The Darkest Colors

by David M. Bachman

  You’re going to be proposing several major changes to the Code to the IVC Elders this weekend at the annual High Court Masquerade, and several of them are already publicly protesting.

  What made you decide that the Code needed to be changed?

  FALLAMHAIN: Well, watching a lot of people die because of the Code had a lot to do with it. But really, I’ve spent a lot of the past few months just trying to figure out how these things were allowed to happen in the first place. A lot of people died that never should have, and I honestly can’t pin all of the blame on one or two individuals. I blame a lot of it on the Code, the way it’s written, and the way people have used it to justify doing a lot of terrible things to each other.

  I don’t want anyone to think for a second that I’m in any way criticizing Duvessa’s legacy – I mean, at least as far as her leadership skills were concerned. The problem with the Code is that there are too many loopholes. I won’t name any names, but a lot of people all the way up the food chain have been exploiting those loopholes for decades, even centuries.

  I look at the Code as being a lot like the United States Constitution, which I’ve been told was actually what Duvessa had in mind when she wrote the Code. But like the Constitution, the Code needs a few amendments to fine-tune things and lay out a few specifics that she left out in her original version. The major loopholes need to be closed because it gives certain people too much power, and because it creates a lot of confusion.

  A lot of things in the Code just don’t make any sense at all. The way it is today, we have vampires all over the world living by a double standard. Right now, the Code says it’s wrong for a bloodspawn to kill their Maker, but then says that it’s okay for a Maker to kill their bloodspawn. According to the Code, if you take someone else prisoner and commit acts of violence against them, it’s considered torture, but if you do those same things to someone in your own bloodline, it’s only considered to be punishment.

  How can anyone take vampires seriously when the laws that we use to govern ourselves make us look like hypocrites?

  BING: Can you tell us some of the specific changes you’ll be proposing?

  FALLAMHAIN: For one thing, the Code needs to be consistent. Murder is murder, rape is rape, and torture is torture. It shouldn’t matter if these crimes are being committed against a human, a vampire of another bloodline, or a vampire of your own House. We have to be consistent about these things if we ever expect to hold any credibility with the rest of the world.

  You can’t expect anyone to know right from wrong if there isn’t even a standard definition of right and wrong established for people to follow. You can’t just leave it up to people to figure that out on their own and just hope that common sense will prevail. It doesn’t work with humans, and it certainly doesn’t work with vampires.

  Really, we’re a race of people whose natural tendencies lean towards violence and sex. Giving vampires a set of rules to follow like Duvessa did with the Code is like giving a little kid a hundred bucks and sending him out to go grocery shopping without a list. You can’t act all surprised when the kid comes back with a hundred bucks’ worth of nachos, soda, and candy. Duvessa had this, I don’t know, hedonistic sort of policy with everything. Her philosophy was like, if it feels good, then go ahead do it. So, it should come as no surprise that she deliberately wrote the Code to be as vague as possible. She left it wide open for a lot of personal interpretation. She gave herself and her followers every opportunity possible to legally indulge in what she liked to call “the many pleasures of the flesh.”

  BING: There have been rumors circulating on the Internet that some members of the High Court may actually decide to formally challenge you for proposing these changes to the Code.

  Do you intend to put an end to the legality of these formal challenges, these swordfights and duels to the death?

  FALLAMHAIN: I don’t like the idea of them, honestly. It seems hypocritical for High Court vampires to try to pass themselves off as being civilized and peaceful while we’re still hacking each other to death with swords and ripping each other’s throats out with our fangs. But sadly, it’s just how things have to be done.

  We don’t hold elected positions. Nobody voted me into office. Pretty much everyone in the IVC got to where they are today by killing someone else or by becoming someone’s consort. And I’m sorry if that offends anyone in the IVC, but that’s really the plain and simple truth of how it works. Our power structure is based entirely upon violence and sex. You can either sleep or slaughter your way to the top.

  I’m not – I honestly don’t know how else to say this but – the way this whole thing is run, the IVC, it’s really a lot like the Mafia. It’s all about favors and revenge and protection and, y’know, truces and wars. All of that sort of stuff. Of course, instead of using guns and bombs, we use swords and fangs, but you get the idea.

  BING: So, I guess that would make you the Don?

  FALLAMHAIN: I, uh – I guess, yeah. Well, not really. I know I don’t act like a Don. If it was up to me, the IVC wouldn’t be a monarchy. But, I mean, I’m not going to dissolve the IVC and strip everyone of their title. That would just be suicide. It would just create anarchy. But honestly, if there’s any way possible, I would like to steer the IVC more towards a democratic system, something where there are a series of checks and balances.

