Chapter Text
Now — October; Ain't I a Stinker?
The Great Hall of Neopolis, a middle sized trading city on the eastern shore of the States, was an enormous building near the central marketplace whose offices of the upper floors were utilized by the judges and lawyers of the city. The cellars of the building, forming an endless maze with a large number of cells, functioned as a prison.
On a quiet Sunday midday, a man walked to the front desk of the Great Hall with a purposeful stride. His clothes were well cared for and neatly tailored to a perfect fit. Dark, stern eyes were trained on the clerk at the desk as he made his way across the hall.
The Hall was a hundred feet wide and two hundred feet long, taller than the tallest church in the city and, on this Sunday, currently very empty. His steps reverberated through the air.
The glass-stained windows had been opened early in the morning to let in the air on this warm autumn day. A soft breeze floated in.
From his left, a pigeon flew in and fluttered nervously about. Its heartbeat drummed at a high speed.
When he came to a halt, the clerk did not look up from where she was reading the newspaper, having heard him from the moment he opened the creaking old wooden doors.
“State your name and business, please,” she said.
“Raphael Santiago. Visiting inmate Camille Belcourt, 4093.” He handed over the admission document. His handwriting was impeccable. No frills, no ink stains, instead he wrote in clear, small block letters.
She took the paper and checked it without haste, uninterested even after hearing Miss Belcourt’s name, and set the paper down next to her. “Approved.”
The old lady, wearing heavy golden bangles that matched her glittery reading glasses, reached to her left and pulled out the large register book. It clonked down on her desk with a loud bang that boomed through the hall. The pigeon nearly flew into a stone pillar.
She flipped through the pages until she reached 4093, penned down the date, time and his surname, and pressed down a stamp next to the entry, hard.
She returned to her newspaper.
A guard led him downstairs.
The daylight faded fast and in its place came the damp chill of what used to be catacombs. The priests had moved their religious practices elsewhere, and the halls and chambers had been transformed into prison cells. Skulls and bones still decorated the walls, as well as subtle engravings that dulled with time; depictions of old heroes’ tales, monstrous, hybrid creatures with talons and scales, or lovers entwined beneath a canopy of flowers. Raphael’s eyes lingered on the drawings.
The moist air and stale smell of still water, like marshy sewage, filled his nostrils. It reminded him of when he was younger and his mother had taken him to visit old caves near to the village he was born. That was over a hundred years ago and she had long since died.
The two men halted in front of a candle-lit cell.
“Camille Belcourt, inmate 4093,” the guard stated. He did not unlock her cell but stepped back, giving some semblance of privacy.
“Hello, Camille,” Raphael greeted.
A slumped figure stirred and then remained motionless for a few minutes. When she recognized who stood in front of her, she groaned. “Ah… My angel. You’ve finally come to visit your old friend?”
Camille Belcourt, former leader of one of the two major power holders of the city, had lost all her glamour and shine. Gone was her silver jewellery, her blood red dresses and night blue tunics. The bronze ring that used to adorn her finger was now screwed tightly onto Raphael’s.
“No,” he answered. “I would hardly call this a friendly visit.”
Her foul body odour was overpowering. Clearly the guards didn’t particularly care for their inmates’ hygiene. She had not washed in over a month, hadn’t fed in over longer. Before, she used to smelled of hyacinths, always persistent about the particular fragrance she bought from the most expensive shop in the city. It really was quite lovely.
Camille stared at him. Her cheekbones stood out and stretched across gaunt, sallow skin. “Mh.” Her voice cracked from disuse. She brushed away the hair falling in front of her face and gave him a lazy smile. “Well. I can only think of one reason. You’ve come to gloat.”
He tilted his head sideways and almost unconsciously returned her smile. “Yes.” Her expression didn’t change. “I think it’s only fair, after over a hundred years of having to answer to you?”
Camille didn’t answer. She remained quiet for a whole five minutes, staring at Raphael, wishing for him to speak. Then she moaned as she heaved herself upwards, the chains around her feet rattling across the floor. A rusty bucket smelling of urine and faeces lay to her right.
