The Vampire and the Goth Ch. 15

Denmark, 1830

Vampires are very sensitive to light, but our sensitivity fades as we age. By the summer of 1830, I had been a vampire long enough that the sun was more of an irritant than any real threat, and I developed the habit of watching the sunset. This amused my hosts, the werewolf pack that sheltered me after I arrived in Denmark with Dmitri's family.

"Another sunset, eh Stosh?" Egil asked as he sat down.

Egil was one of the first werewolves I met when I arrived in Denmark. While the rest of the pack had initially been mistrustful of me, Egil was polite and accepting as soon as we met. We shared an interest in music and poetry, and I loved his ability to remain quiet, a talent that most werewolves seemed to lack.

"I never get tired of watching the sunset. And I do like a little space every now and then," I said. Egil laughed. "I get it, vampires like their quiet time. Is it okay if I sit here with you?"

"You're always welcome, my friend," I said with a smile.

Egil and I sat on the rock in a companionable silence, each of us enjoying the calm beauty of nature as we watched the sun dip into the North Sea.

Once the sun had fully set, Egil and I walked back towards the small village where the pack lived, outside the town of Vorupør. We ran into Egil's wife, Gisela, and their daughter, Hilda, coming back from picking berries.

"Husband!" Gisela said, as Egil picked his wife up and swung her around by the waist, and gave her a deep kiss. "My berries!"

Hilda took her mother's basket and rolled her eyes as she smiled at me. "Mom! Dad! You guys have been mated for decades. Stop embarrassing me!"

I laughed at Hilda. "I've known your dad since before he and your mom were mates and they've always been like this."

Hilda made gagging noises. "Well, I think it's gross!"

Egil and Giselda stood on either side of their daughter. "If we didn't like being gross you wouldn't be here to complain about it," Giselda smiled as she took her basket of berries back.

Giselda and Egil held hands as we walked back to the village. Hilda spoke in excited tones about everything they'd seen while they were out picking berries, and while her parents listened indulgently, they kissed each other over her head.

Eventually, we arrived back at their home. "Uncle Stosh, do you want to have dinner with us?" Hilda asked, knowing full well I couldn't eat with them.

"Hush, silly girl," Giselda said.

I smiled. "I'm afraid I can't join you for a meal. But maybe we can have some tea before I go out for the night."

"That would be great. I've made a new teapot that I can't wait to show off," Egil said, a distinct note of pride in his voice.

"What do you do when you're out at night anyway?" Hilda asked.

Egil answered, "Your uncle keeps the bad people away. And sometimes he does a little hunting and feeds us."

"That's the way of the pack," Giselda said, with a smile. "Everyone has a job, everyone pulls their own weight for the good of the pack. Our neighbor, Viktor is a fisherman, Alpha Brøndsted is a woodcarver, and your dad makes pottery. Their work is for the good of everybody."

"For the good of everybody," Hilda smiled, hooking her arm in mine.

As far as I know, my time living with a pack of werewolves makes me unique among vampires. Certainly, it's noted among their kind. Vampires regard werewolves as... well, as animals, basically, tasty prey that can talk. But in my experience, werewolves are intelligent, kind, and accepting of others. They aren't perfect by any means - they're overly affectionate to the point of being obnoxious, they talk all the damn time and they're honest to a fault, whether you want them to be or not. But for all their shortcomings, the time I spent with the werewolves was among the happiest times of my life.

In many ways, living with the werewolves reminded me of the time I spent with Vadoma's tribe - I patrolled and protected the pack at night, and they sheltered and protected me during the day, just as Vadoma's people had. Of course, werewolves are much better equipped to protect themselves than humans, but regardless, they appreciated me. Everyone treated me with respect, even with affection, but I hadn't really gotten close to anyone except Dmitri's family and Egil.

The older a vampire gets, the less time they spend reminiscing, and for good reason - vampires, like everyone else, make a lot of mistakes. The difference is that when you're immortal, there's a much longer list of mistakes to remember. Spending too much time revisiting the past will not only make you miserable, it will make you largely paralyzed, unable to do anything but think over and over again about each of your mistakes. Now, however, when we were talking with the Alpha of the local pack about how to handle a rogue werewolf, I found I couldn't stop thinking about my friend Egil.

"Stosh! Hellooo!"

I snapped out of my reverie to see David waving a hand in front of my face.

"Sorry," I said.

David smiled. "No worries,"

Angus was talking about life in Scotland while we waited for Carlos's brother and his coven leader to arrive. Suddenly, the sliding glass door opened, and Elizabeth stepped onto the deck.

