The Celestine Room

The Celestine Room

by Jared Rackler

Thank you to Eden Winters and PD Singer, for showing

me how to tell a story.

The city of Melinoe celebrated the darkest night of the

year with masques. Legend held that the masks they wore

were originally used to confuse and confound the hungry

spirits that crossed the whisper-thin veil between this world

and the next. In more recent times, however, the holiday

had become an excuse for decadence and excess in all its

forms.

The grandest and most lavish of the solstice masques

was held by the king of Serenae himself. As the celebrants

gathered at the palace in the Celestine Ballroom, Nikos

marveled at the grandeur of the black marble walls,

polished until they held a mirror-like shine. Chandeliers

of volcanic glass, harvested from the very base of the

Dragon, sent light twinkling into the ebony-paneled ceiling

set with veins of silver that caught the light like so many

stars. Daises had been erected at opposite ends of the hall,

one for the small orchestra that currently sat tuning their

instruments, and the other for the royal family that would

soon arrive. Long, ebony tables covered with white runners

were set with sumptuous foods. Nikos’s senses were

assaulted by the scents of spiced pork and roasted duck,

cardamom cakes and honeyed tarts.

He sipped chilled wine from the crystal cup in his hand,

scanning the room and trying to guess which familiar

face lay behind the masks and the makeups. Creatures of

renown were always the most popular among the younger

attendees. Every season, no matter how cold the air outside,

a throng of dryads braved the winter night to frolic amongst

gargoyles, phoenixes, satyrs, naiads, and a thousand

other fantastical creatures. Among the menagerie of the

horned and feathered were the ancient kings and queens,

popular among the courtiers more advanced in their years.

Historical accuracy, as always, was given no more than lip

service -- or done away with entirely.

Nikos was wearing what had quickly become his

customary white tunic, sewn with silver embroidery

depicting a fanciful design of Sephone, goddess of death

and patron of the necromantic arts to which he subscribed.

He trailed one finger absently across a narcissus flower, the

flower of the goddess, rendered in black seed pearls, and

let the din of the crowd wash over him as it thickened. The

room grew warmer with each new body until the fires that

burned in the grand room’s hearths became unnecessary

to drive back the cold. Sweat prickled underneath the

silver domino he wore, and at the nape of his neck beneath

black hair pulled back in a severe tail. He contemplated

escaping to the terrace, leaving behind the crowd and their

perfumes as they mixed together in a cloying mist of bitter

oranges, musk, and roses. He took another glass of wine

from one of the servants circling the room in their crimson

livery, but before he could taste it, trumpets sounded. The

conversation that had filled the hall like broken birdsong

died as Lykanos Arcadios, High King of Serenae, entered

through the Twilight Door, which was reserved for the

use of the royal family and their high-ranking guests. The

crowd knelt almost as one, with only the sound of rustling

fabric to accompany them.

Lykanos was dressed simply compared to the others in

the hall, with only the skin of a leopard over a plain brown

tunic and a circlet of grape leaves wrought in gold to mark

him as the god of fertility and revelry. It was restrained for

a solstice celebration, but Nikos was certain that simple

costume cost more than an academic like him would earn in

a year.

Behind the king, the royal family followed. Each of

them was dressed as a god or goddess of Serenae. Queen

Clytemnestra presented a regal beauty as the Queen of

Heaven, while her son, Alexion, cut a striking figure as

Nymedos, the god of love, with the Princess Yvaine at his

side dressed as Sykhe. The royal family followed the king

to their dais and ascended to their places. The crowd waited

for Lykanos’s sign to resume their festivities, but none

came. Instead, the king began to speak.

“People of Serenae, another year has almost slipped by

us. The winter thickens and the days of the dead approach.

We have much to be grateful for. A great victory has been

won in the name of Serenae and we gather together to

celebrate that victory on this most sacred night.” The king’s

eyes flicked to the door at the back of the hall.

Nikos felt his death sense tingle along his spine, which

was nonsense. Nothing haunted the palace. Nothing could

ever break past the wards maintained for a thousand years.

The urge to look away from the king and find the source

of the disturbance rose, but Lykanos began again, “It is on

this night that I welcome to the halls of this great house the

Lady Thanata, mistress of the nosferatu, and her kindred

that so recently aided the crown in its victory against the

barbarians from the north.”

