Beyond Nocturne Ch. 06

"The heads," Michael said suddenly.

"Excuse me?"

"I was just thinking that's why he takes their heads off," Michael said, "Maybe that's why he's so violent. He doesn't want his strain to pass on."

"It's possible," Lydia said.

They rode in silence for a moment, the only sound being that of the tired, overworked engine of the Volkswagen.

Finally, Michael asked, "What made you go after Stephen in the first place?"

"Do you really want to talk about this?"

"Yes, I do," he shot at her, "You killed him, I want to know why."

"You saw my thoughts earlier, you know."

"I want to hear it," he growled, "Time for some accountability Lydia."

She glared at Michael, both angry and hurt, but mostly ashamed. She had dreaded this moment ever since she found out Michael was Stephen's brother. She had worked so hard to avoid it, used every tactic she had learned from her long life spanning three hundred years, and still, in the end, she had opened herself up to him and revealed the secret of her guilt. She had exposed herself to this human, and she still was not sure what she hoped to gain from him in return. Her face burned hotly as she took another drag on her smoke and said, "I sensed his purity, his kindness."

"That's a good reason," he muttered.

"He was pure, untainted."

"He was a virgin," Michael said flatly, "He was afraid of women. And rightfully so, apparently."

"Normally, I wouldn't have gone after him," Lydia said, "But I couldn't help myself, and I gave in. If I had been able to think, I would have let him be. But he was untouched by another woman; his essence was pure and irresistible. It's a rare find, a thirty-year-old virgin."

"He wasn't untouched."

"What?"

"He wasn't untouched," Michael said without looking at her. His jaw clenched tightly as he changed lanes and prepared to exit the freeway. "When he was seven, the same year they removed the tumor, he was molested by our uncle."

Lydia fell silent. "Oh my God."

"He was afraid of any kind of intimacy," Michael explained, "It scarred him. Stephen finally told my mother what happened when he was twenty-five. He was plagued by nightmares and waking dreams. His life was falling apart. He lived in constant fear."

Lydia looked at Michael gently. "Just like you did?"

Michael wouldn't look at her as they took the off ramp and slowed to a stop at the intersection. The red illumination from the traffic light clearly showed Michael was getting ready to cry, and Lydia wanted nothing more than to hold him and comfort him. His eyes were glassy as he bit his lip and glared at the light. The pain was rolling off him now in waves, and it hurt her to be this close to him.

In the back seat, Maricel stirred a little, and then went back into her deep sleep.

"Yes," he finally said, his voice choked. "I didn't remember it until he did."

"Did your uncle go to prison for what he did to you both?"

"Yes, he did," Michael said as they entered the outskirts of Northern San Francisco. "And he'll be there for a long time to come."

Lydia looked ahead into traffic as the night died and morning began loom on the horizon. They would have to find somewhere to hole up and hide. She knew that the following day was going to be dangerous as they waited for the cover of night to leave the city.

In that time, the police would get closer to finding them, Stephen would get closer to finding them, and Michael would be one step closer to hating her forever. But she took comfort in the fact that no matter how much he may hate her it would never equal the hate she kept for herself.

She turned her head to look at Maricel, her body tired and beaten. Lydia had failed so miserably, and she couldn't help but feel the despair clutching at her heart. She began to realize that all sins, all transgressions eventually catch up with you. And if you're lucky, it'll be you who takes the fall and pays the price. But mostly, she figured as she looked at Maricel's battered face, mostly it was the innocent.

She looked to Michael, so quiet and wounded, and thought that it was also the people you loved.

***

Michael had been right about the police freezing their bank accounts, and Lydia had been able to withdraw all of her six hundred thousand dollars of her savings before the lock out. She had visited a contact at Bank of America that was also a familiar for one of the more influential members of the vampire society. He was sympathetic to her situation, and despite the danger to himself, allowed her to withdraw the money. His influence had made getting the money a snap, and no questions had been asked over her large withdrawal.

