Stuck in Alexandria.  Nothing good to do.  Waiting for a plane, Mother had said.  Apparently certain parts of the world had a shortage of these vehicles.  They ought to ask the USNA for some, Trepidation thought as he sucked in smoke.  Americans are always so willing to help their pitiful human brethren across the ocean, eager even, much more so than they were to help their fellow Americans.

     At least he'd get to see his father again.  When they found a plane in this lugubrious place then they'd fly to Poland.  Trip had been almost happy at the thought of going back to Berlin, but Mother had told him Father had moved to Poland again.  Father was usually pretty kewl. Well, when he was around. The vampires called him Sweet.  Trip never called his father Sweet, it sounded pretty kinky to him, that name.

     The door opened.  Yellow light fell on Trepidation.  "Verdammte Scheiße!" he coughed.

     "Don't you curse at me—Are you still smoking those marijuana cigarettes?"

     "Ja," Trip sighed.

     "We're going to church, you want to come to church?"  David was behind her.  They were dressed all in black, very formal. 

     "Church?  You never go to church."

     "Well, this is Alexandria, everyone goes here, I thought I would try it.  At least get out of bed.  You can lay in bed all day and night and be in New York.  Do you want to go back there?"

     "I'm not going to church."

     The door was shut.  Trepidation flicked off the door.  The crunch of cigarette ground into glass.  Trepidation ran his fingers up through his stiff hair, scanned the surfaces of the room for clothing.  It was all black, not so much by choice.  They'd dressed him in what they could fit him in as a baby, and the vampires had all worn black.  Now Trepidation just seemed to gravitate toward the color, toward its absoluteness, its darkness. 

     He pulled on a few wrinkled dusty pieces of cotton, stepped into a pair of boots some soldier had probably died in.  The war had ended when he was still a kid, but, in the family, the people, clothes were passed down and shared.  The Goths, the vampires, all his mother and father's people had worn clothing salvaged from battlefields.  Trip opened the window and jumped into the night.

     There was a slight staleness, a scent that Trip knew came from him, because the open air outside was so beachy.  But he guessed it might only be the clothes.  He didn't smell much, didn't have that animal smell that the humans did.  It kept him slovenly, this knowledge, and it had made certain visiting vampires ask his mother and her maker if Grunge weren't coming back. 

     Trepidation walked over the wide walkway of pebble, sand and shell.  He noticed this, but not much else, though he knew somewhere inside his mind that the Capital and Haven of Alexandria was supposed to be one big modern wonder of the world.  He walked up the stairs to the library, not really caring that it was the library, but not wanting to go back toward the church. 

     A familiar sound, as if in greeting.  Trepidation had come to associate this close plastic sound with his mother.  Fingers tapping at a keyboard.  These were always much more popular than the weird silent boards, the sound helped you count characters.  Trepidation followed the tapping and came close.  It was just the other side of these shelves, and Trip peered between the spaces books were missing from wanting to see who was making this sound.

     He found a way through and walked slowly along the tall case of shelves watching the dark-haired human man he approached.  The man went tense, it killed Trip's spirit.  He'd seen this happen so many times before.  This was the other thing Mother never talked about: the obvious fact that Trepidation's proximity frightened people, and he was not in control of it.  The man scried into the black parts of the monitor before him and a smile flickered over Trepidation's lips as he realized the man was hunting a reflection. 

     "Hello," said Trepidation.

     The hairs were standing on the man's neck.  He turned though.  He was a man who had once been rather beautiful.  Trepidation already knew this art of looking into humans.  You could see in their faces what they had once been and what they would become.  This was a tall, thin man who had always been a tall, thin creature.  His hair was soft and black, with a few strands of gray.  And there was a smell about him, a twinkle in his black eyes that told Trepidation he was aging slowly as result of drinking small amounts of Vampyre blood over years, but that it had never been enough to turn him.   Trepidation realized he recognized the face.  "You're my grandfather," he said.  But he knew it wasn't technically true.  He'd adopted Claudia, not fathered her.

     "Trepidation...I have not seen you in a long time.  Claudia said you would not come from your room.  I'm happy to see you."

