Kanin had been a mystery from the very start, from that fateful night in the rain when I’d been attacked by rabids outside my city’s walls. I’d been dying, and a stranger had appeared out of nowhere, offering to save me, presenting me with the choice. Die … or become a monster.
Obviously, I’d chosen to live. But even after I’d made my decision, Kanin hadn’t left. He’d stayed, teaching me what it meant to be a vampire, making sure I knew exactly what I had chosen. I probably wouldn’t have survived those first few weeks without him.
But Kanin had secrets of his own, and one night the darkest of them caught up to us in the form of Sarren, a twisted vampire with a vendetta. Dangerous, cunning and completely out of his mind, Sarren had tracked us to the hidden lab we were using as a hideout, and we were forced to flee. In the chaos that had followed, Kanin and I were separated, and my mentor had vanished back into the unknown from where he’d come. I hadn’t seen him since.
But then the dreams began.
I rose, the cushions squeaking beneath me, and wandered down a musty hallway to the room at the end. It had been a bedroom at one point, and the twin bed in the corner was far enough away from the window to be out of the sun if it came creeping into the room.
Just to be safe, I hung a ratty blanket over the sill, covering the pane and plunging the room into shadow. Outside, it was still snowing, tiny flakes drifting from a dark, cloudy sky, but I wasn’t taking any chances should it clear up. Lying back on the bed, keeping my sword close, I stared at the ceiling and waited for sleep to claim me.
Vampires don’t dream. Technically, we are dead, our sleep that of a corpse, black and depthless. My “dreams” were of Kanin, in trouble. Seeing through his eyes and feeling what he felt. Because in times of extreme duress, pain or emotion, blood called to blood, and I could sense what my sire was feeling. Agony. Sarren had found him. And was taking his revenge.
My eyes narrowed as I recalled the very last one.
My throat is raw from screaming.
He didn’t hold back last night. He was toying with me before, just showing me the edge of his deranged cruelty. But last night, the true demon came out. He wanted to talk, tried to get me to talk, but I wasn’t going to oblige him. So he made me scream instead. At one point, I looked down at my body, hanging like a piece of flayed meat from the ceiling, and wondered how I was still alive. I’ve never wanted to die so badly as I did then. Surely hell would not be as bad as this. It was testament to Sarren’s skill, or perhaps insanity, that he kept me alive when I was doing my best to die.
Tonight, though, he is oddly passive. I woke, as I had countless nights before, hanging by my wrists from the ceiling, mentally preparing myself for the agony that would come later. The Hunger is a living thing, devouring me, a torment all in itself. Lately I see blood everywhere, trickling from the ceiling, oozing past the door. Salvation always beyond reach.
“It’s no use.”
His voice is a whisper, slithering out of the darkness. Sarren stands a few feet away, watching me blankly, his pale face a web of scars. Last night, his eyes glowed feverishly bright as he screamed and railed at me, demanding I talk, answer his question. Tonight, the dead, empty look on his face chills me like nothing else.
“It’s no use,” he whispers again, shaking his head. “You’re right here, right at my fingertips, and yet I feel nothing.” He slides forward, touching my neck with long, bony fingers, his gaze searching. I don’t have the strength to jerk away. “Your scream, such a glorious song. I imagined how it would sound for years. Your blood, your flesh, your bones—I imagined it all. Breaking them. Tasting them.” He runs a finger down my throat. “You were mine to break, to peel apart, so I could see the rotted soul that lies beneath this shell of meat and blood. It was to be a magnificent requiem.” He steps back, his expression one of near despair. “But I see nothing. And I feel … nothing. Why?” Whirling away, he stalks to the nearby table, where dozens of sharp instruments glint in the darkness. “Am I doing something wrong?” he murmurs, tracing them with a fingertip. “Is he not to pay for what he has done?”
I close my eyes. What he has done. Sarren deserves to hate me. What I did to him, what I was responsible for—I deserve every torment he heaps on my head. But it won’t make things right. It won’t put an end to what I caused.
As if reading my thoughts, Sarren turns back, and the gleam in his eyes has returned. It burns with searing intensity, showing the madness and brilliance behind it, and for the first time, I feel a stirring fear through the numbing agony and pain.
“No,” he whispers slowly, in a daze, as if everything has suddenly become clear. “No, I see now. I see what I must do. It is not you that is the source of the corruption. You were merely the harbinger. This whole world is pulsing with rot and decay and filth. But, we will fix it, old friend. Yes, we will fix it. Together.”
His hand skims the top of the table to the very end, picking up the item on the corner. It isn’t bright like the others—shiny metal polished to a gleaming edge. It is long, wooden, and comes to a crude, whittled point at the end.
I shiver, every instinct telling me to back away, to put distance between myself and that sharp wooden point. But I can’t move, and Sarren approaches slowly, the stake held before him like a cross. He is smiling again, a demonic grin that stretches his entire ravaged face and makes his fangs gleam.
“I can’t kill you, yet,” he says, touching my chest with the very tip of the stake, right over my heart. “No, not yet. That would spoil the ending, and I have a glorious song in mind. Oh, yes, it will be magnificent. And you … you will be the instrument on which I compose this symphony.” He steps forward and pushes the tip of the stake into my chest, slowly, twisting it as it sinks beneath my skin. I throw back my head, clenching my jaw to keep the scream contained, as Sarren continues. “No, old friend. Death is still too good for you. We’re just going to send you to sleep for a while.” The stake continues to slide into my flesh, parting muscle and scraping against my breastbone, creeping closer to my heart. The wood becomes a bright strip of fire, searing me from the inside. My body convulses and starts to shut down. Darkness hovers at the edge of my vision—hibernation pulling me under, a last effort at self-preservation. Sarren smiles.
“Sleep now, old friend,” he whispers, his scarred face fading rapidly as my vision goes dark. “But not for long. I have something special planned.” He chuckles, the empty sound following me down into blackness. “You won’t want to miss it.”
The vision had ended there. And I hadn’t had any more dreams since.
I shifted on the bed, bringing the sword close to my chest, thinking. I’d tracked Sarren to one place he had been: a rotted-out ruin of a house in an empty suburb, a long flight of steps leading down to the basement. The scent of Kanin’s blood had hit me like a hammer as soon as I’d opened the door. It had been everywhere—on the walls, on the chains that hung from the ceiling, on the instruments spread over the table. A dark stain had marred the floor right below the metal links, making my stomach turn. It didn’t seem possible that Kanin had survived, that anything could have survived that macabre dungeon. But I had to believe that he was still alive, that Sarren wasn’t finished with him just yet.
My hunch had been confirmed when, as I’d explored further, I’d discovered the stiff, decaying bodies of several humans tossed casually in a closet upstairs. They had been drained of blood, their throats cut open instead of bitten, a stained pitcher sitting on a table nearby. Sarren had been feeding Kanin, letting him heal between sessions.
