by Jack Conner
Devastated, he sunk into depths of despair he hadn't known since Maria's death. In fact, this time his insanity completely consumed him, lasting for close to seventy years. It was a colder sort of insanity, the sort that would be hard for anyone to detect; to all others, he appeared rational. Around the time Amelia died, the Civil War was breaking out and Ruegger fled the claustrophobic city of New York for the more lush land of the South, where he started a cotton plantation in Louisiana with his fortune and bought several hundred slaves. He was not to return to New York for a long, long time; to him, it became a haunted place, a place of misery.
To him, the war represented the old ways versus the new. The traditional rural life against the industrial age. These were concepts that he could relate to, even though his love of life had completely disappeared. Before Amelia’s death, he had killed slave-owners, and now he was one. Life grew to be an evil thing to him, and he set about its destruction coldly.
The war called to him, and he couldn't resist the temptation to break open the bones of those that lived in the northern world that so disgusted him, the world that had killed Amelia. He purchased the title of colonel from the Confederacy and became, once more, a leader of men. He was relentless and cruel, driving his soldiers savagely into the jaws of death again and again, but leading them out successfully. His men hated and feared him, but the Confederate generals loved him. They promoted him to their rank. He agreed, under the condition that he could still lead his soldiers into battle.
At this point they began to call him the Demon of the Mississippi, as the river was his stomping ground. To this day, a portrait of him (bearded and in Confederate uniform) lies embedded in one out of every four Civil War textbooks in the country.
Of course, others were aware of the delicate skin condition that prevented him from seeing daylight and understood his need to keep indoors during that time. Ultimately this little eccentricity became common knowledge, and the Union used it against him, leading their assaults during daylight and killing enough of his men to make his nocturnal counter-assaults ineffective.
To make matters worse, a few Union shades realized what he was and made several attempts on his life. After surviving the first, he immortalized a small group of his die-hard loyalists (there were only a few), and they protected him.
When the war ended, he retreated back south a burnt-out, hateful creature, only to find his plantation in ruins. The slaves had risen against their overseers and set the mansion aflame. The overseers hung by their necks from the towering oak trees surrounding the estate. The slaves had hung them by their bull-whips.
In a rare display of emotion, he danced around their bodies and collapsed laughing.
He had no idea where to go, so he disappeared into the never-ending Louisiana swamplands, where he lived alone, a savage. He actually enjoyed the solitude. But, as fate would have it, his reputation had intrigued a werewolf called Lord Kharker.
Kharker searched the swamps for months before finding Ruegger, who had become something of an elemental, an extension of the swamp itself. Kharker took Ruegger under his wing, teaching the one who was now often referred to as the Darkling the finer points of evil through a seemingly endless series of wars and debaucheries. They loved each other in the way that only they could, appreciating one another's darkness, yes, but it wasn't that simple. They understood that beneath all that they were still warm, affectionate beings, capable of emotion and caring. They relished and embraced their blackness, because they understood that that was their nature.
This was what Kharker taught him: to be evil (if there was such a thing), because that’s what he was. But it wasn’t all of what he was. Kharker tried to instill in him the zest for life that the Hunter had. In this, he failed. Ruegger could never be at peace with his darkness as Kharker was with his.
It all culminated in World War Two, the war Ruegger thought of as that which had taken his soul, if he had one left. The Hunter and the Darkling were indiscriminate. To them, war was a playground. Everyone on the field was prey. The two would attack soldiers, civilians, anyone. For fun, they even assassinated a few people with high rank, just to stir things up. It didn't matter which side, just as long as there were no witnesses left. With Kharker beside him, Ruegger committed unimaginable deeds, atrocities so dark he couldn’t even name them.
Infrequently, but sometimes, they'd hunt separately. On one such night in Germany, Ruegger woke up in a cave surrounded by bodies, not knowing how he had gotten there and crying out for Amelia. It all came back to him in a rush, and he left the cave hating himself, determined to go out and slaughter a whole slew of humans to prove to himself one last time that he was really and truly evil. Then he would lie down, smoke a cigarette, and watch the sun come up.
