Fallen leaves crackle under my feet, castoffs from the elms that, like so many others, seek sanctuary in these holy places. I am not here for safety, nor for repentance, but to visit someone I have not seen, whose voice I have not heard, in longer than the memory of any living human. It has taken me longer than it should, good son as I have always tried to be, but even I must devote time to banalities such as the finding of lodging and employment.
And then I had a patient I was unable to leave.
Setting foot once again on English soil was a relief, my entire being relaxing as soles met rocky shores. It was not, of course, that my adventures in other lands hadn't been educational, or even, on occasion, enjoyable - they had been both of those things by turns. It was simply that there is a curious bond between body and home that ensures the two will always meet as old friends, regardless of the length of separation.
That separation had been longer than a human lifetime, in my case, but still the soil of my homeland had been welcoming, all those months ago, wrapping scents and textures around me in an embrace to celebrate the return of a prodigal son.
This was a far cry from the way in which I had reviled myself at the time of departure. No, in those days I had been a monster, a self-loathing fiend in human form, a demon not deserving of the air he so unnecessarily breathed. Those things are still true, I suppose, in their ways, but if I am grateful to my travels for nothing else, then I am so for the change in perspective.
I remain a monster, but I am now one with purpose. I still despise my nature, but I am now able - finally - to see the benefits of what I have become. Though I yet feel that the air moving in and out of my lungs is undeserved, nonetheless I have carefully trained myself to breathe as a matter of rote so as not to arouse suspicion.
It has enabled me to live among humans, to help them and heal them and befriend them in their final hours when a cure is beyond my skill. In return, they have, if not reunited me with my humanity, then provided me with a chance to live alongside it. To enjoy companionship more satisfying than that I experienced during my brief time in Italy, and infinitely more fulfilling than the years I spent alone, wandering and lost.
Still, I wish for more. Permanence might perhaps seem an automatic right to someone of my ilk, but there is more than one kind of that.
I so nearly had precisely the thing for which I long so desperately, but events had conspired against me. Bright, rare sunshine had spilled through grimy hospital windows onto the boy I had finally resolved to bring into my eternal life, burning his skin until the very moment of his death, while I sat cloistered in my flat, waiting for nightfall.
And now the stars do sit shining in the sky above me, but rather than sitting vigil over a boy I had come to see as a son, giving him the comfort I was denied as I burned in the agony of transformation, I am alone. Kneeling beneath an ancient elm tree, head bowed and heart broken, at the one place to which I never believed I would return. My fingers, so much paler and stronger than they had once been, trace a familiar name on a moss-laden headstone, and I am transported.
Memories rush forth like the blood of the deer that sacrifice themselves for my sustenance, recollections I have had no reason to revisit in over two centuries.
Father, tall and proud at his pulpit, words raining down upon his congregation in drops of fire.
He would not have stood for this. He knew that which was just and right and fair, and those actions which should be punished. The ending of my mortal life had been testament to that, occurring as I did his bidding and hunted down those he viewed as scourges of the earth.
Demons. Vampires. I had done well, in the beginning. He had been proud, his embraces warm each time I returned home for a hot meal and the warmth of a proper bed. My guilt always melted within minutes of my arrival under the glow of his favor.
God is with us, my son. We are but His tool, carrying out His desires, and you are His sharpest weapon against the forces of evil. Cast these demons back to the hell from whence they came and know this is the work that will grant our passage to heaven. Remember that they are miserable creatures, and that their destruction is a kindness to them, even if they would fight to dispute it.
When I had failed, I left my home, preferring him to believe me dead rather than know I had become the thing he so despised. Even with vampire strength, I am a weaker man than he ever was.
London is a city of grime and sin, and I walk its streets with no aim in mind. I should return to the hospital, but I am not yet ready to see Joseph's bed empty and bound tightly with clean sheets - or worse, occupied by another.
It took me over two centuries to come to the decision of making a companion, and now the opportunity has been stolen from me. Ripped away by the diseased hands of immorality as if it meant nothing to me. As if my chance at a bearable eternity was worthless compared to a few shillings and a warm bed.
