Forever

by Natalie J. Case

  I could sense his thoughts searching lightly around to be sure that Jesse wasn't within striking distance and smiled a very small smile. “Elsewhere, Crenoral. I didn't bring him here for you. He belongs to me, a lesson Vahe was not willing to learn the easy way.”

  “Ah yes, poor, ill-fated Vahe. He never was very bright.” Crenoral sat forward, his face ruddy in the red glow of my torch. “As for you, I always thought you smarter than this.”

  “Perhaps I am smarter than you thought. Or maybe I merely wish my tortured existence to end. What better way, what more brilliant a funeral pyre than an entire palace full of my family to burn beside me?”

  “No, little one, not you. Your will to live is too strong within you. You have killed rather than die, you have abased yourself in the hands of mankind, rather than die. Even if you burn this place now, you will fight to escape its blaze. Therefore, your duty will never be fulfilled, for as long as you live, there is one of us left alive in you, and the possibility of passing along the affliction remains. Come now, abandon this foolishness and let us be a family once more.”

  His words stirred something deep inside of me, and I was breathing heavily when the shadows behind him stirred and my mother's face emerged over his shoulder. “Come back to Mama, darling.” She held out her hand to me and I had to take a deep breath to steady my resolve.

  “I am sorry, Mother.” I said, gently knocking the jar of oil on its side. All three of us watched in the light of the torch as it spilled out in a gentle pool, slipping across the ancient wood to his feet. With my eyes closed, I dropped the torch and fled up the stairs, around the corner and up the next flight of stairs, bursting out the door and nearly knocking Jesse over. “Quickly, bar the door.” We pushed a heavy hutch across the door and ran for our lives, already hearing the clawing of frantic nails at its wood.

  The ancient home was ablaze, but we had taken too long and the sun, with its certain death for any who might somehow escape the flames, was setting. I knew then, looking back from the top of the hill, we were doomed. My eyes, sharper than his, saw the first of them, emerging on the shadowed side of the building, where the setting sun was hidden behind the distant mountains. With a cry of anguish, I pushed him and began running myself, madly, pulling off the confining cloak and tossing it aside as we made for the meager shelter of the ruined convent.

  We armed ourselves with what was left of our weapons, several stakes and wooden daggers, sharpened table legs, and our own fear, then we took cover in what had once been a beautiful temple, beneath a dome of colored crystal. We didn't have long to wait, the first found us only minutes after the sun was fully down. She died quickly and quietly, a dagger shot off Jesse's crossbow straight into the heart. Next came the twins, two brothers taken in the prime of their youth. They didn't die quite as easily as the first, but they did die. After that, it became impossible to count them, or keep track of where they fell, whether they were dead or not.

  We fought side by side with the calm and deadly accuracy of those who know they will shortly be dead. Then came the inevitable, we ran out of ready weapons. “Split up,” Jesse said, putting the last of the stakes into my hands. “Find whatever you can. I saw more wood to the east. Go!” He pushed me away, then himself ran off to the west, drawing at least half of our enemy with him. The rest came my way and I let the Change rage through me, a cold, passionate anger filling me.

  The fight was glorious, and I reveled in it, in the sheer excitement and violent joy of it. This was what that part of me which was like them lived for. I managed to use the stake to some advantage before using it for its intended purpose. It lodged in the rib cage of a young man, and ripped from my hands as he fell away. Then I merely fought, as those of their kind do, nails and teeth lunging for those soft spots where instant death beats. It had been many years since that night in the woods when I had last tasted real blood, especially in such quantity, and even as the thought repulsed me, the taste and the strength it offered drew me.

  Eventually my opponents lay around me, dead or nearly so, and I picked my way out of the ruined little temple and headed toward what might once have been the sleeping quarters of the luckless souls who had occupied the cloister. I went quietly through the night, as only one who is comfortable and at home in the dark can, my eyes seeing easily the world around me. I gathered what I could of weapons as I went, knowing that more of them hovered just outside my awareness, waiting only for the proper moment to strike.

