Shannon sat up with a start, noting he was still in the windowless storage room but he wasn't sure how much time had passed. His head was ringing, his eyes were somewhat unfocused, and at some point, he had dressed or been dressed in his boxers, As the memory of what had transpired between Masha and himself flooded back in, his hand found its way to his neck, noting how tender it was.
He stood and tested his legs. They were wobbly but supported him, so even though the pounding in his head was growing worse as he stood, he gathered his clothing that had been tossed aside in the heat of the moment and set about redressing. He was tying his sneakers when Masha returned with a glass of apple juice.
"Good, you're up," she said, smiling softly and handing him the glass of juice. When he took it she sat down on a storage chest and watched him while he drank it. "That should help you feel a little better but you'll want to give yourself a few hours."
"Do I have a few hours?" Shannon asked her, remembering the seriousness of their situation.
"You should be fine. And hopefully, no one will show up tonight anyway. They don't know we're here yet. Well not as far as we know. And they shouldn't have any reason to suspect this is where we are either." Masha told him. She watched him continue to drink the juice until it was finished before asking him, "How are you feeling?"
Shannon rubbed the spot on his neck again. "Confused. What the hell happened exactly?"
"I'm sorry. I got a little carried away. Like I said, it's been a long time, and you are so susceptible...." Masha trailed off, embarrassed. "It was only after... I mean I didn't influence you to...." She took a deep breath. She knew her feelings for Shannon were very real, as was the attraction between them. She was so afraid she had damaged his trust beyond repair now, but she had to explain what had happened.
"Am I your thrall now? Isn't that what they call it? Like I'm under your spell and have to do your bidding?" Shannon remembered his thoughts in the moment and the question came spilling out of him.
"What? No. What have you been reading? No. You're not still under any kind of influence."
Shannon didn't fail to notice the qualifier in that sentence. "But I was."
Masha looked at her hands instead of looking Shannon in the eyes. She sincerely had not meant to do it. She had thought she could maintain control. But as he had touched her her will had dissolved like tissue paper in water until she was so lost in him she didn't know where she ended and he began. "I'm sorry. It wasn't something I planned, I wasn't trying to make you do something you didn't want to do. See, you humans, you usually don't even understand why you're attracted, you just see something you like and you chase it. Your awareness is so limited. Attraction is complex, and there are a great deal of purely psychological factors, but the things that drive it, that put it over the edge, they're much more physical. Chemicals, pheromones. I feel them all." She moved to sit down next to him on the sofa. "With you it's overwhelming. You're intoxicating." Just sitting this close to him she could feel it again and she reached out and traced her fingers down the side of his face, half expecting him to flinch away from her touch. When he didn't she sighed and her lips parted, already aching to be on him again. "You're like all my favorite flavors. I just lost myself in the moment."
Shannon found himself closing his eyes as her touch reignited the intense desire he had been feeling earlier. He had to swallow hard before continuing. "That explains you but it still doesn't tell me what happened to me," Shannon said, his voice soft.
Masha could see his pupils starting to dilate again, and his respiration was speeding up. Quickly she pulled her hand back. "Uhm..." She licked her lips and then refocused. "We vampires release pheromones too, but also something else, a sort of desire hormone. It's quite powerful and can be completely overwhelming for humans. We also have the ability to control it, holding back when needed or using it to sway someone's behavior."
Shannon looked at the pale, slender hand she had pulled back, wanting it on him again. "This is that whole "power of seduction" myth, isn't it?"
Masha rolled her eyes. "A lot of that was just sexually frustrated Victorian maidens looking for any outlet they could get. But yes, that is where it comes from. I just got so overwhelmed by you I forgot what I was doing. Please forgive me. I wouldn't influence you unfairly like that intentionally, believe me. And I didn't do it until the heat of the moment. I'm not doing it now either. Anything you felt in the beginning was you. And it is now."
Shannon nodded. Part of him didn't care if he was under some supernatural influence or not. He was already craving her again, that euphoria burned into his brain. Being with Masha was incredible. He didn't care why. "Is that what you meant when you said there would be consequences? Because now I can't stop thinking about you, but I don't mind."
Masha shook her head. "No. The effect wears off quickly for you. I assure you it is long gone by now. The consequences were for me, but they will affect you too if I am not careful." He looked at her so trustingly, so wanting, that she couldn't resist stopping to press her lips to his. He tasted as warm and sweet as when she had first kissed him, and she wished they had more time together. When this was all over, when she began Jared's proper training, she hoped she would have many nights to spend exploring everything about Shannon. She just couldn't lose control again. Not like last night. "Now that I have drunk from you, I will continue to crave you. The more it happens the more I will want you. I hope you can understand how dangerous that is. We can't let it happen again."
