by David Page
"Ouch." Richard rubbed his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I wanted to get some fresh air before you lock me away in a dingy basement." It was not his most creative excuse.
"Out for air?” Beth's eyes widened. “That’s the lamest excuse I've ever heard." She spun on her heel and stormed across the room to the window. She tilted her head to the side but continued to look at the thick drapes, hands on her hips. After a moment, she turned back to him. Her pupils dilated, making her eyes seem even bigger and more luminous. In a past life, Richard could have fallen into such eyes and possibly found love. Now everything was different for him, for her and for the rest of the world. Vampires were out of the closet so to speak. He sighed.
"I'm on your side, Richard. I want to help you." A smile played about Beth's lips suddenly.
"I have no plans to cause you harm."
"I believe you." Her smile widened but fell quickly into a frown. “But, if you screw me over… I'll turn you over to the Department myself."
"I would expect no less." For some reason, he took comfort in the fact that beneath her friendly and caring exterior, she had a tough side.
They stood in silence for a several moments, neither able to look away. Beth slipped her cross out and tugged on it as she watched him. Her smile vanished as quickly as it had come. Richard did not know if she found comfort in God or if she merely habitually fingered the family heirloom. He was not a Christian any longer. God had no power over him, although in the hands of a true believer, the cross could still do him harm. He had never been able to figure out why.
The room shifted as a wave of dizziness crashed through his mind, upsetting his equilibrium….
***
The hovel door shut, plunging them into darkness. From his position near the door, Richard heard silk moving against skin. He saw only the barest of outlines of her in the shadows, but Collet’s sensual energies flooded the room, pressing into him and passing through him like wraiths. He shuddered.
She retreated into the darkness with a soft whisper of fabric. A candle flared to life in her hand, blinding him for a moment. As his eyes adjusted to the brightness, Colette materialized from a soft white glow. She stood between him and the bed, facing away from him. The candlelight played on the smooth curve of her neck as the thin strap of her garment slid from her shoulder. Richard took in a sharp breath, his face flushing as he watched her gently lower the candle onto the small wooden table behind her. She turned to face him, her eyes ablaze with a need that echoed his own.
"Milady…" As he met her gaze, he felt his face flush as if he were an inexperienced squire.
"It is alright." She pushed away from the table and walked slowly towards him.
Richard swallowed and steadied himself against a surging desire that threatened to swallow him whole. If she belonged to another, then he was treading on dangerous and dishonorable ground, but he did not, could not care.
"Look at me." The scent of lilacs flowed over him. "Please."
Richard’s heartbeat to quickened.
"I…" He let his words trail away as the world slowly spun around him.
"I've been alone for so long, but you can change that. We can help each other. We could…" Her green eyes shining, she turned her mouth up in a tentative smile. Underneath her desire, Richard detected the faintest hint of fragility. As if she feared that he might leave and it would break her. It made him want her more.
“Yes.”
She drew close. Her delicate hands moved upward, and she pulled at the silk strings that laced the front of her dress.
Richard gasped as longing pulsed through him.
"You are the most beautiful woman I have ever beheld. I must have you." He stepped towards her, all reservations perishing in the fires of his desire away and wrapped one strong arm around her waist and kissed her deeply. Together, they worked at the lacings of her dress. After a moment, it fell away.
The room slanted and time stretched, becoming disjointed and blurred. He suddenly found himself lying back on the soft bed with Colette straddling him. Her legs clamped around his sides holding him in place. He didn't resist. His hands slide down across her firm stomach to her skirt and slipping beneath the folds of the material to massage her thighs.
She gripped his tunic and tore it apart from his body with surprising strength and then moved to his breeches. His leg wound protested, but it was a faint buzzing compared to the circle of energy that had formed between them. She leaned over, pressing herself against him and burying her head in his shoulder. Her teeth grazed his flesh as she kissed his neck. A sharp pain in his neck shook his rhythm as her teeth sank into him, but he did struggle. What pain he felt was swallowed by their passion. Her hands squeezed tighter until his fingers throbbed.
The room spun.
A small fear surfaced through the haze of the moment. Richard tried to move his arms, but she held him fast. She licked his wound and then clamped her mouth over it and drank his blood.
"What…what are you doing? What are you?" He gasped, his body giving in to the throes of ecstasy.
She bore down, her mouth pulling harder. Richard found himself floating off the bed. His mind reeled as something beyond pleasure wracked his soul, tearing down the walls of his fears, removing all knowledge of self.
He saw fire.
He felt fire.
"Richard!" she cried.
He became fire as everything that was Richard Saxon evaporated with the rest of the world….
***
Richard’s cheek stung.
"Richard!" Anger tinged Beth’s voice.
He blinked, his face growing hot with embarrassment as he remembered where he had just been and what he had been doing. With the memories of Colette came the unpleasant realization that a moment ago, caught up in the distant past, he had leaned over and tried to kiss Beth.
"I'm sorry, Beth. I-" He sighed.