Later, he would understand. After seventy years, the ice simply broke. The walls he’d erected between himself and emotion dissolved in a blaze; he’d killed one person too many. But what were his options? He couldn’t continue on as if he hadn’t reached a defining moment, and he couldn’t suddenly reverse sides and fight for justice with the weight of his crimes poised above his head.
The Vampire Hauswell found him first. Hauswell saved him, if not the soldiers he'd destroyed. Hauswell, a staunch German who'd been living in America until the war, had come over to Germany to kill off the evil elements of his native country so that he could still be proud of his homeland. Ruegger never learned how Hauswell knew of him or found him, but the vampire did, and he brought Ruegger back to the light. He convinced Ruegger not to kill himself, that there could be life for him yet in redemption. After Hauswell's arrival, Ruegger understood that he could never go back to Kharker, never surrender again to evil. As much as he loved his mentor and friend, Ruegger knew he could never see Kharker again.
After the war was over, Ruegger returned with Hauswell to Las Vegas, where Hauswell was rising in the ranks of the criminal underworld. He was a kind man, in his way, but not to be trifled with, and Ruegger learned much under his tutelage. Hauswell become a different sort of mentor to Ruegger, not goodly, exactly, but noble. Ruegger had to figure out how to be goodly himself. Breaking people’s knees when they didn’t pay up didn’t quite qualify, in his opinion. For all Hauswell’s virtues—for instance, his refusal to feed on the innocent—he was a ruthless businessman.
Soon, Ruegger knew he had to return to New York, if only to stare his demon in the eye. To conquer it.
Once he'd done this, New York became a sort of base of operations for him, somewhere to stay between his many road-bound odysseys. He only fed now on the unjust. Sometimes he even fed on other immortals who had preyed on humans indiscriminately. Slowly, he began to develop a new sort of reputation. He became an avenger. He became the boogeyman that unrighteous shades feared.
This went on for decades until he found Danielle, and except for the months Danielle had spent with Jean-Pierre at Lord Kharker's, they'd been together ever since.
* * *
Ruegger, though dry-eyed immediately after the telling, soon broke down with violent sobs. Danielle embraced him. She didn’t exactly know how to respond. He’d been evil (she had no problem using the word), she knew that. She had already forgiven him for it, in fact. He’d never apologized for it, and she hadn’t asked him to. It’s simply who he was. Or had been.
The strange thing, to Danielle, was that in telling the story he made himself out to be more vile than he had been. Kharker had told her enough to give her an accurate picture of his days as the Darkling, and it was not the portrait he painted himself. Not that she believed Kharker, who had admired Ruegger’s evil, but she would sooner believe the Hunter than Ruegger, who couldn’t be objective about it. The way Kharker told it, Ruegger very simply hated life and wanted to stamp it all out. He had been quite cold and methodical about it. Without emotion. A reaper.
One day emotion had returned to him, and he’d lost the driving force behind his attempted genocide. And never apologized for it. Until now.
"I kille
d hundreds, thousands ... " he said through his tears. "I deserve death a million times over."
"No," she said, stern. "No! Don't you see, you've changed. You're not with Kharker anymore. You've turned your back on all that. You're with me now, and we've never killed an innocent—have we?"
"No, never. I could never kill an innocent again, not even if my life were in danger. But don't you see, I go insane after I lose someone I love. If you were to ever—"
"No, stop it! You didn’t go insane after Ludwig died. Besides, no one's going to kill me. But if they did ... Well, consider this. You'd respect my last wish, wouldn't you?"
"Of course."
"Then as my last wish I command you never to kill an innocent. Do you hear me?"
"Yes, but—"
"No, never! Now swear, damn you."
