The Old

Body and Blood

Conclusion

“I took Communion today.” Laurie said as he stood at Loreal’s door in old Susanna’s house.

“I saw that,” she said.

Then she said, “I didn’t know that vampires went to church.”

“Long ago, when I was married, I went. I went because I had to. People would have wondered. But that was a while ago. I’ve sat in churches, but I have not actually taken Communion in over a hundred years.”

“Then why did you take it today?”

“I don’t know.”

“And what does it mean?”

“I don’t really know,” Laurie said. “I just felt… compelled. It’s the strangest thing, isn’t it? All the people who talk about religion and belief and thou shalt and thou shalt not, and in the end these are just gestures, a series of gestures and deeds, and you don’t really know why you are doing them, where they come from, why you are moved to do them today and not tomorrow. That’s how it was for me. I just… I just did it.”

“I guess that’s why I do it too,” Loreal said. “Did it. Was expected to do it. They say every true witch has a religion which people see, and then the inner religion which no one sees.”

“Yes?”

“Though up until now I haven’t really learned much about that inner religion. And I’ve been kind of indifferent to the Church. Maybe when you took Communion you were answering something else. Answering the deeper religion. Maybe.”

Laurie looked away from her, down the hall, and she said, “Did I say something?’

And then he kissed her.

“You have sweet dreams,” he began.

But she kissed him back, and in the hall way, Laurie bent down to pull her toward him, and then looked around and they went into the bedroom, closing the door.

Laurie parted from her.

“What am I doing?”

“Kissing me,” Loreal said. “I’m not the brightest person, and even I can see that.”

Laurie bent down and kissed her again, turning her back toward the door so he could press Loreal against him. He felt her hands on his shoulders and touching his face, and then he pulled away again.

“This is not the way it’s going to happen,” he said, pulling away, and then putting his arms at his sides and breathing. “This is not the way.”

“I’m alright with it,” Loreal said smoothing down her blouse.

“I’m not. I’m not alright with going back to Lynn knowing we did what we were about to. I’m not alright with being with you and then leaving you and going back to Lynn.”

“Had you thought that maybe I’m the type of person who would be okay with that?” Loreal said. “Maybe I’m not as fragile as you think.”

“I don’t think you’re fragile at all,” Laurie said. “I just think I don’t want things to be like that between us. And I hope no one saw.”

Loreal raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t want to bring scandal to your name.”

“Scandal to…? Oh, goddamn, you’re… a classic.”

Laurie groaned, looking up to the ceiling, shoved his hands in his pocket and laughed.

Loreal wrapped her arms around herself, exhaling.

“Alright,” she said after a moment. “Alright.”

Laurie shook his head and blew out his own cheeks.

“I should go.”

“You’re going back to the city.”

“Yes. Do you need a ride?”

“That would actually defeat the purpose of… everything you’re doing right now. Wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Laurie shrugged. “I suppose it would.”

Seth knew he wasn’t alone. He took his time in pushing back the covers and rising to look up at his visitor.

There was a time when I would have been frightened, and that time would actually have been about a week ago, Seth Moore noted.

The man was standing there serene, tall and handsome, almost like Kyle, but with no beard. He had dark wavy hair and a wolfish face, high cheekbones and greenish grey eyes. He was wearing a dirty old winter coat and Seth said, “Would you like to have a seat?”

The man cleared his throat and said, “Thank you. Thank you, I would.”

“You look so tired,” Seth said.

He had learned about this. Put all of your compassion and vision into this moment. Do not run from the moment. It is the actual moment you have worked toward. As you become more powerful, these moments you once ran from will become more frequent, not less. They will become stronger, not fainter. Lewis had told him this.

“I am tired,” the man said.

“You’ve been running,” Seth assessed. “A long time.”

The man nodded. Seth had the feeling he might have been around fifty, even though he looked the same age as Seth. Seth really wanted to get out of bed and hug him, tell him it would all be alright. But it was past that time now, and everything wasn’t alright, or else this man wouldn’t be here.

“I’m Seth,” Seth said by way of introduction.

“Nathan.”

“I want to help you,” Seth told him, climbing out of bed and sitting on the side of it. He was naked, but somehow this didn’t matter, and it seemed foolish to say, “Excuse me, could you walk out and let me put on some clothes?”

“Please,” Seth said, “Tell me how I can help you.”

“Right now,” Nathan said, “I just need someone to know I’m here. I saw the dead light in the window,” he pointed to the flickering candle, “and so I came. Also, as soon as I entered here, I understood other things. I understood that I was guided here. That you are a Dunharrow.”

“You know about us?”

“Yes,” Nathan said, “You are about to meet people I love. You are about to help them do what I could not. When you do, just be there for them.”

Seth nodded, feeling his brow furrow.

“And please,” Nathan said, “If you can, write your uncle Augustus.”

“Augustus?”

“Tell him it’s time to release what he has that is mine.”

