Chapter 45 #2
“You must sleep in a grave at night. When you are asleep you are vulnerable, anyone can kill you.
Once you grow stronger, I will teach you to compel humans, to make them do as you please so you can hunt easily.
We will travel the world, you and I and my maker.
She is old, ancient, one of the originals of our kind. Our blood is strong.
“Do you still wish this? Do you still wish to live eternal, knowing you may never see the sun again? That you must never see your family or friends? That you will watch them all die while you live on, forever in youth?”
“Yes,” she whispers, her eyes locking with mine. “I want this.”
I bite into her neck, taking the last of the blood. Her heart slows, beat by beat.
I sit back and bite into my wrist, pressing it against her lips. My blood dribbles into her mouth, down her throat. Some of it pours out the side of her mouth and I wipe it with my thumb. Her throat works weakly, swallowing what she can.
Her heart slows.
And slows.
Then stops.
I remove my wrist and wait.
How long does it take to make a vampyr? I remember my heart stopping, then I was alive. How much time passed?
My memories of then are unclear. Surely we did not stay on that altar all night and into the next day? We would have died by the sun.
I wait an hour.
Two hours.
Three hours.
Zora does not stir. Her sightless eyes stare at the ceiling. I nudge her, trying to get her to move. She doesn’t.
Have I done something wrong? Was there a vital step I missed? I think back to my creation, just as I have time and time before. No—these were all the steps. This is what it meant to create, to make.
Why wasn’t it working?
I wait another hour, pacing the small room, nudging Zora every few moments. Still she does not stir.
Anxiety becomes panic and I shake her body, trying to rouse her. I slap her face, I smack her chest, I do anything I can. I pinch her fingers, hoping the pain will wake her.
Still, she does not move.
I need you. In my darkest moments, in my most desperate, it is you I reach for. I need to find you, to tell you, to ask what I’ve done wrong. What step am I missing? Does she need more time?
I try to abate my panic with reason as I run through the streets to our home.
She needs more time, there is a step missing.
You will tell me it, and I will turn Zora.
I will apologize later, I will beg and cry and prostrate myself before you for forgiveness.
I will make all the amends, I will spend another century bargaining.
I will do anything.
You are in the parlor, playing that blasted piano.
I fall to the ground at your feet, my hands on your thighs. “Please,” I say.
For the first time in ages, you look at me. Your red eyes are wide with worry.
“Melinoe, what’s wrong?”
“I need your help,” I say, my voice trembling.
“Anything,” you say. You stand and there is no hesitation, just your undivided attention.
The last few years of silence are forgotten. You are once more my lover, my protector, my creator, my everything. All I had to do was ask and there you were, ready to love me once more.
I lead you through the streets, ignoring the shocked glances of the humans we pass. We head underground and I lead you to her body.
Zora remains just as I left her.
“What is this?” you ask carefully, circling her body. You sniff the air, looking around the space. The silver cross is still embedded in the wall. Her discarded items are on the floor—the silver cross, the jewelry, the bread long gone stale.
“Melinoe, what have you done?” Your words are careful. They are not an accusation, they beg for understanding.
“Her name is Zora,” I say. “She is a friend, and I wanted to have a friend. A companion. She was one, and she wanted to turn, and it’s not…” I trail off, my thoughts a mess. I shake my head and try to start again. “I think I forgot something. It’s been hours.”
“You’ve been down here hours?” you ask, looking around the room once more. There is something haunted in your eyes as you glance between me and Zora.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I drained her blood, then I fed her mine. And then her heart stopped, but she never woke.”
“You’ve missed no steps,” you say, considering the body. “Where did this come from?” you ask, pointing to the cross embedded in the wall.
“She had it.”
“Why?”
I lick my lips. There are traces of Zora’s blood there, and I am hit with a thrill again at the taste of it. “She is a hunter. Was a hunter. She decided to abandon it to become like us.”
You are quiet a long while, staring at me. Your silence loosens my tongue and then I cannot stop.
“I met her months ago. She caught me compelling a human, or at least—she did not see that part of it, just that I could convince him to give up something. When I tried to compel her to forget, it did not work.”
You make a noise that I think might be in pity, and I continue on. “At first I thought to ignore her, to forget about her. But she taught me to steal. She saw me as an equal. A friend. I’ve not had one of those in…” I trail off.
