not your God evil? Do you not, in the depths of your heart, know this?”

Theroen felt hot, angry tears on his cheeks. In this, his last moment, he felt he knew it very well. Father Leopold, the sinner, safe in his church under the eyes of God. Theroen, the faithful servant, trapped here by a creature from the very graves in which soon he was destined to lie.

The vampire caressed the contours of Theroen’s face, grinning above him, seeming to delight in his sorrow. “You are young and strong and beautiful, little priest, and I am in need of an heir. I offer you the only chance for true salvation you will ever receive. I offer you the opportunity to defy your God, to renounce Him and His image. Renounce your humanity and be reborn, remade, in my own image. Become immortal, and escape the black hand of death.”

Thereon was gasping for breath. He tried to force his mind to think rationally, tried to find the faith which had once powered him so completely. He would let this faith guide him into the afterlife, secure in his knowledge that God waited there for him.

He found instead only a memory: the light and sound of eternity from that hospital bed long ago, and his words, spoken not by his mouth but his mind.

Yes. I would live. Until I am dragged, kicking and screaming, to my death, I would live.

Here then was his death, and it would take him regardless. Faith or no faith, acceptance or denial, death held him now and offered only one way of escape.

The young are rash. Theroen, twenty-three, with little practical experience outside the world of the church, found his faith tested, and found it lacking. He leaned his head back, bearing his neck to the creature that held him. Let it happen. Let his body be remade in this image, and so chase away the specter of death forever. What more evil could it bring than had been allowed within the sanctified doors of his very church?

“So be it,” Abraham whispered. His neck arched, teeth bared, and there was pain … pain like Theroen had never before felt. He screamed into the night, but his voice drained away with his blood.





* * *





“For ten years I raged in my hatred against humanity with tooth and claw and mind. I took women in pairs, quartets, more. Half a dozen a night I would drain to the last, that I might drown my hate in blood. I was the very image of Satan himself, presiding over heights of debauchery that Father Leopold could never have conceived. They bathed in each other’s blood, and I lapped it from their bodies, to the tune of their cries of passion. They loved it. Oh, they loved it.”

They were walking again. Theroen looked straight, down the road, unable to meet Two’s eyes. His hands were clenched into fists, his lips pursed into a thin white line. “They loved it, and I hated them for it. And I hated myself even more.”

“Theroen.” Two touched his arm.

“Do these things surprise you, Two?” He took her hand, tightened his own around it for a moment, let it drop.

“No. Not that you hated yourself for it. That’s no surprise at all. That’s not you, Theroen.”

“Is it not? Abraham did not instruct me in these things. His first attempt was a dismal failure. The very next night I awakened, horrified to discover myself on a stone slab in a mausoleum, and Abraham was there, with a human. He forced the man’s neck to my teeth, laughing at my screams, my prayers, my promises of atonement and reasoning with a God I had forever left behind.

“Oh, and his sweat was rank. Bitter. Disgusting. His screams mingled with my own, but I drank … and drank. I felt him pass into death, and I wept. Abraham looked upon me in disgust and left me there weeping, returning only near dawn to drag me back to the crypt where the coming sun paralyzed my limbs, battered me into sleep.

“It was four days before I drank again. I starved. The thirst raged until I could bear it no longer. I took another human, this time away from Abraham, who had once again left me to my own devices, appalled at my inability to accept the gift he had given me. There was a young woman, kneeling at the grave of her father, whispering, grieving.”

Theroen shook his head, his eyes distant.

“I took her like a storm, unfamiliar with my strength, desperate in my hunger. I broke her spine shoving her head backward, tore away the heavy garments at her neck, ripped most of her throat out with my teeth … all of this before she could even have been aware of what was happening. And when it was done, I was glad. I was glad to take something from these creatures of God, and leave them nothing in return.”

Two watched him, saying nothing. Theroen’s face was grim. There was no reminiscence in this tale, only the memory of events he would sooner have forgotten.

“It’s all rather sordid, really.” Melissa came up behind Two, touched her shoulder, looked at Theroen. “Sort of surprising, given your nature, Theroen. My first time was so cut and dried. You brought me to that nice man’s house in Brooklyn. His wife had passed away earlier that year and he wanted to die. We sat and talked, kissed a little, and then I took him. He died smiling.”

