The Blood That Bonds (7 page)

Yet within minutes, Two was absolutely
spellbound. Her eyes wanted to move everywhere at once, taking it
all in. Luxury like she had never seen. The ability to buy and buy
and buy until, finally, all sense of aesthetics was lost. Here a
massive oak table, glowing as if with its own inner light from
countless centuries of oiling and finishing. There, a black velvet
painting of dogs playing poker, that look as if it might have been
bought from a vendor standing outside of a gas station. It was
overwhelming.

Theroen guided her through each room,
pointing out certain objects, but it was clear from his face, his
voice, his expressions, that these possessions were not his. It was
obvious that he thought little of them, and perhaps viewed most
with some level of derision. Two knew very little about Theroen,
but she sensed that if he had not been around this clutter for
quite some time, he would have actively disdained it.

Indeed, Theroen was hurrying her through the
rooms; quickly pointing out things he thought would be of interest
to her, ignoring the rest. He was not trying to tempt her with
luxury, and said as much.

“
Everything in the world is
yours for the taking, but that’s not important. You know it’s not
important, I think, the same as I do. What’s important is the life
that can be lived. Hundreds of years, Two, and there’s still so
much to see! So much to do!”

Thereon didn’t seem like the emotional type.
Two wondered if this was a rare outburst that she should be
appreciating. She tried her best, but all the while that same
nagging thought pulled at the back of her mind like the ebb and
flow of the tide. Not human. Not human. No longer connected to that
beautiful web of grief and love and death and striving, striving to
find some meaning in what must, by definition, be an empty
universe.

But there was temptation here, as well.
Wasn’t there a spark of excitement in her, brought on by his words?
The scope of what she had seen in that moment in the Ferrari when
she had nearly lost herself in despair was minimal next to what
Theroen was now proposing.

Two had never felt so torn in her life.
Humanity. Immortality. The spirit. The soul. She shut her eyes,
breathed deeply, pushed it away. She’d told Theroen she would let
him show her. She meant to keep her words.

They came at last to a set of oak doors that
seemed too massive even for Theroen to open. Solid in a way that
modern creations simply weren’t, they stood before her at the end
of a long hallway. Theroen paused, looked momentarily pained,
turned to Two.

“
Abraham.”

It was a threat, a warning, an invitation,
an explanation. The quality of Theroen’s voice as he spoke the word
was indefinable. Two repeated it, forming the word as a question,
looking for detail.

“
My father. My … he runs
this household. He does not interfere with my daily life, usually,
but I owe my allegiance to him. Or I did. Now …”

His words trailed off, and for a moment his
eyes, normally so clear and focused, were distant. Cloudy.

“
Theroen?”

“
It’s hard, now. I’m too
strong. It’s too soon.”

She didn’t understand a word of it. She
began to say this, and he shook his head as if in answer.

“
It doesn’t matter.
Tonight, we are sticking to basics, and it is not fundamental that
you understand this right now.”

“
Do you all talk in riddles
all of the goddamn time?” Two was somewhat exasperated despite her
desire to understand. Or perhaps because of it. Theroen surprised
her with a bright grin.

“
You will enjoy meeting
Melissa,” he laughed.

“
Will she tell me what’s
going on?”

“
In more detail than you
could possibly want.”

“
What about
Abraham?”

“
If you experience anything
less than abject terror, I’ll be amazed.”

Two raised her eyebrows. “That bad?”

“
And worse. Abraham is …
eternal. He is not like others of my kind, not even like myself or
Melissa. He never was. You’ll, well … no, you won’t understand, but
you’ll feel it. If it gets too bad, I’ll know, and I’ll do my best
to keep you from harm.”

Two looked at the door with renewed concern.
This didn’t sound like anything she had any interest in
experiencing. Melissa sounded fun. Abraham sounded dark at best,
deadly at worst. Theroen looked at her, smiled again, touched her
cheek.

