She was quite for a minute or so before she said, “It has a lot to do with Sebastian.”
“I kinda figured that.”
“First, though, you have to understand about me. I … Sebastian was my first love. I was always the plain one, the dowdy one, the academic. I got fixed up on dates, of course but they were always the men from good families who nobody else wanted: boring or obnoxious or sickly or drunkards and I don’t remember any of them who could tolerate a woman more intelligent and opinionated than they were.”
She was trying to be breezy about the story but I heard the pain. I knew that pain well. There are certain wounds that just never stop hurting, no matter how far beyond them we think we’ve grown. I wanted to travel back in time and pursue that Caroline and make her understand how special she was, how worthy of love, devotion and attention.
“Sebastian was the first man who was ever interested in all of me. He was intrigued by my intellect rather than put off by it but he could also challenge me in return and we had so many interests in common. He would tell me that I was beautiful, like the women in a painting by Rubens or Rembrandt and make me believe it. Then he Created me and I felt beautiful. He was my first experience with a romantic relationship and everything about it was just so … intense. When we were happy, I felt like a goddess in Olympia and, later, when there was trouble, it was like I was the most miserable creature that ever existed.”
She lifted her head and turned to look up at me. I stroked her hair and shoulder to show her with my body language that I still loved her. “What I’m trying to explain,” she said, “is that comparing you and Sebastian is like comparing apples with oranges. The things I cherish about you—your humor, your gentleness, your almost naïve romanticism, the way you consider my feelings in everything … Avery, even the things that I sometimes get irritated about are things that I love about you. But all those things are so different from the qualities that I loved in Sebastian, that it’s hard for me to know whether what I feel for you is actually love. So much of my concept of the word love is wrapped up in memories of Sebastian. Am I making sense?”
I held my breath. It was crucial that I get this right. “Yeah, I think so. You’re saying you’re not sure you’re in love with me because it doesn’t feel like being in love with Sebastian did?”
Dear Goddess, how I wanted to kill Sebastian at that moment.
“Yes, exactly. I don’t want to say it unless I’m sure that I mean it but you have to understand that I’m trying to articulate feelings and associations here that are nearly subconscious. I’ve put a good deal of thought into this but—”
“Well, have you—sorry for interrupting—but, I’m wondering if maybe the problem is that you’re trying to think about it too much. I mean, with stuff like this, you have to mostly follow your heart.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “But I think things through, I analyze, I weigh options. I’ve had to in order to survive.”
I nodded, fiercely debating what I was about to ask before looking her right in the eyes. “Okay, I get that. Let me ask you something though and I want you to be completely honest because I’m absolutely serious. Is there anything about me that you would want me to try changing? Maybe some way I could be more like Sebastian to make you comf—”
“Oh, God, Avery, don’t!” She sat up and pulled me to her and held me close. “Don’t say that, please, don’t even think it. The last thing I want is for you to be like Sebastian. That isn’t what I meant at all. Don’t you see that I wish that I could be more like you? The whole point of all this research I’m funding is that,123 hopefully, someday soon I can find a way to reverse the Creation process and go back to the kind of life where I could just follow my heart.”
I kissed the back of her neck and separated just enough to face her again. “Let me help,” I whispered. “Really help. I know you’re afraid of doing to me what Sebastian did to you but I swear it won’t be like that. This is what I want, what I’ve always wanted. Besides, watching my Creation and running some of your tests during the process will help your research, you know it will!”
She started to protest but I cut her off. “And it’s not just that. I want to be like you, I want to feel the things you do and see things the way you do. I want to understand you more than I do. There’s so much that you admit you can’t explain and I want to feel those things with you! Then, when you find the cure, we’ll both change back together but we’ll have that … that bond of shared experience.”
She drew back, a little fearful but I could see her giving it serious consideration. This was the first time I’d suggested that she should Create me but I knew how important her work was and had worked it into my argument.
