I was at the Castle, sitting on a couch in one of those niches with chairs and the very basic kitchen setup: a sink, a water boiler, a fridge and some cups in the cupboards. This particular alcove also hosted a television and a view of the cargo rails. I hadn't fancied tea and was instead holding some cranberry juice in an earthenware cup. I had gotten the juice from a supermarket on my way, already some hours ago.

It was silent in the Castle that night. A few links were training somewhere far downstairs, but the odd humm of the big building masked their presences, so that I felt I was alone in the universe. At least for the moment.

Earlier, just shy of midnight, Carnation had been with me. She had been here, listening to my Sacrifice tonight. Then she had been off too. There was a bigger Court gathering between cities, in the South Port. The Queen was there, so were most of the others. Blizzard wasn't attending, but he had other worries as he was desperately trying to locate and fix the leaking roof of his house before the autumn storms hit. Apparently he had a library located just beneath.

I sipped from the cup, letting the sugary taste fill my mouth and nostrils. Only then I swallowed. Then filled my mouth again.

It had been decades since I had been human. Nothing tasted quite the same as back then. The deep satisfaction of a filled stomach, a satiated thirst or of blood sugar on the rise just wasn't there. Without the bodily stimuli, the taste was hollowed out. As if I were only smelling the stuff and never truly bringing anything down into the organ that had died thirty years ago.

I placed the cup on the table and looked into the night. By my estimate, it was somewhere around three in the night.

Mo had taken the pills. She sometimes did, just to make sure I wouldn't develop a resilience for them and would sometimes sleep off the side effects. I had just woken up, gone to the City, and found the Castle empty on my return.

It had been nice that Carnation had happened to pass by, but it wouldn't have been catastrophic if she hadn't. It was the Queen's rule that every Sacrifice was to be shared. But as I often was diurnally active, there rarely was anyone around to share my experience right away. I was accustomed to waiting for my turn of sharing.

Sometimes I composed simple songs of the empty shells I drained. Let the experience flow through music. Mo knew I didn't share every song with another vampire, and she let it be. Important was to pause and process, to have a small reverent moment on their deaths.

It wasn't like anyone else was going to do it.

The ones that ended up consumed by vampires tended to be empty shells. Their souls had flown before their lungs stopped working. Desperation had died out and been replaced by an accepted kind of misery that was desolate and hung to places like the smell of smoke, impossible to wash away without proper soap. Without sharing and music. And they had no music, and no one to share even a beer with.

Often the houses were dirty and the inhabitants of the hollow spaces confused. For them it didn't matter anymore what day it was, or what year. Most often they didn't know which it was.

Unless there was a show on the radio or television they enjoyed. Something that happened at a specific time of the week or day.

But no one called, or visited, and rare people knew their names or what had been important to them when they had still been alive, if they had ever gotten a chance to create their stories and anchor their existence to something they had created and nurtured.

Usually there was blood before I came. It had dried on the sheets and clothes. Along with other bodily fluids. They had scratches that wouldn't heal, wounds that were pestering.

Unless they were on wards. Then there was nothing but the chloride. Every surface clean of everything. The smell of urea was absent, but so was every other smell as well. And they were simply there, on their backs or sides. The body feeling miserable and no soul left in their lungs.

Ah, but a City could be cruel. It harbored many possibilities, and many traps. At the same time as people slowly crumbled away, others hung desperately to life. Long working hours and household shores, ends that didn't quite meet. And then those who owned big houses by the river, and at fifty sat on the porches and looked out over the open expanse. Those who had filled files and run programs, sold goods and paid taxes and woke up at fifty, unsure really if they had done anything worth a mention, except maybe clogged a toilet as a prank at highschool.

I shook my head.

Gods, but I was in a sour mood.

I poured more of the juice into the cup and took again a sip of the sugary contents. I had loved cranberry juice as a kid. Our mother used to make it. She boiled the berries from our backyard in a huge kettle and sieved out the pulp. The whole house smelled of cranberry juice.

