by Damian Serbu
“I’m not hiding some profound grief, if that’s what you mean. I often wonder what happened to them. But I made my decision and never looked back. We were a close family, but nothing compared to you, Michel, and Catherine. They never suspected I was leaving. To this day I’ve no idea what they think. They loved me and taught me well, but their suspicion of others’ motives kept them emotionally distant.
Sometimes from themselves and often from me. I think they knew that I’d eventually leave and gave me their blessing.
“Sometimes I regret not telling them anything, or maybe I’m angry that they so isolated me that I ended up wanting to leave. So, to answer your question, when Anthony agreed to transform me, I left them. I thought of plotting some ruse to see them one more time or of saying goodbye, but my mother would have known I’d changed. It would have killed her.” Thomas cuddled Xavier closer, kissed his ear, and whispered. “You’re not like me, Xavier. I could abandon my former life and never miss it, but I don’t expect you to feel the same way. I’ll support you in however we say goodbye to Catherine.” Thomas wiped the tears from Xavier’s eyes and kissed him. “Is there anything else?”
“How soon after did you and Anthony stop coupling?”
“Very soon. I despised allowing him to control me and told him so. It was only a month or two before we agreed to just be friends. Then we wandered the globe and fell into a favorite pastime: watching humanity. It was especially intriguing to watch the American revolution. I came to Paris when the vaguest rumors started that such a thing might happen here.”
“My God. You’re nearly sixty-five,” Xavier said, stunned.
“Not so old for a vampire.”
“But you look like me. I’ve always assumed, even after I knew, that you were my age. You could be my father.”
“That’s disgusting.” Thomas tickled Xavier again until he begged him to stop.
“I remember the American revolution but was young when they declared independence. And you watched it as an adult.”
“Have you finished being amused?”
“So you and Anthony wandered around the world and observed people, which brought you to this fair country and the misery about to ensue in 1789.”
Thomas rolled Xavier onto his back and pinned him in the hay. Xavier smiled, more happy than Thomas had ever seen him. His eyes sparkled, his teeth gleamed, and he relaxed entirely.
“Misery or not, it brought me to Paris on that day that I’ll never forget, when I saw the most beautiful angel helping a lost child. I fell in love at once, dreamt that one day I’d hold him in my arms, and hoped that he’d be mine.”
“He is,” Xavier said as he pulled Thomas toward him.
They made love, more passionately than ever, then lay naked in the hay. Xavier fidgeted with Thomas’s hair and Thomas watched the clouds drift by, marveling that this little corner of France was so calm with the rest of it in complete upheaval. Xavier eventually fell asleep, using Thomas and their clothes as blankets, and Thomas watched him peacefully slumber.
After a few hours Thomas nudged his love awake.
“Shall we return you to Paris before the sun rises?” Thomas asked as dawn approached.
“Wait,” Xavier said after they dressed and Thomas started to whisk them away. “I want you to take me. Will you make me a vampire?”
Thomas smothered Xavier in another hug and kissed the top of his head.
“You know I will. But do me one last favor.”
“Anything.”
“Wait one more day. It will do you good to think about it one last time before making a commitment. Promise that you’ll stay indoors away from danger, and I’ll come for you first thing tomorrow evening. Then, if you still feel this way, I’ll bring you to me forever.”
Thomas: Transformation
19 October 1793
THOMAS WOKE, ANXIOUS to take Xavier at once, but he had one item that could not wait, even for this. But first, to calm his fears, Thomas raced through Paris even before the sun entirely disappeared and hid outside the Saint-Laurent home. There he sat at the window, waiting, but Thomas fought the urge to see Xavier first because in last night’s passion he had suppressed something that returned to him as he slept: a vision that scared him to the bone that someone might harm Xavier. Those fiends who had attacked the Saint-Laurent home remained at large. They should die, a just and good vengeance.
