Crimson, Volume 1

by Sax Alexander

  “I can’t see myself. I’m crying.”

  “Happy tears?”

  Audra nodded, finding their hearts next to each other in his comforting embrace. “Most definitely.”

  In another spell of silence, she let her new reality sink in. Kell had saved her life by drinking her blood and feeding her with his. Now she owed him everything. Every day and every night she enjoyed after that was because of him. And she was going to repay him.

  Even if it took forever.

  Serge’s Gift

  by

  DC Juris

  I don’t care what Stephenie Meyer says, vampires don’t sparkle. At least the one sitting behind the wheel of my car doesn’t. I can see why someone would think they do, though, as he turns his head toward me and flashes a smile. A reassuring smile, nothing else. What else is there when you’re driving your human friend to the oncologist to find out if he has cancer or not?

  I didn’t know what an oncologist was until Serge told me. Never knew anyone with cancer; no one in my family had ever even been sick. So when my regular doctor said he wanted to refer me out for some blood work and a couple scans, I thought, okay. No big deal. Serge, though, had understood right away what I might be facing, and his knowledge had fired a fear in me that I’d never before experienced.

  In truth, I don’t really start to feel it until we turn the corner and I can see the cancer center looming in front of us like some whitewashed prison. I never even knew the place existed—must’ve driven past it hundreds of times on my way to and from work for the past two years. In all that time, it never stood out, never appeared to be anyplace I should be aware of. I’ve been here just the once before, for the initial consultation when the doctor ordered all the tests, but I was alone then. Somehow, having Serge with me makes this more frightening—you know when someone offers to come with you and support you you’re facing trouble. Real, tangible trouble.

  Serge parks the car, but I remain immobile. I’m not getting out. Nope, that’s it. I’ve decided it doesn’t matter—I’m just going to sit here and wait until he realizes I’ve changed my mind, and then we can leave. Serge looks at me, left eyebrow arched, and sighs.

  I watch him get out of the car, smooth his clothing, and come around to my side. I glance at the door lock, briefly consider locking him out, but I don’t. He has a key, anyway. Serge opens the door and holds out his hand and I take it, curling my fingers into his strong grip. He slides his free arm around my waist, and urges me forward.

  Anyone who sees us will think we’re a couple, but I don’t give a damn. Though we’re both gay, we’ve never been together sexually. Not that I wouldn’t consider it. Serge is tall and handsome and ancient. He can remember betting on the outcome of the Battle of Mohi when the Mongols invaded Hungary. No, it’s definitely not my lack of interest that keeps me out of his bed. Serge prefers to only involve himself romantically with other vampires, and I can’t say I blame him. I have no idea how it would feel to watch a human friend or lover wither away.

  Serge opens the door for me, pressing his hand against my lower back as we walk through. I sign in at the front desk and then turn my attention to the waiting room. All the chairs are arranged in a circle that reminds me of a group therapy session, and I wonder if it has been done on purpose or happened as a simple coincidence. We sit down, Serge on my right, and he picks up a magazine and begins to nonchalantly flip through it. Like anything about this is nonchalant.

  I fidget with my own fingers, squirm in my seat. I can’t be here—can’t do this. I am thirty-three. This is impossible. How can anyone be expected to sit here and wait for a death sentence? This must be what death row feels like. Just...waiting.

  “Calm down,” Serge murmurs as he peruses an article on the latest fashions in Hollywood.

  “That’s easy for you to say.”

  He raises his head, stares me straight in the eyes. “Is it?”

  I flinch. The intensity in his gaze is nearly palpable, and I turn away from it. People are shuffling into the waiting room now, and at once my entire body clenches up and recoils. Zombies. Not Romero zombies, or even bad SyFy channel B-movie ones, but actual, real ones. People who’ve been stripped down to nothing but skin and bones, their clothing hanging on them at odd, almost comical angles. One man still has a bit of hair left. He’s combed it over and slicked it with gel. Will that be me, I wonder. Defiantly attempting to style the last vestiges of myself until the bitter end?

