Mayah Visits
Vicki stood at the counter of The Eclectic, Henry's bookstore/art gallery/and odd things. The store was doing a steady business as people came in, looked around and bought the unusual. There was no actual organized shelves, or display cases, just lots of books and things artfully arranged. It didn't look like an antique store, bookstore or gallery, it was just an eclectic collection of everything and it never stayed the same. People either hated or loved the store and that was just fine with Henry. Odd, freaky, different, that is what appealed to him, and that's what appealed to Vicki.
Vicki looked up as the door opened. Standing still, as though posed for a painting, stood the one woman Vicki hoped never to see again, Mayah.
Vicki mentally pushed as many negative thoughts as she could to the back of her mind, put on her best customer service smile, and said with a smarmy voice, "Welcome to The Eclectic. May I help you find something?"
"Henry Fitzroy. I am his very special friend, Mayah. Where is he? He called me last week and when Henry calls, I come."
"Just one moment please." Vicki walked to the inner com and said, "Mr. Fitzroy, you have a guest waiting for you at the front desk." Vicki smiled, turned and walked to the back exit and up the steps to her office.
Henry could tell by Vicki's voice and the noise her feet made on the steps, that there was trouble, but a guest at The Eclectic always came first, so he went to see who was waiting for him.
No matter how good her vampire hearing was, Vicki couldn't make out the words coming from the store but she could hear the glad shouts and imagined the hugs and kisses.
Henry ran up the stairs, stuck his head in Vicki's office and shouted. "Continue to watch the store. Mayah's here! I've got to change, I'm taking her out. I'll be back at dawn."
He didn't take the time to see the look on Vicki's face, or wait for her reply.
Vicki mumbled under her breath, "Yes sir, what ever you say sir, I'm yours to command, sir." When the shop closed, she went hunting.
Vicki usually hunted in the riskier parts of town, using her vampire passion to persuade prey that a life of crime could be dangerous and a change of profession was in order. That was not her plan for tonight. She was going to hunt and she was in no mood to be nice as thoughts of ripping heads off and drinking victims dry danced around in her head. If the victim happened to look anything like Mayah that was all the better. Vicki smelled the blood and heard the end of a fight. She saw the one on the ground was already dead, and the one leaning against the alley wall was wounded. He was breathing heavily and holding a bloody knife. Vicki didn't bother to investigate the how or why of the situation as her eyes silvered, fangs elongated, and charged in growling, "You like playing with sharp things, try these." She opened her mouth and ripped away a terrified throat drinking her fill and dropping the corpse on top of the other body. With her anger spent, she returned to the office, hoping not to see the bitch that made her angry.
Henry sat in his favorite chair and looked up when a bloody Vicki returned. He asked, "What have you done?"
Vicki glanced at Henry took a deep breath smelling the air around him, then marched into the bathroom saying, "What I wanted to do to Mayah."
Henry stood outside the door waiting for the water to turn off before saying, "Talk to me. What did you do?"
Vicki pushed past Henry, grabbed a blanket, a pillow and started for the hidden stairs that led to her office two floors down saying as she went, "What the hell do you care? You were busy with pretty little Miss Mayah." Vicki pointed to his clothes that were gaudy, dirty, smelled of Mayah, and sex.
Henry followed Vicki down to her office and watched her preparing a place in the closet. She looked at him standing in the passageway, "Get out of here! This is my place. Go cuddle with Mayah."
"Even if I wanted to, there's no time." Henry threw himself forward and landed on top of Vicki managing to pull the closet door shut in the process.
Awake first, Vicki, couldn't move because Henry was on top of her, he was heavy and the closet too small for her to find the leverage to shift him.
Henry heard Vicki's heartbeat then remembered last night and all that had happened between himself, Mayah and later what was said by Vicki.
Henry exclaimed , "Bloody hell!" when she started punching, pinching, and biting. Anywhere her knee connected she tried to bruise his body. He pressed down harder, immobilizing her and hissed "We're going to talk, or we're going to stay here all night. I can be very patient. I've centuries of experience with waiting."
"Get off me! You stink of Mayah and sex. You ran off with her at the first chance!" Vicki started struggling again.
Henry maintained the pressure and waited for what seemed like hours then finally bit into her neck and allowed his love for her to mix with the vampire passion he used when feeding. Vicki felt what Henry wanted her to feel as the blood drained from her but not her anger. Her body may have relaxed but her mind continued to rant.
Henry pressed his tongue to the wound until it sealed. He hated to force any of his vampire power on Vicki. He hadn't done that since the early days of her training but tonight he had to get the upper hand. He had to make her understand, not just about Mayah, but about vampire rage which was very different from vampire controlled hunger and anger.
"I must talk to you as parent to child, or as teacher to student. Nod your head if you understand my words, otherwise we'll wait for a while longer."
Vicki gave a curt nod.
