Blood Haven: Chapter 2

The Tale of Blood

Allana Speaks.

(Paris, France. 1915)

I remember when all of this started, every last detail, every nuance of event as if it were yesterday. I close my eyes and see it all. This is not a dream, because dreams are for the living, and I am merely reliving my past in memory.

That summer was one of the warmest in the nation’s history. The air was almost intolerable, as pungent odors constantly wafted up from the dregs of the Seine. People’s tempers were on the rise because of the oppressive heat.

I was not enchanted to be in the city, Paris had ceased to hold any attraction for me. Its gaiety was forced and hollow; a carousel long robbed of its mystique, yet vainly holding on to a shade of its old glory. The young of our kind and the recently made mainly inhabited Paris, drawn by its crush and press. But I am older, much older, and no self-respecting Master like myself would be caught dead in such a raucous place. 

Which begged the question, why was I then in Paris?

 I felt a flash of irritation as I thought of the source of my predicament.  Valla was the reason I was here. Even though she was well over a century old, she still acted with childishness that got on my nerves. Sometimes I wondered what made me break my rule by making her a vampire. Probably because in more than 300 years, Valla was the only one who managed to make me laugh. She had a rare, almost innocent quality about her that charmed me most of the times, even though there was nothing remotely innocent about the former prostitute. That quality I found damnably irritating now.

Valla’s idea of keeping the fires of passion burning between us was to suddenly disappear and turn up in the other side of the world, expecting me to come after her. This latest episode has drawn out for days now. I woke in our home in Tsaritsyn to an empty house and a simple note. 

Let us play a game.

She was in Paris, and that I knew very well. We had a psychic connection that was shared between all vampires and their sired, which enabled me to locate her in an instant… if I wanted to.

In truth, the little unrest back home had been slowly building and we would have traveled elsewhere soon enough. But that did not justify her impetuousness. I could almost smell her scent, the sweet smell of roses drenched in vodka, over the vapors of the city. Valla was out there but she could take care of herself and find me whenever she needed to. 

For now I was boarding in Bacardi’s arms and beholden to another master, Adrian Bacardi. He owned a veritable number of establishments in greater Europe. Seeing as there could not be too many vampire masters in one city, he and I had some sort of understanding. He played the gracious host while impatiently seeking my exodus and I was the equally gracious guest, scornful of the little twit.

On many occasions I had made my opinion known to him; I detested his involvement in a recent practice among the younger vampires. They mass-gathered humans for the trivial purpose of orgy style feedings. In my opinion it brought too much attention upon us as a whole. A few pickings were negligible by the public, but it was a different matter when two hundred odd people suddenly disappear in a matter of weeks.

The other vampire masters did not speak on the subject. I suspected it was because most of them were financially tied to Bacardi one way or another, but not I. Adrian hated the fact that I could criticize him without fearing some sort of reprise but there was not much he could do about it. I was sired from a well-known line, by one of the most powerful of our kind. My influence in greater Europe was to be reckoned with, whether he liked it or not, and it was in his interest to keep me accommodated.

We were lounging in his private parlor that particular evening. There was a modest crowd in there with a few respectable, if not young vampires, and some older ones. We were the only two vampire masters, which was all the well. Adrian was engaging us in a description of his latest acquirement, a boat, when the door slammed open and she walked in. The conversation ceased in degrees as eyes gradually turned to her.

“Adrian Bacardi, I’ve been following your trail for five months now and finally caught up with you in Marseilles.”

It was the  American drawl to her voice that made me look up. She walked deeper into the room and looked around. She was dressed in knee length shorts, a sleeveless skin hugging shirt and tied a bandana on her head. Around her waist was an odd looking belt and as I looked closer I noticed the links on the belt were wooden stakes. She was obviously a vampire hunter and I glanced across to Adrian to see how he took this news.

My counterpart was staring at her with a soft smile playing on his lips. There was an almost smug dent to his smile that made me suspect he was prepared for this all along. He rose and walked up to her. “Really? And who might you be, human?”

 “My name is Darrin Hartford, and you've got something of mine.”

Her voice was low and husky, barely over a whisper yet it carried across the room. Adrian greeted this with a chuckle.

“I’m afraid I never heard of you. What is this something of yours that I have?”