  Serge has looked up again. His nostrils flare as he takes in the scent of illness, and finally he seems more than a little uncomfortable. Well, good. If I’ve got to be uncomfortable, it’s only right that he is, too. He’s got something vested in this, after all, doesn’t he? Serge’s upper lip curls just a titch, his mouth opens a little, and I see his tongue scrape over his left fang. Not hungry, I know, but assuring himself that this fate—this fate worse than death—will never befall him.

  “Mister Parson?”

  Serge is already on his feet, tugging me up with him by my elbow. “That’s you,” he explains.

  Me. Right. Oh, God. This is it. I stand but my feet won’t move forward. I tug back, and Serge turns to me with an expression wavering between impatience and pity.

  “It may be good news.”

  Oh, yeah. It may, but it won’t be. When has it ever been good news for me? Never, in the history of my life, has my name ever been called and it turned out to be good news. Not in school, not in college, not in the three jobs I’ve been downsized from. Never.

  “Bryan?” Serge slips his hand down my arm and twines our fingers together. He rarely uses my name, and that gets my attention, has me looking at him with pleading eyes. Please, please don’t make me do this.

  Serge shakes his head and pulls me behind him. He greets the nurse fondly, jokes with her as if they’ve known each other their entire lives. He fills in answers to questions I don’t even hear. She hovers around me, taking vital signs—what’s the point of that, I wonder. And then she’s gone, leaving us alone in this stark white room. I’m really growing to hate the color white.

  “It’s not a color,” Serge offers, and I realize I’ve said my thought out loud.

  “Whatever.” Aside from the whiteness, there are paintings on all four walls. Lovely landscapes of country sides and what’s probably a French villa. Or chateau. Or whatever the fuck they call houses in France. Maybe it’s not even France. And there’s the smell. Everything and nothing. I can’t really smell anything, to be honest, but I’m convinced I can smell blood. And tears.

  The door opens and Doctor Bopp walks in. Doctor Bopp. What a ridiculous name. What a ridiculous fate for a man to be given such news by a doctor whose last name is Bopp.

  “Oh, hello. You’re a friend of Bryan’s?” Doctor Bopp eyes Serge with apprehension, gaze sweeping up and down him where he stands in the corner. Doctor Bopp feels it, I’m sure—that preternatural aura that surrounds Serge. Everyone feels it, though most have no idea what it means, and equate it to the simple allure of an alpha male.

  “I am.” Serge’s deep, velvet voice offers no other explanation.

  “Ah. Well, how’re you feeling today, Bryan?”

  I chuckle. “You tell me.”

  “Yes, well. I have the test results back, and I’ve reviewed them several times. I’ve also consulted with a couple of my fellows to be certain of my diagnosis before your visit today.”

  I glance back at Serge. He’s moving closer even as I reach out to him. He takes my hand in both of his, squeezes it tightly and doesn’t let go, doesn’t relax his grip. I swallow hard and turn my attention back to Doctor Bopp. “And?”

  “I’m afraid it is cancer.”

  I have no idea what he says next. I sag back in my chair, not realizing until just that moment that I’d literally been sitting on the edge of it. Numbness races up my spine and out my arms and legs, chasing up my neck into my head. I can’t feel Serge’s embrace as he slides his arm around my shoulder and presses me a
gainst him or the rumble of his voice as he discusses the situation with the doctor. I’m numb to the rough scrape of his wool jacket as I hide my face against it. I don’t even notice my own tears as they slip down my cheeks.

  Doctor Bopp leaves and Serge squats down in front of my chair. “Bryan? Bryan, look at me.”

  I don’t. I can’t—and he takes my face in his hands and turns it toward his own. “I will fix this. You will not suffer. You will not end up like those people in the waiting room. I swear that to you, right now, on my honor. On my life. I will fix this.”

  I try to nod, but I can’t do that either. The enormity of it settles down on me. Either I die, painfully, slowly—I don’t know what kind of cancer I have, but Serge has said the words suffer and end up like those people, so it can’t be good. As if any kind can. Either I die that way, or I die by Serge’s hand. Or his mouth, more specifically. But I die, one way or another. And I am thirty-three.

