The II AM Trilogy Collection Read online

  “I want to meet Tori.”

  Theroen turned and was finally able to meet her gaze. He seemed surprised. “Two, I explained—”

  “Now, Theroen. I want to understand what I am.”

  “Tori is nothing like—”

  “Tori is everything like me! No, let me finish. You’ve given me this gift. I asked for it. I don’t want to give it back. You’ve let me see through vampire eyes, taste with a vampire’s tongue. You’ve let me run like a vampire, and feed like a vampire, and fuck like a vampire, and I love it, Theroen, but you haven’t shown me what I really am.

  “Whatever’s inside me, it wants blood. Right now, it wants blood very badly. It wants to rip, and tear, and hate. That thing is the same thing inside of Tori, the most pure it’s ever going to be. I want to see her, Theroen. I want to know what’s inside of me. I want to see it all laid bare, and I want to see it now.”

  Theroen contemplated this for a moment, shrugged, sighed.

  “So be it.”

  * * *

  The moon was like daylight to her eyes. The forest, which might have seemed foreboding to a human, gave Two no pause. Forests in the night were filled with predators, and there were none out this night greater than she and Theroen. They had been walking the grounds for thirty minutes. Theroen did not call for Tori, and it was obvious he knew where he was going. At times he would pause, change direction, and move forward again.

  “Tori doesn’t stay still, and she doesn’t know we’re looking for her yet,” he explained. “I could call, but it would do no good. I can sense her, though. We will catch up eventually.”

  At length they reached a small clearing. Here, Two saw, were paths carved into the ground from the frequent passage of some creature, like a dog that runs patterns into its yard. From the woods not far away, Two heard growling. The sound was low and guttural, the noise of a large jungle cat.

  “Tori. Come.” Theroen said, standing in the middle of the clearing. He gave off no palpable sense of fear, but Two thought she could hear some measure of concern in his voice.

  The creature that stepped from the bank of trees in front of them moved in a manner unlike anything Two had ever seen. The changes that vampirism had brought to Tori manifested themselves in a far more physical manner than Two had expected. On all fours, the girl moved with feline grace, sliding slowly into the clearing, eyeing them cautiously and growling. She stopped perhaps twenty feet from them, staring, teeth bared. Two shivered.

  “She’s not pleasant to be around,” Theroen commented. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Introduce yourself. Be polite.”

  “Hi, Tori … I’m Two. It’s, uh … nice to meet you,” Two said. She heard the nerves in her own voice, and hated herself for it. Tori stared at her, then suddenly opened her mouth and howled. Two flinched, but held her ground.

  “She’s testing you. Stand still. If she charges, I will take care of you.” Theroen’s voice was a whisper, or perhaps nothing more than a thought on the wind.

  Tori moved in a wide arc around them, eyes never leaving Two. She was naked and filthy, her long hair – blonde like Two’s – matted with dirt. Her teeth were more pronounced than in the other vampires Two had met, long and curved and deadly. She sat back on her haunches, watching Two. The eyes conveyed an intelligence and awareness far greater than Two might have guessed.

  Two sat down in the grass without thinking, meeting Tori’s gaze. She held her hands out, palms up, in front of her. “I don’t want to hurt you, Tori. I want to meet you.”

  Tori cocked her head, rolled her body forward into her walking position, and moved a few feet toward Two.

  “You’re playing with fire,” Theroen said from behind her. “She’s very fast.”

  “If she kills me, she kills me. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to go.”

  Theroen murmured something inaudible. Tori was now only a few paces away, looking curious. Theroen shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and Tori immediately backed up a pace, eyeing him with concern.

  “Go sit on that rock, Theroen.” Two indicated by tilting her head slightly to her left. The rock jutted from the ground near the edge of the woods, twenty meters away.

  “Two …”

  “She’s not scared of you, exactly, but you definitely make her edgy. I don’t want that. Go.”

  Theroen again said something under his breath, but Two thought she could hear a smile in his voice, fighting against his concern. He moved toward the rock. Tori took another step backward, watched him as he went, turned her attention back to Two.

