Revenants Abroad

by D. D. Syrdal

For the next few days, Andrej spent as much time as he could with Anne-Marie. She was afraid to be alone, worried that Paimon would come back and decide it was time to turn her into a vampire.

  “Why can’t Daisy or Neko come back?” she asked. “At least with two of you here I might never have to be alone at all.”

  “I wish I knew where either of them is.”

  They’d had no word from Neko since he’d left. Anne-Marie wasn’t sure if that was a good sign, a bad sign, or just normal for him. Daisy also was a no-show, and while Andrej acted unconcerned, the more time went by with no word from either one, the more he was becoming concerned as well.

  “Maybe we should go back to Greece and see if we can find Neko, or get a message to Daisy,” she suggested to Andrej one day.

  “We don’t know for sure he went back to Greece. And Daisy could be anywhere.”

  Although he hated to do it, Andrej was forced to leave Anne-Marie at the apartment when he was out hunting. He had quit bringing the women back to the apartment, going out long enough to get what he needed, then returning. There was nothing for Anne-Marie to do while he was gone, no way to protect herself from Paimon. After two weeks of not seeing him, they started to wonder if perhaps Paimon, and whoever he took orders from, had changed their minds about her. Then again, on their time scale, two weeks was nothing. They might simply still be deciding. At least they saw no reason to hurry the decision. Maybe that was something.

  “I almost wish he’d come to talk to you,” she said to Andrej one morning. “This not knowing is making me crazy.”

  Andrej didn’t want to display any undue concern and make Anne-Marie any more agitated than she already was, but he had thought the same thing. “Perhaps he’s busy with the crusaders. He might be rooting out more of them.”

  “Wouldn’t we have heard about it on the news?”

  He shook his head. “Not likely. Paimon’s methods would cause a news blackout on the subject. If he’s going after a lot of them, the police won’t want that kind of information public. It could cause a panic. We’re the only ones who know who’s responsible, and who’s being targeted. They won’t have any idea, at least not at first. Once they start putting the pieces together, they’ll realize all the victims were linked through this organization. Even if they figure it out before Paimon gets to them all, they won’t be able to stop him. But I don’t think that’s the style he’s going to use this time. He’s not apt to do anything to cause that much of a stir. He may be looking for the group’s leaders, or just a particular cell, and deleting them.”

  “How many others are there like him? Does he work alone?”

  “I honestly have no idea. Whoever, and whatever he is, he’s not in it for fame. I assume he has some kind of helpers, but I’ve never asked.”

  “When did you first meet him?”

  “I first met him during the Purification. It was right after an attack. I was in Brussels and when he approached me in the street one night, I recognized that he wasn’t human. He said he’d come to warn me to get out of town, that I was being watched, followed, by some of the early crusaders. I didn’t think much about it at the time; I was just grateful for the warning and moved on that night.” He stopped, thinking now that Paimon’s warning all those years ago was not unlike what he was doing now: protecting Andrej.

  “Have you thought anymore about what we talked about?” Andrej asked.

  “Are you kidding? It’s all I can think about.”

  “Any decision?”

  “Only that I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to be a vampire.”

  “No one should be asked to make this kind of choice,” he said gently.

  She struggled to keep a tear from escaping out of the corner of her eye. “More than not wanting to be a vampire, I don’t want to die. So if it comes down to it, I want you to turn me. Please.”

  “Of course I will, if Paimon doesn’t interfere, and it has to be that way, I will do it for you,” he said. “For now, I think it’s time we thought about moving on for a bit.” He hoped forming a plan and taking some kind of action would help them both feel less powerless.

  “Won’t he just follow us? Where do you want to go now?” she asked.

  “I’m hoping he’s busy with the crusaders, especially since most of them have should have gone to ground by now. Eventually yes, he’ll just locate us again. Maybe we can figure out some other option by then. I’ll try talking to him, go over his head if I can.”

  “Over his head?” She sat bolt upright at that. “Who does he answer to?”

  “You don’t want to know.” The idea of summoning his creator was something he never thought he’d do, but it might be the only option to try to convince him to spare Anne-Marie. Paimon wouldn’t question orders, he would simply act. If he had been told to either kill or convert Anne-Marie, Andrej didn’t think there was a way to stop him without getting him new orders. The question was whether it could be done at all.

