Nightlord: Sunset (5 page)

I sighed and thought about it.

“All right.”

TUESDAY, JUNE 14
TH

I
t was after midnight before I got out there.  I took my bike; I partially own a car and completely own a motorcycle.  Both are somewhat beaten up.  Generally, I drive the car; I have a lot of stuff in the trunk—odds and ends from an eclectic lifestyle.  Some armor from my SCA days, a couple of home-made wooden swords, a bunch of textbooks, CD’s, and tapes… plus, buried in there somewhere, jumper cables, a tool kit, and an air compressor.  I think I have a spare tire.  I saw it once.

I didn’t feel like a lot of baggage tonight.  I also wanted to feel the wind; my senses were exceptionally alive—it goes with being a vampire, I guess.  But I put my helmet on (don’t wear one if you don’t have anything to protect) and drove out there with the visor up.

I felt a lot better.  A good ride on a bike is a tonic.  If more people did it, the world would be a happier place.  It was almost like flying, really… although hang gliding is probably the best for that; parachuting is more like plummeting.  Although that does have its good points.

I landed at her front gate.  The last time, it had been open.  I thumbed the call box and waited.

“Yes?”

“Sasha?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Eric.”

The gate hummed and swung inward.  I rode up the drive.

She was standing on the top step of the portico.  She was wearing white—some sort of billowy gown.  In the stiff breeze, it pressed tightly to one side of her and fluttered like smoke on the other.  The contrast was … distracting.  And attracting.  Powerful.

“Welcome home, my lord.”

I took my brain bucket off and left it on the seat.

“Don’t call me that.”

“But my lord thou art, and ever shall be.”

I marched up the steps and took her by the arm.  She made no protest, but went meekly with me as I led her inside.  I plunked her down on a big leather couch and started to pace, thinking.  She said nothing, but smiled at me and watched me pace.

“Okay,” I finally said.  “Look.  If—and I stress
if!
—I am your ‘lord’ reincarnated, you’ve got to understand that I don’t remember it at all.  You’re going to have to start from scratch.  Completely.  Can you do that?”

“I will bear whatever my lord requires.”

“Hmmm.  I’m not sure that’s a responsive answer, but okay.  Can you grasp the fact I’m Eric, now?  I’m not whoever he was—I’m
Eric
.  Maybe I’m a lot like him, maybe not.  But you can’t keep calling me your lord.”

“But you are,” she said, smiling.  “You have proven yourself time and again.  I have watched you for years, my lord, and know you to be a good and true man, as you always were.”

Chills.  That’s the word.  Cold ones.  Like centipedes carved from icicles, running up and down my spine.  She’s been watching me for years.  Wonderful.  I was in the same room as my vampire
stalker
.

Then again, I was a vampire, too; so how crazy
did
that sound, really?

“All right,” I agreed.  “I am your lord… or I will be.  I have some things to learn.”

“Of course, my lord.  As you once taught me, I shall teach thee anew.”

“Good.  And…
must
you be so…” I groped for a word.  “Formal?”

“It is only meet, my lord, now that you know who you are.”

I gritted my teeth.  I learned then that a vampire can’t gnash teeth; the fangs get in the way.  And it hurts.

“Perhaps.  But I
don’t
know, because I don’t
remember.
Can you please just call me ‘Eric’?”

She smiled and rose and drifted over to me. She held out her arms, and I hugged her.

“Thank you, Eric.  Yes.  I can call you whatever you wish.”

“Thank
you.
”  I pulled back a little to look at her, but still held her.  “So what is the first thing I learn?”

Her eyes twinkled merrily.  “Feeding.  Come, I will show you!” she said, taking my hand.

I went upstairs with her.  She changed clothes first, completely unselfconsciously—well, not completely.  I’m certain that some of those subtle jiggles and wiggles weren’t completely necessary.  I don’t think she needed help with the zipper and button on her skirt, either, but I’m a gentleman.  I think.

We took one of the cars.  I hadn’t been in the garage; it was on the same scale as the house.  Apparently Rolls Royce once made a sporty little two-seater.  Durned if I know what the name of it is.  She drove it with the top down.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked.

“We’ll go park and watch people go by.  You can practice.”

“Practice what?”

She glanced at me.  “You do understand that you have to feed, yes?”

“Better than you realize,” I assured her.  My stomach was still grumbling.

“Are you sure?  I’ve seen some people… get upset at the thought they’ll be drinking blood and draining the life from someone.”

“I can’t say I like the idea, but if it’s got to be done… wait.  I don’t actually have to
kill
someone, do I?”

“Not every time,” she admitted.  “But there is a sort of… dying spark, I suppose, that you must have eventually.  You will have to experience it, for words cannot convey it.  Once a year, perhaps, you will need to kill—if you lead a quiet life.  More often if you exert yourself.”

“Okay.  I can live with that.  There are a lot of people who would look good as the centerpiece at a funeral.”  I was thinking about a bunch of people waiting in prisons.  If they’re going to die anyway… and I’d have fewer ethical dilemmas that way.  I wonder if I can get a job as a prison guard?  Nah, that would eventually make me a suspect… but it might be worthwhile to cut down on the waiting time on death row.

I blinked.  My train of thought derailed when I noticed that Sasha was looking at me intently—while driving.  It made me acutely nervous.

“What?” I asked.

“How is it that you… You were colder, before.  Long ago.  You are a warmer, kinder man, now.  Can it be the centuries have softened that icy disposition?”

“Ha.  Maybe I’ve just learned to hide it better.  Will you
please
watch the road?”

