by Amy Cross
"A curious decision," her cousin says.
"Will you please leave the subject alone?" Evangeline says, trying not to raise her voice.
"You seem upset," her cousin remarks.
"I'm sure that's not so," Evangeline says, sighing. "It's simply a -" She clutches her belly. "I think..." She pauses. "I think the child is coming." She turns to walk away, but her strength fades and she collapses to the floor. Her cousin forgets all about the old book as she calls for help. Already there is blood coming from Evangeline's body, and although the child will be born healthy, Evangeline herself will not survive. Even now, as a doctor is called, Evangeline screams as the child begins to force its way out. A thin trail of blood seeps from her body and trickles across the floor, almost as if it is drawn to the book.
Sophie
Today.
Patrick leads us along the tunnel. I have no idea where we're going, but he seems determined for us to follow him and, right now, I don't see any better options. I could turn and run, of course, but then I'd just be back where I started, lost in a maze of tunnels while Patrick tracks me down, so I figure my best chance right now is to follow Patrick and to look for another chance to get away.
In my arms, Abigail has stopped crying. It's hard not to wonder whether she's somehow comforted by Patrick's presence. After all, it was Patrick who took her away from me after she was born, so perhaps she bonded with him. While she doesn't seem to recognize me as her mother, perhaps she recognizes him as her father; perhaps it's too late to save her, and she's already drawn to him. If that's the case, maybe I should just let him take her. If she's strong and smart, she can learn to think for herself. Eventually, one day, she'll want to know about her mother, and she'll track me down, but by then she'll have been warped and twisted by Patrick. I can't let that happen to her.
We reach a hole in the tunnel wall, and Patrick leads us into a rougher tunnel that seems to have been hewn from the rocks. It's much darker in here, but I figure I still have to follow Patrick. At some point, an opportunity for escape has to present itself, but for now I just have to remain alert and wait for a chance.
After what seems like an eternity, we emerge in a small stone chamber. Patrick leads us through into a huge room, and I stop, shocked by what I see. This room is like a ballroom in some stately home. The walls are covered in huge paintings, and there's antique furniture all around. Above, there's a huge chandelier. It's like being back in nineteenth century France, yet this whole place seems to be underground. Glancing to the side, I see piles of skulls and other bones piled up. They look old, as if they've been here for centuries. I had no idea this place even existed.
"Where are we?" I ask. I don't really expect Patrick to answer. After all, he's never said a word to me, so I don't see why he'd start now. For a moment, stepping out into the middle of this large room, I forget that I'm supposed to be trying to escape. The whole place just seems so unbelievably opulent and strange. Is this where Patrick lives? I always assumed that when the little house he lived in with Vincent was destroyed, he was left with nowhere.
"Don't look," I say as I see that Abigail is glancing over at the skulls. I turn her away. How much death and destruction can one child see before it starts to affect her?
Looking across the room, I see a large set of double doors in the distance. My first instinct is to run, but I'm pretty sure Patrick's got all the exits covered. The doors are probably locked and, even if they aren't, I doubt there's anywhere to go. Also, Patrick doesn't seem to be worried about me getting away, so I guess he doesn't think there's any danger that I'll be able to make a run for it. Still, it's a sign of a possible escape route. I just have to be smart here, and I have to plan ahead. There's a chance to get away, so I need to work out what to do. The urge to just rush out is strong, but I need to wait and bide my time. I might only get one more chance at this...
"Where are we?" I ask, my voice sounding small and echoey in such a big space.
Patrick ignores me. He seems more interested in the contents of a desk on the far side of the room. As I walk carefully toward him, something falls from the ceiling and lands on Abigail. It takes me a moment to realize that it's a small spider. I brush it away, but moments later two more fall down. After I also brush those away, I look up at the chandelier above me and see that there are dozens of spiders crawling all over it. I quickly step out of the way, preferring not to have spiders come raining down on my head.
