It was already two in the afternoon by the time they’d figured out something was wrong. Because Danny’s alarm didn’t go off. Because Gabriel was a late sleeper these days anyway. Because Chuck’s phone had died. Because Lee and Louise had the weekend off. Each and every one of them felt like they’d worked separately and yet together to screw up this bad, and now Gabe was gone.
“There’d be a body. Something. Blood. A break-in.” Chuck was grasping at straws, picking through the untouched apartment looking for any sign, anything at all that could give them a clue of what had happened last night, and why Gabriel’s car was still in the parking lot.
Danny stared at the door, the kid looked, lost. Part of Chuck wanted to console him, tell him it wasn't his fault, but all he could think about was Gabe.
“The car’s locked. I didn’t see any keys. Maybe he did this on purpose,” Lee suggested in a soft voice from where he stood in the kitchen with Louise. They were lucky they had spare keys to each other’s homes. Hard to be a hunter without backup plans for these kinds of disappearances.
“Doesn't tell me where Gabe is, should be here, shouldn't he? Car’s here, see any blood outside?” Chuck felt about ready to tear his hair out.
“He was just fine yesterday. I mean, acting just as weird as he had been since this whole thing started, but he was fine,” Danny blurted out, just on the verge of nervous tears.
“Easy kid, don't go gettin’ weepy on me now. What happened last night?”
Danny told them about the river and the near drowning, the woman in the water Gabe had talked about, and the drinks at the bar afterwards before Danny got dropped off at his apartment. It sounded pretty much like a typical day.
“Well, that’s all there is to it,” Louise threw up her arms, “Gabe planned this. He got you good and drunk so you couldn’t watch after him tonight, and he’s probably just taken the bus to some motel where he’s got himself locked up to avoid hurting anyone. He went off the deep end!”
Lee put his hand on Louise’s shoulder, speaking softly, “don’t you think that’s a bit of a leap? We don’t know he’d do something like that. He has no reason not to want our help.”
“It’s exactly something Gabe would do,” Chuck said with a heavy sigh, “let’s start looking at motels, see if we can find him.”
“You really think that’s what he did?” Danny asked hopefully, trying to wipe at his eyes to avoid breaking into real tears. Right now he looked like a kid more than ever.
Lee pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat down, “there’s one thing we haven’t considered yet. You said he saw a woman in the river and he tried to go back. Maybe he did.”
“Danny, you and Louise go check the river, Lee and I will start looking at motels.” Chuck, the man who never wanted to lead, could certainly delegate when he wanted to.
“Are we going to keep this quiet, or you think we should call back-up?” Louise asked, immediately grabbing her purse from the kitchen counter and halfway to the door. “There’s at least a dozen hunters here already, thanks to the calls you two made yesterday.”
“Keep it quiet, don't want anyone gettin’ trigger happy.”
“At least we know Gabriel didn’t lose control. They’d have found him by now if he had,” Lee reasoned, pulling out his cell phone, “I don’t remember all of the motels in the city, but it might be safe to increase the search radius. Gateburg’s twenty miles from here, and if Gabe did decide hiding out from us was a good idea, I think it’s possible he’d have gone there.”
Chuck nodded, “let's start there and work our way back, check for credit card use, I'm sure you still have his login info, knowing how often he forgets it.”
They weren’t the sort of group who enjoyed lying down and taking whatever the world threw at them. If Gabe was hiding, they’d find him. If he was in trouble, they’d save him. Even if Danny hadn’t been with the group that long, they were all family. Dead or alive, they weren’t giving up.
----------------------------------------
His greatest fear had come true, and all Gabriel could do was wonder how the hell it had happened so fast. Almost a lifetime promising himself he would never willingly take a human life seemed pretty pointless now. He’d lost. The Devil had found him, and Gabriel gladly paid his due. So now what?
