She’s quite beautiful. The random thought slid through his mind as he retreated into the back chamber.
The three vampires followed him calmly and without rush. They were assured of their prey.
He pulled his guitar in front of him and started plucking golden chords. The magic filled the strings and sunlight filled the room. The vampires hissed and retreated to the front room.
He walked to the back of the home where an iron door stood closed. As he left the room, he heard them enter behind him, moving easily into the spaces his light no longer touched. He stared dumbly at the iron door’s heavy lock. There was no way to open it without using his hands, but the music was the only thing keeping him alive right now.
The vampires seemed to realize the same thing. They laughed coldly, just out of sight.
He turned around and stared at the open doorway to the hall. He thought about walking back out the front door, but that would be suicide. It would only attract more attention, and the Bloodsworn of the Covenant wouldn’t be stopped by mere sunlight.
He knew that by dawn, even in here, the vampires would fall to slumber. Then he could make his escape. He just had to keep the music sounding for another eight hours.
He knew he could do it. He was a bard. He and his guitar were one, and his music was magic. He would play until his fingers bled, and even then he would not stop until the light of dawn touched the city.
Bestan came to the door. The sunlight did nothing against the living boy. “You should submit,” he said. “It will be easier for you.”
“I won’t,” Danry answered calmly. “I will not die here.” His notes continued to burst forth arpeggios that scintillated with pure sunlight. Of one thing he was certain. He would find his friends again.
Bestan ran at him without warning, throwing himself against the guitar. Danry’s hands slipped off, and the boy’s body muted the strings. Before Danry could throw him off and recover, the light disappeared. One of the male vampires rushed instantly to his side and grabbed the neck of the guitar, snapping it in two. He took the guitar’s body and hurled it with such force that it shattered into splinters against the wall.
Danry tried to run to the iron door, but the other vampire caught him and slammed him to the ground, knocking the wind from his lungs. They each bit into his arms, and he felt the stabbing pain of their teeth. Something cold flushed through his veins, and the stabbing dwindled into stinging, and then faded altogether into a pleasant numbness. The cold spread through his body and his muscles relaxed.
“I’m not afraid,” he remarked to himself with a detached sense of curiosity.
The attractive woman knelt before him. She tore his shirt open, baring his chest to the air. Her blond hair looked more beautiful than any ray of sunlight.
“No, there is nothing to be afraid of,” she said. “Everything will be okay.” She opened her mouth and plunged her fangs into his heart.
He felt a rush of pleasure and clarity, and then no pain as he slipped away into darkness. The last thing he remembered was wanting to give himself over totally to this woman.
Danry awoke. His blood was cold. It slithered through his veins of its own accord with no heartbeat to drive it.
So thirsty…
The blond woman—the blond vampire—sat beside him on the bed. He lay in fresh clothing he did not recognize.
“How do you feel?” she asked with a warm smile.
He touched his chest and felt his shoulders. There were no wounds. The blood was gone. “I… there’s no pain. Where am I?” Then: “I’m thirsty.”
She nodded. “That’s how it starts. We’ll take care of that, after you meet the count. You’re in the castle.”
His head throbbed. The strange blood pulsed inside him.
“Snakes,” he said. “I feel like… serpents.”
“That’s the blood,” she said. “That’s her. Malahkma.”
“Oh no…” he gave a horrified groan. He realized finally what had happened. “I’m like you. I’ve been turned.”
“You’ve been liberated,” she corrected him. “Or hopefully. We’ll see. The count will make that determination.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“If you can control your hunger, you’re one of us.”
“And if I can’t?”
“Then you’re declared hungerbound,” she responded in a matter-of-fact tone. “And we kill you.”
He felt his breast. It was silent. “I’m already dead,” he muttered.
“No, you’ve only begun to live,” she said. “The count wanted you turned. No one is liberated without his approval. It’s the way of the Covenant, and to violate that law brings the penalty of final death. That’s how the Bloodsworn know we honor the Covenant.” Her mouth twisted in a sarcastic grin. “That’s how they know they’re safe.”
“Bloodsworn?”
“Those in the living who accept the Covenant. Like my son.”
He sat up. The room seemed bright, but he could find no light source. “It’s like day in here,” he said.
She laughed. “No, it’s almost pitch black,” she said. “Your vampire eyes see for you.”
“Huh.” He heard every rustle of movement in the fabric of her dress when she talked, and he heard his own clothing shift as he moved. When they were still, the room was silent. He realized they weren’t breathing.
Two rooms over, he could hear someone else inhale and exhale. His eyes widened in surprise and wonder.
“Yes,” she said. “You can hear the living. It is your predator’s ears. You are better now.” She stood and moved towards the door. “Come. The count will want to see you.”
He stood, and then paused.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I’m still me,” he said. “I thought… I thought you were all monsters.”
She cocked her head to the side. “We are all monsters.”
“But…”
“Yes, you are still you,” she agreed. “I knew what you meant. It doesn’t work like what you’ve been told. We’re not possessed.”
