Dark of Night

by T. F. Walsh

  Libby was here, finally, in his home. Now she was going to dine with him, at a table where he had always sat alone.

  He hoped she would be pleased with the answers he had given. He admitted, at least to himself, that he had not been honest with her. While the effect of her connection to him was indeed ambiguous, he had not logically made the decision to claim her with Torin. He hadn’t been thinking at all. Even now, he wasn’t thinking. No, he was letting his thoughts whirl around in an empty head and staring after some slip of a girl like a buffoon.

  He watched Libby prepare her meal, selecting a few items slowly, comfortably, as though she belonged here with him. Caleb felt strangely warm watching her. She returned to the table and began to eat, and he simply stared, watching. It felt … intimate, somehow. When had his thoughts gotten so muddled? Pulling at his shirt collar which seemed inordinately disagreeable, he picked himself up and walked over the sideboard, hoping to distract himself.

  “You’re eating?” she squealed, surprising him.

  “Libby, what’s wrong with you?”

  “If you eat, aren’t you … I thought vampires died if they ate, you know, anything other than blood.”

  “Of course not. Really, the things your kind believe.” He returned to the table, hoping for a companionable silence, but she clearly wanted to badger him with questions.

  “So vampires can eat?”

  “We can, but we do not enjoy it. For vampires, regular food is, more or less, without taste.”

  “So why are you eating?”

  “I’ve told you. I’m special.”

  Caleb looked carefully at her face, anxious for some sign of what she thought about his vague hints, but he could not be sure. He was never sure of anything around her.

  “So you don’t drink blood because you’re special?” she asked.

  “I do. I do drink it. I don’t need blood as the others do, though. I simply enjoy it.”

  “Enjoy it? How could anyone enjoy it? It seems disgusting. If I had to drink the stuff, I would just guzzle it down with my nose pinched.”

  “Taste, of course, is a personal thing,” he averted.

  “Yes?”

  “Most vampires, while they might speak of blood having a flavor, aren’t referring to how blood tastes. They are referring to how blood feels.”

  “How it feels? You mean whether it’s hot or cold or something?”

  She really knew nothing of his people. “You know that vampires drink blood for nourishment, but that is only the most basic part of feeding. The giver’s life — the giver’s spirit — is in his or her blood. We feel that.”

  “I have heard of this. Vampires take the lives of their victims — their memories, their talents, everything.” Her eyes were large, but he could not tell if fear, eagerness, or awe gave her such an expression.

  “Victims? Vampires do not kill their prey. Human or animal, it matters not. Vampires who break this rule are punished.”

  “It’s not true, then. You are saying you do not take your victims’ gifts,” she challenged.

  “Victims, again? Libby, you are describing something very subtle with the delicacy of a mallet. If you must know, all vampires can sense or taste the gifts of our donors. The most skilled of our kind can use the blood of our donors in special ways. As we swallow the blood, some of it can be absorbed. If you have great control and special training, then, for a short while, the feelings and sometimes the characteristics of the donor can be felt — even used.”

  “Are you saying … So if you drink from a smart person you will be smart? Is that what you mean?”

  “In a way, yes. That is true, to a degree, but I mean both more and less than that. When we drink, there is a little of the donor’s energy and emotions remaining in them, but it’s more of a flavor, a nuance, not an effect. You can’t drink them, and say, ‘Ah, this is what a smile is.’

  “You might say it is more the vague and faded memory of joy or happiness. While memories can awaken feelings that are dormant, those sensations are changed. Imagine trying to feel again the nervousness you felt your first day of school. You were too young then. Whatever you felt then is gone. You can sympathize, but you would really be extrapolating from your nervousness of other times. It’s not pure sensation. This is why I need you,” he teased, leaning over the table and chucking her on the chin.

  • • •

  Narrowing her eyes, she started to understand the relevance of all he said, and grew serious. “So you’re saying that vampires can’t feel or share the emotions of your victims or their thoughts? My people talk of skilled vampires being able to read the minds of their victims. There are even stories of vampires having the skills of wolves after drinking our blood. Is that not true?”

  “There is a way to do what you’re talking about, but it is forbidden. To be caught drinking a donor — in that way — would be disastrous. We do not do it,” he insisted.

  Noting her refusal to let the topic close, he continued, “What? Is that not enough information for you? Really, Libby … ”

  “Come on, Caleb. I’ve told you about wolves. Just tell me this and I’ll leave you alone. I promise.”

  “In theory, if a vampire makes the victim feel an emotion before he drinks; then that emotion is ‘fresh’ enough to affect the drinker. There are some of my kind — the older ones — who have not been a part of life for long time, that become tempted to do this, to taste life again. But the risks are often great enough to prevent them.”

  “Risks?”

  “Beyond the possible political and social ramifications of being caught breaking our covenant laws, there are personal risks. Some vampires have lost their minds.”

  “Lost their minds?”