For the first time since beginning my immortal life, I long for the guidance of the man whose crumbling bones I have just knelt over, my heart weeping tears my eyes are unable to shed. I wish him to ask his God what I have done to displease Him. I am a demon, of course, an aberration, but have I not made of this existence the best I could? Have I not eschewed the temptations of human blood? Have I not gone so far as to heal humans, rather than destroy them?
I know the answers to these questions, but that is of little comfort. I have been sacrificing and good, and still I have been denied the sole reward for which I have ever asked. It might well be another two centuries - or longer - before a second pair of bright, intelligent eyes fill my heart with yearning and the promise of family.
And it is Joseph's eyes I see, the blue of a summer sky and bright with fever, swimming before me as I walk. It is his voice I hear, a memory from when he was still strong enough to speak, beseeching me to save him. It is the absolution for which he begged that clenches at my still heart, forgiveness for what had been a foolish mistake of youth.
Bricks thick with soot and slime crumble beneath my hands, falling to earth along with my hopes for my future. The satchel of medical supplies I carry everywhere tumbles and spills; where there was once hope, now there is only pointlessness.
"Hey, Mister? You all right?" It is a woman, her East End accent thick and rich. I look up into a face lined with the heavy weights of defeat and poverty, cheap eye-black smeared on sagging lids, the creases of chapped lips holding the stain of carmine.
"I am fine." I carefully keep my dismissive wave at human speed. "My apologies if I have disturbed you."
Carlisle...
My head jerks in surprise. The voice is loud in my ears. The voice I have been so desperate to hear. If it was possessed of hands, they would be clasping a Bible. Carlisle, she is one of them.
I gaze at her once more. "Oh, on the contrary," she says, lifting tattered skirts to show an inch of ankle, "I was looking for some company tonight, and you look like a man who could use the touch of a good woman."
She is not a good woman, my son. She is a sinner, likely a carrier of the syphilis that destroyed your beloved Joseph.
My heels clatter on cobblestones as I advance toward her. I do not recognize myself as I speak; it is my father's voice that comes from my lips. "Are you content with your lot? With proffering yourself to strange men for coin?"
She is shaken, but the moon will soon give way to the sun, and I am perhaps her last hope for a bed this night. "I wish that I had been born a lady of means, Mister, if that is what you are asking me, but we all do as we must."
You know what you must do, Carlisle.
I spare no concern for appearing mortal now. The fires of grief and rage light my path to redemption as I fall upon her, my teeth sinking through flesh in a bite meant for the boy who should have become my son. It is my first taste of human blood, and its lush richness erases a burn that has only ever been suppressed, never before cured.
And I feel...passion. A lust that has never before touched me with its tingling fingertips. Her flesh is soft and sweet, and beneath the swell of her breasts pulses a deeper, heady scent. Was this what Joseph sought? This excitement? This sensation of...life? I am dizzied by it, momentarily paralyzed by desire.
Control yourself! This is not about you, Carlisle. Remember your task.
He is right, as he has always been. With a growl, I suppress my sinful urges and muster focus.
She has no time to scream. There is no commotion to raise alarms or light flickering gas lamps in the windows of the homes that surround us. I drink until she is drained, every swallow ridding the world of her iniquity, herself of a life of futility and struggle.
Never have I sought power or dominion, but I cannot deny the flood that now suffuses me. This body I have cursed and tried to kill is the perfect weapon, impenetrable and swift, able to carry out my father's teachings and cleanse the earth. In walking among humans, however, I have seen the length and breadth of wickedness and vice from which no city or town is sacred. To eradicate all perpetrators is beyond my means, but I can leave a more effective warning to others of her kind than my own shadow and a single missing body.
My scalpel glints in the moonlight, its blade sharp and willing. I obliterate the marks of my bite from her neck before continuing down her body. Should she be examined by the coroner, there will be ample reason to explain away the loss of her blood.
The encounter has taken only minutes. Gathering my scattered possessions, I leave the scum-riddled streets of Whitechapel for the comfort of my home.
