This chapter contains some graphic descriptions, and descriptions of an intimacy shared between Eric and Jankin. Mild slash, please do not continue of this offends you.

A special thanks to bkluv, whose wonderful story The Entertainer gave me a language to draw on, and will likely give you the clues to Jankin's inspiration. Thank you my friend for painting the picture.

A hopefully the issues with links not working for the last chapter have been resolved.

Daniel

Part 10

My head pounded, fighting against the desires of my flesh, desires to seek out further Fairy blood, the desires to lap up what was trickling from the many wounds on Jankin's body. I cannot recall ever have had to fight my urges so desperately, even as a newborn. But of course at that point, killing to eat was expected. I clenched my fingers into fists and steeled my jaw so that my fangs nearly cut at my own lips. Jankin was my friend, one who had only just saved my life, the flush memories of his hands on me, his life-giving blood offered to me, pushed to the front and I knelt beside him, banishing the hunger to examine his wounds.

His back was broken. I could see that before even touching him. And as I carefully lifted the tails of his tunic, I could see the gash across his abdomen, the one that had soaked the cotton with blackened blood. It was so deep that the quivering pink of his intestines shone through the thin omentum that kept them from spilling forth. Even the bites I had inflicted on his left arm had opened again, blood staining the white bandages that Alcide had wound around them. It made me sick to see it again.

"Jankin?" I whispered, in shock at the depth of his injuries.

He could barely reply, forcing words out between heaving breaths.

"Eric?"

"I am here." I let my hands rest on an uninjured part of his chest. I wanted him to feel my presence because his eyes were closed, and I did not know that he could open them.

"He is dead?"

"They are all dead my friend."

He smiled and took a few more drawn out breaths. His eyes opened just a little.

"Let me help you." I brought my wrist to my teeth, intent on tearing open my veins to give him my blood.

"No." He sighed out loud on a labored breath as his eyes closed again.

"No?" I did not understand. "I can help you heal." I was certain of that fact, his wounds were grievous, definitely, and he would bear their scars for the rest of his life, but he would live it.

"It is done Eric." He whispered.

"Done? What is done?" I felt a sense of panic beginning to rise, further banishing the confusion of the fairy blood.

"It has been my only purpose." He paused between sentences, I could see the toll the effort to speak was taking on the scant strength he still had. "I have avenged my parents. There is nothing else."

"Nothing else?" I was certain I sounded as foolish as a jester, brought to entertain the court in happier times, repeating his words like a simpleton.

"I have left everything else behind in pursuit of this." He moved his hand to cover the wound on his abdomen, wincing at the effort. "It is time. Perhaps the Summerlands will await even a half-breed like me." I felt his breath slow against my hands, still pressed on his chest.

"No." It was a feeble protest.

"If only you could understand Eric." He whispered, and opened his eyes to look at me, the pain laced them like a haze, their beautiful clear blue dulled like the oncoming snow clouds in the winter sky. He reached up for me, brushing a hand along my cheek. I turned, unconsciously towards his fingers.

"Don't tell me that I don't understand!" Anger was coming to replace the confusion.

"Dwi'n caru ti cariad." He whispered as his hand slumped to his side, and his body to the stone floor.

"Stay with me!" I screamed it at him, as if the power of my voice could somehow change what was happening. But of course it couldn't, only one thing could: my blood. He would not take it from my wrist, but I knew one way he would take it from me. Even if that knowledge had only just become clear to me.

My fangs were still drawn, and I viciously slashed at my tongue, and stabbed at my lower lip, ignoring the pain of it, filling my mouth with my own blood. I braced my hands at either side of his trunk and forced my mouth against his, splitting his lips with a thrust of my tongue, letting the blood flow.

There was nothing soft, or gentle, or romantic about the kiss I gave him. It was ruled with violence, and fueled by my fear of losing him. I crushed my lips against his; they would bruise for a few moments, before my shared strength healed even that small assault. I practically forced my blood down his throat, not allowing him even an instant to breathe, counting on the reflex that would make him swallow before anything else, like a drowning man who inevitably takes the mouthful of water into his lungs. The blood simply needed to be in his tissues for its magic to work, and he might damn me for it later, but he would be alive to curse and hate me.

