My mind is much troubled, such that I cannot find rest, even as the soft swell of dawn fills the air in such a way that weighed my lids and gently lays me down.

One might think that a vampire cannot dream, but I can tell you that I have the most horrid, vivid dreams, as though the very devil held fast my eye lids.

And this night was such that would haunt my dreams for all of my doleful existence.

For it was on this night that I relinquished my soul to Phedre, the devil, in exchange for James' life, the watcher of all that flies.

But then, I would do it all again.

—1813—

    Through the corridor into Hell's belly I entered. I was lead into a perfectly small walkway which had opened to a room that was as though plucked from a grand palace. It was an exquisite cathedral, this place, with its fragrant flowers and lighted candles.

You must understand my shock in this. That they should choose such a place to dwell was sacrilege of the blackest kind. But then it did seem, in the oddest sort, that they understood the sanctity of that place in full, as such care had been taken there.

This once holy place was filled with the pungent aroma of pink and red roses and gleaming, white jasmine. How gently the red-lighted candle flames danced upon the pale Saints that loomed. How Mary looked on, isolated and immune. And though they were made with such lifeless attitude, it seemed their blank stares were all directed at me!

Accorde-moi ta grâce, I whispered.

And looming awesomely beyond high gold-trimmed ceilings was there a dome with painted depictions of warrior angels, all with rolling locks and rolling fabrics. Beautiful if not vivid; the soft pink flush of their cheeks, the subtle curl of their outstretched fingers, their lips like a pale pink bud.

    Their soaring wings bent with a gentleness that I could feel well against my spirit. Though, I was nothing at all comforted. As I, praying so very hard in those times until teary eyed and worn utterly to sleep, had been gifted nothing of deliverance to my hearing. And so I watched them where they loomed with an aching to my heart that I cannot well describe.

    They were all of them in celestial heights among tumbling clouds and rays of light, all going on seemingly forever. And beyond them, painted in blazing color, were the brilliant swirls of yellow and gold that made for them an artificial sun. One frozen, luminous moment in which all terrible wrongs will be made correct, all manner of horrors redeemed until nothing existed but goodness and God!

I later learned that Phedré himself had painted it, and I never understood his mood in this.

    No, I never understood.

And there were times thereafter, when I no longer suffered the sight of it, that I visited to look on, and I could see little movements in the faces and clouds.

But then, I cannot always trust my eyes.

Though, I shall tell you the images of that place struck me strong in the heart, and I haven't had such a feeling thereafter.

But it was beneath there that I had been faced with an immortal deluge. And it seemed to me suddenly that the entire world had been peopled with vampires, filled as it was with white faces and shinnning eyes, and I stood aghast.

My heart was quite going as I crossed the marbled floor. I knew nothing their names then, but before me was Phedré, along with his companions, Adrian and Alexia, all who sat waiting upon their thrones in a line.

Phedré watched me intently with some strange, serene expression. Adrian held no expression at all, as if he were some dead thing to sit in a chair.

Alexia, in all her poise and silence, watched me with her crystal eyes. Oh, that I could snatch those cold flames from her skull.

    In her silence, it seemed she had much to say. And it struck me odd in that moment, this notion, why had she not been the one? It seemed she had strengths of every facet, beauty and fierceness and a wild savagery that Phedré wholly needed.

She looked away.

    And then I could hear more coming—the younger ones. The Little Starlings, I had called them. They had left their little private place, and finally I could have a look at them.

There were those that, in some terrible tragedy, couldn't have been older than five years when made, with their tiny, little frocks and gold buttons. Their small, plump hands that wound together.

And beyond them could be heard the echoing toll bells. Long, deep sounds drawn out before the other. And with each toll there came more children and more; an endless procession of tiny faces and tiny curls.

I was perfectly horrified by this. I could well picture them, in my vexed understanding of it, with their dolls of dust and ancient doll houses, snatched by time to play infinitely their hiding games and skipping rocks, all before thirst awakened them from these things.

And when they sought out in a tantrum the blood from their victims, who only instantly fell in love with their perfectly round cheeks and small pillowed lips, the astonishing eyes like tiny moons, they'd snatched the hand which caressed them, tore at the mouth which foolishly sought a kiss from them.

Visions of little monsters, I saw. And for all the fright of it, I found that I too loved them. I too would seek a kiss despite knowing all they are and all they could do.

This was their miraculous power.

    But then there came a young man, one perhaps 18 years when made. Dark, with a face that was more beautiful and striking than anything I had ever seen, human or inhuman alike. And from the others, repeatedly within my mind I heard the name David.

    David, whose face was angelic in its sweetness and with supple youth.