Oh, but I sometimes missed her. She had passed away when we had still both been young adults, me and Rosemary. I had been a vampire when I had attended the funeral, but a newly made one. The contact lenses had irritated my eyes and I had cried and cried. On my side Rosemary had seemed to be the calm and collected one.

Nothing could have been done to the lung cancer that had taken her. Not by medicine and not by me, the vampire unable to link. Had I been able to form the linking, I could have healed her lungs.

I regarded the juice in my cup.

But how twisted it would have been. I could have also put words into her mouth and thoughts into her head of salted black curls.

Maybe it was a good thing after all that I hadn't been tempted. And there was peace in the silence of the dead. I remembered with great nostalgia the homemade cranberry juices. The situation was somewhat more complicated with the living.

I was relieved I couldn't take care of our ancient father who drowned in the bottle and the bitterness accumulated over the years.

But I would have still liked to make new memories with my aging sister. The gray in her hair reminded me that I couldn't keep her. She had now wrinkles that had been there for decades and kept deepening. Most were of smiling. But there were also deep lines around her lips that had been engraved by the inevitable downturns of the human life.

I took a new mouthful.

The house had been sold when our mother died. Father had moved to a smaller apartment in the City, to be closer to Rosemary. I hadn't given them an address where I could be reached. I didn't have one. The Castle was my only home. I had my room, and for now it was enough. I needed nothing more than a room. For some cds, some books, some clothes, my guitar... I slept on the carpet or, often enough, outside. I had lovers that sometimes took me in for a period.

I had seen the Castle move once. It hadn't always been in this warehouse. When I had first arrived, it had been a hotel, near the center of Breasinghae. I had been in shock when one night I had come home, only to find out my room wasn't where it had used to be.

I had panicked for maybe a full fifteen minutes, before I had run into Blizzard. He had explained then that the Castle had decided to move and some of the Rooms were already at the new location. I should check out a warehouse in the eastern side of the city. He had handed me the address.

After an agitated flight through the yellow city skies and an hour of searching, I had found my room. Nothing had changed inside. The magazine on the floor had been open on the right spread and my guitar rested in its corner. Only the view had become alien.

The Castle had moved.

In that moment I had finally understood that the Castle was more than just a space, or a building. It had a spirit. The Castle was an entity.

In the present, I paid again attention to the magical humming around me that protected my books and my guitar. I knew very little of what it was, this magic around me, but I was grateful for it. For allowing me to call it home.

As I was already listening to my surroundings, I became aware of a vampire approaching.

I turned my head to watch the fledgling Timothy round a corner. He had a habit of making my hackle rise. There was a deep silence to him that somehow reminded me of Mo, and I didn't like it. He was a hard vampire to read. And the way he could clear his mind, drop easily and effortlessly, was driving me mad. I was jealous. Though I wouldn't admit it.

Timothy lifted his eyes to mine. They were pale eyes, more orange than deep red.

His features were relaxed, his mouth drawing a polite smile.

"I haven't seen anyone else?" He commented, taking a seat in one of the armchairs opposite from where I sat.

"There is no one else," I told him. "A big gathering in South Port has drawn everyone away. Just me here, Carnation somewhere nearby and Blizzard working on the leaking roof."

"It isn't fixed yet?" my young uncle asked.

I shook my head. "He thought it was, but last night's rain proved him wrong."

I rose and went to the cupboard to fetch him a cup. I might not like Timothy, but I was stuck with him for an eternity for all I knew, so I could offer him at least politeness. It would make both our afterlives easier if we could maintain some level of politeness in our interactions.

"Do you want tea, or will juice do?"

"I'd prefer tea?"

Of course he would.

I filled the boiler and put it on. Then I retook my seat, passing the empty cup to his side of the table.

"So," I started, leaning back in my seat. "What brings you into the Castle tonight, Uncle?"

Timothy didn't look at me, he had frozen still, looking at the rails. For a long while he sat like that, in his thoughts. Didn't blink, didn't breathe. Just looked out the window into the night.

