Convention
Rain clipped down on burlesque, unflinching buildings in the city. The swirling clouds were thick enough that it was almost a simple matter to pick up the smell of iron and the rancid hopes of middle-aged factory workers, the naïve smiles of tourists hoping for a glimpse of the “real world.”
When it came to tourism, there was no worse place to sightsee. Locals and tourists alike tended to avoid the neighborhood of Hawthorn. At first look, it appeared normal enough. Pigeons with a hungry glare swooped onto grey buildings, the architectural style complex and charming with its gleaming doors of silver, the patrons well-dressed.
However, as one reached The Bridge, it gave way to another guise entirely.
Far from the suave styling of left of The Bridge--also known as the Petronius blocks--the right side was nothing less than a stylized rural.
The buildings were threadbare, snitched out of the wild age of the West, the saloons still brimming with poorly made moonshine and saucy dancers, the General stores still selling the same wares, the roads still of dirt. The citizens of the right section of The Bridge--the Vargulf side--could well have believed in time travel, were it not for the greasy fords and recycle-parts pickup trucks parked along the roads.
Of course, it is people that make the neighborhood.
In the case of the Petronius, there was no better family than the Soucouyant. The devil of the block, they took their women and spirits both with black, Transylvanian smiles. Their velvet cloaks and silk-white shirts were pleated with gold and silver and blue. The citizens of the Petronius held their breath when the boys of the Soucouyant walked with danger through the nights upon The Bridge.
On the right side of Hawthorn Bridge--the only bridge in the neighborhood over the swift-rushing Fox river--there was no more powerful group than the Dermis family. Their sons and even daughters prowled the streets, ‘keeping the peace’ by stretching their fingers and snarling away the trouble. They managed among themselves to cause both the damage and the help of the town, popping across The Bridge occasionally to set fire to a long-held Soucouyant building or home.
And, if it is people that make the neighborhood, it is history that makes the people.
The history of the Hawthorns would take many books and many radio stations to report the nightly damage, let alone the encompassed chaos… for between the harboring power of the Dermis and the sophisticated syndicate of the Soucouyant, there was a deep and unending hatred in the never-ending quest for an order and seniority…
A quest that would soon end.
***
A single boy sat at the counter in an old-fashioned kitchen straight out of the fifties. “Hey Niceros!” Aukoc flashed a fanged grin and messed up his tousled, blue-black hair with a very hairy hand. “We’re on raid tonight. Wanna catch it?”
The wolf-boy answered with a smile. “Raid, huh? Where’s the victim?”
His brother winked.
“Oh, you know,” he said, “the filthy rich.”
“Petronius blocks, eh? Count me in,” said Niceros. He pulled out a plastic lighter, one engraved with strange markings--almost like claw marks. “When do we leave?”
“Sun-down, little brother,” Aukoc replied. Niceros stared at the older boy.
“Sun-down? We’re all but screaming for a tussle with those Soucouyant boys, and I’d really rather not put my clothing through any more of their chicken scratches.”
“They’ll be out,” said the teenager, his forest green eyes sparkling, “and we’ll be in.”
Niceros howled in delight. “Party?”
“You know what they say about Soucouyant parties,” Aukoc said laughingly. “Once they run out of wine, the whole thing”--here, he pulled out a similar lighter to Niceros’, of iron with an engraved cross--“goes up in smoke.”
“I’ve never been on-raid before,” said Niceros. “What should I wear?”
“Something nice, I’d say, ol’ chap,” replied Aukoc in a horrible British accent, adapting his arms into the famous Napoleon pose--then, as Niceros laughed--“What? No need to offend the ladies.”
“You like ladies, man? When did this happen?” A wolf-man walked into the room, this one wearing a maroon vest with a heavy collar of fur and tight-fitting jeans.
He cuffed Aukoc on the shoulder. “Hoping to get some hot vampire action with one of those sexy, sexy Soucouyant boys?”
“Hey, it just occurred to me, Rolf--Think somebody at the table’s projecting, Niceros? That‘s what Freud would advise, after all.”
“Oh dear,” said the third wolf, “I think I’m harming ickie Aukoc’s delicate sensitivity level. New subject?”