She imagined after her picture was posted on the television in conjunction with several murders things would grow more complicated. Not mention the horde of slayers that would try to track her down. Michael had cleaned out his checking account through an ATM machine right before he ditched the Volkswagen. His life savings were in a safe at his cabin in Mount Shasta, and clear of any banking institutions. Between them both, they had just under nine hundred thousand.

Four days after the incident at the apartment, Michael had bought a used Ford Ranger from an ex-drug dealer he once used as an informant. On their last day in the city, Michael invested ten thousand into purchasing guns and ammunition for the trip. Again, his ties to the underworld as a cop came in useful for securing the unregistered firearms and special ammo. Hollow point silver bullets were the only order he made, of which he received three thousand rounds. He bought a good-sized trailer to stack their arsenal and supplies in.

While Michael worked during the day, Lydia and Maricel waited for the evening in a sub-par hotel room. Maricel had been unconscious since Stephen had raped her a week prior, wracked by a high fever and tremors. Lydia had cleaned her up as best she could, and did everything within her power to heal the damage to her vagina as she had healed Michael's wounds. It worked to a degree, but Maricel wouldn't be having sex for a long time to come.

Michael had taken their sizes and bought them new clothes. Lydia had kept with her style of black leather and white shirts while she dressed Maricel in simple casual attire. As she had dressed her and bathed her, she looked for bite marks on her. If Stephen had bit her, then she would be in danger of mutating as he had done. She thoroughly inspected her body, and found nothing. She stroked Maricel's cheek, and felt a wave of sadness wash over her.

"I am so sorry," she whispered as she ran her fingertip over the young woman's brow and then down into her shiny blonde hair. "Please wake up."

Around eight o'clock that evening, Michael returned to the hotel. He looked tired and worn out.

"Everything okay?" he asked as he flopped on the bed next to Maricel.

"So far," Lydia replied, "She still hasn't woken up."

"Give her time," he said as he stretched out, his short, dark hair mussed and frayed.

"Michael, can I ask you something?"

He shut his eyes, and she felt him closing up again. "It's personal," she added.

"We can hear each other's thoughts, Lydia," he said as he covered his dry eyes, "Privacy is a thing of the past."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"All this," she motioned to the clothes and then to the car and trailer parked outside, "The guns, the car... everything. Why help us?"

"Because I'm a sucker," he sighed, "And because I'm going to be hitting some wicked withdrawals here over my morphine habit in a little bit. And I'm going to need someone I can depend on to get me through it."

"I can't help you," she looked away.

"You understand addiction as well as I do," he sat up and looked at her, and for the first time since the joining in the basement of the museum, he really opened up to her, "You probably know it better than anyone."

"How can you be so kind to me after what I've done?"

Michael was silent for a moment, and then, "I don't blame you. I mean, I did at first, and I was so angry over my brother, over Rossetti that I just wanted revenge. But when Stephen did what he did to those girls, to their neighbors and to Maricel, and even to the doctor and guard at the morgue, I realized something. I ignored it at first, because I didn't want to see it..."

"See what?" Lydia asked, unable to meet his eyes.

"That you're just as much a victim here as Stephen, or Maricel or anyone else involved in this mess," Michael said softly as he scooted to the edge of the bed.

"A victim?"

"I blame the fucker who bit you," he said, "I blame him for this. You couldn't stop what happened to Stephen anymore than Maricel could stop what happened to those girls, or Stephen could stop himself from doing what he did."

"But I could have," Lydia whispered, "I could have just fed off some vagrant in the alleys, but I-"

"Could you have stopped?" Michael asked pointedly, "I mean really, could you have overpowered the thirst?"

Lydia was silent, uncertain of what to say.

She had been expecting him to yell at her, berate her for her crimes. She had been ready for the sting of rejection and heartbreak as penance for her deeds. Instead, he was regarding her with sympathy, and with kindness. He was trying to understand her, and to somehow bridge the gap between them. Lydia had believed there was too much blood, too much violence and evil between her and the rest of the world to ever know real kindness again. For all her amazing gifts, all her amazing powers, the one thing could not do was make someone love her. She had tricked Stephen into doing it, but in the end it had been hollow and destructive.

But then, she supposed no one could make anyone feel something they didn't come by naturally.