  ***

  “Do you always make such an elaborate show of killing people?” We’re on the roof of Serge’s private townhouse, and in all honestly, I’m being a prick. He has gone to great lengths tonight—cooked a four-course meal that would rival any James Beard Award-winning chef’s, hired a saxophone player to serenade us, hung those little white, twinkling Christmas lights all over the place. It’s beautiful. Breathtaking. It’s also my last night as a human.

  Serge smiles and shakes his head. “This is nothing. You should see what I do when I really feel guilty.” His voice drips with sarcasm. I don’t think he has any desire to change me—no desire to embrace the responsibilities that act entails.

  “You could just let me die, you know.”

  “Isn’t that what I’m doing?” He casts a glance at the saxophone player and then levels a glare at me. “Do you plan to pursue this foul mood and this line of conversation? If so, privacy would be best.”

  I shake my head and look away. It’s a gift, what he’s giving me. How many other people wither away and die every day—how many are doing so right now?—with no other option than to either suck it up and take it, or die by their own hand? “I know I’m blessed to have you. To have this. But I wish I didn’t have to, you know?”

  He nods. “I do. I wish...” He waves a hand and the saxophone player stops, bows to us, and heads for the door leading back down into the building. When it closes behind her, Serge sighs and sits back in his chair. “I wish this didn’t have to be, either.”

  “You don’t have to. You can get someone else to do it for you.” Serge has expressed more than once, in no uncertain terms, his distaste for turning humans, how he feels it sullies the gene pool for natural-born vampires, like himself. Half-breeds, he calls them, and he says it with a sneer and a tone that suggests he’s just tasted something rotten.

  “No.” It’s nearly a growl, and I wonder what that means, what it signifies. Serge looks at me, long and hard, and I have no idea what that signifies, either. “Finish your dinner. It’s your last, after all.”

  I push the plate away with a frown. “I’m not hungry.”

  “You’ll regret that.” Three little words, barely spoken loudly enough for me to hear. But I do hear them, and I pull my plate back toward me and pick up my fork. I watch him as he watches me—watches the way I pick food up, the way I raise it slowly to my lips, the way I chew it—and it feels rather like he’s watching an animal in a zoo. Some exotic something he can’t understand, but longs to.

  We eat in silence, or at least I do. Serge doesn’t eat, of course. He simply sits there. Waiting. He’s given me a meal of mammoth proportions, most of it things I’ve never even eaten, like caviar, escargot, and foiegras with truffles, which to this point I had only know as cellophane-wrapped chocolate candies that come out of those little plastic bins at the register in the drugstore. I finish the last bite and he clears his throat.

  “Shall I send for dessert?”

  I shake my head. I’ve never had much of a sweet tooth, and the anticipation of what’s about to happen has knotted my guts to the point I’m surprised I’ve managed to hold anything down.

  “More wine?”

  “No, thanks.” I’ve had enough to make me tipsy already—I can feel the burning flush of my cheeks, the fuzzy edge of my thoughts, the lightheadedness. But then something occurs to me. Maybe there’s a reason for the wine. “Is it better with the booze?”

  Serge’s right eyebrow arches. “Better?”

  “Easier.”

  “For whom?”

  “For me, I suppose.”

  Serge shakes his head. “It’ll make little difference to you. For me, as with your sperm, what you ingest does affect the way your blood tastes.” He strokes a hand up and down the bottle of wine between us—some tall, skinny thing bearing elaborate scrolling letters on its label, in some language I can’t even begin to decipher. His movement is almost loving, and I shiver, wondering if that look he’s giving the bottle is the same look he’ll give my neck.

  “So. I guess we should, um...” I gesture to him, then to my neck. How one initiates such a thing is beyond me.

  But apparently not beyond Serge. He unfolds his tall body from his chair and moves—glides—over to mine. He just stands there, waiting again, and a million things run through my mind to tell him. I should thank him, make some attempt at expressing that I understand the gravity of our situation. I should tell him that I love him, because I do, always have. I should tell him that I won’t think any differently of him, beg him not to think any differently of me. I should tell him how much I value his friendship, above and beyond all of this, and that I think, beneath his fangs—or maybe because of them—he is a decent, kind man. I should. But I don’t.

