Forever

by Natalie J. Case

  We watched as the man in question glanced around him, dazed and unsure that he had seen anything. Eventually he faded into the thinning crowd. “Come, children, it is time we were off about more private matters.” We withdrew then, as the mortals did, into the privacy of what passed as a home for us. There were more lessons, quiet time spent lost in the journals I kept as a youth, or in ancient manuscripts that modern archeologists would salivate over today. I pressed upon them the need to know and understand what went before in order to be prepared for what lay ahead.

  As the time moved by us, I could feel them growing closer to one another, and distant to me. It hurt me, and yet, I could feel a sort of maternal pride as I watched them blossom into intelligent and beautiful creatures. Perhaps it might have been better for all of us concerned if I had chosen to leave them once their lessons had been learned. Yet, I clung to Moira, my child, my treasure. I loved them both as I had no other creatures in my life.

  To this day, I do not know which of us let go first, or if it happened all at once. One night I simply gathered my belongings and emerged from my room to find that they had gone. Only a note was left behind, like that of a child telling her mother she had run off to elope. “Amara,” it read, “please forgive us. We are unable to say goodbye. We will hold you fondly in our thoughts and hope to see you again one day. Until then … Moira and Leonard.”

  I was, of course, heartbroken, though I myself had set my sights on leaving them. I moped awhile, hanging around the places we had loved together. Then, I gathered my wounded pride and my belongings and took to the night. I wandered alone after that, visiting London and Paris, Madrid and Cairo. Occasionally I would come across one who knew me, or of me. Once or twice it came to blows and I was forced, as with Vahe, to defend myself. It left me cold and empty, for I no longer believed my actions were justified, I no longer had my Jesse to convince me. Yet, I was unwilling to pay the price for those actions, to allow myself to die for those deeds. My will to live was too great, which brought me back to the same crime, dealing death to those who were so much like me.

  I changed a great deal in those years, maturing beyond my reliance upon others for approval, for the conviction of the reality of life. I grew to like myself, to be aware of myself and my own desires. The world was an open playground to those like me, spreading its arms in welcome of the cold and hungry, offering sanctuary and kindness to those in need. The night was a thing to be escaped, which left it empty for my pleasure, barren of those who might come to know the true nature of the darkness. I traveled unmolested and quite alone, save for those times I required company. Then, I would don my most human expressions, and walk among them again. I found a certain comfortable existence in myself, moving from place to place, making friends, taking lovers, finding the person I had always desired to be. I was strong in myself at that moment in time. I needed no one and nothing, but the formula, which sustained my life, and the dark which held it.

  There is something to be said for the children of the night, those newborn to the darkness, filled with the wonder and awe at her beauty that we who are more familiar with her shortcomings have forgotten. Thus it was when I found her, and I was instantly taken in by her joy, her trust, her lust for all things. I had forgotten what it was to feel such passion, such desires. I was mesmerized, hypnotized in the shadows of the moon, watching her as if entranced as she moved with fluid grace reminiscent of an earlier age through the streets, a wraith, a shadow, barely there and yet so fully alive that without her the world would grow pale.

  She had been a child, barely seventeen, made in the heat of passion by another too young to understand what he had done, what evil would transpire to rob her of the innocent beauty he loved. He had been Maurice, a gentle soul with scarcely a year of night within him when he loved her, and a careless killer who found the truth of immortality two seconds too late to save himself from the fiery death of divine retribution. She was alone then, when I came across her path, alone and wandering her new world with the eyes of a child and the beauty of a girl on the verge of womanhood.

  I shadowed her for several nights, content, at least at first, to watch her as she tasted the night air, stole silently upon the unsuspecting, laughed easily at the jokes of those around her, and fed with an insatiable hunger only those young children of the night can know. I felt a sudden kinship when at last she spotted me, sensed me, came to me. Her dark eyes sought out mine as if for explanation of herself, of myself, of the world. We stood silent upon the street, regarding each other. She saw in me the dark, ancient reflection of my life, the weariness in my soul, the forever beating of my heart. I saw … love … and life, beauty beyond the ability of the spoken word … everything I had ever aspired to, and everything I had ultimately lost. It seemed I had known her forever, that I had loved her since I had drawn breath.

