Epilogue
A MAGICIAN HAD TAKEN UP RESIDENCE with the newly married Count and Countess di Flaviari.
At first Elay’s father thought the man to be a relation of the bride, but there was little resemblance between them.
While the Countess was of dark skin, a shy beauty with voluminous auburn curls and of timid nature, the magician was fair and although not an old, fragile man—barely into his fourth decade—his hair was already grey, shining silver in the candlelight.
The magician was an eccentric who boasted of having seen and partaken in many a battle.
Nordic blood filled his veins, but nevertheless he adored the French; ah, how he loved the French; and most importantly, he loved his young ward.
He wore expensive clothes befitting a man of high stature and had an appreciation for the arts.
Elay’s father invited him to get an opinion on a business proposition.
“What does a magician know of wine, Father?” Elay asked.
His father dismissed him, eager to meet the man who dined at his neighbour’s table. But it was not wine his father intended to bargain with the magician.
“You would make an excellent groom, mon ami,” the magician appraised Elay, toasting to his health and beauty.
“Monsieur, do you have other daughters?” Elay’s father inquired, excited by the prospect of his son joining the ranks of nobility through marriage.
The union would open all the doors previously closed to Elay.
Elay himself had never sought to marry; he was already in his third decade and expected to take over from his father in a few years’ time.
He did not need a wife to grow and produce wine.
“I do not.”
The magician’s eyes never left Elay. The wide table overflowing with drink and meats, and fruits, might as well have been bare before him. He drank his wine sparingly.
An air of strangeness hung over the man, in the way he sat in his chair and how he placed his hands on the table, how carefully he picked and used the knife and fork.
Elay followed the movement of the fingers heavy with rings; the nails glistened in the flickering light, as if made of glass.
On the few occasions Elay joined their conversation, the magician always seemed to know what he was going to say, even before Elay opened his mouth to speak.
He heard the words before they formed in Elay’s mind.
When he saw their guest at the door, he was overwhelmed with a sudden sense of desperation. He tried to grasp at excuses for the two of them to linger a little longer at the gates, searching for reasons to meet again.
“Think of me into the night, and I will come.” The magician’s voice was soft, lulling.
“And if I think of you in the daylight?”
“Then wait.” The magician tittered and stepped closer. His hand brushed at Elay’s coat, fingertips tapping at him gently. “Wait for me until the sun bleeds into the stars.”
*
ELAY, 2020
For centuries the sun bled into the stars and the stars haemorrhaged in the glow of a merciless sun, as Elay waited for Rorgon to come.
The last he had seen of his master was the night of his turning.
It had been a fraught and disorienting birth—to awaken as a daemon, alone, on the second setting of the sun, with Rorgon nowhere in sight.
He had promised to come back for Elay once he was rested and had replenished his strength.
Making another daemon, Rorgon explained, took too much of him, leaving him blinded and weak.
“But there is no rush, mon ami,” Rorgon sighed, sweeping Elay’s hair from his temples, so he might marvel at his creation. “I have wed you to an eternity by my side.”
An eternity of waiting: first in Paris, then in Béziers. Vampire after vampire darkened the doorstep of Marquis Bracci, but none of them his master; none of them had heard of the silver-haired magician with golden eyes.
Rorgon had been right when he proclaimed that Elay would make an excellent groom…if he had meant to wed him to solitude itself.
Elay was still waiting in the tower when the call came.
“There is a telephone call for you, Monsieur. From the Marquis.” The butler gestured nervously for Elay to follow him into an alcove, a corner of the house he had never been before.
A rotary-dial telephone was perched on a masterfully carved table.
The brass dial gleamed, polished from years of use, and Elay felt a sudden urge to plunge his fingers into the holes and turn it, eager to hear the metallic sound of the mechanism as it rotated.
He could not recall ever hearing the telephone ring; his hosts had little fondness for the wonders of the age.
Yet the heavy handset lay on its side, waiting for him to pick it up.
Elay lifted it to his ear, and the crackle on the line was only drowned out by Emerick’s voice, as it poured in a series of instructions.