“Definitely,” boasted Niceros. “No need to waste too much of our energy before tonight, right, Aukoc?” He offered his hand for a high-five, not noticing his brother’s rapid head shakes and signals to desist.
“….and what’s this I hear,” said the pack leader, “about a raid, Aukoc?”
As Niceros slowly lowered his hand, pretending to scratch his ear, Aukoc cleared his throat nervously. “Uh… nothing, Rolf. We were just… y’know… messing around. Err, really.”
The nice vest and jeans fell to the floor as a huge, maroon-furred wolf leapt on top of him, snarling. “You have heard my order and nearly disobeyed,” said the wolf in Rolf‘s voice as Aukoc’s lighter fell from his hand to the floor, “and if I hear about any Soucouyant party members leaping towards the Heavens, you’ll be following them up with a one-way ticket, spending your eternity offering free refreshment to vampires. Understood?”
Picking up his human coverings with his teeth, the wolf spun three times, stood as a fully-clothed Rolf, and exited, the fur of the vest twitching at the breeze as the screen door shut behind him.
“All bow to the Drama Queen. What the Hell was that about?” asked Niceros.
“Oh yeah,” said Aukoc. “About that--Rolf’s banned raids this week. Moon told him something.”
“What did she say?” Rolf’s wife, Hannah, was a famous seer. She was more commonly known by her spiritual-adviser name, Moon.
“Something about a prophecy that he didn’t want to come true? A Dermis-Soucouyant touch that would have great repercussions.”
“Good or bad?”
“That’s the thing,” said Aukoc, “he doesn’t know.”
“What about you? What do you think?” asked Niceros. Aukoc bent to pick up his lighter, pocketing it as he stood.
“I think that if there’s going to be ‘a touch of Dermis’ involved with Soucouyant, the repercussions will probably be my clothing on the floor,” the elder wolf replied. “What does Rolf expect? I’m a wolf, not a house dog,” and strode towards the door, stopping as his hand grasped the handle. “And Nic?”
“Yes?”
“We’re still going. Meet me at The Bridge at sundown?” Niceros gave another fanged grin as the screen door slammed behind Aukoc.
“Always,” he said to the empty kitchen.
***
Lucina glided down the grand staircase with boredom and a high-raised chin. As she reached the bottom step, she turned left, into the parlor. The cushions of its couch and puffy reading chairs were blood-colored, the carpeting of a soft gold, and the walls a rich purple. An entertainment system sat in the ebony armoire. Looking left, then right, Lucina made her way for the armoire.
Fine dress crinkling, she sank onto the floor and opened the door to reveal an Xbox, which the heiress of the Soucouyant proceeded to load with a Castlevania game. The introduction appeared on the plasma screen television, and just as Lucina attempted to load her game, the screen flickered and died, and a deep voice intoned,
“Video games, precious?”
Lucina was already on her feet. “Father,” she acknowledged. A tall man walked through the matching ebony doorway, stopping to stare at his daughter.
“You know how I feel about this poison,” he said, waving his long, thin fingers towards the console.
“Yes, father,” Lucina answered simply.
“So why do you continue to inhale it, precisely?”
“It staves off the monotony. Spending days glancing through a window and nights waltzing with your business partners’ sons is hardly a gift of social activity, and when I’m not entertaining, I’m learning French or a graceful walk or how to kill properly. It is endless and I am bored. I need an outlet on occasion, Father.”
“Do you think that being a Soucouyant is a life of privilege?” chided Remus. “It is a life of protection and servitude. It is our responsibility to stop the advances of those dreadful wolf-men--”
“Do our sons not also ravage these streets, Remus? I do not see my brothers training to defend our innocents, I see them draining them. ‘Our people’ live in fear of our ‘protection’. What type of servitude does fear require, and why is it mine to pay?”
“Summanus and Qurin are young and restless,” answered the Coven leader. “They will grow into the shoes at their bedside. For now, it is not in me to wake them from their bliss. Let them sleep their women, drink that blood. In the end, dignity of the duty is all that matters. The valiance of our line will stay their tongues and moving hands, and in that window, my dreams for them… will be fulfilled.”
“You really believe that?”
“I can hope,” Remus said with a polished smile. “Walk with me?”