  Serge lays a hand on my shoulder, then points to the door leading back into the building.

  “Not here?” I ask. I rather liked the idea of being transformed beneath the stars.

  “The rooftop is not the proper place to lose your humanity. Besides, you’ll have plenty of time to stargaze over the next thousand or so years.”

  Thousand or so years. The words twist in my guts. I lean away from him quickly, fold my arms on the tabletop, and rest my head on them. I. Cannot. Do. This.

  “Or you could die.” Serge drops to his knees next to me and runs his hand up and down my spine. There’s no heat in his skin, yet somehow the gesture infuses me with warmth. “Come, Bryan.”

  ***

  I’ve been in Serge’s townhouse dozens of times. Perhaps hundreds. Dinners, private parties, public parties to promote his art gallery, and simple friendly visits, but I’ve never been in his bedroom, and I’ve never felt what I feel now. I’ve never felt surrounded by him. Which is especially odd, considering he’s standing on the other side of the room.

  “You should undress.”

  My attention snaps to him. “Excuse me?”

  “Unless you’d prefer blood on your clothing.”

  “Oh. Right.” I try to calm the excited pounding of my heart, and the stiffening of my cock, which apparently had other interpretations of getting undressed with Serge. The rustle of cloth draws my attention again. Serge has shed his pants and is pulling his dress shirt off. He folds them both neatly, places them on the bench at the end of the bed, then his hands move to the waistband of his underwear.

  I turn away, sucking in a little breath, and start on the buttons of my shirt. I wore a nice one, for some damned reason.

  “Does my nakedness concern you?”

  I shake my head, fumbling with button number two, which has decided it has no intention of opening. I clench and unclench my shaking hands, hoping that will help. No use, though. I chuckle at myself—I’m worse than a teenager in the backseat of a car with his first opportunity to go all the way.

  “Do you require assistance?”

  “Apparently.” God, this is so embarrassing. Serge appears in front of me, having not walked but wisped his way over. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

  “You’ll be able to soon y
ourself. You’ll see the benefit then, when you can be across the globe in mere minutes.” Serge reaches for the buttons, pushing my hands aside. The brush of his flesh against mine sends a jolt of lust zinging through my veins. Serge’s gaze meets mine, left eye just narrowed.

  He slides the shirt back off my shoulders, and it falls to the floor behind me, but I barely notice. Serge skims his hands over my chest with a feather-light touch.”Just as I’d imagined.”

  “Just...you’ve... You imagined me like this?” My brain moves slowly around the concept, assessing it from all angles, trying to root out every possible meaning behind those words. “I thought...” But the feel of his hand on my skin robs me of whatever I was about to say.

  “It’s true, I don’t bed humans.” He has my pants opened and pushed down before I even realize it. Serge takes my arm and urges me toward the bed, shoves me gently down, and follows me, bearing his weight on his hands on either side of my head. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t find one in particular attractive.”

  “Me?” My voice is a hoarse croak. My throat is suddenly dry, while the rest of me has broken out in a sweat.

  “You.” Serge’s teeth nip at my earlobe. “Alcohol doesn’t make this better, but sex can.”

  Sex. With Serge. Holy mother of all that is good and...well, holy. But then his words register. Sex can make it better. Is that why he’s doing this? Just to make my transition easier? No way. No fucking way in hell. I bring my hands up between us and push on his chest. Bad idea—lust fairly sizzles off him, burning my palms. Still. “Wait. Wait a minute.”

  Serge looks puzzled. He gives me that zoo exhibit look again, but he rolls to the side and sits up. “Have you changed your mind?”

  To be clear, this was never my decision. But I don’t mention that. “No. I just... I don’t want it to be like this. I don’t want to have sex with you just to make the rest less unpleasant.”

  Serge chuckles softly, runs his knuckles along my cheek. “Is that what you think my reasoning is?”

  “Isn’t it?”