Lydia felt her heart split in two, and she could no longer hold back the tears. She began weeping, her shoulders jerking with each sob as the gravity of her situation hit her so hard it took her breath away. The pain in her chest reminded her of the blow Stephen had put there in the apartment, powerful and merciless. That's how emotions were, she thought, powerful and without any mercy.

Michael sat for a moment and then went to her. He pulled her close, his strong hands holding her shoulders tight.

"I am so sorry," she sobbed into his shoulder.

"I know you are," he said, "I know."

They dropped to the floor together, Michael simply holding her as she cried. They sat on their knees together, trying to comfort one another. Michael felt her grief and guilt inside his soul as though it were his own, and he knew she was genuine about her anguish. Phantom pains ached in his body as he felt the throbbing of Lydia's bruised chest and shoulders. He allowed himself to open his heart to her, unsure of how it would all turn out, but confident he was doing the right thing. He exposed his essence to her as they held each other. He showed himself to a vampire and decided that this would be the test of her resolve, the test of her feelings for him.

"Lydia," he whispered into her ear.

"Yes?" she sniffled.

"I know you're used to being in control, but I need you to let that go for now," he said as he stroked her thick, dark hair. He was acutely aware of her mouth against his neck, and knew he was taking a terrible risk. But she had been in a place to bite him before, and she hadn't.

"What would you ask of me?"

"Something has happened here, and I don't know if it's just the fact of two people thrown together under intense circumstances or if it's more than that, but I know what I feel."

Lydia could not look up.

For all her strength, for all that she had seen and done in this life, she could not look at him. She wanted to hear the words that danced on the tip of his tongue, and yet she feared them all the same. She knew that his confession to her would mean his death, in one form or another. She knew that she wasn't in control of the thirst, and that it would take him as it had his brother. Lydia wanted to tell him to not speak, to simply forget about her and leave, but her mouth could not form the words. Her heart could not give license to such a thought.

"I'm sorry if I've been rude," he said, his hands stroking her back though the thin material of her blouse, "I know what it's like not to be in control."

Lydia nodded, her eyes hot with tears.

Michael took a deep breath.

"I love you, Lydia," he admitted to her, his eyes closed as he waited for her reaction.

She broke their embrace and looked at him, finally allowing her deep dark eyes to look into the blue of his own without any telepathy or hidden agendas. There was no searching for hidden truths or facts, seeking the advantage over one another. There was a trust between them that formed as they gazed into each other's eyes. It was an invisible and unbreakable attachment that was almost as pronounced as the psychic bond they had shared since the museum five nights ago. She touched her hand to his cheek, the stubble of his unshaven skin prickly and comforting against the sensitive tips of her fingers.

He closed his eyes as she placed her other hand on his face, her thumbs running over his eyelids gently and then down the bridge of his nose. She felt her nipples become erect as she explored his features, never once before having considered the erotic possibilities of simply touching a man's face. In a face there was truth, and in truth there was comfort. There was something undeniably final about the expressions on a person's face, if you knew how to read those expressions. And as Lydia had been doing it all her life, she quickly learned who was genuine and who was not.

This man was genuine.

Michael raised his hands to her arms, gently holding her as they knelt before each other.

"I love you," he said again, and with his words came a release of the guilt and pain he had carried over his wife and son. By loving her, he was able to finally let them go, parts of his life he could never have back again. His love for them was strong, but the promise of an even greater love from Lydia had brought him back into the light. She felt his keen sadness over the loss of his son, never being able to see him grow up and living with the knowledge that he would call another man father. And yet despite that pain, which would never go away, she felt hope from with in him.

"I love you too, Michael," she said softly as he opened his beautiful blue eyes. She pulled him close to her and kissed him. She had imagined this moment, the touch of his lips and the sensations it would bring for so long now, ever since she had first met him. It seemed to be so long ago. He returned the kiss with a gentle yearning that made her skin rise as his hands slid around to her back, pulling her close.

