Chapter Text
Jeremiah Fisher didn’t wake up that morning expecting his mother to die by his hand in her chambers by sundown, but, honestly, he never knew what to expect from his family.
His father was still out of the country working on his latest mission, which, of course, required him to go no contact with anyone other than the team he’d brought with him. His older brother, Conrad, had a knack for disappearing and reappearing in Jeremiah’s life when he wanted him there least, a taunting, ever-present reminder of what Jeremiah would, and could, never be. The one to inherit the empire. The trustworthy man who could never do wrong.
Except he had.
Jeremiah’s gaze turned down to his mother. The very beautiful, very dead woman laid in his arms. She’d been everything to him once, and now she was nothing. Conrad didn’t even have the guts to tell him about Susannah’s state, the bastard. No, he let Jeremiah find out for himself when there was nothing to do for her but put her out of her misery.
Looking at her now, chest perforated by a holy water doused dagger, hair somehow still sitting perfectly, a rivulet of blood staining the corner of her lips, it felt unreal. The moonlight was filtering through the curtains, and he still couldn’t believe what he’d done.
In a few hours he’d have to call the table of elders to explain the situation; they’d want to take her body and put her through examinations before moving forward with the funerary preparations. Jeremiah would not be allowed to oversee anything, not if he told them the truth about her death, which he had to, of course. He didn’t want to be excommunicated and sent into exile because of his brother’s hubris. He had nothing else. If they took this life from him, he didn’t know what he’d do.
They would take his mother from him and interrogate him. These would be his last moments of respite. His last opportunity to grieve.
The fall of the House of Fisher had begun long before he’d noticed, and, now, he couldn’t do anything to change their fate but be honest about the recent happenings.
“Farewell,” he whispered. “Mother.”
˖⊹ ♰ ⊹˖
“We don’t really believe it is safe, though, verdad?” Benito asked.
He was slouched on a chaise lounge, cigarette in hand and a glass of red balancing between his thighs. Isabel glared at him from the sofa. In moments like these, she swore she could see the cocky man she’d met briefly on Californian grounds back when she was still figuring out how to go about her new life.
“It’s Susannah,” she reminded him. “I have to.”
“Belly, darling,” Taylor said, appearing from the kitchen with a mug of 0 negative that read ‘forever 21’, something that Isabel had gifted her for her birthday as a cute inside joke. “We’re talking about a place full of hunters. A church, no less.”
“It’ll be quick,” Isabel insisted. “Nobody will see me.”
Taylor plopped a pink straw in the mug and took a sip of her blood. “I know how much she meant to you,” she said. “But it’s not worth a stake to the heart.”
“¡Me parece bien!” Benito clapped his hands. The wine in his glass sloshed and threatened to spill but he didn’t seem bothered by it. “You are staying here with us. It’s for your own safety.”
She recalled the first time she had met Susannah, twenty years ago; ‘met’ being perhaps too broad a word, in substitute of an act that was a little less a meeting and a little more Isabel saving her from an incredibly ravenous and newly-turned vampire. Susannah had been a history student then — barely 20, in awe of a world she hadn’t yet seen. She had liked that in her.
Isabel groaned, rubbing her temples. “Where’s Anika? I need someone on my side.”
The two vampires took one, quick jerked-up look at each other, and immediately burst into laughter.
“What?” She cried out. “She would side with me.”
“She would so not.”
At this, Isabel got up and, without a word, walked away. She would have gone either way, but she would have appreciated it if they'd, at least, supported her decision. Or oppose it without mocking her.
There were many things in her life that she’d regretted, and she didn’t want this to be yet another to add to the list. One never knew the last time they’d see a place. A person. But when an occasion presented itself in the form of goodbye, no one could turn away from the promise of closure. No matter the risk.
˖⊹ ♰ ⊹˖
Jeremiah stood in an empty church, an open casket in front of him. He could barely get himself to look at her. All he could see was the dagger hitting her chest over and over, and the splatters of blood staining his hands and clothes.
