by Lund, S. E.
Do I feel guilty reading this?
Yes. Incredibly. This is so personal… It's the chronicle of a tragedy. It's the very emotional story of these brothers and their death and rebirth as vampires. It's a record of their enslavement to Marguerite and her murder. He hates it so much he wants to burn it.
Will this guilt keep me from reading on?
No. I'm as drawn to it as I can be and there is no force on this earth that could keep me from reading it.
A sense of disquiet settles over me as I turn the pages to the next section. The section opens with a painting of a heart with a sword through it and I wonder what it represents. Is it the heart of Jesus? Or is it the heart of a man?
* * *
"Michel can't resist visiting Danielle once more before we leave. He caught sight of her on the battleground at night as we made our way there in the hopes that we'd find a dying soldier or knight and give them a peaceful quick death instead of slow from some other cruelty.
She was there nursing the dying and when Michel saw her, he hid in the shadows, unwilling for her to see him as he now was – a vampire, undead, having betrayed his vows and no longer a priest other than in his own mind.
She was a lovely woman, even now, a decade after we both first met her, with long fair hair and hazel eyes that were fringed with thick lashes. A real beauty, with soft curves and softer lips.
We were both infatuated with her when we were seventeen, and after a long courtship where she couldn’t choose between the two of us, she finally chose Michel – the soulful one – instead of me, the hot-headed and impetuous one. When I realized she loved him more, I gracefully moved aside. Michel and I would be starting seminary the following year and so this was our last few months of freedom. I didn't want any hard feelings between us over a girl, even one as pretty as Danielle. Besides I had lost my virginity several years earlier while Michel had planned to save his for God.
I talked him out of it and there are times now that I blame myself for everything, for if he hadn't met Danielle, perhaps everything would be different today. But back when I was seventeen, I thought I was a man and knew my own mind and the ways of the world.
"You have to make a sacrifice to become a priest. If you've never made love to a woman, how can you know the depth of your sacrifice? At least I know what I'll be giving up."
Michel thought that was a reasonable argument for losing his virginity, but he was very picky, always looking for a woman who met his high standards of moral conduct. She had to be a virgin, like he was, and she had to be a good Catholic. One who would do her penance for having sex with him before being married. Oh, he was so idealistic! So wide-eyed and full of faith in the possibility of chastity, believing that God would be enough.
He and Danielle met in a barn in the countryside and lost their virginity to each other in a hayloft, and spent the next few months in a heated romance, their youthful passion never completely slaked no matter how often they met. I thought it might make him change his mind about the priesthood, but I was wrong. While my commitment to it waxed and waned with every pretty girl I met and romanced, Michel's was steadfast.
There were tears that fell when it was time for us to leave for Toulouse and the seminary. He told me that I was right – having lost his virginity and having had a true sexual relationship with Danielle gave him something to sacrifice when he took his vows. He was almost happy to feel the pain of separation from her. The pain made him feel closer to God in some way, as if he deserved pain and heartbreak for some wrong he had committed, but if he had committed a wrong, I was never aware of it. He'd always been so good, so loving, so forgiving.
So it was with some mixed feelings that he saw Danielle a decade later, after he'd gained and then lost the Bishophood and became a vampire. For her part, the lovely Danielle had never married and might as well have committed her life to Christ the way Michel had, considering her own chaste life. Perhaps she never recovered from Michel leaving her. Perhaps she just never met another man whom she loved as much as Michel.
He saw her and I think his heart broke. She was still lovely of course, but she had aged and time had worn lines of care and sacrifice into her face.
"Go to her," I said, urging him on from the shadows.
"I can't," he said. "She'd be terrified to see me this way."
"She loved you. She'd be happy to see you, Michel."
And so it was I who was truly responsible for her death, not my poor brother, still so young and inexperienced in the ways of vampires.
He did go to her one night, knocking at her door where she lived still with her aging parents, the spinster daughter who kept their house.
"Michel!" she cried when she saw him. She stole out from the house to meet him, so happy that he'd returned after all these years that she barely noticed how pale he was or how cold was his skin. She fell into his arms as if they'd only parted the previous day. He was, of course, in heaven being with her again. Sentimental Michel, the soft-hearted one. The idealist. Washing away the memory of Marguerite's depravity with Danielle's pure love.
He thought he could drink her blood without killing her, drinking only so much and then letting her recover for a few days so she could once again be healthy. They went on this way for some time, and it was the happiest I had ever seen Michel since we were turned. Everything seemed to be going well for us – Marguerite was nothing more than an uncomfortable memory, we were in our familiar haunts, and the continued crusade in southern France kept us in blood.
Danielle wanted to become a vampire to be with Michel, but of course, he wouldn't agree. He felt guilty enough about drinking her blood and being her lover, let alone creating another vampire. And so a month and then a year passed in this way, with the three of us living in a house we rented, and Danielle offering Michel some solace after his ordeal with Marguerite. Here was a woman who loved him, who was, if not his equal, then a willing partner.
