***

I took a deep breath, my thoughts returning to the present. My eyes adjusted, fixing on the computer screen again and the manuscript bent to taunt me, as though compelling me to click it open. I resisted, though. There were still too many ghosts with no use in conjuring them up; no real reason to revisit the event any more than I already had. So, I stood and pushed the office chair in, shutting off the monitor and nothing else before trudging my way back toward the bedroom again. I paused by the music room, but this time my eyes did not drift toward the shelves. I found myself studying the piano, willing myself to hear its music playing in my thoughts.

A kaleidoscope of images fought to accompany the blissful serenade. The first time Victor played for me, the first moment I realized the feelings within me were more than platonic, more than mere brotherly affection. The first time he sat at the piano after our relationship had turned romantic; the kiss I placed gently on his shoulder as I walked up behind him. I fought him so hard because I knew how deeply I was falling in love with him. And I plummeted into a bottomless well of sentiment when I finally let go.

I swallowed hard. “I need you does not quite summarize it, does it, lover mine?” I asked the empty room, imagining him sitting there. His back to me, his fingers moving deftly over the keys. My maestro, subjugating ebony and ivory under his firm, yet gentle, command. My heart swelled with affection and yet my eyes turned misty despite myself. I could not imagine a day when those keys would be stilled forever and prayed I never would have to.

Still, something taunted at me. Something I knew I was missing.

“A shower.” I nodded to myself and moved forward, following the suggestion just as quickly as it surfaced within my thoughts. I stole a moment to open the door as soundlessly as possible. Then, I slipped inside, shutting the door behind me and creeping toward the bathroom without lingering, knowing the temptation might coax me into bed. ‘Not yet, but soon. I need a little more time to think.’ Taking a deep breath, I locked myself inside the bathroom and switched on the light. Once again, the quiet wrapped itself around me, only this time I appreciated it.

Perhaps because my lover laid in blissful sleep on the other side of the door.

I had to chuckle. “One thing about this bond,” I said as I unbuttoned my pants, “I cannot deny the comfort of being closer to you, my maestro.” Switching on the water, I turned up the temperature and watched steam rise from spray once it started getting warm. I stepped inside the shower. “One of the reasons I could not bear to be away from you for long.”

A bond would have been handy when I searched for Monica in Europe.

We had a psychic link, but I had never been able to use it for the purpose of locating the one to whom I was connected. It enabled us to speak over long distances, communicate face-to-face while being miles apart from one another. Such is why she was almost my undoing. Even when I gave up on speaking to her, she would come to me and wear me down, tempting me with surrender while distracting me from locating where her puppetmasters laid. I fought a long battle for my soul and the only person who knew about it was Robin. Even still, he could not bear to confront me with the inevitable. Not even when I almost killed him.

I recall him on his knees in front of me, my sword poised on his throat with the tip puncturing his skin. The superficial cut still managed to spill a thin rivulet of crimson which was staining the collar of his white shirt. He dared not even flinch. Still, his eyes met mine, refusing to glance away. “If you wish the mortal world to go to hell, then fine,” he said, speaking calmly as though we were having a relaxed conversation. “But realize you would be damning your children as well.”

“Ignore him!” the voice ringing in my mind belonged to Monica, who had finally managed a foothold. The wild look in my eyes as I stared back at Robin indicated how close to slipping from the edge I was. How much I wanted to give in. I hung from the precipice by the tips of my fingers, fangs out, the darkness within almost overshadowing me. Still, I could not help but furrow my brow at Robin’s words. Monica might have been enchanting Flynn, but Robin had not given up on Peter.

My hands became shaky. I gritted my teeth while the look in Robin’s eyes turned sympathetic. He frowned. “That is what you’d be doing, Peter. Your little boy and little girl… Sabrina and Patrick don’t care about them. Neither does Monica. You’re the only one who can protect them.”

I tightened my hold on the sword, but gasped, feeling my heart break again. Tears brimmed in my eyes. “I want my family back,” I whispered to him. “I want my wife and children. I want to live as we once did. Damn it, Robin, I want her.”

“I know you do, dear brother.” One hand lifted, tentatively touching my wrist; pulling the sword away very slowly. He shook his head once he was able. “You cannot save her this time, though.”

“Please do not say that.” My eyes shut. A tear trickled down my cheek.

“Ignore him!!”

“I apologize, Peter, but I couldn’t lie to you. Not about this.”

“Damn it, no…”

“It pierces like a knife. I know.” My eyes opened as Robin rose to his feet. He continued clutching onto my arm, though. “The woman taunting you is not Monica, though. Giving in to her will not bring your wife back. It will only destroy your children.”

The sword dropped from my hands. I pushed Monica from my mind and collapsed into tears, both hands covering my face and my body convulsing with sobs. Robin sat beside me, wrapping his arms around me and allowing me to weep on his shoulder as I realized what this meant. As if I needed further confirmation, though, the next night I received a visitor. The infamous night where I stood on the banks of the Danube, staring out at Vienna.

Even I could feel the chill of the wind as it blew my coat around, compelling me to clutch the fabric tight against my body. The cigarette in my hand took forever to light and at that moment, I would have sold my soul for a pair of gloves if I had one yet to barter. Temperature does not affect vampires; it was the dark magic floating about, the spell which had Europe locked in a deep slumber. I had not been able to find any warmth since arriving there.

Or, it could have been the decision I was rapidly coming to terms with which left me feeling hollow.

I sighed, raising the cigarette to my mouth, pausing to draw deeply from it before exhaling smoke and staring at the embers. When I first made love to Monica, I swore I would always protect her. When she was a prisoner, I vowed to do whatever it took to save her. When we were married, I pledged to be with her until death parted us, and when I made her immortal, I extended the pledge to include eternity. Now, her death warrant sat on a table before me. I had become precious little more than an assassin again.

“No, this is for the greater good,” I said as I rubbed my eyes, raising my hand to smooth back my hair before burying it deep within the warmth of a pocket. As I drew from the cigarette again, I felt the sword pressing against my side – the knives hugging my torso from their resting place inside a shoulder holster with multiple sheathes – and frowned. Not the assassin? Bullshit. That was precisely what it amounted to. I had only baptized it under the wing of the Supernatural Order by calling myself a seer.

Sighing, I walked to a bench and sat. The wind whipped the tendrils of smoke rising from my cigarette around. I stared at the ground, one arm draped over a knee, and realized… I could not go through with it.

“Do you ever feel like fate is playing a cruel joke on you, Peter?” a familiar voice asked, approaching from behind. I did not need to turn around to know who it was. Female. Lydia. Not my daughter, but the lover I had killed prior to being turned immortal. My messenger from the other side, often charged with delivering the news I never wished to hear.

I brought the cigarette to my mouth again and exhaled a puff of smoke through my nostrils. “Dear Lydia,” I said, a sardonic edge to my voice, “Where oh where have you been for the past eleven years?”

The ethereal form of my former lover sat beside me on the bench, unmoved from the biting wind and winter chill. Clad in a white gown as she was whenever I saw her true colors, she possessed an aura the dark night only brought out more. She was the closest thing I had ever seen to an angel. “I’ve been dead,” she said, a sympathetic look in her eyes. “And you’ve been forced to live through this mess.”

“Yes, I have, have I not?” My gaze shifted to fix on a building far in the distance. Truth be told, I did not wish to look at her. “What do you wish of me, Lydia? To ensure I am a good boy and I murder the possessed witch?”

She did not respond. Rather, she sighed and glanced in the same direction where I had fixed my sights. “When I first sensed you slipping away – when you were still human and Sabrina was seducing you – I called Monica.” She chuckled. “Woke her up in the middle of the night, crying hysterically on the phone with her. I’ll never forget how desperate her tone of voice got when I told her the vampires had their hooks in you. She kept telling me to leave the Order out of it and do whatever the fuck I had to do to save you.” I looked at her in time to see her smile. “Her words.”

I could not help but to flash a quick grin. “I can tell. I think I could count the number of times you have used the word fuck on one hand.”

“Oh, I’m not that much of a saint.” She winked, then sobered. I did as well. Lydia nodded before continuing. “She wanted me to march into the emergency room, yank you from your work, and bring out your powers. ‘Don’t even bother with the sales pitch,’ she said. ‘Let him sort it out afterward.’” Lydia paused. She drew a deep breath inward. “I didn’t, though. Somehow, I realized I couldn’t stop the wheel that began turning. I still tried, don’t get me wrong, but when you stabbed me through the heart… and I told you I was sorry… I was really saying, ‘I’m sorry for what you have lying ahead of you. I wish I could be there to help.’”

I nodded slowly, swallowing hard. The breath I drew was shaky, the cigarette in my hand forgotten for a moment. “She saved me from myself, Lydia. I am to repay the favor to her by running a blade through her?” My gaze met hers, but only for a moment. The more I looked at her, the more I felt pained about what was being forced upon me. I shook my head. “I find it humorous, to hear of how many times she vowed to save my life or threw herself in harm’s way as the quixotic being she is and now that she’s gone, I have to run contrary to everything I ever swore to her.”

“Not run contrary.” I saw Lydia frown in my periphery. “Do you think the real Monica – the woman you married – would want the blood on her hands she’s accumulating by helping Patrick? Would your wife and the mother of your children be able to live with herself if she knew?”

“Then why can I not save her from herself?”

“I think we both know the answer to that.”

Lydia’s gaze weighed heavy, compelling my eyes to shift back to her. I frowned. “There is nothing left,” I muttered.

“There never was anything.” Lydia placed a hand on my shoulder. I could not feel the weight, but I felt the comfort she attempted to bestow. “You knew it when she first woke.”

I nodded and clenched my eyes shut as tears welled again. “This is all my fault.”

“No.” Warmth hit my cheek. I opened my eyes to see her hand had shifted to my face. Her eyes glistened with tears as well. “This is Patrick’s fault. You turned her because you wanted to save her.”

