BLOOD OF WINTER: ANCIENT FIRES
by JoAnne Soper-Cook, 1994
jsoperco@morgan.ucs.mun.ca


     Rhiannon Lleweyllyn adjusted the flow rate on the IV line
and smiled at the man in the chair. "This will only take a moment
or two, sir, and then we'll have you on your way again."  She
tilted the bag of rich, red blood and carefully marked "A
Positive" on the label. Then she moved off across the room.
     It had been snowing for hours, and it was piling up
prodigiously outside of the clinic here in downtown Dublin, a
cold, driving snow that stuck fast like tiny ice pellets. 
Rhiannon sighed as she gazed out the window, staring into the
white-whipped blackness of night.  She glanced at her watch: two-
thirty.  Unbelievable that people were still coming at this hour,
and to give blood of all things. An invisible smile tugged at her
mouth--if they only knew.  Still, this was the perfect
opportunity for her, she would have been a fool to pass it up:  a
ready supply of fresh blood, there for the taking, and she didn't
even have to go out in the cold to hunt.  Perfect. Besides, the
administrator of the clinic wasn't fastidious about record-
keeping and wouldn't miss the stray bag of blood that went
missing from time to time.  
     Rhiannon moved back to Mr. O'Malley, a frail, ancient man of
indeterminate years, who came regularly to the clinic to donate
blood.  Perhaps because we pay four pounds a bag, Rhiannon
thought wryly.  She fancied she could smell a faint, lingering
scent of whiskey on Mr. O'Malley's breath each time he came in. 
"Here you are, sir---"  Rhiannon fetched two tea biscuits and a
glass of juice off the cart and handed them to Mr. O'Malley. 
"Just relax for a moment while I get your line out now, and then
you can have a little snack."  She slid the IV line out of his
arm, tied off the top of the bag neatly.  "There you are.  All
done."
     "When do ah get me money?" The old man's toothless mouth,
filled with mashed biscuit, gaped up at her. Rhiannon felt sick,
but forced an artificial note of levity into her voice. 
     "Oh, you can see Mrs. Dunn at the front desk on your way
out, sir."  Rhiannon turned away, cradling the bag of warm blood
in her hands, and carried it to the storage locker at the back of
the building.
     The clinic was housed in what had once been a warehouse of
some kind, and was constantly drafty and cold.  It had been some
hours since Rhiannon had last fed, too, and this was probably
what was making her feel chilly and sick.  She clasped the warm
bag of rich blood close to her and stepped onto the ancient,
creaking elevator, pressed the button for the top floor.
     As soon as the doors closed, her teeth fastened onto the tie
that was holding the bag shut. She tore it open and spat it out
impatiently, eager to get to the contents.  At last--oh, God, so
long! She sighed in relief when the warm, salty fluid spilled
over her tongue and down her throat.  She drained the contents of
the bag, then rolled the empty plastic into a neat cylinder for
easy disposal.  She was careful to wipe her mouth on her
handkerchief (as Louis had taught her) and to check her face in
her small hand mirror before going back to work.  It was vital
that she erase any evidence.
     The elevator bell clanged, and she got out on the top floor,
which was deserted.  Rhiannon found her way easily in the dim
light and slid the empty blood bag into her secret hiding place,
behind a loose brick in the wall.  
     She was suddenly gripped with a feeling of cold nausea, of
deep dread, a sensation that rendered her quite weak.  She
reeled, clutched the wall for support, her fingers splayed
against the rough, yellow brick.  What's wrong with me? she
wondered, silently.  Was it the blood? But that was ridiculous--
there was nothing, no human blood disorder or disease that could
touch her now.  It had to be something else. 
     A tower room....Her Sight sent a vision slicing painfully
through her mind....a tower room, cold....Rhiannon clutched her
skull, which had begun to beat, a throbbing echo of another
pain....
     ...so cold, oh, I'm dying...dying....cold....
     someone help me.
     Rhiannon gasped, on her knees now.  Lestat! It was Lestat,
and he was sick! My God, but how?  She crouched against the wall,
shivering, fearful that she'd be sick any moment.
     She had to go to him. She owed him so much, she had to help
him.  She climbed back onto the elevator and pressed the button
for the main floor. Five minutes later she was driving through
the winter blizzard.  She had to go to France.

