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There’s something about the thief that sets Goro on edge.
Goro watches him from across the camp. He stands by his tent, chatting with the newly arrived bard. The bard had begged and begged and begged Goro if he could join them earlier that day, proclaiming to be inspired by how fiercely Goro had killed the goblins that were laying seige to his caravan, yet now he stands before the thief and stares up at him with stars in his eyes.
To his credit, the thief seems unimpressed. He’s listening to the bard, yet there’s no answering smile on the thief’s face. He merely listens, occasionally nodding along to whatever it is the bard says.
“Well, he certainly works fast.”
Goro glances at the cleric, who stands beside him before the campfire. The orange of her hair matches the orange of the flames. It’s a strange color for a halfling, but then everything about this halfling is strange, from her manner of speaking to the wild colors of her clothing.
All part and parcel of being a cleric of the trickery domain, Goro supposes.
“Who does?” he asks.
“Mishima. The bard,” the cleric adds when Goro just stares at her blankly. She points across the fire to where the bard still talks at the thief. “First you, then Akira. I wonder if he’ll try Yusuke next.”
Goro looks back at the bard. He’d seemed innocuous upon first glance. Simply a bard, not even one who could be of some use in combat. More of a nuisance than a threat. Goro had consented to him joining the camp simply to get the bard to stop talking to him.
Yet in the short time that Goro has known her, the cleric has proven herself to be too clever to discount, so he asks, “You think he’s a threat?”
The cleric snorts out a laugh. “Not remotely. The only thing that’s going to break is his pride when he realizes that Akira isn’t going to sleep with him.”
The claim takes Goro by surprise. He looks back across the fire at the thief. Akira, the cleric had called him. That was the name he had given Goro when they met. An elf, but a strange one. And not like the cleric is strange either. The cleric acts odd. The thief is odd. He has dark, curly hair and pale skin, and he wears a simple white shirt and black pants and boots. Nothing about him is unusual or unique.
Except his eyes.
They’re a luminous gold, as bright as the dawn and made even more remarkable by the steady way that the thief directs his stare.
Mine.
“You jealous?”
Goro almost misses the cleric’s question, thrown as he is by the declaration that resounds through his head. He’s heard such thoughts a few times this past week, since he awoke in his pod on the mind flayer’s ship. Most of the thoughts have been violent in nature, urging Goro to punch, kick, stab, strike, and slaughter his enemies.
Those he hadn’t minded. Yet a few times the thoughts had been directed at his recently gathered companions, who, like him, had been kidnapped by mind flayers and infected with one of their embryonic tadpoles.
Goro hesitates to call the thoughts his own, unbidden as they are.
But if they aren’t his, then whose are they?
His head throbs at the thought. “Not remotely,” he manages after a moment.
“Then why are you staring?”
Goro drags his attention back to the cleric. She’s peering up at him, a sly smile on her face.
What had been her name again? Ocean? Olive?
No.
Oracle.
“Why do you care?” he asks.
Oracle shrugs. “A girl’s got to entertain herself somehow.”
“And the prospect of transforming into a mind flayer at any moment isn’t exciting enough for you?”
The question wipes the smile from her face. “That isn’t exciting. That is completely and utterly terrifying. Hence the need for distracting excitement. And look,” Oracle says, “here it comes.”
She waves a hand toward the fire. Goro follows the gesture and finds Akira approaching them.
The bard isn’t following. He’s still by Akira’s tent, his shoulders slumped as he watches Akira walk away, yet he snaps straight as he catches Goro’s gaze. A smile flits across his face, but it skitters away a second later like prey fleeing a predator.
“Jealous,” Oracle mutters.
Goro looks at her. “You’ll hold your tongue if you want to keep it in your head.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
“Try what?” Akira asks as he reaches them.
“Juggling,” Oracle says before Goro can think of a response. “He- oh, gods.” Her eyes go wide as she looks past Goro. “He is going to try Yusuke next. I have to see this.”
She darts around Goro and heads off in the direction of the wizard’s tent, leaving Goro and Akira alone.
Up close, the golden gleam of Akira’s eyes dazzles even more intensely. For a few moments, all Goro can do is stare. Then like a cloud passing before the sun, the shine momentarily dims, and Goro is master of his own mind again.
“Did you want something?” he asks. The question is too brusque, but the pain in Goro’s head and the conversation with the cleric have unsettled him too much to feign civility.
“Do you?” Akira counters. “You’ve been staring for the past ten minutes.”
