Silver

Seth shivered as a cold finger ran down his spine. “Seth,” she purred. Her voice had such a deep tone to it. Husky. Sexual. She knew it, too.

“Silver.”

“Well, pet? Which one do you fancy?” She licked her lips, crimson as the blood she drank. Tantalizing. “Which one excites you?” She lingered on the word ‘excites’ and drew it out, enunciating each syllable. The T sounded exotic as she spoke it around her long fangs. 

Seth tore his eyes away from her, and gazed at the items lying on tables, lining walls, hanging from racks hooked into the ceiling. All musical instruments. 

Symbols and drum kits. Accordions of every kind. Flutes and clarinets. Trumpets and trombones. 

A kazooie. His eyes crinkled as they gazed at the small noisemaker, but he continued to peruse the room. 

Guitars, banjos, harps, lutes, lyres. Violins and basses. Pianos. Even a marimba tucked away in the corner. Instruments that he couldn’t name, much less figure out how they worked. If he had to hazard a guess, Silver had just about every type of musical instrument contained within this room. After all, she’d had centuries to create the collection. 

“Careful with your choice,” she murmured. She didn’t even have to say it. This was just another test. A torment, really, to make him agonize over whether she would finally bring him into the coven if he only made the right choice. Gained her approval once again. 

He’d sought her out. And in return, she had only played hard-to-get. 

“Something transportable,” he said aloud. “Preferably small, so I’m not lugging it around.”

“Make the right choice, and weight won’t be an issue,” she reminded him. 

“It has more to do with obscurity.” He smiled, picturing himself walking through town with an enormous octobass case slung over his shoulder. Compensating? No, thank you.

She nodded, bringing him away from the side of the room filled with huge instruments meant to stay in place in one lonely room for years. 

A recorder? Too simple. A guitar? Please, his name wasn’t Chad. A ukulele? Cute. 

A violin? Maybe. He wanted something he could dance with and sing along to. 

And then he saw it. It was painted gold. Body made of elegant nickel-silver. It had ten strings made of gut, each wound around a twistable peg for tuning. The pegs lined a long thin metal crossbar that ran the top of the object. The crossbar was held up by an arm on each side, both running down to the soundbox. The strings met at the soundbox as well, held in place by a simple bridge in the middle. 

It looked plain, save for the hand strap— made of sturdy hemp, tirelessly worked with bees wax until it felt smooth to the touch. The cords were dyed in the colours of soft lilac and ebony black, or bleached to an almost-white, and carefully braided into a dragon’s tail pattern. 

He picked it up carefully, holding the strap in one hand. 

“Ah, a lyre.” Silver sounded approving. “Is that what you choose?”

Seth held the instrument to his chest. “Yes.” 

“Very well. Then I will teach you.”

He sputtered. “You?”

“Well, if you’d chosen something more commonplace— a guitar or a piano— I might have asked someone else from the coven to… educate you.” She winked. “But there aren’t many who have already mastered this one.” She walked past him, heading toward the exit. “Besides,” she tossed over her shoulder as she crossed the threshold, “I have already decided that I like you.” She smiled cruelly. “And I don’t share well.”

He remained in the room, torn between looking at his new instrument and staring after her exposed back— she wore an elegant low-backed dresses with a long tight skirt. Strings of beads draped from her shoulders, cascading down around her spine. 

Her silky voice echoed from the hallway. “Are you coming?” 

He swallowed, held his new lyre closer to his chest, and then trotted after Silver. 

Silver glanced over her shoulder as he caught up. “Tonight, after dinner, you will receive your first lesson in my bower. When we are done, you will stay and we will exchange blood, among other things.” She smiled provocatively. “By tomorrow night, you will be one of us.”

“How do you think you should hold that lyre, Seth?” She asked it, and it sounded so sweet. But there was an underlying threat— she could still change her mind. 

Seth sat down on the feather-soft four-poster bed and held the instrument in one arm. 