Lucina took his arm as the two of them began to stroll. She continued to walk, struggling to keep pace with his heavy strides while maintaining the expected grace. The heiress waited for her father to speak, and as the pair rounded the corner into the kitchen, he did.
“There is a gathering tonight,” said Remus, “which I think you will greatly enjoy. The invitation merits you.”
“What is the use of drinking from an empty glass?” she said in reply. “One is never full.”
“And if the chaperone is halfway across the community,” continued Remus nonchalantly, “does the glass fill?”
Lucina smiled. “Quickly,” said the vampire‘s daughter. “Whose party this time, Father?”
“Your brothers‘,” he said. “Qurin is taking his turn at welcoming a new set of courtiers visiting Petronius. Also, Lucina, wear the silver, will you? It‘s really very fetching on you.” And, chuckling, Remus swept from the room.
***
The building in which Qurin celebrated the new round of courtiers pledging their allegiance to the Soucouyant family was the most suave in town. It was carved from white marble, beautiful angel carvings rested on the ledges, somehow looking vaguely sinister in the light of the moon. Giant wolves (also of stone) stood as denizens of the door.
The doors, as was custom, had been entirely removed from their frames for the new guests, for no door would be closed them or question denied them tonight, and no blood would be spilt for a fortnight in honor of the peace in the wake of their shadows. There would be magnificent feasts and beautiful music and gifts of precious stones, beautiful servants, gifts of oil sheikdoms in the desert--and beneath it all, a warning not to stand against the Soucouyant.
Among the beauty and laughter, there would be fine silver swords strapped to the shoulder-belts of the guard-men, would be bone-bows inlaid with platinum already strung with arrows in embroidered quivers, would be eyes turned to the windows in case of an appearance from the very unwelcome Dermis.
It was for this reason that most Soucouyants and their friends felt totally and completely safe, hardly aware of their surroundings in the midst of the revel. Lucina wasn’t, though. As she glided from one area to the next, she was more and more unhinged by the new allies her father had charmed into subservience.
They were, in number, with more female members than men, but all of them were in bright, red cloaks (some hoods raised, some hoods lowered) and all of them with violet eyes. Their leader was in a translucent cloak that trailed the ground, paired with a purple dress. Scales of a gilded gold on the plunging v-shaped neckline jingled as she moved through the crowds easily, inattentive to the appreciative stares of the men, her bare feet stealthily quiet on the thick carpeting.
As of now, the witch--known only as Varro--was conversing with Remus, a grin spread over her delicate features that made Lucina uneasy. The Soucouyant heir could see hunger in that smile, a hunger that she feared could not easily be sated. What was more frightening was what the witch-leader was really hungry for. No one seemed to know, and Lucina was afraid to find out.
Chiding herself for her fear, she slowly made her way to the pair.
Though Varro’s beautiful eyes did not stray from Remus’ face in their conversation, the female vampire felt like she were being stared at, like she were being forced to bare her soul naked on top of a stage.
“Lucina Soucouyant,” stated the witch with a smile, her melodious voice ripped straight from every stereotype of the Greek muses, “you were right, Remus! Every bit as beautiful as my kindred here--and twice the trouble, I‘m sure.” Lucina smiled stiffly in acknowledgement of the compliment.
“And you must be Varro. I’ve heard so much about you.” The familiar comfort of untruth came easily to the Heiress’ lips. She’d been speaking them since shortly after birth, after all, what else was to be expected from the daughter of a man who led a powerful syndicate?
“I suppose you have.” Varro’s violet eyes had flecks of gold and blue that shimmered with the hunger Lucina could not name, and she shivered against her will. “You know how the men talk: endlessly and without purpose. But don‘t worry. I have a feeling you‘ll know a different type of man soon, won‘t you, Lucy-lie?”
“W-what?” she stammered in response, and the witch laughed, a beauty strangely tainted with regret and guilt.
“Ah, children,” the witch said and eyed Remus pointedly. “Rarely keeping in-tune with the conversations of wheezing buffoons.”
Remus cleared his throat (almost nervously, Lucina thought). “Lucina… perhaps you should attend the other guests.”