With preternatural speed Thomas combed Paris, listening to conversations and lurking in shadows. His journey took him to Robespierre’s headquarters where he slipped in and pretended to be a soldier. Fools that they were, no one suspected a thing, even though he wore all black and had no weapons. Thomas passed among the guards, asking simple questions that might reveal who had ransacked the Saint-Laurent mansion. Then, spotting three brutes hovering together, one with a fresh scab across his face, Thomas knew that he had found them.
“We seek whores,” one stated.
“Better be more careful than you were with them nuns,” another responded.
“Never you mind that, we gave them nuns the thrill of their lives,” said someone else.
“Yes,” another sneered. “And that’s why four of you left and only three returned.”
Thomas hurried outside to hide in the shadows, excitement coursing through his veins as he planned his torment. To think, they thought Xavier dead. The idiots were actually lucky. Had Xavier died, Thomas would have tortured them alive for years. When they drunkenly approached, he stepped out of the darkness and, before they reacted, picked all of them up and leaped onto the roof of the nearest building, several stories up and safely out of view.
Each shook with complete terror, staring in horror at Thomas. He tied two together with their own clothes and attached them to a nearby post. They struggled to no avail. The other had run around the roof, screaming and searching for escape, and eventually jumped across an alley and onto another dwelling, but Thomas caught him with ease and dragged him back to the others. Despite his rage, Thomas stayed calm, not the impatient, irrational beast of a few months ago. This was the new Thomas. True, he seethed inside and plotted a gruesome execution, but only upon the deserving. Ever so methodically he began.
“Do you remember those nuns? You will suffer for what you did.” He broke both legs of the one who tried to run away. Then Thomas untied the second and cut out his entrails with his own knife, one he no doubt had used on the innocent nuns. He, too, lived but could do nothing to save himself.
“Please, I didn’t do it. They made me,” the one still tied up lied. His earlier demeanor had betrayed him, however, as the leader of this gang.
“Shut up. Die with dignity. That’s more than you offered the nuns.”
Thomas returned to the man with broken legs and lifted him off the ground. With his fingernails, he slit long cuts in the man’s wrists, enough to bleed to death but small enough to allow him to witness more torture before he died. Thomas next jabbed into the exposed guts of the man who sat motionless and in shock. He screamed with each jab but hadn’t the power to escape. When the first had died, Thomas simply ripped out this one’s organs and threw them to the ground.
“Do you see what it’s like to torture the helpless?” Thomas asked their leader, who remained tied up. “And yet you never had mercy on your victims. Is it still so funny to think of those nuns?”
“I didn’t mean—”
Thomas clutched his throat. “Don’t lie.”
“I did it. But I can change. Please don’t kill me.”
“Take off your clothes.”
“What?”
“If you want to live, take off your clothes,” Thomas said calmly. “Hurry.”
The man removed everything but his underwear until Thomas instructed him to get rid of those, too. Thomas could not help but laugh that the man was aroused.
“You have a choice I didn’t give your friends. When I’m done with you, if you choose, you can leave. I’ll make sure that you won’t die. How does that sound?”
“Good. Anything. I’ll do anything.”
As the man stood shivering, Thomas walked around him, glaring, and pricked his arm with a fingernail to get a taste of his blood. This man had no remorse, only self-pity. With only a hint of his past on Thomas’s lips the vampire learned all he needed to know. Tiring of the game and wanting to see Xavier, he swiftly reached around and ripped off the man’s testicles, then applied some of his own blood to the wound to stop the bleeding and pain.
“Much better,” Thomas said. “Now you may live.”
But the vampire was not surprised as the fiend bumbled to the edge of the building, peered to the street, and launched himself four stories to the ground and impalement on a light post.
Pleased, Thomas left the bodies and hurried back to the Saint-Laurent house.
“Thomas, where have you been? I thought something happened or that you changed your mind.”
“Never,” Thomas hugged Xavier tightly. “A small matter demanded my attention. How was your day?”
“Long, too long. Will you still take me? I love you. I want to be with you.”
“Aren’t you the eager one?”
