Midnight Bites (The Morganville Vampires)(3)

He’d been in the dungeon a few months this time, or at least he thought he had; time was a fluid thing, twisting and flowing and splitting into rivulets that ran dry. It was also circular, he thought, like a snake eating its tail. He’d had a cloak brooch once in that shape, in shimmering brass, all its scales hammered out in exquisite detail. The cloak had been dark blue, a very becoming thing, thick wool, lined with fur. It had kept him alive, once upon a time, in a snowstorm. When he’d been alive.

That had been one of the many times he’d tried to run away from his master. Of course, his master hadn’t needed a cloak, or fur, or anything to cover him when he came looking. His master could run all day and night, could smell him on the wind and track him like a wolf running down a deer.

And then eat him. But only a little, a bite at a time. His master was merciful that way.

It was cold in the dungeon, he thought, but like his old master, he no longer bothered with the cold now. The damp, though . . . the damp did bother him. He didn’t like the feel of water on his skin.

He’d been here for too long this time, he thought; his clothes had mostly rotted away, and he could see his blindingly white skin peeping through rents and holes in what had once been fine linen and exotic velvet. No telling what color it had all been, when times were better . . . dark blue, like the cloak, perhaps. Or black. He liked blacks. His hair was dark, and his skin had once been a dusty tan, but the hair was a matted mess now, unrecognizable, and his skin was like moonlight with a coppery shimmer over the top. When he had enough to eat, it would darken again, but he’d been starving a long time. Rats didn’t help much, and he ached in his joints like an old, old man.

He didn’t really remember what he’d done to land here, again, in the dark, but he supposed it must have been something foolish, or egregious, or merely bad luck. It didn’t matter much. They knew what he was, and how to contain him. He was caged, like a rabbit in a hutch, and whether he would be meat for the table or fur to line some rich boy’s cloak, he had no choice but to wait and see.

Rabbits. He’d always liked rabbits, liked their whisper-soft fur and their curious, wiggling noses and their puffball tails. He’d had a pet rabbit when he was small, a brown thing that he’d saved from the hutch when it was just a baby. He’d fed it from his own scraps and hidden it away from his mother and sisters until it had gotten too big and his mother had taken it away and then there had been rabbit stew and he’d cried and cried and . . .

There were tears on his cheeks. He wiped them away and tried to push the thoughts away again, but like all his thoughts, they had a will of their own; they scampered and ran and screamed, and he didn’t know how to quiet them anymore.

Maybe he belonged here, in the dark, where he could do no more damage.

No footsteps in the hall, but he heard the clank of a key in the lock, loud as a church bell, and it made him try to scramble to his feet. The ceiling was low, and the best he could manage was a crouch as he wedged himself into a corner, trying to hide, though hiding was a foolish thing to do. He was strong—he could fight. He should fight. . . .

The glare of a torch burned his eyes, and he cried out and shielded them. The silver chains on his hands clicked, and he smelled fresh burns as they seared new, fragile skin.

“Dear God,” whispered a voice, a new voice, a kind voice. “Lord Myrnin?” She—for it was a she; he could tell that now—put the right lilt into the name. The horror in her tone knifed into him, and for a moment he wondered how bad he looked, to engender such pity. Such undeserved sympathy. “We learned you were being held here, but I never imagined . . .”

His eyes adapted quickly to the new light, and he blinked away the false images . . . but she still shimmered, it seemed. Gold, she wore gold trim on her pale gown, and gold around her neck and on her slim fingers. Her hair was a red glory, braided into a crown.

An angel had come into his hell, and she burned.

He did not know how to speak to an angel. After all, he’d never met one before, and she was so . . . beautiful. She’d said a name, his name, a name he’d all but lost here in the darkness. Myrnin. My name is Myrnin. Yes, that seemed right.

She seemed to understand his hesitation, because she advanced a step, bent, and put something down between them . . . then withdrew to the doorway again with her torch. What she’d put there on the stained stone floor drew his attention not so much for its appearance—a plain, covered clay jar—but for the delicious, unbelievable smell radiating from it like an invisible aura. Warmth. Light. Food.

He scrambled toward it like a spider, opened it, and poured the blood into his mouth, and it was life, life, sunlight and flowers and every good thing he had ever known, life, and he drained the jug to the last sticky drop and wept, clutching it to his chest, because he’d forgotten what it meant to be alive, and the blood reminded him of what he’d lost.

“Hush,” her voice whispered, close to his ear. She touched him, and he flinched away, because he knew how filthy he was, how ragged and beaten by his lot, where she was such a beautiful thing, so fine. “No, sir, hush now. All is well. I’m sent to bring you to safety. My name is Lady Grey.”

Grey did not suit her, not at all: such a nothing color, neither black nor white, no luster or flash to it. She was all fire and beauty, and no gray at all.

Some of his memory stirred, though, gossip overheard beyond his cell by those whose lives were lived beyond this stone. Lady Grey’s become the queen. She’ll not last long.