Summary: Larcinda sets about re-establishing her authority. Willow finally makes a decision of her own, and Marcus’s past dictates his actions in the present …

She drank.

The raver’s lifeblood flowed in copious rivulets down his neck, her fangs eliciting yet more of the precious substance from his jugular vein. He had screamed, but the screaming was now long past. Now he was dying.

In his last vestiges of lucidity, he thought of his girlfriend. Their child was only a few months old, and would now have no father. Sandra would never see his face, hear his laugh, and witness his tears. All these things were draining away with the glutinous liquid that seeped unrelentingly into the fabric of his suede jacket.

Some deep, atavistic memory told him he was going to a better place. He felt the ethereality engulf him, sooth his mind.

There was nothing to fear, no more pain. Corporeality was not necessary; he just had to relax.

He thought of his sister, killed in a car accident at fifteen. Now, perhaps, just perhaps, he would join her.

There was nothing to fear.

Larcinda ripped her fangs from his neck. The man’s lifeless body fell to the ground, the last of his blood congealing in small pools around his face.

An insensate smile crossed her lips, the vampiric essence slipping from her, taking the demonic face with it.

He was good, she ruminated. He danced well, screwed well, died well - did all that was required of him.

She began a slow, ebullient stroll away from the alley, her gait unnervingly casual, arms swinging loosely by her sides. She was immortal, invulnerable. And now she had a new prey to seek out. This man had robbed her of her entire clan. Friends, lovers, rivals for over a thousand years ripped from the world.

She assured herself that his demise would be a great deal slower.

* * *

Marcus awoke with a start, the vacuum cleaners hose striking roughly against his ribs. He jerked into consciousness, the last remnants of sleep still constricting his mind.

“Bloody hell!”

Marcus shook his head, and the attentiveness returned. Looking up, he saw a shocked, middle-aged man standing in shock above him, vacuum cleaner hose still in hand.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked incredulously.

“Name’s Marcus,” the warrior replied groggily. “A friend of Rupert Giles. He offered me his office while he’s away, erm, researching.”

The cleaner did not seem to be willing to press the issue. He gave a desultory shrug, and left the room.

Marcus staggered over to the ornate leather chair, and retrieved the spare clothes he had taken from his apartment the previous night. He suddenly thought of the kid, Willow. She had promised to come to the museum as soon as she awoke, which he sincerely wished was early.

He could not abide tardiness; he never had, and never would. However, he had not wanted to push the point with the girl, and had thus left her to come in her own time.

As it turned out, the solution was satisfactory to both their needs. Willow arrived a half-hour later, an impetuous eagerness showing clearly on her features.

“He kid,” Marcus quipped laconically. “How was my dump then?”

“Your … oh, yes.” Comprehension appeared. “It was nice and cosy. I watched TV, read some of your books, ordered the meal from the number you gave me.”

She moved to stand beside him, and Marcus suddenly realised an incontrovertible, unpleasant fact. She stank. The odour was foul, mephitic, and emanating from her tattered clothes. The tights and cardigan had been discarded at his flat in the presence of the humid morning air, but the blouse and skirt more than sufficed to emit the aroma.

Other men would have been wracked with indecision over the exact wording of their comments. Not Marcus.

“Kid, you stink like a brick-shithouse,” he stated bluntly. “Didn’t you take a bath?”

Willow suddenly looked self-conscious, her head bobbing reticently. “Yes, b-but these are the only clothes I had. I couldn’t clean them, I did try.” She looked close to tears. “Oh God, I … I’m hopeless!”

Marcus swore softly, then ruffled Willow’s hair with his strong hand. “Hey, kid, I’m sorry. It ain’t your fault.” It seemed to provide some measure of solace. “How’s about we go into the city, and you pick yourself out some new treads?”

“I don’t have any cash,” Willow stammered. Marcus was shocked that she thought she was expected to pay for things.

“Ya know, I do,” he said. “No probs.”

“But my mother told me never to take advantage of others,” she whispered reprovingly.

“If anyone’s being taken for a ride kid, it sure ain’t me.” He knelt beside her. “You’ve got squat in the way of cash, and I’ve got plenty. It’s logical.”

Still unsure, she followed him from the museum. Willow was going shopping.

* * *

Now they were three.

Larcinda stood stoically against the gusts of wind that howled through the deserted factory, her old lair. Beside her stood the newborns, all having pledged their unremitting service to their sire’s cause.

The folds of her ankle length coat billowed erratically about her person, only adding to her fearsome visage.

“I,” she stated coolly, “am your lord and mistress. You do my bidding, my every will and desire. If you disobey me, I’ll pop out your eyes so you can watch me twist off your miserable heads. You are nothing, excreta. Filth created by me, and for me. You are my property, to whom I will do as I wish. If you show anything but total sycophancy towards me,” she made a fluid, twisting motion with her hands, “you’ll be gone. Heads off, ashes to ashes, dust to dust and no more.”

Her chilling initiation speech to her minions at an end, she sauntered casually towards them.

“If you please me,” she crooned softly, “the rewards will be immeasurable. You will live an eternity, watch as those feeble creatures around us shrivel and die. You can feed off them forever, their blood fuelling your every desire. You can love them, ravage them; use them however you will. They are yours to command.”

One of the newly undead smiled salaciously, dreaming of his newly found power.

“Ah, you can sense it already?” Larcinda was beside him, her hands tracing lithely across his body, soon settling on his crotch. “Do you feel your vigour, your prowess?” She squeezed gently, eliciting a low moan of pleasure. “Maybe you’re thinking you’re too good for all this nonsense. Perhaps” – the hand began to manipulate his groin – “you think yourself worthy of me?”

