Hey, made a major overhaul of this, because I needed to have if finished for class today. Whee. So it’s done, or done for the most part. I added a lot, so I’d suggest reading it from the beginning again, if you have read this first “installment.” I’m going to delete that one, methinks. Cool beans? Cool beans. Thanks to everyone who reviewed the first time, and thanks to everyone who will review the second time (hopefully). Hope everyone’s doing well; sorry if I haven’t kept up with you, darlings. I’ve been more than busy, and in my spare time, I’ve been doing “research” for this, by reading every single vampire book I could get my hands on. Thanks includes Bailey, for continuing to read everything I write, to the Anita Blake novels up until but not including Incubus Dreams, because (no offence or anything) but it SUCKED. A lot. Too much sex and not enough story. I mean, she didn’t even get out of bed long enough to solve the damned crime. Hope you’re happy. Umm, also to the woman who wrote the “Southern Vampire” books with Sookie in them (so bad with names, really, really) and also to the people who wrote and worked on the Vampire Encyclopedia, which is like a godsend for this kind of research. It’s on my shelf, and it looks so pretty next to my Anne Rice collection. Much love, kiddies, and I hope to see you all soon.

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A Somber Hymn: On Black Angel Wings

And from the birth in my death sings
Carried on black angel wings
Like a somber hymn to my soul.
Something black-laced, tainted, sick
Painted with shadow’s fears, red lipstick,
Has kissed my death with fear
Shredding everything I held dear
And bleeding it into oblivion.

There is no peace in death.

Marina woke in a puddle of her own sweat, her dreams deeply embedded in the thick darkness around her. Her panting was the only sound in her stone cell, and it echoed strangely off of the walls. There were no windows, no light sources, only the thick darkness sliding over her body and clouding her eyes. She blinked into the emptiness and relaxed; the darkness was safe, comfortable.

Strange thing, the dreams. For centuries, Marina's masters had made it clear that vampyres don't dream. And for centuries, it had been true. She would wake every evening, a thick thirst overriding her mind. No dreams ever entered her days.

It was only four months ago, when Marina had woken from a fifty-year hibernation had the dreams had begun. The nightly visions frightened her at first; so long had she been a creature of the night, she had forgotten what dreams were.

It was him that started the dreams, she was quite certain of that.

The dreams were simple enough: merely daylight visions of his arms, his lips, the entirety of his body closing over hers. Marina knew every inch of him through her fantasies. That thought alone would have been enough to make her blush, had she had enough blood for it. Her body was empty, her throat yearning for blood. But it was not overpowering. No, Marina was far too old to be overpowered by thirst.

She lay in bed for a moment, letting the cool night filter through her eyes. ‘Oh how times have changed.’ She lifted one pale, pale arm over her eyes, blocking the sight of the inky blackness. ‘To lounge in bed until well past sundown, with no threat of someone attacking me in my sleep.’ Taking a deep breath, she cleared her lungs and felt strong, almost alive, the air musky and tinged with sweet freedom. ‘No harm will come to me here; a new world has risen over the ashes of mine.’ The jolt of the old world’s passing was nothing compared to the pleasure of this new macrocosm. It was build not on blood and the death of deities, but of technology and relative peace.

‘Peace. Even the word is strange to me, a foreign concept.’

Pulling herself out of bed, Marina stretched carefully. It was all too easy to pull one of her stiff muscles. Every dawn she died, her muscles hardening into a kind of rigor mortus that settled over all dead bodies. She would wake from death every afternoon, her eyes opening as the sun spilled its last rays over the horizon.

‘But the sun set an hour ago. I’ve missed the day completely.’ Marina lit the lamp by her bed and slid out of her bedclothes, leaving them in a puddle of orange silks on the carpet. The cool evening air felt wonderful on her naked skin. ‘I’m going to need a shower, after all that.’ Sweat was still beading on her body, tinged pink with blood. She looked back at her bed, seeing an almost perfect outline of her body in red on the white sheets. Sighing heavily, Marina pulled her linens off the bed and dumped them into a puddle on the floor with her beddress. The blood dried on her body by the time she finished, making her frown at her ruddy appearance.

She cleaned quickly, dressing in flowing robes and spraying her body with perfume. It covered the smell of her dreams, the salty scent of her skin. She didn’t want him to know what she dreamed of.

Because he hated her.

Pinning her curling silver hair in a complex knot, Marina dotted her hair with beads, glitter, fluttering and fawning over her appearance. A smile kissed her lips, shining out from her eyes at the pleasure of having free time to spend mostly as she pleased. And makeup pleased her immensely. Touches of shimmer lit up her ice blue eyes and sparkled from her curls; she looked wonderful, even with the long tumble of her hair bleached an unnatural silver.

