CHRIS

"Stay here. Keep all of the doors and windows locked, no matter what," Lianndra ordered. Then, "Oh, just stay away from them anyway, she might try to grab you again. The fucking bitch."

Chris nodded dumbly and stumbled over to fall into a plush white chair. His wrists were scraped raw and his shoulders and legs hurt. The returning circulation felt worse than when he had been tied to the chair with the ropes cutting into his flesh.

Lianndra touched Chris’ chin with two fingers and moved his face around. Their eyes met.

Suddenly Chris’ mind and legs both turned to Jell-O at the same time. It was as though everything he had known and believed was just sucked out of his head without any warning at all.

He blinked his eyes and thought, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Something had happened and Lianndra had saved him--but what had happened? How had Lianndra managed to save him? From what? It was all very confusing, but it didn’t really matter. Nothing mattered right now--nothing at all.

Chris yawned as Lianndra picked him up and carried him toward the bedroom. The fact that someone smaller than he was could carry him with one arm and turn off the lights at the same time was rather unimportant at the moment. He would worry about it later, when he wasn’t so tired.

LIANNDRA

He returned to the apartment just as the sun was beginning to rise. He raced down the hall to his windowless bedroom and the Sleep that came upon him during the day.

Lianndra hurriedly stripped and wriggled under the sheets, under Chris’ out-flung arm and into the dark stillness of Sleep.

His last thought was that he hadn’t found what he was searching for. He had talked to a dozen people, but hadn’t found any answers. If this went on for too much longer, he might end up having to do something drastic.

What seemed to him to be only seconds later, Lianndra opened his eyes and stretched. His thoughts were the same as when he had gone to Sleep. To him, he had only closed his eyes then reopened them. He hadn’t even shifted his thoughts to anything else. No time had elapsed in his mind.

It was about mid-afternoon, the sky still tinged with blue, and the direct sun the only thing gone. He Woke up earlier than a lot of others were known to. It was another one of his tricks that he was proud of.

The ability to Wake up earlier than everyone else had saved his life a few times, either from other vampires or from vampire hunting mortals. It was something to be thankful for.

Lianndra sat up and looked around the darkened room.

The first thing he noticed was that one of his closets had been picked through. In his mind he ran an inventory of all of the things that had been in there. Even from a distance, he could tell that something was missing from the closet.

Then it hit him what was gone. The jewel-encrusted coffer. It wasn’t gleaming at him from the top shelf anymore. It was gone.

He leapt out of bed and, without pausing to grab his robe, raced down the hall.

In the living room, on the floor, sat Chris, the coffer placed before him like some strange ritual offering to a dark god.

"What are you doing?" Lianndra demanded, his childish voice sharp.

Chris looked up, his hands rising to brush his hair away from his eyes. "I found it when I was looking for clean underwear. What’s in it?"

Lianndra crossed the room so swiftly that Chris flinched. To the boy it seemed as if he just appeared in front of him out of the air. He didn’t bother feeling bad about what he had done, just dropped down to sit next to Chris. Sitting so close that their knees touched.

"Have you ever wished to have something so bad that you were willing to die for it?" he asked.

"I used to wish my dad was dead," Chris said, his voice flat.

Lianndra leaned forward. "Well, my wish was to be able to see a dragon and that it would give me a drop of blood. Have you ever heard of the healing of the dragon?"

The boy shook his head slowly, his eyes on Lianndra’s face; they were wide and questioning. For some reason, Lianndra found that gaze troubling. He averted his eyes to a spot over Chris’ shoulder.

"There was a legend that said dragon’s blood could heal any wound. So I wanted to find a real dragon and see if it was true. I never got the first part of my wish, but I got the second.

"I met a strange little man who owned a curio shop in London. He gave me the coffer. All he said was that the dragon’s blood was inside and that unless I was mortally wounded, not to open it. It was to be opened only once or else it would not work. I’ve had it ever since." Lianndra didn’t mention the circumstances in which the man had given it to him.

