Chapter 4

"Yes?" The old man's voice was soft and tired, he'd been asleep.

I'd found him in his apartments at the Vatican, which had surprised me, but not so greatly as news of the Pope's recent death. It would take the college several days to select a new one. The Cardinal's secretary in Washington, Father Perron, had told me and he'd been obviously upset by it, as I should have been, but I felt nothing and that realization was only mildly disturbing.

"I'm in," I said softly. Perhaps Michel would hear me, perhaps not.

I stood alone in his study while Michel occupied himself with a young girl in his bed. I'd undressed and washed myself, understanding the psychology of it, the Catholicism of my cleansing, but unwilling to resist it. He'd had found it amusing in any event; the old vampire felt nothing for the loss of Paschal.

"You survived?" The Cardinal woke up slowly, Rome being nine hours ahead of me, and we both ignored the stupidity of his question. "Where are you?"

"San Francisco. With Michel," I licked my lips, glancing at the open door. "Command me, Eminence."

"Does he suspect anything?" Cardinal Beschi's voice sounded greedy, like a child who might lose a new toy before he could play with it.

"Of course," I smiled into the phone. "He's not a fool, but he loves me."

"Kill him," the Cardinal said, no doubt smiling as well, and I'd anticipated this.

It would be not only revenge for the old man, but also a test, a very real one. He couldn't trust me now, not until he saw the proof. He was so much like Michel that way. In many ways.

"I'm still weak," I told him truthfully. "I might fail."

"We can't have that."

"He'll be here later. Michel isn't going anywhere."

I didn't want to kill Michel. I felt an attachment that I couldn't explain, and I dared not mention it, but the old man would suspect a bond between us now. He knew as much about vampires as I did, even more. And he knew me very well indeed. He'd created me, as much as Michel had.

"Lazarus is in New York," Beschi said after a moment's silence while he considered me. He was trying to decide about me, but it was too late for that and he was beginning to realize it.

"We still have the two in Sacramento," I reminded him. "They'll probably be gone, but if I can find them..."

"If you can kill Lazarus, it won't matter."

And that was the ultimate reason for all of this, for all the plots and deceptions, just so I could kill one woman. One very special woman. Unlikely as it sounds to the lay person, the Lazarus that Jesus had raised from the dead two thousand years ago was still very much alive. Perhaps stranger than that was the fact that Lazarus was a woman, not a man as the bible suggests. But history has often been rewritten, for a variety of reasons, and that particular document far more than most.

"I need to gather my strength," I told him honestly. "I have ... abilities..."

"I'm sure you do," he chuckled softly.

" ... I need to understand them." I secretly doubted that I would be able to kill Lazarus, but that was unimportant. "I need practice. The two in Sacramento will be weak. One of them is injured."

"Go then," Beschi agreed finally. "When you're finished, return to me. I want to see you."

"Yes, Your Eminence."

"I sent Father Jude with a Dagger of Aunnas to New York yesterday," he told me.

"I see." I frowned at that. Lazarus would kill the priest, and he was no more than a child. Jude been one of my students not so long before.

"I haven't heard from..."

I sensed Michel's presence and I hung up the phone without another word.

"What did he say?" Michel wondered, standing there naked and covered with blood, as if he'd bathed in the girl more than supped from her life.

"The Pope is dead."

Michel said nothing and appeared unaffected by the news, as he should've been; the Pope meant little one such as Michel as anything but an occasional adversary. I'd wanted to bring it up with the Cardinal, but it was hardly my place to do so. He would be engaged with the Sacred College, selecting a new Bishop of Rome. The Holy See could perhaps even fall to him, a thought I entertained only briefly.

"He doesn't trust me," I continued with a shrug.

"Quite a dilemma, I suppose." His penis was thick and hard, jutting out and dropping blood. "Beschi finally has what he always wanted, but..."

"He wants me to kill you." I stared at the vampire, beautiful in his true form.

