An iron sky, dully leaden and heavy-laden, dipped low towards the smoky city. Streetlights and neon signs formed iridescent ripples on its black surface. Below, people went about their nightly business, concerned with their wives or their jobs or their rent, blissfully ignorant of the darker, more menacing monsters that lurked in the shadows among them.
One such monster was not lurking. He stood at the balcony of his penthouse apartment overlooking the city, his city. He stood atop his monument of glass and steel, presiding, a gargoyle king surveying his domain. I am Ozymandius, he mused, as irony twisted his lips into a wry smirk. Look upon my works, ye mortals, and despair!
Upon first glance, the gargoyle king did not seem all that remarkable. He was short of stature by modern standards -- only four inches over five feet in height. His unruly chestnut curls were reined back into a short, conservative ponytail. His suit was gray and simple, if expensive for its tailoring. Only his eyes betrayed him. They were a warm hazel shade, rich with intelligence and passion, but as they surveilled the city, they darkened and grew cold with frightening suddenness, as though a storm had swept in. Then came the key; a deep weariness revealed in the eye of the storm, a look older than the city itself.
He turned away from the urban jungle beneath him. He was not unlike Ozymandius. How little of his original Montreal remained, moldering and crumbling beneath the glass and steel. “Le Vieux,” they called it now – at least, that is what the newest childer told him. And it was vieux, and so was he. More vieux than any man had any right to be. What froze his soul in the small hours of the gray morning was the inexorable knowledge that there were those among his kind who were much older still. There were some that had witnessed the founding of Rome. Some who had seen the first city ever built. Some who had literally watched mankind come down from the trees. And like him, they made their way through the long nights, shaping the world to their will.
They, however, had a few millennia head start.
Now, this millennium was drawing to a close, and all the signs were here. All the signs that the endless nights might, at last, be drawing to a close as well. That the "end was at hand,” as doomsayers had cried since human history’s dawning. In a way, he welcomed it, for he was so very, very tired. Yet, with the end of the tunnel in sight, he found himself these nights increasingly drawn backward, drawn back to the long-ago beginning of the convoluted road. Who could have foreseen that an unremarkable, Provençal boy would have found himself on the turn of the twenty-first century, at the threshold of Armageddon?
He stepped into the elevator and pressed the magic button that told the machine that he was heading down. It descended in near silence. Only the sensitivity of his supernatural hearing was able to perceive the low thrum. So many new machines! Mortals of the modern world loved them, were obsessed with them. For a long time such marvelous and impossible creations had stunned and perplexed him. He no longer bothered to attempt to fathom them. They might as well have been the secrets of the Kaballah, for all he knew and was capable of knowing. But it no longer mattered. Thinking of them as esoteric mysteries had helped him greatly. He no longer felt his sanity slipping as the sheer impossibility of everyday things overwhelmed him. He did not care how they worked. It only mattered that they worked. It was only through the careful study of the mortals about him that he realized that all who existed in this technophiliac age thought in this way, or they, too, would be driven to near madness by the pondering of it.
He descended to the lobby and stepped out into the streets. Montreal was a lively city, especially after dark, and people moved all about him with the pulse and rhythm of life. Here was a man walking back to his apartment from the office; there was a woman hailing a taxicab; on the corner, whores were parading their wares. Most of the shops stayed open in the downtown core until after midnight, and he wondered, not for the first time, if the presence of his ancient and potent blood in this city subtly influenced the mortals to do this, which was so contrary to their natural cycle, without his conscious will. The scent of the mortal flesh all about him, and the fresh, hot blood contained within was near maddening that night. He tormented himself with the salt smell of them, much as a lover indulges in the erotic attentions of his beloved before he allows himself at last to sink into her warm flesh.
