The II AM Trilogy Collection Read online

  * * *

  The bath was heaven on earth. Giant marble slabs, green and black and grey patterns tracing themselves out across what seemed, at first, to be miles of stone. The basin had to be twelve feet long, three feet deep. Sitting straight up, Two saw, the water could easily have covered her head. The faucet was enormous. The water steamed as Melissa turned it on.

  “I like flowers. Do you like flowers?”

  Two had no idea what Melissa meant. She shrugged. “Sure?”

  “In the bath, silly.”

  “Oh.” Two honestly didn’t know. She’d never tried it. “Why not?”

  Melissa laughed, took a basket from the shelf above, dropped hundreds upon hundreds of blossoms into the bath water. Their fragrance filled the room immediately, cherry blossoms, rose petals, the sweet smell of citrus.

  Melissa lit candles, turned off the lights, stood in front of Two, unbuttoned her blouse. Two shrugged it off. Melissa’s blood seemed to have imbued her with a sense of great calm, and Two found herself unconcerned about being naked in front of the vampire girl. Melissa, for her part, seemed entirely unfazed. She helped Two out of the rest of her garments, held her arm out for balance as Two climbed the steps to the bath and stepped in. Two descended into the petals, felt the warmth embrace her, and sighed. Melissa sat on the step, played with the water at her fingertips, smiled at Two.

  “Good?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Melissa handed her a gigantic sponge, craggy and twisted and obviously natural, and some sort of perfumed bath lotion. Two cleaned herself slowly. Melissa chattered, behind her and to the right, about all sorts of things. New pop music she was enamored with, the wonderful lights and throbbing beats of the raves she attended, the new interpretation of Shakespeare running on Broadway. Her tastes were more varied than anyone Two had met. She kept the conversation casual.

  Eventually, Two was as clean as she was going to get. She lingered, relaxed, the withdrawal back in some dark corner, brooding, not yet ready to return. Melissa ran water, filled a clay jug, ancient glaze cracked along its contours, and wet Two’s hair. Two leaned back, eyes closed, as Melissa’s fingers worked shampoo through her blonde curls. It was like a supernatural visit to a salon, Two reflected, and laughed slightly. Melissa seemed to catch this thought, and smiled as well.

  She helped Two from the bath, dried her, helped her choose perfumes Theroen might like, helped her dress in a long, flowing gown. Green, like her eyes. It was a bit too long, but otherwise fit well.

  “He’ll say he prefers black, if you ask him, but he’s just buying into the whole vampire thing. You look like a goddess, and he’ll know it.”

  Two looked at herself in the mirror, amazed at the change. White skin, green dress, green eyes, golden hair. The gown was of an older style, décolleté, leaving little to the imagination, pushing her breasts upward and making them seem fuller. She looked like a lady at court. Two smiled, giggled like a little girl, touched her own hair as if not believing. In her nineteen years, she had never seen herself like this. Two had always understood that she possessed some level of beauty, and knew also that the vampirism was enhancing this even more, but still would never have believed she could look like this.

  Behind her stood Melissa, still in her simple jeans and blouse and yet radiating supernatural beauty as well. Smiling, she touched Two’s neck, and Two turned. A small, sweet kiss on the lips, and Melissa peered into her eyes, beaming.

  “Soon we’ll be sisters! Or nearly enough. You and Theroen will be together, and we can all hunt and live and see and do! Won’t it be wonderful?”

  Two thought it might, indeed.

  * * *

  “I don’t care for all of this antique crap.”

  Melissa’s directness, something Two realized now was as innate to her as Theroen’s composure was to him, was sometimes surprising. Two raised her eyebrows.

  “No?”

  They were sitting on the back terrace, looking out at the woods. The moon was huge tonight, reaching the bloated, red fullness she had seen promised not three nights ago. It hung low over the sky. The night was still young. Two’s earlier pain had made the time seem much longer than it had actually been.

