"AAAAAAUGH!" I cried, and fell to my knees in a sobbing heap. Jim bent over and forced me to my feet again. He held me against his chest while I wept loudly.
"Thaaat's it…" he said, patting my back, "Let it all out… It's been in so long, hasn't it… So very long… It's time to accept yourself now, Mara. Time to embrace all that you are, and use that power. Enjoy it!"
He took my chin and raised my head to look at him again. I tried to look away, but couldn't. His eyes… He smiled and brought his thumb up to my mouth and stuck it in. He pressed it against a fang, then brought it out. There was a blood spot on it. He reached up and squeezed his thumb, and made the spot bigger. My eyes were riveted to that thumb. I groaned.
"Amazing, isn't it," he said, apparently admiring the spot. "Just one tiny little prick, yet it holds millions and millions of tiny little red blood cells. All for you, Mara. Allll for you…"
I could stand it no longer, and grabbed his thumb and shoved it into my mouth, and began sucking. I had never tried so hard to get blood in my life. One prick won't yield much blood, but that didn't faze me. I'd drain him dry through the one hole, if I had to.
The thumb was pulled from my mouth, and I snatched for it, but Jim held it away and then threw up a hand before my face. It was only a hand, but it had the power to hold even me back. I hovered before it, waiting for a signal—any signal—to begin.
Jim smiled and pulled his collar away from his neck, and I believe I drooled on myself then. Then—what I so wished for—he lowered his hand, and smiled. I howled and grabbed Jim's suddenly limp body and lowered it to the ground, where I'd best be able to feed. I hovered over his face for a moment, to savor it—oh, I loved him so much—and brought my teeth closer to his neck.
I saw myself suddenly, in the daylight, long hair—straight, human! I was smiling, and then…
Me again, same as above, only in my warrior's vest. But I was not smiling.
I felt a slug in the face, only I wasn't hurt. Then more images, one after the other, piled on, overlapping, repeating. Many of them were of me, some were of other people. People I'd never seen before, people I had seen before, but centuries ago. Leta. My children. Then blood, and death, and limbs tearing, and a last split-second image of Agyar's face, before my head snapped up. Jim was on the ground, in my arms, still asleep.
Jim, I thought. So familiar… as though we'd known each other. No, I don't believe in it; I don't believe in it!
But, then, I didn't believe in vampires, either. Thought they were old wives' tales…
"Gaar…" I whispered, holding Jim and cradling him. Gaar, forgive me… Please forgive me. I didn't know… I never dreamed… Oh, my love… My love…"
"No!" a voice roared, and I was blasted away from Jim and hit the other side of the circle. Agyar was by Jim, grabbing his arm and pulling him from the circle. I cried out and scrambled across the floor, reaching for and missing his foot as it was pulled across the lines.
"No!" I screamed, pounding in vain against the barrier, "Let him go! You can't have him! I won't let you!"
Agyar stepped away and went back to the old ways: blackmail. He held up Jim by the neck, threatening to choke him, or perhaps snap his neck if I didn't calm down and comply. I calmed myself.
"Much better," Agyar said.
"You promised…" I whispered.
"I promised nothing," he said.
"Why did you do this?" I asked. "Why… humiliate me when you had me…"
"Revenge, of course," he said. "But now the games are over, Mara. Time to comply. Time to work the spell with me."
"The what?"
"The spell," he said. "A spell for all time. And all you have to do, and Theresa, too, is to stand there and look pretty while I do the casting."
"And for that you go through all this."
"Of course," he said. "I have to have fun, too, you know. But I might as well tell you how it works. I have found a spell that contains so much power that the one who receives it has to have plenty of power of his own. Such as me. Meanwhile, he needs channelers to help him receive all that power. Such as you, and Theresa. Even the channelers need to be strong enough to handle the energies, and—get this—they must be BOUND to the caster by blood. Isn't that perfect? Why, vampires are more bound by blood than even family members! This spell will make me a god, Mara! I can do anything now. Anything!"
