The Lost Girl of Avignon

"How would it be your fault?" she said, soft, voice neutral despite her fear, holding herself carefully still.

"Because... because I'm a fucking Vampire, Sophie," I panted, "a Vampire. And there's... there's another one here, now, in Ulcaster, and he's hunting me..."

My words shuddered to a stop as I watched her expression slowly change.

She didn't move for far, far too long.

"Do you... seriously... expect me to put up with your mad, bi-polar fantasies..."

"I'm a fucking Vampire!" I screamed up at her. I lunged to one side and scrabbled in the table by the door.

I heard her gasp a breath as I pulled the scalpel from the drawer.

"Look! A blade - now watch and learn if you won't believe me!"

"Annemarie, put that down right now!"

I slashed my forearm; she shrieked a terrified "No!" and took half a step towards me, then... froze, staring at me as my skin and flesh knitted, as the blood flow staunched and stopped almost before it started, only the fine line of fading black gems on my forearm showing that there'd even been a wound.

"Don't touch them," I whispered, in sudden, horrible calm. "Don't get my blood on you. Please. Don't become like me."

"You should be bleeding out," she said, distantly. "I saw that cut your artery. You cut your ulnar artery. You should be bleeding out."

"It will take more than that scratch to do that to me," I whispered.

She staggered backwards, gesturing vaguely, mouth working...

"Striga," she said, with a horrible lack of intonation.

The blade fell from my hand and skittered away across the floor; I slumped to my haunches, then onto my bum, staring up at her as my heart shattered.

"I am not!" I wailed.

"Then what the fuck are you?" she screamed down at me in fury, looming over me, hands contorted into claws as if she wanted to attack me.

"A girl who was stupid!" I screamed back. "And look where it's brought me! I'm an outcast! I'm alone! All my life! I've paid and paid and paid! Haven't I paid enough? And now... and now you won't ever even look at me any more! You'll never touch me, never hold me again! Never ever ever!"

I covered my head in my hands and cowered away and cried; cried for my mother and my father and my poor innocent little brother and my newest dead friend.

And worst of all for the foolish, immature girl I'd been all those long, bitter years ago.

I gasped, shuddered, panted for breath as I gagged on the bitter bile of regret.

And then her gentle hand was on my back, and then her strong arm was around me, and then she gathered me in against her and simply held me.

"Shh, shh," she whispered. "Shh, Annemarie. Shh. Shh."

But of course, I just cried harder.

It was a very, very long time before I could hear or see again.

I found myself in her arms, her fingers tangled tightly in my hair, curling in and out, over and over and over as she gently rubbed the fingertips over my scalp.

She'd found a blanket somewhere, and wrapped it around us, and propped us up against my worn chaise longue.

Her eyes were red; she'd clearly been crying too.

"Oh... Sophie," I whispered, voice hoarse and faint.

She turned, met my gaze, held it for some unknowable length of time.

"Forgive me..." I rasped, at last.

"For... what?" she asked.

"For... lying."

"Did you ever lie to me?"

"I... lived a lie and never said..."

"Did you?"

"Annemarie-Jean Devereux, Librarian," I whispered. "I just wanted to be someone nice for once."

"You are someone nice," she answered me. She pressed her forehead to mine. "You are gentle. You are kind. You help idiot students with their stupid research queries. You are wonderful."

"I... drink blood," I moaned.

"So do many things."

"I... can kill."

"So can I. So can most people. But... like you, I choose not to."

"I'm so sorry..." I gasped.

She gathered me closer.

"No. Hush. Shh. You... didn't have a choice. Annemarie... I won't pretend not to be scared. Or freaked the fuck out. Or shocked. Or... unimaginably pissed at you and Nana both, because... because now I guess that's what she was grilling you over that first night and she should have fucking said something to me. She should have said something."

"Yes."

She sighed and adjusted me against her, pulling me more tightly in.

"The fact that she invited you back means that she wants to keep an eye on you."

"Yes."

"But it also means that she likes you."

"I... don't understand why. I'm a... "

"I can," she whispered, interrupting. "I can think of lots of reasons, starting with the big one. She's an excellent judge of people's intentions. She's never, ever wrong. And... while she loves me and may want what's best for me and may not always agree with me on precisely what that is... she also knows that I'm... I'm fond of you, Annemarie. Like... really fond. Stupidly so, in fact."