The wind was howling in the trees when Lewis rose to leave Chris’s side, traveling down the steps to the living room. Something was waiting outside for him, and all through the day he had felt the presences, presences that had always come to him in winter.He cursed, stumbling into a wall and thought how someone might have left a light on, and then went down the hall, past the large kitchen and to the back porch. Through the blowing trees the moon shone fitfully on the new white snow, and as Lewis gathered his robe about him, he saw, coming from the left and right, out of the wood, wolves, enormous, so tall that from toe to shoulder they would have been tall as Chris, and Lewis did not fear the beasts, but went out from the porch and down the steps to meet them.

They had, Lewis thought, the nobility and beauty and strangeness that, unlike many people, he assigned to dogs as much as cats. But their eyes held the cleverness and fire of a tiger’s, and they looked down on him, their hot breath making steam above his head.

Lewis spoke in formal tones.

“What hail, wargs?”

The first wolf, his mane white, opened his mouth and spoke:

“Hard is it on earth,
with mighty whoredom;
Axe-time, sword-time,
shields are sundered.”

And then the other wolf, his mane stained with gold and red brown recited:

“Wind-time, wolf-time,
ere the world falls;
Nor ever shall men
each other spare.”

Above them, the highest of the trees creaked with the power of the wind, and now the wolves raised their heads and sang, fairly howled:

Yggdrasil shakes,
and shiver on high
The ancient limbs,
and the giant is loose;
To the head of Mim does
Othin give heed,
But the kinsman of Surtr
shall slay him soon.

And as Lewis still shook with their words, the first wolf lowered his head till Lewis could feel his hot breath, see the shining teeth. He asked in a low voice:

“Do you know more than you knew before?”

When Lewis was climbing back into bed, he felt Chris’s arm around him, smelled the slight salt of his armpits, the warmth of his skin.

“You’re so cold,” Chris said. “What have you been doing?”

“Talking to wolves,” Lewis said as the wind howled above them, striking the house.

“What?”

“I will find the Maid. I will perform the ritual. I will become the head of the Clan.”

With Loreal out of the car, he drove at the break neck speed he only used with Chris and once with Lewis, able to reach the city in an hour, able to dodge all approaching vehicles with the sharp senses of what he was. He felt free this way, and he felt like he needed to get back to the city and back to sense.

He was knocking on Lynn’s door. She was on the second floor and had come down the stairwell to let him in. As he came through the door he kissed her and only as he parted from her, did she say, “I thought you’d stay there for the night. I didn’t know you were coming. How fast did you drive?”

“Do you want me?” he demanded, kissing her as he shut the door with his back and locked it. “Tell me you want me.”

“I do,” she was a little disconcerted by the hunger in his eyes, the set of his face, almost irrational, but she said, “ Laurie, I do.”

He pushed her against the door, searching under her robe for panties and finding none, he undid his belt and pulled down his trousers and his briefs. Lynn started as, moaning deeply, he pressed himself inside, fucking her against the door. As he fucked her like a piston, grunting, not speaking his head buried in her shoulder, her back pressed against the door, she was not entirely sure if she wanted this or not, if this was consent or conquest.She gripped his back and decided to give in, decided she liked Laurie fierce as he had never been with her before.

In her living room they sat on the sofa, Laurie with a Scotch in his hand.

“I don’t like funerals,” he said. “I’m glad to be back. I’m glad to feel like myself again.”

He wanted to ask, “Are you alright?” He didn’t. He wanted to check for bruises, ask how she’d felt about the strangeness of their encounter. Instead he chose to move past it, hoping they would go to bed soon, side by side, maybe make love in a more normal fashion. Maybe, possibly, she would take him the way he had taken her. Then they would be even.

“I knew I should have gone with you,” she said, pushing that familiar dark hair behind her back.

“But then if I hadn’t…”

She sat down on the carpet instead of the sofa, placing her elbow on his thigh, “I wouldn’t have had time to do research.”

“Research?”

“Yes,” Lynn said. “I was researching my family, and my city roots.”

And as Lynn sat there telling him, Laurie slowly sipped his Scotch and immediately stopped when Lynn said, “And her name was Catherine, and she had a brother named Patrick and a sister named Vanessa. And her mother, well, and this is just an old fashioned name you don’t hear anymore—”

Please God, no.

“Veronica. Wasn’t there a Veronica in the Bible? But anyway, and this made me think we must be distantly related, cause your family’s from Bridgeport too, right? Apparently my great-great grandfather’s name was Laurence Malone too. Spelled different, but isn’t that,” Lynn said, catching his hands, “amazing?”

“Yes,” Laurie said, when he remembered he’d been spoken too. “That really is something.”

Lynn got up and kissed him, sitting on his lap. He was sure now he had raped her, even if she didn’t know, and he was sure because right, now when she kissed him, he wanted to push her away. When she said, “Let’s go to bed,” he wanted to leave even as he nodded and got up with her.

“The most wonderful woman helped me find out all of this,” Lynn said as she unbuttoned Laurie’s shirt and kissed him at the center of his chest, ran her hands along his sides.

“She was much, much too beautiful to be working away in an archivist office. And her name, like something out of a poem… Evangeline.”

“Evange…”

“Evangeline,” Laurie heard Lynn say, as she pulled down his trousers and took his penis into her mouth.

Only two chapters (sections, not postings, there are several semi daily postings left) of The old.