"Yeah." Shannon looked at her, her gray eyes clouded in concern and regret. He had seen that look from her before. Perhaps if she was feeling guilty for losing control with him he could use that to get some more answers from her. He pulled her hand into his lap and thought about how to ask what he wanted before deciding the direct approach was most likely to get results. "What did you do? In the past I mean. What is it that Jared and I are supposed to be making up for?"
Masha instantly pulled her hand away. "I made a mistake," she answered without looking at him.
"I gathered that much. I'm asking what that mistake was." Masha didn't answer him, and Shannon could see she was lost in thought, most likely weighing what would happen if she told him. "Please. I really feel like I need to know."
Masha sighed and scooted away from him on the sofa, feeling as if it would best if they got some extra distance between them before she started this story. She probably would have told it from the safety of another state if she could, just to keep from having to look at him when she confessed her penultimate error in judgment. "Jared isn't my first child," she began.
Klara finished putting the last of the herbs she had laid out into the shallow silver pan on the table. As Jared watched she sprinkled them with some sort of oily liquid then struck a match, dropping it into the center of the pan and igniting the contents. The room quickly filled with a noxious cloud of smoke, and Jared had to fight a nearly overpowering urge to run away.
Silas handed Klara a length of rope and Jared watched in fascination as she passed it through the smoke, chanting in a language that he did not recognize but was sure wasn't her native German. His eyes began to swim and his throat itched, and as he observed Silas, Jared noticed that he too was watery eyed and showing signs of distress. Klara, however, seemed to remain unaffected, chanting on while she fed foot after foot of rope through the dark vapor. .When she had finished she handed the entirety of it to Silas then blew out the embers with a whispered word. The air in the room immediately returned to normal and the hairs on Jared's arms stood up.
"Come with me," Silas instructed, motioning to Jared who followed obediently behind him as they left the small magic room and the busy hexe behind, moving into the loading bay where they had originally parked. Something in here tickled at Jared's senses, a sweet and heavy odor that grew stronger the closer they got to Masha's vehicle. He had noticed it before, on the ride over here, but he had still been trying to make sense of things and it had been lost in a cacophony of other scents and sounds. When Silas threw the tail hatch open the smell grew so overpowering Jared actually stumbled backward, nearly tripping over his own feet.
"Quickly," Silas hissed as he gestured for Jared to help him grab the long wooden crate in the cargo area. They pulled it out and sat it on the floor and Silas quickly began wrapping it in the rope that Klara had prepared for him. The more they entwined it in the magical cord the more the smell dissipated until it vanished altogether.
As Silas stood and silently regarded the crate Jared was reminded of exactly what, or rather who was inside. "I'm sorry about your friends," he offered.
Silas nodded and removed his glasses, rubbing his eyes as he seemed to gather his thoughts. "I'm sorry you never got to meet them. They could have taught you a lot."
"Maybe you could tell me about them someday?" Jared asked.
Silas sighed but didn't respond. Jared was having a hard time getting a feeling for the bookish man. He seemed to be much younger than Masha but there was a weariness about him that belied that youth. As affable as he was around the antiquated tomes and dusty apothecary bottles, away from them he became markedly more taciturn. Jared waited patiently to see if he would launch into one of his instructional diatribes but after a time Silas simply returned his glasses to their perch and began walking back towards the living quarters.
"Silas?" Jared called to him. He stopped and turned around with a nod of his head but didn't answer. There were so many questions in Jared's head. "Why weren't you with Davrosh too? Why did you leave Subterra?"
Silas's entire demeanor immediately changed. His muscles all tightened and his face became strangely neutral. "You don't get to know that yet," he intoned flatly, eyes avoiding Jared's. "Masha needs to tell you. As her child, you deserve to know. I won't try to clean up for her again."
That was far from the response Jared had hoped for. "Isn't that what you're doing now? Helping her?"
Silas shook his head. "I didn't turn her out into the streets because she is family. I am helping because of Davrosh. I supposed because of you too. You've done nothing to deserve this mess. She shouldn't have turned you, even though I understand why she did it, but what's done is done."
Jared was glad to know that whatever the issue was between Masha and Silas that Silas didn't extend those bad feelings to him. He wished he could get more answers but everyone was being so cryptic. There were obviously a lot of secrets between them. "Thank you, I think," he finally said.
Silas nodded. "Let's go check on Davrosh. He should be up by now."
Masha smoothed her hands over her thighs before continuing. "Remember how we were telling you earlier than back in the old country..."
"What's the old country?" Shannon interrupted.