“Are you left-handed?” He shook his head, and she made a tutting sound. Standing over him, she took it gently in her own hands. “You are holding it in the wrong arm.” She placed it on his other side. “You want to pluck the string with your right hand, and hold it on your left arm.

“For tuning, traditionally, the deeper notes will be on the strings farther away from you.” She tilted her chin, gesturing for him to try. “It should already be tuned to someone who is right-handed. Pluck some strings.” She pursed her lips. “How dextrous are your fingers, Seth?”

He wrenched his gaze away from hers and pulled a single string until the solitary note faded into silence. And then he did it again with the next one. 

When he had finished, she nodded. “Good. I will teach you more about strumming later. For now…” She lifted her own lyre off of a table nearby the bed. “...Do as I do.”

For two hours, she would pluck a pattern of strings, and he would follow her lead. They took no breaks. If his tempo didn’t match hers, or if he made an error with one of the notes, she would repeat the same pattern until he got it again. He went from patterns that consisted of only three notes, to managing a fifteen-note composition by the end of the session. 

“Is this traditionally how musicians learn?” he asked. 

She only smiled. “I have no idea. I am self-taught. I learned by listening and repeating.”

“Do you know how to read sheet music?”

“Of course. But you should have plenty of time to learn that later.” She bared her teeth, and her canines looked extra sharp in the flickering candle light. “Speaking of later, this lesson is over. It’s time.”

He felt a rock drop into the pit of his stomach. The time was finally here, and now he was struck with nerves? He wasn’t some fresh virgin. He knew his way around a bed, and he at least had an idea of what it took to turn— he’d done his research after all. 

All the same, Silver made him nervous. 

She took his lyre and set it beside her own, atop a chest on the far side of the room. As she walked with a feline grace back over to the bed, she dropped one article of clothing after another, until there was nothing except her long wavy auburn hair and a pair of knee-high leather stiletto boots. 

She was beautiful with porcelain-doll skin, silky hair, a voluptuous body and glowing eyes the colour of an angry sunset. And she knew she was beautiful, too. Inhumanly beautiful. 

He felt a pang. Somehow, the thought made him ache for his golden one. Ora. So perfectly human, despite being destined to become a goddess. Sweet. Honest. 

He wouldn’t describe Silver that way— human. And he suspected that if anyone dared to, they would meet an unpleasant end. 

Her lips curved up, and she crawled onto the bed on top of him. She started unbuttoning his shirt. 

“Are you shy all of a sudden, Seth?” she crooned. “I didn’t take you for the type.”

It took only a heartbeat to reorder his thoughts, and then he smiled sardonically back at her. “No, lady. Just figuring out which type is yours.” His shirt lay open, chest bared. 

She made a small playful growl. “I like seeing strong men suffer.” And with that, she pinned him down by the throat with one strong hand. She used the other to wrench his head to the side, exposing his neck. He sucked in a breath. “By the end of the night, I want your beautiful chestnut hair as red as mine. Filled with our bloods, intertwined. What do you say?”

Before he could answer, she bit down on his neck. Her fangs plunged into his vein. 

It hurt. He didn’t know it would hurt this much. 

Those vampire fanatics —the ones with the fetishes— they’re all idiots.

The minutes when she bent over his neck were agonizing. Whenever she pulled away, he felt too weak to move. So she would fill the time between nips with invasive questions. “Why do you want to be one of us so badly, Seth?”

“Curiosity.”

“Don’t make me laugh, Seth. You're a man who knows his goals. I can tell. And I get the feeling you’ll do anything to meet them.”

And Seth got the feeling —thoughts sluggish as they were— that she would bait him with whatever answer he gave her. “Doing some personal research.”

“Oh?”

“Like I said.” He swallowed. “Curiosity.”

“Curiosity killed the cat, you know.”

