(I am a fan of a television show that aired in the 1990s called Forever Knight. I started writing a story, a bit of fan fiction based on the show's basic premise but doesn't use any of the characters. One day, perhaps, I'll have time to finish it. In the meantime, I'm sharing what there is. Let me know if it's a story that deserves an ending.
There will be a long back story that explains how the main character, Cassendra, became a slave and who the woman in the carriage was. I'm still thinking through details, but basically, they are half-sisters. Their father was married to the sister's mother, but he was in love with Cass's mother. When her mother died, the father sent Cass to grow up in France, where she would not be exposed to the life of a black in 18th-Century America. Years later, when she heard her father was dying, she disregarded the advice and returned to the Colonies. By her arrival, her father had died without leaving provisions to free Cass and the other blacks on his plantation as he had promised over the years. She learned, instead, that her half-sister now owned her. In quick order, Cass found her heritage and her freedom stripped away.)
On Night's Edge
Charles Towne, South Carolina – June 1766
"Gentlemen, the next in the lot is a young Negress. Sturdy in body, fine features. Step up and examine her closely."
Cassendra Webster stood proudly on a raised, wooden platform amid the teeming slave market plaza. She refused to let the fear she felt show in her face or in her lightly shod stance. Although only of medium height, she held herself so that she seemed taller, almost regal in her bearing. Her only concession to her new status as a slave was the slight bowing of her head.
She was garbed in a simple homespun, no-sleeved dress that provided her little modesty to entice the buyers to bid highly for her. The benefit, at least, was that the dress allowed the slight breeze stirring that hot afternoon to give her smooth, cafe-au-lait skin some small relief.
Several white men eagerly approached the edge of the raised platform, but only four climbed the steps to get a closer look. One actually stood close enough to Cassendra to pull her compressed lips apart and see that her teeth were surprisingly well-cared for. Two other men simply circled her as if they were afraid to touch her. They had seen other "high yella" slaves sold on platforms like this before. However, they recognized that she was not the typical slave, and they were unsure of how to handle her. They saw her hands were soft and unused to physical labor. She had the bearing of a lady, and her presence here did nothing to diminish that.
Two of the men were dressed as farmers and the third wore the apron of a shopkeeper. None of them seemed to have the monies that would be demanded to purchase her. But the fourth man was different. His cream-colored jacket over a dark brown waistcoat and matching breeches were tailored to fit his tall, slim body. He carried himself as if he had the means to have whatever he wanted, and at the moment, what he wanted was her.
She carefully raised her averted eyes to meet his and nearly lost all the courage she had gathered. She saw cruelty in his green eyes and a mocking twist to his fleshy lips. There was no tenderness in his manicured fingers as they stroked up her naked arm to the point where the dress covered her shoulders. Though he did not touch her further, she felt stripped bare by his leer, and it was only by sheer will that she kept herself from jerking away from him and crossing her arms in front of her body in the ageless, fruitless effort to cover herself.
Seeing the man's interest, the auctioneer added, "She's unsullied, Gentlemen. But as you can see," gesturing to her generous bosom and hips, "she's built to breed." The men laughed, and Cassendra closed her eyes so that they could not see the shame and hatred that filled their depths.
"Come now, Gentlemen, let's start the bidding!"
The announcement drew even more by-standers to the platform. With one exception. Cassendra could see a black carriage she knew very well parked on the outer edge of the plaza, hanging back from the rest. Its passenger sat inside the shadowed interior and did not exit. But, like the rest of the witnesses and participants, that passenger appeared to be intensively interested in the proceedings. A stately, middle-aged black man in livery befitting the understated elegance of the carriage sat on the driver's perch. He stared determinedly ahead, refusing to become a witness to the scene.
Cassendra did not need to see the passenger to know who she was and to know why she was there. Her pride would not let the woman gain any satisfaction from seeing her humiliated. Instead, she turned her head away from the carriage and focused her attention on the matters directly before her.
The auction went quickly as those with limited funds dropped out when the bids rose beyond their means. Soon it was down to an elderly gentleman on horseback and the "hard-eyed one," as Cassendra now thought of the younger man who had inspected her earlier. Any hope she had that he would be out-bid was lost when he suddenly raised his bid to three hundred pounds, a price usually reserved for a full-grown male field hand. The older man shook his head.
The crash of the gavel against the auctioneer's table reverberated in Cassendra's ears long after the papers transferring her ownership had been signed.
Before she was led away, she got one final look at the carriage. The driver relented and turned to look into her face. Even from a distance, she could see the sorrow that clouded his face before he withdrew behind his earlier expressionless mask. He flicked the reins to start the matched pair of harnessed horses forward. From inside the carriage, its passenger leaned forward to lower the window shade. For a few moments, before the woman closed the shade, Cassendra met her identical hazel eyes, and a mutual hatred flashed between the pair of women.
The Charles Towne house where Cassendra had been delivered was a large, two-story structure enclosed within a tall, wrought-iron fence. The sun had already set, so she could see only a few details of the shadow-encased, white exterior. However, the interior was ablaze in candlelight. And she could hear the sound of a fiddle and a harpsichord playing lively music. From the laughter therein, she guessed that a party was well underway.