“But now I have to end her,” I said, hearing the small, pitiful way I spoke resonate in my ears and not caring. “How the devil am I supposed to do this? I have a very clear cut weakness they have come close to exploiting on multiple occasions. I cannot even think past this to fathom how much it will break my heart to kill her, because my dark side is bursting through the seams wanting to take over. And I am the one who has to do the impossible?”

“Did it ever occur to you that this is exactly why you have a dark side?”

I sighed. “Lydia, please cease the double speak.”

“You keep fighting with yourself instead of working with him.” Lydia raised an eyebrow. “You know damn well whatever Patrick’s been teaching her is going to make everybody else who tries to kill them a sitting duck. You have exactly what you need right inside of you if you can find a way of forcing him to obey.”

I laughed. “That is rich. I am to get Flynn to cooperate?”

“I bet you could.” Lydia stood. “Remember, he’s you. He’s just the other side of the mirror.”

Staring at her, I exchanged a few additional words with her before turning my confrontation toward Flynn. The fight which commenced between us was bloody and intense, but in the end, I stood the winner. Flynn was forced to be the executioner for me, the one who could accomplish that which I could not on my own. Through the guise of his coldness, I was able to slip into their ranks and at the right moment, I was able to direct the army standing behind me to where my estranged lover hid with her two cohorts. The moment I tipped my hand, I found myself standing opposite Monica, dark magic fighting against me, the only thing stopping me from relenting being Flynn’s stubbornness. One hit impacted her and I ruthlessly followed it up with another swipe of my blade.

Monica fell to the ground. I poised the blade over her heart.

She looked up at me, stunned shock in her eyes while she shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “Peter, I love you.”

I thrust the sword forward. Tears fell from my eyes, staining my cheeks crimson red, a reaction Flynn himself could not hold back from rising to the surface. I drew a shaky breath and said, “No, dearest. I love you.”

With that, she was ash and nothing more.

Standing in the shower, in the present day, I could not help the misty haze which settled over my eyes. I watched that final moment play out again, swallowing hard and forcing my reaction to it back as much as possible, wondering why I was even allowing it to cycle through my thoughts not once, but twice. I saw myself standing frozen in place, the last remains of my wife on the ground below me, with something trying to capture my attention from the corner of my eye.

I blinked a few times, stepping out from the shower spray. Furrowing my brow, I touched the tile wall and felt a sudden rush of anxiety overwhelm me. The scene played out again, only this time, I evaluated it as an observer and not a participant. Something stood just out of sight and yet, my senses screamed at me as if to say, ‘Yes, that. Right there. Focus on it, seer!’

“Focus on what?” I asked aloud, wiping water from my eyes as though that would make the vision in my head any clearer. As much as it pained me to do, I backtracked to the fight between Monica and I, trying to ignore the sadistic pleasure I saw in her eyes each time one of her hits impacted me. Pushing aside each time I felt Flynn laugh at her attempts to break us, mocking her purely with his actions in response. I tried to focus on everything but her, hoping that whatever was screaming at my senses would stand out in one of the other frames, but it was useless. The only time I sensed it was in that final moment and within seconds, it was gone.

I could not remember the very thing I knew I needed to recall.

“Son of a bitch.” I beat my fist against the wall, gritting my teeth as that last scene remained paused within my mind, not a single piece of evidence present to help me decipher what stood just out of sight. And yet, I knew I had solved the puzzle with more questions left than answers. I indulged in a deep breath and furrowed my brow. “So, something is occurring that has some relevance toward what happened with Monica?” My stomach sank. “You have got to be fucking kidding me, Fates.”

“As much as you and I like to think they have a sense of humor, we know better than that, dear.”

My eyes shot over to the door of the shower. I immediately spun around, turning off the spray and sliding the glass to the side to stare at the owner of the voice. As I reached for a towel, I wrapped it around my waist, and the steam cleared enough for me to spy a dark-haired woman sitting on the bathroom counter. Her legs dangled from the edge and the characteristic streak of blonde hair framed one side of her face. She grinned. “Oh, so now we’re modest, Peter? Did you forget how many times I’ve seen you naked?”

“Monica?” I issued the question not to challenge her identity, but to figure out what the devil had summoned her. I stepped closer to where she sat. “So, do I only need to bring up your name now to summon you from the other side?”

She laughed. “It’s been a while.” Her smile faded. It turned solemn. “I’ve been making the rounds, though. Ever since our little leaky faucet talk, you know I spoke to Victor and helped Lydia. God, she’s grown up, hasn’t she?”

I could not help but to grin. “Yes, she has.” Inhaling deeply, I chased away the smile without meaning to, an unpleasant reminder surfacing of what these visits usually meant. Monica had taken her sister’s position as my messenger, something she established to me a year prior when we had our first talk in sixteen years. The tenor of that discussion revealed the future to me like an open book. Getting married to Victor, getting settled in who I am, summoned my calling from its slumber. It seemed the other shoe was about to drop. “What am I missing, Monica? What is it that I cannot see?”

She smiled. “This is the part where I say something cryptic, it drives you crazy, and we go around in a few circles until I cut to the chase. So, let’s just move to the point.” Monica sighed. “I can’t tell you, darling. I wish I could, but you know how The Fates work. You picked up on it, though. That’s what matters.”

“How can it matter when I have no idea what I am supposed to see?”

“Because you can’t see it yet. A few things have to happen first.” She shook her head. “I’m so sorry. You could probably fill in half of my dialogue just from how many times my sister and I have given you the run around. Trust your senses. What are they saying? What does that twisting in your gut tell you?”

I stared at her, expressionless. “Nobody is laying a hand on Victor.”

The corner of her mouth curled in a smirk. “There’s that passion. We could hit you a million times in the gut without you blinking, but pluck one of those dark hairs from Victor’s head, and you start a riot.”

“For good reason.”

“For excellent reason, Peter. You do need to be protective of him as much as he needs to be of you. And he’s going to need you to be there for him now. That’s all the preview I can give you.”

“That is it?” I scowled at my deceased wife. “Damn it, Monica, I would rather not see you at all than have to be delivered these maddening messages and become vexed with you. Why?”

“Because it’s my penance.” Her expression turned pained. “You, Lydia, John, Victor, the family. I have to be the bearer of the bad news. I have to look you in the eyes and say, you’re about to make a decision that’s going to cloud everything. The Fates don’t even know what’s going to happen when the dust clears. And before you even realize it, you’re going to find out what’s teasing you from out the corner of your eye. And I’m sorry, damn it. I can’t even guarantee you the decisions you make will give you what you want. Because you can’t know. Because those choices have to happen.”

“Why am I constantly the puppet?!”

“You?!” She shook her head. “All of us. Including the children. Including Victor. That’s really the price we all pay for being what we are. We’re the exceptional ones, but we’re the ones who have to stare down bullets normal people – normal vampires – never have to dodge. Because there are bigger things than us. Because everything has a ripple that hits another ripple and forms a tidal wave. These are dangerous times right now, darling. And this is all the warning I can give you.” Her eyes narrowed. “Fight, damn it. What do you want the most? Fight for it. Don’t listen to me. Don’t listen to anybody else. Fight for it, because it isn’t about you any longer, master seer. It isn’t just your life this affects. It’s everybody else. They’re going to have their battles and they’re going to fight just as hard. And I hope like hell I’m talking to all of you on the other side.”

Like that, she disappeared, fading so fast I did not have the chance to issue a response. I stared where she had been seated, seeing that moment replay in my mind, the final moment before her corporeal form turned to ash. Me holding the sword. Something taunting at the corner of my eye.

I glanced toward the door and took a very deep breath.

After drying off, I set the towel aside and walked into the bedroom, not bothering to reach for a stitch of fabric before settling into bed, curling up beside my husband as I wrapped an arm around him. My mind spinning too much for me to rest, I did not set myself to sleeping. Rather, I drew in a deep breath and savored Victor’s scent. My eyes drifted toward Flynn and as I considered the three of us, I heard Monica’s question echo in my thoughts.

‘What do you want the most?’

“This,” I whispered. This family, this life I had become accustomed to. Above all else, this man I held in my arms, whose wedding ring I wear upon my finger. I might not know the face of my specters, but I know my heart’s desire, and if the cosmos needs me to hold up my end of a battle, I shall do so in spades.

Still the riddle taunts me, and shall until I know its solution. Why now? What about what happened seventeen years ago has become so important today? I wish I knew the answer, but it seems to be lingering somewhere off the camera, waiting to step into the limelight as the next act plays.

Today, I woke from a sound sleep. My eyes flew open as they used to during those times when I posed as a mortal and nightmares of the years preceding haunted me in my dreams. I drew a shaky breath while attempting to drown out the unease filtering through me, aware both in bond and in presence of the fact that my husband laid right beside me. I do not know why I wished to mask my sentiments. I have, on countless occasions, confided my darkest fears and deepest scars to the man with whom I have pledged eternal companionship.I suppose because I did not yet understand what had me so troubled.

Either way, I slipped out of bed as soundlessly as possible, failing to disturb either Victor or Flynn from their daytime slumber. I procured a pair of pants from a drawer, then slid them onto my body as I eased the door to the bedroom open. The rest of the house laid before me, a barren, quiet series of rooms at the moment, shaded from light and devoid of any activity. Although I am used to this being the tenor of my daytime excursions, this time it only made me feel sullen. I wrestled with the impulse to wander back into the bedroom and curl close to my maestro, seeking comfort.

‘No,’ I thought as I shut the door behind me. ‘Something about this is important. I am going to be even more unnerved if I cannot determine from where this originates.’ I navigated past the music room, hesitating for just a moment as I questioned whether or not taking out my violin would help. In the end, I decided to weave my way to the desk poised in the other side of the house. I sat in the office chair and turned on the computer, staring at the screen while waiting for the machine to load.

