Forever

by Natalie J. Case

  “Only this time, Daniel, I will kill you,” I said it without emotion, with nothing more than honest conviction. I knew what I had begun all those years before would end on this night, in this park.

  He smiled, and bent back to her neck. She groaned a little as he drank, but her eyes never left mine. “I won't let you have her this time, Hunter,” I snarled and dove at them. My arms wrapped around Joy's waist and the three of us crashed to the ground. The impact forced him to release her and she and I rolled away.

  He was already up and after us by the time I managed to pull free of her. I stood, putting myself between her and him, leaving her to sit somewhat dazed and bleeding in the wet grass. “She tastes so good, Mother. I understand now why you created me, how much it hurt when I took her before.” He came closer, her blood staining his face. “Can you remember it? How it was to find her there, dead … with that stake through her heart?”

  “I remember how you tasted when I made you, Hunter,” I said in return, rolling my neck to loosen it as the blood from the first of them began to work within me. “I remember the horror on your face as you realized what I had done.” I smiled fiercely. “I remember watching you kill for the first time. Do you, Hunter? Do you remember the first one? That day in the church? She was young, innocent, sweet.” His eyes fluttered and I could tell he was tasting her again. I moved swiftly then, charging forward, my nails scratching across his face. I dropped him to the ground, landing on top of him. I didn't want to taste him again … I couldn't risk bringing his sickness inside of me again.

  Instead I began to pummel him with my fists, kneeling astride his chest as I unleashed a lifetime of pent up rage upon his face, pounding until my hands turned red with his blood. I felt his consciousness go and still I beat on him. It wasn't until I heard Joy's low moan that I stopped. I turned to find her. She lay in a shallow puddle of blood, the grass around her slick with it. I left him then and went to her, gathering her up into my lap, smoothing her hair with my bloodied hands. She had lost a great deal of blood, perhaps too much.

  Her eyes opened. No words passed between us, nothing needed to be said. Everyone she had ever been rested there for me to read. Every thought was open to me. The wound in her neck had slowed its bleeding, but it had done its work, leaving her at the edge of life. I saw Rebeka as I had found her, Rebeka as she had been with me. I knew what must occur, what had been meant to be for a thousand lifetimes. I saw it echo in her eyes, the shadows of those lives. Wordlessly I bent closer, and I could smell her, taste her. My tongue touched the wound softly, licking at the slightly cooling blood. It was thick, and the familiar flavor sent shivers through my soul. My mouth opened almost without thought and closed over the wound, drawing her essence inside of me. That first mouthful I held momentarily, savoring it before swallowing. I drank quickly then, knowing the precious moments were passing, taking her further and further from me. There was so little left, so little to work with. I pulled her life from her, as I had craved doing so many times in the past. Then I began the harder part, forcing myself back into her, pushing my will inside of her. There was so little, my strength was not what it had been when I was younger. As I drank and gave back to her I enveloped her, our minds and souls enmeshed within each other, protective and possessive.

  My eyes were closed, savoring the moment. I felt it begin within her. I clung to her, my lips closed over the wound, even as it healed. I held her, cradled her in my arms. She shook with it, and settled silently into it. Slowly, she stirred, lifting her head from my arms. Her scream split the night and I bolted, just as the Hunter's hands closed around my neck and sent me reeling backwards. My breath left me as his bloody face hovered over me. My vision swam, his grip was strong around my throat. He howled into the night sky, and I struggled to pry his hands free. His blood dripped over my face, painting my skin with it. I pushed at him, and still he squeezed my life from me.

  Then, he moved, upward. His hands pulled me with him, not quite loosening from my throat as his head snapped backwards. Then I saw her, Joy, her face changed, her mouth turned slightly in a wry smile, sharp white teeth gleaming. Her arm snapped down and I heard the bones in his wrist crack. He let go of me and I fell back to the ground. She pulled him clear of me, tossing him into the nearest tree as if he were a doll. I climbed to my feet and joined her, stalking him between us. He seemed dazed, shaking his head as if to clear it of some thought. He had not fed in some time, and it showed on him. I sensed victory, at long last complete vengeance for my Rebeka. I snatched up a broken branch from the ground, and Joy followed suit. We circled him, taunting him.

