by Claire Cray
"Yes," I managed. "I refused to get on the horse with him, so he drained my blood to weaken me, or in the hope that you would finish the job. I woke up in your bed."
"On the brink of death," Merrick said, and something dark flashed in his gaze. "And under his spell."
I blinked at him, and then looked down for a moment. Yes, now I recalled the surge of pleasure that came with Theo's bite, the way I had found myself clinging to him as he worked his lips against my throat. That was the effect of a vampire's venom, as I now knew firsthand from both sides of the equation. How embarrassing to think of myself in Theo's embrace, flushed and pliant, begging to be consumed. "Of course," I mumbled.
"You were distraught when I pulled you from his arms. Your fingers were tangled in his hair."
Grimacing, I looked away again and shifted on my feet. "I don't remember that."
"Just as well." Merrick reached up to cup my jaw, stroking my cheek with his thumb. His eyes were burning, though now the flames were fueled as much by despair as anger. "But at the time, I was afraid you would never forget it. I was afraid some part of you might belong to him for good."
"But I didn't," I said, surprised to find that I sounded a bit hoarse. "And that was never his intent. All Theo cares about is you. He only did it to try and force you turn me. And he only wanted you to turn me so you could live. That's all."
Merrick let out a breath, looking more despondent with every word that passed my lips. "That's not all, William. He’s greedy and possessive, and he thinks of others as his toys. To see that he laid hands on you, and drank your blood—do you know what it's like to drink without finishing? Can you imagine it?"
I shook my head, more troubled by the moment.
"The thought of him near you after that, I can't bear it. I can't bear to see him sneak into your good graces."
"But..." I shook my head again and then ran my hands through my hair, needing a moment to sort through my thoughts. I understood now that the bite had upset Merrick in ways I couldn't have imagined before I was a vampire myself. Indeed! Now that I'd been on both the giving and receiving ends of that act, I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t an outrage.
But even so, it wasn’t easy to discard my own impressions. The fact remained that Theo had only done it out of fear for Merrick, who, after all, had been preparing to kill himself just to avoid turning me. By draining me to the brink of death, Theo had hoped to force Merrick into finishing the job.
And though Merrick clearly scorned Theo’s intentions, I couldn’t do the same. I clearly recalled the day when, after Theo and I had struck the deal to force Merrick's hand, Merrick had turned from him, coldly, without a word. No, I couldn’t forget the look on Theo’s face: the Frenchman uncharacteristically rumpled from sleeping in his travel clothes, his sapphire eyes hollow with unmistakable anguish, guilt, and the fear that he might never be forgiven.
Theo's love for Merrick had its selfish dimensions, perhaps, but it was true all the same. I was sure of it. That was the only thing I had in common with the French vampire, and in that respect, there was nothing he'd done that I might not have done under the same circumstances. Yes, he had taken extreme measures to stop Merrick's slow march toward death. But so had I. Theo was a bastard, but in this case, I didn't blame him. I never had. How could Merrick?
Shaking my head, I reached up to rub my eyes and made a soft sound of frustration. "If I were in his place, and I thought—"
"You respect him more than he deserves."
"If not for him you'd be dead!” I spread my hands, at a loss. “Isn't that right? And that day, I don’t know. Who’s to say that if he hadn't done what he did, you wouldn’t have fled the moment you sensed me coming up the path?"
"I would not have fled," Merrick said fiercely. "I would never have left you at his mercy, and he should have known that. He could have brought you in untouched. He had no right to assault you."
"But he did have reason to think it necessary. Are you claiming we could have discussed things calmly, instead?" My face twisted as I remembered the affair. "Jesus, Merrick, you were going to set yourself on fire."
That got me a look of contrition. "William." But evidently finding nothing more to say, he asked, "Why are you so set upon defending him?"
"I’m not," I burst out, finally driven beyond irritation. "But did he not save your life? I can't stand you holding that against him, when I was complicit. Don’t you realize I must share the blame?"
