Nameless
Chapter One
Nameless
Chapter One
Gallowglass found himself standing in the loading dock of a neighborhood bar without ever having consciously deciding to do so.
"Nick" called out a needling voice "Please, just one drink. I promise"
"It's never just a drink with you girl, we start with a drink and I end up greeting the sunrise." The male human grunted, shoving the last of the band equipment into the back of the compact car not meant to hold more than a days groceries. Out of practice and shear necessity he managed to close the hatchback door on the third attempt.
"Uncle, I need sleep. And so do you"
"How can you sleep after that", she replied as she twirled in the soft misting fog, face buoyed by the lingering high of so much concentrated attention that came off a good stage performance.
The twirling whirling dervish belonged to the voice of the siren that had dragged him out of his rooms and down the block to the bar, so tightly packed he couldn't she her perform. Where he listened, enthralled, as she plucked at the keys of an upright piano at least a hundred years old that looked like hell but elicited a tauntingly sumptuous true sound.
Her melodies and words had evoked the sweetest dreams and fiercest rage as her songs wove between love, lust and heartache. When she sang of heartache he watched with empathy as a man quietly slipped out of the entry. When she sang of love and lust he watched as more than one pair of eyes caught across the room and would attribute at least a dozen hook ups to tonight's music. And near the end of her performance a song so melancholy he had to wipe the blood from his eyes, least anyone see and know they shared the audience with a bloodsucker. She ended the night on an up-tempo easy catchy song that was easily dismissed amongst the masses of pop drivel these days, but it was the lingering unease of her melancholy song that had him slip out of the back and loiter as the crowds reluctantly parted into the night
She stopped twirling and her eyes met his and caught, something subtle but visceral communicated through them. The corner of her lip twitched upward in what promised soon to be a brilliant smile. The city seemed to pause on a breath. It was never easy for him to remain inconspicuous though he had centuries to practice his imposing figure was always notable, no matter his dress or manner. He was no more invisible here in the dark under the shade of awning
She appeared to shake off the intensity but continued holding his stare, though it might have simply been the act of clearing the gathering fog.
"No matter… Sam will buy me a drink" she said and her chin lifted as she slid her arm threw his and guided him back into the warmth and noise of the bar. The touch seemed to have broached some formality and made her familiar. He had not felt the touch of a warmblood in a remarkably long while.
He allowed himself to be guided along to the end of the bar where the regulars lingered as the staff tried against the stubborn set to close out the bar. No one gave that impression to his new companion and in fact the bartender closest to them stopped mid task and walked over to take their drink order. And, he supposed, to bask in the warmth and energy she seemed to exude.
"What will it be", she paused pointedly and smiled teasingly then added "Sam". It seemed to be a statement not a question of his name or identity and he wondered at the game she played but happily followed along.
"A whisky", he replied simply.
She turned toward the harried barkeep and smiled "How's your girl? I saw you helping her with the orders early in the shift; you're a good catch Ben" The bartender blushed, actually blushed. He was pretty sure within a few months of being a novice bartender they became immune to such things.
"I'll have mine sour, if you have time still, or we can move along if you need us out" she added addressing the bartender. He was quick to reassure her to stay as long as she would.
"If I'm to be Sam," Gallowglass asked, "what do I call you"?
And she noted his soft accent that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. "What would you call me?"
"There is power in a name" Came his soft burr.
"It isn't what they call you; it's what you answer to," She grinned.
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." He quoted.
"I read in a book once that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but I've never been able to believe it. I don't believe a rose WOULD be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage." She grinned
That elicited a genuine smile from the giant Gael, a rare feat indeed and he felt lighter for it. "I don't believe I know that reference"
"I can't imagine you spent your childhood reading Anne of Green Gables" She told him with arched eyebrows
His lips quirked at the thought, his own childhood being so many lifetimes ago and long forgotten.
"It was a part of yours I take it?"