     Well, maybe some part of him was happy, the rest was frightened.  And Grandfather had that same accent Mother had, Parisian. 

     "You are growing to look a lot like your father..."

     Trepidation raised one shoulder in a shrug.  He heard this a lot, though it wasn't so much true, he was also growing to look a lot like his mother.  But, what people really meant when they said this was that Trepidation was growing into someone tall and frighteningly thin and so strangely beautiful that he might inspire something near madness in a nation.  This was what they meant, because Father had frightened a lot of people when he ran away from the Vampyres with Mother, and inspired the children of Europe to follow him.  Power like that, to unite the nations of Europe single-handedly; it terrified people.

     And they'd given Father the Nobel Peace Prize for it.  Unwittingly made him the first Darkling to ever be awarded such an honor.  The story served to amuse Trepidation.  So little still amused him. 

     "I'm hardly so subversive as he was," Trepidation said.  He saw his Grandfather, Louis, would ask him about Father and did not want to go on about him.  "What are you doing there?" he asked and leaned toward the terminal. 

     Louis turned stiffly toward his computer.  "I monitor—"

     "Aww, you're in the underground boards, checking up on real subversives, huh?  KKK, Secret Christian Brotherhood, Rowan, Psychic Dicks...?"

     "Yes, this is my job, to get into their circles and look for trouble spots."

     "Don't so much need a computer for that," Trip said, "It's just logic.  The militant Catholics left Spain and Gaul for Northern Africa...I don't wonder now why the security's so tight here.  The southern American States, England, Central Goth...the Rowan are still operating underground there."

     "No trouble in Moscow," Louis said.

     "Nah, the Pope lives there, they're all so formal and diplomatic in their protests against the Union."

     "Maybe you should be filing the reports instead of me."

     "No chance." Trip stepped back and snapped a salute off his hairline. 

     Louis seemed to squint then returned the salute.  "Goodbye, Trepidation," he said.

     Trip went from the library.  Nothing good to do. 

     He went around the church to the main entrance and stepped inside.  The Vampyres were performing their ceremony, quite a lot of them were gathered.  He walked about the ambulatory to the other side of the church and watched from behind one of the large columns.  The one leading the ceremony was Christian, Trip had seen him a few times, he was a brother-in-blood to the one who was leader of the Union.  He saw his mother and David, and the one who had made David.  But Father wasn't there.  None of the Poland circle were there, mostly the old ones.

     "Well come this night," said Christian.

     "Well come this night," the others repeated.  And then the ceremony was concluded.  Mother and David got up, moved with the others toward the large door behind Trip where the Leader of the Union lived. 

     David's maker, the one they called Orchid, stopped David. Mother moved away, but Trip watched David.  The tall blonde Vampyre was whispering to David.  David, Trip thought, wanted to say yes to whatever was being asked, but instead he shook his head sadly and said, "Not yet."

     Trip sighed and rolled his back to the column.  It was apparent Orchid wanted David to come back to live in Karachi with him.  If David went, then Mother and Father would be together, without David always at Mother's arm.  Trip could live with them, his parents.  It probably wouldn't happen, Trip wasn't so lucky.

     He walked through the doors after the last of the vampires.  They were passing glasses of blood around and chatting.  Parody of a Christian Sunday brunch after church.  Orchid was near David and Mother, touching David.  Trip skulked toward them.  "Ya got any real food in this place?" he asked.

     The Vampyres laughed.

     But their Lord, the old one called Shade, he was silent, and that made the others stop laughing.  "There's a kitchen two rooms that way," he said softly and pointed out a door. 

     Trepidation moved close to Orchid, looked up while keeping his head low so that he looked fantastically cynical and bored.  The fear never hit Vampyres badly.  "Can I bum a cigarette off ya?"            

     Orchid smiled at the American, he was himself American, originally.  Trip thought the smile was one of those crazy smiles fashion dolls wore.  Orchid placed his goblet in Trips hand then opened his jacket and produced an elegant gold cigarette case.  He made a sort of nod that encouraged Trip to take a drink as he put two cigarettes to his lips.  Trip sipped a mouthful of blood and reeled.  It must have been human blood.  Mother's deft fingers wrested the glass from him.  

