by Megan Derr
He started to speak, only partly because he was coming to find baiting Neirin would make for an agreeable hobby, but Midnight gave a minute shake of his head.
A few minutes later, Barra was ready, and Troyes shifted to his human form. Together the three left the room, a silent, pensive group.
Devlin sipped his brandy and tried not to think about the fact he was alone with Midnight.
Necromancy
"You are so tense, Heartbeat," Midnight murmured.
Devlin drank more brandy, keeping his eyes down, trying to avoid looking as long as he could. "You are nothing but trouble, Midnight."
"Oh, now, I have been rather well-behaved tonight. I was not the one contemplating calling a man out simply because my manservant looked overlong at him."
"Do shut up," Devlin said tolerantly.
Midnight laughed softly, and Devlin heard him move, stand. Temptation won out and he dragged his eyes slowly up as Midnight stood in front of him, enjoying every bit of the view on the way up.
Enjoying it entirely too much.
Shifting awkwardly in his seat, he summoned a glare and snapped, "What?"
"You act as though you are afraid of something, Heartbeat," Midnight said, hands resting lightly on his hips. His tone was teasing, but there was still entirely too much seriousness in it for Devlin's liking.
Devlin smirked. "A wise man does not fear death, but knows better than to seek it out."
Midnight gave a derisive snort. "The phrase is 'a wise man does not fear death, but neither does he tempt it'."
"Yes," Devlin said. He stared into his brandy before slowly dragging his eyes back up, incapable of not meeting those burning blue eyes, even if they seared him through. "However, that was leaving myself wide open to your riposte."
"There is that," Midnight said, but the levity in his voice was forced now. He dropped his hands from his hips, and braced them on the arms of Devlin's chair, bending so they were nearly nose to nose. He smelled like lavender and roses. "Why do you refuse me, Heartbeat?"
"Because," Devlin said, but he did not say anything further.
Midnight was silent.
Devlin could see the hurt in his eyes, but what could he do? Give in? He had already given in far too much as it was. He would not cross the last and most important line.
Though he had always vowed to give Midnight the life he should have had, or the closest approximation, Devlin had ever kept him selfishly close. He could make all manner of excuses, but even those concerning Midnight's safety were thin at best. To do what he most wanted, had wanted since Midnight was old enough to lust after as well as love, seemed going too far when he had already taken advantage.
Midnight had died and come back as a draugr, consumed by thoughts of Devlin. A dying boy who had become obsessed with likely the only person to show him any kindness.
So Devlin had taken him, and kept him, and raised him as though Midnight were still truly alive. He had gone to great effort and expense to create the spell that gave Midnight a second life, to ensure that for all intents and purposes Midnight was alive.
Devlin should have been a bit more willing to share. Draugr were driven by possessiveness and memories of loved ones, but Midnight was not bound so tightly to that. If Devlin had taken him out more, as best he was able, had introduced him to other nightwalkers …
Then perhaps he would have come to care for someone else, and if not, Devlin would have felt moderately better about Midnight still choosing him.
Which always stirred the oldest of his doubts—if Midnight had lived, were truly alive now, would he still want Devlin? Or would he simply regard Devlin as his guardian? Would he even now be off on larks with friends, stealing kisses and far more from handsome youths and pretty misses?
Would Midnight call him Devlin or father or Your Grace? He would not call him 'Heartbeat', certainly. The thought left an ache in his chest.
It was despicable enough what he had done, and permitted, already. To take the greatest of intimacies seemed dishonorable, reprehensible, and contemptible.
"Is it because I am a corpse?" Midnight asked, breaking into his thoughts. "I guess the idea rather would turn one's stomach."
Devlin hated the uncertainty—the fear—in Midnight's voice. He had not meant to put that there. Never. "No," he sharply. "You are not a corpse. There is more life in you than me, Midnight. You are beautiful. Breathtaking."