‘How horrible, to be born with white hair, like a freak, then to be stuck with it for all eternity.’ She frowned, suddenly, at her reflection, her pale lip curling in a childish look of frustration. ‘Stuck looking like a child forever. How old was I when I first died? Fifteen? Sixteen, perhaps?’ She couldn’t remember. Society had thought her an adult for centuries, but in this modern day, she didn’t look old enough for cigarettes, much less spirits. ‘He thinks I’m a child.’ But there was nothing childish in the depths of those icy irises. Any innocence that should have been there had been ripped away by death and its violent aftermath.

‘And yet, to him, I will always be a child.’

The house was in chaos, outside of her windowless rooms. This house was always chaotic after dark. Children of the Dark tore through the house, desperate for meals as their masters searched for blood sources for them. Vampyres, humans, and even a few of the fae creatures swarmed the halls. Marina had enough power, enough clout, to push the younger vampyres and humans out of her way. Marina was just less than five feet tall, but she managed to look menacing as the waves of bodies parted, pressing against the walls to get out of her way.

“Good evening, Lady Marina.” Some of the children called, grinning and flashing fangs. Each looked to older vampyres for guidance, and favor. A young vampyre with the backing of an elder was, theoretically, just as powerful. Most of the foolish children of the dark sought the eye of the Master, and of Marina. They all thought she was the second most powerful vampyre here, and fawned over her for attention.

Fools.

They played their little power games, had their little power struggles. Marina was above it. She favored no one but the Master, and the Master favored no one but himself (She wasn’t self-absorbed enough to think the Master thought very highly of her). That was the way it should be. The minions would play and the strongest, the oldest, were above it.

The night was in full swing, people cramming the hallways. Marina made slow progress towards the dining room. She was in no hurry. She’d had what seemed an eternity behind her, and perhaps another eternity ahead of her; why rush? The children tore through the nights, trying to do anything and everything before they died again at dawn. They were harsh, vibrating things, running through the night, loud and almost alive.

The dead were supposed to make no sound.

‘A vampyre would have been punished for such insolence, such noise, in the old days. Days, maybe weeks locked in a coffin wrapped in silver, or worse.’ Marina cringed under the memory of dark days in the coffin, feeling the press of a holy cross, hung from the wooden ceiling to just brush her skin…

She pushed the memory away and pressed forward, leaving the screaming torture back in her past, where it belonged. ‘No one can hurt me here; I am master of myself, servant to one weaker. No one rules my fate any longer.’ The thought was just enough to push the memory back into the recesses of her mind, where such painful things belonged.

The dining room’s ceiling ran upward in high arches, sweeping down in dramatic red fabrics and gold paints to kiss the edge of the marble floors. It was cold under Marina’s feet, but she barely felt it. Her body was too cold with sleep and lack of blood.

She made no noise as she slid across the floor. There was a tall human, no more then twenty, leaning against the table. He stood suddenly, harshly when his eyes settled on Marina. The man shook with life, the veins beating across his skin like a living thing. There was a frightened look in his silvery eyes. “Are you hungry, Mistress?” He looked uncertain, as if he’d never been food for an elder before.

‘I must look exotic to him, dark skinned with strange eyes. White hair. Old enough to move like a shadow. I don’t even breathe much anymore.’ Strange thing, breathing. It was merely a habit of the living. Marina was dead, and not breathing wouldn’t make her any deader. But the occasional breath, to clear out the lungs felt better, felt like she wasn’t so… lifeless.

“Is that an offer?” She was hopeful, waiting for the answer from the nervous human. Marina would not take blood without consent, not even blood from the hesitant. It felt too much like rape, like the worst violation. She had seen too much pain in her lifetime to create more.

The boy nodded, a little shaken. Marina could smell the soft scent of fear rushing like a blush across his skin. He was tall, tall enough the she had to crane her neck to look him in his pretty face. Those greenish eyes were lined like an Egyptian in kohl. His long hair hung in tired curls, brushing past the thin lines of his ears to touch his chin. The boy was pretty rather than handsome, the kind of boyish face that had apparently come back into style once again.

Marina took a slow step forward, holding out her hand like and offering. He looked at it like it would burn. “My name is Marina. I am first under the master. You are?”

“Darren.” His answer was surprised, like the tiny smile that appeared on his lips. Darren took hold of her hand, and to her amusement, bowed over it to press his lips to her cold skin. Marina smiled back when he stood, managing to keep her fangs hidden without looking close-lipped; vampyres who flashed their fangs like dogs disgusted her. ‘We are humans first. Let the children act like animals, demanding blood and violence. They will learn this is not the true way of our race.’

“A pleasure to meet you, Darren. I think it incredibly uncivilized to take blood without at least attempting to be polite.” Perhaps it was the smile or her nonchalant, semi-human attitude that made the human relax. “But, good Lord, you are so tall! You humans seem to grow much higher than those of my time. You may have to sit for me to reach your neck.” He half smiled and obliged her, settling into one of the high backed dining chairs. He leaned into the cushioned back, giving Marina plenty of room to settle sideways into his lap. She leaned into him, his cologne smelling of cool, mountain air and something forest-like.

