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England, 1709. Milton's good intentions are nearly foiled by the foxhound skirting his ankles. The dog bolts past him in a frenzied bid to leap atop Natalie's bed and her brother teeters, stumbles, then rights himself, blinking. The wooden tray he blessedly doesn't drop is holding her favorite foods of comfort; beef roast and pudding, buttered bread and cider. He looks to her and says blithely, "Not to worry, I have total control. Oh, down Leto, you brute."
Natalie marks her book and weakly maneuvers herself by the elbows into an upright position, accepting the canine licks to her face with fond laughter and generous scratches behind the ears. The runt of one of her father’s hunting litters, Leto had refused to latch to his mother and was slated to die by the kennel masters. That had been two winters ago, before Natalie had taken the pup in to rear with equal parts compassion and determination for him to not only live, but prosper.
"He's not a brute," she says, not for the first time, her voice rasping with the illness that clings to her. "And he's perfectly welcome here. Or anywhere he pleases."
"He'll ruin your precious book, and the linens to boot," Milton chides in good humor, eyeing the huge quantity of novels that near entomb her on the bed. "Don't feel sorry for him Nattie, he's only here for the roast."
"He's here for me - he knows I'm ailing, don't you dear one?" She clicks her mouth and purses her lips and makes sweet, affectionate sounds at the hound panting over her. Leto wags his tail with her attention and Milton chuckles - a warm, resonant noise - then hoists the dog gently from her lap to set the tray in place. The mattress dips as he settles beside her.
"I'm here for you. I intercepted the cook so I could be the one to bring you this. Aren't you glad for my company? It's better than dusty old Othello's, to be sure."
Natalie smooths an apologetic hand over the leather bound book, and then reaches to pat the crook of Milton's arm in deference. "While Othello has been a fine companion, nothing could ever take the place of you, rabbit. You know that."
He smiles at her with slight exasperation, blue eyes shining like sapphirine brooches. "And glad I am for it. Now, where were we last? You were telling me how the scheming duke had just whisked the pair of them off to Cyprus..."
***
Agency Headquarters, 1722. On the thirteenth day of Natalie's self imposed confinement, the pale haired woman who'd introduced herself as Du Mortain returns to slide a chalice filled with blood across the floor and say with gritted contempt, "Enough of this. Feed now. I will not see an asset of the Agency wither away in the dark, there is work to be done."
It smells like the blood on the air and in the brine of the waves that she'd swallowed into her heaving lungs. It smells like men plunging cutlasses into bellies and eviscerated flesh spilling out onto the deck until the planks are invisible beneath the carnage. She raises the back of a hand to her mouth and bites hard enough to break skin. The tissue has mended over before she can register any inclination of pain.
The other woman (and she chooses to regard her in this way and not as a kindred monster) crouches on powerful legs until they are level with one another. She has the most startling green eyes, like the first fledgling sprouts of cool spring growth.
"You are a few hours short of going into a frenzy, Miss Sewell," she says, icy sharp. Her breath is cool on Natalie's cheek. "Do you know what that means? A point of no return. The Agency will be forced to subdue you so you don't attack others in a reckless pursuit for blood. Is that what you want? To endanger more lives?" She must note the trimmer that racks Natalie's muscles at this notion, because her inflection dips into something pacifying - not quite soothing, but near it. "What happened on the ship - it won't happen here. Our researchers have determined the amount to sustain you and not a drop more. It's blood given willingly and ethically - never forced." She takes the cup and presses it insistently into Natalie's trembling hands. "Feed."
Natalie stares at the still, red ichor like a mockery of eucharistic wine and wants to feel revulsion. Wants to hurl it across the room and watch its contents smear into the fractures on the stone walls as she's done to all the other offerings. But oh how she craves it, the unfamiliar contortion of her fangs unsheathing in her sore gums. She wraps her fingers around the chalice, brings the rim to her already willingly parted lips and feeds. And feeds. And feeds. The other vampire watches with her searing eyes, mouth a grim line of relief. And for the next 300 years Natalie will accept the Agency's meager rationings, and never be truly satiated.
***
Prague, 1931. Nat churns a swirl of whiskey inside her crystal tumbler and asks, “Will you not share a glass with me?”
Ava frowns from a settee that creaks precariously under her muscled frame, watching Nat sip a drink that won’t quench a thirst or stoke a hangover come the morning. Watching her play at something she’s not or ever will be again. She looks so in her element here, thick, glossy hair weaving down the length of her spine, outfitted in a collared blouse and a patterned scarf tied around the tempting slope of her long neck.