  She sensed the need, the hunger in me, the weakness of my body, and in a simple gesture of faith and trust unearned and unasked for, she offered me her wrist. She had fed well, I had watched her, and she seemed, in that moment of meeting, to understand my moral bindings, my ethical dilemmas. She offered her wrist, her face open and inviting, the rush of her supper's blood calling out to me. I took her hand, drew her with me to the shadows, away from the glare of the street lamps and the sounds of the night people. The Change came quickly, easily and I drank of her, tasting the sweet, lingering pieces of the mortal she had been, and the warm, musky thickness of the foreigner she had dined on. I pulled back, licking my lips to savor the remaining drops. She smiled, her own sharp teeth white and shiny in the pale illumination of the moon.

  “Hello,” she said then, wiping daintily at the tiny pools of blood that were already closing at her wrist.

  I smiled and took the hand she offered. We walked into the night, instantly at home with each other, minutely connected on levels that went beyond the physical act of sharing her dinner. So it began. We scarcely spoke, though we spent hours in the company of each other. I watched her hunt, kill … then savored it through her, feeding as I had never been able to.

  We were a study of opposites, always walking closely together; she in her pale blond hair and fair white skin, her blue eyes dark and sparkling, I brooding and darker than the night from which I was born, my hair black and straight and long, so that it might not be told from the black of my clothes. Men were entranced by her, as was I, falling upon themselves the moment we entered a room and nearly throwing themselves into her embrace, even when they knew her kiss would bring only death.

  She was beautiful in a way I cannot begin to make you understand, even with all these years I have lived and the fifteen modern languages I speak, there are simply no words. It transcends the ability of words. She was innocent, and a killer, child-like in her need for approval, her desire to please and her demanding for what her body required. Yet, she was a woman, filled with a woman's longing and able to use that beauty she possessed to her advantage. She took from the world what she needed, and did it with an awe and wonderment that left me aching when she had fed and come to me. Her ethereal grace and agility displayed all that was good about the curse of our lives, and yet something of her former human beauty clung to her as well.

  She did not hunt as others did, as I had in the past. She wooed, she flirted, often for nights on end before she drew one into her final trap. Always a man, usually young, sometimes not. They were helpless in the end to resist her, many of them succumbing without scarcely a trace of fear. I was spellbound, caught up in her mystical nature, unable to see anything beyond. I would find myself breathless as she danced, played, flirted; aching for the very taste of her, the scent of her beside me, the sound of her voice, deep and musical. I was never far from her side, and whatever mystical strings bound us brought her inside of me. As she fed I could feel the warmth of the blood filling her, rushing to her cheeks until she looked like an excited girl flushed with the first kiss of love. My body craved what she brought to me, the release, the desire. Always I wanted more. />
  I bought us a home on the distant outskirts of the city, close enough to walk to and from each night, and far enough from the center of things to be left largely alone when we chose. We had no need of servants or aides of any kind, we had each other, and little else mattered in our lives at the time. I withdrew again from the world, seeing it only through her eyes, touching it only through her skin. I savored the newness of it all through her, tasting the familiar as if I had never known it before. I scarcely breathed in her presence, barely knew the needs of my own body, beyond the exhilarating rush of feeding from her and the exquisite pleasure of simply gazing at her.

  She remembered little, if anything of her life before Maurice. Indeed, she scarcely recalled Maurice. All that seemed to matter to her was the moment. The nights stretched out in eternity from us. I held her in my arms as I might have once held Jesse, whispering to her of her beauty, of the secrets we had to share. I was utterly spellbound, held to her by the basest of needs. There was nothing hidden between us, our thoughts were free to the night air, easily read by the other.

