My Demon's Kiss

by Lucy Blue

  Sudden thunder roared inside Simon’s ears, and for a moment he couldn’t think what it was. Then he realized it was the pounding of his own heart. Agony like nothing he had ever felt engulfed him, spreading from his throat so quickly that in an instant he could barely sense himself at all. His body, the shape of his limbs, or his consciousness, these things meant nothing; all he knew was pain, both fire and ice. He willed his grip to tighten on the sword, but he could no longer feel its hilt between his hands or see it as he pulled it from the vampire’s chest—all the world was blinding, blood-red light and pounding heart and pain. Only when he raised the blade did consciousness return. Kivar released him from the bite and raised his head, Simon’s own blood dripping from his mouth. “No,” he snarled, a serpent’s hiss. “Not yet.” Grabbing the cowl of Simon’s tunic in his clawlike fist, he crushed him close again and kissed him full on the mouth.

  Revulsion struck the knight like a wave, but another feeling followed hard upon it, a joyous warmth that raced along his veins, more potent than the strongest wine. All his sadness, all his fury, all his fear, seemed to evaporate at once. He would not have known the duke if he had seen him, could not have told a stranger his own name. Strong arms enfolded him, lifting him up like a child, and for that moment he allowed it, too weak to resist. He felt the fire leave his lips, and he moaned, bereft, his vision beginning to clear. Then another, purer source was pressed against his mouth, ecstasy poured down his throat, and he fed eagerly, sucking like an infant at his mother’s breast. Visions rose before his eyes, a village in flames, and suddenly his fury was returning. Rage without a purpose pounded through him, an overwhelming need to hurt, to kill, to feel the suffering of living souls, consume them as he now consumed this blood.

  “Stop, warrior!” The girl, Roxanna, was clutching at his shoulders, tearing at his clothes. “Stop it! You must fight!”

  Simon raised his face from Kivar’s throat, the rage still coursing through him, stronger still in shame. The creature was a ravaged husk, thin as a skeleton within his robe, his chest and throat ripped open and bleeding, his face dry and wrinkled like some dead thing buried in the sand. But his eyes were bright and knowing, and his ruined lips were twisted in a smile around his fangs. “Mine,” he whispered, the rasp of the wind in the trees. “You are mine.”

  Simon raised his sword again and struck. The skull-like head flew backward, spinning end over end as the body crumpled to the floor. Roxanna rushed forward with a wooden stake, the handle broken from some Englishman’s pike, and plunged it into the wasted vampire’s breast. A rushing wind swept through the hall, and a wail went up from the monsters still remaining, screams of fear and grief. “Kill us,” she was begging as she thrust the stake in again. “Kill us all.” Vile-smelling mist rose all around the ruined corpse, and a viscous fluid poured across the dais from the golden robe, the shape of the body and head dissolving.

  Another vampire cried out, “Master!” and Simon turned, the sword still trailing from his hand. The hall was thick with corpses, all of his companions dead, but he could not seem to weep for them, could not seem to feel anything at all. A numbing cold was spreading outward from his heart, a stiffness stealing through his limbs as if he were falling asleep. He lifted up his sword, still coated with the creature’s blood, and his minions scuttled back in horror, scattering like insects and breaking through the windows to escape.

  “You are their master now,” Roxanna said behind him, sprawled on the floor. “You are one of us.” She looked up at him with pity in her eyes, the dark brown eyes of a woman again. Even smeared with blood, her face was lovely, framed with long, black hair—the duke had found her beautiful. But Simon felt only revulsion, remembering the truth of what she was. “You are a vampire,” she said with a sad, fragile smile.

  “A vampire,” he repeated. “And what is that?”

  Her smile turned bitter as she looked around the room at the creatures that were pouring from the hall. “What you have killed,” she answered, turning back to him. “What you see before you now.”

  “No!” He raised the sword to her this time, and the dwarf he had seen before Kivar’s attack rushed forward, putting himself between them with another wooden stake held out before him. “You lie,” Simon murmured, dropping the sword, suddenly too weak to hold it. The dwarf bent over the girl on the floor, soothing her with words the knight could not understand, stroking her hair. He turned and trudged away from them, past the ruined corpses staring up at him, their faces still frozen in shock.

