Shardeaters

*****

Chapter Two

*****


My kitten walks on velvet feet

And makes no sound at all;

And in the doorway nightly sits

To watch the darkness fall

I think he loves the Lady, Night

And feels akin to her

Whose footsteps are as still as his,

Whose touch as soft as fur

- Lois Weakly McKay


There is a tale told among the mortal, of the Vampire who rises from a dank, dark grave to haunt the night and the innocents sleeping in their beds. It is, of course, not true. No Vampire would ever sleep in a tomb or a crypt if there was a bed available; they did not like the sun, that much was true, but no Vampire would ever crumble to dust from its touch. Blinding lights, loud sounds, sharp aromas – preternatural senses did not take well to too much of anything.


Vampire tales – the fairytales of their Breed – had always amused and fascinated Schuldig with their simple explanations and hair-rising theories. At times he wanted to be like them, his paper brothers and sisters, whose strength never gave out unless they looked at a cross, whose bloodlust drained entire cities and brought fear of the dark into the hearts and minds of the mortals.


He felt all too mortal at times, plagued by the aches and fatigues commonly found among the human race. As he woke from uneasy sleep, stretched out uncomfortably on the living room couch, the muscles in his back protested the movement and a thundering headache blinded him. His stomach growled. He had not fed, his meal had been killed by a Felidae, and he had forgotten all about tending to his needs after the gruesome discovery at the banks of the Thames.


At least it was dark. He lay on the couch and stared at the ceiling with its tiny cracks and inevitable stains brought on by too many dank nights when they had left their windows open. It was chilly in the room now; the fire had burned down while he slept, allowing the September winds to chase every last shred of warmth from inside the walls. There was movement – footsteps, the rustle of clothes against skin – coming from the hallway outside. Crawford must have woken as well. He strained his ears and heard the familiar sounds of the comb being picked up from the commode, the clinks of cufflinks as they were lifted from their metal case.


Outside, Big Ben’s dull, echoing brass bells announced the coming of the ninth hour of the evening. He had slept long despite the dreams. Now that he was awake, their images faded from his mind as he tried to grasp them; as always, what occupied him during his sleep eluded him as soon as he woke. He sighed and closed his eyes, pressing the heels of his hands against them. In the centre of his skull, a tiny smith had taken up his hammer and relentlessly pounded it against the walls of Schuldig’s mind.


When he opened his eyes again he saw the cat sitting on the back of the couch. It sat on the very edge, in the very middle, and held absolutely still. The gaslights on Shaftesbury Avenue, their shine feebly penetrating the darkness in the living room, reflected off something metallic in the animal’s right ear. A tiny earring.


The scene was so surreal that Schuldig dared not to move at first lest he wanted to shatter it. He thought of the Egyptian cat statues in the London galleries, remnants of a culture that had gone down centuries before his birth. The Egyptians had loved their cats so much that they afforded them burials fit for kings and queens...preserved them in patient stone adorn with jewellery, the statue’s stone eyes staring for all eternity at something beyond anyone’s grasp. Farfarello did not look like one of those statues at all, but for a long moment Schuldig entertained the idea that, like the statues guarded graves, Farfarello had guarded him in his sleep. It was a silly notion, of course.


The Felidae appeared to be listening to something outside. Now that he watched him closely, Schuldig saw him sway ever so gently as though he was moving to a distant tune. Farfarello’s eyes were closed and remained so even as Schuldig slowly sat up and moved to the end of the couch to have a better view. Suspecting that Farfarello would not move even if he rose, the Vampire turned and reached for the matches lying on the table next to the couch. He lit the oil lamp standing on the table, looking back over his shoulder. The golden glow cast dark red highlights into the fur of the Felidae; he was not black, then, in his catkin form. The fur on his body merely resembled the hair on his head, its colour, as Schuldig had learned, hard to determine because it was so dark.


He was not all that big, either, and certainly smaller than the guards that sat outside his room in Mayfair. He looked like any cat on London’s streets, lean and sinewy, prowling the night for mice and rats. Had it not been for the earring and the four lines on his face where the fur parted ever so slightly, Schuldig knew no one would ever suspect Farfarello to be anything else but an ordinary cat.


Down the hallways, the door to Crawford’s room opened. The sound woke Farfarello from his statuesque silence; blinking amber eyes that eerily caught and trapped the light of the oil lamp, he looked around the room as though he was seeing it for the first time until he focused on Schuldig and yawned, treating the Vampire to the magnificent sight of needle-sharp canines that seemed abnormally long for a cat. He seemed not at all disturbed by the quickly approaching footsteps and only turned his head in the direction of the door as Crawford strode into the living room, stopping short as he saw the Felidae sitting on the back of the couch. Farfarello yawned again.


 "Is that...?"


Schuldig nodded, transfixed by the arrogance Farfarello suddenly displayed. It was so unlike his reaction to waking up in the bathroom surrounded by two Vampires.


 It’s not as though I’d have to fear anything from your teeth now, no? Or would you like a mouthful of fur?


Farfarello’s voice rang so loud and clear in his mind that Schuldig rose, startled; Crawford seemed to have heard it too and gaped at the Felidae.


 "How do you..?" Crawford caught himself first. "Is it telepathy?"


 Yes. Or did you think I’d yowl and hiss my way through the hours I spend in this body? Farfarello lifted a paw and licked it, oblivious to the Vampires’ curious glances. He continued to groom, starting with his face, and ignored them.


Schuldig watched him for a moment and accepted the sudden transition from Farfarello the young man to Farfarello the cat. He had wondered before what the leader of the Felidae would look like; now that he saw it the visual impact was strangely anti-climatic. The use of telepathy explained now why his thoughts had been so easily heard by the Felidae. Was there a way around it? Schuldig frowned at the thought of a clan of cats listening to his every thought as soon as he came within their reach.


Farfarello shot him a glance and seemed to smile. Bastard, Schuldig thought. I hope you heard that, too. He turned to Crawford. "Are you going out now?"


 "Yes." The other Vampire still watched Farfarello, his expression teetering between curiosity and a frown. "I’ll visit the usual places and see who I can find. Who knows? Maybe the others have heard something."


He nodded absent-mindedly, watching how Farfarello delicately tied his body into a knot and licked the inside of his left hind leg. It was so absurd. It was so fantastic. It was so different that Schuldig knew he could have watched him for hours. He found it hard to reconcile the image of Farfarello in his black clothes and tousled hair with that of the cat grooming on the back of their living room couch. He saw Crawford leave out of the corner of his eye, heard the soft click of the front door as it shut behind the other Vampire.


As he sat down in Crawford’s usual place by the fire – and it seemed a matter of fact that Farfarello owned the couch while he sat on it – Schuldig wondered if the change from man to cat and vice versa was triggered randomly or by will. And what did the change itself look like? He remembered the slaughtered cat at the Thames – a recurring image in his mind now – and shuddered; that poor beast must have been killed during a change, while it was at its most vulnerable. Or had it tried to change in order to escape death?


 So many questions. Farfarello stopped grooming and settled down, stretched out along the back of the couch, his tail end moving idly. Perhaps I should start at the very beginning. There was Adam, and there was Eve...


The slight teasing tone of Farfarello’s telepathic voice was equally amusing and annoying. "Does that mean you know which way the change was going?"


 Yes. From cat to human. The eyes always change first. You saw the eyes, didn’t you?


He wished he would not remember it or be reminded of it all the time. Shifting uneasily in the chair as he was momentarily back at the Thames, pulling a cat’s eyelids up, Schuldig said, "I apologize for treating you like that."


The Felidae waved a paw at the air in front of his face, the gesture reminding Schuldig of the one he had made last night, and said, You said you wanted to talk to me. Talk.


 "I’m not even sure where to begin," Schuldig admitted. "I know there is a connection between the dead Felidae and Christine. I don’t know what it is, or how I know, but I know."


 The infallible instinct of a Vampire? Farfarello seemed amused. Then clue me in, for I don’t see a connection anywhere. The dead brother has lain at the Thames for a week. The Vampire was killed last night.


 "But they were killed in the same way," Schuldig insisted. "Both ripped apart in the middle, and -"


The lifted paw bade him silence once more. You forget that in this cat form, we are more vulnerable to things you might not even perceive as dangerous. Farfarello’s voice became hard. Dogs, humans – even a carriage, surprising one at a bad time, can be death for a Felidae.


 "But -"


 You might be looking for a connection that isn’t there. Coincidence happens.


Even if it was a coincidence, it was still a strange one. Schuldig could not be persuaded of the fact that the two corpses had lain so close to each other because of happenstance. He was now more convinced than ever that Farfarello was keeping something from him. But what? Schuldig tried to hide his thoughts beneath a steady current of images he drew from the memory of last night; Christine at the river, the grime on his fingers, the heat of the fire as it devoured her body. There had to be a way to get around Farfarello’s telepathy and getting him to open up a little more at the same time.


It seemed to work. The Felidae sounded positively annoyed and rose onto all fours, swiping his paw at the air once more. Stop that. Your thoughts – it’s annoying. They’re like flies.


 "Then don’t listen to them." Schuldig smiled, feeling victorious, and leaned back in the chair. His stomach growled again, reminding him that he had to go out soon to feed. Thankfully, the headache had calmed down to bearable levels, leaving him with a slight pounding behind the temples that could easily be ignored. "You never told me why you moved your clan here in the first place."


Farfarello seemed to be caught off-guard by the question. What does it matter to you?


 "Perhaps it matters. Perhaps it doesn’t. I just can’t shake the feeling that you’re...somehow connected to all this. What you said at the Thames sort of stuck in my mind – that you had seen something like this before. At first I thought you meant the dead Felidae. But now I think you meant Christine. Have you?"


 I see corpses almost every day, Farfarello said bluntly. He was clearly not comfortable with the direction Schuldig’s contemplations were going; jumping from the back of the couch onto the ground before it, the Felidae stalked over to the next window and looked up at it, studying the closed shutters. My kind gets around a lot. We see a lot. We listen.


Schuldig smiled thinly. "You haven’t answered my question."


