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Daniel hadn’t really expected to leave that penthouse alive, but he hadn’t really considered the possible outcomes either. To go by Parkinson’s or to go by vampire, those were the options he weighed. He had surely used up all of his luck in his life so survival was the furthest thing from his mind, but that didn’t mean Daniel was going to kick the bucket willingly. If he was going down, he was going down fighting.
“You harm him in any way, I will kill you. Do you understand?” Louis had loomed over Armand like an angel of death.
The words would have comforted Daniel if Daniel had trusted Armand to listen to him. Despite the shaking of his hands and the pain in his chest, Daniel could not drag himself away from the pathetic display in the penthouse. Papers were scattered in unfixable piles and rubble collected in heaps on the floor. Armand sat amongst the damage like a perfect victim, staring at Daniel from across the room like a drowning man finding a buoy out at sea, far enough out of reach to be tantalizing. His orange eyes shot Daniel like a flare gun. Daniel’s investigative curiosity was going to be the death of him, but he never could walk away from a story.
“You alright down there?” Daniel asked as he took two large steps closer. He got no response other than slender, freezing fingers wrapping around his ankle. The hand around his ankle squeezed, and Daniel knew he probably should have kicked Armand off, but there was something in that moment that Daniel could not pull away from. It must have been his eyes and the way he stared up at Daniel—stared into Daniel. A single fingertip brushed across the bone, back and forth—a petting gesture—before dipping under the hem of his sock. Daniel almost let him continue—probably would have let Armand take his sock clean off—before he snapped into himself and jerked his leg away. Armand's hand dropped sullenly back to his side.
With a sigh, Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose and dropped himself onto his knees. He told himself it was just for a closer look, to make sure Armand wasn’t a danger to himself after Daniel exposed seven decades of lies and broke up his marriage. Daniel would get Armand back on his feet and then wipe his hands of this place. He had ten million dollars he needed to attend to. If he could take advantage of Armand’s vulnerable state and get some answers of his own, that was just a bonus. Reaching into his pocket, Daniel pulled out a crumpled note. He traced the swirling cursive with the tip of his finger.
“I was going to ask Louis about this after the interview—if I survived the interview. Up until your floating bookshelf bullshit, I had thought that maybe I hooked up with one of his descendants or something. I had the hots for him when I was young, so I wouldn’t put it past me,” Daniel shrugged. Armand stared at him with those same unblinking eyes. Daniel’s tongue darted out to wet his lips before continuing. “Thought maybe Louis would have the answers, but I think you could explain this better than he could.” He held the slip of paper out to Armand who took it with gentle hands. Just as soon as his eyes skimmed the note, Armand launched at him, arms around waist and face tucked into shoulder. Daniel braced himself for a piercing bite that did not come.
With sense suddenly knocked into him, Daniel tried and failed to shove Armand away. It was all too much, too strange, and far too close to Daniel’s throat for him to be comfortable. “Get off of me!” Daniel huffed, but his shaking hands were no use against the firm statue that Armand had turned into pressed against his side. “Fuck!” he groaned. Daniel's heart was pounding in his chest, and he was going to be pissed if a heart attack was what took him out. Not vampires. Not even fucking Parkinson’s. He would come back as an evil, vengeful ghost if his old heart gave out on him now. He was going to hide car keys, steal socks, and knock shit off of tables.
One of the hands around Daniel’s back slithered up to tangle in the thinning curls at the nape of his neck. Over the sound of his own labored breathing, Daniel could hear that Armand was shooshing him like a child. “No, no, it’s alright, beloved,” Armand whispered into the neckline of his shirt. “You just don’t remember. You don’t remember, but you kept this anyway.” Armand cradled the piece of paper in his hands.
Daniel still could not pull away. He was face to face with Armand’s red-teary eyes. “What the hell happened in San Francisco that Louis and I don’t know about,” Daniel asked.
A hand brushed over his cheekbone that Daniel did not flinch away from. “Not just San Francisco,” Armand shook his head with a wet smile. “Seattle. Denver. New York. Venice, once. Briefly. A hundred cities, more or less.”
It cleared nothing up. In fact, Armand only left Daniel more confused than he had been before. Daniel had lived in Seattle, and Denver, and New York. Venice had been a whim, a trip taken with his first wife to try and save their failing marriage. It had worked for a short while until Daniel had relapsed and she had finally had enough. What did Armand know about Seattle? Or Denver? Or New York?
“You’re confused,” Armand’s voice tugged him away from broken memories. “You don’t remember, but I can give it all back to you. Tell me, Daniel, and I will.”
“What other memories have you taken?” Daniel asked.
Armand cupped Daniel’s face and stared at him with those large, amber eyes. “Ask for them back, Daniel.” He was pleading as if Daniel were the one that had taken something from him.