He had never thought himself a killer, but it had come so easily to him that night. He had been a man on a mission and he’d followed the order of his commandant until her dying breath. He had barely let himself cry.
Guilt drove him closer to the casket. A hand perched on its edge, he exhaled.
People would be here any minute now. He had to pull himself together.
“Oh,” a soft whisper caught his attention. He turned towards it, and there, by the entrance, stood a woman in all black, face covered by a mourning veil. She looked vaguely familiar but he couldn’t figure out where he’d seen her.
“Are you,” — he cleared his throat — “here for the funeral?”
“No,” she said. “I came to pay my respects, but I cannot stay.”
Jeremiah felt her eyes on his skin, as she walked up to where he was.
“Did you know her?” He said to the cross, then waited.
“Used to,” the woman replied. “When I heard of her passing I…I just couldn’t believe it. She was a special soul.”
He stared at her for a long moment, trying to see through the black veil. But he only caught glimpses of sad, glittering eyes. The knot in his stomach pulled tight.
“You need some privacy,” He gestured to his mother. “To say goodbye?”
“That is awfully kind of you,” she said. He could see the tiniest glint of a smile beneath the veil. “But I’d never make you leave your mother’s side. This must be the only moment you can have with her before…”
Jeremiah nodded slowly. “It is.”
“I won’t take any more time away from it, then,” she said. “I know loss is a difficult thing to navigate; I hope you know you’re not alone in it.”
He laughed, but it was a hollow, cracking sound in his chest. He stared ahead as he spoke. “It doesn’t feel like it. My father and brother won’t even show up, and everyone else is already expecting me to clear up the mess we’ve made.” He shook his head, redirecting himself from a lifetime of memories. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this. I didn’t even ask your name.”
The woman stiffened, and a sick feeling swirled in Jeremiah’s stomach. “Isabel.” Her eyes blazed when they met his. “I’m afraid I must go now.”
For a moment, breath felt impossible. All he could do was stare as the woman walked away toward the exit. Curiosity threaded through with embarrassment and pain.
The door spring squealed as it closed behind her. Jeremiah took a deep breath and fixed his suit.
“It was nice to meet you, Isabel,” he muttered when he was sure she wouldn’t hear him.
˖⊹ ♰ ⊹˖
Jeremiah’s footsteps interrupted the Fisher house’s silence. He walked upstairs toward the sole light illuminating the place, hands pulling at his tie, his jacket, his shirt in a desperate attempt to breathe.
“Conrad?” He asked. “Are you there, man?”
His voice came out in a strangled croak. The unshed tears, the lump of grief were still stuck somewhere in his throat, and he couldn’t swallow them away. For some reason, Isabel’s words had held him together during the funeral, but now, as much as it pained him to admit, he needed his brother. He needed a hug, a word, a memory, a laugh. Something to give sense to a life after his mother. A life he wasn’t prepared for. A life he’d had a hand in shaping.
A knot tied around his heart, so tight he thought it stopped its beating. It squeezed until all the muddled feelings spilled into an open wound, and rested on a white folded piece of paper on a lacquered desk. A pen balanced on it, a point that ended his final sentence.
Jeremiah ignored it. He walked inside the room, searched every corner, every hidden space. He followed the slightest of noises he heard, while the letter waited undisturbed on that desk. He was a kid playing hide and seek with the specter of a boy that didn’t want to be found.
He slipped out of his clothes sometime after midnight and let the water wash everything off. Maybe the letter didn’t exist. Maybe it was a mirage. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Maybe he was broken.
He found a part of him was relieved; one less thing to worry about. He wouldn’t have known what to talk about, wouldn’t have known what to ask of him. Wouldn’t have known how to share too vast a space with a stranger he was bound to only by blood.
Shame, once again, directed him to his torture. Conrad’s room.