“Let me think about this for a bit,” she said. “I’m serious. This isn’t something that I can decide quickly … I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the idea.”
I kissed her and then we dropped the subject by mutual consent and lay back down to wait for the sunrise.
At the time, I wasn’t operating with any sort of master plan in mind but it’s funny how looking back allows you to see more of what was going on in your own mind and heart. I’d wanted Caroline to make me into a vampire from the moment I found out she was capable of it. Did I manipulate her into it? I think I did, as much as I was capable of doing so (though she must have seen it and decided to go ahead anyway). Deep down, I was afraid that just being her Dhampir or her pet human made me disposable in a way that being a fellow Vampyr wouldn’t. As much as she’d tried to assure me, I know I was also afraid that she was going to start seeing me as weak compared to Sebastian (the way Michelle had eventually come to see my consideration as weakness) and I wanted to be stronger before that happened.
* * * * *
It’s a strange feeling, having the life-blood sucked from your veins.
The best part was the beginning. We made love until I was completely spent and then Caroline drained me. Not like in the movies, with the swooning and all. She just nicked the artery on my arm with a sterile scalpel and quickly fastened her mouth there to catch the blood that bubbled up. It’s incredibly sensual but also a little terrifying even when you love and trust the person doing the draining. Your body knows that harm is being done to it and panics. Adrenaline surges, heartbeat increases and all the primitive parts of the brain tell you to fight, to flee, to preserve yourself.
It’s like drowning in slow motion.
When she’d finally decided to do it, Caroline gave me a few days warning so I could switch back from the night schedule I’d been on and “say my goodbyes to the light” like in Interview. Though I’d always been a night owl, I did my best to make those last days count. I remember I gorged myself silly on all my favorites, since I knew that food was gonna be one of the main things I’d miss about being human. I took the time to walk the streets and parks, lie on the fresh grass and feel the sun on my face and save up memories of sunrises and sunsets.
I still remember them all.
I went down by degrees, feeling light-headed, then dizzy, then to that transcendent threshold of numbness where nothing exists but a single moment stretched out to infinity in all directions. Before I got to the critical threshold, Caroline inserted another needle and began transfusing me from herself.
My next memory is waking up to find Caroline cradling me in her arms. She smiled down at me and brushed a bit of sweat-plastered hair off my forehead. I felt wonderful aside from a little fogginess but that wouldn’t last.
Nothing in Caroline’s clinical descriptions or any of the magical, beautiful scenes of my books and movies had really prepared me for what I was in for. For two days I alternated between hugging the toilet and sitting on it. My body was being emptied.
I had a fever, chills, muscle spasms and aches in places I hadn’t even known I had. When I slept, I had horrible, vivid nightmares which made me extremely cranky when I was awake. Through it all, Caroline only left my side to get water for me or some blood for herself (and even these she te
nded to do when I was sleeping). She never lost patience with me, no matter how much I complained or needed.
As the virus invaded and reprogrammed every cell of my body, burning all my fat for energy, I was glad to be overweight for once. Caroline explained that Creation is even slower and more painful for people without excess fat to burn. I can’t imagine that, since my pain was enough to reduce me to tears on several occasions and that was with Caroline feeding me from her veins to further ease the process. I even spent a day in a bath of ice-water when my fever threatened to boil my brain.
It’s literally like being reborn, only this time with an awareness of every forming limb and squeeze down the birth canal. I couldn’t have survived without Caroline: my lover, my mother and my nurse…
My Creator.
After the bathtub, the worst was over. There were still many days of aches while my loose flaps of skin tightened up around my new frame and my muscles cramped with the conversion to a higher concentration of fast-twitch fibers but Caroline’s company made it bearable.
Her blood was the flavor of life to me, her words gospel, her love the very air I breathed. “My baby,” she would say, kissing me and holding me close, “my sweet, beautiful boy.”
I was a Vampyr.
I was utterly hers.
But was she really mine?