Camille had already grown bored of him and decided she would waste no further time. She had never been able to stand Raphael.
“I suppose it is only fair. But let me bestow a little life lesson upon you, my angel.” Even in this state she lost none of her haughty condescension. “I’m an Ancient One, I’ve lived a lot longer than you, and I can predict right here, right now, that you’ll fall and fail. You’re not nearly cunning enough to remain at the head of the clan. You won’t best me, I can promise you that. All cages are temporary.”
It struck a chord, because deep down Raphael feared she was right. Camille had friends in high places, and compared to her, he was practically a new-born. Still a fledgeling.
The newly established peace treaty in the city was frail, and the other vampires of the clan had wavering loyalties. Some followed in her footsteps, disregarded accords and fed off humans. They had the same cold craving for senseless carnage.
Raphael was treading on thin ice, and he realized coming here had been a mistake. In the two seconds of silence, she seemed to read the uncertainty on his face and smiled.
“And how is my dear Simon doing? Still tasting sweet?”
Raphael corrected her calmly, after almost foolishly losing his temper, “I think you mean mine, Camille.”
She let out a bark of laughter and cleared her throat. “Of course.”
Unease settled deep in his stomach.
“I remember him,” she said. “I remember what he tastes like. He never shut up, but he tasted as if the gods had made him for us to enjoy, don’t you agree? Like sweets. Caramels. Soft, sticky, and heady.” She moved closer and her hands curled around the metal bars. She licked her lips and let her fangs drops.
Raphael clenched his jaws. The guard followed their interaction from the opposite corner, sensing the growing tension.
“Oh… Love makes you so blind,” she continued. “Wasn’t I the one who always told you what a terrible nuisance it is? And weren’t you the one who always agreed?”
“I don’t love him,” Raphael said.
To Raphael’s increasing fury, she started cackling. “Oh, this is good! The most entertainment I’ve had in months! Thank you for coming down here.” She gripped her stomach and huffed.
She shook her head. “You’ve just proven how deeply unsuitable you are for the role of clan leader. Poor, sweet angel, you’ll always be ruled by your baser emotions and instincts, like an animal. You just can’t let it slide, can you? That he’s not yours?”
“He is,” Raphael insisted, regretting it immediately. Even to himself, he sounded like a child.
Raphael lowered his head. She shrugged her shoulders and began picking at her nails.
After a few minutes of silence, during which he studied her, he said, “Goodbye, Camille.” He turned and followed the path back to the Hall upstairs. The guard followed him quietly.
Camille called after him, “Give him my love!”
Before – March, the first glimpse of light
Evolution was a grand thing, Raphael concluded, feeling the rays of sunlight warm his face.
Who had ever thought that vampires would be able to walk in daylight? For centuries, they couldn’t touch rays without bursting into dust. Now the only thing he felt was a slight tingle, and if he was careless he would burn, much faster than a regular human.
But evolution was a grand thing. He revelled in the feeling.
So absorbed he was, Raphael almost missed the scent that would change his life. His eyes sprang open to the sight of the bustling market, the shouting vendors behind their pyramids of fruits and nuts.
It wasn’t the sweet tang of oranges or earthy aroma of walnuts that had distracted him, however. It was something much sweeter and earthier, almost familiar, pumping through a stranger’s veins, and so nearby.
An angered tourist bumped into him, griping about disturbing the flow of the market.
Raphael pinned the man with a deathly glare and walked on hazily, trailing behind the scent.
The sun and the overflow of smells and voices rendered him unbalanced. He knocked over a few apples from a crate of stall to his left and quickly apologized, handed some coins to the woman yelling at him in a daze. “Blind idiot!”
As he gained on the smell, it starts to shift, slowly becoming more pungent, so much so that Raphael instinctively covered his nose, because the sweet smell had mixed with a revolting, acrid stench of illness. Whoever the smell belonged to was unwell. Not only that, but Raphael caught the tell-tale whiff of lycan, and a very particular one at that, a lycan Raphael recognized.
That’s when Raphael spotted him.