He stared at the piece of paper, one tentative fingernail tracing the cursive of his brother’s handwriting. To Jeremiah, it said.
He knew what Conrad was like, he shouldn’t have expected anything different. His brother had always been one to run instead of facing things. His mom would tell him to read the letter. Forgive him; it was hard for him.
Without realizing, his hand had crumpled the paper. Panicked, he smoothed out the creases and repositioned it on the desk. He stared at it some more before deciding against reading it. If Conrad had something to say to him, he’d have to tell him directly. Jeremiah would not accept his cowardly goodbyes.
A week later a call came through. The board of elders had revoked Conrad’s title and demanded he never come back to Boston. Seniority, and therefore its privileges, was now passed onto his younger brother, who, in a few days, would receive his first assignment. That was it.
The open wound in his heart throbbed. Resignation clouding all good sense, Jeremiah reached for the bottle and let the brown liquor burn him.
˖⊹ ♰ ⊹˖
He sat in a confessional, staring at the file being passed through the crack under the latticed openings.
“This is your target,” the woman on the other side said. “Isabel Conklin. She has been around for some time, always been very careful, but these last couple of weeks she has become reckless.”
Something in him paused, restarted. His heart was hammering, trying to claw its way out of the wreckage that trapped it. He told himself it was just a coincidence— Isabel wasn’t a unique name. It could be anyone. He told himself it didn’t matter if it was her, the woman in the church. That, even if her words had kept him whole, she had no reason to bruise his soul.
“Reckless how?” He inquired.
He surprised himself by how even his voice was.
“Leaving bodies around, draining her victims in front of audiences…” His superior explained. “It’s all in the file. Have a look, study her closely, prepare. This is your first test.”
Jeremiah didn’t know where this was going. Didn’t know if he cared enough to ask at this point. He opened the file. Shaky breath and legs, pinky finger brushing the photo, fire burning his skin. His senses flooded with the sultry voice of the woman from the funeral, her glinting eyes, her smile.
Ears muffled like he was underwater, knees almost giving out as he got up from his seat.
“I will be in touch,” he said, and went back home to the bottle.
It took him all day, staring at Isabel’s file, to force himself to leave the house. He thought working, being given a chance, would ground him. Shake the grief, the overheated rage that had settled over his body. He thought putting the mask on, falling into the rhythm of hunting and routine, would make him feel normal again. He never expected his first mission would involve one of his mother’s, allegedly, old friends.
It felt like a twisted joke from the universe. The one time he’d felt understood, seen by someone other than his mother— No, it didn’t matter. He was vulnerable and the vampire had used that to get into his head. That was their modus operandi, he knew that. He’d studied them his whole life. He should have known better.
She’d be off the stage any minute now.
His hands were cupped around the stake hidden under his jacket, fingers twitching. His brain molten in anticipation. His stomach spasmed and his eyes flicked up to the curtains being drawn. Applause roared in intermittence with his heartbeats.
Jeremiah got up, walked toward where he knew the backstage would be. A man stopped him before he could get past.
“I’m looking for Isabel,” Jeremiah said. “Isabel Conklin.”
“You just missed her,” the man informed him. “She left a minute ago.”
“Oh,” he exhaled. “Thanks anyway.”
The man turned his back to him, went to talk to someone else. Jeremiah grunted, shoved the stake back into the inner pocket of his jacket, and walked out the complex.
He grabbed a coffee on his way home, hoping the warmth would make the cold more sufferable. Or, braze his tongue and throat, punishing him for his negligence.
He could sense there was something off before he stepped foot inside the house. Nothing was seemingly out of place, but he could feel something different. Like he wasn’t alone.
His body reacted on instinct. He grabbed a set of shoulders, pushed them to a wall, a credence, bottles and glasses hitting the ground. They rolled around, shards sticking to clothes and tearing at skin. Along the way he managed to grab a rope, maneuvered his stake out of the jacket, and pointed it at her exposed neck.
“You always welcome guests this way?” The vampire asked.
