A taste of blood and shadows
Disclaimer: I don't own the Coldfire Trilogy, and no profit whatsoever is intended.
A/N 1: Very much to my own surprise, I managed to finish another one of my stories. That leaves me a meagre four days for polishing up the first chapter of my X-mas contribution (let alone slowly but surely starting with the last one). Sigh!
A/N 2: Some of you who've read other fics of mine might guess what happened to Gerald in his father's dungeons. But as everything stays very vague and Damien is never told anything precise, I deemed it okay not to give an explicit warning. If the mere idea of certain things squicks you, you can always pretend that he was tortured (from what Tarrant said about his dad, I wouldn't put it beyond him...) By the way: when will I ever have time for writing the whole Gerald/Gannon story?
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
The first wave of nauseating pain struck Damien roundabout five hundred yards away from the Coach and Horses, one of the few inns in town serving a bite all night long. Doubling over with a low grown, he braced himself against the next available wall, fighting down the urge to regurgitate his just eaten dinner with all his might and main.
When the spasm twisting his belly into a tight knot had faded into non-existence, he straightened up ever so carefully and tapped into the currents in order to subject his innards to an inspection. Things were bad enough already without him suffering from an appendicitis or a bad case of food poisoning, but he could find nothing amiss whatsoever that could have caused what had felt like the grandfather of all abdominal cramps.
Muttering a vicious curse under his breath, Vryce took to his heels again and headed for their rented room where the adept was waiting for him, but he hadn't come very far when it started all over again, although not quite as bad as before. This time, it was more a faint echo of an agony which wasn't his own, imposed on him by what could only be the vulking channel if he hadn't turned into a psychic all of a sudden. Damn!
Furious with himself for leaving Tarrant to his own devices in the deep of night, he sped up to a fast trot without giving a shit for the queasy feeling in his stomach and his wobbly legs. Under the given circumstances, it was very well possible that either their arch enemy Calesta had decided to strike a decisive blow at long last or the Unnamed had reneged on his promise. After all, it didn't take a devout priest of the One God to realize that the forces of the dark weren't exactly known for their trustworthiness.
What he heard before he could even see their boardinghouse made his blood run cold with dread. A series of high-pitched, inarticulate screams of pain so excruciating that no words could possibly encompass it seemed to rend the very night air. It was hard to tell, could have been anyone's voice, but his gut feeling told him that the tortured soul uttering them was no other than Gerald. Merciful God in Heaven, what the heck were their enemies doing to him to rip those ghastly outcries from the throat of such an epitome of pride and self-control?
Damien ran, but it seemed to take ages until he arrived at their modest accommodation. Panting with exhaustion and dread alike, he darted up the stairs three steps at a time. The landlord and several of their fellow lodgers were crowding in the corridor, rather sparsely clothed in a variety of sleepwear. Under different circumstances, the warrior knight might have grinned at what looked like a gaggle of refugees from a pyjama party, but as matters stood, he couldn't have cared less. His shaking fingers pushed the key into the keyhole and turned it, and at the very next moment he practically jumped over the threshold and slammed the door shut behind him.
Tarrant lay on his side at the far end of the room, his hair in utter disarray and his usually impeccable robes a crumpled mess. There was blood on his hands, a lot of blood, and to his horror Damien saw that his fingers were scraped raw and the nails broken off deep in the flesh. "Please have mercy upon me and send for a healer," the adept sobbed out. "I'm dying. Oh God, it hurts so much..."
Under Vryce's aghast gaze, he clutched his midriff and started to howl in pain again like a dying animal. Shaken to the core, the warrior knight knelt down at his side and rested his sword hand on a silk-clad shoulder. "Gerald, what on Earth and Erna is wrong with you?" he forced out between gritted teeth. "Good gracious, man, tell me how I can help you. You're scaring the living daylights out of me."
He could just as well have spared his breath. Utterly oblivious to his presence, Tarrant continued to alternate between clawing at the wallpaper as if trying to dig a way out of the chamber and rousing the entire neighbourhood. Listening to him begging for help was an experience Vryce could have very well done without.
