The Story of the Vampire, L (Completed | Featured )

Leis, part 3 - Satan's hand

I woke to the sound of birds at the window, alone in Laurent's bed, in a room I did not recognize. I started, and suddenly there was a hand in mine, a long and delicate hand.

"Protect me from him, from Satan," I whispered, hushed deep inside of my body, barely able to take breath.

The hand tightened in mine. "Do not be afraid," Dasius said."We still live in that house you remember, but it will be shortly sold. We are still on the hill, but this is a smaller place." His real voice is soft, so like a young and innocent boy's.

"Please," I said, "please," and he let go of me.

"We have two floors here," his tone unchanged, "and the two floors above ours are vacant. We occupy them, however, since now the market is dry. You are in the basement, which is why it is dark. Truly, it is mid day."

I looked up from my hands and he was standing a bit off, looking out the half-window at street level, awkward with his hands clasped behind his back. He had his chin tipped down,and his dark hair braided in a long queue. He had dressed to go out,in high collar, long coat and pointed shoes. I took breath, but could not find words. "Forgive me," I said, "for my throat is tight."

He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "Come and get dressed. We will go and find your darling."

"Please," I whispered, so that while I dressed he would turn away.

He had, wrapped in paper, clothes for my Darkling, a short length of tubing, and small needles of various sizes. "You told me in your letter that he is quite sensitive. We will find a room for the evening, so that you may wash him and spirit him into as good a condition as you can. If it is meet, I will leave you, and come tomorrow evening at earliest. It will not do to bring him here unless he is at his peak, or as near it as possible. You must know what will happen. If there is any violence or disagreement, he must be strong enough."

I wanted to ask him many questions, and why he had not told me about the eyes, but I found then, as now, that his presence chokes away my breath, and causes me to sweat, and I could not speak for the shame of persisting in my fright of him, even when he had been honest and committed to help me. I still knew then, as I do now,the feeling of ripping his flesh from his neck in anger, and the deep nameless horror of that violence. I could not reconcile my emotions,and it felt like hands around my neck. But still, when I stumbled,faint with fear and loss of blood, he held out his arm for me to take. He said, "I have something for you, for your head, for your nerves, if you wish to take it. Later. First, we will take care of your darling. Please, dear heart, take me to him." If he was disappointed in my continuing dread of him, he was too much of a gentleman to show it.

We walked slow, under a black parasol. He had found a coat for me, and it was warm.

Under the bridge, Dasius shooed away a dog, which sat cowering on the riverbank, cautious of my lover's body, that seemed to be dead. Dasius did not say anything at all about the state of Quinn, which is far more than I deserved, taking Quinn's limp arm and tapping it. He wiped my lover's skin with a white handkerchief, kissed it, which made me cry out soundlessly and reach out my hand.

"I apologize, dear. There is no excuse," he said, tying a cord around his upper arm and pulling it tight with his teeth. 

"What will you do?" I whispered.

"Hush now, kitten," he said, which made me shudder as if under the hand of death. "It will be all right." He pressed a needle to his arm and lifted the tube attached to it, and I watched the blood come out, and go up, and when it had filled the tube, he pushed the needle on the other end into Darkling's flesh, and I wrung my hands with worry.