‘Amazing. A hundred years ago, it took group hunts to find food.’ Marina thought, absently, staring at the big pulse in Darren’s throat. It throbbed and jumped, consuming her vision. ‘Now I have a boy sitting willingly, waiting for me to drink. Amazing, how strange society has become…’

Marina only took as much blood as she needed, enough to bring a healthy, lively glow to her pale-blue skin. Darren must have sunbathed during the day; his blood tasted of it, rolled like liquid gold over her tongue burning its way pleasantly down Marina’s throat. She could feel his pleasure, smell it in the salt of his skin.

The boy blinked at her slowly, a kind of elated torpor over his body. His tongue snaked out to wet his lips, leaving a shimmering trail across the edge of his mouth. Marina found herself hyperaware of every inch of the human seated before her. He thought she was beautiful; the trail of his thoughts ran across his silver-green eyes like beacons of emotion.

‘The fool gave over with his blood,’ the vampyre mourned, the thought shaking her a little. She had not noticed, even when she touched him, that he held any kind of psychic gift. The boy’s will, his very mind, was strong enough to have created a kind of link between them, built of magic and blood. Marina could see his thoughts, hear his heartbeat. She owned a small part of him now, a piece of his soul, his mind. There was a quiet trust of her in him, something Marina didn’t entirely understand.

She pulled away reluctantly; Darren’s life force, his blood, was the only thing that had drawn her to him. He was merely food in her eyes, though a very precious, intelligent food. Darren wanted her for more than that.

Much more than that.

Marina smiled pleasantly, her belly full and her body humming with life. The human felt disappointed when she pushed away, planting her feet firmly back on the floor. The marble warmed under her, her skin radiating body heat like a human. The look in Darren’s eyes was willing, wanting, but Marina’s body belonged to one man.

Or would, if he would claim it.

“Thank you, Darren. I shall not forget you.” Smiling again, she worked hard to look a little childish, act as young as she looked. There were few advantages to being the “child” and Marina exploited them when she could.

There was a shredded hope in him that burned underneath his open discontent. “I will wait for you tomorrow evening, when you wake, Marina.”

“Then I shall look for you, Darren.” It was formal, the kind of thing that had been popular in the nineteenth century and before, but it still had its uses. There was no intimacy between people who spoke so rigidly to one another. “Thank you, again.”

She left quickly. To humans, it looked like a vanishing act. Vampyres were too fast for most human eyes. Darren made a startled noise from behind her, and then the sense of him disappeared over the distance. ‘Just my luck. Had I been paying a little more attention, I would have realized how strong his will was. He wanted me, but for what? Power? Or something a little more innocent?’ Marina couldn’t imagine, and it didn’t matter. Had she been less focused on blood, on his throat, she would have seen his game and refused him. ‘Foolish. Now I’m carrying a piece of him with me, and will until he dies. Damn these new, gothic humans and their masochistic tendencies. I wonder if he even considered the negative possibilities of binding himself so close to a child of the darkness,’ she shook her head, her smile sad. ‘He’ll Feel it now, everyday, when I die at dawn…’

The hallways were breezy and open, most of the vampyres having fed already and taken flight into the darkness. Only the Master a few of his oldest servants would remain. The children had wild ideas of what their nights should be. Many spent night after night in clubs, finding partners for blood and sex in throbbing Technicolor lights. After a few hundred years, the newness and wild need for blood slacked off, leaving room for other hobbies that could span through decades.

Marina had a fascination with pop culture. In the fifty some years she’d slept, she’d missed quite a bit. It would take years to catch up in her studies, and the thought was a pleasing one.

The Master’s massive treasury supported her little hobby, buying culture item after culture item. That little fact kept her here, under a younger and less powerful vampyre Master. ‘He buys me things and keeps me out of the complex world of vampyre politics. I protect his throne with my power.’ It was a fair enough trade, one that made Marina happy and the Master secure. Nothing like the perfect give-and-take. It was also a good thing that her and the Master got along, and Marina was more than willing to play the less powerful servant.

Marina’s adopted “study” room was silent and deserted. The jigsaw puzzle spread out over the table was half built. The humans had invented 3D puzzles while she slept; they were a fascinating challenge. Marina’s laptop rested in one corner, the screen dead and black. Computers: another modern thing she fought with. ‘Though, I must admit, it is quite a useful tool. When I can get it to work.’ She frowned at the black screen and turned away from him, continuing across the cool carpet to the other side of the room.

History books lined the walls, punctuated by journals and notebooks from her centuries of study. Some strange invention called a “Game Cube” rested by a wide-screen plasma TV. Marina passed them all by, noting the small stack of flash drives resting by her laptop. ‘I’ll have to organize all of those drives; my files should be sorted by year and catalogued. Good thing I have a CD burner; I’ll have to get the Master to pick me up some burnable CDs.’ The words sounded strange to her, the ideas foreign. She’d picked up the lingo from one of the girls who came here regularly to feed the vampyres. It had taken a good part of the four months Marina had been awake to get the hang of the strange machine.

