The Lightning Vampyre
Me: Okay, the trolls have taken the video off Dailymotion as well. So not a happy bunny. Oh well. If you do want to see the video, let me know and I can send it to you guys. Damn WMG!
A few hours later, Eliás awoke inside the Infirmary to the sound of a fierce wind battering at the thin windows, his normal clothes replaced with hospital pyjamas, and a surgical dressing over his stomach. His head hurt like no tomorrow, and whilst making a mental note that the anaesthetic chemicals for vamps could probably do with a bit of tweaking, Eliás groggily wiped his eyes of the drug-induced sleep, and sat up a little, the numbed pain yanking on his wound as he did so, but that wasn't what bothered him quite so much. Not so much as the fact that he had woken up painfully thirsty.
"Veronika!" he called, Jesus his voice was weak, his throat dry.
The bustling nurse appeared from inside the Infirmary drug store. "Ah I'm glad you're awake." She said, "Right on schedule. How are you feeling?"
"Can I have a blood drip?" he asked.
"Let me just top you up on painkillers."
Eliás rubbed his forehead as his vision swam and his response came out far more viciously than he originally intended. "Veronika I need a blood drip, please get me a blood drip!" he growled, like he was telling off a fledgling that was pushing their luck when he had a splitting headache. Jesus why was it this windy outside? Not usual for this time of year, and neither was the nasty dark cloud that he could just see when he looked out of the window. It sent a shiver up his spine.
Veronika looked almost hurt by his curt request. "Alright." She said, realising her mistake, "Sorry Eliás."
She brought him a blood bag and an IV stand, placing the IV in the back of his hand and connecting him up to it. Eliás had never had any trouble sticking needles in anybody else, but he still hated them himself. The blood trickling into his bloodstream wasn't doing so fast enough. He wanted more.
"Veronika, could I have a bag to drink?"
"How much d'ya want?" she asked.
"I'm weak and I'm just really really thirsty."
"Do you want a human donor?"
"Dear God no!" he said, the his temper running so high it felt like he had a fever. Eliás realised then what exactly he sounded like and forced himself to calm down, "I'm sorry Veronika, I don't know what's got into me, I shouldn't have been so rude to you."
"Eliás Svboda, you and your pathetic temper wouldn't have the damned'est effect on me if you were half the fiery dragon you think you are." She said, chuckling honestly, "Now, Anděl's been sitting outside for the past twenty minutes, asking to see you when you're awake. Shall I send him in?"
Eliás blinked. What did Anděl want? He sighed and nodded. "Send him in."
Veronika nodded and got up, and a few seconds later, the Prague Swordmaster came walking down the ward, still dressed in his pristine white fencing uniform from his classes.
"I've always wondered how you never get anything on that thing." Said Eliás, jerking his head towards Anděl's uniform.
"There's a knack to it." he said as he sat down next to Eliás' bed, bottle of wine in hand. He took a glance out of the window as he crossed his one leg over the other. "Bit turbulent out there isn't it?"
Eliás' eyes lit up. "Is that for me?"
Anděl looked at him. "No, this is for me." He said in a very innocent voice, before grinning, "Of course it's for you you twat."
"Can we break it open now?"
Anděl took a look at the IV stand and raised one of his blonde eyebrows. "Looks like you've started pre-lash already my friend."
"I know." Said Eliás, taking the bottle from Anděl and unscrewing the cap, "I'm just really thirsty this morning."
Screw glasses, Eliás thought. Tossing the cap clear, he lifted the bottle neck to his lips and proceeded to down the sweet wine as fast as his oesophagus would let him. After having drunk about half of the bottle, he needed air and so lowered the bottle and wiped his mouth, only to find Anděl staring open-mouthed at him.
"How dehydrated were you?" he asked, his voice completely astounded.
Even though Eliás really wanted to down the rest of the bottle, he decided it might be politer to speak to Anděl first, and so reluctantly put the bottle down on the side table.
"It's not enough." He groaned as he nursed his head, "I'm still thirsty."
"Well..." said Anděl, leaning forward to rest his arms on his knees, his fingers interlocked, "That's what I came here to talk to you about." He said with a more sombre tone, "How are you?"
Eliás groaned again. "I've been better." He said, "I've definitely had a healthier conscience." He paused as his voice went quiet, "I never meant to kill him."
"It was self defence."
"I was just trying to knock him out, but instead I killed him, I didn't have to kill him, sure he'd have stabbed me a few times and run off but I'd have survived!" He said, "I'm such an idiot I really don't know what came over me..."
"That all depends on where he stabbed you." Said Anděl wisely, "Eliás, these things happen."
"No Anděl they don't!" Eliás snapped, "Never, not in my one hundred and twenty six years, have I ever lost control of my power like that!" he said, looking away, "It does frighten me."