“You don’t share any blame,” Merrick said, his face taut with frustration. “This goes back a hundred years.”
I stared at him helplessly for a moment before looked down again. Why wouldn’t he give me the chance to understand? I felt a well of hurt being dug within my chest, each word between us another stab of the shovel. "Very well,” I said. “Keep your reasons to yourself, if you must. But I can’t shun a man without knowing why. I’m sorry." Turning away from him with a sigh, I paced back to the sofa and sat down again.
Merrick said nothing, and a long silence stretched between us, punctuated only by the ticking of the clock. But then at last he sat beside me and drew my hand to his breast.
"No," he said quietly. "You can’t, can you?"
"It doesn’t feel right."
“Indeed.” His thumb stroked the back of my hand, and then he raised it to his lips. “Indeed,” he murmured again. “And I should know that better than anyone. It was wrong to impose my own judgment upon you without explaining the cause. I’m sorry.”
I acknowledged his words with a nod, but who wanted an apology? All I wanted was not to feel shut out at every other turn by the man I intended to spend the rest of my unnaturally long life with.
“There are things I’ve never wanted to speak of,” Merrick said. “Entire decades I wish I could forget. And when it comes to Theo, and the reason why we’ve been at odds for so long, I would be content if you never knew.”
“Would you?” I asked bleakly. “Would you be content with so many secrets?”
Merrick looked down, frowning as he pondered the question. “No,” he said at length, his thumb still tracing soothing shapes on the back of my hand. “Not if it troubles you so.”
“Are you afraid I’ll be shocked, Merrick?”
“I suppose we’re beyond that.”
A bit of hope flickered in my chest and the faint trace of humor in his voice, and I turned my face toward his. “You suppose?” I asked. “Jesus, I’m a vampire and a sodomite. Who can you trust to hear your sins if not me?”
A startled laugh escaped his lips, and he looked at me with a pained expression that fell far short of disapproval.
Feeling encouraged, I rose from the sofa to fetch both glasses and bring them back full again. I set his on the table at his end of the sofa and then sat down to pull off my boots. Setting them aside, I took up my own glass and sank down in the other corner of the sofa. I leaned back against the arm, settling in comfortably, and just to put a finer point on it I propped my feet up on his lap. Then I looked at him and took a sip of wine, letting him know I was ready to hear a story or two.
The wry look in his eye told me he got the message, but it didn’t mean he was suddenly ready to give.
“Why not start at the beginning?” I suggested. “That’s where you started with me. Asking about my family.”
“If I tell you everything,” Merrick cautioned, laying his hand on my leg just below my knee, “you may be more disturbed than you expect.”
“I may.” Try me, I thought. I’d heard the tales of Sade. How shocking could Merrick’s be?
“Perhaps you’ll want to take some time to yourself, to consider what you’ve heard.”
I shrugged. “Perhaps.”
Merrick was quiet for a long while, gently rubbing my legs where they crossed his lap. And then, to my vast and undying relief, he began to speak.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"My life was always austere,” Merrick began, but then he fell silent again for a long while, gazing int
o the distance. His hesitation conjured the image of the very first sparks of a fire, crackling amid the kindling, looking for purchase. When he spoke again, it was as if the flame had caught, and he did not pause again for a long while.
“I never knew my mother or father. For most of my life I was an urchin, begging and scrabbling to survive. I was used to going days without food or sleep, and in fact I seemed to have an unusual talent for enduring the most extreme deprivations. When I was still a small child, I lived for a time with a beggar woman who tried to groom me as a mystic.
“In those days, under Henry the Eighth and the shadow of Protestantism, the parishes on the fringes of London were in dire straits. The old woman hoped to sell me to one of those parishes as an attraction, to boost their status or their coffers. Or that was what she told me—that I was already chosen by God, and that the priests would teach me deliver his messages. She did leave me with the first pastor who put coins in her hand. But I could not endure his kind of teaching for long, and so I fled and went back to begging. I never saw either of them again.