  Really – and I know this may sound a little weird coming from me – but the amount of power I have right now is just scary. I mean, I don’t have any conscious desire to abuse my power, but I don’t think anyone can really resist the urge to, like, indulge in it in one way or another at some point. That’s where it starts. And it’s kind of a slippery slope once you get used to having that kind of impunity, that reckless freedom.

  I know there are other people that would love to be in my place. Those people probably understand my power as Grand Duchess better than I do. There’s no doubt in my mind that someday, someone will probably kill me, or at least try to kill me, just to have that power. And I’m sure that if someone does kill me just to be in my place, they won’t think twice about using and abusing all of that power. I really hope that never happens.

  BING: It’s been over six months now since you defeated Countess Wilhelmina in what many people are calling a legendary swordfight straight out of classic Asian cinema.

  (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

  BING: Of course, we can’t show you a lot of what took place on that night in the lobby of the Tempe Chilton Hotel in Arizona, due to the graphic nature of the events. What you can see here, though, was obviously a very intense, very dramatic struggle between then Duchess Raina and the late Countess Wilhelmina von Reichenbach.

  (END VIDEO CLIP)

  BING: Looking back on the events of that night, what can you tell us about the experience of that fight?

  FALLAMHAIN: You know, I would love to be able to spend the rest of my life without ever having to see another picture or video clip from that night. I hated everything that happened in that hotel lobby, and if I had known then what I know now about Duvessa, I would have done a lot of things differently.

  BING: What would you have done differently?

  FALLAMHAIN: I wouldn’t have challenged the Countess to fight me, for one. Brenna and I had already spoken with the Countess beforehand in private. I believed everything that she had told me was true. That was why I signed that statement and made that video testimony that Senator Daniels made public. But even so, I guess the reality of it all never really sank in until halfway through the fight.

  I mean, Duvessa had done everything she could to portray Wilhelmina as being this sick, evil, crazy individual that had just decided to attack the House of Fallamhain just so she could become Grand Duchess. And while I did really buy into that for the most part, I still kind of kept an open mind about it because I know there’s always two sides to every story. When the Countess approached Brenna and me in the hospital, and when she spoke with us in that limo with Senator Daniels the next nigh
t, everything that the Countess said helped to fill in a lot of the blanks. She really didn’t try to persuade either of us to believe her story as much as she just, you know, just laid out the facts and left it up to us to decide for ourselves who we wanted to believe.

  After being with Duvessa long enough and seeing how she was when we were alone, I saw that almost everything Wilhelmina told me just totally jived. And so when I fought her, I was honestly kind of holding back a little bit because I felt sorry for her. I felt so guilty for taking sides with Duvessa when I knew that she had put her own daughter through, and how much effort she’d put into covering it all up. Duvessa was so far gone that she was even sincerely believing her own lies.

  In hindsight, I never should have challenged her. I don’t regret killing her, but I do regret that I challenged her. I know that sounds weird, but that’s just the truth of how I feel.

  BING: Why do you regret challenging her more than killing her?

  FALLAMHAIN: Because until she – she wasn’t – I’m sorry. This is still really hard for me.

  BING: Take your time.

  FALLAMHAIN: Until she attacked Brenna, I guess I still didn’t really see it as being my fight. It wasn’t really personal until she made it personal. You know? If I hadn’t challenged her in the first place, she would have never tried so hard to provoke me. She only wanted to get back at Duvessa. That was all she cared about. She was so damned obsessed with that need for revenge, though, that nothing else mattered. Anyone that got in her way, anyone that took up sides with Duvessa, she killed them, just like that.

  Brenna and the Countess just hated each other from the minute they first met. I don’t know, they were just like oil and water for some reason. So, she already kind of had it in for Brenna right from the start. But if I hadn’t challenged her, if I hadn’t put the Countess in a position where she had to choose between fighting me or surrendering herself to Duvessa, she wouldn’t have done what she had. She wouldn’t have felt the need to do something that she knew would make me want to kill her.

  When I saw her stab Brenna, I can’t even – I’m sorry. It’s been this long, and I still get choked up like it just – I’m sorry. But when I saw her do that, I just lost it. I lost all sympathy for the Countess. I don’t care how much she suffered or how wrong everything was that Duvessa may or may not have done to her. There was just no excuse for it, no possible way she could justify it. I realized then that she wasn’t any different than Duvessa. She was just sick, just really messed up in the head. And since I had already challenged her, I knew that it was up to me to stop her. I had to kill her. I didn’t want to. But, you know, she pushed me into that position, and that was only because I’d pushed her first by challenging her.

  BING: So why did you challenge her?

  FALLAMHAIN: Because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. If I hadn’t sat on my hands for so long before that, I could have said or done something before she even killed Noriko. If I’d known, I mean if I had really known then that Duvessa and Wilhelmina were so much alike, I could have just said, “You know what? This whole thing is stupid. Forget it. I’m out.” It would have totally taken the wind out of Duvessa’s sails, and Wilhelmina could have challenged her directly instead of Duvessa waiting for me to step in and do it for her.

