by Lily Levi
She pulled Amun back from the railings with a new force I hadn’t seen her use with him before. “Winter in Switzerland,” she said. “It was dark. He stood there. He had his hands in his pockets.” Her voice trailed just slightly and I could tell that she was remembering. “He said he wasn’t cold. It was the only thing he said.” She licked her lips.
“He was the only one?” I asked.
She looked at me as though I’d said something remarkable, revolutionary even. “Yes,” she said. “Just the one. Before all of you.”
“And you killed him, I imagine?”
She was silent for a time and Amun thrust himself against the bars so hard that she was forced to step back with him. Their frames seemed to disappear just a little in the rising mists.
“I didn’t want to do it,” she said. “I know what it’s like to crouch through the night alone. He didn’t deserve to die.”
“Nobody deserves to die.” I smiled out to sea as the edges of a dark land creeped out against the waves and through the thickening white of the air. “But they always do or they already are.”
I gripped the railings with a new fierceness I hadn’t felt in years. I closed my eyes against the unexpected, bitter hate that reached out to me from the sharp edges of the crashing sea.
Father, can you hear me? Do you remember when you’d tried to make these cold waves the roof of my frozen home? Do you remember?
He’d loved my mother for what she was and she had loved herself. But they had not loved me. Three hundred years since the dark day of my birth in a land just as dark. It was an undeniable shame that time had undoubtedly killed my father so that I could not.
My mother, however… Did she still live in Grindavik? She had been afraid of the world and the people in it. To keep her alive, my father had allowed her to drink from his veins when she pleased. I had been afforded no such thing, though I had been allowed to live beneath their roof - only because I would not leave.
I hadn’t known any better. I’d loved my would-be murderer of a father, though he spared me no affections. If only he could see me now, returning home at long last, nearer a dark throne that he never knew existed.
We would, all of us, strengthen ourselves on the blood of the lesser vampires nestled close to the dark waters of the lake near Þingvellir. A tactic to be frowned on, of course, but few tactics in war are to be smiled upon, at least not in respectable company.
“How many?” she asked again, breaking the sweet spell of my own cold thoughts.
I turned away from the growing mass of gray land on the other side of the misted veil. “How is your conscience?” I asked. “It seems to have taken a turn for the worse. I would’ve thought you’d enjoy this part immensely.”
Theron stepped out from the cockpit behind her. “You want this,” he told her, coming forward. “Does it not still excite you?”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a cigarette. Dear Theron, I thought. So it was you. He was more intelligent than I gave him credit for, perhaps, but I’d always known that he could only be marginally trusted, though trusted more than any other.
“How many?” she asked, voice rising. “More than ten - how many? Twenty? Fifty? How many?”
“Does it matter?” I asked, lighting the end of the cigarette. “Ten. One hundred. One thousand. The number is rather arbitrary, don’t you think? They’re not like us.”
“No,” she said with a new solidness. I could see how the grip of her hand tightened around Amun’s, strangling his small black fingers. “I’m not like you, either.”
“Agreed,” I said. “And on top of that, you aren’t like them. Do try less to care, won’t you? I liked you better that way, I think.”
But she stood her ground and I quietly loved her for it.
“One death is a sacrifice, shouldn’t I know? Fifty is a massacre.” She would stand her ground, yes, but it hardly mattered. We would reach Þingvellir and we would bathe in their blood. We would turn the lake red and the ground surrounding it. Even my father in his deep grave would hear their screams.
My skin itched at the imagined taste of their cold blood brewing with mine. We had never been allowed to feed on lesser vampires unless they were presented to us from the Master as our little lambs - Serena had been one, once - but even then, it had almost always only been one of us to feed on the sacrifice.
We had been deprived of our right.
But not anymore.
“Moon,” moaned Amun. “Mooooon.”
Serena stomped her cigarette into the deck. “I don’t like it,” she said. “It’s a waste. It’s overkill.”