"You haven't cast it yet."
"Pshaw!" he said. "You're as good as dead. But now…"
He took a step back and clapped his hands once. The heptagram's lines stopped glowing, so I immediately bolted for Jim so I could scoop him up, only I was yanked back by Agyar. He'd grabbed my hand as I passed, and I found myself unable to let go! I struggled to pull myself—and Agyar—over to Jim, only Agyar reached out to Theresa, who took his other hand.
"Get her other hand!" he said to her, then to me: "It's no use fighting, witch, you can't let go!"
I held out my free arm as far as it would go, almost… almost touching Jim, when Theresa reached in and grabbed it. There was a small flash of light where our hands touched, and I felt a brief tingle, and then found myself unable to let go of her, either. Together Agyar and Theresa dragged me to the center of the heptagram. I tried to break free, to transform, to do something, but nothing worked.
"Struggling isn't going to help you," he said calmly. "Not while that spell is on our hands."
"Release me!" I spat. "You'll get no help from me!"
"No choice now" was all he said, and then shut his eyes. I continued to struggle and try to peel my hands away from theirs, but still no use. I looked at Theresa, who had that same blank look, and then at Agyar.
He had started to hum at this time, and it was increasing in pitch and volume. He had his head back and his eyes shut, and I saw that Theresa was now doing the same thing. She began to hum, too, and I became so fascinated by what was going on that it took me a while to notice that I was doing it, too! The spell! I thought. It's affecting me!
Fighting it wasn't doing me any good, for soon my head was dropping back, and my eyes were closing just as theirs had. By now Agyar's hum had become a number of tones, not very musical, but unearthly in their power. Theresa had joined in, and it took every bit of strength for me not to help. I helped anyway.
Other sounds were mixing in with our tones. The sounds of wind, and of thunder, and of rumblings from nearby objects that were shaking and falling from their places. Then Agyar changed the sounds he was making, and formed them into what had to be words—only they weren't heard in my ears.
And there was the energy. Energy that whipped and rushed and flowed all in and out and through my body, sometimes lifting me up, sometimes down, and I fought to keep it away but had to shift my focus on just surviving all of it. For as the energy rushed in and out, it began to pick up any power that was nearby, and in my case it was my life energy. The power was channeling through me just fine, not to mention taking my own power along with it, and I managed to open my eyes long enough to see that it was having the same effect on Theresa. She was already on her knees, her body drooping toward the floor, and only Agyar and I were keeping her up. I was down on one knee by now; only Agyar was standing tall and basking in the power that we were giving him.
I was dying; I knew that, we both were, but at least I expected something like this from Agyar. Theresa must have thought she was going to share some of that power with him. At least I'm not the only fool in the room, I thought. I lowered my head and prepared for the end. I've failed, I thought. I've failed everyone; everything. Especially you, Jim. My beloved Jim .. . Gaar. I am nothing…
Amongst the great howls of the wind that whipped all about us, I heard laughter—Agyar's laughter, of course, and it was booming and hollow, as though the power that filled his being was giving him the greatest pleasure anyone could experience, and it grew louder and louder, until it drowned out all other noise. By now my thoughts were leaving as I felt the last bits of life I had left being ripped from me, and I
began preparing myself for what came next, when a scream pounded against my ears, yet I still could not let go to cover them.
The scream went on for an eternity, and I would have screamed myself if I had the strength, and I was suddenly pummeled by waves and waves of even stronger energy, blasting in and out and up and down and all through my body. The screaming rose and reached its climax just as the power rushing through me reached its peak, and I was suddenly thrown back and away from the circle.
"Yoldbt, kup," I heard through a haze. I had no strength to answer or see who it was yet, however.
"Kup, Mare, mongge up" went the voice again, and I felt something patting my cheek. I felt some strength coming back, so I tried to speak.
"Uh" was all I could muster. Oh, well. The patting continued.
"Doan dye me et, Mare." It was more familiar now. "Mon, ya old bat."
Jim! I thought.