I have, admittedly, spent a considerable amount of time in this chair in recent days. When not conversing with Victor and Flynn (or entangled otherwise with them), I have either been practicing my violin or writing, often with the sound of Victor playing piano providing background music for me. I pause and smile on occasion when I hear Flynn asking our lover questions of music. Victor plans on procuring a harp for Flynn to learn, but I digress. This time, sitting in the chair, the silence surrounding me made me think of what the daytime lacked. Comfort and familiarity. My son, my husband, and my brother awake and active around me.

It inspired a macabre notion.

What would become of me if I found myself alone again?

I clenched my eyes shut and indulged in a deep breath. Once again, I did not wish to wake Victor with whatever he might have felt through our bond. Still, the knife piercing my chest could not be helped. Even thinking of enduring a moment without that bond, without that steady hum of my husband a presence in my psyche, pained me to the marrow. I would be dead. I have confessed as such to myself on countless occasions, but in that moment, I knew it with gut-wrenching certainty. If that bond ever disappeared, I would plunge a dagger through my own chest while screaming curses at the Fates who took my lover from me.

Swallowing hard, I felt my eyes becoming misty as I blinked several times and focused on the computer monitor. My fingers ripped through my disheveled hair until the desktop materialized on the screen in front of me. At once, I clicked on the folder which housed my various compositions and watched a window fly open. The names of a litany of works appeared, each one inspiring a different thought, a different emotion attached to it. My poetry to Victor, each one transcribed from the pieces of paper on which I originally composed them – they brought a smile back to my face. Various thoughts typed out appeared alongside my works of verse and beside these, my memoirs. My eyes fixed on the title of one document, and immediately, my heart sank.

I have been writing out my memoirs since I served as Robin’s second, back in Philadelphia. By the time Victor and I were wed, I had four volumes composed, encompassing my first eleven years as an immortal. It was the fifth work I could not bring myself to finishing. I could yet recall the last time I added to it before the wedding. It was prior to my meeting the French vampiress who knocked me from my stupor; prior to wrestling with Flynn’s consciousness in manners which I had not for years. Everything which followed happened so swiftly, I was never able to work on it again, and all for the better.

The fifth volume. The one in which Monica was to die.

I could still remember bleeding poetry into notebook after notebook, pages filled with droplets of tears and pen strokes frantically laid out as I attempted to will the story out onto paper. Fifteen years past her death and even then, the wounds hurt too much for me to continue past its halfway point. Placing it aside until I could arrive at a better place, mentally, had been a wise decision. Having Victor, I could now tell the story without focusing on what I had lost.

Still, I had been opening the document more frequently these days. Ever since having an unsettling dream, in which I saw myself standing by the edge of the Danube River, searching in Austria for where Patrick and Sabrina had taken Monica, knowing I had no recourse but to kill the woman I loved. I woke from the dream, wondering at it, wondering why the night before I had felt a chill up my spine as though a ghost had passed over my grave. That was last week and since then, images from this chapter of my life’s story have been haunting me.

A few nights after the dream, I found myself standing in the music room with Victor and Flynn, listening to them discuss instruments and smiling softly as Victor recommended the harp to Flynn. I studied the female body Flynn occupies and yet, when our eyes met, a flash entered my mind, something which chased away the grin on my face. I saw that same night I dreamed about, sojourning in Vienna all those years ago. I had confronted Flynn once and for all, knowing I would not be able to kill Monica without his help. It could very well be the first night I gave him form as a split personality.

And oh, how we fought.

Identical twins, standing several feet apart, we stared at each other for what would be a battle for dominance. Flynn gazed at me coldly, the mirror image of my eyes starting at me, but with a diabolical form of wickedness deep within his icy irises. I remember him starting to circle me, regarding me the entire time as he paced. “Tell me, Peter,” he said, “You have bested aged vampires and dark magicians, but have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?”

“You are me,” I asserted, gathering energy inward as my hands balled into fists. “You are no Satan, you are simply my instincts incarnate.”

“I would not be so certain about that.” He smirked. “I am you, yes, but I am very much your Satan as well.” His eyes bored into me, as though set to drill into my mind, spilling out its contents. “Why do you fear me gaining control?”

“Because all you would do is slaughter.” I turned to line him in my sights. “And this is precisely what they want. Someone so bent on destruction he would do their will.”

Flynn scoffed. “I do nobody’s will but my own.”

“Not even Sabrina’s?” I raised an eyebrow in challenge to him.

He sneered. “She died to me when she lied to us. I am my own god, my own dictator. I am my own demon and I am nobody’s puppet any longer.” He stopped pacing and grinned again, in the same chilling manner he had before. “Not even yours.”

I relaxed my hands. Nodding once, I then tilted my chin upward and evaluated him. “I cannot permit you to have these gifts.”

“They are mine for the taking.” As though to prove a point, he raised one hand and I watched in abject fear as his fingers illuminated with light. “How are you going to stop me?”

“I shall force you into submission, assassin.” I swallowed hard despite myself.

He laughed. “I have already won. You cannot vanquish me. You lack the spine.”

“Then let us set a wager.”

Flynn whistled, lowering his hand and allowing the light energy to disperse. “A wager. My, but we are getting bold, are we not?” His grin faded, given over to a serious expression on his face. “I dictate my end of the bargain, then. If I win, I occupy your body. I have dominance and you shall be my little pet on a leash. I get to torment you every night as I collect the bodies of the pure and pour their blood onto the floor. I will bathe in every droplet and taunt you with every rivulet I consume and you shall know what it has been like, being caged within your psyche for six years.”

“Very well.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “And if I win, you shall help me with this task laid out before me. I shall call the shots, I shall grip the steering wheel and when our task is finished, then you shall fade into the backdrop and acquiesce to the fact that this is my body, damn it, and you have no claim to it or my gifts any longer.”

He scoffed. “Very well.” His eyes met mine, and in that gaze, I knew the ultimatum laid before me, even if he never spoke the words. ‘You might very well best me, Peter, but you shall never be rid of me. I shall never be rid of you. We are the yin and the yang and like it or not, you have given your darkness form.’

And as our eyes met in the present, with Flynn occupying the female body of his former lover Gabrielle, I drew a deep breath inward and thought of that fight, not seeing the music room surrounding us, but that empty void in the ether where we battled. Flynn raised an eyebrow at me and I had to shake the premonition from my thoughts before Victor picked up on it. Still, one fledgling thought sprang from that action alone.

‘You could no more accomplish such a task again as I could now, assassin.’ I watched Flynn glance away, his eyes focusing on Victor as his hand rested on Victor’s shoulder. I saw the look in Flynn’s eyes turn soft, feeling the overflow from Victor through our bond of how he felt for Flynn and vice versa. I smiled softly in response. ‘We both love him. The yin and the yang have found harmony. We are, all of us, interwoven.’

Which means, as goes one, so go the others.

My focus drifted back to the computer monitor, and the document taunting me within the folder containing my writings. I frowned. “Why this? Why now?” Lifting my hand, I scratched my scalp, my gaze not straying from where it remained fixed. There seemed to be a riddle sitting just outside my reach, something both tangible and incorporeal at once. I stared until my eyes went distant, another scene dancing within my thoughts, one I had yet to write out in the long-neglected manuscript.

Death is no stranger to me, and neither are brushes with them. Considering my fate, should Victor be taken from me, forced me to recall the one time I almost did follow through with a suicide attempt, the time when I reached my lowest point. I saw myself as though disconnected from the memory, observing the pale, morose man I became after thrusting my sword through Monica’s chest, blood tears streaming from my eyes while her form turned to ash. Somehow, I pulled myself together to come to Robin’s aid and somehow, we all sought safety from the day without the dam of shock completely bursting on me. I was escorted by the Order to an airplane the next evening and two nights later, found myself standing before the High Council, giving an account for what had just happened.

They tried and convicted me, not for the death of a sorceress, but for killing an elder who attempted to murder Robin. I still remember the condescending sneer of Malcolm Davies, him staring down at me while listening to me argue. “I was protecting an innocent,” I said, glaring at him, still feeling numb inside from everything which had transpired. “Michael O’Shane did nothing to warrant the attack. I considered it an act of aggression and when Mr. Stewart failed to relent, I ended his life. I hold no remorse for doing so.”

“And yet, you fail to see that in defending Mr. O’Shane, you’ve placed a vampire’s life above a human’s.”

“So I have.” My tone of voice remained unchanged. Bereft of any emotion. Such might have been what damned me further, but I could not help it. The moment the mask cracked, I would be lost within the throes of grief.

“Then you have chosen a side.” Malcolm sat back in his chair, frowning in a stern manner. “As much as many members of this Council would like to see you dead, myself included, the majority have ruled to keep you alive should you be of further use to the natural order. But no wicked deed goes unpunished, Mr. Dawes. You have chosen a side. Now, you will be forced to stay on your side of the fence.”

“What does that me…” My words were cut off by the advancement of several humans all around me, all seers, some of whom I knew. I stared in disbelief at Julian, who had fought beside me in those halls only a few years prior, and remained fixed in position due to my own shock. Immediately, I looked back at Malcolm. “What are you doing?”

“We have taken your children into custody,” he said. A smug grin surfaced on his face. “A Catholic priest in Costa Rica by the name of Father Santiago was very cooperative with us when we informed him the children’s parents had been killed in action. I told him I was their grandfather. It only took a little bit of persuasion to convince him this was best for John and Lydia.”

“You bastard…” I issued the words in a harsh whisper.

“You have chosen your side!” Malcolm shouted. The smug grin was gone, replaced by gritted teeth and a menacing scowl. “This Order will not permit a future sorceress and seer to be the property of a vampire as potential weapons against the natural order. The fact that you even exist is an abomination that won’t be repeated, Mr. Dawes. Your son and daughter are now our property.”

