I cannot tell you how convinced I was that in my vampire existence, I had become void of all fear. How after my making the tricks of the mind and other trivial things would no longer affect me. That suddenly and without reason, all my childish frights were gone.

But it seemed this wasn't altogether true, for my mind seemed more a web of trickery than it ever was. But I will say that all common fears had vanished. Gone were all fundamental phobias of the human kind.

    However, the mysterious presence of this night had brought me a fright without question.

There was a taste in the air—some awful dread biting at my bones. The wind was a tempest this night, whipping violently at my hearing and at my coat so that the wool clung to my legs.

In spite of this, I sensed so keenly a presence about me. I was so unlike a vampire that this vexed me. I searched with a hard eye the shadows, and, too, I held still and quiet, straining to catch movement through the tenebrous night.

    The nights were so terribly dark in those times. The flames of the linkboy's lanterns served seemingly only as a floating beacon upon the vastness of black waves, and what a perfect riddle was made everything in between.

    And although I was with vampire nature that I could pierce through the pitch that was like primordial dark before first light, I was with fear.

    I had feared because what manner of presence would follow upon the heels of an undead soucriant? Better still, what manner of horror could manage it?

    And, so, I was pressing the strengths of my senses in a panic when finally there came a whisper, for all its intensity, so faint in the air. A whisper that said in all its obscurity, "Come with us and be free!"

    Quickly I turned, put a careful ear to the tumult wind, but again there was nothing, only that howling and that unsettling sense of eyes upon me.

    But then there was movement beyond, and suddenly there stood two ghostly figures. A pair of haunting statues that seemed sprung from the very earth, but with eyes that were liquid and awares.  

I could see little light upon their forms beyond the great plume of fog, thus little features in the faces, but there they moved so suddenly that I crouched in that instant. And without any warning to me at all, I let out cat-like hiss that had been frightful to my own hearing.

    They stopped, bent, too, as I was, as strange gargoyles in the wild wind.

But then, in a sudden, I had sensed something familiar, and so with a boldness I did not understand, I bade for them to come forward, and they did.

    And it was David who stepped from within the shadows, so that he stood beneath the rattling lantern, the light showing full now upon his face, and I was dumbfounded.

    I searched him in the face, the curve of his grinning mouth, but from it I could draw no reasoning as to why he was there. And so I said to him, "Why do you do this thing, play a shadow and follow me?"

    All of himself, he said nothing to me, only that strange, knowing grin. There had been a change in him. Never had his attention been so bent upon me, never so intent as it was now.

    And, so, again I said to him, "Why do you do this thing?" But, still, he stood mockingly and said nothing.

    And then, miraculously, movement as the other pointed to where we must go.

And for all my curiosity, and all the stupidity I could call upon, I followed.

    For such a time we walked and said nothin. And it had struck me, finally, that the night had become eerily quiet, void of even the barest breeze or sound of life, as though very nature itself had fled some horror unknown to me. Or perhaps the one horror I did know, which was that David had a distinct and profound hatred towards me, and so any friendly scenario in this venture seemed quite impossible.

    I strained to quell those nerves into a sure and temperate nature, as I had the terrible impression that I was being led to some place to be finally killed—if indeed I could be killed at all—but knowing so little of these things, I felt it might rightfully be true.

    Quietly I thought on how I might undo this, how to boldly break that silence and give breath to what I might say. But I, the sorry excuse of a vampire that I was, said nothing to break the rousing sound of our footfalls and the soft rustling of moving fabrics, my heart thundering now within my ears as I watched the pair before me.

    And how ghostly did the second look to me, all of white hair, and white garments, and white skin. I saw him starkly before us, until the moon, released from behind a dark, fleecy cloud, had at once made a nimbus-like veil that seemed to exist about him.

    I watched him like a bright moving flame against the black canvas of night, swaying, pushing forward, but to where we hent I could not know.

The smells I could not well name, and with the paths I was not familiar, and the fields of grass we traveled had not been traveled in some time.

    But then the paths were altogether gone, as there came to be a sallow muck beneath our footing, so that we were now trending slightly within the earth.

In the distance could be heard a bubbling stream, the only thing that possessed the miracle of life, as there was no rustling of leaves from the trees, nor sound from what might have drunk from that water.

    And it quiet felt that we would never to stop walking until, alas, there came to be the dark rising outline of a tower. It loomed before the breaking of forest, and seemed to sway against the sky, bent to one side as it was, seemingly some broken remnant upon a forgotten land.