I kept an ear trained on his heartbeat, hearing every flutter until there was a single hard beat from it, and I pulled away from him and watched. For a hateful moment there was silence, no heartbeat, no breath, and I wondered with despair if my actions had come too late. And then his whole body convulsed, his eyes flew open and he drew one loud, long, gasping breath and froze in that moment of horror for a supernatural eternity. He then collapsed again, and I could not ascertain if I had witnessed his last breath, or the first one of his rebirth; not until I heard the tremulous patter of his heartbeat start, and I pushed myself forward to kiss him again. That time I felt a hand reach around my neck and grasp the back of my head, holding me in place more by will than actual strength, mouth joining me in the depth of the kiss. And I heard the soft sounds of his swallowing the trickles of blood that still flowed from my tongue. But most everything else was lost in another feeling completely.

"Eric!" From a distance, another voice called my name, the human voice of my longtime hunting partner, Alcide. I was still kneeling beside Jankin as he burst into the room, stopping short at the scene of carnage. I hid my fangs. Behind him I could see many faces peering around his dirty, and not unscarred torso. He had met some resistance as well, though nothing such as we had.

"We are here Alcide."

"And Breandon?"

"Dead, all dead." I answered, returning my gaze to Jankin's body, and my attention to the heartbeat that still wavered. "And your quest?"

"There were two demons to defeat, but it was easily accomplished." He came to my side. "How is Jankin?"

The significance of his use of the word demon was not lost on me. Just as he had not fought in his lupine form, he had not identified the elves he had killed by their true nature. The humans, again crowding in behind him, were oblivious to the truth of their situation, and that made my job in saving Jankin that much more complicated.

"He has been gravely injured in the fight." Indeed, since the fragile movement of his hand, and his lips against my own, he had hardly moved, using his energy to breathe and little else. I needed to tend to him further.

"The devil is gone?" One of the freed men whispered, the uncertainty in his voice obvious, he had not yet decided if Alcide was a savior, or just another evil.

I focused myself on his face, capturing his eyes. "He is, and all his demon minions besides." I meant to compel his obedience. It seemed to loosen his tongue.

"He appeared in our village many months ago, he and the demons," I assumed he meant the elves. "They took everyone away, imprisoning us in this tower. He put spells on our family and loved ones, turning them into terrible, hungry golems, their minds stolen." The truth of Jankin's assumption of how the zombie walkers were created was revealed. "He took everything from us."

"Captain Alcide will lead you back to our lands, our Queen will welcome you." Indeed, considering all the people we had lost to those friends and family, these folk would be more than welcome. Alcide took up the planning as I returned my senses to Jankin.

"It is easily a day's journey. Can you and your people walk?"

"We will do what we must."

"Do you think we will encounter more walkers Eric?"

I knew that most witch spells did not survive the death of their casters, but I did not know about Fairy spells.

"They might yet be shambling through the woods between us and the village. And with the night fading," I hoped Alcide would understand that without the use of my preternatural abilities, that I could not make the journey back to the castle at the speed of the humans.

"You will care for Jankin, and I will lead these people, and we will meet at the castle by tomorrow evening." Those people were funneling into the room, several of them stooping to retrieve the weapons discarded by the Fairies I had killed; their bodies now all but glittering dust swirling on the floor, mostly ignored.

"We will fight whatever evil we come upon." The only man to have spoken thus far weighed Breandon's bronze blade in his right hand. He appreciated the craftsmanship of it, just as I had done when Jankin had revealed his. I nodded my approval at him, sheathing that sword at Jankin's side, and then my own. I took up Jankin's limp body into my arms and stood to my full height. The air around me seemed to crackle, and I was not the only one to notice it, all the humans seemed suddenly alert, and Alcide's whole body tensed, I knew he wanted to change. Jankin's eyes struggled to open. I could see the muscles in his jaw begin to tense.

