Here, In This Place: An Origin Tale

THE JOURNAL OF DAN RAWLINSON

CONCLUSION

“I chose you because you longed for death and your old life was at an end,” she said.

Rosamunde lay on a great chaise lounge piled high with cushions in a richly appointed room. For some time she or better her servants, had dug a tunnel into the morgue of Stenger and Stengers and kept apartments underground and in the old building next door. When it was time to leave this land, she would take them down and be on her way, but right now, in the land of night, amidst curtains and stain glass Tiffany lamps, she lived in luxury.

“I know I am not wrong,” Rosamunde said. “I have a feeling for such things.”

She said she always had this feeling. That she had made a few drinkers before, but now she would make a large household of them. She even said that this was not normally done, but there was no time to waste. She had made Carter.

“But he wanted it. He was done with his earthly life. You were done, but you didn’t know it.”

“How do you know I was done?”

“You said it. You talked freely. You came to me willingly, more willingly than you know. Eileen cheated on you with Craig. Myron was so successful and had a family. He made life work. You’d been trying for almost thirty years and it still wasn’t working. You were done with that old life, so I gave you a new one and for that,” Rosamunde bowed her red head in humility, “you are heartily welcome.”

He could scarcely believe her, but rather than be enraged, he listened to everything she said. He learned how, like Carter, and like Martin the other one who was out now, he would go out and kill every night and return in the day. If her expectation that he return at the end of the night seemed far fetched, then he had to account for the fact that he would not be able to survive without killing or in the daylight, Young drinkers were like children, and the only hope for them at the beginning was other drinkers.

Graciously, like a queen, she allowed him to drink from her. He was still naked and had not even noticed it.

“Leave, Carter,” she told him and Carter did.

“You may come to bed with me,” Rosamunde said,

Looking back it only seemed practical that he obliged her. He spent the rest of the night learning the intensity of vampire sex, expending his fury on her, and they passed out toward the morning.

“Carter was never a very good lover,” Rosamunde murmured, stroking Dan’s hair.

“You are handsome and wild, and you will do quite well. Tomorrow night you will go out on the hunt, and learn how good the true kill feels.”

As he fell asleep he knew he’d loved the sex. He knew he’d had sex with women he didn’t particularly like before and he knew he had gained, by fucking her, something like trust. In that vampire night that was the day, he fucked her several more times, understood what he would understand later which was that, even though she had killed him, he was hypnotically attracted to her. When he left that night, supposedly to go on the hunt, he knew he could not come back for the simple reason that if he stayed he would be her slave and forget himself entirely.

The flaw in Rosamunde’s plan was her great confidence. The next flaw was that she had no idea that Dan knew Germantown, or that he could walk the next seven blocks to Myron’s house. Myron’s wife was as excited to see Dan as Myron, and they both loaded him down with questions.

“Are you in trouble?” Liv  demanded, looking at him.

“Yes,” Dan said, “but I won’t be if I can just get to Glencastle before the night is over. I left my car at the Midland Hotel.”

Myron and Liv were not the sort of people to ask wearisome questions, and Liv pointed out, “If you left it there, then it’s been towed, and we can figure that out later. Myron, take Dan to Glencastle.”

Myron questioned nothing. The kids were curious, but he just kissed them on the heads and said, “Later. Daddy loves you.”

When Myron said, “Is this something to do with that girl?” all Dan said was, “Yes.”

“She’s not dead is she?” Myron asked levelly, as they zoomed down Buren, headed for the state road.

“No. But she’s bad news, and… there’s really only one way I can do anything about her.”

Myron nodded, rubbing his finger under his nose and squinting into the night.

“I got you, buddy.”

Dan had a sense that, as they were approaching Brummel Street, Myron understood something of what Dan was trying to do, that he remembered that day almost fifteen years ago when they had tried to find that house. He didn’t know how many times Dan had looked for it on his own, and right now Dan thought, I need you, I need you to be here, and then he was surprised by the ordinariness with which he saw, between 4846 and 4850, a tall purple Victorian, its lights on through the bushes and trees. 4848 Brummel.

“Thank God! Wait for me,” Dan said, and Myron, who did remember not being able to find this house, nodded and watched as Dan ran up the path.

He banged on the door rapidly, and it was opened by a tall, brunette vampire with dark Mediterranean features and wide dark eyes, a look of both concern and suspicion on his face. Dan stood blinking at him, and he said, “Can I... help?”

Then… “Who are you? I know you are not human.”

“I’m as human as you,” Dan said. “Please, I need Kruinh or Tanitha.”

The elegant vampire who looked as if he was on his way to a business meeting eyed him cautiously, but said, “Come in.”

Dan was aware of Myron outside waiting when this austere vampire closed the door, and he wondered if Tanitha and Kruinh would even remember him and then, moments later, Tanitha came down the stairs into the foyer, her shawl wrapped around her but her eyes were wide as she looked Dan up and down.

She flung out her hand and terrified Dan, pronouncing, “Tazi kŭshta da bŭde vidyana zavinagi i nikoga da ne e skrita ot teb. Zashtoto si krŭv ot moyata krŭv!”[1] 

And then she said, “From now on this house is always open to you, Daniel. What has happened to you? You have been…” she came nearer, passing the other vampire, and grasping Dan’s chin, “made.

“Who did this?” she wondered. There were, after all, not that many vampires.

“Rosamunde—”

Before he could say more, both she and the dark haired vampire hissed, and Tanitha swore, “Kuchka ot yamata na ada!

“Lawrence,” Tanitha said, her voice regaining some of its composureas she spoke to the elegant man, “take Daniel upstairs and get him a room. Daniel, did you come with that man waiting outside the house?”

How had she seen that? But nevermind.

“Yes.”

“First tell him you are with us now. That we will take care of this business. Oh, that whore, I will rip her fangs out with my bare hands,” Dan heard Tanitha saying as he went out of the door, but even as he told Myron that he was safe and that he would tell him all later, he knew he would only tell him some of it, and when Dan was walking back up the to the house, he was still surprised that 4848 Brummel remained and would continue to remain in his vision, and never be hidden from him again.

“Dan,” the tall, brunette business vampire offered his hand as Dan closed the door behind him, “you can call me Laurie.”

He placed a hand on Dan’s shoulder.

“Let’s find you a room.”

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[1] “This house be forever seen and never hidden from thee. For thou art blood of my blood.”