Wake of Darkness (10 page)

Dragging his finger across the
page, jumping from the end to the beginning of sentences and back again to the
beginning as one has to do when reading Latin, he translated the strange
writing for her quietly.

“It says, ‘My first encounter with
a vampire was in the year 1432. Holding Mass, I perceived a different sort of
parishioner in my presence’,” he began, pausing from time to time to jump
around the page, piecing the words together.

 “Wait,” she said, holding her hand
up to stop him. “Dante was a priest?”

“Yes,” he replied. “He devoted his
life to the church until he determined the futility of continuing on in such a
conspicuous profession—while not aging. After a time, it simply raised too many
questions. Our safety in many ways depends upon our anonymity.”

She nodded. It made sense. “Sorry,”
she apologized. “Go on...please.”

He smiled quickly before turning
back.

“’When the congregation filed out
of the chapel, one single individual remained. He was deathly pale and looked
to be suffering from some sort of disease. I feared the plague for the sake of
my parishioners, but knowing that I would be free from harm, I approached him.

“‘What may I do for you, my son?’ I
asked him.

“‘Father,’ he begged, ‘I need your
help.’

“’I encouraged him to continue. With
some hesitation, he told me what he had become and how he thirsted for blood. He
had not made the decision to become a vampire, as it had been forced upon him. He
explained to me that to his understanding, an unwilling individual was the only
type of vampire who possessed remorse for what they had become; at least that
was the case for him. He pleaded with me to free him from his existence.

“‘I responded that I could not make
such a decision lightly and told him to return the next morning.’”

Alexander hastily flipped the next few
pages.

“Wait, what are you skipping over?”
she asked quietly, but her words stopped his hand as surely as if she’d shouted
them.

“His meditations regarding whether
or not he felt that he could kill someone who was not human; if it would be
considered murder or mercy,” he explained.

“And did he?” she whispered.

“Yes, in the end,” he answered,
holding her gaze. “It says that after he had complied with the vampire’s supplication,
he had to contend with the fiend’s creator. It was the beginning of Dante’s
quest as he hunted the vampires within his parish. Soon, he found it to be
overrun with the devils,” he explained. He never looked away from her as he
stared relentlessly into her eyes.

Sophie traced every contour of his
face with her eyes. Every feature was familiar, even the glint of gold in his
piercing green eyes. Her heart pounded against her chest. He leaned toward her,
but didn’t seem to be aware of his own movements.

She suddenly looked away and stood
up, pushing the chair back so quickly that it would have fallen if he hadn’t
caught it without looking, refusing to take his eyes from her. She exhaled
heavily and ran her hands through her hair as she walked to the window,
fighting against the feelings that were surfacing.

She massaged the sides of her head
as he turned to sit on the edge of the table, rubbing his hands together softly
and watching her.

“Are you alright?” he asked
quietly, articulating each word carefully and folding his arms across his chest
as he watched her.

“Uh…yeah, I’ve just been at this
all day,” she tried to convince him. She folded her own arms across her chest,
but quickly dropped them when she’d seen that she was mirroring his posture.

He nodded and sighed with a chuckle
to himself. “I’ll leave you alone,” he said before turning to leave the room.

“Wait,” she said suddenly, stepping
towards him and then hesitating, adding, “…please.”

He stopped mid-stride and pivoted
on a heel to face her. His abrupt compliance startled her.

She took a deep breath. “You said
that the vampire Dante killed was unwilling. What did he mean by that,
exactly?” she asked.

“Ah,” he responded, nodding, “I am
not surprised you asked. I shall explain. Please sit,” he said, gesturing to a
chair at the table.

She shook her head. “Uh…that’s
okay, I’ll stand,” she answered awkwardly. “Thanks.”

He shrugged and sat in a chair on
the opposite side of the table, nearest the door.
As you wish.

He cleared his throat and leveled
his eyes at her. “The mechanics of transformation are quite gruesome.”

She nodded and sucked in a breath. “Tell
me.”

“Do you recall what Dante told you
about the exchange of blood between a human and a vampire?”

“Yes,” she said, swallowing hard
against the tightening in her throat as she took an unconscious step toward
him. She hadn't liked that bit of newly-learned information—it was just too
creepy.

“A vampire
typically
stalks
a victim for some time before striking, to decide if they are worth the
transformation. Vampire relationships are rooted in the blood; they are
especially binding and extremely strong. A wise, and usually older, vampire may
even take the time to make friends with a human being before changing one. He
convinces the human that he can be trusted. Some have even been known to reveal
themselves completely to their chosen prey before striking; some believe that
it smoothes the transition more easily. Regardless, a human who becomes a
vampire almost always has to make the conscious decision to become one of
those…those
fiends
. There are some, however, who are simply left too
weak at the point between life and death to make the choice.”

“What do you mean?” she asked,
walking towards the table.

 “The vampire strikes, draining his
victim of a majority of his blood,” he explained. “At that time, the human is
given the choice: either surrender and die, or…” he hesitated, “…
partake
of
what the vampire offers.” A disgusted look spread momentarily across his face.

She slowly sank into a chair across
from him, still holding his gaze.

“If a human takes in a vampire’s dead,
cold blood in exchange for his warm, wholesome, human blood, then his soul is
lost,” he answered coolly.