It was not his way to torment himself to the point of privation. Too dangerous. Once, in Constantinople, the Tzimisce clan had spent nights on end locked away from the world in specially designed fasting cages, screaming and frothing at the world in the grips of the bestial madness of starvation, seeking enlightenment. He found no enlightenment from starvation. All that came of attempting to deprive oneself for too long was a strengthening of the Beast Within, as its savage, unreasoning hunger raged, until at last, all control and reason were lost and the Beast rampaged to feed itself, delighting in destruction and death. People one cared about inevitably were caught in the crossfire of this rabid monster, and then when the hunger and bloodlust were satiated, one was left with only the aftermath of pain and horror. Once, perhaps, there might have been some merit in the fasting cages for him. No more now. His hunger was too great, and his blood too powerful, for any physical bars in this world to hold him if the Beast were permitted to rule his body. Byron would have said that a predator, who is ruled by Nature’s laws, should feed whenever it could, for who knew if there would still be prey on the morrow? And if there were not . . . the consequences would be too great to endure.
So, he kept himself well fed. But he still liked to play with the hunger, to let it build a little and then, knowing that he would feed this night, going among the mortals and smelling their living blood-scent, watching the veins pulse and throb in their bodies, before permitting himself to ease the driving lust.
He had always been a creature of deep and abiding passions.
Long enough, now. He found a darkened alcove and began to watch the harlots. He watched their customers who came and went in waves. Sometimes the girls were taken into the shiny horseless carriages. Sometimes they were walked up the street to a nearby motel. Some things never really changed.
It was these pairings that he followed. The girl-child, with a skirt that left nothing to the imagination and more cosmetics than the courtesans of Paris, who was trying not to tip over as she balanced on her spiked heels, and simultaneously maintained her seductive wiggle; and the man who was already groping places that should remain sacred. Some glanced furtively about them and tried to cover their wedding rings. Some, the younger ones, made sure to look around them with a proud, gloating expression, to be sure their friends were watching. He had no interest in either of these sorts.
It was the ones who did neither, the ones who carried themselves with predatory assurance but no pride, which drew his killer’s eye.
Now one such couple moved not towards the motel, but to the nearby alley, and he followed behind them in silence, observing them closely. Already the girl-child, made up to look like she was a woman and with a woman’s experience in her young eyes, was glancing about her furtively, nervous in the company of her customer. He opened up his other senses; let his awareness expand to view the halo that was the man’s soul. Sure enough, it was swirling darkly with an ominous combination of angry red and violent purple, and the sour green of obsession, mashed together with bloody crimson lust. He focused his gaze in a more temporal way now, and as suspected, there was the telltale bend of a concealed knife beneath the male’s jacket. The hunter scowled darkly, but saliva began to flood his mouth in a hungry passion. Yes, this was the sort suited to feed his hunger.
Before they even reached the alley, the girl-child was urging her suitor not to be so rough. He was biting her aggressively, and when they reached the alley, with the scent of the trash and the squeals of frightened rats, the man ripped open her blouse with no finesse at all. The hunter followed behind in silence, his soft-soled shoes marking a quiet executioner’s tread. The customer grabbed the child’s half-grown breast firmly and twisted it. When she cried out in pain and asked him to stop, the male produced the knife and waved it beneath her nose. Now the hunter could smell her acrid fear. “Take ‘em all off,” hissed the deplorable man, “and lie down and stay quiet.”
Now it was time. Now the rapist had proven his intent. Now he deserved to die.
The hunter stepped out into the light, whisking away his supernatural protections. See me, he willed the girl’s attacker.
The attacker looked up, and the child followed suit.
“Monsieur,” begged the girl in a frightened voice, tears beginning to smear the overdone kohl that people now called mascara, “please monsieur, help me.” She did not expect to be helped. She did not believe in people.
The attacker did not believe it either. “Just walk away, buddy,” he commanded the hunter threateningly. “Just walk away and forget you ever saw me, and I won’t bust you up, man.”
The hunter was disgusted and angry. The man stank. He had not even enough self-respect to shave the bristles from his face, or wear clothes that were clean. Already he reeked of his sour lusts. And he would inflict this on a girl who was too desperate and too discouraged to protest.
