Face to Face with a Monster

"Your wife?" Viv's voice came out as a squeak. Her legs felt weak, and she grabbed the edge of the desk to stay standing. "I don't understand."

Damien Blackthorn moved into the room like a shadow. He didn't walk like normal people. He seemed to float, each step smooth and silent. His dark eyes never left her face.

"Neither do I," he said. His voice was deep and smooth, with an accent Viv couldn't place. "When I first saw you at the cathedral, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. But here you are again. The same face. The same eyes." He tilted his head. "Even the same stubborn look."

Viv's reporter brain kicked in, pushing past her fear. "So you're saying you're over 150 years old?"

"I'm saying," Damien replied, "that I'm much older than that." He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "And you still haven't answered my question. Why do you look like her?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Viv said, her fear turning to anger. "I've never met you before in my life!"

Damien stepped closer. He moved so fast that Viv barely saw him. One second he was by the door, the next he was right in front of her. She could feel cold air coming off his skin, like he was made of ice.

"You have her fire too," he said softly. "Eliza was never afraid of me, even when she knew what I was."

Viv swallowed hard. "And what are you, exactly?"

Damien's eyes changed, turning from dark blue to bright red. "I think you already know. You saw enough at the gathering."

Viv had thought she was prepared for this answer, but hearing him say it made it real in a way that seeing the fangs hadn't.

"Vampire," she whispered.

"Yes." Damien nodded. "Though we prefer the term Nightwalkers. Vampire sounds so... Hollywood."

A nervous laugh escaped Viv's lips. This was crazy. She was having a conversation with a vampire about what he liked to be called.

"Are you going to kill me?" she asked, surprised by how steady her voice sounded.

Damien's eyes returned to their normal color. "If I wanted you dead, you wouldn't have woken up in my tower the first time." He sighed and moved to sit behind his desk. "Sit down, Miss Thorne. If we're going to talk, you might as well be comfortable."

Viv slowly lowered herself into the chair across from him, keeping her eyes fixed on his hands. If he moved to attack, she wanted at least a second's warning.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Damien said, as if reading her mind. "I'm curious about you."

"Because I look like your dead wife?" Viv couldn't keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

"That's part of it," Damien admitted. "But there's something else too. When I touched you that first night, something happened. Something that hasn't happened to me in centuries." He leaned forward. "I felt warm."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that there's something special about your blood." His eyes flickered to her neck and then back to her face. "Most human blood does nothing for me anymore. I'm too old. But yours..." He took a deep breath. "I could smell it across the room."

Viv's hand went to her throat. "Is that why the missing people were there tonight? For their blood?"

Damien nodded. "The young ones need fresh blood regularly. Those humans volunteered, believe it or not. They're well paid, and they remember nothing afterward."

"That's disgusting," Viv said.

"It's survival," Damien replied coolly. "Would you prefer we hunted and killed, like in the old days?"

Before Viv could answer, the door opened and Lilith walked in. She stopped when she saw Viv, her perfect face twisting into a scowl.

"Why is she still alive?" Lilith demanded. "She's seen everything. She's a reporter."

"She's a guest," Damien said, his voice suddenly hard. "And she's under my protection."

Lilith's eyes widened. "You can't be serious. Because she looks like—"

"Enough!" Damien stood so quickly that his chair fell over backward. The room seemed to darken, as if the shadows were growing. "Leave us."

Lilith looked like she wanted to argue, but instead she turned and stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

"She doesn't like me," Viv said.

"Lilith doesn't like anyone," Damien replied, picking up his chair. "But she especially doesn't like threats to our secrecy."

"I'm not going to tell anyone about this," Viv said quickly. "Who would believe me anyway?"

"That's not entirely true though, is it?" Damien reached into his pocket and pulled out her camera. "You were taking pictures."

Viv's heart sank. She had forgotten about the camera in all the excitement.

Damien set it on the desk between them. "I've deleted the pictures, of course. But the fact that you tried to gather evidence suggests you planned to tell someone."

