Act Two Chapter Twelve - With or Without You

Mitch was in the bathroom in a heartbeat. Sarah too had jostled awake by Michael’s scream. Both looked at him funny, a combination of relief that there was no true danger and concern that Michael had experienced so potent a nightmare.

It was another ratty hotel. Different from the one off Temple’s campus, the one they were forced to flee because of the Malleus hunters finding their hiding place. The one was even more run down than the first. Michael stood up and went to the sink. He turned on the tap, half expecting something brown and unpleasant to spurt out. But the water was clear and clean thankfully. He splashed his face and composed himself.

“A nightmare?” Mitch asked the obvious. Michael nodded.

“Vampires don’t normally dream.” Sarah added. “Our sleep is closer to mortal death than mortal sleep. The mind is largely inert. It takes a great deal of stress to make a kindred dream like mortals do.”

“Yeah, I’m not stressed or anything.” Snarled Michael sarcastically. “We’ve got hunters chasing us. We’re scattered to the four winds with a blood hunt called down on our heads. We just murdered an innocent girl. The wizards won’t help us. Boar’s werewolves are all cowards and weaklings. Kathleen is fucking nuts and the mind slave of Ernie. And all eyes are on me to fix these problems and I don’t have the first clue what to do.” He wiped the water from his face and threw down the towel onto the floor in frustration.

“We’ve had our backs against the wall before.” Mitch offered. “As we managed then, we’ll manage now.”

“Back then we had some hero come rescue us. Damian switched sides during Max’s ascension when his allies began to scare him more than we did. Dylan came along at the exact right moment to give us an out against Max’s new minions. Hell, Ernie even came and rescued me when Mathias staked me and left me for the sun, the last and only time his obsession has worked in our favor. Who the hell do you imagine is coming to rescue us now?” Michael yelled the last part in anger and immediately regretted the outburst. Mitch didn’t deserve that.

To his credit, Mitch did not flinch but let Michael vent without appearing to take it personally. The two men merely stared at one another without speaking.

“Rebecca.” Said Sarah.

“What?” said Michael, his frustration and rage vanishing in astonishment.

“It’s time.” Offered Sarah. “It’s time you went to her. She’s still on the inside. She can leverage the Prince.”

“She’s a nobody here.” Retorted Michael.

“So they believe.” Sarah replied. “We know better.”

“She was The Djinn’s.” Mitch added. “Boar and Julia fought her in Roanoke and got their asses handed to them. She’s a lot more powerful than she lets on. She’s a lot more powerful than I think even you realize, Michael.”

“It’s our best bet.” Emphasized Sarah.

“You do realize what you are asking, both of you? I tricked her. I lured her to me in Blacksburg and bound her to me. I then turned her, made her kindred. I used her to murder the young man she replaced me with. And somehow, through some means I don’t understand, The Djinn freed her from the bond and she is fully aware of every thing I did to her. She hates me with every fiber of her being and Roanoke proved that. Hell, Roanoke only made it worse. I drove her and Deborah apart. Apparently, there was something real between them and I ruined that too.

“I wanted to go to her in strength. Show to her that it was more in her interest to ally with us, regardless of her feelings, than to oppose us. But we are not strong, not now. I do not have that advantage and without it, she’s more likely to kill me than help me.”

“She loved you once.” Said Sarah. “That’s your leverage with her.”

Michael shook his head. “And if there is some fondness left in her for me, and I succeed in some way to reawaken it, what then will that mean for us?”

Sarah’s eyes flashed, revealing her fear. Yes, that frightened her terribly. “What choice do we have?” she answered, keeping her voice even. “It’s only a matter of time before some minion of the Prince, kindred, hunter, mage, or whatever, catches up with us. Only a matter of time before Walsh kills you. Given the choice, I’d rather see you alive and safe in the arms of another than dead at my feet.”

“And what if I said I’d rather die than be without you?” retorted Michael.

“Then I’d say you’re being a fool.” Said Sarah coldly. “This is bigger than us and if we’re going to survive, there’s going to have to be a sacrifice.” She stood firm, her face resolute. “I will manage. Somehow.”

Michael growled and went to get dressed. He threw on some appropriate club clothes. He then grabbed his weapons, and a long coat to conceal them beneath. He then marched out the door without another word.

                                                          

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Studio Gothic was about what he expected, given what he’d seen from the outside and what Boar had reported to him with his one visit. The outside was the façade of an old Gothic-style church. Inside however, it was all club. Several bars along the walls of the “sanctuary,” a large dance floor in the middle, a stage near where the altar would have been. All of it decorated in blasphemous finery, Pentagrams and other pagan iconography intermingled with crucifixes and other Christian symbols.

