Disclaimer: Children, what are you doing in here? Get out of here! It features angst, vampires, werewolves, and entertaining graphic sexual descriptions of men both obsessed and in love doing terribly erotic things to each other. And some blood. Okay, lots of blood. And violence. Oh, and I don't claim to own Jim Ellison or Blair Sandburg, or any of the other recognizable characters; I'm just borrowing them for a little storytelling. They are all owned by UPN and Pet Fly Productions, and they can have them back when I'm done. I do however, own all other named characters, and those who are desperate to know how the vampires got in here are respectfully pointed toward the multitude of vampire movies and fiction available to you in the real world. I promise not to do any permanent damage to the people I don't own, but everyone else is fair game. I do, however, promise to abuse my overactive sexual imagination.
Send comments to author by clicking on link above. Kill Blair, will you? I'll show you, you heartless bastards. No one gets to Jim Ellison but Blair, do you hear me? No Aussie chica, no big black guy (even if he is kinda cute), NO ONE! Hmph. Blair, on the other hand, is the office Christmas party toy. Everyone should get a shot at Blair. Or is that of Blair? Whatever.
I am the night...
Another raindrop made its way past the barrier of Caroline’s umbrella, landing on Jim’s temple and slowly working its way down his face with the help of gravity. The cold water stole Jim’s body heat, and by the time it had reached his collar, it was almost as warm as Jim’s tears would have been if he had been crying. The raindrop slid beneath his collar, pulled down by the inexorable forces of nature. It rolled down under his chest, never quite merging with Jim’s sweat, but adopting some stray molecules, and rolled down to the waistband of his boxers. There its journey to the earth was defeated by the body-warmed cotton and elastic.
The coffin struck the earth. Nothing could stop it now.
People walked up to say a few words. Jim couldn’t even do that; his throat was raw and bloody from screaming. Caroline had driven him to the funeral because he’d broken four fingers; two on the right, and two on the left hand, from beating on the side of the ambulance that had taken Blair away.
The first grain of earth touched the mahogany of Blair’s coffin, and Jim heard a strange whimpering sound. A second later, he realized that it was his own voice, trying to escape and protest.
Caroline laid a gentle hand on his arm, trying to calm him. “Oh, Jim,” she whispered. She’d known about Jim and Blair since the first day - or, rather, the day after. “No one deserves this pain.” She pulled him close, back under the cover of the umbrella, and hugged him warmly.
Jim continued whimpering as quietly as he could. This wasn’t right; Blair couldn’t be dead. There hadn’t been an autopsy due to Jim’s protests. Simon had picked the coffin, and the Department had paid for the funeral.
Nature moved on, and the soft words of the Tibetan monk that had appeared to chant over Blair’s body finally came to an end. The song of the brass bowl rang in Jim’s ears, filling the empty space where Blair’s heartbeat should have been. Before Jim had driven him away. Before Jim had failed to protect the only thing that mattered to him in this whole damned world.
In the dying sunlight, Jim’s fellow officers started to fade away, leaving Jim alone with his ex-wife and his sorrow. Simon saw them away, and returned to find Jim kneeling in the damp earth, staring down at Blair’s coffin. Caroline was perched over him, doing her best to keep him dry.
Simon knelt down next him. “Jim?”
Jim shook his head.
“Do you need a few more minutes?”
Jim nodded.
They hadn’t filled in the grave yet. There was only a light layer of sod covering the brown wood. Sentinel eyes could still see the brass plaque glinting in the light. It was a simple thing, the only thing Jim had asked for on the coffin. It read, “Guide.”
Behind him, he could hear Simon talking to Caroline. Simon wanted to take Jim home, to talk to him. Caroline agreed, and came back to say goodbye.
“If you need me,” she whispered, after kissing him lightly on the cheek. Jim nodded in understanding. It still amazed him that they were still such good friends; better than when they’d been married.
Caroline walked away in the rain. Jim listened to the raindrops on her umbrella until she reached her car, and then moved back to listening to Simon’s deep, calm breaths. Another sound entered his quiet, grey world. Jim turned to watch the van pull up. Even before the door opened, he could smell strong incense and sandalwood. Naomi stepped out.
“Hi!” she called out, waving to the two figures by the grave. “Sorry I’m late. I was waiting for some people.” Four more people spilled out of the van, carrying candles and books. One of them wore a priest’s collar.
“What’s going on, Naomi?” Simon demanded.