A young man, pale and slightly feverish, with a wide mouth that burst into a broad laugh, with unkempt, dark hair, and with glasses askew on his nose. He was chatting amiably with a petite redhead whose mother was scolding him for distracting her daughter from her work. The stall, however, had no customers. Still, he apologized cheerily, and moved to the side. The girl moved along with him.
The mishmash of smells made Raphael dizzy. He kept his distance and sneaked in between two houses on the edge of the market square, keeping an eye on the man.
As if someone above him was pulling the strings of his body, a little marionette, clumsy and stiff, he moved forward and only realized he was halfway to the stall and the scent when yet again a buyer knocked into him, and shouted at him. The commotion distracted everyone around them, including the young man.
Their eyes met for a split second. Then the man looked away and continued chatting.
To Raphael’s ever-growing astonishment and shame, his mouth started to water. He quickly snapped his mouth shut and pinched his lips.
He swallowed thickly and waited for his brain to kick into gear. When it did, he was overcome with relief and anticipation, uncharacteristically greedy and nervous. He had a plan.
Before; June, a new life
A figure cloaked in dirty garments sat perched in a kneeled position at the steps of a small altar in front of burning candles. Flickering in their light was a rough statue of a woman mirroring the position of the man. His hands rested on the ground beside his legs, his eyes closed. He held his head bowed low.
Raphael observed the scene from afar.
He didn’t worship this deity, but knew She, the statue, stood for health and hope. He almost shook his head, concluding that the situation was slightly ironic. He was, after all, here to offer the same thing.
The young man murmured the same unintelligible phrase over and over.
Raphael had entered the temple half an hour ago, waiting for the devout priestess to finally take her leave. She had approached the praying man, the only person left, informing him she was needed elsewhere, but he was welcome to stay. The doors were open day and night. There was nothing valuable to steal, save for the stumps of candle wax and a red cloth hammered to the wall.
Now the two of them were alone. Outside, a church bell rang indicating midnight. It was cool inside, not that Raphael felt any of it. The man, however, shivered slightly, huddling closer to the candles and burrowing himself into his cloak. His curls fell forward.
Raphael crept out of the shadows and coughed.
The young man was sunk so deeply into prayer, he didn’t hear, so Raphael lowered himself to his knees next to the man and mirrored the Lady’s position.
He was soon noticed and the young man inhaled deeply and grabbed at his chest. “Jesus! Oh— you scared me, sorry, that—,” he broke off suddenly and gave a tight-lipped nod, returning to the Lady. He was wheezing.
Raphael kept staring at him, and clearly unable to take it any longer, the young man turned around angrily and demanded, “What are you doing? This is kind of creepy. Please —move away. I need … space … to breathe.” He coughed.
Raphael wasn’t going to beat around the bush. At any moment, someone could walk in and he would have to wait for another opportunity to speak privately. In a determined voice he said, “You’re dying, Mr. Lewis.”
Simon, as Raphael knew him to be called, startled and looked nervously about. “Excuse me? How do you kn—,”
“I can smell it.”
He recoiled and bent his head, sniffing at his armpits. “That’s awful, surely I don’t smell quite so terrible—,”
“No,” Raphael interrupted.
Simon gathered his wits and shot up quickly, backed away, but Raphael strode over in three easy steps and pointed at his heaving chest, from which the putrid smell emanated. “Your lungs smell rotten. It’s coming from the inside out. I’d give you another couple of months, most likely less.” Raphael did his very best not to inhale too deeply.
He gaped. “But I’ve not told anyone! My mother doesn’t even know! How could you possibly smell it? Who are you? What are you?” Right above him was the statue of a gargoyle baring its teeth, and Simon widened his eyes in alarm and nearly screeched, “Are you— are you a demon?” He erupted in a coughing fit. The hall was empty and Simon’s wet coughs echoed loudly.
Raphael smiled. “All demons were once angels, Mr. Lewis, soldiers of god. A demon is merely a fallen angel. Either way, I’m afraid the joy of being a soldier is reserved for the Nephilim.”
Raphael gave him a few seconds to process, but quickly resumed. “I smell lycan on you too. And not only that, but a particular lycan. Luke Garroway?”