  The gardens were as awful as the hall. Every living creature had been slaughtered, soldiers, horses, even the goats the cook had kept for milk. All lay bloodless on the grass, eyes staring without seeing at the moon. Simon crumpled to his knees, dry sobs wracking through him. He wanted to be sick; his guts were twist ing like a nest of vipers, but his body refused to obey. He looked down at the wound in his arm where the female vampire had bitten him, or rather, the spot on his arm where a wound ought to have been. His sleeve was torn, the edges bloodied, but the flesh underneath was unmarked—no tearing in the skin, no bruise from the blow, remained. It wasn’t even sore anymore. With dizzy horror, he realized the rest of his wounds were the same, even his throat—he pressed a hand to the spot where Kivar had bitten him and found it whole.

  “Boy! Simon!” Sascha came staggering toward him, limping from a deep, bloody gash in his thigh. “Thank Christ, you are alive.” Simon climbed back to his feet, and the Russian embraced him like a long-lost brother. “Come.” Leaning on Simon for support, he led him toward the garden’s high stone gate. “We must leave here now.”

  “Yes.” The roar of thunder filled his ears again as it had when Kivar had bitten him, the deafening drum of a heartbeat. “We have to go home.” He tried to think of Ireland, the green fields and the salt wind from the sea. But the heartbeat’s thunder filled his consciousness, not from himself this time but from Sascha, and a terrible thirst grew inside him, a hunger that consumed his every thought. “I want to go home.”

  “I know, boy,” Sascha said, patting his cheek, smiling though his face was slick with sweat as if he were in pain. “So you will.” He stopped to lean on the gate, panting with exertion, and Simon could smell him, his sweat and his fear as delicious and inviting as the smell of roast venison after a long day’s fast. “Just give me one more moment.”

  “It’s all right,” Simon answered, his own voice hollow in his ears. “I am all right.” The hunger was like a sword piercing his belly—he had never felt such hunger in his life. “I can carry you.”

  “No,” Sascha said, waving him off—or so he thought Sascha must have said; it was becoming hard to hear anything over the pounding rhythm. He felt dizzy and drunk, but a strange, exhilarating strength was rushing through him, too. Indeed, he could have ripped the trees up by the roots, he felt so powerful.

  “You are whole?” The Russian was staring at him in wonder. “How can that be?” Dear Sascha, his friend… he must save him. He put a hand on Sascha’s arm to hold him up, to support him. He was his only friend, the only other man left alive of their company; he must save him.

  “I killed them,” he told Sascha. He could feel the life in his friend’s flesh through his thick leather jacket, the heat of his living blood, and he wanted it, wanted to feed from him as he had seen the others feed from his friends in the hall; he was desperate to taste the blood, to take possession of the pounding heart. But he would not; he would not be this monster, this vampire. He heaved the Russian’s arm over his shoulder, headed for the forest. “I killed Lucan Kivar.” And Lucan Kivar killed me, he thought as the pain in his belly writhed harder, burning like molten lead. A wolf let out a howl in the distance, an evil, mocking sound that cut through the roar of Sascha’s blood, the pounding of the still-beating heart. “These mountains,” Simon whispered, looking up, feeling the fangs grow sharp against his tongue. He wanted to resist it, wanted to be what he had always been, but the blood would not be silent, the hunger
would not let him go. Vampire… he was a vampire. “Sascha… you were right.”

  He flung his friend against the gate with killing force—he heard bones breaking in his back and shoulders, the ripe thud of his skull against the stones. For one clear moment, he saw Sascha’s face, saw sadness in his eyes, and his heart cried out in horror. But the demon hunger would not be denied. Snarling like the beast he had become, he sank his teeth into the Russian’s throat, his vampire fangs tearing through the vein to reach the hot, sweet blood. His mind reeled, sick with shame, but suddenly his body was in ecstasy again, the same mad joy he’d felt before but better, somehow, warmer and more real. Only when the heartbeat stopped, when Sascha went limp as a rag in his arms, did he stop. Drawing back in horror, he saw Sascha’s head lolled on his shoulders, his eyes dead and staring like the rest.

