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Circle Alone

A one-room cottage nestled at the base of a dark wood. Bright yellow light blinked as a bent figure crossed its path. The surrounding trees watched through the window with black anger at the thin, bent figure that had made such a cheery home so near to their bitter selves. The branches clawed the thatch while groaning to one another in the wind. Movement among the tree trunks stirred even greater fury. They sensed death taking temporary shelter beneath their covetous limbs and thrashed in the light wind. The figure ignored the malice surrounding it and watched the small house.

Ears sharpened by a lifetime of night travel listened to the forest’s complaints unfazed. Listening to the whispered footsteps of a fox, the watcher caught the soft drip of blood from the rabbit it carried to its den to be shredded by the waiting kits. Blood - a nose twitched and an animalistic growl slipped from a pale throat. The shadows gave way and revealed a young man, his thin lips drawn back in a parody of a smile. The powdery starlight caught the edge of his elongated canine teeth. This had been a moment he had waited for his entire undead life, unholy violet eyes focused on the woman. A name slipped from his lips,

“Rhona.”

The man presently watching through the small window traced a finger across the glass, passing over the blue eyes which had haunted him for so long. A thick wet cough shook her thin frame violently. He could sense the air bubbling in her lungs as she struggled to finish washing the wooden bowl and spoon she had used for supper. With that small task complete, she slowly moved about the sparsely furnished cottage with only a small trundle bed padded by a grass-filled mattress with a leather trunk at its foot, a heavy wooden table with two chairs at either end, and a cabinet for the wooden dishes. The only decoration which hung on the white walls was a brilliantly colored quilt with a bridal-ring pattern in red and blue. In firelight that bravely tried to drive back the late Autumn chill, the woman rubbed her worn, skeletal hands before picking up a ball of yarn. Her long woolen dress had been patched a number of times and heavy knit socks covered her feet but her thin fingers had no protection. Pulling one of the table chairs close to the fire, she prepared her regular evening task of knitting.

Rumors ran in the village a few miles away that the lonely woman of the tiny cottage had been cursed and driven from her own town under threat of execution. When she made the occasional journey to the village market, the people turned cold shoulders. Those who took her money or traded her knitted scarves for goods would not look her in the eye. Only when she turned her own back to their curious and suspicious gaze did they begin to voice their displeasure in whispers regarding her presence.

“She must have run away from her husband.”

“Don’t let her look at you for too long.”

“When is she going to pass on?”

“Are we responsible for a burial?”

“I’ll bet she was a loose girl in her prime.”

“One day she will burn this place to the ground with her curse.”

She would move on to find her next purchase, her slightly stooped walk tilting her face towards the ground. If anyone had tried to look more closely, they would have seen the faint traces of the beautiful woman she had once been. Now the beauty was only a shadow - her long dark red hair had turned pale auburn, the fair white skin fading almost to transparency, and her once sharp blue eyes slightly hazed with a secret pain. Burdened with packages and a basket of vegetables, the unwelcome stranger would hobble out of the village. No one ever offered assistance.

The cottage had been empty for as long as anyone could remember before she moved in for no one dared to live so near the black forest full of fearless animals. Yet she had arrived without preamble and lived there for years suffering no ill encounters. Her strange fortune only added to her mystery. The few times a year when she entered the village she was watched with suspicion and fear.

A tapping at the window caused her to pause. With a faint frown, she turned to peer into the darkness. A moment later the tapping came from the door. She stiffened, hand clutching her knitting needles in pitiful reassurance that she was not entirely defenseless.

Taking a deep breath, she called out firmly, “Who comes?”

Receiving no answer, she sat back down. When the tapping resumed, she ignored it, deciding that the fire needed restoking. Taking a new log from the neatly stacked pile by the door, she started at the sudden sharp pounding. The firewood hit the floor with a clatter.

A voice filled with the cold mountain wind spoke, “Rhona, let me in. A mere door cannot stop me.”

Blue eyes widened and her hand reached automatically for the door handle before clenching into a fist. “Derron?” she breathed.