I stared, aghast. His words echoed within my mind, but hit the same buckling wall holding in my grief. I could only blink, shaking with fury, but unable to release it, knowing it had mixed itself with my anguish and well aware loosing one would loose the other. I felt myself being driven to my knees, did not fight it when one of the Council assistants, a man named Wallace Alexander, stepped forward and placed his hands on my head. The combined force of seven seers in total, plus Mr. Alexander, kept me held firmly in place and pain ripped through me while Wallace manipulated my abilities.

The last words I remember echoing in the meeting hall summarized my fate. “We have your children and now, you cannot turn mortal again. Return to your kind, vampire, because I promise the next time we cross paths, you will be dead.”

I returned to Paris, as close to a catatonic state as one can be while still being able to move with the ebb and flow of humanity. The full weight of it all refused to settle on my shoulders, even as the plane landed in Europe and I navigated back to the coven where Robin was staying. I laid on my bed that morning, staring into nowhere, a full body shiver assailing me at various points while I remained in the same position with the same blank stare.

When the sun set, however, it all came crashing down on me.

I took a walk from the coven while Robin stayed inside, making arrangements for our return to Toronto. The night already felt solitary the moment I opened the door and walked out onto the streets, meandering without purpose toward a destination unknown. I listened to humans chatting and laughing, hearing happiness and only feeling empty, miserable. The dam buckled again and this time, fissures formed on its surface.

My mind began to spiral. One cigarette turned into a half dozen as loneliness threatened to consume me, grief pushing through the cracks, making them larger. Each memory of Monica which surfaced formed a noose which wrapped around my neck, tightening with every sparkle I saw in her eyes; every recollection of the way she smelled, tasted; every instance I could conjure of being with her, making love to her. The woman I married. The woman I loved enough to seek my mortality for, the one who brought forth our children into this world, children I had surrendered to the Supernatural Order despite the pledge I made to her before everything fell apart.

“Don’t let the Order have them, Peter. Please, no matter what happens…”

“I will not, love. I promise.”

The woman I corrupted with immortality.

And she was gone.

I clenched my fist shut tight, feeling the wedding band I had not yet removed digging into my skin. A chilly wind blew past me as I approached the Seine, my eyes turning glassy as the fissures exploded and the dam burst into pieces, debris flying everywhere within my shattered psyche. I succumbed to one tear, which rapidly turned into a torrent. My heart finally caved in as I stood on a bridge in Paris, France.

Swiping the tears away, I stained my hands crimson red until I relented to clenching my eyes shut. I gasped and held onto a railing with both hands, more nostalgia playing out, more images choking my will to live as they further reminded me what I had lost. I saw the last time I held my children, in Father Santiago’s office, as I plotted Monica’s rescue with my older brother. My years spent under the guise of being mortal. The birth of each child. The way feeling them lay upon my chest, their tiny hearts beating, made me feel alive. My hands ached with the memory of holding them and brought with it the reminder that I would never hold them again either.

I broke down into full-blown sobs before I could stop myself.

My knees became weak, unable to support my own weight. They buckled and I sat on the bridge, convulsing with a steady stream of tears running down my cheeks. I remembered my wedding day. I remembered waking from fighting the dark magician, Veles, discovering myself in mortal form. Embracing Monica and watching with delight as she looked at the man she had helped reform, seeing a human in place of the vampire assassin. I raised my eyes to the sky, blinking enough to clear my vision past the mist of sorrow. I heard the stars as though they were mocking me. ‘You lost it all.’

“What bloody use is eternity?” I asked. “Why live forever without a reason for living?” Before me laid endless years, one decade bleeding into the next until centuries blew past me like dust. Interminable eons and epochs, all with the same misery on my shoulders and the same painful recollections of a happiness I could have no longer. As I stared into the night, I reached a point of reckoning, brought about by nearly twelve years of being twisted and bent more ways than I could take.

Right then and there, I decided to end it all.

No more. The death which alluded me would allude me no longer. I would watch the sun rise and as the ultraviolet rays kissed my face and burned me into ash, I would open my arms and accept whatever laid in wait on the other side. Two more tears fell, landing on the ground where I sat. I stood and held onto the railing for support while drawing a shaky breath inward. “I am sorry I failed you, Lydia,” I said. “And you, John. Perhaps a better man can be the father you deserve.” The words faded and I watched the horizon, taking in the progression of the night. I wandered away only to purchase a bottle of wine and worked on draining its contents throughout the course of my silent vigil.

The occasional rogue tear fell when the pain flared up again. Hours passed. I did nothing to seek refuge from the morning. The twilight hurtled headlong into dawn and I accepted what was to come, telling The Fates if they wished me alive, they would have to pull me from this damn bridge themselves. One should know better than to tempt The Fates, though. Especially with a brother like mine.

Robin. I had stopped thinking about him hours ago. Suicide is rarely anything other than selfish and the thought of Robin departed just as soon as it materialized, given over to more memories and more grief. A set of footsteps broke the silence of the early morning, though, and when they stopped a few feet shy of me, I managed a wan smile. I heard no heartbeat and sensed no mortal; the scent was that of a vampire and one I recognized, at that. I did not shift my gaze toward him, though. It remained fixed on the horizon. “Came to taste death with me, brother?” I asked, murmuring.

For interminable moments, he said nothing and I did not feel compelled to fill the space between us with an acknowledgment of his existence. I figured if he wished to flirt with daylight, then so be it. I could no sooner stop him than he could stop me. I knew he would attempt to anyway. He revealed as such when he finally spoke, asking the question with his voice a solemn hush. “What the devil are you doing, Peter?”

“Ending it all.” I huffed a drunken, morose chuckle. “Watching my final sunrise. I would offer you a drink, but…” I raised the bottle and waved it around before tossing it into the river. “I already finished it off.”

“You’re drunk.”

“You are observant.”

“What do you think this is going to accomplish?”

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my cigarettes and lit one. “Not a goddamned, fucking thing, Robin, but I can hardly do worse than I did with Monica. I turned her into Sabrina, then butchered her. Surely you can appreciate the burden which accompanies that statement.”

Robin sighed. “Please don’t mention that name,” he whispered. “I don’t have the stomach for it yet.”

“Precisely.” I drew from the cigarette and exhaled a puff of smoke. “Feel my pain, brother. Cuts like a fucking knife, does it not?”

“You’re acting absurd.”

“This is absurd?” I looked at him at last, allowing him to behold the most pitiful sight he had probably ever seen. Cheeks stained red, with smear marks and the tracks of tears I had not bothered to brush aside. Dark circles under my eyes, a haunted look in my gaze. Hair disheveled from how many times I had run my fingers through my brown locks. I brought my cigarette to my mouth and drew from it again. “You, of all people, after witnessing everything, are going to tell me I am acting absurd?”

“Yes, you are.” Robin stepped forward a few paces, then stopped. “It’s one thing for somebody to mourn, but you are wallowing in self-pity without any right.”

“Without any right?!”

“You heard me.” He narrowed his eyes. “You might have lost, but you had far more than many of us could ever boast. A wife? Children? The chance to taste mortality one final time to have a family?”

“A family I lost.”

“A family you had in the first place. And listen to you.” He pointed a hand at me before lowering it to his side. “Listen to you surrender already as though you could look into the future and know everything it entails. Look at you roll over and die, just like they want.”

My gaze drifted toward the river again. I raised my cigarette. “I have nothing left to live for.”

“Your children are still alive and you have nothing left to live for?”

“I shall never see them again.” I inhaled more smoke, I exhaled more smoke. The sky in the horizon flirted with the dawn, black becoming navy blue. “Leave me, Robin. Let me face my death without yours on my conscience as well. I have enough sins to barter for years in hell as it is.”

“Then deal with one more. I will not abandon you. Not as you seem want to do with me.”

“Oh, spare me.”

“My sentiments exactly.”

I looked at him, eyes narrowed. “You are a fucking pain in the ass, Robin. You know that? The biggest regal prick with whom I have ever had to deal. You do not know when to leave well enough alone and you shall never know so long as you remain stubbornly attached to this mortal coil.”

“And you,” Robin said, raising his voice, “Are the most sniveling, whining, sorry excuse for a vampire I have ever had to instruct in all my years as an immortal. You were like that from the start. You were like that when you dragged me out of Kilkenny and back into this freak show which is your existence. And you are only reaching the pinnacle right now with this idiotic behavior.”

“Then why should I live?!” My voice rose in volume, dripping with anger. I turned to face him for the first time, taking one step closer. Flicking my cigarette away, I held a straight posture and stared him down. “Tell me, brother. If I am such a bane to you, then why not retreat somewhere safe while I finally rid the world of my presence?”

“Because I refuse to indulge this asinine, selfish behavior. I refuse to force the world to suffer because you want to cut off your nose to spite your face.”

“How would the world suffer?” I motioned with my hand as I spoke. “With one fewer leech to be concerned about?”

It happened with such speed, I was ill-prepared to handle Robin, flexing every year of his century plus as he closed the distance between us. The combination of my disposition and residual drunkenness stopped me from reacting in time to dodge the fist which impacted me. It hit my jaw and sent me flying to the ground. I cradled my chin and slowly sat up. “What the fuck did you do that for?!”

“Enough already!” Robin loomed over me in a far more imposing manner than he ever had. “I will not listen to another moment of this! Calling us leeches. Likening yourself to refuse. You myopic bastard. If only you had the foggiest idea what you are!”

“What am I, Robin?!” I stood, still cradling my jaw. “Tell me then, damn it. What am I?!”

