The Blood The Bonds

by Christopher Buecheler

  Hadn’t she wanted it? To rip, to tear, to feed? Had not her body peaked as those awful teeth began their assault, as it had with Theroen? As it had with Abraham? Had it not reacted to this horror with pulsing ecstasy, calling for more, calling for the blood?

  Had she not loved it?

  * * *

  Two was sitting up in her bed, pressing against the wall, knees to her chest, arms wrapped around them, shuddering. It took several seconds for the sound of the door opening to register with her. She looked up. Theroen, standing before her, concern and love and sorrow on his face, watching her with his awful composure. Two put her head down on her arms and began to sob.

  He was holding her, powerful arms, gentle touch. He lay next to her on the bed, and she wept into his chest. He whispered into her ear, calming, soothing, and his fingers touched her lips, and Two tasted blood there. She licked it greedily.

  “I am sorry, Two. It was foolish of me to leave without giving you this. It is my fault. I’ll not leave you again now. We will be together until this is done, and then forever.”

  The pain receded. Gone, not forever, but for the moment, and for the moment that was enough. Two twisted in Theroen’s arms, sobbing, crushed her body against his, kissed his neck, kissed his lips. Theroen kissed her tears from her face.

  “I am so sorry, Two. I would never have left you if I’d know it would get that bad, that fast.”

  She shook her head. She didn’t care. She didn’t blame him. He was here, now, and the rest was unimportant.”

  “Has it been this way since I left?”

  “No.” A whisper. It was all she could manage.

  Theroen sat up, seemed to notice her clothes for the first time. Two smiled sadly as he looked her over, shrugged her shoulders, looked at him in apology.

  “It looked a lot better... before.”

  “You look radiant. How strong you must be, to look so, and in such pain.”

  Two lowered her eyes. Was this strength? Theroen ran his hand through her hair, seemed awed by its softness.

  “Melissa helped me.”

  Theroen nodded, as if expecting this.

  “I thought she might show herself. She’s incorrigibly curious. Good that it was Melissa, and not Missy.”

  “There are two of them?”

  Theroen sighed, shook his head.

  “No.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Someday soon, I’ll tell you much more of Abraham, and myself, and Melissa... and why we are who we are. You are lucky, Two.”

  His smile, though, was bitter.

  “Why?”

  “We are unlike any other clan of vampires I have ever come across. We are as unique in our makeup as any mortal. Abraham, myself, Melissa... sweet Melissa, cruel Missy; sometimes she is both in a single night. Abraham was old when he made me. It gave me power beyond any of a normal fledgling. He was ancient when he chose to make Melissa, yet rather than bestow power upon her as it had me, the infusion of his blood broke her mind.”

  Two thought again of the howling in the woods, and Melissa’s immediate departure. She began to ask Theroen of this, but he was looking away, lost in thought.

  “Melissa is my sister, and I have loved her as much as many mortal brother might. I fear for her. I fear for what may happen when I leave.”

  “Leave?”

  “I cannot stay here much longer. Twenty years, maybe less. Abraham and I...”

  He trailed off, eyes clouding again. She saw sorrow there, and anger. Finally he sighed, shrugged, looked away.

  “You don’t like each other, do you?” Two’s voice was soft.

  “We despise each other.” Theroen turned to face her again.

  “Why?”

  “You felt his evil. You know it does not reside in me. He assumed the blood would convert me, change me as it had him. It did not. For four hundred years I have been his errand boy, slave to the whims of a depraved fiend whose lust for power and dark knowledge know no bounds. I have seen him murder dozens in a single night, solely to try, and fail, to read the future in their steaming entrails.”

  Two shuddered. Theroen looked at her, nodded grimly.

  “I am no knight in shining armor, Two. I have killed, many times, without repentance, and I would have you do the same. You must understand this. But I am not evil in the manner that Abraham is evil; active, conscious, focused. I am evil like a hurricane. A force of nature, nothing more.

  “There’s no evil in that.”

  “Isn’t there? But it doesn’t matter. I am the creature I have been for near half a millennium. Any moral dilemma which might once have existed has long since been washed from me. But I still hold the rest. I still hold love for human life, and I take it only when necessary. I loathe Abraham for his inability to feel these things.”

  “Why haven’t you left already?”

  “It’s the blood that bonds. It keeps me here. But the link grows weak as my powers increase. They are already well beyond what they should be for my age. This, too, is a source of frustration for Abraham. Most Eresh fledglings are not ready to leave their masters until well past their fifth century.”

  His eyes flashed suddenly, a look of disgust crossing his features.

  “Yet it is his own fault!” Theroen snarled. “He waited too long to make his children. He knew that age makes the blood unpredictable. He knew that if I was not driven mad by it, I would wield power unlike any ordinary fledgling.”

  “But he keeps you here anyway...”