A few of the others had finally recovered from her abrupt entry and were murmuring that he shouldn't deign to keep this human standing among them, but he stayed them with a hand. Darrin replied him in a voice utterly flat, without rancor.

“Five months ago a child was kidnapped on her way back from school in the town of Salvation, Kansas. A five year old, and one way or another, she is in your possession. That little girl is my sister; I know you have her, you ordered her kidnap and transported her here to France. I followed your trail until it led here and I’m not leaving without my sister."

Adrian laughed and walked stepped closer to her, until he was almost on top of her. She didn’t move or register his presence, Her eyes stared straight forward without meeting any of ours and there was no detectable emotion radiating from her. These were all effective measures to prevent against hypnosis and mind reading from a vampire. She obviously had extensive experience dealing with us. 

“We both know I’m right. so don’t bother denying it. I've killed scores to get here, your kind and mine alike. I’ll get to my sister, and I’ll take anyone and everyone in my way down if I have to.”

Adrian laughed out loud again at that. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. How you got past my guards is beyond me. But I guarantee you won’t get out so easily. The only way you’d be leaving here is in a casket.”

She moved so quickly, her hand lashing out in one fluid move, ready to drive a stake through him in an instant. Adrian barely had time to dodge as the stake whipped by his chest. He caught her hand and wrenched the weapon from her, redirecting it to her own chest. I watched with more than a little surprise as she sidestepped the blow and struck at him, catching him full in the face with the stake, and leaving behind an angry red welt. She was fast for a human, even some vampires, but to be one on one with a master? I began to see her in a new light; Darrin Hartford was a threat to anyone.

Adrian’s minions came pouring in at that. It seemed almost impossible at first but finally they became too much for her and she was forcibly restrained. They buckled her to the ground, where she strained and struggled for all she was worth. Adrian walked to her, a hand slightly touching the scar she had left on his flawless skin.

“I should kill you right now, but your little feat there just bought you more time, so instead I shall prolong your suffering.”

He looked around conversationally and smiled. “Much of Paris retains her historical structure from before the revolution. This house used to be a jailhouse of some sorts, one of the places where tortures were performed on suspected spies and treasonous characters. There are dungeons below that will be suitable for you.”

Darrin didn't bother to look up, or give him the satisfaction of seeing how badly his thugs had beaten her. “You can do what you want with me…for now. I’ll get my sister and when I do, you will pay.”

They dragged her off and he shut the door, turning around to address us brightly as if nothing had happened at all.

“Now where were we? Ah yes, I was talking about the hidden cache of fine wine I recently discovered aboard my new ship, The Fair Maiden.”

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(New Orleans 1920)

Allana hissed in pain and bounded off the bed. She looked at her arm, which had a bright red welt on it, and glanced up to the curtained windows. A single ray of sunlight pierced through the darkness and fell upon where her arm had previously lain. One of the dangers of memory was that vampires caught within their own past were unconscious of what went on around them at that given time. This made them completely vulnerable to any attack. She rubbed her already fading scar and lay back on the empty bed. Allana kept heavy drapes on the window; Darrin must have pulled them apart during her daily ritual of greeting the sun.

A faint smile passed over the vampire’s lips. It was barely past a day and her lover was already all over the place. Allana didn't need to look around to know where Darrin was. Her scent, ashy and with a metallic tang, lingered heavily on the bed and pervaded the room. It trailed down the stairs, into the kitchens, the bars and the gambling tables. Allana knew she was presently with Eryk and both were engaged in an exchange of words.

For some reason Darrin and the Seelie just couldn’t see eye to eye on any matter, though both tried to keep it from showing whenever she was near. Allana rolled lazily on the bed; she had no real reason to get up. Darrin could take care of whatever came up. Besides, it was time the other owner of Blood Haven took the reins in the day-to-day running of the club. She closed her eyes and drifted back to memory.

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Allana:

I had spent seven days in Paris and my tempers were no better. Valla still insisted on playing hide and seek, and I was just as adamant not to rise to the bait. My companion had a stubborn streak to her that I now wished I had curbed before letting it get so out of control. Crowded and malodorous as the city was, there was something to be said about the evening time in Paris. The sun always set a full show, displaying in all its resplendent hues of red green and gold, bathing the sky and land in splendor that cannot be adequately captured by even the most celebrated of artists. I stood on the rooftop, the cramped streets below were not exactly to my tastes and so I set my gaze upward to the heavens. 

