“There’s nothing for me to do here, so I’ll be on my way. I may as well take
a break before my next assignment.” The short man grimaced. “It’s
such a waste of time when they do this to me, but you know… for a
while, it can go either way. But the choice has been made, and
there’s nothing I can do for you now.”
His gait was uneven as he shuffled across the floor to one of the golden
doors and slipped a key inside the lock. As he pushed the door open
he turned back to Hadrian. “Don’t try any of the doors. We have
better security than it might appear on the surface. Oh and… when
you get back there, try not to think you’re too invincible. Some
day we might be having another conversation, and it would be a shame
to have your evolution slowed by this detour.”
“Wait!” Hadrian’s voice echoed off the walls. His plea was useless. The
door shut and the lock turned. Was this all happening in his mind? It
must be.
Most likely his body was somewhere in or near the church, waiting for this
transition to complete and his essence to come back. So where was he?
Locked inside his head, while he thought he was locked inside this
too-bright room? Or was he somewhere else entirely?
Only a few moments passed in existential crisis before a thick, black
smoke formed in the center of the room near the podium. As the smoke
grew thicker it made a hissing sound, then it started to spin like a
cyclone until it transformed into something that looked solid
enough—a demon.
The demon was a large, shiny black, and strangely dressed like Father
Hadrian. The beast was larger than him by almost a foot in height and
who knew how much in breadth? His eyes glowed a fiery red, and inside
his mouth were the nastiest, sharpest teeth Hadrian had ever seen.
The priest felt around in his pockets for a cross, to no avail. He held a
hand up to the demon and started to chant.
“
Exorcizo te, immundissime spiritus, omnis incursio adversarii, omne phantasma, omnis legio…”
The demon laughed. “That won’t work on me. I’m you.”
What? Father Hadrian was beginning to lean toward
dream
.
Perhaps he’d gotten a bad burrito from the strip. Maybe the part
where Angeline had revealed herself as a vampire and bitten him had
been a dream as well. And the sex. The sex had been a dream. It was
just one long dream. None of this could be real.
The hulking monster barreled toward him, his footsteps echoing in the
vast space. Ordinarily, Father Hadrian wasn’t the type to run from
a fight. Even as a priest, he could and had stood his ground—not
that most had wanted to mess with him having both an intimidating
presence and God on his side. But he had no weapons now, and the one
demon-fighting ritual he knew appeared to have no effect, so he ran.
The doors went on forever even though that couldn’t be true since the
room was a circle. He could see the whole thing and yet it expanded
as he moved through it, growing bigger and more impossible to travel
its circumference with each stride he took.
Each door he encountered was locked. He banged on a few, yelling for the
old man to let him in. He was like a gladiator left alone in an
amphitheater with an angry lion. But the demon didn’t look angry.
He looked amused. In fact, he no longer chased Hadrian. He just stood
near the podium, his arms crossed over his chest.
“I could chase you down, but it’s too schizophrenic for me. You’re
smart. You’ll figure this out and get tired of trying to bust down
the gates. The rules won’t be ignored or changed for you. You
aren’t that special.”
Hadrian paid him no heed and continued to go from door to door
praying someone might have left one unlocked. There were an uncountable
number of doors, growing ever more uncountable by the minute. One had
to be unlocked. It was a statistical certainty.
“Okay. I changed my mind. I
am
chasing you down. I’m not spending
three days in here like this with you. It’s like watching a tiny
puppy chase his tail.”
Hadrian turned in time to see the demon charging toward him. He felt himself
slammed against the door he’d tried to get through. The priest
expected the demon to tear him apart, but he was still standing, and
the demon was gone.
Guess again.
It was his own thought in his own mental voice but sounded suspiciously
like something the demon would say. Hadrian looked down at his hands
and could see his human hands, but also the coal black hands with
dark gray claws. Both seemed merged into one being, one laid on top
of the other.
Father Hadrian feared possession and wondered why the exorcism ritual had no
effect. Then he almost seemed to feel a sarcastic eye-roll inside
himself.
