Preparing to write a novelization of _Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust_, I realized that I needed to know the story behind Meier and Charlotte's relationship, to be inserted as flashbacks where needed. When I started writing out the raw material for these, I realized that it would make a story in itself.

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There was freedom in flying. Sometimes Meier no longer had the spirit for it; he would look out from the towers of his castle at the green pastures and rolling hills, and even feeling the wind tease his cape wouldn't tempt him to spread his arms into it and take flight.

Flying had been a feat of great pride when he was younger, a skill he had discovered by accident on acquiring a cape of pterosaur hide. He doubted that vampires and pterosaurs were genetically related, yet when he wore the cape he could _feel_ a bit of the aerial creature it once had been; it was almost like a second skin rather than a garment. Acting on a logical extension of this observation, he had tested his limited shape-shifting ability and found that he could, in a sense, merge with it: the heavy membrane would spread out to wings more than double his own arm span, and a tensing of muscles sharpened their edges to a most effective weapon. The wings caught the wind as well for him as they had for the original owner. At first he'd had his share of crashes -- the damage had of course been more to his pride than his body -- but the hide seemed to be as resilient as he was; or perhaps just as he merged with it, it merged with him and took on some of his vampiric invulnerability.

Over time, he had pushed this skill to its limits. On several occasions he used the largest interior spaces of the castle as an obstacle course (to his father's unconcealed consternation) to try his wings' maneuverability, and his success in these endeavors had inspired one particularly foolhardy foray, in which he skimmed just under sun's first rays, then dove to safety before the sunrise that lit the higher atmosphere reached the ground.

It had all been grand fun for a much younger vampire, one who lived with his parents in their castle and socialized with his peers: the young (or at least young-looking) men who tried to force him from the air in good-natured rivalry, the beautiful women who tried to get him out of the cape for reasons that had nothing to do with his aerial powers. But that had been many years ago, and now even pleasures were too much effort, sometimes, when there was no one to see, no one to return to -- no one to share. And Meier would stare over the fields and forests for hours, only half mindful of what his eyes saw in the darkness.

Perhaps it was a kind of desperation that drove him to the town of the humans. Certainly it was not any prospect of companionship. With very few exceptions he and they had avoided each other. They were of different kinds, of different worlds, and the streets and alleys of the town, the tree-rows of the orchards at its outskirts, were too narrow to contain the span of his great cape-wings. (He preferred such a rationale to thinking of the crosses that spiked the rooftops.) And yet sometimes he did fly there, simply because it was neither his castle nor the open countryside.

It was not in town proper but at a mansion on a plantation not far outside it that Meier's attention was simultaneously drawn by two things: a great misshapen tree, and screams. He probably would not have noticed the tree otherwise, but it was almost as if the screaming had sprung from it. Meier nearly stalled as his wings half folded; the screaming was succeeded by sobs -- distinctly a woman's -- and a man's voice shouting, "Slut! You're nothing but filth, do you hear me!" And this was followed by a cracking sound and something between a scream and a sob.

Meier shifted his hands out of wing form and hooked his long nails into the ugly tree. Half clinging and half perching, he was able to see in a window, where a woman staggered into view, only to be grabbed by one shoulder, spun around, and struck so hard blood spurted from her face, even as she sobbed again.

It must have been the blood. Meier scarcely knew it was his own body that leaped forward, _through_ the window with a shattering of glass that he never heard. He didn't feel the shards rebounding from his skin. He only knew there was something horribly out of kilter in what he had witnessed. The next thing he knew, he was between attacker and victim: the former a crumpled heap on one side of the room, the latter clutching her face and staring at him, tears streaming down her cheeks and blood dripping off her chin. For a long moment she was too surprised to move, suddenly confronted by this pale demon, skin nearly as white as his hair, eyes gleaming like coals, and taloned hands twitching reflexively at the edges of his dark cape. Then she found herself enough to back away as far as she could, breath coming hard, then sobs again.

"Don't cry." Suddenly Meier felt very lost. The blood scent unsettled him, and her terror evoked a kind of fury -- he didn't want to be the object of that terror, and he shouldn't, not after --

He looked to the man, who was breathing but not moving. He had been flung against a vanity and lay in a twisted heap, half against it, half on the floor.

"Don't hurt him," the woman finally managed to sputter. "Please don't hurt him. _Please._"

This was bizarre beyond all describing. Her clothing had been torn, her hair was in disarray, and Meier could see redness from several blows -- as well as the blood, of course. This man had done these things, and in a span of only a few minutes.

"Why? He's --" Meier wasn't certain how to describe what had come just before "-- he's hurt _you_."

She shook her head as best she could with a hand trying to stanch her bleeding, and overcame her fear of the intruder enough to edge around him and kneel by the fallen man. "Father?" Her voice was unsteady, and not from fear for herself. "Father, please be all right." Another little sob, and she started crying in earnest. "What have you done to my father?"

<<Kept him from killing you>> crossed Meier's mind in a way too dim to work itself into speech.

"He's hurt you terribly," Meier said.

"I don't care. It is my fault. I -- how could you _do_ such a thing?"

"Don't cry." Meier didn't know why her tears were tearing a hole in his heart, but somehow stopping them seemed more important than understanding, more important even than the blood that had run down her forearms and was dripping off her elbows. "Why should he do such a thing? Why should he do such a thing and live?"

"_It's none of your business!_" she screamed, and the man gave a soft groan. She fell on him, hugging him. "Oh, Father, you're going to be okay."

"Here now --" Meier put a hand on her shoulder, and she pulled herself away from his touch and stood, blood and tears and all, defying him with reddened eyes.

"Leave him alone! Haven't you done enough?!"

"No," Meier said softly. "I don't think I have. Very well; I won't hurt him any more. But ... he really is your father?"

"Of course he is!"

"What's your name, girl?"

"Charlotte." It was a whisper of fury. "Charlotte Elbourne."

Somehow that caught him, the woman's saying her name. Charlotte Elbourne was not much shorter than he; she would have been a fine figure of a woman without blood smearing her face, and with her deep brown hair in neat plaits, instead of flown all astray, a little plastered to one cheek by drying blood. Her eyes ... Meier had to tear his own eyes away then, for the red rims surrounded orbs of polished amber that he _wanted_ to look at ... and he had other things to look at.

"Charlotte Elbourne, I'll do him no more harm. But I _won't_ have you treated so shamefully. Out of my way -- no, stop that; I don't need to lay a hand on him."

Usually vampires gave their hypnosis its full force by biting victims and drinking their blood. Meier had _drawn_ blood: a trickle ran from the slack mouth beneath a heavy white mustache; it mixed with saliva in a small pool on the floor. But Meier had no wish to taste this man's blood, or come into contact with any part of him. He furrowed his brow, summoning the telekinetic power of his aura; to Meier's relief, it had the desired effect of bringing the man to semi-consciousness. And that was all he needed.

"Hear the voice of truth," he said, his own voice ringing with conviction. "Your daughter Charlotte Elbourne is a good girl. You do not want to harm her. You _cannot_ harm her. She is sweet and gentle, and everything that befits a woman of her station, she should have. You will always know these things."

Meier's head fell forward; the effort of waking the man and holding his mind without the taking of blood to support it had been immense. An uncanny prickling under his skin made him look up -- and he gasped and backed away, nearly stumbling and finally catching himself on the window frame. Charlotte Elbourne had wiped some of the blood off her face, and somewhere she had found a cross -- a tiny pendant on a gold chain, but it was enough. She held it up with an unsteady hand.

"Get out!" Her voice was something between a snarl and a sob. "Go back to hell where you belong!"

Meier made no argument but turned and launched himself from the window ledge, arms melding to cape with a speed that surprised even him. His wingtips barely touched the lawn in the single downstroke that pushed him properly into flight. He felt cold to his bones. The antipathy between crosses and vampires was ancient, unexplained -- and for his kind, eerie. Were they, as the humans said, spawn of hell? Meier doubted that there was such a place as hell, for all the store the humans seemed to set by the idea of it. But the discomfort that the tiny trinket inspired in him was no myth, and he was glad to be away from it.

Vampires were creatures of earth, and Meier wanted that solid and reassuring touch beneath his feet just now. He landed near the edge of a field and within easy sight of his castle's towers, and wrapped his cape about himself. The evening's events flowed and re-flowed through his mind, and he tried to grasp what had passed so quickly and so disturbingly. He didn't know what to make of the man's mental state or his acts. He hadn't been punishing the girl for any real misdeed; Meier had no idea what made him so sure of that, but he was. And yet the girl -- Charlotte Elbourne -- had defended her attacker, her father. It was, he supposed, something to do with the peculiarities of the human mind or emotions; humans were vulnerable to each other, and somehow drawn and even attached to each other, in a way foreign to vampire nature.

She loved him. He had struck her and drawn her blood, and she loved him. Meier pulled his cape more tightly about himself at the thought, so incongruous -- that _he_ had no desire to hurt her, despite the rich scent of blood in the air, but she had driven him away, even though --

Meier wondered why the thought of it pulled at something within him, so that the cocoon of his wings and the very strength of the earth gave no solace.

* * *

Perhaps it was as well that Meier knew no other vampires to ask about such things. The likely response would have been scornful amusement at concern over the affairs of humans, and downright hilarity at surprise that one human would ill-treat another. Humans had always had a talent, and a penchant, for cruelty. Meier first thought he'd rather never see the place again -- not the room where glass and blood had fallen, not the ugly tree, not even the town full of lights that he had skirted to fly there. His castle he understood: he knew every inch of its halls and towers, every crack in the surface of every painting, every thread in the weave of every tapestry. He loved his home, even though he had grown weary of knowing it so well over the centuries. Previously it had always been a shelter, and he found comfort in that familiarity. Comfort eluded him now. The girl's sobs and the spurt of her blood, the near-dizziness of exercising influence, and then being driven out even though he'd made no move, no threat against her...

It was a house like any human house, now with the quiescence of sleep, for it had taken Meier a large portion of the night to screw his courage to the sticking point and travel there. In fact, he had previously made several abortive flights, but his wings, like his resolve, had faltered before he completed the journey. The mansion was surrounded by a sort of park -- carefully tended grass, stone-lined walkways that crunched softly underfoot, great trees like the one he had perched in that night -- well, trees the same size. But the park did not afford him a particularly good view of _her_ window, and at last, somewhat timidly, he made his way to the twisted old tree. He didn't need his wings; he simply leaped up to the limb that served as a perch, and his grip grew rigid. The broken window had been repaired -- and the tiny cross that Charlotte had held glittered on one of the sashes, its chain twisted about a finishing nail.

Meier trembled a little. He had come all this way to see ... to see that the woman was all right, he thought, for he desperately wanted her to be. And _this_ greeted him -- the cross, and behind it drapes pulled shut.

He had to catch some bit of her. If not sight--

Meier dropped down from the tree and traversed the lawn cat-silent to place his ear against the wall below her room. There were all the soft noises of a house -- mice and moths and settling beams -- and the gentle rhythm of humans breathing as they slept. The breathing he could hear best was hers -- it had to be. It was so near, and no other was. Meier leaned on the wall and listened, his own eyes shut as he imagined the rise and fall of her chest, the smoothness of her face -- without the smear of blood he had seen -- the scent of her skin -- he _could_ scent her now, and he inhaled that freshness of youth.

He wished he could see her. Just _see_ her. Even sleeping. Surely she wouldn't keep the curtains closed always.