Marina walked through the room, parting the curtains across the doorway and stepped out onto a second story office. Hopefully, she’d received a package today…

The office looked like cube, each facet of the walls and ceiling and floor all equal and square. It was an odd shape for a room, and too small to serve any real useful purpose. The oversized furniture looked and giant huddled in a human’s home, crowded and uncomfortably tight. The walls were a welcoming golden orange, a color somewhere between amber and honey. The unnatural color hurt Marina’s eyes; chemically made paint colors had also been invented while she had slept, and she found the new colors to be obscenely bright. There was a small pile of boxes behind the desk, in several neat stacks. A short, stocky man with a wide grin on his suntanned face sat behind the desk.

“Good evening, Marina. You lookin’ for somethin’?” There was always a smile on Morris’s swarthy face, and a sloppy grin at that. Marina liked him; his motivations were simple and clean. He wanted no real part of the undead. A shame he ended up the graveyard shift secretary for one. Marina knew he wasn’t part of the food that kept the house going, and she had a sneaking suspicion the reason was because he had Fae blood in him. The Fairy children, called Fey, are long descendants of the real Fairies, nymphs, and tree sprites.

‘Perhaps if I was a little younger and a little more reckless I would take a Fae again. But I haven’t the head for spirits of that sort anymore. Their blood is liquid sunshine, leaves us poor vampyres drunk.’ Marina grinned, remembering days long past when she’d drunk of Fae. She chuckled quietly at the memory before returning her full attention to the man in front of her.

“Yes, Morris; did I get a package today?”

“Expectin’ somethin’?” Morris’s dark eyes trailed over the papers in front of him, looking for notes from the Master’s daytime secretary. “Let’s see, we have… two boxes for you. Sound about right?”

The vampyre nodded her head, a glint in her wild eyes. “Perfect! I was hoping I’d get them tonight. Thank you very much, Morris.”

“Not a problem, lady. Here you are.”

Marina carried the twin boxes back into the living room, setting on the floor with them, her skirts puddle around her like an errant cloud. The first box parted with one abrupt yank of her strong hands, revealing a sea of packaging peanuts. She dug through them, smiling as her hand met with something solid. She pulled out the collection of music compact disks, laying them out across the floor. They all shone in the low lighting, each bright and rectangular like tiled rainbows. She read the names on the CD covers and recognized none of them, but it didn’t matter. She’d know every song soon enough. She had all the time in the world to listen, to memorize.

Marina held one of the jewel cases up to the light, studying the cover carefully. “Hmm, The Wall. What a strange name for an album.” It was supposed to be a “classic,” and Marina added it to her collection with a smile. ‘What I wouldn’t give to have someone to share this with.’ That thought tooksome of the shine off of her mood. ‘Perhaps I’m hoping for too much. Love has no place in the hearts of the damned.’

Shaking the thought away, Marina turned to the other box, intent on discovering its contents. She ripped at the box, digging through a pile of bubble wrap to uncover her prize. Inside it was a small, but dense, machine, coated in a silvery plastic. The label on the outside read 8.5 Megapixels in a strange font. She wondered just what it meant.

Out of the package poured wires and chips and books. The contents fascinated her as they awoke a quiet frustration. What on Earth was all of this!?

Marina began pouring over the instructions, searching for way to turn the tiny machine on. ‘There must be a million buttons on this thing!’ She was confounded, confused, and engrossed. This could take weeks to unravel the mystery of just what it was, and how it worked. The words “digital camera” were repeated several times in the instructions. Marina stood to find her dictionary, spilling packaging peanuts all over the carpet as she did so.

There was a quiet clicking noise to Marina’s left, making her spin quickly, reflexes dragging her into an automatic defense mode that had been fine tuned over the centuries. She stood facing her supposed attacker, her breath heaving in her chest, her hands forming claws. She squeaked in surprise as her eyes met his gilded-brown. “Well, well, Marina. Making a mess as always, I see.” He said nothing about her defensiveness, but then again, he didn’t have to.

A blush rose to stain her cheeks, and she fought down her reflexes. She stood up and sneered at him, “What business is it of yours, Cirrus?”

He swept into the room, his jeans hugging at his hips and a long, an unbuttoned dress shirt flapping around his stomach. Muddy brown hair brushed his shoulders, sweeping in long waves over his eyes and across the hard white of his scars. Three long wounds marred the perfect skin of his right cheek, ranging up the side of his face to kiss the edge of his golden eye. They climbed down his body, disappearing into the rim of his jeans. With his chest bare to the night’s air, he looked like a wet dream, something meant to be viewed alone, behind one’s eyelids. His presence, his very power, brushed up against Marina’s skin, filling the room and dancing along her senses like his wintergreen cologne.