  She was, perhaps more than Moira ever could have been, my child. She depended upon me for everything, leaning upon my arm as we walked, looking to me for approval as she chose her prey. She mimicked my mannerisms, my style of speech, she bought us matching clothing. At times she was more a little child than a woman, giggling at things only she saw, withdrawing behind a wall of silence when reprimanded. She hated to be away from me for long, save for at feeding. Then, she would rush to me, as to a lover she hadn't seen in months, and melt in my arms as she offered herself to me. I wondered if this was how she had been with Maurice. I could not resist her, withhold anything from her. She was my angel, my cherub-faced child of death.

  I was unprepared then, for what would befall us. I could not see the horror that was coming upon us, I could not know what cruel blow the world would fell me with, what terror would follow me the rest of my days. I am told now that it began somewhere in France, when one inscrutable monster killed in a spree unrivaled in all of history, awakening modern man to the presence of our kind, kindling a fire of vengeance that would spread across time, burning hot and low and dangerous. In that fire was born a new monster, perhaps more bloodthirsty than Crenoral's entire clan could ever have been. They were commissioned by the Church, blessed and sent out on their crusade to save mankind from the devil of the darkness.

  Before then we had been creatures of myth and legend, a thing whispered of and feared, but never truly believed in by the light of day. As long as it had been kept that way, humanity was never truly a threat. Suddenly, we became the focus of great religious conviction, beyond that of those first early centuries. We were given a name …Vampyre.

  I knew nothing of them, or the events which had conspired in their creation, but that did not keep them from finding me … or more accurately, from finding Rebeka, with me beside her. I understand now that even mortals ran from them, for they were said to be ruthless in their pursuit of their enemy, and uncaring of the innocence of any who stood between them and their chosen prey. They had their blessing from the Holy Mother Church, and the freedom and authority to condemn any that they saw fit to condemn.

  They came in the early spring, wearing their white robes and crosses. I saw them arrive, watched them, my eyes flickering occasionally to the place where Rebeka flirted with her evening's choice, as they dismounted their horses beside the church. Two of them remained with the horses and the others went inside. A twinge of prescience touched me, but I assumed them to be simple clerics, traveling through and seeking shelter for the night. I ignored them, and the sense of doom that seemed to hang in the very air about them, returning to my nightly entertainment. It would be my mistake, one that haunts me still today.

  Two nights later I saw them again, mingling among the night people, asking private questions, and heads turned our way. I grew nervous, I have never much liked attention. I sought out Rebeka. “Come, it is a good time to be away.” I took her hand and drew her from the lighted windows of the pub where she had been flirting.

  “I am not done,” she said, pulling away.

  My eyes jumped to one of the priests who was looking our way. Her eyes followed, and I felt her make the connection between the man and the apprehension she felt building within me. “What is it?” she asked, her eyes growing wide as fear knotted in my stomach.

  “I do not know, exactly, but it feels like trouble.” We watched a moment as the priest spoke with another, his eyes still upon us. “Please, Rebeka, humor me. Let us away.”

  She was resistant, but my apprehension echoed in her and she followed me like a reticent child. Once within the relative safety of our home, where there was no need to pretend, I actually shook with some tremor of unrealized fear. I should have known then. I should have seen it coming. Had Moira been with me I might have.

  “Who is Moira?” she asked suddenly, pulling me from my introspection. In the time we had been together we had never discussed my past.

  I smiled and sat beside the fire. “Moira is my daughter, as you are Maurice's daughter. I made her.”

  “Where is she now?” She settled into a little ball at my feet, her head resting upon my knee.

  “She is with one called Leonard. They belong together.”

  “As we do?”

  She seemed so innocent at that moment, so unaware of the world, of herself. “Aye, Rebeka, as we do.” I brushed her blond locks absently, listening to the sounds of the night and the gentle crackling of the fire.