"Romania," Masha clarified. Shannon gave her an amused look. "Yes, I know, Transylvania and all that, it's a bit on the nose. But as I told you, most of these stories have their seeds in truth. The Moroi are originally from Romania. Other vampires have origins elsewhere. At any rate, back in the old country, there are families that are traditionally drawn upon for additions to our line. The third born in each generation. It isn't considered negotiable, exceptions are not made, the children are prepared from birth for what while be expected of them."
"That seems a little brutal."
"Not so much as you might think," Masha explained. "Again, they are prepared from their earliest understanding for what lies ahead. If they have other dreams they are generally able to pursue them. Being a vampire doesn't prevent you from being an accountant if that is your heart's desire. It just gives you more time to achieve it, and any other dream you might have."
Shannon frowned, deep in thought. "But how you can be an accountant, or whatever, and still chase down people like Whispers?"
"The Underground isn't all there is. People like Whispers isn't all there is. There's a whole rich supernatural society, intermingling with the human one. You'd be surprised at how many people you have met that are not human. Once Jared is properly trained he'll be free to attempt to resume his career if he so chooses. And he won't be alone. There are other supes in the performing arts. It can be done."
Shannon nodded and sighed and Masha could see a wave of relief washing over him. She knew he was worried about his younger brother, their clear bond was what had caught her attention after all, but she realized there had to have been some worry for his own future as well. If their band dissolved, where would that leave Shannon? "We'll get you back to your old lives as soon as possible if that's what you want," she reassured him.
"I think he'll want that," Shannon replied. Jared had put so much work into his career he couldn't see him walking away now. But they had wandered off subject. "So I'm going to assume that one of these third born children was your previous child? And something happened to him?" Shannon asked by way of redirecting the conversation back to where he wanted it.
"Yes, but there's a little more to it than that. This particular family, the one that was to be mine to draw my child from, had six children. The others do not play into the story but the third was a boy, named Stefan and the fourth was also a boy, named Ioan. Stefan and Ioan were extremely close, almost like twins. Ioan had been very sick as a child and Stefan had grown quite protective of him over the years, so much so that even when they were grown and Ioan no longer struggled with illness Stefan still watched over him very carefully.
"Now Stefan wasn't actually supposed to be my child. There's a sort of waiting list and I wasn't due to have another so soon. But my first child had been trained and was off on her own, so I had both experience and the time available to devote to Stefan. So they asked me to step in instead. Because Stefan was a problem." Masha stopped at this point and got up from the dusty little sofa, pacing the room anxiously. She realized that she had never told the complete story to anyone before, not anyone who wasn't already in on at least part of it. She wasn't sure she could make Shannon understand, her world was much more nuanced than his, but she was going to try. "Stefan was... violent. Disturbed."
"Wouldn't those be good properties to have in a vampire?" Shannon asked.
"No, they are not. Not moroi. We have gotten along peacefully with other races for centuries, in large part because we are not needlessly violent, or brutal. We exercise discretion."
"So why turn him at all? Why not just skip to his younger brother?"
Masha smiled ruefully. "I told you. Third born. No exceptions."
"But what if...." Shannon objected, about to name any one of a number of scenarios that popped into his head that would make a person unlikely to be a good candidate for vampirism.
"No. Exceptions," Masha repeated. "I agreed to take him on, somewhat reluctantly, I admit, but I thought I could handle him. I saw the bond the brothers had and I decided to bring Ioan along too, in hope that it would better allow me to control Stefan."
Shannon began to feel the first hints of true trepidation at where this tale of two brothers could be headed. He began to feel as if he and Jared were standing on someone else's graves. "It didn't work," he said. It was more a statement than a question.
"No," Masha answered, shaking her head softly. Her voice was getting quieter, smaller, with each sentence. "Stefan became intoxicated by power. He would sneak away to practice killing. In the beginning, it was only animals, dogs, cats, deer.... I tried to keep a better watch over him, but he was extraordinarily stealthy. He had killed three girls in the nearby town before I realized things had escalated."
"Fuck," Shannon said. He had a pretty good idea that this Stefan probably would have been a murderer or serial killer without the addition of the moroi blood. It was dumb luck that had made him third born and the rigid rules of the family line had compounded the error. "What about Ioan? What did he think of what his brother was doing? Didn't having him there help?"
A pained look came over Masha's face. "Ioan, of course, did not approve of Stefan's proclivities. Ioan was kind, and intelligent, and would never have wanted to see another being harmed. But he also loved his brother deeply, and blindly. He refused to admit that Stefan was deeply disturbed. And I couldn't bear to hurt Ioan by taking his brother away. So I packed them both up and moved us to a Subterra compound. I locked Stefan up while we all tried to decide what to do to fix the situation."
