Resurrection_Part One of the Macauley Vampire Trilogy

by Rebecca Norinne

  I cared for her, certainly ... more so than any woman, but love? No. Affection, fascination, and attraction, certainly, but never that. To have told her so would have been a lie she didn’t deserve. I thought she understood that I could give her my body but I’d never let her lay claim to my heart. She tried to hide her disappointment, but I knew her biggest fears, her greatest hopes, and the heart’s desire she never voiced aloud.

  On the eve of our two year anniversary, having decided to forego attending yet another political fundraiser, Nadia was settling in for the night with a glass of wine and a fashion magazine while I sat at the dining room table going over paperwork. It was all so perfectly normal and sedate; anyone glancing through the window would have thought us husband and wife and the image we presented wasn’t lost on her.

  “I had the strangest conversation with Bridgette today when I ran into her at Brown Thomas.”

  “It was probably a strange conversation because Bridgette is a strange woman,” I replied, almost absently.

  “Not so strange as all that,” she said in response, and if I’d been paying attention, I might have been alerted to her change in demeanor. “We’ve been seeing each other for two years William. People are beginning to wonder what comes next.”

  I ran my hands through my hair—a nervous tick I’d never quite lost—and placed my palms face down on the table. I counted: one second, two seconds, and then three. “Nadia,” I warned on a low growl.

  Here it was then. The conversation I’d forestalled, the one I knew would break her.

  “There is no next for us,” I said, harsher than I meant to, but my anger simmered dangerously close to the surface. “You know what I am. I’ve never led you on or made you believe this was going somewhere it never will.”

  Curled up in my robe, her wine glass twirling in her perfectly manicured hands, she acted as if I hadn’t spoken. “I want you William.”

  “You have me, but this is all we can be,” I explained gently.

  “Don’t you love me?” she asked defiantly, broaching the subject for the very first time.

  “Please do not ask of me what I cannot give you,” I practically begged.

  Nadia set her glass on the table and stood next to me. I could hear her heart beating quicker than normal, the sound of her blood whirring through her veins.

  “Let me love you. I’m good for you. I can give you everything. If only you would give yourself to me,” she implored, circling behind me and running her hands down my chest and lower until she met the only part of me I’d ever given her unreservedly.

  Stroking my hard length through my trousers, she kissed her way down my jaw, urging me to make love to her. I could have refused but we’d always been very good together in that regard. On a sigh, I pulled her down to straddle me, the robe she wore parting to reveal her perfect breasts, taut belly, and the tiny patch of jet black curls I knew so well. She was extraordinary, her beauty undeniable. She was a work of art … but still, I could not love her.

  I freed my aching, swollen shaft and eased her down on top of me. She rode me so that one second we barely touched and the next I was buried in her tight hole. Over and over, slow and excruciating, so that every other second I glided upward, deep inside of her, while she attempted to prove to me with her body we were right for one another. Eventually she quickened her pace and seconds before she came, Nadia threw her head back in abandon and screamed my name with soul-shattering intensity. Her undoing was my own. I exploded inside of her as I sank my fangs into her neck and took my fill of everything she had to give.

  When I moved to leave her just before sunrise, Nadia groggily reached for my hand, hoping to keep me by her side for just a little bit longer. I stopped and looked down at her then, heavy-lidded and sated from a night of passion.

  “Turn me, William,” she whispered.

  One heart beat. Two heartbeats. Three.

  “No, Nadia,” I answered, shaking my head.

  I expected her to argue, to beg, but she didn’t. Sighing resignedly, she turned her back on me and told me to go. At the door, I took one last look at her body wrapped up in my sheets, her long limbs peeking out in invitation and wished I was a normal man who could give her everything she wanted in life. No, not what she wanted—what she needed. Instead, with my next words, I unknowingly put a nail in her coffin.

  “Goodbye Nadia.”

  I walked out of the room and when I came upstairs after sun down, she was gone.