I let him there when a small click announced that the water had boiled. I rose, reached for the small pot in the cupboard. I was a short man however, it eluded my fingertips. But not me. I extended my awareness, then pulled the pot gently to my outstretched fingers. Some herbs were stored in a glass jar on the table.

Timothy was still staring out the window as I brought the steaming pot to the table.

"What is it?" I asked.

Timothy startled. He turned to me. And for a moment he seemed lost, his yellowish eyes wide with a suppressed emotion. Then, for some seconds, his aura became silent again, his face relaxed.

Then emotions broke through again. They were somewhat suppressed under the vampire's natural silence, but undoubtedly there.

"Will you listen, if I share it?" he asked.

"Did you partake in a Sacrifice?"

I hardly believed my ears. Timothy never took lives. As I understood it, he had enough links to stay sane and functioning. And he had made it clear to me.

His face contorted. Not strongly, but visibly. He cast his eyes to the table.

Some petty part of me would have wanted to get back to him at this opportunity. But I swallowed the urge to sneer. A Sacrifice was a serious occasion. It deserved to be respected. So, instead I said:

"I am here to listen. All ears, Uncle. Please share with me what the City presented for you tonight."

He sighed. I couldn't have guessed how long he might have been holding the breath. For a vampire it mattered little.

He took in replacement air, to operate the vocal cords.

"The City gave me revenge."

The statement didn't seem to be a triumphant one. Rather, it seemed sad. Desolate, empty. Timothy looked deep into the tabletop, as if looking for some divine answers in the patterns of the wood, and it seemed the lacquered surface only offered more questions.

"The City gave you revenge?" I prompted him after a long silence.

Timothy nodded, still not looking at me.

"I drained the life out of a person that had hurt me, a long time ago."

He paused again, giving me time to think about what might have been a very long time for someone who had only lived for two decades.

I filled my mouth with the remaining juice in the cup, savoring the hollow smell of cranberry and almost feeling the sugar sticking to my teeth. Carefully, I tested a protruding fang with my tongue, but the bone felt smooth. No bacteria could grow on it.

"He was my uncle," the other vampire continued. "Or rather my aunt's husband. His name was Mathew. And I hated him. He was a wicked, narcissistic human being, too good with words and ruthless in his actions if he could gain something."

I almost missed my cup, as I poured more juice from the carton. I wasn't sure I had ever heard any vampire speak of a human being with equal vehemence. Timothy's voice oozed out pain, and something darker than anger. He had gone from sad to enraged in less time than it took me to fill my cup. There was suddenly not a sign left of this creature's extraordinary abilities to keep his cool. The perfect poker face had cracked and been replaced by a set mouth and hard eyes.

This kind of an emotional Timothy was a stranger to me.

"He got a stroke," Timothy continued. "But he made it to the hospital. The doctors got it cleared. My aunt called me from the ward."

He was still talking to his cup, with downcast eyes. He reached for his cup and there was a subtle tremble to his hand as he did so.

"It was really a miracle I had the phone with any battery left. I had just come home. And then Aunt Chime called and told me she was at the hospital, and asked me to bring her some personal items from her home. I still have the spare key to her apartment.

"So I went to her home. I collected for her some clean underwear, a change of shirts... She has so many porcelain angels, you wouldn't believe it. All the house is full of them. I suppose she thinks they are pretty, but at midnight with the lights turned off... Rather creepy, I say. All those tiny humanlike creatures staring at you."

"You didn't need to be invited in?" I asked, as an afterthought.

Timothy shook his head. "I was there just before Christmas last year. They invited me then. I was obviously still welcome."

He seemed amused by the last notion. He sipped more of the tea that did nothing to warm him.

"So I went to the hospital. Aunt Chime was all over the place. She didn't know what to do with herself, so I told her to go for a walk. I would sit with him.

"He was conscious when I entered, but unable to speak. Unable to move much either, and tethered to the machine measuring his pulse and God knows what else. It kept on a steady peeping.

"I sat with him. I picked the lenses off my eyes, and looked at him, helpless, strapped to the bed."

