Interlude
IN AGES PAST…
“SUCH A SIMPLE THING…to always have a body…and yet—”
The man’s voice carried; the wind picked it up and melted it like the snow in spring.
Ingenuar lay with his face pressed against the moist ground, the grass tickled his chin.
The earth was still warm from the afternoon sun.
He tried to lift his head, to turn it towards the voice.
Every time he moved, pain throbbed at the back of his neck, his vision blurred.
The man’s face was out of focus—an undistinguishable shape that stood and spoke to him, always close and vile.
“—a mass of flesh that moves and breathes, that can feel and be felt. One that pulses with life and is meant to be seen.” The man croaked with laughter.
“A woman almost saw me once, this petty thing that I am. Sanun was her name. She was plump and ripe, hungry for me, as I was hungry for her. I fed and filled her to the brim, and still she died.”
Ingenuar knew that name. Sanun. It was the woman from his village who had disappeared one autumn eve, leaving her family to wallow in despair. So the creature had been here before. It had fed on and butchered his brethren until it was finally time to come to his door.
But Ingenuar had not been home; he had gone deep into the woods, searching for a herb, a flower, anything, to ease his wife’s fever.
“I fed from others; watched them grow sick and wither like babies.”
Babies… his daughter. Ingenuar had no time to spare for this stranger and his disturbing confessions. His family was waiting.
Once more he tried to will his body to move, for the limbs to lift him and for his eyes to see.
He arched his back and caught the man’s profile, only a fraction of a face.
Instantly he averted his gaze, as though his mind could not handle the vision, as if he would go blind if he stared for long enough to make out the features.
Was this man…this thing…capable of any features resembling a human’s?
Had he eyes and a mouth, hands with which to hold on and feel?
Surely the stranger had limbs, for how else had he seized and hurled Ingenuar to the ground and pinned him there now.
“You are sick,” the voice said, cold and creeping closer. “Not as sick as your wife and child, but the sores will spread, and your fingers will blacken, and your mouth will rot.”
Icy talons dug into Ingenuar’s hair and yanked his head up, exposing his neck; and he heard the sound of fabric tearing. The figure loomed over him, threatening Ingenuar’s eyes to burn and bleed out from the vision, from the pain. If he did not get up now and run, he would never make it home.
“Do not worry,” the voice said. Something warm trickled down Ingenuar’s face. It dribbled into his mouth, making him gag. “We will make more. You will have other children.”
*
The stranger looked down at his creation, silver eyes unblinking in the boiling darkness.
He gave the man all the ichor he could spare, forced him to swallow it whole, pressing a palm to the weathered face so that he could not spit it back up.
He did not know how much time passed before the man’s body stirred on the ground and stood up, but he was different.
Something within him had changed. The man’s grey eyes darted around, searching; they now reflected a hunger, an appetite that the stranger knew well.
But he could no longer hear the man’s thoughts; the cacophony of sounds and flickering images of people and places had slowly died away.
Ebbed away as a dying breath. It was a mercy to not hear anything anymore, save the occasional bird of prey flying through the forest.
It had finally worked.
With the blood he should see me. Not as what he desires me to be, but as how I am meant to be seen.
“Come,” he said and offered his hand.
The man ignored it, instead he clawed at the earth, his heart pounding louder, faster.
“Who are you—what have you done to me?”
The stranger huffed and stood up, brushing mud and twigs from his clothes. He had no patience for children, and this one—his first—was proving to be difficult. Even after being fed and offered a gift.
“You may call me Felivar,” the stranger said. His true name spoke of his gluttonous nature, but this new one… He preferred Felivar. It was what the woman had called him when he came to her that night, mistaking him for her lover.
He extended his hand again, growing impatient. The man flinched but took it. The blood had not changed him outwardly, the man’s face was still mapped with scars, the years still etched around his eyes and mouth. Perhaps next time, Felivar was going to choose someone younger.