“What do I need to do? Where will we go? Should I talk to Catherine?”
“Slow down. You’ll see Catherine again. Why don’t we walk to my flat?”
Xavier talked nervously the entire time and stayed close to Thomas, who walked briskly until they arrived and hurried up the stairs.
“...so I avoided her all day because I couldn’t hide my nervousness but didn’t want to anger you, or betray some ethic I didn’t understand—”
Thomas grabbed Xavier by the shoulders and stared commandingly into his eyes. “Listen to me, abbé. There’s nothing wrong. There’s nothing for you to worry about. You may tell Catherine when you wish and I’ll protect you from making any errors that might endanger you. I love you, Xavier. Nothing has changed since last night. Please, calm yourself or you’ll have a heart attack before I can transform you.” Thomas cupped Xavier’s head and pulled him close. “I should have told you sooner. I had to take care of the fiends who attacked you. I couldn’t allow them to live but I was afraid that you’d stop me so I wanted to do it before I came to you.”
“I’d have done the same. Or at least I had planned to do it. I’m sure I can kill now. It won’t be easy, I know that, too, but I can do it.”
Thomas held Xavier again, a bit surprised at the changes in the man he loved. But rather than worry, he thought Xavier truly liberated from his former naïveté. He guided Xavier into the bedroom, picked him up, and placed him on the silky sheets. He had waited for so long for this moment but hesitated, afraid to ruin it—he wanted perfection.
Thomas lowered himself onto Xavier and kissed his forehead, cheeks, and eventually his lips. Slowly he undressed them, first Xavier and then himself, their kisses more impassioned than ever, their bodies stiff and yearning for contact. Xavier spread his legs willingly as Thomas gently inserted himself, then his body went limp with pleasure as Thomas moved in and out at the same time that he grabbed Xavier and masturbated him. As they reached climax together, Thomas leaned over and sank his teeth into Xavier’s neck.
Xavier’s body collapsed as Thomas drank the blood and saw Xavier’s life pass before him, with all the visions he had anticipated: the loving, trusting abbé; the loyal brother; the affectionate soul; Xavier’s vulnerability and need for reassurance; the utter devotion to their relationship. Thomas winced only when he saw Xavier crying, both as a child and as an adult, when tragedy struck. And his anger boiled anew when he saw what those bastards did to Maria; he fought the wrath that engulfed him when he saw them attack his abbé.
Too quickly, the sweet taste of Xavier’s blood stopped flowing down his throat. Thomas at once lifted the abbé’s head, ripped at his own throat with his nails, and pressed Xavier against him to drink. The blood trickled into his mouth, only slowly did Xavier suck volumes into himself.
And so Xavier awoke from the dead, gone for but a second, and now lay with his vampiric eyes pleading with Thomas, who admired his companion, brushed along his chest, and kissed him.
“My little abbé,” he whispered in Xavier’s ear.
“Am I yours?” Xavier asked.
“You already were. But you’re a vampire now.”
“It was that simple?”
“Yes. Were you expecting some ancient ritual?”
“No, I just don’t feel different.”
“Stand up,” Thomas commanded and Xavier did so.
“I’m stronger,” he exclaimed, wonderment in his eyes.
“Infinitely so. And you can move quickly through the night.”
Then Thomas grabbed Xavier and threw him back on the bed. Xavier yielded completely as they had sex, more passionate than before now that Thomas did not worry about injuring him.
At last satisfied, Thomas led Xavier into the street to teach him about his nature. They practiced moving quickly, seeing through vampiric eyes, and watching crowds for danger. Then they hunted. Thomas explained the ethic once more and told Xavier how to pick a worthy victim. He watched his abbé kill to make sure that he did not put himself in danger, but Xavier gracefully lured his prey, a hardened murderer. Of course, he sought the worst of humanity, as Thomas had expected. Then the angst came, as Thomas knew it would, so he helped his love through that, too. Xavier shuddered a bit but reminded himself over and over about the awful images he had seen in the victim’s blood. Gradually, over the next days and weeks, he would come to accept what he had done.
