PANDORA

by Rebecca Hamilton

  I wore it onto the streets to sate my hunger with a proper feed.

  ***

  That night, I brushed past an unassuming human girl and followed her into a club. An hour later, I left her body deposited in the back of the establishment after having liberated several pints of blood. My feet met the Philadelphia asphalt with the stride of a killer, my conscience blissfully bereft of the guilt I had been carrying. The vampire who relished the hunt had returned, and would not be so easily deterred this time.

  Returning to the coven, I passed by Rose and Rebecka. The latter still wore spatters of blood across her dress, but said nothing to acknowledge my presence. Rose, on the other hand, floated toward me when I said hello and accompanied me up the stairs without even being asked. The press of her body against mine hinted at a million intentions, making the air thick with tension as we disappeared inside my room.

  Sounds of a much different nature than the days previous shook the walls of my room that night. Claw marks and puncture wounds littered my body, my new name the one Rose called out in the throes of passion, cementing it in decadence. When I shut my eyes to rest, I slept far sounder than I had since waking as a vampire. And when I rose the next evening, it felt as though I had experienced a second awakening.

  A carefree tenor took hold of my steps, my tongue still savoring the woman I had murdered and my hand buzzing with the recollection of holding that sword. My body hummed from the experience of bedding Rose and even passing my brethren in the hallway failed to sour my disposition. I crossed paths with Sabrina in the main foyer as I returned from another night on the prowl.

  My mistress placed her hand on my shoulder, stopping me. I studied her, eyebrow raised, while her fingertips brushed across the fine linen of my suit. “Did your brother give this to you?” she asked.

  I nodded. Sabrina shook her head and raised her eyes from my lapel to my glasses. “You need a few of your own. I will summon a tailor at once. For now, come to my quarters. I have something I’d like to discuss with you.”

  “As you wish, Sabrina,” I said. She flashed a seductive smile and I followed her up the stairs, marveling over the change a day brought with it. The people who passed us all looked at me in a different manner, word having spread by then, no doubt, of the coven second-in-command being brought to his knees by an untrained neophyte. Where once their gazes were laden with disdain, now I saw the same expression on their faces I had seen on Michael’s at the finale of our duel. The experience was intoxicating.

  “What do you want to talk about?” I asked, as we approached the door to Sabrina’s penthouse.

  Sabrina nodded at the stocky bodyguard beside the door. Paul only offered me a quick glance. “We’ll discuss this in more detail inside, but I believe I have an offer that will interest you.” A deliberate pause followed while her eyes traced over me. “Flynn.”

  A wicked smile surfaced in response, one I could not have contained if my life depended on it. “You like this new identity?” she asked, mirroring my grin.

  “Yes, I do, actually,” I said.

  She raised an eyebrow at me, her grin never wavering. “Well, I believe we can help you make some good use of it, child.” Sabrina turned before I could answer and opened the door to her private quarters, pausing to allow me to step inside ahead of her.

  I stopped, though, the moment I saw him standing in her living area.

  Michael raised his head, his eyes studying me longer than they did Sabrina. Standing in front of a leather couch with a book in hand, he lowered it onto a table and then straightened again, slipping one hand into a pocket. He did not flash condescension or loathe, but gazed at me, neutral. I had not crushed the elder vampire’s spirit, but he did not regard me as an inferior nuisance any longer, either.

  Sabrina closed the door and preempted any exchange of greetings. “I believe we are on the dawn of an epiphany, my dears,” she said, stepping past me into the room where Michael stood. “And while I should be reprimanding you both for that childish little fight you engaged in, I’m actually tickled that it happened.”

  Our mistress sat in a matching leather chair and crossed her legs. Her eyes settled on me. “Well, come. Sit.” Sabrina pointed at another chair. “Robin and I have a proposition for you.”

  “Robin?” I stepped forward, remaining standing for the time being.

  Michael looked away. “It’s only fair. I accepted your wager and you bested me.”

