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Remmick handed Mary two solid gold coins. She inspected them, noting strange lettering inscribed along the edges.
“Where is this from?”
This money was nothing she’d ever seen before. Suddenly, she heard a low rumbling—a growl—barely audible. As she lifted her head, the sound disappeared.
His eyes never left hers.
“It’s from a different place and a different time,” he confessed. “But it spends just the same. You can have it—but it’s no good to you.”
“It’s no good to her,” the woman, Joan, echoed.
“Mmm-hmm,” the man, Bert, agreed.
Mary glanced at them but chose to ignore their redundant phrases. She returned her attention to this strange man.
“Well, what makes you say that?” she asked.
“‘Cause you’re in some deep, deep pain that money can’t fix,” Remmick said, his brows furrowing in understanding.
A lucky guess?
Was her face giving her thoughts away? She wondered how he knew.
“Am I right?” His gaze softened. “You came over here for fellowship and love.”
“Fellowship and love,” Joan repeated once again.
Mary looked at her with suspicion but continued. “My mother passed away.”
“Losing a mother’s a hurtin’ feelin’,” Bert chimed in.
“Mmm,” Remmick agreed softly. “I wish in my heart that we’d met sooner. I would’ve liked to have saved your mother from her fate.”
A beat passed. His proximity now unsettled her.
“I could still save you from yours.”
Roaming for centuries, there was only eternal darkness, an endless, gnawing hunger driving him into a wild, desperate existence. Whenever he stumbled upon a person of unsavory disposition, there was blood to drink… yet it was never enough.
He longed for more.
In the early years of his transformation, the thirst horrified him. Over time, it became a natural—unnatural—part of his nightly existence.
He preferred not calling it life.
“Frozen” suited each night of his immortality.
Sometimes he tried to remember:
the warmth of the sun,
the songs of birds at dawn,
the touch and heat of a woman.
All in vain.
Warmth was an ancient feeling now. Certain memories faded. He gained unlimited strength as he lost his senses. Touch, taste, smell—all distorted.
What Remmick missed most was home. The life before those greedy rats seized his father’s land and brought their hateful dogma. His homeland had been lush, the air crisp and pure, and the wild serenity strengthening the souls of his people. He remembered how the waves crashed against the rugged shores of Ériu. Above all, he would give anything to be with his loved ones again—to share a meal, to dance by the fire, or sing with his fellow bards.
He’d had chances to return.
But why do so? There was nothing left.
His family, gone.
His people, forgotten.
His home, a graveyard.
And humanity?
He had watched firsthand what man does to his fellow man.
The descendants of those same hateful men still ruled. Traces of the Old World poisoned the New. Their legacy lived on. He carried pain the way they carried bloodlust.
He was lonely. Lost in the New World.
And then he heard a voice. A haunting sound, singing from inside a juke joint up the road. It pulled at something deep inside him—a song that unraveled time itself.
A filí.
Mary scoffed, distracting him from the mire of his thoughts.
“Now you must have me confused,” she said as Remmick turned away to remove his banjo, setting it gently on the ground. “I’m sad is all, but I don’t need no savin’.”
He wasn’t powerless anymore.
Perhaps, he thought, these people needed saving. Belonging. Or maybe he just needed to belong again—no matter the cost.
She gasped as she saw the red gleam in Remmick’s eyes as he leaned in closer. Those eyes would haunt her until the day she died, which came quicker than she ever imagined.
“Yes,” said Remmick. “Yes you do.”
Dar Déithe, hunger consumed him.
He heard the quickening of Mary’s heartbeat and he would be lying if he said it didn’t excite him. The hairs on the nape of her neck rose. The corners of his mouth curled into a wicked grin, exposing fangs that gleamed in the moonlight. He was a drooling mess.
“You all do.”
Mary retrieved the pistol from her thigh and put distance between them. She pointed the gun at his head, backing away.
“I’m gonna head back now. And I think y’all should too. Back to wherever y’all came from,” she warned the three strangers.
As soon as she turned and hurried toward the juke joint, Remmick flew through the air and pinned her down like a wild animal. The gun gone, lost in the river.
She wanted to scream, but his weight crushed the air from her lungs.
Her breath grew shallower.
His mouth brushed over her ear.
“Sorry, darlin’,” he murmured, pushing her hair aside, readying to bite.
Suddenly, Mary snapped her head back, smashing into his nose. Remmick reeled, temporarily disoriented, and Mary scrambled forward on her hands and knees, scraping herself bloody.
She didn’t get far.
Remmick grabbed her ankle and yanked her backwards with unnatural strength.
She turned just in time—metal flashing—plunging Stack’s knife into his chest. Mary knew a second weapon would come in handy.
There was a sickening squelch as blood poured onto her stomach.
Mary threw him off her with all her strength. He landed with a thud.
She staggered to her feet, heart pounding. The two white folks who had been with him were gone, hiding in the woods.
Remmick lay still. Maybe he was dead.
She had to make sure.
But before she could reach him, Remmick howled in pain. The sound slowly morphing into laughter.
He was on her again in a blur, slamming her against the nearest car. Her chest flattened against cold metal, his hand firm on her throat.
She struggled, but his strength was overwhelming. His body wouldn’t budge. His chest was cold as a Mississippi winter.
He sighed into her ear, intimately, his voice slipping into an Irish lilt.
“I promise I won’t bite too hard.”
His last words to her before he sank his teeth into her flesh.
Mary’s scream tore through the air. Everyone inside was too lost in the music to notice.
Remmick drank deeply. Mary tasted of everything he admired—sweet, vital, her indomitable spirit struggling even as her body failed.
Her convulsions wracked her. She collapsed to the ground, blood spilling from her mouth. Her eyes grew heavy.
Remmick leaned back against the car, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, waiting.
Finally, she ceased moving.
The physical death came quickly. A brief rigor mortis before the change.
It lacked the tranquility of true death.
After the stillness, Mary heard something…a voice….inside her mind.
Wake up, lass.
There’s people waiting for us inside.
Mary’s eyes fluttered open, no longer brown but glowing yellow beams. Her body rose without pain, her dress soiled and bloody. Her heart beat no longer.
Excitement wasn’t the word.
“Elation,” Remmick said aloud, offering his hand.
But how can he—
“We.” He corrected her as she took his hand. He lifted her gently to her feet, standing close. Remmick tipped Mary’s chin up. His red eyes saw her—all of her—her memories, dreams, thoughts.
He was everywhere. And he knew everything.
We’re the same, mo mhuirnín. You and I, all of us. There’s more I could teach you, if you wish.
Now, go inside. I’ll be right here, waiting for ye.
Mary’s legs moved without hesitation, trapped inside a hazy dream.
“Mary, darlin’?” he cooed, slipping back to his southern drawl.
She paused near the club’s entrance and turned back.
Remmick stood at the tree line, watching her from afar, offering a fanged, terrible smile.
“Fellowship and love,” he called gently. That’s what we’ll have… I promise.
Then he slipped into the woods.
And Mary turned toward Club Juke. She carried pain inside her blood now too.
But he had shown her a freedom she could offer her family.
To be together. Always.