This vision frightened me, as I regarded it as some living entity begging to come down. I attempted to steel myself from my own little insanities when we came upon impossible rubble as we neared this tower of stone that had been ravaged savagely by the earth.

    Alas, beyond tall grass, nestled tightly beneath a mangling mess of vines was there a door. The growth coiled and tethered tightly upon the frame, as though they meant to hold it locked against the stones. And David, in his quiet, opened it swiftly so that we might slip beyond.

I stood there unmoved, contemplating desperately my own strength that I myself had never tested. I felt my heel rising to take a step back so that a hand was now reaching for me. I felt it gently upon my shoulder, brushing it so that I was now looking into the white face. And remarkably, as if by magic, this one made his solid face pliable as he gave to me a tender look which had all but mystified me, that I was now calm and sated, so that I had forgotten myself completely, forgotten the little horrors of my thoughts, forgotten the hand that was pressing me now as I passed through the door.

I felt the cold, damp air hit me as they lead me down the narrow staircase, and at once I knew where I was, saturated as it was with the stench of wreaking death.

    The catacomb was ancient, and had not been used in any recent time. To any mortal there might have been only the faint scent of damp stone, but to me the scent was strong and offensive, repulsive to even a vampire. 

    Down and down we descended until finally we came upon an opening that was lit with small torches around. The tall, curved walls surrounded us, and to the ceiling was riddled with skeletons within the stones, brittle skulls that seemed aware in their open crypts, as though they watched knowingly through the hollows of their eyes, their grinning jaws slacken against the dark beyond.

    And in this sordid place, more surrounded me, more of the same ghostly visions, none different from the other. Four men and one woman. And I could well see now that they dwelled here with the filth of the long dead.

I remember how they looked at me. None said a word, only fixed me with a lucid and distinct observation, and said nothing at all.

    They were much older, this coven, and unbelievably white haired and seemed something frail and worn to look at. They were humbly dressed, their simple garments of white, tattered linen and delicate string hanging loosely about their bent shoulders.

    They were nothing the visions I was acquainted with. Nothing of the decadence I was made accustomed to live. They seemed something of the earth and nothing of silk at all.

    But David with his quiet manner, and his face giving as it does a softness in its features, seemed an angel among them. And again I was wondering at why he was there. It seemed so out of place that he should be there. And watching him quietly, and in spite of knowing infinitely that he would not answer, I opened my mouth to ask this when I felt it.

    There came to be a presence then; an old power. I could feel it well, pressing me, surrounding me, thundering within me like the incessant beating of a drum.

    Finally, from the narrow doorway, there appeared a vampire much older than the others—fantastically older. A vampire as old as time itself, with gleaming white hairs that sprung from his ears. And upon his head was a cascade of silver tresses that fell so gentle about his shoulders. And it seemed that time did start the decay there in his pallor face, a mask that was firm and paper thin and wrong in the way it folded and creased at the slack of his rose-colored mouth.

    Eyes of molten silver looked not at me but to the ground as this one passed the others, entering the circle to where I stood. Dressed in a worn, white tunic and barefoot, he walked slowly, hunched as though his body held little strength in this. But it could only be that he felt no pain at all, that he could crack the very foundation he walked upon, crush the stone with his crooked fingers, as all other vampires could.

    And it struck me cruel, then, that he was to be made, all of them, at this age; an age far beyond their physical prime when their features might have been soft and spared the handprint of time that marred their flesh.

    And I felt the shame of my vanity in that moment as I thought this.

    His boney hand raised, and slowly he pointed to me. And there came from him a voice unlike any I had ever heard, a sound void of any remnants of the flesh. And clear like a bell, he asked, "You are the concubine of Phedre?"

    I was clean amazed. "Filth!" I said at once.

The white ones grumbled, so that they sounded unearthly and strange.

    "So you do not love him," he continued.

    And plainly I had said that I did not.

    "I told you," David said finally, all of a boy's tone, breaking that remarkable silence. And he looked to me as if to say that he knew he had just given to me, that he understood all the while that I had wished to hear him speak, whatever the words. And so he took no joy in it as he again averted his eyes angrily to the ground.

    The old vampire nodded as he clasped his hands behind him, two heaps of bones that would cling to one another, and he said, "Very good. Very good."

    He circled slowly, the gentle folds of his long, flowing raiment rustling, the torches still and casting eerie shadows across the cloth.

   All this confused me—this place. "Why do you bring me here and ask this question?"

    And so calmly did he say to me, "Phedré. He must be killed, and so, too, the children."