“You’re a freak of nature!” he yelled. “You’re an anomaly, and heaven help me, I’ve tried for a decade to figure out how the hell you exist and the world does not implode on itself because a seer was never meant to be an immortal. And yet…” He sighed. His voice lowered marginally. “… I know just like I know my own name you were meant to be this. You have the eye of the cosmos on you and for everything you have faced, there are a hundred things waiting on the horizon. That is why you live.”

I furrowed my brow, having never seen Robin so incensed before. He continued. “One day, you will be my second,” he said. “Not merely because I think you owe me some sense of obligation because I am your master. Not merely because I am your brother, indulging in a form of nepotism. You will be my second because immortal kind has a vampire such as you for some godforsaken reason. The sun sets and you rise. Damn you, Peter… If you think this is the end – if you truly believe it with two children yet alive, possessing your talents, and with the life force of a vampire within you, still thriving despite what a contradiction you are – then I’ve no idea what to say further to wake you from this stupor.”

Rubbing my violated jaw one more time, I kept my eyes set on the flames of wrath shooting from my brother before looking toward the Seine again. My hand nursed the injury for mere seconds more before dropping to my side. I sighed, not knowing what to say.

“You’re just barely scratching the surface of who you are,” Robin said, his voice somewhat lower, more demur. “For the first time in your immortality, I see a vampire of some distinction emerging in you. What you did here saved the vampire collective from being hunted to extinction. You know your true loyalties now, dear brother. There is yet a life ahead of you.”

“I shall never have it back the way it was,” I whispered, as much to the Seine as to Robin.

Robin sighed. “No.” He paused. “But what may lie ahead might be something much more remarkable.”

“How do I survive until the remarkable transpires, brother?” I asked looking at him again, my eyes as tired as my battered psyche.

He frowned and dug his hands into his pockets. “Fill the days. Much the same as I have. Ophelia will take you in again. You may not be the master seer with your own kind, but you are yet Peter, a gifted immortal and every bit the asset to the vampire collective that Ophelia tells the others you are.”

I cannot recall a time when I felt so lost. I could not articulate to Robin what transpired inside of me as he spoke, because I could not form words to describe it myself. “How do I fill the days?”

“By learning our ways. By coming to help me lead a coven while you wait for the future to find you.”

“What am I waiting for?”

“Your children, perhaps?”

A tear found its way down my cheek. Sobriety ran headlong into me like a runaway freight train. “And if I am never to have them again?”

“Your real identity,” Robin said, frowning. “The person you have been preparing to be in being a master seer. The person I hope to bring you closer to finding in making you my second, brother.”

I clenched my eyes shut, attempting to abate the flow of more tears while losing the battle. A hand settled on my shoulder, coaxing me to turn away. Complying, I trudged forward under Robin’s suggestion, grateful in some small way that the hand did not depart from my shoulder immediately. Waiting for the future to find me sounded long, painful, and tiresome, but I still followed Robin back to the coven before the first rays of the dawn had yet to brush against me and inflict its pain upon me.

It took sixteen years, but that future found me, in the form of a well-dressed vampire, nearly four hundred years my senior. A sharp-witted man. A talented musician. A friend who became a brother who became a lover. The man I stood opposite of one crisp October night, looking into his brown eyes as they stared back at me, both of us exchanging rings and becoming wedded husbands. Had I known about Victor while I stood on that bridge, I would have seen that remarkable event Robin predicted would happen. The bonds which tie us together are forged in more than blood and destiny.

Which is why losing him would impact me that much harder.

“The eye sees only what the mind is
prepared to comprehend.”
- Henri Bergson

***

Chapter Twelve

Smoke wafted from my cigarette, drifting toward the night sky before dissipating in the breeze. My eyes fixed on the house in front of me, I lingered in the trees, studying what appeared to be a one-story shack while pitying whatever creature had to inhabit it for longer than ten minutes. It made perfect sense to me, at the time, that she was not home. I wished to be anywhere but there myself.

A quick glance heavenward revealed the time to be about ten, which meant I had been standing there for almost two hours. I growled, shifting my eyes back to the house. Snooping around the coven never signed an assassination order for any other mortal – those caught were quickly dispatched as dinner and never spoken of again. This girl, however, had managed to raise Sabrina’s ire and I knew neither her strengths, nor her weaknesses. Only that she was a ’sorceress’.

Which I less-than-willing to believe.

Raising my cigarette to my mouth, I drew in deep and fought to ignore the aching in my body for warm blood. I did not hunt before arriving, so bent and determined to get this over with that I strolled past a few tempting prospects. Now, I suffered the consequences. “Where is this bitch?” I muttered. “Figures she would take her precious time getting here.”

I exhaled a stream of smoke. Flicking the remainder of my cigarette into the bushes, I succumbed to the urge to incline against one of the trees, but did not assure my footing was steady first and misjudged the distance between my body and the tree. Twigs and brush slid underneath my feet. I crunched, snapped, and made all manner of racket while reaching for the trunk of my would-be resting spot. Righting myself, I clenched my eyes shut and sighed. A deafening silence followed the entire debacle.

Frozen in position for several interminable seconds, it took what seemed like an eon before I worked up the nerve to open my eyes again. As I did, though, I discovered no crowd gathered to witness my mishap. Only a tall vampire with all the grace of an elephant, standing straight and dusting off his coat. “Losing your fucking edge, Flynn,” I said, but any further words were cut off by the sound of shoes scuffing on the pavement. Immediately, my attention was focused back on the sidewalk leading up to the house.

I looked up in time to see her approach.

A cautious stroll punctuated her steps, a short, emaciated girl who appeared no older than her early twenties. Her hair just as Sabrina described it, its long, brown locks flowed down her back and a distinct patch of blonde framed one side of her face. She wore a tight, black shirt and long, black skirt, and the crimson-colored scarf tied around her neck concealed any patch of skin which might have otherwise been uncovered. I regarded the black gloves on her hands and studied her figure despite myself. If not for how thin she was, she might have almost been attractive. As it was, she was barely fit to be an appetizer.

She turned her head and looked around. Her eyes failed to settle on my hiding place. My hand rested on the hilt of my sword as she directed her attention to the front door, and slowly, I slithered around a tree and emerged onto the path behind her. My mark ascended the stairs to her porch. She slipped a hand into a purse she wore around one shoulder and produced a set of keys as she withdrew it.

Her heartbeat thudded in her chest. I listened to its cadence, becoming entranced by its siren song and drew in deep to catch her scent drifting in the breeze. My fangs emerged before I could stop them. My mind became polluted with the temptation to disregard my normal modus operandi and make this girl my snack. A little something to get me by, until I could return home and hunt with Robin.

I shook my head, not certain from where such a notion came. ‘No, no,’ I admonished myself, ‘One strike, one kill… like the samurai of old. Now is not the time to lose sight of my sacred credos.‘

She slid her key into the lock.

I drew my sword, taking the hilt in both hands while she twisted her key. The lock clicked. Readying my weapon, I shivered as closing in on her brought with it another gust of breeze carrying her scent in my direction. Her sweetness wrapped itself around me; thoughts of my teeth puncturing her skin infected me with such a dire need that the compulsion to feed became a pounding ache. She removed her key and I lunged for her, thrusting my blade forward. Only, rather than impaling her, I pinned her to the door by the fabric of her shirt.

The mousy girl yelped with pain, a gash cut across her waist producing the decadent sight of blood. Leaning close to her, I cupped her mouth with my hand, hissing in her ear through teeth protruded and desperate to seek purchase on her neck. “Hello, little woman,” I whispered, drawing another deep breath inward, the intoxicating aroma of my newfound prey sending bolts of temptation rocketing through my senses. “Has nobody ever told you to watch out for strangers?”

I ripped my sword out of the door, taking hold of the girl by her shoulder and throwing her around to face me. Her eyes widened with surprise. I pushed her against the door frame and made certain she took a lingering look at the teeth which would soon be the instruments of her demise. Her pulse quickened in response. “Mmm… afraid, precious? Just the way I like it.” I raised my sword to eye level for her, showing her blood staining the tip. “Come now, pet. Scream for me.”

With one quick swipe, I cut her scarf from her neck. As it descended to the ground, I focused on the gash my swipe inflicted against her neck and listened as the wiry girl screamed. A sweet symphony to my ears, it flooded my mind while I closed in on her neck, eyes shutting, aware of nothing more than blood and terror. My teeth touched her skin. As they did, though, she flinched in response and in a final act of defiance, she reached up and smacked the side of my face.

The impact sent my glasses flying. They hit the ground with a clack. I opened my eyes on reflex, subjecting myself to maddening, acute pain in the process, and yelled as the familiar burning radiated from my retinas. “Fucking hell!” I said, dropping my sword and covering my face.

My target wriggled free, but I grabbed hold of her before she could get away and slammed her back against her door. I opened my eyes long enough for her to regard their crystal blue color, but shut them before I could see the smug grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. My fangs plunged into her neck and warm blood spilled down my throat. I groaned in response, drinking deep until a disquieting sensation enveloped my entire body with sharp pinpricks of heat.

I ripped away from her, stumbling backward.

My eyes opened, searing pain overridden by a sudden wave of dizziness. The vision of the girl became distorted. Before I could compensate, I tripped and spilled onto the porch, brought hard onto my backside and moaning while coming to my knees. I felt her blood trickling down the sides of my mouth, burning the skin while my throat screamed fiery pain at me to rival my visual infirmity. Through the haze, I watched the figure of my target stroll closer, crouching to pick up her scarf and press it against the wound on her neck. Her voice possessed a strange dissonance to it when she spoke.

“Hello, Peter,” she said. “I’ve been waiting to meet you for a while now. Didn’t think this was how we’d finally say how-do-you-do, but hey, I’ll take it.”

I blinked, mouth and throat attempting to issue a response. Whatever her blood had done to me, it rendered me incapable of speech, bringing with it a creeping blackness which tried to overtake me. Finding myself unable to fight against it, I slumped fully onto the porch, supine and at her mercy.