The man had been a dealer of dark magics and had laid a curse on someone Lianndra had known once, someone he thought he might have loved. To avenge the death of that girl, he had beaten the man to the brink of death, then, instead of going on, he had asked after the coffer. It had drawn him to it even from where it stood in the dark shadows of the store. It had been set upon a little table all by itself, as if the man were afraid of it and what it held inside.

Lianndra shook the memories away and smiled lovingly at Chris. He was starting to think of the boy as the brother he had never had. His real brothers had never been close to him and now they were just distant memories. Chris was more real somehow.

The boy was looking at the coffer with wide, wondering eyes.

Lianndra doubted that the boy truly believed in the dragon’s blood, but the coffer itself drew attention. It was ringed in blood-red rubies, specked with diamonds, and here and there rested emeralds that sparked like green fire. It was made of pure silver. The inside, under the velvet, was made of dragon’s gold and little melded bits of vampire gold as well. The vampire and dragon’s gold were supposed to represent something. What, he did not know.

Lianndra knew what it looked like inside because he could feel the vibrations of the minerals. He had never opened it and he didn’t think that he ever would. There were just some things that it was better not to know about. Some fates that it was prudent not to tempt.

CHRIS

Chris smiled and ran a finger across the sparkling box, a coffer as Lianndra called it, and shivered. He had the strangest feeling, as though he was being tickled from the inside out. He giggled and lay back on the carpet.

He ran a hand along the side of his face, the feel delighting him. He ran his hands along his neck and moaned. He felt so good, strange, but good.

In the back of his mind a voice screamed for help. None of this was right, but he couldn’t stop. He was filled with ecstasy. Filled with joy in the touch and feel of his own flesh and life and living.

Suddenly, Lianndra was there. His face was worried, which was a first. Chris had never seen Lianndra afraid and had begun to think that he never would.

Lianndra reached out and touched Chris’ face, which drew another giggle of delight.

"Christopher? Chris? What is wrong with you?" Lianndra’s voice asked distantly, but the words faded before they even came out of the boy’s mouth. Chris was drifting away to somewhere else and not listening to what was said. He wasn’t listening to anything at all.

LIANNDRA

What was wrong with Chris? The boy had begun to act strangely with no warning. His skin had flushed and his heart had sped up until Lianndra couldn’t help but to hear it.

Then it hit him. The dragon’s gold. The dragon’s gold was trying to draw Chris to it. It knew that there was a mortal nearby and it wanted him. It hungered for the possession of Chris and everything that he was.

When he thought about it, Lianndra could feel a strange current connecting the coffer to the boy. It thrummed along his nerves, just barely out of reach. A calling and a desire, and Chris was answering it, unable to resist.

"No, Chris!"

He grabbed the boy and raced with him in his arms to the bathroom. He turned on the tap full blast, cold. Maybe it would work. Maybe he could save Chris.

Water splashed all over him. He shrugged and climbed into the tub. Nothing mattered but the moment.

Lianndra held the bedazzled boy. The body hung limp in his arms. He suddenly knew that there was only one thing he could do to save Chris and even that might not work.

He turned off the water and stood. He dragged Chris’ unconscious body out of the tub and laid it flat on the floor.

Carefully he pulled off the soaking wet pajama bottoms and looked at the young, scratched, unconscious figure that was going to be his brother in eternity.

He shook off a few stray droplets of water, pushed his hair out of his eyes and stretched. He looked around and spotted the half-remembered fixture of the bathroom. He closed the door and turned the dial. In seconds, hot air began to blast into the room. The moisture on their skin began to run and disappear, droplets flowing along, being sucked into the nothingness of the world.

He knelt beside the still form and touched the rather clammy skin. He took one last look at the softly tanned skin and mahogany hair. The gentle face of life.

He leaned forward and placed his lips on the pulsing main vein that ran below the skin from wrist to elbow like a tracery drawn in pale blue ink. His fangs gently nipped a tear and he began to Feed. In his own mind, he couldn’t really think of this as Feeding since he was actually giving life instead of taking it away, but that was what he was doing.

He Fed until Chris was on the brink of death and his skin was pale, the blue veins ghostly and almost translucent. Then he pulled away and sat up on the furry blue bathmat.