Quietly, the vampire slipped from their company just as easily as she’d entered it. She meandered over to the punch table just in time to see two unfamiliar men enter the room. The first one, a buff fellow in a white suit with black undershirt, tie, and mafia hat, had blue-black hair and wild-green eyes, did not draw her focus. This one did not overly draw attention to himself, and yet his stance was somehow aggressive against everyone.
However, this did not cause undue alarm. The Soucouyants, after all, were famous for their security.
Her father, Lucina knew, went to great lengths to keep hidden the damage of the Dermis pack from the village--and more importantly, the village politicians.
No, Lucina thought. It was the second one that drew her attention. At first glance, he appeared entirely ordinary.
White eyes that at first seemed colorless turned out to glimmer depending on the light, the pale skin flushed with pink when he flashed a fanged smile, flipping his long, dexterous fingers through untamed red hair, the gesture somehow holding an oddly misplaced grace. He wasn’t in white like the other boy. Rather, he seemed bored to be present, blending in the back in a fine blue doublet.
Lucina didn’t know them, and suddenly, something inside of her screamed with the hunger trapped inside the witch’s eyes.
“Luke,” she said, leaning over to one of the more muscular guards, “Who are those gentlemen? What family paid their tokens?”
Luke grimaced as he processed the taller fellow, the one with the blue-black hair. “I’d better get to your father,” he said. “You see that ring on his finger? Yeah. It’s not decoration--it’s a special tool covered in cursed water. Those shiny silver wolf teeth will stop your heart in a mere matter of moments, so it’s a good thing you pointed them out, especially because I think those are Dermis boys--Lucina!” For the girl was fleeing him, was walking toward the wolves!
“I am of Soucyouant line,” she said. “I will tame the beasts. So if you could manage to, say, pour yourself another glass and forget your Heiress took up duties…” Luke bit his lip with sharp, sharp teeth.
“You have half an hour,” he said quietly, looking around anxiously like he were accepting a bribe. “After that, Varro can have them.”
“I’ll make sure and walk quickly,” said the vampire in reply.
***
Niceros had been amazed about the ease of Soucouyant security. All Aukoc had had to do was smile and joke with the right people, and they were in the party in under an hour. Hardly record time, but he still found himself bamboozled by the arrogance that all the security wore despite their laxity.
Walking in, however, he had been drawn--not to the strange guest who smelled heavily of enchantment and charisma--but the tall, formal woman walking in front of the pair. She had hair so dark a blue it was almost purple, curled and randomly braided with wild white flowers that grew along the banks of the Hawthorn’s river.
Her dress was of a flowing material that moved like water, a white that matched the flowers, and as the vampire--for surely, Niceros thought, this one must be a vampire--moved here to there, she ran her tongue nervously over her bright, red lips, the only bright-colored feature on her otherwise empty face. Her red eyes glimmered in the dim light.
As the wind is drawn to fire, so was this wolf, this intruder, drawn to the power of the call the white-dressed woman claimed him with.
Moving his booted feet over towards her, he sank onto an expensive-looking chair and stared with those strange, blank eyes of his, not quite realizing what he did, or even that he had been mad enough to move from the door.
Then, suddenly, a miracle--for the fire-woman made her way to him, moved toward him willingly, stopped before his feet and tilted her head with a full, entrancing smile more beautiful than the moon.
“Am I forever?” She said lightly, in an odd sort of sing-song voice the wolf assumed was meant to be mocking. “Am I tomorrow? Will I be yours?”
“You are already mine,” Niceros said, not knowing where the words came from but knowing they were true. Aukoc had told him that the pyre died for poetry; he only hoped it was the case with this one.
He stared at her, unperturbed by the various stares of disapproval he was getting from the other vampires--and also a strangely awe-struck Aukoc, for Niceros was not one to fight for prizes, tending to live quietly… and alone. “From this moment on, you are my world, and I will always ache… to see you.” Possessed by a madness he did not recognize, Niceros slowly extended his hand towards her cheek, a promise of truth in his patient speed.
Lucina stared at him, the hunger in her eyes dissipating, her head slowly straightening itself upward at a normal, almost-human angle. While she seemed interested, she was also unimpressed.
“Who are you?” she whispered. One of the flowers fell from her hair. “What is your name?”
The wolf-boy smiled, his hand slowly dropping like it were falling through water. “Niceros,” he said, taking her hand. His rough lips brushed longingly against her polished hand, and--strangely, even to his surprise--the Heiress made no move to stop him; her red eyes closing.