  Joy closed in first, and in her face I saw the familiar killer that had been Rebeka. There would be no mercy, no pleas for it. The circle had come full upon them. Even he recognized it, his eyes rising to meet hers. She held the broken stick as though it were a sword, and pressed it slowly into him. His eyes locked onto her face, his arms raised to his side as if welcoming the release she offered. My heart froze, recognizing the look … the expression so like the one Jesse wore as he walked out into the morning light. In the blink of an eye, it was done, the wood buried deeply into the cavity where once a human heart had beat, a human heart I had taken away. He fell to pieces, scattering into dust that washed away in the new rain. I held out my arms to her and she came. We were together, as it had been meant to be. I could read her mind as easily as if she were speaking to me, and mine was just as open to her. We held each other in the late night rain, clinging to each other and letting the rain wash away the bloody evidence of our acts.

  When at last we released each other it was to begin the long walk back to the townhouse, arm in arm. Mrs. Pliece met us at the door, wrapping us both in warm blankets and hurrying us inside. Joy was hungered, and yet remarkably in control, the soft, beautiful serenity on her face belying the fierce appetite I could feel. I smiled and held her hand, as the servants bustled about, making us warm and comfortable.

  That night I slept with her in my arms, feeling my entire body on fire with the nearness of her, with the wash of her blood working within me. I clung to her, feeling her skin cool, her heart silent, her breathing become more and more shallow. When she rose at sunset she left an empty place beside me. I knew she had gone out to feed and I welcomed the hot exchange that would follow. I rose, but could not bring myself to leave the bedroom. I did not wish to be seen by my servants. I rang for Mrs. Pliece and asked that she draw a hot bath.

  As I sat at my vanity and brushed out the gray hair with a silver brush that had been mine for more years than I could remember, I could taste Joy's sweetness in my mouth. In the mirror I saw a reflection of a woman I had forgotten I had been, a woman not so content with herself, a woman filled with passions that ignited at the touch of another of her kind. However, the hands that held that brush were no longer young, no longer possessed the passion they had once. They shook if I held them out for too long. The wrinkles that had become so familiar in the last years seemed suddenly out of place, as if they belonged to another. I looked again and I was taken with the Change, melting away the years some, transforming the image into something I wasn't quite ready to become again.

  I sank into the tub of steaming waters, letting the heat fill me and pull out some of the aches from the previous night's activity. I was still there when she came to me, her pale skin flush with her dinner, her heart calling my name as she sank beside the tub and offered to me her wrist. I drank then, slowly, savoring each drop of the mortal killer she had found in the cold streets of London, flavored slightly with the remains of her own chemistry. I raised my wrist to her lips and we fed, sharing each other more completely than any lovers could.

  When we had done, she washed my hair, pampering me as she might have had I been her mortal mother. We spent most of the night speaking silently of the years we had been apart, of our need to be together. As dawn approached we spoke of Francis. She would need to be told something. Joy was as much a part of her life as she had been of mine. The child re
lied upon her as well. We toyed with the idea of telling her the truth, but I wasn't sure how to finally tell her what I was, what I had made Joy into.

  I discarded the idea then, and chose instead some peculiar lies to send Joy and I off into the life we had been destined to share. We worked out the details, first Joy came to stay with me, to care for me. Francis and the children visited and we spoke of travel. There was so much to see. I think she may have suspected, her connection to Joy giving her glimpses of the change in her friend. She spoke of Lu Sin one late evening when the three of us had finished the dinner dishes and were relaxing. I saw the look on Joy's face and smiled. “I have missed her as well,” I said softly into the space left after her words.