“Just a quick little ceremony. I admit it, I was late on purpose. I didn’t want to do this in front of a whole bunch of people. Actually, I was hoping everyone would be gone by now.” Naomi looked a little sheepish. “Do you mind?”
Simon looked over at Jim, who was still staring at the coffin. “I don’t think we’re ready to leave yet.”
Naomi sighed. “Look, I kinda hafta do this right now. It really can’t wait. It’s important, really important.”
Jim stood up and walked away from the grave. Let Naomi do whatever she wanted. Let everyone say goodbye in their own way.
The five arranged themselves around the gravesite, with the priest standing where the gravestone would soon be. Naomi lit the candles, forming a cross of light around Blair’s grave. They started singing. Jim didn’t recognize the music, but it seemed to follow him as he walked with Simon towards the car.
The wind picked up a little, slicing through the trees. The sound was almost like wailing to Sentinel ears, as if the earth itself were mourning Blair. Jim dialed down his hearing, and when he entered Simon’s car, he could no longer hear the chanting or the wind.
Simon fumbled his keys, and they fell to the ground. “Shit,” he muttered. The keys had landed in some mud, and in the darkness, were almost invisible. Simon knelt down, and rummaged in the damp and slimy earth for a moment. “Jim? You wanna help me out here?”
Jim got out of the car again, and walked over to the driver’s side, and immediately found the keys, glinting dully in the light reflected from the single streetlight at this end of the cemetery. He picked them up and handed them to Simon, with only the ghost of a smile, and then went back to the passenger door. He risked a single glance at Naomi’s ceremony. The candles were eerily beautiful in the darkness, casting ethereally beautiful shadows on her face and those of the others.
Something was wrong. Jim inhaled deeply, but it wasn’t scent that suddenly filtered through his grief; it was sound. A familiar sound, one that had haunted him for days, but not quite the way he remembered it. It was a beat, a rhythm that had filled his days and nights for years; a rhythm that he knew as well - or better - than the beating of his own heart.
Blair’s heartbeat.
Weak, and slurred, but getting faster and faster, as if driven by fear.
For a second, Jim didn’t move. This had happened too many times before; in the morgue, at the funeral parlor. But he had never heard it like this before; it had always been strong and sure, as if Blair were still alive. This didn’t sound like an auditory hallucination; this sounded like Blair was trapped and dying.
“Jim! Wait! Where are you going?” cried Simon as Jim ran back to Blair’s grave. Simon swore under his breath, and followed, much more carefully, picking his way through the mud and the network of graves.
Naomi heard Simon’s shout, and pulled away from the little group. “What are you doing, Jim?” she asked patiently.
Jim swallowed hard. “I thought I heard something,” he rasped.
The rhythm that had brought him here skipped a beat.
Simon came up, panting. “Jim, what the hell is going on? Let’s get out of here, okay?”
Jim listened. He could hear Naomi’s heart, fast and nervous. The priest, steady and sure, and still chanting. And underneath all the others, a soft beating sound.
“Jim,” said Naomi softly, “don’t do this to yourself. Let him go.”
Jim looked at her. “You know. But you can’t hear him. How do you know?” It hurt to talk, but not as much as it would hurt to lose Blair again.
“What the hell are you talking about?” snarled Simon.
The priest raised his voice, to an almost commanding tone. The wind carried the rain under the umbrellas, and two of the candles went out.
“Naomi! The light!” cried one of the other chanters, panic coloring his voice.
Naomi’s face twisted, and she ran over, pulling out a lighter. The priest never stopped chanting.
“What is that noise?” asked Simon, looking at Jim. Jim registered it a moment after Simon spoke - a frantic scratching, human nails on hard wood.
“Blair!” they both said as one, and jumped into the grave.
“No!” screamed Naomi. “No, Jim, please stop, you don’t know what you’re doing!”
“In omnium potentum, in sanguinum deum -” Jim could barely understand the words; Latin was not his strong point. The priest seemed to be asking for God’s power, and there was something in there about holy blood. Suddenly, his chanting came to an abrupt stop, and he pulled off the chunky wooden cross he wore. “In nomine patrii, et filii, et spiritu sancti -”
Meanwhile, Jim and Simon had succeed in forcing open the coffin. Naomi screamed.
Blair lay on the satin pillow, his curls as wild and his skin as pale as they’d been earlier, but he was no longer still. He was gasping in pain, and his eyes were wide and unseeing, but he reached out for Jim.