The house servant who opened the door was an elderly black woman of immense proportions. She ushered Cassendra into the foyer and gave the younger woman a thorough visual inspection from head to toe.
While she did, Cassendra took the opportunity to look at the house's interior. The foyer and the open rooms that led from it were expensively and tastefully decorated predominately using Louis XIV furnishings. The residence could have easily been the home of a wealthy family, except for the paintings that hung from the walls. Each one portrayed scenes of bacchanalian revelry and sexual couplings that no lady would have displayed in her home.
She could now tell that the music and laughter she had heard earlier was coming from behind a closed door she guessed was a parlor or ballroom. The door opened, and a couple—the white man leaning heavily against a quadroon woman in pantaloons and a corset who did not appear to be even half her companion's age—staggered out and climbed the nearby staircase to disappear upstairs.
"Come along, Gal, we need ta get ya ready," the servant said, drawing Cassendra's troubled gaze. "De Master is goin' ta want ta break *ya* in right away."
The servant picked up a candelabrum from the foyer table and led Cassendra upstairs. They walked down a long hallway past several closed doors until they reached a similarly closed door at the end of the hallway. The woman unlocked the door and pushed Cassendra into a moonlit, unoccupied room. The candelabrum she carried added enough light for Cassendra to see that the room was dominated by a large, four-poster bed.
"We'll worry about dressing ya tomorra," the servant said as she crossed to a cherry highboy positioned against the wall near a glass door that opened to an outdoor terrace. She placed the candelabrum on the highboy's top and said with a cackle, "With yar looks, ya could talk Massa into keepin' ya ta 'emself fo' a while. If ya treat 'em jus' righ', dat iz."
Opening a drawer in the highboy, she removed a nearly transparent night rail, a brush, and some soap that had a light, rose scent. From the floor beneath the furniture, she lifted a pair of slippers. "Over dere," the servant ordered, gesturing to a chair placed beside a small table holding a cloth-draped wash basin and pitcher of water.
After the servant removed the dress and shoes she had worn, Cassendra sat quietly as the woman quickly, but efficiently, cleansed her with the cloth and rose-scented soap, dressed her in the night rail, and brushed her thick, sable hair until it cascaded down her back to just below her waist.
Although only in her early 20's, Cassendra had seen and heard enough to begin putting the pieces of her situation together: the way the house and the bedroom were decorated, the couple she had seen downstairs, the moans and cries she had heard coming from most of the rooms they had passed, and now her state of dress. She did not want to believe what these pieces were telling her, but no other explanation fit.
She had never before entered a house of ill repute; however, whispered stories from her friends described places just like this to her.
Was she going to be expected to service men sexually? Her sheltered life made her completely unprepared for such a possibility. In fact, the auctioneer's claim that she was still a virgin was correct.
All doubt about her situation fled when the door was flung open, and the man who had bought her a few hours ago stood in its frame. His gaze roamed over her body, and he leered drunkenly at her as he entered the bedroom.
Cassendra could smell the alcohol on him, but his movements suggested that he was not so intoxicated that he could not move deliberately towards her. Aware that the sheer night rail fully exposed her body to him, she jumped to her feet and rushed behind the chair. Her knuckles whitened as she gripped its back, holding it as a barrier between herself and the man.
"Out," he ordered the servant without turning his gaze from Cassendra. The old woman curtsied and replied, "Yassir, Massa," as she moved swiftly from the room.
Cassendra's eyes never left his face, not even when she heard the sound of the bedroom door being locked from the outside.
"Samantha told me about the sale today," he drawled to the young woman. "She said lyin' on your back was all you were good for."
Her grip on the chair slackened as she looked with stunned shock into the man's face. Surely this could not be true! Not even her sis-
Her thoughts were interrupted as the man reached out, snatched the chair away from her grasp and flung it away. Getting his first unobstructed view of her barely clad body, he rubbed the crotch of his breeches and sneered. "I owe her one." He stepped closer and added. "You are truly a lovely, young thing. I've been lookin' forward to this moment all night."
Cassendra backed away from him until the calves of her legs hit against the edge of the bed. She wildly glanced around for something, anything, to serve as a barrier between them.
The man chose that moment of her distraction to close in, using the weight of his body to force hers onto the bed. She began to struggle against him. He kissed her, nearly overwhelming her with the stench of brandy on his breath.
"Hold still," he commanded. "If you don't, I'll make you wish you had."
She trembled with the effort to stop fighting, but she could not stifle her scream when he reached inside the scooped neckline of the night rail and ripped the piece from her body.
He laughed, looking forward to the struggle, and said, "Okay, have it your way."
Cassendra could not stop another outcry as he savagely attacked her tender mouth, forcing his tongue inside. She bit down as hard as she could and tasted blood as he drew back with an angry curse.
"Bitch!" He slapped her face, causing her head to snap violently to the side as she cried out again, this time in blinding pain. He raised his hand to strike again, but the blow never landed.
Cassendra laid on the bed, at first too dazed to comprehend fully that the man's weight no longer held her down. Soon, though, she became aware of another struggle nearby. She turned her pain-filled face towards the sound just in time to see a new figure, the shadow of a man who towered over her attacker, wrestle him into a position that exposed his neck. The shadow-man reared back, then like a snake, his head bore down on the side of her master's neck.