This was something that Marina had dreamed of for months. To see him standing there like so many of her fantasies deepened the blush across her nose, but she stayed facing him, bravely, trying to force the sudden rush of blood away from her face.

“This is my house too, you know.” There was a faint accent to Cirrus’ voice: something European and cultured. She wondered, vaguely, where he had come from. Certainly he wasn’t native to this modern American city of Chicago, anymore than Marina was. Marina’s accent had been lost to the ages; she’d worked hard to sound “American.” Cirrus flaunted his homeland accent in a very un-vampyric way.

“This is the Master’s house.” She sneered, her lips curled back over her fangs. “Not either of ours.”

There was something in the depths of those gold-dusted eyes Marina couldn’t understand. She focused on her anger rather than her pain, carefully hiding her reactions to him. She knew she was guarding very carefully against him, lest he smell her desire and use it against her. Marina had been careful, more than careful, to ensure he never caught wind of her dreams. She told no one, avoided him when possible.

It was the hardest when he stood before her, mocking her.

“You would say such a thing,” he hissed. “How is it that you have garnered the favor of the Master? That you’ve managed to empty his accounts into your silly hobbies?”

“Leave me alone, Cirrus.” Marina turned back toward her camera with mock interest, all of her rage a seething aura over her whole body. He had said nothing more than any of the other elders accused her of, so how was he making Marina so angry? Tears welled in her eyes as she fought to control her sudden fury, her hands clutching the owner’s manual like a lifeline.

Cirrus wasn’t finished. “You’re not old enough or powerful enough to be after his position. You hold no threat to him. So what hold do you have on the Master, Marina? Distant blood relations?” There was a sneer in his voice that grated on Marina’s nerves. “Or are you his lover?”

Spinning quicker than even Cirrus could see, Marina backhanded him with the raw kind of violence she hadn’t felt in centuries. She hissed like an animal, pure rage bleeding into the blush across her cheeks. Unaware of the blood-tinged tears streaming from her eyes, she faced the shocked vampyre in a whirlwind of wild rage and consuming pain. He clutched the side of his face with surprise. “Leave me alone, Cirrus.” She repeated, her voice trembling. “Leave me alone or I’ll call you out. I’d kill you, and in a fair fight.” The threat was empty, but it felt good to hear the words tumble from her own lips, felt good to see his beautiful face crumble in fear of her. Her fury shrouded the ball of dejection she had curled herself around, overriding her pain.

Cirrus backed away, blood trickling from his lip, his fear like perfume to Marina’s heightened smell. The cut healed almost immediately, leaving nothing but a trail red down the side of his mouth; Marina stared at him, her rage failing in the face of his blood.

Cirrus’s eyes were wide and dark, something lost and beautiful in them. He froze in a way only the old vampyres could freeze, the life and movement draining from his body. Shocked, he stood as he was, one perfect hand pressed to his cheek. The last of Marina’s anger died with the look of pain in Cirrus, giving way to the urge to comfort and to lick the trail of crimson off of his chin.

She was running before she knew what she was doing, tearing through the hallways like a ghost, a blur of color. The world faded away as she ran, the rooms fading into streaks like a tapestry. Marina shut the door to her chambers, throwing her body onto the rumpled mattress. The night was young; the humans had not even had time to remake her bed before she’d run back to it.

The image of his beautiful face was burned behind her eyelids; Marina had hurt him. She hadn’t meant to. Why was it that things always went so wrong with him?

Marina could imagine his face, his lips moving with a quiet, almost boyish innocence. “Why did you hit me, Marina?” The words sounded real, real enough that she almost turned towards the door. But he wouldn’t be there; he never was.

There was silence for long moments; nothing stirred in the Master’s house. The youngest had left for parties and the elders widdled their time away with quiet hobbies. But the undead made very little sound, and no sound at all when they didn’t want to be heard. Marina had faded into a fit of comatose loathing, her body motionless, dead, and breathless.

Cirrus… She thought her life was difficult before, but the violence of her life in Europe had been easy enough to comprehend. This was a whole new brand of torture, devised by no one in particular, but was even harder to fight then her previous master’s bloodlusts. Violence, at least, she understood.

‘If he’d only offered me violence, like I offer him.’ Tonight’s little fight had not been the first, but a long line of Cirrus pushing her nerves, pressing to get under her skin. He was after something, after her secrets, but the love she held was far too dangerous to let go.

‘Like Rynaiia; I remember.’ A kind-hearted vampyre, Rynaiia. Not words you often hear together. She was strong, brave. Beautiful. ‘I followed her like a slave, because she didn’t hold us with fear or violence, she held us kindly with debts that turned into loyalty.’ Rynaiia had made the mistake of falling in love. Had her heart torn out twice by her lover: once when he turned traitor and again when he’d reach through her chest with his bare hands and took it from her chest.

