Page 13 of Paying The Vampire

“There’s no need to apologize, you have a beautiful voice. Unfortunately I can’t sing well at all, so I had forgotten what it could be like to have my songs accompanied by such a wonderful thing. It really was majestic. I didn’t want it to end. How long have you known you could sing like that?”

Willow rubbed the back of her neck and blushed. “Thank you. It’s not really I just… well… when I was alone I used to sing to the moon. I thought if she heard my song then she might take pity on me and give life to the wolf inside. It never worked, and I never liked anyone to hear me. I thought I sounded bad.”

“You don’t. Nothing could be farther from the truth. You sound incredible. In fact I can think of a few more songs that could use your accompaniment, and perhaps they could be happier songs as well,” I added with a smile. Willow chuckled and seemed to accept my judgment in this matter. She did not try and fight me and convince me that her voice was actually terrible.

“Your playing was lovely too. I think you would have made a wonderful concert pianist. There are many people who have been deprived because they could not hear you play.”

I bowed my head with the kind words. I played another song and she sang again. It gave me a glimpse of what life could be and perhaps what it should have been like. All the years of loneliness seemed like wasted ones now, and I wished that I had come across her sooner. But there was no point in lamenting the years gone by. I had her now, and it was time to make the most of it.

Chapter Ten

Willow

The music had long since faded from the air, but it still echoed in my mind. Cassius was a talented player, and I was thrilled that he had been so complimentary with my singing. I had no idea my voice could be appreciated in such a way, and I was just honored to be able to share such a performance with him. I definitely thought that he carried the bulk of the talent though, for my words were just light and fleeting. It was interesting to hear the song that he first decided to play, however, for it spoke to the state of his soul. He was a man who was drenched in sadness and loneliness, a man who knew what it was like to lose his brethren. I wondered if I would end up feeling like this if I spent that much time by myself as well. Wolves were not given such long lives, and it seemed more of a curse to me than a gift. It did not seem as though Cassius was benefitting from a long life either.

As I returned to my room for the evening there was much on my mind. Cassius was a charming, intelligent man, but he was not forthcoming about himself. I suppose it was a trait he must have developed after having spent so much time by himself, but it made me curious about the man he was before he had become a vampire. There was the possibility that he was born this way as well. He did speak of this place as his birthright, but I was unsure if vampires considered the moment they were turned as their birth, or if his parents had actually been vampires. With his revelation that the stories I had been told had been influenced by vampires I could not be sure what was true and what was false. There was also the matter of his other companion as well. What happened with her? Would I end up the same way?

At that moment I could not imagine leaving this place. Returning home was not an option, and although I was enticed by the prospect of traveling anywhere in all the world, I could not be sure that there would be a way to bring out the wolf inside me. Then again I wasn’t sure if this was something I actually wanted. I kept telling myself that it was, but what if I did find some way to bring it out? Would it change who I was? I suppose in my mind I had an image of returning home as a wolf and showing everyone how wrong they were to shun me, but what then? Was I just supposed to leave once again? I would not want to stay there simply because they accepted me. I was not about to become Brandon’s wife when I became a wolf.

So what was I truly doing it for?

I suppose I needed to see if it had been inside me all along. I wanted to know what kind of person I would be if I had the wolf inside me, and I longed to know what it felt like. When my friends started embracing the beasts inside them and I was not yet ostracized I asked them what it felt like. They all felt differently. Some of them were elated, some of them were liberated, while some of them were afraid, for they spoke as though something inside them had taken hold and they weren’t quite sure how to handle it. But there was also a common thread among them all; when they tried to describe exactly how it felt they could not always find the right words. They all said that it was something that had to be experienced to be understood, and it was this bond that I had lacked. It was this mystery that I wanted to solve. It had been so frustrating to see everyone else coming to an understanding of something that remained elusive to me, and so I suppose a big part of why I wanted to find my wolf was because I wanted to answer this question.

But for now I was happy enough to spend time with Cassius. It was certainly nice to be in a place where I was appreciated, even if the landscape was not as beautiful. Cassius liked me for who I was and praised me for what I could do rather than focusing on what I could not do. Instead of belittling me he built up my confidence and gave me the tools to challenge myself. Whatever doubts I had when I had first arrived had been swiftly dealt with, and as long as Cassius kept his promise of not creating illusions to fool me I had no doubt that I would enjoy my time here.

And as for the other thing I had been afraid of… well… it was natural of me to be wary when he first approached me about being his companion. There was always the threat of something physical happening, but I admired his restraint. It was clear he found me attractive, yet he did not make this a defining feature of our relationship. He treated me like an adult and I appreciated this, and I couldn’t stop myself from finding him attractive as well. The way his body felt when I had clung to him at first had taken me by surprise. I had assumed he would be thin and weak, but actually he was firm. His skin was pale, but his eyes were deep and mysterious, and he carried himself with such immutable confidence that he seemed to be in control of everything. There was such depth to his soul as well. He was not some brash youth like Brandon, a lunkhead who knew nothing of the world. He was a genius, a man who had experienced so many things and who could teach me a great deal as well. But this long life had brought him much in the way of sorrow.

I found my heart going out to him, and I wondered how long it would be until this distance between our ages would become a factor in our friendship. Would there come a point where he saw me as a child?

*

The following morning I awoke and made my way through the keep towards the kitchens, hoping there would be some kind of breakfast for me. I thought it was empty, when suddenly Cassius appeared from nowhere.

“I thought you might like to come to the laboratory and try this nutritional potion,” he said. I had been searching the cupboards and found them bare, so I took him up on his offer. I asked him if he slept well before I thought about the question. He offered me a half smile as he reminded me that he did not need to sleep.

“Doesn’t that get boring? I mean, surely there can only be so many things to do during the day?”

He sighed. “Indeed there are times when I wish I could lose myself in dreams. It is something that is easily taken for granted. There has always been a mystery around the fact that people need to sleep. Nobody has ever been sure why, but I don’t think sleep is the most pressing factor; I think dreaming is. I believe that the mind needs a break from reality and in dreams they can escape to another world and leave the one they exist in behind.”

“And yet vampires exist despite this,” I said.

“Well, some people think that vampires are just one step closer to death, one step beyond life.”

“I’m not sure I agree with that. I think you’re quite close to life to me.”

“Thank you.”

“I mean, nobody who is close to death could play music like you did last night. It takes someone with emotion in their heart to create something like that.”

He smiled. “I’m not sure that such emotion has existed there for a long time, but I thank you for the kind words,” he said.

We reached the laboratory and he rifled through shelves to find a vial of a potion. There were many vials of the same color on the shelves, and other vials and beakers and test tubes were dotted around the long room. There were many tables and it was one of the larger rooms I had found in this castle, suggesting that a great many vampires had been in here at one time.

“I’m assuming that this place used to be busy,” I said, running my fingers across the table. It ran through a layer of dust, suggesting that while this may have been an important room in the castle, it had not been that way for some time.

“Many vampires had a scientific mind. I suppose part of it was due to the fact that we do not need to sleep, so with many waking hours awaiting us we needed things to occupy our time. What better use than for experimentation? There were all kinds of experiments and tests performed here, most of them to try and make our conditions better.”

“And to help regular people?” I asked as I held up this vial.