  “If you drink deeply enough, you go deeper than the memories. You taste the experiences themselves. Everything is as it was, fresh, original, life renewed, but, to feel this, you have to basically drain the body of the victim. If you drink too much, if you drink to kill, the clear line between prey and predator is sacrificed: who you are and who you are drinking become merged. One soul marries another.”

  “They merge? They marry?”

  “You sound like a parrot. Anyway, this is why I need you.”

  • • •

  As he teased her, he again leaned across the table and touched her, tapping her nose this time. He was too happy, too willing to suddenly talk of himself and what he needed to be genuine.

  Suspecting that there was something he was hiding, she probed, “But why do you need me? How old are you? Have you grown bored with life? Why don’t you feel emotions now?”

  “Libby … ”

  “Caleb,” she returned.

  “Quit pushing this, Libby.”

  “I want to know, Caleb. I deserve to know. After all we’ve done, after everything I have tried to do to help you … I deserve to know.”

  “Damn it, Libby.”

  “Please, Caleb. Why do you need me?” she asked, hoping he would be honest enough, brave enough to admit that he was part wolf.

  “When the drinker and the donor merge, Libby, the blood changes everything. Some vampires develop new powers, new skills. Most vampires go mad. And others … well, others become the parents of the vampire prince.”

  “What?” she asked anxiously.

  “Ah, now there is pure surprise,” he said, trying to mask his anger with flippancy.

  Chapter 24: TELL ALL THE TRUTH

  Caleb berated himself. Was he mad or merely a fool? To tell her in such a way. He hadn’t meant to say that aloud. He planned on discussing it with her — after what had happened last night, it was clear that — but to tell her — damn. Bad enough to share his nature with her, but did he have to recount his family story, too?

  Silence was everywhere, growing thick around th
em, a nearly tangible thing. She was waiting for him to talk, to admit what he was.

  Finally, without meeting her eyes, he whispered, “Last night. The spell that you tried. Somehow, you guessed that … You knew, somehow, that it would work.” Pausing, nearly unable to continue, he covered his mouth for a moment, unwilling to say more. He looked up, meeting her eyes, “You said — last night. You told me. The magic works on a wolf male, right? That’s what you said.” He spoke softly, answering his own question. “You knew, last night. You knew what I was. What I am.”

  For a moment, she sat mutely, perhaps unsure what answer to give him. “Yes,” she answered, whispering too.

  “Yet you are not disgusted,” he said.

  “How could you think … ? Of course I’m not. When I saw you shift, I was amazed.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Back home. In the pack camp. I saw you transform. It was after my injury. I was out in the woods, and you ran by. I wanted to talk to you and to know what was happening, so I followed you. I tracked you. Then I saw. You shifted. You were a wolf.”

  “Impossible,” he said, shaking his head, his eyes wide in disbelief. “I would have felt your presence. Impossible.” If she had seen, then —

  “It’s not impossible. It’s a fact. You were in a hurry, maybe you were distracted, but you didn’t notice me. I followed you all the way to the waterfall and then … ”

  “The waterfall?”

  “Yes. I saw you in the canyon there. You remember that spot, don’t you? So you know I’m telling the truth.”

  “But if you … How could you … ? I don’t understand. I don’t understand this,” he said angrily.

  “How could I what?”

  “If you saw me, how … ?”

  “How what, Caleb?” she urged.

  “I don’t understand. If you knew before … How could you come here? How could you do any of this?” he asked gesturing to his home and to his himself, waving his hand in a wild arc that ended with his fist clenched against his own stomach.

  She was disgusted. Of course, she was, despite whatever lies she might tell him. His identity, who he was, it was repulsive. He hated to admit it, hated even to think it. He prided himself on his skills, the advantages he had as a hunter, but, in truth, he was a monster. Not vampire. Not wolf. But some unnatural thing in between. A freak. Perverse. Perverted. Twisted. Warped. He shielded himself from these words most of the time, refusing to hear them when others spoke them and never uttering them in his own mind, but now he battered himself with them.

  What he was on the inside, a maze of animal instincts, was repulsive, frightening. He certainly had no right dragging her into all of this, asking her to help a vampire crippled by the emotional limits of the animal within.

  She had told him of her people, of how the women were expected to bring the men to heel, to heal them of their animal natures through love and nurturing. The women cast their spells and the men shed the cloak of war, shed the skin of the beast and became men again. But Caleb’s animal was inside, at his core, and even as a man, he could feel no more delicately than the wolves.

  She imagined him a little emotionally dense. She called him names, teased him about his broken face, but it was more than that, much more. But if she knew that he was not a normal male, that he felt nothing, how could she?

  • • •

  “Libby, why did you come to the city?”

  “I … I … ” she muttered, groping for language. Why had she come here? Her father? The pack’s insistence that she could return if she hunted Caleb? No, of course not. That mission meant nothing to her. And she certainly hadn’t come believing she could avoid the abuse by not living with other packs. After all, she had expected much of what had happened in the vampire city. So, why had she come?