“I don’t recall inviting you in,” he said. “Get up.”
Isabel did as asked, and backtracked right where he wanted her. Jeremiah pushed her on the chair, a warning in his eyes, and started tying her up. He made sure the knots were tight enough, secure, before stepping back.
“Why did you come?”
“If I knew you were into bondage,” the vampire drawled, low and aristocratic. She jerked her head sideways, throwing locks of hair away from her face, and batted her eyelashes, inhaling deeply. “I would have come sooner.”
“Shut it.” Jeremiah warned, and moved his stake closer to her.
“Hmm. Why don’t you make me, Jeremiah?”
“You vampires are all the same.” he murmured. “Always take things too lightly. If you hadn’t realized, I’m about to kill you, Isabel.”
“If you wanted to kill me, you would have done it already, hunter,” she hissed, spitting out his title like it was poison.
“Oh, really?” He trailed the spike along her neck, teasing, and drew a little bit of blood. “Maybe I want to play with you a little before letting you perish.”
“Perhaps I am letting you.” she revealed. “You don’t think an experienced vampire like myself would be defeated this easily, do you?”
He was silent, eyes staring. Isabel removed one arm from under the rope that he was sure had been pinned against her chest with great precision, and traced one tantalizing fingernail from his right cheek all the way down to the curve of his chin.
“Oh, you did.” A smile played on her face. “You wound me, Jeremiah. I might not look like it, but I am capable of fighting off unwanted enemies.”
“Is that why you came? Cause you wanted my attention?”
“Well, I’m more inclined to give in when a face like yours is the one I get to look at. I can appreciate a pretty face.”
“Were you looking for a fight?” Jeremiah gripped the stake tighter, but couldn’t seem to get himself to strike. “Is that what gets you off? Being thought of as prey only to turn the tables around at the last minute?”
“Must you always ask this many questions?”
“Must you always avoid them?”
“Why do you want to know what excites me?” The vampire smirked. “Are you trying to seduce me, Jeremiah Fisher?”
“You have a twisted idea of seduction, Isabel.”
“Is that so?” She breathed, barely audible; eyes scanning Jeremiah’s very feature in such a nuanced way it made him widely uncomfortable. “It might surprise you, but I came here to see how you were doing.”
Jeremiah’s jaw clenched. He had to tighten his hands on the chair to stop himself from shouting something deranged.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He asked, meaning for it to come out firmer than it did.
For a second, all the noise in his head went silent, leaving the awful, naked feeling of being seen. Isabel stared at him, blinking, and slowly broke free of the rope.
“I don’t follow,”
“Stop fucking with me.” The words were rough and hoarse. “What are you trying to do?”
Isabel moved again. Looked up at him through long lashes, lips curling just slightly.
“She asked if I could turn her once,” she said, voice soft. “I turned her down. I think she resented me for it her whole life.”
Jeremiah’s bravado wavered. He looked down, and shook his head like he couldn’t believe the words. He shouldn’t.
“Don’t.”
“You remind me of her,” Isabel continued. Jeremiah flinched like the words hit skin. “Perhaps that’s why I needed to see that this didn’t shatter you.”
“You should worry about yourself,” he said. “Your messes have been catching my people’s attention.”
“My messes?”
Isabel got up from the chair, Jeremiah’s eyes following her every movement. Her mouth panted angry breaths against his throat. He stayed completely still, struggling to process the closeness between them. How exposed he was. How, if she wanted to, she could have him right here, right now.
“You know what I'm talking about,”
One of his hands came up to circle her arm, pushing where he’d lightly stabbed her. Isabel’s eyes were intense, unreadable. There was something simmering in her expression, something almost hungry that made Jeremiah’s stomach flip.
“Are you giving me a warning?” She asked.
Jeremiah let his hand drop so he could clean it with a handkerchief. “I am saying,” he whispered, twirling the stake around his fingers. “Next time you see me, I won’t be as gentle.”