Chapter 17

Nikola entered a small town and went to the nearest ATM. His card was still not cancelled and his documents were still valid too but he would have to rush to get back to the states before his passport ran out.

As he counted the money for his trip back he thought about going back to Novgorod first. But then he thought how Matthew and Ivan had probably told some story that he had returned back without them to Ivan’s sisters and thought better of it.

He tried to charge his phone in the hotel room but it didn’t lit up as it should. So it was busted. He went shopping for a new phone and bought a laptop too for a good measure.

Nikola tried to call Dimitri and Malkav next but they must have switched their numbers as he couldn’t do so. Next he called Flavius who fortunately hadn’t done the same. The Roman had a grandfatherly smile as he answered his video call.

“It is good to see you again, grandson. It has been too long. You took care of our Russian problem, yes?”

“I did, grandfather. But there were some complications. I don’t know how to tell you everything.”

The Roman tapped his fingers on the keyboard before raising an eyebrow.

“Start at the beginning, child. Even if you messed up as long as you did the diablerie I forgive you.”

So Nikola did. Flavius looked shocked at him when he told him he had been gouging himself on fae blood in Siberia and began to berate him but he didn’t raise his voice at him. The vampire Elder was surprised at his affair with Vasilisa but told him that the end justified the means.

Nikola then told him of the seven months’ worth of hunting Vasilisa and Flavius commented on Vasilisa’s endurance and magic abilities. He was downright furious, calling him a fool, when Nikola told his mentor about the last curse of the Methuselah. Finally Nikola snapped back at him.

“Well, grandfather, how would you have gotten out of it? Would you have let Vasilisa slip when he was so close to dying?”

“But he is not exactly dead now, is he, grandson? And you might have laughed at your wedding but he got you to “sell your soul” to him. You had a dark priest do a proper vampire wedding! And if you think that the Devil is just a sleep deprived hallucination you have another thing going. I have been wondering why my pentagram has been giving off SOS signals! Baba Yaga, you brought that thing back into the world! Oh, I’m sorry, grandson. I meant your new sister in law, I don’t want to insult you by calling your new Nictuku in laws things, do I?”

Nikola huffed and crossed his hands over his chest. He felt the sudden urge to show his dear old grandpa the middle finger. Instead he ran his fingers through his hair before defending himself.

“What is done is done. I completed your mission at the price of my soul, apparently. By the way when do you think Satan will get out of my head? Surely if you saw your pentagram others saw it too? His screaming scares me. He shouldn’t be begging to God so much. He shouldn’t be begging period.”

“Many have tried as he promises many boons but no one was capable. I presume that the priest was special and whatever the Toreador did while chanting must have added a special touch. I suggest you read the Satanic Bible and use your new tenant. Have you thought about making him a fortress where you can hide him from Baba Yaga?”

“And have her turn on me? I’d rather diablerie myself. Mister eternal evil is on his own. Flavius I told you everything you needed to know. Can you tell me about my family back in the states? My vampire one, I mean.”

At that Flavius’ face softened and he nodded. He then send some files to him in the chat and Nikola watched the pictures as his mentor began to speak. They were good pictures. They were of Malkav and Dimitri together and they looked comfortable with each other.

That got him thinking that had he not made it back they would have moved on without him. Instead of making him jealous he was suddenly happy for them. The saying “If you love something let it go” came to mind and he realized with clarity he would let them both go if they didn’t want him back after all this time. They will have each other and he would still have Vasilisa and all the dead supernatural beings in his head. Not to mention Ivan and Matthew. He wondered how the two were.

There were no pictures of them but Flavius did give him their phone numbers. He apologized about not giving him Dimitri and Malkav’s numbers and told him that they valued their privacy too much and didn’t trust him to begin with.

He plopped in bed after the phone call wanting to catch on some sleep. Vasilisa had told him that while his body would rest while he was with him his mind would not so he would need to sleep in his dream space too.  That was weird.

