The II AM Trilogy Collection Read online

  “Her name was Tori. She seems still to respond to that, so that is what we call her. Aside from the shape of her body, this is the last piece of humanity she retains. I do not know why Abraham chose to make her. After Melissa … how he could possibly have expected a normal fledgling, I do not know. I don’t think he really did. I think he simply wanted to know what would happen.

  “I took the girl from her school. I brought her to him. I did not ask any questions of Abraham, and am not sure I would have even if I had known what he planned. Not then. Now? Who knows?

  “His blood is too powerful. The curse of our line … We make few fledglings, and have a limited window in which to do it. Abraham was nearly too old when he made me. Yet even after Melissa, he gave his blood to this girl. He gave it to her very quickly, nearly drowned her in it, and it destroyed her mind. She is, in some respects, the perfect vampire. Alert, aware, incredibly fast, stronger even than Melissa, who is many years her senior.”

  Theroen glanced again out the window, then back at Two, smiling without humor. “Tori can be counted on for three things. She loves to hunt, she loves to kill, and she loves to – as mortals so callously put it – fuck. It is appropriate terminology. There is no love involved for her.”

  “Another vampire with an active sex life …” Two raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s an uncommon strain, even among our type, but it seems to have lain dormant in Abraham. He himself is incapable of that mortal act of love. Yet his children, all three of us, are very much alive below the waist. These pleasures pale, of course, to that of feeding, but when mixed together appropriately …” and here he glanced at Two, “they can be quite pleasurable indeed.”

  “Will I get to meet Tori?”

  Theroen grimaced. “Yes. At some point, I suppose, it’s inevitable.”

  Two was contemplating Theroen’s description of Tori, neither speaking, when she sensed a third presence in the room. She looked up at Theroen, who closed his eyes and sighed. His expression was grim.

  At the door stood Melissa, and yet not Melissa. She looked different, somehow. It wasn’t the style of clothes, or the hairstyle. These remained the same. The set of the body, perhaps? There was darkness behind her eyes.

  “Hello Missy,” Theroen said without opening his eyes.

  “Theroen. Come hunting with me?”

  “I’ve already gone.”

  “Would it have mattered?”

  Theroen shook his head. “No.”

  “You never hunt with me.” Missy’s tone was dry, emotionless. She was only stating a fact.

  Theroen glanced up at her. “I never do.”

  “But you’ll hunt with that perky, jabbering bitch, when she’s got control of my body.”

  Theroen nodded.

  “And you’ll hunt with this … half-mortal … thing. Someday.”

  “Enough, Missy. Watch your tongue.”

  “Or what? You’ll hurt me? I’ll let her back in while you’re doing it, Theroen. She won’t understand. She’ll cry.”

  Two watched all of this, fascinated and amazed by the change in the vampire girl. Even the tone of Melissa’s voice was different. The vampire turned to her suddenly.

  “Quit staring at me, or I’ll rip your eyes out with my teeth,” The words were almost casual. Two looked down at the floor, her pale face coloring slightly. She was not afraid, exactly, but aware that vampire society seemed hierarchal, and not wanting to break any codes of conduct. She assumed it was the right thing to do.

  The air in the room seemed to go cold. Theroen’s anger was palpable. He stood slowly, and Missy immediately moved backward a step, glaring, defiant.

  “I would no sooner do physical violence to you, Missy, than I would to Melissa. Or Tori. Or Two. I do not enjoy causing harm to others of my own kind. To anyone. But you will not threaten her, at all, let alone in my presence.”

  “Who are you to command me, brother?”

  “I am not your brother, Missy. You are an aberration. A mistake. A product of powerful blood on an unsuspecting brain. That body belongs to Melissa. You are merely a parasite that refuses to die.”

  Missy made a snarling cry of outrage and threw herself at Theroen. Two leapt off of her couch, pushing herself into the corner. She didn’t want to be watching this. Surely blood would be spilled.

  Yet Theroen merely caught Missy’s arms, dragged them to her sides, pulled her face up to his, locked her with his eyes.