At loss as what to do, he raked his greying hair. In any other man, he would have suspected a serious illness, a renal colic maybe or an obstruction of the bowels, but the adept was undead, for God's sake. Contrary to popular belief, he could feel pain alright when burned by the lethal rays of the sun or roasting over a fire like a bloody suckling pig, just to mention a few of the disasters that had befallen him since they had teamed up, but the misfortune of getting sick wasn't among the things he had to fear anymore. There had to be a different explanation for the state he was in, some malevolent force at work, intent on bringing him to his knees once and for all.
Damien tried to pull himself together. Whatever the reason for Gerald's sudden collapse, he couldn't just sit idly by and twiddle his thumbs while the man he had come to appreciate beyond anything he would have thought possible was in danger. After all, he was a sorcerer of considerable skills in his own right if by no means anywhere near as powerful as the being writhing on the threadbare carpet, and he'd better put this into practise before something irreparable happened.
He was just about concentrating on the mental patterns required for a Working when a stealthy movement at the periphery of his vision caught his attention. Whirling around, his gaze locked on a figure he'd rather not have seen ever again. Their single encounter was enough and to spare to still haunt him in his dreams.
The demon's skin, if it could be called thus at all, was a glassy surface that refracted the lamplight like chipped obsidian. It hurt to look at it, but the worst were the eyes, faceted, insectile and gleaming with malicious satisfaction as the creature glided soundlessly closer, gloating over his victim's suffering.
Tarrant screamed again as if skinned alive, and red-hot anger flared up in the warrior knight, flushed his face and balled his hands into white-knuckled fists. "You bastard," he spat viciously. "Stop torturing him at once, or I swear to God that I'll make you regret the day some fool spawned your filthy hide!"
Thin, black lips pulled back into a sneer, revealing a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. It was a terrifying sight, but Damien refused to let himself be intimidated by it. He thought of his sword or the springbolt hanging from one of the clothes pegs. Not that those weapons would do him any good against a Iezu, but there wasn't a chance in hell that he'd let this go on without at least trying to intervene.
Before he could do so much as to move a single finger, a rather more welcome visitor manifested right between Calesta and his prey. His face a mask of fury, Karril had shed any pretence of his usual good-natured if hedonistic self. "You'd better do what you're told," he growled. "The priest might not be a match for you, but he doesn't stand alone."
You've got no right to interfere. The Hunter hasn't bonded with you. His fate is none of your concern."
"There you're very much mistaken, brother. Gerald and I go way back. You'll never understand my reasons for protecting him, but I warn you against bringing matters to a head. It could be the last thing you'll ever do."
"Is that so?" A forked tongue darted out, testing the air very much in the manner of an unclean snake, and Damien couldn't help but shuddering with revulsion. "Have it your way then, Karril. For now," the demon hissed. "I've already got what I came for, anyway. Feeding on his pain and terror was the most nourishing meal I've had in ages. Hence, I don't begrudge you coddling your little pet. Savour it. He won't be around much longer."
The glistening black body so utterly alien to the mortal plane wavered, became translucent like smoke just to vanish into thin air altogether. As soon as he was gone, the God of Pleasure squatted down at Tarrant's side and placed a chubby hand on his forehead.
The Hunter lay perfectly still, not even breathing. His drawn face chalky white, he looked like a corpse, something that came a bit too close to the truth for Damien's liking. "How's he doing?`he muttered, startled by the surge of anxiety welling up inside him. "He's going to be all right again, isn't he?"
"No permanent damage has been caused, priest. Not to Gerald's body, that is. His soul – that's an altogether different matter. A curse on my sibling and his sadistic inclinations. Other than killing him outright, he could have devised nothing more effective to punish his most dangerous enemy."
"But what the hell has the son of a bitch done to him?
The God of Pleasure shrugged. "He brought his worst memory alive to him. Suggested him that he was seventeen again and back in his father's dungeons. If you want to hear the full story, you have to turn to Gerald. It isn't for me to tell. Just know that the high and mighty Baronet Marshall was a swine. A brutal, utterly unscrupulous beast no less sadistic than Calesta. The day Gannon stormed his stronghold in order to rescue his young courtier, he saw to it with his own hands that the scumbag couldn't hurt anyone ever again. A pity that his death came quickly."
"King Gannon? The founder of our Order?"
"The very same. Don't ask me any more questions, Damien. I've already said more than I should have. Gerald would go spitting mad at me for betraying his secrets, and I'm not altogether keen on ending up on his black list of Iezu to be done away with. And now excuse me. I've got some business to attend to."