  The truth was that she had felt she had no choice but to follow Caleb. She just needed to … to what? She didn’t know what to say. She knew her own feelings, but she had never been good at explaining them. She could show Caleb. She could make him feel what she felt, this compulsion to be with him, to know him. But how could she explain it? She knew, for him, that logic and language were meaningful. He never uttered a wasted word. Everything was carefully measured and considered, but she wasn’t like that. She blurted things out, stuttered, repeated herself. Words confused love. Made tragedies or myths of it. She could never explain herself that way. She said things she only half meant in a search for what she actually wanted to say. How, now, to explain that to him?

  “I … ” she repeated.

  “Libby, please. Trust me. Whatever reasons you had, I will understand them.”

  “Caleb, I — It’s — ”

  • • •

  He listened to her stutter, and suddenly he didn’t want her answer. What if she admitted, finally, that he was her mission, as she had been his? Or what if she told him that she wanted his protection? What if she saw him — as his people did — as raw untapped power? She said she was amazed. Amazed? What could she have found of value? He didn’t want to know. It didn’t matter. Some random day in the woods she had left behind … what did it matter now?

  “You have said you were not disgusted. You have your reasons. I will endeavor to understand your unwillingness to share them. It will suffice,” he said, carefully picking up his flatware again.

  “Caleb, I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just that — ”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s fine. I don’t want you to explain it,” he said calmly, but he couldn’t meet her gaze.

  “Caleb, why do you think that I would have a problem with your shifts?”

  “Libby, please. I have told you it doesn’t matter. This conversation is getting rather pointless. If you want to talk about something significant, we might discuss the changes in my — to the shifts.”

  “Your shifts have changed?” she asked distractedly.

  “Before, back in your village, back when — when you saw me,” he stuttered, frustrated at himself for not being able to talk of it with more reason. “I was shifting earlier than I normally would have — just a few days earlier, but not on schedule.

  “Over the years, I have gained a measure of control. To be honest, it is taxing, exhausting — suppressing the creature.” Why was he telling her all of this? Did he want her sympathy? Why would he seek such a trivial thing? He continued, lost to his own motives. “Nevertheless, I have routinely managed to limit the duration and the time of the shifts. The creature is stronger than I only one day every month. At that time, I cannot resist the shift.

  “But that night … That night there was no full moon and still I could not stop the shift. I did not, then, understand the cause for the early shift, but with all that happened immediately after, I did not consider it as much as I should have.

  “My next shift went, more or less, as it normally does. However, my first shift with you inside the city, I … well, I … ” he stuttered. Taking a deep breath, he continued, “I went to the prison. I … apparently I … Why is this so difficult to say?” he voiced aloud, embarrassed at his inability to talk sensibly and equally ashamed of admitting his awkwardness to her. He had avoided an uncomfortable topic by running headlong into another. Had he no foresight at all when it came to talking to this girl?

  “The first shift? You mean the shift when I was in the prison, when I was ill?” she prompted.

  “Yes. Indeed. That shift,” he affirmed.

  “And?”

  “The wolf was waiting for you. It laid outside the prison, as though it were some kind of pet or something,” he said quickly, faster than he should have, muttering it all in one breath. Trying to at least appear calm, he said slowly, “The wolf acted similarly on the night when you — ”

  “When I tried the spell on Se’.”

  “Yes,” he agreed,
grateful for her help. “Then last night, I began a shift. My body burned, it ached as it always has. I was on the verge of transformation for a long time, and then, suddenly, I wasn’t. The drums were beating, signaling your escape, and I did not shift. None of this has ever happened before.” He glanced up.

  Libby was staring at him. He relaxed, meeting her gaze. He realized, noticing her expression for the first time, that he had avoided looking at her the last few minutes. He considered her face. What was she thinking? She seemed interested, not angry or hurt. She was smiling slightly, in a way he had seen frequently before she had come to the Capitol, relaxed, happy. Was she truly not bothered by what he was?

  “Libby, last night, I don’t know, I … I was a man. I was myself, on the first night of the full moon. That has never happened to me.”

  She laughed. He nearly laughed with her. He felt something akin to relief. What had he expected her to do when she discovered what he was?

  Watching her wide grin, he recalled last night. As he waited for morning, he was aware that Libby was sleeping a few rooms from him, and that his body was his own. Caleb was not wolf, yet the moon was ever the same.

  “This pleases you,” she said. “I can tell. You’re not smiling, but you sound, I don’t know, relieved or something. Hopeful.”

  He coughed, rubbing his fingers across his lips. “Yes, perhaps I am hopeful. Now eat, please, Libby. Enough questions.”

  Her mouth opened, surely to ask more questions.

  “Enough questions. I mean it, Libby. Eat.” And so they ate, uncomfortably and in silence, but together again and hopeful, at least for the time being.

  Chapter 25: TEACHING NEW CHARGES

  A lot changed in the following weeks. Libby and Caleb became friends again, locked in a world separate from the city. He was awake with her all day, and although Libby knew that, at night, he went back into the heart of the city to do the work of the king, during the day it was just Libby and Caleb. Wolf and vampire were words they never used. He toured her around his home and in the park outside, and because the staff slept during the day, they lived on an island, just the two of them.