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Laszlo opened his eyes. He was lying on his bed, and the curtains were drawn, though he could see dim light coming in around the edges. How long had he been asleep? His whole body ached, but especially his neck – which was even more worrying when he sat up and noted the bloodstains on his sheets and pillows. He got up, stretching his stiff limbs as he moved over to the washbasin to splash his face with water and rinse the strange coppery tang out of his mouth. The water turned a bloody red in the bowl, and stung when it trickled down the side of his neck. His suspicions were confirmed when he looked in the mirror and saw a cut there, though after gently cleaning off the dried blood, he found it wasn’t all that bad – just two relatively small puncture wounds. He frowned. There was something off about his reflection. It was as if it was on a sort of delay, blurring slightly and not quite matching up with his movements. He shook his head and rubbed at his eyes, and the reflection returned to normal. He was probably just tired.
Memories from the night before began to surface in the fog of his mind – in particular, the face of a woman. The most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on. Was she even real? The wound would suggest so, but then, where was she now? He suddenly recalled an image in his mind of how their encounter had begun, and rushed to the window, flinging the curtains open. The weak evening sunlight seemed to burn his eyes and skin, and he hissed instinctively, dodging back into the shadows, but the brief glance had been enough – there were indeed claw marks on his window sill. She had been real.
Over the next few days, he began to notice further changes in his behaviour. He was becoming more irritable, had a newfound physical repulsion to the church, and was plagued by strange dreams. His incisors were becoming unreasonably long and sharp, and his reflection faltered more and more frequently each day, becoming almost transparent at points, and once he could have sworn that it winked at him. He became unreasonably tired during the day, only to be livelier than ever at night – which wasn’t exactly a negative, but did make social obligations a little more difficult. His recent obsession with only eating the freshest meat available and the newfound necessity of fighting the urge to tear his friends at the club to shreds, however, was presenting more of a problem. He’d also worryingly noticed that his heartbeat didn’t appear to exist, when he was almost certain he’d had one before. The absence seemed like the kind of thing a man would notice.
But the biggest issue was that he couldn’t stop thinking about The Woman. He’d begun calling her that in his mind the moment he realised he’d never even gotten her name, and he wandered the streets of London in the hopes of finding her again. But how? He had nothing to go on but a hazy memory and a rapidly healing mark on his neck. When he’d been unable to stop himself from eating a cat he found on the street, he knew that he required urgent answers. And he also knew that there was only one person who could give them to him.
~
Nadja had been watching him for months now. He never seemed to smile, and that had intrigued her – for a man with so much wealth, always surrounded by wine, women and song, he seemed awfully sad. He was also stupid, but in an endearing way, like a young goat, and he was surprisingly kind when he thought no one he knew could see him. She’d seen him bestow priceless gifts on any girl who caught his eye, watching as he’d saved more than a few families from poverty that way. She had momentarily thought she would need to step in (as she had done many times before in similar situations) when one girl refused his advances, but the man had simply smiled, tipped his hat and gone on his way after insisting she take a golden broach for her trouble. That was when Nadja had become interested almost to the point of obsession, memorising the man’s schedule, address, and – most importantly – his name. Laszlo. It rolled off her tongue.
“Don’t tell me you’re thinking about that pretty boy again?”
“Hm?” Nadja blinked, being pulled back into the present by her friend’s voice.
“You were staring into the fire for the fourth time tonight. If you’re that enamoured with him, darling, why don’t you just fuck him?” Nadja couldn’t hide her grin and Lilith’s eyes narrowed for a moment before she gave an approving smile. “You did fuck him, didn’t you?” she laughed, “Then what’s all the melancholy for? Was he really that disappointing?”
“No! It’s just…” Nadja knew how her friend would react if she told her what had happened. But she also couldn’t stop thinking about it. She felt immensely guilty for leaving him there alone like that, but what else was she supposed to do?
“What? You didn’t kill him, did you? You really need to stop killing them, it’s becoming a problem.”
“That’s only happened twice!”
“Three times.”
“Three-? Edward does not count – he was half dead when we started!” she defended, before realising that Lilith was laughing at her. She hissed, throwing herself back in her chair and crossing her arms. “And anyway, I didn’t kill Laszlo.”
“Laszlo?” the witch was practically cackling now, throwing her head back, and Nadja hit her arm.
“Don’t laugh! I think it makes him sound like a big, crazy, wild bear.”
“I don’t know how you think that’s a compliment, dearest,” she managed after she’d finally calmed down enough to speak again. She wiped at the tears that had gathered from her fit of glee, before noticing Nadja’s irritation. “Oh, don’t be like that. If he wasn’t awful and you didn’t kill him, then I really don’t see what the problem is.”
“The problem is that I…” Nadja did, technically, finish her sentence, but she mumbled the last two words so quietly that Lilith couldn’t make sense of them at all.
“I’m sorry?” Nadja repeated the end of her sentence, even quieter than before, turning her head away from Lilith to avoid the witch hearing her. “Try again dear. Perhaps this time you could actually say what you did, instead of making unintelligible little noises.”
“I turned him! Okay?”
“You what?” Nadja stood from her chair and began pacing the room, trying to escape Lilith’s judgment.
“It was a spur of the moment decision!”
“Meaning you also haven’t told him anything, I presume?”
