Authors: SM Johnson
“Only because Daniel drank a lot of it over a fairly short period of time. A small taste would not harm either you or the child. But you do what you think is best. You always do.”
“The thing is… I want them equally. I long to be with you, long to be safe and sheltered and loved for all time. And I think you would give me that. But I want to be here, too, with a regular, decent guy, raising a family. I loved my daughter with my whole heart and she died. I want another chance at that. And why can’t I have both? You said you would wait. You said the lifetime of a mortal goes by in a blink. Honor your own words, DeVante, and let me live my human life my own way.”
Shattered.
She shattered him—how it was even possible, he did not know. He had said those things. He could do no less than honor his own words, no matter how he wanted her. She was strong, she was determined, and she was certainly worthy of the gift he could give her. But she would accept it only on her own terms.
He looked at the ground as anger stirred in his heart and raged outward like a fire, spreading until it filled him to overflowing. And when he raised his eyes to her again, she stepped back with a quiet cry, a soft, “No,” coupled with her arms wrapping around her belly.
If he killed her this minute he would be done with all this. Pining and longing and… softening. Done caring. He could again ride the evil beast of death that had carried him successfully thus far, humans losing all possibility of individuality and becoming merely sacks of blood available to feed the Hunger.
She must have seen it in his eyes, the impulse to leave her dead in driveway for her regular, decent guy to find, for she built her own fire, stamped her foot, and said, “Don’t you fucking dare.”
And her whole face spit fear and stubbornness and blue, blue eyes into him, tiny blonde body filled with—not blood, but rage, pure rage—so furious she perhaps actually thought she could stop him. Her shoulders were set, fists clenched, eyes glaring. She looked like a very tiny, very pissed-off kitten, all claws and fluff. It was so ridiculous and un-frightening that he laughed, at first long and low and bitter, but then the pitch rising and lightening until it was merely mirth.
And then she relaxed. “You wouldn’t.”
“I might.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t believe it. You wouldn’t take me against my will.”
Ah. He still had the upper hand, for she had caught his anger but not that it was murderous anger.
“It has been done before,” he said.
“Not by you. Your code of honor would never allow it.”
He shrugged, raised an eyebrow at her again. “Every rule has an exception. You have been the exception to many of my rules.”
“Hmm, only because I am sooooo cute you can’t resist me.”
“Yet you resist me.”
She stepped into him this time, tucking her head beneath his chin and sliding her arms beneath his suit jacket. “It’s not easy, you know. It’s lovely to have a guardian angel. You’re the first thought in my head when I wake and the last when I go to sleep.”
“You whisper goodnight. Often I am awake and I catch it.”
“Then whisper it back sometimes, and let’s leave it at that, for now.”
He buried his nose in her hair and breathed in, memorizing her scent, the feel of her body against him—as if those things weren’t already permanently etched into his very being, his core, his soul, if he indeed possessed such a thing. And he let himself feel pain, the urgent ache in his chest that he had come to know so well. He could easily scoop her into the air and take her as his own, his hostage, even, but knew he would not do it, and neither would he kill her. She would have her own way, for he could deny her nothing.
***
There were decisions to make about Reed. DeVante had fed Daniel’s lover his own blood, in a ceremony of sorts, binding Reed into the coven, which granted him access to Reed’s thoughts and, he hoped, some degree of control over the man’s actions. Reed and Daniel continued to explore the dynamics of dominance and submission—mortal games, those, that Daniel loved so well he was reluctant for Reed to be changed to vampire. Daniel did not want to be Master to Reed, and in fact, he was altogether much too young a vampire to even consider making fledglings. DeVante would do it, when he determined the time was right. And it would be interesting because, like Tony, there was something in Reed that was already beyond human.
Roderick and Tony were circling ever closer to one another, Roderick relishing his role as teacher and Master. There was a flirtation to Roderick’s mastery that Tony seemed to enjoy, and DeVante thought perhaps his first fledgling had finally come into his own. Despite his youthful appearance, Tony had become the daytime liaison and protector of them all, for still he did not sleep. DeVante was convinced that Tony’s young body housed an old soul, a soul significantly older than even himself, an intrigue that begged for study. There would be plenty of time to find those answers.
But before searching for answers about Tony, and before changing Reed, DeVante needed to train Lily. He thought she would survive, perhaps even embrace what she had become, but still she struggled daily to cope with what Tony had done to her.
DeVante found her pacing in her room, muttering, and altogether manic. “I can’t do it. I can’t do it. Oh, I can’t stand this.”
He said quietly, “Lily,” and approached her, reaching out to touch her fine black hair. “I will lead you, little one,” he whispered, soft as the silken strands beneath his fingers. “All will be well.”
“I can’t do it,” she said, trembling under his hands. “I can’t go through this world a menace, a hunter, on and on and on doing harm. It will kill me. I don’t have the emotional resources for this.”
DeVante shrugged. “You have two options, little one… survive… or not. It is a simple choice. There are many ways to get along in this world, despite what has befallen you, and survival is certainly an option. We are not all bloodthirsty, barely-controlled beasts. Some of us control our beasts very well. Some of us do not kill to subsist. You will get control. You have proven that you can; now you only need prove that you want to. You can trust me to teach you well.”
“Trust doesn’t come easily.”
