myself. Melissa knows I am to be her destruction. We were waiting only for the catalyst. The thing that would cause me to flee from Abraham’s grasp. It was inevitable.
“You are that catalyst, Two. All I can think about is our life together. It is in my mind always. I want to take you away from this. From Abraham and Tori and Missy. I want to show you what we can truly be, as Lisette once showed me. This means leaving Melissa, and for that I am truly sorry, but I cannot help myself. I must go. The final act of this little farce that Abraham created has come.
“How can I give her any comfort? What is there to say? It is remarkable that Melissa does not hate us both.”
Two was silent. She could feel her eyes going hard and wet the way they always did when tears threatened. Clients used to love that look. Theroen could not meet her gaze. He kept trying, and was having no success. This somehow made it worse. When he spoke, there was sorrow in his voice. And regret. And defeat.
“I should have told you. I... Two, I’m sorry. Living for so long, it made me more sure of my actions than I had a right to be. Even when I told you I was giving you a choice, I failed to tell you what it was you were choosing. I never even thought to do so, and I apologize. Your choice did not doom Melissa... that had already happened. It did, though, set the end in motion.
“I will understand if this changes your opinion. You are Eresh-chen. You can be human again if you wish. You can take that choice back. I will not stop you.”
Two looked at him, angry and in love, horrified and filled with despair. At last she spoke.
“I want to meet Tori.”
Theroen turned and was finally able to meet her gaze. He seemed surprised. “Two, I explained...”
“Now, Theroen. I want to understand what I am.”
“Tori is nothing like...”
“Tori is everything like me! No, let me finish. You’ve given me this gift. I asked for it. I don’t want to give it back. You’ve let me see through vampire eyes, taste with a vampire’s tongue. You’ve let me run like a vampire, and feed like a vampire, and fuck like a vampire, and I love it Theroen. But you haven’t shown me what I really am.
“Whatever’s inside me, it wants blood. Right now, it wants blood very badly. It wants to rip, and tear, and hate. That thing is the same thing inside of Tori, and it’s the most pure it’s ever going to be in her. I want to see her, Theroen. I want to know what’s inside of me. I want to see it all laid bare, and I want to see it now.”
Theroen contemplated this for a moment, shrugged, sighed.
“So be it.”
* * *
The moon was like daylight to her eyes. The forest, which might have seemed foreboding to a human, barely registered in Two’s mind. Forests in the night were filled with predators, and there were none out this night greater than she and Theroen. They had been walking the grounds for thirty minutes. Theroen did not call for Tori, and it was obvious he knew where he was going. At times he would pause, change direction, and move forward again.
“Tori doesn’t stay still, and she doesn’t know we’re looking for her yet,” He explained. “I could call, but it would do no good. I can sense her, though. We will catch up eventually.”
At length they reached a small clearing. Here, Two saw, were paths carved into the ground from the frequent passage of some creature, like a dog which runs patterns into its yard. From the woods not far away, Two heard growling. The sound was low and guttural, the noise of a large jungle cat.
“Tori. Come.” Theroen said, standing in the middle of the clearing. He gave off no palpable sense of fear, but Two thought she could hear some measure of concern in his voice.
The creature which stepped from the bank of trees in front of them moved in a manner unlike anything Two was familiar with. The changes that vampirism had brought to Tori manifested themselves in a far more physical manner than Two had expected. On all fours, the girl moved with feline grace, sliding slowly into the clearing, eyeing them cautiously and growling. She stopped perhaps twenty feet from them,