Chapter 5 – Shade
SHADE
The vampire court is like no place I could’ve imagined.
It’s full of good food, parties, wealth, and beauty.
Every night they hold wild celebrations, it seems, for the privileged group of vampires, and the humans they bring with them.
There’s a lot of sex, a lot of feeding, and a lot of liquor flowing.
It’s interesting, even if I don’t entirely feel comfortable with all of it.
I step down the spiraling staircase, wearing one of the many gowns tailored for me by the lord of the house, Lord Drac himself.
It feels strange against my flesh, like a second skin that doesn’t quite fit.
But Lord Drac has explained that nudity is only for my bedroom, and so I obey this rule of his, like the many other rules he’s so patiently explained to me over past weeks.
As I move further into the room, the conversations die, as they often do. Drac is there in an instant, taking my hand and wrapping it around his arm. He leads me through the dancers on the floor, in their long, sweeping dresses and dark suits, then up the dais, where he seats me beside his throne.
“What do you think of the great hall?” he asks, his voice as smooth and cold as always.
I glance around it. Thousands of candles flicker in all directions, and green drapes of fabric spin around the pillars that rise up to hold the great ceiling above us.
“It’s pretty,” I say.
He laughs. “You are so innocent, my Shade. This place is not just pretty. It’s spectacular.
Stunning and unique, just like you. The fabric is the same soft green as your flesh and horns, and the gems across the table are the same shade of purple as your eyes and the weaves of purple hair in your dark strands.
All of this, my Shade, is a testament to you. To your beauty.”
I don’t know what to say. I’ve seen so little in my short life. But this vampire is old, if he says this room is beautiful and unique, it must be. Certainly it’s grander and more beautiful than the towns around us that he’s walked me through at night.
“Thank you.”
He stares out at the vampires. “You know they are all jealous of you.”
“Jealous?”
“It means they envy you. They wish to be you. Many of them have lived for thousands of years. And in that time, few have caught my eye. Few have stood out to me as anything but maggots on the dead body that is this life.” He takes my hand.
“But you stood out from the first moment I saw you. And they all wish their lives had half the meaning that yours does.”
I want to pull my hand away from Lord Drac. His touch makes me uneasy. And his words ring false. I know I’m new to this world, and he’s an experienced creature who has both lived and died with his memories intact, but I can’t imagine that none of the vampires have had a life of meaning.
It seems more likely that Drac doesn’t see their lives as meaningful.
“They have nothing to envy me for,” I say.
He flashes another smile. “Didn’t you kill the beast that roamed these woods just last night?”
A shiver moves down my spine. Being free in this world has not been all that I hoped. I can feel tugging at me, almost constantly, begging me to punish someone. To kill someone. Lord Drac says that Hades would refine my powers so that I killed only those he deemed worthy of it.
Without him, I’ll be overwhelmed. And so, Drac has been telling me when to follow a pulling and when not to. Which is both a relief and frightening. How does he know who deserves to die and who deserves to live?
Last night, a creature had slid into the room of a child. It had harmed the child. Cornered her as she wept for her mother.
Drac had said to follow the pulling. I had gone. I had snapped the creature’s neck and brought its soul to the tunnels of the Underworld, where it’d be found and dragged to its painful afterlife.
I didn’t like going back to the Underworld, but the souls were too dangerous to be allowed to roam untethered. Drac had said to be careful when dragging souls to the Underworld. But he also said it was too late for Hades or the other shades to reattach the thread around my throat.
I hoped he was right.
“Couldn’t your vampires have killed the creature?” I ask, studying him. Trying to understand the way his mind works.
He flashes his fangs. “Not the way you did, my dear.”
What does that mean? Why can’t he ever be clear with me?
Slowly, I pull my hand from his, and I see disappointment in his eyes. His gaze moves down to the low neckline of my gown and lingers there for what feels like an eternity.
At last, he whispers, “I will show you so many things. Things you never imagined. When I have earned the right to, from a creature as precious as you.”
I don’t understand what he means. But then he rises.
The low music stops. The dancers part, and the vampires come to stand beneath us.
“As all of you know, we have been graced with a shade. The only free one of her kind, and she has chosen to stay with us for a time. I wish that time to be for always, and yet, she has not given me her lifetime pledge. And so, I will earn it.” He turns to me. “Bring in her gift.”
There’s a disturbance in the back of the room. Half a dozen vampires carry something toward us. The crowd parts, and the thing they carry is thrown at my feet.
I gasp as it tries to leap to its feet. The guards are upon it in an instant, pinning it to the ground, then attaching its chains to the rings in the floor.
Holding my breath, I watch as the creature looks up.
It’s a man. A strange man. He’s three times larger than the vampires. His hair is tangled and brown. His eyes are the same deep shade as his hair.
Something strange and unexpected races through me, and I feel my nipples tighten.
He wears little more than a cloth tied about his waist. His large muscles are covered in dirt, and he bleeds from several places. The chains encircle him, nearly everywhere, and my gaze moves to a long scar on one of his legs. It’s old, and yet, still pink and raised.
It must have been painful, whatever caused it.
“What is this?” I ask, confused.
Drac grins. “A gargoyle.”
I stare. “A gargoyle?”
Lord Drac takes my hand again, and I feel strange as the man on the floor watches us through narrowed eyes.
“Gargoyles are our enemies, my dear. They kill creatures like you and I without mercy. Usually while in their stone form. But unfortunately for him, we have a rare shield that will keep him in his human-like flesh.”
Empathy moves through me. It seems everyone is my enemy in this world. And yet, I wouldn’t wish chains on anyone.
“Why have you brought him here?”
“As a gift for you,” Drac says, sweeping his arm toward the man. “He was sent here to kill you, and so, I thought it fitting that he become your prize. To do what you like with.”
I don’t like the idea of being given a person as a gift, and yet, I’m glad he belongs to me. I’ve seen what these vampires do to their enemies, and it reminds me too much of what the shades enjoyed doing.
“So,” Drac purrs the word. “What do you wish to do with him?”
I rise and take one step down from the throne. “Can he be secured in my room?”
“He can.”
“Then that is what I wish.”
Drac snaps his fingers, and the guards untie him from the ground and wrestle him back out of the room as he struggles.
The room fills with laughter and I hear whispers from the crowd. They all wonder how I’ll kill him. How long I’ll make him suffer.
I wonder how they’d feel if they knew what I really planned to do with him.