by Zoe Winters
Although she’d broken free, there was no saving the woman she’d been. That person was gone. Linus had poisoned her.
She kept her human half locked away because that part of her couldn’t take all the horror. She’d had to become the horror to survive. If she was the villain, she could never be the victim again. Only, her calculations on that score had been a bit off, because here she was—the victim again.
I thought I could trust Hadrian. How could he turn on me?
The many months she’d come to Mass watching him, waiting for those brief moments to feel his hand grasping hers, to talk with him and dream about the day they’d be together. That first night, the drug-induced vision had felt like something real, like a sign that he was hers. How could it have been wrong? The universe had opened to her that night and shown her everything.
She wondered if she’d approached the priest differently if things would have still gone this way. Maybe if she’d gradually introduced him to what she was—if she’d given him a choice. She hadn’t been given a choice. How could she make the same mistake? If only he hadn’t done that stupid chant, things would be different.
Angeline was so lost in self-pity and self-recriminations that she didn’t hear the small, quiet footsteps until they were in front of her. The first thing she noticed when her vision cleared from the tears were delicate, bare feet.
She startled as her gaze rose to take in the girl in front of her. She couldn’t have been older than twelve. The vampire licked her lips. It had been a while since she’d had a good veal. The girl still had the tiniest bit of baby fat around her face. If only Angeline could get the gag out of her mouth and the ropes off.
Had he sent some child out here to taunt her? Was that part of the punishment he’d cultivated for her sins? Was it penance? Whatever happened to the Hail Mary?
“Can you kill me?” the girl said as if she were asking someone to pass the butter.
Now Angeline knew the priest was messing with her. And with the gag still in her mouth, she couldn’t even yell at the stupid child.
“Can you?” the girl persisted. “Your priest was too young. I knew he was, but figured it was worth a try anyway. If you’re older, maybe it will work this time.”
Angeline’s eyes widened as she looked more closely at the girl. Blonde, shoulder-length hair, delicate pixie features. Her white dress swallowed her, but would have perfectly fit the adult witch the vampire had brought for Hadrian’s first feeding.
But she was dead. Angeline had seen it. She’d heard her heartbeat slow and stop like butterfly wings on their last flap. She’d carried the lifeless body and laid it on the altar.
“I’d hoped that death card was for me,” Tam said. “It has to be for me.” The girl pulled the gag from Angeline’s mouth and spoke to her as if she were the child. “I want you to try, all right?”
The vampire looked around. This had to be a trick, a test. If she bit the girl, Hadrian would be upset. Or would he? He’d killed her the first time around, after all.
“What are you?”
The witch rolled her eyes. “Something far older than you. I’m hard to kill, and I’m tired of running. My power needs to die with me. I can’t allow it to get into his hands.”
“Hadrian?” Angeline hated when people spoke in riddles.
The girl laughed. “No, silly. Someone else.” Madame Tam gave her an assessing once-over. “How old are you?”
Angeline balked at giving the girl her age. It was such a personal question for a vampire, filled with so much nuance. It was more than just a number. It was the evidence of how much you’d survived, how much history you’d seen and lived.
“Two hundred and twenty.”
“Hmmm.” Tam paced, lost in thought. It was strange seeing such a grown-up look on such a young girl. “My kind can only be killed, truly killed, by another of our kind, or a very old and very strong being. I know because one of us has been killed that way, by a three-thousand-year-old vampire. As you can imagine, those are hard to find, and they tend to be gruesomely creative with killing, something I’m not too keen on. I don’t think you’re nearly old enough, but we can try.”
The girl sat across Angeline’s lap and pulled her hair back. The vampiress was going mad. She had to be. None of this was happening. It was a dream. Some crazy daymare. Perhaps Hadrian hadn’t risen yet. Maybe she was still in her resting place below ground, dreaming. It was all too unreal and strange.
Although the promise of the girl’s blood was intoxicating, Angeline hoped it was a dream and that she could start this night over without making the same mistakes. Maybe she’d stake Hadrian before he rose, just in case his chanting was a genuine threat.
The girl cleared her throat. “This is the most formal invitation you’re getting. I know my blood is delicious. I’ve been fed on by vampires a few times before. They went on about me like I was a royal feast.”
Angeline knew just by the smell of the girl that it was true. “How long have you had this death wish?”
“Off and on for about a thousand years, more often since he’s started hunting more deliberately and the others of my kind have been picked off. If he kills me, he’ll take all my power. He’s a far greater evil than you’ve ever thought about being. I have to break the cycle, and I won’t contribute to the things he wants to do by dying at his hands.”
“You little… ” Who the hell did this girl think she was? She didn’t know how evil Angeline was or wasn’t.
The girl tilted her head again, trailing her index finger up and down the column of her throat. “Eat up. From the looks of things, this will be your last meal. At least it’ll be a good one.”
Well, if the girl wanted to die so very badly, Angeline would oblige her. All the riddles as well as the creepiness of an adult woman dying and then coming back a child all in the same night was enough incentive. Who needed a formal invitation to shut up that nonsense?
“Untie me,” Angeline said, locking eyes with the girl.