  “The first time is always the worst.” The dwarf was standing in the shadows, watching. “The need for blood will never be so strong again. Or so I have been told.”

  Simon stared at him for a moment, the feeling that all of this must surely be a dream taking hold of him again. Then he looked down at Sascha, and the truth made him tremble so violently he thought he must surely collapse. “What am I?” he said, letting the body drop. “Who are you?”

  “My lady told you, you are a vampire,” the dwarf said, coming closer. He covered Sascha’s face with his mantle, a kindly, graceful gesture. “And I am Orlando.”

  “Orlando,” Simon repeated. “And who is that?”

  “My lady’s servant.” He offered Simon a cloth, gesturing toward his own face, and Simon took it, wiping the blood from his mouth as if this were the natural thing to do. “Her father was the caliph here, but Lucan Kivar killed him long ago.”

  “And the child?”

  “Her younger brother.” He reached into his pocket and took out a bottle, its glass red as a ruby in the moonlight. “Kivar promised he would let him live to manhood if she did his will,” he explained, gazing at it. “But she betrayed him.”

  Simon remembered the look on her face as Francis fell dead at her feet, the dagger that killed him still clutched in her fist. “She murdered my lord—”

  “For a mercy,” Orlando said, cutting him off. “Would you rather your lord be like you are?” Simon looked away, unable to answer. “Come, warrior.” The dwarf reached up and touched his arm, his head barely reaching Simon’s elbow. “We have much to discuss be fore morning.” A crash rang out from the direction of the palace, and Orlando smiled, putting the bottle back into his pocket. “My lady awaits.”

  The girl was hacking down the shutters in the hall with an axe that should have been much too heavy for her to pick up, much less wield with such vigor. “Orlando, seal the catacombs,” she said as they came in. “Most of the others will take shelter in the caves, but some will still be stupid enough to come back.”

  “The others?” Simon said. She swung the axe again, shattering another window frame.

  “The other vampires.” She dropped the axe to rip down the draperies. “The sunlight will destroy them— kill all of us.” She looked back at Simon. “Unless you kill me first.”

  “No!” Once again, Orlando hurried to put himself between them. “You can be saved, my lady, you know it—both of you can be absolved of your crimes. The Chalice—”

  “The Chalice is a foolish superstition,” Roxanna cut him off.

  “How can you say so?” he retorted. “How can you speak of superstition, standing here, in this hall, a vampire yourself—”

  “A monster,” she agreed.

  “In body, yes, but not of your own will or your own making,” the dwarf insisted. “I swear to you, you can be saved. I have seen it. This warrior—”

  “Simon,” Simon interrupted, barely listening. The duke still lay where he had fallen. A pair of bluish purple wounds had been torn in his throat, delicate by comparison to the gashes the other corpses wore. “My name is Simon.” He knelt beside the body. “Who bit him?”

  “I did,” Roxanna answered. “We can feed from the dead if we choose.”

  “And you?” Simon said to Orlando, turning from the girl, unable to so much as look at her. “You are a vampire, too?”

  “No, Simon, not me,” Orlando said. “Kivar thought me a monster in my own right because of my stature, unworthy of his blood.”

  “Would that all of us had been the same,” Roxanna said, turning away.

  “You were not chosen by accident, Simon,” Orlando continued, coming to him. “Kivar wanted English knights—he needed English soldiers.”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Roxanna said, picking up her axe.

  “He knew the Chalice was in England,” Orlando continued. “He knew it could destroy him—”

  “He is destroyed!” the girl insisted.

  “You think so?” Orlando demanded, turning back to her. He snatched up Kivar’s empty robe, still dripping with noxious, black-green filth. “You think Lucan Kivar, a creature older than the mountains where we stand, has been reduced to this?” Roxanna didn’t an swer, but Simon could see from her face that she did not, as dearly as she longed to believe it. “No, my lady, my beloved,” the dwarf said, dropping the robe. “He is gone, but he is not destroyed. In my visions, I have dreamed of his return.”

  “Orlando fancies himself a wizard,” Roxanne explained with a brittle, bitter smile. “He came here as a conjurer when I was just a child.”

