The Vampire's Angel

by Damian Serbu

  Xavier nodded and fell quiet. “Do you believe me?” he asked after a long moment.

  “I believe every word.” Catherine hugged him.

  Xavier got up in silence, paced the room, then knelt before Catherine. He wept and choked on the words, unable to speak, so Catherine said it for him.

  “You’ll go to him. Whatever that means. You’re going to him. He may whisk you away and demand that you not return, I’ve no idea. But don’t hesitate because of me. Even if I lose you I’ll be happy to see you liberated. Knowing that you’re with Thomas is all the comfort I need.” Catherine, too, wept.

  “I don’t want to abandon you. I won’t leave without saying goodbye. I promise.”

  Without responding, Catherine led Xavier to the hall, hugged him tightly and kissed his forehead before opening the door for Thomas, confident that he alone could take care of her youngest brother.

  Xavier: Conversion

  18 October 1793

  XAVIER STOOD IN the Saint-Laurent foyer, now scrubbed completely clean without a trace of the crime that had happened but hours ago, and stared at Thomas, whose expression was one of horror when he saw Xavier’s face and then glanced at Catherine, asking what had happened without saying a word.

  Catherine kissed Thomas’s cheek. “Forgive me, I must attend to other matters.”

  “What are these bruises all over Xavier?” Thomas asked, as if Xavier were not standing in front of him.

  “I have to go. Ask him. Come for dinner tomorrow. I’ll talk then.” Catherine hurried down the hall and slammed the door to her office.

  Thomas stared at Xavier, as if searching for an answer.

  “What has happened to you?” Thomas seized Xavier and ran his fingers across Xavier’s scalp and the wound that still throbbed, then carried Xavier into the parlor. “Are you hurt anywhere else?” he asked after he placed Xavier in a chair and examined his wound again.

  “No, Thomas, listen—”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know how you’ll respond to this, but I insist.” Thomas turned Xavier around and groped through his hair again. A few seconds elapsed before Thomas’s fingers ran across the cut, applying something wet and warm. When he finished, Xavier’s head no longer hurt. Returning to face Thomas, Xavier asked what he had done but saw the cut on Thomas’s arm as it healed itself before him. Thomas had healed him with his own blood.

  They sat quietly before Xavier collapsed into Thomas, hugged him tightly and finally sobbed. Yes, he wanted to continue with life, yes, he understood what had happened, but the grief still overwhelmed him and Thomas’s arms comforted.

  He purged himself of guilt by telling Thomas the entire story, remembering the horror confirmed for Xavier that he and Catherine had done the right thing. It especially convinced him that he was right to assist Maria, no matter how much he had hated it. Xavier feared that Thomas would think him evil and so elaborated every detail until Thomas stopped him with an embrace and assured him that he believed every word. Then Thomas asked to take Xavier somewhere private.

  Before leaving, Thomas further checked the house and surrounding area and called for more guards via a passing boy whose eyes lit up when Thomas showed him ten golden coins. Thomas gave him directions to Xavier’s parish and described the man he wanted the boy to get. Thomas waited for Denys and a couple of men to arrive to protect Catherine, paid the boy another handsome sum, and then instructed Denys to secure the house.

  Outside, Thomas lifted Xavier and away they went. Xavier could not tell if they literally flew above the ground or if Thomas just ran that fast because of the velocity and grace with which they arrived in the countryside and at an abandoned barn. Xavier shivered in the cool night before Thomas wrapped his coat around him and sat him in the loft, on top of hay and near a window. The moonlit field in front of them swayed in the wind, the quietest, most peaceful scene Xavier had witnessed since his days in the seminary. Thomas sat behind him with his legs around Xavier. Then he pulled Xavier back to rest against his chest.

  “Can a vampire stop what happened?” Xavier asked. “Could a vampire have stopped what happened today?”

  Thomas hesitated. “Not in the daylight.”

  “If I become one, I want to know what I can and can’t do.”

  “Xavier, explain these questions to me.”

  “I killed today,” Xavier said matter-of-factly.

  “You told me about Maria. That wasn’t murder.”

  “I killed someone else, too. He was left in the house, wounded, after everyone left. When I saw what they had done I lost control and jammed glass into him until he stopped breathing. He was unconscious but alive, totally defenseless, and I executed him.”

  “You did the right thing,” Thomas said. “What do you want me to say? I’m shocked. It’s a side of you I never saw. I would have protected you if I could have—”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Xavier interrupted.

  “Then what?”

  “I’m trying to tell you that I’m not deranged despite what you might think.”

  “I have never questioned your sanity. I want only to ensure that you’re not concealing something from me, or yourself.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to explain. I haven’t become some callous beast. I killed him and Maria, something I never expected I could do, but I know it was right.” Xavier stopped. “This is all wrong.”

  Xavier pulled away and walked farther into the barn. All his words sounded contrived, which was no way to ask for Thomas’s love. Xavier covered his face and cried, finally able to pursue his dreams, freed of the religious constraints, he had mishandled the moment. Thomas quietly retrieved him and guided him back into the hay and engulfed Xavier in an enormous hug and kissed the top of his head before they turned their heads to face one another.