  Rumors circulated months later that Nadia had killed herself in an apartment overlooking the Seine but the police reports I’d had smuggled to me indicated foul play. Eventually I heard whispers about what had really happened that night in Paris which gave me no doubt I’d see her again someday. Only, she’d come to me as a vampire, the thing she’d wanted even more than she’d wanted me. I had no idea who had turned her, nor did the few people I felt brave enough to ask. I should have been happy for her since she’d found someone to give her the immortality she’d so desperately craved. I just couldn’t bring myself to feel that emotion.

  Chapter Ten

  William

  Two years earlier

  Over the last six months something changed and I began to feel unsettled. Frequently I woke earlier than normal, remembering bits and pieces of a life I’d long ago laid to rest. While some vampires clung to their mortal memories in a vain attempt to retain their humanity, I’d run from mine, locked that part of me away, knowing nothing I said or did could ever change what had happened. Revisiting those human memories now was nothing short of torture and not even 350 years could lessen the torment I felt when those brief glimpses into who I had been, the life I had led, crept to the forefront of my mind.

  I knew something was wrong when the assault on my memory happened frequently enough that I was losing much-needed sleep. I could survive on four hours of rest a night, but anything less than that was taking a chance with my life. And when the onslaught occurred during my waking hours, I became inordinately concerned. I’d be in the middle of a meeting and was suddenly overcome by the exact smell of the flowers that had once lined the banks of the lough, or I’d hear a woman’s laugh and my dead wife’s face would come to mind. It got to the point where no female could wear lily of the valley perfume lest it drag me back. Thankfully, people didn’t question my decree that no wear the scent in my presence. Such a minor thing really to have an aversion or allergy to a specific perfume.

  The dreams were sporadic at first but eventually they became my constant companion. After weeks of this brutal torture, I came to the conclusion that it was happening because I’d never properly dealt with my past. I had unfinished business to attend to and wouldn’t be able to live in peace until I’d made what amends I could. I couldn’t bring Ceara back, but I could bring back the home we’d shared, the place where we’d once been happy. By putting to rights what I’d left behind, I hoped to lay my demons to rest.

  The castle’s restoration became my obsession. Due to years of neglect and abandonment, the architect I hired requested at least €10,000,000 to do the job properly. With hundreds of years to have amassed my fortune, money was the least of my worries. With insight into the original layout no book or university degree could ever impart, I took an active role in its rebuilding. At first I kept my input neutral, a word here, a request there, but the longer I spent there, the worse my obsession became. I could no longer remain indifferent to the work going on around me. As my dreams turned to nightmares, I decided I couldn’t have anyone else there with me. Firing the architect and his crew, I stood in the empty shell of rooms, moved weathered stones with my bare hands, tilled the earth with sharpened fingernails, and acknowledged the precious blood I had shed.

  Word circulated among historians and antiquarians about the historically accurate restoration and soon I was hailed as a local hero. The recognition made me nervous because I didn’t want anyone looking too closely into the history of the castle lest they realize the names of the original a
nd current owner were one and the same. To cover my tracks, I concocted a story about being named for a long-dead ancestor and how the castle had been my family seat before falling into disrepair almost two hundred years prior. The lie was tenuous at best, but I hadn’t had time to concoct a more airtight narrative.

  While I could rebuff inquiries from any human who became too dogged, my real concerned stemmed from some not-so-human interest. The last thing I needed to do was pique the curiosity of my vampire brethren or encourage any visits from them. To say there was no love lost between my maker and me was an understatement. In fact, I would gladly kill him if I ever saw him again.

