by Gwynn White
The interior room where they sat was as different from those echoing outer chambers as it could be. Old rugs overlapped each other on the floor, absorbing noise and filling the room with the muted colors of a dozen civilizations and eras. Lamps set in the corners created a mild, yellow-tinged glow and soft shadows. Little mementos rested on tables and crowded display cases, telling a tale of travels and time.
Girard ran his finger over a stylized golden figure no bigger than the center of his palm, yet in near-perfect condition. “Viking?”
Yadikira gave a half-nod, half-shrug and said, “Their forebears, but close enough. I liked them. They were very bold, but marvelously good company.”
She motioned him toward a deep chair and took a seat on a matching sofa opposite. He heard the bones in her hips pop as she sat and she winced in pain. Thalia plopped onto the couch at the other end. She looked very like a modern tween in a serious pout. Her bare foot immediately commenced bouncing against the couch in another, very human, fidget.
He watched them from the corner of his eye as he scanned the busy room. There were many objects here worth admiring and he wished this were the kind of social call that would permit him to examine them all. Hearing the stories of each object would be enjoyable.
Girard had always liked history, his passion for the tales of visiting elders unquenchable and his questions never-ending when he was small. He’d often made a pest of himself with his interruptions and ready ear. When there was some physical thing to touch as he heard a story, he imagined what it had been like to live it. He could get lost in the stories. He sighed as he focused again on the two women.
Yadikira’s eyes were soft when he looked at her. She nodded in the direction of a case filled with tiny objects and said, “I’ve collected each of these things. I see your interest. I’m the same way.”
Thalia snorted and waved her hand dismissively. “You young ones always romanticize the past. It was only dirty and dangerous. I say it’s best forgotten.” A brief flash of confusion crossed her features as her gaze slid across the table between the sofa and chair. A tiny illuminated manuscript lay under glass next to a jeweled cross—probably Byzantine—along with other medieval objects.
It struck Girard that if Thalia had truly slept for so long, then she had missed all of it. When she went to sleep, humanity lived in simple Bronze Age tribes outside of a few shining—yet still primitive—civilizations. If she had gone to rest in Egypt, then she had woken to another world entirely. And given the youth of the body she’d taken, it was likely that the history of the last two thousand years was either absent or very generalized in her mind. History education was sorely lacking for the children of today. Much of it would be a blank slate in Thalia’s mind. She would only have access to the knowledge her new body possessed when it came to the modern world. Thalia would have been wiser to take an older, more educated body. She might be less confused.
“You seem to have adjusted well,” he observed. “Your speech is impressive. Save for your pronunciation of astynomia, I would have thought you a child of this age.”
Thalia shrugged and picked at a fold of leather on the arm of the couch. “She was a bright girl. Very inquisitive and she read quite a lot. I found her enchanting, a perfect vessel. No Handmaiden, but good enough.”
Handmaiden? He glanced at Yadikira, but she only widened her eyes and gave the smallest shake of her head, an unspoken, but very clear signal: Don’t ask.
“And her condition?” Girard asked, steering clear of the topic. Yadikira tensed at the other end of the couch, her fingers tightening around each other and her lips thinning as she waited for the answer. In this new era, the rules on who could be taken were strict. In the past, there were no rules, only guidelines. Even without restrictions however, most vampires had limited themselves to taking humans who met very specific physical conditions. Had Thalia followed those guidelines?
Thalia shrugged and said, “She walked away from her people. A girl alone like that in the dark is no safer now than ever. She would have died…or worse. I took her first. She had a sickness of the blood and was soon for death anyway, so I saw no harm. She reeked of her malady.”
Girard was also aware of that fact. The girl had leukemia, which had returned again and again. This trip was meant to be her dream trip, a final wish granted to children given terminal diagnoses. She had just come out of remission, and was once again ill. It was another fact associated with the fire that had alerted the Guardians.
Yadikira broke in and said, “You see. It was within our laws, even as they are now. And the fire was an accident. No harm was intended.”
Girard watched Thalia for her reaction. Her eyes narrowed a touch, but her gaze didn’t waver from her focus on the fold of leather. His gut told him this was no accident, but such things did happen. Most fires in this world happened without a vampire to light the match. When it came to committing arson, humans outstripped vampires for performance a hundred to one. Perhaps she had used it as a cover to disappear or perhaps she was not the cause of it at all, only a bystander.
Fire was one of the few parts of the vampire physiology that might be classified as magic from an outsider’s point of view, though it wasn’t. They concentrated heat—an unfixable discontinuity between their true body and their human body—which they had to dissipate at all times. Usually, it meant only that a human host ran a little hotter than their fellow humans, but sometimes it meant fire. Particularly with old ones.
“How did you conceal the healing of that body?” he asked the child.
She shrugged again, but that confusion flashed briefly once more. The modern world was still a little mysterious for her, clearly. “I behaved as if I were ill. When I realized that the place for the sick they were taking me to would be able to see inside this body, I arranged to disappear. The girl’s memories are filled with the medicine of today, so I understood enough to avoid being detected.”
