From Slate to Crimson

by Brandon Hill

  With those words, I tore the last wall of my folly. I should not have given in to her blood so easily that night; I should have run away; I should have resisted the lure from the first time I caught her scent, but wishes are all they are, and only what they are, no more, no less.

  I was truly, deeply in love with her. And I could no longer hide it.

  I felt her tears flow onto my chest, felt her joy fill the dark room with the light of a million suns. She looked at me, her gray eyes soft and moist with tears, and she was the most beautiful mortal in the world.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to say that,” she whispered, and trailed a line of kisses up my chest and neck, to my lips.

  “And yet, there is something I must tell you,” I said, making time to speak the words between her kisses.

  She paused. I felt a sense of dread begin in her. She knew that what I had to say would be something she would not like.

  “Lothos knows about us,” I said. “He knows about you, and what you are to me.”

  “But…how?” Her eyes went wide with alarm at what this signified.

  I explained to her the sequence of events involving Wally, and what my children had learned over the past week.

  “I don’t believe it,” she said after I finished. “Wally…working for Lothos?”

  “He had no idea he was being controlled,” I assured her. “They charmed him somehow, and buried it so deeply, even we could not tell. But there is nothing to worry about; we killed the one controlling him. He was traumatized from the experience, but Reanon says he will recover.

  “But there’s no telling how long the agent we found held Mr. Wallace in thrall, or how much he knows. He had only been with us for a little over a year, and so he had no access to a lot of our more sensitive information…yet. This agent might have been starting small, so that there was less of a chance he would be suspected. And if Mr. Wallace gained our trust, he would have been privy to some of our inner workings.

  “I think this was what the agent was after. And most certainly, he knew about us. Mr. Wallace knew about our closeness; he sat with you during the withdrawal. He has seen us together. He knows enough for Lothos to know.”

  “So what are you saying?” Amelia’s fear rose within her. “Am I going to be hunted by those monsters that attacked you in the club? Will you have to spend your every waking moment to protect me? Will you make me forget, so that I go through the fire, only to lose you?”

  “No,” I said, completely resolute. “Never.”

  “Then what will you do?” She laid her head back down upon my chest, tracing a circle with her finger above my heart. “Does your little preternatural repertoire give you the power to make this situation right?”

  For the longest moment, I was silent. For the first time in centuries, I was at a loss for words. I fumbled around for ideas, but there was nothing. I could not think of anything that would keep Lothos at bay. This would be too juicy a prize for him to ignore.

  I looked into her beautiful, waiting eyes, and my heart ached. I caressed her cheek, and she smiled. She was the woman I loved, and only now, when I could at last bring myself to confess this to her, Lothos would discover her importance to me.

  She was human, and vulnerable even with the gifts my kiss bestowed. Moreover, we would eventually part one day, regardless of whether I could keep her safe or not; a mortal’s life is that of inevitability.

  Still, in my long existence, I knew life was full of meetings and partings, some sooner than we would like; even those whom I had sired in ages past had been dispatched from this world in past times of attrition. But with any human, especially those who share a consummate bond with us, we felt a special pain in their passing.

  I had within myself the means by which death’s hand could be stayed, but with Amelia and countless others, I refrained from doing it. Our existence was born of a curse. To don it upon another was to hang an eternal albatross around one’s neck. It was never a decision we took lightly.

  But Amelia made it different.

  I had never loved another so deeply, so intimately. She had an eager mind, and surprising reserves of courage. She learned to not fear the darkest of beings, or the world in which they lived, and yet, she was vulnerable. She needed me, and as I loved her, I needed her as well.

  I suppose even immortals are fools as well.

  “How much do you love me, Amelia?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Amelia threw me a skeptical look.

  “Humor me, please,” I said. “Would you do anything for me, the way I would for you? Would you go anywhere?”

  “Talante, why are you even asking?” Amelia was appalled. “I was the first to say that I loved you. It took you weeks to come clean, after I went through something that nearly killed me! You know I love you!”

  “Enough to leave everything behind?” I asked.“Enough to bind your fate with mine?”

  “Bind my fate…?” Amelia honestly did not understand. “Talante, what are you asking?”

  “I could turn you,” I said.

  My voice was low and quiet, and the words sounded alien to me as I framed them.

  “What?” Amelia raised herself upon splayed hands, her body tense with disbelief.

  “A time of attrition—outright war-–may be coming,” I explained, “coupled with the fact that Lothos most likely knows about you. And as you are now, despite the gifts my drink gives you, you are vulnerable.”

  I could not believe I was saying this to her. It was as though I were standing outside myself, watching another persona speak with my lips. “If you become one of us, you will have advantages you won’t have as a human. You would have a fighting chance. And I would train you personally. But I won’t lie to you. If you choose this, it means sacrificing a lot of your life as a human.”

  “I thought you wouldn’t turn me,” Amelia said, both bewildered and confused. “Why are you changing your mind all of a sudden?”

  “Because I love you.” I gently guided her back down upon me, then took one of her hands, and clasped it together with mine, softly enfolding our fingers.

