Please note the new warnings for Part Two of this story.
















If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness.
Job 17:13










Chapter Twenty-Eight




He awoke in a dark, closed space. Flat on his back, his arms crossed over his chest, he could feel something beneath him, something lumpy. It was not soft and yet not altogether hard. But it was unyielding. Uncomfortable. The entire place was uncomfortable. It smelled odd, thick with the odors of pinesap and of earth, of staleness and something else, something familiar he could not quite identify. Whatever it was, it was not a pleasant smell. It was black as pitch, and he could not see at all.

William started to rise, eager to leave that foul, claustrophobic place and to find some fresh air. Yet when he tried, he realized that he could not sit up. There was a roof over his head, a roof so low that sitting up was impossible. In fact, when he put his hand to it, he realized there was little more than a four-inch gap between his face and the lid of the box in which he now resided. Because it was a box, he realized. A box made out of roughly hewn pine slabs that did not quite fit flush, so that there were narrow gaps between some of the boards.

His fingers probed the walls around him, and it did not take him long to realize the box was not just a box at all. It was a coffin. And the lumpy thing that his body rested on was the corpse of another man. Although not long dead—certainly not more than a few days into its decline—already, the body was becoming sweet with imminent decay. When William’s prodding fingers found the hand of the dead man, the flesh of it felt moist and soft. It peeled a little beneath the pressure of his fingertips. That was when shock ended, and he fully grasped the horror of his situation.

Panic overwhelmed him, an almost animal fear of death and of entrapment. He screamed senselessly, and his hands thrust up, palms pounding against the lid of the coffin. Dirt drifted down between the cracks in the boards, sifting a fine powder onto his face. It only served to increase his terror, and he pounded harder.

Fortunately, the coffin seemed to be of the cheap, Potter’s field variety. At any rate, the thin pine boards splintered easily beneath the abuse of his hands. Then, earth poured down onto his face, into his opened, screaming mouth. He clawed at the dirt with hands and feet, pushing his way through it, so, to anyone watching, it would have appeared that the very earth was giving birth to him. A fledgling bird plunging out of its shell and into the world.

He forced his way out into the blessed, fresh air of an early spring night. He threw himself onto the damp grass beside the grave, gasping and laughing at his triumph, half-sobbing from the terror. His lungs hurt with each breath, as if, during his time underground, they had become unaccustomed to the effort. Oddly, it seemed almost as if he must remind himself to breathe, as if he must force it. He attributed this to his fright and pushed it to the back of his mind. Rolling onto his back, he stared up at the starry sky, panting.

Try as he might, he could not quite wrap his dizzied mind around what had happened. The last thing he could remember, before waking up in the coffin, was sitting in an alley, weeping. For her, of course. It was for her. Even now, despite his shock and apprehension, his heart ached for her. His love. His poor lost love. He lived for her; he would have died for her—

Had he almost died for her?

His fingertips pressed more firmly into the cool grass, but he could not banish the thought. Had he tried to do away with himself…because of her? It made sense. He had felt like dying when he realized she was gone. He still felt like dying. Even now, in the wake of his struggle for survival, the emergence from the grave, he would happily have laid down his life if it meant the hereafter spent with her. Perhaps, he had tried to end his life in that alley. Perhaps, they had found him and assumed him dead. There had been a funeral. They brought him here and—

Buried him in a casket on top of another body? No, that was absurd. Anyway, he did not remember trying to do himself harm in the alley. He did not remember much of anything except the feeling of despair, the chill wind and dampness. No. That was not entirely true. There was something else, an approaching figure in the darkness. However, it was very hazy, and his memory could not quite summon the details of the figure, whether it was male or female, young or old. Only a shadow and the sound of footsteps on cobblestone.

He licked his lips and closed his eyes, trying to force the memory into the forefront of his mind. It did not work. The picture behind his eyelids was not of some shadowy, malevolent stranger. Instead, he saw Elizabeth. His beautiful Elizabeth smiling at him, her eyes green as foreign seas, her long hair the color of honey.