He had seen it before a thousand times. He had seen it before in a hundred different places.
But he would not see it tonight.
The ancient hunter could not help but wonder what the loathsome little man thought when this seemingly unassuming figure in the long coat and business suit made a gesture faster than any human eye could see, and knocked the knife from the bandit’s grasp. It clattered metallically to the pavement, gleaming like an omen in the streetlight, and the would-be rapist stared at his hand, mystified. The old monster had a very good idea of what he was thinking. He was wondering if a horse had kicked him. And he had used but the slightest fraction of his strength.
He took a moment to turn the gaze of his warm, hazel eyes on the girl. “Close your eyes, mi cherée,” he urged softly. “Do not open them no matter what it is that you think you hear. It will all be over soon.”
He did not need his supernatural powers of persuasion in this. The girl closed her eyes and began to whisper words that he knew of old, “Hail Mary, full of grace . . . “
The attacker came forward like a stalking tomcat. “I’m going to fuck you up,” he promised.
The solid, pale figure grinned, baring sharp, elongated canines. “I don’t think so,” he told the bandit earnestly, his eyes gleaming.
The rapist attacked, barreling towards the vampire in an artless charge. The vampire dodged deftly to one side like a matador. They repeated this macabre misstep. Now the vampire permitted himself to indulge the Beast just a little, as he took sadistic delight in tormenting the man, stepping just out of his reach or his swings at every turn. The rapist became incensed, and then enraged. Then, and only then, did the vampire bear his fangs and snarl with all the force of his ancient powers.
Now a different spice seasoned the flesh of this graceless criminal, the spice of terror. He cried out and tried to flee, but now the vampire caught him firmly in a vice grip. “What troubles you?” taunted the vampire darkly, his eyes now almost black. “What, are you afraid of me?”
“Please . . . “ the bandit begged helplessly. "Please . . . “
Then the vampire remembered himself, and he reproached himself harshly. What right had he to torture the man like this? Pity gripped the vampire’s heart, and shame as well. It was normal for him to enjoy the kill as a predator. But it was not right for him to take pleasure in the man’s fear like this. He among you who is without sin, let him cast the first stone . . .
“The final justice of Creation is upon you,” he told the man coldly. “Confess and repent your sins.” And as the man began to babble please, what did he want, he could have his wallet, he could have the slut, anything he wanted, the vampire thrust his fangs deep into the man’s throat.
Hot, nourishing blood began to fill the vampire’s senses, filling his veins, burning through his cold, dead heart. It was made all the more delicious by the tang of rage and terror within it. The Beast roared its approval, and now the vampire began to moan in rapturous agony as the blood lust seized him, body and soul. He fell to his knees. So long since he had fed in a fierce kill like this! The heart beat rapidly, fiercely, and for a moment, the vampire almost felt alive once more. This man fought the inevitable rapture of the Kiss with his whole will.
But like the Reaper himself, the vampire was too powerful, too overwhelming to be denied. Death comes to us all, whether we are ready for it or not. And death came for the parasitic miscreant then; much in the same way he would have brought it to the girl-child before him. Justice for the sinners. The rapist, raped.
The vampire forced himself to pull away from the body before he drained all of its blood completely. Masquerade or no Masquerade, one must take some reasonable precautions in this age of science and investigation. He found to his dismay that he had crushed much of the body in his moment of haste. Bones were pulverized. He didn’t think he had squeezed that hard. He must have been hungrier than he realized.
He also took care to lick the wound to seal it, that none would know that a vampire had taken his nourishment of this man. A little shiver of delight coursed through him at the sample of life fluid that was left on the surface. He wiped his mouth carefully, just to be sure, and then he drew the sign of the Cross over the dead form. Simultaneously he thanked the Creator for the meal and prayed for the man’s twisted soul.
No more twisted, perhaps, than his. But Christ taught that there was salvation for all.
