The Promises We Make... The Covenants We Keep

By G.P. Sarmiento

One syre to free the body, two to free the soul.

A single thought filled her mind, though Adrian knew all too well what it was. She sat facing him, an apothecary table in-between them. A deck of gypsy tarot cards was thrown carelessly across it, the sign of The Fool the only card face-up… in reverse. Its smug grin looked at her in such a disapproving manner.

Look into my eyes and tell me you don’t want me, she repeated his words in her mind. A feeling of guilt overwhelmed her as if happiness was forbidden to her at this stage. She took her focus off the Fool’s sinister smile and looked up at the clock next to the opposing sofa. It was 3 in the morning and he was still awaiting an answer.

He’d forever wait for her. If only she’d known then just how long forever really was.

April 2005. 200 years later.

The dining room was set with vases in the shape of large, tall wine glasses with white orchids and ferns overflowing the rims. The silverware was real silver with an ancient family crest carved into the handles and plates. The tablecloth was so white it seemed like it had never been used. The chairs were beautifully varnished, antique even for their time. And at the head of the long table sat the gentleman of the house, awaiting his mistress to come.

His dreams of her became stronger every time he closed his eyes, so he stopped closing them altogether. Then his lust came back and he sought for new flesh, but none could replace her. And his appetite grew insatiable as he saw the decades pass without a single drop of blood. There were times he sought to break his promise but her taste would see him quiver before betraying her. He would rather slowly lose his mind than risk never having her again.

So it came to be 20 decades instead of one and when he realized she had betrayed him, he looked for her. And found her.

---

It was a Friday. She’d never forget that. It was one of those irrelevant facts that bury themselves into people’s minds, and hers was full of them. That’s why she didn’t automatically lift up her head when the professor called upon her to answer a question. She just kept doodling mindlessly, watching as the pencil flicked gracefully up and down as she sketched. It took a jab from her neighbor’s bony elbow to snap her out of it and when she looked up, the entire class was looking at her like she was insane.

She scanned the class and went back to her drawing with an expression like she hadn’t slept in days. They still looked at her. The teacher was getting aggravated though he was so old it was hard to tell expressions under all the wrinkles. It seemed like he was always in a sour mood and after meeting his wife, she knew why. “Ms. Grey! If you insist on disregarding everything we do in class, why do you even bother showing up?”

She didn’t bother looking up. “I believe they call it truancy, sir. If it weren’t for that pesky little law, I assure you I’d be falling asleep to a completely different subject.”

The teacher was about to respond when the bell rang and it seemed like a tea kettle had gone off in his head again. She’d been hearing his whining for quite some time now and it had become a chorus in the background.

As she left the class, she began to hear a whistling sound, a high-pitched tone that saw no end, even after the school bell had stopped ringing. And that’s when she saw him for the first time. He stood leaning against one of the shadowy oaks near the courtyard, still ridden with melting snow.

She stopped, hugging her binder with fingers wrapped in black cashmere, and squinted to see him in the slight distance. Yes, he looked at her. She looked back and lowered her eyebrows in worry. His grin sent shivers down her spine, completely different from the feel of snow. He was handsome, dressed completely in black dress clothes that showed off his silver hair combed back, but she saw no point in wasting her time and continued to dredge through the snow for her dorm room.

Her mind became so captivated by that sly grin of his that she didn’t notice the whistling sound turn into a slow, eerie melody and then completely disappear the farther she got away from him.

But as soon as she walked into her room, she felt that sly grin upon her once more and realized where she’d seen him before. He was in every wall of her room in frames or upon tripods with huge canvases, sketched on napkins and newspapers thrown helter-skelter over time. Then she looked down at her cherished binder and at the picture she’d been sketching in class mere moments ago.

She’d found the man that had haunted her dreams for so long. She’d found her muse.

---

The following day, there he was again, hidden in the shadows of the oak. His grin was gone, replaced with an intrigued look that made her feel like she was being scanned from head to toe. And he was. He tried to remember ever detail despite the distance but she grew tired of it the third day. She had to talk to her muse. She had to see if he was real, if he was the man she’d drawn for so long.

But she never got the chance. She awoke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, the same eerie melody ringing in her ears and the same shiver from his grin made her get up and close the open window to her dorm. When she turned around, there he was, looking down upon her with eyes that glimmered in the moonlight emanating from the window, and next she knew, he was cornering her against the wall and digging his teeth into her neck in such a slow, sweet manner that it seemed like kisses. And they were at first.

She tried to fight it but her body refused to obey her commands. She was paralyzed in the engaging ecstasy of his lips and the way his arms wrapped around the small of her back and drew her into him. That’s when she felt the shiver turn to pain as he broke skin and took a drink of her, tasting her.

