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In Your Warm And Darkened Grave
by Frank Zafiro
Frank Zafiro is a former military intelligence analyst and currently a police sergeant in the Pacific Northwest. Dozens of his stories have appeared in anthologies, print magazines and online magazines. His first novel, Under A Raging Moon, was published in June 2006 and is the first in a series of police fiction. His website is http://frankzafiro.com.
Darkness was full when she returned. I didn’t hear her enter, but her sudden presence didn’t startle me. I was used to her nature.
“How is the night?” I asked.
“Clear,” she replied. “Is the CD in?”
I nodded. We rarely spoke of her needs.
“Wonderful. I’ll start it, if you light the fire.”
The opera began as I lit the newspaper below the kindling. I watched the flames hungrily devour the paper.
“Wine?” she asked. “Beloved, thank you.”
We sat in silence for a while; she absorbed in the music, I absorbed in her. I sipped my wine. The taste was crisp, the music thunderous, the fire comforting.
“Such brilliance,” she breathed quietly.
Smiling, she rose and kissed me on the mouth. I tasted the slightest coppery tang on her lips. I held her cool hands and looked into her green eyes.
“I want to be with you, Sara.”
“But you are.”
“No, not like this. I want to be with you forever.”
She frowned and disengaged herself from me. “No, Beloved,” she said, sitting down. “I won’t do that. It is not eternal life, as you think. It is a long death, and it is evil. A curse.”
“Then let me share it with you!”
She didn’t reply.
“I want to be your groom,” I told her.
“Beloved, we have discussed this before.”
I stared intently at her. “Please,” I begged.
There was a silence as the CD ended. The crackle of the fire seemed a roar. I didn’t move, but only watched her.
Finally, she spoke. “If I were to do this, you would not love me any longer. You would soon wish for the return of your mortality and for death.”
“No.”
She nodded. “Yes, you would. The minute you were born into my world, you would recall every aspect of the mortal world and every moment of your past. Everything would appear so vivid, so tantalizing, and you would hate me. You would hate me for the mortal time that I had stolen from you and for the mortal death that I denied you.”
“I don’t believe any of this. Why would I care about some small past when I had forever to spend with you?”
She leaned forward and touched my hands. A cool shiver ran through my arms. “You are sweet, Beloved. But, please…accept my answer, and love me.”
“I will always love you,” I whispered.
I rose and started the CD over again and we lost ourselves in Mozart’s thunder.
***
The next night, he came.
I didn’t hear him enter, but felt his presence immediately. I turned from the cabinet I was repairing and saw him standing in the hallway. He struck an impressive figure and for the single second that I could bear to look into his eyes, I recognized the danger that lurked there.
“Your mistress?”
“Who are you?”
I saw a blur, felt a powerful jolt and slammed into the wall.
“Sara!” I croaked weakly.
A piercing scream rose from her chamber, filled with fear and a fierce anger.
I stood and staggered toward her chamber. The door was bolted tight. I pounded on it uselessly with my fists before I picked up a chair from the hallway and blasted the door open.
Her large window was wide open, the curtains swaying with the night breeze. Her overturned casket lay on the floor, the lid askew.
“Beloved…” she whispered from beneath the open window. Her body was slack and she held her head up with effort. I went to her.
“My wounds?” she asked me.
I examined her quickly. Huge gashes on her leg and mid-section bled profusely. Her mouth and cheeks were spotted with blood. Her breath came in shallow pants.
Blood…not hers.
“I think my ribs are broken. Two of them, at least.”
I bound her wounds and taped her ribs. When I had replaced her coffin on the altar and laid her gently into it, she gave me a soft smile. “You are a true love, my beloved.”
I wiped a smear of blood from her face. “I wish for a day when I will share your coffin, and your sleep.”
She closed her eyes and whispered, “Pray that you do not.”
***
I held the tavern door open for my newfound companion. He staggered out, clasping onto my shoulder to keep from falling.
He laughed at his own drunken clumsiness. “Booze and women, you said?”
“Yes,” I told him. “More than you can imagine.”
***
When she finished with him, I wrapped him in a sheet. She watched me work. “I am deeply ashamed.”
“Why?”
“That you must provide such things for me. That you would view such evil.”
“Necessity is not evil,” I assured her. “How long will it take you to heal?”