When a new vampire came into town, killing townspeople at will, seemingly not caring if there were rumors of a monster at loose, my first thought was that this was Marguerite's Sire come to find her and take her back under his wing. Michel and I were so naïve at that time. Neither of us knew much about our own kind as Marguerite had no time for teaching us nor did she know much. So we had no idea that the strange sensations we were experiencing were just our heightened senses detecting the presence of another hunter in our territory.
He found us.
One night he turned up at our doorstep and we made our first acquaintance with an Ancient.
Ancients are not like ordinary vampires. They were born that way, made of the union of Nephilim and mortals and were the first vampires, infected with a curse that would turn any who drank their blood into their servants, addicted to blood.
Soren was magnificent, unnaturally beautiful in a cold cruel way, tall, with pale hair, white skin and eyes that were red even when he wasn't feeding or hunting. A man of the Northern realm of ice and snow, he had been made by a Nephilim and had grown up and killed his own maker, drinking his blood and becoming more powerful than all other vampires.
We knew none of this when we killed Marguerite. We learned only too late.
Danielle made the unfortunate mistake of admitting him when he said he knew Michel and wanted to become reacquainted. He came in and went directly to Michel, grabbing him by the neck, demanding to know where Marguerite was. Of course, Michel couldn't hide the truth from him and Soren demanded reparations. He demanded that Michel turn Danielle over to him in blood price. Michel pleaded for her life but Soren was not moved by his talk of how virtuous Danielle was and how much he loved her.
"Either you give her to me and I kill her," he said. "Or you do it yourself. You choose. Either way, she's dead."
Michel was helpless to fight Soren, being only a few years a vampire rather than several thousand.
"Me, then," Michel said. But he couldn't do it, stopping well before she was too weakened by blood loss.
S
oren then compelled Michel to kill Danielle, and he did, draining her in front of us, only realizing what he'd done when he finished and she lay dead in his arms. Before her body was even cool, Soren tore her from Michel's arms and threw the body over the city wall, onto a pile of refuse as if it were nothing more than trash.
"Now we're even," he said to Michel but of course, we weren't for Marguerite was a vampire, and Danielle was only mortal. Then Soren compelled Michel to join him, travelling across France and then north to England as his servant.
The night Danielle died, after Soren had retired to his room with two young women, I searched around, looking for Michel and he was nowhere to be found. I went out and scoured the city looking for him, fearing the worst, but instead I found him in the cemetery just outside the city gates, digging Danielle's grave. He'd left our rooms and gone to retrieve her body from the garbage heap outside city walls and carried her to the cemetery, digging the grave beside our family crypt with his bare hands.
And so it was that we buried Danielle and left Carcassonne. One more wound to my brother's heart that I fear will never heal. He and I have killed so many mortals. Most we tried to ensure were already dying but this death was hard and Michel has not yet forgiven himself for putting Danielle at risk.
"I should have walked past her home that night and never seen her again," he said and sat on the ground beside the grave, his head in his hands. He looked up at me, his face wet from tears. "Everywhere we go, people die, Julien. We are God's punishment on mortals."
Our time with Soren was to prove his words truer than either of us knew.
My brother escaped one hell for another, having only a brief respite when he and Danielle were happy together and the wounds Marguerite inflicted on him had healed.
Unable to refuse Soren, Michel rationalized his servitude.
"This way, brother, I can learn the secrets of our kind. Marguerite never told us anything that would be of use in destroying vampires but Soren is very old and knows everything. I must go with him so that I will know as well. Come with me," he begged. "Once we know his secrets we'll kill him."
* * *
I close the manuscript and think of Danielle with the hazel eyes and fair hair. I can't help but suspect that part of the reason Michel's attracted to me is because I resemble her physically. If so, that would be a bad omen. Then I realize both of us resembled Marguerite and I feel sick.
The story I read of the Nephilim intrigues me – biblical creatures created when angels came to earth and mated with human women, according to the Gospel of Enoch, which isn't really part of the standard bible. Of course, I don't believe it for a second. What the bible stories describe is some kind of genetic mutation that people at the time couldn't explain without resorting to gods, angels and demons – nothing truly paranormal.
I make a mental note to check my mother's files to see if there's anything about this because it could prove to be important when I start doing my own medical research. Vampires are immortal. The properties in their genetic makeup that give them immortality could be used to extend human life and is an avenue I would have to explore if it exists.
And then I think maybe Michel's afraid. I remember what Julien wrote about Danielle and how Michel felt responsible for her death. Perhaps he feels that way about me as well and this might explain, at least in part, his need to protect me.
* * *
Later, I sit in the coffee shop, waiting for Julien to show. I debated with myself all afternoon whether I'd meet with him, but in the end, I feel I owe it to myself to meet him and hear what more he can tell me about my mother and this whole world.
I get a text from Michel before sunset.
Eve,
I can't force you not to meet with Julien. To be honest, if I could compel you not to meet him, I would. I can only ask that you don't. I can say that he'll tell you things you may not want to hear. He and I – there's still an animosity between us because of our past history. But he's still a good man at heart so I can't tell you he's evil or out to hurt you. Neither of us would do that because of your mother.