Vasilisa now controlled his sleep patterns. If he was really tired, and he still hadn’t rested enough to make up for the seven months of no sleep, Vasilisa won’t appear to him at all. But if was just napping he would pull him to him. He had booked the hotel room for a whole week and planned on spending plenty of it sleeping. He had fed before he made his call and he had already had enough blood for when he woke up. He set his alarm on his new phone and pulled the covers over himself.

One good thing about Vasilisa controlling his sleep patterns was that he would fall asleep as soon as he laid down. He felt arms around him and opened his eyes. They were in Malkav’s bedroom again. Vasilisa had kept the paintings on the wall no matter how much Nikola protested at their very presence. At least he was no longer talking to them. Or was he waiting for him to wake up to do so? He felt disturbed that the spider would spend the whole day talking to his paintings.

He stood up and found out he was in his pajamas from three years ago. Vasilisa liked dressing them up. The blonde was in a three piece white nightgown that made him as delicate as a flower. Nikola shook his head at that and caught himself staring at the see-through puffy sleeves. Vasilisa the Beautiful indeed.

“Where are you going, fly? Your spider is hungry and yet you haven’t fed him. You are a bad husband.”

Nikola gave a sigh and extended his wrist towards the Methuselah. It was grabbed and he was pulled into the blonde’s arms so that his neck would be attacked instead. It didn’t hurt him at all and he let the man have his fill even though he knew he was metabolizing blood from his system himself faster as Vasilisa fed.

He relaxed and hugged the vampire. Vasilisa gave a soft sigh as he removed his fangs from him and pulled him closer and cuddled into him.

“I will put a curse on you one day and where you fall you will sleep forever, fly. And then you would be mine all the time. Tell me, are you in love with me yet, husband?”

Nikola’s face was full of remorse. Vasilisa was a necessary evil. Their flame was dead. He had long since drank three times from him and his mind hadn’t felt hazy from a blood bond and so Vasilisa must be keeping his word about protecting him from the equivalent of date rape drug for vampires.

But wishing to say “yes” to his new…wife wouldn’t make it less untrue. He saw Vasilisa for what he was and unlike Dimitri, who had showed self-restrain in at least taking control of his emotions, his spider had showed him no such courtesy. As soon as his head hit a pillow he was a fly in a web that used to be his mind.

His head was filled with dead people. Satan was living in Freddie’s apartment. And he didn’t know how Vasilisa made the strange transition between his own old home and Malkav’s apartment, and he had kept the door open between the two apartments for hours and he still couldn’t see anything out of place, but it was made in a perfect balance.

Baba Yaga lived in Anna’s apartment and would visit Satan every day who would run from his apartment and down to the church the wedding was at to pray. Baba Yaga always followed him but the priest in the church didn’t like her being there so he kept summoning eldritch abominations with the help of his new fellow priest, the Toreador vampire Albertet, in order to drive her out.

They had filled the Siberian tundra that stretched outside of the town Malkav had made them move to, which was joined up with his old town, his home town, Moscow, Novgorod and some other cities he had never been to and must have been from Vasilisa’s memory, with them. They had tried to fill the parks too but the faes and lupines, happy to live in civilization without kine throwing sticks and stones at them, lived there and revolted one night and killed a bunch of the abominations which made Satan proclaim an Unholy War on them.

Then Baba Yaga joined the war on the side of the fae-lupine coalition and proclaimed that Satan would marry her if he losses. This made him start summoning his own infernal generals from hell and now Nikola’s mind was filled to the brim with demons.

They didn’t attack him or anything. As Satan was afraid that if either Nikola or Vasilisa died Nikola’s body will die with them and then Satan would bite the dust together with everyone. Which had made him happy at first as he had thought he would just return to hell but then the priest and Albertet had held mass and told everyone that Satan was going to be judged in heaven by God if he died here.

Oh sure, they might have pulled it out of their asses. But the lightning that struck the “Black church” shut up Satan pretty quick. His mind was crowded but Vasilisa kept drawing on Satan’s demonic power to add more to the bustling metropolis that was his once medium sized town.