  “You’re nothing if not stubborn, my love,” Theroen said.

  “Got that right. Now, Tori, do you want to say hello?”

  Tori took a few steps forward. Two could see the muscles in her legs, tense, ready to spring or run if necessary. Two continued to hold her hands out, and Tori sniffed them, seeming to relax. She sat back, cocked her head again, appraising Two.

  “Hello, Tori.”

  Tori made a sound that started low in her throat and became a high-pitched whine. To Two, it sounded like a dog yawning.

  “How does it feel, not having to worry, Tori? How does it feel to kill, and eat, and not think twice about it? No guilt. No sadness. No concern. How does that feel?”

  Tori looked at her, unable to comprehend. She scratched behind her ear briefly, followed the flight of a bat with her eyes, then looked back at Two.

  “Must feel pretty good, I bet. You hungry, Tori?”

  Two brought her finger to her new, sharp teeth, and bit it. Blood welled immediately. She held her hands back out to Tori.

  “You’re going to give me a heart attack, Two.” Theroen’s voice held more tension than she had heard at any time since her encounter with Abraham.

  “Your heart’s strong, Theroen. You’ll survive. Go ahead, Tori.”

  Tori moved her head forward, licked Two’s finger once, twice, and then abruptly moved her head away.

  “You’re a killer, Tori. Take it. Take what you want. If you’re going to kill me, then kill me. I refuse to be afraid of you, so kill me now, or I guess we’re going to have to be friends.”

  Tori looked again at Two’s outstretched hand, then reached up, bit her own finger, and held it out to Two.

  “Okay, Tori.”

  Two touched her lips to Tori’s outstretched hand and tasted blood, fire on her tongue. Her hunger leapt awake, but she too pulled her head away.

  “Just a couple of killers out in the forest, that’s us, right Tori?” Two was smiling, but she could feel tears making cool tracks on her hot cheeks. “Just a couple of vampires getting to know each other … getting to know who they really are.”

  She felt Theroen beside her. Tori glanced at him briefly, but did not shy away. Theroen’s concern had dissipated, and in turn Tori no longer seemed to regard him as a threat. He sat down in the grass next to Two, and she leaned against his shoulder, still looking at Tori.

  “I wish I was like her.”

  “Do you?”

  “She’s perfect. She doesn’t care. Melissa, Missy … they’re the same person to her. Who’ll take care of her when they’re gone?”

  “I had thought she was not long for this earth, Two. Now? I am not so sure. She seems to have accepted you. Perhaps Abraham might permit us to take her.”

  “Good. I understand her. I wish I was like her. Oh, God, Theroen, how do you stand it? Is it always this much … tragedy?”

  “No, not like this, but there is always some tragedy, Two, and always some joy, and I am sometimes thankful for both. It reminds me of what it was like to be a human. You want to know what you are, Two? You are a killer. You are a vampire. You are a force of nature, like the girl sitting before us. You are cursed, and you are blessed, just like Tori. She will never know the things we know, feel the things we feel. That is her blessing. That is her curse.”

  Two smiled at Tori. Tori smiled back, then turned suddenly, loped off through the grass, making high yipping sounds. I
n seconds she was gone. After a moment more, Two stood. The cut on her finger had already healed, but the thirst still burned within her.

  “Let’s go into the city, Theroen. I’m hungry.”

  They left the clearing, moving back toward the mansion. Overhead, the moon looked down on them, cold and distant.

  * * *

  There was no need to find a criminal this time. Two was ravenous, and beyond caring. “I'm fucking starving. Whatever’s close. I’ll hate myself in the morning, but right now I don't care if it's a virgin girl about to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Force of nature, right?”

  Theroen had nodded, and headed for the city, the Ferrari roaring beneath them. There was little said during the drive. Both were occupied with their own thoughts, reflecting on the recent events at the mansion. Was there any way to avoid the coming storm?

  Eventually Two sighed, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the seat. Theroen took her hand momentarily, squeezed it.