  “Out of spite, yes, and malice. Abraham hates me, perhaps more than I hate him, but he would not be rid of me. I am his, do you understand? Or so he feels.”

  Two took his hand, kissed the fingertips.

  “This is the world within the world, Two.” Theroen’s voice was gentle now. He looked again into her eyes. “This is a secret life unknown to those who walk during the daylight. Oh, there are legends, rumors, movies and television and comic books. But they do not believe.”

  Two was kissing his face now. Chin, cheek, lips. Theroen kissed back absently, his mind still on their discussion. Two moved her lips to his neck, felt the pulse of his blood buried beneath the flesh, and was overwhelmed with sudden desire. She pressed her new, sharp teeth against the flesh, waited for his acknowledgement. Apprehension. Would he deny her this gift? Would her yearning go unfulfilled?

  She heard the smile in his voice. Satisfaction. He understood now; she wanted what he offered.

  “It is yours for the taking, Two. It always has been.”

  Two, unfamiliar with the mechanics of her own body now, pressed too hard, tore instead of pierced. The blood flowed out around her lips, dripped down her chin. Theroen, his unearthly calm never leaving him, lifted his hand to her head, pressed her against him. Two wrapped her arms about him, fastened herself securely to his neck. Drank. Swallowed.

  Warmth unlike anything she had ever known. Dizziness, desire. The blood coursed over her tongue, down her throat, hot and wet and alive. Two moaned, her arms tightening, and here it seemed was everything she had ever wanted. Thoughts of heroin were cleared from her mind. This was freedom. This was love. The full, rich liquid of life which Theroen now gave her freely was beyond anything within the scope of her experience.

  She dropped backwards, satiated, her thirst still small, her change still incomplete. Lying on the bed, gasping, reeling. Weeping again? It seemed she had wept more in the past two days than ever before in her life. Joy, pain, fear, desire. Theroen lying against her now, the wound at his neck already healing.

  “It’s okay to weep. I understand,” he whispered into her ear. “Ah, Two. There will be so much for us after. Soon, my love. Soon.”

  Soon, Two thought. Soon and then forever. She held on to Theroen, lost in the blood, lost in the ecstasy of it all. Small kisses now, lover’s kisses, and the joy she felt was too real to be wrong, too powerful to be denied. The moment it was safe for him to do so, Two was prepared to beg for Theroen to drain her, to fil
l her again with his blood, to finish her transformation.

  Immortality beckoned.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  The Priest, The Seamstress, The Student

  The Mansion. November.

  Her half-vampire nature was affecting the withdrawal. The symptoms had persisted for several weeks before finally ceasing. Two had been forced to endure them, as she and Theroen realized that whenever she fed from him, it delayed her recovery. This was not made any easier by the hunger. Even if Two had been able to stand up to the heroin, she could not go for more than a day or two without feeding.

  Two found it frustrating. Theroen was more patient.

  “A few weeks, Two, that is all. You are fighting it well. The symptoms are lessening. Soon you will be free of this entirely.”

  Two knew this was true. Yes, she was fighting hard against the withdrawal, spending much of her time in bed with Theroen at her side. Yes, the symptoms were lessening. Yes, she would soon be free of it. It didn’t dampen her anger, her sense that it was profoundly unfair that she should have to go through this at all.

  After a few weeks, Two had grown curious as to why her transformation was not progressing. She drank from Theroen routinely. Shouldn’t she be a full vampire by now? She had asked Theroen one night after drinking, sitting with him in one of the mansion’s large parlors.

  “No. Right now, I am only replacing the blood your body uses to power itself. Think of it like trying to gain weight. If you burn every calorie you take in, there is no change. When you take in my blood, your body converts it to a compatible form with its own. Right now, your blood is not complete.

  “When I finish you, I will drain you as far as you can go, nearly to death. Then you will drink from me. Your body will be so desperate for the blood that it will absorb it without conversion. You will effectively replace your blood with mine. Over time, and with repeated feedings, that blood will work within you, changing you. Some of the effects will be immediate, but most will only be a shadow of the abilities you will one day possess.”

  Two raised her eyebrows. “Repeated feedings?”

  “Our strain of vampire is very powerful. The ruling class, effectively. But the nature of the blood differs from the other strains. Our fledglings must drink, periodically, from their masters, or risk reversion.”

  “I can be human again?”

  “You can.”

  Two contemplated this.

  “You’ll need to explain this all to me some day, Theroen. How vampire bodies work.”

  “What I know, I will tell you. Unfortunately, Abraham has limited my access to writings on the subject, so there may be questions I cannot answer. I will try my best, though, and there will be many years in which we can learn, after you are complete.”

  If I let you complete me, Two thought, but she found that this carried little weight. The idea of returning to humanity was vaguely interesting, but she no longer held the belief that vampires were monsters. Not all of them, at any rate. She was not so unenthusiastic about the prospect of becoming one.