Sleep had bought him a few blissful hours of peace from his thoughts, but the escape was a temporary one. It was never this easy to sleep in a stranger’s house. Donovan was a stranger. They hadn’t known each other very long, after all. Whether he felt some sort of forced obligation to the old vampire or not. That was Gabriel’s first thought when he woke with the setting sun. The second thought was that he couldn’t just stay here. It wasn’t his home.
Distantly, he heard a clock ticking. Something scratching against wood. Ruben’s house slippers? If he focused, Gabriel could almost hear tree branches rattling in the wind outside. He spent at least half an hour marveling at all of these sounds, nestled in the darkened bedroom. He couldn’t quite bring himself to think of it as his. Just a guest room. A temporary place to sleep until he was ready to leave.
His eyes scanned the room. Even with the lights out, he could pick out little details with ease. His jeans slung over a green wingback chair near the heavily-curtained window. His keys and cell phone on a vanity table by the door. He didn’t have the nerve right now to turn his phone on and check the missed calls.
There was a portrait on the wall of Donovan standing beside a woman who shared remarkably similar features, and a third person sitting in a wingback chair. A man, but he couldn’t be the vampire’s father. He was too young. Then again, maybe it was.
Gabriel looked back over at the chair he’d slung his jeans over. It matched the one in the painting. Were the others in that portrait still around? Gabriel knew he was just stalling for time now. Sooner or later he’d have to get out of bed and confront--someone. Something. Whatever he did tonight, he was sure there’d be a fight.
So maybe he’d just sneak out the back door, or through the window. He was on the second floor, it was a big jump, but Gabriel didn’t doubt he could do it. Then there was the little problem of actually getting to his apartment without a car. It would be a hell of a long walk. They weren’t exactly on the city square right now.
The scraping sound turned into a muffled sort of rhythmic thump. Ruben was climbing the stairs. Maybe the old bastard was coming to check up on him. Somehow Gabriel doubted it.
“Will you be dining out this evening, master?” The old man inquired loudly, likely from the end of the hall. He didn’t need to shout. He could have whispered and Gabriel was sure Donovan would have still heard him.
“No, Gabriel requires instruction, go ahead and dip into the stores tonight. He and I have much to discuss.” Donovan’s voice was much softer but Gabe could hear him as if they were in the same room.
Instruction. He needed instruction. Gabriel rankled at the thought. Like he was a little kid. Was that what his life was going to be now? Instructions? Remedial classes in how to be an effective bloodsucker? It suddenly struck him that maybe--maybe all of this was planned. Even the bottled blood. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, Donovan had just wanted an obedient little pet to dote on him. What better way to cater to a vampire’s ego than corrupting someone whose sole purpose in life was eradicating their kind.
The fantasy was enough to make him fume for a good minute or two before Gabriel was willing to admit to himself he didn’t actually believe Donovan would do that. If it was just the whole weird master-fledgling bond playing tricks on his brain, he hoped it would wear off. This would be a lot easier if it was true, but Gabriel knew what had happened. He’d been given the choice to kill, and he’d taken it. He’d failed.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
He heard the shuffle of Ruben’s slippers once more before the old man pounded on his door, much harder than was necessary and with a surprising amount of force for an old man. “Master will meet you downstairs.” He said, his voice sharp, before shuffling away again.
The old bastard. Gabriel never would’ve thought it was possible to dislike him even more than he already did, but he’d never had to spend longer than fifteen minutes with Ruben either. Well, Gabriel would spend his sweet time getting dressed in yesterday’s clothes. He wasn’t anyone’s lackey. If only it took longer to fix a zipper or slip on the shirt he hadn’t bothered to unbutton.
By the time he’d managed to finally head downstairs, he’d finally worked up the nerve to turn on his phone. Before he could bother to read or listen to any messages though, he noticed one of the lion statues at the bottom, and he could swear it’s head had moved. Gabriel gave it a swift pat out of habit.