I shivered.

She ran her fingers through my hair, tangling the dark tresses between them.

"I... like being around you. I like how being with you makes me feel. You're smart. You're beautiful..."

"I am not..."

"You are. You know you are. Don't be coy. And you make me smile. And... and I think I've felt... something... back from you. Have I?" she said, so awfully hesitant that it broke my heart all over again.

I was exhausted; it was an effort not to simply slump down into a ball against her.

"I really like you," I managed, at last. "So much. But... but it will never work. I will go on; you will grow old and die. You will see me stay young, you will become bitter. I will see you grow old and live nothing but regret. We have... there... there would be no point. Oh, God, I wish I had never been so stupid. I'd give all of it up to be mortal again. To be able to just... be with you. To just be a girl with you. To be... your girl."

She shifted against me.

"So... by that I take it you never found a cure."

"There is no cure."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I've been looking for over a hundred years. There isn't one. Or if there ever was, it's lost to time."

"Maybe Nana would know..."

I sighed.

"You can ask her, if you want. I... I can not hold onto any hope. Better to just accept it. Accept that... no matter how much I want you, some day I'll lose you too."

She made a soft sound, but didn't try to deny the truth of my words.

A bitter seed of darkness roiled in my heart. It was unfair. Unfair; I hadn't known what I was doing, I'd been young and stupid and he'd been so... so well dressed, so dashing, so... worldly.

And I'd paid.

Oh, God, how I'd paid through all the long, black years since then.

"What's wrong? You're so pale," she whispered. I shivered as she brushed the back of her hand against my cheek.

"Just... remembering."

"Tell me."

"No. It's... no."

"Is it about... what you are?"

"Oui," I whispered.

"Annemarie... everything I've read says that... that Vampires are..."

"Blood-crazed demons that bathe in the blood of the innocents?"

"Um..."

"They are," I said. "They're... we're... just... very good at masking that. Parasites need to hide what they are. They... we... ease themselves into society, becoming... familiar. The judge. The reporter who always takes the darkest stories to spare the others. Hiding in plain sight. The detective. The Mortician. The... librarian," I finished, soft and bitter.

She shifted.

"How did you..."

"I met a man of culture."

"... oh."

Her hand fumbled for mine.

"I was young - just nineteen. The daughter of the senior Magistrate. A prize catch. My father... oh, he was a different breed. He had the odd belief that no child of his would be illiterate, no matter their gender. So... I could read, and write, in French and Latin and Greek, and play the Pianoforte and the Viola... this became known. I was a desirable match. Suitors came calling. But it was eighteen sixty-six and I was... restless. I wanted to see the world. I'd have sold my soul..."

And then I laughed, soft but bitter.

"I did, didn't I," I whispered.

She rested her cheek against my shoulder and made a soft sound that could have been agreement.

"He... was a medical man, a Physician from the Université in Paris. So very different from the merchants and farmers of Avignon. He was funny, virile... and had a scathing sense of humour that I found... attractive. My father approved. My mother... did not."

"You fell for him?"

"I fell for him. I think Mama sensed that there was something wrong with him and tried to warn me off. But..."

"Girls are... wilful."

"So... I fell under his spell. And he had me, and then... turned me."

"How... how does it happen?"

"It's an infection of some sort. I haven't dug into it. The idea has always... nauseated. Gothic romances and so on go on about the bite of the vampire, his kiss, the canine teeth to the jugular, the fainting woman in questionable sleepwear... it's all nonsense. None of it is true. It's the blood. Get infected blood in a cut and, well, that is it. He told me he could show me the world if I... joined him. He captured me with tales of the Alps and the Americas and the cherry terraces of Kyoto..."

"So you let him change you."

"Yes. I agreed - in the throes of passion, if that excuses it at all."

"Mhmm."

"It seemed so silly. A drop of blood, et voilà. He was hard in me and I was... well. It didn't take him much to convince me, let us put it that way."

"And then?"

"It takes a couple of days. Headaches, weird displacements of time, a quickly-building aversion to the sun... increased physical strength, decreased need for sleep. Some become faster, some gain some limited ability to alter their form. It's... different for most, from what I've read in the last few of days."

"And... you?"

"Much the same. I'm stronger, as you've seen, and I don't like the sun, but..."

"You pass as a normal girl."

"Just older and more of a cynic."

"And... your family?"