She tried to watch, but consciousness was proving too hard for her to hold onto. Yet, she could see her master's own struggles grow more and more feeble until they ceased altogether.
Just before she lost her tenuous grasp on consciousness, the shadow-man turned towards her.
The last thing she saw was his red, glowing eyes,...
– * –
Near Richmond, Virginia, August 1862
Cassendra's eyes snapped open, and she quickly covered her own mouth to stifle the scream that threatened to erupt. The grave she had dug for herself was too shallow to cover the sound if anyone was nearby. Since she was in enemy territory, anyone who happened by would most likely not be a friend.
She had had the nightmare again, the one recalling her last night as a mortal.
The man who had tried to rape her had been in his grave for nearly a century now, but the memories of his attempted rape still lingered in her mind and still forced themselves on Cassendra on occasion.
She shook off the nightmare's effects, and she stretched out with her preternatural senses. They told her there was no human presence nearby and that the sun had already set. It was safe for her to emerge from her daytime hiding place.
She quietly dug through the loose dirt that covered her until she was clear of it. As she had sensed, she was, indeed, alone in the wooded glen about fifty feet from a well-traveled footpath.
Shaking the remaining soil from the boy's clothing she wore and stuffing her hair back under the hat she had clutched while buried, she smiled to herself as she thought the dirty look made her disguise more convincing. She briefly admitted to herself, however, that she looked forward to releasing the cloths she had tightly wound around her chest to give herself a more boyish appearance.
The night was cloudless with a waxing gibbous moon, but Cassendra had more than enough light to see perfectly all around her. Her senses reached out again, this time as the hunter seeking prey. A lone man had journeyed down the footpath within the last several minutes. Though faint, his blood still called out to her. Perhaps he had not gotten too far away for her to catch him.
In an instant, she was flying silently in the direction the man had taken. Cassendra smiled grimly. First dinner, then on to fulfill the purpose that had brought her back to South Carolina after all these decades….
– * –
Because of its strategic value as a seaport and supply source for the Confederacy and due to the propaganda that would be gained from taking it, Charleston was considered a prime prize for Union acquisition. The Union's devastating loss at Secessionville just a few weeks ago had, instead, given the Confederacy a much-needed morale boost and proved that taking the city itself would be far more difficult and costly than expected.
Patrols around the city had been heavy, forcing Cassendra frequently to hide or change her route during her journey to the Confederate city to avoid the soldiers. However, it also had allowed her to take advantage of the occasional lone soldier on duty to feed. Since the war had started, she always selected prey wearing Confederate gray—her contribution to the war effort.
She rarely killed her prey anymore, however. She had learned long ago how to take only enough to sustain herself and then to wipe the prey's memory of the encounter. They would awaken later, weakened and unable to recall the cause for that weakness. If that resulted in the soldier's capture, then so much more his misfortune.
The chestnut bay mare she now rode was in her possession because of one such encounter. She relied on ground transportation when possible. She was no longer a fledgling, but she was still young enough where flying required her to expend huge amounts of energy she immediately had to replace. Her last kill had resulted when she had simply taken too much from her prey after being forced to fly a great distance to escape a vampire hunter.
Cassendra had found the plantation south of Charleston where the children she had come to rescue were held. The parents had died in an earlier, failed attempt to escape before their master could sell them away from one another. The pipeline had learned that the orphaned children were soon to be taken further south, where their fate was uncertain at best, surely with no hope that they would be allowed to stay together. Cassendra's job was to rescue them and start them on a journey that would end with a new home and family.
Cassendra stole unto the plantation and carried the children—a boy about eight and a girl who looked to be around six—away. Her assignment as a conductor on the Underground Railroad was to get them to Baltimore, where another conductor would take them further North. The eventual goal was to deliver them to freedom in Canada.
They had made slow, but steady, progress by traveling at night and avoiding towns and troop placements. The combined weight of Cassendra and the two children did not place extraordinary stress on the horse, and her preternatural sense of hearing and night vision were perfectly suited for the journey.
Now, hiding in a "station," the root cellar of a cabin outside Richmond while the sun rode high in the sky, Cassendra looked worriedly at the children. The little girl, Ruby, hungrily finished the plate of food the station master had given them. What concerned her was the little boy. Young Jim's dark eyes looked unnaturally glassy, and he had grown listless. His skin was too warm, though Cassendra could not be entirely sure of this because of the inhuman coolness of her own skin. And his plate of food lay completely untouched at his side. Until tonight, he had always eaten like the typical growing boy, clearing his plate of every scrap of food.
Cassendra crossed to where the little boy lay upon a pallet she had made from sacks found in the cellar. She wrapped a blanket around Jim's slim body and noticed that his eyes were closed and he was now shivering. "Jim?" she called softly to him.
"Miz Cassie, I don't feel good," he answered weakly.
Cassendra wiped his sweaty brow and replied, "Just rest for now, Jim. You'll feel better soon."
Ruby joined them, seating herself on Cassendra's opposite side. "Jim's sick like Lil' Ron," she said.
"Little Ron?" the woman asked.
