1598
"Keep it."
The older woman looked at the girl with some mix of pity and respect. The girl had never seen that before. Only demanding stares and oh-so-superior scoffs. But now the older woman held the hard-earned coins out to her, shrugging slightly, as if to dispel any idea that this was actually compassion.
"It's just you now, girl," she said roughly. "You keep what you earn."
The girl slowly raised her hand, and the woman harshly shoved the coins into her palm. With a malicious look—making up for the moment of kindness, it would seem—she turned on her heel, leaving the girl with a swish of torn, dirty skirts.
The girl drew her hand in thoughtfully, feeling the weight of the coins in her hand. It wasn't a fortune—it wasn't even a pittance. It was an afterthought, tossed behind as the man of the night became a gentleman again in the daytime. But it was the first wealth she'd ever had. The first power she'd ever touched. Everything else had been taken from her, since she'd first started earning when she was eleven. Given to whichever whore had claimed to be her mother. The girl had never known if it was true, but she'd known it didn't matter. The only thing a mother meant here was someone to take what a young girl earned, claim it—and her— as their property. But then that woman had died—the ugly, shaking, blinding death of a working girl—and there was no one to take the girl's earnings from her.
She turned the coins over in her hand. Power. That's what they were. The power to buy and barter, of course, but the power to make decisions as well. The power of independence, fleeting and trivial though it was. She'd earned this, with her body. Some man had given her these coins in exchange for pleasure, in exchange for a chance to give in to his own libidinous, sinful urges. They never cared about her name, her age—only her body. An ultimately selfish transaction.
The girl knew this. She'd known it since she was a child, since she'd watched men thrust and moan against every woman who might have been her mother, indifferent to her innocence. It was a hard lesson to learn—to lay back and take it as a strange man used you for his own pleasure, as he irrevocably broke you, for the price of a few pence—but once learned, it was never forgotten. While other girls her age prepared for marriage and childbearing, this girl had learned something infinitely more useful: how to use her body and her words to get what she wanted. How to manipulate. How to survive.
While other girls prepared to sign away any laughable semblance of independence to whomever offered their fathers the greatest dowry, this girl learned that true autonomy was a valuable treasure: chased by so many, and only secure when no one else knew you had it. Perception was everything.
While other girls prayed for love and fidelity from their husbands, this girl learned that both were naïve illusions, the superior proof of lust and adultery grinding against her raw, calloused skin each night with grunts and sweat.
The girl slipped the coins into a pouch, tucking it into her bodice securely. She let out a long, deep breath, reaching up to try to salvage her hair into something presentable before going back downstairs. She couldn't wait much longer or someone would be up to fetch her. Violently, if necessary. God, how she longed to be free of this place. Free of the glares of the other women, who spoke of sisterhood but saw each other as competition. Free of orders and commands.
The girl walked down the unstable wooden steps, each footfall answered with a creak in the darkly lit stairwell. She could hear the laughter and cries before she reached the front room; she could smell the oppressive, beer-soaked air. It was hot—it was always hot. Too many bodies in too small a room, all sweating with action or anticipation.
As she entered, another roar of laughter erupted from a group of men in the corner. They all had drinks in their grimy hands, whooping and guffawing as one of their friends lifted a buxom woman's skirt, lascivious eyes dulled with drink.
Women were dotted around the smoky, candlelit room. They reclined in men's laps, tempting them to pay for more. Their mouths opened sharply in surprised gasps, parodies of shocked purity, as men's hands went where they shouldn't. Or rather, where they couldn't. Not for free, anyway. The women giggled, an encouragement made all the more convincing by the strong drink, and the men grew more loutish by the second.
"Aren't you a pretty thing?" came a voice beside her, and the girl turned to see a man of about forty leering at her, within arm's length. She smiled coyly, inviting him closer. The lust displayed openly on the man's face intensified. "I wonder," he said, touching her face with course, vulgar fingers, "how much a young bird like you would cost me?"
The girl turned towards him with that same coquettish smile that was her mask. "How much do you have to spend?" she asked flirtatiously.
The man didn't look excessively wealthy, but that didn't matter. He'd pay nonetheless, and the girl would keep it. She'd felt power now, cold and silver in her hand. She'd felt independence, learned the invaluable lesson that power was freedom. She'd be free of this place. She was determined now. She'd be free, even if it killed her.
1716
The girl—now woman— didn't remember that night. She didn't remember the man's face, or even the face of the woman who called her daughter. She didn't remember how many clients she'd had, or whether any of them had even asked her name. But she remembered how power felt, cold and strong. She remembered because in the years since that night, she'd become power. She'd died and been freed. Pure power, cold and strong in the night.
In life, the daylight had offered no gains to entice her. Men seldom came to brothels while it was still bright enough to see themselves, their reflections. The victories of the night were how she'd survived, how she'd lived. Nothing had changed. It seemed rather poetic, really—the lady of the night becoming the creature of the night.
Her sire sat in his makeshift throne as she stood, always present, at his right hand. "Do you remember when I sired you?" he asked, looking at her with happy memory. She smiled.
"Of course," she replied, and he laughed a little, shaking his head as he turned back to the group of followers bowing at his feet, awaiting judgment.
"I knew then that you would be my favorite," he said. "The way you spoke to a priest! The world needs more cynicism."
The woman laughed lightly in agreement. "It was hard-earned, I assure you," she said. Her sire held out his hand— inhumanly pale with nails like small knives—and she took it.
"Yes, yes," he said. "But now you're here, and any petty human troubles are gone. The Order of Aurelius is your family now."
The woman smiled fondly, glancing over the trembling figures kneeling before her and watching with pleasure as Luke, standing in the shadows behind them, picked up a crudely-made spear, advancing on the whimpering fools.
"And I need no other," she said with delight. Luke plunged the spear down through the heart of one, and dust exploded over the ground. Soon the other three were gone as well, remains mingling in the dirt. Luke looked up proudly, expectantly, but the Master sighed, glancing again at his childe.
"You are my favorite," he said again. "My dear one. My Darla."