Page 53 of Besieger
In the end, all their servants were playthings, temporary and fragile. Objects devised to serve in this illusion of normality.
In the room—this unexpected sickroom, this deathbed—Emerick sat on the edge of the mattress and took René’s hand.Little, fragile object, he thought, caressing the man’s thin fingers and wrist. How pale the skin, how dark and sickly it was under the eyes. Had René always struggled for breath, flinching as he tried to sit up in bed?
Not once had Emerick felt the pull to make another. He knew how to do it, of course, Silvio had explained the method. The only soul he found worth preserving was already immortal. He could not imagine desiring anyone else to the point of disentangling their mortal flesh and remaking them in his image, in his blood. It had never crossed his mind to offer René the gift and spare him this suffering.
TheComteopened his mouth, but the words would not come. Earlier that night, downstairs in the drawing room, he had known what to say—what to whisper and how to bewitch his prey, eager to revisit years long gone. Now, looking at the old man, he did not know what to say.
What was there to say, that he was sorry? He was not. He sat in this tiny room and did the only thing left.
Emerick reached out, first with his hand and caressed René’s face, then with his mind, pushing in through the haze and confusion in the man’s thoughts. René would never leave him, he was faithful to theMarquisand respected him. But Emerick… hewantedEmerick. From the very first time he had seen him as a hall boy, René had been enthralled.
He closed his fingers around the first memory he found—Emerick standing in the entrance hall, ordering a company of workmen as they carried a portrait up the stairs—and closed hisfist. The vision trembled, as if twisting on its axis and then shattered. It ran like sand between his fingers.
Sand always made him think of how he had crawled out of a hole—the first grave he had shared with Silvio—and woken up to find that the world had irreversibly changed. His own memories began and ended with sand. It had erased all of him, scraped him clean of the man he had been before the Blood. If anything had remained of Emerick’s past, it was safely locked behind the walls of Silvio’s mind, one of theMarquis’ many prized possessions bearing the likeness of hisComte. The sand followed him across the centuries, seeping through and out of him.It is in my mouth, in my blood… and in every foreign memory I touch.
He reached further and seized another memory, the whole world around him quivering. There he was, theComte, on his way to the bathhouse, a coy smile on his face, urging René to abandon his work and join him. Another echo of Emerick in the garden, in the library, out in the forest back from a hunt. Emerick and Silvio, a painted devil looming over them while they talked.
He crushed these shards, this stream of recollections, erasing himself from the mortal’s psyche. Erasing the connection, the draw, the need, the desire. No more bloody kisses, no hurried trysts, no whispered tales of a vampire court and divinations. Emerick stripped the years off René’s mind, feeling the body on the bed convulse and the blood quicken and boil.
When the deed was done, he felt off-kilter, like a part ofhimhad been struck out. He looked down at René’s slouched form on the bed. The man’s breathing was easier, steady, he appeared to be sleeping, finally at rest. Tiny beads of sweat covered his forehead, and Emerick could see the path of tears that had run down René’s cheeks.
How easy this is, Emerick thought and stretched his fingers, still feeling the ghostly specks of sand on them.How simple it is to be unmade.
EMERICK, 2017
He was considering whether he should bother to dress. The warm shower had left him feeling drowsy and eager to slip back under the covers. His hair was still a little damp and smelled foreign, something floral. Emerick recalled seeing old perfume bottles scattered around the room, things he had left behind on previous visits to Berlin. He could find it and sprinkle some on his clothes and hair.
What was there to do, how could he pass the time while his lover met with the All Father? Ingenuar called for Silvio only when he wanted something. TheMarquiswas supposed to be in Ingenuar’s study hours ago, but had allowed himself to be distracted by theComte. The night was still young, and no servant had come knocking asking for the Regent’s immediate presence. Yet, now, having shed all the tension and drowning in idleness, Emerick racked his brains on what the occasion might be.
The Coven welcomed all vampires, but these visits always came with a price. It made Emerick resent the place. He felt like an errand-boy. And whaterranddid the father of vampires need doing now? Was there another orphaned child waiting somewhere in Europe for Emerick and Silvio to take by the hand and guide home?
It made him think of Mihaela, sweet, lost Mihaela and her fragile little mind. He almost reached out to search for her in the mansion. She was here; theComtehad seen her earlier and noted her obvious avoidance of him. It was possible his grip on the girl’s memories might have loosened by now, with him not being there to rearrange them. He had repurposed her memories, erasing those thoughts and ideas that did not suit Silvio and theAll Father. He had erased whole years, entire persons from the minds of Mihaela and her parents.
Emerick had practiced this fine art so many times that he sometimes mistrusted his own recollections. It was far too easy to grab and pluck out a memory, or sow the seeds of events that had never occurred—had never existed outside the confines of his own designs and machinations. Silvio liked to decorate and dress everything he possessed. Emerick liked to erase. To start anew. Turn things on their axis and tip them over. Rebuilding through complete destruction.
He closed his eyes and let his mind go forwards and backwards—backwards and forwards—in the pit of human memories he still clung to. Was it his father or grandfather who had been fixated on extending the family, keeping the name Gabrielli present in the parish registers and annals of history? His sisters had married and taken their husbands’ names and trade. His elder brother… his father and uncle dead. His cousin—dead and buried with the cross he had failed to carry through the desert. Every man in the Gabrielli line dead, save for him. Emerick could no longer remember what his father’s title had been, only that he had surpassed his family’s expectations.
Comte Gabrielli, he snarled.
His moment of reminiscent rest was cut short.
The bedroom door opened and Silvio stepped into the darkness, shedding his clothes.
“Back from Ingenuar? So soon?” Emerick called from under the covers, but received no answer.
Silvio climbed onto the bed and nuzzled against him. He kissed Emerick’s neck, his shoulders, enfolding him in an impatient embrace. Emerick opened his mouth to receive the kisses, but quickly jerked his head back, grimacing. Silvio tasted of iron and salt, and something unpleasant.
“The servants’ blood here is awful.Whodid you drink from that has such stale, bitter blood? It is absolutely vile.”
Again Silvio did not reply, instead he kept pressing their bodies together.
“Here—allow me to rectify your poor choice…” Emerick huffed, exasperated, and drew his tongue across his fangs. The blood filled his mouth instantly, threatening to spill as he brushed his tongue over Silvio’s lower lip, tongue lapping at him lazily, smearing the blood.
Silvio moaned against his mouth, his eyelids fluttered in bliss.
“There. All better,” Emerick sighed, pleased with himself.
When he tried to stand up, Silvio pinned him against the mattress, fingers buried in Emerick’s hair, forcing their mouths together. Emerick let out the faintest sound of protest as Silvio’s tongue pushed between his teeth, before he was rolled over onto his stomach.