“You know less of my nature than you might think, Melissa. I’ve had four hundred years to study it, and learn it for myself.”

“Well, what I know of it is that you’re way too conservative to be a vampire, and you’re really good at getting Two all nerved up on her first night as one!” Melissa touched Two’s shoulder again, smiling, impish, unwilling to allow Theroen any more time in his melancholy.

Two laughed. “Actually, I sort of figure that this can’t possibly be as bad as what Theroen just described.”

“I assure you it won’t be.” Theroen at last looked at her, then glanced down the street again. They were approaching the first houses on the outskirts of the small town, windows dark and dead. Two supposed that in the day the town must look quaint and picturesque. She wondered when she would see daylight again, how long it would take before her body was equipped to cope with it, as Theroen had told her it would be. For now, she supposed it didn’t matter. Theroen and Melissa had adjusted to life under the moon. So would she.

Strains of music in the air. Two listened, but couldn’t pinpoint the source. “Where’s that music coming from?”

“You owe me fifty dollars.” Theroen was grinning at Melissa.

“Shit. F*ck! I totally thought it’d be at least another half mile.”

“What are you talking about?” Two questioned, bemused.

“I heard it about a mile ago. Theroen, probably back by the cars. We made a bet on when you’d hear it, while you were thinking about Theroen’s story and not paying attention. I didn’t think your ears would get that good, that quick.” Melissa shrugged.

“There is a bar. It is the only place you’ll find anyone awake at this hour, without invading homes.” Theroen gestured down the road, toward the center of town. “I think there you will find a suitable—”

“Client,” Two muttered. Theroen raised an eyebrow, and she shook her head. “Never mind, Theroen. Old memories.”

“I know those well. This man … you’ll know him. You’ll sense him. Trust me.”

“And why is he suitable?”

“You wanted someone who deserves death, yes?”

Two nodded.

“He beat his wife to death, two years ago, for breaking a glass while cleaning the kitchen. She was six months pregnant with their first child. He beat her to death with a chair leg, and then drove across three states to dispose of her body. He lied his way through the investigation and came out clean. She is still considered a missing person.”

“How do you know this?

“I read the paper, and I read minds. I was curious. I parked my Ferrari, walked through the woods, stood in the shadows outside his home and concentrated until I had all of the information I wanted.”

“Why didn’t you kill him yourself?”

Theroen shrugged. “They are mortals. What does it matter to me? Besides, as Melissa mentioned previously, I prefer to drink from women.”

“Is this the wrong way to start, Theroen?”

“There is no wrong way. There is only the thirst and the blood. Is this what you wanted, Two? If it is not, I can happily lead you elsewhere, but I thought here you might find some respite from guilt.”

Two nodded. “This will work, Theroen. Are you sure I’ll know him?”

“You will sense that darkness in him, I believe. For me it shines out like a beacon.”

Two took a deep breath, steeled herself. “Okay, then.”

She headed for the bar alone.





* * *





The bar was everything Two would have expected from this small, old-fashioned town. Yellow wood glowed mellow in the dim lights, dented and scarred and shined by decades of service. A television in the corner, above the heads of the customers, was attached with screws that were two years – maybe three – away from pulling out of the water-stained plasterboard. It was playing old reruns of Sanford and Son with the volume turned down. A few ailing tables were scattered near the far end of the building, most empty. Someone was asleep at one of the wall booths, and three or four men were clustered near one end of the bar.

The reaction to Two’s entrance was immediate, their stares like a physical force pressing against her. The sensation reminded her of her pool hustling days. She grinned, glanced around, moved toward the bar, away from the cluster of men.

“Help you?” The bartender looked to be in his late fifties. His voice was all Jim Beam and Camels. Dark, scraggly hair, three days of stubble. Not the one.

“What’s your best red wine?”

“Nothing you’d probably consider good.” At least he was honest. Two smiled at him, looked to the beer taps.

“Just a Molson, then, please.”

“Do I need to card you?”

“Don’t know. Do you?”

The bartender turned away, grinning. She watched the glass fill with the amber liquid. The idea of actually drinking it seemed a foreign concept to her now. After the blood, everything else had lost its appeal. Two doubted she would be able to stomach it, even if she were to try.

But she wasn’t going to try.