The darkness within her, the thirst screamed at her in impotent rage as it was locked out by the power of Michael's love for her. It taunted her, filling her head with doubts that he was really in love with her, that she had subtly manipulated him as she had Stephen. But the pure content of his love, the fine details of every thought she sensed from him, from the highly erotic to the simplistically emotional countered the darkness and kept it at bay.

She pulled away from him and began unbuttoning her blouse, her eyes never leaving his. She felt certain that she could never look away from him again as they saw into each other's souls. Michael watched her as she slowly undid each button, pulling the bottom of the blouse out of her black leather pants and letting the fabric slide back off her shoulders. In the soft yellow light of the dirty hotel room, she found a place of calm and peace with this human, this man who loved her despite her many faults and sins. She sat there, bare breasted for him to see, and she relished his loving appraisal of her body.

Her breasts were large and heavy, yet incredibly firm and in defiance of gravity. Twin shadows cast down across her toned mid-section as she got up on her knees and began to undo her pants. Michael felt his heart beat quicken as he watched her, mesmerized by her beauty. The shirt fell away from her arms as she stood up, falling gently to the floor in a silky crumple at her bare feet. He stood up with her as she undid the last button of her leather pants and slid them off. She kicked them away and stood before him, exposed and vulnerable.

Michael took his t-shirt off, revealing his muscular frame to her. His nipples were as hard as hers, and he felt his erection was painfully cramped in his jeans. He undid the fly and let his jeans drop, followed by his boxers. He nudged them off and to the side with his feet, taking a moment to undo his boots and lose his socks.

And there they were, naked and together and open to the each other. It felt to both of them that they were about to make love for the first time all over again.

Lydia took a step closer to him and gently grasped his eight-inch long cock. It was full and thick, the head a swollen tint of purple as the large veins running the length of his shaft pumped blood furiously. His pubic hair was trimmed and groomed, his sack hanging heavily down between his thighs as his cock pointed straight up at attention. She massaged his penis, working her fingers slowly up and down his shaft, memorizing every detail of his manhood. She rubbed her thumb over his head and felt a bubble of pre-cum forming at the small eye of his penis. She rubbed the sticky substance into his skin, making him shiver as she held his gaze.

She looked down at his abdomen, and saw the places where the cuts from his encounter with Stephen in the alley should have been. They were still gone, erased by whatever power had arisen from the two of them being together that night.

Michael raised his hands to her large breasts and cupped them, feeling the silky smoothness of her skin. Lydia closed her eyes as she touched him, relishing the feeling of his rough hands teasing the skin of her areolas and nipples, tweaking them as they moved closer to the inevitable. When their lips finally met, they could barely catch their breath as their minds shared the erotic thoughts and intentions they had for each other. Images of his cock sliding in and out of her, hard and wet from her pussy filled his mind as he kissed her. She was left breathless by the intensity of need for her, the thoughts he had of spreading her legs open and licking her, licking her until she came for him. She wanted him to eat her out so badly, to have him pleasure her like that.

Michael took one of the spare blankets off the bed and laid it on the floor. He guided Lydia down on to her back and without a word, began kissing on her neck. He worked his way up and down her jaw line, and then down the crook of her neck, over her chest and then to the slopes of her breasts. He kissed and licked his way around her nipples and the side swells of her tits as she laid her arms above her head. He flicked her nipples with his tongue and nibble on them as his hard cock grinded against her thigh. Lydia closed her eyes as he licked his way down her stomach, the kisses becoming hotter and more wet as he approached the area below her navel.

He began French kissing under her navel while dragging his tongue down further until her reached the beginning of her clean-shaven slit. He spread her legs wide and positioned his mouth over her cunt, his breath hot against her sensitive skin. She gasped a little as he began slowly licking her, from end of her lips to the other. His lapping was slow and deliberate as he slowly pushed his way into her sex with his tongue. Lydia felt her insides tingle as he began working on her clit, circling her and nibbling on the hard button ever so gently. She squirmed a little under his mouth as he stimulated her. Her breathing had evolved into a breathless panting as he flicked her clit with his tongue and slid a finger into her vagina. She was moaning and cooing his name as he brought her closer to her orgasm. Her hands slid through his hair as she felt the wave cresting inside her, crashing towards the finale.