A Dance at Midnight

They circled each other, their fists up and ready. Dane cracked his neck. Adrian flexed his fingers. Dane lunged forward, but it was a feint; Adrian easily dodged the blow. Twisting his body, he raised his leg and struck the side of the old vampire’s head. Dane stumbled.

Got you.

Taking the few milliseconds Dane took to recover, Adrian pounced. Dane deflected just in time and immediately lobbed a hit that would’ve cracked a human’s nose in three; Adrian merely rolled his shoulders and sent an uppercut to Dane’s chin; Dane spit out a tooth, which flew and landed somewhere on the lawn.

Their bodies became a blur of motion as the two vampires ducked, spun, jabbed, and kicked. One minute and forty-two seconds later, they fell onto the grass with a heavy thunk. Adrian’s arm tightened around Dane’s windpipe, and his legs squeezed Dane’s midriff.

“Adrian is the winner!” As soon as he heard Senar’s voice, Adrian unwound himself from Dane. He stood up, offering a hand to the other vampire.

Dane grasped it. Adrian hefted him up and thumped him on the back. “Good fight,” he said. Dane grunted.

They let go and stood side by side. Senar strode over to them and addressed the audience. “Please give our two competitors another round of applause!”

Adrian raised his fists in the air in a victor’s stance before bending at the waist in a low bow. He hadn’t fought like a human in a while, and he found that he had missed it.

Margaret had wanted to commemorate the way vampires struggled when they first turned: fresh vamplings were nothing more than slightly stronger humans, and this fight memorialized that.

The rules were simple: the older vampires picked whom they wanted to fight against, and the one chosen could not refuse. Once within the circle, they had to let go of their vampiric powers and fight as if they were humans. The one who became incapacitated first lost.

Although Adrian always won during these fights, the memories of being a human never failed to make his head hurt a little. One memory in particular, the day he was turned...

...She was known as Bbalgan Gwisin, or The Red Ghost. At that time in Joseon, “she” had been believed to be a “he” because there was absolutely no way a woman could’ve done what she did.

But a woman could. She did. Worse, he had been an adult when it had happened. Thirty years old, to be exact: he had been a full grown man, and he had still been dumb enough to be tricked by someone like The Red Ghost. She seduced him with her charisma and kindness. The next thing he knew, he was chained to the wall of an underground cave where he met other humans who had been stupid like he had been.

She drank from them all, treating them like nothing more than lumps of flesh because that was what they were. His neck quickly became a watercolor of bruises and was constantly swollen and hot to the touch. The rest of his mind and body, too, began to weaken.

He stayed in that cave for ten years; how he hadn’t died or escaped long before then was a question he had yet to answer. Granted, they’d tried to escape, many times, but she lived in the middle of nowhere and despite her blooddrunkenness, she was faster and stronger than all of them combined...

The thunderous applause and hoots forced him back to the present. Adrian straightened and remembered where he was: on the grass, his chest bare, and victorious.

Senar’s face appeared in his view. “Congratulations, Master Adrian,” she said.

The memory faded into the recesses of his mind. “Oh, that?” he said. “That was my warm up.”

“Quite a long warm up,” she said.

“That took two minutes, Senar.”

“I thought you would’ve had him in one.”

“Now, that’d be no fun to watch at all.”

“Mm.” She turned back to the crowd. “Mistress Clara Walters,” she said, “could you please step into the circle?”

Adrian stepped out of the circle. Óscar, who stood just outside the burnt ring, patted his back and handed him his shirt. Adrian grabbed it but didn’t put it on. The night was clear and fresh; the memory had left him feeling cramped, and the last thing he wanted to do was, literally, button up the feeling.

Clara stepped into the circle amid another round of cheers. The Inuk woman wore a tunic and pants, the material gauzy but not see-through. Her hair was in two long braids.

“Mistress Clara,” Senar said, giving a small obeisance, “who would you like to fight?”