Given it was a secret of the Petronius blocks, Niceros had no idea that the vampires of the Soucouyant felt the souls of the guests of their parties through skin contact, no idea that normally Lucina and the other women would be veiled and gloved until their engagements for their politically-forced marriages--no idea who she was.
Lucina didn’t stop him. She threw herself into his soul like a shot of whisky, bitter and wild and different but short-lasting and somehow cruel on her stomach. Lucina hadn’t tasted any like him before: tasted wolves and endless revels, oddly mixed with quiet inner reflections, a deep respect for human life, being taken with beautiful things… and then, a horrible fire. A bright, green fire…
At this last revelation, her eyes flickered open in a strange mixture of shock and disgust. She pulled her hand back with a screech of anger, leaping from her chair.
“DERMIS!” cried Luke, seeing Niceros’ lips upon that pale hand, half expecting Lucina to be unconscious and on the verge of abduction, “DERMIS! THEY HAVE BROKEN THE LINES!”
Chaos. The world erupted as witches cackled and Varro smiled, as the Soucouyant drew their weapons and aimed them toward the pair of wolves.
“Time to go!” Shouted Aukoc, spinning rapidly. A large black wolf with a tuxedo in his teeth shattered a glass window, followed by a bright red one with a white flower.
“My lady!” cried the guests and servants, gathering around her as the guards and her brothers gave pursuit, “my lady, are you all right?”
Lucina stared at her hand in confusion, shaking her head as though she willing it not to be there.
“He didn’t hurt me,” said the vampire softly. She raised her hand against her cheek, nuzzling it as though it were precious.
“Lucina,” said her father, “who was it? What happened? How did they get in?”
“He didn’t,” said Lucina, still relishing the acrid taste of wolf soul upon her tongue, “hurt me.”
***
As Niceros and Aukoc reached the bridge, Aukoc spun from his wolf-form and stared at his brother.
“Are you out of your mind, Niceros?” he asked, strangely gentle, “do you even know who she was?”
Niceros did not answer him, in fact, he had not changed back. His attention was not even focused in the tuxedoed man calling him back to reality, his blank eyes staring back across the bridge.
“That broad was Lucina Soucouyant!” said Aukoc. “Remus’ daughter, man! Remus’! I’m all for aiming high, but the daughter of the syndicate! Not the way to go, Niceros!”
The wolf brushed by him, walking distractedly back towards his house.
“Something happened,” he said, like his brother weren’t really there at all. “Something’s different, Aukoc. She… stripped away… everything, and it fell all away… was gone… was life…” Aukoc’s night vision was good enough to see his brother’s Adam’s apple throb with the swallow. “I’m hungry. Good-night, Aukoc.”
“Niceros?” Aukoc called after him, “Niceros!”
But his brother had gone, the wild flower in his hand.
“Damn it,” he said. “Rolf was right--contact with a Soucouyant.” As if on queue, the pack leader emerged from the trees with a scowl that would frighten a king.
“I told you,” he said threateningly, “not to go. Half the Soucouyant lines are in an uproar--something about a pact with those weird women is stopping Remus from launching an answer. You touched his daughter! In public, surrounded by guards!”
Aukoc shook his head, mistaking the soul-touch secret precisely as his master had done, obliviously dismissing the touch to carnal intentions. “Cut the reprimand, all right, Rolf? Niceros did that damage. He saw Lucina and just had to be closer to her. It was like…” he trailed off, unsure exactly what it was like.
“He’s in love,” said Rolf. “Your brother’s heart will be broken by this, wait and see. That touch is to mark us. Soon.” He turned and walked towards the village.
“Perhaps,” called the pack leader as he walked, “this will teach you not to disobey my orders, Aukoc.”
***
As she sank into bed that night, leaning against her headboard, Lucina kept staring at her hand.
Her father had told her to wait up for him so they might talk, and this Lucina did, staring at the moonlight on her floor as though she hoped it‘d give her answers. What had happened with Niceros’ soul? Why had it struck her with such a horrible wonderfulness? Why was her heart in her throat?
Remus walked into the room, still in his party clothes. He folded his fingertips together, the lace cuffs looking scratchy against his skin.