Carefully Lianndra bit his right wrist. Blood welled and he carefully dripped it between the softly parted lips. Even in unconsciousness, that blood had an appealing power that no mortal could resist. A pink tongue licked lips and a mouth quivered.

Lianndra placed his wrist against the eager mouth and felt the life he had just taken being sucked away again. When all that belonged to Chris was gone from his veins, he pulled away to watch the rebirth. It would be the death of mortality and the birth of immortality.

CHRIS

Chris shuddered and opened his eyes. He felt agony course through his body. It was as if he were on fire and at the same time someone were beating him with a big stick.

He groaned, and with a mighty heave of his arms turned himself over just as he began to vomit.

A thick black liquid splashed across the floor, staining his knees and palms. He heaved and heaved. All of the food that he had ever eaten seemed to be coming up, chunks of bright red meat spilled from his lips as well. His stomach seemed to be trying to exit out through his mouth and a fire burned in his veins.

He tried to scream, but his throat was so full that his voice couldn’t pass. All he could do was open his mouth in agony as his eyes squeezed shut on the tears that ran down his cheeks like promises of the pain to come.

He screamed and screamed and screamed in silence as he was torn apart from the inside out.

He gagged painfully and wished for his voice, so that he could release some of the dammed up anguish as something inside of him tore and came free. It lodged in his throat for a second before the fire attacked it, melting it so that it would fit.

A huge mass landed on the floor in front of him. It was his bladder and intestines. The long tube came out like a snake uncoiling, splattering blood across the tiles.

The fire burned brighter and more came up and out through his mouth. He screamed mutely. He was tearing apart!

LIANNDRA

Lianndra watched dispassionately as the boy screamed and heaved a horrifying concerto of pain.

Finally Chris stopped vomiting and fell forward into the mess he had made. His body shuddered. His legs and the floor were covered with blood and urine and darker substances. All of the waste material that a body usually gave out slowly had jerked itself free all at once.

The floor was covered in blood, vomit, excrement and bits and chunks of the flesh he was not going to need. The last of his mortal life had been shed and there was nothing left for him but to live forever.

Lianndra stood and carefully stepped forward. He leaned down and picked up the limp body. He lowered it into the bathtub and turned on the hot water. He climbed in and began to scrub them both clean of the quickly congealing, gooey mess.

He picked up a bottle and poured half its contents into the water. Frothy bubbles surrounded them. He washed the boy’s hair then turned off the water to let him soak for a little while.

He stood and picked up the phone attached to the wall and began to dial.

"Yes, master?"

"Send up a cleaning crew. I’ve Made another vampire and he seems to have created a mess. Also, bring up one that wishes to be Initiated. He’ll be Hungry when he Wakes." His voice was cold and clear.

The body beside his feet began to stir with renewed life. He didn’t even bother to look down. It was as if Chris had suddenly become a stranger to him, but he knew that that would end and they would be able to renew their friendship. He hoped.

CHRIS

Chris opened his eyes to find colors that had seemed muted suddenly a thousand times brighter. He was lying in the bed. The soft green blankets appeared almost blindingly bright to his new vision. The painting of Lianndra seemed to glow with an ethereal sparkle.

Chris stood and walked around the room, touching, smelling and feeling everything, his fingertips running along the wall. All of his senses had been heightened considerably. Things that had been scentless before suddenly sprang out at him with different odors, hundreds of times more powerful than ever before. The perfume that pervaded Lianndra’s closets and clothes almost knocked him unconscious. It filled his mind with thoughts of beauty. He was suddenly surrounded with ecstasy.

He picked up a blood red shirt that had been haphazardly strewn across a bureau in one of the closets. The scent of Lianndra clung to it. He had recently worn it. From the smell alone, Chris could tell that Lianndra had Fed that night. The smell of blood pervaded the cloth to the very core of the fabric.

Even the scent of blood filled his mind with a warm feeling. He licked his lips. He suddenly needed to Feed. But where was he going to find a mortal? And how was he supposed to go about extracting the blood?

He stepped out of the closet. He needed to think about this. Inexplicably, his eyes were drawn to the nearly invisible mirror on the wall.

The mirror was faced so that its surface reflected the opposite wall. It was totally frame-less and had been molded into the very wall. It was the wall.

