by Lily Levi
Ambrose. There was nowhere to go to avoid him. Seeing him, smelling him, there was something that told me he’d been watching me for a long time. His eyes didn’t take me in the way they might a stranger or an old friend. He looked at me the same way anyone else looked at the highly familiar.
He’d almost looked bored, as if he’d been watching me for a very long time. If I ran, he would find me again. No, I would draw out the end a little longer, just as I had the first time.
I leaned my head back against the cushion of the booth and watched the couple in front of me. The young thing writhed her little hips on top of the old cheat, pretending not to know exactly what it was she was doing. His glazed eyes searched the back of her neck with the intent of someone doing something he shouldn’t.
I looked for the wedding band and was not disappointed.
Theirs was a bland story. She was his new intern or some such thing. His wife was pregnant with their third or fourth child and he was bored. Not wealthy, but bored. And, flipping her hair into his face, I decided that she was bored, too.
But more than anything, I was bored. I was bored of couples like the one beside me and bored of bedding men and then destroying them; of waking to the same unfillable need every morning; of the empty chill within; of the stagnant fear that the Master and his heirs would find me, and of knowing with an absolute certainty that there would be nothing I could do when they finally did.
And now they had and there I was.
I could run. The thought played itself over and over. I could run, I could always run. But they would always find me.
It was pointless.
It was all utterly and completely pointless.
“Vodka,” said Ambrose, slipping into the cushioned chair opposite mine. “Straight.”
I took the glass from his hand and swallowed its sting. “Another,” I said and dropped the empty glass to the table.
He glanced back at the couple who had turned their mouths onto each other. The corner of his eye twitched. “Drunk first dates have never been of interest,” he said, turning back to me.
“First date,” I said. “First date?”
The couple paused in their gorging to eye us so close to them.
“Is that what this is?” I said, wiping the back of my mouth. “I would call it more like, I don’t know, a second date, wouldn’t you?” I laughed, unable to help myself. “Although given the dark turn of our first date, do you really think a second date is such a good idea?”
He watched me, seemingly amused, and said nothing.
“You’re here to end it,” I said, reaching out for the glass again. I twirled it on the tabletop. “I know what you are and I can’t fight you.” I gripped the empty glass and studied the truth of my own words.
If I was angry, it was only because he’d waited so long to come for me. He and the others had made me suffer in running, hiding, and waiting. It was the same as what had happened in Deadmourn Mansion years ago, only this time I was positive that I wouldn’t be walking away from them. The first time had been a fluke, that was all.
“I’m not here to end it,” he said and I let him take the glass from my hand. “Would you like another?”
“Yes,” I said.
He left and I closed my eyes. There were no more games to play, even if I wanted to play them, but clearly he wasn’t done with them yet.
When he returned to the table, I opened my eyes, only it wasn’t him at all.
“Hello Serena.”
Theron. His starched collar sat straight against his neck, as though he were anxious over the very thing he wanted to take from others.
I straightened against the cushions and lifted my chin at him. “One isn’t enough to take care of the job, is it?” I said, finding my words again. They wanted a show. They wanted me to fight, to run, to scream, to cry for help, but I wouldn’t give them that great pleasure.
I had been done pleasing them the moment I woke up beneath the watch of Ambrose and the Master, still alive after they’d feasted on me.
I took out a cigarette from the dented box in my jacket and lit it in front of him as casually as I pleased.
His pale blue eyes shone back at the flick of the match. “You were expecting us,” he said.
“Where are the others?” I asked, pretending to scan the room with a boredom I almost felt. I was sure that they had all come and that Ambrose had led the way. I had expected no less.
“Ambrose,” he began to say.
“I know,” I said, cutting him off. I pointed up with my cigarette to the crowded bar at the other side of the long room. “Getting me a drink,” I added and took the cigarette back into my mouth. “Like a gentleman.”
Theron smiled faintly at this, but he did not turn around to check my story. “Funny thing,” he said.
“Sure,” I said, frowning. “Funny thing.”
Nothing more was said until Ambrose returned to the table with the drink he’d promised. He looked from me to Theron and then back again. There was little enough surprise in his eyes and it was clear that he had known Theron was near before he saw him.
I held out my hand to take the glass from him and purposefully dropped my half-smoked cigarette into its mouth. “Sorry,” I said, staring up at him. “Will you get me another?”
“Brother,” Ambrose said, fully ignoring me. He flashed his teeth down at Theron and then covered them just as quickly. “I expected some courtesy from you, most of all. Why are you here?”
Theron stood slowly from his seat and they eyed each other, face to face. “I imagine very much it’s the same reason you’re here.”
“All right,” I said, sliding out from behind the table. “I’m not big on family reunions as you can probably imagine, so if you’ll excuse me.” I moved away without waiting for a response. If they were going to kill me, I wasn’t going to wait around for it like some sad, sacrificial lamb. I might’ve prolonged the end with only Ambrose for company, but the addition of Theron would prove too much. Add in a third and I was certain I’d spend my last moments in a dark bar on the bad side of town.