“I’m still me,” he said again. He couldn’t believe it. He had a headache, and this thirst inside kept growing. His body felt more alive than he could ever remember feeling.
He thought about his friends. Strangely enough, his driving concern for their well-being had left him. What he felt now was more a simple curiosity as to their fate.
“What about the two I was with?” he asked. “Are they like this now?”
“Come,” she said. “No more questions.”
He followed her through the castle halls to a small audience chamber. Count Markus stood within, accompanied by two other men. All three were vampires. The count’s hair was jet black, cut short. He wore a dark coat over a clean white shirt. His trousers were neat, with a pressed fold running down the middle of each leg, falling over short, black leather boots polished to a gleam. Beside him, also cleanly dressed, stood a woman in a modest orange gown with a narrow skirt. She was very much alive. The sound of each breath caressed his ears like velvet, and he could almost feel the beating of her heart from here. The scent of her skin carried the promise of blood.
“Ah,” Count Markus said as they entered. “Danry, I believe it is.”
“Yes,” Danry responded.
“Do you know where your friends went?”
Danry’s face crinkled in confusion. “I… I thought they were taken. I thought you had them.”
“It seems,” the count said, “that Tulley failed to sway his student. In the end, he could not control his hunger, and he misjudged her.”
Danry nodded. “A lot of people underestimate her.”
“Indeed,” the count answered. “Tulley paid for it with his life.”
“She… killed him?” Danry asked incredulously. What an awful thought. If Danry was still himself, it meant Tulley had been, too. The thought that she had murdered her own mentor…
He felt the serpent slide within him, and hi
s stomach knotted for a moment. He lost awareness of his thoughts, and his being focused on the young woman beside the count. He couldn’t keep from staring at the line of her breasts, which rose and fell with every breath. Her neck pulsed with every heartbeat, and the soft fluttering in and out of the veins on her skin cried out to him. She was so alive. He had to have her.
“Danry!” the count snapped. “You must learn to focus. Did you not hear me?”
Danry turned his gaze back to the count. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me, but she smells so good.” He couldn’t believe those words left his mouth.
“Indeed,” the count nodded. “Well, we may as well get this over with then. She is my daughter, Iristine. Your queen. You will taste her blood. If you cannot control yourself and stop your feeding, I will kill you.”
Danry frowned. “You would risk your own daughter?”
“Certainly not. I will kill you before you can harm her.”
The woman came to stand before him. “Drink,” she commanded. “Your queen desires it.” She pulled her lace collar away from her neck, exposing more of her bosom.
Suddenly, Danry didn’t care about the count’s threat. She was too much for him. He opened his mouth and felt his canines grow erect, extending far beyond the line of his teeth. Before he realized what he was doing, he buried his face in her neck. His fangs slid easily through her skin into the juice of her flesh. Blood seeped out around his teeth, and its touch elicited a sort of sexual pleasure on his tongue and inside the lining of his mouth. He swallowed, and its sweet touch slid down his throat, filling his heart with the greatest passions of love. The serpent writhed inside him, spreading warmth throughout his body. His fangs trembled for a moment in the initial ecstasy, and his entire body clenched as the hollow serpentine teeth squirted his venom into her flesh. She cooed as his juices flowed through her veins.
He lifted his teeth and continued to drink from the wounds, sucking the sweetest feelings of guiltless pleasure and intoxicating worship from her body. All pain, all guilt, all self-doubt faded away, and he knew this was the most right thing in the world. Even more exhilarating was that he could feel her own heart and desire for him. He felt that all she wanted to do was give herself to him. Her heart pounded with ecstatic love so strongly it hurt.
He remembered the count’s warning. Despite his body’s desire for more, the serpent in his being acquiesced and relaxed. He pulled his head back away from her neck, and she whimpered in disappointment. Blood dripped from his fangs onto her lace collar.
“Good,” the count said. “Close, but you can master yourself. I was skeptical about you. It’s easier to control yourself if you want liberation when you are turned. Only a few who are taken against their living will, as you were, can master their hunger. You’ll learn to be cleaner. Now heal her with a drop of your own blood.”
The former bard pricked his thumb with one of his fangs, and then smeared the drop over her neck. Her skin absorbed his blood, and her body shuddered in joy as it closed her flesh and restored her neck to virgin purity.
Danry staggered back from the daughter. His entire body sang with energy, and every sense seemed heightened a thousandfold. The blond vampire who had turned him smiled at him.
He looked around at all of them, lingering for a moment on each of their faces. None of them seemed evil. They all looked back at him expectantly.
“I’m still me!” he exclaimed. Then he laughed.
The count stepped in front of him and clasped his shoulders. “You have a right to live,” he said.
“Yes!” Danry agreed. “Yes, I do!”
“I want you to help me find your friends,” the count said. “I want to give them another chance to know what you know. But first, walk with me. I must tell you of the Covenant and what it means to us.”
11 - Coexist
Danry searched the city for Anuit and Arda but could find no sign of either of them. They had killed Tulley and escaped the count’s castle. With Anuit’s ability to create portals between shadows, she would be difficult to pin down. He had no idea how far her ability to move between shadows could translocate her, but by now, they could be gone from the city.