Masha stopped again, twisting at the ring on her finger. She hadn't looked Shannon in the eye for a while now. It was strange repeating all this, it sounded so simple now, so clinical, like it wasn't leading up to the worst day of her life. She tried to keep that emotional distance before she continued. "Stefan managed to escape again. Once he arrived in town, he went on a killing spree. He was savage. Eight young women, dead, bloodied, their throats ripped out. He tore their chests open with his bare hands, leaving bits of their organs scattered around their bodies.
"Ioan was the first to realize he was gone. Knowing what had happened before he headed straight into town. The people had discovered the murders by then and were frantic, angry, looking for someone to blame."
Shannon interjected. "This sounds terrible but I'm not tracking why this is your fault. He was disturbed before you got your hands on him..."
"Shh." Masha quieted Shannon. "I'm not done yet. I wasn't too far behind Ioan, but by the time I got to the town a mob had formed. He tried of course to profess his innocence but he was the only stranger in what was essentially a small village and they would not listen to him." She took a deep breath. The next few minutes had played out in her head over and over again in the decades since this had happened. The memories were as fresh as if they had happened that morning. "They tied him to a tree on the edge of the woods and began to torture him, tearing into his flesh the way the girls had been ravaged. His cries brought Stefan out from his hiding place."
"He stopped them, right?" Shannon questioned, although Masha could tell by his expression he was perfectly aware that if that was where the story had ended no one would be this angry this many years later. Masha shook her head.
"I made a series of decisions that night. I watched them tying Ioan to that tree and I did not intervene. I knew his suffering was the best way to catch Stefan. It was a calculated move. When Stefan appeared to rescue his brother I stopped him, commanding him to stand by in silence and observe. I knew if I let him into the fray there would be more dead than the eight girls that had already been eviscerated. And then I made him watch while the villagers tore his beloved little brother apart piece by piece. I wanted to him to see what his indiscretion had caused. I wanted him to know what it felt like to suffer while someone you loved died. I wanted him to change."
"That's..." Shannon's voice was barely above a whisper. Masha could see the wheels turning in his head as he tried to reason away her culpability. She knew he couldn't do it. She went back to her story.
"I should have cut Stefan's head off after the first kill. At the very least he deserved it for what he had done in that village. But I couldn't admit I had failed. So I used sweet Ioan to try to teach him a lesson. When the villagers had finished with his brother I took Stefan back to the base and locked him up again. Once he was secured I returned to town to retrieve Ioan's body so that he could be buried properly. It didn't take long, I was gone for maybe a little more than hour."
She bit her lip. She didn't know why she was hesitating now. Truly the worst of her decision had been allowing Ioan to die as a lesson to his brother. But she was acutely aware of how much Shannon's demeanor had changed since the story began. She was certain she had lost him. Maybe he was her lesson to learn. She took a minute and then continued. "By the time I returned to the base, Stefan had escaped once again. To this day I do not know how he did it, he seemed to have some uncanny ability. He was locked in a cell with a heavy door and formidable lock, one that should have kept in any number of supernatural creatures. But I returned to find Stefan in the middle of a pile of bodies, all the Subterra operatives that been at the base. There was blood everywhere. I don't know how he overpowered them all, I don't understand how any of it happened exactly. But I could see by the look in his eyes he was completely mad. He just kept licking the blood off his hands and arms and laughing. When I finally did what I should have done at the beginning, when I took his head, he didn't even try to fight me. Didn't flinch at all."
Shannon nodded, unsure what to say to any of it. There was nothing he could say really, she had done a terrible thing, and she was right, the blame was largely hers. He felt certain she was remorseful, and that she had probably been trying to atone for her mistake in the years since but it was a lot to digest.
"Stefan killed eleven Underground members by himself, barehanded. As little more than a newborn. He was an abomination that never should have been. We will now make exceptions, we will never again take someone who is that clearly disturbed. But it doesn't undo what was done. Just like saving your brother and trying to keep you two together won't undo what I allowed to happen to Ioan. And nothing will ever make Silas forgive me."
Shannon thought perhaps he had missed part of the story. "Why Silas in particular?"
"His wife was one of the eleven."
Jared and Silas stopped first to check on the banshee sisters, who were still slumbering away in a back bedroom, presumably exhausted from their ordeal. Then they made their way to where Davrosh was sleeping. He seemed to have moved from his previous position but didn't rouse when Silas called out to him. Jared reached out to touch him but felt something strange in the older man's presence. Instinctively he stepped back, putting some distance between himself and what felt like a feral animal awakening in front of him. Jared realized that Silas had stopped too. When the older vampire turned around to face Jared his eyes were wild, terrified. Jared could see Davrosh starting to stir behind him.
"That's not Davrosh," Silas choked out. "Get the girls. Run."