Moonlit Surrender

by Kitty Wilder

  “Lucky me,” she mumbled as her jaw tightened further.

  Lerexus was silent once more, then started on a new topic. “Whatever it is you think you are to him, I assure you, you are not.”

  She felt her face settle into what was shaping up to be a permanent grimace for the remainder of her stay at Castle Sheol.

  “John is a restless creature,” he continued, “prone to wander. He is filled with an unquenchable thirst beyond the siren’s call of blood, a desperation for something lost. I am grieved to see him stooping so low to the unremarkable ranks of mortals in an attempt to slake this morbid desire.”

  “And I’m sure you yourself have never done such an unspeakable thing.” She glared.

  “Every saint has a past, as they say. But I repented and took control of such disgusting impulses. My Johnathan has not been so lucky. I might never have found him if he had not been so reckless as to spurn such a spiteful and bitter woman as Doris. You have spoilt him with your touch, girl. I once knew him to be a learned man, a detached scholar, content to study and roam, but now I find him playing professor and masquerading about town as nothing more than a man, drinking that pig’s piss bottled and distributed by vile vendors taking advantage of our need. It is shocking how far he has fallen since last I saw him.”

  “Even you were once a man,” she retorted indignantly. “There’s nothing wrong with John holding onto his humanity and wanting to live a normal life or love. He’s happy now.”

  “Happy,” he muttered. “Thank you for confirming that suspicion. Yes, I thought so, and that brings us to where we are now, all merry three of us.”

  “Don’t you mean four?” She nodded back towards the door Doris had left through.

  “Doris is a pawn and nothing more, a calculated move to bring the three of us face to face, though she has the makings of being a worthy acolyte.”

  “Well, I only see the two of us face to face at present.”

  “Don’t get smart with me, girl. Johnathan only played at punishment. I’ll give you the real thing.” He tapped his long, pale fingernails along the top of his desk thoughtfully. “Possessing you will bring him here to me. It is not ideal, as I had hoped for him to realize the ephemeral nature of his pursuits and to return to me of his own volition, but this will do. Your existence can be suffered a while longer.”

  “So I’m just a pawn too. Why bother? Why didn’t you just hide out and wait to attack him directly, why go through all these extra steps?”

  “Attack? No, but I intend to make him suffer as he made me.” A hint of anger darkened his honeyed voice, gave its silky tone a sharper more punctuated edge as he rose and paced the shadows of the room. “Johnathan took everything from me. I had spent decades building my coven, scouring the earth for souls worthy of ascension, and I counseled each one of my flock as if they were the fruit of my own loins – tedious training and education – Johnathan among them. So many gods wiped out before they could seize what was owed them. His selfishness deprived them of their destiny, of my destiny. For this, he must pay. For too long has he skirted my judgment.” He halted behind his desk, standing still in front of the black of the bay windows as his violet eyes settled on her. “Whatever happiness he has, I intend to burn it down into so many ashes, starting with you. Without these vapid distractions, he will see the error of his ways and return to the fold.”

  So he does plan to kill me, good to know.

  “All that happened so long ago, centuries. Why now? How can you still be holding onto this?” she asked incredulously.

  His white skin seemed to glow against the shadows and the deep black of his robes. “You are but a speck on the timeline of the universe, girl, a vapor, here one second and dissipated in the next with no trace.” He snapped his fingers for effect. “Vampires are immortal, undying. Long after the nations of this era have torn each other asunder and the ruins of their great capitals lay in waste deep beneath the earth and their names are no longer spoken on the tongues of the next age, we will remain. We will endure. Do not speak to me of centuries when you know nothing of eternity.” Lerexus’ eerie gaze peered past her to the door. “Doris. Come.”

  The door opened almost immediately and Lucy turned to see the woman standing eagerly at attention.

  “Return her to her room,” he instructed coolly, then settled himself back into his desk chair. “My curiosity is sated.”

  Doris grabbed Lucy by the arm and tugged her quickly out of her master’s presence and began the long trek back down into the castle’s undercroft, neither of them speaking a word for the entire descent. As she was roughly plunged back into the windowless room with the now dying fire in its hearth, their silence ended.