“I’m giving him space! Letting him figure things out – that’s how I did it!” Nadja said defensively, crossing her arms again.
“And just look how you turned out,” Lilith raised one eyebrow as she surveyed her friend, who gave an exaggerated gasp of shock. “No offence, Nadja darling, but you weren’t exactly the pinnacle of vampiric grace when we met.”
“I was working on it! And it’s not like you were always the gold-standard for witchery!”
“But I can’t just turn someone into a witch on a whim. And even if I could, I certainly wouldn’t do it to a perfect stranger and then just leave them there.”
“I panicked! You know what happened last time!”
“Oh yes, the milkmaid, how could I forget?” Lilith was trying and subsequently failing to hide her laughter, and Nadja glared. “So now there’s some half-feral vampire dandy just ‘figuring things out’ on the streets of London?”
“You cannot steal his semen.” She quickly pointed one clawed finger at the witch as she realised where her friend’s mind would inevitably end up.
“When did you become so boring, darling? But fine!” she held up her hands in mock surrender. “I won’t interfere with your little pet. How’s he handling it?”
“Not well,” Nadja cringed as she remembered, “He ate a cat yesterday.”
“And you’re absolutely certain I can’t put him out of his misery?”
“Lily!”
“Just checking,” she said in a sing-song voice as she dodged the cushion Nadja threw at her.
~
“Sorry old chap, don’t know what came over me.” The ‘old chap’ in question gave a half-hearted groan in response, blood bubbling up and out of his mouth.
Laszlo winced. He was not doing well. His shirt was currently covered in blood, as was his jacket, trousers, face, hands, hair and the entire alleyway. Also, perhaps more worryingly, was the source of the mess, which happened to be his former friend. Well, Bartholomew hadn’t really been his friend, but they’d been on civil terms. Until tonight. On the bright side, before his untimely death at Laszlo’s hand (or, more accurately, teeth), the artist had managed to repay the favour he owed him – a portrait of The Woman, painted from Laszlo’s memory of their first meeting. Now his search could begin, as soon as he found a convenient way to escape from the alley without being arrested.
“Laszlo? You’ve finally eaten something decent!” he whirled at the voice, already beginning his defence.
“It wasn’t me! I swear, I was just- wait, finally?” his mouth eventually caught up with the rest of him, and he realised that the woman speaking was… The Woman. He’d done it! Sort of. She may have had something to do with it, but he’d technically found her, and therefore counted it as a win.
“Yes! Your transformation is finally complete!”
“Transformation? Is this about all the strange goings-on that have been happening since we met?”
“Yes!” she said, in a tone that implied he was a particularly foolish child. “But we’ll talk about that later, the human-authorities will not like the mess you’ve made, and it’s nearly sunrise, so we’d better go.”
“Go? But people will see us-” she shushed him with a finger on his lips.
“Come with me my stupid little boy, I will show you.” Despite the insult, he had the good sense to listen – she may look more human now than in his initial memory, but her teeth were still long and sharp, and there was something about her demeanour that felt remarkably like he was staring down a panther.
~
She had carried him. She had picked him up like he was nothing, and crawled up the side of a building while carrying him. Something was definitely not adding up, but he still couldn’t quite put all the pieces together. He’d asked after her convenient arrival (not that he was complaining) and she’d claimed she’d merely smelled the blood and had come to investigate. Which, either meant she was deranged or something very, very dangerous. She’d also left him again, back in his own room on the third floor of his townhouse, and he hadn’t even managed to figure out how she knew his name. Or where he could find her again.
She was the only one with answers, the only one who could explain what was happening to him – why his reflection had completely disappeared, why he didn’t seem to require breath, why he’d murdered his acquaintance for getting a nosebleed, and a hundred other things that he couldn’t make sense of. Like the fact that he could hear conversations from rooms away, and recognise someone from down the hall by smell alone. At least she’d finally told him her name. Nadja. It was beautiful, and elegant, and suited her perfectly. He said it aloud to himself, smiling a little and musing on how besotted he had become in such a small span of time. He knew he had to find her, and that once he did, he wouldn’t lose sight of her again. And now that he had the portrait, she would be far easier to locate.
~
“Lilith?” the witch in question rolled her eyes at the voice of her newest coven member. Nadja tried not to laugh – Lilith had always hated amateurs.
“What is it, Judith?”
“There’s a vampire downstairs with an odd little portrait of your friend,” She nodded to Nadja, who gave a fanged grin, and the witch tried not to flinch. It would have worked if Nadja couldn’t hear her racing heartbeat. The new ones are always so much fun. “He says he’s looking for Nadja, and wants to know if we’ve seen her.”
“A portrait? Of me?” Nadja smiled, clearly immediately won over by the gesture.
“Do I really have to tell you what to do when a male vampire comes strolling in without an appointment?”
“But Lily, what if it’s Laszlo?” Nadja put a hand on the witch’s arm, playing with the fabric of her sleeve. Lilith looked over before sighing in acquiescence.
“Oh, fine – send him up here, Judith.” Lilith turned back to Nadja as the younger witch left to retrieve their guest. “Though I have no idea how or why your little pet would make his way here. Unless he’s been going around showing that portrait to everyone in London.” The two of them laughed at the stupidity of the idea.
That is, until Laszlo was shown in, and it turned out that was exactly what he’d been doing for the last two weeks.