  “This is going to drive me crazy, Theroen.”

  “I’d rather you not let it. We have a surplus in that area already.”

  Two let herself smile a little. “I don’t think Tori’s actually that nuts. She’s just … stripped raw. I’m also not sure she’s as unaware of what’s going on as you guys think. That bit with the blood was pretty impressive.”

  Theroen shrugged. “It is possible. Tonight is the longest she’s ever allowed me to be close to her.”

  Two fed on an older woman returning from a late night at work. There was little ceremony, this time. She simply followed the woman into her building, attacked her in the stairwell, and she and Theroen pulled the body up and into the woman’s apartment, where they left it. Theroen fed from a neighbor, a woman in her mid-twenties whose cats were petrified of him, left her lying flushed and feverish in her bed, and they departed.

  “Why did we come so far, if it was that easy?” Two asked.

  “You will need to be careful with your eating habits for some time, Two. Most vampires do not stop killing out of some misguided sense of morality, but for personal protection. Sixty thousand people die every year in the city and the surrounding area. It makes for good cover. But even a small portion of vampires, killing a victim per night, would rapidly raise suspicion. Fortunately, like I said, those of our strain are the only vampires that need so much blood for so long. There are not many of us.”

  “Why not?”

  “We breed differently. Unfortunately, I do not know all of the specifics. There is very much that Abraham never bothered to teach me, and that Lisette did not have time to. I believe she may actually have withheld a great deal from me, in order to protect me until I had grown stronger.”

  “Lisette.”

  Theroen sighed, and nodded. “Lisette. Yes. I never did finish that story. There are nearly forty years I could talk about, but most of that is empty details. A lot of hunting. A lot of sex. Fond memories, but I wish we’d done more with the time.”

  “I think just about everyone does, Theroen.”

  “Yes, I think so, too. Where did I leave off?”

  “She left you that first night, and you went home.”

  “Ah. Home. Home to sleep. Home to wait. For night … for Lisette.”

  * * *

  Theroen made his way back to the dwelling where he spent most of his time. Though he had started his life as a vampire living in tombs, this was simply meant to be a lesson from Abraham. After a week or two of sleeping on cold slabs, Abraham had brought Theroen to his home, a large estate on the outskirts of the city. Theroen thought perhaps the lesson was that Abraham could provide better than what Theroen could manage on his own.

  Theroen, already falling into the anger and hatred that would consume him for the next ten years, took from his sire only the knowledge that he did not need to live in the graveyard. Within six months he had left Abraham and acquired his own apartment in the city. Abraham was apoplectic. Theroen didn’t care. “Kill me then,” he had told the elder vampire. “Do what I now wish you had done that first night. I am damned now, so what does it matter?”

  Abraham had not killed him, had let him go. “You will return, Theroen. Wait and see. Fledgling vampires need their masters more than they realize.”

  Thus far, Abraham had been wrong. Theroen saw him only occasionally, when he needed vampire blood. Abraham gave it, to Theroen’s surprise, although not without complaint. He would insist that Theroen was being foolish, putting himself in needless danger. Theroen would simply listen in silence, waiting for the blood, and Abraham would eventually grow tired of sermonizing.

  Theroen saw no reason for this to change. After the initial surprise and fear of this chance encounter with the vampire named Lisette, he had been unsure whether to continue on his path toward Abraham’s home, or to turn back toward his own. Eventually he realized the truth of her words; if she had wanted Theroen dead, he would be dead by now.

  With that realization, he found himself no longer concerned for his safety. He turned and moved back the way he had come, mulling over the events of the evening. Lisette’s refusal to believe his claims of evil and darkness, the sudden awakening of his sexual appetite. Lost in a sea of thought, Theroen wandered. Contemplated.

  Lisette was the polar opposite of the only other vampire he had known. Was it possible that there could be more to the afterlife than the pursuit of darkness? Was this why he resisted Abraham’s tutelage? Was it his horror at his own, lost soul that made him lash out so at humanity?

