Chapter 4: Close Enough
A few more minutes passed in silence, and then the skin around the cut on D's neck began to heal. It drew itself back together, melting and knitting itself together until it was smooth and pure and there was no sign that it had ever been cut at all. At last D opened his eyes. He could feel himself healing, and felt new strength in his limbs. He ripped his right hand up from the ground, snapped the arrow in two, and drew it out with his teeth. His hand healed almost immediately, and D used it to pull the arrows out of his stomach and this shoulder. Rather than hurting, the wounds merely itched furiously until they were healed. At last D was whole and healthy, except for the arrow still stuck through his left hand. A faint memory of the pain caused by that arrow made D hesitate to touch it. But soon the healing flesh of his hand itched so badly that he couldn't bear it, and he knew that the arrow had to come out. D clenched his teeth, grabbed the arrow, and pulled it free. Once it was out, it crumbled to dust. D scratched at the palm of his hand, but the itchiness was deep inside the bones, where the healing was incomplete.
"Do you mind?" a gruff voice asked, sounding slightly annoyed. "that's my face you're digging at with those nasty claws of yours."
D was startled. "Who said that?" he asked, looking around.
"I did," came the reply, only D couldn't tell exactly where it came from.
"Who are you?" D asked, suspecting some kind of trickery.
"Well naturally I haven't got a name," the voice said, sounding amused this time. "I'm only a lesser demon; I'm not anywhere near powerful enough to deserve my very own name."
"I'm afraid I don't understand," D said cautiously. D had heard of demons before, and he had seem their influence, but he had never spoken to one directly. Suddenly he felt a something move in his hand, like a giant coiled worm wriggling in his skin. It wasn't painful or ticklish, it was just very odd. Grabbing his own wrist tightly with his right hand, he turned his left hand over, and stared down at his palm.
A face was forming in the flesh of his palm. D's eyes widened in surprise. Two black eyes stared up at him, and the ugly face cracked a large grin. "Hello!" the face in his hand said. "It's nice to finally get a look at you. You've only seen your proper reflection once in a mirror. The puddles you like to stare at aren't as clear. And you've grown since then, at least a little!"
"How did you know about that?" D asked, frowning. "The mirror, and the puddles?"
"From your memories, obviously. A hundred years or more of schooling, and you're still so stupid you couldn't figure that out?"
D's frown deepened. "What?" sneered the demon in his hand. "Never been insulted by your own hand before?" It laughed raucously at itself and then made a sniffing noise. D held his hand at length, unsure of what to expect.
"How did you get here?" D asked.
"Simple enough. I've been looking for a host for thousand years. I was cursed, trapped into an arrow, and I couldn't escape until I found my way into a suitable host. But the only things I ever got shot at were deer, birds, rodents, and that sort of thing…never a human! Most of the time I killed whatever I hit, anyway, but then I found you! And you're very different, my friend. You're strong, I can tell. You won't be so easy to kill! So I decided to hang on, to take my chances with you. And it worked! I'm free! While I was waiting for you to wake up and remove that miserable cursed arrow, I skimmed through your memories. You've already got a lifetime of them stored away, and most of them I can't make sense of right or left or upside down. Say, that reminds me…." The face turned pensive, and D's fingers wiggled involuntarily. "Ah, so that's the thumb… this must be your left hand. How wonderful!"
"I don't think it's wonderful," D said. "I've got some demon thing infesting my hand, and it can obviously take over my fingers whenever it wants to. What else can you do? Can you make my whole arm do whatever you wish? Will you migrate to my brain someday and take over my whole body?"
The face in his hand laughed loudly. D scowled at it- it was shriveled and hideous. "No, I can't do that, as much as I would like to. I am a very small demon, with merely local influence, and I have already picked my place of residence. I am in your hand, and here I shall stay."
"For how long?" D asked, not liking his new companion at all.
"Oh, probably forever," the hand replied nonchalantly, grinning again.
"No," D said, shaking his hand as if to shake it free of some slime.
"What do you mean, 'no'?" the demon asked. "Are you actually dumb enough to think that you can somehow get rid of me, now that I've chosen my new home after a thousand years of searching?"
"There has to be a way," D said desperately. "I'm not letting you stay there. That's my hand, and I'm not sharing it."
"Oh well," the hand sighed. "I guess that's the attitude I ought to expect from a spoiled dhampir prince."
"What did you call me?" D asked darkly, wondering how badly it would hurt to cut off his own hand.
"Dhampir. As in, half-vampire. Well, that's what you are, isn't it? You're obviously not a purebred of either species, as is evidenced by your appearance and your toleration of the sunlight."
"My father goes about in the sunlight sometimes."
"oh ho ho, does he now? Well, I supposed the vampire king ought to have some sort of privilege above his subjects. What are you getting at, that you're not a half-breed?"
"what if I wasn't?" D asked. "I'd be a lot more wicked and devilish; you'd probably like that."
The hand made a sound of shocked disgust. "Bwaugh! You, a vampire? How repulsive! Don't ever suggest such profanity in my presence ever again!" D's hand gave a little shiver. "Vampires… what hideous, miserable brutes! Vile and corrupt, always thirsting for blood, for the blood of innocent humans! Their existence is an evil flaw in this world, a shame and a tragedy that should never have come to pass! All life mourns and curses the day when the first vampire came staggering out of his tomb, driven by the vile thirst in his heart, mind, and rotten, tattered soul to feast in his gluttony on open human veins."