"I'm not going to release this pressure until you hear me out. Is that understood?"
Another curt nod was given.
"Vampire rage can cause untold damage, not only to the prey, but to the vampire, and to the vampire community. I didn't discuss rage before, I thought it wouldn't apply to you because you've had such astounding control from the beginning. Very few things can trigger vampire rage. For me, it was the unjust death of a lover. Because of it, for over a year I killed anyone that was even remotely associated with her torture and death. That was the time I came close to pure evil. I can't allow you to go into that kind of rage ever again. I need to know what was the trigger."
She spat out, "Mayah."
"I thought you understood that Mayah's my friend. I don't feed from her and I don't want her sexually."
"You ran off with her without a backwards glance so I went out to hunt. I smelled blood,
it suited my mood so I fed and killed. When I came home, you smelled of her and sex."
Henry's body shifted and the pressure eased, "Is it just Mayah, or is it every woman I choose to have as a friend or feed from?"
"Mayah."
"Why?"
"Looking at her, hearing her name I'm forced to remember all that went on those last few months as my human life fell apart. She starts this loop in my brain that won't stop. I can't control the rewind button in my brain when it comes to her."
Henry was loyal to his friends, but he had never before loved anyone the way he loved Vicki. "Vampire rage will destroy us. You have to find it within yourself to control what you feel. I'm my own person, free to choose my own friends and lovers. You won't take those choices from me. Together we have chosen each other. Your rage can and will destroy that. I can't help you unless you help yourself."
Vicki lay under Henry. His weight and his words held her down. She had no fight left. The rage was replaced by a profound sadness. Was it Mayah she raged against or was it Henry? Was it being vampire or Mike's death?
"I can accept everything but Mayah, seeing her walk in as though she owned the place and you. Then you jumping when she called was more than I could stand." Vicki then told Henry about the two in the alley, she didn't do it right, but she didn't cause the first death.
"Vicki, I was with the art crowd. I had known about a party for weeks but hadn't planned on going then Mayah came, and I thought of the party and took her there." Henry told Vicki how Mayah had gotten drunk, had sex with some stranger and passed out. He carried her to the place she was staying and left her there. The smell and dirty clothing came from carrying a very sick Mayah.
Vicki quit moving Henry released the pressure and allowed her up.
They climbed the stairs to their room. Even though the night was only half over they were exhausted.
Henry started lecturing again, "There are going to be repercussions from your uncontrolled feeding. There's the bloodless body, with a throat ripped out and it will make the news. Augustus will know of it and call. I'm going to have to explain how it happened. I'm responsible for you since officially you're in my territory. Mayah is Mayah, she's part of my my life. I will try to keep her at a distance, but I will not control her actions. Artists need to be free to find their creativity."
"You're an artist, do you want to be free?" Vicki held her breath waiting for his answer.
Henry looked at her and said, "I have to be free to come and go as I choose."
Vicki turned away and said, "As you wish."
What's Next
Vicki stood on the landing of the stairs trying to decide whether to go to The Eclectic first or after she checked some notes on an open case. It was early in the evening. She had quit waiting for Henry to move before getting out of bed. There seemed to be no point in waiting for him since he had not given her an evening kiss in weeks.
Henry was dressed and in deep thought as he stood inside the door of the fourth floor rooms they shared. He wondered how long had it been since Vicki waited for her evening kiss before getting up? It seemed like everything shifted without his permission. He stepped into the stair well and managed to knock Vicki down the flight of stairs. She landed on her back, not moving. Henry looked at Vicki's color and saw she was beyond vampire pale. There were dark circles under her wide open staring eyes and her lips were blue gray. Henry froze, and waited in vain for vampire healing to start. It should have taken only a moment but it wasn't happening. A simple fall shouldn't hurt a vampire. He ran down the stairs, picked up Vicki's limp body and carried her back to their bed. He really looked at her for the first time in weeks and he realized she had not been feeding. All these weeks, he had been living as he chose, he hadn't noticed Vicki was starving to death.
Here she was dying in the vampire life and already dead to the human life. All his experience had never prepared him for this. Thanks to pledges made and help given, if she died, he died. That was the price he had been willing to pay when he called the elemental and made the agreement to have Astaroth killed. He bit into his wrist, pressed it to Vicki's blue lips, and willed her to swallow. At the same time he asked himself, "How could she do this to him, how could she do this to them?" Blood passed from his wrist to her lips, and slowly dripped out of the corner of her mouth. Minutes passed. There was no life, no swallow. Henry lay down beside her and kept his wrist against her mouth. It didn't matter, either this worked or nothing would. He closed his eyes and waited without much hope.