Daniel always considered himself to be nothing if not weak. He never could say no to anything that promised a rush of endorphins: sex, drugs, a good story—whatever Armand was offering him now. To stick his mind fingers into Daniel’s brain and screw in the bolts that he knocked loose in San Francisco. Or Seattle. Or Venice, apparently. Somewhere, sometime, Armand had taken something from him—had taken a part of him away. Half-crazed and freshly dumped (Daniel’s fault, too), he was offering that part back to Daniel. If he were sane, Daniel would’ve yelled at him and fought regardless if it was fruitless. Because he was sober, Daniel needed to get his fixes elsewhere; he nodded his head and teeth sank into his neck. It should have been expected; Daniel told himself over and over that he didn’t know what he was asking for.
It was nothing like Louis’ brutality in San Francisco. Armand fed from him vigorously, yes, but the arms around him felt more like a hug than Louis’ strangling hold had in that dingy old apartment. Daniel’s eyes drifted shut and he was forced to reckon with the memories he had of his daughters’ childhoods. Few and far between. Only a couple of lost teeth that he got to play tooth fairy for. Crumpled dollar bills slipped under pillows. Teaching one of them how to ride a bike, he couldn’t remember which. Bandaging bruised knees. Memories he tried so hard not to think about. It wasn’t enough. As the muscles in his neck grew too weak to hold up his head and the heat rushed out of his body, Daniel wished he had more of them. More memories to lull him into the easeful death that Armand had once promised him.
A soft voice broke up the mass of memories and blinding lights. Armand was cooing at him, coaxing his wrist against Daniel’s chapped lips. He wasn’t sure where he was; everything felt upside down and far away. His entire body felt heavy, like a stone sinking to the bottom of the ocean. As the light dimmed and the sun got further away, as he neared the ocean floor, Daniel felt cold. He felt like he was shivering but he could not be certain that he was moving at all. The wrist pressed more incessantly against his lips and the strong grip on his jaw forced his mouth open.
The first mouthful of blood was unlike anything Daniel had ever experienced; it was better than every single high he had ever felt. The next mouthful was nostalgic. Seattle, Denver, Venice—all of it came back. All of the motels, mildew on the tiles. Waking up to empty beds. Soft kisses, terrible loneliness. Every single city, each possibility that it was going to be the last time. Daniel’s entire body felt as if it were on fire. The memories drifted back into their rightful places and he stared up—not at the ceiling—but at Armand hovering over him, Daniel flat on his back on the cold floor. The overhead lighting in the room seemed to cast a halo around his dark curls. The flakes of drywall in his hair seemed to glisten in the light.
That bastard.
Armand’s amber eyes shone with unshed crimson tears. His chest heaved with every breath, too quick for the statue that Armand had portrayed himself to be during the interview. Every few seconds his nose twitched and his lips pulled down a millimeter.
The adrenaline from being atop the Amtrak in Seattle. The anxiety of falling asleep in Denver. Watching Armand hunched over a desk in Venice, never being allowed to see what he was working on. Armand taking his memories, for the last time, in New York. A thousand memories came crashing in all at once, and the overwhelmingly negative ones hit him first. Armand, soft and anxious above him, was suddenly a living, breathing target. With a strength he didn’t know he possessed, Daniel shoved him away with all his might. He shot up off the ground at the sound of a solid crunch. There was Armand, his back smushed into another human-shaped divot in the wall.
Daniel did not have any time to feel proud of himself. A wave of dizziness washed over him and forced him to his knees. He pushed up his glasses and squeezed the throbbing bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. The ragged breathing he heard in his ears did not match with his own stuttering breath. Armand was next to him in an instant, caressing one hesitant hand on his heaving shoulder. Daniel sagged even more and groaned.
“Shh, Daniel,” Armand hushed him. “I’m here. You’re going to be alright.”
His heart felt as if it were going to beat out of his chest. When Armand stretched an arm around him for stability, Daniel fell into him without a fight.
“What’s happening to me?” Daniel could barely spit the words out, choked by a bout of nausea. Armand did not take the time to answer him. Light as a feather, Armand hoisted Daniel’s limp body into his arms and rushed him into the nearest bathroom, plunking him down in front of the toilet. Daniel moaned into the bowl and squeezed his eyes shut.
“You are dying, Daniel,” Armand told him plainly. “It will pass. Your body must die for the gift to take properly.” He soothed a hand up and down Daniel’s trembling spine. Armand did not flinch as the first wave of retching came. They spent an hour crammed next to the toilet while Daniel’s body adjusted to the gift. Armand could hardly calm him down when he stopped spitting up stomach acid and instead blood took its place. “Shh,” Armand whispered. “It means you are near the end of it.”
