Ledishka wasn’t a wife. She was even younger than Timothy. She was Timothy’s sister, and she was there beside him on the bright cold morning when he went up the hill and Ilia was gone.
There were two sheep dead, broken-necked on the footworn snow, grey and brown and occasional glimmers of white all smeared with red from their torn throats. The rheum of their dull sheep eyes was frozen in the cold.
“Wolves,” Timothy said, heart sore and sick with the thought of a life without Ilia ahead.
“No,” Ledishka answered. Her hair was a darker brown than his, her nose scattered with tiny brown freckles from all her days out-of-doors. She’d been a sickly baby and was small now, like a child, rather than a girl already on the cusp of womanhood. “I don’t think this was wolves. I think it was something else.”
~
In the present, uncountable hundreds of years later and a half a world away, Timothy is killing the remaining half-hour left before the sunrise by reading the new issue of one of the countless music magazines he regularly buys. This one is one of his favorites, and he feels as close to content as he’s ever managed.
He’s leaning against the arm of the chair currently occupied by Alexander, and Alexander is currently scratching idly at the nape of Timothy’s neck. If Timothy could purr, he would.
“Maybe you need a cat of your own,” he suggests to Alexander. Alexander doesn’t dignify the suggestion with a response, instead adding another sticky-note to the legal briefing he’s reading. Timothy bought the sticky-notes for him. They have red tyrannosaurs on them. Alexander often reads legal briefs and court proceedings—he likes subsidizing the very expensive law firm the household keeps on retainer, in order that the law firm can take on the pro-bono cases Alexander selects for them. Alexander considers human resources to be the most lucrative stock market around, and it’s one that never crashes.
On the other side of the quiet room, Blake is trying to teach Bette how to play chess.
“I already know how to play chess,” she’d protested when he declared his intentions.
“I’m going to teach you how to play chess properly,” he’d clarified.
The chessboard is inlaid into the top of a small, purpose-built table which was until very recently functioning as Mikhail’s nightstand in one of the apartments on the ground floor. There’s a coffee ring on one corner, circling the pawn Bette is trying to make into a second queen. Blake deftly takes it with his bishop, and Bette groans.
“Damn! I was so close!”
“No.” Blake gestures at her sternly with the defeated chess piece, as if it’s a teacher’s pointer and he stands at a lectern instead of lounging rather indolently on a leather and oak desk chair in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat. From Timothy’s vantage point on the floor he can see Blake’s socks, a mis-match of one white cotton and one gray silk. He’s absolutely certain that the white cotton one must belong to Jay, Blake’s human lover, though Jay is almost as unlikely to own white cotton socks as Blake himself.
“You weren’t close,” Blake goes on. “You aren’t on the board at all. Your soldiers are. That’s a vital rule to learn, if you want to win. Chess is a ruthless game, my dear. You will do well to remember not to put your own soul anywhere near its battlefield.”
Bette rolls her eyes so hard that Timothy can almost hear it, but all she says is “All right. I’ll do my best. Thanks.”
“Sarcasm is unbecoming, Elizabeth.”
“Bette.”
“And I believe you have history homework to complete? Perhaps our game can wait until the evening.”
Bette turns in her chair to give Alexander, her tutor, a pleading look. “Who ever heard of a vampire doing eleventh grade History, honestly?”
“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” Alexander retorts tritely. Timothy shivers a bit at the choice of homily, and Alexander squeezes his shoulder apologetically.
“Blake repeats his mistakes all the time. Several times a night, sometimes,” Bette replies.
“I’ve never been one for condemnation in any circumstances, much less repeatedly,” Blake answers. “But, to your books, young mistress! The lesson will conclude tomorrow.”
Bette sighs, and stomps off to her room. A moment later, music begins to blast out from behind her closed door.
“I do so love living with a teenager,” Alexander remarks in a dry voice. Then, businesslike, “Blake, you’ve owed me a list of police officers for at least two weeks.”
