Here, In This Place: An Origin Tale

T  E  N

  

FRIENDS

IN

NEED

“Forgiveness means nothing.”

He screamed until he understood he was screaming, and even then he couldn’t stop. The sudden pain, the suddenness of everything was too much. The air hurt his lungs and burned his skin, and a great burning hunger too, worse than heartburn twisted through his body. Then his teeth broke through fiber, His thirst was being quenched. It was like cool water when he’d traveled all day, thirsty as fuck, across the desert, He drank until he vomited, and the cool, cool water hurt his stomach.

As the pain abated, and his mind returned to him, Sunny realized that he was naked, and he was in darkness, that he was strangely stronger and more alert than he had ever been. Quickly memory returned to him. He was Sunny Kominsky of Akeldama, California. He had come here to find his friend. He had come to Germantown in a shitty city in Ohio called Lassador. He had thought he was saving someone named Gabriel and he had gone home with Gabriel. They’d had sex and Gabriel had… killed him. And what was quenching his thirst, even as he was dislodged by hands stronger than his own, was a chest, and what he was drinking, though it had for him the same nourishing sensation, better actually, than ice cold water, was not ice cold, was not water at all, was most certainly… blood.

“There, there,” Gabriel said, his shirt still undone, the red marks on his white chest almost instantly healing. He put his hands to his knees and said, “You’ve weakened me, Sunny. I gave you too much.”

Sunny knelt, naked on something like a great ottoman in a large, barely lit room.

“What the fuck have you done to me?” he demanded.

Gabriel was still panting.

“You know what I’ve done to you,” Gabriel said. “And if you remember those journals you told me you read, and what your friend told you, then you also know you’re stuck here for a little bit.”

Sunny put his hand to his throat.

“Your throat was crushed,” Gabriel continued. “It’s often just part of the process. The making is hard. But that’s all done. It’s strange, very strange. For a long time nothing happens, nothing at all. And then, suddenly, the return to life rushes through and there you are. For a very long time I was afraid it wouldn’t happen, but it did, and you’re here.”

Sunny ran his hand along his neck where the skin was smooth, and Gabriel said, “When it happens, if you are trying to make someone, if you really want that someone made, it is as nerve racked as we ever get, for the person is truly dead. You were a fucking corpse. I don’t mean you were in a deep sleep. You were just dead dead. And then, about an hour ago, it started to happen, the Change. The discoloration stopped, the bruises went, color came back, your throat…. It healed. And then that thing,… that extra thing. And your heart started beating, and then you were screaming. I don’t know if you woke the others.”

“The others?”

“Carter. My sister. Her crew.”

“Your sister.”

At once Sunny and Gabriel both said, “Rosamunde.”

“Yes,” Gabriel said. “We are… She is making her own clan. I made you for her.”

“Holy fuck,” Sunny shook his head.

“No, no, don’t do that,” the handsome Gabriel said. “I… listen Sunny. When you told me what you told me I should have killed you, but I didn’t because there was a fire in you. I saw that. We made love—”

Sunny turned his face away, wanting to vomit.

“Look at me!” Gabriel said.

Slowly, Sunny Kominsky forced himself to look at Gabriel.

“When we made love you were so tender, you were so strong I knew why you were here. With me.”

Sunny said nothing.

“It was proorisménoi,” Gabriel’s voice sounded heavy and accented as it moved around the word, “Destined! That is how some of the greatest are made.”

“Fuck you!” Sunny punched Gabriel square in the jaw, and the young man fell back, rubbing his cheek.

He did not appear angry, but stood up and Sunny did as well.

“Yes! Yes, there is that fire! Hit me a thousand times if you must, but I saw it in you. You said you came here for a reason—“

“To find my friend!”

“You found him. You found exactly what happened to him and passed beyond it. He was not meant for this. You were, and you are here. This is your destiny.”

“I will walk out that door in the morning, and set myself on fire!” Sunny declared.

Gabriel’s face changed and suddenly he slapped Sunny hard.

Sunny felt the slap, but it wasn’t painful. It was more like the observation of a slap. Something had changed in him.

“I give you life, and this is how you would treat with it? Walk out into the…. Walk out into the….Well, fucking walk. Just walk! I’ll open the goddamn door for you in the morning.”

“You’re nuts!” Sunny said.

“We could make love every day and hunt every night,” Gabriel said.

“I’ll never forgive you.”

“Forgive?” Gabriel spat. “What kind of fucking Sunday school lesson do you think we’re in? You are a blood drinker now. Forgiveness means nothing. Now, I will get your clothes. You cannot be introduced to the others like this. As beautiful as you are, you cannot be introduced like this.”

Sunny realized Gabriel was admiring his body and rather than being sickened he wanted to fuck him. So Sunny was disgusted with this new self and as his penis rose he said, “One day I’ll kill you.”

Gabriel looked frankly at his erection, and then turned around to retrieve Sunny’s clothing. When he came back with them and laid them on the ottoman, as Sunny spoke, Gabriel said, “You would kill me?

“Do you think that threatens me?”

“You don’t believe me?”

Sunny stepped into his briefs and reached for his jeans.

“You don’t understand me at all,” Gabriel said.