“
You’ll be fine. He may
even like you. I don’t think you’re like anyone else he’s
met.”

“
Couldn’t that work out
just the opposite?” Two questioned. She felt like crying, and
didn’t know why. It seemed as if she could find nothing but despair
inside herself, as if the duality of her human persona, light and
dark, had been half-erased.

“
It might.” Theroen’s voice
was curiously gently. “I wonder the same.”

Two took a deep, shuddery breath, looked
down the hall, steeled herself.

“
Okay. Well, let’s go meet
Abraham.”

Her voice trembled only the slightest
bit.

* * *

The room was pitch black. The doors, which
Theroen had opened with remarkable ease, did not make a sound as
they swung backward into a blackness that the light from the
hallway could not begin to penetrate. They stood on the threshold
like archeologists at some newly unearthed tomb, waiting to see
what might spring forth from the darkness within.

When the voice came, it was all Two could do
not to turn and run, screaming, down the hallway. It was like
rotting graves; gravel grinding at the bottom of some blackened
abyss; the howl of wind through a cemetery in October. Age beyond
age, depth beyond depth, darkness beyond darkness.

“
You visit me, my son. You
bring something? A treat? A taste for Abraham? So long since you
last brought me some lovely treat.”

“
Hello, father.” Theroen’s
voice was low, subdued, respectful. Two could not detect fear,
there, at least nothing akin to the terror currently sitting
unsteady in her belly.

The thing in the room chuckled, a low
grating sound that sent squirms of revulsion up Two’s spine. She
fought them off, gripped Theroen’s hand instinctively.

“
But so bravely she
stands!” the creature said. “It should please you, my dear. Others
have been unable to stand even long enough to hear my voice. Such
bravery, yet such fear. Do the legs tremble, my dear? Does the
heart beat and beat? Does the blood run thin?”

This struck the creature as uproariously
funny, and he howled out at them from the darkness. Two felt what
little grip she retained on her composure slipping rapidly away.
Theroen sensed this, spoke up, cut off the laughter.

“
This is the one of which I
spoke, Abraham. This is Two.”

A momentary pause. Two felt herself being
considered by the thing, the sensation like worms crawling
sluggishly across her skin.

“
She is still young,”
Abraham said at last.

“
Yes.”

“
You
are still young!” he roared suddenly at Theroen, and Two was
unable to keep from cringing, making some small cry. Her face
paled, then reddened with embarrassment. Theroen appeared not to
notice. He stared into the darkness. Nodded.

“
You knew, when you made
me, what I was to be,” he said after a moment.

A sigh, like the shuffle of old papers.

“
Light a candle, my son,”
Abraham said. “I would see you as a mortal does.”

“
No mortal sees like we do,
father,” Theroen replied, but he produced a match from a pocket,
struck it against the granite table directly to the right of the
door, lit the wick of the massive candle that stood atop it. The
room seemed to swallow this light and then, perhaps finding it
unpleasant to the taste, grudgingly released it.

A gleam at the far corner. Eyes.

“
Handsome, handsome boy,”
said Abraham, and Two could barely perceive a slight shaking of the
head. “Why do you insist on looking such? Why cut your beautiful
hair? Why dress in these ridiculous clothes?”

“
Those who do not change
wither. Those who do not change die,
”
Theroen recited.

“
Speak not such things to
me!” Abraham leapt forward suddenly, slightly further into the
light, leaning over his massive wooden desk, white-knuckled grip on
the far edge, powerful shoulders supporting his torso as he stared
in fury at Theroen. Two shrank back, managing to hold in her cry
this time. The light helped. Theroen’s apparent fearlessness in the
face of a being multitudes more powerful than himself helped
more.

“
Speak not in such a
manner, from the scrolls of Eresh, to him who has given you
everything
!”

“
Everything and nothing,
father. Ashes and dust. Life in death.”