*Three Days Previous*:

     "Louis?" Lestat stood at the foot of the stairs.  "Are you
up there?"  He waited in silence for a moment or two, then called
again. "Louis?"
     "What?" The other voice echoed off the ancient walls of the
chateau. 
     "Time to go out, friend."  Lestat leaned against the wall,
waiting.  
     "In a minute."  Louis sounded a little irritated.
     "Come on! I'm starving!"  Lestat was beginning to get
annoyed. Damn Louis! Dawdling like this and here it was getting
later and later, and where the hell was he...? "Louis!"
     A tall figure appeared at the top of the stairs.  Louis was
dressed in faded jeans and a sweater, boots.  To a casual
onlooker, he and Lestat would appear to be two very handsome,
albeit rather wan young men, in the prime of their lives.  What
the casual onlooker wouldn't know was that each was over two
hundred years old....  Louis came down the stairs and took his
coat off the rail, slipped into it.  His green eyes appraised
Lestat.  "Are you all right?" 
     "Yes! But hungry...." Lestat smiled, a sly grin that did
interesting things to the beautiful bones of his face. "Hurry."
     Louis returned the grin. "What's wrong? Don't you love me
any more?"  He leaned close to Lestat, one hand stroking the
other man's cheek lightly.
     "Of course I love you."  Lestat, contrite, kissed Louis
softly. "But can we please go? It's already past four, and it
will be light in a couple of hours." He pulled on a heavy
sheepskin coat. "We'll be lucky if we can find anything at this
hour." He took Louis's elbow, ushered him out the door. "Come on,
or I'm going to eat you in a minute."
     Louis felt a sensuous warmth creep over him, and he slanted
a coy gaze at the other man. "Later, my dear. I promise."  
     Both men went out into the chilly night, down the mountain
road in the brilliant moonlight that bathed the sleepy village.

     "You son of a bitch! I cannot believe---"  Louis was
furious.  "You didn't have to do that to her, Lestat! You didn't
need to humiliate her like that! It's enough that we---"
     "That we what?!" Lestat's blue eyes were as cold as ice. 
"That we prey on them to survive, Louis? That we consume their
life in order to live?"
     "Oh, fuck off!" Louis started up off the hill without
Lestat. "This is just what I hate about you, Lestat---you get
drunk on your own power and use it to hurt...them! You know
they're no match for us!"
     Lestat's sarcastic laughter echoed in the cold stillness of
pre-dawn. "Don't be such a goddamn hypocrite, Louis! You're just
as much a---"
     Louis spun, came back.  "Shut up! Just shut up! I don't want
to talk about it any more."  The first fingers of dawn were
beginning to peer over the top of the mountains, and unless he
and Lestat got inside the chateau immediately, they would be in
mortal danger....  "I'm going inside."  He stormed into the
chateau, slamming the door.  The old, heavy wood swung shut with
a resounding thump, leaving Lestat outside.
     "Huh!"  He watched Louis going inside, making no move to
appease his friend's anger, and after a moment he approached the
heavy door and pushed.
     It didn't open.
     Fuck.
     The sun was peering over the top of the mountains, probing
with long, thin fingers of deadly light, and he couldn't get into
his house.  Lestat resolved to keep his panic at bay, pounded on
the door. "Louis! Let me in, the door's stuck! Louis!"
     The insistent sunlight came, over the hills, spilling into
the valley.  The protective shadows that had covered him were
wavering, being gradually eaten away by the advancing daylight. 
"Louis!"  Fear was growing, consuming him from the inside as he
pleaded with the silence on the other side of the door. "Louis!
For God's sake, let me in!"
     A golden finger of light, a precocious sunbeam, came
stealing around the corner of the chateau and struck a deadly
path a few inches in front of his feet.  Lestat heard his own
heart hammering in his ears, frantic, and he realised dimly that
his cold fingers were clawing at the door. "Louis! Let me in!" 
He was dimly aware that he was weeping, pleading, sobbing.
"Louis, please!"
     The shadows shifted and a lethal finger of solar flame
touched his cheek and shoulder, bathing his unearthly skin in
heat.  
     He was on fire: this was what hell was all about, this
horrible screaming agony, this searing flame.  His face, his
shoulder, were burning, burning, he was going to die out here,
alone and unprotected, he would burn up and die in this horrible
searing agony.
     "Lestat! Oh my God!" Louis ripped open the door and saw
Lestat slumped against the sill, half in daylight, unmoving.  He
grabbed the back of the other man's coat and yanked him into the
house, slammed the heavy old door shut against the scourge of
light.
     Lestat was unconscious, his face wet, and the tears that
stained his pale skin were mingled with blood.  Louis cradled the
unmoving form in his arms, his head bent over his friend.  "Oh,
God, I'm so sorry....."  He carried Lestat through to the
livingroom and laid him on the couch, covered him with a heavy
throw blanket.  All the windows had long ago been shuttered
against daylight, and Lestat would be safe in here.  Louis laid a
hand against Lestat's cheek, pressed his mouth to Lestat's
forehead.  Nothing.  "Oh God, I've killed you, oh no...."
     "Louis." The voice was at his ear, barely audible. "Help
me."
     "You're safe now, you're with me."
     "Hot. I'm burning.  Get me a drink of water."  Lestat's
voice sounded scorched, like burn victims who inhale too much
smoke.  
     "Anything."  Louis kissed the pale forehead, got up and went
into the kitchen.  He returned with a glass of ice water, which
Lestat drank, subsiding back into the couch pillows.  
     "You go to sleep. I'll be all right."  Lestat's eyes closed
and he sank back into unconsciousness.
     By six the next evening, he was dying of pneumonia.