Viv bit her lip. There was no point in lying. "I wanted to find out what happened to the missing people. I didn't know they were... donors."

"And now that you know?"

"I still don't believe they all volunteered. And I don't trust you."

To her surprise, Damien laughed. It was a rich, warm sound that seemed out of place coming from someone so cold.

"Honesty. How refreshing." He tapped his fingers on the desk. "I have a proposition for you, Miss Thorne."

"What kind of proposition?" Viv asked warily.

"Work with me instead of against me. I'll give you access—supervised, of course—to our world. You can see for yourself that we're not the monsters you think we are."

"And in return?"

"In return, you help me understand why you look like my Eliza. And why your blood..." He paused. "Why your blood calls to me."

Before Viv could respond, a strange feeling came over her. The room seemed to tilt sideways. Damien's face blurred, and suddenly she wasn't seeing him anymore. She was seeing a young woman in an old-fashioned dress, running through the rain. The woman was crying, her face streaked with tears and rain. She was clutching something to her chest—a baby wrapped in a blanket.

"Viv?" Damien's voice seemed to come from far away. "Vivienne?"

The vision cleared, and Viv found herself staring at Damien's concerned face. He had moved around the desk and was kneeling beside her chair, one cold hand on her arm.

The moment he touched her, another flash hit her—a battlefield covered in snow, men screaming, the taste of blood.

Viv jerked away from his touch, gasping. "What's happening to me?"

Damien's face was pale, paler than before. "You saw something. What did you see?"

"A woman. Running in the rain with a baby." Viv rubbed her temples. "And when you touched me, I saw a battle in the snow."

Damien stood suddenly and backed away from her. "The battle of Wolfen Hill. 1642." His voice was barely a whisper. "My last battle as a human."

"How could I possibly know that?" Viv asked, fear creeping into her voice.

"I don't know." For the first time, Damien looked truly shaken. "But I intend to find out."

He pressed a button on his desk. Almost immediately, the door opened and a man in a black suit stepped in.

"Take Miss Thorne to the Blue Room," Damien said. "She'll be staying with us for a while."

"What? No!" Viv jumped to her feet. "I'm not staying here. I have a job, an apartment, a cat to feed!"

"Your cat will be taken care of," Damien assured her. "As for your job... call in sick. This is more important."

"You can't keep me prisoner!"

Damien's eyes flashed red again. "I'm not asking, Miss Thorne. Until I know why you can see my memories and why you look like my dead wife, you're not leaving my sight." His voice softened slightly. "It's for your protection as much as mine. If others of my kind discover what you can do, they will take you. And they won't be as... gentle... as I am."

The man in the suit took Viv's arm. His grip was firm but not painful.

"This is kidnapping," Viv said, trying to pull away.

"This is survival," Damien replied, echoing his words from earlier. "Yours and mine."

As the man led her from the room, Viv looked back at Damien. He stood by the window, his face troubled.

"One week," he called after her. "Give me one week to figure this out. If I haven't found answers by then, you're free to go."

The door closed behind them, leaving Viv alone with her vampire escort. As they walked down the long hallway, she noticed pictures on the walls—old paintings and photographs. In one faded photograph, she saw a woman in a Victorian dress.

Viv stopped so suddenly that the man beside her stumbled. The woman in the picture could have been her twin.

"That's her, isn't it?" she whispered. "Eliza?"

The man nodded. "Mistress Eliza Blackthorn. The master's wife."

"When did she die?" Viv asked, unable to look away from the familiar-yet-strange face.

"She didn't exactly die," the man said quietly. "She disappeared. With their newborn daughter."

Viv felt the world spin around her. A baby. The woman in the rain was carrying a baby.

"Their daughter," she whispered. "What was her name?"

The man looked uncomfortable. "I shouldn't be telling you this."

"Please," Viv begged. "I need to know."

The man sighed. "Her name was Victoria." He paused. "Victoria Thorne Blackthorn."

Thorne. The same as Viv's last name.

"Oh my God," Viv whispered as the pieces clicked into place. "I'm not his wife. I'm his great-great-granddaughter."