  “Does that hurt, Missy? Do I even need to lay a finger on you, when the truth will do so well?” Theroen’s voice was still calm, still collected. He seemed almost disinterested.

  Missy had no answer to his question. Theroen let her go, and she slunk back to the doorway.

  “Go. Hunt.” Theroen’s tone implied that the dismissal was beyond argument.

  Missy opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, whirled on her heel, and departed.

  Theroen took a deep breath. “And now you’ve met Missy. What do you think?”

  Two shrugged. She returned to her couch, sat down, smiled slightly. “I think she’s a bitch.”

  Theroen laughed. “Yes, a bitch. That’s exactly what she is. Such a shame. Melissa could have been an incredible vampire. I’ve never met another whose essential goodness was so utterly untouched by the transformation. In my darker moments, I almost believe Abraham made her solely to attempt to destroy some of that goodness.”

  “She doesn’t seem like his type. Neither of them do, really. I’m not sure anyone is.” It still seemed foreign to Two, speaking of “them” when referring to a single body, but she had seen more than enough proof of Melissa’s dual personalities.

  “No, no one truly is, but Missy is certainly much closer than Melissa. I can’t claim to fathom Abraham, and I’ve served him for nearly half a century. No, Melissa is not what I would have expected from Abraham. Perhaps he saw in her the potential of Missy, and expected the change to bring it out completely. Perhaps it would have, if his blood was not so strong.”

  Howling again. Two looked out the window into the night.

  “I think I want to meet Tori,” she said. “It’s weird, knowing she’s out there but never seeing her.”

  Theroen smiled at this, shook his head. “No you don’t.”

  Two raised her eyebrows, leaned forward, set her elbows on her knees – giving Theroen as ample a view as her chest could provide in the process – and smiled, batting her eyelashes.

  “You’re not going to let me?”

  “No, and if you insist on trying anyway, I will have to stop you.”

  Two considered this. It was unlike Theroen to deny her a requested indulgence.

  “Why?”

  “Tori is not friendly.” No elaboration. No change in Theroen’s expression that might have helped to explain his unwillingness to expose Two to this woman. Two pressed on.

  “I know what she’s like. I told you about the dream. I can handle it.”

  “That was not a dream, Two. Tori throws off mental images like sparks from a fire. That was very much a real event that you witnessed that night, and I can assure you she’s even less pleasant in person.”

  “I can handle it!”

  Theroen sighed. “It’s not your ability to handle it that I’m concerned with. It’s my ability to handle Tori. She doesn’t like vampires, other than Melissa … or Missy, she doesn’t seem to know the difference. She tolerates me only because it is clear that Melissa likes me. She will not set foot near Abraham, although he is the only thing I am currently aware of that she fears.”

  “So, she may not like me.” Two was unfazed. She had dealt with women who didn’t like her before, had knocked out teeth when necessary.

  “You do not understand, Two. Tori is a machine; an engine of destruction. She is built to kill, and she is remarkably capable. If she decides not to tolerate you, she will attempt to kill you. Previous experience has taught me, quite harshly, that even I am not necessarily fast enough to prevent her from
doing so. Abraham’s visitors were … quite upset.”

  Theroen pressed his palms against his eyes momentarily, sighed, shrugged. The gesture was oddly human, oddly endearing. Two smiled.

  “Okay, Theroen.”

  “Someday soon, Two. I promise. But not out in the woods and not unless she’s fed. I want her to see you through a window first or, better, a set of bars, before you come face to face.”

  “Would you cage her?”

  Theroen laughed. “I don’t know if I would. I doubt that I could. Trying to force an ordinary vampire into a cage is hard enough. Tori …” He shrugged, letting the thought carry.

  Two got up, walked to the couch he sat on, and reclined against him. He traced the pink silk of her gown from shoulder to neck with a finger, placed his hand under her chin, and brought her lips to his for a small kiss.

  Two sighed. “I feel so … girly around you,” she said at last, laughing at herself. Theroen grinned, said nothing, traced the contour of her breast with his fingertips. He was not looking at her, but rather at her reflection in the window, blurred and indistinct. She watched him watching her, and considered the life they might lead together.