"What the hell was that?" She glared at him, arms crossed.
His mind raced for an appropriate response but found none. The memories of Colette swirled through his consciousness. She had been a vampire, the first he had ever encountered making it likely that she had been the one who brought him across. He shook with sudden excitement at the thought of his one-thousand-year-old quest ending. If he could only remember more, he might be able to witness the actual moment of his creation and rebirth and possibly determine what had happened to this forgotten love.
"What's going on with you, Richard? You blanked out and then tried to plant one on me." Her tone had gone from upset to confused.
"This is going to sound quite mad." It was time, he reasoned, to reveal the truth to her.
"That's a heck of an introduction. Go on, I'm listening."
"Since we met, I’ve been having flashbacks to the middle ages of a woman. They occur only when you are present."
“When you say, ‘flashbacks’ what do you mean exactly?” Beth’s brow crinkled.
"It is as if for a moment, I am physically in the past, reliving events of which I have no memory. Events that happened when I was human."
"And this woman… you are sure that she is someone that you knew during the Middle Ages?" Her voice remained steady.
"Yes."
"Who is she?"
He closed his eyes for a moment, picturing Colette standing in front of the hovel, the wind tossing her hair over the creamy skin of her shoulders, her dress clinging to her sensuous curves.
"Richard?" It was Colette's voice.
He blinked.
"Richard?" Beth gripped his arm and shook him.
"I'm sorry, for a second, I could hear her voice."
"This is all I need, a schizophrenic vampire." She released him and rubbed her temples.
"This is not a delusion.” Richard straightened. “I am remembering something that happened to me, something important."
"Who is she?" She asked again.
"Her name is Colette. She found me wounded and dying in a forest glade surrounded by the corpses of ba
ttle. She brought me back to her cabin and nursed me back to health." He lowered himself to the bed and slid back to lean against the wall. “She bound my wounds, but I do not think it was that alone that saved me."
"What do you mean?" Beth leaned back against the edge of the small sink.
"I remember only bits and pieces, but I have a sense that she was extraordinary in some way, even for a vampire. She used an art beyond science to heal me." Richard rubbed his smooth jaw.
"Is she the one who turned you?"
Richard had considered it himself and come up with no answers. "I believe she could be, however, I cannot be positive. When a human chooses to become a vampire, the vampire blankets their minds, causing them to forget the events that led up to their decision and all other memories relating to vampire until after they rise from the grave following their natural deaths. At that point, they revert in age to the moment of infection and remember everything."
"You died not long after your original infection, so there’s no way to know if you actually regressed in age.” Beth paused.
“That is true.” Richard nodded.
“Either way, you never got your memories." Beth paused, looking up at an angle as if it aided in her thought process. After a moment, she redirected her gaze to him. "How do these fledgling vampires normally get their lost memories back? Does it just happen when they wake up?"
It was a good question; one that Richard had researched extensively over the centuries. "It is standard for a master vampire to await their progeny by their graves. When the newly dead rise, their masters give them back their memories and teach them how to survive."
"Do you know that from the vampires you created?" No one had asked him about his vampire progenies in a very long time. A pang of sadness shook him.
"Yes." In the year following the Announcement, he had felt his four surviving vampire children die one by one. Frederick had hunted them down before coming for him. He clenched his teeth and sneered. It was another crime for which his nemesis would pay.
Beth crossed the room, grabbed his fists and slowly, and gently opened his palms. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up a touchy subject."
"And yet you seem to bring up these subjects quite often." Richard offered his best self-mocking smile.
"I'm curious, what can I say?" She coiled some of her hair around her finger as if helped with her thought process. "What happens if the vampire dies before their children rise?"
"Then the human's memories are revealed allowing them to remember. When a vampire and a human make this commitment, a bond is created, one that allows the vampire to keep a connection to the human until the moment of death. After that, the bond changes, but it is still ever present." Richard knew what she would ask next; the same question he had asked himself for a thousand years. He beat her to it. "Let me answer your next question."
Beth opened her mouth to speak, but simply closed it and nodded.
"I have pondered and researched the question of why my memories never returned and there is only one answer. The one who made me has been trapped in eternal slumber since before I died." He watched her expression.
Beth's eyes widened as a look of horror swept across her beautiful features. "Trapped? Do you mean as in unable to leave her coffin? If that was true, couldn’t she turn into mist or something?"
"Contrary to popular myth, we can’t actually turn to mist any more than we can fly.” He shook his head sadly.
“But you can call mist out of the Earth?” she asked.
“Yes, of course.”
Beth tilted her head to the side. “Some of the vampires I’ve interviewed say that there used to be vampires who could actually fly.”
Richard laughed. “As with humans, vampires have their own fictitious stories to entertain themselves. If vampires can fly, I have never seen one do so."
"If your master is still alive, can’t you sense her?" Her expression became grim, as if she empathized with his pain.