  He didn’t have long to wait for an answer. The next evening as he was out prowling the clubs looking for a victim, he saw Paimon lounging against the wall just inside the club where Andrej had met Elizabet. He watched Andrej, clearly waiting for him. Andrej stood by the door smoking a cigarette, waiting to see what he’d do. To his surprise Paimon walked over to meet him, keeping his eyes on Andrej but maintaining a casual manner.

  “Can I get a cigarette?” he asked. Andrej shook one out of the pack for him and lit it while Paimon held it in his lips. Paimon inhaled the smoke slowly, savoring it. “Thanks. Been a long time since I had one of these.” He turned the cigarette around in his hand, examining it like a long lost artifact. He blew out the smoke, looking sidelong at Andrej. Andrej kept his expression blank, resigned to whatever lay in store.

  “What say we step outside, go for a little walk?” Paimon said, and he turned and walked out. Andrej followed as he headed down the street to a less populated area.

  “Shouldn’t we find someplace a little more private?” Andrej said.

  “Well, you could invite me back to your apartment,” Paimon said with a little smile.

  “Maybe another time,” Andrej said. The last thing he wanted was to let him get close to Anne-Marie. “That was you, that night in her room, wasn’t it?”

  Paimon nodded. “Of course. I was surprised you didn’t realize it then.”

  “Why is she more of a problem than any of the others? And why now? What’s behind this?” He didn’t expect to get any real answers out of him, but he didn’t think Paimon was here to do him any harm, and would not be likely to deviate from his objectives. If those objectives didn’t include bringing him to heel, Paimon wouldn’t ad lib it.

  “Well, that’s a curious thing. You know you’ve always been a favorite of his, although that in itself is inexplicable.” Andrej didn’t react to this. It wasn’t likely that Paimon was trying to be insulting, merely stating the fact that it was almost unheard of for their creator to have a favorite. “And why now? That’s easy to answer. You’ve never had a servitor who fell in love with you, and you her.”

  “It’s not forbidden, is it?”

  “No, but it’s never been an issue before.”

  Andrej said skeptically, “I find that a little hard to believe.”

  Paimon shrugged. “I’ve never known of a case like this before.”

  “Anne-Marie would never betray me, or work against me. Surely you know that.”

  “As much as any of us might want to believe that, there is always a danger as long as she retains her free will.”

  “Paimon, please. I’m asking you to talk to him, see if you can at least have him grant us more time. There’s no reason to rush into doing anything, is there?”

  Paimon watched him calmly. “Perhaps not. I’ll see what he says and let you know. I may have to spend more time with her, though, so try to talk to her, and let her know that if I call on her again, it will be as an observer. I don’t wish to frighten her.”

  Andrej bel
ieved him that far. He nodded and said, “I’ll tell her. How can I thank you for your intervention?”

  “No thanks needed,” Paimon said. There was a perpetual air of detachment about him, nothing was personal.

  Andrej decided to seize an opportunity that might never come again. “Can I ask you something?” he said.

  “Are you sure you want to know the answer?” Something in Paimon changed as if a shadow passed across him and his eyes darkened.

  “If you can tell me. Who are you? What are you?”

  Paimon regarded him silently for a minute. “I am what is commonly called a demon, for lack of a better term.”

  “Demon? From Hell?”

  “Let’s say I am in the employ of those who do not support established hierarchies.”

  “Were you ever human?”

  “No.”

  “So you don’t know what it feels like to love someone, care about someone?”

  “No.” Paimon answered as if he was swatting at gnats.

  “Do you understand the kind of pain and anguish you’re causing Anne-Marie with this?” He wanted to penetrate the inhuman emotionlessness, find some way to arouse some spark of empathy in this walking enigma.

  “I do, although it’s not my intention to terrorize her.” He studied Andrej’s face as they talked.

  “I’d say you’re doing a damn good job of it, anyway.” Andrej finished his cigarette and tossed the butt into the street. “Paimon, if it comes down to it, I want to be the one to convert her. Is that acceptable?”