“Are you mad? Did you escape from the asylum? I don’t understand what on earth you are talking about. Lycan? And Luke? How could you possibly — ” he cut himself off. “I haven’t seen Luke in weeks!”
“I don’t mean now. I noticed his scent a while back,” he grunted, losing his patience. “The first time I walked past you, a few months ago.”
Simon’s eyes bulged. He started spluttering and pulling at his sleeves. “What! Have you been following me? How dare you—,”
“Spare me the theatrics, Mr. Lewis. As I was saying,” Raphael continued in a collected manner, “The first time I walked past you, I smelled lycan. It was back in March. You were talking to a friend of yours, hackling your way through a conversation. You never even realized I was there. But I was glad to have fallen upon you.”
“Why? What do you want with me?”
Raphael’s smile widened. “Because, Mr. Lewis, I have a proposition for you.”
Simon frowned and seemed at a loss for how to act. “Well… What if I’m not interested? I mean, you can’t just come in here and —,”
“I think you’ll find you’ll be interested in what I have to offer. It involves you alive. Mostly. Besides, it’s not exactly a proposition. I was only attempting to soothe your nerves.”
Simon started truly panicking. His heart rate shot up again and his airway blocked. He resumed coughing and held a hand out in front of him, hoping to ward off whatever was coming.
“I’m giving you a new chance at life. You’re dying. Your physician has told me so weeks ago.”
“How do you know all of this?” Simon shrieked. “This is outrageous, oh my god, I am going to die, for sure. This is ridiculous, I only came here to pray! Can’t a person pray in peace anymore?” He continued babbling to himself, pacing to and fro and muttering agitatedly about doctor-patient confidentiality and the Hippocratic oath.
Raphael waited patiently until Simon calmed down somewhat. He kept an ear out for any other visitors. No one was coming.
Simon sat down on a wooden bench. He stared at the statue of the Lady with a miserable look on his face.
“Mr. Lewis,” Raphael said. “I must apologize. I had hoped to meet you in a less …unsettling manner, but you are always surrounded by people. Even at night.” Simon still lived at home with his family. “This is the first time I’ve been able to catch you alone, and I would prefer to have this conversation in private. Let me get right to the heart of it.”
Simon glanced up at him and shrugged helplessly.
“You’re aware of the two leading factions in this city, I presume?”
A nod.
“Excellent. So you must know that Luke is important. Very important, even.”
Another nod.
“But you don’t seem to know what he is.”
“What he is? What do you mean? Is that what you keep referring to? Lycan?”
“Yes.”
“Lycanthrope? Lykos, wolf, anthropos, man? Are you seriously attempting to convince me that Luke Gorroway, member of the most important group of lawyers, who, yes, I know have a lot of standing in this city, but who I’ve known all my life, is a wolf man? You are insane.”
“I’m glad you know your Greek.”
“That is absurd!” Simon shouted. “I would know if he turned furry every month.”
Raphael corrected him. “He is not a werewolf, but a lycan. They’ve grown since being chained to the shift as werewolves. Lycans are an advanced species that is able to fully control its shift. The influence of the full moon in strenuous, undoubtedly, but they can choose not to give in to it.” Raphael was not used to speaking this much. He felt himself growing nervous but hid it well.
Simon laughed and rubbed his forehead. “You’re messing with me. I know I’m taken for a fool a lot of the time, but this takes the cake! I love a good performance as much as the next man, but this is not funny anymore—,”
With a burst of speed, Raphael sprinted to him and let his fangs drop, hissed for good measure, and sunk his claws into Simon’s biceps.
Simon yelled out in fear and surprise. Raphael quickly covered his mouth. “Believe me now?”
Frantic nods in quick succession. Raphael let go, and Simon let out a stream of oh, my gods. “This cannot be happening to me.”
“Lose your composure later, Mr. Lewis. Please, look at me.”
He complied.
“Thank you.”
“What is even your name? I don’t know who your are.”
Slowly, the claws and fangs retreated. “Raphael Santiago.” An archangel. “I am not a lycan, but a vampire, instead. Need I explain further?”