“That was a great tragedy, for I always admired the clergy as a child. Especially the monks. Perhaps it was that old woman’s talent for spinning tales, but I’d come to imagine them as beacons of goodness in a world of violence and cruelty. And I envied their connection to the divine, which I had honestly hoped I shared. When I was a little older, perhaps eleven or twelve, I finally talked my way into one of the monasteries at the very edge of the city. It was a hard life of labor, but it was more secure than anything I'd known. There were many abuses of the lay brothers by the priests and monks, but there were kindnesses, as well.
"Kindest of all was a young monk named Michael. In those days I slept very little, and would often sneak up to the bell tower at night to study the stars, which was my substitute for reading, before I knew any letters. Michael found me there in the tower one night, but rather than scold me, he asked if he could join me. As it turned out, he had trouble sleeping, too. We spoke of the stars for a time before we went back to our beds. And the next day he had me appointed to attend upon him. Life improved tremendously.
“Michael was strict and solemn, but had a keen intelligence and a heart for charity. And unlike the others, he drew no line of value between the clergy and laymen; he was quite radical, in many ways, though I suspect I was the only one who knew it. By night he would call upon me to help him review his studies of herbs and their properties in the bell tower. He taught me my first letters there, by the fire in the little hearth there. Those were happy times for me, the only happy times I’d ever known.
"But back then, as you may know, King Henry and his Church of England had declared war on the monasteries. During my years as a lay brother, they fell en masse to Cromwell’s inspections. Our house was left unscathed at first, deemed virtuous enough to escape dissolution, but it was only a matter of time before the hammer fell upon us. I wasn’t ignorant of that likelihood, but I never imagined how horrific it would be. The dangers of politics were beyond me. There was a land feud involved, and a vindictive lord who earned enough sway with the authorities to finally take us down.
“They arrived with the usual list of unspeakable charges, and herded up the lay brethren to cast us out in the street while they arrested the monks who had been singled out for petty revenge. I was shocked to hear Michael named among them, and tried to reach him in his room, but I was beaten for my efforts and dragged outside the doors. The last I saw was his face in the back of the wagon. I caught his eye, but only for a moment before they were gone. No one would say where they’d been taken. Over the years I heard rumors that those monks were all hanged that night and thrown into a bog on the lord’s estate. I also heard that they were pardoned and found refuge in Cathedrals throughout the country. One is as likely as the other.
“That was the end of all happiness.”
Merrick took a long drink of wine and then held the glass up to the lamplight, absently examining flickering reflection of the flame. Then he set it down on the side table again and fixed his eyes vaguely on the carpet.
“That first night,” he said, “I roamed the streets of London in despair, thinking of all the horrors that had befallen priests under Henry's reign, the beheadings and the burnings. I hadn’t yet heard those rumors of escape, and I was hardly the type to dream something like that up for myself. I was sure I’d never see Michael again.
"It was late November, and the snow was deep; I had no coat, and my shoes were thin. I crept into an alley where I pressed against the back of a hot chimney, and I stayed there wondering how I would survive, whether I could make it even as a beggar, now that I was no longer a child. And then at the end of the alleyway, a priest appeared. He was strange. His habit was slightly askew, and he was very tall, so much that his arms were much too long for the sleeves of his coat, and his hands and wrists were exposed to the wind. And his eyes were silver, almost white, and they chilled me more than the cold night. But he offered me shelter, and I accepted at once, hoping he would not expect anything unseemly in return. I thought even if he did, I might appeal to his pity with my story; he was a man of God, after all, and perhaps if I begged, he would leave me alone to pray.
"I could not have guessed the horrors that lay waiting at his house.
"He took me by carriage, which I thought rather strange, for a priest to have his own carriage. And he offered me a flask of cider, and there I was drugged, and woke up bound in a cold and stinking dungeon, nearly pitch black, where only by the sounds of the cries and pleas did I realize I was surrounded by other victims, and that I was the oldest in age by far.