To prove this, Meier nerved himself to make his visits to the house earlier in the evening. Like most vampires, he was patient; he knew he literally had forever. He frankly hoped the little cross would fall down or deteriorate, or be removed in the process of cleaning or painting or some other homely procedure. But the cross, it seemed, was as persistent as he, and Meier kept his distance and averted his eyes as he stood vigil in the evenings and heard the household go to sleep. From time to time he _did_ wish he had tasted her blood, for that would have given him a tenuous connection to her mind. He could have willed her to open the window, to look out and speak to him, tell him she was all right now, tell him she was safe and happy...

But he didn't want to command her or even influence her. Whatever she did, he wanted it to be her own doing. Even if it was drawn drapes and a cross at her window.

And one night as Meier walked somewhat dejectedly in the park, it did happen. He heard, even through the glass and at that distance, the soft hiss of rings on the curtain rod; he stopped in his tracks, face lighting up with hope, and didn't run but _teleported_ in a blink to the lawn under that dark window. Charlotte was there -- evidently she'd been unable to sleep and was gazing into the night.

Now that Meier's hopes were realized -- at least in part -- he scarcely knew how to proceed. And so he stood and looked. The branches of the great tree broke the moonlight to uneven shadows; Meier had no way of knowing that he was effectively camouflaged and thus concealed from human eyes, or he might not have been able to gaze for so long on that sad and somewhat sleepy but still beautiful face. It never occurred to him that it was rude to stare, even unseen. He drank in the sight unmoving -- and his knees went a little weak when she actually opened the window and leaned on the sill to look out.

"Charlotte." When she didn't respond, he realized he had barely whispered; his mouth was dry, his throat tight, and he swallowed and tried again. "Charlotte?"

All vestiges of sleepiness vanished from her face as she gave a little screech and glanced about wildly, looking for the source of the unexpected voice. Meier's alarm nearly mirrored her own, and he quickly stepped nearer. "Charlotte, it's all right. I won't hurt you."

When Meier moved, Charlotte was able to pick out his form amid the other pale shapes of moonlight, and she blanched almost moon-pale herself. "You."

"Yes." Meier kept his voice soft, even though he could not altogether prevent it from trembling.

"What -- what do you want?" Fear and anger mingled oddly in her tone.

"To see that you're safe," Meier replied. "That's all."

"Why couldn't you have left us alone! You're a monster!"

"I couldn't --" His voice faltered, fell nearly to a whisper. "I couldn't watch what I saw ... and leave that alone." Then, tone even lower: "There are monstrosities that my kind has no part in."

Charlotte may not have heard his last statement; he had indeed spoken very softly, and she was crying now. "Father could have _died_ because of you. You broke his back!"

Meier wouldn't have regretted it if he had done considerably worse, but it didn't seem prudent to mention as much. He softly said, "He could have done you great injury."

"I would have been all right! My arm healed after --" Charlotte stopped in mid-sentence; the history of her father's abuse didn't bolster her position. "Because of you, my father will never walk again."

Meier looked at her eyes. "Because of me, your father will never beat you again."

With an inarticulate cry of rage, Charlotte slammed the window shut -- Meier noted bitterly that the little cross held firm -- fastened it with a snap, and yanked the drapes closed as well. They trembled as if bristling with her anger -- or shaking with the sobs Meier could plainly hear, muted as they were. They tore at him, drawing his own face taut in the moonlight. He stood unmoving on the lawn until long after they ceased -- and that was long -- and indeed, through Charlotte's several unsuccessful attempts to fall asleep, until her breathing was quiet at last.

Meier wished peace would fall to his heart so quickly.

* * *

End part 1 of 6

* * *

Following this rebuff, Meier kept to his castle for several weeks. For whatever reason, his assault on the senior Elbourne hadn't prompted the hiring of hunters -- surely they would have sought him out by that time, had they been summoned -- and that this remained so not only when he had attacked a human (albeit not after the custom of his kind) but in the face of Charlotte's still-palpable anger ... Meier was relieved, but puzzled. Of course, the hunters might simply be waiting at the Elbourne home for his return ... no. Probably not. Vampire hunters might wait a few days for their prey, but they knew full well that a vampire who had no motive for haste could wait them out for years, or centuries.

Meier settled for waiting until the moon had grown bright again, though not quite full. He performed careful reconnaissance in approaching the area, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary for the wee hours of the morning. Everyone in the Elbourne household breathed with the rhythms of sleep that night ... and for the nights afterward that Meier returned, earlier and earlier, until one night Charlotte's drapes were open. Meier clawed his way to a perch on the ugly tree and watched, enraptured, as she went through the rather time-consuming process of taking down her hair. The cross was still on the window, and that was an annoyance, but at least it was not too near him, and he could focus his eyes beyond its golden gleam at the doubled Charlottes -- one in the flesh, one in the mirror -- as she took out pins and tucked them into a little ceramic box, then unloosed her braids and gave her hair a hundred strokes with a soft, broad brush. (Meier counted them too.) That such voyeurism was beyond rude never occurred to him; he was mesmerized as surely as any vampire's victim, and delighted with the sight of this simple, and to him unfamiliar, ritual.

Charlotte had turned off the lights and actually pulled back the cover of her bed when she glanced at the window and noticed the open drapes. She looked for a long time -- was she afraid of what might be out there, or was she simply tired and disinclined to cross the room for such a trivial task? If the latter, she overcame her fatigue, and Meier bolstered himself to see the last of her face that night, and perhaps for many nights to come. But to his surprise, she opened the window and looked out -- and right at him.

"You're there, aren't you." It wasn't really a question.

"Yes," Meier replied softly, suddenly feeling rather foolish about perching in a tree like a cape-clad sloth. "Yes, I am. And I'm very glad to see you ... to see you're safe."

Charlotte's expression wavered on the verge of anger and pain and ... something else, something Meier couldn't have defined. Her fists tightened on the window's frame, and for a moment he thought she was going to slam it in his face again. But instead she softly asked, "Why are you here? Father said ... today Father said I was sweet and gentle, and I should have ... I should have ..." Her face crumpled with tears, and she lowered it to her hands. With something approaching horror, Meier leapt down from the tree and crossed the lawn to stand under her window. It was wide open; the cross was no impediment now, and he could have leapt or even teleported up to her side. But there was something about her tears that forbade him to come close, even to offer comfort; she seemed too fragile to approach, almost too fragile even to look at.

"Please don't cry." Meier didn't realize he was hugging himself as he looked up at her.

Charlotte finally looked at him with her reddened eyes. "You told him that." Her voice was ragged from crying. "He'd never said things like that before."

"Don't you think they're true?" Meier asked softly.

"I don't want my father to be a vampire's slave. It's bad enough he's a cripple now!"

"He's not my slave," Meier told her. "I told him to treat you kindly. He decides what his kindnesses will be. And he is his own man in all other matters."

"This is all my fault." Charlotte looked at the darkness before Meier's feet.

"No, dear." Meier's voice was soft. "I don't know if any fault lies in this, but if it does, it isn't yours."

"I wish you'd go away."

It wasn't just the words; it was the rigid calmness of their tone that made Meier feel he'd been doused with icy rain. But he swallowed hard and said, "May I ask one question?"

Charlotte looked at him, perhaps taken aback that a vampire would be so courteous -- even tentative. "What?"

"I've seen no sign of hunters. Surely if your father owns such an estate as this, he can afford to hire them. Why? If he knows I --"

"He doesn't," Charlotte interrupted. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "Nobody knows. Nobody knows you were here. They think Father tripped on his own feet and hurt himself." Charlotte's voice went lower still, and she averted her eyes. "Nobody even said anything about the window. Mother said it was God's punishment."

Meier went faint for a moment at mention of the Deity -- she really hadn't needed to include _that_ detail -- and then he tightened his lips to keep from smiling at the thought of being an instrument of the Divine Justice that was antithetical, like the cross, to his very nature. This was in turn overcome by a warmth that suffused him from within, a warmth so unfamiliar he couldn't have begun to name it embarrassment or gratitude. It was numinous and very real, with a powerful and indefinable sweetness.

Charlotte looked at him once more. "You're Meier Link, aren't you?"

He bowed. "I am."

"Everybody says ... you've never used your fangs on a human."

"They speak the truth. Nor will I ever."

The silence was long between them, and Charlotte at last broke it with, "I have to go to bed. Good night."

"Good night," Meier replied reflexively. Only after she closed the window did he think to curse himself for not having asked her to remove the cross.

But at least she had spoken to him kindly enough this night that it gave him hope for the future.

* * *

When Meier paid subsequent visits to the Elbourne estate -- and he did most evenings -- he kept his distance from Charlotte's window, even though he observed that the drapes were often open. The window itself was closed, and the cross remained in place. Sometimes he did see Charlotte, or at least her shadow, moving about, and for a time that provided all the reassurance he could stand.

Nonetheless, it was easier to come later in the night, when he need not wonder if she would be asleep. So Meier was rather surprised to see that one midnight (so the courthouse bell tolled in the town) not only were the drapes open, not only was the window itself open, but Charlotte was there, leaning on the frame with her face in her hands. Meier was so taken aback that he simply stared at the unaccustomed sight for nearly half a minute before hurrying to within human earshot.

"Charlotte?" He spoke gently; he wouldn't have frightened her for the world. "Is something wrong?"

Charlotte looked at him; she had been crying. "Meier Link." Her voice was soft and sad. "I wondered if you'd come. I ... I thought maybe you'd understand."

Under the circumstances, Meier was more than prepared to do so. "What is it, dear?"

"It's ... Pete. He's dead."

"Pete?"

"My bird." Charlotte gestured absently toward the empty cage, which was out of Meier's visual range. "He was so clever. I had him since he was a nestling. He couldn't fly because one of his wings was deformed, and I adopted him. I could tell everybody was laughing at me for keeping a sparrow as a pet. But there was nobody else for him. One of our cats nearly ate him because he couldn't fly and get away, and I knew he needed a home. And he was so clever. He'd always stay with me, and he knew tricks. He'd come when I called, or jump over a stick, or hide if I pretended to be a cat ... I'm sorry, I know you think this is awfully silly."

To Meier it was all too alien to be silly, but he nodded and said, "It's all right."

"I woke up this morning and he was dead in the bottom of his cage. I didn't even know he was sick. And -- he was my _friend_. I want him to have a funeral, and I want him to be buried in a place where I can put flowers on his grave, and everybody else thinks it's all silly and he ought to just go out with the trash. Alan said we could -- we could make him into -- a cat toy..."

Meier waited for her tears to abate -- there was, after all, very little else he could do -- and finally said, "I am sorry."

"Would you help? You're ... you're a vampire, and ... I thought you'd understand about things like ... funerals."

Meier was in fact a very poor candidate in that regard. As a noble born, he had not died himself, and human observances of death and grief were not part of vampire culture; indeed, most would say they were not part of vampire nature. Meier knew as much, but he also knew that the woman who held his heart in her hands desperately needed comfort and had no other source of it.

"What would you like me to do?" he asked.

Now that her wish was so close to becoming reality, Charlotte hesitated. It was one sufficiently frightening thing to speak with a vampire at a distance and quite another to walk at his side in the night, with only a dead sparrow for defense. And then she remembered: No; not only a dead sparrow.

"Would you ..." her voice dropped to a nervous whisper, "help me find a place to bury him, and dig a grave? We could have just a little funeral and ... would you?"

"Of course I would," Meier told her, his own pulse now racing. For the chance to at last stand by her side, Meier would have dug a grave for a behemoth, bludgeoned its brains to pulp, and dragged it in -- all barehanded.

Charlotte glanced about almost guiltily, then whispered, "Meet me at the back door, okay?"

