Shadow & Light

by Stephen Ayer

  Frank?

  One of the raggedy vampire’s pallid fingers streamed rivulets of red from his clawed nail. Evidences of gunshot wounds, tears and lacerations dotted his body. But despite it all, he wore that same devilish smirk that Peter had come to both admire and hate.

  “It’s... a long story.”

  Chapter 20: Reflections

  “After I used the heathen girl’s body to cushion my fall on the stones, I scrambled through the streets, making it back on those damned rooftops... only to find her waiting for me. How she survived the fall, I know not.” said Peter, keeping his forearms perched over the railing of the ferry as wind sailed through his hair.

  “And then big boy arrived.” said Frank, reclining on a cold bench as he puffed on a cigarette. “Explains the fucked up sounds.”

  Peter nodded. “He took us both into the living quarters below, to the misfortune of its inhabitants. The enchantress was wily... but that shadow snuffed her light as surely as yours snuffed her compatriot’s.” Peter turned around to Frank and rested his chin on his hand contemplatively. “I wonder... is the spirit tied to the ring or merely channeled through it?”

  Peter pulled the silvered thing from his pocket and scrutinized it in his palm. The vampire felt no malevolence from the relic. The only strangeness about the thing was its multitude of shines continually moving across the band.

  The vampire shrugged. “Eh. Fuck it. He’s dead now.”

  Peter leaned back and put the ring back in his coat pocket, his eyes closed in contemplation. “His approximation of death anyway. I’ve run across these beings only once before... living is not something I’d ascribe to them. A notion to ponder another time, perhaps.”

  Frank folded his hands, now very much restored, only their great paleness hinted at the abnormality of the creature that owned them. Peter assumed he had feasted on local squirrels, birds and rabbits. He had, but leaping from rooftops to trees on a half-empty stomach grew old. He did what he knew the angel would have killed him for: take an innocent, mortal life.

  Even now, with the cold blue sky and the last slivers of sunlight sinking under the horizon as sea winds caressed his face, he could remember how cold she felt when she shuddered in his arms. A pretty Eastern European girl, spending her visa time as a dancer in a gentleman’s club. Over the centuries he had grown to appreciate how qualities of the soul reflected in the taste of the blood.

  Sometimes he would be lucky enough to see a memory through the blood, but was more oft to ‘taste’ the emotions. And for young, precious Ana, the emotions were exquisite. Full of hope, effervescent dreams, sparkling laughter, all thrown in a vermilion cast that flowed down the vampire’s covetous lips.

  He took it all. All that she was and all she ever hoped to be. And the more he took, the more she gave. Such as it was for every person he drank from. All gave of themselves more than they had, willingly and gleefully. He remembered how her hot breath seared his neck, how she gripped his back, unwilling to part from the agonizing pleasure of his life stealing kiss. And then he remembered the fading look in her eyes, the trembling sighs floating into the warm night air. How her heart fluttered, straining to create one last pump, one last beat to prolong that which she had given her life for.

  When he withdrew from her neck, she was just like him. Cold, pale and forever young.

  He placed her jacket over her frigid corpse and walked from that dark street a new man. She was someone special, and callous though he was, even he felt as if he would be marring some work of art if he pitched her in a dumpster. Like a plucked rose, he had taken a piece of beauty from the world forever, never to be seen again except for in the dead eyed, pallid apparitions that stalked his dreams.

  Frank looked back to Peter. “So...Lombardy it is?”

  Peter sat down in the bench opposite him. “Yes but more specifically in the outskirts of Mantova. It will be...a revelatory experience. The last time I visited the region, my compatriots painted the hills red.” Peter remembered plunging a stolen gladius into barrel chested barbarians. How they fought like demons after the fall of the empire... he looked back up to Frank. “I’m eager to see how time has tamed the region.”

  Frank scoffed. “Time’s lopped everyone’s balls off. Now its slapfights at art shows and rude looks at cafes. Nothing like the mafioso sons of bitches down south or those Varetti cocksuckers pinned right in the middle.”