Elay listened, the sculptures lining the hallway staring down at him in mute witness.
He did not need to write down the Comte’s order—no, the Marquis, Elay reminded himself; he had yet to get used to the shift in power.
It was a simple request, there would be no delay in fulfilling it.
“I will do as the Marquis instructs.” Elay nodded and returned the handset back on top of the telephone. The jacks gave a nice click. He wished he had heard it ring, to have been the one to answer the call.
He was sure any human could have completed the task, and handled it better than he ever could, but the Marquis had requested a vampire.
The thought made Elay swell with pride. He had never been of use to Silvio or Emerick.
They had treated him with more consideration than the servants, but with less attention than they gave the numerous artworks and trinkets scattered about the house.
His assurance wavered when he stepped into the master bedroom.
Following his sister Madame la Countess di Flaviari’s visit, the maids had swept the broken shards of glass and a new mirror had been installed above the bed.
There had been no damage to the frame, and it looked identical to the one before it.
To be certain, Elay browsed through the catalogues detailing all the riches Silvio had amassed over the centuries.
There was no mention of a mirror. Therefore, it seemed to hold neither sentimental nor monetary value, which meant his masters would not notice the replacement.
“Take both swords down,” Elay instructed the footman who had followed him into the room.
Emerick had not specified which sword he wanted or whether it mattered. Elay arranged for both to be restored. Once the iron was reforged and polished, and the leather scabbards mended, he would choose one and send it to Berlin.
*
ASTRA
Mihaela had always been a fidgety curious sprite impatient to learn and throw herself into the annals of history, even as a mortal.
It has been that spark within her that drew Astra to the young woman.
Mihaela dreamed of unearthing the ancient, the unmentionable.
When Astra claimed her, she promised Mihaela endless possibilities.
She ensured that all the relics of the ancients would find their way to Mihaela, offering their riches, their knowledge, and their histories, no longer forgotten, but waiting to be witnessed, and recorded.
Mihaela’s eyes were meant to see civilisations rise, and fall, and crumble into ruin.
What Astra failed to foresee as she allowed herself to be bound, was how strong the hunger for knowledge had been within that morsel of human flesh.
How Mihaela’s desires were barely confined to the practical and the academic.
The girl wanted to plunge both hands elbow-deep into the world and tear out every tomb, every skeleton, every urn and parchment, and drag them into the light.
Mihaela wanted time to learn. She was not dying, she was not sick or fragile, and yet she did not trust the confines of her body.
She did not trust herself to accomplish everything alone.
And what a better meal than a human whose own mind is eroding her body, Astra thought as she gazed lovingly at Mihaela.
It was easy to seal the deal, and nurture and sculpt Mihaela’s strengths as the young woman scurried from library to library filling her notebooks with appendices and bibliographies for later study.
The night Mihaela was turned into a vampire had been a mistake, an oversight.
Astra knew of the lycans in Tarnovo; Mihaela had interacted with them on numerous occasions, oblivious to their true nature.
They were of no concern or consequence. But a vampire?
And one who sought not to kill, but make others of its wretched kind?
Astra should have been more careful. She did not worry that immortality would affect the deal or tamper with the soul.
The soul would grow beautifully under Astra’s guiding hand, but it no longer was a quick meal.
Cheating mortals of their souls was a trade reserved for lesser demons, creatures who did not dine at the Devil’s table.
Astra had long forgone the need for this kind of entertainment; it had been centuries since she last struck a bargain with a human and offered her services; bartering her true name in exchange for a morsel of flesh.
It was beneath a demon of her rank to meddle and dawdle in the human world like this.
Nevertheless, she had let Mihaela draw her in and ensnarl her.
Astra found the woman amusing… and, to her regret, the she-demon found herself missing the taste of a corrupt soul freshly plucked from its host. She no longer needed to rely on souls to sustain and grant her power, but the appetite within her had awakened anew.
Hunger. Every deed, every sin, every deal at the hands of a demon had always been born of hunger; to gobble, gulp and swallow.