Once upon a time, there was no snake, but a dragon who devoured the moon. There was no more light, and only keening rang through the darkness.
~*~
They had many names, as many names as faces. Gareth called them his demons; though the name itself was the sort of morbid joke he preferred. He named them such because their terror, as well as their danger, was entirely imaginary.
Gareth was a fool, as were his names; I shall speak of him no further.
I first met them the night I met Leah. I had awoken starving and disoriented to her startling smile; I doubt I even understood what I was doing as she guided me to my first meal, as blood sweeter than life itself stained my teeth red for the first time. That night, I truly understood bliss; in the light of the moon, I wanted for nothing.
It was that night they came for me for the first time. It would not be the last.
"What has happened to you, my sister?"
I dropped the limp, lifeless body without any further ceremony. Marina Katsaros, pale and lovely as a morning mist, stood beside me, black hair cloaking her face in shadow. One hand touched arm; the contact was as light and cold as a midnight breeze.
I took a shuddering breath. Entirely unnecessary, of course, but old habits are hard to break. "Life, I suppose. Or rather, death. The same could be asked of you, older sister."
Sluagh. That was what Leah named them: the ghosts of fallen sinners, in the legends of her homeland. They had beset me after I gorged myself that first night, raging and crying out against the indignities I had committed, the life I had taken. I screamed and struggled against beings that lacked faces, that lacked any quality at all besides rage. Their hands, cold as corpses, raked across my arms and grasped at my throat.
Eventually they left; and I was alone and shivering. She comforted me with gentle reassurances, or as gentle as she knew how to be. I was told the apparitions were harmless, but sometimes they came when a vampire indulged on too much blood. Some enjoyed the apparitions, even, or at least accepted them as the price of blood-borne bliss.
I once asked her how they appeared to her. Did she see faceless shades, howling a lament that only she could hear? Did they grasp at her with crushing anger and speechless grief?
She had gone very still for a long time, so still I wondered if I had angered her. Then: "No. They are not faceless. And they are not angry; merely cold and empty. Give the sluagh no more thought, child. They cannot harm you."
I obeyed her then, as I knew of nothing else to do, even though I flinched at shadows for days afterward.
Battle erupted shortly afterwards, and war with Leah's clan raged for years. The sluagh and bliss alike faded into distant memory as the world was stained red with blood, Higher, Lower, and human.
Forgotten, not gone. That's the true distinction; after all. Much as we might wish it, the dead are never gone.
"I barely recognize you, Zoe. You promised America wouldn't change you. Now, you speak Greek with an accent. I loved your hair, you know, and you've let it grow tangled and filthy. Did Mama raise you that way?"
I smiled sardonically at her. "If I've let my hair get tangled, Mari, you've let your skin get pale. You aren't my sister, you know. My sister was eaten years ago. You're a figment of my imagination, and nothing more. Can't you leave me to eat my dinner in peace?"
She tilted her head, an expression of puzzlement so typically Marina that my gorge rose. As she did so, her hair fell away from her face and neck, revealing large, ugly wounds in the shape of teeth. "I am your sister in all the ways that matter, Zoe. I am everything you knew me to be. When Marina Katsaros died by your hand years ago, I was all that remained. Can't you at least honor that, if nothing else?"