Timothy was shaking. Some of the tea in his cup spilled to his lap, leaving darker marks on the fabric of his jeans.

"I didn't have any equipment with me. I hadn't really thought about it. But there... Oh gods! How dared he!?"

Suddenly the teacup gave way under his convulsing fingers. Small earthenware shards shot off and the liquid burst out, drenching Timothy in hot tea.

He didn't seem to notice.

"How dared he?" The man repeated in whisper. Tears were forming in his eyes.

I was about to rise, to find a cloth for wiping away the biggest shards, but suddenly his red gaze fell to me and nailed me there. I resumed my seat.

"I could touch him. I could sink my fangs into him. I could drink from him and I could link him. I cannot lay a single finger on my own sister, or mum, or Aunt Chime. But him? Oh, there was no Faith between us. That bastard was a Godless man."

And that–being godless–sounded in his mouth as if his uncle had been the one doing the murdering. In Timothy's orange eyes raged hell.

I had, in the periphery of my mind, known that Timothy's family held the European faith of Christianity. But I had never thought about it, as Timothy himself clearly wasn't religious. I had never thought it affected him. I wasn't very religious myself, though I sometimes did leave offerings on some altars. But they were casual offerings, with little meaning tied to them, other than my deep respect for the mystery.

But now it was becoming clear that the Christian God had some more meaning to Timothy than Iris had ever had to me.

"When I was fifteen," Timothy explained, "I threw my cross into a lake, because I was angry at God for not answering me when I prayed to him. My teen crush had left me, and I was just as heartbroken as a hormonal human can. My grandfather had just died, and he had meant a lot to me. I didn't understand myself, my feelings, or the world.

"My mum didn't know what to do with my feelings, either. I had broken stuff at home. She thought I was down a road to hell, and contacted uncle Mathew who had studied theology. He had never graduated or become a priest, but he liked to put on airs. As if he knew the mysteries of the almighty. As if His book revealed some greater mysteries to him.

"He said that I was possessed. He said that he would get me. And drive away the demon.

"And my mother let him.

"Mimosa was at a summer camp. Dad tried to argue, talk to my mother, but she wasn't well either. Her father had died. And it was all settled before I even realized what had happened."

Timothy fell silent again, groping for the words that could somehow make justice to the experience he was about to share. I let him ponder. It seemed like I hung on the verge of some greater revelation into Timothy's history. After all, he had killed a man for revenge tonight.

"At the time Aunt Chime and Mathew lived in the countryside, by a lake, at the end of a road, half an hour's ride from the nearest town. I was a boy of fifteen. I had no money, I was there because my parents wanted me there.

"And there was a big, bearded, grown man who took great pleasure in the game of driving away a supposed demon in my body.

"I was locked in a small shed. I slept on a mattress. I don't remember if there was a light source. He took my phone. And the only book there was a small, cheap Bible. And it wasn't even in Atlantean, but in French."

I listened, very still. Timothy seemed to be in trance. He wasn't looking at me, and he wasn't talking to me. He was just talking. And his eyes looked into a past when his heart had been beating, and his fingers had been warm.

"First I tried to explain that I wasn't possessed. That I was just hurting.

"Yet, no matter what I said, or tried, I couldn't go. They let me call my mum. But she only insisted that Mathew would help me...

"And Mathew insisted he was trying to help me. That he would drive away the sin...

"By the end of a few weeks, I didn't know anymore who was right or who was wrong, was I possessed and going to hell? But I knew one thing: In order to get out, to get back to a life, I needed to somehow convince Mathew that there was a devil. And let him drive it away. However he saw fit. So I could be cured, as the only clear end result."

A frown appeared on his face.

"Maybe," he said suddenly "I could have run. But I never thought of it. I wouldn't have known where to run, and Mathew was a big man. I didn't know how to fight. No one had taught me self-defense. And by that point I wasn't sure I wasn't possessed."