  I was prepared when it happened, if somewhat trapped. I had bent to break the legs off the frame of a table when I felt his approach behind me through the door of the tiny bedroom. I waited until he was just lunging at me, then dropped to the floor and rolled away, coming up with the wooden leg. He grinned, his teeth flashing in the light of the moon streaming in through a small window. I brandished the make-do stake like a sword, tossing it from hand to hand as I tried to decide my best course of action. I knew he had me trapped in the room and would try to finish me here if he could.

  So, I lunged at him, hoping to take him by surprise, to bury my stake deeply into his chest. The surprise was my own however when he used my own move to evade me, then grabbed the arm that held my weapon. He pounded it against the brick wall until I was forced to drop it, then pushed my whole body into the same wall. My head was ringing with the force of the blow, my body responding sluggishly as he pulled me now away from the wall and tossed me into the opposite corner.

  I caught him, one hand on his chest, one foot in his groin, and with all my will pushed him away, far enough at least to climb shakily to my feet before he was upon me again. His nails raked across my cheek, drawing blood and raising the level of my anger. I broke the hold he had on my arm, pushing him aside and pulling every ounce of strength in me up from the bottom of my being. With a power I didn't know I still possessed, I pounced on top of him from behind, my teeth bared as I dove for his neck. He writhed beneath me, his hands trying to pry me loose as he stumbled around the room. I hung on, even when his nails dug deep into the fleshy part of my thigh. His blood was flowing swiftly, pouring his life out of him and into me and yet I clung to him, feeding not just to kill, but to fill myself with sustenance as I hadn't in over fifty years.

  I had to pull his hand out of my leg when I was done, and I knew that the wound would hamper me. I paused long enough to bandage it with a piece of his tunic, and to wipe my face clean. With returning strength, I knocked the other three legs off the table and headed out to find Jesse. The convent was eerily quiet, my heart pounded in my ears in the stillness. My senses extended around me, watching for attack and searching for my companion. The building was empty.

  I found my way out the back of what had once been a kitchen, and into a garden gone wild. Roses, half-dead in the cold mountain fall lined the walkways, and arched over the paths. I could smell the dead Jesse had left in his wake as he fled through this place, and one who was not yet. My pace quickened as my ears picked up the sounds, and I was nearly flying as I rounded the corner, and came to a crashing stop, my heart plunging into my toes at the sickening sight of Crenoral leaning over my Jesse.

  Jesse was sprawled on the ground beside a trampled rose, blood red petals covering his chest, his hands grasping at the air weakly. For an instant my fear was that this being who thought himself my father meant to take away the one remaining thing that mattered to me. Then, in the space of a heartbeat, I realized that he meant, not to take Jesse away from me, but to give him to me, for eternity, as he had once given me Adan. I was seized by unimaginable sorrow, panic, my breath robbed from me by horror.

  I screamed and flew at them, the jagged table leg in my hand, my aim steady. I knew Crenoral could not move to defend himself until his task was complete. He would stay, hoping to finish his task before I reached him, before my blow struck home. I plunged the rough wooden stake swiftly through his back, through the cavity where once, centuries before, a human heart had beat, and still he stuck to Jesse. In my haste and anguish, the bl
ow was not straight, deadly enough, but slow to kill.

  I cried in anguish and pulled him free, tossing him aside to die alone while I knelt beside my love. I was too late. I could see the awakening, the quickening of this new life, deep in the depths of his eyes, like I had seen in Adan's eyes all those years before. In fact, he looked like Adan at that moment, or what Adan might have looked like had he lived to Jesse's age. I could sense the changes within his body, even as his hand clung to me and he whispered my name over and over like a chant. The tears stung my slashed face as I brushed his dark hair out of his eyes and whispered to him that it would be all right.

