Here, In This Place: An Origin Tale

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CONCLUSION

The castle rested high above the great green trees, its stone walls, square towers and round turrets, warmed by the glow of the midday sun. Every tower was capped by a glorious deep red roof, as were the turrets and the blocky, homely collection of buildings that made Visastruta, a place out of dreams, or at least out of Tanitha’s. Beneath it, like sapphire spearheads the lakes glowed through the trees and the ancient cracks of mountains, and in it, through the ancient narrow windows, light shone on the raftered halls and the long corridors. Even now, as she marched with Rosamunde in chains, head hung, there was a strangely lightness in the heart of Tanitha Tzepesh Kertesz.

She had seen the hall she now walked into bright with torches, hung with banners of lords long gone, crowded with the glittering and the great. But now it was large and lit only by the white yellow of afternoon sun, a place of immense quiet and rest, once known to all, now mostly hidden from the world. At the end of the hall, sprawled across a great wooden throne, curling dark hair fanned about her face, rested a woman of unaccountable beauty, honey skinned, wide grey eyes opening and unopening with a reptilian slowness, her long hands hanging from the sides of the throne. She straightened herself now, and sat only slightly more erect, red lips curving into a smile.

“My favorite niece,” she purred in an old language between Slavonic and Greek, a language Tanitha never spoke but for here, “and my least favorite,” she regarded Rosamunde.

“Miriamne,” Tanitha said.

The older woman rose from the throne and approached her niece, embracing Tanitha a long time, kissing her on both cheeks.

“No kiss from this one, eh?” she said, touching Rosamunde’s cheek as the red headed drinker cringed. “No, not that sort of kiss. I hear that Orlando is no more.”

“Yes, Aunt.”

Miriamne nodded.

“I will take that loss deep into me, and I will feel it,” Miriamne said, clutching at a a plain black jewel that hung from a gold chain about her neck. “But not just now. Now is the time for joy.”

She called out something, and three men arrived. They were in plain enough clothing and Miriamne said, “Prepare tea for the Princess Tanitha and for me. For the Lady Rosamunde, her punishment. Take her to the teething room.”

At this Rosamunde threw up her head and made a wild scream, but Miriamne made a gesture, and the scream died in the vampiress’s throat.

“Take her,” Miriamne repeated while Rosamunde was hauled away panicking, for her voice that was no more.

“Gabriel is still at large.”

“Let Gabriel alone,” Miriamne said in a low voice. “He was the weakest one of that family. He always followed whatever Rosamunde did.”

While Rosamunde was hauled up, screaming with no sound, the two women hooked arms and walked from the chamber, Tanitha in a great blue satin gown she had changed into downbelow, and she said, “Aunt Rhodias—”

“Will keep silent. She should never have married that traitor, and if she was not going to contain her daughter, then she has no right to complain when we move in. Rosamunde has done untold damage, for one thing creating that bitch, Evangeline. Was Evangeline there?”

“We did not see her,” Tanitha said.

“I know she is your Christopher’s sister, and Christopher Ashby is and always has been a fine man, but one day you will have to kill her—”

“Most likely.”

“And when you do, I want her head in a box on my bureau.”

Out on the parapet they looked over the green valley and the deep lake.

“Mother says she misses the old days, but I think we have faired very well,” Miriamne said. “She does not understand, if we live in the past we become stone, and drinkers were never meant to be stone. We must move with the times. I think the castle is more pleasant now.”

“You don’t miss the balls, the pageantry, the lords and ladies?”

“The wars?” Miriamne said. “And the wars and the endless wars? No.”

Then she said, “I hear…. That my favorite little brother—”

“Your only little brother!”

“I hear Baby Brother has found love. Maybe?”

“A boy named Sunny. A mortal. Well, he was mortal, but he is newly made. So new. He’s only about twenty-three I think.”

“Well, your father is young.”

“He is not!”

“To me he is. And what about you, my dear?”

“What about me?” Tanitha demanded.

But her aunt continued to look at her and finally Tanitha turned away.

“Damn you, you old vampiress!”

Miriamne threw back her head and laughed.

“His name is David.”

“Oh?”

“And… and you mustn’t laugh at me.”

“Why would I laugh at you?”

“Because of what I just said. Because… because David really is mortal.”

“No! But then…But then so was Peter.”

“Yes,” Tanitha said, looking away.

