The II AM Trilogy Collection Read online

  “Ah. Yes. God and all that crap. Exactly what I was obsessed with at the time Abraham brought me into darkness.”

  “He talks like some Goth poet wannabe. Have you heard him talk about sex?” Melissa’s tone was conspiratorial, but Two knew Theroen had heard it, despite appearing not to notice. She covered a smile with her hand.

  “Father Leopold had one outstanding flaw that put him somewhat at odds with the church, though he had gone to great pains to make sure the church was unaware of it. I would likely have been his undoing, if not for my encounter with Abraham. Father Leopold, it turns out, was very fond of young men with a fervent belief in God.”

  “Oh, no …” Two was smiling, shaking her head.

  “It took five years. I was under his tutelage for that long, from the age of eighteen to twenty-three. I can honestly say I never knew, and never saw it coming. We were closing up the cathedral for the night. It was dark. Empty and warm. I have the suspicion that Leopold may also have been availing himself of some drink that night.” Theroen paused, rolled his eyes. “I assure you, there are few things more surprising in life than an unexpected kiss from a middle-aged priest. One of those things, though, would be the feel of his hand pressing against your groin.”

  Melissa exploded into laughter. Theroen coughed, seemed to be holding back laughter of his own. He shook his head. Two grinned, nodded. “I imagine that’s the case.”

  “The vampires I know are sexual creatures, barring Abraham, and they don’t necessarily adhere to traditional sexual values.” Theroen glanced at Melissa, who waved at him, still giggling. “Learning more about sexuality since my days as a priest has … opened my eyes significantly. I would not be bothered at all, at this stage of my life, though I can’t claim to have any particular attraction to men of any age. But then? I was horrified. Here was the man who had taken me under his wing, taught me many things about the good book, solidified in me my belief that I wanted to be ordained and helped me see it through …”

  “And there he was trying to cop a feel in the middle of a fucking church!” Melissa rolled backwards in the grass, clutching her knees to her chest, laughter renewed. “It’s not that I care, I just … I can picture Theroen’s face. Oh my god, I’m going to die.”

  “I was actually so startled that, in my confusion, I asked him if he was hurt. As absurd as it was, my brain had decided that he was perhaps having a stroke or heart attack, and had simply fallen against me.”

  Melissa howled laughter at the moon. “Stop it, Theroen! My stomach hurts!”

  Her laughter was contagious, and Two found herself joining, although she did not find the scene that Theroen described to be nearly as amusing as Melissa. Funny, sure, but perhaps the age she had lived in had inured her to these things.

  Finally, Melissa’s laughter died down. She lay on the grass, looking up at the night sky, gasping for air and breaking into giggles here and there.

  “May I continue?” There was a half-smile on Theroen’s lips.

  “Yes, please.” Two looked back to him.

  “I’m sorry, Two. Really. I mean, it’s Theroen. Anyone else, it wouldn’t be that funny. You know?”

  Two smiled. Nodded. She knew.

  “When I was finally able to accept what had happened – and no one had moved, mind you. We both seemed frozen after I had stepped away – I shouted something about God’s wrath and stormed from the church. I could hear Father Leopold stammering, shuffling behind me, calling me back, but it was far too late for that. I was in the London streets, the night was still early, and I let the crowd swallow me.”

  “I walked for some time without really thinking of anything other than the punishments God would surely hurl down upon Leopold. Plague, a rain of fire and brimstone … something. And yet, the longer I walked, the more I came to realize that this, of course, could not have been some spontaneous conversion on Leopold’s part. He must have been fighting his urges for quite some time before at last giving in, and for all I knew, I was not the first he had approached.

  “How was it possible? How could God permit it? How could He let this man, filled with such impurity, become not only His servant, but the head of a large cathedral. It was impossible. Yet it had happened.”

  Theroen was looking at the moon again. He smiled.