“And—”

“Don’t give me some drivel about satisfaction and resurrecting animals.” She leaned down to his neck again. “You’re trifling with vampire’s now, little kitten. I’m more likely to kill you, than I am to turn you. I might decide not to bring you back, little kitten.” She licked his neck, and moaned a little bit. Gods be damned. “Whether you received my approval or not— you did by the way. But, maybe I don’t want to share you. Maybe I will kill you now, so you can stay this way in my memories, forever.” Her mouth hovered over his neck, and he could feel her cool breath on his skin. “After all, you are such a tasty little morsel.”

She latched on and drained him once again. 

When Seth had his senses back, Silver was coming away from his neck, breathing heavily. She looked beautifully feral as she towered over him. “It’s a little hard to control myself.” He could believe it. Her eyes were unfocused, and so incredibly dilated— only a fraction of her iris could be seen in the dim light. Frenzied. “Why don’t you beg me for your life, Seth?”

“I need to live, Silver.”

“That doesn’t sound like begging, little kitten.”

“Please.”

“What’s worth living for?”

Ora’s return. “Experiences.”

“That’s it?”

Seeing Ora happy. “I want to travel the world.”

“You could have achieved that during your remaining human lifetime. Try again.”

Keeping Ora safe. “I want to know what it means to be strong.” 

“Doesn’t everyone?” 

Saying goodbye, for real this time. “I want to learn everything there is to learn.”

She smiled. “You’re getting warmer.”

Redemption— No, stop thinking! Just give her what she wants to hear. “I want you.” 

Her breath hitched, and she lowered herself on top of him. He could feel the pleasure radiating off of her. “Maybe you are worth keeping,” she whispered against his neck.

He could only manage a guttural, “Please.”

“Maybe not.”

“Please.”

“Make me a deal.”

“Anything.”

“You’ll stay with me for what would have been the rest of your human lifetime, at least.” She simpered. But he saw through the lie— “I’ll have you until the world ends, if I can convince you.” —Silver doesn’t feel self-consciousness. She feels greed. 

Laughing was an effort. He felt so tired. But he pushed a small chuckle out, all the same. “That’s all you want from me?”

“I’d say fifty-five years. I’m a good judge when it comes to these things. But then again, let’s make it fifty-seven, just to be on the safe side. You’ll be expected to perform certain… tasks.”

“Just call me ‘errand boy.’ All yours,” he said drowsily.

“Don’t close your eyes.”

He tried to keep them open, but they felt weighed down by invisible coins. 

She patted his cheek, roughly. It hurt. He opened his eyes once more. “Your eyes… They remind me of the night sky on an overcast, moonless night.” Her voice was softer than he’d ever heard it. Just a whisper. 

He only murmured, “Black, you mean?” 

“Almost black, little kitten.” He felt something press against his lips. Her wrist? “Now drink, pet.”

When he next woke, she was lying on her back next to him, hands propping her head up and eyes wide open, staring at the bed’s canopy overhead. 

He shifted to get a better look at her, and winced. He ached everywhere. And his head… even the worst hangovers he’d endured came nowhere close. 

She remained prone, but lay her elbow on his chest so her wrist hovered above his face. “You’ll need more of my blood.”

His lips felt dry and cracked, and his throat was sore. Even still, he snickered. “No more teasing?”

There was a husky laughter in her voice as she said, “Do you want more?”

No. “Of course.”

She shifted in the bed so she lay on top of him again. “Good.” She leaned in and kissed him softly. “But you’ll have to wait, I’m afraid.” She lifted her wrist to her mouth and bit in. It made the sound of a ripe peach dribbling juice down a chin on a warm summer’s day. And then she held it to Seth’s mouth again. “Now drink.”

He drank. 

Seth opened his eyes. “Hello, little kitten.” He felt bleary, but after frantic blinking, he could see Silver clearly. “I’ve changed my mind.” What? “I’m not willing to share.” No. She husked a laugh. “Fresh terror after a deep sleep is so… delicious.” She licked her lips. “Mmm… I can smell it on you. That fear.”