  Behind me Crenoral moaned, and I jumped. “You bastard!” I said, turning to face him. His eyes alone were alive in his ancient face, his hands had slumped where they had been pulling to dislodge the stake, his gaunt body was bent at an uncommon angle. “You should have killed him. It would have been kinder.”

  Crenoral smiled a bloody smile. “When I tasted him I knew … have you … I've given him to you again. Adan. Now, he can be yours forever.” He tried to shift his position, but the stake prevented him from moving. “I only … wanted you … to come home,” he said slowly, his eyes half closed and a shadow of remorse on his pale unchanged face.

  I never said another word to him, simply sat there and watched him die, holding Jesse in my arms while the pain of the change racked his body. I couldn't fathom his words, his mention of Adan. Jesse was nothing like Adan. Jesse was … I couldn't think past the feeling of him dying in my arms, past Crenoral's vengeance. When he could finally walk again it was nearly dawn. I don't know how we found shelter that morning, but we did, in an unmarked, unused tomb in the unkempt graveyard of the abbey. I held him while he slept, but I don't think my eyes closed once all day. I thought about killing him before he could fully understand what had happened to him, but somehow couldn't bring myself to do it. In truth, some small part of me took some pleasure in knowing that finally something I loved would live as long as I did. That thought vanished however at sunset when Jesse woke and I looked into his eyes.

  Chapter 7

  He knew, perhaps better than I, what had happened the night before, he was acutely aware of the need growing inside him, and, at levels deeper than I could guess, he was horrified. We spoke nothing of it as we returned to the convent to claim what was left of our things, and began the long journey to somewhere far, far away from this place. We shared what was left in my bottle of formula, and stopped several hours before daylight to make more. The next night we set out again, and so it went for many days, putting time and distance between us and this thing we had done.

  Each night when we rose I could feel the hunger in him, could sense the growing need that would have to be answered. I knew that the formula I survived on was not filling him, was barely keeping him alive, and that soon he would have to kill. He, I think, knew it as well. It drove him deeper into his depression, pulling him further from me, and at the same time it pulled at the very animal core of his soul. Hatred and hunger found some synchrony in him and despair hung upon his very shoulders.

  We were walking along a wooded road, who knows how long after that horrendous night, and we passed a small camp where a young man was kneeling beside a fire, and the scent of stew filled the night air. He called out cordial hellos and we stopped to warm ourselves by the fire. The small talk was pleasant and the sound of another voice strange to my ears.

  “Do you mind sharing your fire?” I asked as we approached. Jesse's eyes were glazed over and I could feel his need.

  The young man gestured for us to sit. “Please, come. Hungry? I've got plenty to share.”

  “Yes, thank you.” I watched it come over Jesse, saw his resistance die. I sat near the young man, flirted. All the while Jesse just watched, hardly moved at all. I let the Change come, knowing the instincts newly born in my love would respond. Gently I pulled the man's head to my shoulder, smoothing the long hair from his neck. The vein there pulsed at us. He squirmed a little, but I kissed his neck and my hand carefully stroked his inner thigh to ease him. “Come, Jesse.” I whispered. “Come, feed.” I bit gently, releasing the intoxicating scent of his blood into the air. I knew that without it, Jesse would starve. It was startling to see him like that, the Change taking away all that might have remained of my beloved Jesse. He fed, and when it was done, he cried. I held him, but could find no words to comfort him. When the tears subsided, we resumed our journey.

  I'm not sure anymore how far we got, or where we went, or what happened when we got there. I know that Jesse killed twice more, and with each death he grew more despondent, and less my Jesse. We went days without speaking at all, and when we did it was little, one-word noises with no meaning. I longed to have him hold me as he did before, to feel him around me, to talk until one or the other fell asleep, and, I feared what we might say. The days and nights all began to run together, and still in my memory there is little definition. Only one remaining morning stands out in my mind.

  We had found an empty mausoleum and bunked down in it for the day, even though there was still nearly an hour until dawn. I was preparing more of my formula and he was pacing around me. He had killed early in the night and was still full of its energy. Finally, he came to kneel beside me and took my hand. “I cannot do this,” he said, his voice heavy and full. He was deeply in despair, worse yet than I had ever seen him.