Blake looks up from switching the placement of several chess pieces, the swap giving him an advantage over Bette. “Hm? Oh, right, I remember telling you I’d get you that. You really should know to remind me of these things.”
“I’m reminding you now.”
“All right, all right. Is that the list of police officers we’re promoting, or the ones for demotion and disposal?” Abruptly, Blake gives a wicked grin. “Do you remember that time I gave you the wrong list?”
“I seem to remember a minor political revolution resulted. Don’t do that again,” Alexander tells him. “And I want the real list—promotion, thank you very much—by this time tomorrow night.”
Timothy leaves them to their city planning discussions, because he knows from experience that once they get a good bout of bickering going they’ll entertain themselves for hours, or at least until they’re interrupted. He goes into his own bedroom, already prepared for the coming daylight. The drapes are drawn tight, blacking out any hint of sunshine that might try to infiltrate. Bikini Kill, the least intimidating cat ever owned by a creature of the night, is shredding the latest in a line of small stuffed penguin toys on the end of the bed.
“How’s my mighty little hunter, then?” Timothy asks, scritching her under her chin. She mewls, flopping over to her side in a demand that he pat her tummy.
He settles on the bed with his laptop, checking messageboards and status updates quickly to see if there’s anything that needs his attention. Bette’s online, of course, because the world will probably reach its literal end before an eleventh-grader is capable of doing homework without browsing at the same time. Timothy chuckles and opens a chat window.
Boo.
She replies almost as soon as he’s hit send. I AM SO BORED I AM GOING TO DIE {if u make an ‘already dead’ joke i will hack yr laptop srsly}.
I’m going to Detroit tomorrow night. Catching up with friends. Want to come with me?
This time the reply comes in the form of muted footsteps from the bedroom next to his, and his door opening a second later. “Oh god yes,” Bette says.
“If you’re going with Timothy to Michigan, I want your homework before you leave,” Alexander says from the main room. Bette, facing away from him, makes a hideous face. Timothy laughs.
“And stop making that face,” Alexander goes on. “The wind will change, and you’ll be stuck like that, and we’ll lock you in the attic.”
“The attic doesn’t have a lock,” Timothy reminds him.
“I’ll purchase one myself. I’ll even have it specially made.”
“You’ll all be in the attic if you keep shouting from room to room like asylum inmates,” declares Blake. “To bed, everyone. Arguments and plans can wait until the evening.”~They touch down at Detroit airport with most of the night left. Unlike Blake and Alexander, Timothy usually takes ordinary commercial flights, at least for short trips like this. He likes the anonymity of it, the time- and placelessness of the whole production. Pasts don’t matter on planes, and the future has to wait until after the plane has stopped completely at the gate and the seatbelt release light has switched on.
The pair of them catch a town car into the city proper. The glossy black Chrysler sedan makes Bette’s eyes go wide. Timothy knows that Alexander and Blake like to bandy around phrases like “your wonderment is so refreshing” about Bette’s genuine delight in lovely things, but that’s mostly because Alexander and Blake are in love with the sound of their own jaded cleverness. Nobody would
bother with a luxury car when a taxi would do just as well if they’d truly lost their appreciation for elegance.
Timothy likes hunting in Detroit because he died thin, and so has stayed thin ever since, and he died young and fresh-faced, and so on the dangerous corners of the night in Detroit there are a lot of predators who see him and think they’ve found easy prey. He likes the moment when their self-importance begins to buckle under the weight of evidence, and they realize that he is far more terrible than they could hope to be. He likes catching muggers and thugs and rapists at the moment of intimidation for similar reasons: their menace is such a petty, useless thing when matched against his teeth and claws.
In this particular instance, the young woman being cornered by two looming attackers runs away as soon as Timothy and Bette decide to step in and skew the game. She’s long out of sight by the time they’re finished.
