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Cycle of Souls 1/3
CYCLE OF SOULS: MASTER POST (warnings, etc.)
*
In 1672, a man named Dr. Nathaniel Hodges publishes a treaty called Loimologia. It is in Latin. It is translated to English in 1720. It begins,
Gerard reads it in the Latin in 1672, and then again in English forty-eight years later.
The plain words do not even begin to accurately describe the Great Plague of London. Loimologia does not speak of the fear or anguish of watching one's family die. It does not describe the stench of the wagons or the feeling of holding one's cold and lifeless beloved. It does not mention the fruitless prayers one gave, the bargaining with one's God, the hoarse pleading in the dead of night.
Gerard hates the treatise and burns it with relish both times he reads it.
*
September 1665
Gerard prays over Michael's sickbed. He no longer does it under his breath, fearful that God will not listen unless he speaks aloud. He grips his mother's (God rest her soul) rosary in one hand and lays his other on Michael's fevered skin.
“Father of goodness and love,” Gerard recites, “hear my prayer for the sick and needy. May my brother find consolation in Your healing presence. Show your mercy on Michael as you heal his sickness. May he find lasting health and deliverance, and so join me in thanking You for all Your gifts. I ask this through the Lord Jesus who healed those who believed. Amen.”
He has said the same words over and over, but they are not any less hopeful or devout now. He cannot find a priest in all of London who will visit a sick house, so he prays even more fervently. At one time, before he was gently reminded that he had a duty as heir, Gerard wanted to become a priest. Now he is aware that he may soon be the only Way left except for some distant cousins who emigrated to America.
He does not want to be the last of his family. Michael is more than his blood, he is Gerard's heart. They are more than mere siblings, they are the best of friends.
The wagon took his mother and father yesterday, and the bearers are calling out in the torch-lit street, “Bring yer dead!”
But Michael yet lives. He is young and strong of heart if not of body. Gerard prays over him again, sitting at his bedside. He does not care if he becomes ill himself, only cares that Michael lives.
Gerard has not slept in days, and weariness claws at him.
“Mother?” Michael calls hoarsely.
“She is not here,” Gerard answers, wrapping his hands around one of Michael's.
“'m cold,” Michael says.
“It is the fever,” Gerard says. He pulls the coverlet up to Michael's chin. “Better?”
Michael asks, “Water?”
The servants fled days before, and both water and wood for the fire are becoming scarce. But Gerard pours half a glass of water for Michael and then holds it to his lips. Some spills down Michael's chin, a testament to Gerard's ineptness as a sick nurse. He wishes he had more skill at this, some kind of healing touch that would soothe Michael's pain.
When the water is gone, Gerard eases his brother back onto his pillow. “How do you feel?” he asks.
Michael licks his lips and tries to shrug, an action their mother tried desperately to curtail all his life.
“Would you like me to read to you?” Gerard asks.
But Michael shakes his head and weakly pushes the mound of covers away from his body. He's thin and pale, his nightshirt doing nothing to disguise the angles of his body.
“What are you doing? You must stay warm,” Gerard says.
“Please. Lie down with me,” Michael says. “Like you did when we were young.”
It has been years since they did this. The last time Gerard and Michael shared a bed was when Gerard was ill with mumps. Michael crawled into bed with Gerard despite their mother's protests, saying he would protect Gerard from the evil throat demons. As a child, Gerard had been obsessed with demons and angels, and Michael's imagination had been caught by Gerard's wild tales. So of course Michael believed that a throat demon had gripped Gerard instead of disease.
Gerard shakes himself out of the memory and moves under the covers with Michael. There is no one left in the house to judge them or intrude. Michael cuddles close, and Gerard embraces him with both arms. Michael feels even more thin than he looks, and he's burning hot.
“I love you dearly, Michael,” Gerard whispers.
“Love you too, brother,” Michael says, but the words catch in his throat and he has a fit of angry coughing.
Gerard can do nothing but stroke Michael's back and worry. Michael is so young, just sixteen. He has never lain with a woman, never traveled outside England, never seen a play. He has never been yachting, and he has never had a cat, although he's begged their parents for both.
He is too young to die.
Gradually, Gerard is pulled into a fitful, worried sleep. He dreams of demons dragging him into hell, and of angels who try to take Michael away to heaven. Gerard fights and fights, screaming to God for help, but when he wakes he is crying and he feels a sense of loss that is so deep he wants to die.
Michael is still in his arms, and when Gerard touches his forehead, he finds it is not as hot as it has been. For one miraculous moment, Gerard believes the fever is broken. He shakes his brother gently to wake him, then gives up and hugs him tight. “Thank you,” he whispers to God. “Thank you.”
But Michael remains limp in Gerard's tight embrace. He does not move in discomfort. He does not protest.
He does not breathe.
“Michael,” Gerard says softly. “Michael.”
There is no answer, no intake of breath, no amused laughter telling Gerard this is just a jest.
Michael remains still. Gerard shakes him, hard enough that he hears Michael's teeth clack together. Tears are coming to Gerard's eyes as he begins to realize the truth, but it does not stop him from shaking his brother even harder.
Gerard jerks his head in denial. This cannot be, it must not be. His neighbors are gone, his friends are gone, even his parents have succumbed to this wretched plague. But not his beloved brother, never Michael.
“No, Michael. You must not die. You cannot,” he begins to say, loud in his own ears, echoing in the bedchamber. He closes his eyes tight and begins to pray to God, begging for his brother's life.
No answer comes, no matter how long he begs. He notices it is dark again, and his voice is just a whisper. He can no longer speak.
Gerard wipes his tears and lies back down with Michael, pulling him into his arms again, close against his chest. He's so cold now, but Gerard will hold him and keep him warm for as long as Michael needs.
*
He wakes to the thud thud thud of boots on the carpet.
“Go away,” Gerard rasps without looking up. He hurts all over, his muscles aching. He knows he will die in a matter of days. He wants to die here, in this bed, holding on to the one person who loved him above all others. “You cannot have my brother.”
A pause, and then a voice says, “Did you pray?”
Gerard swallows dryly; he hasn't had water lately. He hasn't wanted to move to get it from the bedside table. He's cold, from both fever and the lack of fire.
“I asked you something,” the voice says. “Did you pray to your God?”
“Yes,” Gerard says.
“And did he answer?”
Gerard closes his eyes and prays for the release of death to come quickly, bearing him on wings to his family.
“Are you praying now?” the voice asks, coming closer.
Gerard looks up and sees something from his nightmares, something otherworldly.
The demon has long, shaggy hair that is tied messily at his nape. He has red eyes and fangs, and there is blood on his lips and chin. His black clothing is wet, probably also with blood. He grins at Gerard's wide eyes and looms over the bed.
Gerard expects to feel horror, fear, anything but this thick numbness.
The demon touches Michael's arm. “How long has this one been dead?”
“Don't touch my brother,” Gerard says, anger peeking through his grief. “Your kind can't have him. He's ...”
“Ah, you think me a demon. So what is it, your brother belongs with the angels?”
“Yes,” Gerard says thickly.
“You believe in heaven and hell? How quaint,” the demon says with faux sweetness.
“Go away and leave me to my fate,” Gerard mumbles, realizing now that this must be another dream.
“You believe in Fate as well?” the demon says. “How have you survived all these years, trusting in gods and angels and the hands of Fate? How can you live a life that way?”
“Who are you?” Gerard asks. “You speak blasphemy.”
The demon laughs and bows. “Blasphemy is my favorite pastime! That is, when I'm not feeding on chaos and discontent. My name is Azrael, pleased to make your acquaintance. And you are Gerard, the last of the Ways.”
Azrael lights a short candle by the bed that illuminates his face. He is both beautiful and terrible, with white fangs that glint in the light.
“You are not Azrael the Archangel,” Gerard says. “The angel of death.”
The demon's smile flashes, and his red eyes seem even brighter. “I took the name centuries ago. I was pretentious in my youth.” He sits on the bed, pushing Michael's body irreverently to gain a better seat.
“So Azrael is not your name,” Gerard says slowly, taking in the fact that he talks in centuries rather than decades. Azrael looks to be in his late thirties, with only a bit of gray in his hair and a few laugh lines.
“It is now,” Azrael says. “I am whoever I decide to be.”
Gerard slowly sits up. “If you are to kill me, I ask only that you make it quick.”
“And where do you think you will go when you die?” Azrael asks curiously. “To heaven, with your family? Or have you done something in your life worth hell? Or shall you live in purgatory, until your soul is clean enough to be worthy of paradise?”
“I've been faithful to God and the Church,” Gerard says slowly. “I have attended mass and confession, and I have done penance for my sins.”
Azrael laughs. “You think those superficial trappings will save you from the worms?”
Gerard shakes his head and looks down at Michael. “I just want to be with my brother.”
“I can't help you with that,” Azrael says. “But I like you, Gerard. You have a certain love and earnestness in you that touches my unbeating heart.”
“I don't understand,” Gerard says.
But then Azrael is moving as fast as lightning in the sky, and he grips Gerard's jaw, tipping back and exposing his neck. “You will,” he says, and moves again, his head down. His fangs pierce Gerard's throat.
Gerard tries to cry out, but all that comes out of his mouth is a gurgle. This is how it ends, he thinks. At least it will be quick.
*
He wakes to hunger like he's never felt before. It is agony, and he can think only of quenching it.
“Shh, I know,” a voice says, but Gerard barely makes out the words. What he does understand is that there is warm skin beneath his mouth, and it is so easy to bite down to get to the blood beneath.
He guzzles messily, blood running down his chin and neck. He hears a laugh and a fading heartbeat. He doesn't care. All he knows is that his numbness has been replaced with a hunger for blood and the thrill of drinking it.
The blood tastes amazing, like drinking life itself. When no more comes to his mouth, he whines low in his throat.
“There will be more,” the voice says kindly.
Gerard opens his eyes and looks up.
Azrael is smiling at him proudly, holding the body of some poor soul. He drops the corpse to the floor while Gerard looks away quickly.
He is no longer in his home. He is in someone else's house, and bodies lie strewn around the room. His mind wants to panic, but there's something else there now, a sense of accomplishment and rightness. And hunger, still hunger. He looks to his sire for direction, knowing he will show him what to do.
Azrael rests his hand on the small of Gerard's back and gently pushes him over to a canopied bed. “This one is almost gone,” he says, and when Gerard looks down he sees a child, sweat-soaked and vulnerable.
Gerard swallows hard and his fangs pierce his bottom lip sharply. “She's just a child,” he says.
“She will die in moments anyway,” Azrael says, his voice kind and cajoling.
Gerard watches the girl's labored breaths move her thin chest. He is hungry, and the girl is too far gone to know better anyway.
“God forgive me,” Gerard whispers before taking the child into his arms and tilting her small head back. His fangs slice through her throat easily and the blood pumps into his mouth. He can hear her weak heart beating furious-fast, like the wings of a bird in flight. He swallows her blood, which is thick and sweet.
“Good childe,” Azrael says, and Gerard thinks he's speaking to the girl at first. But then it comes to him and he understands – he is the childe and Azrael is his sire.
Gerard lifts his head from the girl – dead, now – and sees that Azrael is watching him intently. “Is this what you want?”
“What do you mean?” Azrael says, coming closer and pulling the corpse from Gerard's arms.
“I'm a killer now. Is that what you wanted?” Gerard asks. He says the words flatly, without any inflection. He doesn't know why he can't feel the pain of murdering someone, the shame or the anguish. He only knows it is wrong. He is wrong.
“You are something more than you were,” Azrael says. “You are better than your human thoughts.”
Gerard stares at the dead girl and her small throat that is bloody and torn. He did this. He does not know how to feel.
“I didn't want to be this,” he says. “I wanted to be with my brother.”
The place where the pain should be is empty. Gerard places his hand over his heart, frowning at the lack.
“It's strange at first,” Azrael says.
Gerard swallows hard and looks at him. “Why can't I feel anything?”
“You can feel. You are able to feel hunger, pleasure, love, and lust,” Azrael explains. “It's not permanent.”
“I should miss Michael. I should hurt,” Gerard says. “Why can't I feel that?”
“It is a side effect of your turning. You feel this way because you are a fledgling. I believe it is to make the change more palatable for new vampires.”
Gerard carefully tongues his sharp fangs. They feel strange in his mouth. “How long will it last?”
“Weeks perhaps, or months,” Azrael says. “You'll be able to hunt and feed, and do whatever else you want to do. It will not harm you to feel no emotional pain. Indeed, it will help you in your transition.”
“I'm still hungry,” Gerard admits.
“Come, we have other houses to visit,” Azrael says. “To these people, we can bring a better end.”
They cut a bloody swath through the houses of the sick, bringing death to those already on their deathbeds. Gerard feels no guilt, no remorse, although he prays silently over those he kills. Azrael allows his religion, although Gerard is beginning to have doubts. If there is a God, Gerard thinks, why does He allow demons like him and Azrael?
“Everything you think you know is wrong,” Azrael says one night, while they feed on an elderly couple. It is surprising that they lasted out the plague for so long, the two, and they meet death gracefully.
Gerard looks up, wiping his mouth, and shakes his head. “What do you mean?”
“So young and full of idealism,” Azrael says mockingly. “A few hundred years will cure you of that.”
“What do I think that is wrong?” Gerard asks.
“You're still praying. No, I won't stop you. Neither will I offer solace when you decide there is no God.”
“Perhaps...” Gerard says slowly, unable to feel the shame of speaking heresy, “Perhaps God is not what I believed Him to be. But I cannot just ignore the world He has made.”
Azrael sighs, slipping an arm around Gerard's shoulder. It makes Gerard feel comforted, that his sire would touch him and show him affection. “The world as you know it does not exist,” Azrael says. “You will soon find that it is a lonely, horrible place, full of despair and atrocities. God would not make such a world, would he? Look here at London, at the poor souls dying in their beds and the streets. Where is your God?”
“I know enough not to question...” Gerard begins to say, then turns his face into Azrael's chest. “I do not know.”
“I will not allow you to tell yourself lies, my childe,” Azrael says. “I turned you so that you could see the truth and grow stronger for it.”
“But why?” Gerard asks. “Why would you want that?”
“You remind me of myself,” Azrael says, “when I was a young man, full of idealism and zeal.”
“Perhaps I would rather not lose my hope,” Gerard says. He thinks of Michael, and the love he holds for his brother is still just as strong, although he cannot feel the pain of losing him.
“Ah, you want to think your loved ones are in the arms of angels, still. It's a pretty tale, but it is just that. A story told to naïve humans, carried on by tradition and fear. Of course no one wants to think this is all there is. There must be an afterlife.”
“How do you know there is not?” Gerard asks angrily.
“Look at them closely, my childe,” Azrael says, gesturing to the corpses they have left behind.
“Like seashells,” Gerard says. “What makes them alive has gone on.”
“My stubborn childe,” Azrael says fondly. His fingers work through Gerard's hair carefully. “When it is all gone, gods and humans, faith and naivete, you will see. There is hunger and love and the thrill of the hunt. There is so much to be, but only out of the confines of your human mind.”
“And we will live forever? That seems-”
“Sacrilegious? It is. It is outside of what you know. We are the closest things to gods as you will ever find.”
“You speak blasphemy,” Gerard mumbles, his head spinning with rhetoric and possibilities. “God is not … what we are.”
“You will see, in time,” Azrael says, and speaks no more of his confusing ideas.
*
They move on to France after Azrael has his fill of plague.
“I am sick of the stench of death,” he says, and Gerard only knows what he means once they're away from London. For the first time, he smells healthy humans and fresh air. By now, his emotions are coming back to him, but the pain of losing Michael isn't so fresh. He does not, as he thought he might, go directly into the sunlight when he feels again. He does what Azrael calls 'mope', spending much time alone. He hunts by Azrael's side, still, but at other times he sits in darkened rooms – why use candles when he can see without them? – and thinks of the happy times, and the sad times, and all the memories he can conjure.
In Italy Gerard learns to paint his memories, to turn them into images on canvas. He stops hunting until the hunger is unbearable, spending all other time painting. Michael comes to life in oils.
Gerard's dreams are silent things, where Michael's smile is more vivid than Gerard can ever put down in paint or ink. But there are horrible things in Gerard's dreams as well, blood and gore that is not as palatable as it is in waking hours.
When Gerard wakes from these dreams, Azrael is often there. He holds him like a child and talks. And talks. Always in a low murmur, as if he might startle Gerard with a louder voice. He speaks of times gone by, of the Greeks and the Romans and the Turks. It is in these moments that Gerard gleans bits of Azrael's past, and he learns that Azrael lived once in Constantinople, before the fall.
Azrael speaks of vampire lore, of customs and hierarchies that were once the fashion. “Their time will come again,” he says. “Soon, I think. I have heard the whispers while we have traveled.”
“I don't think I'd like it much,” Gerard says.
“True, it is good to roam wherever we will without having to answer to a king or queen, but a vampire court is such a splendid thing. You will see, when the time comes again.”
These talks lull Gerard into a sense of comfort, and his affection for his sire grows with each night. He doesn't understand him, although he tries. He tries to put together all the odds and ends Azrael says and complete the picture, but Azrael keeps much to himself.
“Would you have your own court?” Gerard asks.
“I am old enough to command that, yes,” Azrael says. “Too old to bow and scrape before others. Except perhaps a king. The problem with the old customs is that they lead to ego, and ego leads to war against the humans.”
Gerard thinks Azrael – who compares himself to God – is not one to talk about ego. But he keeps this thought to himself. “War?”
“To enslave them,” Azrael explains. “If I were to rule, I would strengthen the laws we keep now, to hide ourselves away. There are more of them than there are of us, and they could hurt us greatly if they became aware of us.”
“But you would not rule,” Gerard says shrewdly. “You'd hate to lose your freedom that way.”
“Ah, you know me well,” Azrael says, a twinkle in his dark eyes. It is not the truth, but it makes Gerard feel good anyway.
Time passes without much notice.
*
1732
They are in Greece, in a large villa on the Mediterranean, when the letter comes. Azrael reads it, then throws it into the fire.
Gerard wants to ask the questions that are burning in his mind like the missive, but he waits for the explanation to come on its own.
“My sire,” Azrael finally says, “commands me to his side.”
He has never spoken of his maker before, never even divulged his name. Now, he says, “Selim has declared himself king of Turkey. He wishes for his children to serve at his side.”
“Then we will go,” Gerard says with a shrug.
“You are not invited,” Azrael says, and the words would hurt if they did not ring of absolute truth.
Gerard has a moment of panic. “Then we will not?” he says. After all, Azrael did burn the letter. Gerard has never heard of a childe disobeying his sire before, but he is certain it is possible.
Azrael sighs. “I will go and you will make your own way in the world. We will meet again when this era is over. Vampire courts do not last long.”
“How long?” Gerard asks.
“A few centuries,” Azrael says, and Gerard is shocked to find wetness on his sire's face when he touches it. In the firelight, Azrael looks more like a human than he ever has. There is no trace of the demon Gerard first met at this moment.
“I do not know how to go alone,” Gerard admits.
“I have taught you most of what I know,” Azrael says.
It is true. Gerard can put humans in thrall and heal the neat wounds he makes. He can run faster than the sun rises. He has, in these last years, mastered minor telepathy. Still, these skills do not make up for companionship, and the thought of losing his sire's presence does not sit well with him.
“You have my permission to make a childe,” Azrael says formally.
Gerard shakes his head. “I don't want someone else,” he says.
For all the confusing, infuriating things his sire does, Gerard loves him anyway. He has never been away from him for longer than a week. Azrael's leaving will do more than sit wrongly; it will ache.
“Come here, my childe,” Azrael says, even though they are sitting close already, in front of the flickering fire on the floor of their grand home.
Gerard moves closer. “What is it you want?”
“For over half a century I have loved you, and yet I have never taken you to my bed,” Azrael says. “I have not done so because … because I feared it would change things between us too greatly.”
Gerard's throat feels dry and choked. “Please,” he whispers.
Azrael cups his face and leans in to kiss him. This he has done before, and Gerard responds eagerly. It is not like it has been before, however. Maybe it is the knowledge that they will soon be apart, or maybe it is the anticipation. Azrael's fangs drop down and he nips and sucks at the blood that beads Gerard's lips.
Gerard isn't a virgin. He has fucked prostitutes, has even fucked them in front of Azrael. But they were human, expendable, and Gerard felt nothing for them.