"Lil' Ron died, Miz Cassie. Is Jim gonna die, too?" the child asked, the fear for her brother tightening her young voice. First, her parents had died, and now she might lose her brother. No wonder the little girl was frightened.
"I hope not," Cassendra replied sincerely.
She hugged Ruby to her side and hummed a spiritual quietly until the child yielded to exhaustion and dropped off to sleep. Jim was also now asleep, but his was a restless sleep.
Cassendra could do nothing to help him. The little boy needed a doctor.
Conductors were told of "shepherds" along their routes who could provide assistance when needed. For the Richmond area, she had been given the name of a doctor who could be trusted to be discreet and who would be willing to help runaway slaves. She could only hope he was presently in Richmond.
Once the sun was down, she would have to seek this Matthew Bredon out. For now, she had to get some rest herself if she was to be of any real use to the children. She closed her eyes but did not allow herself to sink fully into the death-sleep. That could not come again until this mission was over.
– * –
The painful throbbing of her jaw forced Cassendra back to awareness. She found herself lying on a couch set in the parlor of an old house that had clearly seen better days. The windows were shuttered against the sunlight streaming through. Yet, what little light there was provided enough illumination to see the few remaining pieces of furniture in the parlor had been covered with cloths.
From behind her, in a darkly shadowed corner positioned furthest away from the windows, a voice said, "At last, you have awakened."
The voice was a well-cultured baritone with a hint of a French accent that touched a chord deep inside Cassendra. She slowly sat up and turned towards its source.
The man was seated on a rosewood settee that still retained some of its former glory. He was impeccably dressed in a tailored black waistcoat and jacket trimmed in gold with black knee-length breeches, white stockings, and black buckled shoes.
He stood and walked towards her. She could see now that he appeared to be in his mid-thirties, except his eyes seemed to speak of a depth of wisdom far beyond his years. His unpowdered hair was raven-black and bound by a black ribbon. When he drew close, he offered his hand to her and assisted her to her feet.
Cassendra only now noticed that she was encased in a man's linen greatcoat. Still holding her hand, the man kissed it. "Maurice DeVille at your service, Mademoiselle."
She looked up into his eyes and was surprised to find them gazing at her kindly and without the disdain she had seen in most supposed "gentlemen's" eyes since her return to the colonies.
He said, "I must apologize for having nothing better suited for you to wear, but I could find no clothing in the room. Do you feel better?"
After a moment of stunned surprise at his solicitousness, she nodded and replied, "I am better, Sir. Thank you for inquiring." She glanced about the room again. "May I ask how I came to be here?"
"I heard your outcry and discovered that you were being accosted. Once the attacker was dispatched, I brought you here."
She frowned as she tried to recall the attack he mentioned. Scattered details flashed in her mind's eye. At first, they did not make sense. It was as if her memories had been scrambled or deleted, but she fought to retrieve them. She struggled until they returned, even to the moment when her rescuer had focused his blood-red eyes upon her.
Cassendra gasped with fear as she looked into those same eyes, now a sad deep blue.
"You remember now, don't you, my dear?" he asked.
"Yes," she whispered, nearly in shock.
"I'm so very sorry about that. I tried to block your memories, but you are a resistor." He hesitated a moment, trying to think of another alternative to what he knew he had to do. Finally, he shook his head with regret. "I cannot let you go."
"What do you mean?"
"It would mean a merciless death for you and my destruction." He muttered more to himself than to her.
"Please,..." Cassendra pleaded.
She started to pull away, but the hold he had on her, though gentle, was unbreakable. Then, he grasped her chin with his other hand. Her eyes met his, and she suddenly found herself captured by and irresistibly drawn into his mesmerizing gaze. Her eyes grew unfocused as his irises took on a decidedly yellow cast. Completely unaware of her actions, she obeyed his silent command to step fully into his embrace and to turn her head, gradually exposing her neck to him.
With infinite sadness in his eyes, he lowered his head to take the gift she was compelled to offer. As his teeth sank into her tender skin and he drank her essence, he learned who she was and all that she had experienced. And he discovered that he could not be the one responsible for her death.
There was an alternative if she was willing to leave her humanity behind and become a creature of the night.
The first difficulty was stopping at the right moment. Her blood was a heady balm that made him want to savor her every drop. Yet, he would find the control necessary to resist that temptation. The second problem was one over which he had no control. Only Cassendra could decide to accept the existence he would offer her. If she refused, he would have no choice but to watch her die. This was something he suddenly realized he could not endure. If she chose death, he would follow her there soon afterward.
He sensed the point where her blood loss caused her heart to begin to fail. Now, it was only a matter of moments before she would have to make the decision that would direct both of their fates.
– * –
After the sun had set, the station master opened the cellar door, expecting Cassendra and the children to silently slip out and head to the next station. Instead, Cassendra exited alone and quickly explained the situation. "Do you know Dr. Matthew Bredon? He lives in Richmond." she asked.
The owner shook his head. "Don't know no local docs by that name," he replied. "Maybe he's with the Confederates at the Chimborazo Hospital."
A Confederate doctor working with the Underground Railroad? That surprised Cassendra, but she knew that he would not have been recommended to her unless he was completely trustworthy. But before she brought him anywhere near those children, she was going to know that for sure.