  It seemed he could smell her on the wind, but her presence was gone from his mind. Lisette. Her accent was French.

  Theroen smiled a small smile, and looked up at the stars.

  * * *

  The next night saw no sign of her. Theroen fed lightly, a single girl. No performance, no sexuality. He found the girl in a darkened alley, took her before she was even aware of his presence, moved on. He wandered, waiting for Lisette, but Lisette did not come.

  Two days. Three. His frustration mounted. Theroen began to wonder if he had simply hallucinated the entire event. It seemed unreal to him now, this visit from a creature of such power and beauty. Four days. Five. The anger began to rise again within him. The hate cried out to him. Let go. Give up. On the sixth day he took two women, watched them bring each other to the heights of pleasure, cut their throats like sacrificial lambs, and hated himself for it.

  Seven, eight, and the memory of laughter like bells in the night was fading rapidly. A chance encounter, if it had happened at all.

  He lost count, descending again into rage. Nights of red haze, lashing out against God and his creations. Had she been so close to him? Had he felt the touch of salvation?

  She visited him again on a cold night in October, as he wandered through cobblestone alleys, searching for prey, seething. Cats in the background, wailing at the night. The occasional shout, the noise of breaking glass. Drunks stumbled through the alleys around him, but they were men. Theroen did not feed on men unless desperate. He found their scent disagreeable.

  The presence overwhelmed Theroen, his step faltered, and he came to a stop. It was like before; the sense of being watched, so specific, as if he could pinpoint the source. Theroen turned, looked up. Lisette sat on a small stone bridge that arched over the alley. She was dressed in a black velvet gown. He could see the white silk of her underclothes.

  “Madame.” Theroen’s breath had vanished. His heart pounded, staccato in his chest.

  “Hello, my good Mr. Anders. How are you this fine night?”

  “The better for seeing you, milady.” Theroen had regained his composure. He did not want another display of helplessness.

  “You’re seeing a bit too much of me at the moment, if the blood in your cheeks is any indication,” she laughed, and in one easy movement dropped to the pavement, standing in front of him. Her eyes caught the moonlight like bits of jade.

  “You seek to fluster me, lady,” he said.

  “I seek nothing at all, T
heroen, except to be in your presence. You are not like most of the others. You burn with goodness. It … warms me.”

  Theroen felt anger. How could this woman see in him anything of value? He sought to shock her. “Lady, this night I watched as a woman writhed naked in a pool of her own blood, too caught up in sinful ecstasy even to notice.”

  Lisette raised an eyebrow, smiled, her expression amused. She touched his arm, and Theroen felt the warmth of the touch through his jacket. His anger, his fear, melted. He felt again a throb of desire for the creature standing before him.

  “You could at least have invited me along.”

  Theroen felt his jaw drop, astonished at this suggestion. He tried to stop it from doing so, but could not. Lisette laughed. “Would you like to walk with me, Theroen?”

  Theroen was not at all sure he had a choice, but it wouldn’t have mattered. He took her arm, and they proceeded out of the alley, into the late evening crowds. Lisette chattered at his side, seemingly happy to be out and on the arm of a young man.

  “It’s a lovely evening, don’t you think? So many beautiful ladies. So many debonair gentlemen.” She paused, as if waiting for acknowledgement.

  “And yet, what are they to us, lady? They are cattle.”

  “That is your master speaking.” Lisette glanced up at him. “Or your father, perhaps. I am not yet sure that one such as yourself might ever have a master.”

  “Abraham commands me.”

  “You defy him. You maintain your own dwellings. You do not join in his politics. His black magic. His evil.”

  “Milady, I do not understand how you differentiate his evil from my own.”

  “Your evil is a fabrication, brought about by too many years taking the word of priests as the only truth. You have been trained to see yourself as evil, even as a mortal. When you become a hunter of mortals, can that be anything but worse?

  “Is the tiger evil, Theroen? The shark that swims in the oceans? They take mortal life as a force of nature. They take mortal life as it suits them. Their souls are clean.”