Daniel, looking back, wished that he had reacted in some way; a strong slap across the monstrosity's face or, at the very least, gibbering in terror and then passing out. Instead he had sat there as if turned to stone, Alexander's lips moving against his with a great deal of ardor. He didn't seem to notice or care that Daniel was being unresponsive. Daniel whimpered and a hand caressed his hair soothingly, finally cupping the back of his neck and tilting him to better the angle. When Alexander, or the thing that had been wearing the baron's face, sought to deepen their embrace, Daniel came back to himself. He pushed against the thing's shoulders and wrenched his face to the side. He gasped for air.

"Daniel, what's wrong?" Alexander-no, the thing-was leaning closer again, hot breath on Daniel's cheek and he closed his eyes, willed it all to be one horrible nightmare.

"We're… over the corpse of a child!"

"Hm? Oh. So we are."

"It's indecent!" Daniel's voice was high and shrill, he could hear the beginnings of hysteria in it and so to the baron, for the other sat back.

"Set it aside then. The servants will deal with it. Come let's return to my chambers. The halls are drafty. See? You shiver so."

Daniel stared up at the baron. He had just killed a child, hunted her down as if she had been a…an animal and then had beaten her frail head against the stones until she moved no more. And the baron was happy. He was smiling. Daniel touched his own lips with a shaky hand, cupped it over his mouth. "You kissed me."

"I did." The smile was slipping from his face to be replaced with an expression of watchfulness. "I've done so before, Daniel."

"Not like that! Not as if I were your lover!"

"Aren't you?" It was said quietly; dangerously low that voice.

He shook his head. "No. No! We've never…"

"We've shared a bed for weeks now, spent every waking hour together. There is more to intimacy than the sharing of bodies."

"Do you… do you want that of me? To join our…"

Silence, but a spark in those unholy eyes.

"Not like this. Not like… We're both men. This is perversity. I.. I looked upon you as a father." It was said in a whisper, broken and forlorn.

Alexander laughed. It was a sharp bark of sound and when he was done he kept his teeth bared in a grim smile. What sharp teeth you have my lord, Daniel thought and shuddered. "You never. You knew; you had to have known my feelings for you. You teased me enough! Those times you lingered in your dressing when you knew my eyes were upon you, the coquettish way you would smile when you slipped into bed by my side, curling against me like a content cat. You knew." His voice had been steadily rising, it wasn't a shout at the end, but it was implacable, stony.

"I…I cannot deal with this." He looked back at the girl in his arms. "She was scarce the age of my Hazel."

"Your sister was fifteen when she died. Come away. Our emotions are running too high at the moment. Let's go back and drink something to settle our nerves."

"Why aren't you appalled? Why aren't you condemning me for the innocent life that I have taken instead of accusing me of…of impropriety?"

"Trust me, Daniel, impropriety would be very welcome at the moment." His voice changed then, grew lighter and almost wheedling. "But we've succeeded Daniel! She was the last sacrifice that was needed. You're freed from your bonds, from your Shadow. We can leave now."

"Leave?" Daniel stroked the hair off of her smooth cheeks, so pale in death, so still.

"As you have promised me. Is human memory so fleeting a thing?"

He closed his eyes and remembered a night under stars, but that promise had been made to a different man, under different presumptions. "What are you?" He asked opening them. "What have I been a party to, what have I made a pact with?"

Alexander drew himself up, his smile now a snarl. "I am no demon. I am simply a wanderer who strayed from his path and could not find his way again. But you helped me, my love, you helped me find it again. We can go home."

"I will go nowhere with you." He clutched the girl to his chest and made to rise. Then he saw the creature behind Alexander, coming out of the darkness, his every nightmare. He felt the blood drain from his face.

Alexander was impatient. "It's just one of the servants. Give him the corpse and let us get on with our night. I did always imagine that there would be some celebration to it when it came at last." He sighed. "Maybe after some laudanum you'll be more accommodating."

"The servants, have they always looked so?"

"Yes."

"Oh." Daniel fainted.

He woke up in his old rooms. Alexander must have feared a burst of hysteria or accusations of rape if he had opened his eyes and seen the baron looking down at him in his own chambers. He was thankful, in a wretched sort of way, for the baron's thoughtfulness. He lay in the bed and stared up at the canopy. Alexander had sought to woo him. Now that he thought about it, now that he knew what to look for, odd shaped fragments of memory were suddenly turned the right way and were fitted properly into their places in the puzzle. "Flowers." He murmured. "He even gave me flowers." It started off as a small giggle and then grew, swelled until he was howling with laughter, the kind that hurts one's sides and threatens suffocation. Tears were running down his face and by the time he gained enough control to wipe at them, he realized that he was sobbing. What have I done, what have I done, what have I done?

