Treasure: a Vampire Novella | The Empty World Sequence

Seven

Treasure was given a room in the residence adjacent to the church. He refused to come out, and he refused blood brought to him. He could not refuse visitors though. They just let themselves in. Orchid came. They kissed and it was tender and painful and they both cried and then Orchid said, "I'm sorry you had to find out the way you did. I wanted to tell you. He was almost the boy I fell in love with, and he was almost the man you fell in love with, and we were those things to each other. He got what he wanted here. He hurt us."

"I just want to know why you couldn't let me stay," Treasure said.

"I'm selfish, you know that, I didn't feel like admitting I'd done it, but I'm sorry, I'm just not a good father."

"You are my father," Treasure said. And then out of pain they made love as Vampyres do, taking blood from each other and licking at fangs.

Morpheus, Velvet, and several others came at different times just to try to cheer him up. Raven even came to him. She kissed him and sniffed him and licked his face and she held him close and rocked him. And when she knew him by sight and smell, she laid him in bed and sung him to sleep.

Anne came and she said Treasure should remain among them. "Claudia has tasted your blood three times. She chose to do it. If you want her, she is yours, and I'll forget any claims I ever had."

"I wouldn't take very good care of her," Treasure said and curled up all the more in his bed.

"Maybe not, but she would take good care of you, and besides, when I take her father from her who will she have."

And then Claudia came. It could not be avoided, her visit. Still nothing she would do would rouse Treasure from his bed. She left in tears.

Thierry never came.

Claudia's father was in her room dressed in his best clothes. He was looking at himself in her mirror. He turned and caught her in his arms when he saw her crying. He dressed her himself and then fixed her hair for her. All along he whispered at her ear: "Do not let him trouble you, Claudia, do what you came to do, appear in the contest. I'll dress you, there is still time. You can have what you dreamed of before, an apprenticeship. What is it you want most, romance? Skill? Knowledge? They can give you it all. They speak of you. They are all so impressed with how you led the others. You could have anyone you want, think of it, one of the lovely lady Vampyres who will buy you lovely dresses and teach you secrets no one else knows. Or one of the others. Paris himself might choose you for his own."

Claudia did not agree, but she pretended to. And when the contest was held she waited with the other humans till it was her turn to go onto the stage and let herself be interviewed. It was all formality. All the Nephillim below had a copy of some secretly gathered file of information on her. She saw her father go up on the stage. He answered the questions in a slow easy voice and then was directed off the stage and into a seat where all the contestants waited to be collected or told they had not been chosen.

It was Claudia's turn. She went onto the stage. "Are you interested in art?" They asked her. She had to answer no. They wanted to know if she wrote.

"Only in a diary," she told them.

"What about music?"

"I can play a piano."

"A real one?"

"Yes, a real one."

"Do you have a large family?"