     Orchid pressed the cigarette to Trepidation's lips.  Trip drew on it, tasted smoke and sugar and spice.  He licked his lips slowly.  It was a clove, but not like the one's he'd been smoking, the ones imported into America.  It was probably from Indonesia, all kinds of interesting adulterates, not mere weeds, but good stuff.  In any case it tasted really good, and gave him a buzz right away, and made every tainted breath slow and deep.  Trip glared up at David as he exhaled in a mock kiss, blew hair from his eyes with the same effort.  David looked sick.

†  †  †  

The night's were still long, the days short and early to end, and so Sweet woke in the late afternoon.  He knew that it was Christmas Eve this night.  He'd gone to bed with a small pain inside him, their fast already begun.  They wouldn't eat until it was Christmas, he had to wait until midnight had passed. 

     He didn't like all the religious days.  Even when he had been mortal, he'd hated lent for the fasting.  It seemed to be worse in his immortal life and he moaned into Velvet's ear.  She didn't wake, but Sweet felt Estasi's hand moving along his back. 

     "Awake too, My Sweet?" she asked and ran a finger down his spine.  It only made him squeeze the small woman in front of him more tightly.  He opened his mouth and breathed on Velvet's ear.  And then his teeth closed on the top of her ear.  He heard her moan in her sleep as Estasi's tongue lapped at his neck. 

     Sweet turned then.  He lay on his back and looked at Estasi.  She lay half over him, smudges of brown and black make-up on her low eyelids, tongue licking at her lips.  She was beautiful and he felt pretty evil.  He felt a strangeness in that he'd been a most devout Catholic until Velvet had come into his life, devoted to her until Claudia had made love to him, so devout to her that he'd led all of Europe toward unification for her, until David had turned her, and the baby.  And when he had wanted to die, Claudia had come out into the snow after him, clothed him with her body, fed him with her blood.  All the goodness in him had died.

       It was so warm under the heavy blankets.  Sweet did not want to leave the bed if he would have to fast, and especially not with the two beautiful female Vampyres there.  He slipped a hand under Velvet's sleeping body and turned her toward them.  Her eyes opened just slightly and Sweet watched her kiss Estasi.  There was no kissing on the mouth, that was cheating the fast.  Oh, they came close. 

     The door opened and Angelo stood staring at them.  "Estasi, where's my panettone?" he cried.

     "Ah!" screamed Estasi, "Is it so late?"

     Angelo glared at his sister-in-blood  "Guests are going to be coming in soon. All of you get out of bed."

     A series of languid movements of pale lean limbs.  Sweet zipped Velvet into her green velvet gown.  She dreamily caressed the leather trim of his jacket.  She had bought these clothes down in Zakopane for them before the war.  Sweet had become so conditioned by her that the mere sight of this emerald green dress was the cruellest of torments.  He loved her in it.  Or this was a close to real love as he got now. 

     Sweet would have fell to the floor and kissed her slippered feet if Angelo had not slipped arms about Sweet's waist.  He whispered that Daerick was brooding in the dining room, they should go comfort him. 

     "He just hates Christmas," Velvet said haughtily, "That is the most annoying thing about Daerick: that he's a Satanist.  Why he can't despise all religions equally, as I do, I don't know."

     "Despise Catholicism?" Estasi screamed, "It's a perfectly romantic religion, isn't it, Sweet?"

     "Perfectly masochistic," he muttered as he gazed at Velvet's throat. 

     Angelo led them down the main stair.  It was covered with cobwebs as always and they passed carefully through the breaks in the web, appearing to anyone who should watch to pass through undisturbed web.  Just like the movies. 

     Daerick was in the Dining room, by the fire, face shadowed by the two wings of his chair. Daerick often seemed a permanent fixture of this room.  If he was not here he was sleeping in the secret rooms of the basement crypt, or sitting before a like fire in the upstairs parlor.  Daerick disliked large open spaces and light.  Sweet admired that Daerick was the most sensible of their coven, but he did not worship him as Estasi and Angelo. 