When thirty minutes passed uninterrupted by Daniel emptying his stomach into the toilet, Daniel felt entirely boneless. He expected a blood bag—would’ve demanded one if he could find his voice—but instead Armand nicked his own wrist and offered it to Daniel. Daniel’s fangs dropped instinctually and it hurt like a toothache. A drop of blood slid off Armand’s wrist and dripped onto the tile floor. Daniel’s mouth latched on to the wound before he even had time to think it over. It was just as good as the first time; he suspected the first time he tasted Armand’s blood came long before he ever stepped foot into the Dubai penthouse. Daniel considered Armand to be an endless buffet; he lapped and sucked (and gnawed a little, testing out his fangs. The relief they felt upon sinking into flesh was instant. It was nearly impossible to pry himself away) to his heart’s content. Armand seemed enraptured, unable to look away for even a second.
With a full stomach, finally Daniel detached. Armand’s wrist was a mangled mess of blood and bite marks.
“Your body needs to rest now,” Armand said, wiping at the corner of Daniel’s mouth with his thumb. The word rest made Daniel’s body freeze from instinct alone. Armand maneuvered Daniel’s arm around his shoulders and led him into the master bedroom. It was the first time Daniel had ever seen the room. Staring at the bars along the windows, Daniel thought the two needed much more than marriage counseling. Maybe divorce would be good for them.
Armand sidestepped the ginormous bed and led Daniel instead to a mahogany coffin on the other side of the room. It was a singular coffin, and though it was large, it didn’t seem comfortable for two grown men to sleep in consistently. Daniel wondered if Louis ever slept in it, or if it was just for whenever Armand fancied a change in scenery. Perhaps no one ever slept in it at all, and it was just for show. Armand lifted the lid for Daniel. It was much more plush than Daniel had expected, lined with silk and feather pillows. Daniel climbed inside and waited.
He stared at Armand expectantly. “Fuck you. Get in,” Daniel crossed his arms. Armand gaped at him like a fish. “Decades of memories you’ve taken away from me. That’s a lot to reckon with. Get. In.”
Confined inside the closed walls of the coffin, Armand didn’t breathe. His skin was cold where he pressed against Daniel’s side. All of his warmth flowed inside of Daniel’s veins. Silence flooded the coffin and suffocated them.
“We could’ve had this all this time,” Daniel thought out loud. “Instead, you let me get old before you decide to do it.” It was bitter but benign.
“We,” Armand mused quietly.
Daniel shifted to glare at him. “Oh yeah—we. We have a lot of we to make up for, don’t you think? You gave me back my memories and all the pent up resentment that came with them. We’re gonna have it out, you and me.”
Armand pressed his lips together in a tight smile. “You are exhausted, Daniel. Go to sleep and then you may have it out however you like.”
The narcoleptic pull of the sun had not been an exaggeration on Armand’s part. Even as Daniel tried to keep arguing with him, his body betrayed him. His eyes felt weighed down with sandbags. His own breathing sounded like a far away thing. While his mind drifted, Armand nudged a knuckle into the fat of Daniel’s cheek, pulling him awake for just a second before his eyes fluttered shut once more. He tried to make a list of every single question he was going to ask, every single bone he had to pick with his maker, but they veered off into something nonsensical as consciousness evaded him.
The shrill sound of an alarm clock startled Daniel awake. He sat up too fast and knocked his head into the lid of the coffin. The throbbing pain went away quickly. Waking up alone should not have come as a surprise, but anger surged through him regardless. There was no need to go searching the penthouse for his maker; Daniel knew he would not find him. Of course Armand hadn’t changed. His predictability was charming. He shoved open the coffin lid with ease and stalked over to the alarm clock next to the bed. With a quick swing of his fist, Daniel smashed it into pieces.
Next to the broken clock was a small sheet of cardstock. Daniel felt all too familiar with the note he found scrawled on the paper. The handwriting was rushed, anxious. The ink was smudged in places and the letters bled into one another.
Daniel,
My turning of you was a mistake. My judgments were clouded. It is better for us both if I go. All I ask is you give me until midnight before you contact Louis. Focus your mind on him and you will be able to pick up his voice among the many. Louis will guide you into your new life.
There was no indication of its author, but Daniel didn’t need one. In his flood of memories, this was a common one. The coldness of waking up alone was familiar. He flipped over the card to find Louis de Pointe du Lac inscribed in classy typeface along with phone numbers and email addresses.
In the living room, the papers were put in order and the rubble was swept into neat piles. Only Daniel’s footsteps rang through the penthouse. Louis had kept a quiet home during the interview, but this was a new kind of silence entirely. He called out for anyone and the only response was the echo of his own voice. A clock ticked with the changing of the minute; Daniel’s eyes shot up at the sound. Half an hour until midnight; did Daniel owe Armand his request? He kicked a broken piece of wall and watched it skid across the floor. His stomach growled angrily which made the decision for him. Daniel went in search of a blood bag to bide time before breaking the news to Louis. He only hoped that Armand knew that this head start meant nothing; Daniel was going to hunt him down and then he was really going to get it.