Quiet and grim he was, and looked to no one as he found his place beside Phedré, who smiled to him and whispered to him, and then kissed the mouth that was pursed. And the boy bowed his head, whose dark and tight curls only covered his fallen lids, whose rigid expression only beckoned a gentle hand.

    But I was being lead again.

Somewhere a drum was struck. There were hushed whispers I could not understand. Adrian rising from his seat.

    And before them was a grated platform, and upon that were the heavy iron chains for shackling. It was something dreadful to behold for someone who knew so little of what was to commence.

The deflowering of my soul, I call it.

And as if to put to words my troubled thoughts, Phedré replied to them.

    "Be brave now, Vittoria. They are fashioned there so that you might not rip the flesh from your very bones, for the pain that you will receive of this change will have you searching for a way to relieve it."

    Always, my mind had been dark and filled with horrors, but nothing would have me groomed for the dread that were those words.

    Then there came Adrian, quiet in his manner, stepping down before me. He removed his robe; vibrant, velvet red, to leave it fallen to the floor. Then the delicate white linen tunic he wore was coming down and I took a step back.

    "I'm only sorry that it could not be me, my dove," Phedré said to me.

    I thought I heard something but nothing else was said as Adrian took me by the shoulders to undo my gown, and I said, "Oh, please!"

    But Phedré only said as he neared me, "This is the way that it is done. Do not have shame."

    I remember how I was shaking, my mortal, shivering hands. Adrian began to undress me, neither my eyes anything moistened with tears. With all my strength, I held them.

That I should let them see me cry. No, never that.

I only stood mute in terror while my breasts and privates where stripped bare to them full in the eyes.

    No dignity, that.

I thought of my Christian teachings, how Adam and Eve bore no shame in this, how they lived perfectly in the world's eye this way.

    But I could not conceive of it in that moment as I sought to cover with only my palms what I ultimately could not.

And then Phedre's palm sweeping my back and then my..

    But the children. What should they think of this display! They looked on but gave nothing away. Eyes that said nothing at all. Innocent eyes. But, then, they were little monsters, were they not? Monsters that have surely seen and done more evil than any human devil in this world, where man had done cruel things, waged wars upon the very earth for power and far lesser reasons.

    And Adrian. I hated that he said nothing! I wanted desperately to slap him and wake him from his state. Would that rouse him at all? There came nothing from him to give knowledge of even the simplest intelligence. Nothing to give knowledge of his awareness of my bareness as he embraced me to kneel me down, as though my bare breasts did not touch him at all.

    But I was so utterly naked in that moment, the moment I saw her.

    Before the edge of the glittering crowd, beneath the honey pool of light, was there the wicked beauty of my mother.

    To say that I was shocked is too weak a word. Not only by the absence of that brand upon her face, which had now transformed into all of flawless porcelain, but because that in the light that cast such a radiance upon her, there beyond red-leafed buds were there two gleaming ivories of vampire fangs.

    They shown through that awful grin. And paired with it was the stare of emerald eyes, fierce beneath sweeping lashes; eyes that said, 'I forgive them'. And with the same cool glare and all the intensity they could call upon they said, 'but not you.'

Finally, they came, those tears.

    And as tiny hands cuffed my wrists, (tiny hands!) Phedré found his place kneeled before me. And from Adrian there seemed to come this unbearable sadness as I looked upon him, some pain that cast him down of which he would never speak.

    Phedré cupped my cheek then, and brought to him my fragile focus. And he smiled to me, a subtle thing that happened upon his face, I scarce saw it. And in that other worldly tone, he spoke to me low. "You have grown more beautiful than I could have imagined, Vittoria. I will tell you that through curious eyes I saw the world, vast places with more miles of sand than feet to travel them. Palaces adorned with a montage of glittering mosaic glass and intricate tile, endless delights to behold. And, now, I long only for you to overshadow those visions forever."

   I was frightened completely in that moment, I could hardly comprehend his words. I tasted the salt of my tears upon my lips, felt the tremble of my hands as I sought to push him away.

    And before I even knew, I was brought around by Adrian's sharp fangs to my throat. "Forgive me," I whispered to Him. I closed my eyes and the face of James waited upon my lids.

    And with one sighing breath, I let him go.

I looked to the soaring alabaster statues, their finely carved features, the shadowy folds of their garments, their hands raised, their necks bent, and I wonderfully wept.

The wound from which he took from me felt dreadful and large, such that I thought my throat torn gruesomely, and so I gritted my teeth.