“I had to make sure the bard isn’t a threat.”
For some reason, his response makes Akira smile.
“Do I amuse you?”
“A little,” Akira admits. “I never said you were staring at him.”
Goro’s breath catches at the claim. Akira’s gaze is unwavering, unnerving, alluring.
He wants to pluck out those golden eyes and-
“We should sleep,” he says as he looks away. “We have a long journey tomorrow.”
They were at least three days from the camp occupied by the hobgoblin Kamoshida and his gang of goblins, where they had allegedly locked away the druid healer Ann after kidnapping her. She was the best option that Goro and the others currently had for removing their tadpoles, yet the infiltration of the camp and her rescue would not be easy.
Goro turns from Akira, in the direction of his tent, but he stops when Akira speaks again.
“Sleep well.”
The words are innocuous, but the tone is peculiar, like the man who spoke them. Peculiar, odd, alluring, charming, insidious, sly, cunning.
Mine. Mine. Kill. Mine. Kill, Kill, KILL-
Violence flaring, pulsing, pounding in his head, Goro walks away.
*
He wakes to the smell of blood. He feels it sticky on his hands, his face, his hair.
He opens his eyes and blinks. The world resolves slowly around him. The group had camped for the night in the ruins of a village about two days from the goblin camp, yet the brightness of the sky indicates that it’s near dawn and Goro is currently standing in a forest rather than the village.
Had he been fighting and been knocked out?
The thought seems unlikely. If he’d been knocked out, he’d be on the ground, not standing.
He starts to look around, only to freeze as he spots the body before him.
It’s sprawled on its back amid a pool of blood. Goro can discern patterns in the blood, the body lying in the center of an intricate symbol. The meaning of it eludes Goro.
What doesn’t elude him is the identity of the corpse, clear to him despite the blood covering its face.
The bard.
There are a pair of bloodied daggers by Goro’s feet. He recognizes them as the ones he’d taken from the goblins he helped slaughter two days before, the ones that had been pillaging the bard’s caravan.
A twig snaps to Goro’s right. He turns his head and finds Akira crouched by the tree line, hidden partially in the shadows. Yet Goro can still see the shine of his golden eyes as he stares through the gloom.
How beautiful he would look, laid out before Goro in red.
Swallowing hard, Goro looks away.
Silence settles upon the strange tableau. Goro scours his mind to think of what he can say to try to explain this, but Akira speaks before anything comes to mind.
“Did he attack you?”
It would be easy to nod, to latch onto the lie and use it to save himself, but the truth, as vague as it is, spills from Goro instead. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No. I went to sleep at camp. I woke up here like this.”
Akira frowns at that. “Someone set you up?”
Goro looks at the bard. The truth squirms hot and sour in his stomach. “No. I think I killed him.”
“While you were asleep?”
The disbelief in his voice is clear. It’s also understandable. Goro would doubt Akira’s innocence if the roles were reversed, if he stumbled upon this strange man standing over a dead body and drenched in blood.
Yet the truth is all Goro has, so he says, “Yes. I’ve been having thoughts. About killing.”
“The bard?”
“Him. You. Everyone.”
Goro looks down at his hands. They’re calloused and covered in blood. He expected for them to be so after waking up on the mind flayer ship, when he vowed vengeance against those who were responsible for his current state. He’d smite the wicked, no matter the cost.
The bard was irritating, but Goro doubts he was wicked. The gods should have cut Goro off from his power for slaughtering an innocent, yet he still feels it pulse within him.
Somehow he hasn’t broken his vow.
He feels a nudge at his mind. It’s arguably the strangest development of the past week, of Goro forgetting everything in his life before being kidnapped by mind flayers and infected with one of their tadpoles. The tadpole on its own is horrific, a ticking transformation time bomb waiting to explode. Yet the tadpoles also allow an infected to peer into the mind and read the thoughts of others, an aspect that Akira is attempting to use on him now.
“I hate to disappoint you,” Goro says, “but you won’t find anything in here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t remember anything. Not this. Not my life before this past week.”
Silence again. Goro turns toward Akira. He hasn’t moved, either his body or his gaze. He should. If he were smart, he would turn tail now, get the wizard and cleric from camp, and flee, leaving Goro to the darkness consuming his mind. But he doesn’t. He stares at Goro another few seconds before he stands and takes a step into the clearing.
“You shouldn’t come closer,” Goro says.
He should be running.
They should all be running!