* * * * *
The entrance hall is one of the house’s most impressive areas, with its gold-veined marble floors, medieval tapestries and stained glass windows. Caroline and I and the house staff were lined up on one side of the entrance hall’s emerald runner opposite the guards. The maids wore peasant dresses that looked like something you’d see on tavern wenches at a Renaissance Fair: Hunter Green with brown aprons and corsets designed to enhance their cleavage.
Ash, at least, still got to look like a soldier. He and Wilkes and the other house guards were at attention, outfitted in something that resembled a Marine dress uniform: olive drab jacket with gold buttons and rank insignias, dirt brown trousers with a gold stripe and a Marine dress cap in the same colors.
Sebastian paced incessantly across the huge area. He’d gone all out for the occasion: his nails were sculpted to fine points and buffed, the hair on his neck had been shaved to make his beard look neater … he’d even had a bath. He wore a belted, knee-length tunic with gold embroidery around the collar and cuffs over loose brown leggings that were also embroidered with gold piping. On his feet were moccasin-like boots, which made sense for someone used to going barefoot. On top of all this was a knee-length wolf’s-fur coat.
The outfit should have looked ridiculous but it didn’t. Sebastian wore it with such natural confidence that it magnified his already imposing size while granting the bestial quality of his movements a rugged majesty. A normal suit would have made him look sloppy and awkward, while this outfit transformed him into something like a warrior-king.
Still, as Vampyrs went, Sebastian was something of a disappointment but Caroline’s bios of the Hegemons had piqued my interest.
How many chances do you get to meet a real live evil despot?
We stood in the entrance hall and waited for over half an hour before the first one arrived. Even then, it turned out to be a serious bore-a-palooza. We’re talking four hours of Senate coverage on C-Span here.
The only interesting arrival was the Shen representative of Asia. There have been and are other species of vampire in the world besides Vampyrs. Most were simply wiped out when encountered by The Order. Now, Shen is an interesting term for them to choose, since it can mean everything from spirit to ghost to god when translated to English. The Shen are the only vampire race to defend their territory against the encroachment of The Order and, in 1901, were permitted to join as equals and take a seat on the ruling council. Part of their ability to stave off invasion had to be their perfect comfort with sunlight. They can also eat food and, in most cases, are impossible to tell apart from humans.
Remember my first date science-fest with Caroline? Our best theory was that some kind of non-corporeal entity (the “demon” of folklore) existed and was able to enter bodies on the verge of death. This entity then absorbed the host’s personality as its own and was able to hold the body in a fixed state as long as it received supplemental energy through feeding. Caroline wasn’t satisfied with this theory, because it left more questions unanswered than answered, but it was the only thing we had that fit the handful of facts she’d been able to collect on these mysterious vampires.
The Guaiwu, on the other hand, are the basis of many of those Chinese vampire legends and stories I’ve read. In mythology, they’re called Ch’iang-shich, Gongshi, Jiangshi, and Kuangshi depending on the translation used, but the term means “stiff-corpse” and generally refers to those hopping vampires you see in Hong Kong vampire movies. The real guaiwu are savage creatures with white hair covering their bodies, solid red eyes, talons at the ends of their fingers and a mouth full of fangs. The Shen use them as a slave race. We have no good explanation for them except that they are distantly related to Draco’s revenants.
The Hegemon of Asia, a Shen, calls herself Jade Tiger. That’s not a real Chinese name, for those of you unfamiliar with Chinese naming customs, it’s a total pseudonym. I think it’s a precaution against being able to use their name to cast spells against them.
She brought a dozen servants! The others brought one or two, four at the most. They all came marching into the entrance hall in this grand procession with incense, gongs and cymbals, separated into columns that matched the ones we stood in and then in came her four Abominable Snowmen bodyguards carrying her on a fucking litter! The litter, of course, could have been a prop from Curse of the Golden Flower: gold and jewels and silk pillows covered with ornately sculpted Chinese dragons and tigers. Lying on it, she wore a modern red silk dress.