  I’m ready, she thought.

  Two took a deep breath, asked what she wanted to ask. “Finish me?” The words seemed to hang in the air for a moment before sinking, given weight by their implication.

  “I would not have offered you a choice,” Theroen said after a moment, “had I been able to do so on the first night. I was … rather arrogant, really, in my desire. Now? Two, you must mean it with all of your heart and soul.”

  How can I ever be sure? Two thought to herself. How could anyone ever be sure?

  But what was it that she was leaving behind? Drugs and prostitution, beatings, the constant humiliation heaped upon her by her desperate life. Even if she was free of the drug, now, what else did she have to go back to? There was no home, no money, no support save that which Rhes and Sarah might offer out of pity. Did she want to return to a life of picking pockets, shoplifting, breaking into cars? Theroen was offering her escape.

  She was not tempted by the money, the clothes, the fast cars, the expensive furniture. These things mattered little to Two. Here though was a chance for love and redemption. Everything she could possibly desire was here in this mansion, on this couch. The blood was here, and if it held power over her now, half-complete and unable truly to taste it as a vampire might, then what might it be like once the transformation was complete?

  “Love and lust, passion, need … it is all things, Two. Yet it is nothing more than another drug in the end. It is not the blood you need to accept. The blood pushes itself upon you regardless, and you will do whatever is necessary to acquire it.

  “You ask me to make you a destructive force. A tornado. A fire. A flood. A thing beyond the scope of mortal comprehension, who kills at her whim, because it is her nature to do so.”

  Still quiet, but wasn’t she now simply giving Theroen the chance to say his piece? She could feel the desire growing within her. The taste of what he offered: the blood, the escape, the strength to put her past behind her, the possibility of all this and more was intoxicating. Theroen’s words of caution seemed weak by comparison.

  “You will have to kill,” Theroen said. “Oh, Two, you’d be such a vampire. Lover, fighter, mother, killer. It’s all in you. I sense it. Yet I can no longer blindly force you down this path. You must lead yourself. You …”

  Two put her fingers on his mouth, turned her head, locked her eyes with his.

  “Theroen. Finish me.”

  He paused a moment longer, looking into her eyes as if searching for some fear she might be hiding. Two knew that all he would find there was truth. Indeed, Theroen smiled at her, and nodded.

  Strong arms, lifting her, carrying her toward the bedroom. Her arms were around his neck. In this short moment, Two bid her mortal life farewell. Pain, anguish, hatred and despair; these were the hallmarks of this life, a dark void lit only by the occasional candle of friendship, an almost nonexistent light. What chains bound her to these things? Two fled without moving, fled on Theroen’s feet, toward the bedroom and away from the darkness that had oppressed her since her first memory.

  * * *

  There was pain, but not like before. Theroen’s teeth pierced the flesh of her neck, but to Two it seemed minor. Far away. The pain was a vehicle to an end result that she truly craved.

  “Ah …” the slightest sound as she felt her blood begin to flow. No pulsing climax this time, only a bittersweet ache of desire. This act was no culmination of lust, but rather a final act of love. Two sighed, feeling tension leave her. The draining sensation increased, seemed to swallow her. The thudding of her heart, the deep rush of her breath, these things soon brought her to a state of near hypnosis. Theroen held her gently in her swoon, drinking, his lips against her neck, judging her pulse. Waiting. At last pulling away.

  Two looked up, eyes half-lidded. Breathing seemed difficult, but the sensation was so far removed she could not be sure. The world was grey and dim. Theroen’s eyes alone seemed to shine out at her. She heard herself say something, the words lost instantly. She would have to remember to ask Theroen later what it was, what she’d said.

  Is this death? She had time to think. This apathy, this dimness? Her heart pumped in her chest for what felt like the first time in minutes. Weak. Two could not keep her eyes open.

  A voice, whispering. Drink. Drink. And there was pressure at her lips, and warmth, and a deep rushing sound which seemed to swell in her ears until it vibrated through her entire body.

