see by where the street lights had gone out or where there weren’t any. Their search for the perfect prey that night hardly took any time at all. Not even five minutes after they left did Diu hold out his hand and point to a couple. “It’s time you learn how to make your own childe, Koios.”
“That’s your job. This is your Court.”
“You’re strong enough now to form a Court of your own.” Diu looked around and then smiled. “I’ll provide the distraction to get them parted from one another. Who do you want?”
“The girl,” Koios said at once.
The elder vampire nodded and then was gone in a flutter of wings and duster. Koios stood and watched from his place in the shadow of the building he was next to for the right moment to come and strike. He glanced up a moment as he waited and saw the stars above once again. Was Anahita up there watching him now? No, best not to dwell on such ideas. With a start, he came back to himself and focused on the hunt once more.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a street person appeared before the couple. A human would not have been able to hear the words that were being exchanged, and Koios barely could. There were some words and sentences here and there that stuck him, though he couldn’t place his finger on it. It was only when he saw the street person pull a gun and the man shout out “Run!” that Koios froze.
This was how his own death would have played out had he been an observer in it.
“Are you planning on going after her at any point in the future?” asked a voice from behind him. Koios spun around, seeing Diu standing there. “She’s getting away.”
“What the hell did you do.”
“A thrall on a person that dead inside isn’t that hard to pull off. I simply suggested to him that he might go and see if those two had any money on them.”
“You bastard. They’re both going to end up dead.”
“I didn’t hear you complaining before,” Diu spat at him.
“That was before I knew that you were the one responsible for killing me and Brigett.” Koios’ eyes were ice cold as the bore into Diu’s.
“Ah yes. Your precious Brigett. You know Koios, most vampires give up on their human lives and forget about them after a year. Those that don’t are considered weak and are taken to Greet the Mane. I kept you safe from the Elders of the vampires because you amused me. It was interesting to see how long a vampire could hold onto his humanity. Your times of amusement have come to an end, however.” Diu reached into the pocket of his duster and pulled out a piece of carved wood. It was ornate, the end whittled to look like a fang and the handle of it carved with different pictures that, on a closer look, showed human bodies twined around the vampires, either dead in their arms or just about dead. “It’s time for you to meet with death again. And I will not save you this time.”
Diu brought up the stake and started it on its downward descent in lightening fast speed. Koios somehow responded with speed that was near equal to Diu’s and dodged out of the way. The stake still came into contact with his body, but it was nowhere near his heart and was more of a graze that anything. Blood oozed out of the wound; slow as the pressure was nowhere near what it would have been had he fed that night. “I would not ask you to,” he told his sire. Before the stake could come up and threaten his life again, he took off down the streets.
With a bit of the energy he had swimming around in him, he formed wings and rapidly took to air, flying until he was back near the cemetery that he had meet Anahita at last night. Landing, he fell to earth, energy depleted. He could barely walk, let alone attempt to go feed.
“Bridgett,” he called out. “Anahita, whoever you are…I need you. I believe you.”
He passed out soon afterwards, not knowing if his plea for help had been heard nor if he would be Greeting the Mane in a few hours time.
VII-Amor
He was being shaken into consciousness from a sleep that was deeper than he had known in a long time. Hunger gnawed at his gut, seeking substance so that it might be sated. His body craved the blood that he lived by. Never before had he faced hunger such as this, nor might he again. There was no way that he could move to find a human that he might take from. This was the debilitating hunger that the Elders and the Codex spoke of; that they warned against. If one of the vampire kin were ever in such a position, it was unlikely they would survive.
Every thought of his was consumed with blood lust. He did not know who he was. Names held no meaning. They did not matter.
An eye opened and stared up at a blonde haired woman above him. She was talking to him, though the words did not make sense to him. Shadows all around him and her; the shadows were lessened by the light that she gave off. Wings…no. It was a trick of the light. Wings did not exist. Only the blood that was beneath her skin was real.
His head jerked up as her felt the familiar tingle at the back of his neck. Morning was approaching and soon. He was going to die again. There was no blood for him to take so he could run. The woman before him was all there was and she was too bright to drink from. She hurt his eyes to look at, even though he didn’t want to take his eyes off of her. There was beauty there. And she looked familiar.
Another vampire perhaps?
That would mean that he was in her hunting grounds. Which meant that he was about to be killed anyway. There was no point in getting up. He was either going to Greet the Mane or be killed for violating hunting rights of an older vampire. Sagging back to the ground, he closed eyes that had barely begun to open.
Noises again. The woman was speaking. He tried to focus on them, to make out what the noises meant to form them into sounds. The sounds into words. The words into sentences. The sentences into thoughts. The thoughts into meaning. “Dammit,” he heard her say. She was swearing. He remembered swearing. It always meant that something bad had happened or was about to. Why would she be swearing over him though. Unless she felt the sun coming as well and would it would do the work of killing him for her. Yes. That was it.
There was something at his mouth. A liquid. He darted out a tongue to taste it and the blood lust grew. His eyes opened and everything was tinged with red. Blood. There was blood at his mouth.
His hands flew forward with a strength he didn’t know he still possessed to hold the source of the blood in place so it didn’t fall away and leave him in hunger again. Life, pure life and the energy that it held, poured into his mouth at long last. It sated the monster that lived inside his skin and let him begin to move again. He lost his attention on the world around him and all that existed was the blood that flowed from the wound and into his body.
Koios.
He had a name.
It was Koios.
That was his first thought when he could think past blood again. As soon as it came, other memories and thoughts rushed into his mind and threatened to drown him. He built a dam and quickly sifted through them all as they entered. Church. Anahita. Dream. Brigett. Dream. Diu. Death. Stake. Running. Falling. Blood.
Now.
His eyes snapped open when his thoughts reached the here and now to look at who he was drinking from. It was a woman. Even in blood lust, he could tell that much. Koios was able to look past the light and the hair this time to see that it was Anahita that he was taking from.
Jumping back as though burned, he brought a hand to his mouth, touching the blood that had managed to leak past his mouth and down onto his face. Angel blood, he thought, touching it.
“Brigett?”
“Yes. I heard you call.”
“I…I took your blood. After I said that I wouldn’t. I took it…” He fell backwards so that he was facing the ever lightening sky to the east. “I am truly damned now…”
“No, you are not. It was freely offered.”
Koios sat up to stare at her. “What?”
“I heard you call. I came. I saw. And I did what was right.”
“Angel
blood is in me. I don’t think that I can ever forgive myself for taking from you like that. What’s more is that I can’t return to Diu’s Court with it in me. Even if I wanted to.”
Anahita walked over to him and knelt down. “You saw.” He nodded. “I’m sorry that you needed to see it that way. I’m sorry that your illusions about him have been shattered.”
He pushed her away. “It doesn’t matter now. I have just prolonged death a little longer. There is no shelter that I can get to in time before the sun rises. I will die, just the same as if Diu had staked me before or if you had not heard.” He turned so that he no longer needed to look at her.
She looked about the clearing. Her eyes fell on the rose that he had brought her just the night before. It had already sprouted again, three tiny rose buds appearing off of the main stem. It was then that she knew it had not been stolen.
Where an angel stands, certain magics and powers seep into the ground to change things that are there. Those powers cause small miracles to happen. But only if the things there have lived before and were placed there by those pure of heart.