The feelings that well up now are those of loss, love, and desperation. This is their first time, and the last for awhile. It must be enough to carry Gerard through. So Gerard kisses back, his fangs scraping along Azrael's lips, his tongue sweeping against another, blood thick in their mouths.
Azrael removes Gerard's clothing so fast he doesn't feel it, and carries him to his low, flat bed.
It is nothing like fucking a human. Azrael touches Gerard roughly, pinching and grabbing bruisingly. His fangs pierce Gerard's skin again and again, each bite sending fiery pleasure through Gerard's body. Blood trickles from Gerard's skin to soak the silken sheets. He is, as he has never been, owned completely by his sire.
The first thrust of Azrael's cock burns and stretches Gerard in ways he's never felt. But the pain is pleasure, Azrael sees to that, and Gerard's body responds in kind, rocking closer and closer to the edge. Azrael's eyes glow red in the dark, full of love and deep possessiveness.
When Gerard comes, it is sudden and as violent as their coupling. He shakes as Azrael continues to thrust inside him. It goes on, and Gerard finds himself hard again. He has always been amazed at his body's hunger for sex, which is almost as insatiable as the bloodlust. This time it comes as no surprise, however, because the desire he holds for his maker is a burning, unquenchable thing.
Azrael wraps his hand around Gerard now, stroking him roughly, and Gerard arches up and moans. Azrael lets out a low growl and comes deep inside him, cock twitching as it spurts.
But Azrael is not finished, and together they make this fierce, violent love until the dawn comes to put them to sleep.
When Gerard wakes the next night, Azrael has already gone. All of Gerard's wounds have healed, and the only testament to their night together are the torn, bloodied sheets.
*
1815
Gerard returns to London. It has changed much since he last was here. Society is a grand thing, but the squalor of the slums – rookeries, they are called – is nearly inhumane. No, he thinks, this is the definition of human. While the fine ladies and lords congregate in their silks and satins and velvets, the seedy underbelly of life goes on, like cockroaches in plague. Like rats. The high and mighty ignore their fellow man while he starves in abject poverty, but – and Gerard has seen this elsewhere before – the rats will win out, in the end. They will rise up and murder those who wear diamonds and emeralds while the poor beg for a crust.
It happened in France, and surely it will happen here. Unless, he thinks, one makes whispers to those who have the power to change things. Surely they can see the parallels.
It is not hard to insinuate himself into Regency society. He knows many languages and can fake an accent most dashingly. Thanks to Azrael, he has a fortune and contacts in other countries, and with the merest bit of thrall and mind-reading, he is soon known as an affluent foreigner, invited to the best house parties and introduced to the upper crust as – not quite one of their own, but close.
Parties last well into the small hours of the morning, which make them perfect for Gerard. The fact that he is never seen during daylight hours is never made mention of – society runs at night, and Gerard fits in with them quite comfortably.
He finds it quite entertaining to thrall and feed from these ego-driven humans. He rarely ventures into the slums to feed, preferring to take his meals from those who think themselves superior. He has not had any compassion for humans in decades – the combination of Azrael's teachings and their own stupidity rubbed that out of him.
He is at a large party. It is June, the height of the Season. Girls of marriageable age who have not yet made matches are scurrying here and there with their simplest, dull-headed smiles, eager to be courted.
Gerard places a light thrall on the entire ballroom, keeping the duennas and matrons and nervous girls away from him. It is entertaining to watch their mating dances, but not when he is involved himself.
He catches sight of a boy crouching by the punchbowl. He must not be more than fourteen. He is short with long dark hair – hair that has come out of its clasp and hangs about his shoulders wildly – and large, hazel eyes. Gerard has not fed from a child in years, but there is something about this boy's sallow skin that is intriguing.
Gerard makes his way behind the table and looks down at the boy. “Are you hiding from someone?”
The boy glances up, but instead of looking ashamed or contrite, he grins. His teeth are straight and white. “Yep.”
Gerard finds himself leaning in to ask, “From who?”
“My mam,” the boy says. “I'm supposed to stay away from the party, but I wanted to see. What's your name?”
“Gerard,” he answers slowly. “And yours?”
“Frank,” the boy says.
On closer inspection, Frank appears older than Gerard first thought him. He is small, and his eyes hold a bit of childish glee, which makes him look younger than he is.
His age does not matter, except...
“Why were you told to stay away from the party?” Gerard asks. Frank is old enough to attend, older than some of the people here, maybe.
Frank rolls his eyes. “I'm not allowed to do anything fun.” Then he ducks down further and pulls the tails of Gerard's coat. “She'll see us!”
Perhaps Frank is simpleminded. That would explain his lack of invitation to the party. But there's a maturity in his eyes that Gerard picks up on, and the few thoughts he can glean from Frank's mind are intelligent – though they are scattered and flit about like fireflies.
Gerard ducks behind the table with Frank, amused by this human. He tries to read more of his mind, but Frank's thoughts allude him without eye contact.
Perhaps he won't simply feed from Frank. He is almost delightful, and he is still holding on to Gerard's coat tails, gripping them in his fist.
“Would you like, perhaps, to go for a stroll outdoors?” Gerard suggests. He doesn't use his thrall, doesn't think he'll have to.
“I'm not allowed to go outside,” Frank says, but there's a wicked gleam in his eyes when he says it.
Gerard smiles. “It would be more comfortable than crouching between the refreshment table and the wall, would it not?”
Frank grabs Gerard's hand and leads him along the wall to the servants' door. They escape the house through surprisingly empty corridors, and then they are outside in an herb garden.
Gerard inhales the scent of the herbs, which cover the stench of the city nicely. Frank is still holding his hand. Gerard doesn't bring attention to it. “Why aren't you allowed to be among the others?”
Frank stiffens but doesn't drop Gerard's hand. “I'd rather not talk about it.”
Outside of the herb garden is a path, and Gerard leads Frank down it to a tall oak. He thinks he likes Frank, as incomprehensible as that thought is. He has never gotten attached to a human before, but now he finds he wants to spend more time with this one.
“May I visit you tomorrow night?” Gerard asks.
Frank leans back against the tree and looks up at Gerard. His pupils are wide, his vision not as good as Gerard's in the dark. But Gerard locks eyes with him and skims his mind.
Tomorrow... leaving...gone away...
“The family is retiring to the country,” Frank says.
“Before the Season ends?” Gerard asks.
Frank closes his eyes and laughs. It's almost girlish, a giggle, really. “I am not marriageable material.”
He is of age, and the Ieros are Italian aristocracy, else they would not be welcome in the ton. “I don't understand,” Gerard says, but Frank is looking away and Gerard cannot read him. The slump of his shoulders and the purse of his lips are a language Gerard knows, however.
Gerard swallows and leans in closer, so that their heads are nearly touching. “Is it perhaps that you enjoy the company of men?”
Frank laughs again, but it is weak and hollow. “If that were my only problem, I would find my life much easier,” he says, then suddenly smiles brilliantly. “Do you?”
“Enjoy the company of men?” Gerard asks. “I'm enjoying your company quite well.”
Frank takes Gerard's other hand and squeezes tightly. Abruptly he says, “Run away with me.”
Gerard blinks. Frank changes topics so quickly, goes from morose to delighted in moments. It is interesting.
“You don't know me,” Gerard says. “I could be a demon disguised as a man, with only your seduction in mind.” It is so close to the truth that he has no trouble saying it with a straight face.
Frank throws his head back and laughs.
Gerard mock-pouts. “I could be.”
“Then seduce me,” Frank says, leaning his head back and giving Gerard a look of challenge.
It is too much to resist. Desire and bloodlust are burning through Gerard's veins, and he gives in. He leans forward and presses his lips to Frank's, hard and this side short of brutal.
Frank gives a short cry of surprise which Gerard muffles with his mouth. Frank tastes sweet and innocent, as if he's never been kissed before. For all Gerard knows, he hasn't.
Gerard licks into Frank's mouth, tasting more of him. He keeps his fangs back even though it's difficult. He doesn't want to put Frank under his thrall yet, wants all his reactions to be genuine.
Moaning, Frank melts into the kiss. He isn't shy about wrapping his arms around Gerard's shoulders and pulling him closer. Gerard presses him back against the tree and kisses him harder, nipping his lips with his blunt teeth.
“Please,” Frank whispers. Gerard can feel the barely leashed desperation in the tenseness of his muscles and the slight tremor of his limbs. If Gerard were not there to help him stay up, if the tree had not been behind him, Frank would have fallen into a pile on the ground.
The further Gerard goes with his kiss, the more confused he becomes. Frank is as eager as an experienced man, and yet his surprised reactions peg him as a virgin. Gerard pulls away and looks into Frank's half-lidded eyes, searching for the truth.
Don't stop...please don't stop...
“Have you ever done this before?” Gerard asks softly.
Frank snorts. When would I have? “Dozens of times,” Frank lies, and tries pulling Gerard back to him.
Gerard smiles a little, reading images and want in Frank's mind. The young man is starved for affection, a virgin, but ready and eager for so much more. Gerard is almost tempted to steal him away for keeps. His enthusiasm is contagious, and Gerard kisses him again, letting his hands move down the lines of Frank's body. He's almost too thin, and his skin is even paler in the moonlight as Gerard lifts his shirt away from his breeches.
But Frank's skin is hot and smooth beneath Gerard's hands, and Frank gasps loudly at the touch.
“Come home with me,” Gerard says suddenly, not wanting to take Frank's virginity against a tree.
Frank clings to Gerard's shoulders and nods quickly. “To stay?”
Gerard would, if he had plans to leave London anytime soon. But it would not do to kidnap the protected son of a wealthy family, not if Gerard wanted to stay inconspicuous.
“Just for the night,” Gerard says.
Frank sighs and pulls in on himself, but he doesn't let go of Gerard. “All right. I'll come with you. Quickly, before my family realizes I'm not in my chambers.”
It is almost impossible the way a voice rings out in the night, “Francesco!” at that same moment.
Frank cringes. “My mother,” he explains.
“You could go back inside,” Gerard says.
“No!” Frank says. He shakes his head jerkily. “Please, take me away.”
Gerard could carry Frank away faster than the speed of sound, to anywhere in the world. He has one wild thought that he should, but then he extinguishes it. He will take Frank to his townhouse in Mayfair, and bring him back here before the dawn. It is late already; they haven't many hours.
“Close your eyes,” Gerard says, and pulls Frank against his chest. Then he runs.
The garden blurs for a moment, and then he is running into backyards and streets so fast that no one, if they were watching, could see them.
He doesn't stop until they are on his front stoop.
Frank sways on his feet when Gerard lets go of him, his eyes unfocused. “You- you did that.”
Gerard is set to thrall Frank a bit, to make him forget, but then Frank looks up at Gerard with awe and no fear at all.
“I did,” Gerard says hesitantly. He unlocks his door and allows Frank to walk inside.
It's dark in the foyer, but a small fire is burning in the grate in the grand room, and Frank follows the glow of light into the room. He looks around in the dimness and shakes his head. “You have no furniture?”
“Just what came with the house,” Gerard says. “And a bed. I don't entertain often.” Or at all, he means to say, but Frank is watching him again and the words stick in his throat.
“Take me to bed?” Frank asks, sounding not the least bit timid.
“You're rather bold,” Gerard says with a smile.
A look he can't decipher flits over Frank's face. “I am. I don't mean to be.”
Gerard frowns. “It is not a bad thing.”
Frank's face nearly looks as if it might break, he is smiling so hard. “Then take me to bed,” he says again, and moves into Gerard's arms.
Gerard takes his hand and pulls him toward the stairs, though he would have rather carried him. He does not want to show his supernatural strength any more than he already has, however. He's revealed far too much with their almost-flight to the house.
On the bed, Frank stretches out, and Gerard sits on the side and removes his boots. He could have done it much faster, but he needs space to think.
There is something off about Frank, about the way he is partitioned from the world by his family. There is something Gerard is not getting, something big. It is in Frank's laugh and the eager gleam in his eyes, but Gerard can't quite grasp the meaning.
In time, he tells himself, it will make sense to him. Perhaps it has been too long since he has been close to a human.
That thought brings him up short, and he pauses in unlacing his boot. Close to a human? Is that what this is? What is he doing, what is possessing him to-
“Don't stop,” Frank says, cutting in on Gerard's thoughts. Then, more hesitantly, “Or are you having second thoughts?”
Gerard yanks the boot off and covers Frank's body with his own, swift and absolutely sure in his movements. “Never that,” he says, and kisses Frank until the human is breathless and pressing back up against him.
His eyes are large in the dark, nearly black, though Gerard can see the hint of hazel around the dilated pupils. Frank tugs at Gerard's coat and says, “I thought the point of this is to get naked.”
Gerard laughs. “Not the point, but losing our clothes is a step to take.” He loosens his cravat and unbuttons his waistcoat, shedding the so popular layers of clothing. It took him time to master the art of undressing in these clothes, but he has it firmly down now. Soon, he is hovering over Frank in nothing but his breeches, his fingers moving to help Frank undress as well.
Frank's clothes are not as fancy or as intricate as Gerard's, but then he wasn't dressed for the party. It is easier to strip Frank than it was himself, and then Frank is lying under him completely nude.
“Just a moment,” Gerard says, and gets up, padding over on bare feet to one of the windows. He pushes back the heavy velvet drapes so the moonlight can stream in, giving Frank's pale skin a bluish glow.
He is beautiful. Too thin, too pale? Gerard had been wrong when he thought that of Frank. Now, though, he can see that Frank is put together in perfect form.
“I would like to paint you someday,” Gerard says, watching as Frank slides out of his breeches.
Frank is watching him closely, able to see by the pale light of the full moon. “You're an artist?”
Gerard smiles and shrugs one bare shoulder. “I'm still learning.” He's been painting for only thirty years now.
“I'm sure you're brilliant at it,” Frank says earnestly. He holds out his hand and beckons Gerard closer.
Gerard moves onto the bed again and presses his body against Frank's hot skin.
“You're cold,” Frank whispers.
It is difficult not to blurt out all his secrets then and there. Gerard wants to explain, thinks Frank might accept him as he is, but he keeps quiet on the topic and says, “You'll warm me right up.”
Frank smiles and wraps his arms around Gerard, pulling him closer. “You could start a fire if you want. I'll still be here.”
“I don't want to wait any longer,” Gerard answers, and then kisses Frank until he tastes the coppery spark of blood on his tongue. “I'm sorry,” he says when he realizes his blunt teeth have torn into Frank's lips like fangs.
Frank is gasping, arching up against him. “Keep going,” he says, and bites back.
Gerard growls softly, his teeth elongating. Frank stares up at him, eyes flicking from his mouth to his eyes.
“You really are a demon,” Frank whispers, but there's not the slightest hint of fear in his eyes. Gerard presses into his mind, but all he hears is a rhythmic chant of desire.
“I won't hurt you,” Gerard says, surprising himself. “Not … not much.”
Frank reaches up and touches one fang with the pad of his index finger. Gerard's fangs are sharper than a barber's razor, and the tip of it cuts into Frank's fingertip. Slowly and deliberately, Gerard wraps his lips around the finger and sucks. A bead of blood smears against his tongue and the life of it makes him moan. Frank tastes like the static in the air during a lightning storm, only stronger. There is so much energy in one drop of his blood, thick and delicious.
Frank's breath is coming shallow and fast, and he breathes one word. “Vampyre.”
Gerard pulls back and watches him closely. “Yes. A vampire.”
And then Frank grins up at him, bright and excited. “Not a demon then,” he says, as if a vampire is the better choice of the two.
“No, although there are some who would call us such.”
“Are there a lot of you?” Frank asks. “Never mind, I don't want to know. I mean, I want to know, but not right now. Now I want you to kiss me again.”
Gerard shakes his head, confused by Frank's sudden changes in mood and subject. He feels off balance, almost dizzy from it. But he does as Frank suggests and kisses him again, this time more carefully, mindful of his fangs.
His teeth cut Frank's lips anyway, and more blood spills into Gerard's mouth. He can't help but moan at the taste, and Frank moans with him, wiggling beneath him as if searching for more.
Gerard knows that pain can be pleasurable, but he wants to be careful with this human. Give him too much, and he will be frightened. On any normal night, Gerard wouldn't care about scaring humans, or giving them a glimpse of the demon within. But with Frank he is thinking differently.
With Frank, his beast is chained. His touch is delicate. He does not grab and knead flesh as he would like, he does not bruise Frank's skin. His kisses are careful, a brush of lips over Frank's pale shoulder here, the trailing of his tongue across Frank's throat there. He does not rip into Frank's flesh with his fangs as his nature dictates – with Frank, he is like another person. Almost human.
Frank must feel it, because he says, “You don't have to reign yourself in like a tame pony.” Maybe it's the coiled strength he feels beneath his hands, or maybe it is the gleam in Gerard's now-red eyes.
“I don't want to hurt you,” Gerard admits. “I could so easily.”
Frank smiles and tilts his head, baring his throat. “I trust you.”
Gerard growls. He sniffs Frank's neck. The scent of blood is thick and powerful there. Carefully, he scrapes his fangs against Frank's skin, leaving behind twin scratches that bead wetly. He drags his tongue up slowly, gathering the blood on his tongue. Frank hisses and arches up beneath him.
“Please,” Frank says.
Gerard knows he can make it feel good. It would only take the merest suggestion mind to mind, and his bite would be absolute ecstasy. But for some unknown, allusive reason, he hesitates to put Frank under even the slightest hint of thrall. He does not want to cloud Frank's mind – he wants him as he is, every reaction new and fresh.
“It will hurt,” Gerard warns.
Frank swallows. Gerard watches his throat work, the way the skin bobs and smooths back normally again. He can hear Frank's heartbeat quicken and smell the sweet scent of fear for the first time. But still, despite the contained panic, Frank says, “I want it.”
“You are mad,” Gerard murmurs against Frank's skin. He rocks then, his cock hard and eager and pushing against his human's thigh.
“You would not be the first to call me so,” Frank says softly, a hitch to his voice that Gerard takes as more fear. “Drink me.”
Gerard growls again, pressing his tongue against Frank's strong, fast pulse. Frank slides his hand into Gerard's hair, tugging slightly.
“Not there,” Gerard says roughly, dragging his mouth to Frank's shoulder. “Here is safer.”
“Just do it,” Frank says impatiently.
And then Gerard does. He bites down slowly, his fangs piercing Frank's virgin skin with a pop before slicing down into the muscle. Frank cries out and tightens his hold on Gerard's head.
Gerard sucks once, and then blood pours into his mouth. It is beyond ecstasy; Frank is pure ambrosia. Gerard drinks slowly, swallowing only when he has to, not letting the blood pour down his throat but taking long sips to savor every mouthful. Frank tastes like a storm, thunder and lightning and fresh rainwater. Gerard could drown in Frank's blood, he knows, so he takes special care not to drink too much.
Frank moans and gasps and presses against Gerard eagerly, the pain in his shoulder somehow heightening his pleasure. Gerard is familiar with this, has felt it in the arms of Azrael. He knows well the sharp joy and desire experienced with this kind of pain. It makes him feel better, knowing he hasn't hurt Frank more than he can bear. No more than he likes.
Carefully, Gerard pulls his fangs from Frank's shoulder. A possessive, animal part of him wants to leave the marks there, but he heals them anyway, leaving no more than a large bruise that will fade in a few days.
Frank stares up at him, panting. “That was incredible.”
Shifting so that their cocks press together, Gerard smiles down at him. Frank's eyes go even darker and wider. Gerard leans down and flicks his tongue against Frank's swollen lower lip. “You are like nothing I have ever found.”
“How old are you?” Frank asks.
“I was twenty in sixteen sixty-five,” Gerard says. “And twenty forever after.”
“I must seem impossibly young to you,” Frank says. “I'm only eighteen.”
Gerard sucks Frank's lip into his mouth gently, then releases it. “When I first saw you, I thought you younger.”
Frank makes a face. “It's my size.”
“And your innocence,” Gerard says.
Rolling his eyes, Frank retorts, “I'm not as innocent as you think.”
Gerard wishes to argue with him, but time is short. Instead, he murmurs, “It isn't a bad thing.” He props himself up on one hand and squirms the other between them, wrapping his fingers around their cocks and stroking. The slide is slick with precome, and Frank lets out sound too soft to be a cry and too high to be a moan.
“I want... I want you to fuck me,” Frank says.
Gerard has never found vulgarity desirable, but the words ignite the spark of desire that's been burning inside him. His lust climbs high, and he finds himself pushing Frank down roughly on his stomach. He pauses then, aware he has nothing to lubricate the way. He has no need for creams and oils, although he makes a short note to himself to keep something on hand from now on.
