The Blood That Bonds

by Christopher Buecheler

  Melissa’s eyes were hard and glassy, but if more sobbing threatened, she held it at bay. She met Theroen’s gaze, her mouth a thin, white line. Two looked between both of them, and at last shook her head.

  “No. That’s crazy. There’s a fourth alternative, whether you want to admit it or not, Theroen. The fourth is that we attempt the impossible and try to kill him. We have to!”

  It was Melissa who spoke.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Two. I’m going to die. Pick any scenario, and at the end of it, I still die. I’d rather not go with your life, and Theroen’s, on my conscience.”

  “But if he dies, maybe Missy will...”

  “Disappear? I told you, Two. I’ve known Missy for a very long time now. Abraham woke her up, yes, but she doesn’t mean to be put back to sleep. If I believed there was the slightest chance of that, I might agree with you, but even then probably not. So put it out of your head, now. You’re going to get yourself killed talking like that.”

  Theroen waved his hand, dismissing the idea. “Abraham knows the difference between threat and idle speculation. If anything, hearing Two speak in this manner would only amuse him. Were you to attempt it, Two, I do not think he would be particularly upset with you. He would likely welcome the entertainment. He would destroy you, of course, but he would do it smiling.

  “We cannot fight him, and even if we could, even if we pulled off the miraculous, what would be the purpose? The inevitable end for those we would be trying to save does not change. It is too much risk for no reward.”

  “Well that’s fucking great. I hate all of the choices, Theroen.” Two was beyond anger. Beyond tears. Her voice was hollow, exasperated, depleted of hope. Melissa looked at her with sympathy, as if Two was the true victim.

  “I’m not fond of any of them myself. I’m not entirely certain which I would choose, if the choice was mine. It is not. Melissa knows, has known for decades, that it is not. The choice lies with her, and I will abide by her decision, even if she chooses your fourth scenario.”

  Melissa sighed, shut her eyes, leaned back against the couch. Tears, tinged pink with blood, slipped down her face, but she did not lose her composure. After a long minute in which Two thought her own heart had ceased to beat, Melissa looked up at the ceiling, and then over at Theroen. Her face was hard, and rage danced behind her eyes. Rage at them? Rage at Abraham? Rage at the situation? Two could not tell.

  “I want a promise.”

  “Anything, Melissa.”

  “Take Samantha with you. Don’t leave her here for him to pervert. I know it goes against what he asked, but he can’t care that much. She’s just a human. Promise me you’ll take her, Theroen, and get her home. You can make her forget. Will you promise?”

  “You have my word, Melissa.”

  “Good. Then I want you to kill me. I’d rather you than her. Kill me, and kill Tori, and when Abraham rages, spit in his fucking face and tell him it’s from me.”

  * * *

  It had been twenty minutes since Melissa had departed, and Two still felt numb. There had been little more in the way of conversation after Melissa’s choice. She had asked Theroen when, and he had said only “Not yet.”

  Melissa had nodded, and left to hunt. The expression on her face was dark and distant, and Two did not envy whomever Melissa might choose as a victim.

  Theroen sighed, stood, turned off the television. He turned to Two, his face set in its typical expression. “Hungry?”

  “Starving,” Two admitted. “But I think if I drink right now, I’m never going to be able to stop crying. How can it be like this, Theroen? Why aren’t there more choices?”

  “Abraham makes it so. His age, his power, his will. There is something I neglected to mention to Melissa, something which makes me willing to risk his wrath and do as she asks. He believes he has found a way to make more children... to circumvent the process of the Eresh blood that eventually prevents us from creating any further fledglings. Our blood becomes too powerful, and our offspring go mad. Eventually they simply die from the shock.

  “Through great study, and watching your progression, Abraham believes he may be able to dilute his blood and, by doling it out in minute increments over a lengthy period of time, create some sort of sane fledgling.