When he finally stumbled from his bed, Alexander strode through his door as if he had been waiting for his step upon the carpet. Daniel wondered if the older man had been waiting in the chamber beyond. "My lord." He was tired despite his lengthy rest in bed, he could barely get his voice beyond a whisper.

"My friend." Alexander snapped back. "You look unwell."

"I want answers." His voice was louder, more steady. Good. He still couldn't bear to look up, to see the masquerade of the caring benefactor placed aside to reveal... "What are you?"

"I told you."

"You told me nothing. You are not human."

"No, I am not." Alexander placed a hand on Daniel's shoulder. He jerked away and scrambled towards the middle of the bed, away from the baron. Alexander's hand hovered in the air. He finally lowered it and sat on the edge of the bed, his back to Daniel. "It is as I told you last night. I came to your world many, many years ago. I've been questing for a way home for centuries. Finally, everything is in place. You have been my good luck charm in that respect. I can go home at last." Such longing in that last word.

"Through the rituals. The vitae."

"Yes."

"But why me? Why did you need me?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

Realization struck. Those letters he had sent off, his hand unsteady with exhaustion and terror as he wrote them, not even daring to hope for an answer, for succor. "The orb. You needed the orb."

"You have not a romantic bone in your body! Yes, I needed the orb, orbs I should say, there have been many through the centuries. But I also found that I needed something else." He turned to look over his shoulder. Daniel kept his eyes on the bedspread and drew his knees up, trying to make himself as small as possible. Pictures were assailing his mind; he was seeing himself, cold and wet when he first arrived at Brennenberg. His luggage and dress had been shabby, travel worn, but the way he stroked the hair from his face, the smile that seemed to brighten the gloom around him… Enchanting. This wasn't how he saw himself! This wasn't how he was! The images were making his headache. They weren't his own, they couldn't be his own. The textures were all wrong, the edges sharp. It was as if he could read… He buried his face against his knees and tried not to be sick.

"What would have happened to me if I had not been so comely?"

The baron didn't answer verbally, but the images were there and Daniel unwillingly read them. Alexander had been plotting to seize the orb as soon as the hapless man had crossed his threshold, another nameless sacrifice to practice his macabre arts on, one more soul lost to his unholy quest. But Daniel had been lovely, had been wanted. The ocean of need, of lust and loneliness that washed over him, almost made him swoon. "Stop, please. It hurts."

"What hurts?" Concern in that voice and in the mind that was touching his own, then shock-sharp and piercing- and Daniel cried out at it. Alexander cursed and Daniel felt him withdraw, felt walls being erected between them. He slumped against his pillows, relieved to be alone in his skull once more.

Alexander was crawling onto the bed, crawling over him and he found he didn't have the energy to try to escape. "My apologies. I did not mean for that to happen. I am still new to this bonding. As are you, naturally. My kind have learned to shield ourselves from each other since birth and I'm unused to someone who has never had to do so before." He smiled, a slight flush in his cheeks. "And I must admit I am rusty myself. These are skills I haven't been called upon to use in quite some time."

Daniel was afraid to take his eyes from him, afraid of what it might invite if he did.

Alexander stroked his face, ran a thumb over his lower lip. "Is it so very bad? To see how I see you?"

The walls were lowered slightly and again images and feelings were flowing into him, more quiet this time, almost…seductive. Himself changing for bed, long limbs pale in the moonlight; then him being bathed, eyes closed, head leaned back on the rim of the tub, the silky feel of his hair and his skin being savored, lingered over; his face in slumber and then the tone of the thoughts changed. These were the daydreams, the longings. Sweat on skin, fingers fisting in sheets and Daniel's throat uttering sounds almost inhuman in their pleasure.

He blushed and tried to push Alexander off of him, but the other was settling over him, pressing him down with the weight of his body. Lips sought his and Daniel, under the influence of a most indecent image, opened his mouth to gasp. It was all the invitation the baron needed.

They hadn't done much, but Daniel still felt despoiled, as if he would never be clean again. Alexander was fast asleep beside him , one arm thrown possessively over his waist. Daniel entertained the notion of slipping out of bed, of breaking a bottle and slitting the man's throat with a shard of glass. He lifted his wrist up and studied the band of purple and blue that was forming around it. A bracelet of bruises, a token of his lord's affections, ones he had had to hold Daniel down for him to accept.

He tried to turn over on his side, the better to slip from the bed, but Alexander half roused, pulled him close until their bodies were pressed together. It was how they normally slept. Daniel bit his lip, trying not to sob. Idiot, idiot, idiot! He had known, the signs had all been there, and he had known! Why had he thought that the baron would interpret such gestures differently? Why had he thought he had been safe? Why, above else, had he finally decided to trust someone when a life time of abuse had taught him to never do so?