‘He bled her without remorse, stood over her body with her heart still beating in his hands, drinking not only her blood, but her life, her hope.’ Rynaiia had died not of the wound or loss of blood, but of a broken heart, walking out into the sunlight like someone possessed.

The memory was far too clear, far too real.

Marina picked herself up off her bed, a puppet pulled up by strings from where she lay. She slid out of the gloom of her cell and into the starlit night. It had been many years since she stood like this under the open sky, and she marveled at the light pollution from the nearby city. This was as bright as Marina’s life ever had been.

The coolish, autumn air was refreshing, drying the red-laced tears that still rimmed her eyes like gothic makeup. ‘Another night, another fight with Cirrus.’ She frowned and tried to shake herself free of the memory; memory would serve for nothing but tears, and she’d had quite enough. ‘I wouldn’t be able to find another benign ruler, like Master. No other would accept one as old as myself without seeing me as a threat to their power. I was lucky, here. No, I will continue to live here, to die here, to suffer keeping Cirrus at arms length until he either moves on or dies.’

The night cooled her temper, severed her anger, dried her tears. It was enough. The night would hold her, comfortlessly but completely. She stayed out in the cold until all the borrowed body heat was gone and her blood ran sluggish through her veins. The cold felt good, froze her down, cooling her anger, until there was nothing left but an empty shell of what she had been, only hours before.

A soft touch against her mind brought her back to herself. It was just a touch, a brush of lips in the dark. And it tasted of Darren, the human who had given himself over so freely. ‘Darren. One of the last people I want to see.’

“Forgive me, Marina. But the Master has sent me to bring you to him. I did not mean to disturb you, but I had no choice.” He looked sad, as if he felt her reluctance to see him. He smelled faintly of cold air and pine needles, a very familiar scent that teased Marina’s memory. She was forced to shield from him, because his desire for her is clouding her mind, breaking over her like a wave. She couldn’t quite push him away, because of the link. She gleaned two very important things from the brief contact with Darren’s mind: that he wasn’t after sex, or not entirely, but after something she held in her mind, and he was serving another vampyre.

‘Stupid human,’ she thought, almost angry at the boy’s conceited ignorance, turning to watch his face as he came closer. There was arrogance in him, as if he thought he’d mind-caught an elder with blood, as if he knew something she did not. The confident little half smile on his mouth infuriated her far more than it should.

“Then I shall go see the Master.” Marina answered, her shortness bordering on rudeness, but she wasn’t entirely sure she cared. She swept into the building, her skirts brushing by Darren’s body and leaving him alone and shivering in the dark.

The throne room was only down the hall. There was only one entrance to the room; merely a security measure for a vampyre old enough to worry of such things, and still young enough to care. Marina nodded to the guards on either side of the double doors and pressed her way inside.

The high, sweeping ceilings were what caught your attention first. They climbed several stories into the air, the arches coming to a peak more than eighty feet over Marina’s head. Graying, forest green fabric hung in long lines from the ceiling to wrap around the long, Greek columns. The floors, walls and throne were coated in a black, speckled marble, making the room look as though it had been covered in pieces of the night sky. There was a weak flow of air from somewhere; it was enough to ruffle Marina’s curls, piled so carefully atop her head.

Marina swept into the room, the long, cloudy flow of her skirts spilling across the black marble. She curtseyed low in front of the throne, and remained utterly still, not even moving to breathe. All the life in her thin limbs seemed to melt away, leaving behind a small statue of white marble, as if placed to contrast the climbing black walls.

She remained low, bowing, waiting. Marina could feel the press of power from the Master, as if each one of his many years were washing over her. It was a considerable amount of power; Master would have been considered dangerous even in circles of undead far older than he.

Then in a moment, it was gone.

Marina stood, slowly, coming to her feet and waiting. If the Master felt no need for a show of power here, then it was only the two of them. There was no one to impress between them.

The Master was tall, even in this modern age and well formed. The cold intelligence in the depths of his honey-brown eyes was starling and bright, only extenuated by the smooth curve of his sloping forehead and almost non-existent, platinum hair. The Master kept it close cropped, a habit instilled in him during his days as a Roman soldier.

He stood in a sweep of loose robes and slid off of his platform with paranormal grace. He stopped close enough that Marina had to crane her neck a little to see his face.

“I hear Cirrus is giving you trouble, Lady Marina.”

Marina blinked, twice, her lips parting in disbelief. She fought the emotion down from her face, pressing it deeper inside. “Only a little,” the answer was stoic, empty of all the things she was truly feeling. “I think it amuses him.”

The Master frowned, a crease forming between his formidable eyebrows. “I heard of your fight this evening, Lady Marina.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, leaning a little closer to her face. “I heard there was first blood drawn.”

