Hunting Memories vm-2

by Barb Hendee

  "Your gift?" he asked.

  "Where do you wish to go first?" she asked. "Germany? The south of France? Italy?"

  "Italy," he repeated in wonder. He had always longed to see Italy. But her words offered more than travel. He could see pictures of her laughing on a foreign beach in the night air. He could see her offering idea after idea for the next place to explore, the next delight to uncover. For the first time in his life, he did not feel alone.

  She held both hands out to him, and he walked over to grasp them. Her black hair smelled earthy and musty. Her face was lovely, exotic and delicate at the same time.

  "I've looked for so long," she said. "You are protection itself."

  He didn't know what that meant. He didn't care.

  "But you have to agree," she said.

  "Agree?"

  "If you come with me, we'll live only by night, but we'll live forever. You have to learn the laws and obey them. You won't age and you won't die, but not everyone wants this. You have to tell me that you agree, or I cannot go further."

  Live only by night? Forever?

  He had no idea what she was saying, but again, he didn't care. He only knew he could not live now without the perfect vision of traveling the continent with her at his side.

  "I'll agree to anything you want," he whispered.

  She smiled, exposing white even teeth. "I knew you would. I knew I had finally found you."

  She kissed him.

  He grabbed the back of her head and pressed his tongue into her mouth. She drew him to the ground by the fire, and he ran his hand down to her waist, pinning her with the weight of his chest.

  "No, roll over," she murmured.

  He obeyed her, and then she was sitting on top of him. She was so light he could barely feel her weight.

  "My name is Jessenia," she said, "and you are my other half."

  She leaned down, and he expected her to kiss him again. But she moved her mouth to his neck, and before he realized what was happening, she drove her teeth into throat. The pain was blinding, and he bucked hard to throw her off. But she held on, gripping him and draining his blood.

  His mind went blank.

  Then he was lost again in the glorious images of rocky beaches with saltwater spray, new cities to explore, ancient churches, lush forests, mountains… and Jessenia always beside him, always smiling and laughing or lost in wonder or offering ideas for the next place to go. The pain in his throat vanished. The beating of his heart slowed and slowed. So lost in the lovely visions, he was only dimly aware of his heart. He saw himself sitting with Jessenia at a fine inn, and she offered him a goblet of red wine. He drank deeply. It was delicious.

  Then he opened his eyes and found himself lying on his back with her on top, leaning over him… and her torn wrist was in his mouth. He was drinking her blood. He was gulping in mouthfuls.

  Shock hit him like cold water.

  "Don't stop," she whispered. "Not yet."

  And he couldn't stop. She caressed his face and murmured in his ear. A few moments later, everything went black.

  When he next woke, he could hear all the insects of the forest.

  He turned his head and saw Jessenia sitting near him. She crawled closer and smiled.

  "You're awake. I did not know how long you would sleep."

  He felt different. The fire was long out, but he was not cold. Memories came rushing back, and he knew he should be horrified, enraged. He should want to kill her.

  But he didn't.

  With her face leaning close to his, he only wanted her to wash those perfect images of their journeys through his mind again.

  "Can you walk?" she asked. "We should go and stay at an inn until you've completely finished the change and you're ready to feed. But you cannot feed without me along at first, not until you've learned how."

  "Feed?"

  "Just come."

  She drew him up to his feet, and they untied their horses, leaving the dead fire behind and the small patch of ground where Robert lost one life… and began another.

  The first weeks of his undead existence passed quickly, but he never forgot them.

  He was a not a fanciful man, and he took no stock in myths and superstitions.

  So this new reality-clearly no myth-was something he accepted as an event he could not change.

  He might have questioned more, even regretted more, had Jessenia not been at his side, helping him every step of the way, or as much as he allowed her to help. He never realized how alone he had been before her.

  She was just a slip of a girl. A gypsy sprite.

  Yet she bubbled over with life to a degree that left him in awe. He would have died for her.

  Not long after the night by their campfire, he began growing uncomfortable, hollow and agitated.

  "We need to go out," Jessenia said.

  They left their inn and walked among the people of the village. He wasn't even sure which village.

  "Where are we?"

  "It doesn't matter yet," she answered, looking around. She spotted a smithy with a red glow coming from somewhere inside. "This way."

  When they reached the front doors, she stopped him. "Just try to watch me, but don't come all the way in until I call for you."

  He frowned in confusion, but the hollow feeling inside him was growing worse, and she had always known what to do before. So from the side of the doorway, he watched her go in. She approached a young man standing by brazier with a steel mallet in his hand.

  The young man looked up in surprise, but Jessenia smiled.

  "Sorry to bother you so late, but my horse has gone lame, just down the street. He's bad enough that I didn't want to try to make him walk. Could you come take a look? I can pay you."

  The man laid down the mallet and took off his apron. His face was sweating. "I don't mind. I could use a rest from this anyway."

  But Jessenia did not move to leave. Instead she looked around the smithy. "Are you here all day?" she asked. "Do you ever wish to go someplace else, someplace far and strange?"