Meier nodded. "Very well." He gave no thought to her closing the window even as he turned away. If truth be told, Meier was nearly as nervous as Charlotte, though for very different reasons. After a few minutes the latch clicked and Charlotte stepped out, clad in a night robe and leather slippers. A small box was tucked under her arm, and she held a candle in one hand. The other hand was tightly fisted ... but a fine gold chain dangled from it.

Meier would never have been happier for the cross to have stayed on her window. But he only said, "After you."

Without a hand free to shield the candle, Charlotte had to walk very slowly. The effect might have been appropriately funereal if she hadn't been constantly glancing about, clearly nervous at the limited range of her vision, as well as the company she kept. Offering to carry the candle himself never occurred to Meier; it was such a distinctively _human_ thing that it seemed fitted to her hand. When they were well away from the house Charlotte stopped and turned to him.

"Can you dig there?" With the candle she gestured toward a rock-bordered flower bed.

"Wherever you wish," Meier replied, not adding that the possibilities included solid granite. "Perhaps you could be more specific?"

Charlotte nodded shyly and set the candle down on a flat rock. "There?" She pointed to a riot of periwinkle. "I don't want anyone to know -- can you do it so no one can tell?"

"I think so," said Meier. He had never so much as laid a hand on periwinkle before, but he knew that there could be an antipathy between vampires and plants, and he drew his aura to himself as much as possible before pushing through the vines and digging his long nails into the earth. He worked carefully, clearing a double area -- part for the grave itself, part for the dirt dug out to make it. Very few minutes passed before he stood aside. "There."

Charlotte carefully laid the box in the hole. Still on her knees, she softly said, "Father in Heaven, look over Pete, and --"

Meier nearly blacked out. The effect was as difficult to describe as it was unpleasant -- a short-circuiting of consciousness, a roiling of something like nausea, a pull on his veins as if they would draw into themselves. He backed away, clawing the air blindly, and had the good fortune to encounter a tree before his knees ceased to support him. He leaned on it hard, taking deep, shuddering breaths and clutching it to keep himself from retreating further. He couldn't look up, but had it been the way of vampires to pray to their own dark gods, he would have prayed for a speedy end to this prayer to the God of light.

"...and bless all of us, and bring us peace. Amen." Charlotte opened her eyes and blinked a few times, then looked aside for Meier. All she could see of him by the candle's flame was the blotch of his white face and hair in the darkness, and the tiny smear of pale that was one of his hands on the tree trunk. Charlotte picked up the candle and walked a little nearer -- then gasped at how positively ill the poor man looked. "Are you -- oh!" For suddenly she realized what must have had such an effect on him, and she glanced self-consciously down at her fist that still concealed the tiny cross. "Oh my goodness."

"A surfeit of it," Meier muttered. He was slowly recovering himself. Charlotte stood trembling, torn between wanting to see that he was all right and dreading to come nearer a creature who was so affected by something as simple and pure as a heartfelt prayer.

"Are you ... going to hurt me?" she asked, taking an even tighter grip on the cross.

"Of course not." Meier looked a bit hurt, himself.

"I mean ..." Charlotte's voice dropped to a whisper, "if you could." For she hoped that the talisman in her hand would protect her if this creature preferred to follow his dark nature.

Her glance toward her fisted hand told Meier why she considered herself so protected that she had added that last statement. He softly said, "My dear, I could do you any amount of harm no matter what trinkets you kept about your person. But I don't intend to emulate your father."

Both of them winced at his bluntness, and Meier hastily added, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"No; it's all right." Charlotte lowered her head and turned away, and Meier's own gaze went up in alarm; had he lost her already, because of one impulsive statement? But before he could say more, she continued, "You really haven't tried to hurt me. You really haven't. You --" her voice broke as she stood over the little grave, and Meier felt his own mouth going tight as he clutched the tree. After a moment she continued, "You didn't have to do any of this, but you did. You don't deserve --" she glanced at him where he stood in the darkness, where he had been driven by one of the few weaknesses of the vampire nobility.

"And anyway," she concluded softly, "everybody ought to be buried with a cross." She knelt over the little grave again and took the lid off the box. It was like a shoe box, but smaller -- perhaps it had originally contained some toiletry or ornament -- and Meier was too stunned to avert his eyes as she let the cross drop along its chain, then lowered the necklace in and replaced the lid. She looked sadly at the little box for another moment, then sat on one of the rocks and started crying in earnest.

Meier wanted to hold her and comfort her and lick the tears off her face until she smiled at him, but some nameless fear held him back -- and he knew it would frighten her if he attempted such a thing, probably if he even touched her. So he stood at her side and waited, his own head bowed, cape wrapped tight about him, so that he seemed a very part of the darkness. At least -- once she recovered herself -- Charlotte didn't seem particularly alarmed that he stood so near.

"Would you cover him over now?" she asked softly, and Meier nodded and proceeded to fill in the tiny grave, then rearranged the periwinkle over it in what seemed a reasonable facsimile of its original disorder. When he turned to face her again, Charlotte was regarding him with a puzzled gaze.

"Is something wrong?"

Charlotte shook her head but then observed, "Your hands aren't dirty."

Meier regarded his hands. The skin was pale, as it was all over his body, and the nails were by human standards very long, particularly for a man. No trace of dirt clung, not even in the whorls of his fingertips or beneath those long, tapering nails.

"No," he said, now a little puzzled himself. "Should they be?"

"Well ... yes. I mean --" it didn't seem appropriate to finish the sentence by blurting out that that's what happens when _humans_ dig in the dirt barehanded. So she said, "It's what would have happened if I'd done that."

"Would you like my hands to have dirt on them?" To a creature of earth the notion had a certain sensual appeal.

"No!" Charlotte exclaimed, then started giggling. "No, I just --" She reached toward him, and Meier held his breath, but her hand faltered in midair, caution overcoming her curiosity. "It wasn't what I'd expect, that's all." She looked down, embarrassed. "I'd better go back inside now."

Meier nodded a little sadly. He could scarcely ask her when she next expected a pet to die.

But she looked up at him. "Lord Meier Link --"

"Meier. Please."

She clearly didn't know what to think of that, but he had spoken gently, and that gave her courage. "Meier ... thank you. For coming out here and ... being so kind and everything."

"You're welcome, dear."

Charlotte's first thought was that Meier was, like her, sad about Pete. Then she realized how little she knew about him, after all; he might be sad about anything, or nothing. Perhaps he wasn't sad at all. Maybe vampires just looked that way.

"Did you ever have a pet?" she asked him at last.

"No. It's not a custom of the nobility." He didn't add that keeping humans _was_ a custom of certain among the nobility, or at least it once had been, back in the days when nobles held power.

Back in an era as dead as most of the nobles themselves.

Charlotte spoke again. "I really have to go in. It's very late."

Meier followed her to the door, where she turned to look at him. "Thank you again. Nobody else -- nobody else would have done that."

"You're welcome." Meier hesitated, gathering his courage, and at last said, "May I see you again?"

Charlotte blushed. It was such a human question, and it put matters between them on a very different and much less mysterious footing. She was too embarrassed to reply and simply nodded.

"Tomorrow?" he asked. It was almost a plea.

"Yes," she said, careful not to smile too broadly. She didn't know what to think of having a vampire as a suitor, but it was a much less alarming thought than it would have been only an hour before. "But not too early ... not at all early."

Meier nodded, understanding. His visits must remain clandestine.

"Midnight," he said, and Charlotte nodded again.

* * *

End part 2 of 6

* * *

"Robespierre!"

There was really no need to shout, but Meier had to vent his excitement somehow, and flying back fast enough to risk a sonic boom had not sufficed. Robespierre's sensors were everywhere in the castle; they had to be for the A.I. to maintain all systems and to serve his master, Meier Link.

"Yes, noble lord."

Meier moderated his tone, chastened by Robespierre's robot-like flatness. "Robespierre, what is an appropriate gift to bestow upon a human woman?"

"It depends upon many things, including the nature of the relationship and degree of familiarity. Flowers are a suitable gift for any human woman. Gifts of candy or other sweetmeats denote a slightly greater degree of familiarity. So does a ribbon or scarf. Gifts of jewelry are a great honor to a woman, but the value of the jewelry should be proportionate to the familiarity of the relationship, and should also be appropriate for the woman to wear: simple items for a younger woman, more elaborate pieces for a mature woman. Gifts that reflect the woman's interests or pursuits are appropriate, but only insofar as the value --"

At Meier's upraised hand the synthesized voice fell silent. Meier said, "This is a woman who means a great deal to me. I would spend eternity with her if I could."

"For that the gift of vampirism will suffice."

Meier stared, then his brow furrowed. "Robespierre, that is _not_ funny."

"Thus have many noble lords honored human women," Robespierre pointed out. (Robespierre's programming did not include a sense of humor, and Meier knew it.)

"This noble lord is not going to be among them," Meier said sharply. "I wish to bestow a gift upon a human woman who will remain human. But I want to give her something magnificent." And nothing short of jewelry would suffice.

Meier had not been in his mother's quarters -- what had been his mother's quarters -- for many years. When he was a child, her jewelry had fascinated him. She had a great deal of jewelry, although she never wore much of it: sometimes an emerald brooch that set off her eyes; sometimes a simple gold chain around her neck; and once a tiara set with seed pearls, to denote her rank at a function attended by many of the nobility. But she had owned many pieces, more than Meier could remember ever having seen before. There were bracelets set with lapis lazuli and chalcedony, platinum pins with moonstone cabochons, elaborate rigs of rings and chains that he eventually untangled into a sort of whole-hand jewelry, copper chokers with black engraving, bronze arm rings with gold insets, finger rings thick with diamonds, bloodstone carved in bas-relief...

He finally settled on a necklace a little too long to be called a choker. It was a fine gold chain with small ruby beads set at intervals. He wanted something for her throat -- partly so he could always see it, and partly as a reminder that he would have no more to do with her throat than that; the rubies would be the only red that would ever appear on that lovely neck because of him.

* * *

Midnight was slow in coming. Meier's winged form cut the night in lazy circles -- he had to work off his nervous energy somehow -- but as the town clock struck the hour, he descended to the Elbourne lawn like a stooping falcon, then spread his great wings to land, softly as thistledown, on the grass. Charlotte of course was watching and waiting and made a soft "Oh!" at the sight. Meier simply looked up at her -- at the open window, the open drapes, the beautiful face they framed.

"You look lovely," he told her.

Charlotte smiled. "Thank you. Would you ... would you like to come in?"

Meier nodded, and before Charlotte could agree to meet him at any door, he simply vanished -- only to speak a moment later from behind her. "I'm very glad to see you."

Charlotte gasped and whirled to stare at him; she hadn't intended bringing him into her chamber quite so soon. But then, there really wasn't a better place to entertain him, and she was already seeing a man without her parents' leave -- a man who wasn't even a man. The further impropriety of having him in her room suddenly seemed inconsequential.

"How ... how did you do that?"

"I'm sorry; I didn't mean to startle you." And he looked truly embarrassed. "It's called teleportation."

"Oh." Charlotte looked nonplussed. "Would you like to sit down?"

"I'd like to give you something first." He reached into an inside coat pocket and produced the necklace, holding its length in a gentle curve between his hands. "Please."

"Oh..." Charlotte had never seen anything quite like it, and the rubies fairly glowed in the light. She started to reach for it, then drew back. "Meier, I can't accept that."

Meier looked puzzled, nearly hurt. "Why not?"