She choked on a laugh. “It was not a formal challenge, Master. I believe Cirrus knows I would kill him in a moment. I’m not planning to call him out for a duel, if that’s why you have brought me here.” Marina wanted nothing more than to leave; she was tired of this conversation already. Just the thought of Cirrus had twisted her exhausted heart into a throbbing knot.

“If he bothers you, I could send him away.”

So that was it. “I see.” It was kind of strange to know she held Cirrus’ position, his entire undead life in the palm of her hand. She didn’t like the power, not really. What was power against freedom? Having people below you who followed your orders also held the possibility of being overthrown. Which was why Marina was here, under a lesser Master, in the first place. She shook her head, the tiny silver curls brushing against the naked skin of her slender shoulders. “No, Master. He only irritates me; I have no desire to force anyone to leave here.”

“As you say.”

It was enough of a dismissal that Marina turned without another word and left, a streak of white disappearing behind the high wooden doors.

‘Gods, this night could not get any worse,’ she mourned, pressing her long fingers against the cool skin of her neck. She could feel her pulse racing, her heart fighting to beat itself to pieces. ‘Sleep, I need more sleep. Real sleep, not more death at dawn.’ The thought gave a little pleasure to sweeten the bitter disaster of that night. ‘The dreams, my dreams. The only thing left that won’t hurt me.’ And with that tired thought, she retired to her rooms, before the moon had even begun to fall toward the treeline.

Marina’s eyes flew open as the sun kissed the edge of the horizon, just beginning its long descent into darkness. She could feel the sun sink; it was a kind of excitement that roused the remaining blood in her veins, as if her very cells were singing praise to the coming of the night. The hum in her body woke her completely from death, a kind of life flowing back into her stiffened body. She sat up, carefully, trying to shake off the sore feeling of fatality from her limbs.

The first real thoughts to come to her mind were she was hungry and that there had been no dreams that night. ‘Ah, so be it. Maybe the dreams will go away and leave my sleep in peace.’ She dressed, slowly, her hair still styled from the night before. Marina stretched, watching herself carefully in the long mirror. She was lucky enough to have a modern body, but she was too short for this new era. Her legs were long and well-built, her hips round and her breasts rounder. There was a quiet kind of beauty to her, from the shimmering blue jewels of her eyes to the white curls of her long hair. A beauty she was completely blind to. She looked in the mirror, pursed her pale lips and saw only a child, a girl in the soft lines of her pretty face.

The hallways were empty this far away from dawn. Only the oldest of the vampyres had the power to wake before the sunset; it took immense strength to fight the sunlight, even when that light was dying, bleeding its last rays into the night sky.

‘Blood first.’ She thought. ‘I’ll have the pick of the litter this early in the day, so to speak.’ She actually chuckled, her mood much improved after her long sleep. She actually whistled as she walked through the hallways, carefully avoiding those rooms with windows facing the setting sun. Her spirits were high, her thoughts coated in blood and wondering idly whether or not she had received any packages.

Something familiar stopped her midstep; a touch, like a kiss across the inside of her skull. That small touch was enough to freeze her in place, stealing away all the pleasure she had gathered around herself.

She turned, watching as Darren walked to her. He had a kind of sway to his hips that matched the cut of his jeans, like they were made for one another. The long t-shirt clung to his broad shoulders, gray loops and vines crawling down the front of the black material. He smiled, a little, the confusion clouding up the soft emerald of his black-lined eyes.

“Lady Marina.”

“Darren.”

There was a short silence, a searching pair of jade eyes looking for something in Marina’s icy blue ones. But there, in the stoic depths of her face, there was nothing to find.

They stood there, facing each other for so long, Marina began to wonder just what he had come to her for. She took a short breath, taking in air to speak, when Darren started to speak. “Why didn’t you get rid of Cirrus?” He blurted, as if he were angry. “You had the chance, didn’t you? With the way you fight, I thought…”

“You know about our fights?”

He sighed, exasperated. “Everyone knows about your fights, Lady Marina.”

After the bewilderment faded, Marina began to boil with anger. “It’s none of your business, Darren. How dare you, give yourself over with your blood, trying to feed on my thoughts without my permission. Who is your master and what does he want from me?”

“Lady…”

The boy looked shocked. Marina stepped closer, the scent of Darren was like pine needles and cold air, the scent of wintergreen. Again, it teased her memory; the scent was so familiar…

“Cirrus.” She breathed the word between her lips, the sound crashing against her ribcages. He was insufferable! “It’s Cirrus, isn’t it? What does he want from me?” She hissed up into the human’s face.

Darren stammered back at her, “How did you...?”

“You smell of his cologne, you foolish human. Answer my question.” The growl that poured from her throat was more hunter than human, the fangs she barred more animal than civil. It frightened Darren enough to talk.

