ONE

He knew about vampires. But that wasn't unusual considering who and what he was. He was almost six and a half feet tall, average for his kind, which for whatever reason grew almost freakishly tall, taller than either humans or vampires. But his heritage revealed itself in not just his height but in every aspect of his being. His hair was a massively thick blue-black mane that he usually wore in a waist-length, nooselike cord. Masters in the Coven, such as he had once been, were not permitted to cut their hair after a time. And even though he had moved beyond the shadow of the Coven, he could not bear to cut his hair. His face was extraordinary in that it was delicate, vulpine, priestly, usually very somber. It was perhaps the somberness alone which gave it masculine lines. But his face was seldom animate, so these lines were seldom noticed. And when they became so it was for the benefit of his often troublesome prey. His eyes were brown, nothing special there, yet they reflected the lights of the midnight metropolis of New York City like the night-seeing eyes of a nocturnal animal. His complexion was something else, wan and white, and he could not really walk about during the day without someone asking if he was ill.

He was not ill. He was only a little anemic.

But there were pills for that, and bar that, small--very small--amounts of blood sustained him nicely. He wasn't a big drinker as many of the dhampiri sometimes were.

Last year he had turned 52 years old. He did not look 52. He had stopped aging at the age of 33 as his master had before him, and as all of vampirekind and dhampirkind did at that sacred age. Yes, he would tell you, such creatures were in fact born and did in fact age to adulthood, unlike the stories in the books which would have you believe vampires to be preternatural creatures born from death. They were not undead. They had never died. And they had never been human.

He was beautiful but there were scant few who could tolerate his company. His voice and language were atrocious and inconsistent. This was partly due to his environment and partly to his rearing. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, but the man who raised him was over 400 years old and from the Old Country. He could read Greek and Latin texts with ease. He knew six languages. In his youth he was told to read a book a day, and even in his adulthood he seldom broke stride with this habit. But he knew the city's darker realms. He knew how to talk to a bartender and how to get information out of a pimp. He knew where people went down by the river to buy drugs. He knew how to find a hooker and how to find someone who had disappeared. But he could hold a perfectly elegant dinner conversation with you--and he always used the proper fork at table. His voice was surly with accent and too many years of scorching tears, but if you chose to look past these things, he could expound on virtually any subject you chose to challenge him with. But it didn't come recommend that you challenge him, as he was infamous in some circles for pursuing a challenge to the very end at any and all costs to himself and others.

To put it another way, he was as tenacious as a pit bull.

And he proved it when he tore his Coven apart. As a result, he now owned the former Covenhouse and the Coven's greatest historical document, The Ninth Chronicle. These two things in addition to his katana longsword were his greatest and most valuable treasures. The house. The book. The sword. He could not live without these things. At least, not comfortably.

The house he grew up in--think of a cold and rambling Colonial monstrosity in weather-grey stone and black wrought iron, part antique, part mausoleum. He acquired it soon after finding the Ninth Chronicle, if only because Rome could not deny his purchase of it. Rome could not stand in his way, though she sorely would have liked to. But to do so would have put him in a bad mood, something Rome did not wish to do.

The Chronicle was much more difficult to find. It was not something his master, the Covenmaster Amadeus, was willing to let him have. But by the time things went from push to shove their relationship had already come to an abrupt end. They had had a difference of opinion, you see. Amadeus decided it was all right for him to die. He disagreed.

And the sword…ah the sword. What could be said about the sword? It was forged in Feudal Japan by the greatest of the swordmakers in the service of the Shogundate. Hattori Hanzo, his name was--"Devil" Hanzo, as he was called. Many wondered about this sword, its undiscovered secrets. It was unusual in that it was 42 inches long, two inches longer than the average Japanese katana. The handle was made of carven white jade and the bas-relief was that of entwined serpents, the double serpent motiff, their hooded heads opposing each other to represent East and West. The blade was flawless and of stainless steel folded 600 times. The wave pattern was exquisite. The sword was perfect in every way and continued to be so even after it had known many battles and countless years of bloodshed. It was perhaps indestructible.

And there was a legend--that the bearer of the Double Serpent Katana was a protector of great power. But when he heard such stories spoken on a pair of lips somewhere it made him want to smirk. A protector. Really. He put himself in a very different category.