  I mean, really, that’s the only reason I was dragged into this whole mess in the first place. Duvessa saw me as someone that she could win over, someone that would be loyal to her, and someone that would be willing and able to actually beat Wilhelmina in a swordfight. Wilhelmina was a lot older than me, but as it turns out, she had only begun training to fight and to use a sword for a year before I fought her. I’ve been training in shinkendo, iaido, and jiujutsu since I was sixteen. I don’t think of myself as an expert, really, but I’m good enough. The only reason why Wilhelmina was able to kill all of Duvessa’s consorts in the first place so easily was because she caught them all by surprise and because most of them weren’t even trained to fight. They had mostly just worn their swords just for show. Wilhelmina had apparently just poured her heart and soul into her own training because she was really, really good at it. None of Duvessa’s consorts even stood a chance. Not even Duke Hiroki, and he was the one that introduced Duvessa to the Japanese style of swordplay in the first place. So, I was more or less the first person Wilhelmina had ever fought that actually knew how to handle a sword.

  BING: Would you say that you beat her by skill, or would you agree with what some others have said in that she allowed you to beat her?

  FALLAMHAIN: Maybe a little bit of both. Only she could say for sure. She wasn’t terrible, but I wouldn’t say that she was any more of an expert with a sword than I am. She was very quick, very strong, and very passionate. And, of course, I wasn’t used to fighting for real, and definitely not used to fighting vampires. It was different because, for one thing, I was still just getting used to my own body when I fought her. I mean, it hadn’t even been two days since I’d gone through the Change at that point. It’s like taking a teenager that just passed their driver’s license test and then putting them behind the wheel of a racecar, and then expecting them to win the Indy 500. It was kind of overwhelming.

  But I think the bigger issue was just that Wilhelmina honestly didn’t want to fight me. She hadn’t expected me to jump in and challenge her, especially after Brenna and I had signed that statement with Senator Daniels. But I hadn’t expected her to just show up and start killing everyone in sight, either. I only expected her to go straight for Duvessa. So, basically I screwed up her whole plan. She didn’t know what else to do, so she – well, you know – she just got desperate and – if I had just bailed out of that whole deal like she’d suggested, then Brenna would still be alive.

  BING: Do you still blame yourself for Brenna’s death?

  FALLAMHAIN: Absolutely, yes, I do. Every single day. And I’ll probably never forgive myself. I miss her. God, I miss her so much.

  BING: At the hospital later that morning, after the fight, there was an incident between you and Grand Duchess Duvessa. That incident resulted in both of her personal guards being killed, you being seriously injured, and her being shot and killed by two hospital security officers. The officers in the shooting have their version, your servants, Marco and Lady Svetlana, have their own version, and people on the Internet in blogs and certain websites have theirs.

  What can you tell us about what happened?

  FALLAMHAIN: There’s not much to tell beyond what everyone else already knows. Someone I loved had died in my arms and I was unhappy to still be alive. I figured I didn’t have anything to lose, so I told Duvessa about the sworn statement that I had signed with Senator Daniels and the video testimony that I’d made. I was honestly so miserable that I just wanted her to kill me so I that wouldn’t have to kill myself.

  Apparently, what I told her pushed her completely over the edge. I knew that Duvessa had some serious anger management issues, a really nasty temper. But when I told her about meeting Wilhelmina and Senator Daniels and signing a sworn statement, she completely snapped. Apparently, she realized that everything was falling apart. She figured the game was up, that she had finally painted herself into a corner, and so she went completely berserk. She tortured me a little bit at first – and I’d rather not go into detail on that – and then she just started trying to strangle me. Someone else just happened to walk into the room in time to see that and called in hospital security, everyone else got involved, and it all just went downhill.

  BING: So, you were suicidal at the time this all happened?

  FALLAMHAIN: At the time, yes. I was just – I was overcome with grief. I hated myself because I was responsible for what happened. I wasn’t in my right mind.

  BING: Do you still have thoughts of suicide?

  FALLAMHAIN: No, not since then. I’ve dealt with severe depression off and on, but I’ve never honestly wanted to kill myself since that morning. I still sometimes get so depressed that I wish I could just d
rop dead from a random heart attack or something, but I’m never going to just fall on my own sword and deliberately make it happen. You know?

  BING: Did something or someone else change your mind?

  FALLAMHAIN: Well, when Brenna died, I thought, “That’s it. I’m alone now. There’s nothing left in life.” And so I didn’t care if I died. I wanted Duvessa to kill me. I mean, at that point, who was really gonna miss me?