by A. D. Koboah
She was completely defenceless now, but anger smouldered behind her eyes, unsettling me. But I was determined she see that she could not continue to toy with me in the manner that she had been. So I closed the space between us.
“Can you see what I can do now, Luna?”
Without even thinking about it, I brought my hand up to her face and let it graze her cheek for a few seconds. Perhaps she was listening to my words, for the fury had gone out of her gaze and she was staring at me imploringly. What was more, she was admiring me, and this time the image of the gentle giant Jupiter did not intrude on her thoughts.
“So please, Luna. Do not...”
She moved forward, letting her chest rest against mine and I let my words trail away. I could feel desire emanating from her as she continued to admire me, and for a moment, I let myself believe it was her genuine desire. But it could not be. Her eyes were intoxicating, weakening me the longer I stared into them and when she brought her hand to my face, I had to close my eyes as I covered her hand with mine. When her thoughts turned to my lips, and of a kiss, I opened my eyes. Like a cat stretching, she rose up to the tips of her toes, seeking to place her lips over mine.
Before I lost all power to resist, I did the only thing I could at that moment.
“Sleep, Luna.”
Her eyes fluttered shut and she became limp in my arms.
I was shaking as I lay her down on the loveseat. I had been so close to doing something that would never be forgiven. Even now my will power was being sorely tested as I gazed at her laying supine on the loveseat, remembering the feel of her hand against my cheek, her warm, soft body pressed against mine. I touched her face, yearning to place my lips against hers. She would never know.
But it was a slippery slope that would begin with a stolen kiss.
What else would I steal from her after that? Would it then seem acceptable to take her by force as her master had done time and time again, ignoring, no, sometimes relishing in her obvious distress. Years of abuse that had left her like a crushed and beaten rose? What would I take then? Her soul? Emory’s smooth, boyish face came to me then as we had sat talking so long ago in the chapel. The anger he had not managed to rein in playing across his features, his bitterness like the soft slap of a leather glove against my cheek, the feel of the soft leather belying the seriousness of the action which was always a call to arms. He had been so sure of his words then, that it was only a matter of time before I became just like them.
And, like them, I would take whatever I wanted from whomever with impunity.
So much power.
I took a step back. I had never wanted anyone so much in all my years, the desire I felt for her was excruciating. I backed out of the room until I was outside in the hallway where I closed the door on her sleeping form.
What had I done? She trusted me. What had I done?
Chapter 17
The evening got much worse.
Luna awoke half an hour later and came charging out of the drawing room to where I stood waiting in the corridor.
“I am sorry. I am sorry, Luna. I—”
She slapped me and then slapped me again. Soon she was delivering furious slaps across my head and chest.
“Luna, please stop. You will hurt yourself.”
Surprisingly, she stopped and moved back from me. Her breathing was heavy and her eyes burned with a wounded fire. I felt shame descend on me in thick nauseating waves. My voice shook when I spoke again.
“I am sorry, Luna. I do not...I did not mean... You do not know how angry I am with myself for having done that to you. Please, Luna. Can you ever forgive me?”
I made to move toward her, but she sprang back like a skittish colt.
“Get from me!” she spat. I ain’t never gonna forgives him for this!
My chest clenched in distress and anxiety slithered into my stomach.
“Please, Luna. Do not say you will never forgive me for I cannot bear that. If you knew the turmoil in my heart you would forgive me in an instant.”
Silence descended on the room. She stood there trembling slightly, her wide eyes clouded with disquiet. I realised my mistake. She knew now I had been reading her thoughts the entire time she had been in my presence. And if her anger wrought deep pain, it was nothing compared to her genuine hurt and distress.
“I’s a slave,” she said as tears welled in her eyes. “I ain’t got nothing for my own. I can’t even call my body my own ‘cause it belong to Massa and any children I has be his. My mind, my thoughts, my feelings—they the onliest things I has for my own and you takes that from me, too?”
“Luna...Luna...I...”
I had been listening to the thoughts of humans for decades without seeing it for what it was: theft. And as the enormity of my theft became apparent to her, she strove for words that would make me see the impact of my actions. Unable to find the right words, she reached for images, memories and then the one that had enraged me ever since I began looking into her memories, the one that haunted her the most.
She was eight or nine in the memory. And she was in the woods crying, her dress torn and blood seeping through her legs. Master Henry had buttoned up his trousers and was walking away from her back to his horse. But when he turned to look back at her, it wasn’t Master Henry I could see in her memory; it was me looking back at the wounded child with callous indifference as she lay sobbing on the ground amidst the trees.
I gasped.
“Is that how you see me?”
She appeared startled for a few seconds, as if she had almost forgotten I was there, and then she seemed to clamp down. All I got from her lips, her expression, her mind, was silence. This silence seemed to stretch on, and in the end, I could not bear to see her looking at me in that way and to know it was deserved. Distraught, I disappeared into the comforting nothingness of the ether.
I reappeared some distance from the mansion. In turmoil, I began to run, trying to run from that image of me in Master Henry’s place.
