I study his blood life force now. It calls so sweetly. I do not understand this. Why does this vampire seem so familiar to me?
“Enough,” Michel says, his voice a force of power on its own. “She calls. What will it be?”
Gregor stares at Michel with obvious distress in his features. These vampires trust one another. They’re friends, allies, maybe even more to each other. No vampire lowers their guard to such a degree in front of a potential enemy.
“I am her Enforcer, Michel,” Gregor says pleadingly. “Please do not ask this of me.”
Michel stares silently at his companion and then offers a swift nod of his head. “Leave the city, then, mon ami. Go. Now.”
“She will call me to her if she deems it necessary. Distance is irrelevant; you know this.”
“You think her incapable of taking his life without you to wield the blade?”
Frustration mars Gregor’s aristocratic features. “You do not understand my role on the council.”
“I understand it completely,” Michel says soothingly.
“You, who are a rule maker and nothing more? How could you understand a thing?”
“Rules define our world, Gregor,” Michel says softly. “If you control the rules, you control everything.”
“You think to write a new rule to save this child?”
I’m not a child. Not technically. But I am immature. I do not bristle at the words, only the tone. Gregor is distressed, and he takes his distress out on me. Something about my kind upsets him gravely. I puzzle over this as they argue like an old married couple.
And then it hits me.
“You were once Nosferatin,” I say, stunned. Who could do such a thing? Turn a Nosferatin? I did not think this possible. I am horrified.
Both vampires spin toward me.
“Speak of such a thing again, and I will take your head myself,” Michel growls at me.
Gregor simply collapses into a nearby seat and shakes his head forlornly.
“She will know. She sees everything,” he whispers.
“We hide him,” Michel suggests.
“Where? How?” Gregor demands. “And she calls for him even now, to avoid it when so many have seen him already? Impossible!”
Michel is silent for a moment, and then he stiffens his back, tugs on the cuffs of his shirt sleeves, straightens his cravat. As if he prepares for war. Or something unpalatable.
“I have something she wants even more than a Nosferatin,” he says solemnly.
“Non, Michel. Non!”
“It is nothing. I can do this.”
“In exchange for his safety?”
“In exchange for her silence. His safety will be on us, mon ami.”
Gregor stares in mortification at his friend and then swallows thickly. “I might have an idea. A place that could guard him for a while. But it is here in the city.”
“In the city is good,” I offer, but they don’t need my input. For some reason, these two powerful vampires have decided to help me.
Then I look at Gregor. I look at the way Michel holds his gaze affectionately. There is an obvious reason why they do this. Obvious to me, but to others? I fear not.
Only a Nosferatin can feel the kinship of another Nosferatin. Gregor was once a brother to me.
I shudder at the implications of that thought.
Michel nods his head. “Go now and secure this hiding place of yours. I will escort the Nosferatin to the Champion and place him under my protection.”
Gregor stands and grips Michel’s hands in his own. “Mon ami,” he murmurs with deep emotion. They embrace. I look away. Some moments should be allowed their privacy.
When I look back again, Gregor is gone.
“Come, little one,” Michel says. “We have an appointment with our Mistress.”
“Is she your Mistress?” I ask.
“Well,” he says cryptically, “she is not my dragon, but she certainly gives him a run for his money.”
* * *
The Champion sits upon a throne of gold. It sparkles in the bright lights of the room Michel has brought me into. She is petite, with long dark hair in ringlets down her back, framing a delicate face of pale porcelain skin. There isn’t a blemish on her flesh to be seen. Her eyes seem larger than they should be, but that might be due to the fact that she’s so tiny.
She is also dressed in a Grecian chiton. It is pure white and pools on the ground at her sandalled feet, the overfold draping across her slender shoulder, engulfing her small frame.
Her appearance seems fragile, and yet the Sanguis Vitam that surges upon my arrival in the room is anything but weak.
She licks ruby red lips and blinks long lashes at me.
“Michel,” she purrs in a voice full of evil things, “you have brought me a gift. How kind.”
Michel bows and I follow his lead. I am in way over my head here. I have miscalculated gravely.
This creature won’t aid me. I see the covetous look in her eye. I feel her blood life force whisper of Dark things. I know she hungers for my blood. The Pull is near; not completely triggered, but the Champion walks a fine line between rogue and sanity.
“Mistress,” Michel says in a strong and commanding voice. “It grieves me to say; this one is already claimed.”
The Champion stands. The movement so swift, I do not see her in motion until she is upright, staring down at us from her superior height on the raised dais of the throne.
“You dare to deny me?” she demands, and the walls seem to quake with her fury.
Michel stands without having been given liberty to do so. Again, I follow his lead. Facing my death, standing tall, seems worthy.
“I ask only this, Mistress,” Michel says in that steady and yet commanding tone of voice. I do not know what he thinks to achieve, challenging the Champion of the Iunctio in such a fashion. “What would you desire of this child?”
Perhaps calling me a child disarms the Champion. She looks as though she was but a child when Turned. Or perhaps it is the way Michel commands attention, even her attention. He does not back down in the face of her insanity. If anything, he pushes back against it, challenging the Champion to be more, to be better than she is.