  If Theroen heard any of these thoughts, he gave no indication.

  Two was not prepared for a lecture on vampire physiology at the moment. She was still too warm and content from the blood. It would put her to sleep. She changed the subject.

  “Where is Melissa?”

  She had seen the perky young vampire here and there throughout the past few weeks. Melissa would stop by periodically to say hello, although she seemed to have knack for catching Two at a bad time, and her visits were usually restricted to a greeting, a short expression of sympathy, perhaps a few questions. After “let me know if there’s anything I can do for you” (which Two believed to be genuine sentiment), Melissa would leave to hunt. For the past few days, though, she had been simply gone.

  “Melissa stays in the city sometimes, if she’s in the mood. She will return eventually.”

  “Ah.” Two lounged on her couch, happy to be where she was. Thoughts of drugs and needles, pimps and hookers were far from her mind. That life was gone. Dead. The last remnants of it had largely left her this week, with the end of the withdrawal. Her mind instead looked toward the future. A life of luxury and power. Miraculous how things changed.

  Change. Two was wearing a pink dress and a diamond necklace that must have cost more than she had earned in her entire life. She had not put on a pair of jeans since her bath with Melissa, only a series of gowns and robes. Theroen had not forced these things on her. Two had chosen them. She enjoyed it, this expression of femininity, so rare in her previous life. She knew it wouldn’t last. She liked wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Liked pulling her hair back into a ponytail and forgetting about it. But for now, she was content with the dresses.

  Theroen rarely left her side. Only to feed, and then only in as quick a manner as possible. The withdrawal, it seemed, sometimes pained him more than it did her. His sorrow at seeing her suffer filled Two with an odd happiness. It proved that he cared. It proved that the love they sometimes whispered of together, in bed in the dark, was something real.

  “Is there anything you would know, Two?”

  Two considered this question. For days now, she and Theroen had hardly uttered a word to each other. There had been little need. He could read her mind. His expressions, his touches, these were enough for Two. They had forever for talking, and in the time before forever she wished only to enjoy his presence.

  Now, though, she was curious. “There’s a lot I’d like to know, Theroen. Where should I start?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “How very Zen.”

  Theroen smiled, nodded, continued to look at Two in his direct manner. From anyone else, this would have set her slightly on edge. With Theroen it was simply natural.

  “Who are you?” Two asked, smiling slightly.

  Theroen nodded, as if he approved of the question.

  “I am Theroen Anders. I was born in Norway, in the late fifteenth century. My family emigrated to Great Britain while I was still very young. It was there I met Abraham, there I felt the temptation of immortal life and succumbed to it. I haunted London like a bloodthirsty ghoul for hundreds of years. The new world called, we answered, and have been here since.”

  He raised his eyebrows, as if questioning whether this would suffice. Two smiled, shook her head.

  “No, Theroen. Who are you?”

  He grinned, expecting this.

  “You’d have me condense four hundred years into an evening?”

  “Four hundred years are four hundred years. A story’s a story, Theroen. It will take as long as it has to.”

  Theroen looked into her eyes, and Two felt herself swimming suddenly. She gasped.

  “Don’t fight.” Theroen’s voice, next to her yet distant. “Don’t fight, Two.”

  Two breathed deeply. Stopped fighting. Floated. Descended.

  * * *

  His belief in God was unshakeable, impossible to destroy. It was the glowing light which directed his every action, his every thought.

  Theroen had been a priest for less than half a decade, and he still loved God in the pure, glorious, righteous way reserved even in the clergy only for the very young. His black robes were only clothes; his faith was his armor, and Theroen cut through the sea of unbelievers around him without a fear in the world.

  Two resisted this vision, incredulous. Theroen, a priest? It was impossible, this being who seemed so utterly comfortable with his vampire nature. Theroen reminded her again not to fight the trance. Sit, watch, understand.

  His parents. Mother, hair blonde, eyes blue, every bit the Scandinavian woman. Lithe, tall for the time, full at the bust and hips, she was a picture of beauty standing at the window in Theroen’s tiny room, singing lullabies, whispering softly to her young child where they might someday go, what they might someday see.

  Father, dark in hair, dark in eyes, like Theroen himself. Grecian in ancestry, but without the wiry curls, which had been ironed fr
om his head by the passing of generations.

  Theroen, child of no more than a year, black hair, brown eyes, his mother’s pale skin, the face a combination of features which would someday serve to make him a handsome young man. This face would make women shake their heads behind his back. A priest? Looking like that? A waste.

  Theroen did not know if his memories of this time were accurate, or fabricated from stories and assumptions. He believed them to be honest recollection, but would never truly know. In these memories, mother and father fight sometimes. Living is difficult. The house is small, drafty, uncomfortable. The theatre has not called in weeks. They have no roles.