turning to look over his shoulder at her. “I’m leaving. Going back to the Court.”
“Koios,” Anahita spoke. It was the first time that she had ever called him by any other name but James. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to keep him from leaving as he turned completely around to look at her. “Please. Don’t block off your mind. You were open-minded in life. Why are you boxing yourself in now in death?”
“Vampires never really die,” he responded wryly. “Humans do, but when we turn to dust, we are just that, dust.” A sardonic grin graced his features and it made him look even more ghoulish in the pale light that was around the two of them. “Ashes to ashes.”
“Will you at least think about what I have said?” she asked him as she approached. A hand was gently placed on his shoulder as she looked him straight in the eyes. She knew that she could see the hurt and confusion that he held and wondered, briefly, just what he was able to see in her.
“Yes,” Koios said softly, before leaning down and brushing her lips with his. “I can promise that much. There will be no way that I can’t.”
“Then can I ask one more thing?”
“What?”
“Is there a way that I might be able to be connected with you? In case you change your mind about Diu and want to talk about it with me?”
He stepped away from her, running a hand through his hair. “There is a way,” he began slowly. “But I doubt that you’re going to like it. Plus, I haven’t a clue on if it’s allowed or not. Especially with you.”
“I…I don’t understand. What—“
He licked his lips in apprehension before interrupting her sentence. “Biting. Blood exchange. I’m connected with you and you are connected with me.”
She blinked at him for a moment. “Are you insane?”
He shrugged and laughed slightly. “More than likely. Was in life, can’t see why that should be different now.”
“You’d turn an angel?”
“Not turn,” he said quickly. “Never turn. I wouldn’t force this existence on anyone who didn’t want it. Sure, it’s great to live forever, but not when you have to live off blood.” Koios looked at her. “I believe you said the same thing last night in the dream.”
This time, it was Anahita who flinched. “Then never mind. I will not take blood.”
“Good, because I wasn’t exactly offering. I was just saying that was the only option that we had.” He stalked back to the shadows of the trees and stood there for a moment. “How will I know?”
“Know what?”
“If you need to see me again. Or what if I decide that I need to see you?”
She gave him a sad smile. “No blood exchange means no contact outside of dreams.”
He just stared at her before disappearing into the shadows of the trees. A moment later, he came back with a single red rose the color of the blood he had been drinking that night. With a mock bow, he handed it to her. “For you, angel.” She took it, thinking that he had taken it from one of the graves and planned on dropping it as soon as he was gone. She did not steal from the dead.
What she would never know was that Koios had used the last of the excess energy he had gained that night into asking the small flower for faster growth and bloom so that he might give it to her.
No response came to him from her lips, so he simply nodded his goodbye and became one with the night. Anahita waited until she was sure that he was gone before putting the rose on the rock and disappearing in a silent, but blinding, flash of light.
Unseen by all, the rose took root.
VI- Sacrilegium
When Koios made it make to his home, he found that the sun was near rising. If he had been out even ten minutes more, he never would have made it back in time to reach the safety of his room before passing out. As it was though, he barely managed to tumble into his bed before he lost consciousness when the sun broke over the horizon. His dreams that morning were unlike those that he had been having for the past ten years. He did not dream of Bridgett and of that night. Nor did he dream that he was at the carnival and seeing the freak show again.
In this dream, he was surrounded by light and warmth and clouds. He had an idea of what he was dreaming of, naturally. When he saw a pair of golden gates in the distance though, he knew for sure that his dreams had taken him to Heaven. Almost under their own violation, he felt himself begin to walk towards the gates, where there was a figure waiting for him. It ended up being Anahita.
“Hello, angel,” he told her.
“Hello vampire,” came her reply.
“Might I come in?”
“Here? No. But I can come out to you.” And she proceeded to do just that. There was peace in Koios for a moment as he watched her come towards him. However, as soon as Anahita had walked past the gates, the scene transformed and the two of them were in the alleyway that the killings had occurred in. Anahita transformed to Diu before his eyes and leered at him. He seemed to be taller than Koios remembered him being and was defiantly darker looking. Clouds rolled over the full moon above them as Diu looked down at him. With a snarl, he turned away, disappearing in the night as he became one with it.
“Where are you going?” Koios called after him.
“To hunt. To kill. To turn.” The reply seemed to come from the dark that was threatening to close in on him. Just as the darkness reached his body and was beginning to enter into him, the scene shifted again and he was standing in the graveyard that he had talked with Anahita in. He walked through it, not really thinking of anything. At one point, he passed by a highly polished tombstone and caught sight of something that troubled him to no end: his reflection.
There was the hint of the creature that the strong man in the carnival had possessed completely. It was closer to being a true part of him, unlike the demon that he had seen in Emaline. He bit his lip and turned away; this was not something that he wanted to see. No matter where he turned though, he found himself looking at his visage in the tombstones again. As he moved onward though, eyes straight ahead, he found that the images he saw from the corner of his eye were changing. No longer did they show a man and a demon melded together. Instead, they showed what looked like a human body that was rotting away before him. Koios stopped before one of them to looked closer at it and felt his body seize up. It was himself that he saw once more.
He awoke with a start as the sun went down. He had forgotten that he had no need of breath and was breathing heavily as human would after a nightmare. At least the nightmare had been helpful, he found himself thinking with a wry smile. He had been banned from entering Heaven and Anahita had disappeared to be replaced with Diu. It was obvious what was being told to him: there was no way he could be with an angel, even if she did look like Brigett. Diu was his creator and it was Diu who he would stay with.
It was time to tell him what was happening to.
Koios rose late that night, long after the other members of the court had departed for their hunts. He felt that Diu was still at home though, which helped him to finally come out of his room. “Diu?” he called out softly. He knew that the older vampire would be able to hear his voice with no problem. It was all down to whether or not he cared to answer Koios that night.
“Yes?” The response came almost instantly as Diu seemed to appear out of the shadows that were behind Koios. “What’s wrong?”
“I have something to tell you.”
There was silence after Koios had finished his story of what had happened to him in the past few nights.
“An angel, you say?” Diu finally asked him. There was a nod from the younger vampire. Diu sighed, looking more human than he ever had in the past. He rose from his place on the couch and began to pace back and forth as he talked. “I have not needed to deal with things such as this in the past. You are a strange one, Koios. You are sure that you have not imagined this entire thing?”
“Yes. It’s hard to
say how I know, but I just…”
“You know. I understand perfectly. It’s how I knew that you were going to be in the alley ten years ago.” There was a pause. “No, eleven years ago tonight. Damn, has it really been that long…” There was silence once again as Diu stopped to think. He shook his head after a moment and resumed pacing. “I think that perhaps the best thing to do is to bring you out on a hunt with me. Reclaim your title as a creature of the night and forget about this angel. Heaven is a place of purity, yes? If you are covered in blood once again, the blood that you need to survive, then this angel should leave you be.”
“A hunt? With you?”
Diu smiled at him. “Why not. The night is still young enough.”
Koios nodded and stood. “Let’s go hunt then.” He didn’t bother to voice his next thought, of how perhaps hunting with the creature who made him would finally let him be rid of this love that was holding him to earth, allowing him to decay, after all these years without it.
The two vampires left the building with hardly any noise. The moon was almost dark, but the sliver that was left was more than enough for them to