You have me, William. He could still hear her saying it.

“But I don’t,” he whispered, wretchedly. “I never will again.”

Once again, despair threatened to overtake him. Possibly it would have, had there not been the smallest sound to distract him. Near to his supine figure, a woman sat, leaning against a tree. She had been sitting there and watching him for some time, yet she had not made her presence known, nor had William taken note of her. Not until now, when she suddenly laughed in a quiet, pleased sort of way.

“I knew you would come this night,” she said.

Her soft, east London accent was vaguely familiar to him, like a voice from a dream. William rose up on his elbows and looked over, but she was little more than an inky shadow beneath the tree. Another, larger shadow lay at her feet.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “Show yourself at once!”

Obligingly, she stood up and walked out into the moonlight. She was a slender maid of not more than twenty or so. Dark hair and eyes, dressed in scarlet and black. Again, she seemed familiar in a surreal sort of way, and it took him a moment to remember why. When he remembered that, he remembered everything.

“You are the lady from the alley,” he said hoarsely.

She clapped her hands together in the manner of an excited child.

“Yes, yes!” she said happily. “What else do you recall?”

“You…talked to me…asked me…” He rose to his feet, but he was weak and trembling. He braced one hand against a headstone to steady himself, and his voice was stronger than his legs when he said, “You…you hurt me…”

“I conceived you,” she replied exultantly. “A lovely knight of my very own; I’ve been waiting so long!”

Baffled, he could only stare at her. In the moonlight, she was strangely lovely: her skin like ivory, her mouth red-lipped and smiling. Her gaze was so direct it was unsettling. He forced his eyes away from it.

“I think you made me ill,” he said, finally. “I feel—”

Her smile widened.

“Oh! I can remedy that! Easily, I can!”

She turned, stooping to the shadowy lump that still lay beneath the tree. Large as it was, she lifted it with ease. She presented it to William like a trophy.

It was a dead man.

At first repulsed, William took a step backward. Yet she followed him steadily, and when she did, a smell reached his nostrils. It was a coppery, salty, lovely scent, the source of which seemed to be two small wounds on the side of the man’s throat.

The scent drew William back to her—but cautiously, for he did not quite trust her. He asked, “What did you—?”

“I saved most of it,” she whispered gently, “as a gift for you.”

She dropped the body into his arms, and instead of being disgusted by the closeness of the corpse, William found himself oddly intrigued by the attractive, almost-alive odor of it. Instinctively, he lowered his head to the throat, nuzzling lightly at the wound. It smelled wonderful. His tongue lapped out, circling one puncture experimentally. Blood trickled into his mouth, tangy and still warm. The taste of it was intoxicating, oddly empowering. Suddenly, he felt maddened by a raging hunger, the strange desire to bury his teeth into the man’s neck and drink of him. He looked over at the girl questioningly.

“Allow yourself,” she said.

Something shifted in the muscles of his face, and he knew that he was experiencing the same change he had seen in her, in the alley. Fangs dipped down where once there were only teeth; he probed them with his tongue, and they were so sharp as to draw blood.

Blood!

He opened his mouth wide and plunged his fangs into the man’s neck, bit down hard. The blood in the small wounds had already coagulated, and he had to suck them to release the clots. Blood flowed onto his tongue, not in the wide spurts he would eventually come to know, but slow and languid, forced along by the vigorous suctioning motions of his mouth and throat.

He drank until his belly was full and his head buzzing with the salty-sweet fluid, the very essence of life itself. The man slipped from his grasp, dropped to the ground, and like a spell breaking, William returned to his senses. He looked over at the young woman with something akin to shock. There was a small smile playing around her lips.

“My knight,” she said softly. “Do you understand, now?”