He was a man at times. At times he became a monster. It was all a matter of mood.

He was a priest. He was a sinner. He was an artist. He was a destroyer.

His name was Alek Knight, but in the city by night they called him the Slayer.

TWO

He was in a very dark mood following the fall of the Coven. He had destroyed something.

There had been so much blood spilled for a few pages of parchment with arcane scrawlings upon them. Following these events he went directly to St. Patrick's Cathedral and collapsed like a repentant on the stained stone prayer bench with only the sword to hold him upright. It was ironic. It was as if with the loss of his enclave he must seek another order. They said you could take the boy out of the Catholic Church but not the Catholic Church out of the boy. He believed it. The brimming cold blue lights in the windows, the feel of the lemoned wood, the odor of the centar and melting white candle wax--these things lent him if not peace then a strength, an endurance which kept the eternal sorrow underground for the moment.

For a moment in time he could think. He could think through the grief.

Priests swarmed, good servants of the order, but they instinctively avoided him, giving him a berth worthy of the Pope. He couldn't say he blamed them, the way he looked: haggard and haunted and horrorstruck. He lifted his head to gaze upon the crucified body of the Christ on his blackened wood cross suspended over the altar. Another sacrifice. Another. The candles flickered and the shadows moved like a cloak descending upon the whole of the cathedral, to have it and to hold it to the eternal holy bosom Peter had given it. There was light, but it was small and bitter and the Slayer, in his blood-soiled leather and cords of sweat-slicked long hair, cleaved to it greedily.

He counted the dead. He lighted a candle for Akisha, his sensei, his friend, destroyed by the blind hand of Amadeus for protecting him. He lighted one for his own long-lost Debra, the child of his heart, the woman she became in death, the passionate spirit she was when she returned from death to take from him the love she had always craved. He lighted one for Teresa, temptress, warrior, the vampiress who had fought so hard for the legacy of the Chronicle but died so easily at the hands of the king slayer. Finally, he lighted one for Amadeus himself. He didn't know why he did that, except that despite it all, every pain and every horror, he could not bear for Amadeus to go down into the darkness without a light.

Amadeus, he thought. Black King. Memento mori.

He ran his hands over the blood-slathered hilt of the sword, the blood that was his, spilled by his hand. Parent, teacher, brother, lover--these things remained despite the bitterness and the war, the pettiness and cruelty Amadeus had shown him. Amadeus was a monster because he was born as such and because he was made so. The Slayer prayed at the foot of the altar of votive candles. He prayed for them all, all the lost. He prayed for himself. He prayed for Amadeus. He did not hate his master. He hated himself more. Amadeus was his father. The only one he had ever known. And he had killed him.

And he would have to live with that for the rest of his life.

THREE

Life.

He had chosen life. Now he had to live, if only because not to do so would dishonor the ones who had died for this life he was living.

But it was more than that. Life was a challenge he could not help but recognize. Life challenged him, and to challenge him was a very foolhardly and dangerous thing to do.

In that church the Slayer slowly came back to life. In that church he was chosen by life.

FOUR

Things changed. He changed with them.

He took the Covenhouse as his own. The Chronicle was safely and securely hidden away where no mortal or immortal hands could take it. The sword was his and always had been.

After forty years in service to the Coven, he reentered life, slowly, one tentative step at a time. He felt like a priest just sprung from a strict monastery, but instead of exhilaration, he felt lost.

He would endure. Of course he would. This was a challenge.

He dusted shelves and furniture. He unsheeted portraits. He floated dark purple orchids on water in glass vases throughout the house.

He began wearing streetclothes, perfecting the image of his disguise such as it was: snug jeans and leather jackets and running shoes, good on any terrain--though he had to admit he still preferred his leather greatcoats, silk shirts, thigh-high boots and stainless steel armor. Unfortunately, he got looks wearing this type of gear on the streets or subway, even at night.

At home, he slept on the divan in the library, afraid of the upper rooms of the old house, afraid to go below. He kept candles lit because the darkness was oppressive. Dreams weighed heavily upon him, most of them problem-solving. In one of them he wandered through a maze of cracked mirrors. In another he stacked endless amounts of books into altars that fell down. He slept in his soft velvet dressing gowns. The house was cold with no inside walls (none had ever been set) and he knew he would have to do something about that eventually.