“Lucina,” he said, “Do you know who that boy was?” His daughter shook her head.
After all, what father suspects a lie?
Remus had not noticed that she had followed custom to the letter, not sheltering her long, frail hands with the leather gloves she normally wore (so as to not feel everyone’s souls, as was insult without permission in the Petronius block areas) in honor of the witches that night. He had only noticed her silver dress, the sparkling laugh, Varros’ dismissal…
“I’ll tell you,” answered the Coven leader, impatient with her feigned ignorance. “That was Niceros. Niceros’ uncle is Romulus, the leader of the Dermis, better known as Rolf.”
“Romulus?” repeated Lucina, vaguely surprised but still remembering the flames she‘d glimpsed while knowing Niceros‘ soul, “Romulus Dermis? He had a brother?”
Remus narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Had?”
“I--well, if I hadn’t heard of him recently”--she struggled, bound to the rapidly-crashing lie--“then… I mean, he must be dead…. Fires can happen to anyone…”
Snarling like a mountain cat, Remus leapt upon her, seizing her hand. “Fires!” His red eyes--identical to the detail in comparison his daughter’s--went blank for a moment.
Slowly, every bit the leader of the Soucouyant syndicate, he rose from the bed with the grace of a Victorian gentleman, all traces of his temper vanished.
“Your touch,” said Remus, “has marked a wolf. Do you know what this means?”
“I-I didn’t know he was a wolf…” said Lucina slowly… “Only that the boy he was with was Dermis. It’s so difficult to tell, he seemed so charming. …And father, something drew me to him, held me to him. I tasted the wild in him and did not shudder or back away. Something’s different… Something wonderful, something…”
Her father snarled again. “Soul-giver! Whore!” he spat. “I’ll talk to you when there is no more wolf to poison those hands of yours.” Remus walked towards the door, which he proceeded to slam behind him. “Qurin! Summanus!” Lucina’s brothers appeared out of nowhere, as young vampires are wont to do.
“How many times have I told you to call me Sam!” snapped Summanus.
“How is she?” asked Qurin. News of ‘the condition’ had spread like wildfire, but not (and for this, the family was grateful and relieved) that Lucina had touched a Dermis.
“It was as we feared, son.” Qurin swore.
“I’ll kill that stupid wolf,” he said. “Stupid god-damned Dermis….!”
“Now, now,” said Remus, staring deep at him. “Wolves have a very redeeming quality, gentlemen, one I think our kind should really not be so loathe to remember.”
Always the warrior, Sam’s interest improved immediately. A horrible, fanged smile crossed his caw; every bit his father’s son.
“How.” It wasn’t a question, really, that Sam demanded--or was it offered?--Remus now. It was a promise, a statement of action. Their father shrugged, heading towards the stairs.
“They bleed,” he said, and out of nowhere, a giant blue bat--blue like the eyes of a hungry squid, blue like the toes of hypothermic children--sped into the night.
Qurin turned to Summanus. “Sam?”
“Let‘s hunt some wolves.”
“Yeah,” agreed the younger brother. “You know what Dermis hate? The smell of burning fur….”
Oblivious to the ironic blood-thirst of her brothers, Lucina sat in her dark bedroom, hugging her hand to her chest like it were human--and therefore, precious.
Preciously tainted. Preciously flawed.
Preciously… vulnerable.
“Niceros,” she whispered, still clutching that hand. “Niceros.”
***
When Niceros stared at the sun the next morning, he found himself wishing it were night. Over and over he’d hugged the white flower to his body, touching the white petals until they were almost dirty from his hands. The stem was still green, though. The wolf-boy had hopefully placed it in a vase, and set that vase in the sun; light streaming through the blue glass to create a ghost of itself on the table.
There was a knock at the door.
“Niceros! It’s Romulus. Open the door.” The growl was firm and left no room for argument. Niceros glided towards the door, surprised at his lack of noise and the increase in speed.
He opened the door, stepping aside to let the wolf in.
Rolf gestured at the flower almost at once.
“You must forget this, my son,” said the elder wolf. “She’s beautiful; but all the bloodsuckers are beautiful. She’s graceful, but that grace doesn’t go away when she drinks the life of an entire village.”
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