"What happened to Nimrod?" I ask as I approach Patrick.
He pauses, turning to me. I've got his attention again. That's good; I need to see if I can get some information from him, although with Patrick any conversation can be a little tricky.
"Did you have to kill him?" I say. "He wasn't that bad. He was just messed up. He was just trying to help me."
Patrick looks back down at the book on the desk. I approach him and see that the book looks ancient, with old-fashioned text that I can't read. Whatever this book is, it seems to be completely consuming Patrick, and I can't help but notice that he seems to be obsessing over the last page.
"Is this the prophecy?" I ask. He doesn't reply, but I look at the book and it kind of makes sense. If the book contains the prophecy, then Patrick's studying the final page because he wants to change something. I look into his face and, for the first time in a while, I'm suddenly not scared of him. Patrick's always been difficult to be around, but it occurs to me now that perhaps I allowed myself to get too scared. Maybe I demonized him and started to see him as a monster when, in reality, he's far more complicated. He wants something, and he thinks he knows how to get it, but his plans aren't working properly and he doesn't know how to change them.
"Here," I say, holding Abigail out to him. It's a huge leap of faith, but I've got a feeling that maybe I can show Patrick that I trust him. This doesn't have to be about him against me; we can work together. "Take her," I say, seeing that he's a little hesitant. "She's your daughter. She won't bite."
Slowly, he reaches out and takes her in his arms. He seems suspicious, and he doesn't exactly come across as a comfortable parent. Nevertheless, Abigail seems content to be in his arms; she looks up at him with an expression that looks almost like awe.
"We don't have to fight over her," I say. "Do you remember when we were on the same side?" I stare into his eyes, but he's just looking down at Abigail. "Do you remember when you saved me from Dexter, and when you saved me from the old woman, and Martin Keller, and all that stuff? Before everything went wrong?" I reach out and touch his arm. "We can get it all back on track," I continue. "We can find a way around our problems, and we can make it work." It feels insane that I'm saying this to him, but I kind of feel like it's the only way. Running is no solution, so maybe I have to accept him and try to find some common ground. "You need me," I say. "Think about raising Abigail yourself. You need me to help you. And I will. We can do this together."
I try to work out what he's thinking. Is this working? Damn it, I'm starting to believe what I'm saying, so maybe he is too. I know Patrick's done some terrible things, but I feel like he's done them for genuine reasons. He's not evil. He just gets things wrong. He uses violence to get things when he should be calmer.
Slowly, I lean up and kiss him on the cheek. It's been so long since I kissed him, so long since I was this close to him, and there's a part of me that truly wants to stay. "I've got a plan," I say softly. "I think I know a way we can beat this stupid prophecy." I pause. "You're going to have to let me become a vampire, like you."
The Book of Gothos
1925.
"Joe!" shouts a man's voice in the distance. "Joe!"
"Down here!" Joe calls out, his voice rising to be heard above the din of the New York streets. Standing down in an alley behind one of the city's most luxurious hotels, Joe Hart is rifling through the bins, hoping to find some food. It's been a hard winter and money's tight. A little light scavenging from the bins of the city's more respectable establishments has become a good way to
get something to eat. As Joe sees it: the cast-offs from a big fancy hotel are probably better than the top-dollar items in some of the downtown diners.
"What are you doing?" his friend Buck says, hurrying over to join him. "If they catch you here, they'll shoot you."
"Then they'd better not catch me, had they?" Joe says, suddenly finding something unusual in one of the bins. He pulls it out and finds that it's a large, old book. "What the hell's this doing in here?" he asks as he inspects its tattered cover.
"Leave it," Buck says. "We're not so desperate that we have to eat books." He pauses. "Yet."
"I'll sell it," Joe says. "It's an antique."
"An antique?" Buck asks, not really believing that Joe could be so stupid. "Is that why someone decided to toss it out in the dumpster? Because it's a fucking priceless antique?" He tries to grab the book, but Joe keeps hold of it.