Already, they are looking for me, but though I was caught once before, this time I will go about my work unfettered. Vampires could stop the human I once was, but no humans can stop me now. I have spent mortal lifetimes cultivating an air of quiet unobtrusiveness so as not to be detected for what I truly am; those decades will serve me well.
The hospital is busy, thus am I, and as I traverse its dim hallways and evade the attentions of ambitious nurses, the ghost of Joseph follows me. His scent still lingers on the notebooks I purchased for his ceaseless writings, used until he became too weak to grip a pencil. They sit in a corner of the office I have been allowed, but I have not yet steeled myself to read the words he put to page. In every flash of hair as black as a crow's wing or ring of a ready laugh, he is present.
That his spirit is still restless is a sign. My initial kill, while undoubtedly necessary, has not been enough to grant lasting peace to his soul, and he has not yet been avenged. Eager as I am to continue on my mission, I cannot neglect the duties for which I am depended upon. Finding demons in the light of day is, as I know all too well, neither easy nor prudent, and more than a week passes before a night falls when my presence is not required at the hospital. My throat burns, and the fire of which my father once thought me incapable rages hot through my veins.
I ignore the other fire...the raging need in my loins that blazes at every recollection of the flavor of human blood.
I have already visited a wigmaker in the shoddy streets of Camden Town, selecting a mop of deep brown curls with murmurs to the shopkeeper of a party to be held in fancy dress. No resident of London has been left unaware of the killing in Whitechapel, and though I have no intention of being seen, it does not do to be foolish.
My father's voice returns as I make my way to the rooms I keep in Southwark to alter my appearance with fresh clothing and my new purchase. An approval I rarely heard whilst human is in force as he guides me through streets stinking of night-waste and tar, past grimy pubs loud with the noise of boorish men, to the slums of Spitalfields.
Here, I will find her. A woman of the night who is in need of the end I will put to her sins if she has any hope of heaven. The next weight on the scales of justice that will balance Joseph's death and grant him eternal freedom, albeit of a different sort than I would have wished. It is useless, perhaps, to forgive myself imaginings of the life we would have had, but I indulge nonetheless. His newborn days would have been so unlike my own, filled with the experience of my centuries, the wisdom I had been forced, largely, to discover for myself.
Eventually, perhaps, when his bloodthirst was contained, we would have traveled together to Italy, so that I might have introduced my new son to the few in this life I could call friends. Aro, particularly, would have been pleased, his concern for my decision to strike out on my own finally abated. America would have followed, a new world with infinite possibilities for life in a new age.
Instead, I choose to remain here, grasping solace from a home of rock and earth because I lack one I may take with me to distant lands.
I am a shadow in a group of shadows, standing in the doorway of an abandoned hovel as I watch pink steal across the sky. For I moment I wonder whether I am destined to fulfill my purpose tonight, but no, I am sure. As my father so rightly told me, I am merely a weapon; it is not the gun's place to turn on its bearer and question the hour at which it is being shot.
I wait.
My hearing allows for the subtlest of noises to reach my ears as if their sources were inches away; around me, I listen to the shifting of night and day, those who operate under cover of darkness resting sore and weary heads on pillows as others awake to the promise of morning.
A luxury I will be forever denied.
And still, I wait.
Clattering heels turn a distant corner, the staccato music they make growing closer. Louder, though, is the voice in my head.
Her, Carlisle.
I slip silently from the doorway, watching as she approaches from the distance. Even from here I can see her eyes light up as she spots in my tailored clothing a potential customer, and I pretend to ignore her as she pauses to adjust her skirts and pull her bodice down the inch that might make the difference between snatched sleep on a fetid stoop and the softness of feather. For a single instant I allow myself to imagine the sharing of a bed before I shake myself, remembering why I am here.
When she is feet away, I raise the hand not carrying my satchel and tip my hat. "Good morning," I say pleasantly, continuing my measured steps as if to walk past her. I know she will stop me, attempt to lure me in. It is what women of her kind do - draw in the unsuspecting, the needy, the lonely. Like Joseph had been.
I am not disappointed. "And a good morning to you, sir," she replies, her attempt at coquettishness marred by slurred words. "Would you be in need of some company?"