After the station master gave her directions to the hospital, Cassendra saddled her horse and rode into Richmond. Garbed as she was in grungy boy's attire and wearing an old hat to conceal her hair, no one questioned her along the way.
She tied the animal to a hitching post across the street from the facility and watched its main entrance. For more than an hour, she studied each man who came and went, but none fit the description of Bredon she had been given.
Just as she was growing concerned that Bredon was not there, a man fitting his description finally exited the hospital. She silently followed him, hugging the shadows.
She got close enough to lock onto the scent of his blood, then she backed off so that he would not know he was being tracked.
She was so intent on identifying and following Bredon, she did not notice that someone else-a man out of her past-had recognized and was now following her.
So cold. So very cold.
Cassendra's eyes fluttered open, and that single action seemed to sap the last of her remaining energy. Maurice now completely supported her weight as she stood in his arms. He carefully lowered her onto the couch and arranged her unresisting body until she again lay prone. He knelt beside her, pushed back the hair that had fallen onto her face, and tenderly kissed her brow. He then spoke into her ear. "Ma chere, I have brought you to the edge of death. You must now choose to die, or you can choose to exist with me."
Maurice raised his hand to his mouth, and for the first time, she saw his elongated canines before they sank into his own wrist. Blood welled from the wounds he made as he turned his wrist so it hovered over her parched lips. A few bloody drops fell upon them, but she did not respond at first. She studied his eyes, trying to discern his intent. She saw his concern for her and his silent urging that she accept his offering. After several seconds, her tongue tentatively poked out and lapped up the vital fluid.
He lowered his bleeding wrist until it rested on her lips. Her mouth opened, and she began to suck languidly. Then with a sharp gasp, she reached up suddenly and gripped his arm tightly with both hands. She began aggressively to draw his life force from him.
Finally, he pulled away from her grasp and sank completely to the floor in his own weakness. He caressed her brow and whispered, "Sleep, my child, and then awaken to a whole new world."
Cassendra's eyes fluttered closed with an exhausted sigh as her heart failed, then stopped completely.
For the first time, she slept the sleep of the undead.
– * –
Cassendra continued to follow the man—still not sure whether he was the one she sought—until he turned onto Marshall Street amidst an upper-middle-class residential area. Her skepticism grew as she again questioned whether the man was Bredon and whether he was the one who would help young Jim. Why would a Confederate—doctor or not—who could afford to live in a neighborhood like this help runaway slaves?
The street was quiet, lit only by an occasional overhead lantern and a cloud-covered half-moon. She had no difficulty seeing him as he walked down the empty sidewalk. Her own pace slowed as she debated how to proceed. Should she draw his attention before or after he reached his destination?
Cassendra did not hear her attacker's approach until seconds before he lunged at her back. She turned towards the sound and took a shallow wound on the side of her right arm from the sharpened stake he held in his meaty fist instead of the deep one through the ribs he had intended. The pain from the wooden implement was, nonetheless, excruciating, and Cassendra could not help but cry out.
Facing the hunter, she immediately recognized him. Although they faced one another more than forty years and an ocean away from the morning she had first confronted him, she remembered him just as distinctly as he had apparently recognized her despite her disguise. He firmly gripped the stake, determined to finish the old business between them, and she was perfectly willing to oblige him. Though she was injured, her eyes changed to a deadly red. There would be no mercy given this night.
Before they could engage, however, Cassendra heard steps running towards them. The hunter looked over her shoulder, slipped the stake under his jacket, and ran in the opposite direction.
Cassendra lowered her head and closed her eyes as she drew in ragged breaths. Her body trembled in a struggle to reign in the vampire before the man she had been following reached her side and discovered what she was. Or, far worse, became her victim.
– * –
Maurice DeVille, her sire—Cassendra refused to think of him as her master, introduced her to her new existence as a vampire. By the time she had come to herself that first night, Maurice had gone out and found her some suitable clothing. He explained the intense sensation she felt was her first hunger, and he showed her how to hunt for prey. Her first kill—she could no longer think of them as fellow humans as she was no longer human—was a tradesman who had the misfortune to walk through the dark alley where she laid in wait.
He acquired forged papers that identified her as a freed-woman, but they would not be enough to allow her to stay in Charles Towne, or even within the Colonies, for long. They soon booked passage to Europe and spent several years traveling from country to country.
Maurice used the time to teach Cassendra all she would need to know so she could survive as a vampire. Although he was patient with her mistakes, he took her training seriously. She learned how to hunt and how to hide. As a fledgling, the death-sleep she experienced during the daylight hours would leave her completely defenseless, so she had to seek out locations where she would be protected from hunters intent on destroying vampires. She learned to create a new persona when it was time to move on. Already fluent in French, she learned German, Russian, and Italian during their travels. And she learned how to create escape plans that could be implemented in an emergency.
They met others in the vampire community—occasionally even other types of Immortals. Maurice often reminded her that she should never trust them, however, so they tended not to socialize together often.
Over the years, the nature of their relationship changed. Maurice had fallen in love with Cassendra the night he had brought her across, but he waited patiently until she had reached the point where she could survive on her own. He still had enough of his humanity left to want her to love him as a man, not as her sire who held her very existence in his hand.
