A Dowry of Blood

by Gibson, S. T.

  “Is everyone alright?” I managed to ask, my voice barely more than a whisper.

  Alexi brought shaky red fingers up to his mouth and lapped at the blood, so dark and sweet. I had never tasted anyone like you, with blood so perfectly aged. It was the rarest, finest vintage in the world, and it held such untapped power. My mouth watered, my gums burning with want.

  Magdalena was trembling and sweating like a morphine addict, looking half on the edge of frenzy and half on the edge of unconsciousness.

  I was the oldest. I had the most self-control. I could get them out of the room before the bloodlust compelled them to desecrate and drain your body.

  I seized Magdalena’s wrist and held her fast, tethering our racing heartbeats together as though we were one soul. As though we all had just become forever bonded by our unspeakable act.

  “Constance,” Alexi said hoarsely. His pupils were blown. “What should we...”

  “Drink,” I heard myself say. As though from very far away, like I was floating above my own body. “Drink, my loves.”

  Alexi pressed his mouth to the wound in your chest and Magdalena tore through your wrist with her teeth, shuddering as your blood burst into her mouth. I bent down and gave you one final kiss, then tipped your head back and nuzzled the cold column of your throat. My stomach was trembling, my fingers clenched and white in the sheets.

  I sank my teeth into your neck with a ferocity that surprised me, drinking you down in great, greedy mouthfuls. The taste of you was unparalleled, dark and rich with grace notes of every person you had ever fed from. I clamped a hand around your jaw and bit down harder. My head spun like I had just finished a bottle of whiskey, but still I drank from you, devouring your essence. The power in your veins flooded my system, rushing all the way to the tips of my fingers and toes. The roar of my own heartbeat, the creak of the old house, and the shouts of the rabble outside were suddenly almost painfully loud. The strength of all those years was mine for the taking, and so I took it.

  I apologize if you were expecting contrition, my lord. I don’t have any to muster.

  Yes, I knew. I knew what came of drinking the blood of one’s sire. I had read about how you killed your maker to seize his power. And I found that I wasn’t above it.

  I could have turned them away and afforded you some final dignity, but I wanted to hold your power in my mouth, as carefully as a mother cat holds her young, and then swallow until there was nothing of you left.

  We fed on you greedily, lapping up every drop. By the time the deed was done, blood was smeared across our faces and down our fronts. Alexi shook, less from fear than from an abundance of energy, and Magdalena’s eyes shined like black diamonds, full of life and vigor.

  “Jesus,” Alexi said, looking down at his stained hands and then over to your body. Blood soaked the sheets and dripped down onto the aged hardwood floor.

  It was a massacre.

  As the bloodlust abated, I slowly returned to myself and took stock of the situation. There was a body to contend with, and a defiled marital bed that would probably never be clean again. And, more pressingly, there were the shouts of the mobs from outside, growing closer and more agitated with every moment. They were at the gates now, hoisting their torches as they rattled the locks. There would be no appeasing them. Certainly not now, with evidence of our crimes laid out in a gruesome tableau.

  “Constanta,” Magdalena breathed, wiping your blood from her mouth with the hem of her dress. “What are we going to do?”

  They both looked at me with wide eyes, the same eyes they turned on you whenever they didn’t know how to handle a situation. You had always been the firm gloved hand on the back of their necks, steering them through life. And now, that responsibility fell onto me.

  I wiped my brow and took a deep breath. My mind was running quick as a foxhound on the hunt, and a plan was forming.

  I sprang up on the bed, bracing my feet on either side of you as I bent down to wrench the stake from your body. It shouldn’t have been easy for me: the wood was melded to the cavity of your chest with drying blood and viscera, and the sharpened tip had gone all the way through the mattress. But to my surprise, the stake came away easily in my hands. All at once, I was stronger than I had been before. We all were, I suspected, but I was still the oldest. As far as I knew, I might have been the oldest vampire in all of Europe, now that you were really and truly dead.

  The weight of this knowledge pressed down on me like an iron yoke.

  “Magdalena, help me move him,” I breathed. “Alexi, get the key and go guard the door. I want you to open it, but not until I say so.”

  Alexi nodded frantically, scrambling off the bed and fumbling the key out of your pocket. I grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him back to me for a quick kiss before I shooed him out of the room. Then I pulled Magdalena into a tight embrace, burying my face into her matted hair.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked in a whisper.

  I took her face in my hands and kissed her too, tasting the ghost of your blood on her lips.

  “I’m going to end this,” I said.

  You weighed no more than a child when I hoisted you into my arms. It shouldn’t have been possible. You were taller than I was, and I had never had much strength in my arms. But I was able to cradle you against my chest and carry you through the doorway and out the hall, your head lolling against my shoulder.

  I took the stairs carefully, Magdalena rushing ahead of me just in case I tripped and fell. Alexi was waiting by the door as requested, every muscle in his body taut with terror.

  With you gone, we all felt exposed, vulnerable despite our newfound strength.

  “They’ve broken through the gate,” he said, voice tight.

  I nodded to Alexi as soon as my bare feet hit the cold floor of the main entryway.