"Then why?" Midnight demanded, letting go of the chair, rising to his full height, taking a half step back.
Devlin immediately missed his closeness, his warmth, his scent. He scowled at himself for it. "It wouldn't be right. I raised you and am in charge of protecting you." He could not voice the rest of that thought, that he would not take further advantage of the fact he was Midnight’s dying wish.
Midnight frowned, anger joining the hurt in his eyes. "Those are poor excuses and we both know it. We are only thirteen years apart, and I have been your assistant too long to think of you as a guardian or protector. If the idea of it disgusts you, simply say so! Do not continue to dodge the matter and put me off with such piddling excuses."
"That's not it," Devlin snarled, slamming his brandy glass on the table. "I do not pursue the matter because you are dead, it is true, but not the way you think. If you were alive, you likely would not want me, and because I never gave you a fair chance—" to fall in love with someone else, he meant to say, but even thinking the words caused a pain too great to endure.
He snatched up his empty brandy glass and moved roughly past Midnight to the table where Barra had earlier arranged everything, snatching up the decanter and refilling his glass, tossing back half of it at once.
Midnight finally spoke, anger in his voice now. "That is your excuse? Would you be happier knowing I did not choose you blindly? As you keep saying, I am not precisely dead. I am as curious and eager to learn and explore as any truly living man my age. I do go out upon occasion. You would hardly be the first person I have ever kissed."
White hot fury poured through Devlin, mingled with black hate and green envy, and a despair as dark and deep as Midnight's eyes. "What?" he demanded.
"I said," Midnight snapped, "you would not be the first person I have ever kissed."
His insinuation had been plain enough the first time, but to be forced to hear it twice was more than Devin could bear. He threw his brandy glass into the fire, following it immediately with the decanter, relishing the sound of shattering crystal, the way the flames flared high from the alcohol.
It did not, however, even begin to cool his temper. He rounded on Midnight, snarling, "Then I cannot imagine why you are bothering me, if you are quite happy to find your kisses elsewhere."
Midnight recoiled, eyes wide with shock and some measure of fear.
The room was too hot. Too small. Too full of Midnight, who had already kissed and touched and—someone who was not him, whose face he had never seen, and not once had Midnight asked him about such things, sought his advice or guidance.
He and Midnight had always talked about everything, from the serious to the pointless. Never had Midnight held back or kept a secret, except in the matter of gifts.
Midnight had left him out, and had kissed another first, and he could not see why—
Making a rough sound, he snatched up his greatcoat and gloves and strode to the door, pausing only from habit to bark out, "Get to bed. The sun will be up before long."
"Heartbeat, wait—"
Devlin jerked around, and he saw the pain and anguish in Midnight's face but could not bring himself to do anything to soothe it away. Not when he felt so angry and jealous and hurt and betrayed. "Don't you think it's time to stop calling me that?" he asked coldly. "Really, it was cute when you were a child, but I think you have made it quite clear that you are a child no longer."
Midnight looked as though he had been slapped.
Turning away, Devlin slammed the door shut behind him and went to find somewhere—anywhere—else to be.
>
He wandered aimlessly, angrily, for at least an hour, traveling around the village twice before he finally grew too tired to keep up the pace. Then he slowed and wandered back and forth along empty streets until eventually he found himself at the well in the center of the village, leaning against it, head tilted up.
Clouds filled the sky, hiding the moon, but here and there he could see patches of cold starlight. A few more weeks, and such clouds would bring snow.
*~*~*
"You are the necromancer Ceadda?"
"Yes," replied Ceadda, looking up with a deep frown as Devlin entered. He closed the book he had been reading and strode across the room, frown deepening as he looked at the figure bundled in Devlin's arms. "What is that?"
Devlin eyed the necromancer warily, not quite letting go of his precious burden. "They say you are the best."