     "Ah, good evening," he said in a low even tone as Sweet entered with Velvet and Angelo from the kitchen.  Daerick was that sort of vampire.  He was listening to the Christmas music that came from shadow shrouded speakers with chin resting on the points of his index fingers.  He didn't have long fingernails as Sweet and the girls did.

     "Daerick," murmured Sweet. He stood before the long table with half a bale of straw left over from a Halloween Party and a dinner plate. 

     "Hey, Daerick," Angelo sang.

     Sweet removed the plate from one end of the table and replaced it, he put the first one down beside it on a corner.  He began throwing the straw onto the tabletop then.  He was nearly finished when he heard Estasi's scream.  "What are you doing?"

     "Lord, this isn't some tradition meant to remind us of Bethlehem?" Daerick groaned.

     "Well what is that?" Sweet screamed back at Estasi.  The Italian Christmas cake he knew from Angelo's descriptions, but the long slimy things...

     Estasi set the platters down on the straw strewn tabletop.  "Eel."

     "You don't serve eel at Christmas!"

     "We always ate eels at Christmas...we never threw grass all over the table!"

     Angelo reached for the panettone.  Estasi slapped his hand.   

     "Straw.  Like in the manger."

     She screamed again.  "Sweet, what are you doing to my table?  Can't you leave this to a woman?  What is that plate doing there, it doesn't match?"

     "We were out of matching ones."

     "You invited someone else?"

     "Estasi!  One always sets an extra place at Christmas for the Christ child."

     "Stupid Polocks!  That's Easter."

     "Damned Italians!"

     Daerick laughed loudly.  Sweet turned to glare at him knowing Estasi was also.  "Darklings, that's Passover.  The Jews set an extra place for Elijah at the Passover Seder."

     "And at Christmas you set one for the Christ child," Sweet insisted.

     "We never did that in Italy."

     "Well we never ate eel for Christmas in Poland!"

     Daerick laughed weakly.  "I have one consolation, eh?  Celebrating this damn holy day causes you to fight with each other."

     "They really eat eel for Christmas in San Marino?" Velvet asked. 

     Sweet turned to the other end of the table and looked at her.  Sometimes she just didn't seem to be on the same planet.  And then the low dong of their door bell.  Estasi and Velvet ran off to greet their guests.   Sweet looked over the table, it all looked in order to him.  Angelo stuck his fingers in the Christmas cake and stuffed his mouth.  "She's going to know you did it."

     "She made it for me," Angelo said through sticky pointed teeth.  Angelo was a weird one.  The fangs hadn't been enough for him, he'd filed his other teeth into points.  He was always eating junk, though it always came up later.  And he was generally careless and unguarded.   One of those "Take that book away from him" Vampyres; that was what Velvet called Daerick and Angelo. Different books, presumably. 

     Sweet shrugged to himself.  Some Vampyres thought those who smoked weird, and he smoked.  He looked up and saw the guests come in, Velvet with her human friend Miska, Velvet walked right to Daerick and set something small and white in his hand.  "Look what Miska gave me," she smiled wickedly.  Daerick looked as frightened as Sweet had ever seen him get.  Sweet looked hard at the thing in his hand, a small wafer.  It looked like an oplatki. 

     "It's oplatki," said Miska, "We pass them to friends.  For good luck, eh?"

     "Sangre Drax!  You never heard of greeting cards?"

     Velvet broke a wafer in half and placed it on Daerick's tongue.  Was she mad?  She watched Daerick squirm, as cruel as she had ever been with Sweet.  He rushed over to them and yelled at Miska for giving Velvet the oplatki.  But Miska and Velvet only laughed as Miska explained to Sweet in Polish that this wasn't the blessed sort.

     "I thought it was," Sweet sighed.

     "Was what?" Daerick asked.

     "I thought for a moment they'd given you one of the blessed wafers...but don't worry, it wasn't."