Turning, I feign surprise. "And if I were? Forgive me, Madame, but you hardly appear the type." This is untrue, but the flattery will free her tongue.
An expression of sadness appears on her face, as false as the smudged rouge she wears. "I was not always so, but alas, I have fallen on hard times. My man, you see, he cast me out-"
Cast her out, Carlisle.
She is so very near, and I cannot resist the urge to lean in, to sample by scent what I will soon know by taste. My already hard body stiffens, but I refuse to think of that again. This is about salvation, not earthy pleasures.
"You do not like this life?" I breathe, my lips at her throat. "You wish for another?"
She jumps back at the chill of my touch, but her eyes widen and her interest is blatant as she examines once more the fine cut of my suit, the thick velvet of my walking-cape, the soft leather of my shoes. "I do," she answers. "And I would treat the man who gave me a better life very well."
It is redemption that will treat you well, my son.
"Show me."
Behind her, there is a door to a small garden, presumably belonging to the adjoining house. Pushing open the crumbling wood, she winks. "Follow me."
I do.
News of the second murder sweeps through London like the Great Fire; it is my hope - my conviction - that my work will leave the city just as cleansed and prepared for rebirth. Theories abound, but naturally none come close to the truth. Traces left by me are nonexistent, the supposed clues Scotland Yard is attempting to decipher are ones I have intentionally planted and are designed to mislead.
Her blood strengthens me, finally doing right by the world through the fueling of my muscles as I minister to the sick and injured. With quiet self-deprecation I take the praise of my colleagues and superiors at my tirelessness, my commitment to the cause of medicine. I am unable to contract the diseases that surround me, and so there is no reason to excuse myself bar the appearance of needing occasional rest. It is why I am safe to drink the blood of my victims, why I will never suffer the agonizing death that took my Joseph from me. An epidemic of measles sweeps through the city, and I am kept occupied day and night at the hospital, retreating to my office for a few hours each day under the pretense of requiring sleep, while the city around me buzzes with gossip and conjecture. Most amusing are the reports that these deaths must be the work of the devil or some other type of unearthly demon. They are the only truths in the web of myth that hangs over the city like a black cloud of smoke, and they are the statements that are most easily dismissed.
"Doctor Cullen?" I am at my desk, the ghosts of Joseph's words whispering to me from his notebooks, entreating me to read them, but I have not yet gathered the strength.
"Ah, Doctor Clark," I say, looking up at the young man in the doorway. "Is there something I may do for you?" He is an assistant in the morgue, and despite my deepest wishes, I cannot save them all.
"There are a lady and gentleman who wish to speak to you, sir, if you can spare the time. They have come to allow the body's release for a funeral. They say you treated their son, sir."
"Of course." I nod. "Please, show them in."
The couple who enter are elegantly dressed, the latest fashions draping their handsome forms. My memory is infallible - I am certain I have never laid eyes on them before - but there is a familiarity to their faces that suffuses me with anger and dread. I am aware of who they are even before introductions are made - the parents who left Joseph to endure his pain and eventual death alone while they holidayed on the continent. With clarity that makes me curse the perfection of my recollections, I remember his tears as a letter fell to his lap - a hateful missive telling their son in no uncertain terms that boys of his standing simply did not act as he had, and the resulting illness was God's punishment.
But they are wrong, my son. You are the hand that doles out chastisement to deserving culprits.
My composure is maintained with difficulty, the urge to hunt down those responsible - that I have suppressed in order to save and heal the good citizens of the city - returning in force. I draw on the strength I developed in my immortal youth to resist my deepest, darkest desires, and invite them to sit. It is reprehensible to me to have them here, feigned grief on their faces as they make weak excuses for not returning to Joseph in his time of need. It is clear to me that they never loved their son the way I would have - the way I did, for his goodness and laughter and passion for the written word. I would have been a true father to him, my guidance and wisdom and affection at his disposal.
It is not long before their energy wanes, the masks of regret becoming heavy on their faces, and they reveal the true reason behind their visit.
