The Malavide

The Malavide waited; he looked much like a normal man, and he had the same heritage, but there nearly all similarities ended. The Malavide could disguise itself well, and the rumors about them, the myth and that silly name that humans called them - all that was nonsense.

Some of the myths, though - some of them were right on the target, frighteningly so.

The Malavide dismissed that thought. His colleagues, what few of them were left, disdained him for thinking too much. But it was not that he thought too much, it was what he thought about - that was what bothered them, that was what had them avoiding him for these past years.

The Malavide's name was Thonos, and he had been alive for nearly three thousand years. He had prowled the streets of Greece, and loved women who bore him children, and then lost them all. That was one thing Thonos did not like to think about - but when he felt his resolve weakening, all he had to do was summon the images of his children, laughing and playing with their mother, sweet Idriates - picture them then, and then picture them afterwards. When he saw them, even in his minds eye his will to fight was constantly renewed.

The Malavide's jaw clenched; to all intents and purposes he was a normal appearing man, just under six feet with a slim build that moved with what seemed to be more grace, perhaps, than normal.

Right at the moment he was sitting still, sipping at a small porcelain cup of coffee. That myth about his kind not being able to eat; that was one of the ones that was poppycock. One of the things that kept him going, year after year, was the simple ability to eat food. It was his single greatest pleasure since he had given sex up.

Thonos had a shock of black hair, a square jaw and dark eyes that noticed everything. He was dressed for the moment in what he considered golf clothes; khaki pants, collared slipover shirt, soft fleece jacket. He sipped the coffee, and he waited, and waited, and finally he saw his prey.

It was strange, Thonos thought with the usual despair hanging over him - it was strange that females among the Malavide were unknown - he had never even heard rumors of a female Malavide, much less seen one. But agents of the enemy were just as apt to be female as male.

Either one, Thonos did not care - it was not his to question, and he had seen the work of the enemy first hand, knew of their evil from long dealings with them. As far as he knew, he was the oldest of the Malavide - he was so old he had long since forgotten exactly when or where he was born.

And right now, none of that mattered. He stayed exactly the same from one moment to the next. He had been waiting for over an hour for this woman to arrive, but no person watching him would be able to tell from his appearance that his quarry had finally appeared.

He was, for all intents and purposes a simple man sitting drinking coffee at an outdoor café. But if you could see a difference you might notice that he seemed suddenly even more intense, that his eyes took on a new feral longing.

The honey haired woman across the street, getting out of her cab - she was the focus of his attention; she was the one he had been hunting now, hunting for the past three days.

All of the Malavide were patient, but Thonos had taken that to a new art. He had watched the woman carefully, to see whom she associated with, to see if there were others in her circle he could take. That was a myth also, that his kind could feed on anyone. Only a few people had the proper aura, and only those few would ever become victims.

Sometimes there were others, clustered in a group, and sometimes there were not. This time there was not, and he had decided that enough was enough - he would take the woman tonight.

With a small sigh he stood and glided across the road. None of the other patrons saw him, and the waitress forgot he had ever been there less than a minute after she cleared the table.

None of the people in the cars saw him either, and though it was a busy night he moved smoothly across the road, missing cars by inches or feet but never having to slow or stray from his path. The doorman opened the door for him without really seeing him, and held it open for two women coming out.

Thonos smiled to himself - he did not have to disguise himself as such, but it was such an easy precaution, and one he had learned the hard way to take. He had actually been questioned one time in one of the murders, and that questioning had come to close. He had not taken the proper precautions, in disguise or choice of prey - the man he had killed that time had lived in the same apartment building as Thonos. Since then, he let no image of himself remain in people's minds when he was hunting.

Thonos slipped up the stairs, almost wishing this one would put up a fight - fearsome enough the creatures he fought were those same type which had slaughtered his family - but few of them stood even a small chance in hand to hand combat against one of the Malavide. They had other ways of killing the Malavide, and occasionally they were too effective.

Thonos had seen the numbers of the Malavide slip to steeply in the last few centuries, and the more technology gained ground the harder it was to bring new recruits in to the war. He had never been a good recruiter, but he had known them, the old and the new, and had kept track as most of them died over the last centuries. The greatest number of which had died just in the last hundred years or so.

Thonos knew what others did not - that they had all but lost the long, long war. There were some pockets left - at least, that's what Thonos had told himself, but he was really only aware of one other small group of Malavide; all the other little pockets, here and there about the world could well be gone, killed off by their prey.

Thonos spent most of his time now watching the natural beauty of the world, seeing museums, listening to music - and wishing that there were some way he could kill himself. As he slipped up the stairs, his dark hair gleaming in the lights of the huge apartment complex (if anyone had been able to notice, which they weren't) he thought that perhaps tonight would be the night. He had encountered prey before that had almost been good enough to end him. His kind was not invulnerable, after all, nor were they immortal.

