"Sorry, boy, but I need those puppies more than you do."
So Elora sat down cross-legged on the ground and waited with the other mammalian voyeurs. Of the possible scenarios she had run in her head of how she might introduce wolf DNA into the dog breed she was going to develop, this wasn't one she'd anticipated. Not one to turn down a turn of good fortune, she smiled to herself and mused about a large litter of pups from the coupling. They could negotiate a joint custody agreement. Stalkson wouldn't mind if the father - and she - took responsibility for one or two.
After a while Flame edged up next to Elora to lie down where Blackie would normally be situated on her left side. Elora reached out and let Flame smell the back of her hand. The wolf took her time sniffing as if the human's hand was the most fascinating thing in the universe then settled down with her head on her paws.
The wolves had grown comfortable with her presence. That didn't mean that she and Blackie were accepted as pack, more like kitchen door visitors; the kind of company who were so familiar they're welcome to come to the side door and knock, but not given a key.
***
CHAPTER_8
As Baka sat alone in the darkness he used every trick he could think of to keep the ghosts and memories at bay, but they were relentless and just kept coming. Monq had theorized that the "conscience" returns after centuries of existence as a vampire because eventually the levels of active virus recede enough to allow the brain to partially resume natural function and chemistry. He wished his memory had been inhibited as well as his conscience.
The torture of being alone in the still of the night, forced to confront his own thoughts, with no way to escape reliving the horror of who he had been, was surely tantamount to any punishment sentenced by hell to souls on their way to the forever nothingness of the abyss. At that moment he would have liked nothing more than to experience that nothingness.
Baka had "awakened" one day to a torment the likes of which Dante could not have conceived. He recalled every abominable thing he saw, felt, said, and did as a vampire. Each evil act was stamped on his memory with perfect clarity, as real and detailed as if it was happening in the present. There was no escape. There was no reprieve.
Ever since he regained his moral bearings, he had sought distractions and diversions to ward off the pain of reliving any part of that history. He wrote fiction, he played musical instruments, he painted, he studied science, mythology and its stepchild called theology by some.
Of all the parade of excruciatingly painful scenes that played across the landscape of his mind, the one horror that never failed to break his heart all over again was the murder of his third wife, Helena, who had given him pleasure and sweetness he hadn't known existed.
She had, apparently, been looking for him on the mountain and he had repaid her by taking her life in a gruesome way and making sure no one knew what became of her so that there would not even be a burial. He wondered what became of the two children she was helping him raise. He hoped they had lived happily to enjoy the sight of great grandchildren, but he would never know.
When Baka emerged from his mountain hiding place, he discovered the sun was too bright. His new vampiric eyes allowed him to see in darkness that rendered uninfected humans blind, but conversely were not well suited for the light of day. Traveling at night, hiding on sunny days, he made his way to Bucharest. In an alley near the inn where he had met Helena, he encountered a gentleman out walking after midnight. Thinking him an easy meal, Baka attempted to seize the man and feed. He was summarily slammed against a stone wall for his trouble. The intended victim had his forearm shoved against Baka's throat.
"Hold, young one. You would find I am not the tasty treat I appear at first view. What is your name?"
Baka hesitated, looking perplexed. "I don't know."
"Well! You are young then!" He released Baka and smiled as he pulled on his sleeves to readjust them, then brushed off the arms of his coat. "Do not concern yourself. Memories of such things will come back to you and one day soon you will be able to tell me what to call you. Meanwhile, you look more like an overgrown street urchin than a proper vampire. We must do something about that."
"That's what I am? A vampire. We are vampires?"
Lefrik laughed. "No, indeed. We are not vampires. The plural of vampire is vampire."
Lefrik snagged a real meal for Baka to restore his strength, and bought him an expensive suit of clothes the next evening when a tailor was persuaded to stay open late. Money means little to a vampire, who can just as easily pick a rich woman to relieve of life and a heavy purse. The suit was uncomfortable and made Baka feel silly, particularly the ruffed collar and sleeves that Lefrik claimed were fashionable.
The next evening they visited the studio and smith of the sword maker who outfitted Lefrik's new project with a rapier. Baka pulled Lefrik aside. "Why would I want that? I have speed and strength and fangs."
"Because, newling, it is the rapier that identifies you on sight as a gentleman. And, as such, no one will run from you," he said pointedly. "They will know by your clothes and weapon that you are not the sort to murder for a meager coin or steal for half a meat pie."
Baka began to grasp the wisdom of this and slowly nodded his acquiescence. "No. I murder to eat."
Lefrik laughed. "Just so."
Later that night, when Lefrik suggested Baka begin training on how to actually use the rapier, the would-be student, who had demonstrated no aptitude or interest in weapons as a human, renewed his protests.
"I understand why I am impersonating a gentleman, but why do I need to learn to use this?"
"First, you will not be impersonating for long. One day you will be a gentleman. Second, you need to learn to use the rapier, simply because it can be entertaining as sport and you must fill the time spent between hunting and bleeding your prey."
Baka had become a newly minted vampire at the beginning of the second rise of Western Civilization. Copernicus began circulating manuscripts proposing his theory of heliocentrism: that the earth and planets form a solar system that revolves around the sun. Naturally, those who didn't laugh at him, scorned and ridiculed him.
Baka believed it was good fortune to have been taken under wing by an old vampire like Lefrik. The facts of Lefrik's origins were confused and murky, but apparently, by the time he became friends with Baka, he was already well over a hundred years old.
Gradually Baka took on the affectations common to European aristocrats of the time. Eventually his manners would be indistinguishable from those of a man raised as a high-born courtier.
Baka and Lefrik began to hear rumors from brief encounters with others of their kind, that vampire were being hunted by a collective known as The Order of the Black Swan. The organization was reputed to have been founded for the specific purpose of persecuting vampire. They employed slayers who were superhuman; men who were faster, stronger, and more lethal than their average counterparts, and they were succeeding in thinning the numbers of vampire.