Not ideal. Even for me.
I pushed open the heavy door and stepped out from the relative warmth of the bar into an even hotter night.
A man in his early thirties smiled at me from the brickwork on the side of the rundown bar. “You got a light?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. It was good to speak again with a mortal, someone who posed no threat at all.
I looked back at the bar door, but it sat shut. They hadn’t run after me, but it wasn’t like they would have a hard time finding me again. There were few hunters as fine or as precise. I could only wonder that they were more bored than I was to toy with me the way they did.
It was infuriating. Ambrose was looking for a second chance, but it wasn’t what he wanted me to think it was. He wanted a second chance to end me, nothing more. I could only assume that Theron wanted the same and why shouldn’t he?
I’d broken their game and they’d finally come to set it straight.
I stepped towards the man and his smile broadened.
“Thanks,” he said and cupped a hand around the side of his cigarette.
I lit it for him.
He took a long drag and studied my face.
He wasn’t unattractive and were it any other night, I might’ve taken him back home with me and found some small comfort in his warm body and warmer blood.
“Are you here alone?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “There are two men inside who want to kill me. Vampires. They couldn’t get me the first time so they’re trying once more. I just have a strong heart,” I said, twirling my fingers through the air. “Couldn’t get all the blood out. Lots of veins. Not sure, really. Don’t care.”
He stared at me and then laughed in a way that made me feel a soft kind of sadness for him. He was happy. Truly happy. I could hear it. He didn’t know what sort of shadows stalked him, night and day. He might’ve thought the world
was glorious and that everything would always work out okay in the end.
“Little lamb,” teased a voice from around the brickwork on the other side of the bar. He’d rounded the corner and I barely saw him before it was too late.
Serena
He was flat against the sidewalk before I could turn my face away. His head had cracked open against the cement and his cigarette rolled up to my boot.
“Cain,” I said. He would not have had himself forgotten.
“Serena Moon,” he breathed, stepping on the man’s hand and cracking the bones beneath his boot.
“Well done,” I said with a steadiness that I suddenly didn’t feel. He wasn’t like either Ambrose or Theron. He couldn’t be reasoned with.
Reasoned with. And there it was. Perhaps I had been lying to myself after all. Perhaps I wasn’t done with games, either, not really. Were we ever?
I crossed my arms and lifted my eyes to his, filled as they were with the dark fury of the violently damned. Though they were as pale as the rest of the Master’s spawn, they blinked at me with a shadowed depth that made them seem darker than they truly were.
The heavy black door of the bar opened and two young women stepped out into the night. “Oh my god,” they whispered, pointing to the man’s body on the sidewalk. “What happened? What happened? Oh my god.”
Cain smiled. “Nothing happened,” he said, though he didn’t turn to face them.
“Oh,” they said in unison. And, just as quickly as they’d come from the bar, they dropped their heads and moved down the dark street behind us.
It wasn’t mind control, but it might as well have been. What a wonderful thing, the power of suggestion. It was something I didn’t possess and had always envied the implications of a life where I did. No more hiding bodies of men I’d bitten. No more stealthing through the shadows.
Not that any of that mattered anymore, of course.
“You’re good at that,” I said. My heart thundered violently in my chest. Was I afraid to die or was I afraid of death? Cain could kill me just as swiftly as either Ambrose or Theron, or any of the others, wherever they were lurking. Did it matter who did it? Did it matter how it was done?
Cain looked down at the body at his feet and twisted his boot into the man’s limp wrist.
“Not that,” I said. “You’re not particularly good at killing, are you? But look there.” I pointed to the women walking slowly down the street, huddled together, even in the heat. “You’re fantastic at turning women away.”
I made a swift move for the door, but he was faster.
He grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back. “Serena Moon,” he said, teeth gnashing. He brought his face close to mine and I closed my eyes against his. He smelled of burnt cedar wood and the ashes of dead things.
“Did you miss me?” he whispered roughly.
“Let go,” I said as calmly and determined in my words as he had sounded when he’d turned the women down the street.
“Do you want to play a game?” he asked.
I struggled against him but he held firm.
“Do you?” he asked me again, twisting my arm upwards with the words. “Do you want to play?”
I clenched my jaw to keep from crying out. I would not give him that pleasure or any pleasure ever again, not if I could help it.
“No,” I said. “I’m done with your fucking games.”
“Come on, little lamb,” he growled and pulled my body close to his. He wrapped his free arm around my back and breathed down into my face.
I turned my head and briefly considered crying for help, but there was no one. Ambrose and Theron had not followed me out from the bar, but I knew they wanted the same thing that Cain wanted - my death - they just had a different way of going about it.
“Let me go,” I tried again, though the effort was as futile as the whole of my life had been.
“It’s an easy game,” he said. He brought his mouth down to my neck and my muscles froze in his tightening grip. “You tasted so good when we had you,” he said. “I’ll have you again. We’ll all have you again. But first, the Master wants to know what you are. So tell me.”
I struggled against him even as the words passed over me.
The Master wants to know what you are.