  I set about the matter of arranging a trust after that night, much as I once had for Joy. There would be money for food and education for the children, all that was left of the gift Dovan had given me, the house and servants. We would have no need of such things once we left London. Joy would journey out in the early evening, many nights coming home without having fed. On those nights she watched over Francis. On other nights she would walk the damp streets as a shadow, guided by some unknown hand to those to whom death was welcome. Always she tasted of sadness, and relief … the joy of release from life's pain.

  Three weeks after it began, I followed her out into the night. Arm in arm we strolled through the town, which suddenly looked so much different to me. She was so vibrant, so … alive beside me. I felt young again, as I had when I had hunted beside my brothers and sisters, as I had under Crenoral's hand. We watched a play, talked quietly with each other about the silent symbolism and macabre sets. She pouted when I suggested we call it an evening. I nearly called her Rebeka.

  It was that night, upon our return, as she brushed out my hair that it was first noticeable. Even so, it was so small, so minute, that I brushed it off. The tiny lines around my eyes seemed … less. As if something had come along to fill them. My green eyes sparkled darkly by the lamp light, as they had long ago. My hair seemed less gray in her hands.

  The next night, after feeding and a long walk, I thought I saw it again. It was several nights before I began to realize the implications. Each night a piece of the age I had carried since losing Joy and Francis was washing away. As I fed, and filled my life with her, it returned to me that which I had been. I knew we needed to escalate our plans before the changes became obvious.

  I went to Francis in the early hours of the night, held her in my arms. We spoke a long time before she looked at me, forbidden knowledge shining in her eyes. “I am glad you are taking Joy with you. I have not seen her so happy since she was last with you.” Her smile was sad.

  I sighed, holding her closer. “We will return.”

  “I know. You have to. Your granddaughter will need you.”

  I smiled at the thought, suddenly realizing the one thing that had been missing from this time with my family. “Has Dovan seen her?”

  “I have not seen him since the night before the wedding,” Francis said. “Justine said that she wished to see America.”

  I nodded and held her close. “I am leaving you the townhouse. Mrs. Pliece is expecting you. The servants are paid through the end of the year.”

  I could feel her smile, even though I couldn't see it in the dark. “Will you stay long enough for Amanda's birthday?”

  “Yes, Joy and I plan to leave a few days after.”

  “Good.” She settled back against me, her head on my shoulder. I listened to the sound of her heartbeat, so soft and nearly hypnotic. Beyond it I could feel the deeper sound of her husband's heart, and the more rapid ones of the two girls. I stayed until dawn was only an hour away and Francis was sleeping in my arms. The next nights I spent there with my daughter as Joy hunted. On the night of my granddaughter's first birthday, we gathered there in that apartment to celebrate and say our farewells.

  Then, carrying only a small pack apiece, Joy and I set off on our life together. We left London and journeyed into the highlands, across Ireland, and Scotland. Anywhere we might find a soul in need of easing, we went. We ministered to them, taking medicines and when all else had failed and there was no further help, Joy would ease them into the next life.

  As slowly as it had come, the gray hair faded, replaced by the shiny veneer of my natural black. We lived simply, and often I fed on little more than bread and water, perhaps a small piece of fruit gathered on our journeys. When Joy fed, she would share herself with me, as Rebeka had before her. By day we bedded in each other's arms, wrapped in dark blankets and memories of lifetimes together and apart. We cared little for where we went, or how we traveled. The nights we lived, as only those who have first tasted death can. From the last ruddy ray of the setting sun until the first pale hints of dawn we were … living as brightly and boldly as we were able.

  Joy's gifts, always powerful, always just beneath the mortal surface, blossomed in the night. Her eyes glowed with the knowledge of all she had ever been, and all that lay now at her feet. Her soul saw deep into the shrouded mysteries, bringing back thoughts and ideas that could heal, touch and divide. It was as if all of her many incarnations had led her to this exact thing, this time and place … this person she was becoming.

  I followed her, ensnared by her soft voice and gentle touch, bewitched by her caring eyes and powerful presence. All around us the world was changing. The silent nights of my remembrance, the quiet hours passed in the dark, were gone and in their place came nights filled with life and light and noise. It would make it easier for those of us who made their way by dark. Joy embraced the newness of it all with all the passion and soul she possessed. She made it possible for me to ease myself out of my past, to put away the fears and fetters of my long life and step tentatively toward the future.

