Confession


"I wouldn’t do that, if I were you," the stranger said calmly.

The old man lifted his hand from the telephone on his bedside and
laid it in plain view on top of the coverlet.  It was trembling, but
there was little he could do about it--he was, after all, afraid. 
He had awoken to find someone in the room with him, someone hiding
in the shadows, someone who meant him harm.  He had sat up
immediately and reached to call 911, but that wasn’t to be, it
appeared.

"What do you want?" he asked, his voice as tremulous as his hands. 
"I have nothing to give you.  This all belongs to the Church."

The stranger stepped from the shadows and into the scant light
coming in through the window.  He was tall and pale, that much was
easily noted.  His skin was almost luminescent in the moonlight, and
his eyes were an unnatural yellowey-green that seemed to glow in the
dim light.

"I have come," the intruder said, "for what you can give me--for
what everyone can give me."  He closed the short distance between
them and leaned close.  "But you will do your duty first: you will
listen."

The old man stared up in horror: the creature’s eyes were truly
aglow with a golden fire and when the monster spoke, sharp canines
glinted.  He closed his eyes and began to pray.

"Our Father who art in He--" 

A sharp blow smacked his face and rocked his head into the wall.  If
the prayer offended it then it must truly be a demon.  After all
this time, he had lost faith in their existence.  That must be why
it was here: to test his faith.

"Stop that babbling nonsense!  I will never understand how such a
ridiculous religion became so popular!"  The old man heard a click
as the demon turned on the overhead light.  "Open your eyes, priest,
and look at me.  I am not a demon or a devil; such fairy tales don’t
exist."

The priest opened his eyes.  Before him stood what appeared to be a
man, but demons could be tricky, so he should not judge too quickly.
 It’s hair was short and blonde, it’s eyes were no longer yellow,
but the blue of a summer sky.  It’s frame was clothed in black, and
were there only a white collar, it could be mistaken for a priest. 
That was very likely its plan.

"If there is an evil, then I am it, priest," the demon spat at him,
"but not in the way you mean.  I have lived lifetimes and seen more
than you can ever imagine, but I have never seen your god or your
devil.  I have never seen a demon or an angel.  They are but the
fantasies of men, designed to control the masses."

The priest felt his heart skip a beat in terror, and the demon
smirked at him.

"Your faith wanes, old man, else your first reaction would have been
to that piece of wood above your bed." The creature’s eyes flicked
to the crucifix on the wall.  "But you no longer believe that your
god will protect you, do you?  Where is your faith, old man?"

"I have faith," the priest replied softly.

"Liar!"  the creature hissed, advancing a step toward him.  "You are
nothing but an old man, afraid of death.  I have watched you these
last nights.  I have never seen you pray, never seen you thank your
god or beg for indulgences.  You are no different than the thousand
others I have sent to their graves.  You are not holy or blessed;
you are a mortal man."

The old man dropped his gaze to his lap.  The demon was right.  He
no longer prayed, except during mass, and that was by rote, with no
thought to the meaning.  He had not spoken to God in a long time,
and now, here was his punishment.  The priest raised his head,
determined to face his due bravely.  He would not destroy his own
soul with fear.  He would go toward death with the knowledge that he
would soon be with the Lord.

"What do you want from me, then?" he asked the demon, looking
straight into its eyes.

"Your death," he said coldly.  "But first, I want you to listen to a
story."  The monster paused, seeming to contemplate the situation. 
"Ironic, isn’t it?"  The creature barked a sharp, short laugh.  "How
is it one begins?  ‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.’

"I killed my maker, my daughter, and sealed her in an Egyptian tomb
for all eternity.  Or that’s what I thought at the time, but that’s
another story altogether.  She had wanted to violate one of the few
taboos I had retained after my transformation: incest.  That’s such
a clinical word, don’t you think, to hide such an abhorrent act?" 
The creature looked truly disturbed by the thought and began to pace
the small chamber.  "In any case, the deed was done and Divia, my
evil but beloved child, was gone.  

"For several years I wandered aimlessly across Europe, never seeing
another of my kind.  I thought that I was alone, though I knew that
could not be.  Divia had told me that there were others, though they
hid themselves for safety.  I never thought that I searched for
another like me, but I found myself following stories of bloodless
corpses and brutal deaths.

"Most of these turned out to be done by mortals, but there were a
few that had to be from one of my kind: bodies with punctures in the
neck and no blood at all, appearing overnight.  I could never track
any of these killers, but, then again, flight leaves no footprints.

The old man cringed: a vampire, not a demon.  It was not his soul
that the beast desired, but his blood. 