He shook his head slightly. Not quite putting them together but at least, seeing the puzzle-pieces in his mind. Vaguely, he remembered the descriptions in those pulp-fiction novels that the ministers denounced from the altar: cheap, gaudily colored illustrations, thin plots of adventures with cannibals or zombies or vampires.

Vampires.

William didn’t realize he said the word aloud, but suddenly the woman was nodding vigorously.

“Yes, yes,” she whispered.

Oddly, he felt no particular sense of shock or despair upon hearing this. Rather, there was a certain curiosity, a feeling of detachment, as if all this could not possibly be happening to him. He looked at the open grave and then back to the girl.

“I am dead, then.”

But the woman shook her head. “You shall live forever.”

Forever. Then, there would be no merciful death, no peace from the burning in his heart. William felt a flash of anger at the girl; this was not what he had thought she was offering him when she approached him in that dark alley.

“Why did you put me…?” His teeth were clenched and his voice wavering in barely-contained rage. Perceiving this, the girl pouted her disappointment.

“I had to bury you somewhere,” she said. “There was a fresh grave, not yet covered, and inside it a coffin. I was really quite clever to think of it…the stars whispered it to me.”

William rubbed his hand over his dirty face. The idea seemed more disgusting than clever to him, but given her rather cryptic remark about the stars, he wasn’t sure if it was a necessary unpleasantness. Perhaps this was how all vampires came into the world. He tilted his head at the girl. She was still staring at him.

“How many nights past?” he asked her, finally. She answered him promptly.

“Three. Dark daisies take time to grow, you know.”

Three nights. How worried his mother must be. To lose Elizabeth and then him in such quick succession Why, she must be frantic. He must go to her, comfort her, and let her know he was all right.

He turned on his heel, forgetting the girl entirely in the advent of this concern. However, he had not taken more than a step or two before he stopped and looked over his shoulder. Remembering. She was walking in the opposite direction, now, humming softly to herself as she weaved between grave markers. He understood that she expected him to follow her from the way she kept glancing backward at him.

There was no affection in his heart for this creature and no sense of gratitude for what she had done for (to?) him. Yet to see her walking away from him like that had him suddenly frantic. And he realized that he needed her. Instinctually, almost viscerally, he needed her. She could teach him.

He jogged across the lawn after her.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~




They wandered the dark streets in near silence. The girl seemed distant, disinterested in him and in her surroundings. She seemed to have retreated inward, and what she saw behind those glazed eyeballs was making her smile in a vague, eerie sort of way.

She took him to Piccadilly Circus, into the back alleys that wound behind the theaters and restaurants. A handful of people were milling there. Actors and actresses, they were leaving after some late performance. Some were lithe and young, others older. They giggled and talked amongst themselves even as they scattered into the darkness. Thespians, of course, did not have the luxury of money; they must walk home.

At first, William could not imagine why the girl (she eventually introduced herself as Drusilla) would bring him to this place. It was not until they began following two young women, walking alone without male protection, that he finally began to understand. They were here to hunt.

Part of him cringed at the idea of murder, but not because he did not desire it. The smell of living blood was on them, and his unexpectedly keen ears could detect the sound of their heartbeats. The hunger he had thought sated in the cemetery suddenly resurfaced, even stronger than before. Yet, he knew that it was wrong. In his heart, he knew. It was only that he wanted it so badly. So badly, he did not even care what he knew; he didn’t care if it was wrong. When Drusilla snatched one of the young ladies by the elbow and threw her to him, William did not hesitate to catch her. Dimly above the roaring in his ears, he could hear the shriek of the second girl as Drusilla grabbed her, as well.

The young woman in his arms was young, her hair the shade of chocolate. Her back slammed into his chest when he pulled, and she struggled against him mightily. But she was small, and his arms felt wildly powerful. So strong was his grip, in fact, that he could hear a snapping sound as one of her tiny wrists gave way beneath it. The girl did not scream, however. Unlike her friend, she remained quiet but for a small moan as her arm broke. No screams at all, only her soft voice, beseeching him to let her go.