  “This room is a luxury, a gift,” Doris hissed at her. “Abuse the master’s kindness and it will be taken away just as quickly as it was given. Try anything and you’ll wind up right back in that dark, shivering cell you woke in. Understood?” She did not wait for Lucy’s reply, slamming the heavy wooden door closed with a turn of the skeleton key beyond it as she locked the girl away.

  Lucy huddled up on the rickety cot and its straw-stuffed mattress and tucked her knees under the hem of the thin dress and tried her best to keep warm beneath the tattered blanket she had been given. As she watched the fire in the hearth slowly dying until it was nothing more than glowing embers, she wondered to herself if Lerexus had not only plucked her from her sleepy little town, but also out of time and back into whatever age he had known. She wondered when the fearful albino vampire intended to complete his plan for her and end her life. As her eyes grew weary and could no longer watch the glow of the embers fading away or the shadows in the corners slowly taking over the room, she wondered which version of John was the truth and whether or not a rescue attempt was even feasible at this point.

  Chapter 19

  The old door to Lucy’s dwelling made an awful commotion of rattling and creaking as it was carelessly swung open by Doris, waking the girl out of a dreamless, yet welcome sleep. She sat up on her cot and squinted as Doris flooded the room with the candelabrum she carried with her. Lucy could feel a deep ache in her body, a weariness that seemed to reside within the marrow, as she forced herself to swing her feet over the edge to touch the cold stone floor.

  “Breakfast!” Doris announced in a sing-song vibrato as she set a tray down on the table.

  Lucy felt the woman’s grating voice split through her skull as she rubbed her eyes and made her way to the table and chair in the corner. On the tray she found a less than appetizing spread of flavorless oatmeal, yet another off-brand protein bar she had never heard of, and a small plastic cup filled with an array of pills with a glass of milk to wash it all down. “What is this?” she asked with a disapproving scrunching of her nose and brow.

  “Oh?” Doris faked concern. “Is our kitchen not up to the royal standard the princess is used to?” She let out a terrible laugh, the one that reminded Lucy of a machine gun going off or an old crone’s cackle. “My apologies, Your Highness, I’ll have a word with the staff.”

  She felt her jaw tighten, straining to withhold her temper.

  “What are the pills?” she rephrased with sharp enunciation. “What drugs are you trying to cram down my throat?”

  “So distrusting. You’re lucky he feeds you at all.”

  “Why does he if he’s just going to kill me?”

  “Kill you?” she laughed. “No, not anymore. Not for now, at least. John has finally slipped and made the grave mistake of caring for something. We need you breathing, little brat.” She stepped behind Lucy’s chair and without warning or permission began to roughly work her long black locks into a halfhearted braid. “You’ve lost a lot of blood recently. Everybody wants a taste it seems. Men...” she huffed. “Most of the pills are vitamins and supplements to keep you up and running, only a couple are actual prescription strength – a little something special from my old stash after too many trips to the ER. People were getting suspicious, so I helped myself to
a couple extra bottles when no one was looking. Obviously, I won’t be needing them anymore.” She sighed contentedly as she did a twirl to show off the little red dress she was sporting this evening.

  Lucy hid her contempt and instead worked her way through the tray of food and pills.

  Doris took a seat on the cot and slung one knee over the other as she waited impatiently. “Master says that if you’re to stay here, you’re to earn your keep. So, once you’re finished, I’ll take you upstairs to start cleaning the castle.”

  Lucy choked on a spoonful of oatmeal and took a moment to regain her composure. “The entire castle?” she asked in shock.

  She nodded.

  “That seems a little... ambitious. That could take weeks... months.”

  She shrugged. “Have to start somewhere I suppose. He wants to start getting this place in order, ready to rebuild his following – and he says he’s going to make me his high priestess! Can you believe it? Isn’t it just wonderful? Me! A priestess!” She let out a girlish sigh as her eyes settled on the cold hearth with a faraway look.