  “I think it’s splendid,” Sabrina said, a chuckle in her voice. “Flynn and Robin. Suits both of you, if you ask me. You want to act like a pair of brigands? Then you’ll wear their colors.” Her amusement dissipated as quickly as it surfaced. “Now, sit.”

  I lowered my frame into the chair and watched as Michael Robin settled onto the couch, his focus on Sabrina, which compelled me to regard her as well. Sabrina glanced between us. “As I said, I should be handing out punishments for last evening’s spectacle.” Her eyes settled on me. “You, for the blatant lack of respect you have displayed toward a second-in-command.”

  Sabrina looked next at Robin. “And you, for threatening the life of a member of this coven. You know what type of punishment I exact on those who endanger my offspring. You acted as though a mortal child, not a vampire of your years, and should count yourself fortunate I do not send you into exile.”

  Robin dropped his gaze toward his hands resting on his lap. “If exile is the punishment for ”

  “Oh, stuff it. We have spoken of how you are going to pay your debts.” The red-headed vixen turned her attention back to me. “Prior to that little debacle, I believe you and I were talking about gifts and talents. You only seeing a curse and me telling you talents would emerge when you embraced what you are.” Her grin resurfaced, in all its decadent wickedness. “And then I witnessed you with that blade and saw a prodigy in the making. Tell me, dear Flynn, have you ever wielded a sword before?”

  I scoffed. “The only thing with a sharp edge I used before was a scalpel.” I stifled adding the butcher knife assassination of my former paramour to my resume.

  “Which makes this all the more of a wonder to me.” She shook her head. “You creatures truly are born with that proclivity.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She flicked her hand to the side in a dismissive manner. “Never mind, dear. The point is, what you did transcends astonishing. I think we need to cultivate this.” The way she suddenly regarded me caused a shiver to run up my spine. Sabrina opened her mouth wide enough to flash fangs at me “You liked that sword, yes?”

  I nodded without needing to consider the question. Sabrina nodded as well. “This is why you wanted to keep it. You have a pull toward it, don’t you?” she asked.

  “Yes, I do.” I furrowed my brow. “Even before I stole that sword off the wall, I was looking at the display weapons in the parlor and felt something strange. Like something was ” I pointed to my ear. “ whispering at me.”

  Sabrina’s expression turned amused. “Child, you hear too many voices. You need to put that all behind you now and have your wits sure and steady. Robin is going to teach you how to properly use that blade. Timothy and I are going to watch your progress. You might have great things in store for you.”

  “Robin’s going to teach me?” I looked at him as his eyes shifted toward me. A smug grin enveloped my countenance. “Didn’t I just beat him in a sword fight?”

  “Don’t get cocky, neophyte,” Robin said, a dash of annoyance bubbling to the surface. “You barely won. Had I not been so incensed, I would have impaled you before you found the opportunity to play dirty.”

  “Sour grapes?” I asked.

  “Hardly.” Robin scoffed. “You swung the sword like a madman. No discipline to it whatsoever. There were only two things working to your advantage.” He raised a hand, lifting fingers to enumerate his list. “Passion and instinct. One could have just as easily resulted in your demise and the other is what took over when you had no idea what the devil you were doing. If you
want to do anything other than throw a piece of steel around and pray for impact, then you have need of instruction. A lot of instruction.”

  “Alright.” I looked at Sabrina. “So, if I learn how to use the sword correctly, what’s going to happen?”

  “Oh, there is much more to it, my dear. Not only learning how to use the sword. Learning a love for the blade as a whole. I believe you have it in you to become a virtuoso.” Sabrina uncrossed her legs and slid forward in her seat. “Robin will instruct you at first. If you do well with him, then I will summon the best instructors from the four corners of the world to train you. You fancy the Japanese blade? I will have somebody direct from Japan come to this coven to ensure you become a god with it. And Robin will teach my blade-wielding assassin how to become a shadow and a myth.”

  “Assassin?” I asked, a queer rush of excitement springing up from the depths of my soul, awakening the sadist inside that much more. My mind spun, dizzy with the prospects. “You think I can become an assassin?”