The vampire scanned them. Beside him, Heather clasped her hands, her eyes wide and pleading. “Please pick me, please pick me, please pick me,” she chanted under her breath. Adrian chuckled lightly.

But Clara did not choose Heather - she didn’t choose any of them. Instead, she faced Senar and bowed. To the ground, she said, “I would be honored to fight you, Mistress Senar.”

Adrian’s stomach dropped. Surely, he’d heard wrong. Clara could not compete with Senar; Senar couldn’t - shouldn’t - compete at all.

Except, he didn’t hear wrong. Next to him, Heather let out a sigh, and the others around them murmured in excitement. His stomach fell even further because at that moment, Senar smiled. “I would be honored to fight you, Mistress Clara,” she said.

What the fuck are you doing?!

The applause was deafening. His eyes bore into Senar’s, urging her to stop.

She didn’t stop. They took up positions right then and there. They were going to fight, she was going to bleed, and then everybody was going to know about her, about him, about how he killed his love and-

“Wait!”

Heads snapped toward him. With the sudden attention, Adrian loosened his body so as not to alert anyone to his distress. “I’d like a donatora before we continue. Thirsty and all. In fact, why don’t we all take a short break?”

“I could use some blood,” Óscar said. Bless that spineless idiot.

“Same, I’m thirsty as hell,” Dane complained.

Around them, chatter rose, all of them in agreement for a break.

Senar dropped her fists. “A short break it is,” she said. “Please, everyone go into the mansion and take a rest. We’ll reconvene in thirty.”

The crowd dispersed until the two of them were the only ones standing on the lawn.

“What,” she said, deathly calm, “was that?”

“You can’t fight,” he said. He lowered his voice until it was barely audible. “You’ll bleed.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” she muttered to herself.

“Senar-.” He began, but she cut him off.

“You know what I want most in the world?” She didn’t wait for him to respond. “It’s for the pain to stop-.”

“So what, you want to die?”

“Would that be so bad?” she snapped back. “I think about how many more years I have to live with this condition, and the only thing I feel is dread. Being in constant pain and hiding from everyone and everything...Is that what the rest of my life is going to be like? Why even bother at that point?” She let out a bitter laugh. “Why even bother now?”

A breeze blew, and a strand of ebony hair crept across her forehead. He had the sudden urge to push it back behind her ear. Instead, he said, “I never said it was bad.”

“What are you saying?”

“You just want to give up,” he said.

“I don’t have anything left to live for,” she said quietly. “Jihwa and Hajoon? Gone, because of me. My old life? Gone, because of me. Evangeline becoming a new vampire? Because of me.”

“I don’t know if you remember, but I turned Evangeline,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “Don’t try to take all the credit, Senar.”

She didn’t smile, unfortunately. Instead, she studied him carefully. “Fighting Clara...answers my most desperate wish. I finally have an opportunity to end this. All of it,” she said. “Why shouldn’t I take it?”

“Because we have a deal,” he said.

“The deal’s off.”

“It’s only off when the both of us agree it is.”

“Since when was that ever a condition?”

“Since now.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Look,” he said, “I won’t understand what you’re going through, and I probably never will,” he continued. “But that doesn’t mean you deserve to die.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. When she did, her voice was tired. “I didn’t say I deserved to die, I said I wanted to die. Big difference. Besides,” she said, “why do you even care? If I die, your Celeste is safe.”

True, but the other vampires were smart. “You don’t think they’re going to make the connections?” In one rush of breath, he listed off all the times they could have come across suspicious: When he found her in the library that first night, and they went back to the opening ceremony together and Solomon asked him where they’d gone; when he followed a strange noise down to her bedroom and they talked in broad daylight; when they left the hunt early; when he interrupted the fight right when she was her turn; when they were talking right now...

He shook his head. “No, you won’t die,” he concluded firmly. “I won’t let you.”

“Oh yeah? You’re going to fight for me?”

“Yes,” he said.

She let out a frustrated groan. “You’re forgetting this is the fight: no vampire can fight for another.”