“I am hungry,” she murmurs, the voice of a fledgeling; pleading.
“This one would not quell the thirst,” Michel advises, not unkindly.
“He smells so good,” she whispers, licking her lips, red glinting in her eyes as she devours me with her gaze.
“And once you sip from that cup and there is no more to sustain you?” Michel asks.
“You will find me another!”
“I fear my search would take me far away.”
“You can’t leave me! I won’t allow it!”
“Then mayhap, allowing this one to live until maturity would be wisest?”
She narrows her eyes at Michel — perhaps seeing through the manipulation quite plainly. I force myself to breathe evenly; holding my breath in anticipation of her rage would only hasten its arrival.
But then the Champion throws back her head and laughs. The unrestrained and carefree laugh that only a child can accomplish.
“This is why I like you, Michel,” she finally says. “You entertain.”
“I live to please, Mistress.”
“Do you?”
“Of course. What would you ask of me?”
“You know what,” she says coyly.
“Then it is yours.” She blinks those overly large eyes at him. “I ask only one thing in return.”
“You ask something of me?”
“In return,” Michel reiterates.
“Then speak!”
“Let the Nosferatin live freely in your city.”
“Nosferatin,” the Champion says, dreamily. “I have not heard that word for centuries.”
“We have an accord?” Michel presses.
“Yes. Yes. Of course. He shall live freely in my city.”
“My nest shall live freely,” I say, speaking for the f
irst time.
Both vampires still. Preternaturally still. I have spent my life amongst kindred-joined vampires. I have seen this affectation again and again when a Nosferatu is caught unawares. I should be used to it. I am not.
“Your nest?” Michel says, his voice strained. He does not like that I have divulged this.
I understand his fear. The Champion is crazy. But my safety means nothing if I cannot assure the safety of my nest.
“I may one day have a nest,” I hedge.
They see through the ruse, immediately.
“How many?” the Champion demands; Sanguis Vitam wrapping securely around me.
I fight it. I’m a Nosferatin. It is what I do; who I am.
But I cannot fight this woman; this creature. She draws on the power of the Iunctio. She slams me in its shackles and makes me crumble to my knees on the hard marble floor.
“Allow him to speak,” Michel says calmly. He has regained his composure.
She has not.
“Speak!” she screams, making the walls quake and the windows rattle.
“Six,” I say because I have no recourse. I can deny her nothing when she wields the might of the Iunctio like a cat-o’-nine-tails.
“Six,” she says dreamily. “That could last me a week. Two if I ration.”
“Champion,” Michel says. “You gave your word.”
“For him. Not his nest. Five would suit me.” She stares at me, makes me stare back. The glaze is swift and painless. My mind hers. “How old are they?”
“The eldest is thirteen,” I say in a trance. “The youngest merely three.”
She claps her hands in delight. “Oh, joy! Oh, happiness! Michel! You are my favourite.”
I flick my eyes to Michel; she allows it. His face is pale, but then it was always pale. His features set.
“Might I offer a suggestion?” he says carefully.
“No,” she replies with a shake of her ringleted head. “You may not.”
I reach for my Light. It is the last defence left to me. It comes like a lover to my bed.
Michel growls. The Champion stills.
I cannot break free of her. I am young. She is strong. The Iunctio’s combined power too great.
But I can poke holes in it. I can sear it in places. Because despite the awesome power she wields, there is a weakness that pervades.
“You see it, don’t you?” I say.
They say nothing, so I continue to prod and poke and nudge and jab and shove.
Until I lay the Iunctio’s power out before them in all its incomplete and jagged totality.
They gape at it and at me. Centuries these creatures have been without Nosferatin. We have lived and hidden and joined with those vampires too weak to offer much in the way of power to the Iunctio’s coffers.
But we have Light, and we can share it. If we so choose to do so, of course.
I demonstrate that now. I fill the gaps in the Iunctio’s power with my own Light. I give it freely, because I know I must pay a price for my nest’s continued survival. And if that price is my Light, then so be it.
It will still be mine, but I am choosing to share it. For Suzette and Pierre and the others, I do this.
For my family.
The Champion reaches out a delicate hand as if to grasp it; her lips parted; her face flushed.
“It’s beautiful,” she murmurs.
“Stunning,” Michel says.
“I am yet immature,” I tell them. “Our kindred-joined murdered in their beds. But think on what could be if you allow us to live.”
The Champion slowly lifts her gaze. She is quiet and reflective. She even looks sane. Has my Light done that?
For a long moment, she says nothing.
Then she regally nods her head.
* * *
“You took a risk, little one,” Michel says as we walk the streets of Paris.
“A calculated risk,” I counter. “A necessity.”
“This time, it paid off. Next time, you may not be so lucky.”
I nod in agreement. It was worth it.
“Where are they?”
I say nothing.
“Are they safe?”
I still do not speak, and he does not glaze me. I am beginning to respect this vampire.
