Embracing a new life

Chapter 11: Family reunion

For two months, he was left in blissful peace. No prose-reciting love sick; no despotic, violent, pompous ass. Just Andreji, some nice women, and the world at his feet. Well, perhaps that was over-egging the pudding. He had found a smith who let him use his workplace in exchange for some coins, and he had also found the daughter of the local priest (yes, well, officially she was merely the daughter of the priest’s housekeeper, but everyone knew how that story went). She was not very entertaining as far as cultivated conversation went, but she had a rather beautiful singing voice and long, flowing hair. Above all, she had that admiring gleam in her eyes when she looked at him – who did not like being adored?

It was already long past midnight, and his lady of the month had snuck out of her parental confinement to keep him company. Her plump leg rested against his inner thigh while she kissed her way along his jaw. Suddenly, she winced as he brushed gently over her arm.

Andreji sat up to look at the sensitive patch of skin – it had turned a nasty shade of blue, with some greenish specks at the brim. There were several of those spots on her upper arm. “What is this?” he enquired.

She shrugged his hand off and pulled her shawl over the bruised place. “It’s nothing,” she said evasively.

“It is a hand print,” Andreji stated unperturbed. “The master of the house, I presume?”

“I told you; it’s nothing,” his bed mate tried to get him off the topic. “Hilde looks much worse at times. Last week she ran around face down the whole time because of her split lip.”

Andreji smirked. Yes, that girl was quite popular with the male half of the town’s population, but she was also the young wife of an old baker who was known for his quick temper. That it was provoked by her easy lifestyle was not surprising. Still, “One violent act does not make the other any better. Should the priest of all people not give a positive example?” His inflection clearly pointed out that he did not really believe in what he said and was only making fun of the man, but that little detail slipped the girl’s notice.

She laughed out dryly. “You don’t understand what people are like,” she noted therefore.

The man who shared the bed of straw with her smiled ambiguously. “You are right; I do not understand that.” He leaned forward and caressed her naked thighs. “But I know how to take your mind off those people…”

The girl giggled because Andreji’s fingers caressed her so lightly that it tickled.

“I fear you will have to postpone that,” a strict voice said suddenly.

Andreji turned around and moaned silently as he saw Alaric standing in the entrance of the cattle stable. “Can you not entertain yourself otherwise for another hour? I am certain there is some other nice girl around to distract you.” He eyed him appraisingly. “…or boy, should you prefer that.”

Alaric leaned against the door post, crossing his arms.

“I am not going to give you a show, should you hope for that,” Andreji said derisively.

“Pity. Then I suggest you get your pretty bottom up and follow me.”

Accepting the inevitable, Andreji said his good-byes to the priest’s daughter and snatched up his belongings.

“Have you done what you promised?” Alaric asked when they had walked out of ear’s reach.

Andreji threw an annoyed glance at the other man’s back but refrained from commenting on his behaviour. He unwrapped one of the several bundles that rested heavily under his arm, pulled out Alaric’s short sword, and handed it to him.

“Well,” Alaric grudgingly acknowledged while he eyed the part of it that Andreji had reworked, “at least you know your trade.”

The blond smirked darkly behind his back. Would that not just take the cake if ‘The Master’ (as he called him derisively) started even criticising him for his forging?!

Alaric threw a glance over his shoulder at Andreji’s bundle. “You have further weapons at hand? I have spotted a rogue vampire that I need to take care of. I thought you would care to join me.”

“A rogue vampire?” Andreji enquired.

“Yes. Someone like you. Clan-less, not properly instructed by his master. On top of everything, this one is apparently mentally retarded and therefore unable to cognise that attacking people in front of onlookers is… counterproductive. He was last seen in the woods south of Birkenhagen, so we will take up his trace there.”

It had taken them two nights to hunt their prey down. After chasing after him through the woods, they eventually confronted him at the edge of a lake. The man was a sight to behold. His long hair and beard were matted; his eyes were unusually big in his bony face and reflected the moonlight. He wore nothing but an old, stinking fur coat that probably brimmed with fleas. Beneath the coat, a golden necklace, half covered in mud, with a large, blood red ruby whose colour had probably caught his attention hung around his neck and his hairy body was visible. His small, dirty member dangled flaccidly between his legs. The rest of his body was anything but flaccid, however. He snarled, showed his teeth, and threatened to attack with his claws. Andreji was not certain if he should be intimidated or just laugh out loud.

In the end, the rogue proofed to be tougher than expected. Alaric and Andreji had agreed on foregoing the use of spirits to increase the challenge of the hunt, and taking on their prey physically turned out to be a matter of patience. He was as swift as a weasel, evading Alaric’s sword time and again. Growing tired of the game, Andreji ultimately threw aside his own blade and coat to gain maximum freedom of movement. He had proven already that he was more agile than Alaric, and he demonstrated it again by catching the rogue within a minute.

The vampire struggled against him and tried to turn his body far enough around to be able to rip open Andreji’s neck with his teeth. Before Alaric had erased the distance between them to stab their prey, Andreji had already violently pulled the vampire’s head backwards and broken his neck.

Disgustedly, he let the body sink to the floor.

Alaric chuckled, slightly out of breath, as he sheathed his sword and looked down on the corpse. “A worthwhile distraction, I should say. Your technique needs a bit of refinement, however.”