 And I won’t. Be assured that yes, I have seen dead Vampires before, as I’ve seen dead Wer and dead Felidae. You are implying that I brought my kind here because we were running from something, maybe from the same thing that killed your friend.


 "Thing? Why do you call it a ‘thing’?"


Farfarello became impatient. He turned from the window and, in one mighty jump, suddenly sat on Schuldig’s knee, staring up at the Vampire through narrowed cat-eyes. Schuldig’s first instinctual reaction was to push him off; he even raised his hand, but Farfarello gave him such a glare that he waited.


 Why do you insist that I know something about it? Why do you insist that I have something to do with it? I brought you to your dead friend because I thought you might want to take care of the body, not because I wanted you to hack into me as though I killed her. The telepathic voice gained a level of sharpness and annoyance Schuldig found hurtful to his ears, the Felidae’s rage a palatable thing that pressed against his mind like a muffling cloth, shutting out all other sounds around them. You are so typically Vampire that it makes me sick! I saw you push a granite slab around as though it was nothing, yet you believe that it wasn’t a Vampire who killed your friend. What makes you so sure?


Schuldig stared at him in silence, the sudden outburst telling him that they were quickly heading toward another skirmish. He wanted to defend his theory, his belief that a Vampire would not bother to desecrate another Vampire like this.


He suddenly remembered something Farfarello had said at the Thames. That he had returned to the corpse of the Felidae because he was waiting for the murderer to visit the site of his deed. But just minutes ago Farfarello had said that there could be any number of reasons for the dead Felidae.


He realized what Farfarello was doing and glared at him. "You are trying to lead me astray. So far you haven’t answered one of my questions truthfully."


Unfazed by the accusation, Farfarello inclined his head in an all too human gesture. What I know and what you will believe are two different things.


 "What is that supposed to mean?"


 It means... He trailed off and tilted his head the other way, his ears twitching. I have to go. They’re calling for me. Open the window. This...audience is at its end.


Schuldig heard nothing but the usual sounds from the street outside. Angry, he brushed the Felidae off his knee and stood. He knew he would not get a straight answer out of him, and the way Farfarello went about it neither threat nor plea would get him to open up. Thoroughly disappointed – he had hoped to find some answers – he stalked to the window and pushed the shutters open.


And froze. On the roof of the house next to theirs, at least fifty cats were sitting and staring at him, their luminous eyes alight. Fifty cats in all shapes and sizes, but Schuldig could easily see that none of them were small. He saw the ruffled miniature lions from the house in Mayfair and took a step back from the window, their hostility and tenseness as palatable now as Farfarello’s anger. They sat there and watched him, never taking their eyes off him.


Farfarello sat where he had fallen after Schuldig pushed him off, his demeanour once more calm and kingly. Thank you for the bath. I threw my clothes out of the bathroom window earlier and had someone pick them up, so there’s nothing to clean up.


Schuldig could not do much more than watch and silently gnash his teeth as the Felidae jumped up onto the windowsill. He wished he had something to say to Farfarello that would make him open up and answer the questions. All Farfarello had done was confusing him entirely. He was no wiser now than he had been before their talk; in fact he was left with more questions.


 "Don’t think this is over."


 You know where to find me. Farfarello’s tone of voice was infuriatingly casual. He did not look at Schuldig again and simply jumped out of the window, leaving the Vampire to walk over to it once more and look out. Below the window, three floors down, he saw the shadow of a cat vanish around the corner.


The cats sitting on the roof of the other house moved slowly, as though they were waiting for him to make an antagonistic move that would threaten the life of their leader. He experienced the same sensation he had at the house in Mayfair – they were watching him hungrily, as though he was a plump, juicy morsel lying on a silver platter.


He gave them a contemptuous glare, thought they were all bastards and bitches anyway, and hoped they caught the thought.


---


Although they were just fourteen vampires – no, thirteen now, with Christine gone – in London, there were two places where one could most easily find one of their kind. One was a distinguished pub in Chelsea, on the ground floor of a house standing at the corner of Cheyne Row, facing the Thames near Albert Bridge. Most vampires were lovers of the arts; Chelsea, once a peaceful riverside village, had been fashionable since Tudor times when Sir Thomas More, Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor, lived there. Far enough from London’s busy centre while still retaining its artistic connections with its many galleries and antique shops, Chelsea invited to long walks through its picturesque streets and offered a minute of quiet with its tree-lined Embankment. Albert Bridge, famous for its hundred of lights that made it the most elegant of London’s bridges, was a quickly accessible route to the south side of the Thames. The pub in Chelsea was called "Bear at Arms" and was just one of many cosy establishments attracting artists and other breeds alike.


The other place was the "Raven", a shop that did not advertise its existence to anyone outside the Vampire circles. It was located in the very heart of Bloomsbury, which was another of London’s artistic and intellectual centres. Hidden behind the inconspicuous façade of a small bookstore, its owners had long since concentrated on catering to the needs of their elitist clientele - such as Crawford and Schuldig – and specialized in offering everything a Vampire needed to pass unnoticed through the mortal world. Birth certificates, ownership documents and every other scrap of paper that ensured that no questions were asked were produced there. Schuldig had been his own son, grandson and ancestor for as long as he needed to verify his claims on mortal property, and always his slips of paper, his documents and certificates, had come from the "Raven". Over the years, its fame had spread beyond the boundaries of London, and it was not uncommon that on a busy night one would see Vampires from Ireland or Scotland and sometimes even mainland Europe, sitting at the small tables in cosy chairs, whispering and laughing and trading news.


It was the sight of this peaceful atmosphere that greeted him as he entered, that made Schuldig again think that no Vampire had killed Christine. They might be predators feeding off the mortals, but their own were sacrosanct. He knew them so well, these monsters. They would never prey on their own.


Tonight though, there lay a veil of dullness over the tables, suffocating the peacefulness he expected. He saw Crawford’s familiar figure, sitting at a table in the very back of the shop, together with two others of their kind. He greeted Theodore, one of the two owners of the "Raven" who stood next to two splendidly dressed females, and joined his friend at the table.


 "Good night to you," George Thompson was a tall, heavyset man who appeared to be in his late fifties. Schuldig knew his real age – three centuries and counting – and cherished George’s exuberant and quite infectious good moods. Yet tonight George was sour-faced, his greeting lacking its usual enthusiasm. He sat leaned back against the chair, thumbs hooked into the pockets of his vest, and did not even seem to really see Schuldig as he sat down.


 "Hello, Schu." Next to George, Wilfred Spark, a thin, nervous creature with a mob of black hair and blacker eyes, chewed on a pipe that hung from the corner of his mouth. He had a rat’s face, with a pointed chin and an impossible wide mouth; his age was indefinable. When Schuldig first saw him, he had disliked him immensely until he learned that Wilfred could indeed be a lifesaver and if it was just by always having the much-needed joke ready in a gloomy situation.


Both were not what he would consider good friends, but just friends. Christine had been the only one he was really close to, with the exception of Crawford. "Hello." He gave a pointed glance at the tables around them. "The word has been spread?"


 "How could it not?" Wilfred sucked on his pipe, slowly shaking his head. "We all knew Christine. It’s a shame."


 "A goddamn shame, all right. Whoever took that poor girl down will have hell to pay for it." George’s voice boomed, causing some of the Vampires on the other tables to look at him.


Schuldig caught Crawford’s look and gave an imperceptible shrug that caused his friend to sigh. They had been living in each other’s pocket for so long that an entire conversation could be conveyed through the lifting of an eyebrow; Schuldig knew that Crawford was curious how the conversation between him and Farfarello had gone and wondered what he was going to tell him. He was none the wiser. Farfarello had given him answers to questions that were not important and left the ones he needed to have answers to aside.


Had he tried to make time? Distract Schuldig from something? The very vehemence with which he had denied knowledge made Schuldig believe that there was something Farfarello was not telling him.


 "I’ve been to the Bear," Crawford said into his ear as George and Wilfred continued to vow death and decay to Christine’s murderer. "The atmosphere there is as delightful as here. How did the talk go?"


 "I’d rather not talk about it here," Schuldig whispered, glancing around. He noticed that the occupants of the other tables – eight vampires all in all – were beginning to gravitate toward their table. "And I might have to talk to him again. He wasn’t telling me anything useful." He considered, "In fact, he wasn’t telling me anything at all."


 "Who wasn’t telling you anything at all?"


The voice was gravely quiet and sent a shiver down Schuldig’s spine. He did not have to turn around to know who stood behind him; he could smell the dust and earth on William Darcey’s clothes and skin. Turning in his chair, Schuldig let his elbow collide with William’s stomach on purpose; the Vampire had a habit of suddenly appearing behind others and listening in on what were supposedly private conversations. It made him the least-liked of the London predators.


Schuldig also knew that William had been madly in love with Christine.


William said, "There are strange things going on in London. First those fleabags turn up, infesting all of Mayfair with their stench. Now Christine dies." Giving Schuldig a speculating glare, he continued, "Did you know that Christine’s been walking around Mayfair a lot lately? She was fascinated by those cats. Wanted to meet them and talk to them."


That did not sound like the Christine he knew. Just as hearing about her strolling around the East End and the Docklands did not sound like her usual behaviour. Filing the observation away, Schuldig gave William a blank stare and shrugged, "So she was curious. In fact, she was the one to tell me about them in the first place, and she said they were quite polite when she talked to them."


 "Maybe they don’t like Vampires snooping around ‘their’ territory. Maybe Christine asked one too many questions for their tastes."


 "William, shut up," Wilfred Spark pushed the pipe to the other corner of his mouth and sighed. "It’s no use to make wild assumptions."


William threw his head back and laughed, an ugly, harsh sound. Everything about him was harsh, Schuldig knew, from his manners to his ideals. William was old and powerful and Schuldig believed that disillusion and heartbreak had made him the bitter creature he was. "Crawford here tells us that you buried her body."