The girl was curled up into a ball, her hands firmly over her eyes, weeping in terror. He didn’t believe she had seen his dark and bloody repast. She was just terrified by the situation. He walked over to where she trembled and placed an oh-so-gentle hand on her quivering shoulder. She looked up at him, and she smiled weakly. “Merci, Monsieur,” she whispered.
The vampire took the child’s face in his hand. “You should not be selling yourself this way, little one,” he said gently. “It is dangerous. Men like this will take advantage of you.”
She looked away guiltily. “No!” he said abruptly, drawing her attention. “No, it is not your fault. He was an evil man and he has paid for his crimes. You do what you must to survive, and God understands that this is a hard and often cruel world.” The weariness almost consumed him again, for oh, how hard, how cruel, it could be! But then he saw the tiny gold crucifix that adorned the child’s throat, right at the lovely little nape where the collarbone formed a crucible, and hope was reborn in his silent, unbeating heart. “Come with me,” he implored her softly. “I can give you a job where you will not have to sell your body and soul, a bed where you can trust in your safety and you need share it with no one, and above all, a place where you can heal.” He took her soft and delicate hand in his, and turned her arm so that he could see the track of needle marks that blemished her otherwise beautiful skin. “Even from this.”
She drew her hand away then quickly, to hide her golden arm and her eyes from him. “Why would you?” she demanded. “Why would you do this for me? What do you care?”
In reply, he said nothing. He merely reached out and with the tips of his fingers, touched the tiny golden crucifix. She looked down at his hand, and then, almost against her will, she drew her gaze up and into his. And his eyes were warm and welcoming and filled with compassion. “Because God commands us to,” he said. And he smiled, and she returned it. And when he offered his hand, she took it.
Two pairs of eyes witnessed all of this, unbeknownst to the both of them. One belonged to a silent and somewhat perplexed priest, spying from a nearby window. The other belonged to the unliving shadow that watched them both.
The vampire sensed that he was being watched, but not by whom, or from
where.
The vampire brought the young whore to his real home, the marble mansion overlooking the city. His servants fed and cleaned her. They dressed her in newer, warmer clothes. She had many questions, but they answered none of them; they just pressed a finger to her lips and smiled. Then they saw that in the cold of the October evening, that she had a warm woolen coat, before they saw her out to a little church on the hillside by the manor.
She stepped in, at first hesitantly, especially when she saw that the servants were not going with her. But the moment she crossed the threshold, a placid peace overcame her. The little church was filled with light from dozens upon dozens of candles, and they illuminated a stained glass window in the far wall. The window showed an image of the Virgin and Child, and their artfully designed features displayed only love and compassion.
The scene before her was somewhat less comprehensible.
Beneath the image of the Virgin, an enormous Cross dominated the room, and the Cross was marked with holes where nails might have been once driven. Further, it had a strange reddish cast to its ancient wood in places, as if it had once been stained with blood.
The Cross was suspended over a stone altar, covered in a proper altar cloth, and illuminated by candles. A sacred sensor wafted smoke of cleansing incense into the air, mingling with the pleasant wax odor.
Before the altar, her rescuer knelt in prayer. He was wearing a suit of chain mail, and a sword was clasped before him in the form of a Cross.
She remembered this image that he formed from her life before, a life that seemed dimly as if it had happened to someone else. It was an image from the pages of a history book. It was the image of a Crusader.
“What . . . “ she breathed in confusion.
Her rescuer turned towards her and smiled warmly. Something about him, about his very presence, gave her peace. His simple being comforted her. “Much better,” he said in voice that was a rich, luxurious baritone with the texture of velvet and satin. It resounded through the little rectory in an echo that seemed to come from all sides. His eyes were warm and deep, green like the ocean in the candlelight. “You are very pretty without your cosmetics, child.”
“Who are you?” she demanded breathlessly.