This one would have to do. For now.
“Come, my son.” His mouth twisted in a fiendish smile. He could still taste the man’s blood where it had mingled with his own, like the ichor of the gods. “My einvala. My chosen one.”
*
It did not take long for Ingenuar to see that Felivar had not chosen him for his looks or skills.
He was simply the first human to cross the creature’s path, and he looked healthier than most. Healthy enough to undergo Felivar’s sick designs.
By the time they had reached the village, it was already late; his wife and child had died waiting for him.
“Give them your blood.” Felivar ordered and crouched over the bloated bodies.
The Blood. It had healed Ingenuar, it ran through his veins and invigorated him, like sparks and fireflies dancing at the tips of his fingers.
Everything around him was ugly and barren, yet it shone with a new light.
His eyes were adjusting to the world, its sounds now reverberating with life, with yearning.
He was slowly able to distinguish parts of the figure of his saviour.
It appeared to be a man, young judging by the sound of his voice and the way his body swayed, as if walking on air.
His hair was dark and his slanted eyes…whatever Ingenuar could discern of them—they were bubbling pools of quicksilver, spilling down the eye sockets, threatening to blind and unhinge any who met Felivar’s gaze for too long.
Ingenuar slit his wrist and watched the blood drip over his wife’s face.
The wound on his arm sealed within seconds.
Felivar’s distorted face curled into a smile, the eyes burned brighter.
Ingenuar’s wife remained lying on the ground.
Dead and cold. The only movement in the hut came from the ants as they crawled over the spilled porridge and nested in the ridges of his daughter’s face.
Felivar tsked and rose. He stepped outside, surveying the village and its few remaining inhabitants.
The fever had spread, taking in both man and beast. Felivar feared that his power to plunder mortals’ minds had been lost in the making of his firstborn, but he could still hear the other villagers and their children; how sick and scared they were in the dark, in the cold. He could hear everyone but Ingenuar.
“South,” Felivar said, and Ingenuar followed the finger pointing outwards. “There are villages to the south. We will find others and try again.”
Ingenuar followed. Followed this man, this thing, this revenant—in tales they were known as draugr.
He left his village a widower and bereft of his child’s laughter.
But in Felivar’s footsteps he was reborn as a son: the firstborn whom his new father doted upon, impatient to teach and reshape him in his own image.
*
1788
Paris had never been to Ingenuar’s taste. He had made the journey to satisfy his own curiosity and catch a glimpse of the groom Countess di Flaviari was so jealously hiding from the Coven. Time and again Dulior had refused to introduce her fledgling to the Court.
He found the vampire, this Count, waiting outside the Théatre de la Porte Saint-Martin, fidgeting with his coat, as a servant stood a few paces behind him, holding a lantern.
The flame flickered every time a moth blundered into it, and it made the Count’s shadow twitch, his scowl deepening the longer he stood out in the open.
“Where is the carriage?” A familiar voice called out and Dulior stepped through the doors, fastening a cloak around her shoulders.
The Count did not bother to acknowledge her; then, seeming to remember they were not alone, he said belatedly:
“I have sent for Emmerique. He should be here in due time.”
Dulior scrunched up her nose and adjusted one of her gloves, tugging at the fabric.
“It is because of your valet that we are leaving before the final act. He might at least have the decency to be punctual.”
“You are welcome to go back inside to your lover, Madame. He will keep you warm while I wait for mine.”
Ingenuar could not hear the Countess’ retort as their carriage, finally, was making a turn towards the building.
The footman who leapt down and hastened to open the door and help the Countess up the steps was also a vampire.
He wore a black livery, and his long dark hair was tied at the nape of his neck.
At the sight of the valet the Count’s demeanour changed, his posture became more relaxed, his heartbeat steady.
Ingenuar had never seen vampires take on the role of servants.
Some of his brethren had tricked and robbed humans of their valuables, but they had never made a vampire for the purpose of service.