That was the first floor. Above it all was a vaulted ceiling that rose a good 60 to 70 feet above the floor. Lining edges of the walls were VIP rooms, with windows looking down onto the club below. The darkness and flashing lights made it difficult even for Michael to see what might be going on behind the glass of those rooms. Above that further still, Michael sensed the third floor, perhaps where the club kept its business offices.

It was a nicely designed place; it embraced its theme and ran with it. The whole place was very atmospheric, spooky even. Fog machines would belch out a mist from the sides of the chancel periodically, covering the floor in a fake fog that added to the ambiance. The music was dark and Gothic, if a little retro; in the first ten minutes since entering Michael heard Sisters of Mercy, Type O Negative, and the Misfits. It felt like Halloween year round in here.

The club goers only added to that impression. Nearly all of them were dressed in blacks, greys, and reds. Plenty of skin was on display despite the Goth attire. Tattoos, piercings, and colored hair were the norm.

In spite of himself, Michael smiled. This was his kind of place with his kind of people. What struck him as odd was the realization that Todd Sexton, of all people, had singled this place out as where he wanted to spend some time between truck deliveries. Todd, a football jock if there ever was one, wanted to hang with the freaks, the punks, and the same sorts of oddball outcasts that he’d spent years in school terrifying with his bullying ways. Michael wasn’t quite sure what that meant.

As odd as it seemed, Michael was somewhat grateful for it. It had, after all, given him his first piece of evidence to Rebecca’s whereabouts. Evidence that had been proven accurate when Michael had seen her with his own eyes at the Art Museum during Walsh’s court.

Michael finished taking in the ambiance and headed for the bar. He ordered his usual Captain and coke from the bartender, a tasty looking Goth chick in a black Lolita-style dress. He took a moment to admire her as she handed him his drink, but was soon interrupted.

“Hello!” said the young man next to him. His voice had the stereotypical lisp of a gay man. Michael was knowledgeable enough to know that most gays did not have that kind of voice, but also that some chose (for various reasons) to embrace the stereotype anyway. “Aren’t you a pretty thing?”

Michael smiled awkwardly. This was a first. He was used to drawing the attention of women with his Daeva beauty and charm, but never men. At least not until now that is. He took a drink and then turned to his suitor.

“Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t swing that way.” He said politely.

“You never know until you try.” Insisted the man.

“And now I know why so many women find this sort of persistence annoying. No wonder they call us pigs.” Michael observed to himself. “No thank you.” He repeated, more firmly this time. The man shrugged and wandered off.

“Everybody on the hunt.” Michael thought. “Everybody looking for prey.” That was, of course, why Daeva thrived in this environment. Everybody looking for a hook-up, someone to take home and devour. Only with a vampire, that word took on a more literal meaning than metaphorical.

At the end of the bar, Michael noticed a similar scene to the one he’d just experienced playing out. A young woman being aggravated by a drunken club-goer, who unlike the gay man who had just propositioned Michael, was not taking no for an answer. Feeling somewhat gallant, Michael wandered over.

“Dude, she said no. You got a whole club full of people. Find someone else.” Michael said firmly, interjecting himself into their conversation.

The drunken sot turned and faced Michael, ready to fight. Michael stood firm. Vampires were killers and predators and while they normally cloaked that reality with the illusion of innocent humanity, there were times when it helped to let it show a little. This was one of those times. Michael glared at the man coldly, giving a slight hint of the monster hidden in his flesh. It was enough. The drunk wandered off without another word, a look of fear in his eyes.

“I suppose you’re looking for some kind of reward.” Growled the woman sarcastically.

“I wouldn’t mind.” Said Michael coyly.

“Then I’ll tell you what I told him. I’m a dyke, so go elsewhere. Hopefully, you’ll listen better than he did.”

“Well, to be fair,” Michael said, sitting down next to her. “you folks don’t exactly advertise your preferences. It’s not like you’ve got a sign over your head that says ‘Sorry, boys, I eat pussy.’ What I was really hoping for was your help in finding someone. Someone specific. My name’s Michael and I’m looking for a girl who’s been known to hang out at this club.”

The woman softened. “Adrienne.” She introduced herself. “Sure, I guess I can help. I’m here a lot. You got a picture or something?”

Michael did, but it was among the things he’d left behind in his Conshohocken apartment. So he shook his head. “Unfortunately no, but I can give you a description. On the tall side of average, maybe 5’7” or so. Red hair. Long. Glasses. Blue eyes. Freckles. A slight underbite. Butterfly tattoo on her upper arm. Looks about 17 or 18 years old. Her name is Rebecca.”

Adrienne frowned. “I know precisely who you’re talking about. Why do you want to find her?”

Michael’s mind raced to come up with a good story. “She’s a missing person.” He rattled off. The best lies were always those with an element of truth to them. “A runaway. I’m a friend of the family and I’ve come looking for her.”