"One story intrigued me especially.  There was a tale of a witch who
could heal the sick and bring life back to the near dead by giving
of her blood.  She was rumored to be in the forests of Gaul, a place
that I had not been since I had been a victorious general more than
thirty years before.  I decided that there would be little risk of
anyone recognizing me, so I journeyed to west.

"I followed the rumors to central Gaul, where I had been as a mortal
to crush an uprising instigated by the remaining druids.  It was
peaceful now, with most of the troublemakers dead in the fighting or
too old to do much more damage.  Not that I cared any more: my wish
to subdue the masses had left me when I realized I owed no
allegiance to any emperor, any god, save myself.

"Finally, I discovered the location of the witch.  I had claimed to
be someone in need of healing, and my pale skin was enough to
convince almost all of the truth of my words.  Those who refused to
tell where she might be found were...persuaded.  I fed well in the
weeks it took for me to find her: her privacy was respected.  

"She lived deep in the forest, a day’s walk from the nearest
village.  The peasants claimed she did this because she had made a
pact with the wild beasts and they would not harm her.  The more
learned among the population believed this was to ensure only those
truly in need of healing would risk the danger of travel.  She saw
petitioners only at night, doubling the risk involved in the journey.

"Early one winter night, just after the sun had set, I hid myself in
the forest near her hovel.  She did truly live where no one else
would, seemingly unafraid of wolves and thieves.  I was still unsure
that she was of my kind, so I hid until she appeared.  Either she
was, or I would kill her.

"No lights were on in the dwelling, though that was not unusual,
were she a mortal.  Most of that time went to bed when the sun set,
to conserve resources.  However, were she like me, she would not
require light to see.  The building had no windows and I could see
no movement.  There was no moon, and the shadows on the snow were
deep, even in the small clearing that I watched.  My sensitive ears
detected no noise, other than the normal sounds of a forest at
night.  I sensed no heartbeats near; after several hours, I wondered
if she were dead or simply not home.

"As soon as I had decided to search the hut, she appeared.  She
stepped from the door and for a moment, I believed I gazed into the
sun." The vampire paused and stared into the distance for a long
moment, then shook his head and continued.  "Her hair cascaded over
her shoulders--a bright white blonde that shone with an internal
radiance.  She had no heartbeat, and I simply _knew_ that she was a
vampire.  I had found who I was looking for.

"She closed the door behind her, then turned directly toward me. 

"'Well,' she called out in perfect Latin in a bright, clear voice, 
'have you sat out there long enough?  I will hunt; do you wish to
join me?'

"I stood in the shadows a few moments longer, wondering how she’d
known I was there.  I had been unable to sense or see her, and that
had been my sole purpose for hours.  I was slightly afraid--I can
admit that to you, since I’ll be killing you anyway--but I craved
the companionship of another like myself.  I advanced into the
clearing and did not leave for two hundred years.

"Figuratively.  From that moment on, for nearly three centuries, we
never left each other.  Those years were a refuge, a haven, from
life...But I didn’t know that then.

"She stood perfectly still, with no trace of fear or apprehension. 
As I moved out of the trees and into the open space near her, she
smiled at me.  Her eyes were a deep green and they smiled as well. 
She was tall, almost as tall as I, but that was not unusual for a
Celt.  Neither was her pale skin and hair.  She looked to be about
sixteen years old, a woman at that time, but she might have been any
age.  She wore a heavy woolen cloak that shrouded her body, though
she had no more need of its warmth than I did.

"’Do I pass inspection?’ she asked, laughter in her voice.  ‘You do:
it’s much more sensible to wear trousers than a toga, don’t you
think?’

"I looked down at my clothing.  I had become accustomed to my Celtic
clothing and had forgotten that it was unusual.  I pulled my cloak
around me and attempted to regain my composure, though I was still
unable to speak.

"’Oh, come on,’ she said, and took off straight up into the sky,
leaving me no choice but to follow.

"She landed in a town I had passed through several weeks earlier,
one with an unusually high proportion of Romans, as well as a
garrison of Roman troops.  She landed outside the soldiers’ barracks
and moved to open the door.

"’No!’ I hissed to her, finally regaining my voice.  In my mind,
there was no reason to kill trained soldiers when there were plenty
of peasants around.

"’He _does_ speak!’ she whispered in mock surprise, and slipped into
the building before I could stop her.

"I followed.  She fed from one soldier after another, waking them
only as they were killed.  Those that opened their eyes looked at
her as if she were a goddess come to life.  They offered their necks
willingly and moaned with pleasure as she ripped out their throats. 
 She was not neat, and within moments the scent of the fresh blood
that spilled pooled on the floor consumed me, and I had very little
choice but to join her.