For a while he took solace in his painting. While engaged in his work in the attic loft he wore fine silk dressing gowns or kimonos. He did not think of the past during these times. He painted pictures of temples and broken mirrors. The attic was a fine place to express himself.

FIVE

But actually, in the beginning he had not wanted to remain in this city. For the first time in his life, he wanted to be elsewhere, which was very unusual among his kind. The dhampiri were territorial by nature and seldom chose to leave their native land. Yet he found myself seriously considering leaving this city far behind. But to do so would be tipping his hand to the enemy. The Church would rebuild the Coven here. It would take his house--his house--and he would become a hunted nomad as well as a hunted Rogue. No. He could not allow that. Better to be hunted on his own turf than in someone else's, he thought. He had power here. It was a meager power, to be sure, but it was all he had. So he settled himself into the house and made it his.

By that, he did not simply put his name on a deed and transfer funds to a bank account somewhere and start paying taxes. He made the Covenhouse his. That is, he made it impervious to visitation by others with vampire blood.

It was a relatively simple ceremony. He sliced a minor artery in his wrist and let the black frothy substance which passed for blood drip into a chalice of stainless steel. With the blood he painted the lintels throughout the house after the Jewish fashion (though it was not). No words were needed. The next day he awoke to discover all the mirrors in the house had cracked and all the clocks had stopped. He counted this as a good sign. He was also alone, alone in the sense that the energy the house had collected like a giant battery in almost four hundred years of bloodshed was drained. The house sighed for him and for no one else. The house was truly his, his to fill with his own particular essence. And his essence--what was it? He could imagine it as black leather and shining ermine fur, bittersweet chocolate and rust, bloodied stainless steel and smooth cold glass. He thought, this is who I am when all the layers are stripped away.

A vampire or dhampir would understand what had been done to the Covenhouse. If some creature having vampire's blood in their veins stepped into his home they would at once be grounded and at his mercy. He might not kill such a being, but then again--he might if he was in the right mood.

SIX

Sometime in the months that followed he found himself lounging catlike on the divan in the library, curled up ever so slightly, the black velvet dressing gown draping off the edge of the seat like an endless spill of heart's blood as he considered where he must go from here. He had the house, the Chronicle, the sword. He had his art. But something was missing.

The room was black but for one lone candle lighted on the desk across the room, and it was this golden candle flame he was watching with such rapt interest, his eyes beating at it from a distance like moth wings. He remembered again the church and the candle he had lit for Amadeus among so many others of the dead.

He turned the stem of an empty glass of wine in his hands. In the light of the flame, he watched the crimson drops clinging to the finely-spun crystal like little glowing jewels, like blood.

Amadeus was gone. And he missed him. Almost he craved him.

He hated him and he missed him. He missed their long, passionate conversations over wine, their feverent night-long games of chess. He missed their sparring matches and he missed the touch of Amadeus's cold moon-white hands on his face, seeing him in his blind way, his whispery, wanting kisses and groggy, almost otherwordly voice. Amadeus had betrayed him. Amadeus had destroyed all the good that came before. But if the Slayer chose to disbelieve in what came after, even for a little while, he could pretend these things had not happened and return every little thought to its proper place, like books to their proper placeholders on a broad, invisible shelf.

But nothing was changed. These things had in fact come to pass, hadn't they?

He was alone. He was free.

And he did not know what he wanted.

He felt the edges of some panic brush past him like a dangerous animal.

And then the understanding came over him suddenly. He sat up. He was so startled he dropped the crystal goblet to the floor.

No, he did know what he wanted. He knew what was missing.

He wanted…purpose.

He wanted someone to light a votive candle for him when he died.

He wanted someone to mourn, even if only for a moment, his passing when it came time.

A wind soughed through the empty old house. The flame flickered but did not go out. He felt its warmth even from across the room. The house, the old house, echoed his breathing. The darkness clutched him like a lover and cradled his thoughts.

He wanted what every other man had.

He wanted the impossible.

He wanted miracles. Even black ones.