She drove fast, of course.  We reached a nice spot to lurk fairly quickly; I think she’s used it before.  The shadow of an old tree partially obscured us from both the streetlight and from easy view.  Before us was a parking lot for
The Sand Trap
, a club that catered to upscale crowds, especially golfers; it was right across from the Thousand Oaks Country Club.  Sasha slid down in the seat a little, to be less obvious, and I scrunched down as well, peeking over the dash.

“So what now?” I whispered, and I was amazed at how loud it sounded.

She whispered back, barely exhaling, and I heard her clearly, “Take my hand.”

So I did.  And then she did something.

All right, let me try to explain this.

Imagine for a moment that you have a network of strands—or tentacles—tendrils that you keep reeled in or wrapped up inside your body.  They are boneless, stretchable, and more sensitive than your tongue.  Now imagine these dozens of extra limbs are uncoiling at once, and spreading out, reaching outward through space to touch like feathery serpents all the things around you—going through the metal of a car, the rubber of the wheels, the glass and metal and filament of a headlight.  The filament of the headlight seems to these sensitive structures to be a huge thing, like the hawser of a battleship, while the whole of a tree fits easily in the circle of one tendril.

That’s what she did, and by touching me with them, somehow awoke in me an awareness of my own tendrils.

“Just watch,” she whispered.  “Don’t move, yet.”

I couldn’t help but stretch a little, feeling outward with my new senses.  It was more than just touch.  I don’t know how to describe it.  If you don’t have it, you can’t understand it, like a man born blind can’t understand color.  Now, though, I was no longer blind, and the colors of souls were mine to see.

I watched, fascinated, as Sasha stretched out toward the parking lot with invisible strands of darkness.  I know that’s a contradiction, but that’s what the tendrils are like.

Several minutes later, people came out of the club, two men and a woman.  One man went to his car; the couple went to theirs.  Sasha’s tendrils closed on the lone man like serpents striking.  It was frightening and terrible and beauty in motion.

They wrapped him and enfolded him, moving through him completely and lacing themselves into a webwork of incredible complexity throughout his body, as though they made his blood or his nervous system—or both—a part of themselves, or merged with his.  I could suddenly… well, not
see
exactly, but I could… sense him, through Sasha.  Sense who he was, what he was, everything he felt or had been.  It was like looking at his soul, all the bright spots and the dark spots, and the colors that rippled through it from his past.  In that instant, I knew him, and I knew I didn’t like him. 

He was wealthy, born to it, and considered it his right and just desserts to have wealth; he considered anyone who wasn’t wealthy to be somehow his inferior.  He was smart and handsome and proud.  He knew it, liked it, and was disdainful of those who were not all of these things.

He had very few redeeming qualities.  He liked children, for one.  He liked dogs, and kept three; he wished he could play with them more often.  He worked diligently as some sort of corporate officer and was very busy; he was quite conscientious in his duties, but only because it made him feel important.  He was thirty-six.

He was a jerk.  Worse, it wasn’t even possible to give him the benefit of the doubt.  There
was
no doubt.  I could
see
it.  He could have had a neon sign blinking above his head and it would have been less obvious.  Given a choice, I would never want to associate with him.

It amazed me that I knew so much about him.  I didn’t read his mind, exactly, so much as I simply understood him.  It made me feel a little queasy to look into him like that; it was
who he was
, entirely.  That’s a very private thing.  I didn’t like seeing it without his permission; it seemed wrong, somehow.

Sasha
did
something to him.  The tendrils thickened and pulsed, like snakes swallowing.  The… energy… of the guy was slowly pumped out of him, down the tendrils, into Sasha.  I watched him…
fade
.  Yes, fade.  Physically, I knew my eyes still registered his image, and he was backing out of his spot, stopping, turning the wheel to leave the parking lot… but his spirit faded away to a dull glow.  I watched Sasha drink almost all of it.  It made her seem stronger, brighter somehow; he was a pale ghost in the flesh, dim, wan, and exhausted.

“That’s part of it,” she said, eyes shining.  They glowed like a cat’s as the light caught them.

I nodded and she asked, “Do you think you can do that?”

“I can try.”

So we waited.  After a time, more people entered our view.  This time it was a pair of gentlemen who apparently needed a cab; they staggered and laughed and whooped.  They headed for their cars after much handshaking and back-patting, as well as mutual cautions to be careful, you’re drunk.

I… uncoiled.  I reached out to the nearest.

I underestimated myself.

In an instant, I knew him.  He was a divorced father of three—two by his first wife, one by his second, and none by his third—and barely paid enough alimony to cover the cost of feeding them.  He hated all three of his ex-wives and regarded his children—of which he did not have custody—as his property, unkindly stolen from him.  But he was fond of his fish, and regarded his maid as a lovable old lady and paid her twice what she was worth as a maid, just so she would have a reason to be around and talk to him.  He was a lonely man.  I wrapped him in tendrils of dark thought and drank him.

He poured through the tendrils and into me; for an instant, I knew more about finance, taxes, stocks and bonds, commodities and interest rates than I had ever known… and then it was gone, mostly, like the sting of a strong drink fades into a mild aftertaste.  I felt a rush I can’t describe.  It was like being electrocuted in a tank of liquid ecstasy while having a full-body orgasm.  It was more powerful than that. 
Better
.  I had an orgasm of the
soul
.

If that was what religion was like, I began to understand the appeal.  And the addiction.  I liked it.  It left me shivering, almost vibrating with delight and power.

I admonished myself to never,
never
,
NEVER
get used to this.  Ever. 

The man slumped behind the wheel of his car, the keys barely in the ignition.  The man Sasha touched still had the warm glow of spirit in his body; this one was a darkened husk.  I had drawn too hard on the thing that was
him
; I drained the vital essence that made him more than a sack of damp chemicals inside skin.  All that was left was the meat.