He rose from his knees and came towards her. His armor made a sound like the jingle of a dog’s chain. He placed the sword before the altar before he came, and its keen blade shimmered. “My name is Sire Roslyn de Cloridan,” he confided reluctantly, his lips mouthing around the words as though he were speaking a confession. “But that does not answer your question, does it? Not really.” He smiled again with that same smile of compassion. “Why don’t you ask the real question that perplexes you?”
“What are you?” she murmured instead. Her eyes were wide like small moons.
“I am a vampire,” he admitted. But his eyes did not look away. This did not shame him, nor make him uncomfortable. It simply was.
Her mouth echoed his words, dumbfounded. Then she shook her head. “No, you can’t be,” she told him directly. “I don’t feel threatened by you at all. Wouldn’t I be able to sense it if. . ?”
He put a finger to her mouth, and she stopped. “Here, listen, little one.” Carefully, delicately, as though handling a thin parchment, he drew her head to his breast and placed it against him. The armor was cold and hard pressed against her face. “What do you hear?”
“Nothing,” she said. What did he mean by this?
He stepped back, and with the effort of shedding a piece of cloth, he drew off the chain mail and cast it to one side. It crashed against the wall and fell in a cacophonic heap. Then he drew her head to his breast again. “What do you hear now?”
“I still hear nothing . . . “ she said, confused. Then it dawned upon her. She looked at his face, her eyes wide, now with a little fear.
“Oui, child,” he nodded in confirmation. “There is no life in this body.”
Her silence rang loudly through the room. “But . . . but how?” she demanded.
The vampire laughed aloud. The tips of sharp teeth glittered, and the girl no longer doubted him in the least. “That is a long story,” he smiled. “And it does not concern you now. Soon, the poison you have put into your body will wear off, and you will want more. I can help you to fight that, if you wish.”
The girl scratched her arms nervously. He was right. She would need her next fix soon. That was how she’d gotten into this whole mess to begin with, wasn’t it? “How?” she asked of him. The need for the drug was something that drove her to her very marrow. Something that was primal and irresistible. How could she fight such a thing?
“Drug addiction, they say, is a twofold thing,” he told her solemnly. “Part of it is physical, part of it is a trick of the mind. I can trick your mind into not needing it anymore. Your body,” he admitted, “will have to heal on its own.”
She pondered this at length. It was a frightening concept. But how long could she be a slave to her body? How long could she endure like this? “Oui Monsieur,” she accepted, shivering with fear, “please help me.”
He took her face in his hands again, but this time he held her firmly. He stared into her eyes with an intensity that seemed to envelop her very soul. She would drown in those eyes, forever lost. His eyes contained all time within them.
Then he spoke, and his voice rang out with the same sort of melodic quality, only now it pierced her very blood and bones, burrowing its way into her spirit, sending vibrations up and down her spine. She did not remember what it was that he said. It was not important. Only the message mattered.
Then he released her.
“I . . . I don’t feel any different,” she stammered.
“You shouldn’t,” he told her. “Not yet.”
She wanted to say something else, but what, she didn’t know. So it didn’t come to her, and instead, she just licked her lips and sighed.
“Go to the house now, child,” he urged her gently. “Belle will prepare some hot soup for you. Ask for the Comtess de Cloridan. She will help your body to heal itself.”
“The Comtess . . .?” she asked, for the word was strange to her.
“My wife,” her rescuer smiled.
The girl glanced back just once before she headed through the doors and into the night.
The vampire turned back to the altar. He picked up his sword and held it before him once again. He knelt in prayer and waited.
Sure enough, before long, the doors opened once again.
“Come in, Father,” bade the vampire warmly without looking up. “Warm your hands from the cold and join me in prayer.”
The priest stood at the threshold, bewildered. He had been following the vampire for some time now; through the streets, on his nightly hunts, and when he reached out to those around him. The vampire was known to his brotherhood, which stalked those who walked the night with the tenacity born of religious conviction. They existed to protect humanity from the depredations of these monsters.