He backed away, a look of confusion in his eyes, back into the shadows. But he didn’t dare leave. He was just as captivated by his mistress. She snapped out of the trance and reached for her wound but the pain begged to disappear, pursued by adrenaline and she could hear her breath once more as she gasped for air. Her wound made her dizzy, but she refused to take her eyes off of him, seeing his expression turn from confused to disappointed as he found he had yet to find his Maia.

She felt the blood in her veins begging to leave her and she stumbled back against the wall of her dormitory where she slid down onto the floor. He raced to catch her and cradled her in his arms, caressing her face as she closed her eyes till the next moon.

---

When she woke up, she lay in a bed of lavish silks and satins, all burgundy. The room was furnished in Victorian with elaborate gold carvings into dark wood and was probably 6 times the size of her dormitory. Fear came upon her as she saw the strange bedroom. The whistling was gone. The shiver was gone. And yet she could feel his gentle touch upon her still and she felt her hand tremble as she remembered.

She got up in the long flowing robes she’d been fitted with. They dragged behind her through the mansion floor. Dust was everywhere and the stench of age riddled the hallways. The air smelled of broken dreams and sour-sweet romance.

And then she heard it, the sweet eerie melody being played on a piano. She followed it through the house to a library that, if it weren’t for a black piano in the middle of the room, was completely filled with books from floor to ceiling. The back wall was once a window but had been covered with an enormous black sheet. The entire manor was lighted with sconces, candles, and torches and he was the only other person for miles.

The doors slammed behind her and she snapped around to see who it was. There he stood, his hand still on the knob, looking at her like she were a museum exhibit. She turned again to the piano but there was no one there and the music had stopped. She looked to the door but in the blink of an eye, he was mere inches from her nose.

She clasped at her robe when she felt his hands on her silk shoulders. She was caught looking up into his eyes again, seeing them turn to red as her breathing went faster. He drew her in and smelled her cheek then slowly backed off. She couldn’t move again.

He moved towards the door and gestures for her to follow. She refused to blink, fighting to resist, but her feet moved for her.

“Who are you?” he commanded. His voice had a slight accent on the r’s and s’s.

“Samantha Grey,” she responded, her fearful eyes upon him. He stopped and turned to face her., surprised by her answer.

“Yes. You can’t be her,” he responded in whispers.

He kept walking and she kept following. They reached a set of glass doors that led to a balcony overlooking the shore. It was completely dark outside except for a few candles that lined the edge of the stone balcony. She looked up at the stars in awe. There were so many, so bright. Then as she lifted her eyes as far as she could to capture as much of the sky as she could, she realized he no longer controlled her every move and turned to face him leaning against the edge, his arms crossed as he looked her over again. She ran to open the doors to escape but they were closed shut.

There was a round table beside her, elegantly set for two. “Now, what do you want with me?” she asked him, setting her fear aside. He smiled and looked away.

“I thought you were someone I knew a long time ago. But it seems…” the pain of her memory stopped him. “It seems you’re just one of them.”

“One of them? Who might I ask is ‘them?’” she said with contempt. His eyes were so gentle, so sad. He walked towards her again and examined her neck gently with his hand. She tried to stop him but he simply shushed her fear.

“Calm down, girl. I won’t hurt you.” But she whined nonetheless.

“Ow!” she yelled as he examined the two holes in her neck.

He backed off. “They don’t make women the way they used to. You’re too soft.”

She took offense but didn’t respond. It wasn’t wise to antagonize her kidnapper. He moved towards the table and pulled out the chair facing the balcony edge for her. She cautiously sat down. He took the seat opposite her. She realized there was no food on the table, only a plate of fruit in front of her, but she felt no hunger.

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked. “I know what you are.”

He laughed. “You couldn’t fathom.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You sneak into my bed at night, hide in the shadows, and try to drink my blood. No offense, but it doesn’t take a genius to know you’re a vampire.”

He smiled again and responded, “A vampire? Well I do suppose that’s close enough. You may call me it if you wish but that I am not.”

“Then can I at least know what to call you?” she asked.

He looked at her as if he had to try to remember it. “Adrian. She called me Adrian.”

She half-smiled, trying foolishly to hide her pity. “Is she who you thought I was… who you’re looking for?” she asked. He nodded and leaned back.

“She promised she’d be back but when she didn’t return, I tried to look for her and found you instead,” he answered.

There was a moment of silence. She understood his pain but refused to be his next trophy. “Is she like you too?”

“No. I would never condemn her to this.”

“Then how long ago did she leave?”