"What would I tell people? How could I explain having such a thing? I could never wear it anywhere, and even if I kept it in my room ... the maids or my mother come snooping around, and there's no hiding anything from _all_ of them." Her hands had hovered toward the necklace as she spoke, but now she clasped them together at her breast, and her voice dropped to a whisper. "It's beautiful, Meier. It really is. But I just can't."

Meier was not so easily deterred. He came nearer, held it within inches of her throat. "Wear it tonight, at least," he said softly. "I want to see it on you."

Charlotte looked at his eyes, as red and as luminous as the gems, and finally nodded. She took the chain in her hand and ran its length over her fingers, then laid it against her neck and swept aside her great mane of hair. The catch was a simple one, and Charlotte quickly guided it shut, then brushed her hair back into place. She looked up at Meier and smiled.

"It looks beautiful on you," he said earnestly.

She lowered her eyes, still smiling. "Thank you." It occurred to her that she'd have very little opportunity to see whether she agreed with his observation, and she brushed past him to stand in front of her vanity and its mirror. Meier watched from where he stood, remembering the night she had brushed her hair ... and spoken to him a little kindly at last.

"It is beautiful," Charlotte told him, turning back to him at last. "Meier, won't you sit down?"

Meier took a seat on the couch beside the window and Charlotte rather tentatively sat at the other end.

What do lovers talk of when they haven't become lovers yet? How does a vampire break the silence of centuries, or a young woman overcome warnings that she's heard all her life? How, in short, does such an incongruous couple conduct themselves on their first real date? Offering refreshments was out of the question, but Charlotte soon found that she did have a great deal to tell him. About Pete, while thanking him again for his kindness. About her father's recovery (although from what was a matter she carefully skirted). About her brother Alan, and her mother. About her neighbors, her social set. She did have the presence of mind not to say anything about church-going, but she told a little about the charity work she helped the women with.

Almost in mid-sentence, she stopped. "I'm being very thoughtless. I want to know about you, too. Do you --" and an enormous yawn cut her off.

"I've kept you up much too late." Meier had drunk in her every word, his eyes always encouraging more -- not with a vampire's hypnosis, but as lovers' eyes do. He felt less certain he wanted to tell about himself; his world was so different, he wondered if she would think him more like an exotic animal than someone (not some_thing_) she could confide in. "I've so enjoyed learning about you. I mustn't let you tire yourself. We can continue this another evening. We must."

Charlotte smiled at him. It was long past her proper bedtime, and despite the excitement of being with _him_, she was sleepy. "All right," she said, rising, and Meier rose as well. Should he even try to kiss her goodnight? He wanted some contact, but --

Charlotte unfastened the necklace but hesitated, and Meier hoped she had thought of some stratagem that would enable her to keep it after all. She opened one of the drawers of the vanity.

"I want to give you something, too," she said. Her eyes were so luminous, so brilliant. "Come here, won't you?"

Meier obeyed, and he was rather surprised when she pulled out the vanity's stool and all but pushed him to sit on it. What strange human ritual was this? Charlotte gestured toward the mirror -- and when her gaze followed her hand, she gave a little shriek.

Meier could move very fast when he had to, and he caught both the necklace and the heavy blue ribbon that had been in Charlotte's other hand before they hit the floor. Charlotte was staring at the mirror, hands to her mouth. Meier glanced from her to it and came about as close to blushing as his physiology would allow. That he had no reflection in a mirror was a given he seldom thought of, and he knew it was one of many respects in which humans and vampires inexplicably differed. That this difference would be made manifest to Charlotte and would distress her so --

"Don't be afraid," he said, reaching for her but not touching her. "I won't hurt you. Charlotte, no matter what, I won't ever hurt you."

Charlotte looked at him, the fear in her eyes gradually transforming to something softer as her breathing slowed. "I know," she finally said, her voice a little thin. "I knew ... I knew ... I just ... I'd never _seen_ before."

"It's all right."

"Anyway." She pulled herself together, and then she touched him with a fear-chilled hand. "That's for you, but I want to put it on you."

Meier couldn't help himself; he gently placed his other hand over hers. "For me? This?" She meant the ribbon.

Charlotte nodded and disengaged herself, and the ribbon, from his grasp. "Sit still." Meier couldn't really watch as she moved behind him and tied the ribbon over the plain black band that held his hair in a ponytail. "There, don't you look ... oh." For of course Meier couldn't see just how handsome he looked with this new accoutrement.

"My dear, everything that I need to see, I see in your eyes." Meier rose. "You don't have to give me things."

Charlotte looked hurt. "Don't you like it?"

"I adore it," Meier told her. "And I'm grateful to have a gift that was not only given of your own kindness but was the work of your hands." He had pocketed the necklace once more, however regretfully, and took both of her hands in his. Charlotte smiled into his eyes and returned that gentle grasp, and Meier would have been happy to remain unmoving until dawn.

But instead he asked, very softly, "May I kiss you goodnight?"

Charlotte's smile never wavered as she nodded assent, trusting him to mean "kiss" in only the human sense. And Meier did, carefully pressing his lips to her forehead -- this to Charlotte's disappointment, but Meier feared endangering her if he tried anything more intimate.

<<There will be other nights,>> he promised himself.

* * *

There were other nights. They had to schedule them carefully, for their trysts were possible only after the rest of the household had gone to bed, and too many late nights would have Charlotte looking like a vampire's victim no matter how chastely they spent their time together. Sometimes they talked in Charlotte's room; sometimes, particularly if there was a moon, they went outside. Meier disliked the risk of waking the household that was involved in Charlotte's slipping out the back door; he scooped her up in his arms and took her out the way he came in, landing feather-light despite the added weight. He was afraid to try teleporting with her; the process was of course harmless to him, but he didn't know what effect it might have on a human, and he certainly didn't intend to risk Charlotte's health finding out.

Charlotte, for her part, enjoyed walking the grounds hand in hand with him, or with his arm about her shoulders. Little by little, she persuaded him to tell about himself: what he saw where her eyes could perceive only darkness; about his castle and Robespierre; about his long-dead mother and eternally cold father; how he drank synthetic blood and always had, and always would.

When she pressed him on the matter, he explained: "When the nobility came into power, they were determined to become self-sufficient, and of course that meant providing for a food supply. I think it was a matter of vanity as well; to be able to manufacture the very essence of life and survive on that. Some nobles still preferred to prey on humans, of course, but in most circles those who held to such customs were looked down on." Meier didn't add that they were looked down on for engaging in what some considered tantamount to bestiality -- not because the vampire-kind had any concern for the welfare of the human race.

"So you wouldn't drink ... my blood?" Charlotte asked. She was nestled against his shoulder as they stood in the park under a waning but still-bright moon.

"Not for all the world, Charlotte. I wouldn't endanger you. Not for any pleasure. Not for anything."

Charlotte rubbed her hand across his chest "But we can love each other. Can't we?"

"Charlotte, I love you so very much." He pressed his cheek to her hair, voice dropping to a whisper. "So very much."

And he kept his cheek pressed to her hair, jaws clenched tight, until his fangs had retracted to their usual near-human length.

* * *

Usually Charlotte waited for him at her open window, and Meier found her silhouette in its frame a welcome sight. But a midnight came when only the open window greeted him, and an unlit room behind it.

Meier's alarm didn't altogether get the better of him. He approached more cautiously than usual, listening for human breathing or heartbearts where they didn't belong, nostrils wide as he scented the air for any trace of strangers, eyes narrowed as he scanned the area. Everything was anticlimactically normal -- except the darkness in Charlotte's room, and its window, open but empty.

Meier teleported in, prepared to leave the same way in a blink if it was a well-planned trap. But the room was altogether its usual self -- Meier could of course see every detail even in the darkness -- except that Charlotte lay curled in bed, her breathing calm in sleep.

<<She can't have forgotten....>>

For a long moment he simply stood and watched her. He had never seen her asleep before, and he found her vulnerability touching ... and her face so beautiful in repose. He loved her even if she had forgotten.

But if she had forgotten, the window would have been closed.

So Meier gave her shoulder a gentle shake. "Charlotte? Charlotte, it's me."

Charlotte woke with a soft sound in her throat. "Meier. Oh, Meier!" She sat up and reached out to take him in her arms, and he slid onto the bed to sit with her and return the embrace.

"Oh, Meier." Her face was buried against his chest, and now she was crying. "It's awful."

"Sh, sh, it's all right. I'm here now, it's all right." Meier carefully stroked her hair as he held her. When she seemed calm enough to speak, he asked, "What's wrong, dear?"

"Father ... Father's decided I'm going to marry ... Tom Horton. He told me today that I should get married ... he said at my age it 'befits a woman of my station.'"

Meier felt a wave of dizziness. He remembered his words to the elder Elbourne -- that it would be his wish now for Charlotte to have everything that befit a woman of her station. It had never occurred to him that an arranged marriage would fall under that rubric.

"I don't want him!" The words were a sob. "Father told _everybody_ else before he told me, and now the whole town has decided that Tom and I --"

"Oh, my love." It was only a murmur, but a heartfelt one.

"I couldn't believe it. I couldn't _believe_ he'd just do such a thing out of the blue. Everyone seemed to think I was just supposed to be pleased because they have a bigger estate than ours and Tom's father is going to build Tom his own house at the other end of it. He said it would be ... our love nest. And I said I'd rather be married to Meier Link than Tom."

If Meier had been capable of going paler, he would have. "You didn't."

"I did! It's true." She looked at him with her tear-streaked face. "Tom doesn't care about anything but hunting -- I've never seen him without mud on his boots, and he never talks about anything but what he killed and how big it was and what kind of noises it made before it died, and how long _that_ took. Nobody listened to me anyway." She pressed herself against him again. "I didn't say I'd been seeing you," she added, voice almost a whisper. "But I said I knew you'd have better manners."

Meier decided that damned him with remarkably faint praise. "My love, I'm sorry."

"You aren't going to leave me, are you? _You_ aren't going to make me marry him -- not you too?"

"No, no, no, no -- don't think such a thing."

Charlotte wept with relief, and Meier held her for a long time. Finally he said:

"Charlotte ... we can do ... what you spoke of. Not here. We'd have to leave this place and go far away, to a place where no hunters would follow."

"Can we do that? Couldn't -- couldn't hunters go anywhere we could?"

"No." There was an edge to Meier's voice, an edge honed by memories stretching back for millennia. "There _is_ a place ... but not on this earth. It's called the City of Distant Stars. When nobles ruled the earth, we traveled beyond its confines in ways humans never did. There were rockets that went far into space, to outposts that would support our life -- and human life as well. Some few humans were also transported to those places. And the City of Distant Stars was foremost among them."

Charlotte shivered. "The City of Distant Stars," she repeated softly. The significance of what Meier had said was beginning to sink in. "And we could never come back, could we?"

"I don't know, Charlotte. I doubt if it would be safe here, ever. We _would_ be safe there. It is a world very like this one, transformed by our technology. There is a domed city, a shelter where the atmosphere is like this world's, with its own light, like moonlight. The buildings are like our castles -- huge, sculpted in a thousand colors. There are gardens of flowers and trees of every kind. It's very beautiful."

"You went there?"

"No. I've never traveled into space. But I have met nobles who did, who told me what they had seen with their own eyes. It is a place of peace, a retreat from the troubles of this world."

Charlotte hugged him tighter, torn between not wanting to leave her family -- for she did love them -- and not wanting to lose Meier, who had come to mean so much to her.

"Is it really possible to go there?"

"I will find a way." It was a vow. "We are not yet all dead, and our technology was designed to outlast the ages. There are still the old castles, and the old spaceports. There _is_ a ship that can transport us, and I _will_ find it, Charlotte. We will travel to the stars and be free of all this -- the hunters, your father, everyone."