  Again Paimon was silent, looking impassively at Andrej. “I think that can be arranged. I can tell you for certain later. In the meantime, I will also present your request for more time and see what the answer is. But I will very likely have to speak with her again.”

  “Will you allow me to be present when you see her?”

  “I do prefer to do these assessments alone. Consider it a job interview. But perhaps after the first one you could be present for the next.”

  “Why? How many times do you need to see her? What is all this about?” Andrej had never heard of anyone being put through this kind of psychological torture in advance of being converted. He had certainly never been ‘interviewed’ before his own conversion, and no other vampire he had ever known had spoken of anything similar.

  “I’m afraid I can’t answer that. I need to gather some information and that’s all I can tell you for now.”

  Andrej felt his frustration rising. It was possible Paimon didn’t know anything more about this whole series of events than his own part, carrying out whatever orders he had, but that was unlikely. To get useful information he’d need a view of the bigger picture. Regardless, he was either unable or unwilling to let Andrej in on the reasons.

  “Now then, if you’ll excuse me, I have other things to take care of this evening.” Paimon inclined his head towards Andrej, then turned and walked away, and was quickly swallowed up in the crowd on the sidewalk.

  Andrej wanted to pound his fist on something. None of this made any sense. He pulled up his communer and buzzed Anne-Marie. She answered at once, almost before the device finished the first alert tone.

  “What’s going on? Are you all right?” she asked.

  “I’m fine, just wanted to see how you’re doing there,” he said.

  “I’m ok, all quiet here. Are you on your way back already?”

  “No, no, I got a little sidetracked so it’ll be just a little while yet.” He decided not to mention meeting up with Paimon. It would be better to discuss that in person when he got home.

  “Any sign of our little friends?” she asked.

  “No, nothing. Paimon must have been busy.”

  “Well, I guess that’s good in one way,” she said sounding uncertain.

  “I hope so. See you shortly,” he said, and closed the communer. At least Paimon hadn’t gone straight to see her. He was able then to turn his attention to finding a victim. He went back to the club where he’d found Paimon waiting for him, but this time there was no sign of him. It was unsettling to have Paimon anticipating his moves, knowing where he was headed almost before he did. Among his other talents, Andrej wondered if Paimon had the ability to see into the future.

  As Andrej descended the stairs to the basement club, he saw Elizabet. As much as he would have liked to see her again, take her blood, it hadn’t been long enough since the last time he had done so. He turned and headed back up the stairs and walked out, hoping she hadn’t seen him. No doubt she had gone back there hoping to run into him again, but he didn’t want to have to make excuses to get away to find his evening meal. He wasn’t in the mood for socializing; all he wanted now was a quick fix for his hunger.

  He went back to the bar he and Neko had gone to so many weeks ago. It was just as dingy and dark as he remembered. His prospects were few here, and he realized as late as it was by then the chances of finding someone who wasn’t inebriated or stoned were getting slimmer. He didn’t mind so much if they’d had a couple drinks, but most of these bar denizens were not light drinkers. He wandered out again, becoming more unsettled, and decided to head for the little coffee shop he liked. It was still open although there were only a couple of other people inside. He took his coffee outside to sit at one of the café tables on the sidewalk, and hope for a stray passerby. Not much luck there either. At this time of night there weren’t many pedestrians, or people looking for coffee. There was, however, the waitress. Andrej studied her as she went about cleaning tables and removing dirty dishes. She’d do, he thought. He saw her head to the back of the café, into the kitchen, and followed. There was one other employee in the kitchen, one of the cooks it looked like. Neither of them noticed him standing there as Andrej was already working on both of their minds. In his anger and frustration over the situation with Anne-Marie his emotions were becoming explosive and he channeled that energy into controlling the two café workers. He got control of the man’s mind and planted the suggestion for him to go outside. As soon as he was sure they were alone, he walked over to the waitress, pulling her roughly to him. The temptation to savagely bite her, and take all her blood, kill her, was strong, so strong. The primal urge was filling his mind again. He had known these rages before, long ago. He was so angry, but this woman didn’t deserve it anymore than Anne-Marie deserved the fate Paimon had planned for her. He forced himself once again to suppress the killing instinct, breathing hard. The woman was still entranced, eyes closed, unaware how close she was to dying. As he held her, Andrej studied her face. Her eyes opened, and although she didn’t really see him, he looked in her eyes, and the image swam in his mind, so that for a moment he thought he saw Anne-Marie’s face. His rage broke, and he bit into her neck, but gently, as if it were Anne-Marie in his arms and not some stranger. He took what he dared, and led her back out to the dining room where he got her seated at a table. Her co-worker would find her when Andrej released him from his trance. He walked out, sending the man back inside, then walked off down the street.