  “Eventually my wandering led me to a graveyard. Chance? Fate? I don’t know. I could not remember the path I had taken to get there, but it mattered little. I sat with my head bowed on a stone bench for some time, until finally I implored God to deliver me from this confusion, and light my path before me.

  “God did not answer, but from the darkness beyond the graves a voice whispered to me. Abraham’s voice.”

  Two shuddered. Her brief meeting with Abraham was still crystal-clear in her mind. She wondered if it would ever fade.

  “Unlikely,” Theroen said. “He has that effect on people. I remember this first meeting with him like it was yesterday.”

  “You remember everything like it was yesterday, and stop reading her mind. That’s not fair.” Melissa was sitting up again, leaning her elbows against her knees, chin resting on her palms, grinning at them.

  “My apologies, Melissa.”

  “You’re just a big showoff! You know Abraham has to be close to people to do it, and you know I can’t do it much at all.”

  Theroen shrugged. “It is a gift I am thankful for. I will be curious to see if I have passed it on to Two.”

  “He got all the good genes,” Melissa said. “I’d be jealous, but I don’t have to talk to Abraham, so I figure it’s a fair trade.”

  “What did Abraham say to you, Theroen?” Two was filled with curiosity. She could not imagine Theroen, or at least the young priest he had been, willingly accepting the vampire life.

  * * *

  “If ever your God was listening, little sheep, he has long since gone deaf.”

  The voice was no more than a whisper, but it cut through Theroen like a white-hot blade. He sat up, thoughts of Leopold’s actions forgotten, hair on the back of his neck standing on end, adrenaline surging through his veins. The depth of the voice, the malice it contained, was unlike anything Theroen had heard before. He groped at the edge of the bench instinctively, searching desperately for defense against this sudden assault on his courage.

  After a moment, he found his shield: anger at the words themselves. Theroen stood, eyes burning into the darkness.

  “What creature might speak so to a man of the cloth? Show yourself!”

  A chuckle. Unearthly. Theroen was gripped with an animal urge to turn and flee, to simply run as fast as he could in a straight line away from this spot. He resisted.

  “Show myself? Would that you knew what you ask, mortal fool.”

  “I ask not. I command. I command with the word of the Lord.”

  “That word means nothing to me, even should He make such demands of me in person. Run, little priest. Why don’t you run? You lie in mortal peril, and you know it.”

  “I shall fear no evil.”

  More laughter. “No? We shall see. I answer your demand, priest.”

  In the shadows there was movement, red eyes opening in the dark. Theroen took an involuntary step backward. His knees hit the bench, forcing him to a sitting position. Before he could regain his footing, the creature was upon him. Theroen saw only blurred flashes, so quickly did the thing move. Talons now stretching to him, and then an iron grip around his midsection. Red eyes. Gaping mouth. Sharp white fangs. He beat at the creature with his fists, and it seemed he beat upon the stone of the cathedral walls themselves.

  Warm breath against his ear, sharp points against his neck.

  “I shall fear no evil!” Theroen cried, terrified and desperate. “Save me, oh Lord!”

  The creature paused, and that horrible laughter came again.

  “Your Lord is busy, perhaps? I bring you death, Theroen Anders. You gave your life to your church, and what has it given you back? Betrayal. It is the way with all su
ch institutes of faith. The Pope in his Vatican stronghold sells indulgences to his people; they buy salvation with gold and diamonds. The English navy is little more than a band of pirates, licensed by the Church. The man to whom you entrusted your soul preaches the evils of debauchery and lust, and yet has spent these last years lusting only for his disciple. For you.

  “The church has failed you. It has taught you nothing that you did not already know for yourself. Man is corrupt. Man is evil. And if man, Theroen, is created in God’s image, then is not your God corrupt? Is not your God evil? Do you not, in the depths of your heart, know this?”

  Theroen felt hot, angry tears on his cheeks. In this, his last moment, he felt he knew it very well. Father Leopold, the sinner, safe in his church under the eyes of God. Theroen, the faithful servant, trapped here by a creature from the very graves in which soon he was destined to lie.