Charlotte hesitated. "It's hard to leave my family and ... everything, Meier."

"Including your fiance?" Meier said dryly.

"Meier, don't."

"I'm sorry. You're right, love. This is your decision also."

"Isn't there anyone you'd miss?"

"No." Meier averted his face for a moment. "I no longer have anyone. Except you, now." He gently caressed her cheek. "Will you come with me? To a place we won't have to hide anymore?"

Charlotte held him for a long moment. "I do want to, Meier. I _do_."

"Then say that you will. Won't you, love? Come with me. Choose this instead of what your father has chosen for you."

Charlotte swallowed hard, then took his hand. "All right. I will."

Meier pulled her close, held her hand to his cheek, at last found his voice. "I do love you so very much. And I will take you to the stars."

Charlotte looked up at him. "Really?"

"Really. You have my word."

"I was so afraid you wouldn't come," she whispered. "I was so afraid you thought what everyone else did, that I was going to marry Tom, and I just went to bed and cried..."

Meier thought of Charlotte lying in bed, crying herself to sleep alone in the darkness, and felt something grow tight within him.

"I will never desert you," he told her gently. "I love you very much."

"I love you too." Having agreed to in essence give up life as she knew it for the sake of being with him had shifted something within her, given her new, if imperfectly fixed, determination. That as well as her apprehensiveness came through in her next words: "Meier -- I want you to make me yours."

* * *

End part 3 of 6

* * *

OK, this is the one with the sex in it. Don't get me in trouble by reading it if you're under age.

=========================================================

"What?" The word was breathless, shaken.

"We love each other, don't we? And now ... if we're ... if we're going to run away together --" she held him more tightly "-- I want to be _yours_. Not Tom's. Your lover. For real. Make love to me, Meier, please. I want you to be the only man I'm ever with."

Once he recovered from relief that Charlotte meant sexual congress and not transformation or enslavement -- what calling a human one's own too often meant among the vampire-kind -- Meier found his tongue. "Of course, love. I'm very honored."

Charlotte's body grew tense and cooler against him, and Meier didn't blame her; he also found the prospect intimidating, however delightful to senses and soul alike. At last she started to pull away and softly said, "Just ... excuse me a moment, all right?"

Meier released his hold, but her voice had a flatness that made him uneasy. She slid off the opposite side of the bed, and he asked, a little tentatively, "What are you going to do?"

Charlotte didn't face him. "Take my clothes off."

Meier practically leapt for her -- rather awkwardly, for he was not accustomed to mattresses -- made a face-first landing in the covers, frantically scrambled forward and nearly had a similar encounter with the floor. Charlotte could hardly miss the sound of the scuffle and half turned just as he caught himself -- and then caught _her_, around the waist. She gasped softly.

"Oh, love, don't be afraid. And don't ... why do you want to be apart from me now?"

"That's ... that's how things are done."

"Not between us. Charlotte, we make our own rules. We make our own pleasure. And I want to be with you. For all this." His hand cupped her face. "I want your pleasure. Your company. I won't be parted from you, not for a moment." Charlotte started a little when he picked her up, cradled her in his arms. "Come back to bed, love. We'll do what pleases us."

There was no threshold to carry her over in the traditional sense, and yet Meier knew he _had_ crossed some threshold when Charlotte cuddled against him again and pressed a kiss to his cheek. He had to exchange kisses with her very carefully. He had fed well that evening -- he always did before he saw her -- but biting came far too naturally even to a sated vampire, and it was a delicate and sometimes unnerving balance for him.

"Meier," Charlotte asked after he had thoroughly tasted her lips and her forehead, "is it really true? We can do what we want?"

"Of course. What would you like?"

Charlotte looked down shyly. "To see."

Meier gave a little gasp of embarrassment. He sometimes forgot how much difference there was for humans between darkness and light. "Turn on any lights you wish, dear."

"It won't bother you?"

Meier silently vowed that it wouldn't. "I don't think so."

"I just want enough light to see." Charlotte rolled out of bed and switched on a reading lamp on her desk, then turned its shade so the glow bounced off the ceiling. It was enough light for human eyes, but not so much as to damage the delicious intimacy of all they would share.

"My turn," Meier said as she slid back into bed beside him. "If I may."

Charlotte smiled, even though she was puzzled. "Your turn?"

"To see." He touched the hem of her nightdress, carefully pulled it upward. Charlotte's smile broadened and softened as she worked it over her head virtually unassisted, and Meier suddenly learned a new and delightful meaning for the expression "an embarrassment of riches." She wore nothing underneath, and Meier drank in all that was suddenly revealed -- the slender arms, the dark nipples, the rounded abdomen, the tuft of pubic hair, the length of her thighs and calves. Where on earth was a man to begin savoring it all?

"I'm going to kiss every inch of your body," he told her. "Every inch." And he gently pressed her back onto the pillow to commence operations on her forehead.

Sometimes Charlotte held him, sometimes she only touched him, as he made good his word, pausing to share at her mouth, brushing her neck so lightly it tickled, prompting shivers of anticipation as he made his way down to her breasts. Charlotte restrained herself -- perhaps mostly in surprise -- at his touch on the first nipple, but when he worked his way over to the second, it was too much, and she pressed her hands to the back of his head. "Don't --" Meier's eyes flicked up in concern, and she quickly finished "-- don't stop. Don't go so fast. Please."

There were no words in response, but his tongue caressed her nipple, then his lips again for some time before moving on, down across her belly. Even Meier wasn't equal to kissing his way through all her pubic hair (Charlotte had to stifle a giggle at the thought), but when she parted her legs further, he looked up into her eyes, then rubbed his cheek along her inner thigh with a gentleness that made something grow tight and warm within her. And then he was _there_, with lingering kisses that left her breathless and almost aching before he moved on to her thighs and calves and even every toe, and then her fingers and her palm (how beautiful that very mundane spot felt with his lips against it), up one arm and down the other, to fingertips and palm again.

He looked at her with an earnestness almost as deep as sorrow then -- for he was going to turn her onto her stomach and administer his treatment to her back as well -- but Charlotte reached out and touched his cheek. "Please, Meier. I want to see too."

"Ah." He looked down, a little embarrassed, and then embarrassed at his own embarrassment -- for hadn't _she_ been willing to expose herself to him? Disrobing was also a more complicated affair in his case: his attire was more extensive, and the cape had become, in a sense, part of himself; in its absence he felt not merely naked but incomplete. But Charlotte sat up and slipped her fingers under his neckcloth, and Meier realized how very much he wanted them under more than that. The great carapace of his cape came off, and then the coat beneath it, and -- between kisses and caresses and nods of reassurance -- layer after layer, a masculine answer to Salome's dance of seven veils. It all made quite a heap on the floor.

Meier's form was like his face -- pale and austere, sleek lines with a slightly inhuman grace. Charlotte was too shy to want to kiss every inch of his body, but she snuggled against him where he sat. He gently pushed her hair aside and kissed his way down the back of her neck and along her shoulder, then pressed her to lie down again, turned her over, and began kissing his way down her back, his body now close to hers. For him it was a respite as well as fulfillment of his promise, for he was not accustomed to nudity and found Charlotte's gaze a trifle disquieting, for all the love in her eyes. But her shape and her skin and the beat of her heart were a world he could lose himself in. At last the richness of her scent drew out his fangs, and he had to clench his jaws together for a long, tense moment until he had leashed his beast once more.

Charlotte turned over, smiling, and caressed his cheek.

"You're safe," he told her softly, as much for his own reassurance as hers. "I won't hurt you, ever."

"I know." Her hand slid behind his head to pull him down. "Love me, Meier."

Meier pressed his lips to her belly, then lavished gentle circles of his tongue on the nipple he had neglected earlier. He kept his body against hers as he worked his way up, his erection drawing warmth from the flesh it touched. Once they lay truly side by side, he nuzzled her ear (eliciting a series of delighted gasps) and trailed one hand along her side, over her belly, and very, very carefully worked it between her thighs. Charlotte opened her legs to him almost reflexively, and he lightly stroked the length of her slit with the flat of his finger. He didn't dare attempt more intimate hand contact: his nails could work too much damage. But she was gloriously smooth and wet and heated where she pressed against his touch.

"Meier -- oh, Meier --" Her fingers dug into him, and she softly whimpered in protest when his hand ceased its gentle ministrations. Meier gave her ear a final kiss and shifted himself to lie between her legs, penis hard against her pubic curls. She looked into his eyes.

"Love," he said softly. "Charlotte."

"Yes," she said, a response not only to his words but to his body, and she shifted beneath him so he felt that velvet warmth on his member. He wanted to say _something_ -- that he didn't want to hurt her, that he did want her so very much, that she was the most magnificent being on earth -- but words eluded him, and he carefully guided himself into her, moving as slowly as he could. It _had_ to hurt her; he could feel the pressure, smell the blood. But Charlotte held him tight in her arms, smiling with unforced sweetness.

"_Yes_," she finally repeated, gasping with far more ecstasy than pain. Meier cradled her head in his hands and pressed his cheek against hers for a long moment, relishing the warmth of her breath against his ear. Her belly tensed against his, the slow rhythm of her pleasure around him making him gasp in return. A tremor went through him, and for a moment his spine arced -- not in climax, but in surpassing pleasure, nonetheless.

Charlotte's palms pressed against his back, and those amber eyes, wide and luminous, sought his with a question. "Is ... is that all?"

"All?" What slowly spread over Meier's face would have been a grin on anyone else, but on him it was a smile so broad and true that his eyes twinkled with it. "Oh, _love_. It's barely a beginning." He shifted a little, waking new sensations within her so her expression nearly mirrored his own.

"Meier, what is it ... what is it I _want_?"

"I'll show you. I promise. I _promise_..." His voice went breathless then, for his pleasure drowned words -- his pleasure, and his determination to pleasure _her_, however it tested his self-control. She was so soft and warm and alive, and she _held_ him ... he moved his hips again, a little more now, gradually finding a rhythm, and soon Charlotte's body responded, keeping pace with him and, as it seemed, urging him on. Her eyes were still open, and he held that gaze, or it held him, for timeless moments when the world contained only their bodies and their bliss. But the world seemed too small when Charlotte finally moaned as fulfillment rolled through her; her eyes fell shut, and Meier pressed his cheek against hers, jaws clenched as his body lost itself in what they shared.

Their movements slowed and then their breathing. It was Charlotte who broke the stillness, kissing Meier's cheek and then, remembering the pleasure it had given her, his ear. Meier gave a soft _mmm_ of contentment and carefully shifted over to lie beside rather than on top of her.

"Don't go," Charlotte said softly.

"I'm not going anywhere," Meier assured her. "We need a chance to breathe, that's all."

"Oh." She snuggled close to him. "Is that ... what it's supposed to be like?"

"If it pleased you."

"Oh, _yes_." At Charlotte's smile, Meier's throat went tight for a moment, and he tightened his hold on her as well.

"I didn't ... I didn't hurt you too much, did I?"

Charlotte shook her head. "It's all right. I knew it would. I'm glad it was you. I --" her eyes went wide, and she sat up with a gasp of alarm. Meier followed suit a little more slowly to see her inspecting the sheet more or less between her legs, where there were stains of blood and various bodily fluids.

"Love, it's all right," he told her, but Charlotte shook her head.

"You don't understand. How am I going to explain this?"

The silence was tense for long moments. This was something Meier had not anticipated and was ill-equipped to deal with, ignorant as he was of human customs, and unpracticed as he was at covert sexual liaisons. He could only offer comfort, and this he did, pulling Charlotte close and lying down with her in his arms.