He says nothing for a while as we walk the gas-lit pathways. Our boots click on the cobblestones. The scent of jasmine reaches our noses. Someone cooks their evening meal. Someone else laughs at a joke. Glasses clink. Voices get raised. And above it all is a low murmur, a susurration of Sanguis Vitam, as vampires flit from shadow to shadow; hunting.
This city needs Nosferatins. The world needs our Light.
The risk is indeed great.
“You will require a Kindred to join with,” Michel finally offers.
“I have time,” I say. I glance at him. He watches the shadows, but I am sure he is aware of my attention on his face. “Do you wish to make arrangements?” I ask. I could kindred-join with him. It would go against everything the elders tried to accomplish, hiding our Light; our strength. But perhaps it is time to make changes.
Evidence of what our Light can do was there, for all to see, in the throne room of the Palais.
I left the Champion better — saner — than how I found her.
Michel looks at me then and smiles; a cat-got-the-cream smile. He shakes his head.
“I will not be testing our compatibility, little one,” he says.
“But the added power you would gain…”
“My time is not yet,” he tells me. I believe, though, it is not what he wishes to say.
He is an enigma, this vampire. Powerful and yet still so young. Commanding and yet not greedy. He will be one to watch.
Gregor steps out of the shadows ahead of us, then, his cape swirling in the mists that have started to rise as if ghosts from graves. Paris is old, the streets well worn, the barrier between preternatural and mundane thinner than normal. His eyes glint in the low light, the moon hidden behind clouds for the moment. He approaches, and we slow until he stands a mere few feet away.
“She let you live,” he says to me.
“So it would seem,” I offer.
He nods and then looks at Michel; checks him for injuries, his eyes lingering on his friend’s neck; above the artery.
I do not know what Michel has agreed to for my safety. But I shall always be in his debt. One day, I hope to be able to repay it.
“I have secured the safe haven,” Gregor tells us.
“Is it big enough for six?” Michel asks him. I think, perhaps, he could have dropped that little nugget of information more carefully on his friend’s head.
Gregor’s face pales, and he takes an involuntary step back. “Six?” he manages to say on barely any air at all.
“I have a nest of immature Nosferatin,” I tell him, wishing that my words didn’t make him so emotionally unstable. This vampire suffers, and I do not like it. I let a little of my Light wash over him. Only a fraction, not enough for him to detect, but enough to bring him peace. “What is left of my family,” I add.
“Who attacked you?” he demands, grasping at a lifeline in the conversation, despite my efforts to soothe him.
“The Evil Ones,” I say.
“The Evil Ones?” Michel queries.
“I do not know who they are, only that they came in the middle of the day, risking the sun’s wrath, and killed our elders and their Kindred as they slept. My trainer managed to reach our nursery; he helped us gather supplies and escape. He gave his life so we could live.”
“Did no others survive?” Gregor asks, almost desperately. “Are you certain they were killed and not taken?”
“I felt their deaths,” I whisper. It is hard to talk of this, but these vampires have proven their worth, and I owe them something. “I felt their Light leave this realm and enter Elysium.”
“Who would do such a thing?” Gregor murmurs.
“One of them is here,” I say.
Both
vampires jerk their heads in my direction and still.
“An Evil One,” I clarify, although it is not necessary.
Michel shares a look with Gregor I can’t decipher, and then he grips my arm and starts pulling me in the direction Gregor indicates.
“It is too dangerous for you to go to your nest now,” he says. “Tell us where they are, and we will secure them.”
“No,” I say. I will not scare the children in such a way. They do not know these vampires as I have come to know them. They will be afraid; may even try to stake them. I doubt they’d succeed, but they are all well trained; Suzette in particular. She would die for the young ones. I won’t have it.
“The house will keep you safe,” Gregor says, thinking this will sway me. It doesn’t.
“I will get the rest of my nest,” I tell them.
“It’s too dangerous.”
Our life recently has been nothing but danger.
“It’s the only way,” I tell them.
“Then we go together,” Michel says.
I don’t like it. They’ll still scare the children. But an Evil One is in Paris, and I could use the backup.
“Promise me you’ll stay in the shadows when we reach them,” I demand. I’m not sure I can demand much more of these men, but they let me.
“Of course,” Michel says.
“Naturally,” Gregor adds.
Somehow, despite the sincerity, I doubt it will be the case.
* * *
The street where the abandoned metalworker’s building sits is quiet in the pre-dawn light. The sound of a gas lamp sputtering in a nearby roadway reaches my ears on a still breath of chilled wind. I look on from the shadows, but I do not see or sense anything. Even the window sill where Suzette is no doubt keeping watch gives nothing away. I strain my ears and my eyes for something I think should be there but isn’t.
I can only hope our distance from the city centre is what has kept us safe. Otherwise, this unnatural silence in a city as big as Paris means something else. Something Dark and foreboding.
I cross from the shadows, my dark frame briefly illuminated by a crescent moon, half shrouded in clouds. I know Suzette has seen me. I can sense her watching; the silver of her stake calling to me. The relief I feel at that sensation is astounding. I have been gone a very long time; anything could have happened.
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