  “No. It’s pointless. Abraham buys the stuff without any thought, at least that I can tell. Mostly he doesn’t even do the buying. Theroen does, though Theroen detests a lot of it. That might be what Abraham has him doing tonight. Or it might be that he’s retrieving dinner for Abraham. He doesn’t hunt for himself anymore, you know, just relies on Theroen. Doesn’t even have to drink more than every once in a while. I think maybe the little blood he took from you, like you said? That might have woken up the thirst.”

  “How does Theroen feel about bringing him victims?”

  “Better than about buying him stupid furniture.” Melissa’s eyes gleamed. She grinned.

  “It doesn’t bother him, then? Picking out a life to take like he was going to the grocery store?”

  Melissa looked at Two, shook her head, smiling.

  “That’s not how it is … not for Theroen or even for me. We don’t have to kill, anymore. We don’t need that much blood. Abraham kills because he likes to, that’s all.

  “But even if we still had to … you don’t understand. You were asleep for the only real drink you’ve ever had. You don’t know how it is yet. You think a couple of drops from a finger are good? Wait until you’re a full vampire.”

  Two remembered the taste of Melissa’s blood, of Theroen’s, of her own. It had been sweet on her lips, hot and powerful. It had left her breathless.

  “You have to kill at the start. You won’t be able to stop yourself, but you get over it,” Melissa continued. “Mortals die all the time. That’s what makes them so beautiful. They get all into their art and their music and their careers and everything, and then they get old and die. Or they die young. If we don’t bring them death, something else will, some other time. We are predators among them. And most of them? In that last instant before death? Most of them love us.”

  Two shook her head, not in disagreement but confusion. It all seemed deceptively easy. It all seemed so right, and yet here she was sitting with a young woman talking casually about the slaughter of human beings.

  “You’re only half. When he makes you full, Two, these things won’t concern you. Or at least, I doubt they will. Not past the first kill.”

  “You said we’d be sisters. Did Theroen make you, then?”

  Melissa laughed, not at Two’s ignorance, but at the idea itself, as if the very thought were absurd.

  “No, my father is Abraham. My blood is Abraham’s blood. I only meant sisters in that our bodies are of similar ages. And both of us will have been reborn into darkness, as the poets put it.”

  Darkness. Two could feel darkness at the back of her mind, beginning to gnaw at her again. The idea of a fix right now, after the nice warm bath, out on the patio with a friend, seemed dangerously appealing. Melissa cocked her head.

  “You’re thinking about drugs.”

  Two felt her face reddening, nodded. “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I imagine it’s hard not to. I wonder if it’s like the thirst. If it’s like when we’re forced not to drink for a few days. It burns in us, Two. It’s all I can think about. Sometimes it’s like that even on normal days. Sometimes I’ll feed two … even three times a night.”

  Two didn’t know. Of the thirst she knew only a vague desire, not a desperate need. Of the heroin, she knew nothing else.

  Time passed. Several times Two was one the verge of asking Melissa for more blood, but stopped herself. She didn’t want to seem that weak. She could handle it until Theroen returned. Light shakes and a dry mouth. No worse than getting the flu, really, for the moment.

  In the distance, in the trees, a howling. Two looked up, eyes widening. Melissa’s reaction was immediate. She stood and peered out into the forest.

  “Oh, shit. I have to go, Two.”

  Two felt fea
r flood through her, fear of being alone, of the pain returning. Two turned to Melissa with pleading eyes.

  “Why? What is it?”

  “I have to. And you have to go back inside.” Apology implicit in her voice, but Melissa offered no explanation. Two looked at her, mute. She wanted to ask for more blood, if Melissa was going to leave her alone, but the vampire seemed agitated and nervous.

  “I’ll take you back up to your bedroom, if you want. Then I have to go.”

  Two nodded, biting her lower lip, trying to suppress the fear and depression that wanted to engulf her.

  Lying in the dark. Hard to breathe, hard to think, conscious thought slipping in and out like the tide. Sometimes there was only pain, sometimes she could hear herself sobbing. Chills, nausea, and the maddening craving for the drug. God, all she wanted was to get high. Was it so wrong? Thoughts of Darren, Molly, the drug, the needle. Two wanted to leave this mansion, return to her pimp, beg for his apology and for her ration. But she couldn’t walk. She knew that soon she would try to crawl, crawl back to New York, back to Darren, on her hands and knees. She had no choice.