  Peter leaned forward. “The who? I’m not familiar-”

  “Varetti. They probably went by a different name the last time you were there. Bunch of vamps who got the bright idea to hide in plain sight around the Vatican. Avoided a lot of hunters that way.”

  Peter reclined back in his bench, ignoring the dull chill that had settled in his flesh. “How do you know this?”

  Frank took another drag on his cigarette. “‘Cause when these pukes finally got around to infiltrating the Sicilian mafia, we ended up crossing paths in New York. Got a hit put out on my head that no one ever collected.”

  Peter frowned. “You’re not expecting company are you?”

  “Nah. Like I said, they’re further down. But just in case you roll up on some vamps who don’t explode the moment you light yourself up...” Besides me. The angel’s eyes immediately focused on his, as if reading his thought “You know what bloodline you’re dealing with.”

  Peter’s eyes drifted away, contemplative. “More like you. Hm. This will require a more permanent solution than leashing them to Templars.”

  Frank coughed and waved out his cigarette. “Oh they’ll fry like any other son of a bitch if you do it long enough. My theory is they’ve hung around holy sites for so long without direct contact that they’ve built up a resistance. One time I held up a cross to the bastards.”

  Peter laughed. “And how did that work out for you?”

  “Nearly melted my hand and went blind in one eye.” Frank grinned and massaged his smooth hand. “They got a pink tinge going over their skin and squinted their eyes like a hooker who’d maced a john in the face. The thing was damn useless.”

  Peter steepled his hands and adopted a pleased smirk. “Ah, if only you had more... faith.” The angel chuckled, while Frank looked away. Goddamn. How many people want me dead? Got the Varetti boys, the bitch in yellow, that freak in New Orleans and... the rest gotta be dead by now.

  The angel composed himself and straightened out his jacket. “On the other side of things, your report on the... Al-Jannur... concerns me.”

  Frank stretched out his arms along the backside of his bench and yawed. “Not sure why. That business turned into such a shitshow they’ll be pickin’ up the pieces for years.” Frank ruffled one of his jacket pockets for his carton of cigarettes and frowned when he felt it was empty. “They won’t be a problem.”

  Peter kept a finger over his lips, lost in thought. “Perhaps. Heaven doesn’t like loose ends, however. If Navras usurped his crown from his elders and the other tribes find him out...” He lowered his gaze “The ripples in this world would be... bloody. Far better when the Children of Fire were a known quality. Granters of mortal wishes and idly rich.”

  Frank waved his hand and stood up, stretching his muscles. “Just tell your boss to send another angel. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

  “Quite.” Peter thumbed the other ring in his pocket, feeling the craggy rose engraving over its surface. There wasn’t much of it left after he purged it of its taint. There was nothing left of Rajya’s finger. Sin demands penance. Penance demands pain. He took no pleasure when he came for her. His angelic power barely kept his body intact after the madness of Karim, and wanted nothing more than to leave for the witch.

  But principle demanded he come. The pains of the body were nothing before the pain of breaking a promise. It is for Man to break his word, not Heaven.

  He broke out of his musing and noticed other people milling about on deck. Young couples in bright windbreakers, elderly taking pictures at sea and small families enjoying the cool breeze o
f the wind and the lapping of the waves. Their sheer humanity fascinated him, how their cheeks had grown rosy and how their breath misted in the chill night air.

  All in stark contrast to Frank, who stood like an alabaster sentinel, monitoring his piece of the Mediterranean. His chest did not rise and fall and his breath did not react to the cold air. Indeed, with his dark clothes, his unlife threatened to make him seem as an inanimate object against their sea of activity.

  Peter envied them, to have such worldly concerns and pass through their days blissfully unaware of the voracious predator in their midst. Unaware how fragile their existences really were, ignorant of the dark swells and tides that threatened to capsize and swallow them whole but for the fragile walls of reality. To go through life and have such comforts and die without ever so much as seeing what lurked beneath every shadow and then enjoy eternal paradise... Peter could see why the Morning Star might have been moved to rebellion.