It seems it does not do to have the disease of syphilis as the cause for death on the certificate of a boy of good breeding; they wish for me to alter it, to invent another reason why a young and healthy boy would die in his prime. My simmering anger threatens to boil at their offer of recompense for this favor, and I have scarcely dismissed them with a curt refusal before I have exchanged white coat for velvet cape and am slipping out into the evening.
I am proud of you, Carlisle. Save your wrath for the true offenders.
A dark-haired man was seen with my last victim in the hour before her death; unfortunate, but not problematic. This time, I do not even pause at my rooms to don the wig. It is earlier than I have previously been out on my divine mission, and I bide my time on the roof of a crumbling tenement until the bell at the Palace of Westminster has tolled the midnight hour. Only then do I make my way to the grimy pavement below and begin to walk, knowing my father will direct my steps, as he did when I was human.
Berner Street is dark, but I have no need for the lamps that humans must rely upon to see their way.
Your way is clear. Keep going.
I feel excitement building, venom pooling in my mouth at the thought of finally eradicating another mortal demon. It has been too long, and though the blackening of my eyes in the weeks since my last kill was easily passed off as an exhaustion of the body to my colleagues, I am thirsty for vengeance and redemption.
She is sitting on a stoop, attempting to fix a broken bootlace, when I approach. Her flirtatious, wanton manner is grating - she has already enticed me - but it confirms that she is, indeed, exactly what I seek. They all wish for release from the lot they have been dealt, and she is no exception, her responses to my questions precise reproductions of those voiced by the ones who came before her.
Willingly, she follows me into a yard as black as pitch, passing off her clumsy groping of my body as needing to be led through the dark. As I turn to face her, I permit full bloom to the rage that has consumed me for hours...days...weeks, brought to heady fury by the callous distance of Joseph's parents.
Someone must show his soul that it did not die in vain, my son. Show him that you will never allow another to suffer as he did. Give him peace.
Suddenly I am grateful that she is already in my arms, my teeth sinking through thin skin, my swallows giving her immoral lifeblood to my muscles as fuel for my mission. A red haze of anger blinds me, and I am deaf to all but my father's encouragement.
My body only knows the woman pressed to me.
It is my only mistake. My only slip of awareness.
Stop! he orders. Nothing but this could pull me away from the fiery nectar that was pouring down my throat and is now spilling wastefully on the ground. You must flee, Carlisle. Now.
I hear the clopping of hooves, far too close. I spare only the time necessary to flick my scalpel across her neck, the marks of my teeth the one piece of evidence I cannot afford to leave. She will die, as I have not sealed with venom the wounds I have caused. Via rooftops and alleys I make my escape, the horror-filled discovery of her body audible to my enhanced hearing as I whip through the night.
Crazed and frustrated, I am furious at the interruption. At my failure to complete the sacrifice that will save Joseph...them...me. At the desire coursing through me for something more than blood. For a satisfaction unrelated to thirst. The lingering remnants of her blood on my teeth seem a flavor sent from both heaven and hell, designed to arouse my body and lead me down the path of temptation.
Focus, Carlisle.
Yes, I must finish what I have begun. It takes only moments to find another, and I deceive myself that she mistakes the light of need in my eyes.
This is not about me.
The city is gripped by panic...and so am I. Not that I will be discovered - I have left no traces of myself at the scenes, and the misinformation that spreads daily is greater even than I could engender. Letters have even been sent to prominent figures by men claiming to be me, and I cringe at the inelegance of such acts.
No, my panic comes wholly from within. Since the night two women fell at my hand - my teeth - I have been unable to quell the blazing desire that the flavor of blood stirs within me.
I am paralyzed by it. Despise myself for it. When I am forced to stay within my flat by the shining sun, I pass hours upon hours laying atop a bed not used for sleep or any other pleasure, gritting my teeth and clenching my fists against the urge to take myself in hand and commit what I am sure would be the most pleasurable of sins.
I know that this - this sexual fulfillment - is what led Joseph to seek out a lady of the night, and that it was his downfall. I am determined that it will not be mine, and so I resist with every modicum of self-control I possess, bolstered by the roiling fury of my father's voice in my ears.