  “I left this out because Melissa does not need to know. It is bad enough that she will eventually be engulfed by Missy, let alone that she will eventually become useless to Abraham entirely. When that happens, Abraham’s natural instinct will be to butcher Melissa, Tori, and Samantha without a second thought. Whatever death I can offer Melissa will be much better than anything Abraham might prepare.”

  “God, Theroen. How can you talk about this? How can you be this... this...”

  “This cold? I have been contemplating it for decades, Two, as I have said. Melissa’s fate is of great importance to me. I wish I could provide her with more choices. I wish I could save her, but I don’t know how. Every emotional fiber of my being screams against the decisions that are being made here. But I don’t know what else to do.

  “The young man whose body I occupy is still here, somewhere, Two. Vampires do not age as human beings do, and the hot blood of youth is still very close to the surface in me. I simply have centuries of practice in controlling it. That young man rages against this. He would try your impossible deed, if I let him.

  “I have firsthand experience, awful beyond description, that vampires of my age and power can be killed easily by their elders. Lisette’s destruction came at the hands of a vampire only a few hundred years her senior, and that vampire lived only ten more years before Abraham destroyed him. It has been centuries since those events, and Abraham has only grown more powerful. If we challenge him, we will die.”

  Two opened her mouth to reply to this, when a scream, long and wailing, echoed from somewhere below them. She shut her mouth with a snap, eyes wide, looking at the floor.

  “Samantha awakens,” said Theroen.

  * * *

  It was Two who went down to see the girl. She requested it, and Theroen had simply held his palms up to the air. Be my guest. Two wondered if he sometimes understood her motivations better than she did herself. Two did not know why she needed to talk to this half-vampire woman whom she had never met. Two only knew that it felt right, and after a life guided mainly by instinct, she had learned largely to trust such feelings.

  She knew the girl could hear her footsteps, coming down the long stone staircase. She could sense a sudden panic, could hear the already rushed breathing speed to a near hysterical pace. She spoke into the darkness. “I’m not going to hurt you, Samantha.”

  The panic broke, at that, and the voice at the end of the hall began running like water. “Who are you? Where am I? What’s happening to me? Where am I? Help me! Where are you? You have to help me!”

  Two could see the bars lining the wall, could see the form behind them, on its knees, shuddering. Samantha was wearing a pair of jeans and a loose silk blouse. No socks, no shoes. Two tried to remember waking up in that cell. Only a few weeks ago. It seemed forever.

  “I’m going to light a candle. There’s one down here. Everything’s going to be okay. You’re fine, and I’m here to help. Try to relax, if you can. It will be better for you.”

  The girl lapsed into gulping, panicky breaths, staring out into what Two realized must be, for her, total blackness. Two could see the candle on a small table by the cell, a box of matches sitting beside it. She struck one, and held it to the wick. The flame glowed and flickered, casting enough light that Samantha was able to pinpoint Two’s whereabouts. She scurried down the length of the bars, pressed up against them, held her hand out. “Help me! Help me!”

  Two sat on the floor and took her hand. The pressure would have been hard enough to hurt, if Two were still human. She wondered at this. It wasn’t the major aspects of vampirism that continued to astound her, but rather the small revelations.

  “Samantha. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re
not hurt.”

  “I feel wrong. Help me!”

  Two laughed a bit at that. “Yes, I imagine you do. Can you take the facts straight, Samantha? Or do I have to dance around them until you calm down?”

  Her matter-of-fact tone was working. Samantha closed her eyes and, with visible effort, forced herself to breath deeply, to get control of herself. Her grip on Two’s hand loosened slightly.

  “Just tell me,” She said after a moment. “It can’t be any worse than sitting in the dark alone, wondering what the hell is going on. All I could think of was Silence of the Lambs.”

  “How much do you remember?”

  “Not much. I remember some chick in a leather jacket kept smiling at me at the club, and that I couldn’t stop looking at her. Look, I’m not normally into that, you know? But there was something about her, and you only live once, right? I remember finally getting up to go talk to her... and then I woke up in this fucking hole.”

