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There I am, drunk on / a thousand deaths, telling / myself about me, if only to see / if it’s true that it’s me lying / there beneath the grass.
-Alejandra Pizarnik, tr. by Yvette Siegert, Extracting the Stone of Madness: Poems 1962 - 1972
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Once upon a time, there was a human, as there is with any story that begins and ends with bloodshed.
This human wasn’t particularly interesting. He should have been a meal. A footnote in Nandor’s extensive past. He should have been a body buried in a shallow grave, left to feed the wriggling maggots that would make a home inside his bones.
“You’re a vampire,” the human says, breath mingling with the sharp winter air. Nandor is close enough to the man that he can smell the cinnamon on his breath, chewing gum visible between his parted lips.
He has heard the same words spill from hundreds—no, thousands of victims. They are the fairly standard response in humans who are being confronted with the realization that the supernatural did exist—and that they were moments away from dying.
Nandor readies himself, fingers flexing in anticipation at his sides. There was still the thrill of victory here, he thinks, even if the human was far from a worthy opponent. The parts of war that he enjoyed, the moment where the spark of life was snuffed to cinders, the moment where the realization of death sets in, could still be found in his life as a vampire.
“You’re a vampire,” the human says again, face breaking out into a wide, joyous grin.
Nandor grimaces. He had sampled blood from humans on the brink of committing suicide before, humans that had otherwise ran into his arms as if he were a gun or a noose or a bullet train. Surely that was what was going on here, yes? They always tasted disgusting, like milk gone sour.
“And now I’ve lost my appetite…” he grumbles, shooting the human a hardened glare. “You owe me a meal, little man.”
He doesn’t expect the resounding laughter. He doesn’t expect the hand that the human thrusts out at him, cheeks flushed with blood.
“I’m Guillermo,” he says brightly. “I’ll help you find something to eat. Or someone, I guess.”
Nandor shakes the human’s hand. Had he been wrong about this guy? “I am Nandor the Relentless. Listen well, human, do this for me, and I may have a job for you.”
“A job?”
“You can be my familiar. To make up for being so tasty-looking but completely inedible. In exchange for your service, I will make you a vampire. One day.”
And like that, Nandor has found another human familiar to replace the one he left at a rest stop in Delaware.
No, Nandor thinks much later, staring up at the lid of his coffin just as dawn rolls over the horizon. For some humans, becoming a vampire was a death wish. Surely this human would be no different.
**
It would be a lie to say that Nandor did not imagine a few hundred scenarios where he might get to partake in Guillermo’s blood.
The years had sweetened his scent, drawn out the last dregs of death that would have otherwise soured his taste.
He imagines him slicing his palm on one of his blades, a clumsy accident that would not be out of the realm of possibility. He imagines dragging his tongue against the calluses of Guillermo’s palm, drinking up the blood there with the same ravenous hunger as a man saking his thirst after a drought. He would be on his knees, head bowed over the open hand, a cruel imitation of devotion as he pressed his fangs deeper into the wound.
He would not be gentle. Or kind. He would take, devour, claim this final part of Guillermo, let his vitality nourish him.
(He often thought he was done with his time as a conqueror. But those old ghosts of war and violence still visited him in his dreams, woke him with their visions of rivers filled with blood. The only difference now was that it was Guillermo’s lifeless body, Guillermo’s blood that spilled into the water. He wasn’t sure if it was a dream or a nightmare.)
It had never crossed his mind that Guillermo might harbor the same fantasies. That he too might be nourished by the thought of Nandor’s blood dripping down the end of a stake. Not even after he found him poised over the ashen remains of Carol did Nandor think Guillermo would betray him in such a way.
He was Guillermo, plain and simple. Nandor knew everything about the little guy. Had molded and shaped him into who he was today, had seen him grow over the course of a decade as one might watch a sapling grow into a tree.
In hindsight, though, it shouldn’t have surprised him that their story ended the way it did. Nandor had plucked Guillermo from his job at Panera Bread, had rooted him into his life as he had done with all his past familiars, but he did so not knowing just what would grow from the unremarkable-looking seed. In saving one life—the life of one measly little human—he had set into motion a tragedy.