The warrior knight blinked. "You have to be kidding," he protested. "Tarrant's still out cold. Vulking hell, he hasn't drawn a single breath since he stopped screaming bloody murder. As his friend, you can't just make yourself scarce as if everything were in best order and participate in one of your damn orgies. It isn't right."
"Of course I'm his friend. I didn't get roped into accompanying you on your pleasure trip to Gerald's private hell for the fun of it, just to mention one occasion I went against Iezu law for his sake lately, endangering my very existence. I'm not prone to masochistic behaviour," Karril snapped in a huff. "However, I think it's you and your support he'll need when he comes to."
"No shit! But I don't have a clue what I could do for him. Or why he'd want me at his side, for that matter."
It seemed to him that the God of Pleasure sighed softly. "In this case, you'd better make an educated guess. It's high time for stopping living in denial. That goes for both of you. Keep in mind that Calesta can read your most secret desires and use them against you. You're well advised to lay the cards on the table, as you humans are wont to say, before you set out on your next suicidal mission. That's the only piece of advice I can give you till we meet again. Make the best of it."
When Karril had disappeared into the ether without a further word, Damien focussed his attention on the Hunter. Some points of the tale he had just been told struck him as rather odd. Gerald changing his surname wasn't altogether surprising with regard to his family history. He must have been desperate to distance himself from the bunch of psychopaths who had turned his early mortal days into a living hell. It was even feasible that the king who had appreciated him and his services enough to make him Knight Premier of the Order of the Golden Flame and Knight of the Realm in an age long gone by had set out on a rescue mission in person instead of just sending some troops. After all, he himself had gone to much worse places in order to save the very same man, hadn't he? It was rather the strange emphasis the Iezu had put on the word 'courtier' as if he had almost said something else entirely that gave him some food for thought. If he wasn't completely mistaken, there had to be a lot more to the story than Karril had let out so far.
But be that as it may, he had more pressing matters at hand for the time being. His brow furrowed and his lips pressed tightly together, Tarrant was still oblivious to the world. If possible, he looked even worse than in Karril's storage cellar. The puckered scar the Unnamed had graced him with stood out in stark relief against the ghostly hue of his skin, and Vryce's heart ached at the sight of the lines of pain edged deeply into those delicate features. "It's over, Gerald. You're safe," he squeezed past the growing lump in his throat, only marginally aware that his finger were brushing a golden brown strand of hair out of the adept's still face. "Come on, you bastard, talk to me. You didn't survive all that crap just to give up now. GERALD!"
When all his yelling and shaking proved to be of no avail, Damien racked his brain for an alternative. Apparently their unique link between souls was utterly useless, or Tarrant would have reacted to his rising panic by now. Working through to him, on the other hand, was out of the question. Just like in the caves of the Lost Ones, the man might suck him in as fuel without ever realizing that he was there. As much as he wished to revive him, he'd rather not take that risk, at least not as long as it wasn't a matter of life or death.
The caves of the Lost Ones... Remembering their mad flight through the lightless depths of the earth, lugging the Hunter's dead weight around, it suddenly dawned on him what he could do to help his companion, and he called himself three times a fool for not thinking of it earlier.
Sending a silent but heartfelt prayer up to the heavens, he unearthed a penknife from his vest pocket and pricked the tip of his left index finger. It was but a minor injury that wouldn't handicap him in a case of emergency, but a few droplets of blood hopefully were everything he needed to put his plan into action.
Gently, he parted Tarrant's lips and inserted his digit into his mouth without giving a damn for the unearthly chill radiating from the man's undead flesh. For about a minute that felt like a small eternity nothing happened, but just when he was coming close to abandoning all hope that his approach would bear fruit, a violent jolt passed through the body in front of him. Slender hands shot upwards in a motion so fast that the human eye couldn't follow, closed around his wrist like a vice, and at the very next moment the adept began to suck at his wound with a low, wistful sigh.
It should have been revolting, a ghastly, unholy act only to be endured for the sake of the greater good, but it was nothing of the sort. Gerald's mouth working on him kindled something inside him the warrior knight hadn't even know existed. A slow, languid warmth spread through him, centred in his groin, and for the first time ever he realized the truth behind Karril's seemingly absurd warnings. Damn!