“Open the door, Rhona.”

The frigid tone did not mask the familiar tone of authority. The confidence stirred memories that were warm and painful. With a sigh, Rhona obeyed. As soon as her hand touched the latch, it opened with a loud scrape over packed dirt. She stepped back, clutching the neck of her dress. The man who entered looked to be no older than twenty-seven with what might have been ruggedly handsome features if he hadn’t been so fair-skinned. Instead, the strange contradiction only added to the cold atmosphere that surrounded his muscled frame.

Derron smirked, “I thought we had come to an agreement about us.”

Rhona’s cloudy blue eyes carried a flash of lightening. “That was a long time ago.”

His own eyes were once coal black hiding behind a curtain of chocolate-brown hair. Now they glided over her aged figure with an eerie violet light. He smiled drily, his voice pitched in a low rumble.

“Time has not treated you fairly, my dear.”

“And time has still paused for you.” She replied with tone of heavy regret. With a slow stoop, Rhona returned to her chair and picked up her knitting and her fingers began moving in their traditional pattern.

Derron closed the cottage door and took a closer look at the room. The quilt held his attention for a moment before he crossed the floor to stand behind Rhona’s seated figure. Gently he reached out to catch the faded auburn braid in a hand tipped with thick black fingernails. Her busy fingers paused.

“Your hair is dying, just like the rest of you.”

Rhona pulled the plait from his grasp and resumed knitting. Derron snarled softly but she was unfazed. Looking over her shoulder, she frowned. “Do try to act civilized while in my home.”

“Civilized? That is a human illusion to prevent the weak from being overrun by the mighty.”

“It shows respect. I have not seen you in nearly fifty years and I hope respect is one courtesy you may show me.”

He shrugged. The fireplace sputtered before a fresh log was toed into the coals. Derron again took Rhona’s braid into his pale hands and she allowed it. After a long moment, the knitting came to rest in her lap.

“Do you ever regret that night when you met your creator?” Her voice was soft with memory. “Do you ever miss the sunlight?”

Derron slowly unwound the strands of plait and let her hair flow through his fingers. “I admit that when Cristyn took my life, I was afraid. But when I returned from death, the power and sensations that flowed through me were worth the fears. She gave me too much to ever regret anything of my previous life.” His hand clenched into a fist, twisting a few strands and making Rhona wince. “When I came back and felt all those things, all I wanted was to give you the same. I wanted you to share eternity with me. I had strength beyond any mere mortal. I had experienced pleasure beyond any that you could possibly imagine. And I had all the time in the world before me.” He hissed. “I gladly sacrificed the sun for such a thing. I no longer labor in the fields over crops that may never sprout or clear trees for a rough home suitable only for livestock.”

Releasing his grip, Derron began perusing the quilt hanging on the wall. He looked sideways at her, violet eyes narrowed. “You could have had the same. I offered you a better life than that our parents had left us.”

Rhona watched his movements and smiled sadly. “Not at the sacrifice of others. Power of the dead taken from the blood of the living goes against my conscience.”

“Your conscience?” He snarled and drew his claws viciously across the plaster wall leaving dark brown marks on the whitewash. “What about your love? Our love could have lasted for an eternity.”

A small smile crossed Rhona’s lips. “You were always so calm, but never very controlled when it came to your temper once it was riled. It’s nice to see that some things never change.” Her eyes dropped to her lap. “Our love was made sweeter by the fact that we only had our lifetime to explore it.” She set down her knitting and carefully approached his stiff, cold form. “This,” she touched the quilt with reverent hands, “was to cover our wedding bed. Your mother and mine worked for months on it. They said that the rings symbolized the beginning and ending of all things, even as they are inter woven with one another - a cycle. When you chose to become an undead, you left that cycle.”

Derron hissed through the prominent fangs in his mouth. “I did not leave any cycle. I rose above it!” He clenched his fists, dark hair falling into his eyes. “I wanted to give you the world! I still can, if you will accept me.”