I’m YOU. Don’t you get it yet? This is the infection. You’ve been
infected, not possessed. This is just how a human mind processes the
change.
Then, something turned over and clicked, and new information was suddenly
available to him.
Vampires can’t be in the sunlight. Regular glass needs to be blacked out,
but a dark hole or windowless room is preferable during the day.
Stakes kill. Holy water and crosses are problematic but not fatal.
Garlic: myth. Mirrors: reflection, yes, but you want to avoid them;
it shows the demon, too.
Vampire fact after vampire fact filled his head, until, exhausted from the
overload, he curled into the fetal position on the floor and closed
his eyes, shutting out the vision of the doors and the yellow light.
***
One more night before Hadrian rises.
Angeline had been careful to avoid drunks and druggies while feeding. It was
important she keep her wits about her if she was to find a good first
meal for her mate. She felt the warmth still in her cheeks from her
last meal as she wandered the strip.
She’d considered a few showgirls. With her dark one’s recent religious
repression, a showgirl might please him very much. Then her jealousy
had won out. No, she couldn’t be that generous. Besides, she had
her heart set on a witch, but how would she find one?
It wasn’t as if witches were listed in the yellow pages. The closest
thing to a witch that one could easily find in Las Vegas was a
fortune teller. Many of them were fakes, but some truly had the gift
and other gifts as well. It was the kind of power she wanted to give
Hadrian to make sure he started out strong. She wanted him under her
power, of course, but she hadn’t created a minion or a servant.
She’d made someone to love.
Angeline looked up.
Madame Tam’s Fortunes
flashed in neon pink,
giving off a humming noise like the light was about to go. She pushed
a blue-beaded curtain aside and moved into the comfort of the shop.
A raven gave her a dirty, beady-eyed look, growing upset inside his
cage. A familiar perhaps? Surely a therian wouldn’t allow himself
to be kept in a cage, unless it was for show and he could come and go
as he pleased.
As if on cue, the bird unlatched the door and flew out, landing on top
of Angeline’s head, making clicking sounds and a deep, throaty
rattle. Whether a shapeshifter with a human form or just a common
bird, the thing gave her the creeps.
“Get off!” Angeline said, trying to knock the bird off her head.
Another beaded curtain in the back parted, and a young blonde woman walked
in. “Henry, enough! That’s not how we treat patrons, here.”
The raven swooped back to the top of the cage where he perched, giving
Angeline the evil eye and raising a fuss and squawking angrily before
settling.
“I’m sorry about him. He can be a very trying bird, I’m afraid. I’m
Tamara.” The woman held out a bejeweled hand. There was a ring on
every finger. When Angeline took it, Madame Tam flinched, then tried
to cover her reaction. A look passed between the raven and the
woman—a private conversation, perhaps?
“Would you like your fortune told?”
Angeline nodded, absently. She tried to get inside the other woman’s mind,
but a solid shield was in place. This one had power—quite a lot of
it. Maybe she was playing with fire. As old as Angeline was, she
wasn’t confident she could enthrall the girl, though the blonde
couldn’t be older than twenty-two. How much power could such a
young thing have? Angeline just hadn’t been in the company of a
witch in a while; that was all.
“Won’t you have a seat?” Madame Tam gestured to a large, high-backed
chair. The chair was an awful lime green with the stuffing coming out
of it.
Angeline settled herself in the offered seat. The table between them was
glass, covered with antique lace fabric and a gleaming crystal ball.
“I can scry, read your palm… or I could do your cards.” Tam was
draped in multi-colored shawls that covered a much simpler white
dress. Without the accessories, the simple shift would no doubt make
her look like a medieval peasant. Once Angeline had her enthralled,
she’d get rid of the shawls and jewelry and have her scrub her face
clean of cosmetics.
“Cards would be fine,” Angeline said, becoming increasingly unnerved by
the woman.
“Good choice. It’s what I’m best at.”
The vampire watched as the girl retrieved a small, wooden box from a
nearby shelf. The box had esoteric carvings, and Angeline felt the
power curling off it. She watched the woman, noting her delicate,
elfin features. She was far too pretty, and Angeline was glad
Hadrian, being new, would lose control and kill her. The last thing
she wanted was to compete with a pet for attention.