"In minutes, twenty soldiers were dead.  She shoved me out the door;
I was power-drunk from gorging on the blood of seven of the men. 
She had no such problems.  She kicked the coals of the banked fire,
and the straw on the ground caught fire almost immediately.  She
fled into the fields and I stumbled after her.

"We stood silently in the snow and watched as the barracks began to
burn.  The townspeople never even attempted to arrest the blaze; it
burned fierce and hot.  Only when she had determined that our
killings would not be detected did we take to the sky and return to
her home in the forest.

"She motioned me inside.  The place was tiny and dirty, a rotting
pile of half-cured furs on a wooden pallet in one corner, a
fireplace full of ashes, and table taking up the remaining space. 
The low ceiling was festooned with drying plants, part of her role
as witch, no doubt.  The small, close space stank of offal and
rotting vegetables, nearly choking me as I ducked through the small
door.  The walls were badly mortared with mud, and the frigid wind
blew through in places.  It was like any peasant’s dwelling of the
time.  

"My main question, other than how such a bright creature could live
in such filth, was where she spent her days.  The walls offered
little protection from the sun, though the trees would cut out most
of it.  My unasked question was quickly answered when she lifted the
pallet to reveal a wooden stairway into the ground.

"’Come,’ she instructed and stepped down into the black hole.

"I followed.

"’Close it,’ she said and lit a lamp.

"I did and turned to look around me.  This was better.  It was a
large room, larger than the clearing above.  The dirt of the walls
and floor was firmly packed, almost as hard as stone.  There was a
proper bed in one corner with heavy draperies surrounding it, a
divan and table on the opposite side of the room, and a large wooden
cabinet against a wall.  Tapestries covered most of the exposed dirt
walls.

"’My name is Gwynedd,’  she said, stripping off her bloodied cloak
and dropping it to the floor.  

"’Lucius," I said.

"With no more words, she moved toward me and divested me of my own
blood-caked cloak.  And, in short order, the rest of her clothing
and mine.  I had never had such an experience before."  The creature
stopped his pacing and smiled evilly at the priest.  "But perhaps I
shouldn’t speak of this to you.  You are supposed to be holy and
pure--but no matter to me the state of your supposed soul when you
die."

The vampire resumed his pacing and his story.

"What my kind does is not like mortal intercourse.  We mingle blood
and memories, becoming the other.  I had no knowledge of this facet
of our existence until she offered her neck to me.  To feed from a
mortal is an erotic experience, but to feed from her
was...indescribable bliss.  She pushed me away after only a taste,
but in that short moment, I felt her first kill as if it had
happened to me.  I could feel the blood of the would-be thief
pouring down my throat, the heat of it suffusing my body with an
amazing strength and ferocity.  I growled when I felt her release
the body, wanting more of her, of him.  

"She pulled my wrist to her mouth, and after a teasing scrape of the
fangs across the sensitive skin there, she pierced the skin.  In my
mind I could feel what she felt: my time as a boy in school, being
whipped for being late.  Each stroke of the lash was an eternity of
pain, only to be repeated a second later.  

"I yanked away my wrist with a hiss, shredding the skin when she did
not release me willingly.  She shoved me back to the bed and...We
spent the rest of the night and the day sharing blood and stories. 
I learned that I could hide certain memories if I tried, though I
couldn’t control which of the remaining ones she felt.  She hid her
emotions from me, and showed me how to hide mine from her.  Divia
had not taught me these things, but Gwynedd had no fear of secrets.

"When we spoke, she told me of her life.  She had been brought
across sixteen years after I had been, and her maker had been burned
to death when he had saved her from an army of fearful peasants who
had seen her killing.  That was why she took great care to hide her
feeding; her rule was never too often and never too close to her
home.  Her gifts had developed faster and more fully than mine had. 
I had not realized my own potential.  Either Divia had not known, as
she had quickly destroyed her own maker, or she had been afraid I
would become too powerful.

"We stayed together in that place for two decades.  After a while,
not only were we lovers, we were in love.  We shared all and lived
only for each other.  Gwynedd continued in her guise as a witch,
while I developed a love of learning that I had not had as a mortal.
 My joy of knowledge had been beaten out of me at an early age; with
Gwynedd, I recovered it.  I discovered botany as well, covering the
trees of our clearing with white rose vines.  In the moonlight, they
glowed as she did."

The vampire paused momentarily with a ghost of a smile flickering
across his face, then continued.