  “Agatha, right?” said Frank. “What a shit name. When I think of a witch, that’s the kind of name I think of. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s the one witch we see who’s got boils and a busted face.”

  Peter chuckled. “It’s likely a pseudonym.”

  “Doesn’t sound very Italian or Latin.”

  Peter stood up next to him. “No it doesn’t. If memory serves, I’m inclined to think it’s of Hellenic derivation.”

  “I miss the days when Bill had me murder a politician. Or wipe out some gang of Hermetic wannabes. All this hoofing around the world, running into royalty, that other huge... thing and chasing a witch... a real one... it’s a pain in the ass.”

  Peter looked to Frank and smirked. “Such occurrences are a rarity, I assure you.”

  “Not rare enough. Bet this is just another trip for you though.”

  “Another bad trip.” corrected Peter. “Though I see more than my fair share of the strange, you’d be surprised how often the greatest actions are enacted by the most normal people.”

  “My memory’s gone to shit but I’ve got some damn good recollections of the Night Courts telling all the other royals how Europe was gonna be run.”

  “Sometimes history is made by one of your kind, sometimes by another. Sometimes that hollow eyed man really was demon touched, that abandoned child really was a witch’s changeling... but more often than not, the tragedies and triumphs of this world are rooted in something more internal and far less strange.”

  Frank looked on blankly, trying to give a smart answer but nothing coming to mind.

  Peter smiled. “Human nature. It was not some witch’s devilry that made that woman throw away her child, it was her inability bear his deformed face and limbs. Nor was it an angel’s touch on a man’s shoulder that moved him to spear ten men at war, but rather the thought of his child and wife. Human nature, Frank. Simultaneously the greatest creative and destructive force that has ever and will ever be unleashed on this planet.”

  Frank coughed and leaned back to his chair, his eyes falling upon a woman whose locks floated like weightless streams of dark copper in the wind. “Yeah I’ll take your word for it.” Peter sighed as the vampire’s gaze stayed locked onto the brunette until she went back inside.

  “I hope you don’t intend on doing anything... rash... while we’re out on the water.”

  “Don’t worry. Filled up the tank with mangy squirrels and Moroccan roadkill.” Frank swirled his tongue against his cheeks and winced, the taste of disease still fresh on his palette, the taste of Ana still fresh in his mind. “So. What’s the deal with the witch?”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I mean what makes her so damn special? Why would your demon go to her?”

  Peter put his hand on Frank’s shoulder before moving away. “That’s what we’re about to find out...” he looked at his watch, “in about two days.” Peter headed away but turned around just before he retired back inside the boat. “It is a long ride yet to Genoa. Best to sleep now and keep a low profile.”

  I never sleep. Frank smirked and walked back to the ferry railing. The jagged black water glowed in the moonlight, sloshing and collapsing like liquid mountains. And in that light, spilled a vision of beauty that the old vampire was not like to forget. Skin like the pale moon, hair as black and glossy as the waves themselves and a beryl-blue gaze gleamed like polished stones.

  It was just a enough for a glimpse, enough for him to question his senses. Frank looked in the water defiantly, daring it to show itself again, but to no avail. In that small ferry, inching its way across the vastness of the sea, a cold and distant eye watched... and waited.

  Chapter 21: Sought and Found

  He dreamed a bloody dream, the night he was thrust into what he was to become, the night he found out what he was.

  He was a young man then. Fresh from America, exploring the Black Forest with only a knife and a lantern. A dare from his cousins from the old country. This night the moon was fat and full, draping all the trees below in its gentle light. The fog between the trees almost seemed to glow blue with the moon so high, the leaves that brushed his face rimed with frost and silver light alike.

  His heart had just begun to calm when he saw it. This time it happened right in front of him. This... he could not dismiss as the flutter of birds. The shadow of a tree moved. Crossing moonlight it moved to another shadow, darkening it into an abyss with its bulk.

  “I... see you...” he whispered frightfully. He swallowed back his fear and pushed out his chest. You have to show the bear who is greater. “Hey! I see you!” He stomped forward and held his lantern out as far as his arm would allow. A disturbing and quiet laugh emanated from the shadow. “Johan? That’s you isn’t it?”