Thomas had never felt better than when they lay that morning in his coffin, after teaching Xavier as much as possible that night. He had intentionally designed a large coffin for the day when he found a mate, and it fit the two perfectly. Xavier’s contented face grinned at Thomas, and he drifted away first, his vampiric blood not yet as strong as Thomas’s. Before he did, he rolled over, lay his head on Thomas’s chest, and wrapped his arms around his body. Thomas clutched the abbé in his arms and kissed the top of his head. Then, as he waited to sleep, he embraced the moment—his fantasy had come true!
Catherine: Delusions
21 October 1793
CATHERINE SAT ALONE in her office after waking on the sofa. She had fallen asleep here, mentally exhausted from trying to decide what next to do. She could not sit inside with Paris in turmoil, but political involvement was out of the question because Catherine disdained every government that had ruled since Louis’s abdication. She had locked herself in the office to find a solution to no avail before she finally passed out on the couch. Vying to regain control after she awoke this morning, Catherine exited the office, walked through the library, and went to the parlor.
Wine and Marcel’s potion brought her to her senses, and she regained confidence. Then, quite suddenly, she panicked at not having seen Xavier all night. Whenever he left with Thomas, he always came to find her upon returning. On other occasions he patiently assisted her to her room before retiring himself. Had he run away again? Catherine’s heart skipped, so she hurried down the hall to his room and found it empty. Next she ran to her room: vacant. She had nearly lost hope when she walked by her office door and saw a note attached in Xavier’s handwriting.
Catherine,
Due to time constraints I cannot disclose much, but I would not leave Paris without writing you. I am going with Thomas to England to see Anthony. Rest assured that all is well and we will come to you as soon as we return to France.
Catherine, I have never been more in love!
With much love, your devoted brother,
Xavier
He was with Thomas and in love, which meant only one thing. Thomas had transformed him. Catherine smiled as she sat in a chair with her wine. Her brother had finally vanquished the ghosts that haunted him.
She hurried to her room to change her rumpled clothes and thought about Jérémie’s return to live with her as she redid her hair. Other than Xavier, she was most comfortable with this
longtime friend. Yet he brought a dimension of late that Catherine disliked. Specifically, his penchant for championing Michel’s causes. So long as her brother had lived, Jérémie acted as a confidant, but Michel’s death transformed him into a protective man, especially when it came to Marcel. Yet she was glad to have him living back at the house, especially now that she realized Xavier would not be returning to it.
Besides, Catherine had wondered for some time about Jérémie. Of late he had become meek and reserved, behaving at times almost like Xavier, which hardly fit the loyal yet needy friend who had followed Michel and her around since childhood. Though quiet, Jérémie had never behaved so skittishly before.
When Catherine heard a key in the front door she went to greet Jérémie.
“Come in.”
“My trunks will follow,” he said. “Are you alone?”
“For now, which is why it’s nice to have you here.”
“Where’s Xavier?”
“It’s a rather long story. Suffice it to say that he went to London.”
“London?”
“I’ll explain later.”
Catherine ushered Jérémie into the parlor and poured him a glass of sherry, his favorite drink. Then she got herself some wine and tried to conceal Marcel’s headache medicine.
“Catherine, do you still take that stuff? What about Anne’s remedy?”
“Oh, don’t fuss about it. I’m taking that stuff that Anne gave me, too, but it hasn’t had an effect whatsoever. If anything, it gives me more of a headache and forces me to use more of Marcel’s medicine. I’m using it up too fast and might run out before he returns.”
“Listen to yourself,” he said with poorly disguised disgust. “You have to use more exactly because Anne’s remedy is working. It’s countering his potion—”
Catherine laughed. “You sound like a gypsy with all of your superstitions and talk of potions. Can we please change the subject?”
“Remember you agreed that I could bring Anne to the house today. I had planned—”