  When he arrived back at the apartment, his anger had dissipated somewhat, but he was still feeling restless. Anne-Marie was awake, curled up in her chair waiting for him. He came in, looked at her briefly and strode to the bar to pour himself another glass of bourbon.

  She watched him without saying anything. Andrej took off his coat and flung it across the back of the sofa before taking a sip of the whiskey. He turned abruptly and leaned against the bar, looking at her. He lit a cigarette and willed himself to be calm. When he felt more in control, he walked slowly over and sat down on the sofa facing Anne-Marie. She looked up at him, but for a moment neither one said anything. Andrej broke the silence.

  “No sign of Paimon, I take it?”

  “No,” she answered, “No, it’s been totally quiet since you left.” She bit her lower lip, as if trying to stop herself from saying something.

  Andrej nodded, and took another drag on the cigarette.

  “You saw him, didn’t you?”


  He held his breath for a moment before answering. “Yes, we talked,” and he took a sip of his drink. He licked his lips, catching a stray drop of the bourbon, then said, “He agreed to consider a request to postpone doing anything, said there’s no real rush. He also said it was likely I would be allowed to be the one to convert you, if it comes to it.” He looked at her to see how she’d take this.

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That’s good, right?”

  “Yes, but it’s not all.”

  She held her breath again for a second. “Tell me.”

  Andrej’s face went through a series of expressions, as he tried to find a way to tell her.

  “He’s not here to turn you right now,” he began while she watched his face. “He doesn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “But?”

  “He insists on seeing you, speaking with you again.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “I honestly don’t know. He keeps giving me this song and dance about you being a threat, but it’s absurd. He can handle all these crusaders without breaking a sweat, so the idea of you being any real trouble is some kind of smokescreen, it has to be.”

  The anguish on her face made him feel sick, ashamed of himself for putting her in this position. It was a long time since he’d felt this kind of remorse, and he didn’t like it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said gently, “I never expected this, I never saw it coming. You deserve better, you deserve a good life. I never meant to put you in this position. If there was any way I could go back and undo it, I would.” He looked at her, seeing a tear slide down her cheek.

  “Oh Andrej,” she said softly, “I would have been dead long ago if it weren’t for you. I’m not afraid if you’re the one to turn me.”

  “I could still erase your memory, send you back to the States,” he offered.

  “Back to what? There’s nothing there for me. With no memory of the last three years, what would I do?”

  “You sound resigned to this.”

  She gave a little shrug. “I don’t know, maybe I am. It doesn’t seem like there’s any way out of it. This Paimon sounds like once he’s made up his mind there’s not much chance of talking him out of it.”

  Andrej shook his head a little. “It’s not him, he’s just doing what he was told to do. It’s not his decision to make.”

  “Then whose is it?”

  Andrej stood up and began pacing. He knew he needed to tell her, but something still stopped him from going into detail about his own conversion.

  “The creature that turned me into a vampire,” he said.

  Anne-Marie watched him pace. “What do you mean, ‘creature’? Wasn’t it another vampire?”

  “Not exactly.”

  It would all have to come out now, he thought. If anything was going to make her decide against becoming a vampire, staying with him, this was it. He reached for his cigarettes.

  She frowned a little. “It’s ok, if you don’t want to talk about it, I was just wondering. I’m sorry, forget I asked.”

  He looked at her, a small smile on his lips.

  “It’s just that it’s not what you think.” He knocked the ash off his cigarette, then stubbed it out completely. He took her hand and brought it to his mouth, pressing his lips to her skin, holding it there for a moment. When he released it he looked out the window. Even after all this time he found it hard to talk about, even with her.

  “I wasn’t converted by another vampire,” he began.

  “But, how…?”

  He sighed deeply. “That’s not the only way to become a vampire. There are other, even darker ways.”