That had crossed the line for Satan and he had offered an easy time in hell for the priests if they would just talk to some Satanists so that they would pass on their chant. Albertet, thinking that he would be pulled to a death of luxury in hell, had told the secret chant to Satan’s followers but they were incapable of doing anything with it as the original vampire priest was a true holy man as well as a devout follower of the Devil. How that had happened no one knew. And Albertet was…Albertet. There was nothing special about the Toreador, really.

The main priest had been furious at Albertet and made him clean the church top to bottom. Then he made him drink holy water prepared by him and Albertet got third degree burns in his mouth and insides from it. He took his devotion to the church very seriously after that. He didn’t even try to bed any of the “black nuns”, vampire ladies who wanted to repent in order to be free and just go to hell already, anymore.

He was broken out of his thoughts as delicate hands circled his back and a soft pair of lips pressed the back of his neck for a kiss.

“Judging from your silence I will say no, fly. No matter. I have your whole life to make it happen. Now come back to bed so you can sleep in my arms as I marvel at how lifelike you are, my treasure.”

Nikola got out of the embrace and went to the wardrobe instead. It was filled with dresses on the one side and had his old clubbing clothes on the other. He picked a set of clothes from his side and started undressing his pajamas. The hands were suddenly on him again and helping him.

He was just about to dress in his clothes when Vasilisa started tugging him towards the bed. He gave a sigh and abandoned the clothes on the chair they were on. It was time to feed his spider in another way.

Vasilisa remained in his nightgown as he laid them down and straddled Nikola on the bed. He rocked himself a few times and Nikola realized the blonde wasn’t wearing anything under the nightgown. His hands slowly snaked up Vasilisa’s tights and he rested them on the angel’s torso. Vasilisa smiled down on him and licked his lips and he stopped moving.

“Fly, would you like to try something new since you don’t want to sleep yet? I have a surprise for you. Close your eyes.”

Nikola did so and he felt Vasilisa change in his arms. His hips became rounder and softer around him. He blindly moved his hands up and found that his torso was more shaped like an hourglass. Further up his hands went and he felt two small mounts where there was a well sculpted hard chest before. He felt a nipple and gave it a rub. Vasilisa moaned softly and he felt how something warm and wet wrapped around his member. He opened his eyes and saw the loveliest woman he had ever seen.

Vasilisa had kept his, her, he didn’t know anymore, braid but changed everything else. He, Nikola shook his head and decided to keep referring to Vasilisa as a man even now to avoid confusion when he chances back, moved his entrance around him in slow circles. He was blushing a lovely red as Nikola found himself still foundling the nipple. His hand dropped from it but Vasilisa reached out his and brought Nikola’s hand back against his breast. He smiled reassuringly at his husband and put his hand over his chest and kept riding him.

“I have searched your memories, fly. I know for a fact that I am the first woman you have ever been in. This pleases me greatly.”

Nikola blushed as Vasilisa giggled. He then asked the question that had bothered him for the longest time ever since he had read in Vasilisa’s file that the vampire’s gender was unknown.

“So you were a lady all this time? Why didn’t you turn to this form when I attacked you? I…I won’t lie, I would have still attacked. But I think I would have been gentler about it.”

Vasilisa frowned at him and pulled him deeper inside him before he stopped.

“Why? Because I would have been a delicate flower? I am a vampire Methuselah, fly. There is nothing delicate about me. And I hate to be pitied.”

Nikola tried moving Vasilisa’s hips himself but the blonde woman wouldn’t budge. Just where did his newfound strength had come from?

“Vasilisa, lovely, I am sorry if I offended you. Have mercy on me and forgive my wording. You know how I have the habit of putting my foot in my mouth all the time. Please move, wife.”

He whimpered the last part and Vasilisa rolled his eyes at him before resuming the gentle circles. Nikola’s head rolled back on his own accord and he felt Vasilisa’s hands wrap around his throat. He was gently chocking him and Nikola found that he liked a little pain mixed in with the pleasure.