For the first time in years Rhona laughed - a breathy, almost childish sound. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes as she held her stomach and throat, overcome with giggles. When she managed to regain control of her reaction, she turned a brilliant smile to the slightly offended Derron.

“Do not be so rash. What will you do with an old woman like me? A vampire can only stop time for a body, not turn it back.” She shook her head, long hair cloaking her frail shoulders. “No, my once-love, it is far too late.”

He angrily grabbed her by the chin, amethyst eyes blazing. “Do not take my offer so lightly, Rhona. Everything I did those years ago was to give you more.” His cool breath danced across her face.

She held his glare without flinching but her voice dropped to a whisper. “The murders, the fire, the destruction... they gave me nothing but pain. How can you say that you became a monster for me and for my happiness. You did not need to become stronger. I did not want anything more than my gentle and proud husband-to-be.”

Derron’s sharp nails threatened to break her thin skin as he tightened his hold. “That only occurred because you refused me - you broke your promise to love me forever.”

Rhona took his vicious hand between her own, her gentle touch partially taming the wild power holding her. “No, Derron, you broke the promise first. You broke it with your mistress, Cristyn. You took yourself away from me, and then you drove me away from our childhood home.”

A flicker of sorrow crossed his face before fading behind the mask of frigid winter. “I died for you, and then you threw that gift back in my face. You were my life - my only redemption for being cursed - and then you took that away. It was only fair that I do the same to you.” Derron sneered and gave her head a sharp jerk to the side, exposing her throat, “Yes I killed the villagers but their deaths are on your head.”

The silence with which she returned his accusations only added to his cold fury. He seized her by the neck, pulling her to her toes inches away from his bared teeth. “Damn you, Rhona! If you would simply hate me or fear me then I could continue my undead life without any doubt to my decision to leave you behind. Instead you cling to the memories that will not leave me be. I hate you!” Derron’s face twisted into a demonic snarl as he screamed, “I hate you!”

Spittle flew from his mouth and fell upon her straining face. She still did not fight him, only waited patiently. He shook her once like a dog with an animal before throwing her across the room. She crashed into the opposite wall to land coughing on the bed. A bitten cry did not cover the sound of breaking bone but he made no move to assist her. Instead Derron turned and drove his fist into the white plaster of the cottage room. Back turned to her, shoulders heaving with the unneeded pants of anger, he pulled his hand out of the crumbling wattle and daub. Rhona clutched her left side as she rubbed her neck where purple bruises began to form under her pale skin. Rising to her knees, her coughs continued but the tone changed from the dry hacking for air, to a deep wet reverberation through her body that would not stop. She half-rose to her knees before choking at the blinding pain of a broken rib driven into her lung.

“Derron, if you truly hate me,” her voice was tight and weak, “then you would simply kill me and not throw me about my own home.”

Crystal violet eyes narrowed. Dusting his hands, he stepped towards the bed. “Do not try to distract me. I no longer care about mortal’s frail bodies. I came here only for an answer. Will you accept my sacrifice?”

Rhona, her breathing still heavy, looked up at him, “I refused you then, and I will refuse you now. That night when you came to me,” her murky eyes began to overflow with tears. “I saw you - so beautiful, but so cold. Your soul had gone and it would never return - it was your soul I loved, not your strength or power. There was nothing left to love but a shell. Perhaps,” the old woman shuddered violently at her confession, “perhaps you could have persuaded me over time, but when you killed them...” Her voice faded as her thin body slipped to the blanket.

Frigid fingers pushed the graying red hair back to expose the back of Rhona’s neck. A breath that promised death passed over her skin yet she simply lay unmoving, struggling for her own breath of life. A whisper curled along the shell of her ear, “You made me insane with anger.” Derron gently nipped the cartilage with a fang. “I killed your family and mine. I wiped our village out of existence because I wanted to wipe away every trace of what might have been. I wanted the sun to cry at what it saw the next morning.”