By the time the glass arrived in front of her, she’d found the one. Dark, quiet, withdrawn. His thoughts were black things, and she could feel them on the air like tendrils of wet mist. Theroen was right. The violence of which he had spoken seemed to exude from this man in waves, and with it something else – an undefined ease that told her the rest of what she needed to know. There was no guilt here. No remorse. This man had murdered his own wife and child in cold blood over the breaking of a glass, and sat here now feeling justified.

He looked at her now, and Two could see the beginning of desire in his eyes. She stretched, her nipples outlined against the white cotton of her shirt, navel exposed, and glanced at him with smoky eyes. She could hear the blood pounding faster in his veins.

The glance had been perfected during her time with Darren. She tossed it out, caught her prey, and began to reel him in. Phantom images seemed to dance across her mind: a woman’s horrified eyes, terror becoming distant and detached in death. A shovel. His breath in the cold moonlight. Two smiled at him as he moved toward her, hand on the bar, drunk and unsteady.

“Hello.” Her voice was sweet sugar, long and slow and husky, full of promise. He nodded to her, sat down on the stool next to her, glanced at her untouched beer.

“One for the road?” he asked. Two smiled.

“Something like that. I didn’t come here for beer.”

“Oh no?”

“I’ve been on a trip, and now I’m headed back into the city. Back to my boyfriend. But I couldn’t go without one last stop. I couldn’t go without …” Two let her eyes flick down, just briefly, then return. She could see his eyes darken as his brain, or perhaps another organ, completed the thought.

“Do you have a wife?” she asked him.

“No. Not … no.”

“A house?”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to see it.”

She left a fifty on the bar.





* * *





Theroen and Melissa were not there, but Two knew that they had not gone far. She could not sense them, but she wasn’t trying too hard. They had no reason to leave, only to keep their presence unknown to this man. She was sure they wanted to watch. This was her first true moment as a vampire.

They walked along the road that, only minutes ago, Two had traveled in the opposite direction. They didn’t talk. Two was nervous, shuddery, trying hard not to show it. The thirst was growing in her by the moment. She could smell the blood now, so close to his skin.

“What was her name?” she asked.

“Who?”

“The wife that you told me you didn’t have. The one you lied about.”

The man was momentarily taken aback. He paused in his step, looked at her, eyes wide. Two glanced back, the playfulness gone from her eyes.

“What was her name?”

“Look, I don’t know who you think I am. I’m Sean …”

“I didn’t ask who you were. I asked what her name was.”

Sean swallowed hard, shoved his tousled brown hair back from his forehead. Two stepped toward him, touched a stubbly cheek, smiled again.

“It’s a simple question, Sean.” She moved her lips over his, barely touching, pressed the tip of her tongue to the center of his upper lip. He opened his mouth instinctively, and the touch became a kiss, long and damp. She touched below his waist, and what she found there was rock hard, despite his concerns.

The nerves were gone. They’d slipped off as the moment approached, and Two was cold now. She played her lips about his neck, tasting his salty sweat, not yet bitter from fear. Sean’s hands were limp at his sides, his breath speeding. With one hand she touched his hair. The other unbuttoned his pants, navigated beyond his boxers, touched skin to skin. He shivered.

“Were you hard like this when you did it, Sean? Tell me her name.”

Sean moaned. Fear? Lust? Two’s hand quickened. She smiled, sharp teeth against his neck.

“Tell me her name, you f*cking murdering piece of shit.”

“Th—Theresa. Her name was Theresa. Oh, God …”

Two pressed her teeth against the flesh, pressed hard, waited for the pulse. She had been here before, on the receiving end, and found the wait now even more interminable than it had been then. That instant before release had seemed to her unbearable, but waiting for the moment when she could take the blood proved worse.

Sean stiffened. His heart pulsed. Two bit down. What began as a cry of passion became a scream of pain, trailed into a moan somewhere between horror and ecstasy. Sean sagged. Two followed him to the ground, attached at the neck, lost in the blood.

Ambrosia. Red and throbbing. Tears at her eyes, carving hot little tracks down her cheeks. The heart stopped, the flow of blood ceased, and Two pulled back, gasping. Crying. She looked at the body before her, limp organ hanging from open pants, the neck a still shot from a horror film. She stood, staggered backward, felt her heels bump the curb, felt her knees trying to buckle.

Two sat down at the side of the road with his seed on her hands and his blood in her mouth, arms across her knees, head down, sobbing.





* * *