Sword and Stake Home Gen/Ensemble Page Shippy (M/F) Page Slash (M/M) Page Short Stories Page
Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Home
Chapter 11
Trois-Rivieres, QuebecLucien prowled the streets of Trois-Riviers, unaware of the admiring glances of both the males and females he passed. He knew he would have to feed soon; his senses were heightened by the ingestion of fresh blood. He had taught himself to feed in the most humane way possible, causing no permanent harm to his victim, but still . . . Even after centuries of existence, he continued to resent the need to steal his life-force from others. He knew it was essentially no different from the humans sustaining their own lives by feeding on the flesh of animals, and that was the crux of his guilt. He had taken holy vows to serve mankind.
His lips quirked in a wry smile. Fate had placed him in the position of actualizing that intriguing film in which the startling reveal was: It's a cookbook! How could he serve mankind by feeding from them? He continued to fear that one day he would cease to view humanity as God's creatures and see them only as a source of food—as animals.
He smiled ruefully as he thought of Jeanette. He had shared a brief dalliance with her at the court of the Sun King. She had flirted and scolded, called him a 'tortured soul' and finally left him. He still remembered her parting words. You need not fear God's judgment, Lucien. You judge yourself more harshly than he ever could!
Jeanette was playful and light-hearted and she continuously urged him to—as they say in the modern vernacular—lighten up. Would that he could. He wanted to 'lighten up', but hadn't believed it possible. All men are the product of their own times, and he was no exception. He came from a time of chivalry and duty; the licentiousness of the French Court was as utterly foreign to him as the Saracen world in which he found himself after death. The vampire that had trapped his soul in a prison of immortal flesh and bone, rather than allowing its natural return to God's Kingdom, had never understood that. Khalid had been sure that, given time, Lucien would adjust; but he had never done so.
Lucien gave his head a quick shake, dispelling his maudlin thoughts. They were only distracting him from his mission to find his shining one—the one woman who would make his centuries of tortured existence worthwhile. He had seen her—he knew she existed. She was goodness and fire and bright, golden sunshine and all of the other forbidden graces. She was his life-mate and he would find her. But first, he needed to feed.
He could feel traces of her essence in this area, but they were very faint. Still, she had been here. Lucien's brow creased with a frown as he noticed his surroundings. He had been so busy wool-gathering, he hadn't been paying attention to the squalor of the neighborhood. It didn't matter; he hadn't known fear for centuries. Although he chose not to act as a predator, he certainly was no one's prey.
What would she have been doing in this area? She didn't live here; he knew that. Her essence had not seeped into the stones, brick and mortar of this city. It was fleeting, which told Lucien she had just been passing through.
“Hey! Hey you!”
Lucien turned at the call. A young man of perhaps fifteen or sixteen was standing in front of a tavern of sorts, attempting to look tough. He stepped to the side of the building and furtively beckoned to Lucien.
“Hey, man, you goin' in there? Could'ja pick me up a liter? I have money. I just forgot my ID and they won't serve me, so willya buy a bottle for me?”
Lucien entered the seedy bar and returned with a liter bottle in a brown paper bag. As he entered the shadows, he felt a knife blade prick the skin between his ribs.
“Gimme the bottle, man, and nobody'll get hurt.”
Lucien met the boy's eyes.
“No. No one will be hurt. You do not want to throw your life away like this.”
“I . . . don't?”
Lucien smiled. “No, you don't. Drugs and alcohol will stunt your growth.”
“Yo, man, what are you, my mother?”
“Think of me as your guardian angel.”
The boy's eyes grew unfocused and Lucien bent his head to the boy's throat and drank carefully. He sealed the small wounds with a swipe of his tongue, handed the paper bag to the boy and slipped into the night.
“Well, all right!” The boy tore off the wrapper. “Hey, man, what shit is this?” he called into the dark. Lucien was gone. “What the fuck is up with this? You buy me motherfuckin' orange juice? If I wanted fuckin' juice, I'd hit up a grocery store! Asshole!”
He looked at the bottle in his hand. He had planned to throw it in the street and smash it, but damn, that juice looked good! He twisted off the cap and took a long drink. It felt like sunshine infusing his body. He drank the rest. Shit, with all these vitamins and stuff in him, he didn't really feel like getting high after all. Maybe he'd go down to the gym and see if he could sneak in. He suddenly felt like working out. Weird.
**********
Quebec
Anne jumped to her feet.