They had just left an evening concert in Vienna where Beethoven performed his "Pathétique" piano sonata and his new composition, the "Moonlight" sonata. Maurice declared himself to Cassendra, and to his enormous surprise, she told him that she had been too afraid to let him know that she had fallen in love with him. She hummed the melodies from the "Moonlight" as, later that night, he took her into his arms, and they became lovers.
Eventually, the pair, now a married couple, settled in London. Cassendra had wanted to go to Maurice's family home in Paris, but this was not possible. Until nearly forty years ago, she had virtually grown up in the city and had many fond memories of school, friendships made, and the life she had built there. However, it was only a matter of time before someone she knew from that life recognized her and began asking questions she could not answer about why she had not aged in the interim.
"Besides, my love," he reminded her, "the politics in France are too unstable." Napoleon had recently been declared emperor, and he was consolidating his power. Still, there was a sense that his reign would not be a long-lasting nor stable one.
Instead, they purchased a three-storied house on a small acreage in Hampstead, to the north of the city proper. The village was far cleaner than the city, and its residents were heavily made up of artists and musicians who depended on patronage for their support. Cassendra found particular delight in hosting evenings of music in the house's spacious parlor. She and other singers performed music of the period, especially English folk songs, like her favorite, "Barbara Allen," and songs by Beethoven, then years later, a new composer named Franz Schubert.
No one found the night-only lives of the couple unusual since many others in the village lived similar existences, including many of the human artists. In fact, several vampires had come to establish households in the village, which also gave them easy access to the enormous food supply in London.
It was an idyllic life for Cassendra and Maurice for nearly a decade. Until vampire hunters came and destroyed it all.
– * –
Cassendra's eyes had shifted to yellow as she reigned in the vampire, and she became aware of her injury, which bled profusely. As Bredon ran towards her, she tried to stanch the flow by covering the wound with her left hand.
Bredon called out, "Are you okay?"
She nodded and replied using the roughened voice intended to sound more like a boy, "Yessuh. I'm okay."
"I'm a doctor. Let me take a look."
"Dat's not necessary, Suh. I gotta go."
Cassendra started to walk away, but Bredon blocked her way. "Don't be foolish, Boy," he said, "Let me take a look."
With her preternatural strength, she could have easily pushed the doctor away, but that would unnecessarily expose her unique nature to him. So, she stood her ground as Bredon gingerly examined the injury.
"There's a large splinter lodged in the wound," he said after a moment. "Come inside, and I'll remove it for you. No charge," he added, anticipating Cassendra's objection.
She nodded and followed Bredon into a large house on the street corner. The doctor lit a lamp that was set on a table near the door. "This way," he said, leading her through a wide doorway into what had likely once been a parlor but now was set up as a surgery. Bredon pointed to a flat table covered by a pad and ordered, "Have a seat," as he lit a second lamp positioned by the examining table.
Cassendra again hesitated, but she knew she would be unable to remove the piece of wood on her own, plus the bleeding would not cease as long as it was lodged in her arm. Besides, she still did not know whether he was the doctor who could be trusted to treat young Jim's fever. Seeing no other option, she followed his instructions.
The doctor set the bag he had been carrying on the table beside Cassendra. As he cut her shirt just enough to fully expose the wound and began probing it, she was surprised at his careful efforts to minimize the pain he caused. She took advantage of his silent concentration on the task at hand to study the man's countenance.
The doctor was a large man, yet he moved with a grace that suggested that he kept himself in good physical shape. He appeared to be a handsome man in his mid-30s with insightful blue eyes that had laugh lines at the corners. His red hair and beard had only the beginnings of gray sprinkled sporadically throughout.
Her gaze returned to his eyes only to discover that he was giving her the same careful study. His eyes seemed to capture her hazel orbs for an eternity of seconds until she dropped hers with a sudden intense interest in her booted feet. He narrowed his eyes for several seconds and then returned to his work.
Neither spoke as he probed the wound then gently removed the wood and dropped it into a nearby basin.
"There," he said. "I'll wrap it up, and you should be good to go. Just change the wrap regularly so the wound stays clean."
"Thanks, Doc," Cassendra replied and started to slide off the table when he moved away towards a storage cabinet positioned across the room.
"Stay right where you are," he commanded as if he expected his patient to instantly obey.
Reluctantly, she remained seated until he returned with a clean strip of cloth.
The doctor was about to bandage the wound when he stopped and exclaimed, "What the hell-?"
He looked up from her arm, which no longer bore any sign of injury, and again met Cassendra's eyes. "I already knew you aren't a boy," he said, "but just what *are* you?"
– * –
London, May 1815
Cassendra and Maurice exited the Theatre Royal at Covent Garden, where they had attended the gala, Messrs. Ashleys Annual Benefit, given by the Concert of Ancient Music in London. The evening had been a glorious experience, a celebration of their wedding anniversary.
Covert Garden had a rather sordid reputation with its many bawdy and drinking houses. One of the drinking houses that drew a higher class clientele was also known as a gathering place for vampires. The couple entered the establishment, and the maitre'd led them to a table near the stage where a local company was presenting a melodrama.
