He lowered his hands over his belly once again, ignoring the slimy push of his guts against his fingers. He wanted to howl to the heavens. Not with pain, although it felt like a hot poker had been stuck in his belly to be stirred around every once in a while. But that wasn’t what made him angry enough to curse God, his generals, and all those other men in suits who sent farmers like him to fight. It was death itself that made him angry. Not that he feared it. He figured he’d lived a good enough life that the heavenly reward the scriptures promised would be his eventually. It was what he was leaving behind that made him angry, the things left undone—even though he knew some of those things were not Christian-like and would probably send him straight to hell. But even lying here on the edge of death, it would have been worth it. He’d have given up heaven itself to revenge the wrongs done to those he loved.
He sighed and lay back in the mud, no longer caring about the filth or even the stench. It didn’t seem so bad anymore, and he reckoned he’d either gotten accustomed or his senses were dying. Either way, he didn’t have it in him to care.
The soldier closest to him fell abruptly silent and Duncan closed his eyes in prayer for the man’s soul. He only hoped there’d be someone left to pray for him when the time came.
A shadow darkened the moon’s light behind his closed eyelids, and his heart kicked up a bit. Maybe this was it after all.
“You aren’t hurt so bad, boy,” a deep voice said, the accent one he’d never heard before.
Duncan’s eyes flashed open and he stared at the man crouched over him. No one had spoken to him since the surgeon who’d come by earlier, and he’d only shaken his head sadly and moved on. Duncan didn’t blame the man. No point in wasting skills on those who couldn’t be saved. And that included Duncan and every other man whose guts were fouled. They’d be picked up eventually by those tasked with collecting the dead and dying. But Duncan wasn’t dead yet, so who was this stranger and what did he want?
The man raised his eyes, and Duncan wondered if maybe God had judged his final thoughts of vengeance and sentenced him to hell after all. Because this was no ordinary man. His eyes were the black of midnight, with an unholy silver gleam about their edges, as if something peered out from behind. And he was bigger than any man Duncan had ever seen before. Bigger than Duncan, and he was counted a big man.
The stranger smiled and his teeth were clean and white. “I’m not your Christian devil. And this isn’t hell.” He looked around with a frown. “Or not the one you’re thinking of anyway.”
Duncan stared. “How do you know what I’m thinking?” he whispered, his mouth almost too dry to form the words.
“I know many things,” the stranger said, turning that black gaze on him once again. “I know you don’t have to die today.” He studied Duncan intently. “Unless you wish to.”
Duncan felt a surge of hope, quickly followed by fear. He wanted to live, at least long enough to seek his vengeance, but what price would this devilish man demand of him? Men like this gave away nothing for free. But then, some things were worth any price.
“I want to live,” he said, taking a chance.
“No questions, no negotiation?” the man mocked lightly. “Are you so quick to deal with the devil, Duncan Milford?”
“How do you know my name?” Duncan asked, swallowing hard.
“I told you. I know many things. But let us discuss our deal first. I will save your life tonight, but in exchange, I want your service.”
Duncan blinked. Was the stranger a spy for the Union then? Did he think Duncan had some useable information? Because he surely did not. “What sort of service?” he asked, curious despite himself.
The man shrugged. “I’m a traveler to this place. I need someone who knows local customs, even language. Though I thought I spoke it well enough before I got here,” the man added in an aside.
Duncan examined the man’s words. He actually spoke well enough, though perhaps a bit too well. The very correctness of his speech gave away his foreign roots, that and the accent which Duncan still couldn’t place.
Duncan shifted, trying to ease the renewed pain in his gut. “You want me to—” He gasped as that hot poker started jabbing and stirring again. He fell quiet, willing it to be gone for a few more minutes. Closing his eyes, he tried to remember the faces of his children, pictured his son running to greet him at the end of a day. He smiled, but their faces began to fade as a wave of fresh agony seared his guts and blackness stole his memories along with his thoughts.
When he opened his eyes again, he knew time had passed. “How long?” he asked the stranger who knelt next to him in the mud. “How long was I out?”
“Long enough,” the man growled. “How do you feel?”