The blonde giggled. “Oh, nice try. Remember you’re only two hundred and twenty.”
Angeline growled, but leaned forward, sinking her fangs into the girl’s neck. The angle was awkward. This was no way to enjoy a meal. It was humiliating in the extreme, but she intended to suck every drop out of her, far past the point of death, so the obnoxious brat didn’t rise again. She still didn’t know how that worked, nor did she care.
Tam’s blood was a fine wine, aged to perfection. But it was also the youth and excitement of childhood. It was the best of both worlds, the rarest thing the vampire had ever tasted. If by some miracle, Hadrian let her go, she could see keeping this girl as a blood doll—if she couldn’t permanently kill her, that is. Because she really wanted to kill her.
The girl’s pulse grew thready and then slowed and stopped. Angeline continued to drink, squeezing every last drop of blood out. Tam became a corpse for the second time that night, still draped across her killer.
Angeline snarled in frustration, unable to move her. But then a slow smile formed on her face.
She’d just fed from the strongest blood she’d ever tasted. Probably not more than Hadrian had consumed, since the smaller, younger body held less blood than her former size, but she’d had at least as much as he’d had. If she focused all her energy and will, she might convince her arms to obey her will instead of his and escape.
A long time passed before her arm twitched against her restraints. This might not be her final night on Earth.
***
Hadrian thought taking control of Angeline had been easy enough, but being barely risen, one human, no matter how powerful, just hadn’t been enough. He’d need a few more pints before he was ready to deal with his sire fully.
The city was noisier than he remembered. With his new senses, voices, thoughts, traffic, heartbeats, the buzzing of the neon signs, everything combined to create a din that stuffed his head and threatened to squeeze his sanity out through his eye sockets.
The ability to shield one’s mind from a vampire varied from person to person, because some people seemed to throw their thoughts out at him, almost begging him to hear them, while others faded into the background in quiet whispers. Still others required him to focus intently and specifically on them to get direct thoughts. A few were blank slates that he couldn’t read at all.
The few he wasn’t able to read looked up at him sharply, suspicion in their eyes like they knew he’d tried to penetrate the privacy of their mind. He smiled at one such man apologetically and moved on. There was no telling what he was.
It wasn’t hard to find sinners in a place like Las Vegas. Hadrian couldn’t move two steps without tripping over one. But he was looking for dinner, too. He didn’t just want to find guilty souls—he wanted pretty ones who smelled nice. He wasn’t about to sink his fangs into a man.
Perhaps other vampires felt differently, but Hadrian’s previous chastity caused him to see a subtextual sexuality in everything—especially the ritual of feeding. He wanted to gorge on the experience in all its sensual hedonism. There was no time for a tryst tonight, but feeding felt like foreplay. Had Angeline brought him a man for dinner, he might have turned his nose up at the meal, not prepared to be that adventurous yet.
A crowd formed outside The Riviera where Dean Martin headlined. It was the tallest hotel so far on the strip. So much change was happening. It made Hadrian philosophical. What would it be like to watch change and growth and creation and destruction come and go? Would everything begin to feel like the past year in Las Vegas had? The Dunes and The Moulin Rouge had opened within a day of one another, and The Riviera only a month before that.
He bumped into a woman walking swiftly with her head down. Her thoughts told him her shift had just ended and she was tired of waiting for an escort to her vehicle.
She looked up. “Oh, Father Hadrian. Would you mind walking me to my car?” A blush tinged her cheeks at being caught out like this.
He looked at her more closely. “Mary? Is that you?” She hadn’t been to Mass or confession in months. She wore what she usually wore when he saw her at church: wrist-length gloves, heels, a full billowing skirt. No one would ever mistake her for a prostitute in innocent pale blue.
But Hadrian knew.
“I can’t believe you remember me.”
An awkwardness descended between them until Father Hadrian held his arm out for her to loop her hand through—like a gentleman. His gentlemanly scruples were one thing that had died the night he had, but he hadn’t yet fallen out of practice.
Mary started to babble. “I keep meaning to come back to church. They just always have me working all these odd hours, and when I’m off, it’s hard to find someone to watch my boy. And it’s just too late at night to bring him to church.”
“I understand,” he said. As they walked and she babbled on, Hadrian only half listened. He was more interested in what she wasn’t saying, what she really thought. He was interested in the file after file of information on her true feelings, desires, and intentions hidden inside her mind. He sorted through these files as they walked, gleaning everything he needed or wanted to know. The thing that shined brightest was her love for her son and her need to care for him no matter the personal cost to herself.
A few doors in Mary’s mind seemed locked to him, perhaps thoughts and feelings even she didn’t have access to, but what he’d seen was more than enough.
They stopped at a green Chevy Styleline Special.
“Thanks for walking me and listening to my chatter. It’s almost like confession except that we’re not in church.”
“Indeed.”
When they reached the car, Hadrian lingered. He brushed her hair away to touch the soft, vulnerable skin of her throat. He licked his lips.
Mary sensed the undercurrents, and her mood shifted. “W-what are you doing?”
“Absolving you.” He smiled at how creepy that must sound, what she must think he expected her penance to be out here in this dark and deserted parking lot. But he didn’t let her wonder for long. His fangs descended.