"We have to go." He whispered. "The portal."

I needed no further explanation, and neither did Alcide. We led the fifty or so humans, (I had not realized there were so many), out of the tower fortress and back into the darkened woods of the gorge. Alcide took point; I took the rear, which allowed me to soften the trip for Jankin, hovering only minutely off the ground as we ascended the slope, using my heightened balance to keep him steady. My only goal was to get him back to the cave where I could give him more blood, but the coming sunrise and the mortal pace were putting me on edge.

At an appropriate point, while we were still in the dark of the night sky I called out to Alcide and told him that I needed to find safety for Jankin. Alcide understood exactly what I was doing, but made a show of begging me to continue with them. With an understanding clap on my shoulder he turned his crew away from the path I intended to take and swore he would come to retrieve us both once he had safely delivered his charges. As soon as they were out of mortal earshot I began to run, and had reached the relative safety of the cave in moments.

A moan slipped from Jankin's lips as I lay him down back in the far recesses of the cave, away from any possible stray beam of sunlight. Never had I prayed so hard for rain.

"You must take more of my blood Jankin." I urged him, knowing he was slipping back and forth from consciousness. I slid my body in behind his, well aware of the reversed positions from only the night before. He trembled as I wrapped him into my arms. I whipped off my cloak and bundled him into it, cursing the cold of my nature out loud.

"I am so sorry, I cannot keep you warm Jankin. I am sorry that I could not take you home this night, that you will have to suffer a day in this cave with a useless Vampire." His quivering was becoming more like convulsions.

"Will you let me help you?" The voice came from behind me, and I spun violently, jerking Jankin as I did, eliciting another moan. My fangs ran out again and I hissed at the visitor, not understanding how I had not seen him as we had entered.

It was an older man I saw standing before me, shoulder length blond hair, hands held out before him to show me he had no weapon. His clothing was a colorless beige, but finely crafted, and he wore leather boots. The air around him wavered like an eddy.

"I mean you no harm Eric, neither you or Jankin."

"Who are you? Where did you come from?" I held Jankin more tightly, wary.

"My name is Niall Brigant."

"The Prince?"

"Indeed."

"Why are you here?" I felt anger in my chest; a powerful Fairy prince had only now chosen to appear, after the fighting, after the bloodshed?

"I owe the both of you a great debt. You have rid me of a great enemy; and I can claim complete innocence in the outcome of the battle. To have intervened in Breandon's death myself would have made me many enemies. But for others to have accomplished it, in defense of themselves, in action against his works, leaves me innocent."

"I am pleased for you." My sarcasm could not have been more plain as I held Jankin, feeling his soft heartbeat against my chest.

"Please, you do not understand." His softened expression did not look hurt, but neither did it look completely altruistic.

"I am well and truly tired of hearing you Fairies tell me that!"

"Let me at least leave you furs to be comfortable, and a fire, and spells to keep everything away from you during your daytime slumber."

I wanted to be angry with him, but I felt the crippling impotence of the daylight coming. Alcide would not be able to return, even in his loping wolf form until the night fell again. And as distasteful as it was to take help from a creature that could have prevented all the tragedy, I knew that it was necessary. I nodded at him, keeping my features as stern as I could manage. I might need his help, but I was not about to let my face show any cracks in my resolve.

"Thank you."

In an instant there were bear furs piled around us, and the faint glow of a fire a few feet away. Even the air seemed to shimmer in that instant, and I understood it to be the spell to protect our sleeping spot. But we were alone again, finally, and I left Jankin only long enough to create a bed for the both of us.

"Eric?" He whispered as I arranged him on the softest of the skins.

"Save your strength Jankin. You must take more of my blood now." I lay in front of him, brushing my fingertips across his bruised face. He pursed his lips to kiss them softly. It made me shudder.

"Cariad." He whispered again as I tore through the thicker part of my hand, and offered the soft flesh to him. He took it without protest, and again the soft sounds of his suckling filled my ears, lulling me finally to sleep as the dawn broke.