     Daerick rose slowly and went to the other guests.  He said hello to Wanda but embraced her brother Thad.  Two of the Wolfbreed had come also.  Together they all sat down at the table. There was plenty to eat: strange Italian dishes Estasi had made, almost traditional Polish fare, vegetarian dishes Thad and Wanda had brought to please Velvet, and the roast turkey and lamb that the two wolves had brought. 

     Sweet and Daerick were given the seats either side of Velvet, who sat at the head of the table, being the oldest.  Daerick refused to eat any food, knowing it was unnatural for a vampire to partake of these things, yet he drank a glass of wine. Daerick kept looking at that empty seat.  It amused Sweet slightly, knowing how Christianity was so unsettling to Daerick.

     No one noticed that place being taken.  No one noticed until the place set for the Christ child had been filled and then it was everyone taking notice at once.  One moment the place was eerily empty and Velvet was pouring wine into the glass before Daerick which she had already filled halfway with her own blood, and Sweet was looking at the smear of blood on her wrist as he lit a clove.  In the very next instant Daerick was coughing the mixture from his mouth and Sweet was turning to look down the table at the serene but most strange youth dressed in white. 

     "I see you set a place for me, Father," said the boy.  And then everyone must have noticed because a murmuring came up.  "Alrhight, so when's somebody gonna pass the fatted calf down this way?" asked Trepidation and grabbed the nearest wine bottle to himself. 

     Sweet felt the familiar grip on his left shoulder, saw Velvet and Daerick looking up with their best jaded looks.   "Excuse me," said Sweet flatly, "This is my son, Trepidation."  He turned slowly then and saw Claudia and David standing behind him, hated that they were good at cloaking themselves. 

     Velvet rose and brought two more chairs in from the kitchen. 

     Claudia sat at Sweet's side, David sat between Velvet, who was his sister-in-blood, and Daerick.  Daerick didn't like that the seat beside velvet had been stolen from him.  Sweet really didn't know which was older, David or Daerick, but he knew that Daericks maker was both older and made by an older vampire. 

     "Merry Christmas," said Trepidation.

†  †  †

Mara woke already afraid.  She had a bad cold feeling hanging about her.  When she saw she was alone in the room that had been her mother's she shivered.  Only a couple of weeks ago she had first discovered the room empty.  Mary was gone, and so were her things.  When Mara had demanded Thierry tell her what happened to her mother he had only said to her, "She wasn't your mother." 

     Now Mara awoke for the first time in this room, Mother's room.  Last she remembered she had been playing in the nursery with her brother Emile. . . and Thierry had asked her to come downstairs with him. 

     Thierry had done something to her!  The thought suddenly hit Mara, hard.  She choked and ran to the mirror.  She still looked herself, a tall dark-skinned thirteen year old girl with deep green eyes and long braided hair.  As if in a fit Mara shuddered and tore off her clothes.  Time was missing!  She did not remember going to sleep in Mother's room.  And Mara knew this could only mean Thierry had decided to do his things to Mara now that Mary was mysteriously gone from the ranch.  Standing before the mirror Mara searched herself for marks. 

     No one had ever needed explain it to the children, they had just known.  Over the years they learned for themselves.  They were not like other children.  Why else would there be two Emiles?  (As if Emile was not a name but a type of creature) Emile and his younger duplicate were not twins, they were months apart in age.  Why else would they have as pets five identical cats, plus two with mutant features: Two-tail and Three-eye?  Why else would they have no parents, but a mother who had carried them until they had been cut from her side?  They did not look like Mary, any of them.  Mara knew the answer.  They were clones, and overhearing Thierry once admit this to Gatito had only proven what she had long suspected.  Of who they were clones Mara did not know, but they were not natural children.  They were young living copies of people who had existed before.  And Thierry had made them.

     The one thing that made Mara certain was the ghost who only she and Thierry seemed able to see and who knew had spoken to her since her time in the womb as if he already knew her.  The ghost's name was Daniel and he often seemed cross at Mara for not acting like "herself."   But still Daniel was a good spirit to her.  He said nice things most days.  He came to her when she felt sad and confused and for a short time it even felt like he had his arms about her. 