“Fly, if you only behaved like this while we were living in Baba Yaga’s hut. You were such a deceptive sweetheart in the beginning. Then you got frenzied on fae blood and ruined everything. You were a merciless bastard, you know that? And when I watched your memories of just what sort of suggestions you put in my head I finally realized why I kept flying towards you as you kept burning my web around me.”

The chocking turned from pleasant to unbearable as Vasilisa began to shake on top of him. He didn’t try to fight back. Vasilisa had done many bad things in his existence but he had never done anything to him personally. He didn’t deserve to be treated the way he had been. He didn’t deserve to be hunted like a wild animal and starved by him. And he hadn’t deserved to have human emotions forced on him when he couldn’t understand them and to be forced to fall in love with the man who wanted to kill him for no reason other than that he was just there.

Nikola reached out and wrapped his fingers around the long braid and began rubbing his thumb on it as Vasilisa cried on top of him.

“Bastard! Wretch! Monster disguised as a saint! I can’t believe I love you, fly! On all accounts I should have made you relive your first days with Dimitri to punish you but I…I…I couldn’t! I let the illusion break when you got wind of it. I am almighty here, fly. Yet I let you move around my web. What have you done to me, my love? Why did you ruin me? I was such a successful killer for my sire. I didn’t feel emotions and only understood them enough to manipulate others with them. I had eternity in front of me! And you took it all away! And now that I am fully free of the blood bond and your persuasions I still feel like a tired songbird whose only wish is to perch on your shoulders and sing you to sleep. And I…and I just…”

Nikola brought the braid to his lips and gave it a kiss. Vasilisa stopped moving on top of him as he kept chocking him and crying tears of blood. Nikola wished his damned heart would stop in this moment like it would do when he would regret harming those he loved but it kept beating. The very proof he didn’t love Vasilisa. He really was a sick bastard playing with him even after killing him.

“It’s ok if you kill me, spider. I sold my soul to you, didn’t I? By eating me you are ingesting my poison. I made you human when I knew you wouldn’t survive it. Tear out my heart and do diablerie on me. You might even take over my body and return to life. Just don’t cry. I don’t know why but I can’t stand to watch you cry. It hurts me and I am a selfish bastard who hates pain of any sort.”

Vasilisa was rocking his hips again faster than before. His hands unwrapped from around his throat and his nails dug into his chest. He tried to pull on the flesh. Then he tried again and his sobs increased in urgency. He collapsed on top of Nikola and wrapped his long legs around his and rested  his hands on his shoulder as he hid his face into his husband’s hair.

Nikola felt sticky blood drip down his neck. He didn’t care for it. With a slight movement he flipped them and he was suddenly on top of Vasilisa and rocking them while nails dug into his back.

“But do you know what, Vasilisa? I know you won’t. Your greatest power is your mind and I’ve been played with so much by Dimitri and Malkav before you that I have grown immune to it all. Had you found me first? Back when I was still a white color candy maker you would have gotten to remain the way you were. Or maybe had you toyed with me I would have still changed you. And you are not a bastard like Dimitri, spider. Cruel and merciless, true. But not a bastard. The me from back then would have given you only happiness if you have shown self-restraint, my lovely. Now please stop crying. I can’t change what I did but I can promise to be better. More considerate. And who knows? Maybe I would give you my love just like I pledged to in the church while you were wearing the loveliest dress I have ever seen.”

Vasilisa giggled between sobs and wrapped his hands around Nikola’s back.

“It was lovely, wasn’t it, fly? I made it myself! Baba Yaga made me the veil, though. I was a pretty bride, wasn’t I?”

Nikola placed a kiss on the exposed neck beneath him. Then he tickled it with his lips the way he himself liked it. He was rewarded with another fit of giggles.