"If I could sense her, then I would know for sure if this woman…" Richard shook his head. "…if this vampire in my visions brought me into eternal life. Unfortunately, this Department virus prevents me from sensing anything much of anything. Rather than feeling the connection as I once did, I now sense her in the way one remembers a dream, insubstantial and difficult to wrap your mind around. Even when I had my full abilities, I could merely fell her watching me from afar, but hidden in such a way as to make it impossible for me to look back."
"Why haven’t you gone after her?" Beth gestured out the covered window. "You've had a thousand years to search."
"Do you think I haven’t?" Richard hung his head in shame. “I have quested for her for most of my unnatural life."
"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.” Beth fixed her warm gaze on him.
"No harm done. I have long accepted my situation. Now that I seem to be uncovering my memories, however new avenues have opened to me. I will find her.” He stood. “Shall we go?”
She nodded.
Richard grabbed his duffel bag and took a long look around the room. He had lived in palaces, keeps, and mansions during his long life, homes that were far superior to this tiny apartment and yet, he suddenly realized that he would miss it. It had been the first place he had lived since his freedom from the camps. He sighed and followed Beth from the room. He did not look back.
18
Dark storm clouds had rolled in thick and low, hanging just over the top of the Columbia Tower. It had not started to rain yet, but it would only be a matter of time. Cool wind blew past. Richard pulled his coat tighter about him and followed Beth along the north side of Pioneer Square. The salty air carried the scent of rotting fish with it, despite the fact that the fish markets were over a mile away. He was suddenly thankful that he did not have his vampire sense of smell, for surely the scent would have overwhelmed him. He adjusted the duffel bag on his shoulder and then hurried after Beth.
A good number of people moved along with them, some stopping in the various shops that lined the street, others continuing forward or moving past in the opposite direction. It was only Wednesday, but the tourists never seemed to care what day it was in the square. Up ahead, a large cluster of them hovered outside of a glass blowing shop staring intently into the window where the proprietor was hanging a glass sword.
Beth stepped into the street to circle around the crowd. Richard paused to stare at the glass weapon. It was a perfectly sized English Longsword, much like the one he had worn, with a green-gemmed pommel, leather covered hilt and gold poniards. For a moment he wished he could reach through the window and take hold of that blade, much as Arthur had done with the sword in the stone, and hold it aloft. He slipped his hand into his coat pocket and tapped the glass figurine with his index finger. A glass knight could wield such a weapon, but a glass sword would be useless against real enemies and the time for predestined kings was long past. He doubted the tourist rabble would bend knee to him or to anyone else. He laughed. It was too bad that he could not marshal a huge military force to crush his enemies as he once had.
He returned his attention to the glass sword. It, like him, was an easily breakable shadow of what it was supposed to represent, of the strength that it should have had. He bowed his head as a torrent of conflicting emotions roiled within him. The anger bubbled to the surface ahead of all else. He closed his fist around the figurine and gave it a quick squeeze. Even glass could cut.
Beth stood on the walk hands on hips staring at him as he caught up to her.
"No window shopping, Richard." Before he could tell if she was joking or not, she spun away and headed towards the back entrance to the underground tour.
He followed her, focusing on his goals. He had only four days left to learn the identity of Radovan and to figure out how to use that against Frederick and the Department.
"Damn." He cursed under his breath, glad when he was sure that Beth did not hear.
Beth paused near the metal railing of the descending
cement stairway. Before he got there, she darted down the stairs into the darkness and out of sight. Richard assumed that Frederick's men had used his secondary tracking device to find the location of this particular lab. They were probably nearby somewhere, watching, waiting. He looked across the street at the three-story brick building. During the recent quake, large sections of the third-floor walls had fallen back inside as the much of the roof had collapsed. Scaffolding had been erected on the front of the building, though it did not appear that they were making any progress. Yellow warning tape blocked off the sidewalk on the ground floor of the building and an orange sign instructed pedestrians to cross to the other side of the street.
He wondered if it was there that the Department had chosen to spy from. He peered into the darkened interior through the gaping holes and smashed windows but saw no movement. Gritting his teeth, he turned back and followed Beth down the stairs. As the darkness eclipsed the streetlights above, he sent out a prayer to the universe that Stan would provide him with information he could use.
He slipped inside, following Beth into the maze of the underground.
***
"What happened here?" Richard had stopped in the center of the old storefront through which he had passed before. The feeling of dread he had experienced the first time was back in full force, stirring up his power beneath the virus shield and filling him with a sense of foreboding.
"That's twice you've asked me that. I don't know what you’re talking about." Beth studied him, shining her flashlight off to the side so as not to blind him.
"You can’t feel anything unusual?" The air in the room was thick with power, pressing in on him from all sides. It became hard to breath and he thought he could hear a distant voice in his mind cry out for help.
Beth looked around, her eyes darting to and fro uneasily. "This room creeps me out, but that's just because its old and its underground. Still…" Richard saw the faintest hint of doubt on her face. “Let's get the hell out of here." Turning her flashlight towards the far passage, she moved towards it.