Ignoring her pleas, he bowed his head and allowed his lips to brush against the soft skin of her neck. She smelled of fresh sweat, of fear and of blood. The big vein in her throat pulsed rapidly against his mouth. Sweet, she smelled so sweet. He felt his face beginning to shift.

As with the man, he sank his teeth into her throat. Only this time, his victim was alive and fully aware of the pain. She squirmed against him, adrenaline flooding her system and giving the blood a sharper taste. Her beating heart pumped the blood from her jugular and it flooded onto his tongue without his having to work for it at all. He closed his eyes and jerked her body more tightly against him. As his hunger began to abate, arousal came to replace it. Not excitement in her pretty face or her plump curves but rather, in the violence of it. He was taking her life, and the feeling was pure euphoria.

Drusilla watched him over the drooping head of her own victim.

They finished almost in tandem, letting the girls fall unceremoniously onto the paving stones. Drusilla was smiling again, and as she sidled slowly toward him, William could smell on her body a scent that he knew instinctively to be arousal. She had enjoyed the kill, as well.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” she asked him. “Like picnics in the park.”

She reached up, tenderly tracing the lines of his bloodied mouth with her fingertip. The lace of her glove was rough against his flesh, her touch foreign; but when William closed his eyes, he could almost imagine that she was Elizabeth. He did not touch her, because he knew the feel of her would be different, and he wanted, for the time being, to cling to the feeling, the fantasy, that his love had not left him completely.

With hypnotizing slowness, Drusilla leaned into him, brushing her lips back and forth across his own. She whispered, “You’re a lovely one.”

The fantasy faltered, and William squeezed his eyes tighter, willing her not to say anything else. The smell of her was different, the touch, but still he could imagine. If she did not talk, he could almost make himself believe it.

When Drusilla’s fingers fumbled at his fly, unfastening the top button, William shifted away uneasily. The soft kisses had not been enough to arouse him sufficiently, and the fantasy refused to hold.

He started to move past her, but Drusilla suddenly shoved him back, throwing his body against the wall of the building behind him. His back throbbed as it crashed into the rough brick, his mouth watering at the unexpected pain. He sputtered angrily: “What in the bloody—?”

She pressed her body up against him, held him down with an outrageous amount of strength. Cool, searching lips found his once again. But no whispering caress was this. She ground down against him, driving his mouth open with the force of her teeth and tongue. She tasted of warm blood; her mouth was violence itself. He shocked himself by responding. He couldn’t help but respond. Something in her seemed to awaken something in him, something primal and vicious. And this time, there was no fantasy. This time, he knew exactly whom it was that he was kissing.

Without hesitation or finesse, she undid the buttons of his trousers. There was nothing romantic about the fierce coupling that followed. It was pure lust, brutal and animalistic. It was mindless need. Although he did not realize it at the time, it was the epitome of what his existence would be from now on: cruelty and sex. In the days to come, the two would so often intermingle that, eventually, he would not be able to distinguish between them.

Now, however, he could. Now, as he pulled out of her and buttoned himself back up, William felt a shiver of disgust. He could kill a woman without a flicker of shame, but the knowledge that he had just had relations with someone not Elizabeth, made him feel sick. Perhaps, then, he was deserving of this pain. Perhaps, this was why she had been taken from him. He was not worthy of her.

Drusilla was watching him closely, and what she saw in his face seemed to confuse her. Whatever agenda she had, his reluctance to embrace this life—in effect, to embrace her—had not been on it. She hesitated.

“What do you want?” Her tone was more conversational than curious.

William looked over at her in surprise. At first, he thought he had no answer to give her. He parted his lips to tell her this, but suddenly the words spilled out, the desire that had been with him, hidden, all along.

“I want to go home.”

~*~ ~*~ ~*~