  “And you, who made you?”

  I was quiet a moment, gazing into the fire and seeing the faces of my Family, now gone. “An ancient one, one of the first three. Only, not in the same way you were made. He made my mother, and I was brought with her.”

  “Did he love you?”

  “I suppose he did, in some way. Not all are made out of love though, Rebeka.”

  “So Maurice told me, before he was gone. I cannot understand that. How do you give such a gift to one you do not love?”

  “I don't know, my love, I don't know.” I smiled and contented myself with her presence, with her affection. The apprehension left me. The fire was warm and the night still young. I picked up a book of poetry we had been reading from and opened it to the marker. When she read from it to me, something in her voice reminded me of Adroushan and the softness of her hands soothed me. The priests and the foreboding of trouble were forgotten.

  The streets were chilled, quiet the next night, as a late frost settled over us and we made our way to the tavern where we often spent the early evening. Very few folks were there, and those brave souls were huddled around the fire, casting fevered looks in our direction, as if blaming us for some hideous crime. I was too uncomfortable to enjoy my normal meal, and Rebeka pouted while I made a show of finishing my supper, for there was no one to flirt and toy with. She agreed easily when I suggested we leave, put off our usual evening stroll until another night when the air was less chill. As we emerged from the tavern we spoke of moving on to another town, of leaving behind the uneasy feeling this evening had placed in our souls. She was excited at the prospect of seeing big cities, of traveling the wide reaches of civilization. We were near to the edge of town, making quiet plans for the following night when she saw a man she had been courting.

  She glanced aside at me, and I could feel an echo of the hunger inside her, the stirring of what she was, of the need which brings us all to feed. If it warmed inside of me, it must have been a raging flame to her. I nodded and busied myself at a shop window while she hurried along to catch him. I watched furtively, my nervous stomach urging me to keep a close eye on her. I was so busy in my watching that I failed to notice the approach of the clerics. A young one, no more than twenty-five spoke a greeting to me, “Greetings, Milady.”

  “Father.” I smiled gently in his direction, hoping Rebeka wise enough to see them and move her supper elsewhere to dine.

  “Might I speak with you?”
r />   “If that is your wish.” He made me nervous, a flittering in my stomach I couldn't place.

  “What is your name, Daughter?”

  “I am called Amara,” I said, fighting my instincts to push him aside and head for Rebeka.

  “And your family name?”

  “Is older than anyone remembers. In my homeland, sir, we are called by only one name.”

  “Where would that be?”

  “A very long way from here.” I began walking in the general direction where I had last seen Rebeka. “I am sure you would not know it.”

  “Are you very good friends with the young woman I saw you with before, the pretty blonde?”

  “She is like a daughter to me. Why do you ask?”

  “The people of this town say she is cursed, that death follows her. Many men have died.”

  I stopped and turned to look at him, my face filled with a cold indifference. “There are many things that make men die, Father. Do you have a meaning to these annoying questions?”

  “Do you and she live together in a state of sin?”

  He was perfectly serious, and I had to keep myself from ripping into his neck. I knew then that they had suspected the truth about us, about her. I strained my neck to look for Rebeka. She had disappeared down an alley and been gone far too long. “Excuse me, Father, but I really must be going.” I said, and headed toward her, but he touched my arm and continued his questions.

  “Does she serve the devil? Does she drink the blood of the men she kills? Do you protect her?”

  I grew angry and more than a little afraid. He kept slowing my steps, getting between me and the alley, deliberately delaying my arrival. When at last I made it to the corner of the nearer building, I could hear the low growl of a wounded animal, trapped, afraid, hurting. She was cornered against a wall, the dead man at her feet, four of the hunters holding her to her spot with crosses that gleamed gold in the moonlight. Her eyes met mine and I read in them her silent pleading. My heart stopped, my breath ceased. I felt fear and hatred welling up within me and I longed to tear these men to shreds.