He laughed at my struggle and held me tighter.
“Please,” I said, not knowing why I said it. He wouldn’t let me go no matter what I said or promised.
“We can both win the game,” he said and began a slow walk forward and around the dark corner of the bar with my helpless body in his grip.
The alley stood tight and still. Discarded cardboard boxes leaned against each other. An oil barrel stood tall with empty bottles and crushed cans.
With a single grunt, Cain released me and thrust me against the warm brick wall. He pressed his hands into the front of my shoulders and pushed his full weight into me. He cocked his head at me, as though he were seeing me for the first time and wanted a better angle. “Tell me what you are,” he demanded.
“A woman,” I said, lighting down easily on my old flatness in the face of fear. If he wanted to play a game, I’d play a game, but it wasn’t going to be the one he wanted.
“Serena,” he said, baring his razored teeth.
“Vampire,” I said, lifting my brow. “I can go on.” Disdain filled me as it had filled me that fateful night in their terrible mansion. It would be the end of me, I was sure, but at least I would be remembered as more than just another sniveling ‘little lamb’.
He pushed harder into my shoulders, eyes gleaming. “Tell me,” he said slowly, heavily. “Tell me what you are.”
“I’m a woman,” I said simply. “Vampire. What else am I? Smoker, hunter, hunted. Lover, somewhat loved, but only for a very short time, you know, before I eat them.” I smiled up into his face, full of growing hate. “Oh Cain,” I said as patronizing as I could manage. “The list is long. Shall I keep on?”
His hard jaw worked against itself. He wanted to speak, to spit, but most of all, he wanted to bite. It was only a matter of time, just like before.
“Should I bash your tiny skull open against the bricks?” he asked.
I tried to shrug beneath his hands, but it was no use. I only hoped he could feel the indifference I mustered up for him. “Bash my head open like you did to his?” I asked, motioning with my chin back down the alley. “My, how the centuries have refined your creative sense.”
He laughed at this, but it was full of spite. “You speak like you’re not afraid because you don’t think I can kill you.” He pulled me back from the wall and then slammed me back against it, thrusting the air from my lungs.
“Why didn’t you die?” he demanded.
Despite the pain in my back, I laughed openly at him. Was it not a question I’d asked myself a hundred times over, in the day, in the night, asleep, awake; it haunted me. I’d finally come to the only answer that made sense: it didn’t matter why I didn’t die. I was going to die anyway. Nothing mattered.
It didn’t matter that I had survived their bites because that wasn’t the way it was supposed to work. They were supposed to bite me, to drain me, and then discard me. It was a tradition older than recorded time. They had bitten me. They had drained me. And now they were finally back to discard me, to finish the job and end the game on their terms.
What did it matter what I was?
I was nothing but dead and always had been, only now it was worse. If I had relied on the blood of men to sustain me before, it did little enough now. I was a leaching husk of who I had once been and nothing more.
“What are you?” he breathed. His pale eyes reddened behind the words.
I shook my head. “I’m nothing. Kill me if that’s what you want. Does it seem like I care to you? Just do it. I’m tired.” I took a deep breath and focused my eyes on his one last time. “I’m just so fucking tired. I don’t want to play anymore. Can you understand that? I know it must be difficult for you, but please try.�
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A glass bottle flew through the shadows and shattered next to my head.
I flinched and Cain released me to find our assaulter.
“Brother,” said a dark voice that I would not have forgotten. Pollux. The name hadn’t left my ears since the night he’d given it.
He stepped out into the glowing arc of a flickering street lamp that reached where we stood. With one pale hand, he pushed back his black hair. He bit the edge of his reddened lips and let his eyes wander over the front of my body.
“Are you having trouble with our little lamb?” he asked and turned his eyes onto Cain who very nearly towered over him. “She doesn’t know what she is. You can’t beat it out of her.”
“She’s weak,” said Cain.
Pollux turned his attention back to me. “Yes, I can see that.”
I took a step sideways to test their reactions, but neither moved to stop me.
“You will die,” said Pollux, almost sadly. “But I’m afraid it’ll take longer than you’d hoped.”
I took a second step away from them. My instinct to survive would not leave me, no matter how much I wished that it would.
“I don’t know what you want,” I said, taking yet another step. “If you want me dead, here I am.”
“Yes,” said Pollux. “Here you are.”
“We couldn’t eat her away,” said Cain. His hateful eyes locked back onto mine. “But we can break her in other ways.”
Pollux lifted his hand and set it on Cain’s massive shoulder. “Reign yourself in, brother.”
I turned away from them and neither followed.
The dark street, pregnant with summer’s heat, sat still and full of death.
I quietly lit a cigarette. There was no hurry and there never was.
Not anymore.
Theron
“Was it wise?” I asked, though I already knew the answer. I simply wanted Ambrose to commit to it. His nature was to evade, to talk things away, to smooth over, and to half-smile his way through the shadows.
“For you to come?” he asked. “No.” He pressed the glass of red wine to his lips, sitting where Serena had been before he’d let her go.