  Robert heard the change in her voice, and he was beginning to recognize the difference between her voice for dreams and her voice for communicating. The blacksmith's eyes glazed over almost instantly, and he sank to his knees as Jessenia continued talking, lowering her voice to a soft pitch.

  "To walk along the shores of Italy, with the blue sky and blue sea…"

  Robert was hit by a stab of jealousy so strong he almost walked in and grabbed her by the throat. What was she doing? Sporting with another man right in front of him?

  "You see a ledge jutting from the rocks. You walk over and lie down beneath it, breathing the warm air. You fall asleep."

  The blacksmith lay down in the straw on the floor.

  Jessenia looked up. "Robert," she said softly. "Come now."

  Confused, he walked in, still angry at her, but uncertain what she was doing. She knelt down on the floor.

  "Like this," she said, picking up the blacksmith's wrist. Carefully, she sank her teeth into his veins. Something on the edge of Robert's awareness told him he should be shocked, but he wasn't.

  Jessenia pulled her teeth out. "Come and feed. I'll keep him asleep."

  He walked over and knelt on the other side of the sleeping man. Then he took the blacksmith's wrist and bit down, drinking blood as he'd once swallowed ale from a wooden mug.

  "Be careful," Jessenia said. "Listen for his heart. You can't take too much."

  The blood tasted sweet and salty at the same time. He could feel the life and strength growing in him. Images of the man's life passed through his mind, of work and family and spending holidays in the north. The hollow ache vanished. He gulped in more mouthfuls.

  "No!" Jessenia pushed him away. "You never kill to feed. You can kill to protect us. You can even kill for money, but not to feed. Else you'll endanger all of us. Do you understand?"

  He did not understand.

  She placed one hand on the blacksmith's head and closed he
r eyes. Then she opened her eyes again, took a small knife from her boot, and turned the bite marks on the man's wrist into a straighter line.

  "I've altered his memory," she said. "He won't remember me at all. When he wakes, he will remember cutting himself on that sword lying halfway off the table. Then he will remember fainting."

  The sense of this was beginning to dawn on Robert, but he still didn't grasp what she meant by "altered his memories." How?

  "Don't worry," she said. "You'll be doing this on your own soon. We should go." She smiled. "Tonight we set out. Where shall we go first?"

  Feeling strong and filled with anticipation, he followed her.

  Robert decided upon France, so he and Jessenia made their way to the coast and found passage on a ship to cross the Channel.

  The ship sailed about an hour before dawn.

  "Tonight, we'll go up and watch the water racing past the bow," she said.

  Huddled in their cramped quarters belowdecks, Robert thrilled at even the prospect of this crossing. Jessenia made every moment enticing.

  The air was still dark outside, and he felt wide awake. Somehow, she'd seemed different to him tonight. She kept studying his face almost as if she was hungry.

  She came to him, sitting beside him on his bunk. "I can feel your gift," she said. "It's getting stronger."

  So much she said was still a mystery.

  "I love your gift," she whispered. "As you love mine."

  For the first time since that night by the campfire, she reached up and kissed him. He pushed her back to lie on the bunk, and he pressed his mouth down hard over hers, running his hands down her slender waist as she moved her hands up to grip the nape of his neck.

  In spite of his desire, his body did not respond in its usual way, and he ran his hand over the tops of her breasts. His need for her, his urgency grew, but his body still betrayed him.

  Then… he felt Jessenia inside his mind, her thoughts reaching for his, entwining with his, and her sense of adventure, her joy in journeys, was suddenly part of him, drawing upon him, and as he thought of them together in strange places, a feeling of fierce protection began to build inside him. No matter where they went, no matter what they saw or what they did, he would protect her from people, from the sun, from poverty, from everything.

  Her passion for adventure began to combine with his desire to protect inside of him… inside of her until he could no longer tell the difference. The joining and meshing of half-mad drives went on and on in waves through his body until he felt it build to an almost intolerable bubble, and then it burst and his body shuddered in a shock of intense pleasure. Jessenia was still gripping the nape of his neck, and she gasped aloud-as if she still needed to breathe.

  "Robert," she was saying over and over in his ear. "I knew, I knew."

  He pressed his nose against hers. He was still shaking.

  He had never imagined emotions like this, drives and needs like this. She had been inside of him, and he inside of her.

  What had she done to him?

  Her body began to relax beneath his, and she turned her head to one side.

  "I knew as soon as I saw you," she said.

  Years passed.

  Jessenia taught Robert to develop and focus his telepathy. He learned to seduce with his gift. He learned how to hunt safely, and he learned why this was so essential: to protect the secrecy of his own kind.

  He learned the laws as Jessenia taught him.

  The first law was the most important. Never kill to feed. So she'd taught him this one immediately.

  The second law prohibited any of their kind from making more than one other vampire in the span of one hundred years. Apparently, the physical and mental energy it required was so great that making another one before one hundred years passed could produce weak or flawed results.

  The third law prohibited any of their kind from making a vampire without the express consent of the mortal. Turning a mortal against his or her will was a sin.

  Fourth, the maker was required to teach the new vampire all methods of proper survival-again to protect the secrecy of the others.

  "What happens if someone breaks one of the laws?" he asked one night.