Girard nodded, satisfied with that answer. It was good thinking on her part, especially since she probably didn’t fully understand the memories of medical treatment her new host carried. It was a strange experience and he knew it first-hand. The body he wore had belonged to a professional violinist. For a time, everything Girard saw somehow brought him back to music and he found that he could play in a way that almost made him cry. Eventually, that had faded…as it always did…but he remembered the confusion well enough.
“But not by fire?” he asked, needing to confirm she hadn’t killed humans simply to disappear.
“I did not plan the fire. As I said, that was mere accident.”
They were silent a few moments, Yadikira glancing between them, wary that the tide might turn against her mother. It was obvious to Girard in her every movement. For an old one, she was quite transparent with her feelings. He decided to change the subject to spare her further worry.
“How did you find your daughter, Thalia?” he asked.
She seemed surprised by the question and her brows drew together. “The way all mothers find their children, of course.”
Again Yadikira broke in to explain. “It’s a gift not often seen anymore, Guardian. Only the oldest possess it. It used to be more common, but the world was less filled with humans then.”
“I see,” Girard said, but he didn’t see at all. He’d heard tales of vampires who could track those of their bloodline, but he’d never seen evidence of it himself. He’d thought it an old story, one of many meant to demonstrate how far their kind had fallen. Older vampires were fond of pointing out the failings of the younger generations. In that way, they were no different from humans, particularly when it came to exaggeration. Girard had always assumed this purported gift was the vampire equivalent of walking both ways uphill through the snow to school.
Thalia leaned forward on the couch, her eyes going silver as her interest was captured. “Do you not have children, Guardian?”
Pain seized Girard’s heart and twisted it. He kept the emotions off his face w
hen he said, “No, I have no children.”
She must have sensed the careful order of his words, or perhaps she sensed the pain he tried to hide, because she tilted her head. Her cupid’s bow lips drew together in something that might be sympathy. “Not anymore, you don’t.”
He could only tilt his head in acknowledgement. The words wouldn’t come. Those memories were not for sharing with potentially mad ancients.
Thalia sighed and looked at her daughter. “Children are a rare enough gift for us to receive. Yadi here is my only remaining child from the time before. So many I bore and all of them gone except her. These bodies are too weak. They perish.”
Yadikira looked away as if embarrassed. He wondered if she had been fortunate enough to have a child. The last time Girard had tried, the body he’d worn had been snatched from a farm. A strong girl who had survived the depredations of war and pestilence, he had felt sure that she could bear the strain even as he took her form and watched his old body dissolve into a greasy smear at his newly transformed feet. That attempt at creating a child had not ended well. He had wound up in the body of a shepherd boy, the only human he could find when the crisis came and he knew the girl’s form was dying. The child had died with her.
If he tried the same thing now, he would be hunted down by another Guardian for flouting their laws. He had become a Guardian shortly after that terrible incident, vowing that he would never again try to continue his bloodline. It was a strange juxtaposition the vampires had created for themselves. Limited to taking only the weak or dying so that they would not be exposed, they all but doomed their bloodlines by never taking the strong bodies they needed to successfully breed.
Before Girard could say more, Thalia’s posture changed and her eyes widened. Her voice was off when she spoke, somehow too strident, too loud. It was the voice of a petulant and angry child. “But not me! I’m going to live forever. She promised!”
While Girard stared at her, trying to figure out exactly what just happened, Thalia clapped her hands over her mouth and slumped back on the couch. Her eyes squeezed shut as if she were battling inside. A quick glance at Yadikira was met with an unmistakable expression that warned him to say nothing. She emphasized it with a tiny, urgent shake of her head.
Thalia’s eyes opened, her expression once again calm, the sudden agitation of before erased. She eyed him in a way that dared him to ask the question, as if she knew precisely what he was thinking. And those questions were there: Who promised you? Who is this ‘she’ that promised you? What would happen if he did ask? Yadikira’s studied disinterest was almost believable, but it was just a little too studied to be real. Something else was afoot here and Girard had a feeling it would be dangerous for him to follow that trail. After all, he was there alone.
Perhaps Thalia really was crazy. It happened. That didn’t mean the rest of her story wasn’t true. What she said lined up with the facts as he knew them. “I’m inclined to believe you, Thalia,” he said suddenly, surprising himself as much as them. He hadn’t actually intended to say that, and in truth, he didn’t fully believe them, but the words popped out anyway.
Yadikira’s eyes widened and the smile on her face erased decades. “You mean that? She’s safe?”
“I won’t say the matter is entirely closed, but I will say that the rising of an ancient so long asleep means greater deliberation is required. We’re not blind in our judgements, despite what some might say. Context is important. However, the fire will be further investigated. I will discover if there are further matters requiring explanation.”
Her face almost entirely free of expression, Thalia seemed to weigh his every word, looking for what he wasn’t saying. Eventually, she gave a sharp nod and said, “You’ll find nothing. The Astynomia will find no cause for alarm. The Guardians, I mean.”
Yadikira looked as if she might keel over from the stress and the relief she now felt. Her aged hand fluttered up to her chest and she sank back into the cushions. “Thank you, Guardian. Thank you.”