The Society had been hunting this one, the knight called Roslyn de Cloridan, since the Burning Times. They had scoured the face of the earth in their quest. Always, the vampire managed to elude them. Once, it was said, he even met a party of hunters at the door during the daylight hours, and they had denounced their search, believing they must have been mistaken. That is, until he showed himself some one hundred and fifty years later, unchanged, still matching his portrait, still known by his ancient name.
Never was this vampire’s appearance a subtle one. Others would manipulate behind the scenes, protecting themselves, never becoming involved with anything directly if they didn’t have to, staying always hidden from humanity. The Society even knew what the vampires called this policy of concealment. It was known as the Masquerade.
Not this one. He would disappear for years, sometimes decades. Then he would reemerge in a flash of glory. Whenever he did, the secret subculture of the night would be shaken to the core, and often as not, many would meet the rightful death they had long escaped.
The priest had become fascinated with this one. What made him so different from the others of his kind? And he had set out to find the elusive vampire.
Many had tried before, and all had failed. Unlike most of his ilk, who tended to be almost territorial, Roslyn de Cloridan traveled frequently. He had been sighted from the sands of Egypt to the West Coast of the United States. No one knew where to find him; and then he would disappear.
But the priest had noticed a pattern that his brethren had not. Roslyn de Cloridan meandered, seemingly without purpose or direction, it was true. But sooner or later, by all the old documents, he would return, like a migrating bird, to two places -- Paris, France, and Montreal, Canada.
So for six years now, he had utilized the resources of his Order to fly between Paris and Montreal, hoping to eventually catch him. It seemed that the monster was in a wandering cycle, because he was nowhere to be found. But six months ago, a new owner had taken possession of the old de Cloridan manor on the edge of the hill, one who claimed to be a de Cloridan descendant. And sure enough, he matched exactly the ancient tempura portrait that graced the walls of the Florence Chapterhouse.
The priest reflected on the feeling of mixed terror and elation had come upon him, when he held the Quebecois paparazzi photo up to the Renaissance painting, and discovered that the man -- well, he wasn’t a man -- had not changed in the least in all that time.
Now the vampire did turn to face him, and the priest’s heart rolled over in amazement and fear. Yes, this was the face of the ancient portrait. The same hazel eyes, the same auburn curls, the same long, almost angular face.
But he had watched the vampire for some time now, and this was not the abomination he had come to expect. Roslyn de Cloridan killed, and he drank the blood of those he killed. But these people were always caught on the verge, or just following, some terrible and bloody act on their part. After he killed, this strange being would pray over the bodies, and commend their souls to God for judgment. More than that, he donated vast sums to charity, gave work to the poor, and prayed every night. Sometimes he would even do things like volunteer at soup kitchens, or reach out to aid someone, as he had reached out to the desperate young hooker that night. Once he had gone to the window of an orphanage, and stared into it for hours. The priest had been terrified that the vampire was going to do some horrible thing to the children, but he did not. He just watched them, quiet and unmoving. And then he went away.
He had not approached the vampire up to this point because he knew that the vampire was very powerful and very dangerous. It was said, also, in the aged, barely decipherable documents of the Order, that whenever they had come close to capturing or destroying the vampire, entire Chapterhouses would disappear. After hearing nothing for months, a Brother sent to investigate would find the Chapterhouse burned to ashes, and all his brethren vanished without a trace. Once, it was even determined that a missing Brother had become a vampire himself, one of the particularly hideous creatures called the Nosferatu.
So when the vampire had gone into the church, the priest knew his chance had come. And he waited until the girl left, so that she would not see the terrible spectacle of a vampire incinerating under God’s holy power. It would not be the first time one of these vile creatures had been destroyed by him, and it could be a frightening experience. But waiting, he had heard every word of the conversation, which confused him for its honesty and obvious kindness.
What’s more, he knew this place to be Holy Ground. And yet, the power of his faith had no effect on the vampire.
He remembered suddenly that the vampire was watching him. No words came when the priest’s mouth moved.