“It was so long ago, but time passes differently for me. I remember she left to help in a war but it was some time ago and I have not heard the horns of war since,” he said. She was stunned.

“A war against whom?” she asked with some idea of his response.

He however had hardly an idea and it took him some time to respond. “She told me against the Considerance.”

She leaned towards him. She’d expected to hear Germany or the Middle East. “The Confederacy?” she whispered in shock. He smiled and nodded. He thought perhaps she knew where his mistress had gone. She wished she didn’t.

She didn’t tell him she’d been dead for centuries. She just felt the need to cry and the need to shelter him from the pain. Nonetheless, he saw her expression change and she struggled to hide tears.

“If I helped you find her, would you show me what you are?” she asked cautiously, anxious for his answer. His face seemed worried and angry, and he stood up quickly. She stood up after him.

“I would expect you dream of knowing eternity, as all who have it do. Live your life, Samantha Grey. Dare not think what I am is living! I am forsaken from death as punishment, not as a gift! I fear I could never do what you ask, no matter how much I long for company or to find her.” He whispered his last words and faced away from her.

“Then give me a taste. Pretend I am her,” she spoke sternly, determined to see new age. His anger grew. She was foolish to him. He turned back to her, fury in his eyes. He rushed towards her, pinning her to the wall, and sunk his jagged teeth into those same wounds.

Her breath quickened too rapidly for her to keep up. Heat rose to her face and all throughout her, the taste of eternity spread like poison. Her gasping breaths matched his thrusting drink and it felt like a thrill, a rush of adrenaline. But the pain prevented her from feeling it for too long a time and she screamed. Just as she did, he dug his nails into her thigh and her breathing stopped. Her pain drifted away from her neck just in time for him to break off.

“A taste. Now you must help me,” he whispered, licking his reddened lips. She tried to blink but it was irrelevant at this point. He lingered above her for some time, feeling her breathe, wanting to dig deep into her kiss. Then he tried to take a step back but she let go of her robe and clasped his collar, pulling him back towards her lips.

She thought he was reaching for her back but he looked for the doorknob beside her and she felt herself fall back as the door opened. He caught her and lifted her in his arms, carrying her to the nearest bed where they spent the night in pain and pleasure.

---

The next morning, she awoke in her bed, dressed in her pajamas. Had it been a dream? She lamented leaving him but she could think of no way to return to him. She couldn’t think of how she could have made it back. It had to have been a dream. Then she sat on the edge of her bed and felt the stab of pain coming from her thigh. She stood up slowly, went to her mirror, and took off her clothes. She had five wounds in her thigh, two nasty ones on her neck, and various painful kisses between her breasts and all down her flat stomach. Her eyes opened wide and ran to the shower to clean off.

She rushed through class, unable to pick up a pencil let alone draw. The image of him was still burned in her memory. Her classes seemed an eternity but she could only think about all the time he had to spend. She worried if he had drunk too much or if a bite alone was enough to turn her as well. Her friend noticed the change in her concentration, not that she was always all that there to begin with.

“So what’s his name?” one of her friends asked at lunch as they all rested under a tree in the courtyard at lunch. She sat with 4 others, all dressed in the same uniform: a short, red plaid miniskirt and black polo shirts with the school emblem. Her friend asked again. Sam looked up at her, trying to pay attention to what she was saying. She smiled but refused to answer.

That’s when she took a quick look around the courtyard and saw him in the shadows by the school. “Adrian,” she whispered but her friends took what little answer she gave them and let her go. She stood up and ran to the school. He pulled her in from the sunlight.

“I had to see you,” he murmured looking down upon her, caressing her hair back.

“You never told me how to find you,” she said.

He smiled. “We’re not meant to be found. Call for me and I’ll find you.”

She nodded. “Find me anytime. But I have to get back.”

“Yes. I only belong in the shadows. Call for me at night when you’re alone.”

She was about to turn around when she remembered her side of the deal. “What was her name?” she asked.

He didn’t have to think about this one. “Maia. Maia Walcott.”

And she turned to go back to her friends. Halfway there, she turned around and he was no longer there, only shadows.

After her last class, she went straight to her room and propped open her laptop before even setting down her books. She had to find this woman that had captivated him so. She checked all the spellings: Maya, Miya, Maia… but none showed up from the Civil War. There had to be some record of her existence somewhere.

He came to her room that night as he would every night but she refused to tell him the truth of her probable death, and the guilt was getting to her.

So she found herself at the library the next morning. But it was pointless. She looked at land records from as far back as Jamestown and crosschecked with any journals or even novels, first hand accounts and newspapers.