  “Wherever he is, whatever he may have become, Kivar will not rest until the Chalice is his, until he has destroyed it,” the dwarf said to Simon. “He knows its power; for a thousand years, he has craved it.” He looked around at the slaughtered knights. “When he heard of your duke, an English noble, laying siege to a palace already within his control, he knew that his moment had come.”

  Roxanna had been watching the corpses as well. Suddenly she lunged forward with her axe, and Simon, turning, saw Sir Alan rising from the floor, looking dazed and unhappy. Before he could speak, Roxanna had lopped off his head. “No!” Simon shouted, horrified. “He was alive—”

  “He was not, idiot,” she shot back, staking the headless stump. “No more alive than you or me or my brother, Alexi—remember what happened to him?” She turned back to Simon, dropping the stake and brushing the hair back from her forehead, her face once more spattered with gore. “He was a vampire.” Behind her, Alan’s body was dissolving as Kivar’s had done, and Simon saw other streaks of the same sort of slime smeared all over the polished floor.

  “All of them?” he said weakly, feeling sick again.

  “No,” she answered, softening her tone. “Most are dead already, their souls released. The victim must consume the monster’s blood to become undead himself.” She picked up the axe again, then let it fall as if she were suddenly too tired to hold it any longer. “I’m sorry, warrior.”

  “Simon, you must find the Chalice,” Orlando said. “Kivar misjudged you—he could never have expected you to be able to destroy even so much of him as you have. You can destroy him utterly, and in so doing, save yourself and Roxanna. The Chalice is your salvation; drink from it, and you will be restored.”

  “Orlando, enough,” Roxanna said, this stranger who was now his sister in cursed blood. “Leave him alone.”

  “The Chalice?” Simon repeated, barely hearing her. “You really mean the Holy Grail?” He almost laughed aloud. The son of a bard, he had grown up on tales of Arthur and his knights, of their quest for Christ’s last drinking goblet, the vessel of first communion. But Simon was a real knight, not a mythical creature of chivalry; he knew what a real knight was, and he had seen enough so-called holy relics in his day to know what they were, too. “I’m no Galahad, Orlando,” he said with a bitter grin.

  “Your Holy Grail is a story, a tale told by your priests,” Orlando scoffed. “But the Chalice is real.” He drew a scroll from his conjurer’s cloak and unrolled it. “This belonged to Kivar himself, an ancient text stolen from the tomb of a holy saint. Whe
n Kivar found it, he knew the Chalice had indeed gone to England, just as the legends say.”

  Simon looked down at the rough map of what could have been Britain, he supposed, its shape surrounded on every side by writing, the same queer symbols as on Kivar’s ruined robe. In one corner was a drawing of a plain, undecorated wine cup with lines drawn coming out of it as if to represent God’s light. Below it was a cross made from a sword and a rough stake of wood. “If this Chalice is real, it is a holy thing,” he said, handing the scroll back to Orlando. “Only the purest of knights could ever find it, the most blessed—”

  “Another fairy tale,” Orlando scoffed. “Are you not a warrior? Are you not on a quest?”

  “I was a warrior for him!” He pointed to the duke’s dead body, suddenly choking with grief. “I came here only because he wished it—I would gladly have followed him to hell.” His vision clouded over red again, this time with tears of blood. “And so I have.”

  “You are blessed, Simon,” Orlando said, smiling. “Think of what just happened in this hall. Look at your companions, all dead—none of them even bothered to fight.” He picked up Simon’s fallen sword and offered it to him. “You are blessed, sir knight.”

  “He is right,” Roxanna admitted. “A thousand of my father’s men could not do what you did.” A blood tear of her own slid down her cheek. “Perhaps this chalice does exist; perhaps it still may save you. But not me.” She took the sword from Orlando and offered it herself. “If you are a knight, I ask for your help as a woman, a damsel under a curse. Finish me before you go.”

  Simon took the sword, uncertain what he meant to do, and Orlando flung himself in front of the girl. “You will not,” he insisted, his whole manner turning to fury. “You will need my help to find the Chalice, and if she dies, I will never help you.”

  “I never said I wanted to find your Chalice,” Simon protested, but neither of them heard him.