"Gannon, how... how is she?"
The faint voice snapped Vryce out of his almost trance-like state. Losing himself in a bizarre conglomerate of pleasure and horror about the revelation just sprung upon him, he hadn't even registered that the Hunter had stopped feeding on him. "Gerald, it is I, Damien," he blurted out, torn between relief and worry about his ally's state of mind. "What are your talking about?"
Pale grey eyes fixed on him. At first, they were frighteningly blank, utterly devoid of the keen intelligence and insatiable hunger for knowledge forming an integral part of the adept's personality, but at long last a hint of awareness stirred in them. Shock flared up in those molten pools of silver, followed by a heart-wrenching expression of anguish and something Damien couldn't quite put a name on. Stunned, he fished for a reassuring platitude, a few words to anchor his brother-in-arms to reality, but before he could utter so much as a single syllable, Tarrant released his wrist he'd still been clutching like a lifeline to sanity and buried his face in his hands.
Seeing his strong shoulders heaving convulsively, Vryce's heart went out to him. His arms rose as if on their own account and pulled the former Prophet of the Law into a comforting embrace. Holding him felt so good, so inexplicably right in spite of the cold threatening to freeze the marrow in his bones that he could have gone on like this forever, just breathing and relishing in the feel of the lean frame pressed against his bulk.
When the Hunter faced him at long last, his eyes were completely dry. Perhaps it was true then that the creatures of the night had no tears to shed, but under the given circumstances Damien wasn't in the least inclined to delve into the intricacies of demon lore. "I can't stop shaking," Tarrant murmured. "Much worse has been done to me, so why the hell can't I stop shaking?"
"It's all right, Gerald. You've been through a lot, and for each of us comes a point when it simply becomes too much. You don't have to be ashamed."
The adept gave a small, self-deprecating laugh. "But I'm not a mere mortal anymore, as you never fail to remind me. The parameters of my existence changed when the forces of the dark accepted my sacrifice and transformed me into something else entirely. My essence is demonic, Vryce. That kind doesn't suffer from breakdowns, nor do they cry about things which can't be undone anymore."
"But a part of you is still human. Your soul. Maybe it's time to reclaim the rest of your birthright," the warrior knight objected gently.
"It's all very well for you to say," Tarrant retorted, the bitterness in his voice clearly audible. "But I'm still what the Unnamed made of me a millennium ago. There is no way back from utter damnation. Not without true repentance. We've already discussed this ad nauseam."
Very much against his will, Damien felt his hackles rising. "Don't you accuse me of taking things lightly! It's not that I'm having the time of my life, dammit. First I'm forced to drag your sorry butt back from hell, then you fall prey to one of Calesta's illusions, and on top of our misfortune we still have to find a way to keep you alive and kicking beyond the expiry date of your reprieve, or whatever counts for 'alive' in your state. Oh, and let's not forget finishing off a power-crazed Iezu intent on enslaving mankind in passing."
"I'm sorry for the inconvenience, Vryce."
"Don't you be snappish with me! I'm not in the mood for it," the priest fumed. "I know that it isn't your fault, but God is my witness that I've had it up to here with worrying myself sick about you. Don't know what was worse tonight: listening to your screams, knowing that there was nothing I could do about it or fearing that you wouldn't be there anymore to annoy the blazes out of me at least once a day."
"But you wanted me dead. Swore to kill me with your own hands."
"Yeah, back then when I was still young and reckless. Honestly, Gerald, when will you ever admit that things have changed between us? If Calesta's dirty little trick has taught me one thing, it's that I'd give an arm and a leg for keeping you out of harm's way, and considering what I've heard from our friend Karril, you can't be that averse to my company, either."
Tarrant tensed up in his arms. "That Iezu is a real pain in the neck. What else did he tell you?"
"Only that your father was a vulking asshole who held you prisoner when you were seventeen and King Gannon came to your rescue, finishing him off for his crimes against you. Good riddance, I dare say."
"That's all?"
"That's all. I won't pretend that I'm not curious, but you needn't fear that I'll pester you with questions. In case you want to talk about it, I'm all ears. If not, well, each of us has got some skeletons in his closet, I suppose."