That was how she saw me. I had waited for so long and finally found her but this showed that I was, and always would be, a monster to her.
I ran on into the night feeling as lost as I had felt during all those decades in the wilderness with only the watchful gaze of the moon for a companion, and on this night, even that gaze seemed to be cold and accusing as I ran on, unable to outrun my turmoil or what I had done.
I eventually came to a stop in the middle of grasslands. There was nothing in sight for miles around apart from a group of wild horses cavorting in the distance. I sat down on the grass and wept silently with my head in my hands, knowing that Luna would not want to stay at the mansion with me. And how could I possibly refuse to let her go after what I had done?
It was a long moment before I heard movement to my right. I looked up to see a brown mare a few metres ahead, her ears pricked, seemingly watching me in curiosity. I glanced away from it. Most animals gave me a wide berth, their primal instincts alerting them to the unnatural much faster than most human beings. It would most probably wander away in a short while.
Instead, it cantered into my line of vision and stood staring at me as if curious. Intrigued by this unusual behaviour, I stared at it. Then it moved forward and came to stand directly in front of me. I got to my feet and reached out a tentative hand, expecting it to back away. Instead it brought its head down to meet my hand. I stroked it and it let me, showing none of the natural fear most animals had towards the predator I now was.
Although I was still distraught, the behaviour of the horse had soothed me somewhat.
I could not lose Luna, not now. So I had to find a way to let her know how remorseful I was and regain her trust once more.
Strangely enough, the brute John Holbert provided the solution to my problem. On the night I had almost killed him, I had done something I had never been able to do before that moment. I had been drawn out of the red mist that descended in the throes of a kill when I became aware of Luna’s strong emot
ions of revulsion and horror, and somehow, I had managed to stop in the midst of a kill.
I had done it once before, so why couldn’t I do it again? And if I could step back from the urge to kill, why couldn’t I find a way to stay out of Luna’s mind?
I was desperate to go back to the mansion and beg Luna’s forgiveness, but I couldn’t bear to hear the words which I knew she would utter the moment I returned, that she wanted to go back to the plantation.
So I looked to the lights of the town in the distance instead. With one last glance at the mare, I disappeared, heading for the town, and, hopefully, a way to redeem myself.
***
I moved through the town, as always, accosted by the voices of those around me; their thoughts, what they saw, what they heard and felt. In order to be able to achieve what I wanted, I had to recall my darkest moment. I took myself back to the moment I awoke, naked and transformed into one of the creatures I had come to loathe in the short space of time I had known them. I recalled the memory of Emory with his glacial beauty, a dark fire of hatred burning in his eyes even as he smiled at me. I had to remember not only what he had instructed me to do when he stood before me with his hands against my head; I had to recall the mental nudge he had given me, a bit like being gently turned to look at something in the distance you would not have seen on your own.
I focused on that moment, honing in on what he inadvertently revealed to me when he entered my mind, the mental control he had acquired over the years. With that caught firmly in my grasp, I listened to the din around me and began to try and control the mental chatter I heard, trying to harness the control I had glimpsed in Emory’s mind. Slowly, the mental deluge I picked up from those around me, began to diminish.
Exhilaration coursed through me. This mental chatter I had been burdened by ever since I had been turned into a vampire, and which I thought I had no control over, began to recede until I heard nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Then I brought to my mind one of the clearest voices, that of a young wife inwardly berating her husband, which was the mental equivalent of someone dragging their nails down a blackboard. She resurfaced immediately, and again, I was able to turn her voice down until I heard nothing.
Excited by what I had accomplished, I ran down the street toward the tavern. I needed to know if I could do this face to face, and in an environment as crowded and with as many distractions as that tavern. I entered it to what sounded like silence after years of being accosted by the thoughts of others, although it was as noisy as any drinking establishment the world over. I went to the bar and ordered myself a drink. I conversed with the bartender, his mind not intruding on mine. I didn’t touch the drink before me, but left shortly after, in a state of exhilaration.
Now there was the near impossible part of trying to control the urge to drink until I killed. So I walked away from the tavern, making my way as far from it as possible, having mentally snared one of the men I had seen drinking alone there, knowing he followed in the wake of my footsteps.
At the end of the main street, I stopped and stood in the shadows, knowing we would not be seen where I waited.
He approached me a short while later. His face flushed by drink, his eyes glazed by the spell I placed over him, his mind closed to mine, something which made reaching for him and biting into his neck much easier now I did not have to listen to his mental chatter, his fear and his memories of those that loved and cared for him.
As always, the blood caught me, exerted its control over me completely, pulling me under a crimson sea and I could see and hear nothing outside of it. I fought to break through to the surface even as the blood pulled me to its deepest, darkest womb. I tried to bring forth an image of Luna, but I was already lost to the demon within as it dragged me down. Then, inexplicably, her face emerged for the briefest of moments before it disappeared again.
But it was enough. I pushed my way through and emerged in the dark street, the man in my grasp, although alive, sagging against me.