  Two nodded. “Okay, well, here it comes. When you don’t believe it, I’ll prove it to you. But I’ll tell you first. Last night you came home with a vampire named Missy. You uh... hooked up with her, and she bit you, and drained a bunch of your blood. Normally you wouldn’t remember this, but she decided to give you some of her blood in return. Since she didn’t drain you all the way, you’re not completely a vampire yet, but you’re about halfway there. After that it gets... complicated.”

  The girl was silent for a long time. Her response, when it came, didn’t surprise Two much.

  “What?”

  “I know it sounds hard to believe...”

  “Hard to believe?” Samantha gave a tiny, hysterical laugh. “Hard to fucking believe? I pass out somewhere, and I wake up in a fucking prison, and some random chick comes down and tells me that I’m in some fucking Brad Pitt movie, and it’s only ‘hard to believe?’ It’s fucking impossible!”

  “Not impossible. Trust me.”

  Samantha pulled her hand from Two’s gripped the bars, stared out at her, furious. “Listen, you crazy bitch, I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what the fuck hallucinations you’re having. I don’t care how many crazy people there are in this house. Tell me where the fuck I am, and then let me go. Right now.”

  Two felt anger for a moment, and forced herself to react as Theroen would. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, they were calm.

  “Samantha...”

  “Sam. Everyone calls me Sam.”

  “Sam. Get up. Go look in that mirror on the wall. You couldn’t see it in the dark, but I know from experience that the candle’s more light than your eyes need, now. Go look, and tell me how hard it is to believe.”

  Samantha stared at her for a moment, then curled her lip in defiance and stood up. She took two quick strides over to the mirror and peered into it. Her reaction was immediate, and very similar to what Two’s had been. She flinched back, stumbled, fell backwards, crying out: “Jesus!”

  What had Theroen said? Jesus has nothing to do with this.

  “I’m sorry, Sam.”

  Two watched as Samantha covered her face with her hands and wept.

  * * *

  “I’m dreaming.” Samantha was staring at Two with horrified eyes. Two had not moved. A human would have lost circulation by now, sitting on cold, hard concrete, Indian-style. Two felt as if she could stay there all day. She shook her head.

  “No.”

  “Then I’m insane. Locked up somewhere. Hallucinating. Someone gave me some bad acid. Something...”

  “No.”

  “How can you say ‘No?’ This shit is not possible.”

  “I sometimes find it hard to believe, myself. I’ve only been a vampire for a few days, and I was human less than a month ago. You grow accustomed to it pretty quickly, though.”

  “Forget it. I’m not buying. This is a dream.”

  Two shrugged. “Okay. I don’t really care whether you accept this or not, right now. How about this? At least play along. It will make things easier in the long run.”

  “Fine. I’m a vampire. You’re a vampire. Life’s a bitch. What’s next?”

  “Do you want to get out of the cell? I can take you upstairs to meet the others... or Theroen, at least.”

  “Who’s Theroen?”

  “I guess he’d be your Uncle... sort of. If you follow the whole vampire lineage thing.”

  “Whatever. If it means getting out of this hole, fine.”

  “You have to promise me a few things first.”

  “Like?”

  “Like first, you’re not going to bolt out the door the moment I open it. You wouldn’t make it past me, and you definitely wouldn’t make it out of the mansion. Theroen would know what you were doing before you got up the steps. Even if you did get outside, you’d have to deal with Tori, and I think she’d probably kill you. So when I open the bars, let’s stay calm, okay?”

  “I can do that, I guess.”

  “Good. Second, try to keep an open mind. I know how hard that is... believe me, I know. Try to at least give what you’re seeing and hearing a chance, before shutting it all out.”

