László smiles at me. It is a cunning but suave smile. He does not wish to show his hand, but he has shown me plenty.
“I remember now,” he says, straightening the cuffs of his jacket. “The vampire in question disrespected me. He needed to pay. It is unfortunate that he was joined.” His eyes survey me. “But you are not. This need not end in a fatality.”
We slowly circle each other. I flex my wrists now and then, keeping them supple, reminding the vampire before me that I am armed and know how to use these sharp blades.
“I had just executed a move,” I tell him. “Shall I demonstrate?”
He laughs. He thinks I am amusing.
I flash forward, no spin — a direct line of attack and unexpected. My blades sing through the air in a movement I have not performed for seven years, but one I know in my bones, in my blood. The right khopesh sings in counterpoint to the left, one blade higher than the other. A metallic sound crackles on the air when they connect. Sparks fly. One lands on the sleeve of the vampire’s jacket and begins to burn. A small flame flickers to life there.
He jumps back and swats at it. Vampires and fire are not an easy mix.
I spin and attack, slicing down his good arm, then flicking the blood off the blade as I dance past onto the sleeve that has caught fire.
Blood hisses in the air.
No vampire in the garden breathes.
I land, crouched, and face my nemesis.
“He taught me that,” I murmur. “I perfected it right before he died in front of me.”
I feel Gregor’s concern. I sense my grandmother’s heartache.
“I saw his surprise,” I continue when László just stares at me. “His horror at not being by his kindred’s side. And then nothing.” Not even a moment of heartache for the niece - a daughter of the heart - he left behind.
There was no time.
I raise the khopesh in my right hand again. The left sweeps out and down and away in a bow. We are standing where my uncle and I were standing all those years ago. In exactly the same place.
It is later than six in the evening. But it does not matter. It is close enough.
I stand upright and meet the vampire’s calculating gaze.
His blue eyes flash periwinkle and sapphire. Something ancient peeks out behind them and bows back to me.
And then I drop the blades.
Someone gasps. Gregor takes a step forward. They think I have been glazed.
But I am a Minyawi. A Princess of Minya. And this vampire before me does not deserve Nafrini Al-Suyuti’s khopesh blades.
I lift my hands, let my Light engulf me, and then spin as I grasp a stake.
He is good. He is old. He is fast and determined and battle-hardened. But he does not want to kill me. He wants to join with me. I can see the covetous look in his gaze. The way he pulls his punches, tries to maim not kill. He lands blows. I will bruise later. His fangs connect once, twice. Three times. But do not hold me. Each time I slip away.
Gregor is a boiling, seething pit of silent rage.
But he stands back. He lets me fight. He does not get in my way.
And as is the right of all Nosferatins, I call on Nut and my goddess answers.
The stake slides into the vampire’s chest and breaches the chambers of his heart.
He looks at me, his lips part on a question. It could be anything. Why am I doing this? What was the name of my uncle's kindred vampire? How dare I stand against an ancient? Who are you, Amisi Chione Minyawi?
I choose to think the question the vampire who killed my father’s brother attempts to ask me right before he turns to dust is, “Will you forgive me?”
I stand still in the centre of the courtyard and breathe heavily.
“No,” I whisper as the dust blows away. “But I will move on.”
My family surge forward. There are cheers and hugs and stakes brandished in front of vampires who now look lost.
I turn to see Gregor on his cell phone. Perhaps it is not as simple as speaking on the Iunctio’s behalf. Perhaps he is seeking forgiveness from the Champion for allowing one so old as László to be killed in an unsanctioned challenge for territory. I cannot say. I am swept away in a familial ball of love and gratitude and reverence.
But I do not need to be revered. I do not even wish to be feared.
The only thing I wish for now is to go home.
And home, I realise, is not on the banks of the Nile but in the bowl of the capital city of New Zealand, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
Home is where I am called Angel.
That is what I wish for now.
* * *
The vampire who killed my father’s brother died at my own hand. It took me seven years to kill him. Now, he is dead.
They both are. As is my uncle’s kindred vampire.
I have been raised amongst vampires and their kindred Nosferatin. I have seen what it means to miss that call to join before the end.
We live a life full of death, and yet we are made of Light.
But sometimes it is hard to see anything past the shadows.
I am twenty years old. I still have time to live without joining to another. But, in the end, I too must have a kindred, or I will be just as dead.
Still, I have time. And so, when Gregor fails again to test our compatibility in this realm and only does so again and again and again in that other realm, I let him.
Because he has his demons and I have mine.
I am not ready to kindred join, but I think I might be. One day, in many days from now. To this vampire, who stands before me, looking at me with such love in his eyes.
We are in that other realm, the one that exists beside our realm, and is only accessible to those blessed by our goddess Nut. Lucinda, I think, could walk here. But she has never mentioned it. And yet, here stands Gregor Morel, Master Vampire of Wellington City, The Enforcer for the Iunctio Vampire Council. A Nosferatu. A creature of the night. Dark’s minion.