Chris moved to it and looked in.

The brown eyes that looked back into his had a strange light in their depths. His hair had changed from a dark reddish-brown into the same hue of white as Lianndra’s hair. So white that it was almost translucent.

He opened his mouth with shock and what he saw then stopped his thinking about the changes in his hair and eyes. He had fangs!

They weren’t very big, only about half an inch in length, but on a human that was frightening, especially since they were slightly curved and sharp--incredibly sharp--almost like curved needles. They looked dangerous.

He drew his lips back in a canine grimace so that he could see them better. He tilted his head a little and one of the myths he had always believed about vampires was blown away by the truth.

In the very center of each fang was a tiny hole about the size of a pinprick, yet visible nonetheless. And when he tilted his head far back, he spotted a tiny, ridged line that led from his fangs along the roof of his mouth and down his throat.

He tried sucking, but nothing happened. He frowned and experimented a moment until he figured out how to use them. If he pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, he could suck air into his fangs. It was kind of neat, but not something he had ever thought about before. Vampire movies always showed the vampire biting their victims then sucking the wound. They didn’t really use their fangs like mini-straws. He sucked air into his fangs, practicing for the real thing.

When he closed his mouth and drew his lips back slightly, another myth was broken. It was always said that the canines on vampires are longer than on regular people, what was not mentioned was the weird skin flap. To protect his gums from his own fangs, there was a protective flap of skin just beneath his lower teeth where his fangs rested. It was there so that when his mouth was closed, he wouldn’t bite himself or rub his gums raw. Sort of like a dog’s teeth.

He smiled and reopened his mouth and hissed like he had seen vampires do on TV. He wanted to try these things out a little more. They were so cool.

Even as he stood there, thoughts that were completely alien to his mind were seeping into his subconscious. The BloodTouch was already starting its dirty work. When he Fed for the first time, those alien thoughts would find an anchor in his mind and multiply, growing like a cancer of the soul.

He had two ways to go. He could end up like Lianndra, or he could end up like Tispith. Either way, he would never again be as truly innocent as he was now. He would never again be a true human being. He would always be a creature alien to nature. He would spend all of eternity in night.

He did not think of that as he experimented with his new fangs. His thoughts were filled with visions of mortals--men, women and children--all falling before his horrendous appetites.

The Hunger grew and he left the room in search of prey. In search of mortal prey and the fresh blood they carried around within them. He wouldn’t mind carrying it for them. The thought made him snicker to himself, though it wasn’t really all that funny.

LIANNDRA

Lianndra looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps. They were Chris’, but they were subtly different from how they had been before. They were quieter, more surefooted.

Lianndra felt his teeth clench. The Chris he knew and had grown to think of as a brother would be gone and in his place would be a monster… like himself.

He sat in the dark living room and waited, his hands clenched under his chin, his elbows against the sides of his chair. He needed the support.

"Chris? Come in here." He had barely raised his voice, but he knew the other had heard him.

He turned to find that Chris was right beside him.

"Yes?" the newly Made vampire said in a Hunger-filled voice. He obviously smelled the scent of something big and filled with blood waiting for him to Feed on.

Lianndra pushed aside his feelings. He knew what had to be done. He had made his bed and now he had to lie in it, no matter how much it hurt.

He held out his right hand. The tips of his fingers were coated with blood, fresh mortal blood.

Chris eagerly came forward and licked the blood off his hand like a dog. He touched his bloody tongue to his fangs and drew it in.

Suddenly and inexplicably, Lianndra began to laugh. It was a chilling sound in the dark room, made a little more disturbing by the hint of hysteria at its roots. "You fool. You are now completely mine until you have done me a service great enough to repay the gift of the BloodTouch and your first Feeding," he said, his voice soft. "You are mine until you repay your very life."

The new vampire frowned. "I will be your slave if you Feed me, but I see no evidence that you have."

Lianndra grinned, revealing his fangs so that they sparkled in the weak light. "Come, my precious, look behind my chair and you shall see what you most desire."

He watched the creature that had once been a sweet boy named Chris lurch eagerly forward to crawl behind the chair.