  Sabrina flashed her decadent smile once more. “I think you were born for it.”

  The rest of the conversation flew by like a blur, a matter of formalities and little more. Sabrina dismissed Robin and me, leaving us to depart together with a heavy silence hanging between us. His eyes remained fixed ahead of him, his mouth pursed in thought.

  The change in tenor begged to be recognized.

  “Why did you get in my face last night?” I asked as Robin closed the door to Sabrina’s private quarters.

  Robin paused, looking at me with a scowl. “‘Get in your face?’ For God’s sake, speak English.” He shook his head as he looked away. “You have need of learning more than sword skills.”

  “You’re going to teach me how speak properly now, too?”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  Robin fell silent, but did not walk away just yet. I sighed and rolled my eyes. “What provoked your outburst last evening?” I asked. A smirk punctuated my question. “Is that better?”

  “It’s a start.” Robin’s gaze shifted toward me again. “Personal matters which are none of your business.”

  “Then at least explain ‘Flynn’ to me.”

  “A child of red,” he said smoothly. “The name comes from my native country. You are a vampire, brother.” He looked me over from head to foot before staring me in the eyes. “Start behaving as such.”

  Robin turned and started for the stairs. I did not give pursuit, allowing him enough time to put distance between us before I followed his path to the second floor. It was just as well that we would not encounter each other again that evening; the bruises of a wounded ego were apparent in Robin’s behavior and I was yet adjusting to my new way of life.

  I slipped into my room and was reminded of the chaos of the last week and a half when I took stock of the mess that had accumulated. I began to sort through the wreckage, bent on finding the contentment and order I once possessed. The changes taking place by my hands and beneath my skin were relished equally, like a taste lingering sweet on my tongue.

  The knife-wielding mortal, transforming into a bloody assassin.

  Only fitting to see Peter off by the razor edge that made him a killer as well.

  Part Two

  Rise of the Assassin

  “A sword is never a killer,

  it is a tool in the killer’s hands.”

  Seneca

  Chapter Seven

  My room became a different sort of refuge in the days that followed. What once was a cell for the conscience-laden became a haven for a sociopath, a proclivity creeping through my system like a slow poison releasing its toxin into my veins. The mortal inhibitions which kept my dark side tethered were gone; I rose each evening to find temptation crawling up my spine, something which worsened the more I used the blade. It was a good thing Robin kept me too busy to indulge.

  The inevitable might have come to pass much sooner otherwise.

  Oh, I still hunted. Robin demanded it, but he refused to leave me to my own recognizances. His constant presence irritated me a great deal at first where my brother had once been the mocker in the corner, he now became a demanding taskmaster. And his instruction did not end with sword skills and weapon handling.

  Robin became determined to reinvent me altogether. My speech, my stalking, the art of luring and seduction the Victorian vampire held nothing back and I, in turn, could not so much as spit without evoking commentary. “Is this how Timothy taught you how to hunt?” Robin asked one evening, his arms folded across his chest with his blue eyes observing me as I held a mortal in my arms. Her head tipped back, vacant eyes beheld the heavens while I drank from her violated jugular.

  I raised my head, fangs still elongated and stained with red. “Are you going to critique the way I hunt now?” I asked.

  “You kill like an animal. This isn’t what I taught you.”

  “Your way takes too damn”

  “Language, Flynn.”

  I grumbled. “Fucking prude.”

  It happened too fast for me to react. Robin closed the short distance between us and smacked the glasses off my face. Dropping the human, I raised my hands to cover my eyes and yelled as my victim’s body hit the ground. “Why the hell did you do that?!”

  “First of all, your reactions are too slow. You should have been able to move out of the way before I reached you. If you have a weakness, then you must be on guard at all times for those who would exploit it be they friend or foe.”