I smile. He smiles back at me. We are standing on the banks of the Nile.
“Do you miss it, Angel?” he asks.
I shake my head. “It is here waiting for me.”
“You can return at any time.”
“I have no need; my family is safe.”
“The vampire I found seems more than capable of keeping the territory protected.”
That had been the phone call he’d been making that day. The day I killed the vampire who killed my father’s brother. Gregor hadn’t been gaining forgiveness from the Champion. He had been sourcing a vampire who would be appropriate to stand in Nafrini’s stead.
To protect my family.
I have not met him, this vampire. I do not know him. They say he is new to the area but powerful enough to hold it. And that the Nile sings to him when he walks along its banks.
It is good enough for me. This Amun Nadeem will have to do.
Cairo is no longer home to me. That role belongs to another city; far, far away.
“He is doing well,” I tell Gregor. “Grandmother approves.”
Gregor grins. “Wouldn’t want to piss off an ancient Minyawi.”
“Or a young one.”
“That too, Angel.”
I watch him as he watches the felucca sails. The sun is setting. Here in this realm, he can feel its golden rays. He closes his eyes. His face looking serene. More at peace than I have ever seen Gregor Morel be.
He has a story; a past, that one day, goddess willing, he will feel able to share with me. And then I will be able to provide him the kind of solace that he has provided me.
He calls me his angel. He says it is on the wings of an angel that his salvation has been delivered.
I have not told him. Perhaps I will one day. But it is not my wings nor his salvation that he speaks of.
This vampire with his story yet to tell has given me a home away from home, when my home has changed so significantly. He has given me a purpose that I can throw myself into; a distraction from the hea
rtache. And he has given me a reason to live my life to the fullest; to honour my father’s brother and his father’s brother and his father’s brother before him; to be the best Nosferatin I can be.
To make Nero proud of me.
Gregor is my angel, but for now, I will admit that to only me.
The One That Got Away
The One That Got Away
Michel
As a young boy, I longed to go fishing. There was a stream near our maison where the village children spent their meagre downtime trying to lure fish onto their hooks. What little food they could spare was used as bait if worms were not readily available.
Occasionally, they caught something. And their joyous cries of victory could be heard all the way to my bedroom window. Or to the courtyard if I happened to be training there. Or to any number of places I wished not to be when fish were being caught so easily.
I begged my father to take me fishing, but as the eldest son of the village gatekeeper it was not expected that I’d ever need to fish for my dinner. We were dragons. We protected our own and in return they offered their meagre catches for our supper.
At the age of eight, I wished only to be a fisherman, sailing the seas I had never seen, catching my own fish for dinner. No cares nor worries.
Whimsical thoughts I have long since forsaken.
The clash of swords draws my attention to two vampires battling before me. Alain, my second, offers instruction to his protégé. The vampire is newly Turned and still learning restraint. Alain believes a strict regimen of training will help his focus.
I doubt it. This one is not meant for the light of the moon or the call of Sanguis Vitam.
“Again,” Alain instructs the fledgling.
“I am trying, Master,” the vampire lisps. “The sword is heavy.”
“You were a rugby player once,” I say, conversationally.
The vampire spins towards the shadows I am occupying, squinting as if he cannot see me. He can, if he only learns to use his talents. Talents that every vampire, newly Turned or not, has at their disposal.
“Champion,” he says, fisting his hand over his heart and bowing low. At least, in this, he has learned something. “How long have you been standing there?”
Alain whacks him over the back of his head with the flat of his blade, hissing.
“Do not ask such of our Master,” he admonishes. “Know your place, vampyre.”
The vampire stares at Alain for a second too long and then lowers his head, contritely.
“Rugby,” I say, as if nothing were wrong, “is a contact sport, I believe.”
“It is, Master,” the vampire replies.
“I grew up fencing,” I say and don’t add, ‘Wishing I were fishing.’ “But I should think the strength acquired on the rugby field would stand you in good stead for this.”
“A sword is foreign to me,” the vampire offers doggedly.
“So are fangs,” I counter, lightly. “And yet you use them quite successfully to feed.”
I step out of the shadows, allowing the full light of the moon to bathe me. I hear its call. Unlike a shapeshifter, though, I can ignore it. I hear the call of the sun when it rises, too, but ignoring that sweet song is lifesaving.
“Mastering the sword,” I say, “is essential to your survival.”
“Forgive me, Master,” he says, “but it is an ancient weapon. There are far better - more efficient - weapons at our disposal today.”
I think he is calling me old. I am. Over five hundred years old. But to a vampire, having such pointed out to them is not hurtful.
“A gun perhaps?” I ask mildly.
“Yes.”
“And you know how to handle a gun?”
“Well, no.” New Zealand is not known for its pistols.
“One must learn any weapon new to them,” I point out. “Why not a blade?”
“Because it's heavy.”
I hold out my hand and Alain places his sword in it without question. Twisting my wrist, I make the blade sing; warming my arm up, stretching familiar and well-used muscles.