D's mind was spinning. "You're only saying that because you read my mind," he accused, keeping his voice level.
"Not true," the demon replied. "I cannot read your mind. I can see glimpses of your memory, and feel echoes of your emotions, that's all."
"If I become a vampire someday," D reasoned, studying the demon face. "Would you go away?"
"I would have no choice," the demon replied. "I would cease to exist if you became a vampire. Like I said, I am a lesser demon. I can only exist if I belong to a human."
"Then what are you doing in my hand? I'm not human," D said, frustrated and annoyed.
"You're close enough," D's hand replied, and there was a tinge of kindness in the voice.
D studied the ugly, wrinkled face, and then suddenly made a fist. When he opened his fingers again, the face was gone. D blinked, frowned, and flexed his fingers again. He looked at the back of his hand, and his other hand too. The face was gone.
What to do now? D was at a loss. Should he return to the Belus' house, to apologize? Could he beg forgiveness? Would they listen if he told them the truth? "Better if they think I'm dead," D reasoned silently. "It was the wolf that killed those men, not me. And they know I would never have… I would never have turned on them, or done anything to bring them grief. They were my family… they know that, and I shall let that memory of me be preserved."
D's thoughts turned to the angry men who had trapped him and tried to kill him. They thought he was his father. How could they make such a terrible mistake? D's father was a lot taller, and his face was much, much older. Surely the people knew that the vampire who preyed upon them wasn't a child. D knew he looked like a child to human eyes. He had allowed himself to believe that he even looked like a human child. But obviously he looked enough like a monster for the people to mistake him for one. And how could he have corrected them? D had never heard the word Dhampir before that afternoon. He had never been fully sure of what he was, but he knew he wasn't a vampire- he didn't drink blood, and never would: he had promised his mother that he wouldn't, and his father had sworn as well- his father had since broken that oath, but D was determined not to. His father always provided only regular food for D to eat- he had never offered him blood. D felt sick just thinking about it. But he had fangs, after all- and that was all the proof the men needed to identify him as a vampire. The demon in his hand told him he wasn't a vampire; said he was 'close enough' to a human. But he was close enough to a vampire for the men to kill him as one.
D wasn't sure if he was angry at the men or not. Their knowledge of vampires was shockingly limited. They had hurt him with their weapons, but caused him far worse pain with their words and their desperation to believe his guilt. D's father had killed their loved ones, their neighbors and friends. They were fully justified in seeking revenge. Suddenly D wished with all his heart that they had found his father instead, and killed him, although he knew that they never would have been able to. D's father was the vampire king, and could have killed the men with barely a clap of his hands. It was better for them to think they had gotten their revenge, even though their 'revenge' did nothing but deprive D of the only friends he had ever had. D felt tears brewing in his eyes again. Mrs. Belus and Tasia: he would never see them again. And his wicked father would continue to feed upon the innocent, ignorant humans, causing them pain and grief and rage.
Hunched over in the forest, the ground around him wet from his own blood, D felt all of those emotions sweep over him. What could he do? Was there nothing he could do? Was he doomed to forever be hated? He brought his hands up and covered his face, trying not to sob aloud even though there was no one to hear him.
He had momentarily forgotten the demon. He jumped as he felt the face forming in his palm. "I thought you could use a little time to yourself," his hand said sympathetically. "Your mind is all tied and twisted into one huge painful knot. Come on now, talk to me. I haven't had a conversation in a thousand years. And I might be able to help you."
"Help me?" D said, not trusting the demon.
"Why not- we're buddies after all; we've got a lot of things in common. Well, five things, anyway:" he made each of D's fingers twitch in turn as he counted: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5- hah!" the face laughed and snorted and grinned, pleased with itself. D felt annoyed. "I can see you're going to be a tough customer," the demon conceded. "But seriously, what's on your mind?"
"I've never been happy and I never will be," D declared with all the conviction of a human teenager who knows the world has wronged them.
"And why is that?' the demon asked patiently.
"Because of what I am!" D exclaimed. "Because I'm a--"
"Now hold on, young man," the hand interrupted. "You're half human, and humans have the distinct luxury of getting to choose what they are. I'm sure you know that some humans are good, and some are evil, just as evil as any vampire- but they get to choose that for themselves, and so do you."
D felt slightly comforted. "But what I look like…" he began.
"You haven't been out in the world much, have you? Plenty of people look a lot more monstrous than you. You look perfectly human, as long as you keep your mouth closed."
"Out in the world…" D muttered, an idea slowly growing in his mind. "Is there anywhere on earth that people don't know about vampires?" he asked.
"Hmm, a tough question from a tough customer…" his hand mumbled. "Why?"
"Because if there is, then I want to go there, and, well, I could pretend to be human, and live there."
The shriveled face looked at him thoughtfully. "You know, that sounds like a good idea. The world is quite huge. But you're talking about a major operation: it will take lots of research and planning."
D jumped to his feet, excited about the possibilities. He hurried towards the castle through the lengthening shadows of the afternoon.
A/N: soooo…. am I beating a dead horse with the whole half-breed conflict? I think I've tried to edit this last chapter at least a dozen times but I can't make up my mind on what to eliminate. But I do get the feeling that I'm repeating myself repetitively, you know? I guess since this is a "where did he come from?" story, angst is acceptable.