Embrace Ch. 04

"Please!"

In an instant, Amelia feels such love for Eleanor, the kind of love that demands fireworks and violins to do it justice. Her heart sings with it, her despair melts away. What a miracle this is! She runs into the elder's open arms and sobs her heart out. She is gathered up and cradled like a fretful child, carried up the glacis and back to the city. There is a house well away from the palace and the door is held open by a waiting servant as they arrive. Eleanor carries her up the narrow stairs to a windowless little garret room with a servants' cot. Amelia is set down gently, and just like that, the intense emotion of love fades away to nothing.

"Now. Please do me the same courtesy. Or the dawn will be the least of our worries."

"I never asked you to save me." Amelia sniffs. She allows the odd effect of her blood to peter out.

Eleanor sighs with relief and sits on the edge of the bed.

"Listen. Destroy yourself if you must, or grieve as you must, you owe me nothing. Only consider this. Your life could be very different from now on. You are valued by the prince for your service, you will no longer be under the mercurial command of your sire. At least take some time to consider my offer of tutelage. It would be a shame to lose you to grief."

The servant enters before Amelia can give voice to the caustic reply on the tip of her tongue. He brings blankets and bundles of dry clothes.

Eleanor deftly pulls off her dress and the layers beneath with a single smooth motion and tosses them aside. Amelia watches with idle curiosity. Eleanor's face is timeless but her body bears the marks of a long life. She bore children, that is obvious from the tracery of lines on the curve of her belly. Her breasts are full and ripe, the nipples dark and prominent. Of course, Meryem said that Eleanor was the grandmother of kings and queens. It is a beautiful body.

The elder frowns as she catches Amelia staring and hurriedly pulls on a simple woollen gown.

"Can you believe that I was once as miserable as you are now?" Eleanor asks.

"Hardly." Amelia says sheepishly. "I was just thinking..."

"I can see what you were thinking. In any case, I will tell you. I loved my sire."

Amelia raises an eyebrow. "Did someone kill him then? How is that anything like this situation? You're right here in front of me pretending to care, and you're as much to blame as the tremere."

"Someone diablerised her. And blood hunted me for it. I can never set foot in the city of Berlin, or my brother in blood, the mighty prince, will have my head."

"So he diablerised his sire?" Amelia asks.

"That is usually the way it goes, yes." Eleanor smiles sadly. "It is not your burden. I may be miserable in Vienna by your standards but believe me, it has been worse."

Amelia removes her sodden shift and puts on a dry dress. She drapes the wet clothing over the back of a chair. Eleanor watches her in turn, her face inscrutable.

"What do you think of malkavians?" Amelia says. She pulls on thick woolen stockings and makes the best of the small shoes.

"I can tolerate Jerome, some of them are useful, why?"

"Well since we're being honest, I am one."

Eleanor laughs. It's a beautiful laugh really, a musical sound. "Oh Jesus please, whatever next. I am not going to kill you childe, whatever you say, however you provoke me. I do not have the right, nor the inclination."

"Felix is my sire. He tricked you all into looking after me for now but one day he'll be back. And he hates you all."

"What are you saying?" Eleanor says irritably.

"I'm Amelia, childe of Felix, childe of Lyssa, child of Malachi. And I'm sick of lying about it. I don't belong here with you, I belong with Meryem."

Eleanor is not angry. A little fearful perhaps. "Why the devil would you say such a thing? Who told you about the methuselah? Was it that foolish toreador? Your sire perhaps?"

"He was with me from the very beginning of this madness. He came to me again in the crypt and he fed me his blood so that I wouldn't have to kill my husband. I can hide in the shadows, I can see auras and spirits, and whatever I just did to you. I don't know what it is, I've never done it before. No-one taught it to me."

"Wait here."

Amelia obeys. Nothing has changed. The sun will still rise in a few short hours. All she need do is find the courage to meet it. Perhaps she'll bring the house down in flames with her.

Eleanor returns with a large bunch of keys.

"You said I was free to..."

"Hush childe." She hands Amelia a storm lantern to carry. "Come and see."

They make their way down to the basement, then down to a deeper cellar. A spiral staircase leads further down into the darkness, into a structure older than the house above. Sheets of cobwebs cover each of the series of metal bound doors that Eleanor opens, and she locks each one behind her. Strands of spirit stuff, the other cobwebs, curl into Amelia's aura. The deeper they walk, the more it feels like this is the way home.

At the very bottom is a circular room with a mosaic floor. The shroud is thinner here than it was in Meryem's house. Amelia can hear the urgent whispers of spirits that dare accompany her no further, and the malevolent howling of specters in the distance.