  She looked surprised. "None of us would break them." She paused. "The maker takes immense responsibility in turning a mortal, so we consider our choices carefully, as they will be long-term companions. I know vampires who are natural teachers who have turned mortals out of a need for a student. I have seen some who sought a mother or a father figure."

  "What did you seek?"

  "I sought you." She grabbed his hand. "I looked so long for you."

  It troubled him at first that she would never answer certain questions. Where had she come from? Who was her maker? He did learn that she was right around one hundred years old, but where had she been for the past hundred years, and who had she been before that?

  She told him not to ask.

  Over the years, he did come to understand that her love of traveling was an overwhelming drive, and yet she had learned to fear doing so alone. She told him she'd been searching for a companion who was a soldier, but not a common soldier. She sought one who saw the importance of rules and laws and order and yet at the same time was capable of feeling pity, of feeling love. Most of all, one whose gift would be seduction through the promise of protection… and one would who protect her.

  "Connections like ours are rare," she said. "Your gift and mine create fire when we join them."

  And they joined frequently. He could never get enough of the feel of her body in his hands or of tangling his gift with hers until they both shuddered with waves of pleasure and exhaustion.

  "But you have no obligation to me," she said. "After training is complete, there are no laws to tie the new ones to their makers."

  He grasped the back of her hair. "Why would I ever leave you?"

  She smiled.

  Each night was as full and interesting as the last. He found out quickly that Jessenia enjoyed the company of most mortals, and she was often involved in intrigues similar to that of the night he'd met her. He shook his head in wonder when she told him more details of how she'd seen the two assassins in a tavern, and she'd seen Lady Elizabeth's face. Afterward, she made friends with the men easily, and then bet them five sovereigns that the lady would back down.

  Jessenia was a good judge of character.

  She and Robert traveled through France and Italy, meeting new people and sometimes staying in villages or towns for months at a time if the place pleased them. Once, Robert even helped a local constable solve a series of murders-involving young girls. Robert followed the smell of blood to a chapel and found the body of a girl in a secret space beneath the altar. He read the mind of the priest and found a mad predator hiding behind a serene face.

  The constable paid Robert well for his help. Jessenia and Robert earned some money in these intrigues, but normally they simply took it from their feeding victims-and then would leave behind memories of a robbery.

  As time passed, Robert took over this element of their existence, and he always managed to keep them adequately stocked with money.

  Jessenia spoke a number of languages fluently. In the early days, Robert knew only French and a bit of Spanish, but as his telepathy increased, he learned how to draw meaning from words by reading minds. Soon he spoke fluent Italian.

  He did think back now and then upon Thomas Howard and Lady Elizabeth and how he had abandoned his position-abandoned the house with the gates wide open after Jessenia had put his guards to sleep.

  But that seemed a different life.

  "It was different," she told him. "But you are still yourself. Your years as a soldier, of serving the duke, of pitying his wife… these made you into who you are."

  "And what made you into who you are?" he asked.

  She turned away from him, something she rarely did. "I invented myself."

  He did not press further.

  After twenty years togeth
er, she began introducing him to other vampires, and this offered him more new experiences. He found out that she set up several message posts in every country, and she would stop occasionally to pick up letters.

  As with people, he enjoyed the company of some vampires more than others. His least favorite was an elderly German scholar-turned late in life-named Adalrik. Robert found Adalrik to be decent and kind, with a solid old house outside of Hamburg. But he and Jessenia spent several months at the house one summer, and Robert had almost nothing to do for the entire visit. Jessenia could read and write several languages, including Latin, and she tended to get lost for hours in Adalrik's library. Robert could barely read English and had no interest in learning anything else. But her concern for Robert's pleasure always took precedent, and she soon assured him they would move on.

  In Italy, however, over the years they stayed numerous times at a villa near Florence with a lovely woman named Cristina and her maker, Demetrio, and Robert did not grow so restless there. Demetrio was an artist from the Renaissance. He was full of good conversation, yet he always treated Robert like a social equal. Cristina was a kind hostess, and they were both clearly fond of Jessenia.

  Unfortunately, after being turned, Demetrio had developed a discomfort with unfamiliar places, and he rarely left the villa except to hunt.

  "It happens sometimes," Jessenia told Robert quietly. "Demetrio's maker was gentle, but he had a difficult time adjusting to the change. I've heard if the experience is traumatic, and the new vampire recovers for months in one familiar place, he or she may come to fear open spaces or places unknown."

  Robert felt pity for Demetrio.

  Still, the four of them drank red wine on the terrace and played at dice games and told stories to each other. Their times together were always pleasant.

  But Robert's favorite visits always took place in a manor outside of Harfleur in France that belonged to a near-ancient crusader, Angelo Travare. He and Robert had a good deal in common and enjoyed each other's company. Although he, too, could be prone toward scholarly nonsense, his penchants tended to change upon whom he was with, and he played the old soldier in Robert's presence. Once Angelo decided to travel with them, and the three of them spent the better part of a year touring Spain. But Angelo was sometimes given to deep melancholy, and Robert often sensed the man was lonely-very lonely. Traveling with Robert and Jessenia did not alleviate this but rather made it worse.