    I imagine now how my face must have looked, for I could scarcely believe the words issuing from him. These children I had loved completely and terribly. And for them, I would have done anything, however insane.

    And, alas, that courage I had only moments before been so desperate to find, came about me at once as I felt myself moving forward.

    "You mustn't," David warned, giving again one of his little miracles.

    I paused and watched the old man silently in the eyes. And with powers I scarcely understood, I felt as if I had come upon him, felt that slow rhythmic beating of his heart against mine, his tasteless breath upon my face. And it seemed time had stopped for us there, as for what could have been an eternity, I saw nothing but the grey of those eyes, and he knew perfectly what I would do.

    "Who are you to say these things?" I was saying now, a distance from him, as it seemed I hadn't moved at all. "What should the little ones matter to you?And Phedré, I cannot imagine he would have anything to do with this place."

   And he said to me with brows furrowed, one straining eye, "Oh, but he will! And the little ones, they do all Phedre's bidding. Tells him everything he wishes to learn. They watch your nightly movements. His little spies among us, they are. And Henry, you do not know what he does! A hush fell across the land when Phedré made him, the sweet, little Devil that he is. How do you think these covens were forged? Through his little trickery. Theirs!"

    "I will not endure another word from you," I said to him coldly.

    But he only continued. "But, as you know, there are not children at all and have far surpassed their tiny forms and think as their elders do. And yet they cannot survive on their own, weak and visibly young as they are. They can never be let to live out their own eternities, as they eventually will demand!"

    And with all the conviction of my flaming heart that blazed suddenly into words, I said, "Thus, none better than I to care for them, and, bethink you, I can be counted upon to do so to no end. So, I swear to you now, in this wretched place, that you will not give utterance to another word of harming them, lest upon your death, I'll swear it again."

    To this, his expression had not changed. And from the others there was no stir. In fact, they had not moved at all. As I looked to them, they seemed to have lost all sense of themselves and looked truly not alive. So still they might have putrefied, all without expression, without that undoubted intelligence to their eyes; two shards of gleaming glass, reflecting the warm flams of that room and seemingly nothing else.

    And so calmly had the other one said, "Ah, yes. That you love them, is much clear. But you are only so young and do not understand."

    "I understand quite well. Fool!" These words escaped me and cast forth like a blade. "But to see them dead, plucked from the earth, that is the true abhorrent crime. And I tell you that the power is not left to you. Who named you master of such things? We are but outcasts of the Devine, the aftermath of some godforsaken design. If they die at all, they, who have done nothing to deserve this fate, it will be because God alone had willed it, not the filth of us!"

    He laughed short and soft. "How little you regards us. Why should there be only two powers, God's and Satan's? Why not see us as separate divinities?"

    "God's ourselves?"

    "If you like."

   I scoffed. "See how I laugh. You are of the same befuddled mind, Phedré and you."

    "Where we differ is in our understanding that we must keep our kind hidden from common knowledge. Mortals are clumsy in their superstitions and cannot see in us anything beyond demons that walk the earth, much as you.

    "And so the responsibility is put onto us and us alone that he not make our kind known. There are none but us to govern what can be done; what should be done. And of these tiny vampires, you should know that it is a crime to make one such as they."

    "And he was a damned fool to have made them!"

    In a sudden, David hissed, and with a sneering look he said, "I.. made them. They are my fledglings!"

    Startled, I stared at him in all his hatred and he knew what I would ask.

    "I did this only to win his favor," he admitted. "To be closest to him. He said, 'Do this thing', and I said, 'Yes!' Yes, yes, I always say!" And with such bitterness in his words, he said, "But he'll not have me as he does you; you, who he never seems to tire of. And the small ones I have all but lost, as well! They, too, seem to have been captured by whatever spell you cast!"

   I was shaking my head. "Oh, I thought there were more cleverness to you. And you dare to call them your fledglings while you sulk pitifully for Phedré and say nothing to defend them!"

    "Yes, David has much growth before him, but because of him, we know of the little covens Phedré has made beyond the sands and within the jungles."

And I felt the disgust as it rose like bile within me.

David only smiled most wickedly. "Yes," he answered, the word drawn out as he took all the pleasure in its saying. "I, The Muted One, who knows nothing other than the lowly swoons of a boy." He took a step forward, a slow, effortless glide. And then he paused, and screaming to me in a sudden, he said, " I will not bear your content! Not from you!"

"My content is the least you will bear, mark me!