She shrugged. “Another day or two. I do not have the restorative powers that your legends attribute to me.”
“And the other? Will he come back?”
“Not if I leave.”
“Why did he attack you?”
She smiled, but it was not beautiful. “We are very territorial creatures, Beloved. It is…well, it is as you say—necessity. This attack was a warning. If he had wanted to kill me, he would have risen as early as the dying sun would permit and he would have set fire to this house.”
“Could he have risen earlier than you?”
“Perhaps. He is an old vampire, this one, and very powerful.”
“I would protect you, even if it cost me my life,” I told her.
Her smile shifted and the beauty returned to it. “It already has.”
***
I threaded a rope through barbell weights and wrapped it around the shrouded body. I worked quickly, finally pushing the body off the small dock and into the deep waters of the still lake. It sank in a flare of white, disappearing.
When I turned, a man stood at the shore end of the dock, watching me.
I slid a knife from my boot and strode toward him. His face was weathered and deeply lined. Though his shoulders were stooped, his stance remained firm and unwavering. When I neared him, he held up his hand. “Stop. Go home to your mistress. I have no dealings with the police.”
I slowed and considered him.
He smiled knowingly, but sadness rimmed his eyes. “I have too many secrets of my own to bother with yours, friend.”
I didn’t like the knowing stare he held, but I sheathed my knife. “If you tell a soul, death will visit you.”
His smile turned bitter. “I wish she would.”
He turned and walked away.
***
When she felt strong again, I told her what had happened at the dock.
“He was old?”
I nodded.
She described his features to me. Her description was better than my own memory. “Sara, who is this man? How do you know him?”
“He is a former retainer, Beloved. He served me for twenty-eight years before he left.”
“Why did he leave?”
“We fought. He left in anger.”
I paused. My heart raced with adrenaline, with jealousy, with realization. “Was he…a lover?”
“As much as I take a lover,” she answered without hesitation. “As much as you are a lover.”
I couldn’t reply.
She went on. “He must have betrayed my place to Vaclav.”
“Vaclav?”
“The one who attacked me.”
I waited, watching her.
Her voice became hard. “If he would betray me to Vaclav, he will betray me to mortals. And if they find me out, they would destroy me, even today. I saw it happen before.” She gave me an accusing look. “They burned Ishka alive in Klastav. That was six hundred years ago. She was careless, too trusting. And they burned her.”
“Sara…”
But she was gone.
***
I didn’t sleep, only waited for her. When she returned, dawn threatened in the east, but she showed no fear.
“Did you find him?” I asked softly.
“I hunted him, Beloved. And I killed him.” She stared at me, forcing me to look away. “Do you find that evil?”
“No,” I whispered. “Necessity.”
“It was. I cannot allow myself to be discovered. I cannot die now.” Her voice lowered slightly. “I have lost my soul.”
I looked up and she cast me a softer, teary glance.
“Don’t you see, Beloved? This dark immortality has cost me my soul. Death would be nothingness to me now. No reward, no punishment. No consciousness. Just…nothing.”
“There are men who believe that is the fate of all who die.”
“Those men are fools.”
I didn’t reply. A vision of the old man’s deep, sad eyes flashed before me.
“Would you still ask me to give you this long, soulless death, Beloved?”
I shook my head.
She sighed gratefully. “I am glad. That is what Phillip and I fought over and why he left me. I would not want us to come to that same end.” She leaned forward to kiss me, and I felt the hardness of her sharp teeth as she pushed her mouth against my cheek.
“Goodnight, Beloved.”
***
When dawn broke, I struck the match. The flame licked at the thick curtain, burning the material greedily. I tossed the half-burned match onto a chair soaked in gasoline. With a deep puff, it caught flame. Fire rushed along the liquid paths I’d laid, then began to stray, hungrily devouring the furniture, the carpet and climbing the walls. I stood in the center of the room. Smoke burned my eyes.
Sara…
I staggered to the front door and flung it open. Memories besieged me, thoughts of a life that had been imprisoned inside of me. I had a wife once, and a daughter. They died in a plane crash, years ago. I savored the knowledge and the grief
Ten years… she was right. I would have hated her.
I made my way to the street and into the morning, alone save for the memories of blood and love.
In Your Warm and Darkened Grave is copyrighted 2006 by Frank Zafiro and may not be reproduced under any circumstances without his permission.