"Why do you care?" Joe asks. "If I want to hang onto it, what's the problem?"
Buck grabs the book and opens it.
"Careful," Joe says. "It's old."
"What the point of a book if you can't fucking open it?" Buck says, roughly flicking through the pages. "What's this, Russian?"
"It's old," Joe says again. "It's probably some language that no-one speaks any more."
"Great," Buck says, closing the book. "I guess that makes it even more useful." He stares at the cover. "I think this is blood."
Joe takes the book back and looks at the large stains all over the cover and spine. "Maybe," he says.
"Leave it," Buck says. "It's creepy as hell. Nobody wants it. There's a reason someone shoved it in the trash, and I don't want to find out what that reason is."
"I'll sell it," Joe says. "Just don't come to me asking for a cut of the profit when I get a handful of cash, okay?"
They walk away together, heading back to the main street. A few days later, Joe manages to sell the book to a bookseller in the Bronx, who pays enough money for Joe to be able to afford a ticket back to his family's farm in Kentucky. Feeling sorry for his friend, he gives Buck some cash as well.
The book, meanwhile, undergoes careful examination by the dealer. Unlike previous owners, the bookseller refuses to simply ignore the book's mysteries. He wants to get to the bottom of it, to understand it, to decipher its contents. He calls in some of the finest literary scholars in America, but they all find the book impossible to explain. This only deepens its mystery, of course, and eventually the dealer forgets about trying to understand the text and focuses, instead, on trying to extract clues from the book's pages and cover. He has the stains analyzed, and discovers that the book has been soaked in the blood of half a dozen different people over many centuries. Attempts to date the book are haphazard, but it's said to be from before the sixteenth century. There's no way to put a price on such an item, of course, but the dealer decides to keep it locked up anyway.
Many years later, on a rainy afternoon in 1987, the bell on the door rings and a man enters the shop. He looks fairly respectable, wearing a suit and tie, and with a briefcase in one hand. He approaches the bookseller's desk. By this point in time, the bookseller is an old man, spending his days in the shop in the belief that by 'keeping busy' he will somehow be able to avoid death.
"Can I help you?" the bookseller asks, looking up from his work.
"I'm here about a book," says the customer. "My name is Charles Nimrod."
Sophie
Today.
Patrick gently places Abigail in a large, ornate crib in one of the side rooms. It looks like he's been preparing for her arrival, or maybe the room is just left over from the other times Patrick has tried to have a child and raise it to take his place. Either way, at this precise moment, things don't seem so bad. I feel as if I've got Patrick under control. He used to have Vincent to calm him, and now I'm finding a way to do it. Things started to go wrong with Patrick when Vincent died, and maybe it's taken me this long to work out how to steady things again. If that's the case, then it's better late than never.
As Patrick carefully pulls the door shut, leaving Abigail to sleep, I look over at the piles of bones in the corner of the large room. Something seems strange about them, but I can't quite work out what it is. Then, suddenly, I realize: quite a lot of them are small, as if they're the bones of children. I turn to Patrick, feeling a sense of shock rising through me. Are these the bodies of all the failed children he's tried to have? Are Abigail and I just the latest in a long line of attempts by Patrick to get what he wants?
Patrick starts walking over toward a door on the other side of the room. Not really sure what to do, I follow him. We go into another room, which turns out to be a bedroom with a large four-posted bed in the middle. The walls are red, and the room is illuminated only by a few candles.
"So what do you think of my plan?" I ask as Patrick turns to me. "The prophecy says you have to kill me, right? So why don't you turn me into a vampire instead? Surely that involves killing me so I can be reborn like you? And you have the power to do it, so..." I pause, suddenly realizing what I'm asking him. If he agrees, I'll become... like him. I'll live forever. I'll have different abilities, different feelings, different emotions. I'll still be me, but I'll be a different version of me. "It's the only way," I say quietly, as much to myself as to him.