  The vampire caressed the contours of Theroen’s face, grinning above him, seeming to delight in his sorrow. “You are young and strong and beautiful, little priest, and I am in need of an heir. I offer you the only chance for true salvation you will ever receive. I offer you the opportunity to defy your God, to renounce Him and His image. Renounce your humanity and be reborn, remade, in my own image. Become immortal, and escape the black hand of death.”

  Thereon was gasping for breath. He tried to force his mind to think rationally, tried to find the faith which had once powered him so completely. He would let this faith guide him into the afterlife, secure in his knowledge that God waited there for him.

  He found instead only a memory: the light and sound of eternity from that hospital bed long ago, and his words, spoken not by his mouth but his mind.

  Yes. I would live. Until I am dragged, kicking and screaming, to my death, I would live.

  Here then was his death, and it would take him regardless. Faith or no faith, acceptance or denial, death held him now and offered only one way of escape.

  The young are rash. Theroen, twenty-three, with little practical experience outside the world of the church, found his faith tested, and found it lacking. He leaned his head back, bearing his neck to the creature that held him. Let it happen. Let his body be remade in this image, and so chase away the specter of death forever. What more evil could it bring than had been allowed within the sanctified doors of his very church?

  “So be it,” Abraham whispered. His neck arched, teeth bared, and there was pain … pain like Theroen had never before felt. He screamed into the night, but his voice drained away with his blood.

  * * *

  “For ten years I raged in my hatred against humanity with tooth and claw and mind. I took women in pairs, quartets, more. Half a dozen a night I would drain to the last, that I might drown my hate in blood. I was the very image of Satan himself, presiding over heights of debauchery that Father Leopold could never have conceived. They bathed in each other’s blood, and I lapped it from their bodies, to the tune of their cries of passion. They loved it. Oh, they loved it.”

  They were walking again. Theroen looked straight, down the road, unable to meet Two’s eyes. His hands were clenched into fists, his lips pursed into a thin white line. “They loved it, and I hated them for it. And I hated myself even more.”

  “Theroen.” Two touched his arm.

  “Do these things surprise you, Two?” He took her hand, tightened his own around it for a moment, let it drop.

  “No. Not that you hated yourself for it. That’s no surprise at all. That’s not you, Theroen.”

  “Is it not? Abraham did not instruct me in these things. His first attempt was a dismal failure. The very next night I awakened, horrified to discover myself on a stone slab in a mausoleum, and Abraham was there, with a human. He forced the man’s neck to my teeth, laughing at my screams, my prayers, my promises of atonement and reasoning with a God I had forever left behind.

  “Oh, and his sweat was rank. Bitter. Disgusting. His screams mingled with my own, but I drank … and drank. I felt him pass into death, and I wept. Abraham looked upon me in disgust and left me there weeping, returning only near dawn to drag me back to the crypt where the coming sun paralyzed my limbs, battered me into sleep.

  “It was four days before I drank again. I starved. The thirst raged until I could bear it no longer. I took another human, this time away from Abraham, who had once again left me to my own devices, appalled at my inability to accept the gift he had given me. There was a young woman, kneeling at the grave of her father, whispering, grieving.”

  Theroen shook his head, his eyes distant.

  “I took her like a storm, unfamiliar with my strength, desperate in my hunger. I broke her spine shoving her head backward, tore away the heavy garments at her neck, ripped most of her throat out with my teeth … all of this before she could even have been aware of what was happening. And when it was done, I was glad. I was glad to take something from these creatures of God, and leave them nothing in return.”

  Two watched him, saying nothing. Theroen’s face was grim. There was no reminiscence in this tale, only the memory of events he would sooner have forgotten.

  “It’s all rather sordid, really.” Melissa came up behind Two, touched her shoulder, looked at Theroen. “Sort of surprising, given your nature, Theroen. My first time was so cut and dried. You brought me to that nice man’s house in Brooklyn. His wife had passed away earlier that year and he wanted to die. We sat and talked, kissed a little, and then I took him. He died smiling.”