"Ohhhhhh" was still all I could summon. Give me time, love… Just keep patting me, love…
"You can't die on me now, not after all this," he said. With a supreme effort I forced my eyes open into a slit.
"Hey, there ya go," he cooed, still patting me, "I knew you couldn't die. You're too tough."
"Nnnnnnnnn," I said.
"Nnnnnnnnn," Jim repeated. "Sounds like Frankenstein. But we all know a vampire could kick his ass any day, right?"
"Any… night," I corrected.
He laughed. "I knew not even this could get you, Mare," he said. "You wanna know something else?"
"Uh?"
"He's dead," he said. "That, uh, Mr. Supervampire is dead. Burned to a crisp. And it looks like Theresa is—"
"Dead?" I whispered. "Agyar? Dead?"
"Dead," he said. "Stuck a stake in him, and—he just exploded! I had to jump behind a desk just to get out of the way!"
"Dead?"
"If that isn't dead, I don't know what is," he said.
"Where?"
He pointed off to the side. "Over there," he said.
"Help me up," I said, and he brought me up to a sitting position. From there I could see a good portion of the room, if you could call it that now. It more resembled a construction yard. Tables were on top of shelves, shelves were on tables, books were everywhere but on the shelves, and plaster, wood, plastic, metal shrapnel, and God-knows-what-else covered the floor. There were also two bodies that lay perpendicular to me at opposite sides of the room. One was Theresa's, who lay almost upside down in a twisted heap, her head set in such a way as a normal head would not be. The other had to be the smoking corpse of Agyar.
"Nice place they have here," Jim mused. "Kinda reminds me of my room when I was a kid."
I ignored him and tried to stand. Jim stood before I did and gave me a steadying hand. I was wobbly, but vertical now.
"You sure you wanna stand up?" he asked. "Why don't you lie down while I get an ambulance—"
"No," I said quickly. "No ambulances. No hospitals."
"Mare, you're barely alive!"
"A hospital couldn't help me," I said. "They deal with humans, not me."
"But you're hu—"
"I want to look at him," I said. "Help me over to him." He did so.
I looked down at Agyar for a long time before either Jim or I spoke. His body had been charred, and part of his chest had been blown out. His mouth was frozen open into that last scream he had made before his death. I searched down into my soul, as deep as I could go, and found nothing of his presence. Absolutely nothing. Agyar was dead.
I could not help but look at the body, but Jim was not used to such sights and had to look away.
"What happened here?" Jim asked softly. "What was he doing to you, Mara? I woke up, and looked at you, and—you were barely standing. Like he was draining you."
I put my head on his shoulder and shut my eyes. "He was, my love," I whispered. "He was. All to get some 'power' of his. And I see that Theresa didn't survive it."
"Yeah," he said with a sigh. "But why her? What did she have to do with this? I guess he grabbed her, too, huh?"
"Mmm, sort of," I said. "I'll explain later. But—we're free now, Jim. Both of us. You may not realize it, but your soul is free."
"My soul?" he said, then his voice became soft suddenly. "I had a weird dream, while I was knocked out like that. I was—I wasn't me, but somebody else. It wasn't now, it was—in another time, another century. You were in the dream, too; in fact, we were married."
"How did the dream end?"
"It… it became a nightmare real quick," he said. "Like I was running from something, and then these… things grabbed me, and tore me apart. I mean, they tore me apart! Tore off arms, and—and drank the blood right in front of me! And I couldn't stop screaming…"
I leaned forward and held Jim close to me. He let his head rest on my chest, and I shut my eyes and rubbed his head.
"I know, Jim," I whispered. "I know what you saw. I saw it, too. In fact that 'dream' that you had saved your life."
"Huh?"
"I'll explain to you later, my love," I said. "I'll explain everything to you. Everything about what's happened, about me, about you… about us."
"You're getting weird on me again."
"Quiet," I whispered. "Let me be a sentimental old fool. I love you, Jim; I've loved you for sixteen hundred years, and I may love you for sixteen hundred more."