  She hadn’t been frightened of him for a long time, but there was something more about him, something that perhaps would be better left unsaid. She opened her mouth to say something to stop him, but he made a shushing sound, and put his finger over her lips to stop her from speaking.

  “It’s time you knew,” he said. “I was a suicide.”

  She gasped. Her eyes grew large, first in shock, then sorrow. “I’m so sorry, I had no idea,” she said.

  “Of course not, how could you?” he said gently. He got a faraway look in his eyes, as the memories of that night began playing in his mind, like a movie reel he couldn’t shut off. “I was young then, and everything seems so desperate you know, so ‘now or never’ at that age. You’ve asked about my past many times, and I didn’t want to talk about it, but you need to know this now.

  “My family was all gone. My mother had died, my father was long gone, and for the first time in my life I was truly all alone. At first I was ok, but one job after another fell apart, and I started spending more and more time just drinking and partying. I had never been much good at anything anyway, kind of a spoiled rich kid, but I found out it didn’t take long to burn through the money that had been left to me. After awhile I realized most of it was gone. My habits, if you will, were costing a lot more than I ever thought. And then one night one of the guys I knew in town talked me into meeting some guys. Drug dealers he said, and convinced me that it was a good way to make some money. A lot of money, he claimed. It sounded like a sweet deal for a punk like me, with no job skills, no ambition, just a stupid selfish kid. We were just going to be couriers. Well, he said he already was. At any rate, my first drop was the next week. When the time came I made the pick-up, and headed to where I was supposed to meet the buyer. I didn’t realize I’d been set up. The whole thing was a sting. The police had me boxed in on one of the bridges over the Vltava. They came at me, guns drawn. The guy who brought me into this was one of them. I saw him there on the bridge, in his uniform, armor on. It was the last thing I needed to push me over the edge. Literally. I got up on the bridge wall, drew my gun before they could do anything, and fired. One bullet into my own head.”

  Anne-Marie gasped, then clamped her hand over her mouth. “Oh my god. Why didn’t you just surrender?” she asked after a minute.

  “And go to prison? A punk like me? Not a chance. No, as far as I could see at that moment, my life was over anyway. I had made every wrong decision someone could make at that age, it felt like there was no coming back from that. Everyone was out to get me, even the one guy I thought I could trust.” He was quiet for a few moments, then heaved a sigh and went on.

  “As I fired, I fell backwards and down into the river. I was already dead, I never even felt the water.”

  The tears Anne-Marie had been trying to hold back began to slide silently out of the corners of her eyes. She tried to imagine the despair and absolute hopelessness that had driven him to such an act, but nothing in her life had ever brought her to such a bleak, dark place. She couldn’t speak, knowing her voice would crack. Andrej sat there, still smoking but unable to look at her.

  She swallowed hard, determined to sound normal as she said, “Was there no one who could have helped you? A friend or a relative?”

  He shook his head. “No, no. I was absolutely alone. There were some distant cousins on my father’s side, somewhere, but you don’t just pop up out of nowhere and ask for help from virtual strangers. Even if I could have found them it’s not likely they would have been willing to help me. I had burned my proverbial bridges, I was the ultimate black sheep.” He looked at her with a wry grin. The desperate image in his memory made him catch his breath. Every detail was sharp, cutting, slicing into his carefully crafted persona. In his mind’s eye he saw again his own car smashed against the wall of the bridge, himself climbing up on the wall as the police swarmed out of their vehicles, ordering him to lay down his gun and surrender. The blackness behind him, the emptiness with nowhere left to run, unable to see beyond the glare of the headlights, the flashing police strobes in front of him. The wind was cold in the early November dark. Then the dead calm, and absolute clarity of mind. He shuddered, remembering the click of the hammer, the last sound he heard.

  Anne-Marie reached up to touch his cheek, holding tightly to his arm as if she could reach back in tim
e to keep him from falling, drowning in the icy, hellish past. “Andrej, I’m so sorry.”

  He kissed her face, brushing the tears off her cheeks, then pressed his forehead to hers. “Shhhh,” he said, “it’s all over a long time ago.”