"I've been thinking." Said Anděl, lowering his voice, "Having heard the entire story, and, I think, I do know."
"Pff. Please enlighten me."
"That German woman..." he began, and immediately Eliás' entire body went tense, "That you loved..."
Still loved, actually. "Yes?"
"When you were in San Clemente..." he said, "Did you imprint with her?"
Eliás froze again, taken aback by the casual question. "No." He said, "I don't think so. Why?"
"When you share a Binding Imprint with someone, you can tap into their affinity, as can they into yours." He said.
"I know that."
"Her affinity is for horses isn't it?"
"What are you getting at?"
"Accumulation." He said, "Summation. If you were channelling her affinity, that would give you an automatic link to Friedrich, whose affinity is also for horses. You would have been feeling your own anger, plus Friedrich's, as well as an automatic and powerful revulsion to the ill-treatment of the horses."
For the first time in a long time, Eliás was completely speechless. He couldn't have imprinted with Lenobia, this was the first time he had ever 'channelled' anything, and San Clemente was five years ago now, it was too long. You can't be imprinted with someone for five years and not know about it, it was impossible. Anděl had a good point, but what if it was just the stress of Eliás job getting to him? What if it was as simple as that? It could well be.
"And, it could just have been the stress of the job getting to me." He replied, "It's an extremely complicated theory for a very simple thing."
"Well I thought so too, until you mentioned how thirsty you were." Said Anděl, "This is the first time you've been physically injured since San Clemente. You've lived off the blood in our wine since then and it's tided you by, but now you're needing to heal, your body's telling you you need more."
Eliás' face fell. "Are you telling me that she could be electrically shocking everything she touches? Can she channel mine too?"
It was an extremely good point. Eliás had only just discovered this now, she would probably wake up one day and bring an entire building down. And there was another extremely good point. As Eliás well knew, the ability to tap into each other's affinities could only occur two vampyres that shared a Binding Imprint. It was the most powerful imprint known to man, it was what defined soulmates, it was no ordinary imprint. It was so powerful that eventually, the couple bound by it could only survive off each other's blood, other blood lost all its nutritional value, lost its taste, even began to taste foul to them. And yet if that was the case, how could he have had no idea, how could he even have survived this long without her. Anděl seemed to be reading his mind like an open book. And why was it Anděl here, explaining this to him? Because Anděl had been there, because Anděl and shared that unbreakable bond with Lýdie, because Anděl knew. That's why it was Anděl sitting here right now, instead of Věra or any of the others.
"Maybe." He said, "But, I do know from experience, that channelling spontaneously is a rare occurrence, normally, in order to do it, you need to consciously practice it."
"Thank Nyx."
"But what confuses me is how you could have gone for so long without seeing her." He said, "You know why. By all laws of nature you should be dead right now."
"Nyx clearly isn't done with me yet."
"Let's just hope not." He said.
"You need to contact her."
Eliás froze again. "What?"
"I'm serious." Said Anděl, "I don't know how the Hell that both of you have managed to remain completely pig-ignorant of this for five years, she must be as stubborn as you are." Eliás nodded, "But surely if you think there's any kind of imprint there at all, you need to talk to her about it. If she gets hurt Eliás, she'll be weak and thirsty for days like you are now, and Nyx forbid, if anything near-fatal happens to her your blood will be the only thing that can save her."
Eliás looked uncomfortable. "I don't think so."
"Look, it's not like you're calling her to tell her you've got an STD." Said Anděl informatively, causing Eliás' eyes to widen slightly.
"You can't be right Anděl." He said, "I know what it looks like, I do, but you can't share a Binding Imprint with someone for five years and not know about it. You know that."
Anděl pulled a face in unwilling agreement. "I hope I'm wrong and you're right Eliás."
"Me too." There was a pause. "How's Friedrich?" Eliás asked gingerly. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to know the answer.
Anděl sighed. "Still not responsive." He said. Eliás' heart sank, "The doctors have said, that for a full recovery to be on the cards, they really do need to see some movement from him within the next twenty-four hours."
The weather outside was getting steadily worse, asides from the wind whistling through all the nooks and crannies of the castle, thunder was beginning to rumble in the distance. Eliás sat there, unable to reply, and he felt the warm wet trickle of a tear run down his cheek. "I hate myself." He said, screwing his eyes shut and driving out more tears as lightning flashed outside, causing a blue-white light to temporarily illuminate the ward, "I should never have let that idiot anywhere near you all! This is all my fault."
Another silence ensued, neither vampyre could say anything. Eliás wiped his eyes with the back of his arm. "Anděl..." he said, "Do you remember my first day at the House of Night?"