  Theroen felt Two’s arms tighten around him and breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment he had been in mortal terror that he’d killed her before she had a chance to drink. Her words to him had shaken him quite badly, more so for the fact that she clearly had not heard them herself.

  He’d made the cut at his throat immediately following her declaration, and pressed her lips to it, imploring her to drink. He felt now the force of those lips, burning like heated iron, felt the draining of blood, enough now that her change was assured. He was dizzy. Trace amounts of the drug must still have remained in her. It was no worse than dining on a young woman filled with red wine, or warm brandy, though, and he had done both.

  Melissa’s voice at the door. A gasp of surprise.

  “Oh!”

  Theroen gestured to the chair beside the bed, careful not to disturb Two, now locked so tightly to his neck that he would have to pry her off. She was gasping for breath here and there, whimpering slightly, still lost in swoon. Her thirst would be far greater than ever before. It would take time to satiate her. He heard Melissa sit down, felt her take his hand and press it to her cheek.

  “I’m so happy for you, Theroen.” He felt her muscles stretch as she smiled.

  But he could feel tears there, too.

  * * *

  Darkness, my love. All I see for us is darkness.

  Two’s voice, Lisette’s words. Had she not whispered this exact prophecy more than three hundred years ago, tears coursing down her cheeks, reflecting the moonlight like rivers of silver? Bare skin, sharp fangs, joined at the waist, joined at the neck. Dull throbbing, dull roaring, the blood, the skin, the tears, and then that whisper.

  And all that had followed.

  Tears at his fingertips. Melissa weeping, he knew, for the beginning of the end. Theroen had betrayed her at last, as they both had known he would someday do. How was she to live as Abraham’s servant? What was left for her now that Theroen had Two? Only Tori, and the darkness at the end of the hall; madness on either side greater even than her own.

  Tears at his throat. Two’s? Lisette’s? Theroen drifted between New York of the 21st century, and London of the 17th, and heard again those words. Darkness. Darkness.

  Who better to speak of darkness than those forsaken by the sun? Who better to voice those words than a vampire?

  “I would make her my bride.”

  “
You will do no such thing.”

  “You cannot hold me forever, father.”

  Theroen felt himself reaching the limit of his strength. Two had drained him as much as he dared allow. He unwound her arms from his neck, pushed her lips from his wound, pushed her words from his mind.

  * * *

  Consciousness came to Two like layers of red gauze being lifted from her eyes.

  She could feel Theroen’s arms around her, holding her safe, as the blood rushed and roared. It burned her veins, as her empty body sought to replenish itself, but the hurt was far away. Unimportant.

  She spoke his name, forced her eyes to focus, looked around. Melissa, too, was here now. Not Missy. Two could tell solely from the expression on the face. Melancholy, and yet filled with happiness. Tear tracks were drying on her cheeks. Missy could not have looked like that if her life had depended on it. Two coughed. “I’m thirsty, Theroen.”

  Melissa laughed at this. Two felt Theroen take a deep breath.

  Two put her arms behind her, took her weight away from Theroen, and glanced around. The light, previously dim, now seemed much brighter. It was not overwhelming, but the change was drastic. Melissa stood in a corner now, smiling in a way that said she knew precisely what Two was experiencing. Two flexed the muscles of her arms. Theroen watched her, his uncanny calm returning once again to mask whatever he might be feeling.

  “How do you feel?” Melissa asked. Her grin said she knew.

  “Thirsty. Hungry. Strong.”

  A pretty laugh, and Melissa glanced at Theroen. “I think the young lady’s in need of a drive, Theroen. Time to show her what she really is.”

  Theroen stirred as if waking from deep contemplation. He turned to Melissa. “And what are we, really, sister?”

  Melissa’s smile didn’t waver, nor did it turn bitter or cynical. She raised her eyebrows a bit, eyes gleaming. “I believe we are predators, brother.”

  “Ah. Yes. That we are. Do you understand this, Two?”

  Two considered. “Does it matter who I drink from?”