“The prettiest. But Vasilisa, dear, I need you to move faster now. Just like that. I want to go deeper in you even though I know it will hurt you. I want to fill you up to the brim with my seed. I want to get between your legs afterwards and taste how well it mixed in with your juices and I…argh…I fucking…”

Nikola stopped talking as he emptied himself and he panted as he got out of Vasilisa. Then he used a finger to brush the blonde’s wet and sticky entrance and he put it inside him. He took it out and brought it his nose before putting the finger in his mouth as Vasilisa gently petted his face.

“Well, what are you waiting for, fly? Between my legs. Now.”

Nikola obediently crawled downwards and lifted Vasilisa’s legs over his shoulders and kissed the wetness between them. He kept giving the spot soft kisses as Vasilisa gripped his hair and forced him face flush to the it. Nikola flicked out his tongue and entered the dripping entrance with it and began to lick his own cum out of Vasilisa slowly.

He didn’t know how long he did it for but Vasilisa finally gave a soft moan and collapsed as juices softly flowed out of him and into Nikola’s mouth. He drank them up greedily and gave one last kiss to Vasilisa’s clitoris before moving back up to hold him in his hands. He was hard again from the way Vasilisa was shaking in his arms helplessly. He groaned and bit a pillow as he moved a hand down towards his member to take care of his problem when Vasilisa stopped him and wrapped delicate long fingers around him instead as he began to kiss Nikola’s wet mouth. It wasn’t long before Nikola came again and he collapsed into Vasilisa’s embrace.

Nikola hugged his wife loosely and gave his breast a couple of lazy kisses. Vasilisa put a stop to that by turning them around so that they were laying on their sides. Nikola liked how the small well shaped breasts pressed against his chest as Vasilisa played with his hair while looking him in the eyes. He felt satisfied and calm and hazy. He closed his eyes and was just about to fall asleep when he heard Vasilisa’s soft voice.

“Have I ever told you people called me Vasilisa the Beautiful even when I was a child living together with my parents in my village?”

“I don’t think you have, no. But the moniker suits you, Vasilisa. Your beauty puts angels to shame. And I should know. I am married to one.”

Nikola gave a chuckle at his own joke and snuggled closer to Vasilisa. This is how it should have been when he was in the blood bond. He was a stupid dipshit for not letting Vasilisa take the lead. Had he known…

“I wonder if you will ever call me this once I tell you the story of how I received it. You keep wondering if I am a boy or a girl. I am both, in a sense. I was born a hermaphrodite with dominant female traits.”

There was something in the sad tone of voice of Vasilisa that told Nikola he wouldn’t like the story. He opened his eyes and stared at the blonde and saw his eyes full of a deep emptiness that Nikola had seen plenty of times in documentaries about sex trafficking victims. But Vasilisa had been just a child. Surely his parents cared enough to protect him.

“You see, fly, I have never told anyone this. Even Absimiliard doesn’t know why I started killing. He would have thought me week and abused me himself had he known so I never told him. In my village I was a freak. My parents were poor and hated me because they couldn’t bring themselves to abandon me but couldn’t live with the shame of raising me and not finding any work because of me. People thought that our family was cursed, you see.  We starved a lot before I started working.”

Nikola gave a violent shudder at the last word and his eyes widened in horror. He wasn’t hearing this right, was he? Or maybe the work was simple one, washing clothes, housework and other small tasks that a child could complete. Surely it wasn’t... The moniker must have been a joke in the beginning! There was no way anyone was this cruel as to do that to a child.

“I started off working for an old man that was a neighbor.  He was a herdsman and had plenty of food that he would share with me if I suckle from him beforehand. He was kind to me. Telling me stories that my parents never bothered to. And he would always braid my hair afterwards. I was the child and wife he never had wrapped up in one. Then one day my starving parents noticed they could no longer see my ribs and started asking me where I got the food from. I didn’t want to tell them in the beginning because at some level I knew that what I did with the old man was wrong but they started beating me so I spilled my secret. My father wanted to cut my head off with an axe. He even tied me up to a tree stump as I cried and begged but my mother stopped him. She told him that if I was a whore I might as well fill their bellies with it.”