  “Xavier, just tell me what you want to say.”

  “I want to go with you. I don’t know what you call it, but I want to be with you. I can’t explain how much I love you. You’re everything I’ve searched for. Will you take me?”

  Thomas hugged Xavier tighter. “Of course, if that’s what you want.”

  “Then when can we do it?” Xavier asked.

  “Slow down.” Thomas laughed at Xavier. “Soon, I promise. But first I need to teach you. There are matters to consider.”

  “What? Does this mean you might not do it?”

  “It’s all up to you. You know my heart won’t change. But have you thought about the ethic and all that it implies? For example, you can’t interfere with humanity. You can see people and interact with them. You can even save the innocent. But you can’t get intimately involved with individuals and families, especially those that you knew in life.”

  “Should I follow the edict as well as you have with my sister and me?” Xavier grinned. Thomas grabbed and tickled him.

  “I have violated multiple rules, but there’s an exception if one seeks a mate. I can explain where I went wrong later. We need to deal with you at the moment. Vampires have to conceal our supernatural abilities and hide our immortality. So you can’t remain with those you love once I take you. It’s too dangerous. You can’t judge this by what you’ve seen me do,” Thomas said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I shouldn’t tell you this, but here’s an example. I know more about Marcel than I’ve ever told you. I know that he uses black magic and is incredibly dangerous. I know that he tried to manipulate your family from America, and returned to Paris long before he went to see Catherine. His business ventures thrive on hurting people. I’ve had many chances to kill him but never did because it would interfere too much with your family, though I love Catherine and hate the spell he has on her. I’ve allowed it to develop as much as possible without interference. I frightened him and had to protect you, but I left things alone with Catherine.”

  “I know about the potion. I kept out of it, too.”

  “But for different reasons,” Thomas said. “I knew that we’d be better off wit
h him dead but had to leave him alone or I would have violated the ethic. It has to do with allowing humans to dictate their

  own lives. Our power would dangerously confuse things.”

  Xavier nodded. “You won’t let me see Catherine ever again?”

  “Maybe. Can you do that?”

  “Why should I? You disobeyed. Why can’t we ignore that part and beg forgiveness later? We could kill Marcel and protect Catherine, then worry about the ethic. He murdered my brother.”

  “I’m not sure what to tell you. I’m certainly not a model vampire. But it’s dangerous. I can’t risk their wrath against you if you do something. I’ve fought too hard to win you to let them take you away.”

  “Who is this mysterious ‘them’?”

  “I don’t know. Anthony and others who govern the vampires and ensure that we obey the ethic. They have great power and act together. I want your assurance that you’d at least consult with me before you did anything. Promise me that and we can deal with this ethic matter as we go.”

  “Of course you have my word. But there’s one more thing.”

  “What?”

  “It will be very hard for me not to protect Catherine. If I trust that we’ll be open and you’ll assist me then I need to know how you transformed without emotional suffering. Weren’t there people that you left behind? Thomas, where do you come from?”

  Thomas Lord

  18 October 1789

  THOMAS PLAYED WITH Xavier’s fingers but fell silent as he thought about the question.

  “I didn’t mean to pry.” Xavier pulled away before Thomas gently pulled him back into his arms.

  “I hesitated because I’ve never told anyone.”

  “Even Anthony?” Xavier asked.

  “Not the entire story.”

  Xavier turned around, kissed Thomas softly on the lips, and nestled against his chest.

  “Where to begin?” Thomas asked. “I’m American.”

  Xavier giggled, which relaxed Thomas.

  “I’m more complex than you know. My father was born in the colonies, the son of a British official. But I never knew my grandfather, or any of my father’s relatives, because he was banished from the family for marrying my mother. She was an Indian, and she, too, was banished from her tribe for seeing my father. They met when my father went on a military expedition to explore the western territories of Massachusetts.

  They never told me how they met or what led to their marriage. I mostly just remember that they were affectionate. Banished by their families, they cultivated some land on the Massachusetts frontier, between her homeland and my father’s, but as far away from people as possible.”

  “So that’s where you get your long black hair and darker features,” Xavier said.

  “My father’s farm did reasonably well, but he earned most of his income by trading. It was a precarious business. Some of the Indians didn’t like that he took one of their own, and the Americans were wary. Yet plenty of people wanted to profit from trade and my father’s knowledge of both cultures was invaluable to facilitating peaceful commerce. We didn’t live as Americans or as Indians. We just did things our own way. I was raised in an atmosphere that was both wonderful and alienating at the same time. I benefited from learning about both cultures, and my parents insisted that we not judge others for their choices. I was free to play with Indians or white children. I especially liked running through the woods with Indian boys as they taught me about the land and how to hunt. They even taught me how to read people’s emotions and characters. Yet there weren’t many people, Indian or white, who visited us. Mostly it was men in the trading business. Much of my childhood was lonely, but my parents showered me with love. Anthony thinks this created my selfishness because I normally got what I wanted.”

  “I call it a noble determination.”

  Thomas laughed. “Convince Anthony of that. He also blames my temper on my childhood.”