  The advances of mankind continually amazed me, as we passed through towns and cities. The inventions that little more than fifty years before had been nothing but science fiction now filled up the homes of average people. The horseless carriage had given way to automobiles and trucks. Electric lamps filled the night with light as golden and magnificent as the sunrise.

  We let our travels bring us back to London often. Francis and Bryant had a son three years after Amanda and named him Jesse. He had my dark hair and his father's long legs and his mother's knack for seeing in the dark and knowing when I was near. Francis was a better mother than I could ever have been, and her children glowed with their humanity. I was very proud.

  At long last, who knows how many years after we had begun, we came to the place of her birth, across the great ocean to the place where her fate had put her into my hands. The streets of San Francisco were crowded as we walked through them hand in hand and I told her the story of the moment when I had first held her.

  She knew the tale, of course, as she knew everything there was to know about me, but loved to hear me tell it. Many of the landmarks I had known then were gone, but by some odd twist of fate, the small, back room apartment I had leased then was still there, and empty. It looked much the same as it had when I had awoken that morning, the day I had first come to realize that Francis was on her way. We passed the day there, speaking of her parents and her life here in this city. It seemed ages ago, though it could only have been forty-five years or so.

  As dark fell, she wanted to visit the graves where her parents lay. I walked with her, silently, withdrawn within myself to offer her what privacy I could. So much had changed for her, I wondered what she would say to them now. At the gate to the graveyard, I slipped my hand from hers and, with a kiss on my cheek to thank me, she glided away into the shadows. I turned and walked toward the grandiose church, remembering a time when it had been little more than a timber shack with a wooden cross atop it.

  Chapter 26

  I stood on the sidewalk of the quiet street, gazing about me contentedly, distractedly, a part of my attention attached to Joy, the rest simply being there, waiting. At first I didn't recognize her, though that seems impossible to
me now. I had not heard from her or about her in so many years, not since Francis had been born. I hadn't thought much of her since Joy had come to be with me, but there she stood, a vision of haunting beauty.

  She looked nearly as lost as she had when I had first known her, looking as if she might cry at any moment, or run away into the night. She stood upon the steps of the church, unable to go inside. The full moon cast a hazy glow over her, tinted her pale skin ever so slightly to make her look almost human. I stood nearly a block away, watching, and waiting for her to notice me. She turned, slowly, her eyes lifting to meet mine. We were alone on the street and I smiled a half smile as I started toward her. She glided gracefully down the steps to the street, but her smile was sad. “Hello, Moira,” I said softly. It seemed I always spoke to her that way.

  “It has been a long time,” she said, her voice full and rich, sensual.

  I had forgotten how it felt to be with her, this creature who had been human when I first found her, human and lost, not far from death, the first of my children. “Are you all right?” I asked her, wanting to comfort the tears I could see in her eyes as she shook her head.

  “They've taken Leonard,” she said, her voice shaking and soft.

  “Where?” I asked, putting a hand on her arm to steady her. It awakened the maternal instinct in me, the side that rose up to protect and avenge.

  “In there. They came just before sunset. I was already awake, and I had gone downstairs to work. I came up when I heard the commotion, but they had already dragged him out. As soon as the sun was down, I followed. They came here.” We both turned to look at the church and I could feel her pain.

  I was so in tune with her that I found tears in my eyes, and a rage swelling within my heart. It was as if this time spent with Joy had unplugged all the last blockages to my humanity and I was free to love and fear and cry. I stepped toward the church, but Moira's hand on my arm held me. She was bound by what she was, and could not step foot inside that hallowed hall. I calmed her as best I could and handed her my bag. I was traveling lightly and would have little need of anything in it inside the church. I beckoned Joy with a light thought and waited for her to emerge from the graveyard. “This is Joy, she is my friend and confidant. Go with her. I will go in for Leonard.”