     Now Mara turned and twisted trying to search her back and buttocks for marks.  Still she found none.  And then suddenly she had a flash.  This had happened only several times before.   And it had never been so vivid.  This time she felt as if something cold moved up into that private place Mary had told her belonged to Mara alone until she should chose herself a lover. 

     Naked still Mara sank weak-kneed to the plastic floor that looked like wood and curled into a ball.  Oh Godess help me.  How can this be?  I am only thirteen.  But Mara knew the answer.  Thierry had put something into her.  Just as Mary before her had been used to carry the children he wished to make, now Mara was with child. 

     Come to me Daniel Never, come to Mara and tell me what I would know.

     The ghost did not appear at first.  Thought Mara heard his voice faintly among her own thoughts.  What can Daniel tell Mara?  The curious speech was at this time a comfort to her.  Mara spoke her question aloud.

     "Daniel, what has Thierry done to me?"

     The sound of crying.

     "Daniel. . . help me."

     I wanted that small body for myself.  Forgive Daniel.  Daniel has not taken it, but Daniel feels different now, wishes Daniel had taken that body.

     "Can't you come to me?  I forgive you, Daniel.  But if the body," Mara choked on the last word.  "Who is it for?  What is it?"

     The ghost appeared in her room.  Mara could just make out his figure standing behind her, in the mirror.  "The small body is part Mara."

     Mara pushed against the floor with both hands to raise herself up.  She exhaled in a shiver.  "At least he has given me that. . . it's mine."

     Mara knew what she had to do.  "Daniel, if you love me you must distract Thierry."

     The ghost registered fear.  "Oh no.  Why does Mara always make Daniel choose between the ones he must protect?"

     Daniel had used that phrase before, the ones he must protect.  It always made Mara feel that unlike the Emiles whatever person she was a copy of had some real connection to Thierry.  

     "Please, Daniel.  He's done something.  He's violated me.  I can't stay here.  And I can't let him have the boys."

     "Mara, don't make Daniel act against Thierry."

     "I'm sorry, but you must, if you love me, you must do this just one last thing for me."

     "Daniel will do as Mara wants," said the ghost sadly.  And then he faded from sight.

     Mara found her own clothes in the room.  She found a small satchel used for carrying her books and filled this with the clothes and articles she decided would be most necessary on the run. 

     She went to the nursery then.  Both boys were dozing in their beds.  They young one now kept his hair long.  Mara could nearly mistake him for a girl in his sleep; same young, straight body Mara had once had. She woke the older one first.  He blinked up at her with amber eyes filled with sleep at the corners.  "We're going on a little trip, Emile, you must do as I say and ask no questions.  Pack two small bags with things you and Gatito usually need to use within two days.  Don't wake him yet."

     Mara wasn't surprised when the boy got up and went about packing without a sound.  This one she had made loyal to her over the years. 

     She crept down the stairs herself, passing by the bedroom that was Thierry's.  She listened a while, not wanting to walk by if he was going to notice her.  There was music playing softly in the background.  And no light coming from the cracked open door.  "Daniel wants to make Thierry happy but is sometimes called to other places.  Thierry tell Daniel what he wants now.  Tell Daniel what is to be done."

     Mara held her breath.  Could Daniel tell Thierry what she was doing?

     "You know what I need you to do.  Don't let me go up those stairs and take Cat from his bed.  Make me forget he's up there, Daniel."

     "Daniel wants to help Thierry but Daniel is having strange feelings of wanting bodies since Thierry teaches him this new trick.  Trick is so hard for Daniel, makes Daniel feel weak all in himself for a long time."

     Mara covered her mouth and ran past the door.  What was Daniel sacrificing for them all?  What was Thierry doing to that poor ghost?  She didn't stop her light-footed run till she was leaning against the cool ceramic surface of the refrigerator.  They would need food when they ran away.  The ranch was out in a undeveloped area.  Mara thought it best to take dry food and packed a trash bag with the best of it she could find in the cupboards. 