There was only one way a relationship between a vampire and vampire slayer could end.
**
The harsh press of the stake bleeds into the kiss. It is still somehow the best kiss Nandor has ever had.
He can hear Laszlo yelling something incoherent, Nadja hissing. Even Colin Robinson’s voice sounds alarmed, tone far removed from its usual milquetoast pitch.
When he eventually opens his eyes, all he can see is Guillermo. His field of vision is swallowed by the human, blocking out everything else. There is only Guillermo, his hand pressed to the nape of his neck, his hand wrapped around a wooden stake, the scent of his tears salting the air.
“Gui...llermo…?” Nandor asks, tongue feeling as heavy as lead in his mouth. The taste of his own blood, bitter and heady, is so unfamiliar that he almost doesn’t recognize it at first.
“I’m sorry,” Guillermo replies, but he does not let go of the stake between them. “I didn’t have any other choice.”
Nandor wants to ask him why. Why now. Why this is Guillermo’s first and only act of violence against him. Why his hands, the very same ones that had combed through his hair and massaged oils into his skin and draped cloaks over his shoulders, were now stained with his blood. But there is not enough time.
Not enough time. Funny, how human he felt teetering on the cusp of death.
Nandor wets his lips, blood and the lingering taste of Guillermo anchoring him to the present. “If… if you had asked,” he begins, struggling to say the words when every passing second made him more aware of the throbbing pain in the center of his chest. “I would have done it.”
Guillermo shakes his head, tears still dripping down his face. How strange that he wanted to wipe them away, to comfort the human that had driven a stake through his heart. He thought he would be angrier. But all he feels is relief.
Perhaps the years had gotten to him. Had he always been so tired? He fights against the dizzying spots of black that start to gather like blowflies in his field of vision. Not yet, he thinks. Just a few more moments. Nandor knew he had been given more than his share of time on earth, had squandered most of these years slowly decaying in an old, decrepit mansion, but he hadn’t known until now that he had invited death into his very heart. It was a startling thing to come to terms with—realizing that the person you loved, the person you trusted above everyone else, was the one who was meant to kill you, in the end.
“I don’t care about that!” Guillermo cries, desperately cupping Nandor’s face in his bloodstained hands. “I-I need you to know that I loved you. Love you. Fuck… ” he trails, sad brown eyes boring so deeply into him that Nandor practically feels Guillermo’s grief as his own.
And then Guillermo’s lips are upon him again. He tastes warm and alive, like sunlight bottled into a human form. He tastes like conquest, like the flames of the villages he had burned to ash in his campaign across the continent. He tastes like forgiveness, like something holy, the barest flicker of pain to temper the smoky sweetness of the kiss.
When Guillermo pulls away, so does all the warmth.
“I…” Nandor begins, knees finally buckling under his own weight. Not even the strength of a vampire slayer could keep him from toppling back, Guillermo’s hand slipping from around the stake. Time slows to an impossible crawl.
He watches the flickering lights of the chandelier, their sickly green hue bringing forth old memories. He feels his lips curl into a smile. He imagines the easy days when his greatest worry was whether or not Guillermo was being careful as he dusted so he did not disturb the spiderwebs.
I love you too, he says through the ether, his final horrible confession.
Nandor hits the floor and does not stir. Blood pools beneath him, soaking into the floorboards as if he were any other victim to the monsters that lived in the house.
Someone begins to wail. It is the last thing Nandor hears before there is, blessedly, only the silence that comes with the comforting darkness of death.
**
In a tiny little apartment in the Bronx, Silvia de la Cruz looks out her window. Whatever strange pairs of glowing lights she had seen earlier in the night had seemingly disappeared without a trace. They had reminded her of the way certain animal’s eyes reflected light in the dark. She shivers at the thought, but returns to watching one of her favorite telenovelas, the benign chatter from the TV eventually lulling her into a deep sleep.
In the backyard of a large Victorian mansion in Staten Island, Guillermo de la Cruz begins to dig a shallow grave, spade breaking through layers of hard, unyielding soil. He does this knowing his Amá is safe, that the Council had what they wanted: four bodies waiting to be buried. One life in exchange for four undead lives. That still doesn’t make living with his betrayal any easier.