  Vampires like me—and there were several of us in every major city in every country on Earth—tended to attract scorn and suspicion from those of us who carried a deep and unrelenting hatred for humans. They couldn’t fathom why we chose to live as we did, couldn’t grasp why I’d want to live among the human race as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  In a way, I had to concede they had a point. It wasn’t natural; I knew that. In fact, I used to struggle with it every day, the blood lust always present, but over time I’d become adept at forcing my urges down until I could fulfill those desires privately. And now, the older I became, the longer I could go between feedings. While I never forgot who or what I was and what I could do, I’d reached a place where those things didn’t define me. What I wanted to be—who I wanted to be—was what drove me now, not the constant, overwhelming yearning for blood.

  But those other vampires feared my “carelessness” would reveal my true nature to the world, and then angry mobs armed with pitchforks and wooden stakes would begin hunting us all once again. I found their reaction to my lifestyle a bit paranoid and dramatic, but then again, the only person I’d ever been hunted by was my maker so what did I know of true persecution?

  Even while fighting to keep word of the restoration from reaching too many ears, it became my driving force, my reason for existing. When asked by one of my few friends why I had taken on such an arduous task, I couldn’t explain my true motivation. “Because I wanted to see if I could” became my most common refrain. And yet, when the night fell quiet and I was finally alone, I was able to admit to myself there existed some unknown force that compelled me to recreate the home I’d lived in when I’d still been a mortal man.

  Now, two years into the project, I’d recently built a safe haven for myself that was tucked away in the former dungeon, kept safe from light or potential intruders, so that I never had to leave if I didn’t want to. I also leased out my house in Dublin to an Ambassador and began sending my tried-and-true business partners to meetings in my stead.

  When a newspaper reporter snuck onto my property during the day and took pictures for an article he’d written that had dubbed me “William the Preserver,” my notoriety skyrocketed. While I’d had a permanent seat at clubs that catered to men who made (and lost) their fortunes in stocks and bonds, I now found myself sitting in a different type of club with a different type of gentleman. Gone was a certain type of vulgarity driven by the desire for more—more money, more cars, more homes, more women—replaced by a group of men and women who were slaves to the past, who lived their lives to recreate the Ireland of their ancestors. Those who gave tirelessly and monetarily for the pure joy their projects brought them, not the recognition they might receive for their efforts.

  Of course I never let them know the real me; I’d learned my lesson with Nadia. As far as they knew, the castle had last been occupied by my “ancestor” William Macauley and his wife Ceara. “Mad William” as he had come to be known in “family legend,” had gone insane and tried to burn down the castle with his wife locked inside. When she’d escaped, William ranted and raved to nearby townspeople that she was really a witch before killing her and then himself. The tale took the focus from me and centered it on this so-called legend. Requests for interviews began during in. I repeatedly declined them until one day on a whim I accepted one from an architectural magazine of some repute. I convinced myself if an in-depth article was written, interest would wane and the mystery would die. Since I couldn’t show the reporter around the castle myself during daylight hours, I left his tour to my proxy Seamus.

  I’d known Seamus for going on twenty years now, him having recognized almost immediately what I was. Rather than trying to kill me or turn me over to those who would, he’d simply accepted my vampirism as a quirk of nature and had remained by my side ever since. When he’d seen me drink from a woman I had an ongoing arrangement with, he hadn’t seemed fazed in the least. He’d once told me because I never killed those I fed from—at least to his knowledge—he looked on my “appetite” as a fetish. Or a strange sort of anti-vegetarianism. We’d agreed to never talk about it again.

  Seamus kept his word, working alongside me to finalize the interior of the castle and set up a system for a staff, including himself, to begin living onsite. As the restoration reached its completion though, I became more and more agitated and couldn’t understand why. Shouldn’t I be happy I’d accomplished what I’d set out to? I’d pushed forward under the assumption that my herculean effort would settle my karmic debt, that it would atone for the sins I’d committed against the love of my life and our people, but as the completion date came and went I realized that had been a foolish notion. How stupid I’d been to think if I could just bring back the home I’d shared with Ceara, everything would be balanced. I’d killed my wife and destroyed our home and nothing I ever said or did would make the act of a desperate, newborn vampire okay.