Simon shook his head dumbly, too shocked to think straight. He had become frozen. “Raphael. Like the angel. רפאל.”
Raphael had followed Simon to the synagogue on a few Saturdays. He was always accompanied by his mother and sister.
“All right. I presume, then, you know of the other leader as well.”
A few seconds passed in silence. Simon had started to shiver. “Miss Belcourt?”
“Yes. She’s my boss.”
“Oh. I thought she led the traders here in Neopolis –the guilders.”
“Yes, she does. But it serves mostly as a cover. The two factions have been at odds for over two decades. It’s starting to grow rather tiresome,” he said. “Camille, Miss Belcourt that is, is a stubborn bitch.”
Simon frowned at the harsh words, but he could guess why. “I’ve … heard some things.”
“None pleasant, I assume?”
“Eh … no, not really.” Simon thought of the stories and rumours flying about the city. Cruel treatment of her employees, unfair trials and bribed judges, corrupt money schemes, unsavoury business practices, the list went on.
“Excellent. So we can agree on one thing, at least. Miss Belcourt has refused any sort of peace treaty with the lycans—,”
“Luke.”
“Yes, Luke, because she has always been power hungry and is unwilling to share it.”
“Okay.” Simon paused. “But I don’t understand, why are you talking to me? What is my role in all this? Besides, I’m … dying. I won’t … be around for much longer.”
“You are going to help me. Luke doesn’t trust the vampires anymore, thanks to Camille. We keep losing people on both sides, and I’ve had enough. I refuse to be killed because of a spoiled brat with no sense for politics. This is my home, and I intend to keep it that way.”
“That … seems … reasonable, I guess.” Simon shrugged, thinking, I’m so far out of my depth, please, save me. He threw a quick look at the stone statue again.
“Precisely. So you’re going to help me get Luke on my side. Convince him to band together and overthrow that incompetent queen. And in return, I’ll save your life.”
“How?”
“Need you really ask?” Raphael dropped his fangs and smiled. It made for a gruesome sight. A beast passing for an angel, still beautiful.
“And what if I refuse? Can’t I go to Luke instead, and have him turn me into … a thing, you know.” Simon backed away, afraid of what was to come. His self-preservation instincts had started to kick in.
Raphael moved closer, his expensive shoes clacking faintly on the tiles. Simon grew alarmed. “I’m sorry, I can’t let that happen. I need some reassurance, you see, that I won’t get duped in the process.”
“You’re awfully polite for someone who’s about to kill me!” Simon said hysterically.
“Good manners are timeless.”
“I— I— I can promise you, your reasons seem … reasonable, I get it! I understand,” Simon took another few steps backwards until he met the wall. “I promise, I won’t trick you! I’m dependable, ask anyone! I—,”
“Can’t take the chance. If I sire you—”
Simon choked at the words, terrified.
“If I sire you, I’ll be able to feel you out. Detect any fraudulent intentions. I’ll know where you are at all times, and I’ll be able to sense your distress. Think of it as insurance.”
“That seems a little excessive. It’s really not necessary!” He crossed his arms in front of him and tried to give a reassuring smile. “I promise, I …” he trailed off as Raphael stopped right in front of him and took a few fearful gulps of air.
“I do apologize, Mr. Lewis.”
“Simon,” he babbled. “It’s Simon. You’re about to …”
“Simon,” he conceded, feeling uncomfortable at the familiarity despite being about to sire a vampire for the first time in his undead life. It didn’t feel right. “I am sorry. But I need to think of my people. Hopefully you’ll understand one day.”
“Please don’t,” Simon pleaded. “Please, I’m not ready for this. Give me a few weeks, or a few days, at least! I need to…”
Raphael gripped his wrists softly, but with determination. He repeated himself while staring Simon straight in the eyes. “Perdóname.”
He placed his cold hand over Simon’s beating chest, the feel of the frantic rhythm seared into his brain, and held it there until Simon began to squirm. “Please, don’t.”
And then Raphael surged forward, clamped down on his neck, and bit.