Saliva will have to be enough. He slides down Frank's body and spreads his cheeks, then licks without waiting any longer. Frank makes a surprised noise and jerks, but Gerard pets his hip and says, “Relax.”
It takes effort to hide his fangs, but Gerard does. Frank relaxes and Gerard licks again, then presses his mouth closer and tongues Frank's hole. It opens after awhile, the tight bud giving way to Gerard's wet tongue, and Gerard slicks his finger with saliva and presses it inside, too.
“Oh, God,” Frank says, squirming against the sheets. His body is beautiful in the moonlight, smooth and perfect, and Gerard feels such affection for him that it nearly breaks his cold heart.
“Push back against me,” Gerard says, and Frank does.
Frank opens, and with a breath says, “Oh.”
He is so fresh and Gerard is reminded of his innocence, and knows in that moment that he will not take him with his cock this night. Not without something slicker paving the way. But Frank will come from Gerard's fingers, that he vows. He pushes in with another slick finger, tonguing as he does, and then crooks them unerringly against Frank's prostate.
Gerard remembers well the moment a prostitute showed him the wonder of his body, the way a good finger fucking could bring him to heights of pleasure unknown. He shows Frank in the same way now, pressing against the swollen nub, and Frank writhes and cries out, pushing back against his fingers greedily.
Frank swears, clutching the pillow in his arms, rocking back against Gerard's touch. Gerard keeps going, not needing to add another finger to bring Frank this kind of pleasure. Frank gasps and moans, the noises obscene and unashamed. Gerard bites Frank's ass with blunt teeth and sucks hard, a bruise blooming beneath his mouth. Frank whimpers and rocks, and Gerard thrusts his fingers harder inside him.
“Touch yourself,” Gerard says, already wrapping his own hand around his cock. He strokes himself leisurely, watching Frank with rapt attention.
“I'll finish,” Frank gasps, but he does as Gerard has ordered. He squeezes himself first, then begins to stroke in time with Gerard's short thrusts.
“I'll not take you this night,” Gerard says, trying to lessen Frank's disappointment by making his words soft and gentle.
“But I'm-” Frank says, but cuts himself off with a cry. Gerard pushes against his prostate harder, and Frank strokes himself faster.
“You're so beautiful,” Gerard says in wonder. He's never found a human to be so, not since his turning. But Frank is beautiful in the way Azrael is beautiful, whole and stunning.
Frank tenses and then he is coming, his cry broken and choked off.
Gerard strokes himself harder, watching Frank, and shifts positions so that he is kneeling over him. His fangs grow in his mouth as he nears his own orgasm, and then he is spurting out over Frank's skin, thick ropes of come that stripe his back and ass.
It satisfies Gerard that Frank is looking so utterly debauched. He even smells like Gerard's now. But Gerard sighs and fetches a clean cloth to wipe Frank's skin, pushing back the feral parts of himself.
Gerard can feel the dawn approaching. He has less than half an hour to get Frank dressed and back home, so he only spends a moment snuggled against his warmth. He kisses Frank's forehead and then his lips, and Frank kisses back lazily.
“Get dressed,” Gerard says, perhaps too abruptly. A sad look crosses Frank's face, and Gerard kisses him again. “I have to get you back before dawn.”
Frank dresses as Gerard does the same. Then Gerard gathers Frank into his arms and runs back, swift footed and sure.
He can feel the sun coming up, the time for sleep pulling at his body like a magnet. He leaves Frank at his back door with one last kiss, and Frank's broken, “Goodbye,” is felt more than heard.
Then Gerard is streaking across the city, back into his lair, as Azrael would call it. He has the presence of mind to pull the heavy drapes before collapsing onto the bed into the deep sleep of the undead.
*
Chaos comes the next night, and Gerard is forced to forget Frank for the time being.
He is leaving a gaming club when it happens. He hears the cries of a woman and the screams of an infant. As he looks up, he sees a man running toward a back alley with a baby in his arms. The woman – the child's mother, it seems – cries out again and again for help.
Gerard, being in a good mood and feeling charitable, follows the man and child into the alley.
Upon closer inspection, Gerard can see the man is fearful and thralled. He is dirty and unkempt, with bruises along his collar. When Gerard catches him and looks closer, he finds fang marks there. Whoever did this to the man – Laurence is the man's name, his mind fairly projects it – was not careful at all, and did not have the good sense to heal the human. Even the thrall is an abomination, only halfway done, looking to be a hasty job.
“Who did this to you?” Gerard demands, but Laurence only shakes. “Stay here. Do not move.” Gerard punctuates this with a push of his mind that is artful and not at all haphazard.
Gerard takes the baby and walks back to the howling woman. He walks more slowly than normal, and manags to slip away from her grateful tears after he gives the child back.
Back in the alley, Gerard shoves Laurence against the wall. “Now tell me,” he growls, showing his fangs.
“They'll kill me,” Laurence whispers, and then croaks as Gerard nearly crushes his windpipe beneath his palm. He tries to speak and Gerard backs off a bit. “Lilith and Cain! Them's their names.”
“Take me to them,” Gerard says, pushing his thrall on the man again.
The man's fear evaporates as the thrall overtakes him, and he leads Gerard through the back alleys.
It is on the East End that Gerard finds himself, and Laurence takes him into a large workhouse. There is the stench of unwashed masses here, although only a few humans are within sight. The ones he sees, however, are pale and riddled with bruises and bite marks. They cower against the walls when they see Gerard's fangs and red eyes, fear in their forms and – as Gerard can scent – in their blood. It is delicious to smell, and Gerard remembers that he has not fed yet this night. But he is curious, so he walks on.
He finds the two vampires – Lilith and Cain, as they are supposedly calling themselves – in a large room, probably meant to be a dining hall. Lilith's face is obscured by her dirty blonde hair, and Cain is rutting her from behind. On the table in front of them lies a corpse that has, from the stench in the room, begun to decay.
Gerard leans against the wall and watches them dispassionately. They are young, not even a year old. Fledglings playing at gods. He can see their lives clearly in the surroundings, and in their unprotected minds. They are drunk on blood, fear, and sex. Gerard has no use for such creatures.
He is, however, angry that they live so openly. It is unclear how many humans they keep, or have killed, or sent away without wiping their minds clean first. Azrael's teachings come back to Gerard, and he knows that these vampires are a danger to all of their kind.
Still, Gerard balks at the thought of killing them. He has never killed a vampire before. He knows how, Azrael made sure of that, but the idea of doing it is repugnant to him. Why, he doesn't know. Humans he has killed by the hundreds, and these two are closer to humans than vampires. They even still smell human, their age not yet mellowing their scent.
It is some time before one of them notices him. “Who're you?” Lilith asks blearily. “Think you want in on this?”
Cain looks up from the table and snarls. “He's not human,” he says.
He should have sensed Gerard the moment he stepped foot in his 'home'.
Lilith looks intrigued, but Cain positions himself in front of her possessively, growling low in his throat. He is nearly feral, Gerard thinks.
Only a show of strength will do.
Where is your sire? Gerard projects loudly. Cain, fool that he is, covers his ears.
Lilith steps away from him and comes closer. She walks like a common doxy, although Gerard can tell she's trying for grace and seduction. “Our sire is dead,” she says with a thick French accent. “Else she just abandoned us. Either way, we're orphans.” When she is just steps away from Gerard, she drops to her knees, her head bent. “Forgive us for interfering if we are overstepping our boundaries, Master. We did not know there was another of our kind in London.”
There are many of their kind here, Gerard thinks but does not say. He keeps that information to himself. He knows of three who are sleeping in crypts, waiting for a new age before they wake again. He knows of two who stalk the docks, and then one more who is like Gerard and prefers to prey on the haute monde. There are most likely others, as all the vampires Gerard has met keep their own company and do not proclaim themselves loudly as these two do.
“How long have you been here?” Gerard asks. He doesn't tell her to rise. He allows her to call him Master. Why not? They mean little. He pushes down the inner voice that tells him he enjoys the respect.
Cain quickly catches on and joins Lilith on the floor in front of him. “Forgive us, Master. We have only been in the city for a month. We come from Paris.”
Gerard's mind works furiously, and he recalls all of the customs and lore that Azrael taught him as if his lessons were the day before. “I am the Master of London,” he says, both appalled and sure of himself at the same time. “You survive on my goodwill.”
As one, the fledglings bow their heads and murmur, “Yes, Master.”
Gerard has the insane urge to laugh. He is overwhelmed, unable to turn back now, and has gotten himself into this all by himself. He must deal with the consequences.
*
The first thing he does is order the fledglings to clean up the mess they've made in the workhouse while Gerard heals and wipes the minds of the half-thralled humans. There are many of them, upstairs, downstairs, and milling about in the alleys nearby. It takes much from him, mentally and physically. When he is finished, he returns to Mayfair and sleeps for a week.
And in only a week, Lilith and Cain have changed vampiric London.
When Gerard returns to the workhouse, he finds proper thralls – not the fledglings work. He senses the other vampire before he sees him, and turns toward the feeling.
“Robert,” Gerard says. The other vampire walks closer, inclining his head. Gerard can see his blond hair and blue eyes now, the swarthy build of him.
“Master,” the other vampire says in greeting.
Gerard laughs. He can't help but do so. He has met Robert on occasion, usually near the docks where he would pose as a worker before preying on the criminals who roamed there. Robert has always called him 'Gee' before, as if to a child. Robert is older than Gerard by a century or so.
“What brings you here?” Gerard asks.
“I heard you declared yourself Master, and I had to see it for myself. I never would've thought you would do so.”
“I never thought I would, either,” Gerard admits. Robert leads him into the dining hall, which is clean now and fitted with low chairs and pillows, with a higher chair – a throne, he thinks hysterically – at its center.
“It is the time. My sire versed me well on lore and custom,” Robert says.
“But you are older,” Gerard says. “Except for the sleeping ones, you are the eldest in the city.”
“I will submit to you,” Robert says simply. “I don't want the responsibility, and I know you well enough to understand you will do your best at ruling.”
Gerard sighs and plops down into the highest chair. It is comfortable, at least. “I don't know what made me say it,” he says. “Lilith and Cain are just so wild and...”
Robert nods. “They are in need of a sire,” he says seriously.
“Not me,” Gerard says. “I have never made a childe before, let alone adopted.”
“They will still look to you for guidance. You may as well take them on,” Robert says.
“Robert...”
“Call me Bob, if you like,” Robert says.
Gerard peers at him, wondering at the familiarity.
“I'm not just trying to get in good with you,” Bob says, and Gerard realizes he's read his mind.
Quickly shielding – he hasn't had to do so in some time – Gerard smiles. “You don't feel angry that I've proclaimed myself Master?”
Bob shakes his head and sits in a low chair at Gerard's side. Gerard realizes it's the position of his right hand, where the favored of the court would sit. Whether it's intentional or just the most convenient seat he doesn't know. Bob looks up at him, blue eyes gleaming. “I've always loved the lore. Ruling isn't for me, but I could help you. My sire taught me the old ways, and you can always come to me if there is a problem.”
“Right now I'm not ruling, I'm controlling the damage those two have caused,” Gerard says.
“But you will rule,” Bob says. “And I want to be at your side as you do. I want to see the old customs brought to life.”
“I only know the lore my sire taught me,” Gerard says, “and I'm sure he did not teach me everything.”
“Brigh prepared me well,” Bob says, revealing the name of his own sire.
The name is familiar. Azrael spoke once of the kings and queens of the Isles, and Brigh came up in discussion of Ireland's court, before it was called Ireland. Brigh – if he is the same immortal – must be rather ancient. It is no wonder that Bob smells as good as he does. With the blood of an ancient in his veins, he is a powerful vampire in his own right.
Then again, so is Gerard, although he still feels like a green boy at times – times like this, when he is out of his element and searching for the clues to what he must do.
Gerard drops his hand to Bob's head, touching his hair gently. It is a gesture of affection more than custom, but he knows Bob will not take it as such. Bob will translate the touch as both respect and a showing of power. Bob's power, now, is nearly absolute.
“What do you think of 'The Black Court'?” Gerard asks.
Bob chuckles. “It sounds suitably sinister, Master.”
Gerard makes a face. “I was trying for elegance. And you do not have to call me Master when we're alone, you know.”
“Even our whispers will carry now,” Bob says sensibly. “I don't mind calling you by title. You have earned it.”
“Not yet, I haven't,” Gerard says.
“You've solved what would become a problem for all of London,” Bob points out. “You saved humans and vampires alike.”
“I care little for humans, except that they might strike out against us if they knew of our existence,” Gerard says. But a twinge in his heart reminds him of Frank, and he knows he must find him again.
“I have a human lover, Master,” Bob says slowly. “I ask permission to bring her into the Court.”
Gerard sighs. There will always be complications, he knows. It is his job now to smooth the way for such alliances, to bring in humans and vampires alike into the court. Still, thralls were so much easier. “How much does she know?”
“Some of the lore,” Bob says. “Enough to get by when we are first starting, and she will learn quickly. She is a member of the ton.”
A society lady would know how to fit in with the upper crust, which is – for all purposes, at least – just what Gerard is creating. There are other blood customs of course, but someone used to moving in the circles of high society would have no problems adjusting to the rules.
“Have you claimed her?” Gerard asks. He himself has never claimed a human, although he came close with Frank. If he hadn't healed him, if he had taken him, if he had-
“Yes. Ten years past,” Bob says.
Gerard smiles a bit. She must enjoy looking ten years younger than she is. “What is her name?”
“Catherine, although she allows me to call her Cathy,” Bob says.
“Bring her tomorrow night,” Gerard orders easily. Bob inclines his head in obedience.
“You must think of taking a consort as well,” Bob says. “It will be expected of you.”
Gerard sighs, and again his mind is on Frank. “There is a human. He is not in the city, however.” Frank said his family was retiring to the country, and Gerard knows he must find their country home and find Frank again. He's not sure if his infatuation with this human will lead to more, whether he will claim the young man or not, and bringing him into a vampire court could be disastrous. Gerard hardly knows him, after all.
“Bring him back,” Bob says simply. He has an answer to everything.
Gerard calls the fledglings into the room and they bow before him, their heads nearly touching the floor as they do. They've cleaned themselves up and smell much better than they did the first time Gerard met them.
“Cain, come closer,” Gerard orders, and then he begins to teach him the proper way to thrall a human.
Cain is abysmal at it, but so was Gerard when he first started. The mind arts are learned over a long period of time. One day, Cain and Lilith will be proper vampires. For now, Gerard will guide them as best he can, patiently teaching them how to use their minds and bodies to gain control of humans and leave little mess for Gerard to clean up.
Lilith is a little better at thralling, and Gerard sends Bob out to gather a human from the streets for her to experiment on.
The fledglings learn where and how to bite to make it safer for the humans, and how to heal the marks they leave. When they are done, the human Bob brought is screaming in fear. Gerard watches her impassively before pushing into her mind and making her forget. She leaves in a fog, thinking she had a pleasant – yet slightly violent – tumble.
“Thank you,” Cain says. “Thank you for teaching us, Master.”
Lilith bobs her head and thanks him, too. They aren't bad, Gerard realizes, just untaught and needing to be led.
He shares a look with Bob and opens his mind to him. I'm not adopting them, though.
Bob smiles slightly and his amusement dances around his mind. 'Course not.
Gerard scowls and shields his mind again. He looks at his fledglings and says, “I want you to do something for me.”
*
It does not take much in the way of mind arts to convince a servant to talk. Servants know everything, and the information Gerard wants would not be a closely guarded secret.
When Lilith and Cain return, they are thrilled to report just what Gerard has asked for – the location of the Iero country home.
Gerard nods to them and tells them they have done well. The fledglings are eager to do more for him, but he sends him instead to bring back four humans to serve as thralls. Fresh humans, he is of mind enough to ask for. It would not do to have half-mad servants. He gives Cain and Lilith some coin and tells them to lead the humans to the house with the promise of meals and a clean space to sleep in return for a little work.
He leaves then, entrusting Bob to carry on in his stead.
It would take much time for humans to travel over a hundred miles from London to Derbyshire, but Gerard is faster than the sunrise. With rain on his face, he reaches the Ieros' country home in less than half an hour.
He surveys the home before knocking at the door, and a servant takes in his wet clothing and lack of carriage before bidding him to wait in the foyer. Gerard snorts inelegantly; if the Ieros knew who was calling, they would have him wait in the salon, at the very least, while the servants drew up a hot bath for him and made ready a warm bed.
The Contessa greets him within moments of hearing his name. She offers him a seat in front of the fire and declares him soaked through.
Gerard smiles at her and takes the towel a servant offers. “I am here to meet with your son, Frank.”
Contessa Iero stiffens as though he has struck her. Looking closely at her, Gerard sees she is looking worn, and there are deep purple bruises under her eyes. He can fairly taste her lack of sleep.
“Francesco has gone on his Grand Tour,” she says after a moment, but Gerard can smell her lie. It is mixed with the scent of fear, such fear and revulsion. Not toward himself, he senses, but towards Frank.
Gerard will rescue Frank from this woman.
“Take me to his room,” Gerard says.
“He is not here,” the Contessa answers. “He has gone away.”
Gerard does not doubt that Frank would run away. But still, he feels he must see. He pushes his mind at the woman and orders again, “Take me to his room.”
Stiffly, she rises. She takes a candle in her hand – which is odd, for the house is well lit. She climbs the stairs, then leads Gerard to the east wing, then up yet another set of stairs. It is dark here, and secluded.
She is leading him to Frank's prison, Gerard realizes.
There is a key around her neck, and the Contessa uses it to unlock a heavy wooden door at the top of the narrow stairs.
“You've kept him in the attic?” Gerard asks evenly. His fangs drop and he pushes his will on the woman more thoroughly.
The Contessa, under his thrall, answers simply, “It was for the best.”
The room is large, but there is only a small mattress on the floor. There are no bedclothes. The room is mostly empty. Gerard can smell Frank here, but also the scent of frustration and loneliness.
There are marks on the walls. Gerard smells them rather than sees them at first, and when he steps closer to get a better look, he sees there are words written there in blood.
“He is mad,” the Contessa says.
“Anyone would go mad in prison,” Gerard says sharply, and she rocks back as if slapped.
“We cared for him as best we could. As a boy, he was so high spirited, but he never...” She trails off, as if unable to explain this away.
“He never calmed down, is that it?” Gerard says. He reads the markings on the wall, the words of pain and hate. Together, the words make a story, an urge to kill and to die.
“His moods...”
Gerard remembers the childlike enthusiasm and the lightning fast changes in Frank's mood. He remembers Frank's eyes, so wide and wanting.
“If he is mad, it is because you did this to him,” Gerard says.
She is not good enough to feed from. He hates now that his mind is touching hers so intimately. He wraps his hand around her throat and stares into her eyes, searching hard for Frank's location...
...and reels back in disgust.
Bedlam.
It is so easy to break the Contessa's neck. Humans are fragile, their bones easily broken. He takes her candle from her limp hand and throws her body down the stairs. He watches her tumble down into the darkness.
He wants the whole house to burn. He wants the attic room to go up in flames. So he sets fire to the mattress, to the clothes that are strewn on the floor, until the thin rugs catch flame and begin to burn.
He walks through the house, killing every human who comes into sight and setting fire to whatever will burn.
His rage is so great that he does not know what he is doing until he stands outside the burning country home of the Ieros. The flames engulf the house despite the light rain that still falls.
He must get to Frank, he realizes, and that thought brings him back to himself.
He runs.
South London is where the New Bethlem Hospital resides, but Gerard has never been there before. The whispers of stories are horrible enough that Gerard has not needed to see it for himself.
Bedlam has no glass in the windows, and Gerard crawls inside easily. There is a stench of urine and hopelessness here, and Gerard has to concentrate on finding Frank or he will burn this place, as well.
He also smells the scent of opium – laudanum, most likely – given to control the patients. Gerard stalks the corridors, going from room to room, until someone says, “Hey, there! What are you doing out of bed?”
Gerard lifts him by the throat. The human's feet dangle above the floor. Gerard stares at him with red eyes and commands him to speak, although the man is nearly strangled.
“Where is Frank Iero?”
The man chokes out, “I don't know!”
Gerard pushes deep into the man's memories, past the unimportant, until he gets a good idea of the layout of the building. He sees the faces of patients, but they are all nameless to the human. Gerard pushes harder, until he finds Frank's face. He is appalled at the condition Frank is in, but he finds the place he is held in the human's mind.