I am already a demon. I must do everything in my power not to become more of one. I am resolved to keep my hunting activities to their divine purpose - not to cheapen them with lusts I should not feel.
Still, I am weak. When I am able to venture out to the hospital, my eyes stray from the fevered and broken patients before me to the nurses who would pay me any attention for which I asked. I imagine gazing upon the legs they keep hidden, sliding my hands over swells of flesh and watching skin respond to the coldness of my touch.
You are a disgrace, my son. Your weakness is a mark upon my good name.
I am intent on redeeming myself in my father's eyes, and so I do not hunt. I will not return to my mission until I am in control of my needs and my traitorous body. I wish that I could blame the women I have already killed - it is, after all, their job to tempt, to corrupt - but I know that it is me. It is my length that swells at the first sampling of their blood.
I pass weeks this way, amidst rife speculation as to why the murderer haunting Whitechapel seems to have ceased his rampage.
It is because I am afraid. Because I cannot get the rich ecstasy of their blood from my mind or my teeth. Because I am burning in a fire more consuming than that of my transformation from human to vampire.
The bleakness of winter is hovering on the horizon when I finally feel I have regained my strength and mental clarity. Sicknesses caused by cold return as common afflictions, and I spend my days and nights treating coughs until, feigning exhaustion, I beg release from work for an evening.
I am ready. I'm sure of it.
I firm the set of my shoulders as I walk, one hand gripping my satchel as if it were a lifeline. Perhaps it is. My senses cast about, looking, listening, but I know when I see her my father will guide me.
And then I do see her. From the back at first, but it is not long before she turns and I am rendered nearly speechless.
She is beautiful, younger than the others, with blue eyes that pierce knowingly through me. My normal questions fall mechanically from my lips as I approach, but her replies do not reach me. Nothing does, bar the sensation that I am falling into an abyss of lust and love and the desire to worship and protect and keep her with me always.
A fiery hand takes mine, a bubbling laugh silencing my father's voice in my ears as he tries to remind me of what I am to do. I do not want to listen to him...will not listen to him.
And now we are in a bedroom, clothing strewn about the floor, and all I am able to think is that I want to add her pretty shawl and dress to the piles.
"What is your name?" I ask. I ignore the commands in my mind that her name is irrelevant - it is not. It is perhaps the most important thing I will ever learn, no matter the length of my existence.
She laughs once more. "Mary," she says. "And yours?"
Jack. "Carlisle."
Heels sound across bare floorboards as she walks toward me. I feel as if I am being approached by the future, rather than the reverse.
"You're different, aren't you?" she asks, peering at me in the dim light of the gas lamp. But she does not appear afraid. She looks entranced, am I.
"Yes." I do not expand on this. The wash of her breath over my skin is all I can think of, and I have never been so different as I am in this moment.
Had my hands been human ones, they would be shaking as I pull her to me, pushing the cloth of her shawl away so that I might touch her with nothing between us. Her head tips, the lips of a mouth stained ruby red parting in invitation.
Slowly, so very slowly, I lean to her. Our first kiss - my first kiss - is little more than a brush, a skimming contact that leaves me wanting a kind of more I am unable even to describe. Again I touch my mouth to hers, lingering this time, and I gasp as her lips part and a tongue emerges to seek its mate.
I want to give it to her, but I dare not open my mouth. Instead I pull away, ripping my cape from my shoulders and discarding the coat of my suit. As I move to remove my shirt, she stops me. "Let me," she whispers, and I groan as I feel hot fingers slipping buttons through buttonholes, scalding the skin of my chest in a way that sends heat straight to my groin.
My own hands come to life after two centuries of mere existence, tugging at the fastenings of her dress with faltering control. Fabric rips, but it only serves to heighten us both, her breath catching in her heaving chest as I tear faster at the barriers to her skin. The laces of her stays whip through the air, cloth and whalebone falling to the floor as I free her from their constraints.
My own are all but gone, only my teeth kept in tightly clenched check.