  Lucy pushed the tray away, having finished every last flavorless bite and swallowed each tablet and pill. And thought to herself, Fucking spectacular. What the fuck does she want from me? I couldn’t care less. I just want out of this castle of doom.

  “Wonderful,” Doris jumped up. “Let’s get started.”

  “Let’s? As in we, the two of us?”

  “Well who else did you think was going to oversee your duties? The others have their own jobs to tend to.”

  She shrugged. “I guess I just figured someone bigger, scarier, a real vampire.”

  The back of Doris’ hand came down so swiftly across her cheek that Lucy sat stunned for a long moment trying to figure out what had happened.

  “I am a real vampire,” Doris hissed frightfully. “You’d do well to remember it! Now get up. You’ve got a castle to clean.” She pinched the girl’s upper arm tightly as she tugged her onto her feet and thrust the tray into her hands to carry with them back up the winding way to the castle’s ground floor.

  Once Lucy had washed her dishes, Doris equipped her with a bucket filled with cleaning supplies and set her to work in the foyer, dusting and sweeping the debris that had been dragged in from the forest beyond the bolted heavy doors of the castle’s entrance, and eventually set her to scrubbing the filthy floor until the marble glittered and gleamed in the light of the torches crackling in their iron sconces.

  Someone grunted in disgust as they entered the foyer, a man in heavy black robes like the ones Lerexus wore. He tossed his head of short golden curls and sneered at the lit sconces. “Dear gods, are we trying to harness the very power of the sun to illuminate our entryway? What is the meaning of all this garish light?”

  “The master’s orders,” Doris replied uncharacteristically humble. Instead of the giddy vampiress drunk on her newfound power, she sounded more like her old self, the awkward, hunched woman in cardigans that never quite knew what to do with her hands. “He’s brought a guest to clean the house.”

  The strange man, obviously a vampire himself, groaned in displeasure but nodded. “Very well, fledgling, but see to it that it puts every little thing back as it was when it cleans my quarters, and extinguish these dreadful torches as soon as it’s finished in here. Too damn bright,” he muttered to himself as he crossed through to the sitting room, leaving a trail of mud-caked prints behind on the once spotless floor.

  Lucy sighed heavily and took her anger out on the muddy prints as she got back down on all fours with her bucket and brush.

  “Are you attempting to scrub the dirt to death, girl?” Lerexus’ honeyed voice mocked from the grand staircase. He descended slowly, his keen pink eyes focused on her as his robes trailed behind him like a tail of mist and smoke. “Death by scrub brush?”

  “Answer the master when he speaks to you,” Doris hissed with a swift kick to Lucy’s ribs.

  Lucy gasped in pain but knew the strike could’ve been a lot harder if the vampiress had meant it. The kick was a warning and reminded Lucy just how feeble she was in comparison to their inhuman strength. “Yes,” she answered sharply, “seeing as I can’t scrub the stupid out of the asshole that carelessly tracked it through.”

  For the first time, she watched in fascination and horror as his usual uninterested grimace turned up into something like a smile. His plump lips pulled back and she saw his razor-sharp fangs. “I do like a lively one.”

  His smile was terrible, but she found she couldn’t look away, glued to the chilling sight of such a horrific grin placed into a face beautiful enough to have been one of the historic marble reliefs on display at a museum.

  The albino vampire reached the marble floor, his footsteps as muted as Doris’.

  “Leave us,” he ordered sharply.

  She watched as Doris nodded respectfully and made for the sitting room, along with a shadowed figure that suddenly moved out of the dark recesses of the front gate’s antechamber and into the light. Sitting back on her knees now, she stared up in surprise as another vampire revealed himself, nodded to Lerexus, and then too left the foyer.

  Her captor watched this discovery pass across her face and commented, “Did you think I’d be foolish enough to leave the front door unguarded?” He halted his approach directly in front of her, forcing her to crane her neck back to meet his gaze. “Were you thinking of making a run for it, girl?”

  She refused to answer, instead intensifying the cold glare she fixed brazenly on him.

