Did Jaimie have money? Had she taken care of herself? With that thought, I checked the bundle of money I usually carried around and when I opened it, the middle was white paper, just one £20 note wrapped around the bundle.
Shit. That meant I could not pay my hotel bill and would not be able to return. Defeated, I consoled myself that at least Jaimie had £5,000 to start her off. There was at least that much in £20 and £50 notes amongst the bundle she’d stolen from me.
In Leeds city centre that night, I partially fed from six humans and fuelled with their blood, reluctantly plotted my trip back home to Valdoria, where no doubt an inquisition and those two heathens awaited me.
◊◊◊
I did something human. I bought a fake passport and took a commercial flight back home, landing in Odessa before trekking the rest of the way on foot. I was in no mood to arrive back in Valdoria tired and moody. I needed to be at my best if it were as I imagined—Leticia was back.
It was around midnight when I entered the Throne Room, closely followed by the castle guards, eager to demonstrate my title as prince of this realm had been stripped in my absence.
“Fabien, welcome back,” Leticia announced. Though she no longer had thick, black hair nor perpetual red eyes, I knew it was she. I could feel the demon burning through the skin which was once Juniper’s.
I glanced at Louis and he sat at her feet, a pet taken under his mistress’s spell. Never would I sit at Leticia’s feet like a slave. Louis was obviously very weak-minded.
“Leave us,” she announced to the room, and all the guards and our kind exited.
Just us three, I turned my eyes on Louis and asked, “You do know this is no longer Juniper?”
He snickered, drunk on rabid lust. “It was sort of obvious. Leticia demands much more.”
This pair made me sick, the epitome of what I hated about our kind. Maybe a long time ago, I’d been content to be her slave, too, but being at the will of someone else never lasted. No matter how submissive the man or woman, wanting something for yourself was natural—and Leticia only wanted for her own gain, her relationship with me always one-sided. She gave great pleasure, the most you could ever hope for in a lifetime, but as for the rest—she severely lacked in empathy and any capacity for affection.
“You’ve put your defences back up and I can’t read a thing. So… what of Jaimie?”
I pursed my lips. “She left. I was watching over her sleep, but exhaustion from the flight there made me fall asleep too. She escaped in the night. I have a note—” I took it from my pocket. “Here, see for yourself.”
Louis shot up to snatch the small, handwritten note from me. He walked away, turning his back on the both of us to read Jaimie’s words. Leticia and I exchanged looks; mine disdain, hers an eagerness to have me back in her arms.
“No!” he shouted, some of his human self remaining, obviously. He flew towards me and pinned me to the ground. “What betrayal? How does she know I have betrayed her?”
I let him have this round and tried to ignore how heavily he smelt of Leticia’s strong perfume. Iron also swam from his every pore; clearly they had feasted for many days together.
My eyes inches from his, I snarled, “She could tell, like a Sixth Sense. It slipped out that you were with Juniper… and now Leticia,” I sneered. I didn’t mention I saw far back into his memories, far enough to have seen the workplace assignation he thought nobody would ever find out about. As I recalled, the woman was known as the ‘Office Bike’, so unashamed, so much less beautiful than Jaimie. He must have really been feeling foolish and… guilty. He probably thought she’d cheated, too, and it was what almost wrecked their marriage. I helped put the sex back in their lives and helped them get pregnant, too. Fat lot of good that did them.
“Damn you, Fabien,” he jeered.
I threw him off me and growled, the strongest voice I had bellowing from my chest, his body flying across the room until he hit a wall. His bones cracked with the contact and I argued back, “You tried to bite your own wife so don’t come over innocent, slinging accusations. Your pregnant wife, no less, may I remind you. You have no control over your desires, do you? No better than a dog. The woman you were born to protect was frightened and all because of you!”
He fell to the floor and Leticia circled behind me, whispering, “Still so strong, Fabien. Stronger than any other vampire here. Forget this weakling and be my lover again. Just us, like it used to be.”