He seemed larger somehow, his body supple and lean with muscle. Michel's hair fell like a wild mane over his shoulders and his eyes were lit with crimson flames, his fingers were delicate with long black nails, razor-edged talons really. When he opened his mouth, I could see his distended fangs, curved and oddly shaped, the inner edges sharp as scalpels and the outward round and smooth with needle tips.

Just seeing Michel like that, smelling the blood still wet on his flesh, brought the change in me. It was irresistible; even if I'd wanted to avoid it, I couldn't. I flexed my own hands, feeling the strength in my body, the hunger in my belly. I tilted my head, growling softly as my teeth grew sharp and long. My skin took on a translucence; becoming so pale that I could see my veins beneath my skin, and my sex burned. The hunger and desire were indistinguishable; a complete lust that seemed overwhelming to my newborn senses.

"I shall have to watch you carefully then," Michel smiled and he didn't fear me. I was his creature now, he would never have to fear me. I loved him.

I stepped into a shadow and an instant later I stood behind him, my arms around Michel's waist, pressing my naked breasts to his back and licking at the soft skin just along his handsome jaw. I could have taken him then, but I sensed no hint of surprise or fear. It was as if the old vampire had been waiting for me and frowned at that, wondering if I wasn't overestimating my abilities.

"You'll have to watch me closer than that, my love." I kissed his cheek.

"So I see," Michel said a moment later, after I'd worked my tongue deeply into his mouth. "I have something for you, come ... You need to feed."

In his bed lay the corpse of the girl upon which he'd feasted so recently. He'd opened her chest, exposing her young heart and he'd fed from it directly. From the amount of blood spilled however, it looked as if the vampire had been playing with her more than drinking. It seemed a senseless cruelty, but I felt nothing ill towards the idea of what Michel had done. It had been their affair, not mine.

Near the girl, huddled naked on the bed was a boy, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, looking very much like the dead girl's sibling, which surprised me not at all. They were both dark, with thick black hair and noble features. The girl had been beautiful once, the boy more handsome than pretty, and he held his knees to his chest, weeping with terror.

His fear filled the room. Even more than the blood, I could smell his emotion. Like ozone before a thunderstorm, it was electric, almost metallic on my lips, and I wondered if I merely imagined it, but I suspected my newfound senses were becoming more attuned to the world. I pushed out my tongue, testing the sapid air while Michel smiled at me, enjoying my discoveries. I tasted human blood and sweat, and the musk of Michel's arousal, mixed with my own.

Saliva filled my mouth and I flew at the boy, there is no other word for it. The hunger was upon me. I felt weak, famished from the Turning, from the hunt of Paschal, and now it was loosed. If I'd had a real choice I might have tried to comfort the child, if only to test my abilities to influence the human mind and emotions, but there was no time for that.

My body demanded blood and it would have been a pleasure to fuck him while I fed, my sex trembling against the emptiness. Michel would see to that need, however, and I spent my energy cradling the boy in my strong arms, bending his delicate neck to my teeth, and murdering him.

I groaned as Michel entered me from behind, his hands on my hips, lifting my ass for his cock. It was sticky with the girl's drying blood, but I'd grown wet already, incredibly so, and he entered me easily.

The boy's blood had come quickly at first, from his torn artery which I'd made a mess of in my haste. I'd severed it, rather than merely holed it, and so the child's life had poured out of him faster than I could drink it. Blood ran down my neck and his, the smell of it making the air seem heavy and humid, even tropical as my body flushed hot and pink with new life.

And Michel was in my cunt, fucking me slowly now, relaxing as if to mimic the slowing of the boy's heart beneath us. He moved gently within me and it brought a great pleasure, driving me towards an orgasm enriched with the predatorial joy of killing and feeding. There was a completeness there which I struggled to understand, but only weakly at that moment. The connection between sex and death, it had always fascinated me as an observer, and now as a participant.

"He's done..." I breathed, licking my lips and moving slowly.