“You don’t always see that anymore,” Timothy remarks, wiping his face clean. “Alex says that it used to be that they’d always run. You’d think that anybody would, if they saw a vampire swoop in and kill someone right in front of them. But between all the vigilante superheroes in comic books, and the kind of vampire stories that show up now, people think that maybe we only attack bad guys. I guess it’s a logical conclusion, really. If you’re about to be attacked, and a vampire shows up and kills the attacker, you’re going to think the vampire’s nice.”
Bette looks unimpressed by his logic, shoving the sleeves of her black cashmere sweater up to her elbows despite the chill wind off the lake. One of her forearms is scarred, the puckered white line cutting jaggedly through a delicate tattoo of a patchwork bird. Bette doesn’t show off her scar very often, except when it’s just her and Timothy. He’s not sure what he’s done to earn that ease from her, but he’s glad of it. Friendship is something he hungers for as voraciously as blood.
“If you think a vampire’s nice, you’re a fucking idiot and you deserve what’s coming to you,” she replies snappishly.
“You thought I was all right, when you were human,” he reminds her.
Bette gives him a bitter half-smile. “My point exactly.”~The main clique of vampires in Detroit are Motown in their dress sense, all fabulous hair and stylish clothes. Timothy thinks it’s pretty cool, and they certainly all look excellent, but he can’t help but wonder at the way so many vampires always look to the past for things of value. Like Alexander and Blake who, for as long as Timothy can remember knowing them, have dressed like most fashions since the 1930s are things that have happened to other people.
In this one way, at least, Timothy is almost glad that his own past is a blank for all the space between his death and a time just a few short decades ago: without a history to look back on, he has no choice but to stay in the present, and there’s so much in the present that he loves.
Timothy shoots the breeze with the gang for a few hours, until Bette gets into an argument with one of the younger guys about something, an argument that looks set to escalate into a full-fledged fight. Timothy decides it’s time to head for home, and they catch the red-eye back. They make it home just before morning dawns, and Timothy feeds Bikini Kill, brushes his teeth, and crawls into bed beside the already-sleeping Alexander.
Timothy watches Alexander’s still face, younger and softer like this than when he’s awake. Alexander’s human life, Timothy knows, was hard and hungry, just another young foreigner working the railroads, growing up in San Francisco when San Francisco was still a boom town. He died thin, like Timothy had, and Timothy can imagine how drawn to Alexander his own now-vanished earlier self would have been. Another almost-man, a boy not quite full grown but knowing in the everyday cruelties of the world, whose acceptance of harsh times has still never managed to douse the belief that better things are possible.
They argue often, but Timothy is always grateful to have Alexander in his world. Alexander’s sharp sardonic mind knows Timothy in ways Timothy will never again know himself. Alexander cares about Timothy enough to go through the awkward fumblings of Timothy re-learning him, beginning their love affair all over again, and doing so with fewer snappish moments than Timothy’s own frustrations give rise to.
Timothy runs the pad of his thumb lightly over the shape of Alexander’s smooth cheekbone. He remembers staring at the artwork in his father’s almanac, images of the colourful crowds which thronged the faraway streets of Constantinople. Timothy can remember being especially captivated by the depictions of the Chinese traders in those pictures. He would gaze at them and think of how wonderful it would be to know someone whose face looked so different from the long-intermingled families of the tiny village, the people he’d known his whole life.
Timothy smiles to himself. It’s so very easy for him to imagine how the Timothy who’d fallen for Alexander had come to do so.
“I am awake, you know,” Alexander mutters, smiling at Timothy’s continued soft petting.
“Sorry,” Timothy answers, in truth feeling not very sorry at all.
“It’s all right. I wanted to stay awake until you got back.” Alexander shifts onto his back, opening his arms so Timothy can cuddle in closer and drape himself across Alexander’s chest in the way they both like. “We got the guitar part done on the new track.”
Alexander’s been producing the album of a new band, one of his own discoveries that he’d arranged a label signing for. Their music isn’t really Timothy’s thing, but there’s no question that Alexander has an excellent ear for what will be a commercial success.