"Thank you, Vryce," the adept breathed. " For your consideration and everything else. I'd rather not rehash that mess tonight if you don't mind. It wouldn't do us any good. Suffice to say that calling the bastard who sired me an 'asshole' doesn't even touch it. You cannot possibly imagine his sadistic cruelty, his utter disregard of our family ties, however untoward they might have been. But instead of wallowing in self-pity, I'd better have a look at Senzei Reese's notes. The night isn't getting any younger."
He tried to get up, but sagged back against Damien with a strangled groan. "Gerald, what is it?" the warrior knight spluttered with no small measure of alarm.
"My stay in hell drained me of energy, and Calesta's attack weakened me even further, nullifying the effect of the donations of Karril's followers. I need to feed, plain and simple."
"Will more blood do?"
Tarrant shrugged. "It is to be hoped. I don't think I'm up to a hunt. Or even to a quick kill in a back alley, for that matter. Not without replenishing my resources first."
Wordlessly Damien fumbled for his pocket knife again, but a slender hand around his lower arm stopped him short. "Don't, Vryce," the Hunter whispered. "It might sound preposterous after everything I've done to you, but I... I don't want to hurt you. If you could just fetch me a canteen or two from Karril's temple..."
"Like hell I will! With Calesta looking for trouble, there's no way I'm letting you out of my sight again. And now stop fussing. If it makes you feel better, you can pretend that it's all in a good cause. Who but you could rid the planet of a crazy Iezu?"
Silver eyes met his own hazel ones, wide and soft with an emotion the adept might never voice, and Damien very nearly forgot how to breathe. As if in a trance, he flicked open his knife and made an incision to his left wrist, aiming for one of the larger veins.
When the red liquid started to flow freely, Tarrant's delicate nostrils flared at the coppery scent filling the air and his pupils dilated even further, drowning the familiar grey and white in an ocean of black as lightless as the bottomless abysses of Novatlantis. His mouth opened ever so slowly, revealing pointed, razor-sharp fangs no less inhuman than Calesta's denture. As far as Vryce was concerned, it was a pretty bad sign that the Hunter allowed the trappings of his true nature to take form in his presence. So far, he had kept matters amazingly civil when feeding on his blood, keeping the monster lurking just beneath the pleasant, aristocratic façade firmly in check, but evidently he was so exhausted now that he couldn't bother about keeping up appearances any longer.
Then chill but so very soft lips latched onto his wrist, and his worries evaporated into thin air. A strangely erotic warmth spread through his limbs just to pool in his crotch again, a hundred times stronger than when his companion had sucked on his finger. Rock hard all of a sudden as if he were eighteen again instead of pushing his forties, the warrior knight was dimly aware that a part of the sensations threatening to overrun the last barricades of his self-control was Tarrant's pleasure in drinking his blood which flooded his mind via the channel. He could almost feel it running down his throat in hot, salty spurts, alleviating a hunger that could never be fully sated and sending small shock waves of delight through every cell of his body.
More, Vryce. Oh God, you taste so good... The Hunter's mental voice was a throaty purr of arousal unlike anything Damien had heard him utter ever before. It evoked images of flawless alabaster skin as satiny as the finest silk under his fingertips, of long legs tightening convulsively around his hips and a light tenor moaning his name in the throes of passion. The mere thought was almost enough to make him orgasm without even touching himself, and he came damn close to screaming in frustration when Gerald suddenly pushed his wrist away. "I regret that I have to put a damper on your enthusiasm," the adept said quietly, "but as I've already taken more than I should have, going on would be unwise in the extreme. After Healing the cut and Accelerating the production of your blood cells, you'd better rest for a while. But don't forget to drink something first. Your body needs fluids."
Tarrant's voice was calm and controlled again, but his eyes betrayed that he was anything but. Black holes in a bone-white face, they were windows to a nightmarish world haunted by eternal thirst and evil beyond mortal reckoning where the priest didn't care to tread. And yet he couldn't keep himself from drowning in those fathomless depths, sinking deeper and deeper beneath the troubled waters of moral scruples and religious abhorrence until he reached a shadowy twilight realm where suchlike trivialities had no bearing on him anymore.