The pulse in Yadikira’s neck was thready and uneven. It squished through the arteries loudly. Blockages were building inside them in a way no vampire could miss. Were she a human, she would be just this side of legal to take. She was dying.
“May I ask you something?” he asked. “It’s purely personal and nothing to do with this case at all. You have no obligation to answer.”
Her cheeks were the pale, cool color of the aged, but now they flushed with the tiniest hint of heat. Thalia grinned as if she knew the question he would ask.
“Ask your question,” Yadikira said. She probably knew what he was going to ask too.
“Why? Why do you remain in that body? It’s dying, you know. You must know that. Why do you risk yourself like that?”
Her smile was sad and small. Her eyes flicked once toward one of the many glass cases in the room, but didn’t linger there. It was an involuntary movement. Girard looked in that direction. Amongst the baubles and bits of history was an image. It was an old one, taken when camera technology was still uncommon and traveling photographers roamed the country. The man and woman in the picture had the stiff postures present in most such images. The woman in the old photo was the one sitting before him now. Perhaps thirty human years old in the image, she sat tucked close to a man whose eyes were as old as hers.
“I see,” he said, because he did. She was staying for love.
Yadikira’s smile was more wistful than sad, but he could read the loss in the lines of her face. “He went to rest some years after that photo, but died while he slept. If I leave…”
He knew well enough what she meant. When she left this body, the memories of the new body would be prominent, pushing the past back and erasing the vividness of the life this body had lived. It would be like taking full color movies and turning them into rough, bare sketches.
It was the price vampires paid. Not even their memories were truly their own forever, at least not the way they were for humans.
Thalia snorted rudely. “Everything dies. Even us if we’re stupid enough to stay in old bodies. Wallowing is useless. Get a new body and feel again!” She again gave that dismissive wave. This ancient was an impatient being, that much was clear. And not at all sentimental, apparently.
Then again, it would be harder to remain sentimental after so many lives. How could one even keep up with everything one should be sad about after thousands of years?
Looking down at her hands, Yadikira nodded and said, “I know, Mother.”
Since electronic signals inside a vampire abode were more than frowned upon unless invited, Girard didn’t have his phone on him. He was itching to research any vampire named Thalia. If she was an ancient, then he’d never heard of her…and he had researched or heard tales about hundreds of individuals over the centuries.
He had a passing familiarity with the name Yadikira, though he had never met her or had any cause to come into contact with her before. Listed as a quiet traveler and artist, she was so far below the radar that she barely existed on it at all. Most of her history was absent from the Guardian records. The best guess for her age was listed as over a thousand years, but less than two thousand. That made her venerable, but not ancient. If Thalia was her mother and she the youngest child, that also meant that Yadikira had to be two-thousand years old, at least. After all, she would have been born before Thalia went into hibernation.
That meant Yadikira was also an ancient…two rarities in one day.
Girard had been more than surprised when a CCTV feed had flagged the girl’s face in a town near this compound. There was only one vampire registered anywhere near here: Yadikira. Someone so keen to stay out of sight didn’t seem a likely host for a fleeing ancient like Thalia. Now that he’d seen her and her mother, things were a little clearer.
Now, he also understood her shy nature better. She wore a dying body so that she could keep the memories of her love alive. She was in mourning and that touched Girard right where he lived.
4
Despite his inexplicable desire to avoid upsetting Yadikira, Girard had more questions. It wasn’t just curiosity either. Vampire bureaucracy was no different from any human one. There was paperwork to be plodded through. And once his report hit the inboxes of the Council members, there would be endless replies demanding more information. It was best to get what he could now.
Yadikira’s pale brows rose and she smiled a little. “I can see you have questions.”
Girard looked down and chuckled a little at being so transparent. “I need to be thorough. That’s all.”
Thalia screwed up her face again and waved her hand in a rather imperious manner. Whatever she was now, she was clearly used to being the one in charge. “Ask your questions.”
What to ask first? Really, the possibilities were endless. Her long hibernation, her long life, all the things that she’d seen. Perhaps it was best to start at the end.
“Why did you wake now? I’ve never heard of a vampire sleeping for such a period. I didn’t know it was possible.”
Her eyes narrowed and her mouth thinned at the question, the anger instantaneous and palpable. Untucking her feet, she swung them to the floor and leaned forward. “See, even that! Why do you call us vampires?” She tapped her temple with a stiff finger. “I know what that is from this girl’s mind. A sparkling, infantile blood-drinker who wants to mate with an even more infantile human! It’s ridiculous and insulting.”
Somewhat surprised by her outburst, Girard looking at Yadikira for a clue. In her glance was a warning to tread carefully. Returning his gaze to the child, he said, “I meant no offense. When I was young, we called ourselves the two-souled. Others called us demons. Later, we were witches. Later still, we were soul-drinkers. Vampire is only the most recent word for us, though it is more apt than witch, don’t you think?”
Her brow wrinkled as she ran the words through the memories of the girl. Eventually, she said, “Yes, I suppose it is. It is not what we are though.”