     Rhiannon's telephone was ringing by the time she reached her
apartment.  She slammed her key into the lock, praying under her
breath, "Don't hang up, don't hang up!"
     It was the long-distance operator. "I have a person-to-
person for Rhiannon Llewellyn---"
     "Go ahead," Rhiannon panted, out of breath from her climb up
the building's stairs.
     "A Mr. Louis Pointe-Du-Lac from Auvergne, for you. Will you
accept?"
     "Yes!"
     "Rhiannon?"
     That voice! She nearly wept. "Louis--oh God, it's you!"
     "You must come at once. Lestat is dying." Louis's voice was
flat, emotionless, the voice of one who accepts the awful
inevitable truth.
     "What?" Rhiannon's heart pounded in her ears, a slow
thudding cadence, moving her blood.  "What happened to him?"
     Louis broke down on the other end and began to cry quietly. 
"I locked him out of the house, at dawn, I didn't mean to, we had
a fight and I thought---"
     Rhiannon's chest was squeezed with a poignant pain.  "Oh no. 
What's wrong with him--I mean, what are his symptoms?"
     "Uhh, he's burning up with fever, and having trouble
breathing. I think it's some sort of flu."
     Rhiannon's mind reeled at the absurdity of it and she wanted
to laugh wildly, hysterically.  "Vampires don't get the flu, it's
not possible!"
     "I know that, but---"
     "Wait a second."  Rhiannon's mind was working rapidly,
filling in facts and coloring in guesses.  "From what I know,
which is admittedly little, his exposure to light has compromised
his immune system."  She gasped. "My God, Louis--he could very
well have pneumonia!"
     "There's more--"  Louis took a deep, shuddering breath, his
despair transmitting all the way across the Atlantic. "He refuses
to feed."
     "What? Are you serious?"
     "Yes."  Louis's accent had been deepened and refined since
his return to France, and his rich, pleasant voice traveled
delightfully across the wires.  "He says he must atone for his
sins, and so it's best if he dies."
     "How long has he been this way?"  Rhiannon was going through
her purse, the phone cradled against her shoulder.  Credit cards,
some traveler's cheques left over from the last time, where was
the phone number for the airline?
     "Three days. He is dying, Rhiannon. I don't know if I can
save him."
     "I'm coming over there. I'm getting the next plane out,
Louis. Please--help him hang on until I get there! I'll call you
from Orly!"
     "Thank you.  I'll see you in a few hours."  
     "Louis?"  Rhiannon gripped the phone so hard that her
knuckles were white.  She didn't want to hang up and close the
connection with Louis.  "Tell him I love him."
     "I will."
     