    He caressed so gently my shoulder, his hand trailing lazily to my thigh as he pressed against me, and rocked with me. I attempted to pull away, but I was weak utterly against him, weak utterly against the rousing sound within my ears. I felt the trembling of my limbs, the movement of his breath against my skin like countless fingers.

    Phedré watched with the most somber expression. Not of my blood, I heard him say within my mind in all its mystery, but then he wasn't watching at all.

    I prayed to God to let me die. But, lo, I was to get no reply. Only the low and hungry moan from the soucriant upon my aching flesh until the very warmth of my body seemed gone away, as though cold river waters ran my limbs. So cold. So cold. Infinitely, so cold!

I could well feel my blood rush towards his mouth, towards his thirst.

    Then, when he gashed his throat and I, sleepy-eyed and languid, was made to drink from him, my aching flesh had become something else entirely.

My vision and body was weak beyond comprehension until I was made to consume that thick, crimson poison. And it shocked me how I hungered for it, his poisoned blood that had become nectar upon my tongue.

My hands were moving, fingers tangling within his wavy, dark hair as I grasped for him, wisps caught against my face, caught within my lashes, caught in the give and take of urgent breath.

    I positively writhed with his flowing blood. The blood that drew me as equally as it frightened me. It was a marvelous fount before me and spilled as blood might never spill, satisfying within me some deep well of longing need, so that I moaned beneath it.

    And soon, his movements became my movements, his breathing my breathing, his heart mine, a slow and steady pounding in unison, a rhythmic drum. My body had become nothing but that pounding. And soon my urgency was alchemies to a soft precipitated rapture as savage pleasure washed through my veins, a pleasure which coursed it's way from the fount of my throat.

    It was only then that I was made aware that I've never known peace. Not wholly. All I had ever known was misery and loneliness until that moment. I drank from his wound and the veil of the world seemed at its thinnest. All had become clear, and that misery and loneliness was wiped clean like a great and powerful wave drawn back from an infinite shore to leave in its wake the fresh and new world!

And that was only my consciousness. Physically my body was au courant!

    I could feel Adrian's hands move upon me, sensation dancing upon my skin. I felt them drawing me hard against him, and I answered by drawing harder from him. More, more, more, was my thought. And it seemed his body obliged. It seemed his body was my body, one seamless entity of life and flesh and blood.

    And with a strength I could never imagine, I could quite see that he was nothing at all dull, that his mind held awesome intelligence, that he was a great and shining moon with a brilliance that cast upon a fantastic universe. But, too, I felt the vast emptiness within it. A sole, quiet moon that floated beyond the stars and heavens alone, alone.

    And when I felt him weaken beneath me, as if I'd drawn him into myself, I felt infinitely the brush of his hands as they ran the lengths of my arms and fell slacken against my fingertips.

    "That will do, my dove," said Phedré's low, crystal voice.

In a haze, I withdrew and my head rolled. Again my body was made sensationally warm, my fingers tiny flames as I wiped the stains from my mouth. I remember being with such reluctance, wanting again that gentle symphony within me, giving my soul precious breath and telling me with such brilliance what is the world.

    I looked to Adrian and he was with the same hopeless expression, an inhuman mask of perpetual sadness. And I then knew with such intimacy that his numb awareness was not indifference, but rather a profound awareness that was struggling against immortality itself. But in spite of it, he smiled to me. Some small movement beneath the pooling light.

    He was beautiful to me in that moment and nothing so offended me about him. There was only that awareness of how indescribably remarkable he was; the brilliance of his long, black hair, that with each strand, held a glistening as though they had been spun from the very starry sky itself. And all his complexity and brilliance and beauty passed through me as it had not before.

    I fell back into Phedré's arms, some weightless thing, and Adrian was gone, and I felt an emptiness that he was. A lingering consciousness that had suddenly sprung to life in all its afflicting desolation was now shut and forever lost.

Oh, come! Come back and tell me why you suffer in your silence!

But there was only Phedré and his soothing touch that seemed to be everywhere.

     "Will I die now?" I asked him. I hardly recognized the sound. My voice had become something else entirely, a pitch upon this orb I had never known.

    And calmly he said, "Yes," and again came the tears.

    "Hush now. It is only your body that dies."

    "But I wish to die!"

He said nothing to this, only he held me closer and told me that I would know all things after this night. That I would see everything as new and bold and become the moon and stars and shadow and everything they touched as those beneath the sun could never dream it. And my knowledge would expand and reach out beyond the wasted lies of mortals. And that there would be only the bare truth upon my hand as I held it there to fold within my palm like a thousand tiny spinning grains of life, by which I would go on forever.