  They sat together quietly for a moment. Once he got started it became easier to talk about it, although the shudder he had tried to suppress said that even though it was hundreds of years in his past, the memories of that night were still ragged wounds.

  “I regained consciousness on the bank of the river, some twenty kilometers away, before the police had a chance to find my body. I was surprised, to say the least, to find myself apparently still alive. I don’t know how much time had passed, but it was still dark. I found there was no wound in my head. Whatever damage the bullet had done had completely healed. I was at a loss to understand how this could be. My memory right up to what I thought were the final seconds of my life was sharp and clear. And if I had somehow missed, I had no explanation for how I came to be where I was at that moment.

  “Gradually I became aware that I was outside in the cold. My clothes were wet from being in the river, but I had no sensation of cold or wet. I had no sensation at all. No pain, no hunger. I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I thought there might be a search for my body but wherever I had ended up was quite dark and silent. They had either given up looking for me, or still expected to find me closer to where I had gone off the bridge. I got up and started walking towards the lights of a nearby town. Outside the city there wasn’t much traffic on the road, but after awhile a car came by and I managed to flag it down. The driver was a young woman, and at first I was surprised that she would stop and talk to me. She had her window open, and I noticed a strange, kind of glassy look in her eyes. I wondered if she was high, or drunk, but she spoke to me clearly and slowly when I asked her where I was and if she could give me a lift. I went around to the passenger side and got in, and she started down the road without another word. We hadn’t gone too far when I started looking at her, and I suddenly thought, this must be how an animal looks at its prey. Almost immediately she pulled off the road into a dark side road and stopped the car.

  “Without any sort of conscious decision on my part, I took her blood. She was my first kill.”

  He stopped, waiting for Anne-Marie’s reaction. She seemed to be holding her breath and said nothing. Andrej’s voice was quiet, dispassionate, as he related his story. He knew it was an awful lot to ask anyone to hear all at once.

  “Did you even know then what had happened to you? I mean, were you consciously aware of a desire for blood?”

  “Not at all. I acted with hardly a thought. It was the most natural thing in the world. Even while I was drinking her blood, it was more like finally finding something I’d been searching for, easing a hunger I didn’t know I had.”

  Talking about that first kill sent him back to that primal mindset when he was controlled by animal instinct and lost sight of his higher reasoning. His eyes had started to take on the glow that preceded a kill. The moment passed, and when he saw she was not making any move to flee or get away from him, a sense of shame overwhelmed him and he fought to suppress the urges that had been rekindled by talking about all this. His eyes lost the glow, and he seemed to diminish in size somewhat. He was panting from the effort of trying to control his impulse to kill which had surfaced with the memory.

  “You have to understand this will always be part of me. There will always be a chance that someday I won’t be able to stop myself.” He got up from the sofa and went into the kitchen. When he returned a couple minutes later he was carrying a wine glass with a dark red liquid in it. He sat down next to her and handed her the glass.

  “Go on,” he said, “It’s just Zinfandel, not blood.”

  She laughed a little and accepted the glass, sipping it to steady her nerves.

  “I’m sorry, I just needed you to know exactly what you’re getting involved in. I don’t know how you can bear to look at me,” he said, putting his hand to the side of her face. But look at him she did. If anything his confession made her desire for him even stronger.

  “Andrej, you kill to survive. Anyone would do the same thing.”

  “No, not just to survive,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  He sighed a little. This was going to be hard to explain, harder even than talking about his suicide.

  “By killing myself I gave up my free will, my soul, so to speak. After I killed that girl in the car, I started walking down the road. I don’t know why I didn’t take the car, but I felt the need to be out in the night, in the dark. I hadn’t gone more than a few steps when I saw someone standing in the middle of the road. As I got closer, the face was hidden by a hood. I wasn’t afraid—hell, at that point I was like a junkie who’d just gotten a fix. I felt invincible, and at the time I nearly was. Bullets wouldn’t have stopped me, I was more powerful than I realized at the time.

  “The figure in the road started moving toward the car. Not walking, he was floating above the ground. It was no human, but I couldn’t see what it was. I say ‘he’ but even today I’m not sure that’s right, that it even has a gender.