"If this had been our wedding night for real..." she said at last.

"It has been. In our eyes, if not the world's."

"But that won't -- oh!" Suddenly she giggled. "Oh! But what if everybody thinks it _was_?"

Meier's first reaction was to wonder if fear had unhinged her mind. "What do you mean?"

"What if people think _Tom_ did this?"

"_What?!_"

"Meier, don't look that way." For something like rage animated those pale features at the thought of another man sharing Charlotte's bed, or even having been believed to. "Sometimes people ... when they're engaged, they don't wait until they're married ... to consummate it. If everybody thinks that Tom sneaked in the window and made everything all right between us, and I..." she averted her eyes, blushing. "Everybody will think it's all right, and Mother and Father will be happy because I'm not fussing about marrying Tom any more."

"Your ... betrothed might not cooperate in a lie of such magnitude."

"He won't have to. He was leaving today on a trip to Gallinas to hunt swamp suckers. Everybody will think he stopped by here to..." Charlotte giggled, "to say good-bye to me." She buried her face in Meier's chest, giggling almost uncontrollably. Then she grew serious. "But Meier ... can you take me away before he gets back? Because..."

<<Because this charade won't hold water once he does,>> Meier silently finished. He nodded. "I'll find a way, Charlotte. At least we have a reprieve until he returns."

And Meier resolved that he would make the journey to Gallinas and see that young Tom's return was delayed ... perhaps indefinitely.

They lay together, arms and legs entwined, mostly still except for their breathing. Just touching her and holding her was enough to reawaken Meier's desire; besides, he reflected dryly, Charlotte's family might as well think she was promised to someone virile. He kissed her hair.

"Would you like to do it again?"

Charlotte looked at him with hope in her eyes. "Can we?"

"If you wish."

Her smile broadened, and she nodded. "Do you want me to do anything different?"

"Whatever pleases you, love. I'm very happy to be with you, whatever we do."

"I want to make you happy. I mean ... if I can."

She wanted to take a more active role, and Meier felt absurdly flattered and somehow proud of her. "Wherever you enjoy being touched, I do too. Touched, or kissed. I enjoy your kisses."

Her lips met his in a long but gentle kiss; there may have been a hint of a question in her eyes when they parted, but Meier's example must have made some impression: a series of moth-soft lingering kisses worked their way along his jaw, down neck and over collarbone, and Meier rolled onto his back, carefully pulling Charlotte along with him. He was stimulated almost to dizziness when she arrived at his nipple and carefully licked it.

"You don't have to be so gentle," he whispered, voice a little rough from pleasant frustration. Charlotte paused and gave him a half-wondering smile.

"You like that?"

"I certainly do."

"I didn't think men's nipples ... _did_ anything."

"I like it when you kiss mine. It's very ssss--" Meier's description of the effect was cut short by the distraction of it, and in a lucid interval, he guided Charlotte's hand to manipulate his other nipple. After a time she must have grown tired, for she laid her head on his chest with a sleepy smile. Meier returned the smile, if not the sleepiness of it, and softly said, "Love, will you --?" and guided her hand down to his genitals.

This was new and somewhat intimidating territory for Charlotte, but Meier's smile -- she had never seen him smile so much -- was a great source of reassurance. His pubic hair was very unlike hers: it was white and soft, like the hair on his head, wavy rather than curly, half invisible against his skin. It did nothing to conceal his penis or testicles -- they had a pinkish tinge, flushed with blood, and the former was mostly erect. Charlotte carefully cupped his scrotum in her hand, then gently rubbed her fingers over it, learning the texture. Her equally careful touch on his erection made him shiver -- it was too much like teasing.

"I want to feel your touch," he told her, grasping her hand. He sat up beside her. "I'd like to try something, if I may. No, no -- I need your hand, too. Here --" At first Charlotte thought he wanted her to stimulate herself, but his object was the moisture that had accumulated there and was making its way down to her thighs. It smoothed the way for her hands on his erection, and as she stroked him, Meier kept an arm tight about her, making low sounds of pleasure now and then. Finally he moaned as passion overcame him, seed spurting up onto his belly and chest. He stilled Charlotte's hand with his own and pulled her down to lie beside him.

"I didn't plan that," he said, a little self-consciously, once he'd caught his breath. "I'm sorry, love -- that was selfish of me, to enjoy so much without pleasuring you. Forgive me."

Charlotte smiled shyly. "You liked it."

"Very much. But I don't want to enjoy myself at your expense. We are meant to share pleasure."

"It makes me happy to see you smile," Charlotte told him earnestly. "I want to make you happy, Meier."

"You are making me happy," he assured her. "Very happy."

"Am I?" She looked down self-consciously. "I didn't know if I could. I mean ... you've been with women before, haven't you." It wasn't really a question. That vampires were passionate creatures whose long lives afforded many opportunities for liaisons was general knowledge; Meier's age wasn't known to his human neighbors, but he was surely far from young and just as surely far from being a virgin.

"A long time ago," he admitted softly. "You needn't be jealous, Charlotte. That was all a long time ago. And I would rather have you than a hundred like the ladies I've known in the past." They had all been vampires, and now he realized that he had merely coupled with them, though sometimes with passion that bordered on violence. Charlotte was his first human, and what they had shared was lovemaking.

"Oh, Meier." She sounded close to tears, and Meier ruffled, then smoothed, her hair. "Is it really okay that we're doing all this?"

"I thought the world would believe your fiance had committed an approved act of affection," Meier said dryly. He was still less than happy about the ruse Charlotte had planned, even though he understood its necessity. But Charlotte shook her head.

"I mean, we're _doing_ so much. Both of us. I didn't know we could."

"But you do like it."

Charlotte nodded. "I thought I was supposed to just let ... well, my husband -- do what he wanted to, and then it would be over. I was just supposed to lie back and let him. But it's not like that at all."

"It certainly isn't. Do humans believe that?" If they did, Meier thought, it was a wonder the race had survived.

"It's all anybody's ever told me."

"_I've_ told you we make our own rules," he reminded her, but he softened his words with a smile and a caress. Charlotte snuggled close to him and her eyes dropped shut. In a few minutes she was asleep. Meier had been given to understand that this could be a manifestation of a human woman's sexual satisfaction -- vampires were of course incapable of sleeping between sunset and sunrise -- but considered it more likely that she was simply tired. It was late, and Charlotte had been through a great deal, emotionally as well as physically. It was nonetheless touching that she trusted him so; and she was so beautiful in repose, so desirable in her naturalness and warmth, so sweet as she lay against him. Somehow that strengthened his resolve in a way his own promises had not: he _must_ take her away to a place of safety, where his swinish rival and her pig-headed father could do her no more harm. He wished she could be at his side while he slept through the day, for surely he trusted her as fully as she did him. Perhaps the day would come when she could.

Charlotte eventually woke; even held against him as she was, she reached out to touch his face and murmured his name.

"I love you," Meier told her softly.

"I love you too. I didn't mean to fall asleep."

"You're beautiful when you sleep. I wish I could lie beside you every night and watch as you slept."

"Oh, Meier. I wish we could be like this forever." The last word sparked anticipation into her eyes. "We could be together forever, couldn't we? If you were to make me like you..."

"Shh. Charlotte, don't think of it. I wouldn't wish this existence on anyone. We're dying off, being hunted to extinction or simply fading away for lack of..." he averted his eyes; it was not a congenial topic to his kind, "for lack of some inner resilience. It is a lonely life."

"But Meier, we wouldn't be alone. We'd have each other."

It was an aching temptation. Charlotte had a point: no matter how much he loved her or how well he guarded her, her life span was finite. She _would_ die, and her death would leave him even more alone than before, bereaved as well as isolated. But if she were like him...

Meier slammed a heavy mental door against the possibility. Humans could become vampires, but the process transformed their personalities as surely as it did their bodies. Bloodthirst became their prime motivator, and even those who retained some measure of their former gentleness -- dare one say humanity? -- never properly escaped that craving, but at best were torn apart by conflicting urges. True nobles were born to the bloodthirst and thus became acclimated to it in a way the transformed could not. Even for the born nobles, there was no escaping it fully -- as Meier was often reminded in his contact with Charlotte -- but bearing it in their formative years made it less an obsession and more a companion, if not always a welcome one.

"We wouldn't, Charlotte," he finally replied. "You wouldn't ... be my Charlotte anymore. And I would miss you so. Don't ask that of me. Please, love. Please."

Charlotte couldn't protest when he begged, especially when he kissed her again and again and held her close, hands sliding over her skin with a fervor that bespoke quiet desperation -- and, after a few minutes, renewed desire. There was no need for words; Charlotte wrapped a leg around him, and Meier let himself be pulled into a double embrace as his sex pressed into hers, clung to the warmth that surrounded him, lost himself again in all she offered so freely. Before, their love had left room for leisure and gentleness; the impulse and heat of this second, more certain coupling made a shield, however short-lived, against the uncertainties of the future and the fears its prospect inspired. The very intensity of the act brought them to climax almost literally before either of them knew it; that Charlotte's cries didn't waken the household can perhaps be laid to some guardian power having more concern for passion than for propriety. This time Meier didn't pull away as his ragged breathing slowed but continued to hold and be held, jaws clenched, cheek pressed tight against her hair, heart too full for words or even wishes, fulfilled as he had never dreamed he could be.

* * *

End part 4 of 6

* * *

Warning: Some bad language in this one.

==============================================================

He had stayed until dangerously close to dawn, painstakingly reassuring Charlotte that he would return as soon as he could, but he did not know when that would be. Charlotte thought his time would be spent searching for ways they could reach the stars, and that was in part true; but Meier's more immediate goal was Gallinas, a long flight for even his wings. He spent the next evening tracing landmarks on a map and interrogating Robespierre on the finer points of swamp sucker hunting.

Swamp suckers were known by various names: skull sucker (for their heads resembled human skulls), marsh dad, boocoopus. This last was a pun on "octopus," for whereas octopuses had eight tentacles, swamp suckers had as many as their bodies needed for support. They looked a bit like jellyfish, though rather than long, trailing tentacles for catching food, they had thick, muscular tentacles for locomotion and defense, and specialized borer/sucker tentacles for feeding. Their bodies were hard, with eerily rounded heads that they could retract, turtle-like. A swamp sucker could be anything from the size of a house cat to the size of a house, depending on its age and how well it had fended for itself. They were scavengers, partial to swampy areas, and in general were harmless, solitary creatures, but mating season drove them to congregate. Robespierre speculated that such a circumstance could have led to a swamp sucker hunting expedition. Normally the creatures were rather shy, and no part of their bodies offered any salable harvest; in short, there was no reason to hunt them unless mating season had brought a group together and sent them foraging, as it sometimes did, to the destruction of their human neighbors' crops and, occasionally, homes, outbuildings, fences, and so on.

Meier had no definite plan. He pocketed a couple of maps (just to be safe) and flew to the Gallinas area, knowing he would probably have to improvise a place to rest during the day; he would have preferred the basement of a vampire's castle, even a ruined one, but digging a "grave" for himself much like the one he had dug for Pete was a more likely prospect. Near Gallinas was a great backwater, perfect swamp sucker habitat. Meier circumnavigated it carefully; a marsh was not exactly _running_ water, but any kind of water was more than most vampires cared to encounter.