  “Let them come,” I said. “Unlock the door and then get behind me with your sister. Be ready to run.”

  Alexi did as he was told, then rushed into the reassuring darkness of the house and Magdalena’s open arms. I took a deep breath and shifted your weight in my arms, clutching you tight, and then pushed open the front door.

  Twenty men and a handful of enraged mothers come to seek justice for their children stood in the yard, guns brandished and crowbars in their hands, hungry for violence. Their shouts assailed my ears as I stepped into the moonlight, cradling you like a groom might cradle their bride.

  The mass stood stock-still when they saw me, the horror on their features illuminated by their flickering torches and lanterns. I suppose I must have looked terrifying; a slip of a girl covered with blood and holding the desiccated body of the monster they had all come to fear. The cries of rage died on their lips as I took a few deliberate steps towards them, feeling the night air on my skin for the first time in ages. Despite the fear pounding in my chest, I felt alive. I felt truly free, no matter what was to become of me.

  I knelt and placed your body onto the ground, and in doing so released our hundreds of years together. Grief seized my heart in a vise, though it was lined with a sort of euphoria as well. It was as if I had been holding back tears for eons, and now, as I gasped out a sob, something that had been locked up tight inside me was breaking free.

  “Here’s your demon,” I said, my voice fracturing around the tears. “Do with him what you will.”

  The townspeople descended on your body with a collective shout and I stumbled backwards, sagging against the doorframe of the great old house. They dug their heels into your body and looped a rope around your neck. I dashed back into the house just in time to see one of them raise a scythe high, poised to rend your head from your body.

  I slammed the door behind me as it came down with a sickening shink .

  “Run!” I called to Magdalena and Alexi. I grabbed each of their hands, hauling them up the stairs back to our rooms. “Grab whatever valuables you can carry and run! Once they’re done with him, they’ll be coming for us.”

  Magdalena a
nd I stuffed the pockets of our dresses with jewels and golden cigarette cases, and Alexi rifled through your rooms for all the money he could find. Then, without even a chance to change our clothes, we snatched up our coats and shoes and fled out the servant’s entrance.

  The night was cool and wet, and dew clung to our legs as we raced through the tall grass behind the house. Magdalena stumbled, and Alexi and I hoisted her up, urging her forward. I didn’t know where we were going, but I knew we had the whole world ahead of us and certain death behind us. There was nowhere to go but forward.

  I looked back only once, just in time to see the villagers hold their torches to our home and cheer as it caught fire. The entire house was up in flame in moments, scorching the small empire you had built. Everything, our clothes, our letters, and the memory of the long days we had spent confined in the country house were consumed by the flames.

  “Gone,” Alexi babbled, the fire flickering in his wide eyes. “It’s all gone.”

  “We will rebuild,” I said, urging him on forward. “We will survive. It’s what we’re best at.”

  We pulled each other through the muck and the mire, heading for the nearest road.

  We held each other and we wept, but we never looked back again, my love. Not once.

  Sometimes, when I walk through the city, I get a crawling feeling on the back of my neck that compels me to turn around. Sometimes, I think I see your face in the crowd, only for an instant, before you’re swept away by the masses again.

  We hurried through the wharf, noise and bustle swirling around us as we looked for Alexi’s ship. Magdalena was resplendent in a green dress that skimmed her knees, and Alexi looked plucky and seaworthy in suspenders and a newsboy cap. Seagulls swooped and screamed overhead as we three walked arm in arm, craning our necks to read the names of the great ships.

  “There it is!” Alexi cried, and we hurried forward to marvel at the ocean liner. It was taller than the apartment building in Paris, strung with cheery flags and thronged by scores of people making their way up the gangplank.

  “Do you have your ticket?” Magdalena fretted, straightening Alexi’s collar.

  “Right here,” he said, patting his breast pocket.

  “And you promise you’ll be safe?” I asked.

  Alexi rolled his eyes at me, which earned him a smile. There was my petulant Alexi, as cocksure as ever.

  “I’m more dangerous than anyone on that ship,” he muttered. “But yes. I promise.”

  Magdalena and I both covered his face in kisses, not worrying who saw us. We adored him, our golden prince, and even though it broke my heart to let him go, I knew we would all be reunited again soon. I wanted him to be free and happy more than I wanted him shackled at my side.

  After much deliberation, handwringing, and tears, we had come to wish each other well before going our separate ways. We had spent so much of our lives together under your shadow, clinging to your apron strings, and it was well past time for us to strike out in the world on our own. Magdalena had enrolled in university in Rome to study politics, and Alexi had booked passage on a ship to America. New York was to be his new playground.

  “Promise us that you’ll write,” Magdalena went on, reddening his cheeks with her lipstick. “Once a week at first, at least! No matter how busy I get with my studies I’ll always reply.”

  “I promise, Maggie,” he said, scrunching his nose up at her fretting. But there was a smile lurking beneath his perturbed exterior, and I knew he would keep his promises.

  I squeezed Alexi’s hands between my own, memorizing their weight and shape. In the coming days, I would often lay in the darkness of my room and trace the outline of his hand into my palm, just to keep his memory close.