"I swear it." He tore off his shirt, pressed his thumbnail over his heart and carved a bleeding X in his chest. "Cross my heart.”
She kissed the wound, took his blood into her mouth and swallowed. Tearing off her own shirt, she threw her legs around him and straddled him, then pressed herself tight against him, kissing his face and licking his tears away.
"I love you, Ruegger. Always."
"I love you, too," he said.
Their lips met, and everything after was a blur.
Afterward, rain pounded the remains of the window, and Danielle knew that Laslo would not be happy; they had just defiled this room. Thank God.
"Let’s go outside,” she said. “I don’t care about the rain. I can't stand this place. Mount Vapor never made me claustrophobic, but this place does. Let's dance in the rain and perform some ungodly rituals."
She led the way out, down the corridors and the twisting staircase and through the angular vestibule until a light rain fell on them. They picked their way down to the still-dry earth and toward a little rise, where the cemetery was, crested the hill and came to the burial ground, surrounded by a dilapidated wrought-iron fence. A large black archway, leaning to the right and with a twisted gate, allowed access to the holy ground.
“Damn it all,” Ruegger breathed.
Danielle stared. All the graves—and there were no more than fifty—had been unearthed.
"What does it mean?" she said.
"It means that Laslo's resurrected them all."
Chapter 18
"Groovy," said Cloire, eyeing the penthouse, and her voice was only half-mocking. One day after Initiation, the death-squad had just arrived in Las Vegas.
Jean-Pierre nodded. Things had been going pretty well, he had to admit. There was still some tension among the crew, but it had lessened dramatically since the Initiation, and Sophia was part of the reason. Instead of focusing on themselves so much, the others could concentrate on getting to know her and, when they did start to bicker, she made an effort to come between them, acting in an almost motherly capacity. She was no mother, though. She could be as cold and brutal as any member of the crew. Because of this, she'd earned their respect.
The truth was that Jean-Pierre was impressed. Not only was she all the things he admired in a warrior, but she was sensual, as well. In his effort to detach himself from Danielle, Sophia might just be the thing he needed. And every time he'd made some small advancement on her, she'd returned it, which built his confidence.
It seemed childish, this little game, but he was determined that if he and Sophia were going to become involved, it wouldn't be on the sideline basis that Kristen and Veliswa had fallen into. Moreover, it wouldn't be of the obsessive nature as his love for Danielle. No, if this happened at all, it would be mature and, as such, it must progress at a mature pace. But did mature necessarily mean slow?
There were enough rooms in the penthouse suite for all of them, and after exploring their new surrounds the crew began to unpack. It was one of the nicer casino/hotels along the Strand, and the owner reputedly had connections with the mob.
After throwing his one suitcase on his bed, Jean-Pierre moved into the living area and broke out a Pall Mall.
The others drifted in. "I think we should hit the casino,” Loirot said.
"Well, you would," said Cloire. "But hell, we're in Vegas, why not? Ruegger and Danielle can wait a few hours. As Sofe said a few days ago, it's a paid vacation. What d'you think, Jean-Pierre?"
He shrugged, thinking it would be good for them. "Let's do it."
Smiling, Cloire turned to Sophia. "You ever been to Vegas, Sofe?"
"Used to live here, a long time ago, back in the mob's heyday. It's nothing like it was."
"I'm fleshstarved," said Kilian. "Are we still going to uphold the tradition of the four-day fast? It seems ridiculous under the circumstances. Without food, we'll be weak, so what happens if we run across the odd flock?"
"If we find them, we'll feed," said Jean-Pierre. "If not, we'll uphold the fast and the second stage of the Initiation immediately afterwards. Everyone okay with that?"
They nodded, and he led the way downstairs to the casino. After trading in some cash for chips, Loirot went off to play baccarat, while Cloire and Byron found a roulette table and Kilian decided on a nice game of blackjack. Kiernevar migrated to the slot machines.