Watery blue eyes closed. “The sun hid away that morning. But I saw... I saw it all... And I knew you were beyond my reach.” With life rattling in her throat, Rhona turned on her side. Derron, who was leaning over the edge of the bed, flinched when she reached up to touch his face. The movement brought a weak smile to her face as she traced down his cheek to the faint scarring of a bite on his throat. “Yet you allowed me to live and you are here now. Why is that?”

When he didn’t reply, she opened her eyes and clearly caught the churning anger, possessiveness, and perhaps something which may have been guilt. She hoped that it was. She hoped that despite his decades of indulgences and death that through his blood-driven madness he could still remember the times of happiness and contentment. “Did you feel anything when you saw the carnage? I cried until my eyes wanted to weep blood. I cried as I buried my family and yours, I cried at the sight of the house we were to make our own, but I could not cry you away.”

Derron couldn’t hold her gaze. She had left the ruined community surrounded by the smoke and smells of slaughter to vanish into the wilderness. His ring of engagement had been left on a leather string hanging from the small scorched apple tree where they had shared their first kiss. Cristyn, his maker, had drawn him away to have sport with the survivors of the earlier massacre until the gorging of blood sent them both into a deep sleep. When he had woken, it was too late to pursue Rhona. Years passed full of evil pleasures as Cristyn’s lust for darkness consumed him.

Cristyn had seduced him with promises of greater social status, greater power, and the ability to preserve his existence with his childhood love for eternity. Later she had seduced him with her body - her long black hair caressing his skin and her inhuman strength pinning him to the ground as she had her way with him. While she fed from livestock she filled his head with stories of her own turning. She demonstrated her own powers of illusions and delighting him with transformations into a black owl. She had bided her time until Derron allowed her to take his life. When he had woken from death, eyes glowing with a new light, he immediately left to seek out Rhona. Cristyn had merely waited with a smile, calculations falling into perfect order behind icy green eyes.

An hour later Derron had returned to the abandoned barn where Cristyn slept during the day. He had torn the door from its hinges in a fury. “She refused me! She called me an animal - a soulless thing!” He screamed. “I offer her an immortal life - something no other can give - and she refuses me!”

Gently Cristyn had wound her arms around his cool chest and whispered in his ear, “Then she was not your true love. What logical person throws away such a gift? How could someone be so insulting?”

Derron had gnashed his newly-grown fangs while gripping Cristyn’s wrist. “No, she never did love me.”

“She never would appreciate you. But I can.” His maker slid herself against him. “Let me show you true love. Then we will go teach all of them a lesson.”

He had let her pull him down, let her take him, and let her lead in the slaughter at midnight. He had watched the blood of his family run in the grass and blamed Rhona for his broken, unbeating heart.

“I had no tears to cry.” His gaze centered on the quilt. “I had eternity before me - what difference would one village be to a hundred. What is one life sacrificed for immortality?”

“One life becomes a thousand.” Rhona’s breath came in short pants. “How will you live for eternity with that knowledge? You cannot say you are Derron - you cannot be here and asking for my forgiveness - if you do not feel a prick of guilt each time someone dies at your feet.”

He did not answer.

“And now you find me at my moment of death.” Her voice slipped into the thinnest whisper. “You come after so long, just to help me on my way.”

Derron’s lip curled in disgust. “I am not here to help you. I came to show you what you missed. Age has turned you into a living corpse while I am still in my youth. There is no compassion, only hate - hate, and satisfaction that you lie there, your lungs full of your own fluids.” He crawled up onto the bed to kneel over her. Looking down at her with a sneer, he continued, “I see death all over you. You’ve been ill for some time now, haven’t you? Sitting up late at night, unable to breath. Cooking only vegetables since there is no man in the house to supply meat.” He carefully placed his fingers over the bruises he had left earlier. “Let me end it now. Let me have this one last thing. I gave you my life - give me this in return.”

Rhona shook her head, pink bubbles flecking the corners of her mouth. When he bent towards her neck, she struggled for the first time, gasping desperately, “Derron, if you ever loved me, you will not do this.”