“In that darkness I was forced to hear the unspeakable acts of perversion he inflicted on these innocents in his lair. There was no sunlight, no way to tell the time; only the screams echoing off of those dripping walls, and the stench of pain and fear. By the time he lit a candle I’d gone half-mad, convinced I was in Hell. And then I had to see his grinning face in the shadows and watch as he assaulted them and drained their blood, one by one, before my eyes.
“At last he turned his appetites on me. And just when I thought death had come, I found his blood coursing down my throat. That was how I became a vampire. Why, I’ve never understood. What drew him to me, what made him think I’d make a suitable companion…” Merrick trailed off, his face gone pale and haunted, and shook his head.
"But still he kept me in chains. I drifted in and out of sleep, not even knowing that a new vampire’s sleep comes with dawn and ends at twilight, and so not knowing how long it went on. Time after time he would present me with some helpless thing, some crying child, and time after time I resisted. But then my thirst would overwhelm my mind and I would drink, and I’d come to my senses to see him dancing over the corpse in glee. It was a nightmare beyond all imagining. I learned to resist the thirst longer and longer, until I thought I might succeed in starving myself. But that was in vain, for when he tired of it he merely forced their throats upon my teeth.
“And when he tired of that, he began to give me his own blood instead, which eventually made me drunk and bent me to his will. Before long he had removed the chains and I was following him into the night like a slave, like an idiot, barely seeing, barely feeling. Those years are a dark smear in my memory. I can’t think of what I might have done under his spell.
"There's no natural communion among vampires, other than the bond between new vampires and their makers. We do not coexist peacefully. When we cross paths, we must generally flee or fight. Young vampires are at great risk, because their blood is unique, and has a potent scent that is very attractive. And they lack the cunning and experience of older vampires. They can be taken unawares. If you are ever away from me, William, and you sense another vampire near you, you must come to me at once. And if they are between us, you must flee for your life. Do not trust any unknown vampire, not ever.
"We came across Theo in Italy, at his own manor. I remember very little of the incident, only that there was
a vicious fight, and Theo killed the creature that had kept me captive. But not before he was drained to his last trickle of life. He begged me for my blood, and somehow I summoned the presence of mind to give it to him. And so he was revived, and the demon was dead, and I was lost in a daze, barely comprehending that that nightmare was over.
"Theo carried me to his bedroom and laid me to rest there, staying by my side and calling me his brother. He took it upon himself to nurse me back to health, but he had no conception of the cause of my condition. I’d been poisoned and degraded for years by then, driven beyond madness, fed nothing but that creature’s own blood, which was worse than being starved. I was out of my mind. The only thing I had left in me was my refusal to drink human blood, which was madness in itself, and was far beyond Theo’s understanding. He couldn’t comprehend why I would turn my face away when he brought me his servants. But finally he coaxed me to drink from his own veins, and for reasons I couldn’t understand at the time, I did.
"His blood was so warm and sweet, it shocked my senses. The other vampire had sustained himself on terror, on torment, on weakness, and his blood was tainted by it. My tongue still sours at the thought of it; hard as I've tried, I've never forgotten that repulsive taste. But Theo, Theo's blood was as warm and tender as the manner in which he took his prey, and it soothed me, lulled me. Though I was still numb and could not yet speak, I felt as though my soul was finally raised from the darkness. He may as well have been an angel.
“Of course, I had only ever known drinking to be anything but an act of perverse savagery. My taste of Theo’s blood was confounding enough. But then I watched him take a servant's life before my eyes with such gentleness that my sense of things was shattered completely. I nearly lost my mind again. From there I could only yield to him. It was the first time in my life that I'd lived in such comfort, the only time I'd been shown affection since Father Michael had taken me under his arm. I had nothing to do but follow his footsteps, and finally, for the first time in my life, I began to drink and kill of my own volition.