He steps toward me, getting so close that we're almost touching. Then, without warning, he leans down and kisses me. It's a long, slow kiss; it's the kind of kiss I haven't felt for a long, long time. As our tongues meet, I feel something sharp against my mouth and I pull back, realizing that one of Patrick's fangs has cut my lip slightly. I check with my finger, and find I'm bleeding slightly.
"Sorry," I say, though I don't know what I'm apologizing for. We start to kiss again, and this time there's more passion. It's as if all the fear and hatred is being washed away, replaced by the kind of feeling that we should have had from the start. I put my arms around him, running my fingers across his back, feeling his body pressed against mine. My whole body is trembling, and I have no idea whether I'm making the right decision. Finally, I can't wait any longer and I start to lift up his shirt, revealing his tight, toned chest. Part of me expects him to pull away, but he doesn't. He lets me remove the shirt entirely so that he's topless, and then we continue to kiss. I run my hands over the muscles of his back. This feels so different to the last time we made love. Back then, at the House of Gothos, he was just trying to get me pregnant. This time, it feels like something more.
As we continue to kiss, I unbutton my own shirt and drop it to the ground, and then I unhook my bra and let that fall too. I press my breasts against him, feeling his skin against mine, and it feels like the most perfect moment. Despite everything that has happened, and despite all the pain and lies, I feel as if I understand him, and I want him.
He suddenly picks me up and carries me over to the bed, placing me on the sheets and climbing on top of me. Soon we're both naked, and although he's not inside me yet, his body is pressed against me. As I run my hands down his back, I feel his hardness pressing against me, and finally I reach down and guide him inside. He fills me completely, and I gasp as he starts kissing my neck. There's a kind of passion and tenderness this time that I've never felt with Patrick before, that I've never felt with anyone before. It's as if he's really focused on me, as if he wants to give me pleasure.
Slowly, he starts to make love to me. I wrap my legs around him and push my hands down on his ass to help him get even deeper. He moves slowly and steadily, as if there's no rush. I feel each thrust pulsing through my body, as he leans down and starts to kiss my breasts. He takes a nipple between his teeth and bites gently, and I let out another gasp. I've never felt so much sexual energy pulsating through my body before. It's as if every other time I've made love has just been practice for this one, perfect moment.
He gets faster and I start to grip him tighter between my thighs. I place my hands firmly on his rock-hard ass, feeling it rise and fall as he makes love to me. We're locked into a
rhythm now, building up to an inevitable moment of excitement. I can't wait to feel him finish inside me, to feel his love throughout my body. He starts to kiss my neck again, while running his hands over my breasts and slightly squeezing my hard nipples between his fingers. It's as if he's consumed by his desire for me, and we're locked together, moving as one.
"I..." I start to whisper, but I can't finish the sentence.
He speeds up a little more. I can feel the first stirrings of an orgasm, and I can also feel him getting even bigger and harder inside me. He's going so fast now, pounding into me, building my excitement. I clutch at his ass, and finally I feel the orgasm begin to explode inside me. As the first wave of pleasure hits, I feel Patrick exploding inside me as I let out a series of high-pitched gasps. It's never been like this before. I've never been so completely aware of every inch of my body, and I've never had an orgasm take me over so completely. Our bodies tense and we hold each other. It's as if my whole body is trembling with pleasure.
And then he bites me.
With no warning, he sinks his fangs into my neck. I gasp as I feel them slice through the skin, their sharp ends driving into my meat. I'm so shocked, I have no idea what to do. At first it doesn't hurt much, but slowly the pain builds. I squeeze my eyes tight shut, trying to block it out and shut it in at the same time, but eventually I open my eyes and scream.
The Book of Gothos
1991.
Screaming until he can't scream any longer, Charles Nimrod finally drops to the floor. He pants breathlessly, trying to recover his composure, but the pain is intense and his head feels like it's going to explode.