“I would if the contents were more to my appetite,” Ava mutters, glancing away. “But you know I see no use in trying to defy what we are.”
After an interlude of silence, she steals another look; she’s been rationing glimpses all evening long. Nat is smiling at her warmly, eyes glittering, and she’s always beautiful, but especially like this with her marble profile set in the glow of the gas-lit lamps as she pours over the morning paper, all trifling human interests and current affairs. Sometimes, she’ll do the crossword, ink stained and concentrated. It’s as mundane as it is endearing.
“I don’t see it as a defiance. More of an indulgence,“ Nat says carefully, tilting her head. "Why deprive myself of old comforts simply because I am a vampire? Flavor. Art. Passion. Eternity is a long time to do without humanity’s pleasures.”
"I have no need of those. I have other comforts." The adrenaline of a good training session. A mission executed to the full potential of its planning. The members of her team, namely the second in command she sits adjacent to.
"If you say so, old friend. But I wouldn’t be so quick to sell yourself short of passion. Or pleasure.” Nat returns innocently to her paper with a concentrated furrow to her brow. And then lets a finger smooth delicately over the dip of her throat where Ava’s mouth had trailed fervent kisses earlier without a further glance to her. No one can say that Natalie Sewell is without audacity.
And Ava’s smile is a small, self-satisfied thing that she turns away to keep just for herself. "No,” she replies. “I suppose not.”
***
Brazil, 1976; Ava comes back from reconnaissance to find the long breadth of Nat in a Caravaggio spread on the private balcony of their suite. The weather is mild, a sweet, tepid spot between two extremes, but bearably warm for the sensitive skin of a vampire. It’s a relief from the Nordic climate the Agency has kept them in for the past four months and her companion is taking advantage of it and the rare lull between missions - sunbathing in a drawstring one piece that flatters the cutting line of her broad shoulders. There’s a drape of sheer fabric around her hips and Nat will tell her later that it’s a sarong, when Ava goes to take it off her. For now, she’s turned on her side in a lounge chair with a book beneath her palms that she’s giving her undivided attention.
Nat belongs here in the sun and afternoon air, in defiance of the legends that confine their kind to cold and shadow. She seeks it out often enough and she’s never said anything but Ava thinks it’s because she’d had enough of the latter, in the cloistered life that had come before.
“Is that a new bathing costume?” Ava asks as she stands in the doorway, arms crossed and her sunglasses pulled down; behind their shade she’s admiring all the open planes of her.
Nat smiles at her over her shoulder without surprise, and says in her most patient voice, “They’re called swimsuits now.”
“Seems a needless expense.” For someone who doesn’t like to swim is the addendum that Ava leaves off. She doesn’t need to say it. The unspoken dialogue between them has flowed seamlessly since their fifth or so decade together.
“You don’t like it?” Nat rolls to her stomach and pets down the toweled space beside her in invitation and Ava accepts willingly, settling her muscled weight. “I thought it was a fitting gift to myself. I haven’t bought one since the fifties and styles have changed.”
Ava has never bought a ‘swimsuit’ so she wouldn’t pretend to know. Her sports bra and athletic briefs have always served their utilitarian purpose, and before that, nudity had been a nonissue when bathing in streams and lakes. She doesn’t swim for leisure.
“I didn’t say that,” Ava replies, and after some deliberation, stoops and presses her mouth to the tawny skin between Nat’s shoulder blades that will never accumulate sweat or burn in the harsh rays. Her lips are instantly warmed. Nat sighs contentedly and shifts closer until her back is pressed against Ava’s chest, where she lingers. “I only find it unnecessary,” Ava tells the divots of her spine.
“Ah, I see,” Nat muses, flipping a page in her book with the attention they both know she’s abandoned. “So you would prefer it off of me?”
Ava blanches, sits up straight and then stares down at Nat who is looking back with those attractive, downturned eyes of hers rather too innocently. “You seem very intent on putting words in my mouth today,” Ava tells her, straight faced.
Nat’s back tremors with a low, resonant chuckle. She reaches to brush the sunglasses up and over the tight crown of Ava’s hairline and Ava allows her to anchor her touch there, stroking the hard knot at the base of her head. “Only because you seem to fall short of them. They’re not wrong words are they?”
Ava raises a thick brow and nearly almost laughs. “No. You know me too well.”
Then, Morgan’s voice from the adjacent balcony, and were they not so taken with each other they really would have noticed her sooner; if not from the cigarette smell then by the grey plumes she sends to the breeze: “Just how many words do you need to make the pass that it would look nicer on your floor? For fucks sake.”