To hear my Juniper’s voice laced with hers was harrowing. “Where is she? What have you done with her?”
“She’s gone back to the in-between where she belongs. This body was never hers to own. I gave of myself to help her live, reincarnating her when this wasn’t her time.”
“You toy with human history too much… one day fate will come back to bite your ass.”
Across the room, Louis still reeled from my attack, wary of me now he’d felt the full force of my power. A few days’ feeding off Yorkshire’s healthy population had given me strength and flying in an aeroplane had saved me a lot of physical effort.
Perhaps also, sleeping with Jaimie had given me an edge of fight, too. She was a good woman and somehow now I felt a responsibility to survive, so I could protect her.
“Where is she?” Louis demanded when he walked back to where we stood, Leticia still licking her lips behind me.
“I looked everywhere until I found out she had twin girls at Leeds General Infirmary. Where she is now, I have no idea.”
“Hmm,” Leticia added, “she’s out of my reach. The only person who could reach her is Juniper. It’s too late to bring her back, however.”
Louis stamped his foot and grunted, shaking with anger. “Find her, for god’s sake!”
“God?” Leticia laughed, her shrill tone making both Louis and me cringe. “You need not consider god anymore, not now you’re a demon Louis. I just said, it’s too late to bring Juniper back. She let me take this body, I didn’t steal it from her. She allowed me to take her spirit away when I showed her what fate has in store for Fabien.”
Leticia smiled at me and I told her, “Blonde doesn’t suit you. Take it off.”
She smiled a sickly smile and immediately, black poured down from her roots to the ends and she had the same hair she used to have, its length growing to her feet, too. She was still inhabiting a body not her own, but her mannerisms and the carriage were Leticia’s and there was no doubting this was she.
“Better?” she asked with a smile.
“More suitable.” They were the only words I had on offer.
“What does fate have in store for Fabien?” Louis stood nearby, his arms folded.
“Death,” Leticia told him.
“Yes?” He seemed happy about this.
“Hmm. It has been foretold, hasn’t it Fabien? You almost died when my other body did, didn’t you? But somehow you survived… yet all these months you’ve known you merely dodged death, didn’t you? Just for one, last summer here on Earth, until the prophecy is finally executed. For Fabien must die. He must.”
“Yes,” I admitted, “but how, I do not know.”
“I know,” she said laughing, “oh, and it’ll be good.”
I stared at her, unwilling to beg for answers, let alone anything else. It was better I didn’t know how or where, so then I would die, as promised, and finally be free of this vindictive madam and everything I had grown to hate about our lives; indulgence so that hunger was hated and appetite never given a chance; extreme sexual pleasure so that affection and tenderness were rare; exhibitionism so that mystery and privacy were no more.
I’d spent centuries mourning Juniper. I was a fool, just a fool in love with the idea of leading a human life once more. In exile and alone, I’d convinced myself it was my serving wench’s love I missed when really, it was the humanity she represented and her innocence I wanted back. What was love now? When Juniper so quickly had Louis join our bed, too?
I clicked my heel on the floor and
asked, “What of the errant vampires?”
“Back,” Leticia said, “and eaten. They were tasty, were they not, Louis?”
“Scrumptious,” he said, arms folded, a grin in his eyes and on his face.
Therein was why they both smelt so strongly of blood.
“Look at me when I am talking to you, Fabien, you feculent beast,” she barked. I looked up and she scowled. “It was clever I decided to leave my powers in this body, hmm? Juniper might not have known how to really wield them but I do and now, I am back. For good. Hopefully this time apart has given you chance to realise it is my kingdom to rule and you must learn to accept, your place is to rule it with me.”
“No. Not a chance. I’m gone, and we’re done,” I announced.
“Not so,” she defied me, standing her ground before I made for the door, “my right is to take you as my lover.”
“My right is to leave.”
“Your right is to try to leave, at pain of death,” she challenged me, her eyebrows wriggling up and down, “so what will it be, hmm?”