“
Impertinence in youth,”
Abraham grumbled. He sat back down, and Two found that she could
barely recall his image, as if her mind had blotted it out. She
remembered a heavy head of hair, complemented by large eyebrows and
a beard. Had he been young? Old? She couldn’t tell. Only that he
was huge. Taller and broader than Theroen, thick through the
shoulders, muscular. A dangerous man even as a human, let alone
what he had become.

“
I speak only what you have
taught, father,” Theroen said. He took a step forward into the
room, gently pulling Two with him. Abraham chuckled. The sound was
bitter, cynical. There was no humor in it.

“
Ahh. ‘
My first thought was, he lied in every
word
.’ It does not suit you,
Theroen.”

“
I am no liar, father. No
cripple.”

“
Oh, yes? Well. No cripple,
anyway, as well you prove out there, traipsing about in the mortal
world, driving your fast cars, laying with your women in patches of
grass.” He looked at Two with a raised eyebrow. Two made an effort
to return the gaze, succeeded. The vampire laughed
again.

“
So brave,” his voice was
quiet, contemplative. “Why is she not finished?”

Thereon paused a moment, and Two sensed that
the next few moments were critical.

“
Her previous … employer.
He forced things upon her against her will. Many things, one of
which was a drug.”

“
She is impure?”

“
The change will cleanse
her.”

“
And what drug is
this?”

“
Heroin, father. Do you
know it?”

“
Opium, yes?”

“
Processed chemically, but
yes.”

“
She is
unclean.”

“
She is pure in heart,
father. She is pure in soul. The blood will strip her of mortal
needs, mortal addictions, mortal weaknesses.”

“
So sure?” There was dark
humor in the old vampire’s voice.

Theroen said nothing.

“
No, you are not sure. Not
sure at all, my impetuous fledgling. Yet you do not answer my
question. Why is she not finished?”

“
I did not know we were
susceptible to such things. The drug is still too recent in her
veins. It … It made me quite ill.”

The elder vampire screamed laughter at this,
rocking back in his chair. Two wanted to cover her ears with her
hands. The sound went on and on, madness and hate and anger
disguised as humor, as anything so remotely human.

And then, abruptly, stopped.

“
Oh, my. ‘Quite ill’
indeed, I’ve no doubt. That drug, Theroen, more than any other, is
poison to our kind. It would likely have killed a lesser creation.
You are
Eresh-Chen
, though. You seem to have recovered.”

Theroen nodded.

Abraham turned his attention to Two, caught
her in his eyes. “Come to me, my dear.”

Two felt her feet moving, almost against her
own will. She heard Theroen draw in a breath, but he said nothing.
Two understood now that Theroen felt no fear for himself, held no
question of his own safety, but that he feared for hers very
greatly. The final moment of the interview had come, judgment was
to be handed down, and what Abraham might deem proper was as
unfathomable as his deep, black eyes.

Two stood next to him at the chair,
terrified, gasping for breath but unable to move away. Unable to
look away. Abraham reached out, touched his finger to her forehead.
The contact brought with it a jolt like electricity. Two gasped,
nipples instantly hard, warmth between her legs once more awake and
throbbing.

“
You enjoy?” The vampire
laughed at her. Two felt dizzy. She was
hyperventilating.

“
A taste, Theroen, of this
tainted blood?” he questioned, and his voice mocked Theroen, mocked
them both. She was his for the taking, all three knew it, but he
found the formality deliciously, darkly entertaining.

“
If you must, father.”
Theroen’s voice was strained. Abraham seemed to smile at this, as
if he approved of both the acceptance and the clear hatred in the
voice of his creation.

“
You will understand in
time, my son, when this day comes for you, when she takes another
and breaks your heart.”

“
Get it over with,” Theroen
said, and Abraham grinned broadly. He touched his finger lightly to
Two’s shoulder, and her knees buckled. She fell to the floor,
looking up, enraptured, terrified. His fingers now under her chin,
like those of a lover, raising, exposing the pale neck
below.