Anděl, not so far from tears himself, thought for a moment. This was odd, Eliás had only ever seen Anděl close to tears when Adéla died. He wasn't the type to wear his emotions on his sleeve at all, the man was and always had been a stereotypical ice-prince. Even though Lýdie's gentle and loving nature had melted him a little, without her presence he could very quickly revert. A small smile played on his lips. "Yeah..." he said after a while, "You kept dropping the foil..."
Eliás laughed. "I couldn't find a classroom. It was just after mid-evening break and I had no idea where I was supposed to be, and I didn't know a soul to ask. Friedrich, I don't know what he was doing inside or why he just happened to be where I was, but he saw me, and he knew I was lost. I remember him grinning and me and saying: 'My boy, at least we'll know not to make you a tracker'. He took me to where I was supposed to be, he chatted to me on the way, I didn't know any vamps back them, but every since that day, even now, I've never met a nicer vampyre."
Anděl also gave a small laugh. "Don't tempt fate by honouring his memory." He said, "He's not dead yet."
"Let's hope so." He said, before satisfying the itch to pick up the bottle of wine again, and chugging the rest of it back.
Anděl watched him with a face of slight disbelief. "D'you want another one of those?"
Eliás lowered the now empty bottle and wiped his mouth. "Yes please."
Later on, Eliás decided that maybe it would be a good idea to call Anastasia. At the very least to tell her that they would be sending Dallas back in a box. It definitely wasn't a phone-call that he wanted to make, but he was going to have to face up to this sooner or later, it might as well be to the person who needed to know. Shit she'd have to inform his family... Eliás' stomach turned violently.
Checking that he had enough credit to make the call, he scrolled through his contacts until he found her mobile number, inwardly cringed, and finally pressed the green 'call' button. Eliás timed the call carefully, so that, in Tulsa's time zone, it was the middle of the day. Everyone would be asleep and theoretically, being on a hospital ward and all, he could make the call fairly private. Anastasia seldom answered her office phone on account of seldom being in her office.
The phone rang for ages, and Eliás felt even guiltier at waking her up. Eventually, he heard the phone being picked up.
"Eliás Svboda what in Nyx's name are you doing calling me at half past three in the afternoon?"
Clearly she had caller ID. "I'm really sorry Anastasia I really needed to speak to you and just haven't had a spare moment lately."
She sighed wearily. "What's the problem?"
"It's about Dallas."
"Then it can wait."
"I'm afraid it can't."
She was silent for a moment. "Oh Christ what has he done?"
"Well could you zap yourself in? I need to talk to you about this in person."
Another sigh. "Fine."
Anastasia appeared in a whisp of mist, dressed in a dark blue silk nightdress and a similarly blue fluffy dressing gown and slippers. Her hair was tangled and she wasn't wearing any make-up. Anastasia normally wore heels, even in the daytime, and seeing her now without them Eliás realised how tiny she actually was.
"I don't have a very good feeling about this." She said, before suddenly looking at Eliás in bed and then to her surroundings, "And why are you in hospital?"
He sighed, hanging up and putting his phone back on the bedside table. "Dallas knifed me."
Anastasia's big bright blue eyes went wide like saucers, before narrowing in a very disappointed, but not surprised look. "Oh Jesus..." she said, sitting down in the chair next to him, "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine." He said, clutching his forehead, "But Dallas isn't."
"You shocked him?"
There was a pause. "I killed him." Eliás said.
This time, Anastasia's eyes didn't go ridiculously wide; in fact her eye contact didn't even waver. She looked at him as if she was solving a particularly difficult maths problem or a diabolical Sudoku. Again, he could see, even feel in his intuition that she was disappointed and saddened but not surprised. "What happened?" she said quietly.
He exhaled. "Friedrich caught him shocking some of the horses for entertainment. He was furious, quite violent for Friedrich actually, he threw him against a tree, saw Dallas off with the intention of coming to find me after he'd finished riding for the morning. I don't know what Dallas was thinking but, in revenge, I think, he shocked Friedrich while he was riding, killed the horse outright and very nearly killed Friedrich. Who is still in the isolation ward and unresponsive, by the way." He hated to look at the expression on her face as he spoke, knowing that it would make telling it professionally all the more difficult, "No one saw him do it but the vet did a post mortem on the horse and said it died from electric shock, I went to see Dallas, his own loud mind told me the rest. I found him in his room, one of our pre-nineteenth century guest rooms, fag in hand. He wasn't sorry... It almost made me wish I couldn't get inside people's heads when I have to deal with people like him – he wasn't just, ignorant of the suffering he'd caused, he enjoyed it, he enjoyed the control over other people's fates. Anyway I confronted him about it. He didn't see what the fuss was about. He tried to leave and I wouldn't let him, he took a strike at me and I just floored him." Eliás had long since broken eye-contact with Anastasia and was now nursing his forehead, his eyes shut as the images flashed before his eyes in real time. "He then pulled out a kitchen steak knife that he'd hidden under his bed and waved it at me, shouting, we grappled with it, he was stronger than I was and he managed to stab me." He said, pointing at his dressed wound with his left hand, "He raised it to stab me again and I just didn't think..."