I lay between the two corpses, brother and sister, in the center of that great and ancient bed soaked in blood. Michel pushed my long legs high for him, so that I was bent over his shoulders and helpless beneath his weight. I was his completely then, open and vulnerable, and I clawed at his back as he plunged his cock into the depths of my sex, penetrating me as deeply as he could, so that I felt him pressing the very entrance to my barren womb.

We spoke not at all, but only stared at each other, our features magnificent and evil, with cruel smiles and malicious burning eyes. We were making love then, not just fucking for our pleasure, but binding ourselves together and I understood that, I welcomed it as a betrayal. The Cardinal would never understand what he'd brokered when he'd lifted me from obscurity to this.

It seemed very possible that the old man had orchestrated his own destruction if he wasn't careful, because Michel himself would attempt to set me upon the old man. I'd deny him, of course, because I was walking a razor's edge, playing the church against that loose community of vampires. I still had my faith, but I had love as well, and I wasn't so blind not to see that eventually I would have to betray one of them for the other.

But that was the future and the outcome unpredictable.

Here and now I was being mated, as I finally began to understand the true meaning of the term. It was something Michel had been unable to share with Paschal, and perhaps with any of his previous lovers. He'd been waiting for me, expecting me, since before our first meeting so many years before, and I wondered that he hadn't taken me at his first opportunity.

It mattered not at all, however, and I was lost to such thoughts while we made love. My slippery sex embraced him eagerly, clasping itself around Michel's penis and squeezing him. I wanted to keep him inside me so long as possible. I was filled with him and the experience made me complete. The world could turn without us, I promised him, pulling his mouth to mine finally.

He was close to cumming and I'd been having small orgasms since we'd begun. I wanted him to hold off, begging him with my eyes and lips to save himself for later, to fuck me for all eternity. I should never tire of it, I thought, the sensation of being taken so easily, so totally. And when he did cum at last, his turgid cock releasing his seed in a series of violent spasms, it was a bittersweet defeat for us both I think.

Michel collapsed upon me, sighing and damp with perspiration. My breasts were heaving beneath him, and I stroked his smooth skin and soft hair, kissing him, loving him as I'd never done for a man before in my life. It had taken my own death to bring me passionate love and the irony of loving my own murderer made me smile. That was the fundamental aspect of our nature. We destroy that which we love, and love what we have become.

We were joined now, Michel and I, mated for life. Mated for death. Mated forever.

Sunlight made me weak. I could feel it through the stone walls, sapping my energy, stealing my powers. I did not understand the phenomenon, nor could I see any reason for it as I was protected physically. There were no windows, no doors. Yet still I could feel the awful truth of it, the light of day had become my enemy and I'd never again enjoy the sun's warmth upon my face.

Michel was already asleep, deep in his lair, but I'd had little choice except to remain awake. I needed information and for that I needed my friends at Quantico. So far as the rest of the world was concerned, with the exception of Cardinal Beschi, I was still human, still Sister Ellen ... The rather unorthodox and oddly brilliant college professor. I would maintain that façade so long as possible and to that end I also needed to speak with my grad students, and the University President. The church would endorse a leave of absence, one from which I would never return.

"Where are you?" Phil Sweeny asked me, my old friend the FBI profiler.

"San Francisco, something came up," I sighed.

"You sound tired," he observed with some real concern in his voice.

"Long night." I forced myself to laugh softly. "So, what's new? Anything?"

"Well, we haven't found our subjects yet, but they're still in Sacramento."

"Oh?" I rubbed my eyes. "That seems odd."

I hadn't meant to say that. If they were human it wasn't odd at all, considering the younger one must be injured, having been shot. I knew they were vampires though, and in that sense they should have been gone already. The girl would heal quickly, well enough to travel after only a day, or two at the most. Thankfully Phil let my observation pass unnoticed.

"Two new bodies," Phil told me. "We found them yesterday and had the labs working all night. Definitely our girls."

