I am afraid, Two, of what he may choose to do to you, should I offend him. That is, to the best of my knowledge, the first thing that has truly frightened me in several hundred years.”

Two was quiet a moment, head down, considering. She looked up at Theroen. “Who is Lisette?”

Theroen visibly flinched away from her, eyes widening. He turned his head, but not before Two read what she needed from his expression.

“Oh,” Two said. “Who was Lisette?”

“Not now, Two.”

“Theroen...”

“Please,” he turned his eyes back toward her, and the look on his face made Two want to take it all back. She wished she had never mentioned the name, wished it had not flashed into her brain in that moment before sleep.

“Okay, Theroen. I...” She stopped. Theroen sat on the foot of the bed with his elbows on his knees, back bent, hands laced behind his head, staring at the floor. His expression was dark and miserable. Two felt adrenaline flood her system, then depart, leaving her shaky and scared. She had never expected anything like this. She crawled across the bed and stopped, unsure of how to proceed. She touched his shoulder.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Two.” Theroen sounded weary. He did not look up at her.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t know!” Two felt herself crying.

Theroen turned to her, wiped a tear from her cheek. “Don’t.”

“I can’t help it. I’m scared.”

Theroen smiled at this, kissed her briefly. “Scared?”

“I don’t understand everything. You haven’t told me everything, and now I hurt you. I don’t even know how I did it. I didn’t know I could. I didn’t think there was anything I could’ve done...”

Theroen stood up, looked out the window, sighed.

“Lisette was a vampire. In a very real sense, you owe your present fortune -- if you wish to consider it such -- to her. She saw the good in me even as I spent my nights bathing in the blood of those I destroyed. She helped me to find the good in myself. And I loved her. I loved her like I love you. I loved her, and I couldn’t save her, and I’ll never forgive myself for it.”

* * *

The girl made the cut below the nipple on her left breast and stood, beckoning. Theroen lounged on overstuff cushions of velvet, warm from the first kill, ready for the second. She was white cream against the red fabric. Pouting lips, full breasts, dark hair on her head, between her legs. Theroen reached out, took her hand, brought her to him. The girl swooned, falling against him, panting, as he drank from the wound she had inflicted upon herself. At length he tired of this small flow of blood and, with a snarl, thrust his teeth into the flesh of her neck. The girl cried out, but made no move to escape this sudden, deadly bite.

Her death came with a tiny gasp, and the girl went limp in his arms. Theroen shoved the body away, reclined, reflected.Two of them, and still he was unsatisfied. There could never be enough death. He could drown in a sea of human blood, and it would never be enough.

A walk, then, and perhaps another victim.

In the ten years which had passed since his rebirth into darkness, Theroen had learned little of his nature beyond that which was readily evident to him. He would not take instruction from Abraham, and the elder vampire in turn shunned his creation, leaving Theroen to his own devices.

Theroen knew he was strong. He knew he could read minds with a proficiency that seemed to enrage Abraham. He knew he could make women do terrible things to themselves, and in this last he sometimes took great pleasure.

There was no God, no devil, no heaven or hell. Lost in a sea of blackness, Theroen let his base instincts run wild. Women, always women, always engaging in acts forbidden by the church. Theroen rejoiced in these acts, though he never participated. They performed with themselves, with each other, not with him. Theroen’s touch meant only death.

Some went quietly, like the two tonight. Others laughed, wept, screamed, begged. It didn’t matter. How could it? How could anything matter at all when God had so clearly forsaken him? Theroen reveled in debauchery ten times greater than anything Leopold might ever have even imagined, and it just didn’t matter.

Someone was watching him. He could sense it, and this presence frightened him. Theroen was unaccustomed to being noticed. His speed and uncanny