His hands tightened on the arms of his chair as he listened to the terrible sucking sounds and the loss of innocence they represented. More sin on his soul and no one to blame but himself and his weakness.

After a time, Chris came back from behind the chair, his face and hands covered in blood.

Lianndra curled his lips in disgust. "You obviously need to practice your form. A really good vampire can Feed then walk among mortals showing no sign that they were ever doing anything untoward.

"For now, go through that door and down the hall. You will find another door at the end. Some of my servants--your new peers--are waiting." He pointed towards a door Chris probably hadn’t even noticed as a mortal. The door was practically invisible. The only way to tell that it wasn’t part of the wall were the hairline cracks around it and the coat hook sticking out of it.

He watched Chris fumble with the hook. It took him a moment to puzzle it out, but finally the door swung open and he went through. He left streaks of blood on the wall behind him.

Lianndra went limp in his chair. It was moments like these that made him wish that he had never met Donal. That he had never become a vampire cursed to live forever.

CHRIS

The hall was long and dark. To his left and right were doors and from behind them he heard the strangest sounds: moans, screams, howls and cackling laughter that brooked on the wrong side of sanity.

He unconsciously moved toward the center of the hall, as faraway from the doors as he could get without running into the ones on his other side. The sounds were starting to really get to him. His hearing, which had become so much sharper, was going into overdrive. Every little sound grated on his nerves, giving him a feeling like nails across a chalkboard, a sort of shivery, bone grating, teeth aching kind of sound.

The sounds seemed to be growing louder, closer around him. He shivered and began to run. It was just too much! He was going to go insane if he had to listen to anymore of those awful screams. It sounded like somebody was being sliced open with a rusty nail and not even any Novocaine.

When he reached the end of the hall, he pounded on the door in front of him. The only door with no sounds coming from within. "Please! Open the door!" he screamed in agony. The sounds were getting louder and louder, pounding into his brain like a drum.

The door swung open and he threw himself forward and inside.

The sight that confronted him was shocking in its lavishness and the total air of hedonism about it. Men, women and children lounged on couches and beds, their expressions dull and uncomprehending. By smell alone, Chris could tell that they were drugged into being malleable. They were cattle and he was a steak lover. Beef, it’s what’s for dinner.

Also in the room were a bunch of vampires that were obviously guarding the stock. Chris looked at them, then gaped in shock. One was holding a branding iron in the shape of a circle with an "L" in the center of it. He proceeded to press it against the bare buttocks of a four or five-year old girl that was so doped up she didn’t even scream. She just blinked and wrinkled her forehead slightly, puzzled by what was happening to her.

"Hey kid, you Hungry?" a woman asked in a raucous voice. She opened her mouth in a yawn that revealed vampire fangs and a snakelike tongue dyed black by hearts blood.

He stepped back and away. He was ready for another Feeding, but he would not speak to this horrible, disgusting, vampire witch.

He looked around at everything in the room. He eyed the expensive furnishings and the multicolored pillows that were strewn across the floor in a comfortable pile. His eyes passed over it with barely a glance, then, without any thought behind it, his eyes returned. There! Something under the pile stirred, then stuck out a smooth foot.

A head popped out and he got the greatest shock of his life. He was in love. Even though he had never believed in love at first sight, he was in love.

A beautiful, firmly fleshed vampire girl lounged on the pillows, in the nude.

His eyes traveled the length of the body that revealed itself. Parts that he had never had the chance to use stirred. He felt a delightful pain.

With no thought whatsoever, he stepped forwards and lay down beside her. His right hand reached out and touched her soft white hair. Brown eyes met and locked on midnight blues that stopped his heart.

"My name’s Christopher James Devon. You can call me Chris," he blurted.

She smiled at him. Her rich and beautiful voice rolled over him like the tide coming up on the beach. It covered him like a layer of warm chocolate. It was welcoming, comforting, yet at the same time there was a darkness to it. Enticing mystery tinged her words with hints of cinnamon. She was the proverbial stick of hissing dynamite--there was no way to know when it would explode, suddenly and surprisingly.

"A pleasure," she said. "I am Dezi."

They needed no more words.