 "Yes, so? Should I have left her at the Thames, food for the rats?" Beneath the table, Crawford’s foot knocked against his ankle, warning him. Schuldig ignored it. This was not the first time he had verbally sparred with William; he usually came out as the winner. "And just to inform you, one of those \'fleabags\' told me where I could find her. If it hadn’t been for him her death would be all over the papers now."


 "So he was the one who killed her." The sharpness in Williams’s voice was acidic and aggravating, as was his logic. "I say we catch one of those cats and -"


 "I say you shut your big mouth and calm the hell down." Theodore Larkin’s voice echoed off the walls of the shop with a viciousness that surprised them all. They turned and stared at the owner of the "Raven", who stood at the edge of the group of tables and glared back at them, "The Felidae are a Dark Breed like we are. Just because they are not like us doesn’t make them killers."


 "Spoken like a true liberal," William sneered. "Who’s never been fucked up the ass by one of them."


 "And I suppose you have?" George regarded him calmly. "What was it like? Was it good? Is that why you want to catch one of them – so you can bend over and spread your legs again?"


William turned an interesting shade of crimson and stormed from the shop, slamming the door so hard it rattled in its frame. Here and there, some of them chuckled about George’s crude words, but the atmosphere was tenser now than it had been before. Schuldig glanced at Crawford and rolled his eyes; his friend sighed and folded his hands on the table, shaking his head.


Theodore gazed at the door, turned to them, and said, "Shop’s closing. I’ve had enough for the night and I need to feed. Good night, gentlemen and ladies. Try not to get killed by cats."


Several of them protested loudly, but Theodore left no room for discussion. While they filed out, muttering among themselves, Theodore tapped Schuldig on the shoulder and whispered, "I got that book you’re supposed to translate. Oh, and Crawford, I have something in the backroom you might want to take a look at."


Which translated to: stay here, we need to talk. Schuldig and Crawford went outside with the others, chatted for a few minutes and then bade the other Vampires a good night. When the last of them turned the corner at the other end of the street, they went back inside the "Raven". Theodore locked the door and pulled a heavy wooden plate in front of it, securing it with a deadbolt.


With the other Vampires gone, the shop looked deserted and empty. They followed Theodore into the backroom where he pursued his trade; stacks of parchment, stamps, ink and typewriters were scattered over several desks. Framed examples of documents and certificates hung on the walls, giving testimony to Theodore’s impressive skills as a forger. He closed the door to the backroom as well and sighed as he turned to them, "Where did you bury Christine, Schuldig?"


Taken aback by Theodore’s tone of voice, Schuldig frowned. "Why do you want to know?"


They had known each other for more than two centuries, ever since Theodore emigrated from Scotland during a famine in his homeland and sought solace in a region that was not dying of hunger and disease. "Calm down. I’m not William. But he’s been ranting and raving ever since Crawford told us about her death and I suspect he will try to find her."


Crawford nodded and leaned against the edge of a desk. "As soon as I told of it, he started to ask questions. Wouldn’t let go of it."


 "She’s in a tomb in St. Paul’s...what remains of her, anyway." Schuldig closed his eyes. "We burned her."


 "What?" Crawford and Theodore asked in unison, Theodore immediately following up with, "We?"


No use trying to hold it back now, and lying was out of the question. Although Schuldig suspected that telling them would only make them more suspicious of Farfarello – and since when was he trying to protect the leader of the Felidae from suspicion, anyway? – he also knew that he could trust Crawford and Theodore to not run off and grab the next random cat off the street. "She was torn apart in the middle. Her entrails were all over the place. He burned what remained of her; I collected the bones and laid them in a tomb at the cathedral. Why is this so important? She’s dead. I don’t think burning her desecrated her any more than she already had been."


Theodore shook his head. "No, I don’t think so either. And I suppose William won’t find her, either. Don’t know what he’d want with her corpse, anyway." He stroked his fingertips over his chin, disturbing the perfectly arranged hairs of his beard, "You’ve talked to this Felidae? Does he have a name?"


 "Yes. His name is Farfarello. He’s -"


The Vampire moved so suddenly that a stack of parchment was pushed off the edge of a desk and fluttered to the ground, a many-winged, papery creature. Theodore gaped at Schuldig, an expression of perfect horror on his face. Surprised, Schuldig took a step back and looked at Crawford, who was as flabbergasted as he.


 "Farfarello?" Theodore asked weakly, his voice lacking his usual steadiness. "Are you sure?"


 "Why, yes."


 "Oh god. That changes things."


 "Why? What do you mean?"


Theodore pulled a chair out and sat down heavily, sighing loudly. He shook his head and chuckled under his breath, but the sound lacked merriment and gave Schuldig a bad feeling. "He did not tell you his entire name, then. Farfarello Kinslayer. That’s what they used to call him. And if I were you I’d not mention this name around the others, least of all around William. Never around William."


The name did not mean anything to Schuldig; he had never heard it before and could not make sense of it. Spreading his hands, he gave a helpless shrug and looked at Crawford. His friend was frowning, eyes fixed on the floor before his feet, as though he was trying to remember something. Finally, Crawford shrugged as well. "Never heard that name before."


 "If that Felidae is indeed Farfarello Kinslayer and not just an impostor, we have a real problem on our hands, my friends." Theodore, still shaking his head to himself, gazed at the scattered parchment and continued almost dreamily, "I first heard of him when I was in Scotland. Just rumours, of course. That was a long time before either of you came to England. Anyway, word was that in the northern regions of Ireland, a coven of our kind had attacked a clan of them – on a whim, you might say. The times were harder back then than they are now. There weren’t enough mortals to feed on for either Vampire or Felidae, so the Vampires turned on the catkin for blood."


 I am an Elder in my own right. What we do here is our business.


"They started with the young ones, their kittens. This is just hearsay, mind you, but I believe it. They had killed about half of their young ones after a month and tried to make it look as though the kittens had been attacked by dogs or wolves. Stupid, of course – the mortals were leaving those parts of the country and took their dogs with them and why would the wolves feed on cats if there were abandoned and starving herds of sheep and cattle?"


 We don’t intend to take anyone’s territory and seek no trouble unless others seek trouble with us.


 "They say that the leader of the Felidae clan tried to talk to the Vampires. Talk! Have you ever tried to talk to a Vampire who’s half-mad with hunger? It’s impossible. The Felidae barely got away...and then called together the eldest and most powerful of his clan and attacked the Vampires."


 I’ve had no reason to make our presence known here all too soon thanks to previous experience.


 "But it wasn’t an open attack, and that’s how Farfarello gained his nickname. He’s known to be a sneaky son of a bastard; a manipulator and cruel strategist. A liar. He wanted to play with the Vampires before he killed them. So he had some of his own kind killed and then trapped one of the Vampires, making sure the corpses would be found by the others."


 You’re coming with me. Don’t you want to see the corpses?


 "Apparently he managed to make the Vampires believe that something else had killed the Felidae and the one from their kind. As it was, since they didn’t believe that a Felidae could ever kill a Vampire, they soon turned on themselves, accusing each other of trying to...well, you know. Manipulate the food chain. Kill each other so there would be more food. They were really stupid enough – or desperate enough, those were dark times for any Dark Breed – to believe that they could survive if they fed on the Felidae and waited for the mortals to return to the country."


 I can smell her. I can smell you.


 "In the end, all he had to do was wait until they had started attacking each other. They say he didn’t have to wait for long."


 You might be looking for a connection that isn’t there. Coincidence happens.


 "I heard that in the end, he just waltzed in with a few of his clan and killed them."


 You are so typically Vampire that it makes me sick! What I know and what you will believe are two different things.


Theodore came to the end of his story, staring at the ground. His hands were clasped in his lap, his head bowed, as though the memory alone had aged him in the last few minutes. A long moment of silence passed, during which only their breathing could be heard. Schuldig did not know what to think. He tried to make sense of what Theodore had told him, but his mind failed him, leaving him with a blank slate. Next to him, Crawford had frozen to a statue.


Finally, Theodore said softly, "Of course, other Vampires tried to take revenge for their kin. They should have just left it alone. Farfarello is ancient and powerful, but he hides that power. You say he burned Christine corpse? That is nothing in comparison to what he did to those who went after him and his clan." He bent down and picked up one of the sheets of parchment, carefully brushing his hand over it. "He must have picked up a liking for playing with them over the years. What he is doing here now I don’t know. But I think we know now who might have killed Christine."


 "What has William to do with all of this?" Crawford asked.


Theodore chuckled darkly and set the sheet of parchment on the desk to his left. "William Darcey is one of the Vampires of the original group who got away. He left just days before Farfarello played his final hand." Hesitating, the Vampire glanced at Schuldig. "The other one who got away was Christine."


That last sentence woke Schuldig from his semi-trance. He found it hard to breathe; faced with the truth in Theodore’s words he finally saw the lies in what Farfarello had told him. "Well," he said softly, "That does indeed change things."


 "That’s why William mustn’t be told at all costs. If he learns of his own accord, then it’s out of our hands." Theodore rose from the chair and crossed his arms, still gazing at the parchment. "You two don’t know him that well, but I do. William can be a good friend if he’s not in one of his moods, leaving his characteristic quirks aside. But I think that the death of Christine and the sudden appearance of the catkin have pushed him a little too far. If he learns that it’s Farfarello’s clan, there will be a slaughter like none this city has seen before."


 "How can he not learn of this?" Crawford shrugged. "The more I learn about this, the more I think Farfarello is here to settle an old score."


Was he? Schuldig was not so sure. He knew that what Theodore had just told them was what he had suspected Farfarello of not telling him – and why would he? With a past like that, Schuldig knew he would keep this secret, too – but would Farfarello be stupid enough to try and pull the same trick twice? On someone who had witnessed it the first time, no less? Why now?


The longer he had listened to Theodore, the angrier he had become, but now, thinking it over, the anger made way for a dull sense of foreboding. It was too easy an explanation. It clashed so completely with one of Schuldig’s first impressions of Farfarello – cradling that kitten to his chest, holding it as though it was one of his most prized possessions – that he could not bring himself to believe that the Felidae he had talked to was the same Kinslayer Theodore knew. If Farfarello was indeed the same.


There was something else behind it. He did not know it. He knew it.


Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Crawford regarding him with a contemplative, knowing look. Something in his friend’s eyes was twinkling, and Schuldig was sure it was amusement. Even Theodore was smiling lightly as he said, "Your curiosity will be the death of you one day."


 "I can’t help it." Schuldig rubbed his temples and felt his stomach growl again. He was hungrier now than he had been in a long time, and as much as he wanted to come to the grounds of what was going on, he had to cater to his needs. "I’ve talked to Farfarello. Even if he lied...no, he did lie, but there is something about him that..."


He trailed off, unsure about his words. It was so clear! They had a perfect reason for Christine’s death right before their very eyes and her murderer had taken a bath in Schuldig and Crawford’s apartment to boot. Old hatred and an old score made for very good reasons to kill someone.


It did not convince him. Finally, Schuldig said, "I have to talk to Farfarello again."


 "Be careful. You talked to him before, didn’t you?" Theodore opened the door to the backroom and stepped out, waiting for Schuldig and Crawford to follow. "There is something going on here that may bring us all into grave danger."


 "What is your opinion? Do you think Farfarello did it?"


He hesitated at Schuldig’s question, "I don’t know. What I do know about him I learned from others. But Christine is dead, and Farfarello is here, along with his entire clan, and I know I will be very, very careful from now on. And so you should be."


It was nearing midnight as they left the "Raven", waiting in front of the house until Theodore had replaced the wooden board, and walked toward Covent Garden. It was not until they reached the Seven Dials at the crossing of Shorts Gardens and Earlham Street that Crawford said, "You are too fascinated by that catkin."


Schuldig, hands buried in his pockets against the chilly September wind, had not paid much attention to his friend and kept his eyes on the street before him. He went through Theodore’s story, over and over again, but he came to the same conclusion each time: that there was still something missing in the puzzle of Christine’s death. At Crawford’s words, he looked up. "What do you mean?"


 "Schuldig, I remember what you told me about Cologne." Crawford stopped at the curb and looked up at the Seven Dials, a statue that showed seven sun clocks at its very top. "I’ve been waiting for you to run to Mayfair and start killing the Felidae for a day now, and yet you’re here, blatantly trying to find something that will take the blame off Farfarello’s shoulders."


Annoyed, Schuldig socked Crawford in the arm. "I probably would be doing the very same thing if I didn’t have doubts about the blame in the first place."


 "How very unlike you. What makes you think Farfarello is innocent?"


 "I didn’t say he’s innocent. If he’s the same Farfarello Theo spoke of then he’s far from innocent. I know he lied to me – or at least withheld a lot of information. But who am I that he has to surrender his entire past to my knowledge?" Schuldig looked up at the Seven Dials and frowned. Farfarello had told him as much – that their business here was their own. "For all we know it could be William himself."


 "William loved Christine. You know that as well as I do."


 "Yes. But suppose William wants to settle a score of his own? Suppose he turned the tables?" He stopped himself before he could go on, realizing with stinging clarity that he was pursuing an avenue of thought Farfarello had accused him of not being able to even contemplate. But now that the train had left the station, it was too late to stop it. "Suppose William learned that Farfarello’s clan arrived in London. He gets around a lot, and as far as I know he lives near Mayfair. So he kills Christine, kills the Felidae, and then tries to get us to help him take care of the rest of them. I wouldn’t put it past him."


 "You are assuming that he knows it’s Farfarello. He didn’t know his name just an hour ago."


 "You were to one who said we are going to play detectives. I’m just thinking out loud. Nothing makes a lot of sense right now." Sighing, Schuldig turned toward Covent Garden and waited for Crawford to catch up with him. "Theo said William and Christine got away back then. Wouldn’t Christine have had the same hatred for the Felidae Williams seems to have, then? Wouldn’t she have remembered? And that bit about Christine walking around the Docklands and the East End won’t go out of my head. It doesn’t make sense. I -"


 "I think we should postpone those contemplations and feed," Crawford interrupted him softly. "And then you can go to Mayfair and talk to that catkin again."


 "Yes, daddy. As always, you are the voice of reason."


It was Crawford’s turn to sock Schuldig in the arm.


---


Vampires often went insane over the centuries. It was a dire fact known to their entire kind. There was no explanation for it. Some of the more philosophical members of their kind had tried to put it down to the sheer brunt of years on their minds, but Schuldig had never believed in those theories. He was nearing his eigth century, a good age for a Vampire, and so far he believed that all was right with his mental state. There certainly were no indicators that spoke against his sanity. He had his heartaches and heartbreaks to look back upon, memories that had begun to fade the older he became, but none of them had ever shaken him so completely from his own safe hell that he had acted rashly or without reason.


Only once had sanity left him. Only once had he acted like the Vampires of the mortals’ fairytales and slaughtered without regard for cause and effect. Cologne was not a place he cared to revisit in his mind, much less in body; that memory was one of those that faded slower than the others. Especially now that his mind was occupied with the very same problem he had had back then – Felidae – did the memory insist on sitting behind his eyes like a softly laughing ghost.


Christine sat next to that ghost, taunting him with her enigmatic smiles. Both combined made for a very interesting melee of emotions; the foremost was confusion that needed answers. It did not help that the confusion itself evolved around Farfarello.


Crawford was right. He was fascinated by Farfarello. The sheer differences between them made him interesting. Schuldig idly contemplated that it was this very interest in the Felidae that probably caused the annoyance he experienced at Farfarello’s refusal to open up to him. Now, an illicit thrill had been added. The thought of spending time with someone who had so methodically done away with some of Schuldig’s kind was like licking at blood flowing from the wound of a person you knew had been poisoned with arsenic. Farfarello did not look dangerous. Schuldig would probably forever remember the look of sadness on his face as he was robbed of the rat’s tail.


So perhaps all was not right with his mental state, after all.


He had planned to feed and then directly be on his way to Mayfair; instead, his feet carried him along Charing Cross Road and Northumberland Avenue toward the Victoria Embankment, where he stood at the railing and stared out over the Thames at the Jubilee Gardens on the other side of the river. It was past midnight now. Due to the progressively colder nights, the Embankment was almost deserted by the time he arrived. He did not mind the silence; the thoughts chasing one another through his mind were loud enough to keep him company.


Unsurprisingly, all of them were centred on Farfarello. With just two meetings, the Felidae had managed to carve himself a niche in Schuldig’s thoughts he did not seem to be willing to give up again.


Had the circumstances been different, Schuldig would probably be courting him now.


 "Courting him? You’d be courting death, my friend."


He turned at the sound of the familiar voice, the unwelcome realization that he had not even felt the presence of the Felidae standing behind him under one of the trees lining the Embankment making him grit his teeth. Hiding his surprise - and alarm – under a mask of nonchalance, Schuldig looked Anna up and down, noting that she wore the same clothes he had first seen her in. It made him wonder how they really lived – all squeezed into that one house in Mayfair, large as it may be, with a single set of clothing for the hours they spend in their human bodies?


 "And what hours they are," Anna said, her eyes looking out over the Thames as she walked up to him. "He promised us London would be a wonderful city, and he was right. I am in love with it. The lights, the people – everything he promised us is true."


There was no point in asking her to leave his thoughts alone. Instead, Schuldig picked an image – Big Ben’s imposing height, sticking out from London’s fog like a needle – and held it up before his inner eyes. It seemed to work. Anna gave him a long, calculating stare before she sighed and leaned on the railing next to him.


 "Not all of us can do this, you know? The young ones...they are changing. Adapting. Or degenerating, take your pick." She sighed again. "Only the older ones still manage to work the tricks of our trade."


 "You speak of it as though you were a band of travelling thieves."


 "Perhaps we are."


He demeanour now was different from the brash way she had acted the first time he saw her. Schuldig turned to face her and studied her profile, noting the almost wistful way with which she looked out over the dark water of the river. There was a small stain in the corner of her mouth. Blood. She must have come upon him after hunting. Were there others around, watching them? Schuldig tried to scent the wind until he realized that with her so close to him, there was no way he would be able to pick up anything else but that spicy scent.


 "And perhaps we are not." Anna pushed an errant strand of black hair behind one ear. "The Vampires always had a rather strange view of us. I don’t blame you for having the wrong impression."


 "I suppose that goes both ways." The remark had needled him enough that Schuldig wished she would – he concentrated, upholding Big Ben before his eyes once more, and said through clenched teeth, "Clever girl."


She snickered and gave him an impish look from under her mob of black hair. "Like I said. Tricks of the trade."


 "Why are you here, Anna? To make small talk?"


 "To ask of you why there are Vampires in Mayfair." Anna’s voice acquired a less teasing tone, her dark eyes narrowed. "For two months we have lived in peace. Then you turn up and demand to speak to our leader, and now we see others of your kind stalking the streets and hiding around corners as though they are the thieves."


 "You know as well as I do that a Vampire was killed yesterday night." It was probably William Darcey who had appeared in Mayfair. Schuldig was not surprised, especially now that he knew about the background of William’s obvious hatred of the catkin. "And that a Felidae died as well."


 "We did not kill the Vampire. We do not know who killed the Felidae."


 "So Farfarello tells me." He let a long pause follow before he asked, "Were you there when he killed the others in Ireland? Why are you here, Anna? Why did Farfarello lead you to London?"


She gave him a long, unfathomable glance, sighed, and turned away. Schuldig had expected her to deny knowledge about what he was talking about and was surprised as she said, "I wasn’t there. But I know about it. The others told me about it."


He took a chance. "Then you know that the Vampire who was killed yesterday night was one of two Vampires who managed to escape back then?"


Her surprise seemed genuine enough. "No. I didn’t know." Hesitating, Anna picked at a loose thread of her shirt, looking around. He followed her gaze but saw nothing; trees, houses, and shadows. Were there others, watching them now? Slowly, she asked, "Was that Vampire who was killed a friend of yours?"


 "Yes. And I plan to find out who killed her. Aren’t you interested in who killed the catkin?"