  “You know less of my nature than you might think, Melissa. I’ve had four hundred years to study it, and learn it for myself.”

  “Well, what I know of it is that you’re way too conservative to be a vampire, and you’re really good at getting Two all nerved up on her first night as one!” Melissa touched Two’s shoulder again, smiling, impish, unwilling to allow Theroen any more time in his melancholy.

  Two laughed. “Actually, I sort of figure that this can’t possibly be as bad as what Theroen just described.”

  “I assure you it won’t be.” Theroen at last looked at her, then glanced down the street again. They were approaching the first houses on the outskirts of the small town, windows dark and dead. Two supposed that in the day the town must look quaint and picturesque. She wondered when she would see daylight again, how long it would take before her body was equipped to cope with it, as Theroen had told her it would be. For now, she supposed it didn’t matter. Theroen and Melissa had adjusted to life under the moon. So would she.

  Strains of music in the air. Two listened, but couldn’t pinpoint the source. “Where’s that music coming from?”

  “You owe me fifty dollars.” Theroen was grinning at Melissa.

  “Shit. Fuck! I totally thought it’d be at least another half mile.”

  “What are you talking about?” Two questioned, bemused.

  “I heard it about a mile ago. Theroen, probably back by the cars. We made a bet on when you’d hear it, while you were thinking about Theroen’s story and not paying attention. I didn’t think your ears would get that good, that quick.” Melissa shrugged.

  “There is a bar. It is the only place you’ll find anyone awake at this hour, without invading homes.” Theroen gestured down the road, toward the center of town. “I think there you will find a suitable—”

  “Client,” Two muttered. Theroen raised an eyebrow, and she shook her head. “Never mind, Theroen. Old memories.”

  “I know those well. This man … you’ll know him. You’ll sense him. Trust me.”

  “And why is he suitable?”

  “You wanted someone who deserves death, yes?”

  Two nodded.

  “He beat his wife to death, two years ago, for breaking a glass while cleaning the kitchen. She was six months pregnant with their first child. He beat her to death with a chair leg, and then drove across three states to dispose of her body. He lied his way through the investigation and came out clean. She is still considered a missing person.”

  “
How do you know this?

  “I read the paper, and I read minds. I was curious. I parked my Ferrari, walked through the woods, stood in the shadows outside his home and concentrated until I had all of the information I wanted.”

  “Why didn’t you kill him yourself?”

  Theroen shrugged. “They are mortals. What does it matter to me? Besides, as Melissa mentioned previously, I prefer to drink from women.”

  “Is this the wrong way to start, Theroen?”

  “There is no wrong way. There is only the thirst and the blood. Is this what you wanted, Two? If it is not, I can happily lead you elsewhere, but I thought here you might find some respite from guilt.”

  Two nodded. “This will work, Theroen. Are you sure I’ll know him?”

  “You will sense that darkness in him, I believe. For me it shines out like a beacon.”

  Two took a deep breath, steeled herself. “Okay, then.”

  She headed for the bar alone.

  * * *

  The bar was everything Two would have expected from this small, old-fashioned town. Yellow wood glowed mellow in the dim lights, dented and scarred and shined by decades of service. A television in the corner, above the heads of the customers, was attached with screws that were two years – maybe three – away from pulling out of the water-stained plasterboard. It was playing old reruns of Sanford and Son with the volume turned down. A few ailing tables were scattered near the far end of the building, most empty. Someone was asleep at one of the wall booths, and three or four men were clustered near one end of the bar.

  The reaction to Two’s entrance was immediate, their stares like a physical force pressing against her. The sensation reminded her of her pool hustling days. She grinned, glanced around, moved toward the bar, away from the cluster of men.

  “Help you?” The bartender looked to be in his late fifties. His voice was all Jim Beam and Camels. Dark, scraggly hair, three days of stubble. Not the one.

  “What’s your best red wine?”