"After twenty years in the same place, however, it was time to move
on.  We traveled the known world at the time: Europe, the Near East,
Asia, Africa.  For two hundred years we lived and loved with
passion.  We had no permanent home and stole from our victims to
live, not only their money, but their possessions." The vampire
smiled, his face, for an instant, growing soft.  "Gwynedd literally
killed for pretty dresses or finely made knives."  The expression
left his face and his countenance again hardened.

"But, after two hundred years, we grew weary of the constant travel.
 Gwynedd wished to have a house of our own, and I could never refuse
her anything.  She let me chose the place, and I chose Rome.  We
persuaded a citizen to will us his villa outside the city, and  he
soon died from a mysterious, wasting disease, attended by his
previously unknown sister and her husband, newly arrived from parts
unknown.

"We were far enough from the city not to arouse the interest of any
one, and we had a private temple to be safe from the appearance of
being Christians.  We were thought to be an old-fashioned couple who
disapproved of the excesses of Rome, and, in truth, we were.  We
both appreciated pleasure, but there really is a point where it
becomes extreme.  I watched the Empire become increasingly decadent,
and I could see that it would not be long before its fall.

"We had our house, and Gwynedd was happy.  We attended the theatre
in the city and became the patrons of several artists and musicians.
 We hosted philosophers, scholars, and travelers, though we never
met another creature like ourselves.  It was an idyllic seventy years.

"I ruined it.

"I had hidden parts of my past from her.  There were things that I
was not proud of: Divia, my childhood, and things that I didn’t wish
for her to see: war, prostitution.  It was silly of me, really.  She
knew as much of the world as I did, was even a more brutal killer
than I was.  

"She gladly tortured men she found brutalizing women or children,
eviscerating them and licking the blood from their wounds while they
slowly died.  Ruthless politicians became toys: whimpering meals for
days before she finally allowed them death.  Soldiers were her
favorite, however.  She would slaughter whole legions, and they
would praise her as a goddess, begging to be the next to die in her
arms.  She often hunted alone and would return home moments before
dawn, dripping with the still-warm blood of her victims. 

"Despite her viciousness I still sought to shield her from the
world’s harshness.  I did this not because I believed her weak or
delicate, but because I wanted her to have only goodness surrounding
her.  I wanted only her happiness.  She deserved that.

"It amused her that I did this, and she indulged me.  She saw no
harm in letting me protect her, or at least convince myself I was
doing so.  She never asked about my hidden memories, though she knew
about them.  She never tried to get me to share them or even to tell
her why I hid them.  She was the most understanding person that I
have ever known.  I often wonder what would have happened..."  The
vampire trailed off and stood still, staring out the window at the
darkened city.

The priest had heard enough confessions to know when the speaker
needed a push to finish his recitation.  He found he had to know how
the story ended, even though when it ended, he would die.

"How did you ruin it?" he asked quietly. 

The creature shook his head and nodded at the priest, thanking him
for reminding him where he was.

"One night, I had a musician to the villa, teaching me some new
music.  Gwynedd thought that we sounded like slowly dying cats, so
she went to the baths in Rome.  It was one of her favorite hunting
grounds, with an almost infinite variety of humanity upon which to
feast.  Just before sunrise, I sent the musician home, but Gwynedd
had not yet returned.  I was not alarmed: both of us had several
times been caught at the baths and hidden there for the day.  I
expected her home the next evening, apologetic for her
thoughtlessness in worrying me.  I retired to our windowless bedroom
as I felt the sun rise, and was asleep in minutes, pleasantly
exhausted from playing all night.

"I didn’t awaken until it was already too late.  Her fangs were in
my throat and she was reliving my last campaign in Gaul: the
slaughter of the men, and the raping of women; my lust as I held a
woman down and raped her as she screamed curses at me in a language
I didn’t know.  The woman who had been saved especially for the
general, who stabbed me in the leg with my own knife and escaped
when I was done with her...A woman who looked like Gwynedd.

"I shoved Gwynedd away from me in shock, but not before I caught a
memory from her: that same woman smiling, feeding her breakfast as a
little girl: her mother.

"She was my daughter.  I had never seen it before, but I did now:
her pale hair, the height of her cheekbones.  If I had only
_looked_, I would have seen.

"Gwynedd reached for me, tears making red tracks down her face and
dripping on her bare body.  I threw a blanket at her and turned away.

"’Cover yourself,’ I hissed.  ‘Leave my sight, devious beast.  You
are no better than she was.’

"I was not sure of whom I spoke: Divia or her mother.  It didn’t
matter: she refused to move.  I stormed from the room, desiring
nothing more than to be free of her presence.  I could hear the slap
of her bare feet on the ceramic tile as she followed me.