 "We die every day. Death isn’t such a terrible thing for us as it is for the other Dark Breeds because there are so many of us." Anna frowned, her lips moving as though she was trying to find the right words, "We mourn, but dead is dead. Why mourn for the dead if there are young ones to raise?"


From a cattish point of view, it made sense. But apparently ‘dead is dead’ had meant ‘they might be dead but I’ll make sure someone else is going to die for them’ to Farfarello once. He thought of something he had wondered before. "How large is the clan?"


 "Why do you want to know?"


 "I’m curious. Enlighten me."


 "One hundred and seventy-two, including all young ones."


Incredible. And here he had thought fourteen Vampires in London were a large and impressive number. He measured Anna with a glance once more and could not help wondering if she had already young ones of her own. The thought of her, in a woman’s body, taking care of a litter of kittens...had Farfarello spawned offspring? Surely he must have. Schuldig thought of the harem of cats and the kitten in their leader’s hands, how he had cut the rat tail and planned to bring it home to them. The thought of Farfarello as a father was disturbing for reasons Schuldig could not fathom.


 "It is getting late," Anna said, rubbing her arms. She glanced at him as she stepped away from the railing and turned toward Mayfair, her steps so light that he did not hear her even though she stood no more than arm’s length away from her. "Farfarello is at the house..."


 "Just how long did you stand there?"


She grinned, but in a good-naturedly way. "Long enough. He’s beautiful, isn’t he?"


‘Beautiful’? Cunning, yes. Mysterious, certainly. Dangerous? Of course. There was not a single member of any of the three Dark Breeds that was not dangerous in their own right. Yet ‘beautiful’ was not a word Schuldig would have used to describe Farfarello.


He decided not to answer and fell in step with her, waiting as she walked beneath the tree and picked up a wrapped bundle. For a moment, he entertained the somewhat sickening idea that there was another child’s corpse in it, but Anna noticed his inquiring glance and said, "Blankets. Those I stole them from won’t need them anymore."


 "You steal, and yet you said that Vampires aren’t the only ones who have money."


She shrugged and hefted the bundle over her shoulder. "Waste not, want not." Looking around once more, she strode away. "Let’s go. It’s a long way still."


It was not until he stood in front of the house that Schuldig realized that Anna had not answered his question either. He still had no idea what the Felidae clan was doing in London. On their way to Mayfair, she had kept talking, making remarks about the city and how much she loved it. It made him wonder where the clan had lived before. Theodore’s story left him in no doubts to the fact that after the slaughter, the Felidae must have left Ireland and emigrated to escape the famine wrecking the land. Christine had told him that they had arrived by ship – and how had she known about this fact? – so it was more than likely that they had been in Europe before. He wanted to ask Farfarello about it although he knew that he would likely get another evasive lie as answer.


Anna left him standing on the porch of the house and vanished into a side street, her breath leaving plumes of white clouds in the air. He tried the door and found it open. Stepping inside, he could not get rid of the impression that he was being watched, but when he turned around there was only the silent street behind him. The rooftops were empty.


So was the house. Schuldig heard no sound as he walked up the stairs to find the hallway, guarded by those rugged cats the first time, deserted as well. Out of caution, he kept concentrating on the image that had helped him against Anna’s telepathy; Big Ben in all its lonely glory slowly disintegrated as the door at the end of the corridor was pushed open and Farfarello stepped out.


 "Back so soon? We just parted a few hours ago."


No. Anna had been right. He was beautiful. Schuldig walked up to the Felidae, holding on to Big Ben, and said, "So we meet again, and this time I want real answers."


Farfarello lifted a shoulder in a tiny shrug and walked back into his ‘throne room’, leaving it to Schuldig to close the door. To the Vampire’s relief, he saw that there were no cats on the pillows in front of the bed. The thought that Farfarello had indeed been waiting for him came unbidden. Schuldig watched him find his way through the chaotically arranged furniture and settle down on the edge of a table near a window.


 "Where are the others?"


 "I sent them away." With his back to the window, Farfarello’s face was bathed in shadows and made it hard for Schuldig to see much of his expression. There were candles, but fewer had been lit than last time. "You met Anna?"


 "Yes. Or rather, she met me." Looking for a seat, Schuldig gingerly sat down on a trunk that stood next to an upturned vanity table. Why was this room so chaotic? "Did you send her?"


 "No."


 "Were you waiting for me?"


 "Yes."


The short, blunt answers alerted Schuldig. "What is wrong?"


Farfarello reached out for something that lay behind him on the table and swung his arm around. The small bundle – nothing more than a dark shape sailing through the air – landed on the floor before Schuldig with a dull, meaty thud.


Aggravation at the careless handling of the corpse met with a feeling of pity as Schuldig looked down at the twisted form of the kitten that lay before his feet. Its maw was open, showing the tips of a pink tongue sticking out between small white canines. The body was whole; it showed no signs of desecration but Schuldig knew the marks and saw the puncture wounds on its neck despite the poor light. He reached down and picked it up, carefully turning it toward the nearest candle. The small body was nearly weightless in his hands. It had been drained completely, then, which explained why he had not smelled anything when he entered the room. Several of its ribs seemed to be shattered.


 "You can’t tell me that this wasn’t one of you," Farfarello’s voice was low and sharp, letting Schuldig guess at the anger he was holding inside. This time he did not seem to mind Schuldig’s hands on a corpse of his kin. "Attack me, attack the old ones if you want, but leave our children out of this. What kind of monsters are you to feed on and kill a kitten?"


And yet you feed on children yourself. He did not care if Farfarello caught the thought; he knew that everything he said in defence now would be met with more anger. He laid the corpse onto the vanity table and faced the Felidae. Farfarello did not seem to have heard. He sat on the edge of the table, gripping the plate so hard Schuldig heard the wood crack, and bared his teeth at the Vampire. Even in his human form, Farfarello’s canines were longer than usual, looking like vampiric baby teeth.


 "I said we seek no trouble with others, but if your kind starts preying on our young ones there will be a war, I promise that much."


 "That’s something you have experience in, don’t you, Kinslayer?"


The name hung between them like a slowly swinging pendulum. Schuldig waited for a reaction, almost holding his breath in anticipation, and was sorely disappointed as Farfarello only slumped a little and looked to the side.


 "So you know."


 "Yes. And I was rather...surprised to learn? Although surprise isn’t the right word for it. Let me say I was ‘taken aback’ by what I heard." He rose from his seat and walked over to the Felidae, hearing Theodore’s voice utter a warning in the back of his head: Farfarello is ancient and powerful, but he hides that power. Now, though, there was nothing powerful about him. He watched Schuldig come closer, shoulder’s hunched, his face blank. The sudden change from blazing anger to this subdued dullness added another warning voice to Theodore’s; it could be a mask, nothing but a façade as the cat in Farfarello tried to lure him in...what? Safety? "How can you...where do you take the right to say these things with a past like yours?"


Despite the flickering lights, the pupils of the catkin were mere points of black. The scars on his face seemed more visible now, as though the shadows carved them deeper into his skin. "That’s the beautiful thing about the past, Schuldig. It is past."


 "And what happens now has nothing to do with it?" The loudness of his own voice startled him. "I know about Christine. I know about William. I know what you did to them. Tell me this has nothing to do with what happened in Ireland. Tell me, and then try to make me believe it."


Farfarello did not reply. He stared up at Schuldig for so long and kept completely still, so much so that the Vampire began to think that he had sunken into a trance.


It angered Schuldig. The answers were right here! Yet Farfarello refused to even ascertain what Schuldig knew. Grabbing the front of the Felidae’s tunica, he yanked him up from the table and shouted, "Say something, god damn you!"


Farfarello twisted in the grip, nearly broke Schuldig’s fingers as he yanked them off his tunica, and threw him across the room. It happened too quickly for the Vampire to realize what was happening as he crashed into a piece of furniture, which shattered under his impact. Pain laced up his back, momentarily robbing him off his breath as he floundered. He reached for something to pull himself out of the closet he had destroyed and toppled over with his weight and felt strong fingers close around his wrist with bruising strength. Splinters of wood stuck to his coat and pants as he was ripped up; cloth tore, something metallic hit the ground – then he was airborne again as Farfarello threw him once more. Schuldig managed to twist around in midair, finally getting his senses back together, and hit the mirrors on the other side of the room feet first. The resulting crash of splintering glass and falling shards was interrupted – drowned out by a sound that made the hairs on the back of his neck rise as he landed on the floor in a crouch.


Farfarello’s head was thrown back, exposing his throat. Sinewy cords of muscle stretched the thin skin as the Felidae opened his mouth and screamed at the ceiling, his back arching. Schuldig thought he could hear the scream echo off the walls and clasped his hands over his ears as Farfarello’s voice reached an intensity and sharpness that froze the blood in his veins. It seemed to bounce off the mirror shards on the ground and reverberate from every piece of furniture inside the room. It kept echoing even as Farfarello snapped his head back down, eyes ablaze as though every single candle in the room suddenly burned behind them, and bent his fingers into claws, stalking forward.


He was going to attack. Schuldig could read it in his every move, saw it in the murderous expression on his face. Crouching lower, the Vampire readied himself to counter the attack, waiting for a moment to strike. One clean hit, enough to clear the way to the door, out of this room where every piece of furniture was a possible death trap. He felt blood run down his back where splinters had pierced the skin and gritted his teeth. Then he burst forward and rammed Farfarello.


Or tried to. Anger seemed to have given the Felidae strength that matched Schuldig’s. He heard him grunt as his shoulder ploughed into Farfarello’s stomach and tried to shove him aside only to feel a hand slap down on the back of his neck and push him to the ground. Farfarello’s boots scraped over the floor as the impact forced him backward, but he bent forward and did not fall. Blindly reaching up as he saw the floor approach at an alarmingly fast pace, Schuldig managed to twist onto his side and grab a hold of Farfarello’s tunica, pulling him down with him as he hit the floor. Something in his shoulder screamed in agony as he rolled onto his back – and froze, eyes flying open.