Swamp sucker hunting was in theory straightforward. The creatures' bodies were heavily armored, but their heads were vulnerable. A decent marksman with a gun or crossbow, or a laser rifle, could simply pick them off by shooting them in the head as they came into range. It was, however, important to keep one's distance, for a swamp sucker that considered itself threatened could move with seemingly impossible speed to strike out and crush a man with a dozen or more tentacles. Complicating matters were swamp suckers' habits of sleeping submerged in water or buried in mud all day and coming out only on dark, moonless nights; in general they avoided light. Some hunters used various types of night vision devices so they could draw a bead on the creatures; others preferred to "do it the old-fashioned way," observing them by sound, then quickly turning on low-level lights (too bright and the creatures would draw their heads in and flee, or charge) and taking advantage of their disorientation.

The mass of swamp suckers currently inhabiting Gallinas marsh tended mostly toward house-sized, and Meier found their trail easily enough, or rather their trails -- several veritable highways of flattened reeds led from the marsh. But which was freshest? He overflew several in concentric, expanding half-circles. The creatures' briny-metallic scent was difficult to pick out among the other unfamiliar odors -- the water and its plants and the other marsh creatures, and rotting fish from somewhere to the northwest. Meier was wondering what to make of this when flashes of light and cracks of rifles being fired told him where hunters and prey had met.

Meier gratefully left the marsh behind (he _truly_ disliked water) and stretched his body to its thinnest shape to speed his flight. Following the lights and sounds took him northwest, and the stench of rotting fish grew stronger as he flew. He was perhaps a hundred yards shy of the center of operations -- a copse of straggly cedars on a little knoll -- when shouts of alarm and a volley of shots told him something had gone wrong. A few bullets whined a little too close to him for comfort as they ricocheted off a swamp sucker's steel-hard hide. Meier swooped upward and curved his wings to slow his flight. Apparently someone's aim had been off, and a swamp sucker had retracted its head and charged the offending lights. It was now in the process of indiscriminately uprooting cedars with its left-side tentacles and suffocating a couple of hunters with those on its right. The other members of the hunting party were alternately shooting at the remaining swamp suckers (as best they could aim by the electric lanterns they carried) and at the tentacles of the swamp sucker that had their companions -- not the tentacles holding the hunters, of course, but any others, in hopes of hurting the beast enough to distract it.

<<I don't believe I'm doing this,>> Meier thought as he swooped nearer. The night was dark and there wasn't nearly enough lantern light to give humans a proper view of the field of battle, but Meier could of course see everything -- including the not-quite-closed slit at the front of the angry swamp sucker's shell. It would have taken miraculous marksmanship to shoot into that thin line, but if a bladesman were so foolish as to come close enough and strike deep into that cavern...

No human saw Meier descend in a curve that swept down the front slope of the swamp sucker, nor the flash-fast stroke of one great wing, and only a vampire's ears heard the pulpy sound of a swamp sucker's brain splitting under its impact. Meier's momentum carried him away from the creature as it thrashed in death throes as dangerous as its attacks had been. He alit some thirty or forty feet away, far enough to escape the humans' notice, but close enough to observe.

"What the hell --?"

"You think we got it after all?"

"Sure as shit actin' dead now."

"Think it's faking?"

"Naw, those critters don't have brains enough to play possum. Any more of 'em out there?"

"Looks like we got all the others. Rory?"

"Shut up and let me turn the ear on 'em." "The ear" was an electronic surveillance device that monitored and amplified particular frequencies -- in this case the squeak-slither noises of the swamp suckers' tentacles dragging them over the earth.

After nearly half a minute of silence: "The ear's not picking up any more sounds. I think we must've got 'em all." And Meier's own senses confirmed this; he could detect no evidence of swamp sucker movement in the area.

While Rory had operated the ear, two of the men had set aside their guns and were wading and climbing through the mass of tentacles that still imprisoned their fallen comrades. Now one of them spoke: "Lou-Ray! Tom! Can you hear me?"

Tom? Meier's heart nearly did a somersault. The party numbered only six, and the four who were not hors de combat gathered around, one arranging lanterns to shine on the bronze-and-gray mass of cord-like muscle while the others commenced search and rescue. Meier carefully drew closer, but he needn't have worried: the hunters were totally focused on their work, dragging away tentacles and pulling out the men.

"Shit, he's not breathing."

"Tom's got a pulse! He doesn't look good, though."

"Nobody ever died of a couple broken ribs."

"Shit, will you look at that blood? Holy shit, his arm's off at the shoulder!"

"Aw, crap. Think we oughtta give him CPR?"

"To a guy who prob'ly bled to death?"

"Tom! Y'there, man?"

"See that arm anywhere?"

"It's likely somewhere underneath that thing. Unless it threw it somewhere. We can come back and look once it gets light. Shit, what a clusterfuck."

"It's not a clusterfuck if we got 'em all."

"Lou-Ray's killed those things before. Just bad luck. Those things are totally wacko; you never know what they'll do."

"Tom Horton! You got a purty fiancee waitin' for you -- get the lead out!"

"Lookit his head, Rory."

"There's too much blood to see anything. Hey, Ed, how's Lou-Ray?"

"He's gone. What about Tom?"

"He musta got hit pretty bad; he just don't want to come around."

"Shit."

This was more or less Meier's sentiment also. Striking out in anger at a violent man was one thing; Meier still sometimes questioned his judgment in letting Charlotte's father live. Tom had done nothing worse than being in the wrong place at the wrong time; Meier really would have preferred delaying his return to seeing him harmed, though he had no idea how he might have achieved the former and not the latter. Now his dilemma was even worse: not only did the man pose him no actual threat, it seemed wantonly cruel to interfere with one so totally at a disadvantage. No human would believe a vampire held such thoughts, and if only for that reason he did not contemplate helping the men bear their sad burdens -- one dead, one comatose -- to Gallinas. He kept his distance and watched as they rigged stretchers from tarps and then made for the town, the small lantern-lights bobbing at their sides. There were occasional desultory snatches of conversation:

"Could've let them eat the bait, you know. That stuff stinks to high heaven, and it ain't gonna be better tomorrow."

That explained the rotten fish odor, and how the hunters had crossed their prey's path so quickly.

"I'm not tellin' Mrs. Holt that we won't come back for her husband's arm 'cause it smells too bad."

"Rory, I think we oughta head for the south side of town, to Doc Barnard's."

"Can't turn that way till we're past Old Omer's fence. I don't want to tangle with that bull of his."

Meier glanced down at the wing of his cape that had struck the swamp sucker's coup de grace -- he hadn't even noticed the coating of ichor and neural tissue, but now he shook it off, and it slid clean as readily as soil would have. Blood scent pervaded the area -- well, if a man had a head wound and another had lost an arm at the shoulder, there would be plenty of bleeding. Speaking of which...

Meier was as put off by a disembodied arm as any but the most combat-hardened human would have been. The man who had speculated on its whereabouts had evidently been right in his second guess; the swamp sucker had flung it away with superhuman strength, nearly a hundred yards. It would take humans a great deal of searching to find it in the grass. Meier winced, hesitated several times, and finally scooped it up with a wing and carried it to lie in front of the swamp sucker that had been the death of its owner. The humans would think they had simply overlooked it in the darkness. Meier gave his wing a good scrub in the dirt to rid it of the sensation of contact with _that_, then -- in a very human gesture -- actually smacked his forehead with a wing-formed hand. The night was far from over; a little surveillance might give him a much better idea just how wide a window of opportunity Tom's condition would allow. He could still see the hunters' lanterns, and he turned to follow them.

It was a long night for all parties concerned: a lengthy trek to the outskirts of Gallinas, followed by an interminable examination and patching-up process in a windowless room at Dr. Barnard's practice. Meier could smell the blood through the wall; Tom's injuries included a head wound that, as Rory had observed, bled profusely. Tom rallied briefly but not very coherently, and Dr. Barnard was of the opinion that he could tolerate the journey home, with the understanding that he be transported slowly -- "shouldn't take more'n a couple days by wagon" -- and be confined to his bed for several weeks while his insides patched themselves together. It all involved more unknowns than Meier liked, but he didn't want to interfere with an injured man's being brought home where he might be nursed back to health. And the slow transport order gave him a little time. Then the significance dawned on him: If Tom denied having paid a midnight visit to Charlotte's bedroom, it would be laid to his head injury rather than Charlotte's unfaithfulness.

Things were looking up.

There was a hint of light in the air, and Meier concluded that he had probably learned as much as would be useful to him. And as far as burying himself for the day -- Old Omer's pasture sounded like a place humans would avoid.

* * *

Meier wakened after a surprisingly restful day under several inches of topsoil and a generous layer of leaves. Under less pressing conditions, the whole experience might have been fun, a concept that seemed almost alien to him after so many years of monotony and isolation. As it was, he felt chilled and a little shaky from hunger. He wondered whether Tom was already on the road but decided his time would be best spent getting back home and ascertaining how he could get Charlotte out of harm's way.

Old Omer's bull half-opened his eyes at the _floomp_ of the cape-wings taking to the air.

* * *

Meier was not alone in his flight. Some time after full dark had fallen, a veritable swarm of dark bats tracked him from even higher, converged on his trail and followed him. Meier was at first concerned -- he had of course noticed them early on, heard their fluttering wings and their navigational cries -- then puzzled that they tagged along after him like sheep ... or migrating geese.

"If you want to do me a favor, you can precede me and play windbreak," he muttered, not really expecting a response; Meier could influence domestic animals, but commanding wild ones with no prior contact was beyond his powers, and commanding animals controlled by another noble would be a gross breach of etiquette. The bats, however, shot past him to form a tidy mass that did indeed cut the air resistance considerably. Meier was not inclined to look gift bats in the mouth, especially when he was tired from prolonged flight. The bats stayed in their formation until Meier peeled off to land on one of his castle's towers; there they swooped in a disorderly but seemingly delighted swarm about him, almost as if celebrating his return.

"Have you lost your lord?" he asked them, wondering if these had been animal familiars of a now-deceased noble who were searching for a new master. He had no wish to fill that role himself -- but as he observed them, he concluded that that was in fact probably not what they sought. Now that his mind was less on making his way home and he could give more attention to the little creatures, he realized they were not simply bats. There was something of the vampire about them. They were not shape-shifted nobles -- they _were_ bats -- and yet they were not bats only.

"Robespierre," said Meier, "I'm home. And I need my breakfast."

In a matter of minutes Meier was comfortably ensconced in his breakfast room. The bats had followed him there but, to his relief, they showed no interest in the unusually large serving of synthetic blood that he savored. Since he had lived utterly alone for so long, he had switched to a scaled-down system of blood synthesis; it would take some time for Robespierre to undo the mothballing of the heavy-duty system that would be required to feed so many. He of course asked the A.I. for observations; Robespierre said that the strange guests appeared to be genetically modified bats descended from _Myotis lucifugus_ (big brown bat), an insectivore, and they showed uncommonly vampire-like intelligence. Meier remembered that they had readily taken his hint earlier and wondered what else they might be capable of. If they were in fact associated with some noble house -- trained or possessed or bred to super-chiropteran capabilities -- they might be the link he needed for his next task: finding transportation to the City of Distant Stars.

He downed the last of his blood and, remembering the maps he had pocketed the evening before, he spread them out on a great table, then looked to the bats. "Where are you from?"

A number of the bats took flight, circling and scattering about the chamber, and finally one separated out to land on the table and walk with surprising agility across a map to a point near its top. The dark nose poked a stylized castle amid lines and shadings that represented mountains.