Kicking free of my shoes and the trousers she has loosed, I gather her to me once more, my arousal hardening almost painfully at the way in which her flesh peaks against my chilled skin. I pass my lips over cheek and neck, down the hollow of her throat, over the swell of her breasts.
"Oh, yes," she gasps, a pleading cry following on its heels. I am reborn, suffused by amazement that I may do this, and that I may do it with her. Sweeping her flushed, glorious body into my arms, I carry her to the single bed and lay us down, unwilling to allow even an inch of space between us.
Everywhere, there is skin and passion and hot breath as I explore her, transfixed by her responses, aching with my own. I cannot bring myself to care that I am breaking every rule, giving myself to a woman who does not bear my name or my ring. I have been hers since the first meeting of eyes, and this consummation is in itself the fulfillment of a promise.
"How can I pleasure you?" she asks, arching her neck to reach my kiss. Her pulse beats loud in my ears, and I recall the taste of blood. The richness as it flows down my throat. The feeling as it rushes to fill me, sating my thirst and causing another as it hardens my length.
Oh, she is already pleasuring me, but I do not - could not - fight her hands as they move down my body. Hoping that she is as consumed as I and will not notice, I rip the remainder of my clothing away, baring myself to her so that she may do with me as she will.
And she does. "Is this cock all for me?" she asks, and if I am shocked by the word, it is only by how much it serves to excite me. I am nearly undone by the wrapping of her hand around it, keeping control only thanks to centuries of practice at resisting temptation.
The sounds I make as she strokes me are feral, inhuman, but the thick air in the small room grows heavier with the salted scent of her desire at each growl. When I can take no more, I roll her to her back, sliding my hands over curves and the tuck of her waist, through soft curls to slick, wet heat between her legs.
And oh, this too drives my sanity past the point of any return. "May I touch you...inside?" I ask, though in reality I am pleading. I must do this.
"Please," she moans. The word has barely escaped her lips when my fingers begin to enter her, stroking and teasing at the skin they find there. A series of high whimpers breaks free from her delicious throat, and for a moment I am worried I have hurt her. But no, she is arching her back, rocking against my hand, seeking a delight I so desperately want to give.
And want myself. She protests as I pull away, my fingers at my mouth to taste salt and sweet and desire, only to moan again when I lay my body over hers. An instinct I had assumed forgotten or banished completely is guiding my every motion; I know precisely how to mold her to me, how to pinch at her stiff pink nipples and kiss the tender hollow behind her ear.
I feel everything and nothing and an overwhelming sense of completion as I slide my...my cock inside her, my mind blanking with pleasure, my body aware of every twitch of muscle and bead of lustful moisture. I am moving and speaking and kissing without conscious thought, chasing after something I have never experienced but know is within my grasp if I can only go harder, faster, deeper within her.
A scarlet cloud of ecstasy blooms behind my eyelids and I am swallowing, swallowing down her blood before I even realize that my teeth are bared and at her pulse, but I cannot stop. The pleasure is there, just there, the spiced liquid pouring down my throat giving me the reach I need in order to grasp it. My body explodes, my mouth pulling from her neck to release a deafening snarl I cannot hear because I know nothing but bliss and lust and the pepper of blood on my tongue.
It is long moments - or perhaps no time at all - before awareness returns to me.
And I see what I have done.
And I lose my mind completely.
"I am not surprised to find you here." The man's voice is quiet, his accent refined by millennia of assumed gentility. The surprise is wholly mine, and I turn to face him.
"Aro."
"My dear friend," he says, and I believe the sympathy that settles into the chalky skin stretched thin over his features. "Carlisle...what became of you? What possessed you?"
I give a humorless laugh. Possessed. An accurate word. I open my mouth, accepting the fraction of my penance that is to tell him the story, but nothing comes out. His expression shifts and I cringe at his pity, looking away as his footsteps draw nearer. I am grateful for the care he takes to avoid the grave; when I feel a hand take mine, I do not pull away.
"I see," he says, the literal truth. "You have been through a very difficult time. You should have remained with us in Volterra."
Though it is the furthest from my desires, I wonder if he is right. Then, however, he shakes his head. "No, perhaps not. Recent events notwithstanding - and even despite them - I think you remain the best of us. Volterra would ruin you."