Gerard pulls back viciously, uncaring that he's just made the human mad. It serves him right, Gerard thinks, after viewing some of the atrocities the man has visited on the patients here. The beatings are the least of his crimes.
He leaves the man lying blank-faced in the corridor and heads to Frank's room. The room is locked, but Gerard rips the door from its hinges and steps inside.
Frank lies staring into the darkness, his eyes half-lidded and drugged. Thick leather belts restrain him, keeping him from moving from the bed. Not that he could after being drugged so thoroughly, Gerard thinks.
Careful not to hurt Frank, Gerard removes the leather bands that hold him in place. Frank looks awful. His beautiful hair has been cut short against his scalp in a haphazard way, and he is sporting a full weeks growth of whiskers. His skin is a deathly mask of white. He does not focus on anything, does not seem to even recognize that someone else is in the room with him.
Gerard gathers Frank against his chest and carries him out into the night. His memories of caring for Michael come back to him, along with the ache of his loss. He will not lose Frank. He doesn't know if he's been given an overdose of laudanum, if he will die from it or not. He knows only that if it comes down to it, Gerard will turn Frank to keep that from happening.
Frank's breathing is shallow as Gerard lays him in his bed. Gerard runs a hand over his shorn hair and whispers, “I'll be back.”
He keeps his promise, returning quickly with Bob.
“Do you know what is to be done?” Gerard asks, sitting beside Frank on the bed and clutching his shoulder.
“The drug is poisoning him,” Bob says, staring at Frank. “I can smell it.”
“So can I,” Gerard murmurs, realizing it now. It is why he has been so afraid for Frank.
“Your blood will flush it out of him,” Bob says.
“Will it be enough?” Gerard asks.
Bob flicks his eyes to Gerard and back again to Frank. “It should be. His mind may not recover, though. Not from being in that place.”
Gerard swallows hard, wishing he had the Contessa in front of him again. He would torture her this time, the way she tortured Frank.
“It was only a week or so,” Gerard says.
“That will help,” Bob says. He looks at him again and frowns. “You have done too much tonight.”
It is true. Gerard has used most of his powers freely this night, and his mind and body are weary. He's afraid to sleep, however, not knowing how long or when he will wake. Frank needs him.
“Give him your blood, and then I will care for him. You need to rest,” Bob says.
Gerard wants to argue, but he knows Bob is right. And he trusts him to look after Frank while he sleeps.
He leans over Frank and slices into his wrist with his fangs. Blood comes from the wound and Gerard lets it pour into Frank's mouth.
“Not too much,” Bob murmurs, and Gerard pulls his arm away.
“Swallow,” Gerard whispers to Frank, stroking his throat. Frank does after several long moments. Gerard watches the wound heal, and then he lies down beside Frank, wrapping his arms around him and listening to his heartbeat.
He's never felt for a human before, not since Michael. Maybe he's softening in his old age, Gerard thinks as he drifts off into a deep sleep.
*
Gerard feels Frank's gaze before he opens his eyes. When he does, he sees Frank – cleaned up and shaved, his haircut more even. Bob has done well taking care of him.
“Frank,” Gerard says, reaching out. Frank allows Gerard to touch him, but doesn't touch back. He looks somber and still in the bed beside Gerard, unlike himself. Gerard asks, “How long have I been sleeping?”
“Four days,” Frank says.
“Why are you here in bed? Are you not well?” If Frank requires more blood...
“I didn't want to leave you,” Frank says.
Gerard smiles and cups Frank's smooth cheek. “Thank you,” he says, “but you didn't have to do that.”
“I wanted to,” Frank says simply. He still does not smile. “I thought maybe I'd imagined you. Then I woke up here beside you and I knew I hadn't.”
“I'm sorry you had to go... where you were sent,” Gerard says. “I would not have allowed it if I knew.”
“I knew,” Frank whispers. “I heard them talking. My parents. I knew they would send me to that place soon.”
“Why didn't you tell me?” Gerard asks, trying to keep his voice soft. He is angry, though, angry with the Ieros and angry with Frank for keeping this from him.
Frank does not answer. Instead he says, “Bob said you gave me your blood.”
Gerard nods.
“I can feel it, I think,” Frank says, stretching out more on the sheets. For the first time, Gerard sees that he is naked. They both are.
“What does it feel like?” Gerard asks.
“Strength,” Frank answers. “Commitment.”
Gerard shivers even though he is not cold. Frank pulls the coverlet up over them anyway.
“Bob told me about the court,” Frank says. “I don't understand everything, but... you are important. Why would you bother with me?”
Gerard shakes his head. He doesn't know. “You are... different,” he tries to explain. “I have never been drawn to a human before.”
“Humans can't be that different from vampires,” Frank says naively.
“We are,” Gerard says. He runs his hand over Frank's short hair and sighs. “How are you feeling?”
“Strong,” Frank says. “But I don't feel like myself.”
It will take some time for his emotional wounds to heal, Gerard thinks. He is a human with a human's fragile mind. Gerard wants to protect him, to keep him close. He will. He pulls Frank against his chest and kisses his forehead. “You need time.”
Frank sounds like a broken child when he whispers against Gerard's skin, “Promise me you won't send me back there?”
Fervently, Gerard whispers, “I would never do such a thing.”
*
Bob has made living quarters in the old workhouse. The inside of the house is beginning to look grand. The outside is still appalling, but that is the way Gerard wants it.
Catherine, Bob's human, comes to show her respect to Gerard. She is tall and stately, moving towards him gracefully. Her dress is of the finest silk, deep blue to match her eyes, with a scooped neckline that shows off the silvery scars on her neck.
“I submit to you, Master Gerard,” she says with an elegant curtsy. Bob looks on with pride and love in his eyes.
“You are welcome in my court,” Gerard answers. He does not have to add, “As my right hand's companion,” but he does, elevating both her and Bob in the eyes of the onlookers.
Catherine keeps her eyes down until Gerard bids her to stand straight. He sends the others away so that it is only he, Bob, and Catherine in the room.
Bob relaxes but Catherine does not. Gerard touches her mind lightly, searching.
“You know I have no love for humans. Bob told you what I did to Frank's parents.” Frank does not know, and for this human to know... Gerard's fangs extend in his anger.
Catherine's eyes widen at the look in Gerard's eyes, and then she drops her head. “Please do not harm me.”
“Master,” Bob says, not sharp, but his mind touches Gerard's in warning.
Gerard takes a deep, unneeded breath. He clears his mind. “Lady, I do not wish to harm you. I would not, knowing what you mean to my friend.”
Bob's small startle is almost imperceptible as he reacts to the word. But Gerard doesn't take it back – Bob is Gerard's only friend. He is the one Gerard trusts with his life and with his court. He trusted Frank's life to Bob, even.
Catherine smiles, not knowing what is going on in Gerard's head but reacting to his words as well. “We do mean much to each other. There are centuries of love between us.”
She cannot be more than thirty years old, even with Bob's claim keeping her young. Gerard frowns. “How can that be?”
Bob speaks up. “We have known each other in three separate lives.”
It is like mad gibberish to Gerard, and his confusion must show on his face, because Catherine makes a small sound of understanding.
“You do not know of this,” she says.
Bob shakes his head. “But your sire is ancient, surely he would have told you.”
“Told me what?” Gerard asks. “Reincarnation is a myth.” The way God is a myth. Azrael taught me well.
Bob holds out his hand to Catherine and she joins him on Gerard's right side. Together they give Gerard a warm look.
“Not a myth,” Catherine says. “I remember my lives in dreams, and sometimes when I am awake.”
“She always has,” Bob says lovingly. It is odd to see the brusque vampire showing such emotion.
“This last time was harder for me to accept,” Catherine says. “At first I thought Bob a mad demon, until he shared his blood with me. Then I began to remember my lives before.”
Gerard shakes his head. When a human dies, it is the end of their life. That is all there is. They rot and become food for carrion and worms and beetles, they do not go on to a better place. He knows this with fervor. There are no waiting arms of angels, no singing choirs.
“If you look hard enough and live long enough, you find those you've known before,” Bob says.
Before, before, when he was human. His friends, lovers...
“I don't believe you,” Gerard says. “I have no memory of any lives before this one. Not other than my human one.”
“Bob can help you remember,” Catherine suggests softly.
It is too much, too fast. It makes no sense to him. If it is true, Azrael would have known, wouldn't he? He was ancient and held much knowledge, surely if this were true he would have shared it with Gerard.
“I don't want to remember,” Gerard says. He does not want to think of humans having these kinds of lives, of living and then living again. It would make their spirits immortal, and that is too precious to ignore. Gerard cares none for humans, but if... if...
He tries to push the thoughts away. There are too many crowding his mind. He has a court to see to, a human to protect, and an immortal life of his own to lead.
Bob and Catherine say nothing more. They watch him, though.
He is a coward, he thinks as he stands. Nothing but a coward, he knows as he runs away.
*
Frank is sitting by a chair, staring out into the night. Gerard must appear out of nowhere to him, but he doesn't startle. He turns and looks at him with those large, hazel eyes and holds out his hand.
Gerard realizes he hasn't smiled since he found him. He wants to hear his laughter again, that high-pitched giggle that warms Gerard's cold heart.
He is cold, he knows. He kills without compunction. He killed Frank's parents, set fire to their house, and left a man in Bedlam with a torn mind. For no reason other than Gerard was angry. His anger is a dangerous thing. He must control it if he is to be fit to rule over London.
He must control it if he is to be a lover to a human.
“I could feel you coming,” Frank says, and Gerard realizes he hasn't yet taken his hand. Still, Frank holds it out.
Gerard moves and wraps his arms around him. He leans down and hides his face in Frank's neck.
“You are frightened,” Frank whispers.
Gerard's world has been turned on its ear. Everything he believes in has been questioned. He is scared as a human would be scared.
Humans and vampires are not so different, perhaps. This thought leaves Gerard shaking and clinging to Frank's warm body.
“Talk to me,” Frank says, running a hand down Gerard's back.
Gerard tugs Frank to the bed and lies down beside him. He memorizes Frank's face – the shape of his nose, the arch of his brows, the fullness of his lips. He drags their clothes from their bodies, wanting the intimacy of touch and heat.
“I was human once,” Gerard whispers. “And when I was a boy, I wanted to be a priest.”
For hours Gerard speaks, softly so that the words do not travel beyond the two of them, and Frank listens intently. Gerard talks of his faith, of the wonders of God and the ecstasy of loving Him. He talks of his lofty goals he had, to be a good man, to love humankind, to do what he could to ease suffering wherever he found it.
Hesitantly, his lips form the name of his brother.
Michael, he whispers, and it's been so long since he's uttered the name that his breath catches on the syllables. He says it again, soft and broken.
“I loved him more than anyone else,” Gerard whispers, then admits on one breath, “I loved him more than I loved God.” He swallows hard. He's never shared that secret with anyone, not even Azrael. The guilt he felt from that love in his lifetime was heavy, and after he stopped believing in a deity, the guilt still remained. Training and rhetoric, he explains, were oh so effective.
Saying, “He died in my arms,” seems so simple, betraying nothing of the pain of the actual memory. Still, wetness comes to Gerard's eyes. Centuries have done nothing to erase the loss. The empty space in his life where his brother once was is still painful. “He died and left me.”
Frank wipes away Gerard's tears and stays silent, waiting for him to continue.
Gerard goes on, telling Frank of his turning and of Azrael. It is easier after that, and the words come rushing out. He tells of his faith in God and humanity corroding, of Azrael's teachings filling up the empty places his faith left behind.
“But humans are not fully mortal, did you know?” Gerard asks bitterly. “They die and then they come to life again. Living... living through their mistakes and getting other chances to overcome their missteps.”
Frank shakes his head in disbelief. “Like in the Myth of Er?”
Gerard thinks of the stories he has heard, digging through his mind for glimpses of truth among the myths. There are whole religions that believed in reincarnation, he knows, and he wishes he knew more of them. This is something to explore. Because it means...
No, he won't even think it.
“Do you think you knew me before?” Frank asks. “I would like that.”
“I haven't associated with many humans,” Gerard says vaguely. “Only those I had to, to make my way in society, and to feed from.”
“You turned your back on us when you became a vampire,” Frank says. From someone else it would be an accusation, and Gerard feels it as such, but Frank's voice is just curious.
“You are not like other humans,” Gerard says, but he wonders if it's true.
“Maybe I'll get to show you that I am,” Frank murmurs. He cards his fingers through Gerard's hair. “I hate that I got a haircut.”
Gerard pulls back to look at Frank. His complexion is better, his eyes clear. Still, there is no humor there, no hint of what Frank was when they first met.
“It will grow,” Gerard says soothingly. His fingers touch Frank's hair softly. It is still as soft as silk despite its shortness.
Frank closes his eyes and leans into the touch. Gerard realizes that he could not have had much of this from his parents, and had never known a lover until Gerard. He is touch-starved, craving attention.
Frank sighs with pleasure. Gerard leans in and presses his lips to Frank's. “You're so beautiful,” Gerard breathes.
“Still?” Frank asks.
“Yes. Always.”
Frank finally smiles. The sight of it nearly breaks Gerard's heart. “Even when I'm old and gray?”
When Gerard claims Frank, he will live far past his life expectancy, growing older much more slowly. But if he turns him, he will stay young forever. Gerard is not sure yet whether he will make Frank his childe.
“Maybe not, huh?” Frank says, still smiling.
“I was just thinking,” Gerard says.
“Of what?” Frank asks, leaning in closer.
“Your smile, among other things,” Gerard says, and kisses him again softly.
“You make me happy,” Frank admits.
The small spark of fire in Gerard's heart grows, warming him. “You do the same to me.”
“Is this what love is?” Frank asks, looking excited.
And a cold brush of dread hits Gerard's mind. Frank does not know what Gerard has done to his parents or his home, does not know the viciousness inside of him.
But oh, Gerard wants Frank's love. He wants his devotion, his affection, everything Frank has to give.
“Perhaps,” Gerard says. “I've no experience with this.”
“What do you want from me?” Frank asks, stroking Gerard's arm absently. He seems to need to touch just as much as he needs to be touched.
“I want to claim you,” Gerard says. “To make you mine. I want...” He presses their foreheads together and whispers, “I want you to be my consort.”
“What does that mean?” Frank asks.
“You would be... like a husband to me. Companion and friend. My lover. My beloved. It would give you status. It is the highest a human can hope to be in a vampire court.”
Frank grins, showing his straight white teeth. “Why Gerard, are you proposing?”
Gerard can't help but smile back. “I suppose I am.”
“Bob told me of this claiming,” Frank says. “What it means. Not how you do it, though.”
The thought of claiming Frank as his own makes Gerard's fangs grow in his mouth. Frank watches them in fascination.
“I would bite you,” Gerard says, trailing his fingertips over the fragile skin of Frank's neck. “Mark you as mine.”
“You've done that before,” Frank says, frowning a bit.
“But I healed you that time. This time, there would be no healing, and you would scar.” Gerard ducks his head and presses a small, prickling kiss at the place where Frank's neck joins his shoulder.
Frank shivers. His heartbeat quickens.
“And I would take you,” Gerard whispers.
Frank moans. “You have not done that.”
“Not yet. But I will. And then, when you are spent, I will give you some of my blood, as an offering. And then I will take you again.”
“Please,” Frank says.
“You would have me now?” Gerard asks, surprised. He did not think Frank would be ready for sex so soon after his incarceration.
Frank's hands move restlessly over Gerard's body, fingers pressing into his skin. “I think it is you who will have me.”
Gerard kisses him hard, biting at his lips, tasting his blood. Frank hisses against Gerard's mouth and rolls, pulling Gerard on top of him.
“You will be mine,” Gerard growls, not caring how it sounds.
Frank doesn't seem to mind, though, because he moans loudly and says, “Yes.”
Gerard is not as careful this time around. This is a claiming, and by nature it has to be brutal. But still there is a tenderness to it; Gerard is tempered in his actions by his feelings for Frank. He wants to possess him, yes, but he also wants to bring him as much pleasure as possible.
Frank cries out when Gerard's fangs slice into his neck. Gerard drinks, moaning at the taste of vitality. It isn't quite the sharp tang of energy he remembers, but it is close. It is Frank.
Gerard licks the skin but does not heal it. The twin holes bleed sluggishly down into the sheets.
“Please, Gerard,” Frank says, squirming beneath him for friction. Gerard can feel his cock, hot and hard against his skin. He is leaking already, eager to be taken.
There is oil in the bedside table. Gerard purchased it the night after they met.
But that night is gone, and this night is upon them. Gerard gets the oil and slicks his fingers.
The fire is still burning in the hearth, and Frank's skin looks beautiful in the flickering light. Will Gerard ever get used to his beauty? Perhaps one day, but not now.
Frank remembers to push back against the intrusion, and Gerard's oiled fingers press inside him, stretching and taking and claiming.
Gerard takes his time, although he is as eager as a green boy to have his human. He growls at the noises Frank makes, low and lust-filled. He wants to hear more, so he crooks his fingers and presses against Frank's prostate.
Frank arches off the bed with a cry and then rocks back onto the fingers. His hands grip the sheets as he gasps out his pleasure.
When he is prepared, Gerard moves into position. He teases himself and Frank by just rubbing over Frank's hole with the tip of his cock, until Frank makes a noise of protest and begins to beg.
“Please, Gerard, please fuck me,” he says. Gerard is unused to such straightforward words, but he grips Frank's hips and obliges him.
The first thrust should have been slow, but this is a claiming, and Gerard must take Frank as his feral demands. Gerard pushes in fast, all at once, until he's buried deep inside Frank's body. He feels amazing: tight, grasping heat.
Frank gives a choked cry and his hands scramble to grab onto Gerard's shoulders. Gerard grips his hips bruisingly hard and thrusts in again and again, until Frank is rocking back, giving up his body completely. He stares up into Gerard's face, moaning obscenely. His eyes are wide and dark, full of wonder and lust.
It has been too long since Gerard has taken someone in this way, and his orgasm is approaching quickly. He wraps a hand around Frank's cock and strokes him fast and hard, nearly forcing Frank to come. He could, with his mind, but he wants it this way. Wants all of Frank's natural reactions.
Frank cries out and begs brokenly, “Please...”
“Come for me,” Gerard growls, thrusting hard inside him.
Frank comes, clenching around Gerard, and that sends Gerard spiraling out of control. He snarls and pounds inside him, then stills as his own orgasm overtakes him.
Gerard takes little time to recover. He bites into his wrist and offers it to Frank, who takes it without question. “Just a swallow,” Gerard murmurs, and takes it back as soon as Frank has obeyed.
Frank's body goes rigid as the blood hits his system. He has already taken Gerard's blood before, and Gerard's not sure if this has any bearing. He knows it's not enough blood to turn Frank, but it will probably bind them together more closely than other claimed/vampire couples. Gerard doesn't mind that possibility.
Gerard lies on his back and waits for the blood to take effect. It does quickly, and Frank is crawling on top of him for more in a matter of minutes.
“So eager,” Gerard teases, but his own cock is already hardening again.
Frank tries a different position, moving until it feels natural, then takes Gerard's cock in his hand, lines up, and sinks down on it. Gerard groans and places his hands over the bruises on Frank's hips, pressing down a little with his fingertips. The pain causes pleasure, and Frank moans loudly. Then he begins to ride.
Gerard leans up for a kiss, and Frank takes his mouth with his own, kissing back desperately. Frank rises and falls, taking Gerard as deep as he can before lifting up and then doing it again. He clenches around Gerard when he finds that makes him growl, and soon Gerard is lifting him and pulling him back down on his cock fast and hard.
It's too much, but it's not enough. Gerard needs more, so he pushes Frank over onto his back and begins to pound inside him, relentless and seemingly insatiable. Frank cries out in pleasure as Gerard's cock thrusts against his prostate. It isn't part of the claiming, but Gerard leans forward and bites Frank again – in the shoulder, this time – and pulls blood into his mouth. Sex, blood, power: these are the things a vampire craves, and Frank is giving him all three.
Gerard fucks him unyieldingly, until Frank cries out and comes again. Gerard snarls and fucks him harder, until the headboard makes a hole in the plaster.
When he comes, his orgasm is so strong he blacks out.
*
Part Two
*
In 1672, a man named Dr. Nathaniel Hodges publishes a treaty called Loimologia. It is in Latin. It is translated to English in 1720. It begins,
The Plague which we are now to give an account of, discovered the Beginnings of its future Cruelties, about the Close of the Year 1664; For at that Season two or three Persons died suddenly in one Family[...]