“When I saw you I thought, look at this mortal boy, this frail thing who lasts as long as a blade of grass? And there is so much fire in him, so much strength. What if I could make him into what I am? What if he could survive it as few mortals can? He would be… he would be stronger than me. Don’t you see…?” Gabriel looked on him adoringly as Sunny lowered his tee shirt, “don’t you understand? To make something beautiful, something immortal, make a thing stronger than me, that had the power to kill me…. When the day comes that you take your revenge, I will fall at your feet! I would be honored to die at your hands.”

Sunny froze, staring at Gabriel in wonder.

“We may all eventually die at your hands,” Gabriel said, rising, his voice suddenly becoming pragmatic.

“But that day is not today. Come. Meet my sister.”

Later on, Sunny would say that, more than anything, this place had the feel of a stage that had been transformed into a mock palace. It was a great hall, but Sunny could tell it had been a warehouse. Why these people, these vampires, were in a warehouse in Ohio was a question he’d have to ask when he was better established in his new reality. Everything seemed mad. He couldn’t trust the world right now.

“He is beautiful,” the first woman said.

She was beautiful, strange, something he had never seen before or really only seen in those odd paintings of knights and fainting women, but here she was, pale skinned with thick, long red hair, a real Ophelia. Beside her, ice white, most un Ophelia like was a woman with long blond hair, and she nodded as well. None of them did so in lust, but more as if looking at a piece of art, and Rosamunde said to Gabriel, “I’m glad he turned out, I worried that you couldn’t do it.”

Gabriel had said much the same thing. Was it that difficult to make another vampire? And if it was so difficult, how had these been made? Except there was something in Dan’s journal that implied that maybe not all of them were made. After all, Tanitha had a father. He shook his head, so many questions to ask, so many questions.

“I am Evangeline,” the blond woman said. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“If you speak English I can understand it,” Sunny said.

“I detect sarcasm,” she said, and Sunny, listening to her posh BBC voice said, “I detect a fake accent.”

At this he heard snickers from around the room, and he continued, “I would have thought vampires were above faking it. Guess not.”

“Hold your tongue.”

“You hold your tongue,” Sunny returned, his face not changing. “From what I get of the way this show runs, there’s a boss here, and you’re not it.”

Evangeline’s face was even paler, and he saw that she had lifted her long white hand. She was about to slap him, and he would have slapped her back. He suddenly didn’t care about things anymore. He never had, but now he cared much less.

“That’s enough,” the beautiful red headed woman said. She was actually in a great soft gown like something from one of those Queen Elizabeth movies, and the light in her hair made it shine like gold.

“There is an order,” she said, “you are right. And it demands respect, and I am at the head of that order and for now I beg you, leave off mocking my lieutenant.”

“And you are Rosamunde,” Sunny said.

“My fame precedes me,” she looked to her brother.

“Not him. Dan Rawlinson.”

At this her eyes flew open and she lost composure, but only for a moment, and Sunny was reminded that there were other vampires out here, others who could help him. If only he could get out of here.

“What are your plans for me?” he said. “How do I get back to my friends?. To my family? Or is that forbidden?”

“It wouldn’t even be possible,” Evangeline said to him.

“You are new. You cannot walk in the day and you cannot not feed.”

“Feed?”

“But you know what you are,” she continued, though Rosamunde had opened her mouth and now turned to see what Evangeline would say.

“You know what Rosamunde made you, and what you are is something that must feed on women and on men, and that you cannot live without drinking.blood. Welcome to what you are.”

The only resistance Sunny could offer was to feebly say, “Gabriel made me.”

“He made you for me,” Rosamunde said, “swearing fealty to me. So it is as if I made you.”

Fealty, swearing fealty. How old were these creatures? What kind of a world did they come from? Never mind. Sunny shook his head.

“So, I’m stuck here,” Sunny said, and he hated saying that because the words were totally unnecessary. Though Rosamunde only nodded solemnly, the smile on Evangeline’s face made him want to stab her. Stabbing would have done nothing.

A dark haired man, older than Gabriel, less kind looking, stepped forward. He was dressed in modern clothes, slacks, a turtleneck. He had been standing with a group of what appeared to be just ordinary guys. Now he held Sunny’s phone out to him.

“Call your friends,” he said.

Sunny took the phone and opened it.

“They keep calling,” the man said.

“This is Carter,” Gabriel said.

“Call them and let them know you are alive,” Carter said. “Let them even know you will be back with them—sometimes—in a few days.”

Sunny saw there had been calls from Nehru, calls from Brad, calls from Dave. Two from his mother.

“You might want to sit down and call them all or… text.” Carter said the word with distaste.

“Obviously it wouldn’t do to tell them too much. You will be staying with us. When strength returns you may even go back to something like the life you were living, but you will always return here.”

“And what if I choose not to.”

“Then Ricardo is already in California waiting to slash Avery Kominsky’s throat,” Rosamunde said without passion. 

“And after her, your friend Jack.”

“And after Jack… the others,” Gabriel said, but he said it morosely.

“It’s just how we are,” Rosamunde said, not smiling. “We cover all things. So, please, make your calls, and let your friends know you are alive. Tell your boss you are coming back to work.”

“My job is gone by now.”

“I assure you it is not,” Rosamunde said. “Trust me, I have my ways.”