Silence rang out in place of shocked gasps, held at bay as

they were by the decorum of the aristocrat. No one uttered

even the slightest whisper as the elder nosferatu and her

coterie entered through the Twilight Door itself. Nikos,

having had no such lessons in manners or tact, allowed his

astounded gaze to shift into a glare when he caught sight of

the reigning female and her assembled kind. A dozen pairs

of golden eyes gleamed out of faces stretched with skin

the color of aged ivory. They scanned the crowd, searching

and probing. Predators’ eyes, seeking out their prey. Nikos

found his hand gripping the handle of the silver blade at

his hip in unconscious preparation for trouble. Most of the

thaumaturges in the College Arcanum would give their

eyeteeth for the chance to be this close to the nosferatu,

and he had no doubt the other members of the college in

attendance were fighting their own battle between shock

and wonder. Nikos was no better than they were, but the

thought of this many of the undead in one place unsettled

him in a way very few things did any more.

After the initial shock at the presence of the daemons had

faded, the king continued, “The Lady Thanata and I have

struck a bargain. Beneath this city, there exist catacombs

as vast as anywhere in the kingdom. Melinoe was built

upon the bones of a dozen cities before it and I have given

my consent for the nosferatu to make their homes in those

abandoned parts of our city, with the Lady’s word of honor

that her kindred will live in peace alongside our people.”

Whispers spread through the room, as this announcement

challenged even the aristocrats’ self-control. Nikos’s

eyes widened and moved from the king to the assembled

vampires, searching for a familiar face among the crowd.

A truce. The memory of that very idea, whispered in the

afterglow of passion spent, sent Nikos’s heart racing.

“He’d never,” Nikos whispered.

He could only imagine what living alongside the people

of this city in “peace” meant to the nosferatu. Would they

be discreet in their killing? Only taking one or two of the

thousands of poor that passed through the gates of Melinoe

every year? Or was it to be blood whores, men and women

paid for their life’s blood as the kiangshi to the east were

wont to do? Nikos shook his head. He supposed a truce was

better than the open violence that plagued the countries to

the far north with their hordes of ravenous dead -- hordes

his family had escaped, only to die of influenza in the slums

of a foreign city.

“The White Court will not let this stand,” he heard one

woman whisper while her companion nodded in agreement.

Part of Nikos wanted to believe them, but he knew the

ruling houses of Melinoe that made up the council of the

White Court cared little for what happened outside of the

palace halls, as long as it didn’t endanger their chances of

getting one of their ilk on the throne.

“They are our allies,” Lykanos intoned over the murmurs

of dissent that had risen in the hall, “our friends. The days

of hunting and killing each other for food and for safety are

behind us. Welcome the nosferatu as I have.”

And with that, the royal family sat upon their traditional

thrones on the dais, the nosferatu mistress and what must

have been her mate at their side. At the finality in the king’s

tone, the crowd rose from bended knee while the musicians

began playing a joyful tune meant to ease the tension. The

voices of the assembled men and women rose in a din

of broken conversation and nervous laughter while wine

enough flowed until the crowd began to forget just how

dangerous the nosferatu were, if only for tonight.

Nikos watched the gathered dancers, twirling and

dipping in a riot of colors ranging from the brightest

yellows to the deepest purples. More than once he denied

the invitation of a dance, though it pained him to do so.

Few things in this world gave him joy as dancing did, but

the need to keep his back to the wall and his eyes on the

vampires was too great. For one such as him, they were

easy enough to spot, even among the minor glamours and

illusions. The dead called to him just as he called to the

dead, and he could sense each of the nosferatu as pinpricks

of cold in his mind. He reached under the mask and rubbed

the bridge of his nose, trying in vain to banish the coldness.

He would have a headache come the morning without

even a good time to show for it if he stayed any longer.

He would say his goodbyes quickly, making apologies for

leaving so early, and then quietly slip from the press of the

living and the dead.

As he turned to go, he caught the bitter scent of anise, of

leaves decaying in the rich earth. A voice slithered from the

shadows. “Leaving so soon?”

Nikos turned and almost collided with the shadowed

figure behind him. He watched as the darkness withdrew

to reveal the form of a male nosferatu. His heart thrummed

inside his chest.

“Rune.” It was a whisper, easily swallowed by the noise

of the crowd, but he knew the nosferatu heard it.