Farfarello’s teeth tightened ever so slightly over Schuldig’s throat as the Vampire became aware of their position and slowly let go of the tunica. With most of the Felidae’s weight leaning heavily on his chest, it was all Schuldig could do in his sudden terror; he had yanked Farfarello right down on himself and, rolling over, bared his throat to him. Now the other was crouched over him like a nightmare, his head wedged in between Schuldig’s chin and collarbones. One of Farfarello’s hands was buried in the hair at the side of Schuldig’s head in such a tight grip that the Vampire thought he was going to tear the skin off his skull. His other hand was splayed over Schuldig’s stomach, pressing him down against the floor.


Trapped.


Fear was something Schuldig did not experience often. When you were immortal, what was there to be afraid of? Having someone else’s teeth at his throat sharply reminded him that he was mortal. With blinding clarity, the Vampire knew that if Farfarello ripped his throat out now, he would bleed to death.


For endless seconds, all Schuldig could do was breathe. Even that seemed to cause the tips of Farfarello’s teeth to sink deeper into his skin. He tried to move his arm and realized that the Felidae was kneeling on his right one while his left was trapped between their bodies.


 "Let go." The words came out on a rush of breath and were a mere whisper. Even that whisper made him aware of Farfarello’s teeth; he could feel his voice reverberate in his own throat and shuddered. "Let me go."


The hand that was splayed on his stomach moved, trailing upward over his stomach, the bow of his ribcage, and settled over his heart. Fingers clenched into the material of his shirt, bunching it. Farfarello’s weight shifted, allowing him to free his trapped arm. He reached up and sank his fingers into the Felidae’s hair, not to caress but to hold, to hold back should Farfarello suddenly decide to tear into him after all. There were no words, no whispers in his mind, nothing that gave Schuldig any indication of what was going through Farfarello’s head at this very moment. Schuldig stared at the ceiling and knew what it was to be dinner.


A soft snort against the sensitive skin of his throat made him jerk in alarm. Incredulously, he listened to the chuckles that bubbled from Farfarello’s throat. The bastard was laughing at him! His fingers clenched in Farfarello’s hair. Blowing all caution to the wind, Schuldig gave a firm yank.


 "Let go I said!"


The feeling of needle-sharp teeth skimming over the skin of his throat made him arch his back and shudder, but anger sent him past the point of caring. He yanked Farfarello’s head up as much as he could, his other arm still trapped under the Felidae’s knee, and glared at him. The sight of his blood-streaked lips fuelled his anger. He shifted his grip from Farfarello’s hair to his throat and squeezed, ignoring the fact that he was in the less fortunate position in the face of the sharp, small smile sitting those bloody lips.


 "You will never do that again."


Farfarello shifted so quickly Schuldig was once more left breathless. If he had not known better he could have sworn there was a bit of a Vampire in the Felidae; the swiftness of his movement left Schuldig gaping up at him as Farfarello reached up, wrapped his free hand around Schuldig’s wrist and slammed his arm down against the ground at the same time as he straddled him and sat down on his chest. Frozen, Schuldig lost sight of everything around him as the Felidae slid his hand from his hair down to his other arm and closed his fingers around that wrist as well.


Farfarello bent down until his face was all Schuldig could see and whispered, "What makes you think you can stop me?" His breath stirred the hair at Schuldig’s ear as he rubbed his cheek against the Vampire’s, a gesture that would have been intimate in any other situation had Schuldig not felt like a mouse being played with. "They couldn’t. What makes you think you can?"


 "What are you talking about?" His own voice not much louder than Farfarello’s whisper, Schuldig turned his head and realized that simply by bending down, the Felidae had bared his throat to him now. That close to him it was easy to drown in his scent. He flinched as the tip of Farfarello’s tongue moved over his earlobe, the sudden wetness and following breath of cool air setting his nerve endings afire. "Is that why you sent them away?" He laughed, still a breathless sound. The thought that Farfarello had known – had most likely picked Schuldig’s interest out of his head and translated it for what it was – had been waiting for him to appear, made him feel light-headed. "You are the most confusing creature I’ve ever met."


 "You’re not protesting."


 "What happened to not wanting a Vampire’s hands get all over you?"


 "I’ve changed my mind."


Farfarello sat up slowly and dragged Schuldig’s hands onto his stomach, pressing the Vampire’s palms against the rough cloth of his tunica. His demeanour had changed tracks from aggressive predator to sensual creature so quickly that Schuldig still wondered where he had missed the railroad sign when he noticed that his hands were now under the tunica, mapping the hard plane of Farfarello’s stomach. Still straddling him, Farfarello calmly watched him, the expression on his face unreadable. His hands rested lightly on Schuldig’s chest, fingertips moving the cloth of the shirt back and forth in tiny increments.


No, he was not protesting. Farfarello’s heavy-lidded eyes sucked him in and made him forget about Christine, about William. What remained was a tiny voice in the back of his mind, telling him to be careful, to keep in mind what, who Farfarello was. Schuldig found it easy to ignore as he moved the hem of the tunica up and Farfarello transformed the movement into an arch of his back that slid the tunica over his head almost magically. Tracing the curve of hip bones, muscle and scars upward Schuldig flicked his thumbs over hard nipples. He could have sworn he heard Farfarello purr, or moan, or something in-between, but then the Felidae’s hands were on his chest and he heard that voice again, warning him.


Slowly and deliberately, Farfarello gripped his shirt and pulled opposing ways, popping buttons, and Schuldig told the voice to go to hell.


 "We already are in hell," The sound of tearing cloth was not loud enough to drown out Farfarello’s low voice. He dragged his hands over Schuldig’s chest, briefly letting him feel the edges of short but sharp fingernails as he circled the area over the Vampire’s heart with the tip of a finger.


Arching under the almost too light touch, Schuldig reached for Farfarello’s shoulders to pull him down and said, "I didn’t pay any entrance fees. Ah!" His hands flew to his chest but Farfarello was once more faster, catching them before he could reach the line of fire that crossed his left pectoral and bled warmth down his ribs. Holding them firmly to the ground, Farfarello bent down, obscuring Schuldig’s view. The Vampire caught sight of a deep, bleeding scratch down his chest and the tip of Farfarello’s tongue snaking out to catch the drops of blood rolling down the side of his ribcage. He followed their red traces back to the scratch and closed his mouth over it, tongue trashing against Schuldig’s nipple; suckling, milking the blood from him until the Vampire thought his entire heart would be sucked out through the tear in his skin.


The scratch could not have been deep but to Schuldig it felt as though all feeling was draining from his arms and legs, narrowing his awareness down to Farfarello’s mouth against his skin. Lips parting to release a shuddering gasp, he realized that this was the closest he could ever come to death without dying. His fingertips prickled like they did when he came in from a cold winter night and warmed his hands by the fire. Everything below his waist did not exist anymore. He did not feel Farfarello let go of his wrists but felt the other’s arms as they wound around him, forcing his back to arch even more.


When Farfarello pulled back, his lips and chin were smeared with blood. "Now you have." He brought his face close to Schuldig’s and rubbed their lips together. Tasting his own blood on someone else’s mouth made the Vampire feel uneasy but the sensation faded quickly as the rubbing deepened into a careful kiss. They were very aware of the sharpness of each other’s teeth; Schuldig would have been less careful with another Vampire but this was a Felidae, this was Farfarello, who tasted of Vampire blood, spices and something sharp, like the aftertaste alcohol leaves on your tongue and just as dangerously addictive.


An eternity passed while they kissed. Schuldig was quite content to see it go.


Finally, tiny pinpricks of pain slowly dragged him out of the endless, murky swamp of desire he was drowning in. He needed a moment to focus, to realize that Farfarello’s arms pressed against the injuries on his back, and pulled back from the kiss with regret. Shifting in the tight embrace, he realized something else.


Farfarello was rather heavy, sitting on his stomach and hips like that. Now that Schuldig was distracted from the kiss, the uncomfortable position they were in decided to claim his attention, demanding that he do something to change it. Yet whichever way he shifted, those arms around his middle would not move even an inch.


Farfarello watched him calmly, amusement tugging a corner of his mouth up. The bastard had been eavesdropping on that entire train of thought! With a growl that was more playful than serious in nature, Schuldig pushed his foot against the ground and rolled them over, rather surprised as he ended up on top all of a sudden. He used the superior position to blissfully grind his hips against the Felidae’s groin, receiving a demanding, breathy groan. His own painful moan got added to the mix as Farfarello reached up and around him, dragging his fingernails down the Vampire’s back.


 "Are you trying to mark me?" Schuldig asked, eyes narrowing with the pain. He could feel every of the ten little furrows that must now be on his back, among scratches and splinters and dried blood slowly sticking his shirt to his skin.


 "I don’t have to," Farfarello answered, a strange glint in his eyes. He did not seem to mind the almost obscenely vulnerable position; legs wrapped loosely around Schuldig’s hips, his hands now rested on the small of the Vampire’s back, his fingertips drawing circles against the cloth of the coat. Schuldig once again had the feeling that there was something more to his words, something that he would not say, but he let it go. Finally, when the silence began to stretch and became uncomfortable, Farfarello said, "Let’s move this to the bed."


He could not have agreed more and lost his coat and shirt on the way there. Ever self-conscious – he had lived in this body too long to not be aware of its shortcomings, its flaws – Schuldig could not help feeling proud as Farfarello gave him an once-over and nodded in appreciation. He sat down on the edge of the bed, testing the solidity of the mattress with a hand.


 "I wonder why you weren’t burned as a witch," Farfarello suddenly breathed against his ear. Schuldig flinched out of surprise; he turned his head and blinked at the Felidae’s sudden appearance behind him. He had neither seen nor heard him move. "With that hair of yours, all fire and gold..."


He opened his mouth but all thought fled him as Farfarello buried his hands in his hair and let the fiery strands slip through his fingers. The touch was so gentle, so different from the cruel fingers that had left his back hurting, that Schuldig dissolved into a willing mass of aroused Vampire as Farfarello began to massage his scalp and then moved onto his neck and shoulders. The touch became firmer now, testing and questing along the muscles of his back, thankfully avoiding the hurt areas.


 "Ouch!"