Harder to kill, yes, and quicker to heal - and they did not age or get sick at all. They were better, faster and stronger than any normal man with a wealth of tricks they could use to attack or to flee, tricks they could use such as the ability to go unnoticed when standing right in front of someone, tricks such as not being able to cast a shadow or appear in a mirror - tricks that almost all of the Malavide did now without conscious thought. That one had made it to the legends, but twisted like almost all the truths about the Malavide was the mirror trick - making yourself invisible and making your reflection invisible

were two different things, but invisibility was only used when stalking or killing. It took to much power otherwise.

Thonos glided up the stairs; upon the wall there was heavy golden wallpaper with various scenes of trees and flowers on them, and the heavy red carpet had twisting gold vine designs which accented the walls.

The sconces were actually gas in this building; it was a place of money, which was not always the case with Thonos' victims. He found his prey in all walks of life, bums and working Joes and ho's and, like this one, rich bitches.

He was waiting for her when she got off the elevator; he was right behind her when she shut the door to her apartment. He flowed into her senses like the faintest scent of cinnamon upon the air, like the scent of lilacs on the gentlest of breezes, a scent so light that the woman's subconscious barely noticed it.

The woman was suddenly tired; she did not see the handsome man right behind her, smiling benignly as she went to the couch; as she stretched out upon it for just a short nap.

Thonos stared down at the woman, the muted light in his dark eyes suddenly growing more intense, until his eyes glowed in the dim room; he could feel his canines now, could feel them at their most. He stared about quickly, but there was no one else in the apartment. With his heightened senses, he would have been able to tell, if not by the smell of them then by the sound of their breathing.

Thonos fell to his knees beside his victim, who was stretched out on the couch. Her half open eyes regarded him, and deep in them there was the glint of awareness, the frightened light of terror.

He pulled her hair away from her throat, and all she did as he sank his fangs into her throat and began drawing her life's energy away from her was moan softly. The blood of the woman carried her life-force; like a tree's branches withering away in the wintertime the woman faded and her body turned gray and cold. Unlike the tree, there would be no renewal in springtime, no renewal ever again.

Thonos thrummed with her energy; he heard the door open, and hastily slipped backwards - there had been little blood spilt, there never was with Thonos. He was very careful. He just wished the transference of blood was not necessary for the transference of the life force, but there was no other way around it. His kind had been researching it for thousands of years, and they had discovered nothing at all new in all that time. They were as they had always been.

Thonos slipped through the open window. He would not even go near the man entering the doorway - he did not have to now, he could do almost anything he wished. The window in the guest bedroom opened easily, and Thonos slipped out the window calmly. He looked at the street ten floors below where he stood, and just as calmly stepped off the ledge.

The wind tore at his coat, and he smiled as he fell.

Chapter 2

Only one man saw the figure on the ledge, high up on the building. Only one man happened to be looking up at that exact time. Donny had been a drunk of most of his life, and he had every intention of staying a drunk until the day he died, and that was one of the reasons he saw the man.

He was leaning back at the mouth of an alley, leaning on his backpack and sleeping bag. He had stolen them from a naïve college student about a week ago and had had to fight three times to keep the treasures - but at the same time they allowed him to sleep where other bums could not. With the super thick sleeping bag he could stay warm on the coldest of nights, in the remotest of areas.

So he was reclining back catching a good buzz on the mad dog and a joint he had shared with a hooker he knew on Jameson Avenue, not yet ready to go find someplace to crash but still at that part of the buzz where he was deliciously alert - and he suddenly saw a slim man in preppy clothes standing on the ledge of the big apartment building diagonally across the block from him, eight, maybe ten floors up. Now, here was the odd thing - the man had not been there just a second before when Donny's glance had last rested upon the building - but now he was standing there just as casually as though he was on the sidewalk.

Donny would have sworn the man was not there before, and he was afraid even to blink now for fear the fellow would disappear. He had heard of people having hallucinations and prayed that this was not the case.

He did blink as the man stepped casually off, and cried out involuntarily, but the man was still plummeting, gaining speed. Donny cried out again, and pointed, but he was the only one that saw the slim man become cloudy, and almost . . . transparent, and he blinked again as suddenly there was just the slightest trace of fog, whipped away by the wind. Other people were looking at where he was pointing, but Donny knew - he knew he would be the only one to have seen that, though he could not say why.

He got up and staggered away into the night, leaving behind his precious backpack and sleeping bag, and he did not stop walking for three days.

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Thonos always breathed easier when he was in his library - he had books there that would have made scholars have heart attacks, books preserved by ways that Thonos himself had invented. Had he not, after all, been one of the original paper barons? What they used for paper nowadays almost made him gag, and it was a bittersweet relief that almost nothing was printed or published now that had any redeeming value. A gem here and there, but for the most part dross, not worth his time or consideration.

Thonos smiled - of course he knew he was being judgmental, but he did not care. His opinion affected no one but himself, and he had long since quit trying to talk people into his way of thinking. He had learned that early in his long, long life.

He stopped in front of one book; it had a different look to it, and there was no writing on the binding. If anything could be said to be magical in this world, it would surely be books; and this particular book radiated the quiet power of age.

Were he to reach out and open it, were he to pull it from the shelves he would find the finest hemp paper, the best paper that money could buy. The words were not standard type, but rather copies of diary pages; the hand that the thin letters were penned in would be the embodiment of grace.