“Overkill,” I said. “Very good, Serena. Overkill.”
“We have to,” said Theron, setting his hand on her shoulder. “There are no chances left to take. You will like this though, I promise that.”
“We’ll need more,” said Zane, emerging from below deck, his hair ruffled from the tired sleep he had taken. “We’ll need them all, however many are there and then more than that. I know the others better than any of you and they’re not going to fuck around.”
“There will be more than ten,” I said, assuring him if not Serena. “Many more.” I blew the ashen smoke into the light mist that had surrounded the rocking boat. “And they won’t be happy to see us.”
Serena
Theron steered the vessel carefully along the cliffed coast. The cold water lapped up against the sides of the boat and I shivered even though the cold had never once bothered me before.
High above at the edge of the cliffside, a black wood house with a titled tin roof came slowly into focus through the heavy fog.
Ambrose pointed. “Grindavik,” he whispered into my ear.
“Welcome home,” I said sharply. Theron had told me what we would find in Iceland and my hunger-lust had overshadowed the question of how many Ambrose meant to kill. I could sleep soundly having satiated myself - when I could still be satiated - on the blood of broken men who had unwittingly found themselves in my bed. They were human. Most of their lives were blessed in ways they couldn’t see, blissful and short. Countless numbers of them had no idea what it meant to crawl silently through the night like the dreadful creatures we truly were.
To be dreadful, what a thing. The only advantage was the length of our lives, though that was coupled with our silent suffering. It was the only thing we had and Ambrose wanted to take it away from those like me; those unfortunates without hope.
Ambrose had the possibility of the dark throne before him, as did Theron and Zane, and the other heirs. But what did we have, less than them as we were?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
Ambrose knelt in front of the boy, his little hand in mine. “They still believe in faeries here,” he said. “They live in the rocks. Do you think they’ll believe in you, too?”
Amun stared blankly back at him.
Ambrose smiled patiently. “Faeries are such enjoyable creatures,” he said. “Perhaps you’ll see one.”
“Moon,” said the boy.
Ambrose stood and locked his pale eyes onto mine. “You’re upset,” he said.
I stared up the side of the rocky cliff. “There’s no other way,” I said. “I know.”
“There’s no other way,” said Zane, lighting a cigarette. “It’s their lives or ours.” He shrugged and blew a long line of smoke high into the air above us. “Didn’t see Cain take Orlando back to hell, but I’m guessing it wasn’t pretty, was it?”
“No,” I whispered, remembering the dark screams that had filled the warm night back in New Jersey. There had been nothing pretty about it. “They’ll come for us, for me,” I said, tightening my grip on Amun’s hand. Seeing land again had solidified the old fears that I’d naively let myself believe were left so far behind in America’s dark soil. It’d seemed like we’d never finish crossing the ocean, or that something would’ve happened to pull us all beneath the waves and drown out our sorry lives.
Perhaps I hadn’t actually believed that
we would make it, or that the place we were going was even real. It had felt like a fever dream at sea, and a beautiful one at that.
Nothing more was said. It was as it had to be.
Theron guided the boat with an expert hand between a low cropping of rocks. The alcove was cold and small. A single rowan tree sat beside the mouth and nothing moved except for us, disembarking over the side of the vessel.
“Oh, sweet land,” said Ambrose. “How I have missed thee.” He pointed up the shallow pacing of rocks. “Grindavik is on the other side, but my mother will have to wait.”
Zane set Amun on his feet in the wet rocks against the lapping waves. “Mother,” he said. “So you do have one. I’d like to meet her if you understand what I’m saying.”
Ambrose grinned wickedly. “She’s a terrible woman. You wouldn’t like her at all.”
“How far is the lake?” I asked, struggling to remember the name. I had never heard of it before, let alone the nest that it housed. I had always believed we were few and far between, but I also knew that there were certain groupings, nests as they were. I had simply never been able to find them. And now, led to one at last, I would not be joining them.