Dusk was the only time a vampire could look into the face of the sun without bursting into flame and dust, and I always took advantage of this luxury to appreciate the beauty of nature. Humans could never fully understand the complexities, the  subtleties of sight and sound surrounding them. Their senses were too dull, their attentions never focused on one thing for too long. Only a few of their breed manage to experience a fraction of what really was around them.

All supernatural breeds excel the humans in sensory awareness, but none experience life like we vampires do. It carried a deep irony that those who fully utilize the potential of their surroundings are the undead. Our senses of sight and smell are ten times sharper than any human, our hearing more precise, able to pick up even the highest pitch and frequencies, and our reflexes faster. We move with innate grace and possess strength no human and few Were-shifters can muster. Our only enemies are our mortal enemies, the Trieste. A Trieste is made in the same lines as a vampire, except with none of our aversion to the sun or dependence on human blood. Instead they subsist on energy, drawing upon the essence of life in a way that we cannot. They possess all of the psychic abilities we have and that make them always a threat to us, as we are to them. We are twin halves inverted, and with an aversion for one another that is bone deep.

I took a deep breath, filling up my lungs even when I had no need to, sifting out all the different blends and mixtures of substances in the air of the city and the unmistakable stink of the Seine. My thoughts drifted to the other night and the scene in Adrian’s parlor. Since then, there had been no word of the vampire hunter. Darrin Hartford, she called herself. I wondered whether my host had made good on his promise to kill her, or if he was still lengthening her punishment. It was not in my place to interfere with whatever one did in his own house, especially a fellow master.

There was someone behind me. I caught a faint new scent in the air but made no move to turn around. The softest rustle on the sandy ground betrayed his presence. I stretched languidly and murmured. “Lovely evening, isn’t it Bacardi?”

Adrian came abreast of me; he leaned over the railing and looked up into the fading skylight. His eyes, usually cloudy gray, reflected the gold of the sun and his white blonde hair was set ablaze in fiery roots. He grinned amicably and gestured to the hubbub below. “I love this city. I can never get enough of Paris; the fever pitch passion of the crowd, their morbid obsessions, and the emptiness that is never filled no matter how you try.”

He turned to me and smiled conspiratorially, as though we shared a secret no one else could be part of. “I look out there and see a multitude of lost souls, lost without even knowing it, going on in their endless drudgery like little ants on a line. What the point of existence is, they have not a clue.”

I had glanced out to the street while he spoke, and my eyes caught a scene going on in a corner. There was a little beggar standing in the darkness, he stretched out a hopeful hand to a merchant walking the other way. The merchant paused and gave him a coin, only to be stabbed in the back by the other members of the boy’s gang. I looked back up at Adrian and raised an eyebrow.

“And you do?”

There was no mistaking the sarcasm in my voice but as usual his face barely registered an emotion other than the affable smile it constantly wore. My mind drifted back to my runaway companion but almost instantly I banished any thought of Valla from my head, instead turning once more to my host. “What about that vampire hunter… what was it she called herself?”

He looked up and his smile widened, changing his face into a vaguely menacing visage. “Oh she’s still rotting away in the cellars. I promised her a long prelude to a painful death, and that is what she’s going to have.”

I chose not to comment, rather trained my gaze back to the hubbub below. Adrian sensed my disinterest and tried to hold my attention.

“It  amusing, I think, that a mere human would think herself capable of killing a vampire master.”

I shrugged and continued to look into the streets. Adrian may old but I had doubts that he would've handled that human for long without help. That in itself was odd, seeing as even Were-shifters cannot match our strength and speed but a simple human girl had managed to break into Adrian’s garrison. I had to admit that something about it kept in my mind, and turned to him at last. “I would like to see the hunter. Of course that should pose no problem, she is adequately subdued, is she not?”

He nodded, pleased to have finally caught my attention on thesubject. “But of course Allana, all you need do is beckon on any of the guards and they’ll take you to the dungeons.”

I smiled and assured him that I would take up that offer soon enough.

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