  “I saw the car door open, and the body of the girl got up, on her own, and got out of the car. She walked to the side of the road and lay down again. I knew I had killed her, she couldn’t possibly have been alive. This thing had reanimated her body, but there was no sign of consciousness.”

  “A zombie?”

  He considered that for a second. “I hadn’t thought of that before. I guess so, in a way. The creature, whatever it was, hovered over her body for a moment, then started coming at me. I backed up a few steps, I’m not sure what I expected it to do. But it stopped in front of me, and pulled back the hood. He looked human at first, very old. He was smiling at me, which of all things was the one thing I found unnerving in all this. There was a sense of malevolence to it, something hideous in it. As I watched him for a moment his face shifted, like a ripple across water, and something else was there, something not human. Everything felt unreal, I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming it all, but I asked who he was and what he wanted.

  “He spoke to me then. He had a raspy, thin voice, like the whisper of an old man. ‘My child, I’ve come to welcome you to our family. You were dead, and I’ve given you new life. When you ended your human life, I was able to give you this life you have now, as a vampire. Fortune has smiled on you, for you will live forever now, free of disease, and the toils and cares of humans.’

  “He held out a hand. I thought he wanted me to come towards him, but with just a gesture he had forced me to my knees in the road there in front of him.

  “‘This is my gift to you. And in gratitude, you will repay me from time to time. I ask little, but with every year I will expect one sacrifice. Those single kills will be for me, and you will not sate your hunger with them.’”

  Anne-Marie had listened without speaking while he talked but when he paused she said, “What would happen to you if you didn’t do what he said and kill all those people?”

  His face turned hard, remembering the searing pain. “He can make you wish for death. The pain he can inflict is beyond anything I can describe. But he will keep you alive to feel it.”

  “No one could withstand that,” she said. “But what is he, or it?”

  He shook his head. “I still don’t know. I’ve only seen him three times since that first night. He nearly killed me, really killed me, the last time.”

  “Why?” she asked, sitting up next to him.

  “I hadn’t been making my kills,” he said. “I get to choose who, and when; he doesn’t interfere that way. It would almost be easier if he did.”

  Anne-Marie felt ill. The idea of having to choose a living being to kill in sacrifice horrified her. It was perverse in a way that grew in ugliness the longer she thought about it. “My God, I had no idea,” she said.

  “I didn’t want you to know. Can you stay with
me now, knowing this?”

  To do so was a tacit approval of these killings, these sacrifices. Could she turn a blind eye to it? She could leave, but could she live with herself knowing he was out there, killing? Could she live without him? Would she turn on him, and try to kill him?

  “I think you should take some time and think about things. What I’ve told you, what I have to do, because that won’t change. I don’t have any particular thirst to kill, but I will do what I have to do. You will never be there when I make my sacrifices, you won’t have to see it. But you need to think long and hard about whether or not you can accept that.”

  She swallowed hard, her heart racing. “I won’t lie and say it doesn’t frighten me,” she said, her voice shaking a little, “But I can’t imagine being away from you.”

  They were both quiet for a few minutes, each one lost in thought. They still hadn’t talked about the worst thing.

  “So, if you convert me, will I have to make these sacrifices, too? Will I have to answer to this creature?”

  Without flinching he said, “Yes, you will.”

  She let out a long sigh. This was not something she had ever imagined, or could have foreseen. She had thought Andrej could teach her how to take blood without killing and had convinced herself she could live with that. But this was beyond imagining.

  “I had no such decision to make, I wasn’t given the choice to become a vampire or not. I’ve often wondered what I would have done if I had. At that age, when my life was crumbling, I have to admit I was probably desperate enough to have done it.”

  “I almost wish you had just turned me without telling me all this.”

  He watched as her emotions continued to overwhelm her, washing across her face: first compassion for his suffering, then a tortured look as she tried to find some way to reconcile killing humans to survive. The hardness that had built up in him over the years, enabling him to be what he was cracked just a little. His first impulse was simply to leave, and never see her again, spare her the life he knew she wasn’t prepared for. He had left so many, many times. She would in time get over her love for him, perhaps meet someone else and fall in love and have a normal life. But she was different from the others, there was something in her that drew him like no one else since Sara. He wasn’t ready to let her go. And even if she left there was no guarantee Paimon wouldn’t continue his mission to turn her anyway.