“No! Don’t touch him, you monster!” Jim looked up, thinking Naomi was talking to him. Her eyes were filled with pain and hate. She pulled a wooden knife from out of her purse, and Jim realized that she was looking at Blair, who froze, and looked around without sitting up or moving any further.
“I’ll handle this,” said the priest confidently. He rose the cross above his head, and before he even began chanting again, Blair began to scream in anticipatory terror.
Simon whipped out his gun, and fired. His aim was perfect, even in the darkness, and the cross went flying into the night. The other chanters turned and ran at the crack of the gunshot, leaving Naomi and the priest staring down at the three men in the open grave. Simon kept his gun trained on the priest. “Okay, now you two are going to back away from the edge so that we can get out. Understand?” Simon’s voice was cold and commanding.
“Don’t you see what he is?” screamed Naomi. “He has to be destroyed!”
“Back off, over to the right there,” Simon said as if she hadn’t spoken. When neither of them moved, he gestured with his gun. “Move!”
Reluctantly, the priest took Naomi’s arm and pulled her in the direction Simon had chosen. “You’re making a mistake. We’re on the side of good.”
Jim looked down at Blair. Blair was cold; Jim’s senses hungered for the warmth that normally radiated from Blair’s body. His normal body scent was all but invisible, and his eyes looked tired and dull.
“I’m thirsty,” whispered Blair softly.
“Jim, get him out of there!” snapped Simon.
Jim knelt down, and lifted Blair from the coffin. Blair threw his arms around Jim’s neck, and nuzzled him gently.
“So thirsty,” said Blair dreamily.
Jim climbed out of the grave, protectively holding Blair close to him. Jim met Naomi’s eyes, and saw not just hate, but her anger at her failure. Jim pulled Blair closer. “We’ll go home,” he whispered to Blair. “I’ll protect you.”
Naomi and the priest easily recognized defeat. “You’ll be sorry, Ellison. You don’t know what you’re getting into,” snarled Naomi.
Behind him, Jim could hear Simon clambering out of the pit that had almost been lucky enough to hold Blair Sandburg forever. “Let’s go, Jim.”
I am the song...
“So who are these people again? Do I kowtow to them or what?” muttered Christie, either unaware that the two men approaching could hear her perfectly, or arrogant enough not to care.
“I dunno, some country cousins or something. Be polite, but let them know who’s boss. It’s your city.”
Jude looked at his friend, and smiled. “Her city, indeed,” he whispered. Mihi smiled back at his master. “She’s not going to enjoy tonight at all, is she?” Jude nipped lightly at Mihi’s neck, making him growl, and snuggle closer. Jude wrapped an arm around his friend and lover, and smiled at their hostess. “Greetings, all.”
The woman sighed. “My name’s Christie,” she said. She was tall, dark, and dressed well, with a commanding air. Jude was amused. She gestured him to a seat at the table. “I don’t know how things work out in the country, but up here, I’m in charge.”
Jude smiled, and sat down. “Well, things work pretty much the same out in the country. We just have a few things that y’all don’t.” His drawl was somewhat exaggerated, for the benefit of the others gathered just at the edge of hearing range. Jude waited until Mihi was standing next to him, eager and hungry.
“Such as?” Christie challenged.
“Manners, for one.” Mihi took the hint, from Jude’s tone: this person was unimportant. “And for another,” Jude slid his hand into his coat, and pulled out a heavy oaken stake tipped with gold, and passed it to his beloved. “We have better friends, and apparently, all the weapons.”
Christie gasped and got up to run, but Mihi’s breed was not at all common in the city, and she had no idea what to expect. Mihi moved like quicksilver, tackling her, and pinned her to the floor for Jude’s perusal. Jude nodded, and Mihi brought down the stake. She screamed, and arched into the stake, helpless as her body ceased responding under the influence of the wood. The reaction ran quickly, accelerated by the gold, and before any of the others could come to her aid, she was nothing more than dust, and the stake had charred to a useless crisp.
Thinking that Mihi was helpless now, one of the others tried to avenge her, and pounced on Mihi. Mihi tossed off all semblance of humanity, and ripped his attacker to shreds - literally. His lupine fangs easily ripped the bloodless flesh away from brittle bone, and left wicked burns where his wolf blood caused the vampire’s stolen human blood to boil.
“Off,” Jude commanded. Mihi turned and trotted calmly to Jude’s side. The rest of Cascade’s vampires wisely backed away from the snarling, grey-backed wolf.