  More howling from the outside, and then quiet. Just the wind, the rustling of leaves, the sound of grass shivering under its assault. Two’s eyes were wide open in the dark, not seeing the room around her. Instead she saw the forest. She heard light, quiet breathing. Gasps from further away. Was this her body? Golden hair at the sides of her vision, hanging in long, loose curls like hers. Yet her chest felt heavier, the breasts larger, the body lankier. She moved across the ground in a manner completely unfamiliar to her. This was not Two.

  The pain cut through the vision. Two gasped, moaned, lay back, and again the seeing overtook her. No, not Two. Not her eyes. Not her body. Someone else. Some other.

  Ahead, a silhouette, something struggling its way through the forest. Something that Two could barely see was moving in lumbering steps, gasping, weeping, praying in some nameless language to some nameless god. The prayer of the victim. The prayer of the hunted. Two’s heart raced, adrenaline flooding her body, excitement and lust and terrible, terrible hunger. The prey was at hand, the hunt over.

  Speed, now, overtaking the victim, warmth flooding through her body as dull excitement awakened between her thighs. Was it always like this? Would she never grow used to this, never lose that throbbing heat? She tasted the man’s sweat, salty, as her teeth and tongue caressed the surface of his neck. He lay there, caught by her powerful arms, unable to move, unable to breathe.

  The attack was not a clean bite, not the civilized piercing Theroen’s teeth had made in her own vein, barely noticeable afterward. Two felt her head move forward, felt her jaws clench like powerful machines, felt bone and muscle and cartilage crush between her teeth. A tearing sound, like wet cloth, resistance giving way as she jerked and twisted her head. Two screamed out loud at this sensation, in her bedroom in the mansion.

  The blood sprayed, coating her face in warmth. Below her, the man was jerking, seizing, pain and pleasure overtaking him even as his death throes began. Great draughts of blood, they seemed to never end, pumping and pumping from his ruined throat.

  Two closed her eyes, driving this vision away, descending into pain. The pain was better than this. The pain would help her forget, help her erase this memory of brutal, violent death. Yet these things did not happen. Two could not forget, and in the depths of pain she found she could admit to herself the truth, somehow more bearable amidst the cramps and chills ravaging her body.

  Hadn’t she wanted it? To rip, to tear, to feed? Had her body not peaked as those awful teeth began their assault, as it had with Theroen? As it had with Abraham? Had it not reacted to this horror with pulsing ecstasy, calling for more, calling for the blood?

  Had she not loved it?

  * * *

  Two was sitting up in her bed, pressing against the wall, knees to her chest, arms wrapped around them, shuddering. It took several seconds for the sound of the door opening to register with her. She looked up. Theroen, standing before her, concern and love and sorrow on his face, watching her with his unearthly composure. Two put her head down on her arms and began to sob.

  He was holding her, powerful arms, gentle touch. He lay next to her on the bed, and she wept into his chest. He whispered into her ear, calming, soothing, and his fingers touched her lips, and Two tasted blood there. She licked it greedily.

  “I am sorry, Two. It was foolish of me to leave without giving you this. It is my fault. I’ll not leave you again now. We will be together until this is done, and then forever.”

  The pain receded. Gone, not forever, but for the moment, and for the moment that was enough. Two twisted in Theroen’s arms, sobbing, crushed her body against his, kissed his neck, kissed his lips. Theroen kissed her tears from her face.

  “I am so sorry, Two. I would never have left you if I’d know it would get that bad, that fast.”

  She shook her head. She didn’t care. She didn’t blame him. He was here, now, and the rest was unimportant.

  “Has it been this way since I left?”

  “No.” A whisper. It was all she could manage.

  Theroen sat up, seemed to notice her clothes for the first time. Two smiled sadly as he looked her over, shrugged her shoulders, looked at him in apology.

  “It looked a lot better … before.”