“How could you know something like that? How could you possibly know what my mother's name was? Are you just making it up? Are you psychic? Like a man-witch or something?” Her eyes narrowed. “Or, do you know who I really am? Do you know all about me—my name, where I'm from, social. security. number. Are you pretending you don't know anything because you're playing some sick game? Or maybe you're a private investigator, sent to track me down by my abusive boyfriend who nearly killed me and made me lose my memory in the first place, so he can come back and finish the job? Or . . . maybe, you're the ex-boyfriend? Maybe you like to torture and toy with your victims. Make them think you're all cute and sweet and nice so they start to care about you and then, when you turn evil, you can crush them like a bug! Tear the wings off a butterfly, do you? How the hell do you know my mother's name? And is that really even her name? Answer me!”
Anne threw herself at Will and began hitting him. This felt good! This felt right—get mad, beat him up, show him who's boss and then have incredibly hot make-up sex.
Anne froze.
Ohmigod. What did I do?
Will was sprawled on the couch, a bruise already staining the fair skin of his jaw where she had hit him. That seemed to be the one that had knocked him out, but his eye was swollen and she'd bet he'd have a hell of a shiner in the morning. His ribs! She'd hit him in the stomach, too. Ohgodohgodohgod—what if she'd broken his ribs? He could have internal damage. He could be bleeding to death right now while she just sat here. He could already be dead!
Anne yanked up his sweater and placed her hand flat over his heart. Still beating—strong and steady. At least she hadn't killed him! She trailed her hand along his ribs, checking for breaks, and then down his highly defined abdominal muscles.
Will moaned and Anne paused, her hand hovering over the reddened skin, already darkening to purple.
What is wrong with me? How could I hurt someone like this? Am I a violent person? Do I get angry and snap out often? Should Will go to a doctor? How would I get him there? Do I know how to drive?
Will groaned and opened his one good eye. Anne reached for him and he flinched. She drew back, her hand covering her mouth, eyes glinting with unshed tears. She had just wanted to comfort him! To brush the hair from his forehead and hold him in her arms and he was afraid of her. Of course he was. Why wouldn't he be? She had just beaten him to a bloody pulp with no provocation and . . . she had to get out of here! This was his home and she had attacked him in his own home and she shouldn't be here.
But she couldn't leave. He was here alone, out in the middle of nowhere with no phone and probably not able to drive . . . What should she do? What could she possibly do that wouldn't make things worse?
**********
Cleveland
“I am the Snow Queen—my heart is made of ice. I sometimes think it will shatter and shards will pierce my entrails and then I shall be completely frozen like the statues in Trafalgar Square. Everything is cold. White. Gray. There is no color. This world has lost all color—except for the marshmallow children.
“Marshmallow children in bright puffy snow clothes that won't come out to play in the dark. After dark there is no warmth—for them or me. No red. No blue. Only white and gray.
“The Roger bird has flown away. But she is here. The Dark One. The Pretender to the throne. Here with her dark knight—though mine is gone. No warmth. No family. No games. I don't like it here.
“I sometimes dream of Cuba. Cuba was lovely before the bitter old man ruined everything.
“How strange. I had thought I could go anywhere, but there are so many places I can't go because they're gone. Cuba is gone. St. Petersburg is gone. I don't suppose I would be asked to tea at the Vatican, even if it's not gone. Sing a song of six-pence; a pocket full of rye. Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. Ummmmm. . . blackbirds and plump, juicy red cardinals.
“Why are there so few furs now? Soft and warm and lovely—they used to be worn everywhere. To the opera and the speakeasy and the music halls. Women wore such beautiful furs. You could stroll down the streets of Paris or New York or St. Petersburg and see beaver and mink and lynx and Persian lamb and Russian sable. Sable was always my favorite. My Spike gave me sable—black sable for his Black Goddess. Now they're all scarcer than hen's teeth.”
Dru stroked the lapel of her sable coat and pouted. She'd had to eat that tough old bird to get it.
“She tasted like med'cine and ashes. Why are there no more furs? No more furs—no more Cuba. It's all gone.
“P'raps I'll go to Mexico. Or Niagara Falls.”
Dru wrapped her sable more tightly around her and turned up the collar. The icy wind had taken away the smell of mothballs and camphor that clung to the coat when she first got it. She stroked her cheek against the soft fur.
“Do they still ride down the Falls in barrels? Or has that gone, too?”
Dru sighed and drifted through the streets of Cleveland like a shadow.
************************************************************************************************Continue to Chapter 12
Sword and Stake Home Gen/Ensemble Page Shippy (M/F) Page Slash (M/M) Page Short Stories Page