Ceadda shrugged. "Most vampires hardly remember what real magic looks like for our race. Of course they say I'm the best. I'm not bad, of course, but I am young. Still plenty to learn." He looked again at the figure. "What is that? Besides a corpse, I mean. Draugr, at that."
Quietly, Devlin explained all he could about the boy and what he wanted to do. "I need your help, though. Such magic is not within my realm, though I have done my best to lay the spell I want to create."
"Let me see your notes," Ceadda said, shoving back a strand of pale blonde hair. Like all vampires, he was stunningly beautiful. If he considered himself young, then he was likely less than two hundred years old.
Old enough, Devlin knew, to remember what it had been like when vampires had real magic. Old enough to hopefully do what Devlin wanted.
"Fascinating," Ceadda said, eyes taking on a glint Devlin well knew—the eyes of the obsessed given something worthy of attention.
He tried not to let it get his hopes up.
Ceadda strode over to his bookshelves, the only things neat and orderly in the whole of the cluttered room. Devlin could not honestly tell where the study, living area, and kitchen were formally divided; Ceadda's work appeared to have consumed the whole of the tiny cottage. "Who sent you to me?" Ceadda asked.
"My father," Devlin said. "The Duke of Winterbourne. I am his eldest son, Devlin White."
"Ah," Ceadda said and smiled. "I have longed to repay him for a great favor. Tell him that after this, all accounts are settled."
"I will," Devlin said, almost falling over with relief. Only the cool, spell-preserved body in his arms prevented his doing so. He was tired, so bloody tired, from maintaining the preservation spell and researching and working and hoping and being told he was foolish…
Ceadda looked up from the six books he had before him now on a table that had been cleared by the crude but effective method of shoving it all to the floor. "Set him down here, come now. I see where your spell will work, and I see the flaws."
Devlin's shoulders sagged.
"But," Ceadda said with a smile, "I also see how we can fix them. Come, now, bring your little draugr boy."
Nodding, Devlin waded carefully through the mess, nearly killing himself stepping over a stack of books and manuscripts topped by glass beakers. Eventually he reached the massive, heavy oak worktable where Ceadda was now muttering and writing and beginning to chalk out spell marks.
"How elaborate do you want this spell to be?" Ceadda asked. "Do you simply want to give a semblance of life to the draugr child?"
Devlin laid the boy out and smoothed back his dark hair, rubbing away a smudge of dirt on one cheek. Since the night the boy had protected him, Devlin had been expending much energy to keep him asleep and preserved. That had been weeks ago.
"I want him to have the life he never did," he said softly. "He was… No child should live so—or die so. He tried to protect me, all because I gave him a bit of coin and a smile. He should not be dead."
Ceadda nodded slowly, green eyes intent upon Devlin. "Very well," he said after a moment. "Then I think if we combine a spell of binding with a spell of soul sharing and your preservation spell, as well as…" He continued to speak, rattling things off almost faster than Devlin could follow, drawing and sketching and furiously scribbling notes in a hand remarkably poor for a man at least one hundred years old.
Devlin nodded and agreed or argued as he felt he must, until at last they both were satisfied on what should be done and how they would accomplish it.
Just as Ceadda was about to begin drawing, he paused, and turned to Devlin with a frown.
"What?" Devlin asked tightly, dreading what fatal flaw he was about to hear that they had somehow missed that would ruin any chance of his mad idea working.
"His name," Ceadda said, mouth quirking in faint amusement. "What is his name? The spell will hardly work without a name."
"…" Devlin shook his head, horrified. "I do not know. He does not have one, to the best of my knowledge. The few times I asked after him, the villagers only called him 'the boy'."
"Ah," Ceadda said, looking pleased. "That is all to the good, then. Giving him a name will make the binding between you all the stronger. What do you want to call him, then?"
Devlin frowned. "I don't know." He'd never named anyone before, not even a family pet. His horses all came with names, or he let his siblings pick since it amused them so much to do so.