Rune smiled, baring fangs that never belonged there, a

mockery of a smile, an animal’s grin in a face that retained

enough humanity to be recognizable as once having been

something other than the daemon before Nikos now.

“Hello, little witch,” Rune said, taking Nikos’s hand

in his, claws gently touching Nikos’s gloved flesh as he

pressed a kiss into it. The vampire straightened to his full

height, which was considerably more than anyone, vampire

or human, in attendance. The light from a nearby fire gave

his auburn curls the sheen of copper. “I was hoping I would

find you here.”

The scars on Nikos’s shoulder tingled from the touch of

undead flesh, even through the leather of the gloves Nikos

wore to protect the sensibilities of others. Peeking from

the collar of Rune’s black and white harlequin tunic, Nikos

could see the burns that the nosferatu carried from their

first meeting. Silver was no friend to any of the countless

classifications of daemons, and no necromancer would be

caught without it. Not and survive.

“And why were you hoping for that?” Nikos said when

he found his voice again. He fought the urge to draw his

blade. The vampire had made no threatening moves and he

felt certain that a “sense of danger” would be of little use

against any judge in the Dikastos, given the change in royal

attitudes about the undead.

That feral grin again, and Nikos watched Rune’s

crystalline eyes fill with an all too familiar fire. “Am I to

infer that once you saw the guests of honor that you weren’t

hoping I was among my brothers and sisters?” Auburn

brows drooped in a play of being hurt.

Nikos shored up his will and squared his shoulders. “You

haven’t crossed my mind, Rune. Not in a very long time.”

Rune moved in an eye blink, between the space of

seconds, and Nikos found himself being pushed lightly,

deeper into the shadows that surrounded the edges of the

ballroom.

“You lie,” Rune whispered against Nikos’s ear. He

wrapped a long arm around Nikos’ waist, pressing them

closer still. They moved gently with the sway of the music.

A soft minuet timed the steps, though Nikos could barely

hear it above the rush of blood in his ears. “Your heart is

practically racing, little witch. Did you know that?”

“You’ve always had that effect on me,” Nikos answered.

“From fear, or from something else, I wonder?” Rune

said as he maneuvered Nikos into a spin that brought his

white tunic close to an open brazier but left it unscorched.

The sharp smell of cinnamon filled Nikos’s senses,

mingling with the scent of fallen leaves that marked the

nosferatu for what they were. Nikos smiled in spite of

himself as the dizzyingly familiar aroma of spice and

decaying earth swirled around him, but he did not speak.

“Cat got your tongue, witchling?”

Rune was baiting him to answer, to give voice to the

thoughts they had both shared ever since that first night

after the nosferatu had wiped the blood from his lips and

Nikos had cleaned the blood from his sword. There was

something there, something Nikos had surrendered to only

a handful of times. And whether it was the wine or the

swirling memories of stolen moments amidst dangerous

odds, Nikos opened his mouth and answered.

“Perhaps it’s both,” he whispered, pressing his forehead

against the vampire’s shoulder.

Rune sighed, a shaky outlet of breath, though Nikos

suspected it was an affectation. The nosferatu were

believed to have no use for breath. Nikos never let his gaze

travel from the pattern of the stitching on the vampire’s

costume, but he could see in his mind’s eye Rune’s self-

satisfied smirk. The smile disappeared from Nikos’ face

and the weight of the past pressed in on him. Old grief rose

to the fore, spurred on by the mixture of fear and arousal.

Hadrian was here, somewhere. Hadn’t he seen the young

nobleman dressed in the guise of a fox or some other small

hunter? He should find Hadrian and somewhere warm...

The vampire grabbed Nikos’s chin and pulled it up until

their eyes met. “Sadness in your eyes, love,” he said with

no hint of the expected irony. “Why so sad, mageling?”

“I shouldn’t be here...”

He didn’t say “with you”. There was no need. They

both knew that what they were about was wrong. And had

only led to heartache and suffering the times before, when

Rune had given in to his hunger and Nikos to his desire for

someone as much a part of the grave as he was. Before the

night was through, one of them would bleed for what they

did. Nikos knew that it would likely be his flesh split and

his blood spilt in the service of their desires.