“I’ll think about it, then. I’ll be in my chamber and I do not want to be disturbed.”
“We’ll know if you try to leave,” she warned as I paced away, “and if you like, join our banquet tomorrow night. It will be like the good, old days. The last banquet of the summer, Fabien. You know what that means…”
Her words echoed behind me as I chased through the castle’s corridors, heading for my bedroom. I disrobed and discarded my clothes, which having been near Leticia, smelt of her perfume—a heady scent containing human pheromones, most likely one of her magical tricks to try to enamour her lovers. No man or woman could ever love a thing incapable of love, it just wasn’t possible.
Juniper, oh Juniper, you had your chance. You gave it up so easily. I guess now I will soon join you. So I sat on my bed and contemplated how I would escape, or if I even really wanted to. How would I find Jaimie? Was she better off without me? What was my purpose on this earth at all?
Perhaps in my mind, I was done a long time ago, the feeding and hunting all that had kept me occupied—kept me from the truth:
I never did like being a vampire.
THE PAST
19 July 1453
TWO DAYS AFTER The Battle of Castillon saw France become the victors, essentially ending what would later become known as The Hundred Years’ War, Frédéric Fabron (later Fabien) woke with a sense of unreal strength. Blinking, he saw the sky, grey with swirls of darker black clouds, a sign of rain incoming. Water spotted his face and singed his skin. He hated the light and wanted the dark. Looking around, he saw death surrounding him this way and that, everywhere.
He remembered how he had been cut down in battle—a long sword had pierced his side. Fabien looked down, seeing the signs of a hit through his armour and chain mail. He knew he should be dead but when he reached down, there was no pain. The wound had healed and, quickly. He knew that because the clear-up of bodies had yet to begin and therefore, it was early in the aftermath of war.
Sitting up, he saw some lone women trudging between the bodies in the distance. They were too far away for him to shout and ask for help, the battlefield too large and the mixture of French and English dead too various. It would take wives weeks to find their husbands or mothers their sons.
He managed to get himself to standing with some effort and though he seemed healed, he sensed a painful throb at his throat and instinctively touched the wound, oozing a little puss.
Dragging a limp, he started moving and felt a painful, odd thirst. It wasn’t dry but it was for something substantial as well as wet. Light still pained him and while he felt strong, he still had that stupid limp. Looking down to see what it was he was ailed with, he spotted his left foot severed in two, flopping as he hobbled along. How he was still alive, he had no idea.
“Monsieur, Monsieur…” a female voice came from behind him, and when he turned and saw the pulse in her throat, there was no thinking. He lurched, reacted, and ate. It was primal, animal. It was survival. His foot healed with his first feed and with his second feed, he felt stronger than any man had a right to feel.
He drank and drained all the women wandering the remains of battle. It was thoughtless. He’d been unknowingly bitten and unknowingly, changed into a vampire.
He sank into a deep sleep that night and didn’t wake for another three days. During this time he was fully changed and when he woke, he remembered nothing of his former self. He switched off his feelings, his links to his former life, even quickly forgetting that he’d killed innocent women to survive, to feed his hunger.
The Lunar Witches kept a close eye on Fabron, who would become Fabien, knowing he would one day come in useful. Leticia had changed Fabron and had been changing mortals into immortals for centuries, for no purpose other than to give herself a kingdom and a people—more importantly, food. Human disease was a problem and her kind were constantly dying out, struggling for food.
Vampires were the soulless, nothing more, nothing less.
Unless…
WHAT Fabien couldn’t remember of his former life was that he was a decorated servant of France, a hero, a victor. A commander. His soul in human life had been strong, unbreakable. His wife and children had loved him. They never found his body. They presumed him lost to the Dordogne and eaten by fish. His wound on the battlefield might have killed him unless he’d been bitten, but then again it might not. He might’ve survived with amputation and lived a happy life with his family if Leticia hadn’t bitten him. But she had. And she’d also instilled him with a sense of where his own kind gathered to congregate. Never happy with who he was, it was only when plague hit he condescended to join Valdoria.