     Louis replaced the phone in its cradle and returned to the
living room, where Lestat still lay on the couch, staring fixedly
into the fire.  Great, dark circles had formed under his eyes,
giving his face a hollow, ghoulish expression, and his sensuous
mouth was devoid of its usual witchy grin.  "Ah, Louis, so we
come to this."  Lestat's voice was little more than a low
whisper.  "Don't worry old friend, I won't last for much longer
now."  He reached out for Louis's hand, held it in his own. 
Louis's fingers were so warm, while his were like ice.
     "You should feed."  Louis stroked Lestat's cold forehead,
brushed his thick blond hair back.  "You need to regain your
strength."
     "Ha!" Lestat forced a harsh laugh. "No, I need to die,
Louis. You were absolutely right all along, I am a son of a
bitch, and a damned worthless one at that."  Lestat's pale,
aristocratic fingers stroked Louis's lean face. "Better I should
shuffle off the mortal coil, eh?"
     "Lestat...." Louis felt very near to tears.
     "None of that!" Lestat's fingers closed around his wrist.
"Who was that?"
     "Rhiannon."  
     "Oh. Bringing in your contingency plan, eh?" Lestat laughed,
a brittle laugh that degenerated rapidly into a harsh, racking
cough.  His fingers bit into Louis's wrist as the spasm shook
him, and when he finally subsided back onto the couch, dark blood
gleamed at the corners of his mouth.  Louis gently wiped Lestat's
face with his handkerchief.
     "She'll be here soon." Louis kissed Lestat's forehead
gently, holding his warm lips there for a moment longer than
necessary. "She said she loves you."  He drew back to gaze into
Lestat's sapphire eyes. "And so do I."
     "Don't say that." Lestat's voice was a warning, and tears
stood dangerously in his eyes, threatening to spill. "Please
don't."
     "It's the truth, Lestat. I owe you more than anyone else on
earth. You gave me eternal life."
     Lestat squeezed his eyes shut against the tears that spilled
down his face. He gripped Louis's wrist and sobbed. "Please don't
say that--I have damned you, Louis, just as I was damned....I did
you no favours...."  
     Louis gathered Lestat into his arms and held him. "Shhh." 
He clutched his friend's ailing body to him, slipped his fingers
through Lestat's soft, thick hair. "Rhiannon will be here soon,
and everything will be all right."

     As soon as Louis had rung off, Rhiannon had gone to her
bedroom and tossed a few articles into a suitcase: nightdress,
clean underwear, thick sweaters, heavy skirts, and boots.  She
had called ahead to the airport and reserved a first-class ticket
to Orly on the next flight, which left in one hour.  She would
make it.  But first, there was another suitcase to fill.
     The clinic was long deserted when she reached it, and she
was able to quietly open both the front doors and the locked
storage locker with her own set of keys.  
     Needing no light to see her way, she silently filled a large
suitcase with bags of fresh blood, packing them in underneath a
concealing layer of clothing.  There was easily seven or eight
litres there, more than enough for her purposes.  She replaced
the remaining stock of blood in the freezer, arranging it so that
no missing bags would be readily discernable, and went out,
closing and locking the clinic behind her.  
     Forty-five minutes later, as the Northern Hemisphere rolled
slowly around to daylight, she was safely ensconced on a jet, her
suitcase of pilfered blood beside her on the seat.  She left
explicit instruction with the steward that she was not to be
disturbed, and as the plane flew silently through the short
winter's day, Rhiannon the vampire slept unhindered.  Eight hours
after leaving New York, she landed in Orly airport in Paris,
rented a car, and was well on her way to Crecy by six.  She
would be with Lestat in a matter of a couple hours.  Then, all
would be well.

                    To Be Continued....