Goro grits his teeth against the voice. Is it his? It sounds like his, but harsher, skirting the edge of control.
Akira prods again at the edge of his mind.
“Thief-”
“It’s Akira. And if you want my help, I’ll need proof you’re telling the truth.”
The declaration gives Goro pause. He looks at Akira, who hasn’t retreated, but hasn’t moved any closer either. “Your help?”
Akira nods. “You have to explain this to Yusuke and Oracle. Unless you want to kill us, too.”
Time for a bloodbath!
The thief would undoubtedly look good in red, bloodsoaked, his golden eyes shining. More like a sunset than the pale light of dawn. Goro wants to cross the clearing, go over to him, and-
He rips his gaze away. His hands are trembling, but from what Goro isn’t sure. A desire to kill or for something else? The cleric’s claim of jealousy rings through his head. Is he jealous? Is that why he killed the bard, jealousy over his attentions toward Akira?
Goro looks back at the bard. The extent of the wounds supports the theory of a jealous rage, but what about the symbol beneath him? That implies intent, perhaps a ritual of some kind.
But for what?
The void of his mind produces no premise to explain what has occurred and why. Perhaps one of his companions has seen something like this before or has learned about such a symbol. He could ask them. He could seek their aid in this as well as in the quest to remove the tadpole. They would likely help. They’ve helped every other wretched thing they’ve crossed paths with so far.
All Goro has to do is let them in.
Though he doubts Akira will see anything of import, the thought of opening a connection makes his stomach churn. Yet what other option does he have? Flee this place and try to find a solution to his tadpole by himself? Kill Akira and try to convince the others that he killed the bard? Goro doubts he would be successful at either. The others like Akira far more than they like him, and Goro can only tolerate their presence because Akira is there to act as a buffer between them.
Sighing, Goro reaches for the presence brushing against his mind. He flinches as the connection forms, then the forest dissolves around him and he’s in a raucous tavern, at a table across from a blurry figure. Maybe a human. Maybe an elf. He reaches out and lays light fingers along the back of the figure’s hand. The world flashes gold, and the figure sways forward, her smile bright as she looks at Goro, as she looks at Akira, this a moment from his past. The memory wavers and then Goro is in an alley, standing before the figure and staring down at her, at her face and neck. Desire flares within him, sharp and hot and familiar-
Goro staggers back as the connection severs and the forest reappears around him. He sees Akira similarly reel, his eyes wide as he focuses on Goro.
“You really don’t remember anything,” he says after a moment.
Goro shakes his head. “I thought it might be the tadpole, but no one else has said anything about forgetting. Have you forgotten anything?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the tadpole.”
Something about the tone catches Goro’s attention. He peers at Akira across the distance, trying to discern the underlying meaning. He knows little about the thief. The others have asked Akira about his life before being kidnapped by mind flayers, but he’s proven himself to be as adroit at dodging those questions as he has with disarming a trap or picking a lock.
Which indicates he has something to hide.
“Why aren’t you at camp?” Goro asks him now. “Did you follow me out here?”
Akira shakes his head.
“Then why-”
“I’ll help you. If you’ll help me.”
Goro narrows his eyes. “What kind of help?”
“I need blood. And protection.”
“Blood?”
Akira nods. Goro watches him as he starts across the clearing. He expects caution given the circumstances of this encounter, at the very least disgust. Goro is a wretched thing of blood and darkness, yet the intensity of Akira’s gaze as he reaches Goro indicates interest, rather than aversion.
Goro’s pulse picks up at the thought.
Eyes fluttering, Akira sways forward. It’s only by Goro grabbing him by the shoulders that the two don’t collide.
The touch knocks Akira from his daze. He focuses again on Goro. His eyes are wide, startled and a shade frightened, and this close Goro expects to be dazzled by them. Yet his gaze is drawn to Akira’s mouth, to what he hasn’t been able to see in his prior contemplations of the solemn faced thief.
Fangs.
Goro tightens his grip on Akira. “You’re a vampire.”
“A spawn, but yes.”
“But…”
Foolishly, Goro looks away from Akira, up to the brightening sky. The day has dawned, though the sunlight hasn’t crested the trees in this part of the forest. Yet other days have dawned before this one, days full of sunshine that Goro has seen Akira walk harmlessly through.
“I should burn,” Akira says. “I did before the mind flayers took me.”
Goro looks back at him. The fear has faded from his eyes. He watches Goro intently, curiously, as though he were the one defying the natural order of the world with his very existence.
I will carve my own path for myself.