“Give him a gun, Alain,” I say in French.
“Master?”
“Humour me.”
My second obeys and locates a pistol. A Glock if I am not mistaken. He checks the weapon, noting the magazine is full, and then hands it to the wary vampire.
“I…” the vampire begins.
“The bullets aren’t silver,” I tell him. “You cannot kill me. Even if they were, death would require a precise shot to the heart.”
“The sword’s not silver either,” he says defiantly. Why this one was chosen for Nut’s gift I am not certain. But somehow he has slipped through the cracks and now he is mine.
“But I could take your head.” I swish the blade through the air in an arc that is designed to show my prowess.
I have fought well with a blade for over five hundred years. I do not expect this fledgling vampire to be an instant master swordsman. But I do expect him to defend himself with a blade should it be necessary.
“We are an old race,” I tell him, circling.
He moves with me, his hand shaking slightly as he holds the Glock out before him like a shield. It is a pitiful shield but then one could argue the thin edge of a blade is a pitiful shield also.
“More often than not,” I continue as we size each other up, “you will be faced with a Nosferatu or Nosferatin older than you. In such cases, you may expect to see a blade.”
I strike, using a small portion of my speed, and slice his right arm from shoulder to wrist. Blood wells and his nostrils flare.
Even his own Sanguis Vitam distracts him momentarily.
“Fire the gun,” I command.
He shoots and the bullet pings off the edge of the sword. I slice his left arm; my reach far greater than his.
He drops the gun and blinks at me.
“Was it too heavy?” I ask.
For a moment, I think he will rebel. And then he smiles self-deprecatingly and bows his head.
“I might have underestimated the usefulness of a blade, Master,” he says contritely.
I hand Alain the sword.
“We are old, Ansel,” I tell the fledgling. “Change is not easy for any of us. But changing too much could mean our downfall. And, conversely, changing not at all could mean far worse.”
“So, the sword and the gun? Train on both?”
“Yes,” I say, succinctly. Then add, “And listen to your instructor. Alain is far wiser than you.”
He flicks a look at my second and I see the doubt. Many doubt Alain. He has spent his entire vampire life assuming a nondescript persona. One does not suspect the spy when the spy appears so unassuming.
A fatal mistake many have learned far too late to save them.
A sound draws our attention which swiftly becomes the pattering feet of boisterous toddlers as they run pell-mell out of the hallway and across the training room; their nanny chasing them, pink in the face and breathless as only a human could be.
“Come back here, you little terrors!” she yells after them. I see a switch in her hand and for a moment the world turns magenta. “Do you hear me! Come back!”
The children giggle and tear across the training room oblivious to its occupants. As is the nanny. They make the far side, and Éliane bounds up the weights machine and perches precariously at the top. Leaning down, she deftly offers her twin a hand up and soon, Lucien too is atop the behemoth machinery.
The switch comes down hard on the nanny’s thigh, which is the only reason her heart still beats.
But the message is clear. She will use it, if only she can reach them.
She attempts to climb the machine.
Lucien looks towards his sister for guidance.Éliane’s eyes meet mine and she giggles. Then she is jumping, no flying, no spinning away from the machine but not before she pats the nanny on the head like you would a dog who amuses.
Lucien bursts out laughing; an unrestrained, joyous so
und that only young children can perfect.
And the nanny’s switch comes down on my son’s chubby little leg.
For a brief moment the room is still, the air is heavy, and anticipation hangs on the air.
And then Lucien is wailing and Éliane is pummelling the nanny with her tiny fists and the nanny is screaming and magenta has bathed the walls and floor and machinery.
I have my hand around the woman’s neck before I even realise I have flashed there. Lucien is still crying and Élianeis still ineffectually pounding her tight little fists into the nanny’s thighs.
And then Alain has swept Éliane up in his arms and pulled her away from the danger and Ansel has climbed the machine and coaxed a bawling Lucien down from the top and I am still holding the life of a human woman in my hands.
Michel, I hear Lucinda say in my mind. We don’t kill the nannies.
I have called her to me. Without thought or care, I have called on my kindred to calm me. Because I am not calm. I am furious.
But Lucinda is not here. She is in Wellington. And yet I have called her to me in my outrage and fury.
It is more common to fire their arses, my beloved informs me.Send her packing, but bear in mind, I won’t be back for a few more days. Amisi needs me but I’m sure you can handle the twin terrors for that long without supervision.
Of course, I say, aware my hand has loosened and the human can breathe again. Lucinda does this for me. She talks nonsense and allows my temper to calm all the while letting me choose how to step back from the precipice.
It’s not nonsense, she corrects, chuckling. You’re on babysitting duty. If I were you, I’d call in some reliable help.
Alain, I say and then realise that is not possible. Alain must keep Ansel from fraying.
I glance at the fledgling now, he has Lucien in his arms and he’s staring at my son as if he is the answer to the universe.
Or a suitable meal.
Never Show Fear Page 5