"Yes, especially when I was young I practiced escapism through literature. It seemed like the only time I could ever hold still when I was young. I imagine you've read just about everything that ever was"
"Just because I don't sleep does not mean I spent my candled hours pent up over a book" he gruffed, though she looked unconvinced at his response. You hold some romantic notion of endless time and imagine you would spend it reading?"
"Ah alas I have but a moment of time and so as it will be as George RR Martin says A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one." Though if I had infinite time I might not be so impatient for his conclusion to Game of Thrones"
"Game of…" questioned Gallowglass.
"Never mind".
It was quiet a long moment. She couldn't escape the endless blue of the eyes of the man beside her. It felt as if they were the pure colorless blue of the deepest alpine lake whose water is absolutely colorless when poured into a glass; or the colorless air devoid of smog or smoke that passes into space and becomes blue by the absence of other color. They seemed to say something to her that he would never have said out loud. It was a rare stillness she experienced sitting in the presence of the vampire. A respite for the ever flowing, ever moving girl beside him. Especially so soon in the conversation when her usual manner was to chat each encounter up to the point of adopting them into family and as quickly move on to the next encounter. She continued to study the stoic Viking beside her, but her mood suddenly shifted from her native buoyancy to a melancholy akin to the quite song she had sung. She moved forward into his personal space, a remarkable thing to do to a predator.
"You have a beautiful smile, she said as her finger brushed against his lips, "a smile is the prettiest thing you can ever wear". Her hands reached intimately and slowly from his broad shoulders across his shirt to rest on his chest where his heart thudded once beneath her light as a feather touch, an uninvited touch, and he wondered at himself for allowing it.
"Someone has broken your heart" She said baldly
His hands which had but a split second before rested loosely at his lap now pinched painful around the sensitive undersides of both wrists proning the hands. "Your daemons want to follow emotion will lead you astray every time" He said coldly, slowly, at barely perceived audible level. The room temperature felt like it took a sudden drop and a chill set into her bones.
She held her own, never breaking eye contact "And your vampiric cold blooded impassive soul will lead to a very long dull lonely life" The air around them seemed to fizz a moment and die out. Slowly she perceived again the monotony of the sounds that are usual in the clearing up of a bar
His hands dropped but hers remained, undaunted
"It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea."
Her recitation, like her music conveyed all the emotion of a broken yet undying love that was inhuman and utterly devastating.
He shrugged her off and made a Scottish growl without meaning, "nothing so dramatic and grinned at her, just friend zoned".
She gave as much a noiseless answer "it seemed like a Poeish moment." He voice uplifting at the end with humor.
"Let's leave Poe where he belongs, shall we" and the mood lightened considerably after, though she felt as if she'd come across a barrier not easily scaled.
"It's a demons nature to feel in different proportions to other creatures. It is a curse, she said with a wry grimace, and a gift she gestured offhandedly to the shook her head to clear it, "You may call me Elizabeth, it's what my parents named me"
He paused, looping back around to the beginning of the conversation."Yep, defiantly a daemon," he commented and cocked his head to the side. "But it is not your true name" She gave him her full attention and smiled a genuine smile "
I have not yet found my name" she said and the feeling given behind the statement was not one of loss but one of excitement in a continued adventure. Her energy had an intoxicating pull and he remained at her side through 2 more drinks, through the bars closing and out on the darkened city's pavement, talking in the habit of most daemons with topics melting and sharply incongruously changing, yet always captivating and fulfilling. He found himself through a string of unlikely events to be watching the sunrise through the weakening fog under the Golden Gate Bridge with a warm blood tucked into his shoulder.
"You are cold" He remarked to her.
"Yes" She said as she lifted her head higher into the salty breeze and smiled into it. She considered a moment "It is not unpleasant it just is and when I go in a have a warm drink soon I will feel my skin expand and the delicious warmth will unfurl and bloom from my belly to my toes" her eyes twinkled.
"You are alive" he said with a catch in his throat.
They parted shortly after with the magic of the evening jarring against the start of a new day for the routine commuters oblivious to the magic they had slept through and he realized she had never once asked for his name, nor had he supplied it.