Adrienne looked at Michael hard. “You know she’s a dyke like me, right?”

“I suspected that was part of the reason she ran away.” Michael filled in. “You know how things are.”

“Better than you.” Adrienne half-growled. “I’m half-tempted not to help you now. As much as I despise her, it’s not fair to let you drag her back to a family that won’t accept who she really is.”

“Not all of us are like that. I’ve known her since we were children. She’s one of my closest friends. I don’t care who she sleeps with. I just want her home.” Michael put all the sincerity into his voice he that could muster, and he surprised himself how much it was genuine. He meant every word. He didn’t realize how much he wanted this to work out until now.

Sarah’s frightened eyes flashed across his mind, but he tried to ignore them. There had to be a way to get it all, a reconciled Rebecca and he still be Sarah’s alone.

His sincerity apparently convinced Adrienne. She smiled. “Alright. I see that you really care about her. I don’t, but by helping you I can help me. My girlfriend Audrah and I came to this club a lot while we were together. Great place, welcoming and fun and dark and all the things we loved. That was then. But then Rebecca came along.”

“And she stole your girlfriend from you.”

“Bingo.” Adrienne lamented. “I’ve been trying to win her back since. But nothing works. It’s like I don’t exist anymore. You drag Rebecca out of here. You take her back home and then maybe Audrah will come back to me.”

“That sounds like a deal.”

Adrienne turned around towards the bar and then pointed over her right shoulder. “At the bar opposite, there’s a woman with spikey hair. Real butch looking. That’s Audrah. If Rebecca’s not here now, she soon will be and Audrah will lead you right to her.”

“Thanks, Adrienne. Barkeep, a refill for my friend here. On me.”

The bartender refilled Adrienne’s glass and took Michael’s money. But Michael’s attention was now on Audrah, who seemed to be enjoying herself at the other bar, kicking back a couple of shooters with some friends. Rebecca was not among them; Michael would have spotted her immediately.

After a few minutes, Audrah paid her tab and stood up. She walked over towards the back of the sanctuary and climbed the circular staircase to the next level. Michael got up and made to follow her. He started to climb. About halfway up the stairs, after checking to see that no one was watching, he drew the shadows around him and vanished from sight.

Now cloaked, he walked up to the second floor. He was far enough behind Audrah that he did not know precisely where she had gone, so he wandered into the VIP rooms. Each one was well-occupied, but Audrah was not among them. She must have made for the third floor. Michael headed back to the stairs and wandered up to the top floor.

He stepped out into what seemed to be an attic floor. Largely unfurnished, it was large and open, with a wooden floor that had been well soundproofed, since Michael could now hear little of the loud music below. Near the stairwell was a desk, a safe, and a few file cabinets. That must be the business office that he suspected would be here. But it took up only a very small portion of the upstairs.

On the opposite side of the open floor was a light. A bedside lamp in fact. The opposite side of the room was decorated as a bedroom. Vanity, chest-of-drawers, a desk, a standing mirror, and a king-size bed. Michael glanced about. There were no windows to the outside. This was an ideal vampire haven.

“She isn’t just a patron of this establishment.” Michael concluded. “She owns it.” He was impressed, even feeling a bit of pride at how far his childe had come. Sarah and Mitch had been right. She was far more formidable than even he’d realized. “She’s just like me.” He concluded.

A loud cry drew his attention back to the bed. It was not unoccupied. Audrah was on top of someone, naked but wearing something around her waist. A strap on, Michael guessed. She was slamming hard into someone beneath, much to their delight, as Michael could now make out the impassioned moans of pleasure from whoever Audrah was fucking.

“That’s it, you bitch. Take it.” Said Audrah fiercely. “You love it when I fuck you like this.”

Between the gasps and moans of ecstasy, Audrah’s lover replied. “Oh, God, yes. Do it harder.” That voice was familiar: Rebecca.

Michael dropped his invisibility and stepped forward. Audrah heard his footsteps echo across the room, now that they were no longer masked by his powers. She jumped up and spun about, spotting him immediately.

“You’re not allowed up here.” She growled angrily, not the least bit concerned about her nudity or the piece of plastic that flopped about between her legs.

“Then throw me out.” Michael challenged.

Audrah charged. The butch haircut and being on top with Rebecca had given Michael enough evidence to hazard a guess that Audrah was the aggressive sort. He might have been wrong about her, but he gambled and was proven right.

Audrah took several wild swings at him, which Michael dodged easily. She was not a skilled fighter, but was an enthusiastic one and probably was banking on that to intimidate him.

Michael dodged another punch and reached under his coat. He loosened the katana scabbard he’d been hiding beneath it and it dropped into his hands. With a quick sweep, he brought the scabbard up across Audrah’s calves, yanking her legs out from under her in one very smooth maneuver. Audrah slammed down hard on her rump.