I think I raised my hand to him, and like my vision beneath the trees, his face shown to me like an awesome beam of light that would at any moment open a fount from his brilliant eyes. And it seemed he spoke to me then, but I could not see movement from that sea of infinite white. Only the words reached me, words that said, "We will share in every secret now. Let it happen."

    My head was in such a spell when the low murmurs of the room began. The vampires who watched us I had forgotten, the thrones which now sat empty. I was ill, sweat upon my brow and back. Phedré laid me down and I was a rag doll upon the wonderfully cool grate. I focused on that pleasant coolness. It had a kind of color against my naked skin and it was as though I had became the coolness itself.

    Above, the Angels danced with a new radiance that leaped out at me. It felt something awful that they watched yet did not come, and so that heartbreaking feeling came.

I feel nothing for those visions now.

    But what came next was that which was promised.

    If ever you've wondered at what it might be to feel the body die and turn, never wonder at it, for it is the most unbearable pain stricken thing a human body can do, to die in such a way.

I felt the shriveling of my veins as if they were turning out within my flesh, and a swelling aching in my bones. My chest seemed to crush me from my inner so that it must had been that I bled from every crevice, and so I awaited the arrival of the briny taste within my mouth.

As told, I wished to rip my flesh apart, to tear away at that relentless misery. Clang, clang was the useless waving of my arms. I held fast and felt the gentle press of Phedré's hand upon my face. And just as I let out a scream, sounding before I gave it conscious will, when I could no longer exist in this suffering, the world abruptly died.

    With a special conviction I believed that God, beneath His halo crown of luminous glory, would receive me then gently, so gently. That He would reach beneath the white drapings His welcoming arms and open to me then a gleaming, a blinding light from which my new life would spring.

That He would deliver me from the horrors and anguish and demons of my previous.

And, too, I believed that with His divine knowledge, He would speak to me why such things exist.

    However, there was to be no deliverance, no knowledge to learn, nor a glorious light to behold. There was to be only the bitter truth; that I am surrounded by oceans of night.

    I was to never again know the balmy day, the fresh grass beneath the morning sun, nor the scented dew of the iris' and lilies and other flowers that grew up the exterior of my home, a place long far from me now.

    It was that death did not find me as a human, but rather it found me as the damned, sin now coursing through my rotting veins. And now, but now, I was married to endless night.

    It was the sound of streaming, silvery bells I heard when first aware. The sharp, waving sound so infinite, it seemed to carry throughout to the very universe to join the stars in their glittery song. One pitch was light and airy, as the sound of a tinker fairy fluttering its weightless wings. The other was a steady flow of deep rhythmic wonderment, and together they made a singular complex yet flawless musical voice.

    It was the consonance of laughter that I heard, the minglings of the coven, they so utterly careless of my state. And through my flaring nostrils, so sensitive to the air, the smell seemed compounded of perfume and a foul aroma, and the smell of dampness and sweet and decay all at once.

    "Open your eyes and see the new world," said Phedré, the sound so infinitely clear.

    I opened my lids but I could not focus upon his face because of all the light! It was as if the very air moved.

    Orbs of light hit my vision with a sudden blinding that hurt my eyes. The finest detail leaped out at me, forcing a profound focus without apology.

    Every sight was a wonderment to me, a surreal closeness, a mind exploding, such that I believed an entire world could rightfully exist upon a single lash, an entire ocean within the light blue flecks of Phedré's eyes, tiny lapping waves within their infinite depths.

    I could have pondered that tiny miracle for ages, lost to the whim as I was.

    But then my thoughts were again upon my deliverance, that veil of heaven from which I was tragically shut out.

    "He did not come," I cried.

    To which Phedré only laughed that terrible vampire laughter. And he said to me then, his fingers combing my hair, "Let me take the place of all your vexations, my pale dove," so that I wept miserably.

    Then, to my horror, I felt the dampness beneath me like the mud and dew upon the earth. And I realized then what was happening. All the waste within me was coming free, and I think I made a cry at this.

    "It's meant to happen," he told me. "Your body no longer has the need for it and never will again."

   And I will tell you that for days this went on. That for days I was with this fever and dampness and a physical ache I cannot explain.

     But from somewhere a basin was brought and those tiny fingers were touching me again. And with all the gentleness they could bring, they washed me, these tiny hands. I looked to them in disbelief at what they did.

With uncharted beauty, even more inconceivably beautiful than before, their small, round faces were focused on their chore, a chore that seemed so beneath these perfect cherubs, not monsters to me at all.

And I wondered at how it could be that within this hellish existence could there be in the midsts these tiny angels. How could God allow such outright injustice?

    But I was so overwhelmed. I understood this so little. My mind felt weak and dimmed against this question.

    And before long, darkness again.

♱