"Hi guys, is it okay if I join you?"

I was surprised when Elizabeth came outside, but I was happy to see her. Patrick and Caleb both smiled.

"Of course. My name's Patrick and this is Caleb."

Elizabeth locked eyes with me and I smiled at her.

"Gentlemen, this is my mate, Elizabeth. She's Laura's sister," I said, as Elizabeth took a deep breath and shook hands with both wolves. She came over and sat with me and I put my arm around her protectively.

"Michelle told me how she reacted when she met Stosh, and I'm sorry that happened to you - it must have been scary and disorienting to be confronted with someone's wolf like that, and I'm glad that you feel comfortable talking with us," Patrick said.

Elizabeth said, "I had a lot of exposure to werewolves at Ben's mating ceremony. Angus has also been really good at helping me get over being freaked out."

Angus smiled, and David squeezed his hand.

Just then, the doorbell rang. "I think that's my brother," Carlos said. Everyone was quiet as Laura went to answer the door and invite the vampires in. Laura came back to the deck.

"Hey guys, I'd like to introduce you to Mateo Herrera, Alex Scandza, and Emily - "

"DIVA!" Emily yelled, running past Alex and Laura to hug Elizabeth.

"Hey, queen!" Elizabeth said back as she wrapped her arms around Emily.

Angus had a puzzled expression on his face and David laughed as the two women hugged tightly and talked over themselves rapidly, in excited tones, as though they hadn't seen each other in months.

Laura smiled and said, "If you don't need the chatterbox twins over here, why don't we head off and give you guys some space?"

Alex said, "I think that's a good idea. Patrick?"

Patrick nodded and chuckled. "I have no problem with that."

"Great! We'll be downstairs."

Laura hustled Emily and Elizabeth into the house while Mateo hugged Jadwiga and kissed her on both cheeks.

The family resemblance between Carlos and Mateo was striking, and it was easy to tell they were brothers. Mateo was shorter than Carlos and a bit stockier, but otherwise, they could have been twins, especially with their identical deep, brown eyes and cupid bow mouths.

"Hey, Julia," he smiled.

Carlos said, "Her name is really - hold on, let me try it... yahd-VEEH-juh,"

Jadwiga clasped her hands together and said, "You got it! Good job!"

"Julia is her American name," Carlos said, practically bursting with pride. "But her real name is Jadwiga."

"Great work, Carlos," Mateo said, winking at Jadwiga.

"So, I take it we should just assume that you all know each other?" Caleb asked.

I said "Other than my sister, I don't think any of us have met Mateo before. And Alex, I didn't know you were head of a huge coven."

David chuckled. "You seriously need to get out more, dude."

I shrugged. He had a point.

Alex smiled at me. "I became head of the coven only recently. It's gotten so big they wanted an ancient to lead it."

"Ancient? How old are you?" Angus asked.

"Time was counted differently when I was sired. Let's just say that Rome was a trading post when I was born as a human," he said, with a smile.

"Really fucking old," Angus said.

Alex laughed. "Yes, really fucking old."

Caleb sat up straighter. "So, you've killed a lot of werewolves in your time, haven't you?"

Caleb's awkward comment was embarrassing, and I put my head in my hands as Patrick said, "Caleb, that's not helping."

Alex never lost his smile. "That's okay. I suppose thinking of my age as having the time to kill a lot of werewolves is one way to look at it. Another way, a more accurate way, would be that I've had time to get over my taste for wolf blood."

Caleb scowled at him and was obviously unimpressed with his explanation. He laughed contemptuously and looked at Patrick. "Another vampire with a heart. How lucky can we get?"

Patrick remained stone-faced and impassive, but his eyes flared amber. Alex, meanwhile, laughed him off.

"Every vampire has a heart. We just don't wear them on our sleeves. We only show them when we value someone."

Caleb growled in a low voice, but neither Alex nor Patrick seemed to pay attention to him.

"So, what do we know about the rogue?" Alex asked.

"Carlos is the only one who got a good look at him," David said.

Carlos looked thoughtful for a moment. "I can say that he was definitely male, with black fur."

Patrick asked, "Did he have any other markings?"

Carlos seemed to think for a moment. "Not that I can recall. Her brother beat me up pretty badly," he said, nodding to Jadwiga.