Like most of the denizens patronizing the house, the couple was dressed for an evening out. Cassendra removed her royal blue redingote to reveal a cream-colored loose, draped, empire gown with a deep décolletage in the latest French design. Ostrich plumes graced her upswept hair. Maurice wore a black fitted, single-breasted tailcoat that emphasized the snowy white cravat wrapped about his chin, matching tight breeches and silk stockings. His sideburns and Brutus-styled hair were the height of gentlemanly fashion.
Cassendra ordered bloodwine, while Maurice's taste at the moment went more for the pure stuff. Her hazel eyes shined brightly as they met his, and their goblets touched as they toasted to one another. Cassendra was still feeling the high that music always gave her, and she was truly enjoying her night with her husband.
Maurice offered a toast, "Happy anniversary, ma amour," he said, before taking a sip from his goblet. He set it aside, then he drew a slim gift box from his jacket. "This is why I asked you to leave your lovely neck bare this evening."
Cassendra opened the box to display a pearl necklace with a large sapphire and a pair of matching sapphire earrings. She held the pendant up and admired the clarity of the stone, smiled, and lifted it to her neck. "Would you, please?" she asked.
Maurice stood and accepted the necklace long enough to fasten it around her neck. He hovered behind her for several moments, enjoying the view of his wife's bosom with the stone gleaming against her café-au-lait skin before bestowing a kiss to her exposed shoulder. By the time he had returned to his seat, Cassendra had put on the earrings so that they dangled from her lobes. He smiled at the effect. "As I thought, pearls and sapphires are better suited to you than diamonds."
Cassendra smiled back and replied, "Thank you, Beloved."
The night passed all too quickly, and suddenly they realized that the sun was not far from rising. Maurice suggested they stay with "an understanding friend" for the day, but Cassendra persuaded him that they could reach home in time. She wanted the intimacy of her lover's embrace to end the night's celebration and felt she would not be self-conscious within the privacy of their home.
Riding quickly through the streets of London in a hired cab, they made to their house in Hampstead with only minutes to spare. Maurice got out, opened the cab's door for Cassendra, and paid the driver generously. The driver pulled off, and the couple was walking down the short distance to the front door of their house when two men charged them from the left side of the house. Both wielded sharpened, wooden stakes in their hands.
"Hunters," Maurice hissed, his eyes instantly flaring red as his canines descended. While Cassendra's eyes had transitioned to yellow, she was as ready to grapple with the attackers in this fight to the death as he. With their greater speed and strength, the engagement did not last long. Cassendra wretched the stake from her opponent's hand and, using the fighting skills her husband had taught her, quickly wrestled the man into a submission hold. With a snarl, she sank her teeth into the man's neck, instantly puncturing his jugular vein. Knowing that there was no choice but to kill him, she made his death a swift one. His body crumpled at her feet, and she looked at him with deep regret that she had taken his life.
Maurice had already lifted the other hunter over his shoulder and was carrying him inside. "Hurry," he said, reminding Cassendra that the sun's rise was imminent. They would have to keep the bodies inside the house until that evening when they could be disposed of. She bent down to grasp the man's jacket when she heard a noise she could not identify rush past her. She started to track its source when she heard Maurice cry out in agony.
He staggered a couple steps further into the house, then he dropped the body he was carrying and fell to his knees. Cassendra finished dragging the second hunter inside then slammed and locked the door before rushing to his side.
A wooden bolt protruded from Maurice's back. It had been delivered with such force by an unknown crossbow that its tip partially penetrated his heart. He tried to reach back to grab the shaft, but he could not get a grip. Instead, Cassendra forced back the panic that threatened to overwhelm her. The life of her sire—her husband—depended on her next actions. And she knew that there had to be at least one more hunter outside the house who—sooner or later—would attack them directly.
She had no choice. The sun was lightening the sky, and there was no way she could carry him without further injury from the bolt. "I'm sorry, my love, it has to come out," she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"I know," he replied with a pain-raspy voice. "Do what you must, ma amour."
With a firm grip on the bolt's shaft, Cassendra pulled with all her strength. Maurice roared in pain as the wooden implement slowly retraced its path back through his body. She succeeded in pulling it about halfway before the shaft broke and the force of her efforts tossed her down. Maurice groaned and fell prone to the floor. Blood sweat dotted his brow, and his breath was slower than was normal, even for him.
If the wooden shaft was no longer in his heart, fresh blood—especially her blood as his child—would sustain him until she could get help. She was offering her wrist to him when they both heard something heavy crash against the front door. When the battering struck the door a second time, Cassendra stood and ran into Maurice's study, where he kept a pair of single-shot dueling pistols in a desk drawer. She took both from their case and hurried back to the hallway. The door burst open, and two more hunters entered, one holding a fiery torch and the other a stake.
Cassendra raised her left arm and took aim with one of the pistols, sending its ball between the first man's eyes and killing him instantly. The torch he carried fell near a window curtain and set the material ablaze.
She dropped the empty weapon and switched the other one to her left hand. As she started to take aim at the second hunter, he drove his stake directly into Maurice's heart. Maurice's scream drew her attention and caused her to fire the shot from the second pistol into the hunter's right shoulder. The hunter, who appeared to be no older than his mid-teens, grabbed at his gunshot wound and staggered out of the front door.