“Look, there is nothing wrong with loving a mortal, with loving anyone. You have a strong heart.”

“Peter would not be turned.”

“And this one?”

“I’ve never brought it up.”

“The good ones never want it,” Miriamne said.

“Aunt Magda...”

“Magdalena,” Miriamne nodded.

“She loved a mortal.”

“We all loved him. He was a great warrior, but it was plague that took him, And of course this was long before you were born. When he died, Lena lost her mind. She went mad for over a hundred years.”

“I’m not willing to be mad for a hundred years.”

“You’ve already lost so much,” Miriamne said.

“Mother was one of us, and still she died,” Tanitha said. “So nothing’s proof against suffering.”

“Exactly,” Miriamne patted her niece’s hand. Anyone who had lived for centuries knew what loss was.

“How long are you here?”

“How long do you wish for me to be here?”

“I wish for ever, but I’ll take a few days.”

“Then a few days is what you get.”

“Shall we dine tonight?”

When Miriamne said dine, she always meant food, good restaurants. At her great age, the need for human blood was rare, and the desire moreso.

“We can go into Sibiu—you should see it now! Or take the plane into Bucharest.”

“I’m done with planes for the day.”

“We’ll have to take a plane to get to any of them.”

“Sibiu. It’s shorter.”

“Excellent.”

 Miriamne looked up to a honey stoned tower across from them, with a great red mansard roof.

“You had better go speak to your grandmother.”

“Why doesn’t she ever come to see us?”

“She is suspicious of the New World.”

“It’s as old as any other part of the world,” Tanitha said. “Besides, Columbus has been dead for almost five hundred years, so you can hardly call it New by anyone’s standards.”

Miriamne barked a rueful laugh and said, “Try explaining that to a woman who still remembers the Roman Empire.”

When the plane came down at LIA two days later, Dan Rawlinson was glad to be home. Myron was staying overseas a few extra days, and it seemed like he and Olivia might be having problems. Dan was concerned about that, but as the plane landed, and he came back to the world he knew, gladness eclipsed his sadness for his friend. Coming out into the well sized lobby of a not embarrassing airport, he was so glad to see two friends, Tanitha Kertesz and David Lawry, that it was a moment before he stopped, staggered and realized neither one of them had any business knowing the other.

While he looked from David to the smaller woman whose great hat brim was covering half of her face while large shades hid her eyes, Tanitha said, “Much has happened since you’ve been gone.

Dan looked from Tanitha to David and said, “Yes… I see.”

They had left the hotel in Lassador with Sunny’s promise to follow in a few days. Neither Laurie nor Chris said anything, but Kruinh had made one and was the maker of the maker of the other, and so he knew they were thinking Sunny had lied to them and gone his own way.

“Do you think I am stupid?” Kruinh said.

“Master?”

“Do you think after all this time my mind is slipping?”

Laurie had cleared his throat while driving.

“Kruinh, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

The vampire was seized with a sudden desire to knock Lawrence Malone in the back of his head and, probably, Laurie already knew this. They drove on in relative silence.

That afternoon, when Tanitha, David and Dan arrived back at the old Victorian, Dan Rawlinson was the first before Kruinh, though it was Tanitha who first embraced her father and then the others.

“So Rosamunde is put down?” Dan said, eagerly.

“She has been put down,” Tanitha said. “I placed her in the care of Miriamne, and I’m sure my aunt has been very creative.”

“And you ended the clan they had been making?” Dan said as if a bad weed had been dug out.

“Mostly,” Chris reported.

“Mostly?” Dan raised an eyebrow.

When Chris looked to Kruinh, whose face was impassive, and then told Dan everything about Sunny, Dan declared, “Well, that’s great.”

“How is it great?” Laurie eyed him with disgust.

“Because they were people just like us,” Dan said. “And in case you forgot, I was made by Rosamunde. I was made like that. And you were too, though you like to forget it.”

“I don’t forget anything.”

“Do you forget that you were made by a lesser vampire and should have been put down by the old laws as much as me, or tbis Sunny?” Dan said.

When Chris looked at him, Dan said, “I meant your sister who gave Laurie the death blow, not you when you saved him. But still, both of you are lesser vampires than Rosamunde.”

“Well,” Chris considered that before being insulted, “that is true.”

“We don’t even know if this guy is going to show or not,” Laurie said. “He could have given us the slip.”