Gerard reads it in the Latin in 1672, and then again in English forty-eight years later.
Although the Soldiery retreated from the Field of Death, and encamped out of the City, the Contagion followed, and vanquish'd them; many in their Old Age, and others in their Prime, sunk under its cruelties; of the Female Sex most died; and hardly any children escaped; and it was not uncommon to see an Inheritance pass successively to three or four Heirs in as many Days; the Number of Sextons were not sufficient to bury the Dead.
The plain words do not even begin to accurately describe the Great Plague of London. Loimologia does not speak of the fear or anguish of watching one's family die. It does not describe the stench of the wagons or the feeling of holding one's cold and lifeless beloved. It does not mention the fruitless prayers one gave, the bargaining with one's God, the hoarse pleading in the dead of night.
Gerard hates the treatise and burns it with relish both times he reads it.
*
September 1665
Gerard prays over Michael's sickbed. He no longer does it under his breath, fearful that God will not listen unless he speaks aloud. He grips his mother's (God rest her soul) rosary in one hand and lays his other on Michael's fevered skin.
“Father of goodness and love,” Gerard recites, “hear my prayer for the sick and needy. May my brother find consolation in Your healing presence. Show your mercy on Michael as you heal his sickness. May he find lasting health and deliverance, and so join me in thanking You for all Your gifts. I ask this through the Lord Jesus who healed those who believed. Amen.”
He has said the same words over and over, but they are not any less hopeful or devout now. He cannot find a priest in all of London who will visit a sick house, so he prays even more fervently. At one time, before he was gently reminded that he had a duty as heir, Gerard wanted to become a priest. Now he is aware that he may soon be the only Way left except for some distant cousins who emigrated to America.
He does not want to be the last of his family. Michael is more than his blood, he is Gerard's heart. They are more than mere siblings, they are the best of friends.
The wagon took his mother and father yesterday, and the bearers are calling out in the torch-lit street, “Bring yer dead!”
But Michael yet lives. He is young and strong of heart if not of body. Gerard prays over him again, sitting at his bedside. He does not care if he becomes ill himself, only cares that Michael lives.
Gerard has not slept in days, and weariness claws at him.
“Mother?” Michael calls hoarsely.
“She is not here,” Gerard answers, wrapping his hands around one of Michael's.
“'m cold,” Michael says.
“It is the fever,” Gerard says. He pulls the coverlet up to Michael's chin. “Better?”
Michael asks, “Water?”
The servants fled days before, and both water and wood for the fire are becoming scarce. But Gerard pours half a glass of water for Michael and then holds it to his lips. Some spills down Michael's chin, a testament to Gerard's ineptness as a sick nurse. He wishes he had more skill at this, some kind of healing touch that would soothe Michael's pain.
When the water is gone, Gerard eases his brother back onto his pillow. “How do you feel?” he asks.
Michael licks his lips and tries to shrug, an action their mother tried desperately to curtail all his life.
“Would you like me to read to you?” Gerard asks.
But Michael shakes his head and weakly pushes the mound of covers away from his body. He's thin and pale, his nightshirt doing nothing to disguise the angles of his body.
“What are you doing? You must stay warm,” Gerard says.
“Please. Lie down with me,” Michael says. “Like you did when we were young.”
It has been years since they did this. The last time Gerard and Michael shared a bed was when Gerard was ill with mumps. Michael crawled into bed with Gerard despite their mother's protests, saying he would protect Gerard from the evil throat demons. As a child, Gerard had been obsessed with demons and angels, and Michael's imagination had been caught by Gerard's wild tales. So of course Michael believed that a throat demon had gripped Gerard instead of disease.
Gerard shakes himself out of the memory and moves under the covers with Michael. There is no one left in the house to judge them or intrude. Michael cuddles close, and Gerard embraces him with both arms. Michael feels even more thin than he looks, and he's burning hot.
“I love you dearly, Michael,” Gerard whispers.
“Love you too, brother,” Michael says, but the words catch in his throat and he has a fit of angry coughing.
Gerard can do nothing but stroke Michael's back and worry. Michael is so young, just sixteen. He has never lain with a woman, never traveled outside England, never seen a play. He has never been yachting, and he has never had a cat, although he's begged their parents for both.
He is too young to die.
Gradually, Gerard is pulled into a fitful, worried sleep. He dreams of demons dragging him into hell, and of angels who try to take Michael away to heaven. Gerard fights and fights, screaming to God for help, but when he wakes he is crying and he feels a sense of loss that is so deep he wants to die.
Michael is still in his arms, and when Gerard touches his forehead, he finds it is not as hot as it has been. For one miraculous moment, Gerard believes the fever is broken. He shakes his brother gently to wake him, then gives up and hugs him tight. “Thank you,” he whispers to God. “Thank you.”
But Michael remains limp in Gerard's tight embrace. He does not move in discomfort. He does not protest.
He does not breathe.
“Michael,” Gerard says softly. “Michael.”
There is no answer, no intake of breath, no amused laughter telling Gerard this is just a jest.
Michael remains still. Gerard shakes him, hard enough that he hears Michael's teeth clack together. Tears are coming to Gerard's eyes as he begins to realize the truth, but it does not stop him from shaking his brother even harder.
Gerard jerks his head in denial. This cannot be, it must not be. His neighbors are gone, his friends are gone, even his parents have succumbed to this wretched plague. But not his beloved brother, never Michael.
“No, Michael. You must not die. You cannot,” he begins to say, loud in his own ears, echoing in the bedchamber. He closes his eyes tight and begins to pray to God, begging for his brother's life.
No answer comes, no matter how long he begs. He notices it is dark again, and his voice is just a whisper. He can no longer speak.
Gerard wipes his tears and lies back down with Michael, pulling him into his arms again, close against his chest. He's so cold now, but Gerard will hold him and keep him warm for as long as Michael needs.
*
He wakes to the thud thud thud of boots on the carpet.
“Go away,” Gerard rasps without looking up. He hurts all over, his muscles aching. He knows he will die in a matter of days. He wants to die here, in this bed, holding on to the one person who loved him above all others. “You cannot have my brother.”
A pause, and then a voice says, “Did you pray?”
Gerard swallows dryly; he hasn't had water lately. He hasn't wanted to move to get it from the bedside table. He's cold, from both fever and the lack of fire.
“I asked you something,” the voice says. “Did you pray to your God?”
“Yes,” Gerard says.
“And did he answer?”
Gerard closes his eyes and prays for the release of death to come quickly, bearing him on wings to his family.
“Are you praying now?” the voice asks, coming closer.
Gerard looks up and sees something from his nightmares, something otherworldly.
The demon has long, shaggy hair that is tied messily at his nape. He has red eyes and fangs, and there is blood on his lips and chin. His black clothing is wet, probably also with blood. He grins at Gerard's wide eyes and looms over the bed.
Gerard expects to feel horror, fear, anything but this thick numbness.
The demon touches Michael's arm. “How long has this one been dead?”
“Don't touch my brother,” Gerard says, anger peeking through his grief. “Your kind can't have him. He's ...”
“Ah, you think me a demon. So what is it, your brother belongs with the angels?”
“Yes,” Gerard says thickly.
“You believe in heaven and hell? How quaint,” the demon says with faux sweetness.
“Go away and leave me to my fate,” Gerard mumbles, realizing now that this must be another dream.
“You believe in Fate as well?” the demon says. “How have you survived all these years, trusting in gods and angels and the hands of Fate? How can you live a life that way?”
“Who are you?” Gerard asks. “You speak blasphemy.”
The demon laughs and bows. “Blasphemy is my favorite pastime! That is, when I'm not feeding on chaos and discontent. My name is Azrael, pleased to make your acquaintance. And you are Gerard, the last of the Ways.”
Azrael lights a short candle by the bed that illuminates his face. He is both beautiful and terrible, with white fangs that glint in the light.
“You are not Azrael the Archangel,” Gerard says. “The angel of death.”
The demon's smile flashes, and his red eyes seem even brighter. “I took the name centuries ago. I was pretentious in my youth.” He sits on the bed, pushing Michael's body irreverently to gain a better seat.
“So Azrael is not your name,” Gerard says slowly, taking in the fact that he talks in centuries rather than decades. Azrael looks to be in his late thirties, with only a bit of gray in his hair and a few laugh lines.
“It is now,” Azrael says. “I am whoever I decide to be.”
Gerard slowly sits up. “If you are to kill me, I ask only that you make it quick.”
“And where do you think you will go when you die?” Azrael asks curiously. “To heaven, with your family? Or have you done something in your life worth hell? Or shall you live in purgatory, until your soul is clean enough to be worthy of paradise?”
“I've been faithful to God and the Church,” Gerard says slowly. “I have attended mass and confession, and I have done penance for my sins.”
Azrael laughs. “You think those superficial trappings will save you from the worms?”
Gerard shakes his head and looks down at Michael. “I just want to be with my brother.”
“I can't help you with that,” Azrael says. “But I like you, Gerard. You have a certain love and earnestness in you that touches my unbeating heart.”
“I don't understand,” Gerard says.
But then Azrael is moving as fast as lightning in the sky, and he grips Gerard's jaw, tipping back and exposing his neck. “You will,” he says, and moves again, his head down. His fangs pierce Gerard's throat.
Gerard tries to cry out, but all that comes out of his mouth is a gurgle. This is how it ends, he thinks. At least it will be quick.
*
He wakes to hunger like he's never felt before. It is agony, and he can think only of quenching it.
“Shh, I know,” a voice says, but Gerard barely makes out the words. What he does understand is that there is warm skin beneath his mouth, and it is so easy to bite down to get to the blood beneath.
He guzzles messily, blood running down his chin and neck. He hears a laugh and a fading heartbeat. He doesn't care. All he knows is that his numbness has been replaced with a hunger for blood and the thrill of drinking it.
The blood tastes amazing, like drinking life itself. When no more comes to his mouth, he whines low in his throat.
“There will be more,” the voice says kindly.
Gerard opens his eyes and looks up.
Azrael is smiling at him proudly, holding the body of some poor soul. He drops the corpse to the floor while Gerard looks away quickly.
He is no longer in his home. He is in someone else's house, and bodies lie strewn around the room. His mind wants to panic, but there's something else there now, a sense of accomplishment and rightness. And hunger, still hunger. He looks to his sire for direction, knowing he will show him what to do.
Azrael rests his hand on the small of Gerard's back and gently pushes him over to a canopied bed. “This one is almost gone,” he says, and when Gerard looks down he sees a child, sweat-soaked and vulnerable.
Gerard swallows hard and his fangs pierce his bottom lip sharply. “She's just a child,” he says.
“She will die in moments anyway,” Azrael says, his voice kind and cajoling.
Gerard watches the girl's labored breaths move her thin chest. He is hungry, and the girl is too far gone to know better anyway.
“God forgive me,” Gerard whispers before taking the child into his arms and tilting her small head back. His fangs slice through her throat easily and the blood pumps into his mouth. He can hear her weak heart beating furious-fast, like the wings of a bird in flight. He swallows her blood, which is thick and sweet.
“Good childe,” Azrael says, and Gerard thinks he's speaking to the girl at first. But then it comes to him and he understands – he is the childe and Azrael is his sire.
Gerard lifts his head from the girl – dead, now – and sees that Azrael is watching him intently. “Is this what you want?”
“What do you mean?” Azrael says, coming closer and pulling the corpse from Gerard's arms.
“I'm a killer now. Is that what you wanted?” Gerard asks. He says the words flatly, without any inflection. He doesn't know why he can't feel the pain of murdering someone, the shame or the anguish. He only knows it is wrong. He is wrong.
“You are something more than you were,” Azrael says. “You are better than your human thoughts.”
Gerard stares at the dead girl and her small throat that is bloody and torn. He did this. He does not know how to feel.
“I didn't want to be this,” he says. “I wanted to be with my brother.”
The place where the pain should be is empty. Gerard places his hand over his heart, frowning at the lack.
“It's strange at first,” Azrael says.
Gerard swallows hard and looks at him. “Why can't I feel anything?”
“You can feel. You are able to feel hunger, pleasure, love, and lust,” Azrael explains. “It's not permanent.”
“I should miss Michael. I should hurt,” Gerard says. “Why can't I feel that?”
“It is a side effect of your turning. You feel this way because you are a fledgling. I believe it is to make the change more palatable for new vampires.”
Gerard carefully tongues his sharp fangs. They feel strange in his mouth. “How long will it last?”
“Weeks perhaps, or months,” Azrael says. “You'll be able to hunt and feed, and do whatever else you want to do. It will not harm you to feel no emotional pain. Indeed, it will help you in your transition.”
“I'm still hungry,” Gerard admits.
“Come, we have other houses to visit,” Azrael says. “To these people, we can bring a better end.”
They cut a bloody swath through the houses of the sick, bringing death to those already on their deathbeds. Gerard feels no guilt, no remorse, although he prays silently over those he kills. Azrael allows his religion, although Gerard is beginning to have doubts. If there is a God, Gerard thinks, why does He allow demons like him and Azrael?
“Everything you think you know is wrong,” Azrael says one night, while they feed on an elderly couple. It is surprising that they lasted out the plague for so long, the two, and they meet death gracefully.
Gerard looks up, wiping his mouth, and shakes his head. “What do you mean?”
“So young and full of idealism,” Azrael says mockingly. “A few hundred years will cure you of that.”
“What do I think that is wrong?” Gerard asks.
“You're still praying. No, I won't stop you. Neither will I offer solace when you decide there is no God.”
“Perhaps...” Gerard says slowly, unable to feel the shame of speaking heresy, “Perhaps God is not what I believed Him to be. But I cannot just ignore the world He has made.”
Azrael sighs, slipping an arm around Gerard's shoulder. It makes Gerard feel comforted, that his sire would touch him and show him affection. “The world as you know it does not exist,” Azrael says. “You will soon find that it is a lonely, horrible place, full of despair and atrocities. God would not make such a world, would he? Look here at London, at the poor souls dying in their beds and the streets. Where is your God?”
“I know enough not to question...” Gerard begins to say, then turns his face into Azrael's chest. “I do not know.”
“I will not allow you to tell yourself lies, my childe,” Azrael says. “I turned you so that you could see the truth and grow stronger for it.”
“But why?” Gerard asks. “Why would you want that?”
“You remind me of myself,” Azrael says, “when I was a young man, full of idealism and zeal.”
“Perhaps I would rather not lose my hope,” Gerard says. He thinks of Michael, and the love he holds for his brother is still just as strong, although he cannot feel the pain of losing him.
“Ah, you want to think your loved ones are in the arms of angels, still. It's a pretty tale, but it is just that. A story told to naïve humans, carried on by tradition and fear. Of course no one wants to think this is all there is. There must be an afterlife.”
“How do you know there is not?” Gerard asks angrily.
“Look at them closely, my childe,” Azrael says, gesturing to the corpses they have left behind.
“Like seashells,” Gerard says. “What makes them alive has gone on.”
“My stubborn childe,” Azrael says fondly. His fingers work through Gerard's hair carefully. “When it is all gone, gods and humans, faith and naivete, you will see. There is hunger and love and the thrill of the hunt. There is so much to be, but only out of the confines of your human mind.”
“And we will live forever? That seems-”
“Sacrilegious? It is. It is outside of what you know. We are the closest things to gods as you will ever find.”
“You speak blasphemy,” Gerard mumbles, his head spinning with rhetoric and possibilities. “God is not … what we are.”
“You will see, in time,” Azrael says, and speaks no more of his confusing ideas.
*
They move on to France after Azrael has his fill of plague.
“I am sick of the stench of death,” he says, and Gerard only knows what he means once they're away from London. For the first time, he smells healthy humans and fresh air. By now, his emotions are coming back to him, but the pain of losing Michael isn't so fresh. He does not, as he thought he might, go directly into the sunlight when he feels again. He does what Azrael calls 'mope', spending much time alone. He hunts by Azrael's side, still, but at other times he sits in darkened rooms – why use candles when he can see without them? – and thinks of the happy times, and the sad times, and all the memories he can conjure.
In Italy Gerard learns to paint his memories, to turn them into images on canvas. He stops hunting until the hunger is unbearable, spending all other time painting. Michael comes to life in oils.
Gerard's dreams are silent things, where Michael's smile is more vivid than Gerard can ever put down in paint or ink. But there are horrible things in Gerard's dreams as well, blood and gore that is not as palatable as it is in waking hours.
When Gerard wakes from these dreams, Azrael is often there. He holds him like a child and talks. And talks. Always in a low murmur, as if he might startle Gerard with a louder voice. He speaks of times gone by, of the Greeks and the Romans and the Turks. It is in these moments that Gerard gleans bits of Azrael's past, and he learns that Azrael lived once in Constantinople, before the fall.
Azrael speaks of vampire lore, of customs and hierarchies that were once the fashion. “Their time will come again,” he says. “Soon, I think. I have heard the whispers while we have traveled.”
“I don't think I'd like it much,” Gerard says.
“True, it is good to roam wherever we will without having to answer to a king or queen, but a vampire court is such a splendid thing. You will see, when the time comes again.”
These talks lull Gerard into a sense of comfort, and his affection for his sire grows with each night. He doesn't understand him, although he tries. He tries to put together all the odds and ends Azrael says and complete the picture, but Azrael keeps much to himself.
“Would you have your own court?” Gerard asks.
“I am old enough to command that, yes,” Azrael says. “Too old to bow and scrape before others. Except perhaps a king. The problem with the old customs is that they lead to ego, and ego leads to war against the humans.”
Gerard thinks Azrael – who compares himself to God – is not one to talk about ego. But he keeps this thought to himself. “War?”
“To enslave them,” Azrael explains. “If I were to rule, I would strengthen the laws we keep now, to hide ourselves away. There are more of them than there are of us, and they could hurt us greatly if they became aware of us.”
“But you would not rule,” Gerard says shrewdly. “You'd hate to lose your freedom that way.”
“Ah, you know me well,” Azrael says, a twinkle in his dark eyes. It is not the truth, but it makes Gerard feel good anyway.
Time passes without much notice.
*
1732
They are in Greece, in a large villa on the Mediterranean, when the letter comes. Azrael reads it, then throws it into the fire.
Gerard wants to ask the questions that are burning in his mind like the missive, but he waits for the explanation to come on its own.
“My sire,” Azrael finally says, “commands me to his side.”
He has never spoken of his maker before, never even divulged his name. Now, he says, “Selim has declared himself king of Turkey. He wishes for his children to serve at his side.”
“Then we will go,” Gerard says with a shrug.
“You are not invited,” Azrael says, and the words would hurt if they did not ring of absolute truth.
Gerard has a moment of panic. “Then we will not?” he says. After all, Azrael did burn the letter. Gerard has never heard of a childe disobeying his sire before, but he is certain it is possible.
Azrael sighs. “I will go and you will make your own way in the world. We will meet again when this era is over. Vampire courts do not last long.”
“How long?” Gerard asks.
“A few centuries,” Azrael says, and Gerard is shocked to find wetness on his sire's face when he touches it. In the firelight, Azrael looks more like a human than he ever has. There is no trace of the demon Gerard first met at this moment.
“I do not know how to go alone,” Gerard admits.
“I have taught you most of what I know,” Azrael says.
It is true. Gerard can put humans in thrall and heal the neat wounds he makes. He can run faster than the sun rises. He has, in these last years, mastered minor telepathy. Still, these skills do not make up for companionship, and the thought of losing his sire's presence does not sit well with him.
“You have my permission to make a childe,” Azrael says formally.
Gerard shakes his head. “I don't want someone else,” he says.
For all the confusing, infuriating things his sire does, Gerard loves him anyway. He has never been away from him for longer than a week. Azrael's leaving will do more than sit wrongly; it will ache.
“Come here, my childe,” Azrael says, even though they are sitting close already, in front of the flickering fire on the floor of their grand home.
Gerard moves closer. “What is it you want?”
“For over half a century I have loved you, and yet I have never taken you to my bed,” Azrael says. “I have not done so because … because I feared it would change things between us too greatly.”
Gerard's throat feels dry and choked. “Please,” he whispers.
Azrael cups his face and leans in to kiss him. This he has done before, and Gerard responds eagerly. It is not like it has been before, however. Maybe it is the knowledge that they will soon be apart, or maybe it is the anticipation. Azrael's fangs drop down and he nips and sucks at the blood that beads Gerard's lips.