She dropped her eyes to the table
where they traced the microscopic grooves and scars in the wood.

“In this way, the human takes the
unholy into himself, to become one of the fallen. The devil’s kind, as I have
heard someone once say.”

Sophie was quiet for a long time, her
head swimming with the implications. He waited, letting her sort through her
thoughts.

It all boiled down to one question,
and it was a question that she knew she'd never be able to answer unless facing
it firsthand: If the devil offered you life for death, evil as that life may
be, would you be seduced into accepting his offer, as you stared the Grim Reaper
in the face?

“So…” she proceeded slowly trying
to make sure she understood everything correctly. “The ones who are remorseful,
they didn’t make that choice, right?”

He
nodded. “Yes, that is correct
. A vampire may
force feed
…”--Sophie
felt nauseous--“…a victim his own blood, thereby depriving him of his free will
in the matter. Some choose to live, while others--like the one who sought Dante
out--wish to die, remorseful of what they have become, regardless of their lack
of blame in the matter.”

“Wow,” she whispered, gazing out
the window and shaking her head. “That
sucks
.”

“Indeed!” He laughed at her
unintended pun. The sound startled her; she’d never heard him laugh before. She
had somehow thought he never laughed.

She
couldn’t
keep herself from laughing along with him, immediately breaking some of the
tension in the room. They looked at one another and their laughter faded when
he caught her eye again. He cleared his throat and watched her as they fell
silent. A few awkward seconds passed which felt like an eternity.

She looked at him seriously. “How
many have you killed, Alexander?”

He became very somber again. Her
heart accelerated as he gazed at her. There weren’t words to express what he
seemed to be able to do to her without even trying. She shifted uncomfortably
under his gaze, waiting for his answer.

He sighed. “Too many to count,” he finally
answered in a soft voice.

He stood and silently walked out of
the room, leaving her in silence.

She turned and gazed out of the
window to her right, thinking over everything he’d said, her head spinning. It
meant something more now that she knew that the vampires they faced, the ones
that would happily attack her on the street—in broad daylight, no less—had made
the conscious decision to take up the lifestyle; to become a monster. She still
didn’t know if she could kill one of them, but she also couldn’t see them in
exactly the same way as before. What she’d learned had changed things drastically.

How Catherina had ever lived with
one—and
like
one— for so long, boggled Sophie's mind. The mere thought
of something like that disgusted her, affecting her on a core level in ways she
hadn’t anticipated.

She stared out the window until she’d
finally calmed down. She definitely needed a break. Sophie didn’t even try to
figure out what had her so frazzled. She told herself that it was the stories
she’d heard, but she knew, as soon as she’d had the thought--at the very moment
the excuse had entered her mind--that she was lying to herself. She turned from
the window and left the library, closing the door softly behind her.

As she passed his closed door on
the way to her own room, she paused.

What do you want, Sophie?
Alexander
asked gently, although his thoughts affected her as if he’d yelled the words.

She froze. Had he been listening
for her?

I’m sorry
, she thought
apologetically. She listened for his response, for some small thought from his
mind.

But there was nothing.

It was just as well, she supposed,
she wasn't interested in getting hurt and she wasn't interested in complicating
relationships. She thought he'd warmed to her in the library, but now he was
back to giving her the cold shoulder and the whole situation left her utterly
confused.

But she'd stopped at his door.
Because no matter what she told herself, what he thought actually mattered to
her.

She almost hated that she had come
to want to be near him, to be in same house as him. It felt like she was losing
her independence, her self-reliance. But, was she really?

She knew one thing: she was
confused. These feelings were so new and strange that she didn’t know how to
describe them. She certainly felt better in the house than not, and she was
inexplicably more at peace when he entered the room. She felt an almost
Zen-like sensation when she was at home.

“Home,” she whispered to herself,
liking the way the word sounded. It was a new concept.

She suspected the calming feeling—the
sense of completeness—had more to do with Alexander than she cared to admit. In
fact, she could
feel
the exact moment he walked in the front door.

She always wanted an answer, a plan
to things. Once she’d become an adult, and finally after so many long,
difficult years, she actually had a say in what happened in her life, but
everything seemed out of control.

Stewing over the situation, she
asked herself if it was really so bad to be drawn to someone like she was to
Alexander. Her own personal history had taught her that any sort of attachment
to another person could be dangerous. You got attached to someone, started
caring about them, and before you knew it, you’d ceded control of parts of
yourself to that other person irrevocably. She’d lost herself like that before.
She walked into her room and shut the door softly.

Am I being stupid?
She asked
herself as she gently brushed her fingers along the wall that separated her
from him.

Sure, she hadn’t had great luck
with guys; they had the tendency to be assholes. They acted one way on the
outside, but their minds were usually in the gutter…not that they ever realized
Sophie knew it. She’d certainly had friends who resisted the temptation to be
with someone…but all it accomplished was a delay in the inevitable.

And what was developing
felt
inevitable, undeniable—irrevocable. It felt…inescapable.

“Ugh!” she moaned, plopping down on
her bed, burying her face in her pillow, and hitting the mattress with her
fist. “Forget about him,” she told herself.
What is he to me?

She flipped over and rolled the question
around in her brain. She didn’t know the answer, and more questions just sprang
up uselessly in her head in revolt and her thoughts continued to drift back to
him.