“I would kiss the sadness from your eyes,” Rune said,

brushing a clawed thumb across the tender skin of Nikos’s

lips. A sharp pain made him hiss, but Rune held his face

firmly in his undead grasp. A single drop of blood welled

to the surface, crimson and shining. The vampire leaned

in and enveloped Nikos’s mouth with his. A moan escaped

Nikos’s throat before he could stop himself, but Rune

swallowed the sound and lapped at the blood with a tongue

as rough as Nikos remembered.

Modesty fought with the urge for more, but Nikos

reasoned that none of the eyes in the hall were on them.

Shadows wound their way around the pair of them in the

way only a nosferatu could command, and the subtle play

of Rune’s inherent glamour flickered faintly in the air

around them like heat shimmer.

Heat and warmth. The words struck Nikos’s mind,

breaking the spell of the wine and sorrow.

“You’re warm,” Nikos said, ending the kiss and pulling

back to look Rune in his killer’s eyes. “Who died for your

warmth tonight?”

Rune let go of Nikos’s face and snatched up his wrist,

moving them back in time with the music. He smiled at the

question, a parent’s smile at a mistrustful child.

“Such a fatalist, you are, little witch,” he intoned. “Is

there no room in your view of the world for willing donors

that beg for the pleasure of our touch or the gold in our

pockets? We’ve been at this much longer than the humans

have been aware of it.”

“I’m certain you have,” was all Nikos could say. The

thoughts of the men and women of the District lounging

in doorways and leaning out windows coalesced behind

his eyes. So many of them were born of the same

circumstances as Nikos. So easy, so very easy to have

joined them, he thought, to have become a whore. Only one

thing separated him from them, kept him from the brothels

and the blood dens. Nikos conjured the cold of the grave

and let it slip from his chest into his limbs, chilling him

against the heady scent of this particular vampire so close.

“Colder,” Rune whispered, leaning in to sniff Nikos’s

hair. “You chase away the warmth of your passion to chase

me away?”

The unspoken answer to the question hung heavy

between them as they danced in the shadows. How they had

avoided the others in the room, Nikos could only assume

was Rune’s preternatural grace.

Nikos stared past the vampire that held him and through

the veil of the shadows that hid them, out into the crowd of

the living. He watched the dancers move with the flow of

the music as he and Rune did. He cursed under his breath

and broke the stride of their dance.

“I assume you have someplace in mind?” he asked Rune,

impertinent in the face of his failed resolve.

Rune smiled with only the barest hint of fang. “Who

would I be if I didn’t? A human’s delicate sensibilities must

be taken into account.” A mocking laugh rang out from

his chest. It was the cry of the victor and Nikos cursed the

sound and himself.

The hand holding Nikos’s wrist moved, twining Rune’s

clawed fingers with Nikos’ blunt mortal ones. Rune led the

way out of the Celestine Ballroom and out into the grand

halls of the Ivory Palace.

They walked quickly, as quickly as his mortal legs

could carry Nikos. They traveled halls that began to blend

together until he wasn’t certain where they were going,

until they came face to face with the golden, filigreed door

of the Gallery. Rune stopped and Nikos smirked at the

vampire’s sense of humor. The Gallery was a place for

trysts that should never happen, nor be countenanced, a

wing of rooms for the mistresses of the royal family.

Pride flared inside Nikos and all thoughts of Hadrian or

other willing mortal lovers fled his mind. He wasn’t some

mewling whore to be led about by a gracious benefactor.

He was a grown man choosing to make a very bad decision

that he might regret when the sun rose and his lover

slithered back into the earth. Nikos gripped the handle of

the golden door and pushed inward. He turned to give the

nosferatu a beckoning finger.

“Are you coming?” he teased and Rune gave him a hard

look. Nikos actually laughed, letting the sound fill the

hall. He invited the nosferatu through the wards that had

protected the potential heirs of the king for generations. He

led Rune into an unoccupied room and onto the unused bed.

Darkness lessened as Nikos summoned ghostlight into

the empty lamp, washing the room in the silver glow of the

dead like a tiny moon captured for their own.

Rune threw off the harlequin tunic with the grace

inherent in his daemon nature. In the grey glow of the

lamp, shadows played in the hollows of his chest and along

the ridges of the scars over his left breast where Nikos

had endeavored to carve out his heart. Nikos’s tunic came

next, the jet beads and gleaming thread catching the light,

throwing back brilliant shards.

“Corpse,” Nikos whispered, tracing fingers along the

mass of scars on the vampire’s chest.