She made to jump back up into the fight when “Audrah, enough” came from Rebecca. Audrah froze and waited. Michael did not press his advantage, but likewise waited to see what would happen next.

“You may go, Audrah. This man and I have business.”

Michael watched as the butch young woman stood up and departed, still either oblivious or apathetic to her nudity. He kept Rebecca in the corner of his eye however, noting that she walked over and picked up off the vanity a finely crafted scimitar. A gift, Michael guessed, from her one time mentor.

Michael began to whistle the tune to Amy Grant’s Galileo, “their song” as it was. Rebecca immediately recognized the tune and groaned.

“Dear God, six years apart and the first thing you do when you see me is start singing that piece of saccharine schmaltz? I can’t believe after all you’ve experienced in the shadows of the world that you’re still as naïve and idealistic as that stupid song.”

“Naïve?” Michael replied. “No. Idealistic? Maybe. After all, the song’s lyrics do promise that you’d never be rid of me. It’s been six years and yet here I am.”

“Do you have any idea how creepy that sounds?” retorted Rebecca. “Is this really why you came to Philly? To stalk me again? I’m not the innocent little teenager you remember. Not anymore.”

“No, you are not.” Michael agreed. “Neither am I, all appearances to the contrary. I came to Philadelphia for many reasons, and yes, you were among them.” Michael figured there was little sense in lying. “I figured we might be able to help each other out.”

“And you’re just going to pretend that all this baggage between us doesn’t even exist.”

“No, I figured that’d be part of our negotiations.”

“Oh, it will indeed.” Like lightning, Rebecca drew her scimitar and attacked.

Michael ripped off the scabbard and freed his katana. The blade was his spoils from defeating Hiroshi Takagi in Tidewater, a real katana from the Meiji era of Japan. No cheap American knock-off here. He brought the blade up and parried Rebecca’s first strike.

Back and forth, they went, trading blow after blow. Rebecca was blindingly fast and far more skilled with a blade than Michael could ever have imagined. He parried again and again, on occasion getting in a strike of his own, only to find it parried in turn. He could not get the initiative on her. She was better than he was.

He took his blade into both hands; if he could not outmaneuver her, perhaps he could overpower her. He swung downward hard and then sliced sideways. Rather than parry, Rebecca deftly dodged backwards, giving ground.

The two combatants paused to size each other up. Had they been mortal, they’d both be panting and drenched in sweat, but as they were kindred neither looked even remotely winded. Rebecca stood at the ready; she had not bothered to get dressed and stood before him completely nude. All that wondrous beauty that had enraptured Michael for so long now on display before him. But, despite that, he tried to keep his attention focused on the deadly scimitar in her hands.

Michael rushed her. He brought his blade down hard again. Rebecca went to her knee and parried the blow with her sword. The blades rang together and Michael pushed down hard, trying to force her off-balance. She gave ground again, sweeping her leg underneath his and tripping him in much the same way he had Audrah just minutes before.

Michael landed on his rump and immediately made to regain his footing. But Rebecca was faster, coming to her feet and striking at his sword with her own, knocking it free of his hand.

Michael’s katana clattered across the floor. Rebecca then aimed the point of her scimitar at his throat. “Submit!” she demanded. Michael hesitated. Could he escape? Could he flee? No, he could no more escape her than he could defeat her. Michael sat up and went to his knees, kneeling before her and awaiting his fate.

Rebecca pulled back her blade and rested it on her shoulder. She began to walk around him, as if inspecting her prize. As she came behind him, she took the scimitar from her shoulder and touched the blade against the back of his neck. “You know,” she said. “I could take your head right now.”

“You would be in your rights to do so.” Michael answered, his voice shaky. He was terrified down to his very core, fear he’d not felt in ages.

Rebecca stepped back, bringing the sword from the back of his neck to under his chin. She used it to force his face upward to look her in the eye. “You tricked me. You betrayed me. You embraced me into darkness. You fooled me into murdering my boyfriend. You killed my mentor. Drove me from my city. Blamed me for a crime I had nothing to do with. I have more reason to hate you than anyone else on this planet. You owe me and you owe me big, and I should take it out on your flesh...” She hissed out the last few words, putting into them all the venom and anger she could muster. This was Michael’s every fear, all his sins held against him as they should be. Now he would die for them.

But then, to his great surprise, she softened. “But, on the other hand, I have prestige, privilege, wealth, respect, authority, power. I have freedom to do what I please and to be who I truly am. I can love and fuck and be with whomever I choose. I have beauty eternal, youth unending. None of those things would be true if you hadn’t taken away my old life and given me this new one. So I also owe you.”

She took the scimitar away from his neck and walked across the room. She returned the blade to its scabbard. “Stand up, Michael. I’m not going to kill you.” She said, her back still to him.