Tamara glanced up, and Angeline forced a sweet and unassuming smile to her
lips. The raven made the creepy gurgling sound again in the back of
his throat. Fucking birds.
The crystal ball was carefully placed on the shelf, and the box with the
cards inside was put in its place. The cards were wrapped in
red silk and seemed quite old. “I’ve had these since time
began, it seems,” the woman said.
“You’re barely more than a child,” the vampire replied.
A grin teased the corners of Madame Tam’s mouth as she unwrapped and
shuffled the deck. “Here. Cut them any way you like, then hand them
back.”
Angeline took the deck, made a few cuts in it, then passed the cards back to
the fortune teller.
Tam laid them in a pattern on the table face down, then one by one
flipped them up. In the center of the spread was a card with a
skeleton that said “death” across the bottom.
The women’s eyes met, and Angeline tried to keep the guilt off her
face. Wasn’t the reading supposed to be about her? There was no way
the witch could know what she planned.
“Don’t worry. The death card almost never means death. It’s more a card
about change, usually.”
The dread bird started making a fuss on top of his cage again.
“Henry, I said that was enough!”
What will she do if I can’t enthrall her?
It
had been a while since Angeline had faced off with a witch, back
around the turn of the century. She’d narrowly escaped. Her hair
had been singed by one of those electric purple balls some of them
could conjure.
Start with something small, something you can back out of if she’s onto you.
The vampire took a deep breath. “Maybe I would be more comfortable
having my palm read, instead.” She held her hand out, hoping the
woman would take the bait. If they were touching and she could
establish eye contact, she’d stand the best chance.
Tamara looked down at the cards, divining their meaning, no doubt unmasking
Angeline for what she was, then she looked up. “All right. If that’s what you prefer.” She gathered the cards, wrapped them in
the silk, then placed them back inside the box.
Angeline extended her hand, and Tam took it, skin pressing against skin.
“You have an unusually long lifeline,” Tam said. She looked up, smiling.
“See? Maybe you shouldn’t have worried so much about that card.”
Angeline stared deeply into her eyes. “You should put the bird away. It
makes me nervous.”
Madame Tam’s nose crinkled, her eyes drawn in confusion and Angeline
thought she was caught, but then the woman’s face blanked out, her
eyes staring but not seeing anything. “Yes. I should put the bird
away.”
The raven fussed and flew around the room.
“Henry! Get in the cage.”
An argumentative squawk. The fortune teller spoke something to the bird
in a language Angeline didn’t understand, perhaps a spell, because
he appeared irritated but went inside and settled on his perch. Tam
covered the cage with a dark piece of fabric then turned back to
Angeline looking blank as ever.
“Come with me.” Angeline held out a hand, and the girl took it and
followed her out of the shop, the perfect, pliant doll.
***
Hadrian’s eyes snapped open to darkness. There was a shroud or blanket wrapped
around him—and the rich scent of damp earth.
Suffocating. I’m
suffocating.
He let out a howl as he struggled in the shroud.
Then he remembered: he didn’t have a true need for air. Something
different animated him now.
Relax. Everything is fine.
His soul hadn’t been able to move on. It had been trapped, waiting to
reanimate his body, waiting for his body to be able to house it
again. But it wasn’t just his soul. There was something else. A
darkness tainted him. Demonic instincts and abilities had knit
themselves around his soul. And knowledge, so much knowledge.
Father Hadrian hadn’t been sure what would happen if he tried to exorcise
a demon while being turned. He wasn’t even sure which demon he’d
been attempting to exorcise: his own or Angeline’s. He didn’t
know if the way his human soul and demon soul had merged and blended
were the normal way of things, or if his ritual had caused it.
He felt like one whole thing. Not evil, not good, but something that
could go either way. He’d been… awakened. Good and evil were
passing shadows in the face of the greater whole. He just hoped his
chanting had done what he’d believed it would. It wasn’t the
standard use of the exorcism ritual, but the spirit of his intention
had been the same—to gain power to protect himself from a demon.