"You shocked him."
"I never meant to kill him." Said Eliás, still burying his face in his hands, "I just meant to knock him out but I was so angry it was like I couldn't mediate what I was doing! I feel so ashamed... I didn't have to kill him, if he'd stabbed me again and run off I'd have survived!" he sighed, "I can't, dissipate this anger, I couldn't get rid of it when I confronted him and now it's still inside me and I can't let it out."
"I know what you're thinking..." she said, her blue eyes reading his grey ones like an open book, "Anděl spoke to you..."
"Oh feel free to nose." He said sarcastically, and she withdrew her curiosity.
"Sorry." She said, "I know you didn't mean to do it."
"That's not good enough though." He said, "My calling in life, was never teaching, never school admin logistics, it was always to help people through science. I hate killing. When I'm forced to do it, it feels like a bit of my pride dies. And when I'm not forced to do it, it makes me feel physically ill."
"Eliás, it was an accident." She said reassuringly, "If he'd have killed you, if he'd have stabbed you, cut a few essential arteries and you'd bled to death, what good would that have been? If you can help people Eliás, if you can do good, you need to stay alive to continue it."
"I'm sorry I brought all this trouble on you." He said, "You'll have to tell his family and everything..."
She remained solemn. "His family were never told that he survived the rejection of the Change as a kid." She said, "We told him to, it was their right to know after all, after he'd become a red vamp, but he didn't want to."
"Maybe he thought they wouldn't want him."
"Maybe.
Eliás sighed and swallowed the lump in his throat, and realised that once again, his mouth was dry. Jesus not again. "Anastasia, you couldn't pass me a few blood bags could you?"
"Sure." She said, "Uh, where from?"
"Store-room's just over there." He said, pointing towards a door not far from the nurses' station. She got up and went in, pinging the old light on as she went. "Is there any left out to warm?"
"Doesn't look like it." she called back, "Just fridged."
"That'll do." He said grumpily.
You know..." she said, bringing back five or so bags of blood, "There's something else I need to tell you." She passed him the bags and sat back down again while he tore the bags open one by one, "We didn't tell you this before, we didn't want him to find out, by accident..." she said, pointing to her head, "You know what I mean."
He gulped down the first bag and started on the next. "What?"
"He was going back to prison anyway." She said, earning a surprised look from Eliás, "They found a journal in his jail cell, after he'd left to come to you, he'd hidden it in a mattress or something, and forgotten to take it when he left. Stupid of him really. Turned out it was, I would say, a little obsessed with Stevie-Rae. In it he went on and on about how he was going to find her and get her back for testifying against him before, when she'd told the courts she wanted a restraining order to keep him away after he got out."
"What?"
"That alone is evidence enough to send him down."
"Christ."
"He had a bit of an inferiority complex, it turns out."
"Nyx must have gifted him for a reason." Said Eliás, "She doesn't entrust us with these affinities for nothing." Especially not magical affinities to men, he thought.
Anastasia looked sad for a moment. "Nyx believed in Neferet too."
"Yes." He said quietly, "I hope She believes in Friedrich."
"I think She does."
Anastasia looked over her shoulder and Eliás leant forward to see Silvija, Friedrich's Head Girl, standing a few feet away, still dressed in her riding clothes, her tied-back dark hair a little dishevelled from working outside. Eliás remembered that she had been a pupil here but Changed a few years ago, but now she still worked for Friedrich, helping him run the show at the Riding School. She had always been a very confident girl, not shy in the least, and very practical. She'd taken over Friedrich's jobs, and to them like a fish to water. Nothing was allowed to slip, not even when the worst had come to the worst like it had. Her face was weary, as was everyone else's, but her workload had effectively doubled, and still she soldiered on like a Trojan. He supposed horses didn't stop being horses, even when she was supposed to be sleeping.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt."
"Oh it's okay, I'm Anastasia, High Priestess of the Tulsa House." Said Anastasia, extending her hand for Silvija to shake.
"It's an honour ma'am." She said, shaking Anastasia's wrist.
"What can I do for you Silvija?" said Eliás.
She took a few steps closer, her boots clicking on the hard floor. "I came to see if Friedrich's come to yet, is he on the ward?" she asked, looking around for him.
"He's in the isolation ward, and I'm afraid there's been no change."
She looked saddened. "And I had some good news for him."
"What's the news?"
"One of our broodmares we imported from Germany a month ago has just foaled. Beautiful little thing, he'll be pleased with it."
Eliás and Anastasia both looked equally confused. "Oh?"
Silvija smiled knowingly, her eyes bright like stars. "It's a liver-chestnut colt."