So, meet with him or not, it's up to you. If you are going to be my Adept, it would be a show of faith if you didn't meet with him.
I'll leave it up to you.
Yours,
Michel
Yours, Michel…
I can't deny the appeal of that for me. I'm sorely tempted not to meet with Julien just to please him, but I feel I owe it to my mother to hear Julien out at least. See what he says. Michel's been quite reticent to speak about my mother. He's focused on his mission and everything seems to be subordinate to it.
In the end, I can't resist meeting Julien and sit in my favorite corner of the café and wait, my back to the window as I watch the door to see him.
He arrives, looking just as beautiful as always, with his long black trench and scarf. He takes off his coat and sits across from me. The waitress comes over right away and smiles at him like he's a rock star. He orders an espresso and turns his attention back to me.
"Lovely Eve," he says. "I can see why my brother wants you all to himself."
"You're very different from him," I say, ignoring the compliment. "You're even different from your manuscript."
He shrugs. "I wrote it a very long time ago. I was so serious back then. Eight hundred years has cured me of being all melancholic for what can't be, unlike Michel. I live in the moment now. It's a good way to be. Listen, Eve, Michel needs to lighten up. Maybe now that he's got you, he will, but I doubt it. He's a lost cause."
"What do you mean?"
"Come on, you know what I mean…" he grins suggestively. "You've seen him. You kissed him…" He gives that lopsided grin, which is entirely too suggestive. "The man's uptight. In need of some redemption. If he had you, I imagine he'd be very happy. Relaxed for once. I'm just surprised he found you so easily."
"I posted a message on a message board and he had a service –"
"Yes, that's what he told me, too. I think it's rather suspicious. I think he knew where you were all along."
The waitress brings Julien his espresso and he touches her hand as he thanks her, and she blushes. He likes the effect he has on women.
I frown and take a sip of my coffee. "What do you mean by that?"
He watches her as she goes behind the counter and then drags his attention back to me, shaking his head quickly.
"Just a little theory I'm working on. Check out his wallet," he says and sips his espresso.
"Why?"
"There's something you might like to see."
"Tell me!"
"Nope," he says. "If you want to know, you can check yourself. Better yet, ask him to show you. See if he'll tell you the truth."
"He said you'd say things I might not like to hear."
"I'm trying not to. You must find some things out yourself. So," he says and leans even closer. "What do you think about my little brother?"
I shrug my shoulder. What can I say? That I want him more than anything?
"He's not really your little brother. You're twins."
"You're in love," he says, smiling. "I can sense it."
I blush extremely hard at that.
"Oh, that blush gives you away. You are in love. Just know this," he says and leans closer still. "My brother is fucked-up big time in the romance department."
"Because of Danielle?"
"No," Julien says, making a face. "Other than the fact he killed her, Danielle was good for him. Just like you'll be. No, I mean Marguerite," he says and takes a sip of his espresso. "She really did a number on him. Then he killed her. Gotta have a bad effect on a man's soul – his more than others."
I just look at him, amazed. He's so different from Michel. Polar opposites.
"What about your soul?" I say. "You were also enslaved by her."
"My soul was already a lost cause," he says and grins at me. "I was already a killer and seasoned lothario when she killed me so I wasn't scarred by Marguerite the
way Michel was. I was tough, kicked and beaten so much by my old bastard of a father that I could shut it off. Michel couldn't, despite the act. His heart was too tender. He was damaged."
I try to change the subject, a sense of disquiet settling over me from his words.
"Why did you leave the Church?"
He leans back. "I joined because he wanted to so I was never really committed to it. When I saw what was going on in political terms, I left. The whole Cathar bit did the trick."
"What about the Cathars? Why were they so dangerous? What's in the manuscript Michel didn't want me to read?"
"You have it," he says. "Read it and find out. Your mother seemed to think it was important, but I expect the really good stuff is in her files, not in my melodramatic story."
"Michel took out half the pages."
"You have her files. I'm sure it's in there because I told her the whole story."
I glance at my watch. "I have to go," I say. "I'm due at the SCU in fifteen."
"Can I give you a ride?"
I hesitate. "Sure," I say and smile. We finish our drinks and he leads the way out of the café, holding the door for me, then opening the door to his car.
As I get in and do up my seatbelt, I catch sight of a flash of grey in the alley beside the café as we drive off and turn around, thinking I saw a vampire, but there's nothing there. Must have been a reflection, or lights flashing. Then I wonder if Michel hasn't been hanging around listening in to my meeting with Julien. Surely he couldn't hear our conversation from outside the café…
"How good are a vampire's ears?"
He glances over at me. "What do you mean?"
Should I say something?
"I thought I saw a vampire in the alley beside the café. If it was Michel, could he hear our conversation from outside the café?"
Julien laughs. "I wouldn't put it past him to spy on us. He's probably really worried that I'll say something I shouldn't."
"Like what?"
"I can't say," he says. "Because I shouldn't."
"That's not fair," I say, angry that neither brother is willing to tell me everything. "If you know something I should know, tell me."