And she was forgetting who he was: he was Adrian Namgung, and he was never not going to do something, especially if he had the power to do anything.

He closed the distance between them. Senar was a tall woman, but she had to crane her neck to look at him. This time, though, the height difference wasn’t his way of asserting his dominance; this time, he wanted her to truly see him and understand that what he was going to say next, he meant it with all his old, dead heart.

“I won’t let you die,” he said. Because then you will, and I will, and Celeste will. All over again. “That’s a promise.”

Without waiting for a response, he walked away, a plan already forming in his mind.

“Who’s been here the longest?” Adrian asked. The butler - Harvey? Henry? Hunter? - stared blankly at him. “Answer me when I’m talking to you.”

The lowly vampire gave him the tiniest of bows. “His name is Elias, Master Adrian.”

“Where can I find this Elias?”

“Outside, Master Adrian.”

Adrian gritted his teeth. He had fought earlier, but he itched to fight again. This time, it would take only ten seconds to overpower the excuse of a vampire standing in front of him. “Where outside?”

“On the third floor balcony with Mistress Gia-.”

Adrian didn’t linger to hear the rest of the sentence. He took the stairs two at a time. He found Giana easily enough. She lounged with four other donatori curled around her; she was regaling them with tales of her days as a Hollywood starlet.

Sensing Adrian, Giana stopped mid-sentence. She was smoking, the pipe held between two delicate fingers; she blew out a puff now. “If it isn’t The Bleeder,” she said.

He bowed dramatically as he stepped onto the balcony. Up this high, the stars appeared brighter. “Can’t have you hogging all the good ones,” he said. He winked at the donatori around her; they descended into giggles. He grabbed Giana’s outstretched hand and pressed his lips against the back of it. Underneath the musk of tobacco, she smelled like summer flowers and fresh berries.

Giana’s bright red lips curled upward. “Sharing is caring,” she remarked.

“I’m glad you agree,” he said. He let go of her hand and straightened.

Giana waved her hand at the donatori who looked up at him in earnest patience. “Take your pick. Except for Nadan.” She curled an arm around a donator with freckled skin and striking blue eyes. “He’s mine.” Nadan tittered and pressed himself against Giana’s side.

One female and two males remained. Adrian couldn’t tell who was whom; he hadn’t asked, and the butler hadn’t clarified. He shoved away his annoyance. “Who here is Elias?”

A man, an older human, slim and with close-cut brunette curls, stood up. “I’m here, Master Adrian.”

“Wonderful,” Adrian said. He offered a hand, and Elias took it.

“Have fun,” Giana said. Her fingers fluttered in a wave.

The two men left Giana and descended to the second floor. Adrian’s plan was not going to work if they were on the first or third floor.

The second floor balcony was empty. Below, the broad lawn stretched across into the line of trees ahead. A circle burned into the grass was noticeable in the far corner, where he had talked with Senar earlier. An owl hooted nearby.

“I’ve been told that you have been with Mistress Senar the longest,” he said to Elias. Both men stood in front of the balcony railing.

“That is correct, Master Adrian,” Elias said.

“How did you meet her?” Adrian asked. He moved behind the donator and traced along the back of Elias’ neck. The donator shuddered ever so slightly.

“She saved me from my previous Master. He’d been abusing me.”

Adrian’s fingers stilled; their stories were similar. Unlike Elias, however, Adrian saved himself and became a vampire afterward. “That must’ve been difficult,” he said. He continued his tracing.

“I try not to think of the past,” Elias said. “Especially when I’m happy here, with Mistress Senar. I owe her my life.”

Adrian stopped his tracing. You owe her your life, you say?

Adrian leaned in, his breath tickling the spot below the donator’s ear. “Then,” he said as Elias gasped, “you’ll do anything for your Mistress?”

The donator bent his head in subservience. His heart thudded loudly, and anticipation practically vibrated off him. “Anything.”

Adrian grinned. “Good,” he said.

He planted his palms flat against the donator’s shoulder blades and pushed.