  “I’ll try.” Samantha didn’t sound like she held much faith in herself on this point, but at least she had regained some of her composure. Two produced the key Theroen had given her, unlatched the door, and opened it.

  “Okay. Let’s go upstairs.”

  * * *

  It was evident to Two, simply by the expression on Samantha’s face, that she was no more accustomed to such opulence than Two had been. Sam seemed unable to decide what to look at first, and was moving her head about in quick motions, like a bird, taking it all in. The size of the rooms, the sheer scope and expense of the clutter. The mansion still amazed Two at times. To Sam, it was unbelievable.

  “Interesting, huh?” Two was walking slightly behind Sam, letting the girl take her own meandering course through the first floor’s many interlocking rooms.

  “It’s incredible.”

  There was silence for a time, as they walked. Eventually, Sam spoke again.

  “So... you said the girl I met in the bar was Missy, right?”

  “Yes, her name is Missy.”

  “Who are you?”

  Two laughed. She’d forgotten to introduce herself.

  “My name’s Two. Like the number. It’s a long story.”

  “Do you live here?”

  “I do now, yes. For the time being anyway. Like I said before, I’m pretty new to all of this myself.”

  “Did Missy do this to you, too?”

  Two suppressed a shudder. “No. Missy is, well... it’s complicated. Missy is Theroen’s sister, so to speak. Sister vampire anyway; the same person made both of them. She and Theroen, and another girl: Tori, were created by the elder vampire who lives in the other wing of the mansion. His name’s Abraham, and if you never meet him, then consider yourself lucky.

  “Theroen created me, but I’m not really his daughter. More of his wife, I guess. Like I said: complicated.”

  Samantha said nothing. She glanced briefly at Two, and the expression spoke volumes about her skepticism.

  “I know you don’t believe me, Sam. Just... let’s go on, okay? Maybe Theroen can convince you.”

  Sam shrugged. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  Theroen was nowhere to be found. Eventually, Two lead Samantha back to the media room. “We might as well wait here for him. You can watch TV or something.”

  “I want to get out of here.”

  “We can’t, yet. You need to talk to Theroen first. Trust me.”

  “Why?”

  Two opened her mouth to explain, but before she could, they were interrupted. The mansion’s front door opened, closed, latched. Footsteps in the hall, growing louder, coming toward them. Two turned, expecting Theroen. She was greeted instead by a nightmare.

  * * *

  Missy. It had to be Missy. She was standing in the doorway, drenched in blood. The red liquid coated her face, her
neck, the upper area of her blouse. Her hair was tousled. Her eyes burned like embers.

  “What are you doing in this room, with my child?” Missy’s voice was calm, but her expression bore malice beyond anything Two had thought possible. She leaned her weight on one hand, resting on the door frame. Her fingernails clicked out an expression of her impatience against the beveled wood.

  Two breathed deeply, steeled herself, met Missy’s gaze and held it.

  “Talking.”

  “If I wanted you talking with her, I would have given you my permission.”

  “You weren’t around. Your better half went out hunting.”

  Missy retained her composure, but her lip curled up at this. She glared at Two for a moment, and then her lips formed a smile. Her eyes still spoke of hate.

  “The woman you’re referring to is gone. She gave up. She let me in. First time in my life I haven’t had to wait for the stupid bitch to go to sleep to take over. She just... gave up. It was marvelous. She gave me control, and that tells me everything. I know it, and she knows it: I am the better half.”

  Two opened her mouth to reply to this, and Missy held up her hand.

  “Save it. I know everything, Two. Melissa’s stupid and scatterbrained and she doesn’t remember anything about me, but I remember lots of things from her time in this body. Like what Theroen’s planning. His little parting gift to his sisters. I suppose I should be upset but, really, it just makes this so much easier.

  “So, yes, I know all about your little plot; the priest and the prostitute, safe and happy and away. I know what Theroen has planned for me, for Samantha, and for Tori. But he doesn’t know, Two, what I have planned for you!”