No, I would be helping to kill them. All of them.
“Þingvallavatn,” said Ambrose, slowly, enunciating the word. “It’s an hour from here and only half of that if we go terribly fast.” He wasted no time in pinpointing the least vertical path up from the watery alcove. “Come along then, all of you. The seas hold worse things than anything we’ll find up here, though our trip was rather nice, was it not?”
“Þingvallavatn,” I said to myself, testing the sound of the word, but I couldn’t get it right. I checked behind me to make sure Zane had Amun. He did.
“How will we kill them?” I asked, hurrying to step alongside Ambrose. “We ought to leave Amun on the boat.”
Ambrose laughed and reached back to help me up a steep crop of rocks. “He’s dead, more dead than you, even. He’ll be all right. As for killing them, I assume you’re in favor of something peaceful, though I hardly understand why.”
“Yes,” I said, checking behind us once more. The other three followed up steadily enough, picking their way as they went.
“You have grown a merciful bone in your body,” he said. “I’m afraid it will hurt terribly when it breaks, but yes. Peaceful. Perhaps a poison. If that’s what you want.” His words betrayed his disgust.
“It is,” I said, unexpectedly grateful for what little mercy he offered to show a group of creatures I had never met. But they were like me and they had suffered enough for that fact alone. Did I not know their pain, leeches on the world?
“I was so looking forward to a good thrashing and tearing at their pale necks. I’ve never done it before, you know.”
“I’m sure you’ll get your chance,” I said. “We always do.”
He clutched at my arm and turned me around against the rocks. “Do we?”
I stared up at him. “What?” I breathed.
He moved both of his hands up to my shoulders and then to my cheeks. “Your kindness is a weakness,” he said. “It doesn’t belong in you, but hell help me if it doesn’t set my cold blood on fire.” His pale eyes sunk into mine and he kissed me before I knew what was happening.
I closed my eyes and allowed myself to fall into him, suddenly wishing we were somewhere else, away from the others, away from the world, away from everything.
If I had feelings for him, they were strange and dangerous. I could allow myself to explore them in another world, in another place, another time.
But not here.
“Serena,” he breathed and then kissed me once more. “After this is done. After all of this is said and done…” He moved his hands through my hair and his eyes flared with the unexpected glare of something terrible and wild. “There’s only one game I want to play. I’m going to make you mine, do you understand?”
My heart flared with something - what was it? I pressed my hand to his chest. “If I even let you try,” I whispered with a steadiness I didn’t feel.
He bowed his head and let a half-smile play across his lips, curved and mischievous. “Well enough,” he said. “But I won’t let you resist me. I’ve been good so far, though, haven’t I?”
“Hardly,” I whispered.
He kissed my forehead.
I turned away from him, heart thundering, and pushed the toe of my boot into a small crater.
Ambrose wrapped his hands around my hips and lifted me upwards with a surprising effortlessness. Despite knowing it, it surprised me how strong he truly was. He could tear me back down from the rocks and rip my heart from my chest if he wanted to do it.
I reached up to feel the grass of the lowlands on the other side and hoisted myself upwards.
“It isn’t much,” he said from below. “But it was always home.”
A light wind played through the long grasses and the gray sky felt nearer the world than it had ever been.
I straightened, took a long breath, and reached into the front of my jacket for a cigarette. All thoughts of Ambrose disappeared and my heart hardened as though it had never taken a beat.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello, Serena.”
Nikolai
She was just as I’d remembered her, only better: leather jacket, unafraid, and a cigarette in her mouth. By the silence of the others, they had no idea who she was supposed to be to them. It was most marvelous to witness the rare moment of an ancient society seeing its own prophecy for the first time in the flesh and blood.
Their very own nightmarish Moon Scythe stood right in front of them and not one of them batted an eye in understanding. It was fascinating to watch and I only wished that I could watch without the necessary interference; watch her rise to destroy them and everyone like them, including myself.