Claws were feather light against his skin as they traced

the edges of Nikos’s collar bones. “Corpse lover,” Rune

returned.

The vampire reached up and unfastened the silver clip

that held Nikos’s ebony hair in its neat queue. A small hiss

and the scent of burning flesh spiced the air. Nikos tossed

his hair, letting the length slide over his pale flesh. He

slipped the gloves from his hands and took the clip from

Rune, kissing the burned fingers before tossing the silver

thing into the mass of white and black fabric that was their

clothes. Rune picked up Nikos and laid him on the velvet-

covered bed, pulling off one boot and then the other before

removing his own. His hand lingered on the small blade

strapped to Nikos’s ankle.

“Give it here,” Nikos said, voice husky with desire.

The others at the College and the priests of the temples be

damned. Rune pulled the knife from its sheath and Nikos

took it, enjoying the familiar weight of the blade before

pressing the finely sharpened edge into his chest.

Red welled bright as any ruby, and Rune moaned at the

sight of it. He leaned in, silver shimmering in his golden

gaze as he lapped at the skin. Nikos hissed for the pleasure

of it and the pain while the vampire slid his roughened

tongue between the edges of the wound, widening it and

bringing forth more of what he sought. Rune worked his

way up the length of Nikos’s neck, fangs only grazing

the artery of blood that pumped beneath the skin until he

attacked Nikos’s mouth in a bruising kiss. Nikos let his

tongue slip between undead lips and played on the edges of

the delicate fangs until skin split and blood rose, coppery

sweet as it played over their tongues. Beneath that, Nikos

tasted the decay of autumn and the musk of serpents. All

the while, the natural poison of the nosferatu worked its

way into his system, soothing the prey into submission

even as it set his nerves on fire.

Fingers pressed into vampiric flesh and claws scraped

over living skin while Rune removed their trousers. Nikos

would have earned a few new scars before the night ended

if he didn’t treat the wounds, but at the moment he didn’t

care. Rune moved down Nikos’s body, leaving a trail of fire

where the poisoned tongue met skin. The heat spread across

Nikos’s belly while the vampire worried at his hipbone,

tracing the line of it down into his groin. Nikos felt fangs

graze the artery in his thigh. Knees buckled and toes curled

with the promise of what was to come. Yet the monster that

was so close to what he desired above all else remained

calm, taking his time while he teased Nikos.

Claws were drawn up Nikos’s calves in delicate lines,

raising only the lightest of welts in their wake. Rune smiled

up at Nikos, face hovering only inches from the rigid flesh

of his sex. It strained, proud and wanting, from a nest of

black curls and Nikos felt a shudder run through him as the

soft grey of the ghostlight shone in the vampire’s golden

eyes.

With a flick of a roughened tongue, Rune licked the

tip of him and Nikos drew in his breath with a sharp hiss.

This was Rune’s favorite game to play with him. An oral

creature by his very nature, Nikos knew the vampire

enjoyed all too well the sights and sounds of a mortal lover

trembling with pleasure and fear while he licked and nipped

at the tender skin.

Rune stopped and Nikos cried in frustration. “So many

of your kind are afraid of the fangs, afraid of letting us

near.”

Not Nikos. He arched his spine, urging Rune onward.

A blue gaze broke from the yellow for only a moment as

Rune dove deep onto Nikos, taking everything there was to

take until his lips met the curls at the base, and Nikos threw

his head back into the satin pillows.

Fingers untwisted from velvet and found purchase on the

vampire’s shoulders, pulling him up the length of Nikos’s

body until their faces met once more. Nikos pulled Rune

into a kiss until he felt the vampire’s animalistic teeth

pressing from behind daemon lips.

“Now,” he breathed against Rune’s mouth. A sound

almost like a whine more suited for a dog than anything

human escaped the vampire’s throat. He reached into the

chest beside the bed, breaking eye contact for only the

briefest of moments, and withdrew a small ruby vial full of

what no courtesan, male or female, could be without.

The scent of almonds permeated the room as Rune

slid oil-slick claws over the most intimate part of Nikos’s

anatomy even as their mouths met once more for a kiss.

Poison sweet, the taste of him, thought Nikos, but now was

the time for more. Rune drew back from the meeting of lips

and trailed his tongue over Nikos’s chin and onto his throat.

A heartbeat passed before Nikos felt the sharp press of

fangs against his neck. He felt them slip into his skin and

the blood of his life flow out of him as Rune drew on the

wound.