Andreji merely snorted while he was already on the way to the water. “In contrast to yours, my technique worked,” he retorted without bothering to face the elder man. Granted, his method had not been the most elegant, and the rogue had probably already been worn out by his struggle to avoid Alaric’s blade, yet that did not change the fact that he had succeeded where the other one had failed.

“What are you doing?” Alaric demanded to know in irritation when Andreji waded into the lake, fully dressed.

“Killing fleas.” He could feel his skin itch already. The only effective method of getting rid of those beasts that he undoubtedly had just caught was to drown them.

The next evening, Andreji noiselessly climbed up to the window of his lady of the month. She shared a small sleeping room with her two younger sisters, yet she was sitting awake on the window sill and opened her mouth in pleasant surprise.

They spent an hour with each other; then Andreji brought her safely back.

As he took a stroll around town, he suddenly ran into Demyan. Bad timing, was all he could think. Well, it had been bound to happen, had it not? He sighed. “Demyan, not right now. I am busy. Why do you not enjoy a few days off, find yourself a nice male distraction, and we see each other in a week?” he started an attempt at getting rid of his maker before they hit upon Alaric that he knew was going to be fruitless.

He was not mistaken. Demyan smiled confusedly, not sure what to make of this greeting. Was this a new tactic of Andreji’s to fend him off? “Why? If you have some work to do I do not mind watching you.”

The blond sneered and decided he might as well. So he wordlessly turned and went to the smithy.

And there, just a few dozen feet away from his destination, Andreji spotted Alaric, who was in fact just chatting up a young stable-lad. It was unmistakeable that the other man had seen him, too. Andreji could see how his gaze wandered from him to the man who followed in his wake and recognition dawned on his face. Andreji winced inwardly but went straight ahead as if nothing was happening.

To his relief, Alaric for some unfathomable reason chose the same tactic.

The smith emerged from his meagre private rooms when he heard sounds coming from his workspace, but withdrew as soon as he noticed Andreji. It took some time until the blond had fanned the fire and had gotten it hot enough for his purposes. By then, he had thought of a way of driving Demyan off. Admittedly, the milk had been spoilt already. The look of realisation on Alaric’s face had been apparent, yet Andreji truly did not have the nerves to deal with both bloodsuckers at the same time. Keeping them apart was in any case the best choice to make.

Thus, he unrolled his bundle and took the silver rods he had procured in order to make the set of silver daggers that he had been commissioned with. He bound a wet piece of cloth around his head that shielded some of the fumes off his nose and mouth. Getting silver into his lungs was… unpleasant, as he had learned quickly. Slowly, he wielded the rods, mixing them with another metal to harden the material since silver itself was a rather soft material, so that they moulded into one piece.

It took a while until the fumes reached Demyan’s air passages and started affecting him. Eventually, the man started coughing. Well, if he was too stupid to know Andreji’s means of precaution for what they were, it was not the blond’s fault.

“Andreji!” Demyan uttered in exasperation while he hurried toward the exit. After taking some desperately needed breaths of fresh air, his coughing had diminished somewhat so that he could form whole sentences again. “I told you we cannot bear silver. It is poisonous!”

Andreji smirked, although Demyan could not see that behind the protective mask. “And I told you your visit was badly timed. As you can see, I manage just fine.”

Demyan watched him for another few minutes, probably hoping that Andreji would come to his senses. Uttering “Stubborn git!” he finally turned and left.

For a short while, Andreji remained undisturbed. He could only hope that the two men that haunted him did not hit upon each other on the streets. So far, Demyan had seemed blissfully ignorant of another vampire’s presence in town.

When the church bell had announced that it was a quarter to two, Andreji heard muted steps outside. He had had to close the door to mute the sounds of his work, and now he ceased it completely, anxious that someone had noticed. After curfew, working was forbidden. Of course, loud hammering was impossible to keep secret, but so far the neighbours had borne with him, knowing that the owner of the place, who was an esteemed man, was in dire need of the money that Andreji paid him. He had been ill for some time so that business had run badly, and now he struggled to come up with the dowry that was needed to wed his daughter.

When the door was opened, Andreji could see how the smoke immediately was trying to escape the heated room. Choked coughing emerged from the grey clouds. “Are you suicidal?” a well known voice asked with a growl as the door was pulled wide open. A figure fell several steps back to evade the fumes.

Andreji leaned on the anvil and laughter bubbled up in him. Who would have guessed that his two shadows were so entertaining?

He cleared his throat. Gradually, the silver was affecting him, too. Loathing his need to do so as the fumes had just proven a good means of holding the vampire off, Andreji joined Alaric outside and took off his mask.

They sat down on a pair of empty barrels. For a while, neither of them cared to speak. It surprised Andreji that Alaric made no scathing remarks about his stupidity for once. As he sat there, leaning against the wall behind him with closed eyes, he could feel the other man’s eyes roam over him.

“He is your maker?” Alaric ultimately posed the question that was really on his mind.

Andreji nodded minutely. Denying the facts did not make any sense, did it?

“Well then,” Alaric chuckled suddenly, “welcome to the family.”

Andreji opened his eyes and stared at the other man bemusedly.

Alaric burst out in ironic laughter.


http://wapedia.mobi/en/Intercrural_sex
http://www.global-language.com/pow.html