She opened her mouth to scream but he locked his gaze on hers and said: “Shhhh. I’m not going to hurt you. You’re worth saving, but I want you to change your ways. Understand? No more selling your body to men who don’t deserve you. You’re smart. You should have a real job somewhere. Or find a good man at church. If you need help, come to the church and ask.”
She smiled and nodded.
“Good girl.” Father Hadrian struck then, his fangs penetrating the column of her throat to get to the warm, rich blood beneath. Honest guilt. Somehow he knew this would be his favorite flavor. As he fed, he drew her guilt and pain out along with her blood. He stopped before her pulse slowed and sealed the wound.
“Remember what I said, but forget you saw me tonight.”
She nodded, glassy-eyed as he helped her get into the Styleline and shut the door behind her.
“Drive safely.”
She seemed lighter and happier as she started the car and drove away.
Hadrian felt high, both on the blood and on the power he now possessed—the ability to make a difference in lives even if it wasn’t with sunshine and rainbows.
“Excuse me?” a woman said as he strode down the strip. “Would you happen to have a dime for the phone booth?” She pointed at a new glass booth about a block away.
Hadrian felt around in his pockets, and came out with a shiny thin dime.
“Thank you! You’re a life saver.”
He smiled. “Don’t mention it.” Too sweet for his tastes.
A while later, he came across a con artist in the Dunes hotel and casino. She was a femme-fatale type, all black stockings and dark red lips.
He stayed a distance away, watching, waiting for his moment. An issue of Life Magazine had been abandoned on one of the tables. The cover featured two showgirls from the Moulin Rouge hotel, their ruffled skirts pulled up to show much of their thighs. They wore yellow feathers in their hair. The headline read: “Las Vegas—is boom overextended?”
A few days ago, Hadrian would have said yes, but the city had gone from too many people to a buffet in his perception.
“Pretty girls,” a man nearby said, observing Hadrian’s interest in the cover. “Saw ‘em last night in person. They’ve still got new copies of that issue for twenty cents a few doors down from here.”
“Thanks,” Hadrian said, as the guy moved past him.
Father Hadrian put the magazine down and turned his attention back to his prey.
She stood beside a roulette table and took a cigarette from her bag. Hadrian slid in, lighter in hand. He always kept one in his pocket for lighting candles around the church before Mass started. She smiled indulgently, sizing him up as she leaned into the flame. She appeared to like what she saw.
“So, how’s tricks?” he asked.
“Pardon me?” She drew her head back as if she’d been slapped. “I’m not a prostitute.”
“Of course not. That would be honest work compared to the cons you’ve been pulling.” He took her by the elbow and eased her away from witnesses as he spoke, his tone low.
“Are you a Fed?” she whispered, looking around to see if anyone was eavesdropping on their conversation.
He pointed to the Roman collar. “No. I’m a priest. Did the outfit not give me away?” It was clear she’d thought he was dressed like that as part of an undercover operation.
She rolled her eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Is this a bit?”
“Come with me,” he said, unfazed by her tantrum.
“No. Get your hands off me. If you aren’t a cop I don’t have to talk to you.”
Hadrian gripped her chin, forcing her eyes to meet his. “Come. With. Me.”
Her expression became sweet and open. “All right. Whatever you say, Father.”
Leading her outside, he took an inventory of her mind. Her list of crimes was impressive. Small cons, long cons, a couple of jewelry heists and
a murder under her belt—someone who had gotten in her way. She didn’t seem to feel guilty for any of it. But he needed to be sure.
In a deserted alleyway, far from witnesses, he interrogated her. “If you’d like to confess your sins, I’m open to hearing them.” Even though he already knew. He was careful with his wording to be sure he didn’t coerce her to do anything she wouldn’t have done anyway.
Her eyes lit with condescending mirth. “That’s all right, Father. Why don’t you go back to church where it’s safer? The company around here seems a bit dangerous for you.”
“Does it? Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. I’m more concerned about you. I’m only trying to save you. Do you feel remorse for your sins?” He held her gaze, peering inside her mind. Whatever she said out loud wasn’t what mattered. It was what was inside that counted. But she didn’t bother lying.
“I sleep like a baby.”
“What about the murder?”
Her eyes widened. “How did you know about that? Who the hell did you say you were?”
“My name is Father Hadrian,” he said, his tone turning more menacing by the minute. “Tell me, are you sorry about the murder?”
The woman’s anger rose, flowing off her like hissing electricity. “The dumb bitch shouldn’t have gotten in my way.”
“That’s all I needed to hear. I’m afraid you aren’t worth saving.”
Hadrian let his fangs flash in the lamplight. He didn’t bother adding a suggestion for how she should react to him. He wasn’t seducing her. He was separating the wheat from the chaff, cleaning up the streets. As a human, he never would have played God in this way, but the demon side refused to follow such quaint moral rules. After all, those methods hadn’t been nearly as effective as those he now employed.
She started to cry and backed away, her hands raised. Her voice turned placating. “Okay. Okay. I’m sorry. I’ll do better. Will you hear my confession? I promise I’ll change. I’ll come to church every week.”