"’Lucius, we didn’t know.  It’s not our fault.’  I could hear the
anguish in her voice, but I was to angry to care.  ‘None of it
matters now; I love you!’

"’It _does_ matter!’  I howled at her, and escaped through a window
into the skies.

"My mind worked furiously in anger.  I thought that the Furies were
punishing me for the murder of Divia.  I believed that the gods I
had neglected were finally revenging themselves upon me.  It was a
tragedy bordering on a farce: what I had refused to one child, I had
freely given to another.  I had lived as husband to my own child.  I
was disgusted with myself...and Gwynedd.

The vampire stopped his pacing and looked at the priest.  His eyes
were tinged red and full of an indecipherable emotion.

"I didn’t return.  I was in the air all night, until dawn forced me
from the sky.  I fed from a hermit and spent the day deep in his
cave.  I awoke still raging and again took to the air.  The pattern
repeated itself for days, weeks, I’m not sure how long, until I
found myself at the eastern coast of the continent.  I stayed there,
hidden in the wild, weird bamboo forests of that land for a century,
far from anyone who could carry stories of me.  I knew that Gwynedd
would search for me, and I didn’t want to be found.

"Eventually, my rage died, and I began to see that, as Gwynedd had
said, it had not been our fault.  Maybe it had been mine, but never
Gwynedd’s.  She had not deserved my anger.  

"I traveled west.

"During my self-imposed exile, the world had changed.  The Roman
Empire was no more, and Christianity was widespread.  I was
disgusted by the ignorance and filth of this new order, with its
symbols that kept me at bay and burned my skin.

"I couldn’t find Gwynedd, and none of the vampires that I now found
in each large city I visited had ever seen her.  There was a
whispered legend of two vampires who had destroyed themselves with
love, but most accounted it a romantic tale, nothing more.  Two
lovers, fated to die for their unlawful passion.  It’s a familiar
story, far older than I am.  

"Our house near Rome was abandoned.  The local myths told of a
creature hideous to look at who screamed at night.  Anyone who
approached the house during the day was hunted down by night.  I
stayed in the house for weeks, prying into all of the disintegrating
corners.  All of our belongings still remained, but I found no trace
of Gwynedd.

"I could not find her anywhere.  I could not ask her forgiveness.  I
was frustrated, and that soon turned to anger, then cynicism.  I
became cold and unfeeling.  That is how I am today.  That is how I
will remain."

The priest was stunned by the sudden ending to the story.

"That’s all?" he stammered.  "You never found out if she lived or
died?  You never forgave yourself?"

"How can I forgive myself if I destroyed her?" the vampire asked
bitterly.  "I would that I knew if she were alive, even if it meant
my death.  My penance has been done hundreds of times, but I never
have been absolved.  I gave up a woman who reminded me so much of
her, in the feeble hope that I would finally feel that I had paid my
due."

"Would Gwynedd have wanted you to do that?" the priest asked quietly.

The creature looked surprised by that thought.  Perhaps he had never
thought that, if all he had wanted was his love’s happiness, that
was all she wanted as well.

"I do not know...No.  She would never have wanted me to love
another," he said firmly.

"Did this other woman love you?" the old man questioned.

"Yes," the vampire answered.

"So you broke her heart to save your pride?"

Too fast for him to see, the creature held him by the neck and shook
him.  His gold eyes were wide and his fangs bared as he growled in
fury.  Strangely, the old man didn’t feel frightened.  Now that he
was doing his job--hearing this immortal man’s confession--he no
longer feared him.  Even if the creature intended to kill him, he
had still come for help.

"I did not deserve that love," the vampire growled.  "How could I
enjoy love when I had destroyed Gwynedd’s existence?"

The priest tried to speak, but he couldn’t get air though the
fingers clutching his throat.  After one long, tense moment, the
vampire released him, and the old man collapsed on to the edge of
the bed.

"I hate to bring this up," the priest said, after he regained his
voice, "but have you thought that maybe you didn’t destroy her?  If
she didn’t kill herself right away, then maybe she realized that you
were better off apart.  From what you told me of her, she would have
forgiven you instantly.  She thought that you no longer loved her;
maybe she just got on with her life."

The vampire stood very still for a moment.  He opened his mouth to
speak, but closed it before any sound escaped.  Suddenly, he held
out his hand toward the priest.  After a moment, the old man
realized he was meant to shake it.  He reached out to clasp the cold
hand.

"Perhaps you are right.  After so long, I may have romanticized
Gwynedd.  She loved me, but she was a person in her own right.  It
didn’t destroy me, and she was always much stronger than I."  The
vampire dropped his hand and looked him deep in the eyes.  "You have
earned a reprieve, old man...You will remember none of this..."