“You absolutely do know,” David, who had no care for Laurie’s fangs said. “He said he will, and he will.”

“Peace, David,” Kruinh said, heading up the stairs, still well dressed. He added,“Lawrence, you’re just mad because he hit you.”

“I’m telling you,” Laurie almost stage whispered to Tanitha, “this guy has some sort of hold over Kruinh.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Tanitha asked.

She reached up, tweaked Laurie’s nose, and then went to the kitchen, pulling David behind her.

Before sunrise the next morning, making its noisy growling entrance into the neighborhood of 4848 Brummel Street, came an old Harley Davidson, Easy Rider style, with the front wheel so far out it reminded Dan Rawlinson of a woman with outstretched legs, and off of it hopped a man in a studded leather jacket and dark shades, chomping gum as he came up the walk. He pulled off his helmet and he was great looking, great looking but in a funny way, sort of like Laurie. His blue eyes were wide under a heavy brow, and his golden hair was curly and pale as he pushed it out of his face. He, Dan realized, wasn’t pretending to be anyone. As Dan opened the door, the newcomer looked mildly surprised.

“You’re Sunny!” Dan held out his hand.

“Oh, I hadn’t put it all together. Holy shit! But… I knew this would happen. I knew. There was something in you. I knew you wouldn’t stop.”

He threw his arms about Sunny like a long lost brother, and he whispered, “David stayed the night.”

Sunny burst into a smile, which was the first time in a while he had, and when he did, Dan understood his name.

“I hope he and Tan didn’t keep you up.”

“I’ve heard worst,” Dan said, grinning. “And done worse. Com on in.”

 

 

 

“I had to do some of it on my own,” Sunny was saying when the others were coming into the kitchen. “I had to know I wasn’t completely helpless, and after all, how could I be? We being what we are?”

“But when did you travel?” Dan asked.

“I thought about testing out the sun thing, but I couldn’t do it.”

“I know!” Dan said.

“You can now, right?”

“I can now,” Dan was saying as Chris and Laurie entered the kitchen. “But it was a while.”

Dan realized that if he were newly made he would want to know how long a while was and said, “You have to be feeding all the time, and it actually took me about a year. I’m sorry about that. It drives some people crazy. As time goes by you can start testing the waters. Sort of like you did by showing up at sunrise, but…”

“And that actually means you’re pretty strong,” Chris added, holding out his hand.

When Sunny looked at it, Chris said, “There isn’t a way to make up for what happened, and if it happened again and I didn’t know you, I don’t know how the situation would have changed. I was there to do a job, Sunny.”

Sunny nodded, but still didn’t shake his hand.

“I’m beginning to understand that,” he said. “I have done several jobs in the last few nights, and I know I probably saved a woman from being raped and strangled and stopped a few other things from happening, but I also know there are some children who have no fathers, and spouses who are now widowed.”

Chris nodded.

“Just understand,” Sunny continued, “I came because Kruinh asked me to, and if I remain with you all, then the day may come when I have to follow orders, or give them, and when they affect you, I will give as little apology to you as you are now giving to me.”

Chris nodded curtly. Here was no boy. He loved Dan but Daniel was still very young and of his world. Sunny was a man in the classic sense, old before his time, and now, having been made a blood drinker, he wasn’t even that.

He is here because he is in love with Kruinh, Chris understood. And Kruinh is in love with him.

Seeing the sobriety in Sunny’s ancient face, he understood how the two matched each other. He understood.

And Sunny understood. Kruinh would not call to him. He did not have to. Alexander Kominsky threaded through the many rooms of that house and turned to at last find, at the end of a dark and winding hall, a great oaken door. It was semi open and in the room beyond, the sun shone over the carpet of a library or an office, and at a great desk, Kruinh sat writing, his broad back to Sunny, and now he stopped as Sunny entered. Beyond, Sunny saw the great bedroom, and presumptuously he crossed the room and unshouldered his small bag, placing it on the floor. When he turned around, Kruinh stood before him, silent. The two of them looked on each other, and Sunny took Kruinh’s face in his hands and kissed him. Their heads, noses and lips were pressed together for some time, and then Sunny released him and knew that no one took liberties with this man the way he had.

“You’re home,” Kruinh said.

Sunny nodded.

“I’m home.”

END OF PART TWO

BUT WE'RE NOT DONE YET!