  “Why?” Xavier nestled his head into Thomas’s chest and held his hand.

  “Anthony says that I always portray too happy a picture of my growing up. That’s how I like to remember it. But there were bad times. And a lot of isolation. White people despised me for my ‘savage’ blood, and the Indians cast me aside because of my white father. So while I could traverse either world, I belonged to neither. This caused my parents to caution me all the time and demand that I behave perfectly to protect myself. People made fun of me, and threatened me, too. It took a long time for me to understand, after too many mistakes, that this loneliness intensified my longing for a mate. It made me angry.” Thomas hated saying these words out loud, it embarrassed him, but he had to say them to Xavier. “It made me violent. I’ll never forgive myself—“

  “Shh. Stop. I have forgiven you.” Xavier pushed himself up, grabbed Thomas’s head, and pulled him into a kiss. “What else about your childhood?”

  “There’s nothing else to tell. That was my entire life until I was twenty-six. I got a solid education from my father and mother, both practical and book learning. Strangely, despite the small world in which I lived, I developed a worldly understanding. As I grew, I helped more and more with the trading and became an especially good interpreter, even better than my father. I stayed near my home and did my part as a dutiful son.”

  “You expect me to believe that you sat around the farm and obeyed all of their wishes, never once challenging authority?”

  “So I gave you a utopian vision.”

  “But?” Xavier prompted.

  “I had a tendency to roam. Frequently. I wanted to know what lay beyond the limits of our small world, so I traveled with Indians into western Massachusetts and with Americans to the east, especially Boston. Though often alone or mocked when I went with people, I wanted to see other things. I never left the New England area, but at the time it seemed so far away from home. Each time my father reprimanded me, beat me for insubordination, and my mother used guilt. So I’d stay until called away again. But I listened to my parents most of the time.”

  “So what happened ?”

  Thomas stopped and touched Xavier’s fair skin. He was correct, leaving everything behind hurt.

  “My world exploded. First, the war with France erupted, which put my family in an awful situation. We lived between the Indians, French, and English, and frankly none of us cared about their stupid war. But everyone tried to force us to choose sides. Our farm was raided and we were in constant danger. For the first time, my mother and father pleaded with me to leave so that I wouldn’t be killed, but I had no desire to leave them so vulnerable. And some men chided me for refusing to fight because most of our neighbors were British, or at least Americans. Instead, I wandered the countryside, protecting my family and others caught between the factions, especially unsuspecting Indians who accidentally wandered into a settlement. You could call me a roving guard. In the middle of this, a friend who owned a small pub in a nearby village asked me to come see a new arrival who concerned him. He said the gentleman was British but came around only in the evening and refused to tell anyone his business.”

  “Anthony?” Xavier asked.

  “Yes. I later learned that he came to watch the war because he loved adventure. He was especially excited to observe how Indians fought. So there he sat in the pub when I walked in. I was stunned by his beauty.”

  Xavier glanced at Thomas.

  “Don’t worry. I’m all yours.” Thomas squeezed Xavier tightly. “Unlike most, I had always been comfortable with my attraction to men because my mother’s brother had the same inclinations. I had always done things with boys, sexually. Of course that had often led to their teasing of me. The words they used still cut deeply. It didn’t take much for me to seduce Anthony. He relied on me to teach him about the war and Indians, and all the while I was learning that there was something different about him. Long before he told me, I knew that he was a vampire.”

  “Didn’t that frighten you?”

  “No, I wanted him to convert me.�
�

  “What if he had murdered you instead?”

  “I knew he was enchanted with me. So I seduced him into making me a vampire.”

  “Wait.” Xavier said. “It happened that quickly?”

  “It took time, but not too much. We were in love, though I deceived Anthony from the beginning.”

  “How?”

  “Promise you won’t laugh?”

  “I’ll try.” But Xavier chuckled the whole time.

  “I knew that Anthony wanted to dominate in sex.”

  “Be the man?”

  “You could call it that. So I played along.”

  “You? In the passive role?”

  Thomas laughed, too, mostly because Xavier laughed so hard.

  “I disdained it but knew Anthony wanted it and would leave me otherwise. This was my only hope of becoming a vampire. So I played the perfect lover, just like the little man in my arms tonight.”

  Xavier smacked Thomas on the shoulder.

  “I fooled him until he admitted he was a vampire and transformed me. Then, over the next couple of weeks, I admitted what I had done.”

  “Wasn’t he furious?”

  “Not really. He was more disappointed than angry. We tried to be partners but it was impossible, so we ended our sexual attachment.”

  “Yet you’re still friends?”

  “Very much so. I love him. He taught me about the ethic and guided me through the transition as if we were still lovers and never held a grudge about what I had done. I still feel guilty about tricking him, because I really did like him, but it was the only way to get what I wanted.”

  “Is that it? Is there anything else between you?”

  “Believe me, Xavier, vampires couple. It’s part of the ethic, and I want you more than anything in the world. I’m all yours.”

  “So you just left your parents forever?” Xavier asked.

  “Yes.”

  “It was that simple?”