Voices from the sitting room drew him in that direction. The closer he got the clearer they became. “You will not speak to him in that manner again, am I clear?” Donovan’s voice was cold, angry, “answer me, Ruben, am I clear?”
“Y-Yes, master, you're clear.”
“Good, now, leave me. You've done your part for the night. If I require anything I will summon you.”
Gabriel paused mid-step, somewhat mollified. He pocketed his phone, resolving to check the messages once this whole thing was over. He stepped aside just as Ruben left the room, pointedly ignoring Gabriel, which was perfectly fine with him. Better to get this over with. He slipped into the room, keeping a hand in the pocket with his cell phone.
“Gabriel, how good of you to join me, come, sit, we have much to discuss.” Donovan said, motioning to the chair beside him. There were two glasses of dark red liquid on the small table between the chairs, “you must be hungry, have a drink.” The elder vampire took a small drink from one of the glasses.
Gabriel pulled his hand from his pocket, albeit reluctantly, and sat down. Why did he feel like he was thirteen again and being pulled into the principal’s office for a lecture? This whole thing was painfully formal.
“Is that--” Gabriel indicated the glass, “--yours? Or?” After the last time he’d had Donovan’s blood, everything had gotten way too intense. Gabriel did not want to deal with that again.
“It is not mine. Later tonight it may be necessary for you to drink some of mine. My blood would help ground you, help you relax, for now you need sustenance and, while my blood can provide that, this is better for you.” He explained, drinking again.
Gabriel frowned, “ground me? Like a sedative? No thanks. I’m relaxed enough.” He was glad to have something, though. The second he’d smelled the contents of his glass, it was all he could do to stop himself from tossing the whole drink back in one go.
“You need not worry about it now. For now, relax, and we can discuss the future.”
“Yeah?” Gabriel prompted, giving Donovan a dubious look before forcing himself to take a very small sip of his glass.
“You have been fundamentally changed, which I'm sure you've already noticed, and with those changes comes a need for adaptation and adjustment.”
“New sleep schedule. Liquid diet. Seems pretty straight-forward,” never mind that he’d lost any regard for human life almost instantaneously. Yet, he realized suddenly, there were a few exceptions, “I still care about my friends. Is that going to change?” It made him sick to think he might wake up soon and think of Chuck, Louise, Lee, or even Danny like they were just an easy meal.
“No, not in any real meaningful way. You will begin to see them a little differently but that is because they are human. You may still eat normal food if you so desire but it will not give you any form of sustenance.” He paused, taking a slow drink, “we need to focus on getting you past your preconceived notions of what we are.”
Gabriel avoided Donovan’s gaze, choosing instead to focus on his own glass. At least his friends were safe. That was some small comfort. “I’ve lost everything that made me who I was. Does it really matter what I think a bloodsucker is or isn’t?” It didn’t seem right to use that word anymore. Sort of hard to be derogatory towards yourself. Nothing else seemed right either. Least of all the fact that he should hate this man beside him, yet, he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.
“Yes, it matters, misconceptions can cause unforeseen consequences. I know you've already discovered the truth about sunlight. It is time you learn the truth about blood and how deep our need for it goes.”
Gabriel really did feel like he was getting ‘the talk’ from his dad all over again. Maybe this time around he wouldn’t have to look at any poorly-drawn diagrams or educational cartoons. “Alright, go on then,” he said, drawing his eyes away from his now half-empty glass to look Donovan square in the face, “how deep does it go?”
“Our sanity is tied to our consumption of blood. If you refuse to drink, you go feral, you lose yourself in the need for it.” Donovan watched Gabriel drink as he spoke.
“You—“ Gabriel hesitated. “—How often do I have to drink? How much?”
“In the beginning? Daily, you will need more than just that glass as well.”
Gabriel frowned. “Enough to kill?” Chuck and the others may not want to be the ones to stake him, but if he left a trail of bodies, they wouldn’t just let it be.