Nikola stared in shock at Vasilisa. The vampire was gently stroking his face with his thumb and had a faraway expression on his face as if he was back there in the village relieving the horror that was his life. Nikola wanted to throw up.

“The old man stopped wanting me after that. I was the village whore and he didn’t want to get a disease from me so he went back to his old life. My other patrons weren’t as nice as him. But my parents were now well fed and happy while I came back hurting all over home. I had wished back then that my father had killed me when he wanted to. My parents hogged all the food they received for my work and gave me only enough to live off of. They said I didn’t deserve more. I hated myself so much back then that I believed them.”

Nikola felt a tear trickle out of his right eye. Why was he crying? Dumb weakling! He should be giving Vasilisa some comfort right now. He really was a selfish bastard, wasn’t he?

“Vasilisa just stop! I understand why you did what you did back when you were embraced now. I understand now why you shed your humanity while you were still alive. There is no need to relive it. So, please, stop hurting yourself.”

“Oh, fly. I am not hurting myself. I am hurting you now. Let me finish. I was just getting to the happy end of the story. Now this continued until I started to outgrow my childlike innocence. The novelty of toying with the village freak wore off and people started to forget about me. My parents didn’t like that. They have grown fat and lazy thanks to me and they had thought that I will provide for them until they die. So one day one of the villagers became curious and approached them saying that he would give them an entire flock of sheep if they butcher me for him and let him eat me. They were overjoyed. An entire flock was a small fortune in those times, fly. And for a child they were disgusted of? It was perfect for them. But there was one hitch in the plan. I heard everything. And I didn’t want to die. So I went in the forest and picked all the good smelling herbs that I knew were poisonous from my days of hunger and I made them a delicious meal. My father sharpened his knife while I cooked but his pride was tickled that I would go to such lengths to please them and so he decided to give me a last night on this earth and butcher me in the morning. A flock of sheep is a flock of sheep and no among of cooked meals would have changed his mind. My mother and father died in their beds, peacefully and asleep. I ran off into the forest after their deaths so that the villagers wouldn’t stone me alive.”

“Vasilisa, please…”

“No, fly. You were beginning to sound like the villagers complementing my looks constantly. I want you to see past my beauty and see if there is anything worth loving behind it. Let me finish, I am almost done. I started killing all my past clients in the night and stealing food from them. A chopped off head here, a rake to the guts there, mushrooms in the soup put when the woman was outside doing the washing. But I was caught once when a child woke up while I was cutting up his parents and went to scream bloody murder that roused the whole village. They were all suddenly afraid of me and I loved it. But they were many and I was one and suddenly the forest was too small for me to hide in it and I was dragged to a cage to await an execution. Absimiliard found me starring at a spider as it ate a fly and offered to make me the spider. I agreed and that night the whole village was my web with the villagers being my first blood feast. I only spared the children but when they grew up and their eyes began to wonder up and down my form I killed them too. I only spared Igor and Katya because they loved each other and didn’t want me. Well if what I did to them could be called sparing. Now do you understand, fly? You didn’t humanize me. I was human all the time. I just numbed everything and hurt people just like I was hurt because that is what the strong do to the weak. And I wanted to be strong so much.”

Nikola hugged the vampire closer to him. Vasilisa wasn’t crying anymore. He just stared emptily at the painting just behind Nikola. He didn’t have to turn around to know it was the first painting that Dimitri had painted of him. Nikola didn’t know when he started humming a song that his mother used to get him to sleep when he was little but once he started he couldn’t stop. He hummed until Vasilisa gave a soft sigh and he leaned into him and started playing with the Bulgarian’s hair.

Vasilisa was giving him comfort even though he should be the one comforted. Nikola started sobbing again. There was nothing he could say to make it better. There was nothing he could think of to do either. He needed guidance.

When he woke in Vasilisa’s arms it was still dark outside. It was always dark in his mind so that all the dead beings who inhabited it could feel comfortable. He stood up, showered and dressed up, leaving Vasilisa behind telling him he needed time to think. He went to the “Black church”, sat down on one of the benches and began cursing God.