  “Do I have to drink human blood?” she asked with a slightly sick look on her face.

  “There’s not much alternative. It’s up to you who you feed on, you don’t have to pick up some bum off the street. Actually you’re better off not to, they usually taste pretty bad.” Even to him the half-hearted attempt at a joke fell flat.

  “You talk about drinking blood the way humans discuss restaurant ratings.”

  “You want this? You think you could make the kills, the sacrifices?”

  “Yes,” she said with a tone of surprise, “I think I do, if it’s the only way to keep from losing you. I don’t know what I’d do without you anymore.”

  “We don’t need to do anything yet,” he reminded her. “Paimon was going to ask for more time, and he wants to talk to you again anyway.”

  She rubbed her forehead. “I sure as hell wish I knew what the big deal is about me.”

  “I don’t know, and Paimon won’t say. All we can do now is wait to hear from him. Or, I can go and try to summon the creator, see if I can get some answers from him.”

  “Is that how you think of him, as a ‘creator’?”

  “Yes, after all he’s what turned me into a vampire, I know that much. I don’t know what else he’s capable of. It could be that’s all but I don’t know.”

  “But you think you can summon him?”

  Andrej said uncertainly, “I never have before, I’ve never wanted to. The less I see of him, the better, but I could give it a try. I’d have to leave town.”

  “Oh no, you’re not going anywhere and leaving me here by myself,” Anne-Marie said.

  “It’s certainly not my first choice, but I also don’t want you anywhere near him. Let’s wait to hear from Paimon and see what he says.”

  Anne-Marie sighed. “Ok. I’m exhausted, I think I need to get some sleep.”

  Andrej looked at her and realized how tired she looked. “If you don’t mind, I’ll stay in your room with you tonight, just in case.”

  Anne-Marie smiled, and gave his arm a little squeeze. “Thank you.”

  She was asleep almost the instant her head hit the pillow. Andrej spent the night lying next to her, mulling over the events of the last few days. He hadn’t felt this helpless in a long time, and he didn’t like it. He knew he couldn’t oppose his creator, he didn’t have that kind of power. No one he’d ever heard of did. He found himself wishing Neko would call or come back; he needed a fresh perspective on the situation. Assuming Neko was in the middle of a “job” he didn’t want to try contacting him, otherwise he was sure Neko would have returned. Neko didn’t want to be away from Anne-Marie the way Anne-Marie didn’t want to be away from Andrej. His obsession with her was under control for the time being, but certainly not extinguished so quickly. Once a vampire fixates on a human, it could be a long time before they get over it, if ever. No, Neko would return as soon as he possibly could; calling him wouldn’t hasten his return.

  As Anne-Marie slept, Andrej watched her. She tossed and turned, murmuring indistinctly while she dreamed. He was able to read her conscious mind, but not her dreaming subconscious. She rolled over in her sleep, putting her back to him. Gently he reached over and put a hand on her shoulder, running it down her side to the curve of her hip, and on down to her thigh. She moaned softly in her sleep, and rolled over on her back, putting herself up against his body. Soon, he told himself, soon. He wanted all of her: body, heart and blood. It was still too soon to take her blood, even though he knew she would have let him anyway if he’d asked. He took his hand off her, resigning himself to waiting just a little longer. He started to put himself into his meditative state to rest while she slept, but Anne-Marie started snuggling herself up against him, still sound asleep. He smiled as she laid her hand on his chest, and he put his arm around her, pulling her close. He had all but forgotten what it was like to feel wanted, desired. It wasn’t so long ago he had been disturbed by her affections. He’d had no interest in anything approaching a relationship. The very idea was absurd. Having a lovesick assistant was the last thing he had needed. At first she’d seemed to understand that there would be nothing more between them, ever. He should have known it would never be that easy. Now they were both at risk. If he tried to oppose his creator’s plan to convert Anne-Marie, he would surely be destroyed, and then no one would be able to help her.

  He tried to push these thoughts out of his mind for awhile and rest. He was so distracted by his sense of guilt over putting Anne-Marie in this position he was having a hard time thinking clearly. Dawn was beginning to break by the time he was at last able to close his eyes and put his mind at rest.

  Chapter 25