Thonos touched the binding of that book briefly, but did not pull it from the shelves as he often did. He was not in the mood tonight, and he knew the contents by heart anyway - the pages, page after page of flowing script in a language long dead, were pages penned by his first wife.

Shenna had been her name, twenty years before Idriates, twenty years before he had fathered his children. He had come to love Idriates dearly, had loved her, he often thought, as much as he had loved Shenna.

But she had not been Shenna, and he would never put the memory of his first wife aside. She had died in childbirth, and she had taken with her to heaven the companionship of his unborn son. A strange smile played itself across Thonos' lips as he thought of how many names he had considered for his first child, and those not even girl's names. If his son had been a girl Shenna would have named her.

But no name had been necessary, none of the hundreds he and Shenna had tried out on each other, shouting them across the yard as though the unborn child were already playing past dinnertime.

None of them necessary - no name, no child and no Shenna.

Idriates had been the next woman he slept with, the next woman he had fallen in love with, and in the end the result had been the same but worse - for there was not tied up the love of one person, but of three, Idriates and son and daughter. Not a mere mental image of what a child would be, but the laughing, sweet faces of his children, named Shenna after his first wife and Benote after his uncle, his children had been fully developing little minds, people that he knew, and had not just imagined.

Thonos turned from the bookshelf, and went to sit at the window. He looked out at the darkened back yard. The yard was a work in progress; for the eighty years that Thonos had owned this house he had kept planting trees and bushes, kept installing fountains and statues and flagstone walkways; small bridges spanned manmade streams, and trellis' hung heavy with climbing roses and ivy, with the dark purple blooms of the morning glory. The yard looked at times much larger or smaller than its two-acre expanse.

All in the expansive back yard was covered in shade of varying degrees - there were no lights on in the back yard and the starlight was fitful, the moonlight almost nonexistent - but Thonos could see all nearly as well at night as he could during the day.

Even the colors, even in the velvet grip of night were remarkably close, just not as vibrant. There was none of the washed out grays that most people see when the cloak of night falls, but colors that pulsed with just a bit less life than if the sun were shining upon them.

Thonos did not know how that was so, just as he did not know how the Malavide did many of the things they did - but it was an immutable fact nonetheless. A fact that the few scientists who numbered among the Malavide had not studied to any great degree.

Thonos' dark eyes were depthless. He saw everything that was in the garden, but at the same time he saw none of it. He shut his eyes, and imagined once again what it would be like to see darkness - true darkness, where you can see more with your eyes closed than with them open, when your open hand cannot be seen a foot from your face, for that balm was denied him when he had never even thought about it before.

It was just one more example of Thonos' humanity, long since dead. He could not remember when he first felt that he missed the sensation of darkness. It was something that had been taken from him, and now it was one of his biggest regrets.

He remembered the last night he saw the denseness of shadow, the washed out colors of a moonlit evening.

He remembered the night he met ahk'Tabur.

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The glow of his house behind him lit his steps ahead, his house that he had built with his own hands, with the help of his neighbors. Built with his own hands, his own spirit - the house represented a new beginning for Thonos, a beginning that Shenna had promised him to make.

But now the house was burning, and had been for over an hour. It was a big house, and burned all the longer because of that. Thonos no longer cared. On that night, when he was thirty-eight years old, Thonos cared for nothing.

As he sat in his expensive leather chair, thousands of years later and thousands of miles away Thonos remembered everything about that night in horrifying detail.

He had arrived home from Tenestia, a town where he had business dealings. He had left his house as always under the care of his dearest friend, Sorba Lentenin. His wife, his two children - they were Thonos' world, and Sorba knew this. Sorba would do anything for Thonos - they had saved each other's lives more times than either cared to count

Thonos found Sorba that afternoon lying a half a league from his house - the nearest neighbor was almost three leagues further away, and for a long time he did not realize what the pile of rags lying in the road was - then realization came like a hammer blow, and he turned his dearest friend over.

Sorba was almost unrecognizable. Thonos had seen enough of war to know that his friend had been ridden down, by horse and chariot; that he had been mutilated beyond that.

Thonos laid his friend by the side of the road, and steeled himself for what he knew he would find. A great blackness welled up inside the breast of Thonos as he traveled the last distance to his house, to Idriates and his children.

A great blackness, so that he could do what he had to do.

He ignored the wounds on his family as best he could; he arranged them in the great room that had been Idriates favorite room because of the afternoon sun, and then he had set the house on fire - and the brighter the flames burned the darker his despair became, the darker the blackness that was gripping his soul and his heart.

He set his back to the blaze, wandered away in the gathering dusk. The long fall grasses brushed his legs, but he paid no attention to where he walked - he only knew that he walked uphill, that as the darkness took over he could see the glow of the fire reflecting off the grasses and trees which lay before him.

The reflections became dimmer, and dimmer, and Thonos fingered the knife at his belt. He wished he had the strength, or the weakness perhaps to end his own life. But as much as he wanted to sink the slim blade into his vessels, as much as he wanted to join his Idriates and his children he could not; he could not even seriously consider it.