In fascinated horror, I heard his tale. I had heard many tales by that point, and even a few records of the Vampire's Heart forming. And those were dark tales indeed. They were tales of families turning away, of too great expectations, of impossible odds, of torture and abuse. Some vampires were old enough to have gone through classical torture. They had been the victims of humans turning on humans with physical violence.

Yet Timothy's tale was dark as well, the remembered flashes of a fifteen years old teen, trying to fight his way out of a prison. He hadn't known how to use fists, so he had used words instead. Words and mad reasoning. In a mad place.

A play had unfolded, in which he pretended he was possessed. And his Uncle put on airs pretending to cure the possession. All the while a hysterical mother was hanging to the truth the two men made up between them.

But it hadn't been two men of equal standing. It had been an absolute authority figure against an underprepared teen.

Timothy had screamed. He had chewed a table leg. Flung food around. Picked his nose over a diner. Pretended to fall in trance, he had spoken in a deep voice, a shrill voice, in English...

But he had never caused any real damage. Because all this while, he had known his Uncle to know that no demon existed. It was a play. A piece of theater, with Timothy's freedom hanging on the balance. But a play still. A play with the purpose of strengthening his Uncle's entitlement to power over him. All damage he would have caused, could have angered the uncle. And he had feared the consequences of angering him.

He refused to tell what had happened in the shed, when his Uncle had come in to cure him. He gave a detailed, but lacking, account of the overall mood, of his own desperation. Of his humiliation. And of the ultimate power this man held over him, enjoying the play.

But he left the shed hanging for my imagination. Mumbled something of rituals, of burning incense and a cross, but no more.

And I had heard many tales of the same kind, to understand not to ask. He could have been sexually abused. He could have been tortured otherwise.

I remembered suddenly a tale of a vampire, a war prisoner in life. He and the other prisoners had been dumped into a pool of human waste. In order to survive they had swam. Many of his comrades drowning there in the pit of excrement.

The image of it came in a flash to haunt me.

I doubted Timothy had experienced anything quite like it. Yet where there was discrepancy in power, twisted things started to occur.

I didn't need to know the details. I didn't even want to know the details.

"At the end of it, when he drove me back home, I thanked him. That was a part of it. To pretend gratefulness."

It had taken Timothy a month to get out, to play his cards so he could be declared cured.

"Mimosa never knew. Dad, or Aunt Chime never brought it up. They pretended it had never happened. Sometimes Sage refers to it when she wants me to give up an argument. She reminds me of how I might accidentally get to evoking the devil. Makes a joke out of it. And if I don't laugh, she tells me how I don't understand humor."

Then his voice changed. Timothy drew in a long breath before he returned to tell of this night.

"Oh, but I enjoyed it. The rage in me had burned low, and now suddenly an opportunity appeared. I took off my lenses and let him see my eyes. I held his gaze. And I told him, drove it home, how I could sense and see his faithless state. I told him I would live forever. But if God truly was what he had made of him, he would be going to Hell tonight.

"As I talked, I forced the small marks on his hand to heal. It must have itched abominably, as I sped up the circulation there.

"I put the lenses back.

"I let Aunt Chime in to take my place by his side. I walked out. Closed my phone. I smiled at the tired receptionist in the downstairs hall.

"Once I was outside the hospital, I felt the link I had forced in taking Mathew's blood. Just enough to last for yet a few more hours. But of course I never intended for those hours to happen.

"My back was to the hospital when I drew the rest of his life through the connection.

"I tugged at it, the link. Until it snapped and all his life swept into me.

"Then I walked here."

Timothy stopped talking, stopped breathing. There was madness in his eyes, and in the tentative mirthless smile on his lips.

"It felt good. For an hour he was at my mercy. I got to say everything I ever wanted to say. I got my revenge, and it tasted sweet."

He closed his eyes and fell back to rest against the seat. His shirt was soaked by the spilled tea, and in his lap lay shards of the teacup.

"It tasted sweet," he repeated.

But it wasn't a triumphant sentence anymore.

I knew he was crying. Even as the tears that fell evaporated before they hit the fabric of the armchair beneath him.