     She took the long way upstairs going through the front rooms so as not to pass Thierry's door.  Mara woke Gatito herself and then led the sleepy boy and his older copy with the bags downstairs, though the kitchen and out the back door.  She got them in the jeep and then sat in the drivers seat staring at the controls.  She didn't really know how to drive it. 

     She turned the key as she had seen Mary do then stepped on one of the pedals.  The car seemed to cough and whine.  Mara let go of the key then and discovered that it needed to be let go.  Then she tried another pedal.  The engine raced but the jeep did not move.  Mara recalled seeing Mary's hand on the stick.  This one even had markings that showed which gear was which, and Mara then remembered learning at some point that one must step on the clutch while shifting, just as one had to shift speeds on a bicycle while coasting. 

     Mara prayed that Thierry would be too very busy, too contented to hear and come after them.  She drove out the front gate and for the first time in her life she was outside the ranch.  Mara was in the real world, and she hoped the boys would trust she knew what she was doing, because she surely didn't. 

     And then she prayed Gatito would stay asleep and not wake up till it was too late for Thierry to hear his screams and come to him.  Gatito was not like Mara and Emile.  He loved Thierry.

†  †  †

Trepidation turned sixteen in February, on the third.  He looked almost the same age as his father, he looked like he could be a little older than his mother, but the Vampyre blood always knocked a few years off one's apparent age, and he was still growing up fast.  He woke up feeling cold again, hated that Castle Fortnight was so drafty.  He wasn't like them, he needed warmth, at least a little.  Trip dressed quickly and went to the upstairs parlor where the servants kept a constant fire.  And all the Vampyres were there.

     Father looked like he might fall asleep at any moment, but he was sixth generation spawn and still considered a fledgling, it was hard for him to wake early as the others did.  The others tho, they all looked pretty alert.  Mother came to Trepidation, embraced him quickly which was the only way she did it now.  "Happy birthday," she said quietly.

     Trepidation moved to the fire.  Daerick was sitting staring into it, in one of his favorite chairs.  Velvet was sitting on the hearth; Trip sat beside her.  "I got you a gift," she said and took from her shadow a black garment.  Holding it up for himself Trip saw it was an old velvet frock coat, purple satin lining.  He was not all together unpleased.  Daerick tossed him a set of keys on a novelty chain that was a grinning skull, perhaps Crowley the Gothworld character, the keys to the van Trepidation had been born in the back of. 

     "Thanks," he said, but he could only wish that he'd gotten the keys to one of Father's cars. But Father loved those cars more than his son, Trip was afraid.  Well, they were beautiful, an antique Ford Vampire with hover conversion and a Porsche almost twenty years old now, both sleek and red and kept insanely clean.

     Trepidation wondered where he would drive the beat up old Volkswagen hover van.  They'd tricked him, in coming here.  It was worse than New York.  There were kids, but they were all human, all lived down in Zakopane, and were all staunchly Catholic.  They avoided Trepidation like a plague.

     Trepidation put his new jacket on because he was cold.  It fit well.  Velvet was all right, he thought.  She and Orchid were kewl because they knew everything that he was wanting and feeling as a teenager.  Trip could only guess, but he thought this was because both had had such a very hard time as teenagers, and had never really grown up.  Orchid had mailed a present to him, an old leather motorcycle jacket with a girl painted on the back.  Father said the girl's name was Death; Velvet said it had once been her jacket, but she didn't mind Orchid giving it to Trip now, she understood.  Trip hadn't told any of them that he'd found the pockets stuffed with cigarettes. 

     Mother gifted Trepidation with a new mobile computer, which he thought was a pretty good gift.  Father gave Trepidation a bass guitar, which was a nice one, according to Velvet, who had taught Father to play his.  Trepidation had taken guitar lessons for a few years in New York, and had sat through torturous piano lessons with Mother.  He thought the guitar a pretty kewl gift.  Estasi and Angelo both gave him silver jewelry as if they thought he didn't have enough already.  At least they were clever enough to see Trepidation favored ankhs, though most Goths favored crosses.  David gave him money. 

     Being two days sixteen Trepidation took all these things, put them in the van, and added some of his favorite old stuff: lock picking gadgets, beaten plastic cases full of paper novels, old music albums, games and such on discs, the players to play them, a clean new mattress from his bed, and then some food from the kitchen.