Michael did so. “I had come prepared to reason with you. To debate with you all the reasons we should bury the hatchet and become allies. Of course, I seem to have forgotten most of them after you had me on the floor about to chop my head off...” His nervous attempt at mirth fell flat.

“I wouldn’t kill you, Michael. No matter how angry I am at you, I could never do that.” She turned around. “Did you ever learn what became of Cranston?”

Michael thought the question odd. He hadn’t given any thought to Guy du Savoy’s majordomo in years. “After The Djinn was defeated, I presumed he fled and scurried back to Guy in Richmond.”

“Oh, no. He was watching the entire battle you had with The Djinn. After you diablerized my mentor and were stunned by the shock to your system by doing that, Cranston emerged and was about to deliver the coup de grace to you.”

“And you stopped him.” Michael guessed.

“I killed him.”

“Why?”

“Because the only person who is going to kill you is going to be me.”

“And yet you didn’t. You finished Cranston off and still let me live. I was just as vulnerable to you then as I was to him. And I just gave you another shot tonight and you didn’t take it either. Why?”

“Perhaps I just want to torment you. Perhaps I want agree to your every proposal and then turn on you. Perhaps I’ll give you over to Walsh. I wonder what reward he’ll give me for turning a fugitive?”

“Betray me as I betrayed you? It makes sense I suppose. But why tell me about it then?”

“You’re truly something else, Michael. You were always brilliant. Creative. A masterfully strategic mind. Making you a vampire only made you better at all those things, as your list of accomplishments proves. But, dear God, you are so damn dumb when it comes to me.”

“Excuse me?”

“You are still utterly terrified of me.” she said with a mocking laugh. “Back in high school, it took you forever to admit your feelings to me. Took you forever to make a move. I’m not sure what you thought I’d do.”

“Say no.” Michael answered honestly.

She just shook her head incredulously. “And therein lies your problem. You’re dumb because you simply will not see what is right in front of you. Not then and not now.” She paused briefly then continued. “Right now you’re convincing yourself that I’m actually serious with all this talk of betraying you or turning you over to Walsh. You’re still scared to death of me. And that fear is blinding you once again.”

“You did just prove that I can’t take you in a fight.”

“That wasn’t a true test. You held back your full strength.”

“So did you.”

“I did. But why would I do that if I really wanted to kill you?”

Michael didn’t answer. She was right about one thing. She certainly did make him feel stupid. All this experience with women and Rebecca could still get the better of him in almost everything.

“I can’t believe with all that condescending attitude that you’re about to tell me that you’re still in love with me or something.”

“And what if I am?”

“You really enjoy toying with me, don’t you? You dangle what I want in front of me and then snatch it away.”

Rebecca groaned. “You still don’t get it.”

Michael was starting to get angry. He felt humiliated and vulnerable. It reminded him so much of when they were in school together, with her so full of confidence and grace and him so awkward and inept. As they got to know each other, Michael came to realize her bravado often cloaked a great deal of insecurity and outright pain. Perhaps that was the case now.

Michael snapped his arm up and took her by the throat, his arm moving faster than the eye could see. He lifted her a good eight inches off the floor and held her there. For the briefest moment, the veil came away and he saw the fear behind her eyes.

“Now there’s some honesty at last.” She croaked out through his clenching fingers. She wasn’t really struggling. “Stop dancing around the truth. Hate isn’t my problem, Michael. It’s yours. It’s always been yours.”

She kicked her legs apart, exposing her nethers. “There it is.” She taunted. “It’s what you’ve always wanted. You even had it for a time.”

“I don’t rape.”

“Don’t lie to me.” Growled Rebecca, still dangling from his hand. “First off, there’s the night you poisoned our food. You didn’t think I remembered that, did you? You took me then when I was only half-awake and thought you were Shawn. Secondly, you bound me to you so I’d never say no. If that isn’t forcing me, then what is it?”

Michael began to tremble. She was right, of course. He had done both those things.

“Then why didn’t you kill me?” Michael was surprised to hear the strain in his own voice, like he was ready to explode into tears. His guilt was overwhelming him.

“Because that’s the easy way out,” she said, “for both of us.”

Michael let her go. She dropped to the floor. She looked up at him. “You came here expecting one of two things to happen. You figured you’d either kill your remorse over what you’ve done by killing me or I’d exact my revenge by killing you. Not once did you really think there would be any other outcome. Whatever negotiations you intended were never going to happen.” She came to her feet. “Now you’re going to have to deal with the fact that we’ve both survived and we’re going to have to live with one another.”

“I don’t get it.” Michael was dumbfounded.

“As I said, you’re dumb.” She said sympathetically. “The answer’s always been in front of you. You just won’t accept it.”

“You really do love me.”

“Always have.” She admitted.