Did the mind flayers do something to Akira to render this a permanent change? Is it the tadpole? Can it do more than telepathy and transformation? Perhaps it is responsible for Goro’s amnesia.
The possibilities of its power dangle before Goro a few seconds before he sets them aside to ask, “Why do you need protection?”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to hide that I’m a vampire from Yusuke and Oracle much longer.”
Goro frowns at that. “You think they’ll try to kill you?”
“I don’t know. People fear vampires. They should fear vampires. I’d probably kill me if I were them.”
“What makes you think I won’t kill you?”
The question makes Akira smile. “You don’t stare at me like you want to kill me. Or not just kill me,” he adds after a beat.
Mine.
It’s only then that Goro realizes he’s still holding on to Akira. His grip is tight, strong enough to bruise, yet Akira hasn’t complained. He hasn’t tried to break the hold and move away.
Goro should release him.
He should, but he doesn’t.
The smile on Akira’s face turns sly.
Goro rips his hands away. The blood on them has stained Akira’s shirt.
“And the blood?” Goro asks. He takes a step back from Akira, striving to regain control over the conversation and himself.
Akira doesn’t respond. Instead, his gaze dips down to Goro’s neck and lingers.
The memory from earlier flashes into Goro’s mind, Akira in the alley staring at the figure before him. Staring at her neck. The desire that Goro had felt in Akira then clarifies, as does his intent now.
“You want mine?”
Akira nods. “I haven’t had anything to eat since we escaped the nautiloid. I’m too weak to hunt. I just… need a little.”
He closes the distance between them. His hair brushes against Goro’s chin as he ducks his head. He could bite any moment, yet Goro doesn’t try to retreat. He stays where he stands. Beyond the smell of blood and decay, he smells lavender and honeysuckle. He remembers seeing them by the druid’s grove as they were trying to track down the healer. Akira must have taken some then to try to conceal the subtle scent of death that clings to him.
“You smell… so good,” Akira whispers. “What are you?”
“I’m an elf.”
“I’m an elf. You don’t smell like an elf.”
The statement surprises Goro. Everything about Akira surprises Goro, this vampire who’s more worried about saving people than killing them, yet who hasn’t shied away from the death Goro deals with disconcerting ease. “What do I smell like?”
Cool lips brush against Goro’s neck. “Power.”
Pave my path with corpses.
Goro is powerful, more so than anyone else in camp. Together, the wizard, the cleric, and Akira could take him down. Goro has no doubt about that. They’re clever and skilled, especially Akira. Yet in a one-on-one encounter, Goro would win. He would here, too. Akira is dextrous, but not strong. Goro could grab him, overpower him, and-
Build my castle with bones.
“It’s a deal.”
Akira pulls back. The hope in his eyes borders on desperate. “Are you sure?”
“I wouldn’t have said so if I didn’t mean it.” He tilts his head to the side and bares his neck. “Do it.”
Rather than fangs in his neck, Goro feels a hand touch his waist. The touch is hesitant, almost reverent, a faint trembling detectable in Akira’s fingertips. Goro feels the same when Akira lifts his other hand to cradle the side of his face. His mouth hovers over Goro’s neck, yet he makes no move to bite. He makes no move at all, not for a long moment, then his lips brush against Goro’s neck in what, in other circumstances, could be considered a kiss.
The bite feels like two splinters of ice being driven into Goro’s neck. Yet the pain is momentary, blotted out by the subsequent rush of heat that courses through Goro. He hears Akira moan and then Goro is both biting and being bitten, the connection between him and Akira blasting open once again. He sees an alley, a coffin, and a cage. He sees a pale man with blood red eyes and a young woman with blood red hair. He sees himself striding across a battlefield and standing beside the campfire. He sees Akira slipping into shadow and speaking with the bard. He tastes power and feels death’s cold embrace, yet he doesn’t resist or relent. He holds on, digging his fingers into dark curls and sliding a hand to the small of his back. He needs more. More blood, more time. More, more, more-
The connection severs.
Goro stumbles, the world spinning about him, but the hand at his waist helps keep him upright. “Fuck.”
He hears Akira say something in response but the words don’t process. Only his exhaustion does. Slowly, as though he were moving through mud, Goro places his hands on his chest and calls on his vow. Clarity returns in an instant, his healing magic banishing his exhaustion and sharpening his senses.
Akira comes into focus. The change in him is remarkable. In the pale light of dawn, he looks flushed. Wild.
Alive.
*