Jude walked up to the writhing vampire on the floor. “Manners are really important to us country cousins,” he observed. “I’ll let you live, this time.” Jude patted the wounded city vampire on the head, and his hand came away covered in blood and ashes from where Mihi’s fangs had done the most damage. The vampire curled up on the floor, unable to move away from Jude’s mocking eyes. “But if any of you ever talk to a child of Vhaultis like that again, you’ll be sorry of it.” The wolf sniffed at his hand, and Jude let him lick it clean.
Jude turned to face the rest of the gathered vampires. “Somebody get him cleaned up. And who wants to show me where 852 Prospect Street is?”
I am the dance...
“So,” said Simon heavily. “Blair’s a vampire.”
Jim shrugged. “I guess,” he rasped. Jim and Blair were nestled together in the back seat of Simon’s car. Blair was still very, very out of it, but was conscious enough to coo softly at the painful sound of Jim’s rough voice, and pet his throat in gentle sympathy.
“How the hell did he become a vampire? Is this the first time he’s died?”
“I don’t know,” Jim confessed. He rose to a sitting position, still holding Blair on his lap. Suddenly, Blair shivered, and whimpered into Jim’s chest.
“I’m thirsty,” Blair repeated.
“Are you going to feed him or what?” demanded Simon.
“What? Oh.” Jim looked down at Blair, and gulped. “Not too much, okay?” Wide-eyed, Blair nodded. Jim pulled away his tie, and opened the first few buttons on his shirt. Blair lightly ran his tongue over his upper lip. Jim leaned back into the seat, and exposed his throat to Blair.
Jim met Simon’s eyes in the mirror, and together they watched as Blair smiled shyly at Jim, and then leaned forward, as if to gently kiss Jim’s neck. In the mirror, Jim could see sharp white fangs, unnaturally white in Blair’s mouth. Not white like fake plastic fangs, but white like new baby teeth.
Blair’s lips were slightly dry, and Jim could feel them brush across his neck before he was swept away on a rush of pure pleasure. He was dimly aware of the fact that Blair’s teeth had broken skin, because he could feel a few drops of his own blood slowly trailing down his neck, away from the warmth of Blair’s mouth on his neck. Other than that, all of his senses had overloaded on some chemical rush of total euphoria.
Jim moaned, and felt an unexpected warmth flood down his body, and knew that he had just come. Blair pulled away, after one last lick at the swiftly closing wound on Jim’s neck. Jim closed his eyes and sagged down in the seat. Blair gently stroked Jim’s head, then turned to meet Simon’s eyes, total innocence and pure lust equally mixed in his eyes.
“I’m still thirsty.”
Simon swallowed hard. “Wait ‘til we get you home, okay?”
Blair nodded, and turned his full attention back to petting Jim.
I am no longer alone...
Jim woke up to a sensation he’d never thought he’d feel again: Blair’s lips on his, familiar and warm, tasting faintly of herbs and copper. Copper? All of the events of the evening came rushing back to him, and he sat up.
They were in the loft. Jim was lying on the couch, with Blair sitting on him and looking down in some amusement. Deciding Jim was awake enough, Blair leaned down and gave Jim a hungry kiss.
“Look who’s here!” said Blair happily.
Still only half-awake, Jim turned just as he registered two other heartbeats. Jude and his friend, Mihi. Blair’s relatives from New Orleans.
“Nice nap?” Jude asked.
Jim grunted for an answer, and looked around the loft again. Simon was leaning against the door, breathing deeply and fully, as a man will who has just experienced an earth-shattering orgasm. Jim looked at Blair questioningly.
“I was thirsty,” said Blair sweetly.
“Be easy with him,” advised Jude. “It’s his first hour, his heure sanguine. He’s going to have to drink a lot for the next few days.”
Hour of blood, Jim’s brain translated. That’s right, he thought wildly. Blair’s a vampire.
“And you’ll have to do something about that skylight,” added Mihi. “Or he can’t stay here. He’ll burn right up!”
“I’ll fix it,” Jim vowed. Anything to keep from losing Blair again. He pulled Blair closer to him.
Jude smiled. “I’m glad to see you appreciate your burden.”
Blair turned Jim’s eyes back to him, and kissed him again, draining away all thought. When Blair’s kisses moved lower, Jim did nothing, and let Blair drink his fill.
“Whatever you need, Blair. Take whatever you need.”
The Third Hour