When he tried to push her away from his neck, she overpowered him. He struggled. He could do nothing against her. 

He started to scream, raw as his throat was. She shoved her fingers in his mouth. She continued to cling to his neck, like a stubborn tick. 

Fight back.

He bit down on her hand and started to suck. The taste of copper filled his mouth. 

She pulled away from him, and struck. “Don’t you dare defy me.” Her eyes glowed, feral once again. “I can take everything away from you.” She sneered. “Don’t forget it, little kitten.” 

“Pets aren’t for killing,” he mumbled, left cheek and eye already swelling. 

“Touché.” 

He was so tired. He closed his eyes only for a moment, he thought. 

“Rest now, little kitten.”

Seth didn’t know how long he slept after that. His dreams were bright, vivid. Images of a girl with golden-blonde hair and sad grey eyes, too young to part from the world. Too wise to be of this earth. 

A girl surrounded by flowers of every kind, with beautiful petals resting atop her head. A girl dancing in the perfumed wind under a benevolent sun. A girl with dirt beneath her nails. A girl who’s personality could be as warm as a hearth on a cold winter night, or as cold as a mountain stream.

When Seth awoke, he was alone. And everything was sharper. 

He noticed details that his eyes hadn’t pereived before— the small whorls of the cherrywood that Silver had all her furniture carved from. The elegant pattern of lotus flowers and vines etched into her ebony lyre, sitting on the chest. 

Smells were more crisp, too. Across the room, some dried potpourri rested in a silver dish. The scent of last night’s blood —he hadn’t noticed the sweet aroma before— wafted up his nose. Their sex, too, was a lingering odor in the sheets and the pillows.

He grimaced, and he felt his canines —elongated and sharper— as his lips pulled back. He still felt mentally exhausted, but it was the only weakness he could detect. He stood up. He was incredibly aware of his body, every limb’s placement. Movement was an efficient work of artistry. He walked across the room and gently picked up his lyre, lovely and gold with a colorful wrist strap. He knew he could bend it in his hands in an instant. He could break it, if he chose to. 

Instead, he looped the strap over his left hand and played. The notes were so loud in his ears, so pure. He could understand how Silver had learned by hearing, loathe as he was to admit any commonality with her. He let his fingers pluck strings, and the tune that came out was simple but angry. He put all of the loathing he felt into that song. Loathing for himself, for Silver and what she had done with him— to him last night.

“Bravo.” He whirled around. Even with his newly-found senses, Silver’s footfalls were silent as the darkness. 

“Get out.”

Unfazed, she waved her hand as if brushing away a small web as she walked. “You’re in my room.” She smiled lazily. “Leave, if you wish.” She was already at his side. She grabbed his wrist. “But know, I would adore an encore to that lovely little diddy you just played.”

When he went to walk away, her grip tightened. “Just don’t forget the deal we struck last night.”

Fifty-seven years. 

“I’ll see you again this evening, for another lesson. On strumming.” 

“Is that all?” he spat out. 

“Oh, that malice.” She bared her teeth at him threateningly. “I can’t wait for you to beg for my mercy again tonight, little kitten.” With that, her face assumed its usual leer. She let go of his wrist. Sharp bruises, five fingerprints, were already forming. “There’s a girl in the kitchen if you’re hungry.” She gave him a little finger wave, unbuttoned her white blouse with ruffles on her shoulders and lining the low neckline, stripped off her tight black capris, and then flopped onto her bed, auburn hair splayed everywhere and pooling on her chest.

Seth turned away from the bed, hands clenched. “I want my own room, for when I am not to be in yours.” He left. 

She laughed after him as he closed the door. “Demanding little pet.”

He did get his own room, and after he had learned to strum his lyre, after he had enough skill to play more than just basic tunes, he composed a song. A song for a girl with eyes the color of storm clouds and hair the color sunlight, with rosy cheeks and a smile so warm it would get him through these cold times.