“Still recording here?” Timothy asks. The second floor of the house, unlike the ground level and their own quarters on the upper storey, isn’t taken up with spacious living areas, but rather with a fully equipped studio, which they all use for their pet musical projects.
“Yes.” Alexander nods. “I think Mikhail’s taken a shine to the bassist.”
“The girl with the…” Timothy makes a vague hand gesture. “Hair?”
Alexander laughs. “Yes, the girl with the” – gesture - “hair. She’s rather sweet, under her ostentatious fashion choices. I do hope he doesn’t end up killing her before I have the album done. How was Detroit?”
Timothy considers the night before answering. “All right.
I’m a bit concerned about Bette.”
“Hm?”
“I don’t think she has much she cares about anymore, apart from killing.”
Alexander runs his fingers lazily through Timothy’s hair. “She’s young yet. New loves will come with time.”
Timothy moves up until he can kiss Alexander, softly and then with a little more force. “You should come to Detroit sometime. There’re lots of civic systems there just begging for you to meddle with them. You could turn the town around.”
“Sweet-talker,” Alexander retorts, smiling against Timothy’s mouth as they kiss again. Timothy has never, and probably will never, grow tired of the feeling of kissing Alexander. His body remembers things his mind has lost. His body has always known that Alexander is home.
“Have you fed much tonight?” Timothy asks as they move apart from each others’ mouths. Alexander’s pale pallor never shows a flush, but his lips have reddened and his eyes are dark and glittering. He nods.
“Good,” Timothy says, and moves down to Alexander’s throat, pausing to suckle lightly at the skin before biting down. Alexander’s back arches, his hand tangling tight in Timothy’s hair, and Timothy can’t stop himself from smiling happily against Alexander’s skin, swallowing another heady pulse of blood.
BETTE
Sometimes Bette sneaks into the school before the sun rises in the mornings and walks the halls, breathing in all the whispers of scent she could never catch when everything was dulled. She can smell the cheap propellant in the deodorants most students use, the ugly chemical stink of it.
Once upon a time, Bette used to give Rose shit about never bothering with that stuff; about smelling like soap and cigarettes all the time. Now she knows better. Rose’
s locker, spare tie lying in a knot on the upper shelf and gym shoes shoved in the bottom, is a flare of all the warm, heady things which Bette’s come to appreciate above all else, hormones and sweat and dirt and, sometimes, if one of the cheerleaders has given Rose a knock on the nose that day, even a little trace of blood in the air.
She leaves notes in that locker, just like she used to. Rose hasn’t changed the combination. Bette slips today’s thin envelope—a recounting of the night’s trip to Detroit, which Bette wrote down on the flight back—into Rose’s algebra textbook, carefully leaving one corner visible. Then she closes the locker and heads home to bed.~She’s not used to the tepid feel of her own skin. The blood removes the chill, of course, but the hot flare of that always fades from her veins and belly before she’s ready. Bette hates waking up and being room temperature. It’s the only time when she can’t make herself forget that she’s dead.
The suite of rooms on the top level of the townhouse is well-appointed against daylight, the drapes thick and the glass of the windows beyond them tinted dark enough that Bette can shuffle from room to room with no more protection than sunglasses and the hood of her jacket over her face.
She always knows what time of day it is, even though she never sees the sun. Right now it’s almost three-thirty in the afternoon. End of school. It isn’t a rehearsal afternoon for the school musical, so Rose will be going home to nap, so that she can stay out later into the night.
Bette stumbles to Timothy and Alexander’s room, sleep-groggy and melancholy and so damn cold.
Timothy’s the only one of the group with anything like the vampire powers in books. He can control people’s thoughts, make those he sets his sights on believe whatever he wants them to believe. Blake says it’s more correctly called ‘mesmerism’, but Jay says that’s just because Blake has a natural affinity for pretension.
Sometimes Timothy uses the trick for cruelty, sometimes for harmless fun. He says he’ll try to teach Bette the knack of it, one day, but Bette doesn’t think she’s going to bother learning.
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