"Where?" I sat down at Michel's desk, opening drawers and looking for a cigarette, not for the nicotine, but merely because I was used to having one when I talked to Quantico about a case.

"A flop house downtown, about a mile from the first murders. Two males, the guy who was living there, one John Lawler. He seems to have no connection, a long time resident, the down on his luck sort."

Which was a nice way of saying the man had been a bum.

"And the other?" I asked.

"A doctor, a real one. Mason Price. He was supposed to be working the emergency room at County General. Apparently he just walked out in the middle of his shift. Left his clothes, his wallet, his car, everything at the hospital and then he turns up dead in Lawler's apartment."

"COD?" But I already knew.

"Blood loss through wounds in the neck and throat consistent with bites. Forensics say it's difficult to tell, but they might match the cop in the car, so..."

"He was playing doctor for the perps?"

"Looks that way. His tools were there, his little black bag. They found bullet fragments on a plate. Ballistics gives it about a 90 percent chance they came out of the female cop's gun."

"So they kidnap a doc, bring him to the apartment and nobody sees a thing." I smacked my lips.

"You got it," Phil chuckled. "They have cameras at the hospital too, four of them covering the main entrance, emergency room inside and out, not a sign of anyone matching our girls."

"Nothing?" I asked. "What about the doc?"

"We got him just fine. He just strolls out like he's off for a Starbucks," Phil sighed. "Shit, Ellen, it's just weird."

"Prints? Anything there?"

"Nope. We have prints, but nothing on file."

"If he was doing surgery, I guess that explains why they're still in town." I felt so tired and I had everything I needed to know.

"Well, local PD is canvassing the neighborhoods now. After finding the doctor they're going door to door, but it's a big town."

"What's your profile say?"

"Same as yours, probably," he laughed. "Females involved with at least one other suspect, probably male. Cultists of some kind, playing vampire games looks like. We have no pattern as yet, except the vic on the roof and the one in Oregon, all the others seem to be random, victims of circumstance."

"Yeah," I yawned. "I need to get some sleep. I'll be in Sacramento tonight, look around a little. I can get the files, right?"

"No problem. I already sent them your clearance."

"Thanks, Phil." I listened to his goodbye and hung up the phone, wanting to call my office, but I was so tired.

I made my way into the bedroom, a different one than we'd used to feed on the boy and girl, and I slipped under the sheets to press my body against Michel's. He was vulnerable again, I thought with a smile, stroking his cool flesh and within a few seconds it seemed I'd fallen into a sleep deeper than any living human would ever know.

"Shit." I frowned, holding a compact mirror and a lipstick. "I can't see myself. How am I supposed to put on makeup?"

"It's very simple," Michel smiled at me, he was dressing slowly. "You do not need makeup, Elle, you're already beautiful."

"And would you please explain to me why I can't see my reflection?" I closed my mirror with a frustrated snap.

"Again, too simple." He moved to me, taking my shoulders in his hands and kissing my forehead.

"Well?" I was sitting on the bed and I looked up at him.

"Magic," he chuckled.

"Great." I pursed my lips. I liked wearing makeup.

"You do not complain about the other things," he laughed at me. "So why this?"

"Because it's dumb," I shrugged. "There's no reason for it."

I began dressing slowly, finding new clothes, not my own, but fresh and attractive and much as I might have chosen for myself ... If I was going to a BDSM costume drama. Michel had servants, slaves of a sort, but they were functionaries and remained hidden so much as it was possible. I didn't know who or what they were, and I hadn't bothered to ask about them.

They'd disposed of the bodies, cleaned the bedroom that we'd bloodied the night previously, and arranged to have me clothed, doubtlessly by Michel's explicit instruction. It seemed immediately clear to me that it could be very difficult for a vampire to survive without dedicated mortals to assist him or her. The modern world would require interaction if one desired a level of comfort such as Michel enjoyed.