I released my hold on him and he crumpled to his knees. He pressed a hand to the wound in his neck, which flowed freely. The scent of his blood rose up and filled my nostrils, calling to the demon within to devour. But I fought against the urge. Flustered now, and still shocked by the fact that I had stopped in time, I fumbled for a handkerchief, removed his hand and placed the handkerchief against his neck.
He was still bleeding profusely and was extremely pale. I watched him anxiously, and after a few moments, the bleeding stopped.
Relieved, I helped him to his feet and placed a small command in his mind to hide the marks on his neck until they healed. Then I sent him home. Watching him stagger down the street, it didn’t seem as if anything untoward had happened to him. He just appeared to be drunk, something he was known for in this town. But despite the self-control I had exerted, I feared I had not stopped in time and that I had still taken a life. The only difference being he would die later, and not in my arms, as had been the case nearly every night for fifty years.
Stopping to steal something from one of the houses nearby, I left the town and returned to the grasslands.
The same group of wild horses were still there. I sat and waited and, to my delight, the brown mare separated herself from the rest and trotted toward where I sat waiting. I got to my feet and took out the gift I had brought for her: lumps of sugar.
I stroked her gently as she ate them and then left her looking after me, her ears quivering, gentle snorts emanating from her as I walked away. The night was still young, and although I longed to return to the mansion, I was sure Luna would not want to be near me. So I wandered aimlessly through the woods until I came to a lake shimmering in the moonlight. I sat down by the side of the lake, basking in the luminous light the moon cast across its indigo surface.
I stayed there until just before dawn and then I took food to the mansion as I had done every morning since I brought Luna there. She was in the drawing room and the house felt unnaturally quiet now her thoughts were not reaching me in all their complexities, swinging erratically between light and deep darkness whenever her past memories exerted themselves. I missed hearing it and she exerted such a pull over me that it was difficult for me not to reach toward her mind and draw it out again.
I returned to the lake in the woods and dove into it, swimming out to the centre where it was deepest. I stayed there under the water, the rays of the sun that reached those depths not having the capacity to wreak the pain and discomfort that was characteristic of any time spent in the sun.
That evening I returned to the mansion. Luna was in the drawing room. I entered quickly and placed some of the scripts that I always copied out for her, normally passages from the Bible, so she could practise reading. Again, I was only in the mansion for seconds, stopping only long enough to pick up a change of clothes. Then, reluctantly, I left.
I made my way to a neighbouring town, heading for one of its drinking establishments. I ordered a drink, making conversation, behaving as if I were just another weary traveller. I was searching for the right person to feed on, confident I could control the urge to keep drinking until there was nothing left, when I heard a cry in my mind shocking me out of my musings.
Avery! Avery!
A shock wave of alarm blew through me, and for a moment, I could not move. It was Luna, Luna screaming my name in fear. I rushed out of the tavern and hurled myself into the ether, my head dizzy with a multitude of terrifying scenarios that could warrant her to scream out my name with such raw fear. I did not think about the fact that I was too far away from the mansion to be able to have heard her cry.
I reached the mansion less than ten minutes later, my head spinning and my throat tight with tension at what I would find.
But there was only one scent in the area, Luna’s, as had been the case since I brought her here. And only one heartbeat inside: hers. Cool waves of relief flowed through me and all the tension left my body. She appeared to be standing by the window
and didn’t seem to be in any danger. Puzzled, I materialised in the mansion by the front door. I was about to go to her when I saw that the bolt was against the door. It was the first time she had bolted the door since arriving at the mansion.
Tears pricked my eyes and my throat became tight once more. I caught a faint drift of her thoughts. I couldn’t make them out clearly but only knew they centred on what had taken place the night before and that she was deeply troubled by it. I let out a deep breath as a tear rolled down one cheek.
I had to regain her trust once more or all was lost.
I left before she sensed my presence and returned to the tavern.
When I chose my victim, I left, calling to him and he followed. In a deserted field, I drank from him, this time placing an image of Luna in my mind before I even sank my teeth into his neck. The red sea threatened to overwhelm again, but I held on to the image of Luna and it wasn’t able to pull me to its depths.
Long before I was able to break away on the first occasion, I stopped drinking from him. The wound was bleeding profusely, so I dragged my fingernail against my wrist, creating a small cut, and held it to his lips.
Alcohol was still on his mind and he lapped at the blood eagerly, thinking it was some strong liquor. I pulled it away, not wanting him to have too much of my blood. The wound healed immediately.
It was difficult to explain the joy I felt when I watched him walk away, walking back to the tavern to continue drinking. I wandered around that town, thinking about what this meant for me. After almost fifty years of countless murders, I would never have to take another life again. I was free.
Free.
I returned to the grasslands where I had found the brown mare, but the group of wild horses were gone. I spent the night alone for the second time.
At dawn I made a painful decision. Luna had expressed the wish to leave the mansion so I decided to acquire, dishonestly, some land I had seen by the Mississippi bluffs and have a house built for her there. The house would be my peace offering to her and I could only hope she would continue to allow me to see her every night.
