Misha saw it in his face, shuddered her terror and flew for the door; he hurled himself ahead of her, slammed it shut. And moving menacingly after her where she stumbled in the dark, he huskily asked: 'But why? Why with him? Why Nathan?'
'Because he… he needed someone,' Misha's voice was a frightened whisper. 'Because he needed something. But mainly because… because there was no one else who cared.'
'Well, now there is someone else,' Nestor growled, his head clearing. 'Me! Except I don't care, not any longer. No, but there is something I need.'
He caught her and lifted her skirts, and when his hand went to her throat she knew that this time she mustn't fight. But she could still protest. And: 'Nestor, please don't!' she begged him.
'What you've done for him, you can do for me,' his voice was choked with lust and fury.
'But we didn't…' she gulped as he pinned her to the wall and positioned himself between her legs. 'We've never
'Liar!' he snarled. For in his mind's eye he'd seen them: Nathan and Misha, panting out their lust as their flesh heaved and shuddered. And hoarsely he ordered her: 'Now do it, put me in. And after that… just pretend that I'm Nathan!'
It was like an invocation.
'B-b-but you're not!' said a stuttering voice from where the barn door now stood open. And it was Nathan, silhouetted against the night, one hand to his face, and the other a fist which was wrapped round the door's inch-by-three ironwood bar.
Nestor half-sobbed, half-moaned as he thrust Misha aside and went for Nathan's throat — and ran head-on into the flat side of the other's ironwood club! It smacked him in the face, shook his teeth and flattened his nose, struck him down like a swatted fly. He lay there groaning, clutching his face, while Misha stumbled towards Nathan where he stood with legs spread wide and feet firmly planted, and the bar held high for a second blow. Maybe he would do it, and maybe not, but Misha knew she couldn't let it happen.
And neither could Nathan. Even before she could reach him, he'd turned away and let the bar fall.
At which point both of them heard the uproar swelling out from the town's crowded meeting place, and the throb of powerful propulsors overhead. If they had heard that ominous sound before, then they'd been too young for it to make any lasting impression. But still it was strange, frightening, evocative; as was the wafting stench which suddenly accompanied it.
They looked at each other, clung in each other's arms for the very briefest moment -
— Only to be wrenched apart as the roof caved in and the barn flew apart! Then, as their entire world collapsed in chaos all around them, the nightmare they had just lived through commenced its long spiral down from one dark level to depths more lightless yet…
Nestor was a child of ten again, playing in the woods with his lieutenant, Nathan, and the Szgany thrall Misha. He, of course, was the vampire Lord Nestor. That was what he had wanted to be all of his young life — what he would always want to be, and the only role he would ever accept — Wamphyri!
But this time, and for all that the plot was simple, the game wasn't working out. Nathan and Misha had joined forces to escape from the aerie (a ramshackle treehouse) into the woods, and Nestor was intent upon finding and punishing them. Indeed, and after a decent interval, they were supposed to let him find them, except today they didn't seem to be playing according to the rules. And though Nestor had searched for all he was worth for at least half an hour, still they continued to elude him. So that his mounting anger where he slipped through the green maze of the forest, pausing every now and then to sniff at the air in approved vampire fashion, might well be equal (in young boy measure) to that of the legendary Wamphyri themselves. And how he would punish this wayward lieutenant, and this ingrate Szgany slut, when he discovered them!
Normally it was easy to find them. He might lean against the bole of a great tree — stand there absolutely motionless, holding his breath in the forest's often preternatural silence — and wait for a telltale sound to give them away: a furtive rustle of undergrowth, the snap of a dry twig, their whispering, conspiratorial voices. Or if not 'voices' in the plural, one voice at least: Misha's. For of course Nathan could not, or would not speak, not without sputtering and stuttering like a fool. And so it would be Misha leading the way, doing all the whispering, the planning, the… cheating?
That's what it was: cheating! Spoiling the game! For by now Nestor should have found them, chastised them, sent them to pick nuts and berries for him as punishment, and stood over them scowling while they filled his mother's basket. Which was the real reason they were out here in the first place: to fill Nana Kiklu's basket with wild fruit and nuts. Except, and as always, it had seemed a good idea to turn work into a game.
And now he shouted into the green haze all around, 'Nathaaan!… Mish-aaa!'… and waited for their answer.
Hah! Try waiting for a birthday, or a wish to come true!
So now there was only one thing for it, the one infallible method. Nestor didn't like to use it, for it seemed to him an intrusion: like that time he stumbled over lovers in the long grass of the foothills, and watched them at their play. He had never forgotten it: all naked backsides and thrusting, jerking flesh. And hurting, too, from the sound of it. If that was love you could keep it! But at the same time he'd known it was wrong of him to watch them… as had the young man when it was over and finally he'd sensed a peeping-tom there! What a chase that had been, and Nestor lucky to get out of it unscathed.
This wasn't the same, he knew, but it was similar, and he and his brother had this unwritten rule never to use it. Even the very young have things they would rather keep secret, entirely to themselves. Especially their thoughts…
But on the other hand, didn't Nathan intrude upon him, too, in his dreams?
Of course, Nathan would know what he'd done; he would feel him there in his mind, and slam it like a door in his face. Ah, but if he and Misha had played the game as had been intended, Nestor wouldn't have to do it, now would he?
He sat down with his back to a mossy bole, closed his eyes and let his mind drift. Somewhere out there, Misha and Nathan were hiding from him. Somewhere in the deep woods, which they all three knew so well, his brother (no, his 'lieutenant') and the Szgany thrall Misha trembled in terror where they huddled in the forest's green expanse. But being Wamphyri, Nestor could smell them out! He could extend his senses, or issue a vampire mist, and know when its lapping tendrils touched their shivering flesh! He could scry on them from afar and see them where they cowered! And only let him catch a glimpse of their surroundings, he would know their secret location on the instant!
And so his thoughts drifted out until they touched upon Nathan's. It was difficult and would have been even harder if his brother weren't distracted, if he'd been looking inwards, as was his wont. But this time his thoughts weren't clouded; his mind was clear for once, and concentrated upon something entirely different from Nestor and the game. Concentrated in fact upon Misha…
… Misha, swimming naked in sun-dappled shallows, sleek and agile as a fish, and just as innocent. Misha, all silver and gold from the sunlight shimmering on her brown pixy body, laughing as she taunted Nathan, daring him to join her in the water. And seeing Misha through Nathan's eyes — seeing her exactly as Nathan saw her — it was as if Nestor saw her for the first time, from a different viewpoint or through a different soul….hich of course was precisely the case.