Within seconds, the fire expanded from the curtains to the furnishings and walls in the antechamber and quickly grew out of control. Cassendra rushed over to Maurice and pulled the stake out of his body. Calling on the vampiric strength with which she had been endowed, she lifted him over her shoulder. By now, the front entry was engulfed in flames, forcing her to carry him towards the back of the house. She guessed that more hunters awaited them if she went to the back exit of the house, so she turned towards the basement where they had constructed a secret escape shortly after purchasing the house. Once inside the basement, she had to grab onto the rough wooden banister with one hand to stabilize her descent as she slowly carried Maurice down the narrow staircase. She desperately wanted to stop and give him some relief, for she knew he was silently suffering in great agony and that he was bleeding profusely. But she could hear the roar of the fire drawing closer and see its smoke billowing through the open basement portal.
Blood tears tracked down Cassendra's soot-covered face by the time they reached the basement floor. She gently laid Maurice on the floor and with a caress to his fevered brow, she whispered, "Just a moment more, my love." She flew up the stairs and pushed the metal door closed, then she barricaded it by placing a heavy iron bar inside a pair of brackets set on either side of the portal. They would have to rely on the sturdy brick construction of the basement walls and metal door to keep the fire from entering the basement itself. Until the sun went down, they could not exit the basement's exterior door.
Cassendra returned to her husband's side. His eyes were closed, and his skin was a ghostly white. "Maurice," she whispered, hoping he would answer. She called his name a second time, more loudly, then again and again until she was screaming. In desperation, she tore a gash into her own wrist and held it over his mouth until her blood dribbled out of his filled mouth. He did not respond. When her wrist stopped bleeding, she sat on the floor and clutched his hand, checking for even the faintest sign of the slower pulse of the vampire. There was nothing.
Time passed. She did not know how long she sat there, waiting for any indication that he was still with her. After a while, she heard movement upstairs, likely people putting out the fire or hunters looking for them. When someone pounded on the door and called, she remained silent. Her world had narrowed down to the desperate effort to find some sign of her husband's existence. In time, even those noises ceased, and she was left alone.
Eventually, her vampiric senses noted the setting of the sun, and the vampire that made her existence possible demanded she feed. As she finally came to herself, she discovered that she was lying by Maurice's side with her arms wrapped around his waist in a lover's embrace. Her cheek was covered in blood from where it had come to rest on his chest, and her clothing was soaked with his blood.
The human in her wanted to join her husband in true death, but the vampire would have nothing of that notion. Its survival was dependent upon her survival, and it would survive.
She looked up at Maurice's face and saw, despite the darkness of the room, the beginning signs of rapid degradation. Soon, his body would decay, taking within moments what would normally take years. She watched over him until all that remained was ash nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the dust covering the floor.
Maurice was gone, and she was forced to find her way alone. She had to get out of London. All of her memories of London, of this house in Hampstead, were tied to Maurice. Without him, there was no reason for her to stay. Plus, she had to presume at least one hunter had survived since his shoulder wound—if tended properly—was not life-threatening. He would continue to track her if she stayed.
Shakily she rose to her feet and walked to the first of two large trunks placed against the basement's far wall. She removed travel clothes, a set of identification papers for one Cassendra Dubois, and a cache of currency from its interior. She removed the sapphire and pearl necklace and earrings she still wore and ran her fingers lingeringly over this last gift from Maurice. They would always hold special memories of a time that, despite the decades that had passed, still seemed all too brief. She carefully wrapped the set inside a lace handkerchief.
Once she undressed, she used a clean portion of her damaged gown to scrub away as much of the blood and soot from her face and body as she could with no soap or water on hand. As she worked, her mind grew clearer and her motions more steady and determined. In less than one hour, she was dressed in a rather non-descript outfit intended to allow her to blend into the crowd. She tied a plain bonnet upon her head and closed the single light valise holding the few clothes she would carry. She placed a small amount of money into a plain, brown leather reticule with the bulk of her funds concealed inside her dress along with the jewelry. Cassendra Dubois was a "femme de couleur"—a woman of color—who served as a lady's maid, and she now looked the part.
She unbarred the door at the back of the basement and carefully opened it to reduce any noise it might make from disuse. The night was moon-bright, lighting the gardens that adorned the back of the house so beautifully her heart would have normally stirred her to sing. She suspected, though, it would be a long time before she felt a desire to sing.
For now, she had to feed and to find shelter until she could book a passage away from London. Her senses did not detect anyone nearby, so she pushed aside the leafy vines that concealed the door from view, stepped outside, and walked through the garden. She turned to get one last look at the ruins of the home she had made with Maurice. It, like he, was little more than ash, a brick shell with virtually nothing inside spared from the consuming inferno. There was nothing further she wanted from this life, so she did not have any reason to risk exposure to search the blackened hulk.
There was a rush of wind, and the house was now as empty as it had seemed.
Within two weeks, Mademoiselle Cassendra Dubois was on the last boat en route to France that evening. Once across the Channel, she would settle quietly until she could get past her grief enough to decide where to go and what to do.
For now, that was all she could ask of her existence.