     He hadn't planned that he would run away.  What went through his mind was that all these things really belonged to him, and they ought to be collected somewhere.  He only realized after several hours of just sitting in the back of the van smoking and playing holograph games that his new lair was a mobile one. 

     He went into the castle one last time.  He found Angelo in the main hall, passing through on his way to dungeons that Trepidation had simply never been interested in.  "Tell my dear guardians that I'm going for a drive.  I'll be back. . . sometime." 

     And then Trepidation started up his van, his home in which he had spent the first days of his life and in which he felt secure now, and looked at the electronic map.  He would have to stop by a station and buy an update if he drove very far, but he had money.  Right now he was inspired to go to Zakopane.

     Miska was at home, and being it was still daylight, though closing on evening, she was in bed, putting off getting up.  Trepidation let himself into her house giving no care to the fact it was locked.  He lit a clove as he walked up her stairs.  She heard something, his quiet steps, his hurried breath, the flick of his lighter; she called out, "Velvet?"

     Trepidation appeared in her doorway and watched her shiver at the sight of him.  He'd caused this emotion in others.  He knew it wasn't just the way he looked, it was him.  Poor girl, he thought.  The dead rarely knew how to satisfy human lovers properly, or cared to.  She'd most likely woken thinking of someone like his father.  

     Thierry had said, just pick.  So he was picking Miska.  She was going to want him and make love to him, because he wanted her to.  And she might even like it. 

     Trepidation pulled off his clothes before reaching the bed.  He didn't need to ask to know Miska was going to let him do it.  He'd known before coming to her house...and now he could see it in her thoughts, they were soft and fragile bunched in his mind among his own.  They were light and careless.  Miska was easy, and he knew it.

     Trepidation lay himself over Miska and tasted her mouth.  He closed his eyes for a moment and really listened.  Her thoughts would betray all she wanted of him.  He could learn from her without ever asking all the ways to best impress and pleasure her.  It was a pretty good deal after all, he thought, being this thing: being the living breathing vampire boy.     

     Being with her made him think of the early memories he had of his parents together.  He knew that human children forgot things they experienced early in life, particularly things in the womb.  But Trepidation remembered.  It kept him loving his mother even when she yelled and nagged.  And he had been born knowing some things that his mother had experienced before he was even conceived.  It came from living six moths linked to her. 

     She had always loved David, but she had been young and human.  And when John, Trepidation's father, was drawn into the same life she was, living as a Vampyre's kept human, she felt attracted to him.  Mother had really enjoyed having father as her lover.  He'd done what David didn't really care to do, greedily, hungrily, he'd done it.  And after Trepidation was born to his cold dead mother he knew that she had made the boy that had been her warm mortal lover one of the dead.  And tho she loved him, when she saw how cold he was she could only long for that warm mortal boy.  Once Father was turned Mother didn't want him as a lover anymore. 

     That had always made Trepidation so sad, knowing that his parents just couldn't love each other.  It was that dead blood that changed them.  And he was glad he didn't have it.   Trepidation was starting to feel almost a man, much less child, and he was bitter that he had been denied a childhood and children to play with, but what he wanted now if he could never have another like himself were many warm humans close enough to his own age.       

     Trepidation left Miska in the middle of the night.  He debated with himself as he dressed whether he ought just leave suddenly or do something nice, like leave her a gift, or kiss her and tell her she was beautiful and kind.  Kiss them goodbye.  He didn't know where the thought came from, if it was truly his own or perhaps a lyric or quote he had picked up.  But it sounded like a descent and tolerable philosophy.  So he gave her the best kiss he could manage without letting it last too long then walked casually from her house.

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Edit 3/23/2016 There's an issue here, similar to Trepidation in which I wrote the  first draft maybe late 1990s or the early naughties but it is evidently set well into the 22nd century and I have characters typing at plastic keyboards, which is only somewhat explained by the 'back ages'.

Secondly, the chapter is over 6K words and making My Works lag. (or something is.)