“Am I not a friend to you?” you ask.
“Please, don’t misunderstand me,” I beg. “This is not about you and I. This is about me. I’ve been lonely these last decades, centuries even.”
“You never want to stay in one place long enough to make roots!” you exclaim.
“Because it’s not safe! Isn’t that what you always said? If we linger, then we open ourselves to questions! Every other vampyr we meet decides to worship you or I. There is no equal, no companionship, just tedious affairs of the immortal.”
“And she is a hunter?” you ask.
“Yes. I…” I trail off again, unwilling to admit how blind I was to this fact.
How I’d heard the warnings of hunters and brushed them off as irrelevant.
I’d lived over a thousand years without worrying about dying, why should I care about a mortal?
“I found out recently. I confronted her.” I glance to the cross in the wall.
“She admitted it. But she had no desire to be one any longer. She wanted to drop the chains of mortality. She wanted to see the world.”
I look down at her still form, at her sightless eyes and pale skin.
“Melinoe,” you say softly, taking a step toward me. You reach for me, your fingers brushing the sleeve of my dress. “Hunters cannot turn. Their blood does not allow them.”
“What?”
You catch me as I collapse, trembling too hard to stay upright. You fold me into your arms, rocking me like an infant as I shake my head. “No, no she said she wanted this.”
“She likely did not know. The line of the hunter is long, perhaps it is no longer known,” you murmur into my hair.
“I killed her,” I whisper. I’d known I might have to, but not like this. I would have killed her if it meant saving your life, saving my life. But that’s not what this was.
My ignorance.
“Shh,” you say, trying to soothe me.
But I cannot be so easily consoled.
“I killed her. I killed her and she thought she would rise again, that she would see the world. She was so young and I took that from her. I took…I took…” I cannot get the words out.
I wail in grief. You never let go of me, rocking me, holding me close.
“I am sorry,” you whisper into my hair. “I am sorry that you did not come to me, that you did not think you could.”
“You would have been angry,” I protest.
“Yes, I would have,” you agree. “But you are my everything, and I would do anything for you.”
We stay like that until I feel the tug of the sun on the horizon. Then you help me to my feet and lead me, bleary and morose, back to our home.
You bring me to my grave and help me into it.
“If it is a companion you long for, I shall find you one,” you say.
“Don’t,” I shudder, curling into the dirt. You join me, smoothing my hair.
“I will fix this,” you say softly.
“Forget about this night.”
I killed her. I killed Zora. It was my teeth in her neck, my blood on her lips.
I killed her.
I killed her.
“There is more. Remember being reborn.”
The ground vibrates, and I curse my luck. My head is turned, this time I will not taste the blood. I am so close to death. The river Styx is not so far, if I concentrate hard enough, I can see it. I try to run my tongue over the coin in my mouth but it will not move.
So close.
The vibration grows stronger and I curse it. I want to die in peace. I do not want the blood of the injured, sick, and scared to keep me alive for another indefinite amount of time.
Something brushes my cheek. A worm, perhaps.
My body moves.
At last, I think. At last.
My face is turned skyward. Overhead is the moon, though I barely see it through the dirt in my eyes. The dirt is wiped free, and something dark goes before the moon.
Your face.
I am truly dead, I think. And in my death, I’ve seen you. My lover, my maker, once my world, come to lead me to the afterlife.
Something warm touches my tongue, slides down my throat.
I am no longer in the dirt.
There is blood on my lips.
I swallow and swallow and drink and drink.
“Yes, Melinoe. Rise again.” Your face, your hands. The pain of rebirth is excruciating. I try to scream but I cannot muster the sound. I am too weak, so I scream to myself, in my head where no one can hear.
Every human that you drain for me brings me closer to life, and with it comes pain. My throat burns as the liquid blood coats it. My teeth regrow, having fallen out sometime while I was buried. My hair grows back, my nails, my skin. Sometimes I catch glimpses of what I look like.
A corpse.
It’s a wonder you recognized me, a wonder you found me.
“I would know you in any crowd,” you whisper to me. “Drink, Melinoe. Live.”
I live, though it is against my will.
I do not know how many humans or how many days or months or years it takes before I exist at last. I stare at you from where I lie on the floor, too weak to get up.
“Why?” I ask, my voice a whisper.
“You know why,” you say.
“I don’t want to live,” I manage.
“I don’t care,” you say.