“He’s only curious of you, my lady. Honestly.” The human stammered, holding his hands out in front of him in defense. “He knows very little of history, of vampyre politics. His master was killed shortly after Darren died, leaving him in the middle of the French Revolution without guidance.” Darren lowered his hands slightly was Marina’s vicious expression went slack with shock. They both knew how of the Revolution, and how the vampyric nobility of the French houses had suffered…

But Marina’s face quickly hardened again, pushing yet another horrible memory away from the top of her memory. A frown closed her gaping mouth. “Tell your master to leave me alone. My past is none of his concern.”

“All he wants is your story, Lady Marina,” he pleaded “not the key to your downfall or your position. Only your story.”

She laughed, sounding cynical and pained even to her own ears. “Fine if he burns to know so badly: I hate vampyre politics, Darren. I hate them. I here to be away from them. I serve the Master only for that reason.”

“A lesser master?”

Marina frowned, her nose curling up in disgust at the conversation. “Yes, a lesser master. I am older than the Master by more than three hundred years.” She stared at him for a moment, her ice-blue eyes running over the contours of his face. “Start spreading that around the manor and I will deny it. No one will believe such stories from a human.”

Darren snorted, crossing his arms over his chest in a vain effort to stay warm. “Ye of so little faith. Why were you so reluctant to tell him that, Lady Marina?”

“He… unnerves me. He is too different, has strange motivations.” She turned away, shielding her mind as carefully as she could from his intrusions, conscious or not.

There was silence for a long moment, the quiet rustling of the night animals was the only sound between them.

“What do you feel for him, Lady Marina?”

Marina hiccupped, coughed to cover it. The question had been so unexpected… She tried to force her face to stoicism, and managed, save for the long, burning line of crimson across her nose. “Nothing.”

Darren laughed, the low, rich voice rolling off of his tongue. “Off the record, so to speak, Lady.”

“If only I believed that.”

She left, unsure of what the boy knew, and what he guessed. She still needed to feed. There were humans aplenty, even at this hour, waiting for some of the newest vampyres to wake. She fed and then crossed over the dining room over to her study. She didn’t want to think about Cirrus, or his Darren. She didn’t want to think about them at all. She could hear the children waking, their long sound running out of the manor like a stampede of bodies into the night. Marina stayed in her study and stayed there, waiting, fumbling with her new digital camera. The camera was all the instructions said it would be, and she found a joy in digital photography that grew with every new picture. Three hours later, Morris found her taking pictures of her pale feet and hands.

“Evenin’, Lady Marina.” He made a kind of awkward bow around three large boxes he carried. “I got me kind of worried, yah know, when you didn’ come down for your boxes. Figured I’d bring your things up myself, since there wasn’ much for me to do, yah know.” He looked around, obviously uncomfortable.

“Goodness, Morris, I must have forgotten.” Her voice sounded scratchy and forced even to her own voice. Had she been human, Morris probably would have pressed his fingers to her forehead, asked if she was sick. It wasn’t possible for vampyres to catch the common cold. “Thank you for bringing those all the way up for me.”

“You got three boxes, lady. Oh, and this, too. One of the other blooddrinkers dropped this off for you about ten minutes ago. Dunno why he didn’t bring it to you himself. Awful silly to leave somethin’ down with me when it’s a shorter walk to your room or your study.”

Marina frowned. “They probably had their reasons; thank you, Morris.”

Morris shrugged and set the boxes in front of Marina’s feet. “As ye say, Lady Marina. Have a good night.” He tipped his odd little hat at her and left, his thick feet leaving boot-shaped indents across the carpet.

Setting aside the boxes, Marina held out the envelope, weighting it in her hands as if guessing at its contents. After a short moment of contemplation, she ripped the packaging apart spilling its insides into her lap; a squarish jewel case glowed under the soft lighting, wrapped in a small piece of paper. The CD was a dark blue, with something like a large pentagram dominating the front. It looked like a star, save for two of the points of the star were rounded, to make a heart shape inside of the pentagram.

“HIM, Dark Light.” She whispered, the words strange and beautiful over her tongue. “Odd name for a band; HIM?”

Running her fingers over the smooth plastic, she dropped the CD into the player, switching the power on without taking her eyes from the case. The music began, the low rumbling wail of an electric guitar spilling from the little speakers. A man’s voice rolled out, caressing her ears like velvet.

Smiling, she dropped the case onto the couch picked up the piece of paper that had tumbled out from the package. The paper was not printer paper, but something that looked vaguely like handmade parchment. The ink was black and spotted, as if written with an old fashion quill. Her breath caught in her throat as she read the note. It fell from her shocked fingers, floating to the floor. It read, simply, “My favorite is the first song; I thought you would like it as well.” There was no real signature, just a large, ornately written “C.”

---

If you're a H.I.M. fan you might get the joke in the last coupleof paragraphs. Though, it's not really a joke, just one of those weird, ironic things that make you giggle. Or make me giggle.

Hope you enjoyed this little piece; I liked writing it for the most part. Have a good weekend, everyone!

::mina::