Suddenly Jean-Pierre was aware that he was alone with Sophia and that she was very near him, almost brushing his side. He remembered last night during Initiation when they'd all begun the ritual orgy, and he'd thought at the time—while he and Sophia were coupling—that they were especially close somehow. Something about the genuine nature of her smile. Although ... She'd seemed reluctant to become intimate with him at first. Perhaps he’d imagined it. Still, standing so close to her, his mind flashed on that smile of last night, when she'd writhed above him in thoughtless abandon, and how that smile had warmed his heart.
Their hands touched. "Shall we play craps?" she said.
"Together?"
"I'll blow on your dice."
They wandered over to the craps table.
"Do I scare you?" she said.
"Of course not."
"Your hand is trembling."
Fool, he thought. Suck it up. I can be every bit as cold as she is.
It was this coldness in her that he liked, this impenetrable inner strength that reminded him of the way he'd been back in the days before Danielle. Even then he’d felt incomplete, though. Sophia was different. She accepted her nature, which was so close to the albino's own, but unlike him was complete in herself. Perhaps her inner strength would awaken its counterpart in him.
"It's nothing,” he said. “Just need a cigarette." He fumbled getting one out. She lit it for him, and he liked the way she moved. "Thanks."
They began to play. Of course, it was easy for a shade to win at these kind of games, what with their telekinetic and telepathic abilities, but this took the fun out of it, and what did money mean to them? They played it straight, no tricks. True to her word, Sophia blew on his dice.
When she whispered in his ear thirty minutes later, "Wanna go upstairs?", he nodded, and she put her arm through his and let him lead her away from the table. They'd been losing in craps and didn't bother to retrieve the last of their chips. To the contrary, they went straight up to the penthouse. He took her into his bedroom, knocking the suitcase off his bed.
"You are frightened," she said, drawing him towards her. "Never made love to a woman you could respect?"
He studied her, but her face was gentle, not mocking.
“I—” he started.
She placed a finger to his lips, then kissed him, pressing herself against him. She did a slow pivot, not breaking the embrace, then pushed him roughly down on the bed.
"You just need to relax," she said, and her voice was so silky that he found himself giving in to the power of suggestion. She ran her hands up and down his body, then unfastened his belt with her teeth.
"Just relax ... and have a little fun. Fun is allowed, you know."
Their lips met again. He gave in. Soon they were naked and rolling around on the bed. For some
reason he found himself unable to go through with it, though, and before he’d gone very far he broke away, panting. He placed a hand over his eyes.
"What is it?"
He sighed. “What are we doing?”
“What do you mean?”
He stood up and started pacing. “Sofe, you’re very good. I don’t know why you’re really here, but I know you’re acting. You play the seductress very well. That’s not what I want.”
She stared up at him. “I acted too fast, didn’t I? Is that what gave me away?” When he didn’t respond, she said, “That wasn’t really acting, Jean-Pierre. That was instinct. You and I, I guess we were meant to find each other.”
“What are you talking about? Have we met before?”
“No. And I didn’t come up here for a one-nighter. I wanted to begin something. Maybe I did it wrong, but it wasn’t an act.”
Who was she? Why had she tried to seduce him so quickly? Probably the Titan had set her up to it, in order that Jean-Pierre should get over Danielle. Perhaps some real emotion had gradually entered into it, though. He wanted to believe it.
“If you came here because you actually felt something,” he said, “it wouldn't be right, not now."
"Then when? When Danielle is dead?"
"Especially not then. Then nothing could be resolved."
"Then where does that leave us?" She slid up against him, his back to her front, and kissed his neck.
"No," he said. "Just put your arms around me.” She did. “Do it like you mean it."
"I do."
"You don't even know me."
"Then you don't believe in love at first sight?"
"Don’t be absurd."
She paused. "Sometimes there's a connection between two people that happens instantly, and it's best to make the most of it before their differences tear them apart."
"So this connection—you feel it towards me?"