We were all quiet for a moment. Then, Alex asked if he could look at the blouse Jadwiga was wearing when the rogue attacked. As he turned it over in his hands, he had a thoughtful expression on his face. He looked at Jadwiga and said, "He gouged you from your neck to your stomach, but he didn't do anything else, did he?"

"No..." Jadwiga said, near tears.

As Jadwiga told her story, I could see that Alex was deeply disturbed, and suddenly, I had a revelation.

"Jadwiga, you weren't attacked by a rogue werewolf."

Suddenly, everyone looked at me.

"What makes you say that Stosh?" Alex asked.

"Think about it. Why would a rogue werewolf pull Janek off Jadwiga and carry him away instead of simply killing everyone there? And why not kill anyone else?"

I could see understanding in the eyes of Patrick, Caleb, and Angus. Alex also seemed to understand what I was getting at, but everyone else was in the dark.

"Stosh, what are you saying?" David asked.

"When a werewolf goes rogue, they've lost their sanity. They become mindlessly destructive, killing anyone and everyone they come across, without any reason or warning. But the only real injuries from this werewolf came when he clawed Jadwiga while removing Janek, and that could have been unintentional. The real damage was caused by Janek. This wasn't a rogue attack."

Alex nodded his head thoughtfully, but Mateo asked, "How do you know that?"

Immediately, my mind went back to one horrible day nearly two hundred years ago.

There were a lot of things that made me different from the werewolves I lived with, but we shared one thing, and that was a love of running. Werewolves have a physical need to run. They run to burn off excess energy, of course, but they also use running as an emotional outlet. Werewolves will run as a way of celebrating the birth of a new litter, a newly mated pair, or a particularly successful hunt. Werewolves also run as a way to honor their dead or to deal with frustration or general unhappiness. Vampires don't use running as a way of expressing emotion, but they do like to run. At least, I do. I love the sensation of moving quickly, the feeling of the breeze in my hair, and the sound my feet make when they hit the earth.

Very early one morning, Egil, in wolf form, caught up with me on my way back to the village. He smiled and danced from foot to foot, gesturing with his head that I should follow him. I smiled, and we ran to the cliffs. He belly-flopped on the grass and I sat next to him, scratching behind his ears a little bit. Eventually, as the day grew lighter, he changed back into his human form.

"I suppose we should get you back home before the sun gets too strong," he said, with a sigh.

I smiled at him. "Well, I don't like the bright sunlight. But we can go for a quick run if you want."

Egil quickly turned back into a wolf and we ran through the woods on our way to the village. Suddenly, he stopped and looked out at a clearing at two other wolves, his mate and their daughter. Like us, they were out for a morning run. Egil wagged his tail and barked happily at his mate while gesturing to me with his head that I should follow him.

"Okay, let's catch up with your women," I said with a laugh, as we sprinted toward them.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a crack of gunfire, and Gisela immediately fell over. Their daughter, Hilda let out a shriek as another bullet hit her square in the face.

Egil and I ran to his wife and daughter and he immediately began to lick and nuzzle them as he shifted back into human form.

"Stosh, you've got to do something! Save them!"

But it was already too late.

I didn't say anything for a moment. I didn't talk about Egil. I didn't say a word about the day I saw a gentle, thoughtful man lose his humanity and turn into a monster right before my eyes. I didn't say anything about his rampage through the nearby town of Vorupør, where he ripped the throats out of every human he encountered, regardless of age, gender, or anything else, a rampage so bad that the Danes still tell horror stories about the "ulvemanden af Vorupør " - the wolfman of Vorupør. I didn't talk about how Dmitri's father, Misha, cried and told Egil about the day vampires had nearly killed his family in an effort to reach whatever humanity might have been left in him. And I didn't tell them about how Egil pushed Misha away and ran towards the cliffs and threw himself into the ocean.

Mateo asked again, in a gentle voice, "How do you know what happens when a werewolf goes rogue?"

I gave him a sad smile. "Because I've seen it happen."

"Did you kill him?"

I sighed. "No, I didn't. He was my friend, and I couldn't bring myself to do it."

Caleb asked, "So how did it end?"

Patrick put his hand on Caleb's arm. "It ended. Does it really matter how? We're not talking about a rogue werewolf anymore. We need to figure out what's going on now, today. Not what happened hundreds of years ago."

We all sat there, quiet for a moment. Suddenly, there was a howl from the woods behind Laura's house that rose into a woman's shriek. Immediately, Patrick and Caleb shifted into wolves, jumped from the deck, and ran into the woods. Angus turned to us and yelled, "Get in the house and stay there until I come back!" Then, he also shifted and jumped from the deck.