“They always tell you to beware of things that seem to be too good to be true.”

“You’re being dumb again.” She warned. “Blind and dumb. Is it really so hard to believe?”

“Yes. It is. I raped you.” There, he admitted it aloud. “I turned you. I tricked you into murdering somebody you cared about. And let’s not forget the whole ‘I was a closeted lesbian’ thing either. I don’t exactly have the anatomy for you to really love me.”

“I’m not a lesbian. I’m bi. I like women. I even prefer women, but if the right guy comes along…” She paused, letting him fill in the blanks there. The clueless look on his face showed he still didn’t get the hint. “As for the rest, it’s called forgiveness. You may recall we were taught a lot about that in Sunday School as kids.”

“You make it sound so damn easy.”

“It isn’t,” she admitted forcefully. “but I had six years to work on it. I made a choice. You gave me this life and I didn’t want to spend it wallowing in the misery of hatred. I didn’t know if we’d ever cross paths again, so I chose to not hate you. Why waste that energy on someone you’ll probably never see again? It wasn’t easy. I was so angry at you and I had every right to be. But I chose to not let that anger consume me. I wanted to live, I wanted to love, and I wanted to be free.”

“But I didn’t stay away.” Said Michael. “I charged right back in, thinking you were somehow behind the hunter plague in Tidewater, the Reign of Terror, and Sarah’s torpor. We never really crossed paths when I returned to Blacksburg, but there we were. You were my enemy. I sought to destroy you.”

“Only because of a misunderstanding.”

“It still cost you. I still did plenty of damage. I killed The Djinn, who for all his flaws was apparently very gracious with you. He spared your life when Mathias demanded you destroyed. He trained you. And I also know you had something real with Deborah and I ruined that too.”

“Yes, more sins. More reasons to be angry. More reasons to hate. But again, I chose not to, although it was now clear to me you were not going to be absent from my life. I knew this night would come and when I saw you at the Art Museum, I knew it would come soon.”

“And here it is.” Michael stated the obvious, not knowing where else to take the conversation. “So what happens now?”

Rebecca shrugged. “Nothing, until you trust me. Nothing, until you start trying to forgive me and yourself for what’s happened. Nothing, until you start letting go of your hate.”

“I don’t hate you.” He admitted.

“You’re lying. You’ve always hated me. This is why you’re blind. This is why you’re dumb when it comes to me. You’ve always been envious of me. You’ve envied my confidence, my beauty, my grace, my humor, everything about me. I became for you a icon of everything you were not but wanted to be. I was a symbol, a paragon, a myth of your own creation. An unobtainable goddess and you figured that if you could possess me, somehow all the parts of me that you envied would become a part of you.”

“What a load of bullshit.” Said Michael with disdain.

Rebecca didn’t back down. “Oh, no. It’s all true and you know it deep down. You never once saw the real me. I was ever only the illusion you had made me to be. The reason I know that is because if you’d seen the real me, you would have realized that you had already won. You would have realized I was already in love with you.”

“And yet you rejected me. You turned me down the night of homecoming, when we were going to lose our virginities to one another. You chose Shawn after I’d left for Tech and you slept with him.”

“I was not exactly the bastion of maturity at that point in my life. I was 18, legally an adult but rather inexperienced at it. Those were both mistakes. Falling in love with you scared the hell out of me. I sensed your dark side even then and I feared how you might react if you knew the truth of my bisexuality. I also knew then that when you looked at me, you didn’t see the real me, just the icon you could possess and absorb. I was afraid. I hesitated. I doubted. I didn’t trust you.”

“With good reason, it seems.” Michael admitted.

“Yeah. My distrust was obviously not unfounded. Given the chance to give your dark side some free reign, you went and did some pretty horrible things. But in the end, in spite of all that, I still loved you. I still wanted to be with you. You know, I never got the chance to tell you the truth of why I came looking in Blacksburg for you all those years ago. You imposed your bond on me before I could tell you. I was using Shawn to find you. I didn’t really want to be with him anymore. I’d sorted out my feelings and I knew I wanted to be with you. If I found you alive, Shawn was going bye-bye. I was ready to give up everything to live in your world, whatever it was. But then you forced the choice upon me that I would have made freely. You bound me to make me love you when I already did. Your stupid blindness at work.”

Michael dropped to his knees, his guilt overwhelming him once again. The enormity of the ways he’d violated and hurt her was beyond even what he’d always believed. She knelt down in front of him.

“After all that, you can’t still love me.” He lamented.