All the while, the Lunars watched and waited, hoping one day he would do it. Fabien would have rid of the plague that wouldn’t die:
Leticia, the vampire-witch, a heathen never content.
FABIEN
THE NIGHT OF the summer banquet, I decided I would play along. If nothing else, I wanted to remind myself of the debauchery of these people which I never wanted to be a part of again. Since that night with Jaimie, I couldn’t stop thinking about how wonderful it had been to feel warm and wanted in her arms, to be slow and tender with a lover too. I was a beast but she had treated me like a prince.
I dressed in black, velvet tie and shined my shoes until they were mirrors that would never reflect my face. I was the walking dead. I was nothing. I was ready for death. It had been two weeks since Louis turned up at the castle and I knew this was a night of fate. I felt sure of it.
At dusk, everyone gathered in the withdrawing chambers next to the ballroom, waiting for the party to begin. I walked amongst them and took one glass of blood, deciding it would be the only blood I would drink that night. What could I do to save the owner of the blood, now? It was drawn and ready for me to drink, so I drank it. I would need it to keep my strength up, I resolved. I placed my empty glass on a passing waiter’s tray and snatched up another for myself. Perhaps two, then!
Male vampires were dressed like me, ruffled shirts, velvet three-piece suits, bow ties, dance shoes. The female vampires however had dressed differently. Most of them wore little more than corsets, masks, heeled boots and bloomers.
A gong announced Leticia, still in Juniper’s skin, her hair returned to blonde again. I assumed she was keeping up the pretence, what with everyone there, so that they all thought she was still Juniper. Many had disliked Leticia when she was queen and defected because of that. Maybe she was going to try to be a civil leader for once and not rule with the will of a viper attacking anyone who tried to rule her nest any way but her way?
“Good evening ladies and gentleman. Welcome to the first Summer Banquet I have had the pleasure of hosting.” Louis stood behind her, wearing a plush, navy-green velvet suit. He looked every bit the faithful servant, her lover, her pet. A year ago, he might never have imagined this would become his existence. “My new prince and I wish to entertain as you h
ave never been entertained before and tonight will be even more spectacular than you’ve come to expect from this annual event.”
Leticia wore a spectacular corset, in mustard-silk, black lace trim, fastened much tighter than any female human could ever manage. Her blonde hair offset the contrast starkly and her eyes, a fiery, crimson-red, marked her lust, her fury, her dominance—her evil. The long trim at the bottom of her corset fell down to below her drawers so you couldn’t tell if she were wearing any underwear or not.
“Guards, open the doors!” she shouted, and the double doors proceeding the ballroom were thrown out. As the crowds filtered into the larger space—the ballroom dominated by heavy, carved plasterwork and a rotund ceiling painted with classical murals—males grunted and females giggled hyperactively at the sights inside. A string quartet began playing and the audience Leticia was hosting started dancing around the large floor, unfazed by the sights set between them.
Spread between various points around the room, thirty virgins (men and women) were tied by their wrists and ankles to stocks holding them upright. Naked, they were obviously dazed by having been bitten already, venom making them drowsy and delirious. Their moans could be heard amongst the strings and the whispers of vampires deciding which of the prey they were going to partake of. Interspersed amongst the dancers, the night’s entertainments were free for use by all the vampires. I stood back and watched as many of the vampires licked their lips, waiting for the nod from Leticia (or Juniper, to them) to take a first lick or bite.
Having crept up behind me, the detestable duo stood gnashing their teeth, so proud of themselves. No doubt they’d been busy the past couple of days finding the supper for this gathering.
“Fabien, won’t you be the first to take a subject? I offer you this chance, as a token of forgiveness. Let us say, bygones are just that, hmm?” Her voice reached my ears, but no other part of me.
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