The priest was an older man, clad in a very traditional robe and cleric’s collar. A simple wooden crucifix adorned his throat. He carried a flask of holy water in one hand. If it were not for the .45 tucked into his belt, both priest and vampire might have been from a thousand years past.
The vampire’s gaze was direct, even piercing, but it was not unkind. “You are confused,” the haunting voice observed. “I am not screaming and fleeing from you, begging for your mercy. I am not uncomfortable in this church, though you know the power of its faith to be true. And you are confused and you want to know why.”
“Yes,” the priest confessed as he ran a hand over his balding head. “How can this be?”
The vampire sighed deeply, wearily. “Father, how can it not be? Does not our Savior preach that all can be saved? That His sacrifice was the salvation of us all?”
The priest met the vampire’s eyes, which were filled with anguish and longing. A long and pregnant silence grew between them. And the priest, shaken to the core, realized the truth of this. “Yes,” he said at last. “Yes, that is the Word of God.”
And he sat down hard, right where he was. For if the vampire was right in this, then how many innocents, how many undeserving souls, had died at his hands?
The vampire placed a hand on his shoulder, and it was several moments before the priest was cognizant of its presence, and that he shouldn’t find it comforting. “Do not despair, Father. I’m sure that most of those you have slain were quite beyond redemption.” His voice was sour, embittered.
The priest met his eyes once again. “But you said . . . “
“Yes, I know what I said.” The vampire’s eyes were dark, stormy, frothing. “I said salvation was possible. I didn’t say it was easy. Nor did I say that all those of my kind sought it.” He chuckled without mirth, and the two needle-sharp fangs flashed dangerously. “No,” he murmured, more to himself than to the priest, “very few Cainites even begin to seek redemption . . . “
Suddenly, the priest was afraid. “Are you going to kill me?” he demanded abruptly. He would fight if the vampire tried.
But the vampire just looked at him sadly, and at once the priest regretted those hasty words. “No,” he sighed, “I’m not going to kill you. It is against my codes to harm a man of the cloth . . . even when he is intent upon harming me.” He gazed challengingly at the priest. “Knowing this now, will you take me to your superiors? Will you have me burned now at your auto de fé? I will not stop you. I am forbidden to fight you.”
“No,” the priest returned, and the answer surprised him as much as it did the vampire. “No, I won’t.”
“Why not?” the vampire wished to know.
He ruminated upon his reply at great length before giving it. “Because,” he said, “the power of the Lord, through which He permits me to sense the presence of evil, senses no such evil from you.” The priest fixed his gaze again.
“But I am a vampire,” he insisted. His expression did not change.
The priest shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I do not consider my judgment to be above God’s. Perhaps I do not understand it, but the Lord does, and that is all that matters.”
The vampire smiled and nodded. He was satisfied. He turned back to the altar and picked up his sword.
“So why is it?” the priest implored him. “Why is it, do you know? Why have you maintained your faith? Why do you seek salvation?”
The vampire fixed him with a long look. “Do you really wish to know the answer to that?” he wondered aloud after several minutes.
But the priest already knew his motivations. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do. I sought you out because you are nothing like the others. I wanted to know why. But I only know part of the answer. I want to know the rest of it.”
A faint, wry smile crossed the vampire’s face. “I don’t believe there is a simple answer,” he admitted.
“Tell me anyway,” impelled the priest. His eyes were sincere, fascinated.
The vampire came over to where the priest was standing. “Very well. I will tell you. I will take Confession. Will you hear my Confession, Father? It may take some time. You, unlike me, are getting older.”
“Yes, my son,” the priest replied. “I will hear your Confession.”
So the vampire knelt at the knee of the priest, and he crossed himself. “Bless me, Father,” he began, “for I have sinned. It has been two hundred and thirty-six years since my last Confession. I know not how many days.” He lost himself in thought for a space, perhaps reaching back through the years and centuries. He looked to the priest. The priest looked back at him without judgment. The vampire knight smiled to see it, and gave a nod, as if confirming that he would indeed tell the tale. After a pause and then a breath, he began.