My last memory was of her crouching next me and touching my forehead.

After that, I remembered nothing more.

***

“Good thing you didn’t drink any more than that, Peter. It might’ve killed you.”

The voice startled me into consciousness, forcing my eyes open as though throwing me into a pool full of ice water. I found myself on my back, lying on a bed with a slight tinge of pain radiating in my eyes from the glow of candles in the room. No other light to speak of, it provided sufficient illumination to cast shadows on the wall, yet shrouded enough in darkness for me to realize my vampire eyes were not adjusting to my environment. I raised my hand to rub them, but jumped, startled when something caught my wrist and yanked my arm back down.

I tugged at the restraint. Hearing a rattle, I turned my head to look at it and groaned when I caught sight of a shackle wrapped around the sleeve of my shirt. I rolled my head to the other side to confirm its mate and moved my legs to reveal my ankles were likewise bound. “You best release me, little girl,” I said as the hazy memory of crumpling before the sorceress came to mind. I kicked at the shackles on my feet. “Unless you wish to see one very pissed off vampire when I get… .”

My words were cut off as metal shifted up my ankle, touching the skin of my leg past my sock. Rather than producing the chill of steel, it burned, searing my flesh and provoking another holler of offense past my lips. Two hands slid the metal down my ankle again, away from skin. I paused for a moment to blink past the sudden onslaught, then growled. My fangs descended. “What the bloody fucking hell was… .”

“Peter… .”

“Shut up.”

A pause. “I beg your… .”

“Leave that name where you found it, bitch! Peter does not live here any longer!”

At first, silence punctuated my words. Then, the wiry witch began to laugh. I winced at the mocking tone, not something I was used to hearing come from a small, mortal woman, and looked to my left, seeing her standing beside the bed, dressed just as I remembered. A swatch of gauze covered the area where I bit her. I would have hardly guessed her injured, however, judging from the way she folded her arms across her chest and stared at me with unwavering confidence. “Oh come on, Flynn,” she said. “What do you really think you’re going to be able to do to me from there? Bite me again?”

I scowled and tugged at my shackles. “We shall find out soon enough.”

“I wouldn’t do that. Unless you want a repeat performance of what just happened to your leg.” She started pacing away from me. “The shackles are made from silver. It burns when it comes in contact with your skin, oh high and mighty vampire. I was merciful and at least made sure I wrapped ‘em around your clothing, but if you keep wriggling like that, it’s not going to matter. Kind of makes getting free a moot point.”

I growled. “The pain would last just for a minute before I tore free and ripped out a piece of your throat.”

“And be in the same position you were outside? Which, by the way… Thank you for making all that noise in the trees.” She turned to face me again, smiling in a smug manner. “It gave me enough time to cast a protection spell.”

“Stupid mortal nonsense,” I spat. “Silver. Protection spells. Bah.”

“Oh, I can assure you there’s nothing stupid about it. You’re staying right there until I say so.” My unlikely nemesis strode back to the bed. The mattress dipped with her weight. I lifted my head to regard her as much as possible from my position as her eyes met mine. “Mommy vampire didn’t tell her special boy much about me did she? I bet she’s short on information a lot these days.”

Hissing, I snapped at her, fangs exposed. She did not budge, except to lift her hand and narrow her eyes at me. I furrowed my brow at the glint which surfaced in her gaze, but had precious little time to do anything else. An invisible force threw me back against the bed, rendering me incapable of budging an inch.

My eyes had closed with the impact, but I opened them again and found myself staring at the ceiling. The shadow of my captor crept against the plaster, the play of the candlelight making her loom more imposing than the wiry imp truly was. She chuckled. “You think you know it all, Mr. Bad Ass Assassin, but you’ve only been a vampire for what? Five years now? That’s not enough time for you to have a clue what you’re talking about.”

I sneered. “And I suppose you are the scholar, Miss… .”

“Miss nothing. C’mon, Flynny, we’re buddies now. Call me Monica.”

“I shall remember that for your funeral.”

Monica laughed. “You’re scared!” she said. “This is hilarious. You hate losing control of the situation, don’t you? Ironic how often you let Sabrina take it away from you.”

The mere mention of Sabrina’s name sent my mind spiraling. Visions of my mistress perched upon my lap, speaking her final instructions to me, spun me around, reminding me I had a mission to accomplish. I moaned, scolding myself for screwing up and rendering myself at the mercy of my target. Slipping, yes… Perhaps Timothy was right. I was slip…

Monica snapped her fingers.

I opened my eyes without knowing I closed them. Something ripped the thought of Sabrina from my mind as though eradicating it by force. Monica spoke once more, her voice sounding subdued this time. “Damn, Peter,” she said. “You’re fucking messed up, aren’t you?”

Blinking, I attempted to lift my head and discovered myself able to once again. I looked to my right, seeing Monica standing there, hands on her hips. I frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked as our gaze converged. The way her eyes traced over me left me feeling as though a colony of ants were crawling around inside my brain. I shut my eyes to stop her. “Damn it, I asked you a question.”

“I didn’t recognize you at first,” she said, her voice distant. “When you attacked me, I mean. I’ve seen pictures of you, but they were from before you were turned. You have no idea just how dark you look now. And your mind… My God…” Monica issued one sharp, incredulous laugh. “Your mind is more screwed up than you can begin to imagine.”

I opened my eyes again, brow knitted at the mortal sorceress. Monica’s eyes regarded me in a normal manner once more. “You’re a unique fellow,” she said, “And yet, you don’t know the half of it. Do you, Flynn?”

I laughed. Not certain why I issued even one chuckle in response, I allowed a stream of laughter to emanate from my lips anyway, sounding like an madman being driven over the edge. Monica blinked at me, her facial expression falling as I continued to chortle like a raging lunatic. “Oh, this is precious,” I said. “Ah… We have reached the part where you talk about the gift, right? Oh, here comes the grand reckoning. The Fates help me, I am at the mercy of a witch.”

Monica raised an eyebrow at me. “I’d think by now you’d be begging for the answers.”

“Fuck your answers!” I said, snapping at her without warning. The mirth dissipated at once, given over to blind rage. “And fuck your psychological trash speak; your damn incantations and hoaxes. Hear me now, little bitch, I do not know what you expected to find, but all you have before you is death. If you knew what you were trifling with, you would be pleading for your life.”

The corners of her mouth hinted at a smile. “I could stake you right now if I wanted to.”

“So, why do you hold back?”

“I don’t know, Flynny. I kind of like you.” She sat beside me on the bed again, closer to my chest. “I’d only heard about this vampiric egotistical bullshit before. Now, I get a front row seat to it.” Monica winked. “Besides, if I stake you, I’ll have to get your ashes out of my sheets and I hate doing laundry.”

“Then humor me with your ‘answers’ or let me go.” I glared. “Either way, I wish to know why you are holding me captive if not to kill me. I am hungry and grow weary of your presence.”

“Yeah, the last snack didn’t agree with you, huh?” Monica adjusted her black gloves and cracked her knuckles. The action struck me as odd; I watched her do so with a feeling of dread beginning to surface in the pit of my stomach. She smiled in response. “Beware of sirens, Flynn. I’ve been attacked more times than these pretty mortal women you seduce and I know how to arm myself.”

Monica shifted closer to me. “You see, I am the scholar here,” she said, “And you’ve been trapped in the dark for five years, convinced you’re nothing more than this sadistic prick you troll around town being. You have your walls up to everybody but Sabrina and she only fuels it, while holding back who you really are. This is where I come in.”

I perked an eyebrow at her when her grin broadened. “We could make a good team, Flynn,” she said. “But first, we need to teach you how to see.”

Lydia’s words echoed in my thoughts. Sight, but no vision. A queer notion originating some place outside myself spoke of seeing and knowing; being able to discern with more than my senses. Monica nodded as though able to read my mind and placed a hand on my forehead. “Do you want to know why Sabrina never tells you what this special sight is? It’s because she wants to make sure you’re completely wrapped around her finger before your abilities surface.”

“Abilities?” I asked the question on impulse, captivated despite myself. Part of me still wanted to bleed the mortal woman dry, but another part studied her, listening to what she had to say.

Monica nodded. “Quite frankly, I don’t think she even knows what it’s going to look like when you get them. The important thing to remember is you were chosen for a reason. There’s a game of chess being played out around you and you’re the piece everybody’s after. It has nothing to do with this egotistical demeanor you’ve created — that’s all Sabrina’s doing. She made you love to be a killer… .”

She positioned both hands on either side of my head. I winced, dread escalating by leaps and bounds when I caught sight of the look in her eyes. Monica smiled. “Now, Flynn… we’re going to teach you how to do it right.”

A flash of light threw my head back, the colony of ants evolving into a swarm of bees within the confines of my subconscious. I cried out on impulse as the witch’s hands pressed harder against my skull and the sensation of synapses being redirected – files being reorganized – overwhelmed me into submission. The demon within me bucked and screamed. I settled, helpless, against the bed, until an inexplicable calm came over me and lured me into slumber. Resistance, by then, was more than futile.

I was merely a passenger in this vehicle, nothing more.

Monica lifted her hands. The sound of her cracking her knuckles again became the final sound my ears took in, along with the distant resonance of the words she spoke. “Rest for a bit, Flynn. You’re going to need it. Life as you know it has just gotten flipped upside down.”

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter
Story Beginning

Staring up at the ceiling, my arms enclosed around Victor with his somewhat slackened from sleep, I found myself unable to rest as a thousand thoughts ran past my mind, a veritable parade of concerns without any concrete origin. Such had been present ever since earlier today and yet I could not figure out for the life of me what could be causing the heavy thoughts I entertained.