Vampires flew through the night sky, taking the form of living mist, searching for them with no success. Daytime was too bright for her to shadowjump through the countryside, but none of the Bloodsworn had reported seeing them. The count was convinced that they were still somewhere within the city. Danry didn’t know why the count was so focused on bringing them into the fold, and the count did not feel it necessary to share his reasons with a fledgling. Nevertheless, Markus believed that Danry had the best chance of persuading them to join the Covenant and had him searching every night in the week after his conversion.
He rose at dusk and went to the blood bar, the term they used for the taverns where the Bloodsworn gathered and offered to let vampires drink from them. Vampire culture had already developed its own set of rules with its own lexicon, and it was far more mature than he had suspected. Count Markus had been hard at work on building customs to support his society.
The count’s word was Covenant Law. Anyone who broke the law suffered final death. Danry understood why the count was so harsh, for the only way the arrangement would work was if vampires controlled their hunger. Anyone who could not did not get a second chance. The count pledged safety to the Bloodsworn, and a betrayal of that trust was dealt with immediately.
Danry found that each vampire had a small group of people called charges that belonged to them. They were usually friends and family of the vampire from mortal life, but not always. They were considered the territory of their patrons, and it was forbidden to feed off of the charge of another without their lord’s or lady’s consent. In the Covenant, all of the Liberated were considered nobility before the Bloodsworn. The Bloodsworn, however, retained the inviolate freedom, backed by the Covenant Law, to choose their patrons and change when they wished. If the new patron accepted them, the old one had to let them go. The count felt this would encourage good behavior, for an abusive vampire would soon find himself without a food source to feed upon.
It was not uncommon for Bloodsworn to move between patrons, as each vampire might have several dozen charges or more. Those who had switched patrons several times understood that as soon as the new vampire fed upon them, their feelings of love and loyalty would shift, and they would not suffer the pangs of lost love. This fluidity of charges changing patrons only worked when there was an abundance of Bloodsworn and only a few Liberated. Thus, Count Markus was exceedingly strict on when new vampires could be made and ruthless in his purging the city of the hungerbound when he initiated the Covenant. Danry had been surprised to learn how few vampires there were left in Astiana.
The Bloodsworn were not to be harmed, nor used for sexual favors without their consent. Consent was common, however, as the vampire venom in their blood affected their thoughts and feelings. They felt nothing but love for their patrons. However, they could report violations of trust and respect for their individual boundaries to the count’s agents. Danry was told of three condemned vampires’ deaths in the past two months on account of Bloodsworn complaints. The only thing the Bloodsworn were required to do was obey Covenant Law.
It was expected they offer their blood freely to their masters, but they retained the right of refusal without threat of violence. The vampire could not feed by force, but if a charge refused too often they lost their status as Bloodsworn and became normal citizens of the city, still safe as long as they followed the law, but lower in status. This rarely happened. The Bloodsworn strove to please their masters in the hopes that one day they would be given the gift of immortality through Liberation.
Danry’s maker was the blond female vampire. As was customary, she had given him permission to feed from her charges until such a time that some of the Bloodsworn chose him. It had been only a few nights before a lovely young woman with black curls, freckled olive skin, and dark brown eyes pled
ged herself to the former bard. She was short with round hips, a skinny waist, and an unusually large chest. She had been as eager to share her body with him as she had her blood.
She sat on his lap, leaning her back into him. “You’re going to need more charges,” she said contentedly. “I don’t know how much more I can give without at least a few days of rest.”
“Shall I leave you alone?” he asked. “I can go without blood tonight.”
“No,” she said. “You’re new. It’s best you keep fed so you don’t lose control. Just maybe not as much tonight?”
He nodded and put his left arm around her waist, pulling her close to him. With his right hand he swept her curly hair to the side, exposing her neck. He had learned to be much neater than his first time, and her skin showed no sign of feeding.
He wasted no time extending his fangs, piercing her skin, and sucking gently at her blood. She gasped, almost chirped, when his teeth punctured her neck, but then the venom spread and she sighed in pleasure. He felt the familiar sensation that he craved of wholeness and an overall sense of rightness in the act.
He wanted to keep drinking but stopped himself. He took even less than he had the previous night, but the edge of the hunger was gone for now. He felt positively vibrant.
A familiar face passed by the door, and then it was gone. He looked closely for a moment but saw no one unusual. The face returned, a dark-skinned human peering into the blood bar, and then again was gone.
He lifted his charge off of his lap. “I must go,” he said, and the next moment, stepped out into the night. The shadow of a woman hurried away into an alley.
He moved faster than she did. He was at her back, and then he was in front of her. He grabbed her wrist and pulled back her hood.
“Anuit!” he exclaimed.
Her eyes were wide with fear and sorrow. “Danry! You’re—”
He let her go and held his hands open in peace, taking a step back. “It’s not like that,” he said. “It’s not anything at all like we thought. I’ve been looking for you! Is Arda with you?”
When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set Page 49