At the beginning of their acquaintance, he had loathed what had become of the founder-father of their faith with all his heart. If ridding Erna of the Hunter's taint forever had meant sacrificing his own life in the process, he would have done so willingly. Later, he had come to pity, even like the tiny spark of the great man Tarrant had once been which was still smouldering under the ashes of a thousand years of corruption. It hadn't been particularly difficult to rationalize his change of mind. As a priest of the One God, it was his goddamn duty to guide that lost soul who'd been walking in the darkness for so many years now back into the light. Or so he had told himself.
This was different, though. While they had been oblivious to their surroundings, the lamp had gone out unnoticed, and the only illumination of the room was the ghostly light of Erna's moons. Its silvery glow lent Gerald's pale complexion an almost translucent sheen and cast sharp shadows beneath his cheekbones, highlighting the surreal, utterly otherworldly quality of his beauty.
Along with the traces of gore staining his thin lips, the overall effect was that of a creature no more human than one of the faeborn or the mythical vampires of their mother planet Earth, but instead of being repulsed, Vryce was turned on by it. Just as he had foretold in the rakhlands, the adept had crept into his bloodstream like a slow-acting poison, stripping him off his principles layer by layer and warping him into a bizarre parody of his old steadfast self.
A great many things could be said about Gerald Tarrant, and not all of them were pleasant. As much as he might secretly long for redemption, he was a merciless mass murderer who deserved a hundredfold death for the butchering of untold innocents. The warrior knight knew all this, probably better than anyone else, but all he could see now when looking at the man was the natural grace and wild, untamed attractiveness of a true predator, perfectly adapted to the requirements of his existence.
As if drawn to him by a force stronger than fire, wind or water, Damien leaned closer. When their mouths met for the first time, he tasted blood and shadows. Gerald's lips parted for him without the slightest resistance, allowed him to explore his oral cavity to his heart's content, giving canine teeth longer than a human man's had any right to be a wide berth, but just when he was really warming to the proceedings, the adept broke the kiss and disentangled himself from his embrace. "No, Vryce, we mustn't," he cautioned. "Taking the breaking of my compact into account, I shouldn't have to fear anymore that participating in an act so closely connected to the world of the living is bound to be the end of me, but you're much too weak to..."
"You can mother-hen me later, Gerald," Damien growled deep down in his throat. "Right now, I've other things on my mind than getting my head down for a nap."
Considering that he had never made love with a man before and his sexual partner had lived in celibacy for the last nine hundred and fifty something years, things went astoundingly smoothly from then on. As soon as he had Banished their clothes with no more than a fleeting thought, the Neocount straddled him right there on the floor and lowered himself onto his straining erection without further ado. It's just as well, Vryce mused dazedly. The bed looks damn uncomfortable, anyway.
A low chuckle answered him, sending sparks of arousal down his spine. Then Gerald started to roll his hips in a slow, hypnotic rhythm, and he stopped thinking altogether.
It seemed the most natural thing in the world to dig his fingers into muscular buttocks, to lift Tarrant up and slam him down on his cock again and again, reckless in his desperate hunger for release. The Hunter met him every step of the way, paying him back with his own coin. Long, curved claws raked his shoulders and a pair of impressive ivory fangs hovered just inches above the tender skin on the curve of his neck, just where the large blood vessels were inviting for a meal, but he was way beyond caring for anything save the incredible tightness around him and the lustful sensations in his abdomen. Nothing had ever felt that good, not even his first climax inside a woman, but he managed to hang on until Gerald shuddered and let out a choked moan, his head thrown back in rapture. Witnessing his pleasure was all it took to send Damien over the edge as well, crying out his lover's name as wave after wave of pure, unbridled ecstasy tore through him and a shower of stars exploded behind his eyes.
"You never fail to surprise me," the adept purred into his ear afterwards, his amusement almost palpable. "Of all things in the world, I wouldn't have expected you to lay with a being anathema to everything our faith is standing for. One question, however, remains: where are we going from here?"
"Who knows? You've already taken me to a lot of strange and exciting places. Does it really matter as long as we're together?"
Gerald said nothing, just shook his head ever so slightly and smiled against his cheek, but it was enough. Feeling a great sleepiness coming over him all of a sudden, the warrior knight closed his eyes and dozed off, his last thoughts before the waters of forgetfulness claimed him on the man in his arms.