“Yes, however, there are plenty of hunters in the area. You do not have the control to stop from killing yet so we will rely on donated blood and you will also drink mine.” Donovan finished the last of his drink before puncturing the skin of his wrist and letting the blood drip into his glass, “drink.”
Compared to the dull, iron-rich scent of the dregs in Gabriel’s own glass, it was like wine to water. He nearly dropped his glass trying to place it on the small table between their chairs, reaching for Donovan’s without question. Despite himself, he wanted that blood, rich with the fragrance of something unnameable. Life. Death. In the immediate moment, that glass held the world. The control Gabriel had always prided himself on was gone in the short time it took him to drain the contents. For a short, blissful minute, he didn’t mind at all. It might have been even longer than a minute.
“Sh--” Gabriel cut himself off, lowering the glass to his lap and resting his head against the back of his chair, “is it always gonna feel like this?”
“When you drink my blood, yes.” Donovan watched him closely, admiring the relaxed and content look on his face.
Were he paying more attention, Gabriel might have noticed. At the moment, it was difficult to focus on much, though, beyond the warm satisfaction of his very odd meal. The spell was soon broken by the sound of his phone ringing in his pocket. He had half a mind to ignore it.
“Perhaps you should answer that.” Donovan’s voice cut through his comfortable haze.
It should have struck him how unimportant the phone call seemed, when just minutes ago Gabriel was panicking about what exactly would happen when his phone did ring. Reluctantly, he fought his way to the tenuous surface of lucidity, and answered the call. Louise.
“Gabe? Where the fuck are you? You'd better have a good reason for running off like that.” She was yelling, which wasn't totally unexpected, but it hurt his ear, far more than it ever had before.
Pulling the phone back to hold it at a distance, Gabriel immediately went on the defense, “I was attacked and went into hiding. I didn’t have time to tell anyone!” He snapped back at her, “I’m a grown man, Louise. Chill the hell out.”
“You could have called, we’re worried about you, come home.”
“I was planning to call, I just fell asleep before I could,” he replied, only half-lying. He’d like to think he would’ve called them tonight. Or eventually. Sooner rather than later. “I’ll come home soon. Not like I can do much without my car.” Somehow the light-hearted joke he attempted to make ended up coming out a little snarkier.
“Where are you? I'll come pick you up.”
That made him pause. Should he come out with it? God knew everyone else had figured out he’d been infected again before he’d learned about it. They’d find out the truth sooner or later. There was blood on his hands now. “Louise,” Gabriel cleared his throat, stalling for time, “if I lose control, what are you going to do?”
“Gabe, what do you want me to do?” She sounded skeptical, “what would you do?”
“Would you stake me yourself?” He pressed on, “or would you hire someone to do it?” For one brief, terrible moment, he wondered whether they had. Gabriel knew his friends well enough, though. They wouldn’t.
“If it's what you wanted I would do it, for you, Gabe, I would do it. Is that what you want? Gabe, talk to me.”
“I almost died last night,” he finally admitted. “Almost. Do you really want me to come home?”
“Oh, God, Gabe, what happened? Of course I want you to come home. Are you alright? Please, Gabe, I don't understand.”
Gabriel lowered his phone, muting the call. He looked at Donovan, helpless to come up with a lie or tell the whole truth, “what should I do?” It made him bristle to ask for help. That just wasn’t something Gabriel did, but right now he really needed it, and, well, who else could he trust right now?
“Tell her what happened last night, tell her the truth. She will have to face reality soon, is it not better for her to know now?” Donovan was calm as he spoke, as if this wasn't the hardest thing in the world for the newly turned vampire.
“Can I trust you not to hurt them if they--” he hesitated, looking down at his phone. Louise was yelling now. “Can I trust you not to hurt them? Under any circumstances?”
“I will restrain them if necessary and do my utmost not to harm them. That is the best I can promise.”
Gabriel nodded, looking down at his phone. Better rip the bandaid off now before it got any worse. Honestly, though, he wasn’t sure that was possible.