  Doubled over, I pressed my palms against my eyes while turning in the direction I heard the hard plastic land. Robin stepped forward, though, and pulled one of my hands from my face to slap the frames into my grip. I thrust the glasses over my eyes and grumbled at Robin again. “You have a lot of fucking”

  “And two . . . Watch. Your. Language.” He scowled at me when I met his gaze. “You sound uneducated and ignorant. Now . . . ” He glanced at the body lying on the ground before looking up at me again. “Are you an animal or a vampire?”

  I raised a hand to rub my eyes. “Your method takes too long.”

  “Takes too long? Did you learn nothing from that first day? You grow lazy and stupid and apt to produce bodies which look like animals were set loose, instead of learning to do it correctly.”

  “Does it matter either way?”

  Robin paced around me. “Yes, it does, in fact, for several reasons. Cleanliness, for one. Finesse, for another. It is much like your sword skills you can raise the sword, but your blows lack discipline. This is what I am trying to teach you.” As I looked at him, I beheld the raised eyebrow directed at me, a hint of the old Michael surfacing in his gaze. “Besides,” he said, “You were a doctor and have not heard of the carotid artery?”

  “Of course I’ve heard of the fu”

  “Language, Flynn.”

  “ . . . carotid artery.”

  Robin nodded. “Then you should know what to do with those teeth of yours. I showed you, for the love of all things.” He huffed and leaned against a building in the side street where we stood. The breeze of a late winter evening blew past Robin, as though bent to tousle his hair while unable to ruffle even a strand. “Timothy taught you ill. He has a taste for the jugular. The man never possessed a drop of aristocracy in his veins that he did not drink from a victim. Your teeth are long enough to nick the artery and drawing from it will force the blood flow through the wound.”

  “Why does it matter?” I asked. “We are predators. Who cares how we do it?”

  Robin looked at me, an even expression on his face. “I am teaching you the difference between a butcher and an assassin. If you wish to be an animal, suit yourself.”

  I furrowed my brow while he walked away, giving chase the moment I saw he was being more than a scornful twit with me. He did not look at me, but continued speaking as though repeating a mantra. “An assassin has finesse. He leaves nothing in his wake but death. Everything is clean and done with precision. Patience should be demonstrated when patienc
e is called for and expediency at the ready when that is in order. It translates into everything, Flynn. From the way you stalk, to the way you kill.”

  I smirked, my eyes fixed on the city. “When do we get to the swords?”

  Robin rolled his eyes. “You are still an impossible nuisance. Don’t think my sentiment on the matter has changed.”

  “You’re too old to know the definition of the word, let alone how to do it.”

  His jaw clenched, Robin answered with silence and I continued to smirk in the same cocky manner. My arrogance was relatively short-lived, however. Robin savored a cup filled with schadenfreude a few weeks later when my weapons instruction commenced.

  An open room typically used for meetings between Sabrina and the other vampire elders of our area facilitated our sparring sessions. On the first night, Robin stood halfway across the room, nothing more than tiled floor between us, with all tables and chairs removed from the immediate vicinity. Suit jackets stripped and sleeves rolled up, we held the blades Robin insisted we use. Two European swords; light, straight, and sturdy.

  “Bring me to my knees again,” he said, poised for attack.

  Yet, he did not move.

  I wrapped both hands around the hilt of my weapon, then leaped for him and swung the blade just as I had the night I bested him. This time, however, Robin ducked and shifted to the side. My swipe cut through nothing but air and my landing left me vulnerable.

  I felt a sharp blade slice across my shoulder. Turning, I hissed at Robin, fangs descending. He smirked at me and rotated his wrist to swing his sword around in an idle form of mockery. “What the hell?” I asked, freeing one hand to clutch my shoulder.

  “You’re lucky I am not nearly so incensed tonight, dear brother,” Robin said. “I could have impaled you through your back.”

  Gritting my teeth, I readied myself again. Robin remained still, not bothering to motion one way or the other. He kept his sword lowered to his side with only one hand clutching it. The nonchalant posture infuriated me and I made another aggravated pass for him, aiming for his neck and too angry to care one whit over chancing his demise. But he merely perked an eyebrow at me before dropping to one knee. My blade sailed past, again, not connecting with anything.