Many thanks to Project Team Beta!


~: Bells in the Woods :~

Six months later, I was working the bar in St. Petersburg.

Actually, I was working the bars of St. Petersburg. When you don't need sleep and you're afraid to be alone, why not have multiple jobs? I would need the money if I really had to go to ground for an extended period of time, and the bars were good hunting ground. Especially since I was trying to be discrete.

There was one bar where I did no hunting at all, out of respect. I'd been shocked to find the place still open. Even more shocked when Arkady had walked out for a smoke and spotted me having my moment of nostalgia.

"Tatyana," he said, eyes big. "It's you. You age not one day."

"Of course not. I don't smoke those filthy cigarettes."

He laughed. "You and my doctor both. Nags." He shook his head. Shrugged. "Still, I survive."

I smiled. Arkady was nothing if not a survivor. He was ancient, wizened, and looked like the next gust of wind from the canals was going to take him out permanently. He had looked that way since Petersburg was Leningrad.

"So ," he said, "you are back now for how long?"

"I'm not back at all, Arkady. Just passing through. A ghost in the wind."

"Tanya," he chided, using my old nickname, "I am too old for lies. Besides, you can work for me. Clean, cook. Like old times. But better. Come, have a look. I have a new kitchen." He took my arm and pulled me toward the door.

"Ech, Arkady," I protested, but it was too late. He was strong for an old man, and I was afraid of hurting him.

Somehow, that one moment of weakness had turned into four days and two nights a week at his bar/bistro. I kept myself busy polishing glasses, washing dishes, and cooking the pelmeni. Word had gotten around about those little bundles of dough and meat that I stuffed, and the old men shuffled out of the woodwork to congratulate Arkady on resurrecting his old cook for the second time. I was a living legend. They didn't seem to care how I knew their names, how much hair they'd lost, or what they'd looked like in their 40's, as long as in their 60's I still flirted, teased them, and served them their food.

And Arkady, bless him, let me keep a room in the back and paid me in cash. No questions. It was the survivor's way. I was grateful to have found an old friend, so I behaved myself very well in his presence. After all, he had saved me from having to find a place, fill out forms, and explain why I had three passports, not one of which was made out in the name of either the Tatyana or the Tanya he knew.

~:~:~:~

At the other bars I worked, it was different. Arkady's was in the suburbs; it was a modest affair set down into the basement with rich dark woods creating a sanctuary against the outside world. The bars downtown were discos catering to the young and the restless. The drunk and the drugged ogled me in the strobe lights as I served drinks. The unlucky ones fell for my charms.

Having them paw after me was annoying, but at least if I left with a customer, people made all the wrong assumptions I needed to cover my tracks. I liked the really drunk and high ones, because then when I sipped on them, they could pretend I'd been a bad date, a bad dream . . . anything but a bad vampire.

~:~:~:~

Late nights at Arkady's meant that it was ten o'clock and he was closed, but still full. His old friends liked to come in for a beer after dinner, to chat, and to eat more food. There were several with no one left at home, and they came every night to tease and reminisce.

They treated me alternately like a daughter and a prospect, scolding and pinching, laughing and leering. The only times I hid from them were during games of "I remember." I would go in the back to wash up, find something to clean, or just hide.

Tonight, I was caught when Demetri ordered more pelmenis. He liked them with spiced pork and potato, folded just so in that way I'd learned from Rose. I could smell his upcoming death, so I indulged him far too much by making dishes for him after the kitchen was officially closed. What harm was there in providing a few creature comforts to an old man with a hard life who would die soon anyway?

The harm was in his questions. This night, he was asking for firsts from the small huddle of ancients at his table. "Tatyana," he exclaimed as I was bringing out their latest beers, "who was your first real love? One of us, hmmm?" They laughed and I laughed. Then I quickly ducked back into the kitchen to finish his pelmenis without answering his question.

When I came back, they were arguing over some girl they had all known and forgotten. Demetri was whining. "Time steals everything. All the details."

"Not from me!" protested Arkady. "I remember everything."

"Oh?" asked Demetri. "What's the first thing you remember, eh?"

"It was warm and dark, and I was sleeping. Then, somebody was squeezing me. Pulling me. Suddenly, it was so bright, and then he hit me."

"Who hit you?"

"The doctor, of course!" They laughed at that, and I joined them. I had just turned to go when Demetri asked me, "What's the first thing you remember, Tanya?"

"Bells," I said. "Bells in the woods." They looked puzzled at this, but it was only partly a lie.

~:~:~:~

The truth was that I didn't remember anything of my life before I became a vampire. I didn't even remember much about my first days as a vampire. Or months. Or years. I didn't know.

I just remembered the woods. At first, everything was the woods, and I was just another creature in the trees. There was a town, but I stayed away. The people smelled good, but I stayed away. Even now, I couldn't tell you why, but there was plenty to eat in the woods.

I was eating one day when unexpectedly, I was sharing my space. I'm sure I looked feral as I glared over the body of the downed deer at the wolf. I snarled, it growled, and then suddenly it wasn't a wolf anymore.

I scrambled back against the nearest tree in pure shock as the wolf stretched his long, muscular, human arms. He had thick black hair cut short with muscles everywhere, and no trace of a tan line on all his nut-brown nude glory. He blinked his eyes, shaking out the last of the wolf in him as I stared, suddenly conscious that I wasn't wearing anything either.