And he came once more that following night through her window. She’d been laid out on the bed and didn’t hear his gliding footsteps. When she opened her eyes, he was floated two inches above her with a smile like he’d been looking forward to her news all day. She had nothing for him.

But every night he came, and every night she found herself drawing him closer and closer to her. She began to feel the world around her change with every drink, seeing it as he must. Slow. She began anticipating other people’s moves, hearing and smelling things in such a heightened manner that she thought herself completely disconnected.

She couldn’t keep her hands, or anything else, off him. There was something about him being near that sent adrenaline to her system and lust just took over. She even found herself waiting for him. It didn’t seem he resisted either. After a bit, he stopped asking whether or not she’d found anything on her and he erased from his mind the thought of Maia when he was with her.

---

It was over a year later and she still couldn’t sleep very well. She was in withdrawal. That’s how she preferred to think of it. He was just like a drug to her, and she felt like she had to earn her next fix. Then, after so much arduous research, she found her news would not be well received. There was no record of a Maia Walcott living or born around the time of the Civil War.

The 12th of June, she sat on her bed, looking at the last of her books when she could take it no longer. She threw her book across the room and tried to go to sleep but she couldn’t stop thinking about his touch or that eerie melody or the shiver she got whenever he was near. She wanted to know how long he’d been looking for Maia, if maybe that’s where she’d seen him all this time. Just around? Or had she more than dreamt of him in a previous life.

She looked to the open window and how the wind blew about the leaves of the tree outside. And she called for him.

“Adrian…” she whispered. Nobody came. She said his name again, louder. Still, nobody came. The cold air began to bother her so she got up and slammed the window shut in frustration. When she turned around, he was sitting on the edge of her bed, resting his elbows on his knees and looking down at the floor between his legs. His sleek hair covered his eyes.

She jumped when she saw him. She hadn’t expected him to come.

“Did you find something?” he whispered as he always did. It had been so long that as she looked him over, she truly realized how boyishly handsome he really was. He refused to look at her.

“Nothing,” she said, trying to get a glimpse of his face as she sat next to him. He hardly moved. He had been expecting the news. He had never asked any of the nights he had visited but he knew it wasn’t going well. Sam always thought he was looking at her, even in the daylight, though she could never feel him the way she felt him sitting next to her.

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” he asked, no surprise in his tone.

“You knew all along. How’d you figure it out?” she answered.

He looked at her with kind eyes, tired eyes. “I suppose I always knew.”

“Why’d you keep coming?” she asked, fearing the answer.

He laughed as if the question were absolutely ridiculous. “You, of course! At first, you reminded me so much of her. In the way you look… the way you feel… the way you move. And then I stopped seeing her, and I came for you.”

She quivered at his words and looked away to hide the tears. Then she smiled and turned to him.

“Well now I just feel selfish. I was doing it for the sex.” They both laughed and drew in for the kiss. He lifted her up effortlessly and sat her facing him, her legs wrapped around him.

---

That morning, she woke to find him wrapped behind her, and despite her surprise to see themselves still there in the burgundy room at the mansion, she felt such comfort as if all else in the world had melted in his gentle warmth.

She didn’t feel him move and began to fear whether or not he was even still alive. She looked to the window. It was closed and the room was as dark as night but it was still morning. It seemed an endless night had swept her over. She had plans but they melted too. She couldn’t imagine a world outside that bed.

She gently turned around to face him and nudged him awake with an Eskimo kiss. He gave a gentle moan and smiled. What little light came through the window lit up her skin before him and his smile faded.

She brushed the hair from his eyes with the back of her hand, trying ever so desperately not to show her worry. He noticed nonetheless. He could feel the slightest change in her heartbeat.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, running her hand across his chest.

He scrunched up his forehead as he always did when he was worried. He pulled back the sheets, revealing her many wounds, some healed over and some still stinging. He sat up and looked over her entire naked body. Signs of infection and scarring seemed to have damaged what was once a perfect canvas.

He moved away, off the bed. She was hoping he had thought them healed by now.

“Is this what I’ve been doing to you?” he yelled, backing away.

“Adrian, calm down. It’s nothing,” she pleaded for him to stop, not bothering to cover her scars.

“Why haven’t you healed?” he asked in a trembling voice.

She wanted to cry. He was repulsed by her, or rather by what he was doing to her. He refused to touch her again. Morning turned to day and they still sat on the bed looking at each other wrapped in burgundy silk.

She told him the truth of her many pains, her parent’s death and the lust she felt when she was around him. He told her of his childhood in the shadows, born from a mortal mother and raised by his vampire father as an apprentice in his many haunts.

“How did you escape him?” she asked in a very small voice.