"How long did you say?"
"All will be explained."
Epilogue
Jackie was told of what happened, of course, only it was difficult telling her about Theresa. She had to be told the entire story before she would understand exactly why Theresa had died. In simple terms, though, she was drained of energy. Never mind the broken neck; things like that don't kill us. The spell drained her life away, just as it almost did mine.
I helped Jackie with Theresa's funeral arrangements as best I could. Yes, she was my enemy, but I don't think she was entirely evil. I don't think she understood exactly what Agyar was about. In that way she was just ignorant, and if anyone is an expert on ignorance, it's me. But even ignorant people deserve funerals.
There were no "ashes to ashes" speeches there, only a few words each from friends, and she was buried in her own coffin—yes, she was one of those vampires. Somehow, listening to Theresa's friends, I got the impression that Jackie was really the only one who cared about her. For that I grieved with her, but I'll be the first to admit that I wanted Theresa dead too many times to not be a hypocrite.
Officially I do not believe in such things as reincarnation, and neither does Jim. But I saw what I saw in his soul; he had to be Gaar come back to me. I explained Jim's "dream" to him, but it took a fair amount of persuasion to convince him of its possibilities. Eventually he came to believe it on his own after I'd taught him how to look into his own mind. And after he believed it himself, he became practically a new man: happier, more energetic, and more "free" with the world. And I did, too, because I learned that love can conquer all; it just takes a while sometimes. A while while, in our case. But don't get the idea that we've become New Age junkies or something. We don't dwell on what we've learned; by now we've been taking it for granted, and don't even discuss it much, not even amongst ourselves.
By the above you've probably figured out that Jim and I are still together. I married him. As soon as we'd recovered from that night with Agyar, I asked him to marry me. Yes, I asked him to marry me! I could hardly believe it myself, once I had. Me, so liberated? Fortunately Jim took me even more seriously than I did, because he said yes! So we'd only been together for three months; I knew we were right for each other. And obviously Jim did, too. Must have been that Gaar part of him telling him so, though he didn't believe in it yet.
I started planning the wedding with him right then and there. In fact, I got so carried away with things that Jim didn't get to bed until three A.M. I keep forgetting he has to keep human hours.
It's been about five years now since our wedding, and we've been quite happy, despite the o
bvious problems that came with such a union. But overcoming the challenges has brought us closer together in the long run, and isn't that how a marriage is supposed to work anyway ? And oh, yes, the wedding itself was an adventure, with all Jim's close friends and relatives grumbling about a nighttime ceremony. Jackie was my maid of honor. No bridesmaids, and we had decided on double rings. We said our own vows at Jim's suggestion, as by his reasoning it was going to be an unusual ceremony anyway—to us, that is. To everyone else it seemed entirely normal, except for the late hour. Considering how few people I know, my guest list versus Jim's was a show of lopsidedness. But that's all another story.
As for my present family life, I've decided to leave that as private as I can. We have managed to adopt two children, a boy and a girl, and I had no idea it would be such a long and arduous process. That, and keeping my vampirehood from the adoption agency was a feat in itself. But that's another story, too, one which I would prefer remain away from the media. I still teach, and Jim was promoted to full manager at his department store, though he's been looking around for something different.
As I mentioned before, I can only speak for myself when I say that I would like to "come out of the closet," but I know there are those humans who would prefer we maintain a low profile. For those of you who feel that way, my sincerest apologies. But I'm tired of hiding myself from people. There was only so long I could lie about myself, and obviously, I hit the breaking point.
I don't claim to be the best representative to speak for all vampirekind. I'm no role model; my faults are too great. But this book has helped me understand a lot about myself and others. I don't even care if anyone buys it, especially considering how bloody long it is. But I hope that those of you who have sludged through it have gained at least some insight into the feelings of one monster. I'd love to meet and talk to all of you in person if possible, but it's not very likely, of course. So I offer you my thanks instead, and my love for letting me share this with you.
The Vampire Memoirs Page 36