    "Every inch Phedré claims is a scare upon this land," the old one continued. "And I should enlighten you now that he had other woman from which to chose, not solely you, as to be certain he had found the perfect one."

    I had a gone spent feeling. It seemed the room had wavered. "There were others?"

    "My dear child, countless others."

    I felt the mourning of innocent breath snatched away, the mortal pounding in my temples. "Where are they now?" I asked him.

    And it seemed the mask had faltered, that his rigid face seemed pliable. And so quietly had he said, "Dead. All of them dead."

    I was with a sorry condition. And I was remembering things now; how desperate my mother had been that I was only perfect at all put forth to me.

    Phedré had been complex, and had varying grotesqueries to his nature, this is much true. There was something at work in his mind that was shrouded in mystery. He had the most towering intellect, yet failed to comprehend simple things. Like what it meant truly to sunder the life from everything that had breath.

    He took beauty in all things, but, too, had cared for nothing. Never had he beheld a thing for what it was. Never had he understood that the beauty of something had been there only because it was alive and frail, that at any moment it could become something before it was nothing.

    But something truly ill had spoken to me in that moment; some breathless voice in my hearing. Not at all liken to the madness that I suffered.

No, it had told me. No.

And, so, I had this overwhelming sense that this old one could not be trusted. This one was manipulative, such that he could with but a ginger touch, move your hand into a flame. And I felt it so keenly now with that strange force within me.

    And with this thought, I peered at him, that question in my mind as I attempted to push that mystery forth. I focused on what Phedré had said to me, allow the mind to guide you through the feeling of words. And, so, silently I made that journey again, and allowed all else to fade, until all of the world had fallen away and all I could see was his putrid face.

Before me he stood tall, so that he loomed like a dark tower that ghosted beneath night-black clouds. And as I attempted that miracle, it seemed his mind, too, was a void, an impossible metal door shut powerfully against me.

And when it seemed the strength of his years would see my powers wain, I willed my focus to become a laser, a concentration that was a spear to penetrate his profound consciousness, so that I became completely blind to all words but one, as if it's obscurity were rent like a veil from my eyes.

Liar.

And at once, he knew what I knew, and his unmovable expression became moved as his mouth fell slacken. And in my quiet, I willed the words to him, I should kill you for feeding me such a fantastic lie.

    His mouth smiled, but then it didn't smile, such that I strained to know if it happened at all. And in that moment, I knew without the need to search that he would see me dead.

"I see the distress in your eyes," he told me, breaking that spell. "That misery, that loneliness, that loathing of him, that yearn for your mother, and, too, your wish for death that you cannot hide."

"It is ill breeding to speak on such personal matters," I seethed.

"But it is the truth," he said. "You cannot go on like this. I can see clearly that you do not wish to, that you contemplate your options already, even with this love for the children that you speak of so fiercely. But you are good and so unlike the rest of us. Let us do the real evil, which is not so evil that it should be done. Let us right this wrong for you, for the children."

    To hear these words spoken sickened me; that he was so bold as to speak them. But I knew what he was doing, and I could not listen.

    "Do not say these things to me. I've grown weary of you, as I see you plainly now with all your mendacities. You wear your habiliments and simple expressions as to wiled others from the truth, which is ugly. You are sullied; filth, filth like the foul ground of death here beneath my boot. There is a special hell for those like you, and I'll be sure to send you there, if you would like." 

    His grim mouth twisted but he said nothing.

But to be speaking of killing, all of us, had weakened my spirit most remarkably.

    I thought of James, who had surly fled all this. Let him be far from here. But it pains me to think on him, the strength of his moral fashions that failed to be compromised. Fie on them that they tried! And I remember when I first saw him and how it was when we walked the roads of Palazzo dell'Archiginnasio among the cherry blossoms. And the swells of the ocean and the white of the clouds as I could only remember them. That distant streak of sea that seemingly we could never reach.

    Together we made the voyage upon that ship towards a great promise, where the flood of my heart found the oceans of his eyes. I knew only then pure things. And here I were, finally, after all the hideous trouble, amidst creatures who had forgotten it all entirely, including myself.

    My soul hurt and I was so tired. Tired of these curious vampires that lived here in the dirt, like a root unfamiliar to the air.

Let them stay there.

    "Am I being kept here?" I said, finally.

    "Non, but you must understand this is a war. And you are the only one close enough to end it."

   "I want nothing to do with your war," I spat.

And as I fled through those narrow doors, behind me I heard him say, "Then we will all share the same death."

Foreboding words.

♱

[This is only a rough draft. Pardon its state.]