Was it the blood bond? We knew that had to be it, in part. Blinking in wonder, I contemplated this strange, new phenomenon endemic in Victor’s bloodline which knitted my maestro and I together; this eternal seal which would link us until one of us departed from this mortal coil.

“… Even the gods or fates would find themselves facing two very powerful beings if they ever tried to separate us.”

“… I know you and I would slay the gods themselves just to be with one another.”

And neither of us had any plans of allowing the kiss of second death to brush its cold lips past ours any time soon.

No, rather I knew this would be the state of my life from this point forth. To be near him would bring us both peace. To be separated would disquiet us in more ways than one. Sentiments ran from him to me like a conduit surging from one host to the next until neither of us could quite tell where the feelings began and where they ended. Our tapestry, knitted together. Two strands forming one work of art; two instruments playing one immortal symphony.

The notion inspired the ghost of a smile. But then the thoughts returned, chasing my grin away.

The steady cadence of water hitting the basin continued to tap out an echo in the stillness around us. One droplet followed another — drip… drip… drip… drip… — conspiring with the heaviness to keep me awake for heaven only knew how long. Dawn would be approaching soon and my broken vampire clock could not register one hour from the next, which meant that even when the sun reigned on the other side of the heavily-shaded windows, I might still find myself lying here, listening to the faucet dripping. I could turn it off, but then I might wake Victor and his vampire clock worked only slightly better than mine did after taking Celeste’s blood.

So, I laid in bed and stroked his back, stealing a kiss upon his head. His words from earlier resonated in my mind.

“This is the second time in these past two days you have spoken of guarding what we have, lover.”

“I suppose you are not the only one with irrational fears sometimes.”

My response said it all. Irrational fears. Ghosts in the machine which led one to wonder whether or not there was a real fear or merely something perceived. My talk of guarding what we had came on the heels of an existential discussion – a look into what made me who I am. Truth be known, I was petrified. Petrified of myself.

“I downplay who I am a great deal. perhaps to a fault, but… well… it is a bit… disquieting… having that at your fingertips.”

“I certainly can’t imagine.”

“If only you knew, maestro,” I said, whispering the words. I sighed before I could stop myself and pondered the remainder of my statement. ‘Once upon a time, I used to be an ordinary mortal. Then one day I woke with fangs and a short while afterward, I could read people’s thoughts and move things with my mind and all these other things you know about now.’ Why had I failed to enumerate each one of my talents prior to sharing stories of my past? Perhaps because admitting it all brought with it that heavy burden, knowing the cosmos might locate me in their stern eye again. And then what? Another mission? More turmoil when I now had such serenity? I never had so much to lose.

He looked at me after sitting back in his chair, his eyes opening after a pensive moment passed. “It is odd to be considering the idea that there really are forces at work in the world like fate and destiny. And yet… I suppose you have long accepted their existence by the fact of their presence in your life.”

I mustered as much of a smile as possible. “I have accepted that whatever it might be called… fate… destiny… exists. We assign it names, but what it truly is… who knows?” I paused, sighing. “Whatever it is that causes us to be here, it has dealt me both poor lots and serendipitous gifts. It might be only forces of nature, for all I know. I am only glad that whatever brought us together did, lover.”

“And I do not ascribe to doing as such, because what are we left with but fatalism?” Another sigh. I nodded once more. “Honestly, I do not know how the world itself works. I know what my bloodline has believed to be true and yet, I know that even if some force exists to grant either pain or blessing, we are still the agents of our own destiny in the end. Even if fate wanted us together, it is you and I who forged the bond we possess with one another.” I reached for one of his hands. “And you and I who will guard and foster what we have together.”

But was this really the case? I had to frown at myself. Now, surrounded by the darkness of those final moments before sunrise, I did not know if this was true or not. The agent of my own destiny… No, I often felt more like a puppet on a string. Thrown this way and that by the tumult; taken to one place of peace only to be tossed about by the next wave waiting to slam me onto another coast. This was not what I wanted. I wanted tranquility. I wanted what Victor and I possessed to continue through years and eons and epochs without one sideways glance from whatever forces were at work in this world.

I buried my nose into his hair. I breathed in deep. I shut my eyes, hell bent and determined to silence my thoughts and enjoy a few hours’ rest with my lover’s head atop my shoulder.

The faucet continued dripping in the background.

I sighed and opened my eyes again. Raising my head from the pillow, I glanced at the open doorway leading into the bathroom and peered into the pitch blackness for the offending instrument of torture. When I could not line it in my sights, I laid my head back on the pillow, but the shift caused Victor to stir slightly and immediately, I slid out from under him before my movements disturbed him further. He settled against the bed. I sat up fully and sighed. “Well, there goes that, Peter,” I murmured to myself. “Might as well shut the bloody faucet off now.”

Kicking my legs off the side of the bed, I came to a full stand and stretched once before padding into the bathroom. My hand felt around the side of the wall until coming to rest on the light switch situated by the door and a quick flip upward flooded the area with light. I shut the door in some effort to contain my disruptions, then sighed, running a hand through my hair and staring at the faucet.

But the dripping had ceased.

I narrowed my eyes at it. “Alright, are you fucking with me?” I asked it, as though it could respond. As such, I was startled when a voice responded from somewhere next to me.

“Maybe just a little, but I always did screw with you a bit, didn’t I?”

I whipped around and took a step backward when a figure appeared on the counter, sitting beside the sink, her legs dangling and kicking like a little girl whose feet could not reach the floor. The woman before me was no little girl, though, and no mere woman either. I stumbled until my back hit the wall and stared in awe. “How did… What are…

She had bright green eyes like mine, with dark hair flowing down past her shoulders and a blonde streak which framed one side of her face. This strange permeation of her supernatural gifts was something I always wondered about, even when I met her as an assassin. Even when I hated her. My, how much things changed. Within the span of a few months, I went from loathing the wiry, impish sorceress to falling headlong into love with her. In time, I found myself pining for my mortality, if just so we could be together as a typical man and woman. I traveled across four continents for her. I fought to the death to defend her. And in the end of it all, I woke lying in a scrap heap of rubble, possessing a pulse and breathing air once again.

We escaped from the Order we served to be away from its demands. I, a master seer. She, a gifted watcher. Commodities to an entity whose sole purpose was to hunt and slaughter that which I had been… vampires. We woke late one night, trapped in a hotel in Rome, with little more than the clothing on our backs and my sword by my side. Somehow we made it to Naples and, subsequently, to a small Catholic mission buried deep within Costa Rica.

I still remember when she told me she was pregnant.

We had been married in a very small ceremony with little more than priests, nuns, and peasants gathered around us as, in fledgling Spanish, we exchanged vows and consummated our union with a kiss. Little more than a month later, Monica confronted me on the balcony of our small room after a very frustrating day in the clinic I served in as a doctor.

***

Monica closed the door, but paused when I failed to greet her in the customary manner. Instead, I continued to look off towards the other side of the room. “Peter?” she finally said, in some effort to break the silence.

I glanced at her, then looked away again.

Monica stepped cautiously toward me. “Your thoughts are closed off,” she said.

Our psychic link. Her ability to read my thoughts and mine, hers, although my ability at least permitted me to raise walls of resistance against her prying. “You do not wish to be in my thoughts right now,” I said curtly.

“How do you know that?”

“Because I do not wish to be in them presently, either.”

Monica sat on the bed across from me and folded her hands on her lap. Studying me without saying anything, she seemed to be using peeling through the layers of my mind, but as I sensed no intrusion inside of my subconscious, I realized she was merely waiting. Waiting for me to crack. Knowing I’d get around to expressing my thoughts if she’d just give me a chance to organize them first. We sat in this manner for a few minutes, until I finally took a deep breath and looked her in the eyes.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” I said to her with a frown. “I’m supposed to be a human, but I’m more pissed at the mortal world now than I’ve been in months.”

Her gaze turned from curious to sympathetic. “What is it, dear?”

I closed my eyes and wrestled between the compulsion to stay aggravated and the soothing melody of her voice. I didn’t want to be comforted and wasn’t ready to let go of the anger. So, I gritted my teeth and said, “These people are impossible. I try to prescribe remedies to them and they assume I am visiting witchcraft upon them. I can’t connect with this mentality that dictates one must cut off their nose to spite their face.”

“Which is something vampires never do, right?”

I opened my eyes and flashed annoyance with my gaze. “Please don’t contribute to the problem.”

The grin that had touched the corners of Monica’s mouth quickly vanished. It was her attempt to be playful with me – a characteristic endemic in my wife’s makeup – but it failed miserably. “Contribute to what problem?” she asked, with a trifle more defensiveness in her tone.

“Humanity,” I said. “These counter-intuitive creatures with death wishes. I cannot believe this is where I am now. . . in the realm of the daft.”

“Excuse me. . .” Monica laughed. “Who crowned you as the sharpest tool in a shed full of dull instruments?”

“I don’t know,” I spat back, harsher than I intended. “Maybe, just maybe, The Fates made a fucking mistake when they made me mortal again. If I’m going to be forced to reason with the insane, it would have been better for them to have struck me down and kept me as dust.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you.”

I looked away and scoffed. “Yes, well, I can’t believe this is my sentiment at the moment, but it is nonetheless. I’m absolutely… lost. Dumbfounded. I can’t do it. That is simply the problem, I cannot be this forgiving of simple-minded foolishness and if this is what it takes to be human… .”

I trailed off as I stood and marched outside to the balcony. Not bothering to look back at Monica, I walked all the way to the railing and placed my hands upon it as my eyes traced across the horizon. The air was sticky with humidity and the breeze blowing past me was warm and hardly comforting. But I stood there and continued staring, even when I became aware of Monica’s presence in the doorway.

“What happened?” she asked, exasperation still present in her voice despite her attempt to mask it.

“Nothing,” I said, once again being curt with her.

“Peter, please. . .”

“I’m done discussing it.”