It was exciting, and new. Until that moment, I had known only woods, and wild, and smells of people not to be eaten. I had not known wolf-men who stared at me intently.

"Bells," he said. I didn't hear anything. I cocked my head to listen, but all I could hear was the wind and his heartbeat. It was fast, hard, strong, and speeding up.

"Bells," he said again, and stepped toward me. I hissed and pressed back against the tree but didn't run. The wind had brought me his scent and he smelled delicious.

"You surprised me," he said. "I thought you were something else, and I couldn't smell you, so I came to look. I didn't think I would ever see you here again."

Again? I didn't remember being here the first time, but watching his muscles ripple as he eased his way over to me in an oh-so-non-threatening manner, I didn't understand how I could forget. It was clear that he thought I was going to run from him, but he didn't realize that I had smelled him and wanted him. I just stayed put and watched him. It was a nice view, and it was easier than chasing him later.

"They told me to watch, and I've been watching. But there was never any sign, never any letter. I missed your letters," he breathed softly, right in front of me now. He placed one hand gently on the tree beside me, reaching for my hands holding the tree behind my back. With the other hand, he brushed my hair out of my face and cupped my chin. "I missed you."

We just looked at each other for a moment, long and deep. His hand turned from the tree to my back and he pulled me infinitesimally closer to him. I could smell that he was male, and he was happy, and he was strong. I closed my eyes as I inhaled again, and he inched me closer to him. I could smell that he was loyal, but he was longing for something, and he was lonely.

When his lips met mine, the kiss was soft and tentative. I think he thought I would bolt, but I had no intention of leaving. I was trembling like a leaf in the wind, but that was just the excitement running through me. I kissed him back, my eyes open now, in unfamiliar territory but trusting my instincts. With no memories of him to guide me, they were all I had.

He gave a low moan and pulled me even closer, wrapping his arms around me and sinking his hands into my hair. He cuddled me close into the warm planes of his chest, and I pulled my hands from behind my back to hold him.

Hold him in place, that is. I didn't want him to run away either.

He started running his hands down my back and kissing the top of my head. I could feel his heart beating through the hard muscles of his chest, and I planted one gentle kiss there, flicking my tongue softly over his pulse. He was talking into my hair between kisses, something about mistakes and tribes and never again. I didn't understand any of that nonsense, so I did what I wanted to do. I pivoted him up against the tree and bit him right over his heart.

He was shocked, I think. The animals always were. I pressed my whole body against his and drank. He tasted like strength and duty with a spice of something exotic and unknowable.

I pulled long and hard at his blood and his spirit. His shock wore off and he struggled, but I was strong, too, and getting stronger by the minute. I held him there against the tree and fed, stopping only when I felt a strange sensation twisting against my stomach.

I pulled back to look and was stunned to see fur creeping over his skin. When he'd appeared he'd been a man instantly, but now his wolf skin was flowing like a strange wave out from his stomach and down over his legs. His body drooped as his limbs shifted and I backed away, confused, repulsed, and frightened.

His wide eyes stared at me, dark in his newly bloodless face. He looked shrunken, as if something had taken the spirit right out of him, and not even his fur blanket could cover that up.

"Bells," he choked out weakly. Dropping forward onto his hands and knees as his wolf skin took him over, he was clearly struggling with his changing shape. Blood dripped slowly from the wound in his chest onto the ground. He whimpered at it, a completely animal noise that sounded wrong coming from his still-human face. He was obviously very badly hurt, while I felt . . . fine. Better than I'd felt for . . . as long as I could remember.

I could still smell the essence of him. It wasn't all gone yet, and I wanted the last dregs of it. His eyes closed and I leaned toward him, aiming for a spot on his back that wasn't furred over yet.

I was almost there when he felt my shadow and his head popped up, connecting with mine. The force of the blow knocked me back over the deer that still lay there, discarded. I fell hard but scrambled up, shocked, and stared into his eyes.

They looked haunted, and the light in them was fading. They accused me of things I didn't want to acknowledge. I reached toward him but he snarled, all teeth and anger and hurt and sadness as his face shifted into a long snout and the tone of his eyes changed to yellow.

Then he fell over, and lay still.

I reached over and touched him tentatively, unable to think of him as an animal now but feeling only fur under my fingertips. The man was gone.

Around him in the forest, a howl went up. It was long, mournful, and too close to be safe. I stood and took one last look at the crumpled fur body. Then the other wolf howled again, and I ran away like the monster I was.

~:~:~:~

Arkady had come back to the bar with me, and stood for a moment watching me wash the dishes with an uncharacteristic fierceness in the sink behind the counter.

"You don't have to wash them by hand, you know. I have a machine now."

I shrugged at him and scrubbed harder. "I was just thinking of what happened after I heard my bells."

"Ah," he said. "Well, some men are like that. Make you feel lost, wild, like nothing. But, you know what?"

"What?" I replied, not at all sure where he was going with this. No one knew that story; how did he know it had been a man? Arkady was an insightful bastard like that.

"All you need," he said, winking and leering, "is a new man to bring you back." He pinched my cheek and the other old men at the bar hooted. I rolled my eyes good-naturedly and went back to scrubbing, less fiercely. I hadn't needed another man at all. I'd just needed the child.

Author's Note: Review me, alert me, or favorite me . . . I'll be eternally grateful and share teasers for the next installment!