She felt the way I tensed.

"Oh Annemarie... was it him? Was he the one who killed your family?"

I clenched my fingernails into my palms as the pain blossomed in my heart.

"Oui," I whispered.

"Oh..." she sighed.

"Father confronted him, see - he accused him of... well, of taking my virtue, as it was called back then. Of "ruining" me. He had a pistol and... he shot my... my suitor," I said bitterly. "He shot him in the chest. Not the wisest thing to do at the best of times, but suicidal if you miss the Vampire's heart. The Doctor went... berserk. He... he dismembered father with one blow, and then cut Mama down when she began to scream. And... and then he killed Phillipe, and... and... he said that it was...a mercy. He was seven. Just seven..."

The hot tears splashed on my lap.

"Oh, Annemarie..."

"... and...and I was screaming and wrestling with him and cursing... and... and he just compelled me down into darkness. "Sleep," he said, and I did. There was nothing I could do, no way I could resist. He gorged himself on my family and went to sleep in my parents' bed, safe in the belief that he would wake before me. He was... wrong. I woke first."

"What did you..."

"I found some ash staves in the basement and used an axe to sharpen them. I walked upstairs. I was so scared that he'd wake and kill me before I could get revenge. But he was blood-drunk; slow and bloated. He woke, roaring, when I stabbed him the first time. It took me a couple of tries to find his heart and finish him. Then... then I pulled a taper from the hearth and... lit the bed on which he lay. And stood and... watched."

"Oh my God..."

"I didn't want to live. Everyone I loved was dead because of me. So... so the flames built around us and I stood and waited to die in our pyre. Then the roof fell in on us. And... something... made me fight my way free. In Avignon they still tell stories about that night - about the ghost of the Magistrate's murdered daughter who came walking out of the flames and vanished into the darkness. I found... somewhere to hide, a cellar or a hole, and stayed there, venturing out only by night, preying only on livestock and vermin and moving on before I became a blight. And I healed. Mostly. And I slowly learned that I could manage what I was, that there were things I could do so that I could pass as human... until I stayed young for too long and had to move somewhere new and... start all over..."

"Oh my God. You must be so lonely," she said, voice trembling.

"Oui," I gasped.

Her hand clamped down on mine, then she turned pulled me in against her, tucking me in against her and gently rocking me forward and backwards. I was too tired to be strong. I curled in against her, lifting my knees up against myself, trying to hide away from the cruel,wide everything within the comfort of her arms.

"I will find a cure for you," she breathed, some time later. "I will not let you be alone any more. I will not."

I didn't answer; there was no point.

She was young.

She'd learn.

Sometimes there is just no cure for past mistakes.

No matter how hard we've tried to make amends.

☽●☾

"I've got the bath warm for you," she said. "Come. You're cold and exhausted. Let's at least get you clean and warmed up a bit. Then we can sleep for a few hours, okay?"

I didn't resist as she took my hand and led me through; I simply stood, mute, as she unbuttoned my shirt and folded it back from my shoulders.

"You're so elegant," she said, softly.

She freed my arms from my sleeves, and turned to place my shirt to one side. I watched her, watched the way she consciously forced herself not to look at me as she turned back to me.

"Shall I..."

"I'll do it," I whispered, reaching behind myself and undoing the clasp of my bra. I slid the straps from my shoulders and, for once, just let it fall.

She let out a soft sigh.

"Am I... pretty?" I whispered.

She stepped half a step closer and reached out to gently touch my cheek.

"No. You're beautiful," she said. "You're gorgeous, Annemarie. And I'm not just saying that because I like you."

"Oh."

She dropped her hands to my hips.

"Shall I..."

"Yes," I whispered, closing my eyes.

I felt her fingers touch the skin of my belly, twist, cup the button that fastened my jeans. She tripped it, popping the cold metal free from the fabric that sheathed it, then folded the fabric back and away as she eased the zip slowly downwards.

I shuddered.

"Annemarie..."

"Don't stop," I whispered. "Whatever you're going to do to me, don't stop."

I felt her move, then I whimpered as I felt her kiss the skin of my belly with her soft, warm lips.

Denim hissed slowly down my thighs. I lifted one leg, then the other, and she freed me of my jeans. I felt her hook her fingers into the black lace of my panties.

"Shall I..."

"Yes," I whimpered.

She eased them downwards, and, again, I lifted one leg and then the other.