He turned to her, and morphed uncontrollably into the thing of dark legends. “I … am yours to command.”

“Good,” she breathed softly against his cheek, “because I have decided upon my desire.”

He looked lustfully towards her; the viper’s smile now firmly embedded across her intoxicatingly beautiful face.

She closed her hand, and wrenched downwards. The vampire screamed, feeling the pain shoot from his crotch to consume his entire body. He was weeping, lying at her feet. She crouched, her tongue caressing his mouth, her hand still tight between his legs. She twisted, felt the kernel of pleasure well within her, and clasped his neck.

The other two vampires were standing well back, not wanting to come anywhere near this crazed apparition before them.

In a sudden, mesmeric motion, she jerked the wretched demon against her, her slender hands clasping his neck as she did so. There was a terrible, grinding crack, and the vampire’s spine separated from its skull. Larcinda held the body ridged between her legs, and continued the twist. The other newborn vampires stared aghast as the flesh first buckled, then shredded. Blood spurted from the gaping neck, the muscle beneath the dermal layer clearly visible. Still she turned, and the tissue tore like paper.

With a swift, brutal wrench, Larcinda finally decapitated the vampire. She kissed the severed head passionately, and then lunged the horrific sight towards her two remaining minions. It vaporised in mid flight, erupting in a cloud of ash, which was snatched away in the wind. The body between her legs also disintegrated, throwing her backwards as the howl sounded, unmarred in its prominence by the gusts of air.

She rose slowly to her feet, and looked upon the two remaining members of the undead in her service.

“Now boys, you going to play nice?”

They could only nod, and submit themselves to her. She had the nucleus of a new clan, with which she would wreak a terror never before imagined by humanity.

It watched, lethargically processing the events; Azrael had its goals, and with this creature’s help, they would finally be accomplished.

All the cards would soon be on the table, with the First taking the winning hand.

* * *

“I look awful.”

Willow again muttered the reprove, and again Marcus refuted it.

“Kid, you look fine,” he assured her.

Willow had been round the various London shops, and was now adorned in the clothes she had bought. Her tatted blouse was replaced with a tight fitting t-shirt, her skirt with blue jeans, and the battered tennis shoes with sandals. She was beset with insecurity, and finally explained the reasoning to Marcus.

“I’ve not really done this before,” she admitted reticently. “My mother usually gets everything for me. I’m a lost cause my …” she struggled for a non-committal word, “my acquaintances tell me.”

“Wil,” Marcus realised he’d used the abbreviation for the first time, “your acquaintances are full of crap. You look fine, pretty, beautiful even.” The words came awkwardly, but Willow took them in the platonic manner in which they were intended.

“R-Really?” she stammered.

“Yes.” It was all that needed to be said.

* * *

It was late that evening when Marcus finally finished his inquiries. He had checked with all his sources, both human and supernatural, and came to the same single, irrefutable answer.

Shelia had vanished. No body of her description had turned up in a morgue, nor left drained by one of the multitude of vampires that stalked the city. She had, simply and irrefutably, vanished.

Marcus muttered a harsh imprecation, knowing he was bereft of ideas. He couldn’t just abandon the girl, yet neither could he care for her. He was a warrior, a member of an ancient sect that had made it their sworn mission to suppress the scourge of the undead that worked the earth. For over two millennia they had constantly adapted, anticipated, and dealt with the vampires.

The organisation was as immortal as the beasts themselves, and Marcus owed his very existence to it. For it had been they who had stopped the wild-eyed fourteen-year-old from taking on the vampires who had slaughtered his family. Stopped him from throwing his life away to join his loved ones. The pain had slowly negated, but would never be vanquished.

All he knew was the hunt, the kill; each “life” taken a small measure of memorial to his lost loved ones. He could not give this up. It pained him immeasurably, but he knew it to be true.

So what to do with Willow? The girl was resourceful enough, he contemplated, but still young, still growing. He remembered with disgust his first encounter with her, and knew she was not yet ready to face the world.

Yet there was something special there, something that must be preserved, nurtured, and allowed to flourish. He thought again of her eclectic array of talents, of the young polymath who could accomplish so much with the right opportunities. He knew, however, that they would not come under his care.

So what was the answer?

Marcus cursed again – he simply did not know.

* * *

Willow reclined against the luxurious leather of the chair, her legs brought up against her, a plate of pasta in her lap. Laid out on the table before her was an item of immense value. It was old, cracked, dusty, but it filled the young girl’s head with a host of fantastic and esoteric thoughts.

It told of apocryphal, mysterious creatures of the night. She knew it was all fantasy, supposition, but it was fascinating nonetheless. She giggles as the crazy caprice entered her mind that possibly, just possibly, this could all be real.

She put the thought aside, and dexterously, her tiny hand slid the cover closed. Willow set the pasta on the chair beside her, and padded across the carpet to Marcus’s impressively large widescreen television. She had read in a magazine called the ‘Radio Times’ that a channel called BBC2 were showing a history special about the reconstruction of an ancient stone monument. It sounded fascinating, if not as exhilarating as the creatures she had been reading about.

She sat back in the sofa, the televisions pale light reflecting against the glass of the table, and the golden typeface of the book. She made a mental note to return it to Giles’s office the next day.

Willow relaxed, and the word “Vampyr” shimmered with the light of history.

© Byron, 2000