“But I do. Come on, Michael, you’re a nerd and a geek and a Star Wars fan. The whole Darth Vader arc is about this horrible horrible villain that deep down inside still has some good within him. In spite of all that you’ve done to me, I cling to that good part of you. And don’t just take my word for it. Others have seen it too. You walked into that Art Museum with little Sarah by your side. It’s not hard to see her feelings behind those pretty little eyes of hers. Solomon, your mentor, standing with you as if that’s forever his place. And I know damn well that Boar and Mitch are still with you as well. I caught Boar in the club here some weeks ago. I didn’t recognize him at first. But after I did I knew you had to be in town, because I know he’d never go anywhere without you. These people are loyal to you for a reason. They’ve stayed by you for a reason. They know the horrible things you’ve done and they all still love you. Why am I any different?”

“Matter of degrees. I’ve wronged none of them as badly as you.”

“Stop it. Stop looking for excuses to hate yourself. Stop looking for excuses to disbelieve everything I’ve said to you. For once, just accept what is right in front of you. Forgive yourself and trust me.”

Michael said nothing. He just looked at her.

Rebecca took the initiative and pulled him into her arms. As she tightened her embrace, Michael gave in to his grief, letting the tears flow. For a long time, minutes, hours perhaps, he just wept in her arms. It was so unbelievable. His wildest hopes come to pass. He’d won her back…by never losing her to begin with.

Of all the possible outcomes of their reunion, this was the one he never expected. He never believed it even remotely possible and yet it was also the one that Sarah feared the most. Had she seen what he’d been so blind to all these years? Did she somehow know what he refused to believe, that Rebecca did still love him? Was that what frightened her so?

“Forgive. Trust.” He finally croaked out after what seemed forever. “I will try. But there’s a problem. Sarah and I are more than just allies.”

“Of course you are.” Said Rebecca. “I told you I could tell you are more than just lovers. It’s in her eyes. The way she looks at you. Her feelings for you are as strong as iron and yours for her.”

Michael released the embrace and looked Rebecca in the eyes. “I can’t betray her. I did so once and I can’t do it again. I won’t do it again. Maybe I can forgive myself for all the ways I’ve wronged you and maybe I can trust you, the real you, at last. But for us to love each other like we’ve always wanted? That may not be possible.” He paused. “There are a lot of things in life about which I am not certain, but I do know that I love Sarah and that she loves me. I won’t throw that away. Not even for you.”

Rebecca smiled. “You might be surprised, but I’ve actually given this some thought. A gamble, perhaps, but there may be a solution.”

“How?”

“Michael, do you love me?”

“Maybe. No. Yes. I’m such a jumble of emotions right now, I’m not entirely sure.” He answered honestly. “I think so.”

“But you’ll grant that a person is capable of loving two other people at the same time. Really loving them.”

“I suppose.” He answered weakly.

“Then the solution is before us. I want to build with Sarah the sort of relationship we have with one another and that you have with her. We would not be a couple, but a trio. A trinity. You loving me and her. Me loving you and her. And her loving the both of us.”

“Can that work?”

“I don’t know, but I want to try. Anyone you are that devoted to is someone I want to get to know. Anyone who sees in you what I do is someone I want to get to know.” Rebecca smiled. “In a lot of ways, it’s good that I’m bi.”

“She’s not though.”

“It’s still worth a try. Sexuality is usually far more fluid in people than our society likes to admit. Most men, women, straight or gay, are a lot more flexible in regards to alternative sexuality and relationships than those labels imply. Most people are on a continuum, falling somewhere between totally straight and totally homosexual. Even you and even her.”

“You sound like you’ve done some homework on this.”

“I have a lot of friends in the LGBT community. They’ve taught me quite a bit about the parts of human nature polite society would rather ignore. Still, it is to our advantage if there’s even just a tiny little bit of Sarah that’s bi. She doesn’t need to love all women. Just one. Me.”

Michael remembered his hunts with Sarah, how she would touch and caress their joint victims. Did she do that for his benefit or was there something else there, a glimmer of sexual attraction to other women? And if so, was that enough to translate from simple lust to real love? Michael didn’t know, but like Rebecca, he was curious to find out.

“Alright, we can try. Again, there’s a lot I’m not certain about in life, but I do also know that I want some semblance of harmony between all of us. This is probably a long shot, but also our best bet to create that harmony. She’s going to know how we feel about each other. They’ll be no hiding that from her, no matter how devoted and loyal I remain to her. But perhaps if that devotion is more widely shared, everything’ll work out.”

“I’m hopeful.” Said Rebecca encouragingly.

“Yeah, but you don’t know her like I do. She’s very jealous of my affections for others. She tolerates my use of seduction to hunt, but it will not be easy to convince her to share me with another vampire.”

“She fears losing you. But that’s why my idea is a good one. She’s not losing you. She’s gaining me in addition to you. You gain me in addition to her and I get the both of you. We all come out ahead.”

“That makes logical sense. But we’re not dealing with logic.”

“It’s still worth trying.”

