He is the King of the Dead, even as he is the lord of vampires. I cannot escape what I am, even as he cannot escape himself. I cannot ask him to be that which he is not.
I love him. This is no trick of his nearness. It is truth.
But this suffering—this death and torment—it had to stop. It was too much for her to forgive. Even for someone she adored.
What could she do? Destroy his soul? The thought hurt her like a physical wound. She leaned against the railing and let out a wavering breath.
“Miss Parker. Good evening.”
She turned and saw the cold redheaded vampire standing by the door. She smiled faintly at him and motioned him to come closer. “Hello, Walter. Good evening to you as well.”
He squinted a little at the rays of the fading sun but came out anyway. She gasped. “Oh! I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think—”
“It’s quite all right. I would not have come out here if I were in any danger. Being so closely tied to Master Dracula’s blood allows me the benefit to walk in the sun if I choose. I find it simply too bright to enjoy, although the warmth is nice.”
She turned back out to look at the city. “Do you miss it? Being alive?”
“Sometimes. It was certainly simpler. My days as a mortal were not the most pleasant, though, so I cannot say I miss the events, per se.” He stood beside her, a hand folded across his lower back, the other resting on the railing. He looked out over the city. “I have seen worse than this, I fear.”
“I suppose that is meant to be a comfort.”
“No. Not particularly.”
She laughed at his strange dry commentary. She looked up at him and could see nothing on his features but stoicism. That icy nothingness that reminded her so much of a carving and less of a sentient creature. But her gift allowed her to feel something more. There was a sorrow there—the memory of old grief. Of regret.
“I think you are not as cruel as you look, Walter. You do not wish for this fate to have fallen the city either.”
He smiled lightly. “No. I do not enjoy death.”
“What would you have him do?”
“Leave here and go to the mountains as he has offered before. Away from all the prying eyes. I do not like the level of visibility this forces upon us. The world may well rally to breach our defenses. We can stand against them for a while, but for how long, I do not know.”
“It is not the human lives spent that troubles you?”
“I am afraid not. While I do not relish the blood, it does not trouble me.”
That was fair. He was a vampire, after all. She looked back out at the city. “Would you tell me how you came to be as you are, Walter?”
He was silent for a long moment, and she worried perhaps she had offended him. Just before she was about to apologize for her question, he began. “I am nearly a thousand years old. I hail from northern England. I was the mayor of a small village there. Perhaps there were a hundred of us? Two hundred at our peak? We had no armies. We had no defenses. We had nothing to offer. But it did not stop him from coming. It did not stop him from setting upon us like a plague.”
His hand on the railing tightened. “One by one, night after night, people began to die. It continued like an illness, spreading, until more and more of my people—the ones I had been chosen to protect—were preying on the survivors. What manner of terrible sickness raises its victims from the grave? It was not until I took a torch and threatened to burn everything down if he did not show himself that he came from the shadows. I stood there and knew I was helpless. If he wished me dead, he would have it. If he wished us all to be his slaves, that would be within his right.”
Crimson eyes slipped shut, as if he were picturing that night in his mind. “He asked me if I wished to serve. I told him I would kneel at his feet if he spared the rest of my people his terrible fate. It was my duty to protect them, and I would proudly lay down my life to do so. He agreed. With one gesture of his hand, all the