"Chaythe?" Meier murmured, reading the legend. "I had no idea anyone--"

He had heard that Chaythe's mistress had been destroyed by the Vampire King himself. For a variety of reasons, his kind had avoided the place thereafter. But that had all been centuries or perhaps millennia ago; or indeed, he might have been misinformed. Vampires were inordinately fond of gossip -- or had been, in the days when there were enough of them to make for gossip among themselves -- and false rumors could circulate for years. The death of the Lady Carmila might have been another rumor.

"I would like you to take a message to your mistress -- or master," he told the bat on the map. "Let me find pen and paper..."

The message was perforce a short one; Meier chose paper that was small and light enough not to encumber its carrier excessively.

   Gentle Noble: I thank you for the companionship
   and aid of your creatures the bats. Now I seek
   another favor; passage to the City of Distant
   Stars. Your assistance will meet with my eternal
   gratitude. --Count Meier Link

Meier was prepared to tie the missive to the bat's leg, somewhat as carrier pigeon messages had been prepared by humans millennia before, but the little creature forestalled him; he had rolled the sheet and tied it with a fine ribbon when the bat simply swooped down, caught up the scroll in its claws, and flew from the chamber, the other bats swirling and boiling after it until, in less than half a minute, Meier was alone once more, blinking and half wondering if he had hallucinated the entire experience.

"Robespierre," he finally murmured, "did I actually see all those bats?"

"One hundred twenty-seven specimens have just departed this castle, noble lord."

* * *

Much as he would have liked to see Charlotte again, Meier kept to himself that night. His knowledge of Tom's condition -- such as it was -- was certainly not a matter he could confide to her: he really didn't care to reveal what he had been doing near the marshes of Gallinas. And while he could scarcely explain how he knew of Tom's fate, he could scarcely conceal it from her when so much hinged on it. So he rummaged through the castle's library for maps that would enable him to take measure of the area, to see what noble houses still remained where he might seek help. He was finding and laying out small-scale maps when the sky started growing light and forced him to his rest.

* * *

End part 5 of 6

* * *

And in the lower levels of Castle Chaythe, there was great rejoicing.

The bats, ah, the bats! Carmila had been struggling with them for -- oh, it seemed like centuries. It probably had been. Faithful to her in her life, they remained even after her death, living beings readily available for manipulation, if rather limited in their abilities. Certainly their blood was not sufficient for her needs, but she could -- with great effort -- infuse her essence into them, so that over the generations they had become virtual extensions of herself. She could very nearly see with their eyes and hear with their ears; certainly they understood her wishes well enough and in fact had taken on a bit of her nature. Unlike Meier, Carmila did not measure the world in maps that showed where other nobles dwelled; rather, she sent the bats out on forays to find what was neither brute nor human moving upon the earth. And this may indeed have been the best strategy, for many nobles' castles were long empty or even fallen to ruin, their owners in one sense or another long departed.

Carmila had bided her time, and her creatures' efforts had at last borne fruit. Here was the proof of it: not just a noble, but a noble who needed a favor. Some dark power was certainly smiling on her. Writing even a brief note in response would cost much, but it was clearly worth the investment to set the hook and reel in this long-awaited bit of hope.

* * *

Meier did measure the world in maps, and he was becoming increasingly aware of just how antiquated his were. In many cases he knew precisely when a particular noble house had fallen -- to professional hunters, to the proverbial mob of torch-wielding human villagers, or simply to its own despair. Lady ffoulkes, the House of Anderwalt, Lady Issyk-Koul, Lord Baranov, Clan Lamprou, Lord Morodor ... the list went on and on. This was the first time Meier had sat down with his maps and systematically observed the extent of the losses among his kind, drawing concentric circles about his own home, following the compass of each, and marking each with a black X. The question marks were too few and too far, the X's too many, and Meier was rubbing his temples with almost painful intensity when he heard the disorder of a great swarm of bats' wings and their chittering. Minutes later he saw them as well -- they flooded in, a rush of pulsing cries and swirling flight. Most circled a few times and found resting places on the walls or ceiling, but one separated out and landed in front of him -- a little awkwardly, for it had been carrying an envelope in its claws. Evidently their noble did not have Meier's compunctions about burdening the creatures.

Meier broke the seal -- it _was_ the House of Bathory, which had formerly occupied Chaythe -- and unfolded the missive. He was a little surprised that it was written in German rather than the common tongue, but some vampire houses preferred the old languages: Meier had been compelled to study several of them in his day. His heart lifted more with each sentence that he read:

      Most worthy Count Meierling!

      My home holds the gateway to the stars.

      I hope you will soon arrive here safely.

      I wish you well with all my heart.

               In friendship

               Your countess

                               C

Not merely the stars, but an invitation, and so soon! As with the bats, Meier felt fewer questions were best. He smiled nostalgically at the form of address. Meierling was his family name; he had used his given names (which echoed it) for so long he scarcely ever thought of having another. His correspondent's memory went back a long way, it seemed.

The paper was so thin that he at first thought he had received only one sheet, but in fact there were two. The second was a map -- not a survey map, but a sketch showing still-navigable roads, resting-houses, and ... yes, Barbarois, another place Meier remembered from his salad days. Carmila (certainly that was what "C" represented) must want his company very much. Meier could empathize, for he knew what it was to be tired of hearing no voices but his own and Robespierre's. He sifted through his store of stationery for something that befit a matter of such concern and a lady of such standing, and began (on a less valuable sheet) drafting a response explaining his circumstances and -- in no uncertain terms -- his gratitude.

The note also informed his soon-to-be-host that he would depart on the morrow. His earlier optimism about Tom's lack of credibility was waning. There was no guarantee the man would be disbelieved; other factors also might intervene. Perhaps witnesses could testify that Tom had been elsewhere when Charlotte was being deflowered; perhaps humans could distinguish between the semen of his kind and theirs. It was a train of thought that Meier really didn't care to pursue.

* * *

His daylight rest had been uneasy, in itself an unusual and disquieting event. Most vampires lacked any consciousness worthy of the name while the sun was above the horizon, but Meier had a strange though imperfect immunity to the soporific effects of the solar orb, an immunity he had more often regarded as a curse than a blessing. He could not truly function during the day like a human: anything beyond the smallest movements he made as if entombed in molasses, while his thoughts raced alarmingly and chaotically, like a human's open-eyed nightmare. Usually, of course, he slept through the day, if that state nearer suspended animation could properly be called sleep, but when he was angry or anxious, his rest suffered as badly as that of any mortal in a like state of mind.

Meier's plans, his hopes and fears, had weighed heavy on him, and by the time he rose at sunset, his eyes felt as if they had been sandpapered from flying open repeatedly during the previous two hours. That had been the beginning of an evening that grew more frustrating as the twilight deepened.

The blood warmer had been malfunctioning. Robespierre was apologetic almost to the point of obsequiousness, and was simultaneously working to effect repairs on the mechanism itself and jury-rigging a substitute. During what looked to be a long wait for breakfast, Meier discussed the outfitting of the traveling coach, and on the A.I.'s advice (Robespierre was at least adept at multitasking), ordered that it include not only his indispensable coffin but a few necessities, such as a chair, for the comfort and pleasure of his human passenger.

At least the cyborg horses for the coach-and-four were all in good health and fine fettle. Meier felt so relieved he nearly hugged the beasts as they stepped into place for harnessing. His good mood dissipated immediately when he learned that the harnesses for the lead pair had dry-rotted over decades of disuse. Leather powder dusting down from his fingertips, Meier ordered Fido (the stable A.I., which operated independently of Robespierre) to assemble a new set of harness if it had to use its own cabling to do so. Hunger had made him quite irritable, and the passing of time had made him edgy. Charlotte would be waiting, and not for the first night.

Robespierre had rigged heat sinks for a number of the castle's electronic monitoring devices into immersion heaters. The blood gained a metallic taste that Meier found matched his mood in its bitterness. The warmth and strength that flowed into him, however, rather than comforting and calming him, only made him more eager to be gone and more frustrated with the delays that had pushed his departure to well past midnight.

"When shall I expect you back, noble lord?" Robespierre inquired.

"Perhaps never. Maintain the castle until I come again, or another comes whose veins bear my blood." For Meier had no wish to disinherit any offspring he might ever bring into the world by his body or his blood if he himself did not -- or could not -- reclaim his home.

The carriage was ready, the horses were hitched with tack cobbled together from several sets of harness ... and the night was more than half over. Meier thought of how Charlotte was probably suffering -- wondering would he come, worrying that their deception would be found out (if it hadn't already) -- and his snarl, sharp as a whiplash, sent the horses forward at a gallop.

Meier's anxiety only grew as the carriage dashed toward his goal. It had grown so late! He did not realize how his aura spread out, telekinesis and influence combining in an invisible miasma. In the town, his power flew before him: street lights blinked out one by one, their feeble flames overcome by the blackness made manifest that was a noble's might, however unconsciously exercised. Through a broken grating on one darkening street a mongrel dog growled as that baleful aura drew near, and many a citizen's dream turned nightmarish when that intangible touch withered the ivy clinging to the walls and distorted beyond recognition every cross surmounting a rooftop on the street. The mongrel dog's growls turned to whimpers as it tucked its tail between its legs and slunk away from the roar of those wheels, the sparks struck by those hooves as the coach-and-four clattered by.

The carriage flew past the town's fountain, and in the warm night air its streams congealed to ice.

The horses' mouths were open, too-sharp teeth gleaming in the starlight that even Meier could not eclipse. Their night-adapted receptors left red trails in the vision of any brave or foolish mortal who peered out a window to see what creature dared the suddenly fearful atmosphere, when the very air bespoke the night as the domain of vampires and mutant beasts.

Meier slowed the team to a trot, then a walk; too slow for his state of mind, but he was less familiar with this area -- or rather, with this pedestrian route. Faugh -- let the horses catch up! He leaped from the coachman's perch, arms outspread and cape swooping up to meet and half enwrap them as he launched himself into welcome flight.

Well above the rooftops, Meier circled to get his bearings. Ah ... _there_. The great misshapen tree. He had come to regard it with something approaching affection. Tonight, however, he did not want to shift out of his winged form until he was assured he would not need its advantages, for in it he could both flee and fight more effectively. Instead, he further called on his powers of transformation: his feet, and the boots on them, split and sharpened into claws; inverted like a bat, he furled his cloak about himself and spread his senses wide, as the horses, ever obedient to his will, brought the carriage to a halt before the Elbourne mansion.

The house was dark and quiet. Humans breathed; a few mice skittered. Charlotte was there, lying abed, her back to the window -- and no wonder, poor thing: at such a late hour she had probably despaired of his arriving this night. The thought of her patience and sorrow pushed Meier's own patience beyond endurance. By telekinesis he gently, gently, and almost silently turned the handle on her window so it glided open. He remembered when he had first seen her and was resolved not to wreak such violence as he had on the window that night. But there was no holding back the power that blew the wind before him, withering the vase of roses by the window sill and blasting their faded petals across the room.

At the cold wind's touch Charlotte sat up with an amorphous cry of fear, fear that brought her eyes wide and froze her mouth in an O. It was not just the dark-winged, red-eyed form that seemed to coalesce from the darkness -- it was a nameless terror that flew before it and grew stronger at its approach. Meier had never before unleashed his power in her presence, and all Charlotte knew now was fear beyond fear as some invisible force enwrapped her even more strongly than the powerful wing-arms that scooped her up, so it seemed their darkness overcame her sight.

The vanity mirror opposite her bed reflected only Charlotte's form suspended in midair, her head lolling back as if to invite a vampire's caress. It showed no sign of Meier -- but for all that, it felt his gaze, for it cracked clear across when his brows contracted.

A moment later, both he and Charlotte were gone.

End part 6 of 6

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