Daniel had asked Alexander if the prisoners had ever been that, prisoners. Men and women who had done heinous deeds, been caught, then tried in a court of law, and sentenced to their own special brand of hell. The baron had only laughed. Daniel held his hand back up. A murderer. Nothing but a common murderer. Hazel's older brother was nothing more than a sadistic thug. No better than Henry Bedloe, the bully that had hunted him when he was a child. No better than their father. He sobbed then, stifling it at the last moment by putting his hand over his mouth.

What have I done? What have I become? Alexander stirred and placed a kiss on his neck before stilling again. What have you made me do? That was right. It wasn't his fault. It couldn't have been his fault, his own doing. Not Hazel's brother. He wouldn't do something so abhorrent! He had been made to, he had been lied to. Seduced. He remembered the baron's husky voice reading him the lines from Faust and shuddered. Tempted. With safety and friendship and a home.

He thought of that small girl, Sascha, lying limp as a doll and just as pretty. To later be scooped up by monsters and disposed of. That night the ranks of Brennenberg's monstrosities had risen by one. That night Daniel had lost his humanity and lost any chance of salvation he would ever have. Damned. Alexander had damned him.

He hated. Oh, how he hated! Not Henry, not even his father had ever inspired such enmity. He wanted to smash the baron's face in. Smash it and smash it and smash it until he was no longer recognizable, until he looked like a reflection of Daniel's own soul.

Why don't you then? Just reach out, grab the water pitcher by your bedside. Do it and be set free! His hand started to reach out. "I can't." He snatched it back. A warm voice lulling him to sleep, soothing him when he woke from the Shadow's sendings, that air of safety that he had been lacking his entire life assailed him, Alexander and his small kindnesses. "I cannot. I'm weak. I'm so weak. I've had enough of killing. I cannot anymore."

Yes, you are weak. Do you know what will become of you? I've seen his mind, his plans for you. Will you be content with the life of a whore, my boy?

Daniel held his hands over his ears, but the voice would not be blocked out.

He means to put you in the courtesan quarters of his palace, dress you in silks and satins, parade you out under the envious, hungry glances of his monstrous kin. A pretty prize he brought back from his exile, a curiosity.

"Stop it!"

Oh, he'll make up for the gawking you'll receive, I'm sure. You'll be showered with jewelry and finery. All you have to do to earn it will be to open your legs and let him have his unnatural way with you. Such a comforting life. Your sister will be pleased that her brother has earned such a life of leisure, a life of being a concubine to a miscreation.

Shut up! The cry was in his head, it echoed in the vaults of his mind.

The voice fell silent. For a moment. Ah, there you are. Very good, very good! I was waiting for our esteemed host to weaken. It never occurred to me that you would grow stronger. Serves him right! He always underestimates our kind!

What are you? Daniel asked, forming the question and sending it into the void with no small effort.

A friend! A savior! Come to give the baron his due. With your help of course.

I cannot kill him. He's too strong! And I am… he was kind to me. Despite everything he has done, he was kind to me. I cannot forget that, as much as I would like to.

A wave of contempt, deep enough to drown in, that was followed by the words: But you do agree he needs to be punished? That he needs to pay for what he has done to us, to our race?

Daniel hesitated.

Think of poor little Sascha, so like little Hazel.

Are you the Shadow? Daniel asked, but he was already moving in the darkness of thought, moving towards the voice.

Laughter that hurt as it bounced around him. No, no. You are being silly now! You must remember me. We've talked before.

The voice with the lewd warnings, that had stopped as suddenly as it had started. Yes, I do. I do remember.

Regretting not heeding me now, are you? Well, no mind. We will set things to rights. Now, Alexander sealed me from you. I can talk to you now that you know how to listen, but it's a strain for me and I fear I cannot keep it up for much longer…

What must I do?

Good boy, brave boy. There is a door in your mind, blocked from you side. Find it, unlock it.

And then?

And then we plot, my dear. I dare say between the two of us, we can hatch a scheme for the baron's demise and your salvation.

Salvation. Something he had thought beyond him. Maybe he could still wrest it back, maybe by this one act of revenge he could purge his soul of its taint. All it would cost was the life of an abomination. His mental hands closed around ice cold chains and pulled.

X

Ah, Agrippa to the rescue. Is it wrong of me to feel a bit sorry for Alexander? I should be wrapping this story up in the next few weeks. I already have the first few chapters of my next story written up and am very eager to share it! But I need to finish Spirit first...