I have no reply. In staining the gold of my eyes with patches of blood red, I have already destroyed the way in which I view myself.
"How did you know?" I ask. It is a strange relief, having shared it with him, to carry only half the weight of my secret.
"The case has been well-publicized, and there were signs, my friend. Very little escapes our notice, even in our quiet little corner of Italy. Detectives explained the degree of blood loss in the first victim as being from her many wounds and perhaps the death having occurred elsewhere - which was your intention, of course - but still, it was noted. And you were seen conversing with the second victim, her body found only moments later. Questions were raised as to how her injuries could have been inflicted so quickly, but what is impossible for a human is not so for one of our kind. At first, I believed it was simply carelessness on the part of the vampire responsible - you are not the only one in London, and we have all been less than discreet at one time or another."
I am not looking at him, but I hear his quiet sigh. "Nevertheless, I sent Demetri to check - to make sure there was no risk of humans learning the true cause of the deaths. Imagine my surprise when he returned to me after - what are they calling it? The double event, yes. Imagine my shock to learn that it was you, my gentle friend, who was responsible, and that you had intentionally left the bodies for the police to find."
I cannot feel nausea, but a sweeping wave of sickness envelopes my mind. "They were a warning," I mutter. "To others of their kind." That I despise myself for what I have done does not negate my actions. My motivations, however reprehensible, had been reasons at the time.
"Yes," agreed Aro. "I am aware of that now. In any event, I must confess that the news Demetri bore was...pleasing. I wondered if you had perhaps reconsidered the way of life to which you were so dedicated when you left us, and despite what he said, I was willing to allow for the abandoning of the bodies as the mistake of one who is still learning. When we heard no more of the case for several weeks - beyond, naturally, the speculation in the press and of the fear the killer was still at large - I assumed you were refining your technique."
"Why are you here now?" I wonder if he has come to kill me - usually an errand for the underlings in his Guard, but we are old friends, and perhaps this is a courtesy.
"The last one," he replies quietly. "You removed her heart, Carlisle. That being a wholly unnecessary act, and knowing you as I do, I took it as a sign that you might be in need of a sympathetic ear."
Beneath the wintry elm, I fall to my knees. "I had to bury it. I needed to give her that respect. I... There was something... I felt... With her... The others, they were for him," I say, though I am unsure whether I mean Joseph or my father. "But she...she was for me."
"I know," he says. He has seen it all within my mind at a single touch of my hand. "That is how it happens with our kind. Mating is sudden and unexpected - it is this way for us all."
I am utterly broken. "I killed her."
"I know," he says again. "You are not the first to have done so in such a situation. The temptation of blood, in combination with our more...carnal desires...it can defeat the strongest vampire."
Slowly, I raise my eyes to him. His face is stark against the stormy sky, black hair rippling in the bitter wind. "What do I do now?" I am beginning to hope that he is, in fact, here to end my miserable existence. That he will put a stop to my torment in the way I so mistakenly did for others.
As if he can read my thoughts from a distance, he smiles sadly. "I will not kill you, my friend. You have broken none of our laws, and human ones are not mine to enforce. Contrary to what you may feel now, you will not be alone forever. Of this I am convinced. You will find another who incites your passion, and perhaps even one who inspires the opportunity at fatherhood you were so cruelly denied and for which you yearn so deeply. But I will ask that you leave here and allow the fear you have created to subside. Go to America and forget this happened. We shall never speak of it again...do not even think of it again. There, you will find once more the Carlisle I used to know, and for whom I have such admiration."
"I do not deserve it," I tell him. I am a monster.
He laughs. The sound is at odds with the somber, heavy air of the graveyard. "Then forgive an old vampire his lapses in judgment," he says. "Goodbye, Carlisle. I hope our next meeting finds you in better times."
Aro is gone as quickly as he arrived, leaving nothing but the ringing of his words in my ears. For several long moments I remain frozen in place, steeling myself, before I finally find the will to stand and face the headstone that haunts me.
"Goodbye, Mary. I am so sorry."
I am sorry for them all.