He looked at the boy, reaching without thought to smooth the dark hair and worry over every smudge and mark upon the snow white skin. So beautiful and strange, the white and blue. The draugr he had killed only weeks ago had been terrifying, horrifying.
The boy looked cold and pretty, like a midnight sky filled only with the stars and moonlight.
"Midnight," he said suddenly, and immediately liked it.
"Peculiar name," Ceadda said. "Sure you wouldn't prefer something a bit more in the main?"
"Do I look as though I know what it is like to be even remotely in the main?" Devlin asked. "For that matter, do you?"
Ceadda grinned. "Fair enough. Midnight it is," he said and drew the appropriate runes where the name was meant to go.
Silence fell for several minutes as Ceadda worked, slowly and meticulously drawing out the spellwork, working in runes that Devlin did not know. Necromancy runes, he supposed. Vampire magic, quite different in purpose and design from human magic.
Ceadda handed him the chalk, and Devlin hid a grimace as he began to write in his own runes, working with even more care than Ceadda had displayed.
He wondered if anyone else had ever tried this—combining necromancy with rune work, vampire magic with human. It had been his father's idea, fully endorsed by his mother. Ceadda too seemed confident and eager.
Devlin silently recited a fervent prayer that all went as it should, and that soon his draugr would be as alive as it was possible for such a thing to be.
When he finally finished, he took a deep breath and stepped back.
"Well done," Ceadda said, eying the work critically. "Well done, indeed, but I expect no less of a White." He turned to Devlin. "Off with the jacket and shirt, then. The spells will require skin runes, and you'll have to be done before we can touch him."
Devlin nodded and immediately began to strip, tossing the clothes aside, eyes only for the boy—for Midnight.
He startled as cold fingers began to draw the runes that soon would be a permanent part of his skin.
If their spell worked.
Should it fail, likely it would kill him.
He looked again at Midnight, confirming what he already knew: Midnight was well worth the risk, and far more besides.
Consequences
"I do not see him," Devlin said, annoyed. He should have known better than to believe a single bloody word that knight said.
Barra frowned, brows furrowed in concern. "Something is wrong," he said. "He said he would be here, and it's not like him not to keep his word."
Devlin quirked a brow at that. "Not like him? Do you not think that a bit hasty? Infatuation is all well and good, Barra, but show a bit of sense."
&nbs
p; "Like the sense you've been showing?" Barra muttered.
"What was that?" Devlin said, eyes narrowed.
Barra stared blandly back. "I said, shouldn't we go look for him?"
"I say let him rot," Devlin said.
"Yes, Your Grace," Barra said, rolling his eyes. "Seeing as we need him to find the graveyard, I think you may have to alter your decision."
Devlin made a face at him. "You're awfully impertinent this morning."
"Master Midnight is quite distraught, Your Grace," Barra said. "And to judge from the way you're growling, it's your fault."
"Like bloody hell it's my fault," Devlin snapped. "Stop taking his side."
"Yes, Your Grace," Barra replied, clearly having no intention of listening.
Devlin glared at him but did not bother resuming the argument.
Midnight was not distraught. They had argued before, and far more dramatically, if not over something quite this serious. Give it a day or so and all would be back to business as usual.
"There he is!" Barra exclaimed, waving one arm to signal they had seen him.
Troyes waved back, but the two figures did not increase their slow pace as they left the forest and made their way across the field.
As they drew closer, Devlin realized why they were moving so slowly—Neirin was clearly in a great deal of pain.
Barra immediately moved toward them, falling into his role of caretaker. "Neirin, what's wrong?"
"Nothing," Neirin said, though the words were plainly a lie. "Do not worry about me. I apologize for being tardy. I got a later start than I intended."
He didn't, Devlin noticed, stand up quite straight. He hunched forward, as though his back pained him.
Barra reached out and lightly touched Neirin's arm, then hastily withdrew his hand. "You are in pain. Isn't there any way we can help? What happened? Were you attacked?"