  “The one thing I never told you about being a consummate host is just how deep our bond runs. It is so deep and pervasive that if anything happened to you, it would break me. I risked my well-being, and quite possibly my sanity when I made you mine. And I risked a terrible anguish to see you brave the withdrawal and wrench yourself free of me. If Lothos or any of his clan hurt you, I would never forgive myself. I might even lose my will to live. I made myself more vulnerable than I ever have in all my life. And it’s completely insane, but if I had to make the choice again, I know would do it again.”

  I swallowed, and realized the profuse flow of tears from my eyes, and a distant shaking of my arms. For the longest time, Amelia was silent, her face expressionless. I sensed the shock and ensuing turmoil in her heart. My offer had awakened feelings she had long since buried. She had resigned herself to being my lover and confidante, but always mortal, never my equal.

  It pained me to shake her so profoundly, and just as soundly it shocked me that I had even offered it. I consciously and deliberately ignored so many of my own principles in doing this, but I was a man in love, and capable of the most tremendously foolish things.

  “Talante…” She was a mess of confusion as she struggled to bring the words out. “You have no idea what kind of a position you’re putting me in. I mean, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want it, even at the cost you mentioned, but I don’t know what awaits me in this other life, either. I only know what I’ve seen. You told me once that the thirst is the most powerful thing to try and overcome. What if I can’t?”

  “You will,” I said. “It’s not impossible. My clan is proof of that.”

  “But what if I can’t? You can’t tell me that there have been some vampires who never learned to control their thirst.”

  “There have been a few,” I admitted. It was no disparagement. Even after ten millennia, there we
re some of my children who had not been able to master themselves, but they were much smaller in number than those who could.

  “And what happened to them?” Amelia asked.

  “Most of them died by their own hand,” I answered grimly. “Others were permanently sequestered; the rest changed sides. Lothos used their torment to seduce them.”

  “Is that all?” Amelia asked, revealing my attempt to hold back.

  “The others were put down,” I said, my voice hollow in my confession, “to end their torment.”

  “Would you do that to me?”

  “Only if you wanted it,” I said. “We never killed them outright; they had to ask for it.”

  “What are the chances that I wouldn’t be able to master myself?”

  I smiled, my fingers absently touching her soft face. “Very slim.”

  I felt the tension leave her upon my response, and her smile settled my own apprehension.

  “Would I have to call you ‘Master’?” she asked, smiling, much to my delight.

  “I will always be whatever you wish to call me,” I said. “I love you too much for you to be so formal.”

  “‘Sweetie’, perhaps? Or maybe ‘honey’?”

  “Or ‘my love’?” I suggested with a shrug, and then smiled in spite of myself. “You can call me that even as you are now.”

  “You scare the hell out of me with what you’re offering, you know,” Amelia said, returning to the primary subject.

  “Any step into the unknown is frightening,” I answered. “And this is more frightening than any. But I offer it because I love you. I should never have held back from confessing this to you, but what’s done is done. Besides, becoming one of us would place you on, shall we say, a more level playing field.”

  Amelia squeezed her eyes shut. Tears flowed from the corners.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not making this any easier for you, but I just want you to know all that my offer entails.”

  “I know,” Amelia said. “And I don’t blame you. To tell the truth, you are making this easier for me. What’s becoming harder to do is saying no.”

  Again, she went silent, and laid her head down upon me.

  I waited in the silence, broken only by our breathing. I felt Amelia’s warm breaths upon my chest. The choice was now up to her.

  “Yes,” she said at last.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Are you certain, despite what you will have to give up?”

  “Dammit, Talante!” A fire burned in Amelia’s gray eyes as she pounded my chest. “What are you trying to do to me? I said yes! Do it, before I change my mind again!”

  “As you wish,” I said, and shifted myself, turning to where I hovered over her. I drew upon the power of my Jewel, and our surroundings shifted. I felt a brief sensation of falling, despite the fact that there was something solid beneath us, but the texture suddenly changed. In the span of a second, we were in another bed: in my bed in my chambers, in the Lair.

  “God, Talante!” Amelia breathed, shifting her gaze furtively back and forth. “Tell me when you’re going to do that!”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I needed to bring us here, for safety’s sake.”

  “Safety?” Amelia’s confusion settled as quickly as it rose, as she recalled everything I told her about the change. “Oh.”

  “Yes.” I gave a mental command to any of my children who were nearby to send blood packs and clothing of Amelia’s size from storage with all due haste. I rose off of Amelia and helped her up to a sitting position beside me.

  “Are you ready?” I asked.

  “How painful will it be, exactly?” For a moment, Amelia dreaded a return to the pain of withdrawal.

  “Painful,” I said grimly.

  “Like…the withdrawal?”

  “Not quite like that,” I said, and I felt her fears subside somewhat. “And it will hurt the most only for the last few minutes, as your body completes the change.”

  “If it’s not as bad as what I had to go through with the withdrawal, then I think I can handle it,” Amelia said, managing a timid smile. Then she gasped as she felt my fingers tracing their way down her thigh and towards her sex.

  “There is also a way to lessen the pain,” I explained, sensing her confusion.