  “You will grow accustomed to it,” I said, clinging to his hand.

  “You never did.” And, he was right. “I do not want to. I cannot stand this … thing … that I have become. I am now that which I have hated and feared all of these years we have been together.”

  “I love you,” I said, as if that would make a difference.

  “How? How can you love this … thing that I am?”

  I looked at him, and marveled again at the years we had been together. I was never sure if my passionate love for him was returned the same way, but it hadn't mattered. His handsome face was creased with the years, his hair more gray now than black. He must have been close unto sixty. “I have loved you always, and will forever.” I reached up to touch him and felt him stiffen.

  “I cannot live this life forever. I can barely stand myself now, and I have taken only three lives. Can you imagine what I would be like in a year, or five, or a hundred? I will no longer be that person that you love.” He withdrew from me to pace around the small chamber, then came suddenly back beside me, his face so close to mine I could feel his anguish, feel his whispered words in my soul. “They are so warm, so inviting. Their fear titillates me, arouses me in ways even your touch never could. The blood is so sweet, so wonderfully sweet that I might explode merely from the pleasure of its taste, if the very experience of such passion didn't repulse me in ways I have never before felt. It tears at me, the loathing of the very thing which gives my body pleasure, and yet it can never stop me.”

  I wanted to kiss him, to stop his words, to stop the reaction he had begun in my own body, the longing, the hunger, but I found myself trapped by them, unable even to breathe as he went on. “I am afraid, even of myself, but even that serves only to make the desire stronger. I find that with each death, with each sweet taste of blood, the revulsion grows weaker and the need stronger. My body finds increasing pleasure in their terror and their pain. It nearly hurts. And yet, as it is finally done and I release them, I am brought to tears to know what I have done. If I could never remember it, their faces, their whimpering cries, I might survive. But each day, as we sleep, shut up in the dark, I see them, I hear them, and it drives me insane.”

  I knew then, I think, what was going to happen. I knew, and there was nothing that I could say or do to stop him. “What are you going to do?”

  “The only thing left to me, all that is left of my own will.” He stood opposite me, his back to me, and he was crying. I went to him, wrapped my arms around him, tried in vain to comfort him.

  “I will follow you,” I said, and for the moment, I meant it.<
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  He didn't look at me, only touched my hand where it wrapped around him. “I love you,” he whispered, saying his good-bye. He disentangled himself from me and went to the door. Beyond it the sunrise awaited its cue. I think I called out to him once as he opened the door and slipped away from me, but he never looked back. I started twice for the door myself, even crossing into the path of the light.

  The pain was excruciating, the burning unbearable. I tried, oh how I tried to stand there and die with honor, but Crenoral was right about my will to live, I threw the door shut, collapsing beside it and crying myself to sleep.

  I was found several days later, cried out, burned, and deep in shock. I was barely conscious of the second burning as they carried me out into the bright sunlight and carried me by horseback to a nearby hospital that had once been a temple to the healing god Asclepius. My hands were blackened and my face blistered where the dark cascade of my hair had failed to cover me.

  With Jesse's death, and the trauma of my own injuries, I withdrew from the world. There was no conscious decision to it, no definitive moment when I chose to cease to function. My mind froze upon the final sight of him, and refused then to yield it. I paid little attention to what mankind chose to do to me, withdrawing within myself.

  It was not a pleasant time and the backward nature of medicine in those days did little to improve my lot. I bear the scars even today of the burnings as I was moved from place to place, though I have no memory of how they came to be. I have glimpses of moments, of being fed, of being bathed. I do not know how many years passed there as I healed, as I became less and less involved in the outside world. I was uncaring of myself, or anyone else. Those there were nice enough, doing as medicine of the day could to ease my pain and help me to heal, but I seldom saw them. My eyes had turned inward and would not return.