  The shadow rose, arching up until it covered at least ten feet of the tree’s height. When it spoke, he knew it was no bear. “I killed Johan.” The voice was as deep as the shadow itself, yet crisp like the evening cold. “Such a good trick he was going to play on you I figured why not me?” The shadow leapt over the young man and into the shade of another tree. “Why not the real thing?” it said, its ancient voice right by the young man’s ear.

  He spun around into yellowed fangs and curled black lips, above them perched burning pale eyes. Its black fur smelled of rot and dank moss. Before the man could even swing his lantern out of panicked instinct, the beast’s jaws were around his shoulder.

  They snapped through bone and muscle. Blood soaked into his tunic. The beast dropped him to the ground and chomped down a chunk of his flesh. The man twitched on the dirt, gasping for life as he reached for his knife.

  That only elicited cruel and dark laughter from the beast. “Don’t bother, man thing.”

  He looked to his mauled shoulder. Red, raw and misshapen, it leaked precious crimson down his arm, while a curious whitish blue light lingered around the beast’s bite marks.

  “You will bring much chaos to the world above.” said the shadow, his bright eyes flicking to the stars.

  “W-what...” coughed the man, his vision growing faint.

  “As for the other... she was far too sweet to kill...” The shadow looked down to him, grinning, his teeth like sharpened spears of starlight in the blue dusk. “Elsa is to be savored.”

  At once he bounded over the man’s head, a flight of darkness under the cold night, sending him into a deep and terrible sleep...

  The Seeker shot up out of his rest, one arm laying waste to a nearby tree, eviscerating the bark. Long had it been since he had dreamed of his Siring. One of the few experiences the Order of Orion could not burn from his mind and soul. Though the Seeker could not fathom it at the time, the wolf’s bite did save him. He fell asleep that night with one soul.

  He awoke with two. And the most violent craving for flesh. Flesh to kill, flesh to eat and flesh to rapine. Had the wolf bite not attracted the Primal, drawn it through the ether... he knew he would have stayed where he laid. When the witch is done... I will come for you, Great Wolf. Your very breath insults the law, of Man and nat
ure both.

  He never knew what happened to Elsa. It was little better than having no name with no surname, taken from him like so much else. Still, he could imagine what happened. Such an exercise was only good for conjuring the purest of rages.

  The Great Wolf was of an older breed than the Seeker. A greater breed. Sirians. Legendary beasts. The first wolves. The immortal wolves. The only wolves to have stalked under the dark shadows of Babylon, shed the blood of Nemeans from the coasts of Corinth to the Niles of Kush and raced among the great forests of ancient Sumer. Strong beyond belief, insane beyond all reason, having as much common cause with their mortal descendants as a bat might with a vampire.

  Such is the price of immortal life. Though the Great Wolf... he spoke to me. Was he saner than the rest? Or was it my witchblood that made his speech so clear? He looked at his sharp claws and willed them to retreat under his fingers. Questions best asked with my hand around his throat.

  He got up to his feet and eyed the manor in the distance. Blue gray mists settled around the estate, but left the surrounding woods untouched. So, she dreams. Yellow light filtered through the windows and diffused into the thick fog. The faraway blots of people ambled on the grounds, oblivious to the death that beheld them with merciless eyes.

  He ran his hands down his jacket, checking his vials and knives were in order. A slight tingle ran through his palms and feet, but he dared not focus on it. His eyes looked to the sky. Still gray and overcast, alive with gray light. There’s still time left.

  He looked back down the valley to the witch’s mansion. But not for her.

  Chapter 22: Palazzo della Strega

  She choked as if subjected to some stifling heat, as if the very essence of life had fled her body. When she looked to her arms and hands, they blurred and distorted under a haze of shimmering silver.

  There was no trial, no announcing of the verdict. The moment she came to them they downed her, their inscrutable minds already decided on what was to become of her. Her mind burst with madness and rage at their treachery. With a screamed incantation and a jab of her cracked wand, one of the sorcerer’s spells was reflected back at him.