That stab of pain had come unexpected. Turning his head once more, Schuldig winced at the quite long and bloody splinter between Farfarello’s fingers. A fresh trickle of blood oozed down his back. It tickled horribly as it reached the sensitive skin above his waistband, but once more Schuldig dissolved into a heap as the tip of Farfarello’s tongue caught the drop and followed its track back upward to his shoulder blade, where it had originated. He did not have to be told to lie down and stretched out blissfully, thinking: way too trustingly. Yet the warning whisper had receded from the back of his mind, making way for the endless stretch of another eternity as the Felidae carefully plucked all the remaining splinters from his back, each tiny wound receiving an equal treatment of tongue and soft lips.


He knew he could fall asleep like this, and it did not matter anymore than just minutes ago he would have bet a lot on the chance that Farfarello might indeed try to kill him.


 "Kill you? Scare you a little..."


Even his annoyance could not rear its entire head anymore. Stretching under Farfarello’s lips and tongue, Schuldig finally rolled onto his back, convinced that the blood was gone and the wounds closing. Farfarello sat by his side, thoughtfully looking at his chest. Smirking, Schuldig asked, "See something you like?"


 "You are conceited."


 "And I’ve had several hundred years to feed my ego with stares like yours."


This seemed to pique Farfarello’s curiosity. "How old are you anyway?"


 "Not as old as you, I would guess. Around seven centuries, give and take a few."


 "’Give and take a few’?" The Felidae shook his head, making an expression that Schuldig could not really fathom. "You don’t even know how old you are?"


 "What does it matter?" He felt annoyed by the paternal quality of the question – he knew for a fact that Farfarello had to be older than him by at least two or three centuries, but counting the years had never interested him – and drew him into his arms perhaps a little rougher than he had intended. Yet Farfarello did not seem to mind. He stretched out along Schuldig’s side, his head cushioned on the Vampire’s chest, and began to draw lazy circles on Schuldig’s stomach. This time, the silence was comfortable.


Then Farfarello’s hands strayed from his stomach onto his groin and drew circles there, as though he wanted to remind Schuldig that they had come to the bed for a reason. Arching his back as Farfarello pushed his hand beneath the waistband of his pants and grasped his hardening length in a snug grip, Schuldig dimly heard a button pop, heard the small ivory disk hit the ground, heard his own breathless moan of approval as the Felidae sat up and took care of the other buttons to lay him bare. He wanted to participate, wanted to give the pleasure he was given back tenfold, and failed entirely as Farfarello shifted on the bed to take the head of his cock between his lips.


He pushed up, arching his back further, to the point where his spine began to ache. He wanted into that velvet heat that circled the very tip of his erection and threatened to suck all rational thought from his mind. He stared at the ceiling and did not see it, pushing up and whimpering shamelessly as Farfarello drew back, still holding him tightly. One of the Felidae’s thumbs rubbed maddeningly slow up and down the large vein on the underside of his cock, creating a spider web of tingly nerves that connected everything in his groin area to his nipples.


There had to be a point where the strength left him; surprisingly, it came as Farfarello took him into his mouth again. Schuldig plunged back down onto the bed, weightless, powerless, stars exploding behind his eyes. Sex was something a Vampire did not do all that often unless they had a steady partner.


Sex with a Felidae was definitely something no Vampire ever did on a regular basis. Farfarello’s throat opened, letting him slide in deeply, slickly, tightly, and Schuldig knew why.


There was no way he would survive this. There was no way he would have any kind of rational thought left after this. He felt Farfarello’s sharp canine teeth scrape against the sensitive, thin skin of his cock somewhere between then and blissful death and heard himself shout, though there was no telling if it was from fear or arousal. Schuldig simply did not care anymore.


Farfarello’s fingers slipped between his legs and rubbed against the stretch of skin behind his balls and Schuldig came. He had no other choice. The roof of the four-poster-bed swam in and out of focus as he stared at it, fighting to win his breath back from where Farfarello had sucked it out of him.


 "You make the nicest sounds when you come..." Smirking, Farfarello stretched out along his side once more, resting his weight on his elbow. He kept fondling Schuldig, apparently delighting in the twitches and jerks it earned him as the Vampire started to teeter on the thin line between ‘too good’ and ‘too much’. "Though I’d propose you not make them in public."


If Schuldig had had the breath to cuss him out, he would have done it. As it was, he kept twitching, finally reaching down and forcibly removing Farfarello’s idly moving hand, and gave a sight of relief.


Farfarello leaned over and whispered into his ear, "Just think what the rest will be like if this already tired you out..."


The rest? Schuldig closed his eyes. After fearing for his life, being thrown across the room twice, having his heart nearly sucked out of him and now having something else sucked out of him, he did not know if he had anything left for ‘the rest’. "You’re insatiable."


 "I haven’t even started yet." Farfarello sat up, straddled Schuldig’s legs, and pulled his pants off along with his shoes, dropping them over the edge of the bed. "Or do you need some time to recover?"


Restlessness had taken a hold of the Felidae, making his movement and touches rougher, more demanding than before. Schuldig had a good idea of what was to come and hesitated. He wanted Farfarello, wanted him like had had not wanted anyone in a long time, but now that the edge had been taken off his arousal the warning voice in the back of his mind decided to make itself noticed again.


It was too fast. The transition from having Farfarello’s teeth at his throat to having his cock down Farfarello’s throat had been so breathtakingly fast that only now Schuldig realized what he was doing, where he was – and why he had come here. "Wait."


Farfarello looked up, his eyes narrowed. "What?"


 "We shouldn’t be doing this now."


 "Why not?"


He gave a pointed stare at the dead kitten and the destroyed furniture. "I came here for answers."


 "Ask later."


 "Farfarello, no." Schuldig sat up and caught his hands, holding them pressed against the mattress between them. "I can’t loose track of more -"


 "- important things? Very well."


Schuldig sighed as Farfarello wound his hands out of his grip and shuffled back on the bed, his expression closed off, unreadable again. "This isn’t what I was going to say." He ran a hand through his hair and looked at his pants and shirt, scattered on the floor. His mood was thoroughly ruined now. "I don’t understand you. You were so angry just minutes ago and now you’re..."


 "I repeat, you were not protesting."


 "Don’t be so flippant. I didn’t say I don’t want you." Irritated, Schuldig plucked at the sheet on the mattress, wishing there were covers. He felt too vulnerable without his clothes now that the erotic spell had been shattered, too open and too bare to Farfarello. The Felidae crouched in the far corner of the bed, watching him calculatingly. "We should be talking about what happened."


One muscular shoulder lifted in a shrug. "What is there to talk about? You have your answers. Yes, I did kill those Vampires in Ireland. Yes, I was cruel. Yes, I would do it again. Have I done it again? No. I have no reason to – yet." Farfarello nodded at the corpse of the kitten. "The mother of this one is angry, Schuldig. She demands vengeance and I will see to it. If there is one thing I have on my hands, then it’s time."


Schuldig followed an intuition. "Anna didn’t seem all that angry to me when I met her at the Thames."


 "We mourn differently, I told you before. Dead is dead." If he was surprised by Schuldig’s guessing at the mother of the kitten, Farfarello did not show it. He kept watching the Vampire with an intensity that was unnerving, moving restlessly like a cornered cat. It made Schuldig wonder if he had no interest in finding the murderer of the kitten as soon as possible – there was no question as to who it was. Now it was a matter of proving it before Farfarello did something rash, killed William, and provoked the ire of the others – or if he was simply trying to distract himself from the death by bedding him. "I’ve ordered the others to stay away from your kind. I told them I would deal with the matter and I will. What difference does it make if I kill him now, or tomorrow, or in a year? His time will come. That is all that matters."


The nonchalance of Farfarello’s tone of voice alarmed the Vampire. "If you kill William you’ll have a problem. You have no real proof." He moved over to him and took him by the shoulders, ignoring the way Farfarello’s muscles tensed under his hands. "I’m not saying the others will be after you, but they won’t look upon it kindly."


Farfarello looked at him as though he had lost his mind. "Proof? Who made you detective in this? Who made you judge? What more proof do you need? Weren’t you looking for answers? They’re right before your eyes and you’re not seeing them!"


 "I know, but -"


 "But what?" Nonchalance was replaced by viciousness so quickly Schuldig again had to think of railroad signs and how he missed them completely when he was around Farfarello. He wanted to say something, wanted to somehow placate Farfarello – and for what? Farfarello was right. The proof was right before his eyes – but faltered in the face of the heated anger marring the Felidae’s features into a hateful mask. "But I should be merciful? Lenient? Let this beast keep killing our children because he’s a Vampire? Because he thinks that one of us killed this other one? Or wait until you and the others have made up your minds and slap him on the hand for what he did?"


 "That’s not going to happen! We -" He started to scream and stopped himself, glowering at Farfarello through slit eyes. "This isn’t going anywhere."


 "Look at you being the voice of reason!" Farfarello spat.


 "Well, it seems that you’re like William. You’re blaming him without having real proof, just as he blames your clan for Christine’s death."


Farfarello lifted his chin and stared down his nose at Schuldig, once again calm and cold, "Just minutes ago you thought that it was William. Are you having second thoughts?"


Sighing, Schuldig shook his head. He had no doubts about William’s part in the death of the kitten, but there was still one death - two - unaccounted for. Still no light had been shed on the case of the dead Felidae at the Thames and Christine’s death. "There’s something missing, don’t you see? William might have - all right, probably has killed that kitten, but who killed Christine and the other one?"


 "I don’t know."


 "Swear it wasn’t you! Or any of your clan."


Farfarello was visibly taken aback by the fervour in the Vampire’s voice, but he nodded and said, "I swear I did not kill Christine. If any of the others had killed her, I would know about it."


 "Swear you didn’t come here to settle an old score."


 "I swear."


It would have to do. Schuldig knew he would never have real proof and that Farfarello’s word was all he had unless the unlikely happened and he found the real culprit. He ignored the challenging glare the Felidae gave him - Farfarello was a king, an Elder in his own right. Being asked to swear on something was not something that happened to him often, Schuldig guessed - and reached for his shirt, draping it over his lap. Some minor part of him mourned the loss of physical intimacy - the bed was now divided territory, with one half belonging to Farfarello and the other belonging to the Vampire and an invisible but tangible line dissecting the two halves - but the rest was strangely glad that they were back on track.