  Chapter Eleven

  William

  Three Months Earlier

  After Nadia, I abhorred the idea of fucking a woman I didn’t care about in exchange for her blood. Truthfully, I didn’t think I would ever understand what was so broken in those women who sought out vampires to fulfill their fantasies instead of the mortal, human men they should be spending their lives with. Someone had once explained to me that there was something fundamentally different about my kind that made a woman’s sexual experience unlike anything they could achieve with their own. I’d chosen to take their word for it.

  Unfortunately, sex and feeding had become so tied together—my very survival linked to the act— that the eroticism most vampires found in feeding, while not completely erased, had diminished greatly for me; the notion that I was fucking my food holding very little appeal. Once my fangs pierced the soft flesh of my donor I had to force my mind to another place; somewhere the how or why of it was erased and all that existed was the blood, in my mouth, filling my body, fulfilling my soul.

  But then I would remember how it used to be before, when I’d killed those I drank from because I could do so without reproach. I would recall the thrill of the hunt and my elation as my victims’ fear became palpable, their heartbeats increasing, the sound of it screamed into my ears as surely as their own shrieks. And then my rapture as I’d pin them down and drink until full on their death, this itself an almost orgasmic experience. Maybe, I thought, those women got off on their own fears, or maybe they were hoping I’d be the one who finally pushed them to the brink. I hadn’t really wanted to know. The question was more academic than anything.

  One of the women I fed from was different from the rest. I knew exactly why she came to me and while at first I’d been hesitant to fuck her, it made my life so much easier because I no longer had to worry about someone revealing my secret. In the time I’d known her, Elizabeth had become more than just a source of blood for me. Like Nadia before, she was a friend and companion of sorts. We would go months without seeing one another and then just as easily we’d spend weeks together. So different from other humans, both men and women alike, that if I didn’t know better, I would have named her Vampire. She both craved and rejected all forms of intimacy, bound to her dark secrets. We couldn’t be around each other for long periods of time, but we always returned to one another as if no time had passed at all.

  From the moment I
met Elizabeth and she explained to me what she wanted from our relationship and what she was willing to give me in return, we’d never spoke of it again. Instead, we would stay up the entire night speaking of other things—art, commerce, history, war—and yes, we always shared a bed. Unlike my relationship with Nadia, though, what I had with Elizabeth was based on mutual loneliness and need, coupled with, but not driven by, wanton passion and lust. I never fed from her when my cock was inside her and she never asked me to, though I knew she probably wouldn’t protest if I tried.

  I’d taken Elizabeth with me to an awards gala in Dublin a couple of months earlier and though I’d been assured no photographers would be stationed outside, we’d been photographed nonetheless, something we’d fought bitterly about afterward. She had been furious with my carelessness, blaming me of putting us in a situation where there’d be paparazzi. In her indignation, she had left my house, not giving any indication when I’d see her next.

  I didn’t, nor could I ever, love Elizabeth (and she felt exactly the same way about me) but her rejection that night still stung. While Nadia had wanted everyone to know about us, I was angry with Elizabeth for preferring no one ever know of our connection. I’d known from the start she was reluctant to be seen with me in public, but seeing the photograph had brought out a reaction I hadn’t anticipated. Regardless of how many times I told her I hadn’t invited the paparazzi—that I could no more stop them from photographing me than I could stop them from writing about me—my explanations were futile.

  It was as I was stewing over Elizabeth’s departure from my life, vacillating between anger and acceptance, that an American romance novelist wrote to ask for a tour the castle. While I could understand the architecture magazines wanting to see the lace, I found her request irritating and intrusive. How dare she think my home—Ceara’s home—was suitable inspiration for what I assumed would be an insipid story. Not one of the author’s audience would actually care about the history of it or the people who had built it (and then re-built it), and I certainly didn’t want to become the basis for a caricature of an arrogant aristocrat by some upstart American.