Nikos cried out in pleasure at the feeling of the fangs

and the claws, at the dead thing that moved on top of him,

sliding the slowly hardening length against the skin of his

thigh. Rune moaned against Nikos’ throat and with a final

pull of blood, withdrew his mouth from the wound. Rune

rose up above Nikos while the necromancer gripped Rune’s

sides with his thighs and writhed when he felt the sex of the

nosferatu, fed by his own blood, press against him.

“Say you love me,” Rune whispered, almost a prayer,

and most certainly a curse.

Their gazes locked, yellow with blue, and Nikos said the

only thing he could say in that instant. “I love you.”

Rune cried out and slid his sex home, taking up the

primal rhythm. Nikos echoed his call before twisting

fingers in the velvet coverlet. The vampire was demanding

and brutal in his attentions, driving in again and again that

undead flesh given life. Nikos’s death sense came alive

with the sensation of it. He felt the power inside him slip

out of his control.

The temperature of the room plunged lower as their

primitive dance built to a crescendo. Nikos’s breath fogged

in the cold and frost traced delicate patterns across the

window of leaded glass that gazed out onto the solstice

moon, hanging rounded and full. His bones ached for the

cold of it, but he knew the vampire was close. He knew it

with the same death sense that told him the thing moving

in and out of him was not among the living. Nikos let

go of the coverlet and worked his own flesh, heated with

what blood remained in him, until the pressure began to

build low in his abdomen. His toes began to tingle from

something other than the grave. He pulled faster until he

arched his back and cried out into the night as the scalding

warmth of his climax spilt over his fingers. Rune wasn’t far

behind and he gave a keening howl so much like the wolf

that shared his yellow eyes.

Nikos had asked the nosferatu once, as they lay tangled

in the sheets of the bed in his cramped apartment in the

academic district, what it felt like for the undead to bed the

living. Rune had answered that it was closest thing to being

alive that the dead could achieve without killing.

There were no questions now. Silence cocooned them

while Rune cradled Nikos against him. He could feel the

vampire leaching the warmth from his heated flesh. Nikos

sighed against him, sleep tugging at his eyelids. Had it been

a lie to get what he wanted? Or did Nikos actually love the

vampire? Nikos couldn’t be sure while the poison worked

its way through his system, sweet like poppy wine.

All that mattered was the lover that held him, the lover

that didn’t recoil at the touch of the grave.

“They will come looking for you soon,” Nikos said,

a finger tracing languid circles on Rune’s chest. “It’s a

wonder the palace guard hasn’t noticed a missing monster

and come for us sooner.”

Rune was silent. The hand that had been pressing

Nikos to him grew slack. “You still think of me as only a

monster?”

Nikos smiled. “Such a fatalist you are.” And the vampire

chuckled, pulling them closer.

“What are you and your lady playing at, Rune?” Nikos

asked before he could stop himself, lulled into relaxation in

the afterglow of their tryst.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean, witch,” Rune

answered, the last word spoken with a biting edge.

Nikos regretted the question. After the initial

unpleasantness of their first meeting, Rune had been

nothing but courteous to him, mocking and a bit forward,

but never insulting. No matter how inhuman he was, Rune

was not, Nikos reminded himself, one of the shambling

corpses that became of the unburied dead. He hungered

for the taste of the living as all the undead spirits did, but

with intelligence and wit behind those wolfish eyes. The

nosferatu was a society of individuals with their own rules

and their own secrets.

“The truce,” Nikos began, “you spoke of it once not so

long ago.”

“To the vulgar business, then. Pity, this was so pleasant.”

Rune raised himself up on one elbow and looked down into

Nikos’s eyes. “I remember well the times we have spent

together, love, and I remember what I said. I also remember

you called me mad and yet here we are. A bargain has been

struck and we can live in peace.”

Nikos raised his eyebrows “Do you want to know what

I remember? The Lady Akhra, your mistress. Though, I

suppose she is your former mistress, now?”

Rune’s face turned serious and he instantly regretted the

question. He preferred the vampire open and mocking, if

one could truly prefer one type of monster for another.

“Akhra was old when I was young,” Rune answered,

intensity coloring his words, “The earth called to her too

much. She only wanted to sleep and would gladly have

taken us into her grave with her.” He eyed the mage. “That

didn’t sit well with some of the others and so she is no

longer a threat.”