Vicki swallowed, and then swallowed a second time. It had been weeks since she last tasted blood. She thought, It tastes like Henry. But that wasn't possible since he didn't want her. He was in their room each day, but he wasn't present. He professed to understand women, but he didn't understand her. Fiercely independent, with a strong sense of right and wrong, police work had met her goals. Using vampire strength, Vicki had killed in jealous rage over Mayah as all of her professional training was forgotten. After she had killed, he instructed her about vampire rage, she listened and followed the rules. She didn't consciously choose not to feed, she just forgot about it. Vampires don't crave human food and Henry taught her how to control vampire hunger. She didn't feel the hunger, so she forgot to eat. She swallowed again and pushed the thing resting on her face away.
Henry felt his arm being pushed and said, "Vicki?" He opened his eyes and looked at her and repeated, "Vicki?" A third time he said, "Vicki?"
Still she didn't answer but lay there quietly, eyes blinking at the ceiling. Henry pulled her to him and held her. It was the first time he'd put his arms around her since their night in the closet. He whispered in her ear. "If you die, I die." Still no answer. He held her, and she was so very cold. He hadn't realized how cold a vampire felt. He started thinking , Loyalty to friends was one thing, but the loyalty to the one you love, the one you chose above all others, should always come first. How could he have forgotten that? Love not cared for, not nurtured, died. He'd turned away from her and toward his friend. He'd led the life he chose but had forgotten to include his Vicki. This was the second time he had made that choice when it came to Vicki and Mayah, once when she was human, and now as vampire. Both times it was because of the same woman. Vicki had tried to explain to him what she felt and why. He was a prince, a vampire, and Yet he didn't listen. Vicki was breathing now, and her heart was beating. He had to take her to feed. He pulled back his arms, stood up, bent over and picked up Vicki. This time she looked him in the eye.
"What happened? Why are you holding me?"
"You fell. I love you."
"I did? You do?"
"You doubt my love?"
"Yes."
With a heavy heart, Henry couldn't respond to that. Instead he said, "You need to feed. We're going out."
"I can go myself. You don't need to go."
"I'm going with you. I'm going to watch you feed and I'm going to bring you back here when you're done. I'm not leaving your side."
With no energy to argue Vicki said, "Whatever."
Henry took her to the park and found a lonely man that was willing to sit next to a pretty woman and tell her his problems. While he rambled, Vicki fed. Henry willed the man to sleep as he took her home.
He sat with her on the couch, and said, "Talk to me. You know I love you. Why do you doubt that?" Henry looked into Vicki's eyes. Her color was better, and the dark circles were fading.
"Why talk. You said everything you needed to say weeks ago. You covered for me with Augustus. You go out when and how you please. Mayah came here to The Eclectic and to your studio. You went places together. I didn't say anything. I didn't complain. I did my work. You say you love me. Okay, you love me. I love you too. What more is there?" The words came from Vicki's mouth, but his Vicki was not part of the words.
"Some thing's missing from your words. What's missing?"
Vicki looked at Henry, down at the floor, stood and went to the window to place her hand on the glass. "I live the dark but I still don't like feeding. It really doesn't matter to me if I feed or not. When you aren't with me, nothing matters. You haven't been with me for weeks."
"You haven't been with me either." Henry stood and walked to the window. They were side by side, but the reconnection had not been made.
Henry turned Vicki to face him. He put his arms around her and kissed her with all the passion he possessed. Nothing was held back. Everything he ever felt for anyone was put into that kiss. If she couldn't feel his love now, she never could. Words were not going to work. Human, prince, vampire, friend, lover, teacher, parent, son, were all a part of that kiss.
Vicki felt the kiss, felt his love. It rolled over her. It pushed and pulled. It sucked her dry and filled her again. His love warmed her cold heart. Vicki responded to the kiss and kissed back with all she had.
Henry felt her response. Looked into her eyes and smiled his heartbreaking smile. "Vicki, I can't live without you. Don't ever scar me like that again."
"I'm possessive. I hate being left behind. Why didn't it ever occur to you to ask me to join you and Mayah?"
"I have guarded my life for years. Friends, lovers, I've kept them apart. The less people there are that know of my existence as vampire the safer I am. I kept you from parts of my life out of habit. Separating my friend from my lover. Mayah is part of my life not yours."
"That's your answer? That's what I have to live with. Friend night. Lover night. Not good enough. Find a better answer or leave."
Henry backed away and shouted , "What do you want from me?"
Vicki looked him in the eye and said, "The same thing every woman wants from a committed relationship. The knowledge she comes first, every time, no question. When it comes to a choice between friend and lover. The choice will always be the lover. I can't accept any other answer Henry. My father left my mother and me behind when he chose another woman. No man will ever leave me behind again so take me with you or let me go."
"All right, here's your answer. It is not a game we play, where one of us gets tired, or bored and picks up the pieces to go our separate ways. I'm not leaving you behind ever again, and you're not going anywhere. We work on us one night at a time, every night for as long as we live. Is that the answer you want?"
"Good answer."