  “Nothing but an impassible portcullis awaits you beyond those doors, and beyond that, a long stretch of bridge with nowhere to hide overlooking a very steep drop into the lake. And beyond that, you may be wondering, is nothing but dense forest for miles and miles around us. If we don’t catch you by that point, the wolves will, or that hungry belly that requires constant sustenance; so frail you are, girl.”

  “You’re one to talk,” she snapped. “How many lives are needed to sustain you for an evening?”

  Lerexus’ judgment did not come down swift and unseen the way Doris moved. Slowly, with great care, he knelt down in front of her, wrapping his long fingers about her neck in an ironlike grip that did not budge so much as an inch beneath her struggling, then lifted her up off the shining marble floor to dangle helplessly at his eye level. She clawed desperately at his fist and arm as he held her fast, coughing as she felt him squeezing her windpipe.

  “No smart retort?” he mocked calmly. “No witty remark to blurt out?”

  She gurgled angrily and tried to kick him, but he held her out too far.

  “Speak up then, girl. I can’t hear you.” He turned his head as if to lean his ear in to listen better. “No? Not a word? I assumed as much. You cattle are all the same, all bluster and big talk until you are face to face with your fragility, your weakness of mortality. I smell the fear on you even now, but is it for death or a more personal gift meant for me?”

  Lucy began to see stars, her pulse thundering in her head and her lungs burning for air as her wide blue eyes began to blur and lose focus. Telling herself all the while, don’t give him the satisfaction of your fear. He can take away everything else, but not how you choose to face death.

  Lucy ceased her struggling, silently resigning herself to dying in his merciless grip, but refusing to give him a satisfying death. She refocused her icy blue stare to his and met his gaze coolly.

  Lerexus cocked his head curiously as he examined her serene features, then dared to squeeze just a bit tighter. “A lively one indeed,” he mused to himself.

  Her desperate gasp for air echoed through the foyer as his grip at last loosened and set her back down on quivering legs.

  “Stand up straight,” he commanded coldly. “Chin down. Eyes down. This is the appropriate stance you will maintain in my presence, unless otherwise instructed. Is that clear?” He waited for a response, but when none came, he grabbed her by the jaw and asked once more, “Speak when you are spo
ken to. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she hissed reluctantly.

  “Yes what?”

  No. Absolutely not.

  “I’m waiting, girl. You will show me the respect I am due or spend a night in that drafty, dark cell you woke in.” He paused, then asked once more with greater enunciation, “Yes what?”

  Never. I’d rather die.

  “Say it,” he cooed in her ear. “Sir. Master. Lord. I’ll even let you decide. I am not unreasonable or without generosity.”

  You can’t die. John. Stay alive for John. He’s coming. Into a trap. He can’t come here. You need to escape.

  Lucy swallowed hard after giving herself a pep talk, wincing slightly as her crushed throat strained. With her fists balled at her sides and her eyes fixated on the near imperceptible crease between the marble slabs beneath her, she whispered, “Yes, Master.”

  His lips twitched away a smile, instead settling into a smug grimace. “There’s that obedience at last.” He curled a stray lock of her hair around his finger. “Wright’s games are over, girl. It’s time you were broken in properly.”

  She felt her jaw tighten to the point of her teeth grinding and felt indignation begin to boil her blood.

  “Take your bucket and go finish cleaning my halls. I want them sparkling for our special guest. Johnny-boy has always been a clean and organized creature. I’d hate to offend his delicate sensibilities,” he chuckled sardonically. He paused, then looked around with a discontented sigh. “In the old days, my brood was massive and my halls illustrious, nothing like the crumbling keep I find now. We wanted for nothing, lived with the proper godly respect we are due. Now I find nothing but ruin and dust about me.” He turned back the way he had come. “Soon, those days will be reclaimed,” he reassured himself. “Make it sparkle,” he commanded.

  As he made for the staircase, Lucy felt her rage take control of her and the words slipped from her lips before she could catch them. “Clean it your-fucking-self,” she spat venomously. She felt her arm painfully twisted behind her back before she realized Lerexus was no longer standing at the staircase, but behind her. His long white nails dug into her wrist as he forced her to bend forward. She could feel her shoulder straining in its socket from the force with which he held her.