“They killed her?”

Rune only nodded, letting the severity of the situation

hang in the silence. To kill a nosferatu was not an easy

thing. To kill an elder was nigh impossible. Nikos could not

remember ever coming across a story of a vampire meeting

its final death that wasn’t more than a century or so old.

“She was an obstacle and they removed her, and now the

vampires are free to live their lives in peace,” Nikos said,

rising up and leaning against the carved oaken headboard.

“An obstacle to a great many things,” Rune returned,

taking the mage’s hand in his, “and now that we may

walk the streets without fear of torches and silver, there is

nothing keeping me from you.”

Nikos raised his eyebrows, shock washing over him. He

pulled his hand from the vampire’s grip. “You’re serious?”

“I am. I love you, no matter what you may believe my

kind isn’t capable of, and I know you love me,” Rune said,

passion stirring in his words. “And now we can be together

the way we were meant to be, without fear of reprisal or

repercussion.”

Nikos met Rune’s eyes, the impossible yellow of the sun

which he was forever denied. “How can we be together?

You are a daemon, an undead thing. I am a mortal with a

mortal’s short years.”

Rune laughed, a bitter sound. “I have the cold finality

of death inside you. I swim in it, drink it and swallow it

whole. You’re more human than me, but only just.”

The truth of Rune’s words bit into Nikos’s heart. How

often had he said the much the same thing to himself in the

waning hours of the night after too much wine? He knew

he should feel so much akin to the creature beside him. He

should denounce the thing for the monster it was and find a

human to love and be loved by.

“I am sorry I hurt you,” Rune intoned, “but the truth is

oftentimes painful, just as new beginnings.”

“Ask any woman that has given birth, I suppose,” Nikos

sighed, a half-hearted attempt at humor in the light of his

circumstances.

“Do you truly find me so repugnant that you would not

even entertain the thought of the love that we could share?”

Rune asked. Nikos shut his eyes against the pleading tone

of the vampire’s voice. He would give anything for the

familiar mocking tone. Anything but the bitter sadness that

filled those words.

“Yes.” A heartbeat passed between them. “And no.”

And there it was. The truth, or at least the truth as Nikos

knew it. He despised the mortal men that would never have

him for fear of his close proximity to death and he resented

the feeling of contentment that came with Rune’s touch.

Rune knelt on the bed, drawing the length of his legs

underneath him, and held Nikos’s chin in his clawed grip.

“Do you love me? And only truth, from you.”

The vampiric poison still lingered in his veins. Nikos

could feel its pull even as it worked its way through his

system as quickly as it had come.

“Yes,” he answered and was surprised at the truthfulness

of the words as they left his mouth even as it stung his lips

to speak them.

The vampire considered him for a moment. “That will

do for now,” Rune returned. He rose from the bed, letting

Nikos go. “Come, get dressed. We have a party to attend

and it wouldn’t do to show the entirety of the royal court

what belongs to me.”

Nikos smiled in spite of himself as he rose from the bed

and gathered up his clothes, slipping into the garments

and fastening buckles. Rune took up the silver clip once

more and fastened Nikos’s hair even as the metal burned

his undead flesh though the vampire made no sound of

discomfort.

“Shall we?” Rune asked, offering Nikos his arm.

Nikos considered the gesture for a moment and finally

slid his hand into the crook of the vampire’s arm and let

Rune lead him into the hall. Rune needed no invitation to

cross the threshold this time, and the golden doors of the

Gallery shut with a heavy thud behind them. Nikos glanced

back at the filigreed scenes of goat-legged satyrs chasing

lithe nymphs then to the vampire at his side.

“My colleagues will be swarming for you once they see

us together, you know,” Nikos said, thinking of the fatted

professors that would sacrifice anything on the altar of

curiosity to know the secrets of the nosferatu.

“I supposed the question, then, is how will you introduce

me?” Rune looked down at Nikos as the mage considered

the question.

“I will cross that bridge, I suppose,” Nikos answered.

The noise of the celebration began to sound as they drew

closer to the Celestine Room. Voices battled against the

music for supremacy until they became as one large sound.

Nikos felt eyes on him, noble and not, but the press of Rune

against his death sense and his side kept his stride steady as

he once again waded into the presence of the living and the

dead.

END.

Celestine Room

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