“And if you don’t fall in love with…”

Rebecca put her finger to his lips. “Stop. I asked you to trust me and you said you’d try. That’s my part to worry about and I’m not worried about it. I’ve seen her. She’s cute. She’s adorable. She’s gorgeous and I also know you love everything that’s beneath all that. I trust your judgment.”

“Okay.” Michael conceded. “I’ll stop looking for reasons why this will fail and trust you when you say it will work.”

“A leap of faith, in the both of us and in yourself.”

“I suppose, in a lot of ways, that’s what this was all about. The very reason I came tonight was to take that leap of faith. I just didn’t realize all that it entailed.”

Rebecca smiled. “Good. Think of it that way.” She took Michael by the hand and came back to her feet, guiding him up as well. “I’m done talking for now. All I want now is you and me in that bed together. I want to feel you inside me, taste you, touch you, have you ravish me until the dawn comes. After all, Audrah was giving me a fucking for the record books and you interrupted it. You owe me.”

Michael hesitated, but Rebecca would have none of it. She moved in and kissed him on the lips. She took his one hand and slid it between her thighs. She took the other and placed it on her breast. Touching her, feeling her like that brought out his desire for her. It was almost as if he’d forgotten how beautiful and sexy she truly was and was just now remembering at last how much he’d always hungered for her. But with that hunger was something else. He felt the ravishing ravenous lust of the Beast as well. There was a lust frenzy growing within him. Just like it had been when he reunited with Sarah in Tidewater.

Rebecca pulled away from the kiss and looked Michael in the eyes. He saw behind her eyes that same animalistic lust that he was feeling. “Maybe this’ll really work after all,” Michael wondered. “If the demon within me hungers for Sarah and Rebecca equally, and theirs for me, maybe it’s not that much of a stretch that Sarah and Rebecca will come to hunger for one another.”

“I’m not going to be able to hold myself back for much longer.” Michael admitted. He did not want to succumb to the Beast’s control. He wanted to enjoy this and experience it fully.

“Then what are you waiting for?” She taunted.

Michael gave her a playful but hard shove. She fell back onto the bed and he climbed on top of her.

---

They didn’t leave that room for days. All the long years of their separation, all the animosity, all the uncertainty were erased as Rebecca pulled Michael again and again into arms for “just one more time” to make love to each other. It was addictive. Enthralling. It was almost divine.

As the sun set on what was the fifth or sixth night they were together (Michael wasn’t sure. He’d long since lost track of the time), Michael awoke next to Rebecca with a certain pragmatism on his mind. As heavenly as these nights had been, he had to get back. He had to let his allies know of his success. He had let Sarah know he was still alive. God, she’d be worried to death about him by now.

“We need to talk.” He said bluntly as Rebecca fluttered awake. “We need to talk strategy. I am still under condemnation from the Prince, still under a blood hunt.”

“I know.” Rebecca said. “We have to convince the Prince to rescind his edict. I have some ideas.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“The Carthian Core is without leadership. Tiberius has vanished. Whether he’s been murdered or has slipped into torpor, I do not know. I’ve been trying to cultivate myself as his successor, but the others aren’t convinced I’ve got the chops. They see me as too young and too weak to lead.”

“So if I help you to secure control of the Core, you’ll use them to leverage the Prince.”

“The Prince won’t want a war. It’s too risky so close to the time of transition when Monroe is meant to resume the throne from Walsh.”

“Walsh isn’t about to surrender his throne, not even to Monroe.”

“Most of us realize that, perhaps even Monroe himself. But whatever scheme he’s got planned to hold onto power is not going to be helped by rebellion among the kindred. He can’t afford that.”

“The Core isn’t strong enough to stand up to the College. You’d be overwhelmed and Walsh knows that.”

“If the Core challenges the Prince alone, you’re right. But you come with over a half dozen kindred in alliance with you, at least two of which are seasoned fighters. Add to that Boar and Mitch, who are not what they appear to be. How’d you luck out to befriend both a werewolf and a mage?”

“And I might be able to bring some of their kind along. Boar has won himself a pack. He’s named himself Alpha of a group of lupines. Mitch has been making progress in making friends among the Concilium.”

“Even better. What do suppose Walsh will do when he discovers the Core, you and your allies, some mages, and a werewolf pack all stand united against him?”

“Shit a brick would be my guess.”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“But we have to win over the Carthians first.”

“Actually, there’s a step before that even.” Interjected Rebecca. “This bed is cold and lonely with only two in it. There’s a third that needs to join us.”

“Sarah.”

Rebecca nodded. “I need to win her over. Then we can work on convincing the Carthians to stand with us.”

“I think I’d rather face the Carthians than Sarah right now.” Michael admitted with trepidation.

“Remember, I know you love her. I want to love her too and I want her to love me. To trust me. To trust us. If we can unite, if we can do that, Walsh will be nothing.”

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