  “You look radiant. How strong you must be, to look so, and in such pain.”

  Two lowered her eyes. Was this strength? Theroen ran his hand through her hair, seemed awed by its softness.

  “Melissa helped me.”

  Theroen nodded, as if expecting this.

  “I thought she might show herself. She’s incorrigibly curious. Good that it was Melissa, and not Missy.”

  “There are two of them?”

  Theroen sighed, shook his head.

  “No.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Someday soon, I’ll tell you much more of Abraham, and myself, and Melissa … and why we are who we are. You are lucky, Two.”

  His smile, though, was bitter.

  “Why?”

  “We are unlike any other clan of vampires I have ever come across. We are as unique in our makeup as any mortal. Abraham, myself, Melissa … sweet Melissa, cruel Missy; sometimes she is both in a single night. Abraham was old when he made me. It gave me power beyond any of a normal fledgling. He was ancient when he chose to make Melissa, yet rather than bestow power upon her as it had me, the infusion of his blood broke her mind.”

  Two thought again of the howling in the woods, and Melissa’s immediate departure. She began to ask Theroen of this, but he was looking away, lost in thought.

  “Melissa is my sister, and I have loved her as much as many mortal brother might. I fear for her. I fear for what may happen when I leave.”

  “Leave?”

  “I cannot stay here much longer. Twenty years, maybe less. Abraham and I …”

  He trailed off, eyes clouding again. She saw sorrow there, and anger. Finally he sighed, shrugged, looked away.

  “You don’t like each other, do you?” Two’s voice was soft.

  “We despise each other.” Theroen turned to face her again.

  “Why?”

  “You felt his evil. You know it does not reside in me. He assumed the blood would convert me, change me as it had him. It did not. For four hundred years I have been his errand boy, slave to the whims of a depraved fiend whose lust for power and dark knowledge know no bounds. I have seen him murder dozens in a single night, solely to try, and fail, to read the future in their steaming entrails.”

  Two shuddered. Theroen looked at her, nodded grimly.

  “I am no knight in shining armor, Two. I have killed, many times, without repentance, and I would have you do the same. You must understand this. But I am not evil in the manner that Abraham is evil: active, conscious, focused. I am evil like a hurricane. A force of nature, nothing more.

  “There’s no evil in that.�
�

  “Isn’t there? But it doesn’t matter. I am the creature I have been for nearly half a millennium. Any moral dilemma that might once have existed has long since been washed from me. But I still hold the rest. I still hold love for human life, and I take it only when necessary. I loathe Abraham for his inability to feel these things.”

  “Why haven’t you left already?”

  “It’s the blood that bonds. It keeps me here. But the link grows weak as my powers increase. They are already well beyond what they should be for my age. This, too, is a source of frustration for Abraham. Most Eresh fledglings are not ready to leave their masters until well past their fifth century.”

  His eyes flashed suddenly, a look of disgust crossing his features.

  “Yet it is his own fault!” Theroen snarled. “He waited too long to make his children. He knew that age makes the blood unpredictable. He knew that if I was not driven mad by it, I would wield power unlike any ordinary fledgling.”

  “But he keeps you here anyway …”

  “Out of spite, yes, and malice. Abraham hates me, perhaps more than I hate him, but he would not be rid of me. I am his, do you understand? Or so he feels.”

  Two took his hand, kissed the fingertips.

  “This is the world within the world, Two.” Theroen’s voice was gentle now. He looked again into her eyes. “This is a secret life unknown to those who walk during the daylight. Humans have their legends and rumors, movies, television, comic books … but they do not believe.”

  Two was kissing his face now. Chin, cheek, lips. Theroen kissed back absently, his mind still on their discussion. Two moved her lips to his neck, felt the pulse of his blood buried beneath the flesh, and was overwhelmed with sudden desire. She pressed her new, sharp teeth against the flesh, waited for his acknowledgement. Apprehension. Would he deny her this gift? Would her yearning go unfulfilled?

  She heard the smile in his voice. Satisfaction. He understood now; she wanted what he offered.

  “It is yours for the taking, Two. It always has been.”