He had no idea what was going on in Farfarello’s head concerning that matter. That the leader of the Felidae quickly changed his opinion, his entire demeanour within a few seconds was nothing that surprised Schuldig anymore now. Yet there was no telling how he would react to being refused after Schuldig had not even fought his advances.


And how quickly the tables had turned! Schuldig eyed Farfarello, wondering if he had only reacted favourably to his interest because he wanted to distract Schuldig from what was going on. He did not put it beyond him. Or was the interest real?


 "Back on track. Right," Farfarello said dryly, lifting an eyebrow. "Perhaps I should wait outside until you’ve sorted out what you’d rather think about - those deaths, or your carnal interests."


 "Excuse me for being a little overwhelmed by everything. A few hours ago you all but wanted to peel your skin off because I touched you."


 "Are we going to talk about death or sex now, Schuldig?" Farfarello sighed and shifted on the bed, crossing his legs beneath him. "Would it help you if I told you that the attraction is mutual?"


 "Is it?"


 "Don’t think me that shallow," the Felidae said, a threatening note to his voice. "Don’t you ever think that I would stoop that low and spread my legs just so I’d get something out of it."


It was aggravating to have one’s private thoughts picked from one’s mind without being able to defend against it unless one constantly thought of a steady image. Schuldig only nodded and thought of ice, walls of fire and impenetrable metal blockades, trying to uphold the mental shield and think behind it at the same time. It was something he would have to practise and advise Crawford on.


And he needed to learn to figure Farfarello out. The constant mind changes were not surprising Schuldig anymore but they threw him off-track, made him think about things that were not important. Forgetting everything about him was easy once he was focused on the Felidae; it was a mix of fascination and curiosity that made Farfarello an addictive object of interest. Schuldig knew himself well enough; he knew that he could easily dedicate a lot of time to things or persons he could not figure out all that easily. It was his cursed curiosity that made Crawford call him ‘detective’ and drove him to the house in Mayfair in the first place.


 "All right," he said after a while, leaning against a poster of the bed, "Let’s sum up the facts we know."


 "We know nothing," Farfarello said matter-of-factly, "And talking endlessly about it isn’t going to help matters. I -" He halted, his eyes losing their focus for the briefest of moments. "Get dressed."


 "What? Why?" Flabbergasted, Schuldig watched him crawl off the bed. The sudden flurry of movement made him reach for his clothes on the floor without thinking about it. "What’s going on?"


 "They’re calling me. Something happened." Impatiently, Farfarello picked his tunica up from the floor and pulled it back on, giving Schuldig a stare the Vampire could only interpret as haunted. "Someone died."


---


He wondered about two things as he followed Farfarello through Mayfair’s dark, silent streets, the cold night air biting at his skin. It was way past midnight and the air smelled of soil and rain, making the scenery all the more eerie as they hurried along. Farfarello had not said a word since they left the house but Schuldig knew he was communicating with his kin; he saw it in the way Farfarello’s head dipped once in a while as though he was nodding at someone, could read it in the tenseness of his shoulders when they stopped at street corners where the Felidae waited as though he was told which direction to go now.


He wondered what the other Felidae would think when their leader, their king suddenly appeared with a Vampire in his company. Would that not certainly break some rules? Would it not start the gossip, if it had not already? After all, Farfarello had sent his guards away, and since Anna had known about Schuldig’s inclinations it would not surprise the Vampire if the entire clan knew as well. Just how absolute was Farfarello’s reign? Could he be challenged if someone questioned his leadership, or was it something passed down through the generations as the mortals did it? Who would be so foolish to challenge him who could burn anyone posing a threat to him?


What weighted far more heavily on his mind was what Farfarello had said. Someone had died. Who? When he really thought about it, he already knew the answer; Schuldig had had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach ever since they left the house and the iron silence Farfarello surrounded himself with now only ascertained what the Vampire thought he knew already.


It had been inevitable. It confirmed something else Farfarello had told him - that there was nothing to talk about - and something Schuldig had known since before he set foot in the house for the second time. Had known since he listened to Theodore at the "Raven" and since he touched the soft fur of the dead kitten.


What followed now had been started with Christine’s and that Felidae’s death and set gears into motion he was not sure could be stopped.


He should have been angry - at Farfarello, at himself, at whoever was responsible for it all - but Schuldig felt almost nothing as he followed the leader of the Felidae into a private park at Mayfair’s west end and stood over the corpse of William Darcey. Inevitability.


He wondered how he could have been so stupid.


There were about twenty Felidae, standing in a loose circle around the corpse. Schuldig paid them no attention as he knelt at William’s side to take a closer look at the wounds; he heard Farfarello whisper something but paid no attention. He looked at the gaping hole where William’s throat used to be and saw the white of bone through the red of carnage; it had been a single bite, then. Perhaps not a clean kill but certainly a quick death. Schuldig’s gaze wandered away from the corpse to look at the wet grass around them, the darkness making it impossible to determine if William lay in the spot where he had been killed, or if he had crawled a few feet before he bled to death.


He saw the second circle of Felidae, then, standing a bit away under the gnarled branches of an oak tree. They made way for him as he walked over and let him see the second corpse.


 "Revenge," one of the Felidae said softly as Schuldig took in Anna’s bloodied mouth and the unnatural twist of her neck. He could guess at what had happened. Anna must have tracked William down after she left Schuldig at the house. They had fought, and the Felidae had managed to rip the Vampire’s throat out before he broke her neck and did whatever damage Schuldig could not see in the dark.


No, he had never had the chance to stop the gears. The Age of Enlightenment might have brought light into the Dark Ages, but the Dark Breeds strongly believed in fairness; an eye for an eye, a life for a life were simple rules everyone knew and no one wanted to give up. They made everything so easy. Anna’s eyes were open, the blank gaze staring forever into whatever realm she was following her young one now.


The female and male Schuldig had first seen in Anna’s company stepped up to him and started to spread a blanket on the ground next to the corpse. They did not look at him as they lifted Anna onto the blanket and bundled her up; Schuldig looked at the faces of the others and saw mostly apathy, as though they had known the outcome as well as he had and now, faced with its result, felt the same emptiness he did.


He turned again and saw Farfarello bend over William, studying the dead Vampire from up close. A tiny flame of anger sprang to life within Schuldig as Farfarello hooked the tip of his boot under William’s side and shoved him over onto his stomach as though he could not bear to look at his face, but even that anger was hard to hold on to. The curiosity that had driven him so far was gone now, replaced with the burning need to go home and sleep, to either forget everything or think about it for so long until all was squared away. There still were questions he wanted answers to, but they did not seem important now.


Farfarello looked up at him as he approached and did not react as Schuldig said, "Now we are even." A few muted whispers from the Felidae around them were all he got as answer to his statement. It was just as well. William had been a fellow Vampire, William had lived in London for years, but Schuldig felt strangely detached from everything as he nodded at the corpse and asked, "You took care of Christine. Will you take care of him too?"


Farfarello looked at the corpse and seemed to want to say something, but in the end he nodded wordlessly and rose, turning to his kin. Whatever orders he gave them, Schuldig did not hear them, and he did not really care. He watched two males lift William’s corpse onto another blanket and carry him away, disappearing beneath the trees. Farfarello did not seem to need to question if Schuldig wanted the bones. Anna’s corpse followed shortly behind William’s; one after the other, the Felidae left the park, disappearing out of sight. When only he and Farfarello were left, Schuldig turned to him and measured him with a cool glance. "You lied."


Wordlessly, Farfarello shook his head.


Schuldig continued, "You have what you wanted. Christine and William are dead. You got the two Vampires who managed to get away from you back then, though I admit I must wonder why you waited that long."


Again he received a shake of the head.


 "You might as well admit it, Farfarello. I’m not angry."


 "Why would I fear your anger?" Dispassionately, Farfarello turned, only his clenched fists giving him away. Schuldig watched him until he had nearly disappeared out of view as well before he sighed and followed him, falling into a light jog to catch up.


 "William is dead, Farfarello. Why don’t you admit it?"


 "Because I have nothing to admit," the leader of the Felidae told him in clipped words.


He lengthened his steps, hissing something as they stepped back onto the street. Schuldig saw two Felidae linger at the corner of the park, watching them; they turned away and vanished. Guards? He doubted it. More likely they were curious. He watched Farfarello stare after them and took him by the shoulder to turn him around.


 "Farfarello, admit it now and I’ll make sure no one will come after your kind. It was an old score. It’s settled now. It is just."


 "Nothing is settled." Farfarello wrenched away from him, eyes ablaze. "Nothing is just!"


The last word bounced off the walls of the houses around them, echoing down the empty streets. Schuldig blinked and wondered where the anger came from, shaking his head at the Felidae. How could Farfarello still deny it? Christine and William were both dead; Schuldig was now convinced that he had misinterpreted the leader of the Felidae entirely and that in itself should have made him angry, but all he felt was the same apathy that had hung over the assembled Felidae just moments ago. Perhaps he would have felt something else than inevitability had he not known about Farfarello’s past. Yet he knew. He knew, and it made sense that it should happen this way. It was all so anti-climatic but Schuldig was not left with any doubt that everything that had happened had been planned. "What do you mean?"


 "It means nothing is done."


 "You speak in riddles." The Vampire sighed. "I understand now, how it worked. William must indeed have been stupid to fall for the same trick twice."


 "You understand nothing," Farfarello said acidly, turning away once more.


Schuldig was too tired to argue and let him go. He doubted he could have stopped him even if he tried. There were no questions left to ask, not really. If Farfarello had not killed Christine then it had been one of the others and their leader was covering it up, which was only natural.


What more proof do you need? Weren’t you looking for answers? They’re right before your eyes and you’re not seeing them!


No, Schuldig thought as he turned the other way and started the long way home, I see them now. You were the answer all along.