Duncan licked his dry lips, grimacing. There was a strange taste in his mouth. Not bad, better in fact that the bitter tang of bile which was all he’d tasted since being wounded. He drew a cautious breath, not wanting to awaken the pain, and realized his gut hurt no more than a mild ache. He looked down in shock. His trousers were still torn and bloody, but his stomach was whole, the skin puckered with raw, red scars instead of split and spilling shiny gray intestine. Duncan stared, then looked up in sudden terror. This was surely unholy.
The man made an impatient noise. “Enough, Milford. I’ve already told you, I’m not the devil. Doesn’t your God heal as well? Now, do you want my bargain or not? You live, and in return, you serve as my aide.”
Duncan stared. “But you’ve already healed me.”
The man smiled gently. “So I have.”
Well, this was vexing, Duncan thought. For this was no trick. The worst of the pain was gone. And not only the pain from the wound which would most certainly have killed him, but the ache in the leg he’d broken as a child. The break had healed poorly and had pained him every day since. And yet, lying here in the mud and blood, he felt better than he could remember since childhood. And perhaps this was a gift from the heavens, for the stranger did not bear the likeness of any of the demons Duncan had seen in the good books, nor did he carry himself like one in the way the ministers warned of in their sermons. Even more, he gave no indication he would take back his healing if Duncan refused the bargain, which a servant of the devil surely would have done.
But at the same time, Duncan could not, in all good faith, refuse the bargain since the stranger had in truth healed him. Vexing indeed.
“For how long?” he asked suddenly.
The man raised a fine brow in question.
“How long would I have to serve you?”
The man shrugged. “For the rest of your life or mine,” he said, and turned to survey the battlefield once again.
Duncan sighed. He’d expected as much. Not that it mattered. He had nothing and no one to go home to anymore. He doubted his home was even there any longer.
“Very well,” he said. “I agree to your bargain.”
“One more thing,” the stranger said, turning toward Duncan with a wide grin.
Duncan froze beneath the sudden weight of that black gaze. His heart began to pound and his breathing became short, as if his body already knew something that his mind had not yet grasped. Some part of him knew he should be gibbering in fear, crawling on hands and knees, if that’s what it took to flee this inhuman monster before him. Instead, he lay and stared, almost in wonder, as the man’s grin grew fangs as long as any red wolf’s, and as the silver light of his eyes began to glow like the stars themselves. Perhaps the stranger had bespelled him somehow, or perhaps he was dead after all, and this entire conversation was nothing but a dying fancy.
“What are you?” he heard himself ask.
“I am Vampire,” the man said. “And if you choose to remain with me, you will be, too.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Duncan said, amazed at his own calmness.
The man—no, the vampire—laughed. “It is a wondrous thing,” he said, then lowered his head, staring intently at Duncan once more.
“Are you . . . human?” Duncan asked.
The vampire lifted one shoulder. “I was born human. I still am, in a way. But becoming Vampire changes you. Makes you more of whatever you were. You will still be Duncan Milford, but you will be more, as well. Stronger, sharper, more powerful.”
Duncan thought about that. “Could I ask a boon of you?”
The stranger seemed surprised by this, but he nodded. “You may ask.”
“If I go with you, if I become this . . . vampire as you are, I would ask that you permit me one final task before we leave.”
The vampire tilted his head in curiosity. “What task is that?”
“Vengeance,” Duncan said softly.
The silver in the vampire’s eyes gleamed so brightly Duncan feared it would bring others running. “Done,” the vampire said. He stood and offered his hand.
Duncan grasped it and felt himself pulled to his feet as if he weighed nothing at all. “What do you I call you, sir?”
“Raphael,” the vampire said. “My name is Raphael.” He stepped back and made a sweeping gesture. “Lead the way, Duncan Milford. Your vengeance awaits.”
They walked most of the night. Duncan had worried at first about sentries, about being labeled a deserter or worse. But Raphael had assured him they would not be seen, and they weren’t. Several times they passed within feet of a sentry, once walking past the command tent itself. And yet no one seemed aware they were even there. Animals were a different matter entirely. The horses sensed them, moving about and snorting restlessly when they slipped through the picket lines, but Raphael and Duncan were long gone before anyone came to check the animals, assuming anyone had bothered.
As they walked, Raphael told Duncan something of who he was, of what it meant to be Vampire.
“As your Sire,” Raphael said as they traveled down an abandoned country road, “I will teach you how to survive, how to use whatever gifts the rebirth bestows upon you.”