He paused. “Why not? You are in pain. Let me prove to you that being a vampire has not changed me but only unleashed the hidden strengths within. I can end your life in a moment of the purest pleasure you can ever imagine. You will sink into the feathers of angels while being warmed by the flames of Hades.”

“No - Because I want to cherish these last moments.” She coughed thickly, pink foam darkening to red blood. “I can handle the pain, just as long as you are here, as it should be. As it should have been.”

“As it should have been?”

Rhona smiled, her cloudy eyes gradually losing focus. “You have become so selfish. You have forgotten how to give... All you do is take - take life, take happiness, take futures...” She choked on the mixed blood and the infection of her lungs that had been plaguing her for months. “Let me take this... since I have given you so much.”

“Take your death from me?” Derron hissed skeptically even as his fingers stroked the paper-thin skin of her face. “I am death incarnate.”

A moment of silence filled the room until Rhona began shivering. “I am cold, Derron.”

He stood to search the leather trunk at the foot of the bed. It only contained a few summer dresses, a second woolen dress, and two pairs of stockings along with various undergarments. After an instant of hesitation, Derron tore the bridal quilt from its hangings, fraying the corners. Lifting Rhona with ease, he wrapped her tightly in the quilt before setting her back on the bed, bundled up like a child. He settled next to her, one arm bearing his weight as he leaned across her legs giving him a full view of her thin form. Her eyes silently followed his every move in his parody of a caring husband. His fingers lingered in her hair as it flowed over her shoulders and across the quilt when he gave it a final tuck.

They stared at one another. Rhona took in Derron’s face, trying to mentally replace the eerie violet with the warm black she had loved her entire life. Derron watched as the frail figure next to his cold body continued to fight its final rest. Once they had relaxed in such a fashion when she had fallen ill with a fever as a teenager. She had begged that he leave before he caught her sickness, but he had only laughed and replied that he hadn’t been sick for three years. Unfortunately, his words returned to haunt him a few days later and it was a week before they were able to see one another. The memories threatened to overwhelm her.

Rhona finally whispered, “I have one question and depending on the answer, you may take me.”

Derron frowned in suspicion but he made no indication of refusing her.

“Do you have any regrets? Any at all?” Rhona murmured through stained lips.

Hard violet eyes met pale sapphire. He shifted his weight on the bed with a sigh. “Only one.” He traced his finger around one of the bridal circles on the quilt. “Only that you would not share the endless night by my side. I destroyed our home in mad hope that it would drive you back to me. Instead, it drove you further away.”

She tried to laugh. “What did you expect? When I saw what had happened, I knew it was you and your mistress - there were no other vampires in the valley. I kept your secrete and had told no one you were seeing her. Does she know you’re here now?”

“No, she was killed a month ago.”

“By whom?”

He smiled but it contained no humor. “I waited till she had gorged herself and fallen into one of her stupor's. I waited, and I took her blood for myself.” He shrugged at the appalled look she gave him. “I tired of her gluttony. She never saw me as more than anything but a pet. There was no real love between us. Not like between you and I.”

Rhona slowly stretched out her left hand from beneath the quilt to touch his face. He caught her by the wrist and drew it to his lips. As he opened his mouth to bite down, she whispered,

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

She shook her head and closed her eyes, waiting. He took in the pale, tissue-thin skin of her wrist with its blue veins running over and under the wiry tendons. A light cough drew his gaze upward, where blood had begun to trickle down her chin. He slid smoothly up the bed towards her neck and turned his head. Just as his teeth cut into her throat, he caught her last words,

“You will be alone.”

Derron drank deeply, returning the pleasure of his feeding back into the woman beneath him. Rhona gasped once before her body collapsed. When he pulled away, her blue eyes were open and full of sorrow. Derron gently folded a frayed corner of the wedding quilt over her face.

“Aye, the circle is closed.”

The forest recoiled from the bright hot orange flames that invaded its territory. Animals pricked their ears and sharp eyes watched the passing of a night walker through their midst. The cottage burned for three days. On the sixth day, a brave villager sought out the source of the smoke rising out of the horizon and found only crumbled clay and charred posts.