We stood there for a moment, looking out into the dark until Alex moved toward the door. "Come on guys, let's go inside and let them sort this out."

David responded sharply. "Do you expect me to just leave my mate to deal with this alone?"

"Yes. This is werewolf business. If we try to get involved, we'll only be in the way," Alex said gently.

David looked at him skeptically, then continued to stare off into the dark woods.

"Come on, David. Angus doesn't need to be worried about you," I said, putting my hand on his shoulder.

David shot me the same skeptical look that he gave Alex, then he relented. "Okay. You have a point, old man."

We walked into the house from the deck and found Laura, Emily, and Elizabeth waiting for us in the dining room.

Elizabeth came over to me and put her hand around my waist as she kissed my neck. "We heard something outside."

"It was wolves," Laura said. "Was it the wolf that took your brother?"

Suddenly, Angus, in wolf form, ran in from the deck, quickly shifting into a human.

"STOSH! DAVID! We need you NOW!" he said and returned to his wolf form and ran back into the woods.

I ran outside and David followed me. When we caught up to Angus, we could see Caleb and Patrick in human form, trying to stem the blood flowing from the neck of a woman who was lying on the ground. Once I got a little closer, I could see it was Laura's former girlfriend, Michelle, whose throat was almost torn out, as though she had been attacked by a werewolf.

"We don't know what happened or why she's here," Patrick said as I opened my wrist and put it to Michelle's mouth. Her skin was pale, her breathing was shallow and uneven, and I could see that she didn't have much time left.

"She's not in any shape to answer questions right now," Caleb said.

Michelle gulped my blood greedily as David said to Angus, "Get Alex down here now. We don't have enough blood between the two of us to keep her alive."

While Angus ran back to the house, David called after him, "And bring Jadwiga, too."

Michelle drank my blood so quickly I thought I would faint. The blood that she drank ran out of the hole in her throat until the wound began to heal. David opened his wrist and gently pushed me away.

"You're running out of blood, brother. Let me help."

I sat down as I heard people running through the woods. I put my head between my knees and I felt hands on my shoulders.

"Stanislav, it's okay. They've got her, they'll save her," Vadoma said to me.

Wait... "Vadoma?" I said, in a shaky voice. She stood in front of me, looking like she did in life, and she smiled gently at me as I said, "But Janek killed you."

Vadoma kneeled and put her hand on my cheek. "That doesn't matter. I'm always with you, Stanislav. As long as you exist, I exist."

I started to cry. "I've missed you so much, Vadoma,"

I felt hands on my shoulders again and turned my head suddenly. I immediately felt dizzy and gritted my teeth looking around, but Vadoma wasn't there. Instead, Emily, Elizabeth's friend, was next to me, holding me up with her arm around my shoulders.

"Sshh... just relax, we've got her. It's okay. She's going to be all right," Emily said gently.

"Vadoma?" I said, in a weak voice.

I heard Emily ask, "Who's Vadoma?"

"Vadoma was his sire. I guess Michelle took more out of him than we knew," David said, sitting next to me. He put his hand around my shoulders and leaned my body into his. "Wow, she drank a lot, didn't she?"

"Hey, I've reached my limit. Jadwiga? Can you take over?" I heard Alex say.

"Can I help?" Emily asked.

"No, sweetie, you're too young. But we've got four old ones here, so she should be all right."

Alex sat down next to David and me.

"How's he doing?" Alex asked.

David sighed. "I think she almost drank him dry. We'll have to get blood into him soon."

"I'm here," Angus said, suddenly looming over me. "I've got plenty of blood."

Alex responded, speaking for me, "That would be a big help. Thank you."

"No...You're my friend. You're not food. And David..." I said.

Angus laughed. "I can do with my body what I bloody well want. You're a quart low and I really don't want you to die," Angus said, as he opened his wrist.

"No!" I said, trying to push him away.

Drinking blood is an intimate act and I didn't want to violate my best friend's mate. More than that, I didn't want to drink the blood of ANY werewolf. I had seen werewolves treated as animals for centuries, and I wanted no part of that. But then, suddenly, Angus put his open wrist to my mouth as David held my head still, and despite my best intentions, I swallowed.

Angus's blood was so sweet and so powerful that I felt as if I was drinking one of those energy drinks humans like. I felt awake and alive, and stronger than I had ever felt before. I suddenly understood why vampires preyed on wolves, and despite my disgust with myself, I enjoyed it. I actually enjoyed drinking the blood of my friend.