How thrilling a thing to be Serena Moon’s victim. Despite my oath to Darius, I felt my member rise between my legs and suddenly I wished that I had taken more of an interest in her when she was at the mansion. She was certainly fuckable beyond measure, but it was inevitable that she would soon be more dangerous than doable.
I only hoped that she would be under my wing by then. And why shouldn’t she be?
“Hello,” she said with a forced flatness, but her voice wavered ever so slightly.
Unafraid, had I said she was unafraid?
Ambrose pulled himself up from the cliffside behind her, pale eyes wild and searching. I did not miss how he put out his hand behind him to stop the others from following him up and over the cliffside.
No matter. They would still hear my words and that was all I needed.
I spread my arms wide from side to side. “Welcome home,” I said.
The long forgotten sisters and brothers of Þingvallavatn stood like a silent white horde on either side of me. Gathering them had been simple. They only needed one name to bring them forth and to the edge of their world.
Gauter with his shock of white hair stepped forward from behind me and I stepped back to give him the stage the world had denied him for too long. “Ambrose Auldthorn Silvertongue,” he said and pointed with one long, white finger at him. “Betrayer of oaths,” he said. “Silvertongued snake.”
Ambrose straightened the front of his lapels and smiled with a charm that had no place in this particular dark corner of the world. “Gauter,” he said, placing himself between Serena and the rest of us. “Pleasant surprise, really, very thrilling, thank you. Brilliant to be back. Entirely brilliant.” He smiled, teeth gleaming in the gray morning light. “I see you have been rather busy, Gauter… multiplying. Yes, what a beautiful, large family you now have.” His pale eyes flittered behind me.
“Kill him,” Gauter demanded with quiet resolution and the whole thousand of his kinfolk stepped forward as one.
Ambrose stepped back and Serena lifted her chin to release a long line of smoke into the air above her. She was pretending to not be utterly destroyed by fear and it sui
ted her well. It was just as she’d been that night in the mansion, defiant and bitter to the end.
I admired it, even if it wasn’t real. It was an act. Who couldn’t see it?
I waited until the first row of the lesser vampires were a mere meter away from them and the edge of the cliff and then shot my hand into the air. “Stop,” I said.
They stopped at my command and it was almost a pleasant feeling to know that I had stopped them.
Serena raised her brow at me and I half-wondered if she already knew that I didn’t want to kill her.
Gauter pointed forward. “Do it!” he cried, teeth gnashing. “Kill her!”
I put my fingers into my mouth and whistled, long and sharp.
Hecate bound through their numbers with her heavy paws thundering against the broken rocks. Their many hundreds of pale eyes followed her path through them and to my side.
“Sit.” I pressed my fingertips against the top of the hound’s broad head. “All of you. Mr. Silvertongue is not your enemy. He never was.”
Ambrose leveled his shoulders. “Please,” he said. “Mr. Silvertongue was my father. Terrible man.” He moved his fingers through the air. “Absolutely terrible. Perhaps some of you knew him. He’s dead, you know.” He leaned forward. “He is dead, isn’t he? Ah, well. Things have been finding a way of being not dead when they really should be.” He pointed his thumb at Serena. “Like her,” he whispered. “Strange thing, that.”
Hecate growled.
Ambrose tapped Serena’s arm. “Go back,” he said. “Do hurry but don’t worry.”
Serena moved the cigarette from her mouth and dropped the stub into the cold dirt. She twisted the toe of her boot against it with a satisfying slowness that told me she was trying to not appear afraid. “All right,” she said.
Moon Scythe, indeed. She posed no threat at all.
I waited until she had disappeared down the other side of the cliff like a fearful black scarab.
“Ambrose,” I said, stepping forward. “Let us broker a deal. A peace, if you will. An end to our terrible game. A truce between brothers.”
“Peace,” Gaunter breathed darkly beside me. “You swore his head to me.”