  Amelia trembled, and I watched her skin flush to my gentle touch. “How…does that work?” Her voice was breathy and shuddering from the pleasure I was already inducing.

  I grinned disarmingly, and I felt her relax through it and my touch. “Are you ready?” I asked.

  “I…I am,” she stammered.

  “Don’t be afraid.”

  Amelia nodded and closed her eyes, giving herself to me.

  I brought my fingers into the folds of her sex. I then began to goad her into the throes of pleasure as I discreetly slid forward towards her neck. There, my fangs found their mark, and I drank.

  This was the drink my inner beast had so longed for: a full, deliberate repast of mortal flesh long denied. The pleasure of it was devastating, enrapturing, and all I had wanted. Distantly, I heard her moan in the euphoria, and I grasped her to me, drinking deeply while my fingers manipulated her. Her body, pressed upon my own, writhed in time to my hand’s movements.

  I imbibed the torrent of blood while I brought her close to her moment. She was panting and groaning, her legs locked tightly upon my wrist. Her arms encircled me and drew me close to her, her breathing quickening. She yelped and screamed as she came, her body releasing endorphins that would counter the pain of being turned. She arched her back as the floodgate of her sex opened. A last wash of blood went over my tongue as her heart pounded.

  And then, it began to wane.

  Her breathing became shallow, and her heartbeat slowed as I drank more deeply. I could feel fear rising within her: primal fear of mortal death. It was held in check by her implicit trust and love for me. She was struggling not to be afraid while I drained her of every drop of her life’s blood.

  I admired the depths of her courage; most by this point would have struggled against me, despite the fact that the process was too far gone to stop.

  I felt Amelia’s body weaken; her legs loosened from my hand and her bare skin grew colder in my arms as I withdrew my fangs with a roar of satiation.

  It had been my final drink from her. After she would be Turned, her blood would be like human food: giving a moment’s pleasure, but no longer viable as a food source. Though her blood would be no less sweet, I would be forced to drink from our standard hosts once more for sustenance.

  I sealed the wound and laid her in the bed. Amelia’s complexion was pallid, her eyes sunken, her lips dry and pale. I could barely hear her breathing. Her heartbeat was fading rapidly. In a few seconds, she would be dead.

  Quickly, I bit into my wrist and pressed it against her half-open lips. I felt her tongue press against the flow that poured from my briefly ruptured artery, and then felt her mouth close upon my wrist. I felt the pull of her mouth as she swallowed reflexively, and then swallowed again…and again.

  She moved the blood from my body into hers, starting the transformation. I knew it had begun when she released me abruptly, and she coughed, her face contorting in pain.

  There was a knock at the door. I answered, concealing myself behind the door as I received the items I requested from two of my children who had heard my call. They bowed and I dismissed them. They would know what was happening. The smell of a human turning was a distinctive one, and Amelia’s painful groans were a telltale sign.

  I waited by her side for an indeterminable amount of time, holding her hand as she endured the pain of the change, sensing the dull pains that wracked her body as organs changed and her metabolism altered.

  She trusted me through it all, and was brave as she endured it, even as I died by inches at what I had done to her. I loved her enough to do this very thing that I had warned against those of my kind who fell in love with a hu
man. Few of whom we formed bonds of love with were given this choice for fear of what Amelia said. She might very well not be able to master the thirst, or become consumed by our powers and give into arrogance, either option Lothos could use to his advantage and seduce her to his side.

  Dear God…what had I done to her?

  The change came to an end, and life suddenly surged through Amelia. Her body went rigid. She sat bolt upright, eyes wide, and turned directly towards me. Her eyes were now like ours. The former slate gray of her irises had become subsumed by crimson, and her pupils were lengthened to catlike slits.

  She gazed at me for several seconds, a curious look in her eyes. It was almost as if she did not know me.

  “Talante?” she said at last. “Is that you?”

  She reached towards me and touched my face. Quickly she withdrew her hand.

  “My God!” She stared dumbfounded at her fingers. “You feel…It’s not the same!”

  “Your senses are changing,” I said.

  “I…I don’t feel so good,” she quavered, bringing her hand gingerly to her stomach. And before she could say more, her hand quickly moved to her throat. She coughed and coughed, her face contorting into a rictus of agony.

  She toppled to the side, her fit of coughing not abating. Her breathing quickened as she tightened herself into a fetal ball. Her side rose and fell in shallow pants, and then strained into a high-pitched choke as I felt the final torrent of sharp pains strike her body.

  She was shaking, her palms pressed into her eyes as if making an awkward attempt to gouge them out. Her fingers had already changed: her nails now claws: longer, sharper and thicker, like mine. Her hands curled into fists, but unfurled quickly when the claws pierced her skin.

  She stared at her hands, momentarily frozen in amazement and horror as the wounds sealed with barely a drip from them. Then she gasped as a new pain struck her. She screamed and slapped her hands around her mouth, stifling the rest of the sound. She doubled over again, squeezing her eyes shut, bawling into her hands. I watched as the color drained even more from her milky skin, transforming it into an almost translucent white as her side heaved from straining pants.