Gerard isn't a virgin. He has fucked prostitutes, has even fucked them in front of Azrael. But they were human, expendable, and Gerard felt nothing for them.
The feelings that well up now are those of loss, love, and desperation. This is their first time, and the last for awhile. It must be enough to carry Gerard through. So Gerard kisses back, his fangs scraping along Azrael's lips, his tongue sweeping against another, blood thick in their mouths.
Azrael removes Gerard's clothing so fast he doesn't feel it, and carries him to his low, flat bed.
It is nothing like fucking a human. Azrael touches Gerard roughly, pinching and grabbing bruisingly. His fangs pierce Gerard's skin again and again, each bite sending fiery pleasure through Gerard's body. Blood trickles from Gerard's skin to soak the silken sheets. He is, as he has never been, owned completely by his sire.
The first thrust of Azrael's cock burns and stretches Gerard in ways he's never felt. But the pain is pleasure, Azrael sees to that, and Gerard's body responds in kind, rocking closer and closer to the edge. Azrael's eyes glow red in the dark, full of love and deep possessiveness.
When Gerard comes, it is sudden and as violent as their coupling. He shakes as Azrael continues to thrust inside him. It goes on, and Gerard finds himself hard again. He has always been amazed at his body's hunger for sex, which is almost as insatiable as the bloodlust. This time it comes as no surprise, however, because the desire he holds for his maker is a burning, unquenchable thing.
Azrael wraps his hand around Gerard now, stroking him roughly, and Gerard arches up and moans. Azrael lets out a low growl and comes deep inside him, cock twitching as it spurts.
But Azrael is not finished, and together they make this fierce, violent love until the dawn comes to put them to sleep.
When Gerard wakes the next night, Azrael has already gone. All of Gerard's wounds have healed, and the only testament to their night together are the torn, bloodied sheets.
*
1815
Gerard returns to London. It has changed much since he last was here. Society is a grand thing, but the squalor of the slums – rookeries, they are called – is nearly inhumane. No, he thinks, this is the definition of human. While the fine ladies and lords congregate in their silks and satins and velvets, the seedy underbelly of life goes on, like cockroaches in plague. Like rats. The high and mighty ignore their fellow man while he starves in abject poverty, but – and Gerard has seen this elsewhere before – the rats will win out, in the end. They will rise up and murder those who wear diamonds and emeralds while the poor beg for a crust.
It happened in France, and surely it will happen here. Unless, he thinks, one makes whispers to those who have the power to change things. Surely they can see the parallels.
It is not hard to insinuate himself into Regency society. He knows many languages and can fake an accent most dashingly. Thanks to Azrael, he has a fortune and contacts in other countries, and with the merest bit of thrall and mind-reading, he is soon known as an affluent foreigner, invited to the best house parties and introduced to the upper crust as – not quite one of their own, but close.
Parties last well into the small hours of the morning, which make them perfect for Gerard. The fact that he is never seen during daylight hours is never made mention of – society runs at night, and Gerard fits in with them quite comfortably.
He finds it quite entertaining to thrall and feed from these ego-driven humans. He rarely ventures into the slums to feed, preferring to take his meals from those who think themselves superior. He has not had any compassion for humans in decades – the combination of Azrael's teachings and their own stupidity rubbed that out of him.
He is at a large party. It is June, the height of the Season. Girls of marriageable age who have not yet made matches are scurrying here and there with their simplest, dull-headed smiles, eager to be courted.
Gerard places a light thrall on the entire ballroom, keeping the duennas and matrons and nervous girls away from him. It is entertaining to watch their mating dances, but not when he is involved himself.
He catches sight of a boy crouching by the punchbowl. He must not be more than fourteen. He is short with long dark hair – hair that has come out of its clasp and hangs about his shoulders wildly – and large, hazel eyes. Gerard has not fed from a child in years, but there is something about this boy's sallow skin that is intriguing.
Gerard makes his way behind the table and looks down at the boy. “Are you hiding from someone?”
The boy glances up, but instead of looking ashamed or contrite, he grins. His teeth are straight and white. “Yep.”
Gerard finds himself leaning in to ask, “From who?”
“My mam,” the boy says. “I'm supposed to stay away from the party, but I wanted to see. What's your name?”
“Gerard,” he answers slowly. “And yours?”
“Frank,” the boy says.
On closer inspection, Frank appears older than Gerard first thought him. He is small, and his eyes hold a bit of childish glee, which makes him look younger than he is.
His age does not matter, except...
“Why were you told to stay away from the party?” Gerard asks. Frank is old enough to attend, older than some of the people here, maybe.
Frank rolls his eyes. “I'm not allowed to do anything fun.” Then he ducks down further and pulls the tails of Gerard's coat. “She'll see us!”
Perhaps Frank is simpleminded. That would explain his lack of invitation to the party. But there's a maturity in his eyes that Gerard picks up on, and the few thoughts he can glean from Frank's mind are intelligent – though they are scattered and flit about like fireflies.
Gerard ducks behind the table with Frank, amused by this human. He tries to read more of his mind, but Frank's thoughts allude him without eye contact.
Perhaps he won't simply feed from Frank. He is almost delightful, and he is still holding on to Gerard's coat tails, gripping them in his fist.
“Would you like, perhaps, to go for a stroll outdoors?” Gerard suggests. He doesn't use his thrall, doesn't think he'll have to.
“I'm not allowed to go outside,” Frank says, but there's a wicked gleam in his eyes when he says it.
Gerard smiles. “It would be more comfortable than crouching between the refreshment table and the wall, would it not?”
Frank grabs Gerard's hand and leads him along the wall to the servants' door. They escape the house through surprisingly empty corridors, and then they are outside in an herb garden.
Gerard inhales the scent of the herbs, which cover the stench of the city nicely. Frank is still holding his hand. Gerard doesn't bring attention to it. “Why aren't you allowed to be among the others?”
Frank stiffens but doesn't drop Gerard's hand. “I'd rather not talk about it.”
Outside of the herb garden is a path, and Gerard leads Frank down it to a tall oak. He thinks he likes Frank, as incomprehensible as that thought is. He has never gotten attached to a human before, but now he finds he wants to spend more time with this one.
“May I visit you tomorrow night?” Gerard asks.
Frank leans back against the tree and looks up at Gerard. His pupils are wide, his vision not as good as Gerard's in the dark. But Gerard locks eyes with him and skims his mind.
Tomorrow... leaving...gone away...
“The family is retiring to the country,” Frank says.
“Before the Season ends?” Gerard asks.
Frank closes his eyes and laughs. It's almost girlish, a giggle, really. “I am not marriageable material.”
He is of age, and the Ieros are Italian aristocracy, else they would not be welcome in the ton. “I don't understand,” Gerard says, but Frank is looking away and Gerard cannot read him. The slump of his shoulders and the purse of his lips are a language Gerard knows, however.
Gerard swallows and leans in closer, so that their heads are nearly touching. “Is it perhaps that you enjoy the company of men?”
Frank laughs again, but it is weak and hollow. “If that were my only problem, I would find my life much easier,” he says, then suddenly smiles brilliantly. “Do you?”
“Enjoy the company of men?” Gerard asks. “I'm enjoying your company quite well.”
Frank takes Gerard's other hand and squeezes tightly. Abruptly he says, “Run away with me.”
Gerard blinks. Frank changes topics so quickly, goes from morose to delighted in moments. It is interesting.
“You don't know me,” Gerard says. “I could be a demon disguised as a man, with only your seduction in mind.” It is so close to the truth that he has no trouble saying it with a straight face.
Frank throws his head back and laughs.
Gerard mock-pouts. “I could be.”
“Then seduce me,” Frank says, leaning his head back and giving Gerard a look of challenge.
It is too much to resist. Desire and bloodlust are burning through Gerard's veins, and he gives in. He leans forward and presses his lips to Frank's, hard and this side short of brutal.
Frank gives a short cry of surprise which Gerard muffles with his mouth. Frank tastes sweet and innocent, as if he's never been kissed before. For all Gerard knows, he hasn't.
Gerard licks into Frank's mouth, tasting more of him. He keeps his fangs back even though it's difficult. He doesn't want to put Frank under his thrall yet, wants all his reactions to be genuine.
Moaning, Frank melts into the kiss. He isn't shy about wrapping his arms around Gerard's shoulders and pulling him closer. Gerard presses him back against the tree and kisses him harder, nipping his lips with his blunt teeth.
“Please,” Frank whispers. Gerard can feel the barely leashed desperation in the tenseness of his muscles and the slight tremor of his limbs. If Gerard were not there to help him stay up, if the tree had not been behind him, Frank would have fallen into a pile on the ground.
The further Gerard goes with his kiss, the more confused he becomes. Frank is as eager as an experienced man, and yet his surprised reactions peg him as a virgin. Gerard pulls away and looks into Frank's half-lidded eyes, searching for the truth.
Don't stop...please don't stop...
“Have you ever done this before?” Gerard asks softly.
Frank snorts. When would I have? “Dozens of times,” Frank lies, and tries pulling Gerard back to him.
Gerard smiles a little, reading images and want in Frank's mind. The young man is starved for affection, a virgin, but ready and eager for so much more. Gerard is almost tempted to steal him away for keeps. His enthusiasm is contagious, and Gerard kisses him again, letting his hands move down the lines of Frank's body. He's almost too thin, and his skin is even paler in the moonlight as Gerard lifts his shirt away from his breeches.
But Frank's skin is hot and smooth beneath Gerard's hands, and Frank gasps loudly at the touch.
“Come home with me,” Gerard says suddenly, not wanting to take Frank's virginity against a tree.
Frank clings to Gerard's shoulders and nods quickly. “To stay?”
Gerard would, if he had plans to leave London anytime soon. But it would not do to kidnap the protected son of a wealthy family, not if Gerard wanted to stay inconspicuous.
“Just for the night,” Gerard says.
Frank sighs and pulls in on himself, but he doesn't let go of Gerard. “All right. I'll come with you. Quickly, before my family realizes I'm not in my chambers.”
It is almost impossible the way a voice rings out in the night, “Francesco!” at that same moment.
Frank cringes. “My mother,” he explains.
“You could go back inside,” Gerard says.
“No!” Frank says. He shakes his head jerkily. “Please, take me away.”
Gerard could carry Frank away faster than the speed of sound, to anywhere in the world. He has one wild thought that he should, but then he extinguishes it. He will take Frank to his townhouse in Mayfair, and bring him back here before the dawn. It is late already; they haven't many hours.
“Close your eyes,” Gerard says, and pulls Frank against his chest. Then he runs.
The garden blurs for a moment, and then he is running into backyards and streets so fast that no one, if they were watching, could see them.
He doesn't stop until they are on his front stoop.
Frank sways on his feet when Gerard lets go of him, his eyes unfocused. “You- you did that.”
Gerard is set to thrall Frank a bit, to make him forget, but then Frank looks up at Gerard with awe and no fear at all.
“I did,” Gerard says hesitantly. He unlocks his door and allows Frank to walk inside.
It's dark in the foyer, but a small fire is burning in the grate in the grand room, and Frank follows the glow of light into the room. He looks around in the dimness and shakes his head. “You have no furniture?”
“Just what came with the house,” Gerard says. “And a bed. I don't entertain often.” Or at all, he means to say, but Frank is watching him again and the words stick in his throat.
“Take me to bed?” Frank asks, sounding not the least bit timid.
“You're rather bold,” Gerard says with a smile.
A look he can't decipher flits over Frank's face. “I am. I don't mean to be.”
Gerard frowns. “It is not a bad thing.”
Frank's face nearly looks as if it might break, he is smiling so hard. “Then take me to bed,” he says again, and moves into Gerard's arms.
Gerard takes his hand and pulls him toward the stairs, though he would have rather carried him. He does not want to show his supernatural strength any more than he already has, however. He's revealed far too much with their almost-flight to the house.
On the bed, Frank stretches out, and Gerard sits on the side and removes his boots. He could have done it much faster, but he needs space to think.
There is something off about Frank, about the way he is partitioned from the world by his family. There is something Gerard is not getting, something big. It is in Frank's laugh and the eager gleam in his eyes, but Gerard can't quite grasp the meaning.
In time, he tells himself, it will make sense to him. Perhaps it has been too long since he has been close to a human.
That thought brings him up short, and he pauses in unlacing his boot. Close to a human? Is that what this is? What is he doing, what is possessing him to-
“Don't stop,” Frank says, cutting in on Gerard's thoughts. Then, more hesitantly, “Or are you having second thoughts?”
Gerard yanks the boot off and covers Frank's body with his own, swift and absolutely sure in his movements. “Never that,” he says, and kisses Frank until the human is breathless and pressing back up against him.
His eyes are large in the dark, nearly black, though Gerard can see the hint of hazel around the dilated pupils. Frank tugs at Gerard's coat and says, “I thought the point of this is to get naked.”
Gerard laughs. “Not the point, but losing our clothes is a step to take.” He loosens his cravat and unbuttons his waistcoat, shedding the so popular layers of clothing. It took him time to master the art of undressing in these clothes, but he has it firmly down now. Soon, he is hovering over Frank in nothing but his breeches, his fingers moving to help Frank undress as well.
Frank's clothes are not as fancy or as intricate as Gerard's, but then he wasn't dressed for the party. It is easier to strip Frank than it was himself, and then Frank is lying under him completely nude.
“Just a moment,” Gerard says, and gets up, padding over on bare feet to one of the windows. He pushes back the heavy velvet drapes so the moonlight can stream in, giving Frank's pale skin a bluish glow.
He is beautiful. Too thin, too pale? Gerard had been wrong when he thought that of Frank. Now, though, he can see that Frank is put together in perfect form.
“I would like to paint you someday,” Gerard says, watching as Frank slides out of his breeches.
Frank is watching him closely, able to see by the pale light of the full moon. “You're an artist?”
Gerard smiles and shrugs one bare shoulder. “I'm still learning.” He's been painting for only thirty years now.
“I'm sure you're brilliant at it,” Frank says earnestly. He holds out his hand and beckons Gerard closer.
Gerard moves onto the bed again and presses his body against Frank's hot skin.
“You're cold,” Frank whispers.
It is difficult not to blurt out all his secrets then and there. Gerard wants to explain, thinks Frank might accept him as he is, but he keeps quiet on the topic and says, “You'll warm me right up.”
Frank smiles and wraps his arms around Gerard, pulling him closer. “You could start a fire if you want. I'll still be here.”
“I don't want to wait any longer,” Gerard answers, and then kisses Frank until he tastes the coppery spark of blood on his tongue. “I'm sorry,” he says when he realizes his blunt teeth have torn into Frank's lips like fangs.
Frank is gasping, arching up against him. “Keep going,” he says, and bites back.
Gerard growls softly, his teeth elongating. Frank stares up at him, eyes flicking from his mouth to his eyes.
“You really are a demon,” Frank whispers, but there's not the slightest hint of fear in his eyes. Gerard presses into his mind, but all he hears is a rhythmic chant of desire.
“I won't hurt you,” Gerard says, surprising himself. “Not … not much.”
Frank reaches up and touches one fang with the pad of his index finger. Gerard's fangs are sharper than a barber's razor, and the tip of it cuts into Frank's fingertip. Slowly and deliberately, Gerard wraps his lips around the finger and sucks. A bead of blood smears against his tongue and the life of it makes him moan. Frank tastes like the static in the air during a lightning storm, only stronger. There is so much energy in one drop of his blood, thick and delicious.
Frank's breath is coming shallow and fast, and he breathes one word. “Vampyre.”
Gerard pulls back and watches him closely. “Yes. A vampire.”
And then Frank grins up at him, bright and excited. “Not a demon then,” he says, as if a vampire is the better choice of the two.
“No, although there are some who would call us such.”
“Are there a lot of you?” Frank asks. “Never mind, I don't want to know. I mean, I want to know, but not right now. Now I want you to kiss me again.”
Gerard shakes his head, confused by Frank's sudden changes in mood and subject. He feels off balance, almost dizzy from it. But he does as Frank suggests and kisses him again, this time more carefully, mindful of his fangs.
His teeth cut Frank's lips anyway, and more blood spills into Gerard's mouth. He can't help but moan at the taste, and Frank moans with him, wiggling beneath him as if searching for more.
Gerard knows that pain can be pleasurable, but he wants to be careful with this human. Give him too much, and he will be frightened. On any normal night, Gerard wouldn't care about scaring humans, or giving them a glimpse of the demon within. But with Frank he is thinking differently.
With Frank, his beast is chained. His touch is delicate. He does not grab and knead flesh as he would like, he does not bruise Frank's skin. His kisses are careful, a brush of lips over Frank's pale shoulder here, the trailing of his tongue across Frank's throat there. He does not rip into Frank's flesh with his fangs as his nature dictates – with Frank, he is like another person. Almost human.
Frank must feel it, because he says, “You don't have to reign yourself in like a tame pony.” Maybe it's the coiled strength he feels beneath his hands, or maybe it is the gleam in Gerard's now-red eyes.
“I don't want to hurt you,” Gerard admits. “I could so easily.”
Frank smiles and tilts his head, baring his throat. “I trust you.”
Gerard growls. He sniffs Frank's neck. The scent of blood is thick and powerful there. Carefully, he scrapes his fangs against Frank's skin, leaving behind twin scratches that bead wetly. He drags his tongue up slowly, gathering the blood on his tongue. Frank hisses and arches up beneath him.
“Please,” Frank says.
Gerard knows he can make it feel good. It would only take the merest suggestion mind to mind, and his bite would be absolute ecstasy. But for some unknown, allusive reason, he hesitates to put Frank under even the slightest hint of thrall. He does not want to cloud Frank's mind – he wants him as he is, every reaction new and fresh.
“It will hurt,” Gerard warns.
Frank swallows. Gerard watches his throat work, the way the skin bobs and smooths back normally again. He can hear Frank's heartbeat quicken and smell the sweet scent of fear for the first time. But still, despite the contained panic, Frank says, “I want it.”
“You are mad,” Gerard murmurs against Frank's skin. He rocks then, his cock hard and eager and pushing against his human's thigh.
“You would not be the first to call me so,” Frank says softly, a hitch to his voice that Gerard takes as more fear. “Drink me.”
Gerard growls again, pressing his tongue against Frank's strong, fast pulse. Frank slides his hand into Gerard's hair, tugging slightly.
“Not there,” Gerard says roughly, dragging his mouth to Frank's shoulder. “Here is safer.”
“Just do it,” Frank says impatiently.
And then Gerard does. He bites down slowly, his fangs piercing Frank's virgin skin with a pop before slicing down into the muscle. Frank cries out and tightens his hold on Gerard's head.
Gerard sucks once, and then blood pours into his mouth. It is beyond ecstasy; Frank is pure ambrosia. Gerard drinks slowly, swallowing only when he has to, not letting the blood pour down his throat but taking long sips to savor every mouthful. Frank tastes like a storm, thunder and lightning and fresh rainwater. Gerard could drown in Frank's blood, he knows, so he takes special care not to drink too much.
Frank moans and gasps and presses against Gerard eagerly, the pain in his shoulder somehow heightening his pleasure. Gerard is familiar with this, has felt it in the arms of Azrael. He knows well the sharp joy and desire experienced with this kind of pain. It makes him feel better, knowing he hasn't hurt Frank more than he can bear. No more than he likes.
Carefully, Gerard pulls his fangs from Frank's shoulder. A possessive, animal part of him wants to leave the marks there, but he heals them anyway, leaving no more than a large bruise that will fade in a few days.
Frank stares up at him, panting. “That was incredible.”
Shifting so that their cocks press together, Gerard smiles down at him. Frank's eyes go even darker and wider. Gerard leans down and flicks his tongue against Frank's swollen lower lip. “You are like nothing I have ever found.”
“How old are you?” Frank asks.
“I was twenty in sixteen sixty-five,” Gerard says. “And twenty forever after.”
“I must seem impossibly young to you,” Frank says. “I'm only eighteen.”
Gerard sucks Frank's lip into his mouth gently, then releases it. “When I first saw you, I thought you younger.”
Frank makes a face. “It's my size.”
“And your innocence,” Gerard says.
Rolling his eyes, Frank retorts, “I'm not as innocent as you think.”
Gerard wishes to argue with him, but time is short. Instead, he murmurs, “It isn't a bad thing.” He props himself up on one hand and squirms the other between them, wrapping his fingers around their cocks and stroking. The slide is slick with precome, and Frank lets out sound too soft to be a cry and too high to be a moan.
“I want... I want you to fuck me,” Frank says.