Eleanor's question cuts through Amelia's split perception and brings her back to physical reality.

"Is this your sire?"

Thousands of finely laid mosaic tiles trace out what could be Felix in happier times. He is young and healthy, curly black hair frames his face. Amelia runs to the centre of the room, her sire is closer than ever.

"Felix!" She shouts. The sound echoes around the chamber and into the darkness beyond the shroud.

Her words condense into wisps of grey mist that swirl around the centre of the picture. Tendrils of vapour seep into the dusty surface and begin to shimmer silver in the dark, flowing like mercury into the pattern around the tiles. The temperature drops. Amelia hears Eleanor shout a warning as a black mass of shadow congeals out of the mist, pouring the figure of a man into an unseen mould in thin air.

There is a resemblance to Felix in the noble face but this strong body draped in finery is nothing like the twisted creature that embraced her.

"Sire?" Amelia breathes the word, quiet as a whisper.

Felix ignores her. He crosses the room to where Eleanor is standing motionless. He grasps her face and turns her vacant stare up to meet his eyes. Something passes between them. He pushes her away and Eleanor scrambles back up the stairs and slams the door behind her.

Amelia feels a growing sense of dread as Felix turns to face her. His eyes are black voids in his handsome face. Gathering her courage, she pictures Meryem's comforting presence, struggles to remember all she was taught. Her emotions could feed the passions of his shadow or his spirit. Hope must prevail over suffering or the shadow will surely win.

"Sire, please..."

"Are you my childe?"

"Felix, I can't stand it anymore, I need..."

"Are you my childe?"

"I need answers!"

"You were told to hide." He walks closer and Amelia holds her ground.

"I have. I tried, Felix. I tried so hard..."

"Stop saying that name!" His fingers close on her arm.

"They're killing her..." The icy points of his fingernails cut into her skin and Amelia gasps. "I know you can stop them, I just know it!"

"You were going to leave me." He hisses.

"I can't leave you, you're connected to me, everywhere I go, however far apart we are..."

His other hand closes on her neck and she is caught in the mesmerising darkness of his gaze. "Is that what you think? You think I need you?"

"I..." she chokes back her despair, "If you don't need me then end this because there's nothing..."

"Don't play the innocent. You're in love with a necromancer. A fucking necromancer. What did she tell you?"

"When I suffer, it feeds the darkness in you. It drives you away from me, it's killing your soul, you don't need to..."

"And my silence, my weakness, did it occur to you that a filthy necromancer might have something to do with it?"

Amelia sobs.

"Please, if I'm worth anything to you, believe me, everything she taught was to help not hurt you, please, she doesn't deserve..."

"Poor little thing. She was using you." Felix tightens his hold on Amelia's throat. "Good thing she destroyed herself or I would have saved her the trouble."

Amelia falls limp to the floor as he drops her, his vivid corpus melting away into grey mist.

The grief steals her breath as she remembers Meryem's body pressed against hers in the darkness. Their time together was so brief, every stolen moment was a treasure. Her love, her lost love swells her heart, no tears, no words can do it justice. There was no malice in it, no ulterior motive on either side. The truth is that Felix must be terrified of losing a fetter. The truth is that even if he wanted to, Felix could not overpower Etrius. It's easy to lord it over his terrified childe, sooth his ego with her submission.

"Lies come so easily to you," she says at last, "But I forgive you."

She crawls over to the centre of the mosaic and lies there staring up at the vaulted ceiling.

"Felix. My Felix." The cobwebs' lacy ribbons join them. Blood and fate connect them like an umbilical cord.

"Leave me alone."

"That's the last thing you need." Amelia whispers. "I remember your true face. I know you've suffered worse than me. You can fight it, dear Felix. Fight the monster."

He doesn't shout, but his answer resonates with Amelia's blood and seems impossibly loud.

"I can't save her."

"I know that now." Amelia swallows the lump in her throat. "I'm sorry I asked you to. I forgot my purpose. I lost faith."

The shadows that dance on the ceiling remind her of the hundreds of hours she has spent waiting at Wolf-Dietrich's whim.

"I can't go back to him, Felix."

"He's as much your sire as I am."

"No. That's not fair. Do you despise me as he does?"

"Look kid, there are good reasons to stay hidden."

Amelia sighs and smiles.

"I know. I remember. Do you still think I have anything to teach Wolf-Dietrich?"

"All of them. You'll be a lesson to all of them."

A warmth settles into Amelia's chest as Felix sinks into slumber. It feels for all the world like a hand closing around her heart.