According to Caroline, it was one of her more restrained entrances.
Jade Tiger looks like a Chinese woman in her early twenties with a flawless complexion, delicate facial bones, full lips and a pearl-white smile full of even teeth. Her eyes are deep, sparkling black opals that seek yours out with a ravenous sexual hunger no matter what she’s saying. Her hair is a shimmering waterfall of black silk that flows all the way down to the small of her back and, I swear, it looks so soft and inviting that you almost have to fight to keep from burying your face in it. As for the rest of her attributes, well, suffice it to say that everything she has is in perfect proportion (maybe a little larger in the chest than most Asian women) and she knows how to show all of it to her best advantage.
I hate admitting this but when Jade Tiger strolled up to Sebastian, I felt a desire that was almost painful. That primitive part of my brain urged me to tear her clothes off and fuck the life out of her right there and to hell with the consequences.
That’s what it’s like to be in her presence and she’s one of the less impressive Hegemons.
* * * * *
While Caroline and Ash stayed in the hall to organize the procession of servants for later, I was with the footmen and maids setting the feast tables in the great hall before the Hegemons came down.
The large plank hardwood floor gleamed beneath the two-story tray ceiling and the room’s stone block walls. Rich tapestries, depicting some of Sebastian’s great personal and political accomplishments, hung inside arched alcoves while stained glass windows added to the cathedral feel. The fireplaces on either side of the room blazed high with logs, combining with the candles on the three wrought iron chandeliers to bathe the room in an unearthly glow. Banners sporting Vampyr mottos in Latin streamed down from the second floor balcony overlooking the room where a quintet of musicians (borrowed from one of his Governors) played a variety of period music.
I remember I couldn’t get that Tears for Fears song “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” out of my head.
Naturally, the problems started even before the dinner did.
The Hegemon of the Eastern European Domain came downstairs first, just as
he’d been the first to arrive. He’s known only as Draco. You trill the ‘r’ like in Spanish and the ‘a’ is an ‘ah’ sound.
He is, quite simply, the scariest motherfucker I have ever laid eyes on.
He has what I can only describe as a cruel face. Bony, narrow and swarthy for a Vampyr. It bears the scars of both smallpox and a perpetually sour expression. He slicks his widow’s-peaked, wiry black hair back straight, Dracula style and wears sunglasses even in low lighting.
When he first walked into Sebastian’s house, you could feel him like an arctic wind. Ivan the Terrible, Vlad Tepes, Peter the Great, Nicolai Ceausescu, Catherine the Great, Joseph Stalin: his is the will they all obeyed.
Draco had done nothing obvious to “freshen up” in the hours since his arrival and strode into the great hall the same way he’d entered the house earlier, Revenant bodyguards in tow.
Revenants are the cannibalistic vampires who gave rise to the legendary Transylvanian folklore. They seem to be a phenomenon similar to the Guaiwu and rather than wipe them out, Draco unknowingly took a page from the Shen’s book and conducted a campaign throughout the later Middle Ages to subjugate them into eternal slavery. They followed their master like attack dogs as he stepped up onto the platform that held the high table.
“Your arrangements are unacceptable,” he stated in a flat, slightly Russian-accented bass that cut through the air like a thrown dagger.
Sebastian, standing at the door that leads into the butler’s pantry and making some final arrangements with Helmut, turned. “What dost thou mean? And were we not agreed that thee’d be leaving those filthy beasts in yer rooms?”
Draco didn’t move, except perhaps to lift his chin a bit but his stillness was a waiting crocodile’s. “The Oriental witch continues to bring her creatures, therefore I shall bring mine.” His right arm moved—independent of the rest of his body—to indicate his ornately carved armchair. “My chair has been placed at the far right of the Judicis’s, yourself and Great Britain between, accounting my standing only marginally higher than Africa. This insult will be amended before the feast commences.”
Ancient Blood: A Novel of the Hegemony Page 6