Her hands were warm on my waist as she stood again.

"God, you're amazing," she breathed.

"You make it hard for me to think."

"Then don't think," she answered me. "Just feel."

She leaned forward; I lunged blindly, found her and, moaning softly, kissed her once, twice... and then melted against her as she closed her arms around me.

"You're so cold," she whispered, voice all wonderfully throaty.

"It's... the disease."

"Get in the water. Let me warm you and clean you."

"You could scrub me for a century and I'd still be..."

"Stop that, Annemarie."

Her words were curt. I shivered.

"Stop belittling yourself. Stop hating yourself. This... this thing that was done to you does not define you. How could it? You are so much more than it."

I opened my eyes, stared up into hers.

She waited until she was sure I was paying attention, then kissed me once more.

"Now step... and sit," she whispered. "There."

I slowly eased back against the plastic shell of my tub and watched her in the glimmering half-light of the multitude of candles she'd lit for me.

I loved the colour that had flushed to her throat and cheeks.

I slowly lounged back and let my head rest against the rim of the bathtub.

She glanced away, smiling, then dropped to her haunches so that she was at my level.

I stared at her, at her face, at those perfect lips and the little tip of tongue that appeared when she took a breath to speak...

"If you keep looking at me like that I'm going to get ideas," she said.

I loved that she was so openly staring at me, watching me.

"Ideas? What kind of ideas?"

"I'm also cold. And I'm also exhausted. And that bath looks big. "

"It is."

"Big enough for two?"

"Perhaps," I responded with some affected nonchalance. "I have never tried with anyone..."

"You're such a tease," she said.

"I wouldn't know. I've never had anyone to tease either..."

"Well, let's change that then, for starters," she said.

She stood and pulled her vest off. Her soft sports bra followed.

"Wow," I whispered, staring at the gentle curves of her small, delightful breasts and their delicate pink nipples. "Mon Dieu, Sophie..."

She paused, then straightened. "What?"

"Just... it's just... you're so..."

I shrugged helplessly.

She smiled wryly. "My breasts are pointy and my hips are narrow..."

"No! You're beautiful," I protested. "I liked you from the moment I saw you. You... you are just what I want. You're what I've... always wanted."

"I'm awkward and bony," she said, laughing at me. "I know what I am, Annemarie. But... I'm glad you like me. Very glad."

She unbuttoned her cotton trousers and slid them off herself. Then, with no ceremony at all, she stripped out of the pale blue briefs that were all that she still wore.

Her copper-coloured pubic hair was trimmed to a neat arrowhead; I stared at it and the cleft it crowned.

"Make room for me, sweetie," she said, as she stepped into the bath, offering me a tantalising glimpse of the line of her lips. Water lapped against the overflow as she settled down, tucking and contorting herself so that we fitted.

"And now we're naked," she mused. "However did that happen? Oh, Sacre bleu."

I snorted. "You're terribly blasé about this. And that is absolutely not the sort of thing I'd say... what? Why are you smiling like that" I added, suspicious.

"I just want you, that's all," she said, as if it was that simple. "And... I like being naked against you."

I sighed.

"I want you too," I admitted. "But I'm... scared."

"Stop worrying about the future. Isn't tonight, or at least what is left of it, enough for now?"

"I don't know. I've... I haven't..."

"Annemarie - am I your first? I mean... since..."

"Yes."

"You're blushing."

I shrugged with my better shoulder.

"I'm... okay, maybe I am a little," I admitted.

She leaned forward and gave me this adorable little smile.

"Annemarie," she said, pronouncing my name in a way I suddenly realised she must have been practising.

"That's... almost right," I whispered, taken aback. "Annemarie. Je suis Annemarie."

"Come here, then, my Annemarie," she breathed, and this time, she had it parfaite.

So I lifted myself, and turned, and lowered myself again. She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me back against her.

And I turned my face and nuzzled against her as I felt for her hand and took it and slowly lowered it down to me.

I moaned softly as she found me. I opened myself, and she made a sound deep in her throat as she probed between my sparsely-covered lips to find the discreet little nub they hid.

"There? Like that?" she asked me.

"Yes..."

"And... there?"

"Yes..." I gasped, squirming.

"Shall I..." she whispered.

"Please..."

So she held me, and gently stroked and teased me as she toyed with my nipples and nibbled at the ear she could reach.