She walked closer and touched my shoulder with her hand. “Talk to me,” she said.

“What do you want me to say to you?” I asked, my eyes darting around the outside as another warm breeze blew past me. “What do you wish to hear? That I have one frustrating day and I swear at humanity? What kind of damn human being does that make me, Monica? How the fuck am I going to make it through the next ten or twenty or thirty years in this manner when I still think like a vampire?”

“Peter, this isn’t going to get better overnight.”

“It is not going to get better at all!” I turned to look at her and nearly shouted my words as my fingers interlaced with my hair. “My God, it’s been a few weeks now and I. . .” I shook my head, allowing my arm to plop back down to my side. “How long does it take? Am I ever going to be fully human again?”

Monica continued studying me until I turned toward the railing again and looked down. She was silent for a minute, but then spoke softly. “Every human wrestles with frustration.”

“Yes, but never before did I want to damn the enter human race when I got aggravated. I’m still not the person I remember being. I swear, I could have damned every one of the patients I saw today and would have felt justified in doing so, but I never had the temptation to do that before. It’s like I can’t get this notion out of my mind that I’m walking among different beings.”

“You still have the same heart, Peter, you just have to let go of the reflexes you developed when you were Flynn.”

“Which shall take years to happen.”

“That’s ok,” she said. “If it takes years, then I’ll still be with you to see you through it.”

“Why the hell do you wish to be with me?” I asked as I closed my eyes and took another deep breath.

Monica kissed my shoulder. “Because my daughter needs her father and I need my husband.”

I opened my eyes and looked down at Monica, raising an eyebrow at her as she finally acquiesced to another subdued grin. “What do you mean by that? Your daughter?”

The grin held steady. “I mean exactly what I said, Peter Dawes. You’re going to have a daughter.”

At once, my brain registered the words without fully processing them. “I. . .” escaped my lips, but the rest of the words refused to come. Instead, they remained trapped in my throat, tangled with the other thoughts that couldn’t decide if they wished to be vocalized or merely locked inside my mind. A daughter? No, that was impossible, because only mortals have children and I surrendered that right five years prior when I chose to become a vampire. Getting married was one thing. . . but there wouldn’t be any family for me. Because that would make me human again and I wasn’t. . .

My face broke out in a smile despite myself. “You’re pregnant?” I finally managed to ask.

Monica’s smile became brighter. She reached for one of my hands and clasped it in hers. “Yes, I am,” she said.

I laughed abruptly; a short laugh full of delighted disbelief. “And it’s. . . a girl? You know this? How the devil do you know. . .” I chuckled again, assailed by a giddiness that reminded me of insanity. Only, this didn’t feel near as bad as the other form of lunacy which had me within its throes a few minutes prior. Whereas the words had been stopped up before, now they came spilling out like a torrent. “Of course you know. You’re gifted and smart and beautiful and oh God. . . I love you.” I looked her in the eyes. “I absolutely love you.”

I captured her in my arms and raised her off her feet, spurring her to wrap her legs around my waist. She laughed as I nearly spun her around. “I love you too,” she managed, but I cut off any further words with a deep kiss, something which prompted her hand to my face as she indulged both long and short, pecking kisses from me. “I love you,” I said to her again, unable to figure out what else to say to her.

“I love you too, Peter,” she said and when she thrust a deep kiss onto my lips, I become completely immersed in it. Everything else that followed became lost in a haze of rapture.

***

Bliss comes in different forms, I have discovered.

I remember when my children were born.

Lydia Marjorie Dawes, the first to breathe life and fill the air with shrill screams while I held her in my hands, laughing over the miracle of it all. Small legs flailing, little hands balled in fists with her wails echoing across the room where her mother still laid recovering from childbirth. My hands were the first to hold Lydia and I still recall noting how small she seemed within the large expanse of my palms.

John Michael Dawes, the second to be born. It seemed the circle was complete; I had a daughter and now, I had a son. His eyes bright and blue much as mine had been before my seer powers were made manifest, I knew I held more than my progeny, as much as I knew Lydia was no typical girl herself. My daughter could sense the future, even before she had the proper vocabulary with which to convey it. My son bore so many of my physical attributes, I knew the powers I was born to embody would someday be manifest in him as well. Together with their mother, they were my pride and joy for nearly six blessed years.

That was when the world came crashing down upon my shoulders.

I still remember when my mortality crumbled like rocks slipping into the sea. I remember the dreams which plagued my years with my family becoming more intense. The taste of blood springing forth to tempt me. The thoughts of the kill, the swirling haze of the vampire instinct rising to claim me and drag me under once more. I ran to my brother Robin, begging him to help me save my dying mortality. Instead, I discovered the truth. This seer, this powerful hunter, this blade-wielding psychic held one ability he had not realized before – I could summon a mortal form and had for nearly six years until my true nature rose forth once more.

I recall the first mortal I fed from after returning to my vampire state, an Irish girl on the streets of Dublin.

I recall sitting on the airplane, headed to a coven in Toronto where I would readjust to being the bloodthirsty creature I once was. Saying goodbye to my son, my daughter, my wife as I stared out into the black expanse of night and figured they were lost to me for good. And then fate making it a reality, my wife dying, my son and daughter captured by the Order I tried to hide them from. My ability to assume mortal form being stripped from me, and the dark years which followed.

Sex and alcohol became my panacea. My nightmares became even more intense. I lost myself in trysts with as many women as I could possibly become entangled with; I lost myself in dulled emotions and endless nights, and finally in the work of being my brother’s second-in-command. I forgot who I was until I fell in love with Celeste and Lydia came looking me, finding me in Philadelphia helping to manage my Robin’s coven. With Celeste’s help, I freed her and her brother from the Order and once again, I held my son and daughter.

Only now, fifteen years had passed. The little girl who used to make me chase her through Costa Rica was now a young woman. The small boy now stood nearly as tall as his father and looked me in the eyes the first time I said hello to him. Being little more than the shell of the man I once was for years, I did not know any longer how to relate to what I had. I ran away to California for a short time. Soul-searching and breaking connections only to establish them once again, I went through periods of knowing who I was and valleys of forgetting what I was supposed to be. It was not until I met a certain dark-haired man that the existential questions started to form answers.

I remember meeting Victor.

If there had been an angel perched upon my shoulder, telling me this was the one I would be bound to for the rest of my immortal days, I would have laughed at it and questioned its sanity. Our first meetings were rocky at best, with the threat of fights commencing in fits of jealousy I harbored. The road smoothed when he met Celeste and then became a path to the future the first time we exchanged a knowing glance with one another. The first time I looked at him and saw something more. The first time I touched him and meant something else.

I still remember the first time we kissed.

***

I sat in a chair, looking at him, somehow on the subject of my affections for him. Afraid to take the next step, nudging at the line in tentative measures while towing the point of no return. Finally, my thoughts found unction. “This all is so… new to me,” I said. “Everything is. At times I have eloquent words and other times, I only have the sentiments I harbor without any clear way of communicating them. Maybe one of these days, I will have the words.” I paused, summoning a half smile. “When I can believe I am harboring the thoughts I am thinking.”

He raised an eyebrow at me and the knowing smile on his face indicated he figured out where I was headed. “Thoughts, dear brother?” he asked. “Someday you will have to tell me, but no rush. I’m not adept at expressing my emotions, but I expect that will change in time, too.”

It was now or never. I indulged in a deep breath, eyes holding steady with his while wondering what all he saw when he looked at me. “I expect, in time, I shall become more adept at articulating these sentiments as well.” I nodded, looking away. “In time, we shall discuss it. In the meantime, suffice to say, I am very glad you are here.”

My eyes returned to his.

Victor nodded slowly, his head tilting as he considered me. He moved to stand beside my chair and leaned down, touching his lips to my forehead, in a kiss which could have been construed as brotherly, but hinted at more behind the motion. He pulled back and grinned, as though he knew I would be shaken by the embrace.

And startled, I was. I did not move, though. My eyes met his once more and a shiver ran from the base of my spine to the top at the touch placed on my forehead. I furrowed my brow at the reaction and yet, I reached for his hand and held onto it, stopping him from walking away.

The action served its purpose. His grin became a questioning expression while our eyes searched back and forth as though commencing a tentative dance. Victor leaned forward, but paused, studying me as though waiting for what my reaction would be.

I refused to break the gaze, no matter how many knots knit themselves in my stomach. I regarded his face, then looked at his mouth and froze on the sight of his lips. Drawing in another deep breath, I took in his scent and at once, the truth came rushing into my senses, capturing each one. I had never loved another man the way I love Victor. I had never desired one the way I desire him. My apprehension might as well have pinned itself to the same shirt sleeve my heart resided on and bridging the gap became an internal dare I had to answer. Before I could stop myself, I shut my eyes and touched his lips with mine in a tentative embrace.

His lips were gentle, but quickly became encouraging. The kiss started light, but became much more natural. As I lost myself within the strange new reality I embodied, I realized very rapidly how right this was and opened my arms wide, allowing abandon to take over. Never before had I known something with so much clarity, the wanting him and the needing him. The loving him, as well. I knew life would never be the same again.

***

Now, I see the future, in the clearest tones I have ever seen it.

There is an impish sorceress I once knew who smiles at me from the sands of time, glad to see my troubled soul at rest, once and for all.

There is a young woman, turned vampire by my own blood, who smiles at me and calls me ‘Dad’ as she carves out her own path in the world.

There is a young man who looks me more and more at eye level every day, who someday shall know what it is like to wield more than swords and consider more than his life’s daily events.

And there is a man I stand beside, whose hand and mine fit together like puzzle pieces which were always meant to be connected and whose silent hearts find a pulse with one another.

There is a future waiting for me, past the broad horizon and into the panorama of endless nights. For the first time in my life, I am looking forward to seeing what fate brings to my doorstep. Because, today, I know what I have.