“My father bore me from a mortal mother, which meant I was free of their dependency on blood to survive. But I could never escape the hungers they suffer. Because I was born, not made, I belonged to my syres, those who gave me life. My mother was bound to him by fear of death. I was bound to him by blood. So when I met Maia, I sought to free myself of him and he revealed onto me The Covenant: One syre to free the body, two to free the soul. And thus I freed myself… I killed one of my syres.”

She felt the shivers of his tale. “You killed your father?”

He looked up and away, got up and stood before the covered window.

“No,” he answered. She took a sheet and walked to him. She wrapped it around them both as she hugged him.

Night came and she fell asleep on the bed listening to him speak. He carried her home, flying far above the cities of the world.

As the months passed, he noticed her grow weaker and sickly. He took care of her at nights and watched over her during the day from the shadows. Soon, the only way she could fall asleep was in the cold night air as he cradled her within the clouds. Until, finally, he could not risk moving her from the island.

He watched her get sicker but knew he could do nothing to help her. He knew he’d caused it. Not letting her go was killing her and with that knowledge, a part of him died as well.

But the time came for her to leave him one rainy night in March that following year. He came home from a walk on the shore to find her shivering in the bed, drowning in cold sweat, and humming his eerie melody.

He slowly crawled under the covers and held her in his arms. She held onto his hand until she fell asleep; then all was still. He spent her final moments feeling the rhythm of her heart until she took a final slow breath and her body gave up.

---

Before morning light, he took her body to the shore. He put her in a small wooden boat, set it on fire, and sent her out to sea.

He picked up a few of her things from around the castle and took them back to her room at the school. Just as he was about to leave again, the door opened and a tall woman who looked quite a bit like Sam came in dressed in black. She had the face of a mourner. He would expect them to think her dead after spending so long in the castle.

She jumped when she saw him. He was dressed in black as well, his shirt untucked, his hair a mess, his eyes weary with sorrow. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was here. Were you a friend of Sam?” she asked. He nodded and hurried to help her with the box, putting it down on the messy bed. It was full of sketches and old family trinkets.

“I was her aunt… I was cleaning out my attic after the wake and found this huge trunk full of some of her things. I wanted to put everything together and pick out what to keep before I sell the house,” she explained as they spread the contents of the box all over the bed.

“She spoke fondly of you,” he told her, and it seemed to console her for a bit.

Her aunt picked up one of the sketches and looked at it for a bit before looking back up at him. “You’re him. You’re her evasive muse.”

He looked at the sketch laid out on the bed and at those on the wall and smiled. Then he saw the date on the one in his hand and felt his black little heart jumpstart. All of the pictures were dated before she met them and none since.

Sam’s aunt excused herself to get more boxes. He shuffled around all of the sketches. He wondered how it was possible. And then he found the journal.

It was an old leather journal bound with twine with writing and drawings in ink and charcoal. On the cover, the words ‘Amaia James-Walcott’ had begun to fade after so long. He read it from cover to cover twice before Sam’s aunt even reached downstairs.

When she got back up with a new set of boxes, he was sitting on the bed, the journal on his lap. “Ma’am, do you know to whom this belongs?” he asked, as she walked through the door, and handed it to her. She opened the cover and saw the date… 200 years ago.

“Ah, this was my great-grandmother’s, Sam’s great-great-grandmother, Maia. Why do you ask?” And with that, he ran from the room and made for the other side of the world, following the sunset.

He searched for a house in eastern Romania, an old cabin that refused to change after a few centuries. There was nobody inside but he kept gliding through the countryside, his black cloak flapping behind him the wind. A mile into a nearby lake, he found his target and set down upon the fishing boat. The fisherman refused to show astonishment at the vampire floating over the water before him.

“Hello, Father.”

The fisherman didn’t look up. “I’ve been expecting you for some time. How long has it been?” he answered.

Adrian tried to hide his scorn. “300 years.”

“Feels like 3.”

“Yes. That’s been known to happen.”

The fisherman looked up. He had Adrian’s eyes, down to the last reflecting ripple in the moonlight. “I suppose you’ve come to challenge me then.”

“No,” Adrian responded. “I’ve come to fulfill the Covenant.”

The Father stood up on the boat, threw his pole into the lake, and matched his son’s height above the water. “You seek death?” The Father toyed. “Then you must fight for it.” And he flew to attack him.

---

Adrian floated on the lake, letting the gentle current rock him to sleep. He dreamed of Maia and Samantha, but in his dream, they were one. They waited for him on the other side. It was a dream, he knew, but now it was all he had to hold on to. And then he saw the light of the new day rise over the swaying horizon… and he knew peace.