  “I wish you all the happiness in the world. I’m sorry I can’t come with you.”

  “You need to find your own way, I know.” He gave me a mischievous smirk. “We’ll be seeing each other sooner than you think, though, when I’ve got my name in lights and you come see me performing in one of those big American theatres.”

  We all started as the ship’s horn trumpeted, calling the last of the passengers on board. Alexi gave me one more firm kiss, and then he was off, hoisting himself up the gangplank along with the other passengers. I watched him go with tears in my eyes and my heart in my mouth. Moments later he leaned over the railing of the ship, snatching off his hat and waving at us. Magdalena shouted his name and waved goodbye with her handkerchief while I cried.

  We stayed there until the ship was so far on the horizon it was barely more than a speck. Then Magdalena pulled me into a tight hug, rubbing her hand in soothing circles on my back.

  “He’ll be alright,” she soothed. “He’s a brave boy.”

  “He’ll be better than alright,” I said, taking her offered handkerchief and daubing my eyes. “He’ll be truly great.”

  I walked her arm in arm to her carriage, moving at a brisk clip. She had sent her belongings ahead of her to Italy, and had lingered in the city for a few more days to see Alexi off, and to save our last few hours together. We had spent much of that time either in bed or exploring Antwerp together, traipsing down alleyways and slipping in and out of bars and watching the blush of dawn paint the sky. It had been almost a month since we escaped the house in the country, and I was finally able to walk down the street without my stomach tightening at the thought of how angry you would be at me for breaking curfew. Slowly, the noose of your love was loosening around my neck.

  I clutched Magdalena’s hands when we came to her carriage, my own hands trembling. I had been with all of you for so long that the thought of walking through the world on my own was as terrifying as it was exhilarating.

  “You must take care of yourself,” I said. “If anything were to happen to you, I would die.”

  “Sweet Constanta. Come here.”

  She pulled me into the forgiving dark of her carriage, took my face between her hands, and kissed me. It was a long, deep kiss, gentle and slow, and when we pulled away both our faces were wet with tears.

  Magdalena daubed at her eyes with her handkerchief, then wiped my cheeks clean.

  “There,” she pronounced. “As pretty and brave as any storybook princess. I will miss you so desperately, my love. Where will you go?”

  “I haven’t decided yet,” I murmured. “But I want to travel. I want to see my own Romania in the springtime again. I want to meet absolutely everyone and make a score of friends and spend every night out in the world, surrounded by people. And I think, someday, I would like to fall in love again.”

  “I want that for you. So fiercely. Be well until we meet again. It will be sooner than either of us think. I know it.”

  I stepped outside the carriage and stood there with my hand on the door for a long moment, marveling at her beauty one last time. She gave me one of her wry, clever smiles, and blew me a kiss. I could almost feel it burning against my cheek as I stepped away and let the carriage roll on past.

  I watched until the carriage had been swept away by traffic, giving one last little wave as it rounded the corner and took my Magdalena off into a new life. Then I took a step into the crowd and let the city swallow me whole.

  And so, my love, we have come to the end of our lives together. Your bones are moldering in a charred grave somewhere in the French countryside and I am moving through the world, truly free for the first time in my long life. My nights are full of long walks and the scent of ocean breezes and the sound of people singing. Sometimes, I hear your voice in my dreams and I wake with a start, but I’m getting better at soothing myself back to sleep these days. Perhaps in time I will stop asking God for His forgiveness. Perhaps I will be able to uncurl the defenses around my heart and let someone see me the way you saw me: vulnerable and naked and totally trusting.

  I have one final promise to make to you, one I hope I will never break. I promise to live, richly and shamelessly and with my arms wide open to the world. If there was any part left of you at the end
that wished for our great happiness, that truly wanted what was best for us, I think it would be pleased to hear me say it. I do not know if I have justified my choice to you, but I think I have justified it to myself, and that has brought me peace enough.

  So I will put down my pen. I will tuck these pages away in a drawer and tuck the memories of you away in my mind, and I will go out into the world and live. I will build an undying family of my own, and there will be no raised voices or locked doors between us. Your memory will fade to shadow and I shall never speak your name again, not even when I tell my lovers the story of how we two met. There will only be sweetness and kindheartedness, and a hundred years of bliss.

  Acknowledgements

  This book was passed through so many talented, loving hands on its way to completion, and I am immensely grateful to everyone who lent me their time, encouragement, and expertise in the writing process. Thank you to all my wonderful critique partners and beta readers who helped make this book into what it is today. Thank you to my fantastic agent Tara for encouraging me every step of the way, and my great love Kit for supporting me and being my sounding board. Finally, thank you to my editor, Celine, who helped me build this project from the ground up and bring it to life.

  About the author

  Saint is a poet, author, and village wise woman in training. A graduate of the creative writing program at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and the theological studies program at Princeton Seminary, she currently lives in Boston with her partner, spoiled Persian cat, and vintage blazer collection.

  Thank you for reading this Nyx Publishing ebook!

  You might also like S.T. Gibson’s short story, “Brideprice” in the Unspeakable:A Queer Gothic Anthology