“I know,” DeVante said, and rested his hands on her shoulders. “I know. But you have to let go of the helpless child you used to be and embrace what you have become. No human will ever be able to hurt you that way again.”
She tipped her head up to meet his eyes and although he tempered his gaze as much as he could, she still flinched. “How can I do it? Tell me, how can I feed this rage without murdering those in the path of it?”
“You know the answer,” he said. An answer he might give her, but never embrace himself. “You feed every night. Twice a night. More, if that is what it takes. Choose them, sip from them, terrify them. Leave them breathing. Have you forgotten the rush of joy and power you felt when you rendered your punishment to the johns?”
“No. But I’ve seen your memories, and you don’t always hunt that carefully. How can you stand it?”
He shook his head, breaking eye contact, and turned away from her. “I swallow the life whole, gorge on it, every pain, every pleasure, every memory fills me up, makes me feel alive. And I know
this
is what I am meant for,
this
is
everything
.”
He walked across the room to gaze out the window at the black night, letting memories spill into his head, most prominent the death of perhaps the most innocent girl he had ever come across. He could feel Lily reaching to him with a mental touch. “You should stay out of my head if my memories upset you,” he warned, but it was too late.
“You killed a girl in a nunnery.” Lily said, horror in her voice.
DeVante almost laughed. “I find it interesting that you focus on the death. Yet before I killed her, I surely defiled her, and right there, under the holy and protected roof of Christ. The first time I came to her, she was sitting at a simple pine vanity table brushing her long hair and wishing for nothing more than a mirror. It was not her wish for a mirror, however, that drew me to her. It was her cries of despair on a prior evening.”
Lily shuddered. “Don’t show me any of that. Please.”
“It is your choice to come into my head, to see such things,” DeVante said. “I will not block you. I will not hide my nature for your comfort.”
He let the images come into his head, his hands stroking the girl, exploring her untouched flesh. Her moans and sighs. Whispered conversations, a Cinderella story—sent to the nunnery when her widowed father passed away, his second wife and her children enjoying her father’s wealth while she was consigned to a vow of poverty. A captured bride of Christ, she was, and one who held no belief in God. How he held her, invaded her mind as well as her body, and how she found the will to live the moment she took her last breath.
It was, perhaps, the most stunningly beautiful death he had ever created.
Lily’s sharp intake of breath indicated that she was now a witness to that particular death. So be it.
It was Lily’s choice to judge him or not. If she was horrified, let her be. It did not matter.
“We are all different,” he said softly. “We all seek our prey, feed, survive, in different ways. And just because I embrace the beast of my nature and revel in the kill does not mean you have to do the same. Each finds his own path. Roderick seduces his prey, dances with them, laughs, teaches them the fox trot or the Macarena—whatever the hell is the latest thing. For that evening, he is their shining star, beautiful and bold—and a flirt—oh yes! You have never seen such a flirt in all your days. His victims do not doubt his charm for a moment; they love him to the last beat of their hearts.
“Daniel makes friends of them. For now they are not even aware that they provide him with his life’s blood. He has learned how to take from them carefully, without bringing harm. I cannot say that it will work for him forever, but it works for now.”
“Is that how you choose them? You seek out the ones in despair?” she asked.
He sighed. “Not exclusively. It depends on my mood, depends on what I am looking for. I am old. My criteria has evolved over time. Though I embrace my nature, I have loved a mortal beyond belief. I have survived a broken heart. It makes me gentler.”
“Gentler is good,” Lily said.
“And sometimes they do call to me,” DeVante confessed. “Suicidal, tortured by illness and pain, tired of life. Death is often my gift. We all find our own way.”
Silence filled the room as Lily struggled with her thoughts, and DeVante waited for her to come through the struggle.
“I will try,” she finally said, her voice soft.
He wrapped his arms around her birdlike body, held her carefully, and said, “That is all I can ask of you.”
She wrapped her arms around him in return, hugged him fiercely, trembling. And in that moment he knew he could love her, perhaps not with the same frightening intensity that he loved Emily, but still love.
There was fear in him, and he railed against it. He was surrounded by ‘children’ that he cared for, and could not quite understand how it had happened without his permission. He who, except for those few years with Roderick, had been alone for so very, very long. Alone he was safe. He could maintain through decades that passed into centuries without the complication of the presence of others. He had always enjoyed safety in solitude.
But his solitary life in darkness was over. Roderick, Daniel, Lily, Tony, and Reed, yes, even Reed… and someday, he hoped, Emily. Their lives would all twine with his and he would be responsible for the lot of them, the dark father of a warped coven. They would all be his children and they would all thrive.
Even if it killed him.
Acknowledgements
Much love and thanks to my husband, who is happy when I’m happy, and who first suggested that I write a novel of my very own. Gratitude to my daughter for her attempts at patience, even when she's feeling terribly impatient. Beautiful Girl that came into my life, I'm so glad you're here! Thanks to Cari, a mom from gymnastics, who read my books and urged me to try one more time to find a publisher. To Sean Henry from Oakland, who provided me with more information about the SF area than I could possibly use, and made a name for himself as an artist in the process, huge thanks! And finally, to my friend Jennifer: without you DeVante himself would be forever trapped on a Macintosh 3.5 inch floppy disk, unedited and unread. Many, many thanks!