Gerard has never found vulgarity desirable, but the words ignite the spark of desire that's been burning inside him. His lust climbs high, and he finds himself pushing Frank down roughly on his stomach. He pauses then, aware he has nothing to lubricate the way. He has no need for creams and oils, although he makes a short note to himself to keep something on hand from now on.
Saliva will have to be enough. He slides down Frank's body and spreads his cheeks, then licks without waiting any longer. Frank makes a surprised noise and jerks, but Gerard pets his hip and says, “Relax.”
It takes effort to hide his fangs, but Gerard does. Frank relaxes and Gerard licks again, then presses his mouth closer and tongues Frank's hole. It opens after awhile, the tight bud giving way to Gerard's wet tongue, and Gerard slicks his finger with saliva and presses it inside, too.
“Oh, God,” Frank says, squirming against the sheets. His body is beautiful in the moonlight, smooth and perfect, and Gerard feels such affection for him that it nearly breaks his cold heart.
“Push back against me,” Gerard says, and Frank does.
Frank opens, and with a breath says, “Oh.”
He is so fresh and Gerard is reminded of his innocence, and knows in that moment that he will not take him with his cock this night. Not without something slicker paving the way. But Frank will come from Gerard's fingers, that he vows. He pushes in with another slick finger, tonguing as he does, and then crooks them unerringly against Frank's prostate.
Gerard remembers well the moment a prostitute showed him the wonder of his body, the way a good finger fucking could bring him to heights of pleasure unknown. He shows Frank in the same way now, pressing against the swollen nub, and Frank writhes and cries out, pushing back against his fingers greedily.
Frank swears, clutching the pillow in his arms, rocking back against Gerard's touch. Gerard keeps going, not needing to add another finger to bring Frank this kind of pleasure. Frank gasps and moans, the noises obscene and unashamed. Gerard bites Frank's ass with blunt teeth and sucks hard, a bruise blooming beneath his mouth. Frank whimpers and rocks, and Gerard thrusts his fingers harder inside him.
“Touch yourself,” Gerard says, already wrapping his own hand around his cock. He strokes himself leisurely, watching Frank with rapt attention.
“I'll finish,” Frank gasps, but he does as Gerard has ordered. He squeezes himself first, then begins to stroke in time with Gerard's short thrusts.
“I'll not take you this night,” Gerard says, trying to lessen Frank's disappointment by making his words soft and gentle.
“But I'm-” Frank says, but cuts himself off with a cry. Gerard pushes against his prostate harder, and Frank strokes himself faster.
“You're so beautiful,” Gerard says in wonder. He's never found a human to be so, not since his turning. But Frank is beautiful in the way Azrael is beautiful, whole and stunning.
Frank tenses and then he is coming, his cry broken and choked off.
Gerard strokes himself harder, watching Frank, and shifts positions so that he is kneeling over him. His fangs grow in his mouth as he nears his own orgasm, and then he is spurting out over Frank's skin, thick ropes of come that stripe his back and ass.
It satisfies Gerard that Frank is looking so utterly debauched. He even smells like Gerard's now. But Gerard sighs and fetches a clean cloth to wipe Frank's skin, pushing back the feral parts of himself.
Gerard can feel the dawn approaching. He has less than half an hour to get Frank dressed and back home, so he only spends a moment snuggled against his warmth. He kisses Frank's forehead and then his lips, and Frank kisses back lazily.
“Get dressed,” Gerard says, perhaps too abruptly. A sad look crosses Frank's face, and Gerard kisses him again. “I have to get you back before dawn.”
Frank dresses as Gerard does the same. Then Gerard gathers Frank into his arms and runs back, swift footed and sure.
He can feel the sun coming up, the time for sleep pulling at his body like a magnet. He leaves Frank at his back door with one last kiss, and Frank's broken, “Goodbye,” is felt more than heard.
Then Gerard is streaking across the city, back into his lair, as Azrael would call it. He has the presence of mind to pull the heavy drapes before collapsing onto the bed into the deep sleep of the undead.
*
Chaos comes the next night, and Gerard is forced to forget Frank for the time being.
He is leaving a gaming club when it happens. He hears the cries of a woman and the screams of an infant. As he looks up, he sees a man running toward a back alley with a baby in his arms. The woman – the child's mother, it seems – cries out again and again for help.
Gerard, being in a good mood and feeling charitable, follows the man and child into the alley.
Upon closer inspection, Gerard can see the man is fearful and thralled. He is dirty and unkempt, with bruises along his collar. When Gerard catches him and looks closer, he finds fang marks there. Whoever did this to the man – Laurence is the man's name, his mind fairly projects it – was not careful at all, and did not have the good sense to heal the human. Even the thrall is an abomination, only halfway done, looking to be a hasty job.
“Who did this to you?” Gerard demands, but Laurence only shakes. “Stay here. Do not move.” Gerard punctuates this with a push of his mind that is artful and not at all haphazard.
Gerard takes the baby and walks back to the howling woman. He walks more slowly than normal, and manags to slip away from her grateful tears after he gives the child back.
Back in the alley, Gerard shoves Laurence against the wall. “Now tell me,” he growls, showing his fangs.
“They'll kill me,” Laurence whispers, and then croaks as Gerard nearly crushes his windpipe beneath his palm. He tries to speak and Gerard backs off a bit. “Lilith and Cain! Them's their names.”
“Take me to them,” Gerard says, pushing his thrall on the man again.
The man's fear evaporates as the thrall overtakes him, and he leads Gerard through the back alleys.
It is on the East End that Gerard finds himself, and Laurence takes him into a large workhouse. There is the stench of unwashed masses here, although only a few humans are within sight. The ones he sees, however, are pale and riddled with bruises and bite marks. They cower against the walls when they see Gerard's fangs and red eyes, fear in their forms and – as Gerard can scent – in their blood. It is delicious to smell, and Gerard remembers that he has not fed yet this night. But he is curious, so he walks on.
He finds the two vampires – Lilith and Cain, as they are supposedly calling themselves – in a large room, probably meant to be a dining hall. Lilith's face is obscured by her dirty blonde hair, and Cain is rutting her from behind. On the table in front of them lies a corpse that has, from the stench in the room, begun to decay.
Gerard leans against the wall and watches them dispassionately. They are young, not even a year old. Fledglings playing at gods. He can see their lives clearly in the surroundings, and in their unprotected minds. They are drunk on blood, fear, and sex. Gerard has no use for such creatures.
He is, however, angry that they live so openly. It is unclear how many humans they keep, or have killed, or sent away without wiping their minds clean first. Azrael's teachings come back to Gerard, and he knows that these vampires are a danger to all of their kind.
Still, Gerard balks at the thought of killing them. He has never killed a vampire before. He knows how, Azrael made sure of that, but the idea of doing it is repugnant to him. Why, he doesn't know. Humans he has killed by the hundreds, and these two are closer to humans than vampires. They even still smell human, their age not yet mellowing their scent.
It is some time before one of them notices him. “Who're you?” Lilith asks blearily. “Think you want in on this?”
Cain looks up from the table and snarls. “He's not human,” he says.
He should have sensed Gerard the moment he stepped foot in his 'home'.
Lilith looks intrigued, but Cain positions himself in front of her possessively, growling low in his throat. He is nearly feral, Gerard thinks.
Only a show of strength will do.
Where is your sire? Gerard projects loudly. Cain, fool that he is, covers his ears.
Lilith steps away from him and comes closer. She walks like a common doxy, although Gerard can tell she's trying for grace and seduction. “Our sire is dead,” she says with a thick French accent. “Else she just abandoned us. Either way, we're orphans.” When she is just steps away from Gerard, she drops to her knees, her head bent. “Forgive us for interfering if we are overstepping our boundaries, Master. We did not know there was another of our kind in London.”
There are many of their kind here, Gerard thinks but does not say. He keeps that information to himself. He knows of three who are sleeping in crypts, waiting for a new age before they wake again. He knows of two who stalk the docks, and then one more who is like Gerard and prefers to prey on the haute monde. There are most likely others, as all the vampires Gerard has met keep their own company and do not proclaim themselves loudly as these two do.
“How long have you been here?” Gerard asks. He doesn't tell her to rise. He allows her to call him Master. Why not? They mean little. He pushes down the inner voice that tells him he enjoys the respect.
Cain quickly catches on and joins Lilith on the floor in front of him. “Forgive us, Master. We have only been in the city for a month. We come from Paris.”
Gerard's mind works furiously, and he recalls all of the customs and lore that Azrael taught him as if his lessons were the day before. “I am the Master of London,” he says, both appalled and sure of himself at the same time. “You survive on my goodwill.”
As one, the fledglings bow their heads and murmur, “Yes, Master.”
Gerard has the insane urge to laugh. He is overwhelmed, unable to turn back now, and has gotten himself into this all by himself. He must deal with the consequences.
*
The first thing he does is order the fledglings to clean up the mess they've made in the workhouse while Gerard heals and wipes the minds of the half-thralled humans. There are many of them, upstairs, downstairs, and milling about in the alleys nearby. It takes much from him, mentally and physically. When he is finished, he returns to Mayfair and sleeps for a week.
And in only a week, Lilith and Cain have changed vampiric London.
When Gerard returns to the workhouse, he finds proper thralls – not the fledglings work. He senses the other vampire before he sees him, and turns toward the feeling.
“Robert,” Gerard says. The other vampire walks closer, inclining his head. Gerard can see his blond hair and blue eyes now, the swarthy build of him.
“Master,” the other vampire says in greeting.
Gerard laughs. He can't help but do so. He has met Robert on occasion, usually near the docks where he would pose as a worker before preying on the criminals who roamed there. Robert has always called him 'Gee' before, as if to a child. Robert is older than Gerard by a century or so.
“What brings you here?” Gerard asks.
“I heard you declared yourself Master, and I had to see it for myself. I never would've thought you would do so.”
“I never thought I would, either,” Gerard admits. Robert leads him into the dining hall, which is clean now and fitted with low chairs and pillows, with a higher chair – a throne, he thinks hysterically – at its center.
“It is the time. My sire versed me well on lore and custom,” Robert says.
“But you are older,” Gerard says. “Except for the sleeping ones, you are the eldest in the city.”
“I will submit to you,” Robert says simply. “I don't want the responsibility, and I know you well enough to understand you will do your best at ruling.”
Gerard sighs and plops down into the highest chair. It is comfortable, at least. “I don't know what made me say it,” he says. “Lilith and Cain are just so wild and...”
Robert nods. “They are in need of a sire,” he says seriously.
“Not me,” Gerard says. “I have never made a childe before, let alone adopted.”
“They will still look to you for guidance. You may as well take them on,” Robert says.
“Robert...”
“Call me Bob, if you like,” Robert says.
Gerard peers at him, wondering at the familiarity.
“I'm not just trying to get in good with you,” Bob says, and Gerard realizes he's read his mind.
Quickly shielding – he hasn't had to do so in some time – Gerard smiles. “You don't feel angry that I've proclaimed myself Master?”
Bob shakes his head and sits in a low chair at Gerard's side. Gerard realizes it's the position of his right hand, where the favored of the court would sit. Whether it's intentional or just the most convenient seat he doesn't know. Bob looks up at him, blue eyes gleaming. “I've always loved the lore. Ruling isn't for me, but I could help you. My sire taught me the old ways, and you can always come to me if there is a problem.”
“Right now I'm not ruling, I'm controlling the damage those two have caused,” Gerard says.
“But you will rule,” Bob says. “And I want to be at your side as you do. I want to see the old customs brought to life.”
“I only know the lore my sire taught me,” Gerard says, “and I'm sure he did not teach me everything.”
“Brigh prepared me well,” Bob says, revealing the name of his own sire.
The name is familiar. Azrael spoke once of the kings and queens of the Isles, and Brigh came up in discussion of Ireland's court, before it was called Ireland. Brigh – if he is the same immortal – must be rather ancient. It is no wonder that Bob smells as good as he does. With the blood of an ancient in his veins, he is a powerful vampire in his own right.
Then again, so is Gerard, although he still feels like a green boy at times – times like this, when he is out of his element and searching for the clues to what he must do.
Gerard drops his hand to Bob's head, touching his hair gently. It is a gesture of affection more than custom, but he knows Bob will not take it as such. Bob will translate the touch as both respect and a showing of power. Bob's power, now, is nearly absolute.
“What do you think of 'The Black Court'?” Gerard asks.
Bob chuckles. “It sounds suitably sinister, Master.”
Gerard makes a face. “I was trying for elegance. And you do not have to call me Master when we're alone, you know.”
“Even our whispers will carry now,” Bob says sensibly. “I don't mind calling you by title. You have earned it.”
“Not yet, I haven't,” Gerard says.
“You've solved what would become a problem for all of London,” Bob points out. “You saved humans and vampires alike.”
“I care little for humans, except that they might strike out against us if they knew of our existence,” Gerard says. But a twinge in his heart reminds him of Frank, and he knows he must find him again.
“I have a human lover, Master,” Bob says slowly. “I ask permission to bring her into the Court.”
Gerard sighs. There will always be complications, he knows. It is his job now to smooth the way for such alliances, to bring in humans and vampires alike into the court. Still, thralls were so much easier. “How much does she know?”
“Some of the lore,” Bob says. “Enough to get by when we are first starting, and she will learn quickly. She is a member of the ton.”
A society lady would know how to fit in with the upper crust, which is – for all purposes, at least – just what Gerard is creating. There are other blood customs of course, but someone used to moving in the circles of high society would have no problems adjusting to the rules.
“Have you claimed her?” Gerard asks. He himself has never claimed a human, although he came close with Frank. If he hadn't healed him, if he had taken him, if he had-
“Yes. Ten years past,” Bob says.
Gerard smiles a bit. She must enjoy looking ten years younger than she is. “What is her name?”
“Catherine, although she allows me to call her Cathy,” Bob says.
“Bring her tomorrow night,” Gerard orders easily. Bob inclines his head in obedience.
“You must think of taking a consort as well,” Bob says. “It will be expected of you.”
Gerard sighs, and again his mind is on Frank. “There is a human. He is not in the city, however.” Frank said his family was retiring to the country, and Gerard knows he must find their country home and find Frank again. He's not sure if his infatuation with this human will lead to more, whether he will claim the young man or not, and bringing him into a vampire court could be disastrous. Gerard hardly knows him, after all.
“Bring him back,” Bob says simply. He has an answer to everything.
Gerard calls the fledglings into the room and they bow before him, their heads nearly touching the floor as they do. They've cleaned themselves up and smell much better than they did the first time Gerard met them.
“Cain, come closer,” Gerard orders, and then he begins to teach him the proper way to thrall a human.
Cain is abysmal at it, but so was Gerard when he first started. The mind arts are learned over a long period of time. One day, Cain and Lilith will be proper vampires. For now, Gerard will guide them as best he can, patiently teaching them how to use their minds and bodies to gain control of humans and leave little mess for Gerard to clean up.
Lilith is a little better at thralling, and Gerard sends Bob out to gather a human from the streets for her to experiment on.
The fledglings learn where and how to bite to make it safer for the humans, and how to heal the marks they leave. When they are done, the human Bob brought is screaming in fear. Gerard watches her impassively before pushing into her mind and making her forget. She leaves in a fog, thinking she had a pleasant – yet slightly violent – tumble.
“Thank you,” Cain says. “Thank you for teaching us, Master.”
Lilith bobs her head and thanks him, too. They aren't bad, Gerard realizes, just untaught and needing to be led.
He shares a look with Bob and opens his mind to him. I'm not adopting them, though.
Bob smiles slightly and his amusement dances around his mind. 'Course not.
Gerard scowls and shields his mind again. He looks at his fledglings and says, “I want you to do something for me.”
*
It does not take much in the way of mind arts to convince a servant to talk. Servants know everything, and the information Gerard wants would not be a closely guarded secret.
When Lilith and Cain return, they are thrilled to report just what Gerard has asked for – the location of the Iero country home.
Gerard nods to them and tells them they have done well. The fledglings are eager to do more for him, but he sends him instead to bring back four humans to serve as thralls. Fresh humans, he is of mind enough to ask for. It would not do to have half-mad servants. He gives Cain and Lilith some coin and tells them to lead the humans to the house with the promise of meals and a clean space to sleep in return for a little work.
He leaves then, entrusting Bob to carry on in his stead.
It would take much time for humans to travel over a hundred miles from London to Derbyshire, but Gerard is faster than the sunrise. With rain on his face, he reaches the Ieros' country home in less than half an hour.
He surveys the home before knocking at the door, and a servant takes in his wet clothing and lack of carriage before bidding him to wait in the foyer. Gerard snorts inelegantly; if the Ieros knew who was calling, they would have him wait in the salon, at the very least, while the servants drew up a hot bath for him and made ready a warm bed.
The Contessa greets him within moments of hearing his name. She offers him a seat in front of the fire and declares him soaked through.
Gerard smiles at her and takes the towel a servant offers. “I am here to meet with your son, Frank.”
Contessa Iero stiffens as though he has struck her. Looking closely at her, Gerard sees she is looking worn, and there are deep purple bruises under her eyes. He can fairly taste her lack of sleep.
“Francesco has gone on his Grand Tour,” she says after a moment, but Gerard can smell her lie. It is mixed with the scent of fear, such fear and revulsion. Not toward himself, he senses, but towards Frank.
Gerard will rescue Frank from this woman.
“Take me to his room,” Gerard says.
“He is not here,” the Contessa answers. “He has gone away.”
Gerard does not doubt that Frank would run away. But still, he feels he must see. He pushes his mind at the woman and orders again, “Take me to his room.”
Stiffly, she rises. She takes a candle in her hand – which is odd, for the house is well lit. She climbs the stairs, then leads Gerard to the east wing, then up yet another set of stairs. It is dark here, and secluded.
She is leading him to Frank's prison, Gerard realizes.
There is a key around her neck, and the Contessa uses it to unlock a heavy wooden door at the top of the narrow stairs.
“You've kept him in the attic?” Gerard asks evenly. His fangs drop and he pushes his will on the woman more thoroughly.
The Contessa, under his thrall, answers simply, “It was for the best.”
The room is large, but there is only a small mattress on the floor. There are no bedclothes. The room is mostly empty. Gerard can smell Frank here, but also the scent of frustration and loneliness.
There are marks on the walls. Gerard smells them rather than sees them at first, and when he steps closer to get a better look, he sees there are words written there in blood.
“He is mad,” the Contessa says.
“Anyone would go mad in prison,” Gerard says sharply, and she rocks back as if slapped.
“We cared for him as best we could. As a boy, he was so high spirited, but he never...” She trails off, as if unable to explain this away.
“He never calmed down, is that it?” Gerard says. He reads the markings on the wall, the words of pain and hate. Together, the words make a story, an urge to kill and to die.
“His moods...”
Gerard remembers the childlike enthusiasm and the lightning fast changes in Frank's mood. He remembers Frank's eyes, so wide and wanting.
“If he is mad, it is because you did this to him,” Gerard says.
She is not good enough to feed from. He hates now that his mind is touching hers so intimately. He wraps his hand around her throat and stares into her eyes, searching hard for Frank's location...
...and reels back in disgust.
Bedlam.
It is so easy to break the Contessa's neck. Humans are fragile, their bones easily broken. He takes her candle from her limp hand and throws her body down the stairs. He watches her tumble down into the darkness.
He wants the whole house to burn. He wants the attic room to go up in flames. So he sets fire to the mattress, to the clothes that are strewn on the floor, until the thin rugs catch flame and begin to burn.
He walks through the house, killing every human who comes into sight and setting fire to whatever will burn.
His rage is so great that he does not know what he is doing until he stands outside the burning country home of the Ieros. The flames engulf the house despite the light rain that still falls.
He must get to Frank, he realizes, and that thought brings him back to himself.
He runs.
South London is where the New Bethlem Hospital resides, but Gerard has never been there before. The whispers of stories are horrible enough that Gerard has not needed to see it for himself.
Bedlam has no glass in the windows, and Gerard crawls inside easily. There is a stench of urine and hopelessness here, and Gerard has to concentrate on finding Frank or he will burn this place, as well.
He also smells the scent of opium – laudanum, most likely – given to control the patients. Gerard stalks the corridors, going from room to room, until someone says, “Hey, there! What are you doing out of bed?”
Gerard lifts him by the throat. The human's feet dangle above the floor. Gerard stares at him with red eyes and commands him to speak, although the man is nearly strangled.
“Where is Frank Iero?”
The man chokes out, “I don't know!”
Gerard pushes deep into the man's memories, past the unimportant, until he gets a good idea of the layout of the building. He sees the faces of patients, but they are all nameless to the human. Gerard pushes harder, until he finds Frank's face. He is appalled at the condition Frank is in, but he finds the place he is held in the human's mind.
Gerard pulls back viciously, uncaring that he's just made the human mad. It serves him right, Gerard thinks, after viewing some of the atrocities the man has visited on the patients here. The beatings are the least of his crimes.
He leaves the man lying blank-faced in the corridor and heads to Frank's room. The room is locked, but Gerard rips the door from its hinges and steps inside.
Frank lies staring into the darkness, his eyes half-lidded and drugged. Thick leather belts restrain him, keeping him from moving from the bed. Not that he could after being drugged so thoroughly, Gerard thinks.
Careful not to hurt Frank, Gerard removes the leather bands that hold him in place. Frank looks awful. His beautiful hair has been cut short against his scalp in a haphazard way, and he is sporting a full weeks growth of whiskers. His skin is a deathly mask of white. He does not focus on anything, does not seem to even recognize that someone else is in the room with him.
Gerard gathers Frank against his chest and carries him out into the night. His memories of caring for Michael come back to him, along with the ache of his loss. He will not lose Frank. He doesn't know if he's been given an overdose of laudanum, if he will die from it or not. He knows only that if it comes down to it, Gerard will turn Frank to keep that from happening.
Frank's breathing is shallow as Gerard lays him in his bed. Gerard runs a hand over his shorn hair and whispers, “I'll be back.”
He keeps his promise, returning quickly with Bob.
“Do you know what is to be done?” Gerard asks, sitting beside Frank on the bed and clutching his shoulder.
“The drug is poisoning him,” Bob says, staring at Frank. “I can smell it.”
“So can I,” Gerard murmurs, realizing it now. It is why he has been so afraid for Frank.
“Your blood will flush it out of him,” Bob says.
“Will it be enough?” Gerard asks.
Bob flicks his eyes to Gerard and back again to Frank. “It should be. His mind may not recover, though. Not from being in that place.”
Gerard swallows hard, wishing he had the Contessa in front of him again. He would torture her this time, the way she tortured Frank.
“It was only a week or so,” Gerard says.
“That will help,” Bob says. He looks at him again and frowns. “You have done too much tonight.”
It is true. Gerard has used most of his powers freely this night, and his mind and body are weary. He's afraid to sleep, however, not knowing how long or when he will wake. Frank needs him.
“Give him your blood, and then I will care for him. You need to rest,” Bob says.
Gerard wants to argue, but he knows Bob is right. And he trusts him to look after Frank while he sleeps.
He leans over Frank and slices into his wrist with his fangs. Blood comes from the wound and Gerard lets it pour into Frank's mouth.
“Not too much,” Bob murmurs, and Gerard pulls his arm away.
“Swallow,” Gerard whispers to Frank, stroking his throat. Frank does after several long moments. Gerard watches the wound heal, and then he lies down beside Frank, wrapping his arms around him and listening to his heartbeat.
He's never felt for a human before, not since Michael. Maybe he's softening in his old age, Gerard thinks as he drifts off into a deep sleep.
*
Gerard feels Frank's gaze before he opens his eyes. When he does, he sees Frank – cleaned up and shaved, his haircut more even. Bob has done well taking care of him.
“Frank,” Gerard says, reaching out. Frank allows Gerard to touch him, but doesn't touch back. He looks somber and still in the bed beside Gerard, unlike himself. Gerard asks, “How long have I been sleeping?”
“Four days,” Frank says.
“Why are you here in bed? Are you not well?” If Frank requires more blood...
“I didn't want to leave you,” Frank says.
Gerard smiles and cups Frank's smooth cheek. “Thank you,” he says, “but you didn't have to do that.”
“I wanted to,” Frank says simply. He still does not smile. “I thought maybe I'd imagined you. Then I woke up here beside you and I knew I hadn't.”
“I'm sorry you had to go... where you were sent,” Gerard says. “I would not have allowed it if I knew.”
“I knew,” Frank whispers. “I heard them talking. My parents. I knew they would send me to that place soon.”
“Why didn't you tell me?” Gerard asks, trying to keep his voice soft. He is angry, though, angry with the Ieros and angry with Frank for keeping this from him.
Frank does not answer. Instead he says, “Bob said you gave me your blood.”
Gerard nods.
“I can feel it, I think,” Frank says, stretching out more on the sheets. For the first time, Gerard sees that he is naked. They both are.
“What does it feel like?” Gerard asks.
“Strength,” Frank answers. “Commitment.”
Gerard shivers even though he is not cold. Frank pulls the coverlet up over them anyway.
“Bob told me about the court,” Frank says. “I don't understand everything, but... you are important. Why would you bother with me?”
Gerard shakes his head. He doesn't know. “You are... different,” he tries to explain. “I have never been drawn to a human before.”
“Humans can't be that different from vampires,” Frank says naively.
“We are,” Gerard says. He runs his hand over Frank's short hair and sighs. “How are you feeling?”
“Strong,” Frank says. “But I don't feel like myself.”
It will take some time for his emotional wounds to heal, Gerard thinks. He is a human with a human's fragile mind. Gerard wants to protect him, to keep him close. He will. He pulls Frank against his chest and kisses his forehead. “You need time.”
Frank sounds like a broken child when he whispers against Gerard's skin, “Promise me you won't send me back there?”
Fervently, Gerard whispers, “I would never do such a thing.”
*
Bob has made living quarters in the old workhouse. The inside of the house is beginning to look grand. The outside is still appalling, but that is the way Gerard wants it.
Catherine, Bob's human, comes to show her respect to Gerard. She is tall and stately, moving towards him gracefully. Her dress is of the finest silk, deep blue to match her eyes, with a scooped neckline that shows off the silvery scars on her neck.
“I submit to you, Master Gerard,” she says with an elegant curtsy. Bob looks on with pride and love in his eyes.
“You are welcome in my court,” Gerard answers. He does not have to add, “As my right hand's companion,” but he does, elevating both her and Bob in the eyes of the onlookers.
Catherine keeps her eyes down until Gerard bids her to stand straight. He sends the others away so that it is only he, Bob, and Catherine in the room.
Bob relaxes but Catherine does not. Gerard touches her mind lightly, searching.
“You know I have no love for humans. Bob told you what I did to Frank's parents.” Frank does not know, and for this human to know... Gerard's fangs extend in his anger.
Catherine's eyes widen at the look in Gerard's eyes, and then she drops her head. “Please do not harm me.”
“Master,” Bob says, not sharp, but his mind touches Gerard's in warning.
Gerard takes a deep, unneeded breath. He clears his mind. “Lady, I do not wish to harm you. I would not, knowing what you mean to my friend.”
Bob's small startle is almost imperceptible as he reacts to the word. But Gerard doesn't take it back – Bob is Gerard's only friend. He is the one Gerard trusts with his life and with his court. He trusted Frank's life to Bob, even.
Catherine smiles, not knowing what is going on in Gerard's head but reacting to his words as well. “We do mean much to each other. There are centuries of love between us.”
She cannot be more than thirty years old, even with Bob's claim keeping her young. Gerard frowns. “How can that be?”
Bob speaks up. “We have known each other in three separate lives.”
It is like mad gibberish to Gerard, and his confusion must show on his face, because Catherine makes a small sound of understanding.
“You do not know of this,” she says.
Bob shakes his head. “But your sire is ancient, surely he would have told you.”
“Told me what?” Gerard asks. “Reincarnation is a myth.” The way God is a myth. Azrael taught me well.
Bob holds out his hand to Catherine and she joins him on Gerard's right side. Together they give Gerard a warm look.
“Not a myth,” Catherine says. “I remember my lives in dreams, and sometimes when I am awake.”
“She always has,” Bob says lovingly. It is odd to see the brusque vampire showing such emotion.
“This last time was harder for me to accept,” Catherine says. “At first I thought Bob a mad demon, until he shared his blood with me. Then I began to remember my lives before.”
Gerard shakes his head. When a human dies, it is the end of their life. That is all there is. They rot and become food for carrion and worms and beetles, they do not go on to a better place. He knows this with fervor. There are no waiting arms of angels, no singing choirs.
“If you look hard enough and live long enough, you find those you've known before,” Bob says.
Before, before, when he was human. His friends, lovers...
“I don't believe you,” Gerard says. “I have no memory of any lives before this one. Not other than my human one.”
“Bob can help you remember,” Catherine suggests softly.
It is too much, too fast. It makes no sense to him. If it is true, Azrael would have known, wouldn't he? He was ancient and held much knowledge, surely if this were true he would have shared it with Gerard.
“I don't want to remember,” Gerard says. He does not want to think of humans having these kinds of lives, of living and then living again. It would make their spirits immortal, and that is too precious to ignore. Gerard cares none for humans, but if... if...
He tries to push the thoughts away. There are too many crowding his mind. He has a court to see to, a human to protect, and an immortal life of his own to lead.
Bob and Catherine say nothing more. They watch him, though.
He is a coward, he thinks as he stands. Nothing but a coward, he knows as he runs away.
*
Frank is sitting by a chair, staring out into the night. Gerard must appear out of nowhere to him, but he doesn't startle. He turns and looks at him with those large, hazel eyes and holds out his hand.
Gerard realizes he hasn't smiled since he found him. He wants to hear his laughter again, that high-pitched giggle that warms Gerard's cold heart.
He is cold, he knows. He kills without compunction. He killed Frank's parents, set fire to their house, and left a man in Bedlam with a torn mind. For no reason other than Gerard was angry. His anger is a dangerous thing. He must control it if he is to be fit to rule over London.
He must control it if he is to be a lover to a human.
“I could feel you coming,” Frank says, and Gerard realizes he hasn't yet taken his hand. Still, Frank holds it out.
Gerard moves and wraps his arms around him. He leans down and hides his face in Frank's neck.
“You are frightened,” Frank whispers.
Gerard's world has been turned on its ear. Everything he believes in has been questioned. He is scared as a human would be scared.
Humans and vampires are not so different, perhaps. This thought leaves Gerard shaking and clinging to Frank's warm body.
“Talk to me,” Frank says, running a hand down Gerard's back.
Gerard tugs Frank to the bed and lies down beside him. He memorizes Frank's face – the shape of his nose, the arch of his brows, the fullness of his lips. He drags their clothes from their bodies, wanting the intimacy of touch and heat.
“I was human once,” Gerard whispers. “And when I was a boy, I wanted to be a priest.”
For hours Gerard speaks, softly so that the words do not travel beyond the two of them, and Frank listens intently. Gerard talks of his faith, of the wonders of God and the ecstasy of loving Him. He talks of his lofty goals he had, to be a good man, to love humankind, to do what he could to ease suffering wherever he found it.
Hesitantly, his lips form the name of his brother.
Michael, he whispers, and it's been so long since he's uttered the name that his breath catches on the syllables. He says it again, soft and broken.
“I loved him more than anyone else,” Gerard whispers, then admits on one breath, “I loved him more than I loved God.” He swallows hard. He's never shared that secret with anyone, not even Azrael. The guilt he felt from that love in his lifetime was heavy, and after he stopped believing in a deity, the guilt still remained. Training and rhetoric, he explains, were oh so effective.
Saying, “He died in my arms,” seems so simple, betraying nothing of the pain of the actual memory. Still, wetness comes to Gerard's eyes. Centuries have done nothing to erase the loss. The empty space in his life where his brother once was is still painful. “He died and left me.”
Frank wipes away Gerard's tears and stays silent, waiting for him to continue.
Gerard goes on, telling Frank of his turning and of Azrael. It is easier after that, and the words come rushing out. He tells of his faith in God and humanity corroding, of Azrael's teachings filling up the empty places his faith left behind.
“But humans are not fully mortal, did you know?” Gerard asks bitterly. “They die and then they come to life again. Living... living through their mistakes and getting other chances to overcome their missteps.”
Frank shakes his head in disbelief. “Like in the Myth of Er?”
Gerard thinks of the stories he has heard, digging through his mind for glimpses of truth among the myths. There are whole religions that believed in reincarnation, he knows, and he wishes he knew more of them. This is something to explore. Because it means...
No, he won't even think it.
“Do you think you knew me before?” Frank asks. “I would like that.”
“I haven't associated with many humans,” Gerard says vaguely. “Only those I had to, to make my way in society, and to feed from.”
“You turned your back on us when you became a vampire,” Frank says. From someone else it would be an accusation, and Gerard feels it as such, but Frank's voice is just curious.
“You are not like other humans,” Gerard says, but he wonders if it's true.
“Maybe I'll get to show you that I am,” Frank murmurs. He cards his fingers through Gerard's hair. “I hate that I got a haircut.”
Gerard pulls back to look at Frank. His complexion is better, his eyes clear. Still, there is no humor there, no hint of what Frank was when they first met.
“It will grow,” Gerard says soothingly. His fingers touch Frank's hair softly. It is still as soft as silk despite its shortness.
Frank closes his eyes and leans into the touch. Gerard realizes that he could not have had much of this from his parents, and had never known a lover until Gerard. He is touch-starved, craving attention.
Frank sighs with pleasure. Gerard leans in and presses his lips to Frank's. “You're so beautiful,” Gerard breathes.
“Still?” Frank asks.
“Yes. Always.”
Frank finally smiles. The sight of it nearly breaks Gerard's heart. “Even when I'm old and gray?”
When Gerard claims Frank, he will live far past his life expectancy, growing older much more slowly. But if he turns him, he will stay young forever. Gerard is not sure yet whether he will make Frank his childe.
“Maybe not, huh?” Frank says, still smiling.
“I was just thinking,” Gerard says.
“Of what?” Frank asks, leaning in closer.
“Your smile, among other things,” Gerard says, and kisses him again softly.
“You make me happy,” Frank admits.
The small spark of fire in Gerard's heart grows, warming him. “You do the same to me.”
“Is this what love is?” Frank asks, looking excited.
And a cold brush of dread hits Gerard's mind. Frank does not know what Gerard has done to his parents or his home, does not know the viciousness inside of him.
But oh, Gerard wants Frank's love. He wants his devotion, his affection, everything Frank has to give.
“Perhaps,” Gerard says. “I've no experience with this.”
“What do you want from me?” Frank asks, stroking Gerard's arm absently. He seems to need to touch just as much as he needs to be touched.
“I want to claim you,” Gerard says. “To make you mine. I want...” He presses their foreheads together and whispers, “I want you to be my consort.”
“What does that mean?” Frank asks.
“You would be... like a husband to me. Companion and friend. My lover. My beloved. It would give you status. It is the highest a human can hope to be in a vampire court.”
Frank grins, showing his straight white teeth. “Why Gerard, are you proposing?”
Gerard can't help but smile back. “I suppose I am.”
“Bob told me of this claiming,” Frank says. “What it means. Not how you do it, though.”
The thought of claiming Frank as his own makes Gerard's fangs grow in his mouth. Frank watches them in fascination.
“I would bite you,” Gerard says, trailing his fingertips over the fragile skin of Frank's neck. “Mark you as mine.”
“You've done that before,” Frank says, frowning a bit.
“But I healed you that time. This time, there would be no healing, and you would scar.” Gerard ducks his head and presses a small, prickling kiss at the place where Frank's neck joins his shoulder.
Frank shivers. His heartbeat quickens.
“And I would take you,” Gerard whispers.
Frank moans. “You have not done that.”
“Not yet. But I will. And then, when you are spent, I will give you some of my blood, as an offering. And then I will take you again.”
“Please,” Frank says.
“You would have me now?” Gerard asks, surprised. He did not think Frank would be ready for sex so soon after his incarceration.
Frank's hands move restlessly over Gerard's body, fingers pressing into his skin. “I think it is you who will have me.”
Gerard kisses him hard, biting at his lips, tasting his blood. Frank hisses against Gerard's mouth and rolls, pulling Gerard on top of him.
“You will be mine,” Gerard growls, not caring how it sounds.
Frank doesn't seem to mind, though, because he moans loudly and says, “Yes.”
Gerard is not as careful this time around. This is a claiming, and by nature it has to be brutal. But still there is a tenderness to it; Gerard is tempered in his actions by his feelings for Frank. He wants to possess him, yes, but he also wants to bring him as much pleasure as possible.
Frank cries out when Gerard's fangs slice into his neck. Gerard drinks, moaning at the taste of vitality. It isn't quite the sharp tang of energy he remembers, but it is close. It is Frank.
Gerard licks the skin but does not heal it. The twin holes bleed sluggishly down into the sheets.
“Please, Gerard,” Frank says, squirming beneath him for friction. Gerard can feel his cock, hot and hard against his skin. He is leaking already, eager to be taken.
There is oil in the bedside table. Gerard purchased it the night after they met.
But that night is gone, and this night is upon them. Gerard gets the oil and slicks his fingers.
The fire is still burning in the hearth, and Frank's skin looks beautiful in the flickering light. Will Gerard ever get used to his beauty? Perhaps one day, but not now.
Frank remembers to push back against the intrusion, and Gerard's oiled fingers press inside him, stretching and taking and claiming.
Gerard takes his time, although he is as eager as a green boy to have his human. He growls at the noises Frank makes, low and lust-filled. He wants to hear more, so he crooks his fingers and presses against Frank's prostate.
Frank arches off the bed with a cry and then rocks back onto the fingers. His hands grip the sheets as he gasps out his pleasure.
When he is prepared, Gerard moves into position. He teases himself and Frank by just rubbing over Frank's hole with the tip of his cock, until Frank makes a noise of protest and begins to beg.
“Please, Gerard, please fuck me,” he says. Gerard is unused to such straightforward words, but he grips Frank's hips and obliges him.
The first thrust should have been slow, but this is a claiming, and Gerard must take Frank as his feral demands. Gerard pushes in fast, all at once, until he's buried deep inside Frank's body. He feels amazing: tight, grasping heat.
Frank gives a choked cry and his hands scramble to grab onto Gerard's shoulders. Gerard grips his hips bruisingly hard and thrusts in again and again, until Frank is rocking back, giving up his body completely. He stares up into Gerard's face, moaning obscenely. His eyes are wide and dark, full of wonder and lust.
It has been too long since Gerard has taken someone in this way, and his orgasm is approaching quickly. He wraps a hand around Frank's cock and strokes him fast and hard, nearly forcing Frank to come. He could, with his mind, but he wants it this way. Wants all of Frank's natural reactions.
Frank cries out and begs brokenly, “Please...”
“Come for me,” Gerard growls, thrusting hard inside him.
Frank comes, clenching around Gerard, and that sends Gerard spiraling out of control. He snarls and pounds inside him, then stills as his own orgasm overtakes him.
Gerard takes little time to recover. He bites into his wrist and offers it to Frank, who takes it without question. “Just a swallow,” Gerard murmurs, and takes it back as soon as Frank has obeyed.
Frank's body goes rigid as the blood hits his system. He has already taken Gerard's blood before, and Gerard's not sure if this has any bearing. He knows it's not enough blood to turn Frank, but it will probably bind them together more closely than other claimed/vampire couples. Gerard doesn't mind that possibility.
Gerard lies on his back and waits for the blood to take effect. It does quickly, and Frank is crawling on top of him for more in a matter of minutes.
“So eager,” Gerard teases, but his own cock is already hardening again.
Frank tries a different position, moving until it feels natural, then takes Gerard's cock in his hand, lines up, and sinks down on it. Gerard groans and places his hands over the bruises on Frank's hips, pressing down a little with his fingertips. The pain causes pleasure, and Frank moans loudly. Then he begins to ride.
Gerard leans up for a kiss, and Frank takes his mouth with his own, kissing back desperately. Frank rises and falls, taking Gerard as deep as he can before lifting up and then doing it again. He clenches around Gerard when he finds that makes him growl, and soon Gerard is lifting him and pulling him back down on his cock fast and hard.
It's too much, but it's not enough. Gerard needs more, so he pushes Frank over onto his back and begins to pound inside him, relentless and seemingly insatiable. Frank cries out in pleasure as Gerard's cock thrusts against his prostate. It isn't part of the claiming, but Gerard leans forward and bites Frank again – in the shoulder, this time – and pulls blood into his mouth. Sex, blood, power: these are the things a vampire craves, and Frank is giving him all three.
Gerard fucks him unyieldingly, until Frank cries out and comes again. Gerard snarls and fucks him harder, until the headboard makes a hole in the plaster.
When he comes, his orgasm is so strong he blacks out.
*
Part Two