I love writing Cassia. Though I've realized that when I write her lines there are a ton of italics. It fits her personality, but it makes converting this to post style quite tiresome!
Cassia snorted in disgust. She spoke in high, mincing tones that James guessed was an imitation of Mica's voice, “A lady never tells her age, of course, but rumor has it that our dear Mica is nearly as old as Gabriel.”
“She's not,” Cassia told James flatly, “If she was we'd all be in trouble. Likely, she's closer to a century. I can nearly hold my own against her, and I haven't hit the century and a half mark yet. Gabe could kill her if he needed to, but it would cost him dearly and tick off her allies, so he hasn't bothered yet.”
“She's that good?” James asked.
“She kills. Talent has nothing to do with it.” Cassia's voice was matter-of-fact. “Death gives us strength. Mica kills, and kills often. Whatever shreds of a conscience she had when she was alive shriveled up ages ago. Men, women, children, they're all the same to her. She hasn't killed children here; Gabriel won't allow it, but there's no doubt that she
has. The way Gabriel has chosen; that
we have chosen is more merciful. It's easier to live with … but it has its consequences too. For some reason it always seems like doing the
right thing has more drawbacks to it than anything else does.
“A vampire who kills will triumph over another of the same age that doesn't. Every time. There's some small variation in our abilities, but pretty much it's time and blood that make us stronger. That's why those of us who adopted Gabriel as a sire tend to stick pretty close together. Without that, we'd never have made it past our first decade. Much like Elizabeth's orphans, most of us were sireless before Gabe took us in so we'd have had no one to watch over us until we were strong enough to survive on our own if not for him. I'm the exception. I was the accident baby.”
Cassia laughed, then told James the story of how she'd met Gabriel that first time.
“If you hadn't guessed, I'm Greek. Mom and dad were straight off the boat, come to America to make their fortune. They settled in Buffalo where they had friends, and then they had me and my siblings. I'm the youngest of seven, and the prettiest. Hey, don't look at me like that, it's
true.”
James covered his smile with his hands.
“Anyways,” Cassia made a grand gesture, “as the youngest there wasn't much to be had in the way of family wealth. No trade, no education. What money there was went towards my brothers, so for me looks were
it. They were to be my key to a comfortable life. It wasn't the tutors and art lessons I wanted but one does what one can.” Cassia shrugged.
“They meant well. My family was quite protective of me. Which I needed, really, because the suitors started coming when I was sixteen. I used to get scores of them. I was quite a beauty, even if I
was the daughter of a shoemaker.”
Cassia spoke regally, holding her head high as if she were a queen. She managed to look down her nose at him from her seat on the floor. For half a moment, he thought he could imagine the young girl who'd been besieged by suitors. Then she wrinkled her nose at him and the moment was gone.
“I attracted the attention of a young man. He was handsome, but he knew it and that knowledge made him arrogant. Dumb as a post too. Even if he'd had money, I think my family would have rejected him. I know I would have. He would not take no for an answer. Despite repeated rejections, he just kept coming. He had other prospects, of course. Amongst them a young woman of considerable wealth but average beauty. He wanted what he could not have though, and that meant me. He rejected the woman, and she did not take it well.”
Cassia paused a moment, ordering her thoughts.
“Age sickness is … well, have you ever noticed how as people age they become less and less up-to-date with technology and the rest? The world keeps changing, and after a certain point some of us just can't handle it well anymore.
“Physically, of course, vampires are built to live forever. Mentally though, we're still
very human, and many of us just stop being able to change with the times. It's a form of insanity, it starts off as small things but it always escalates, and it always ends in death. Sometime it's fairly benign in nature but often times it's violent. The benign ones just fade away, confining themselves to smaller and smaller areas and only coming out to feed. And then, one day, they just stop going out altogether. Others wander at random, and find themselves without shelter come daylight. Some do it purposefully. The violent ones pick fights with stronger ones on purpose when we're lucky. When we're not, they go on killing streaks which create vampire slayers or lead them to us.
“Before you ask, yes slayers
do exist. No, they're not super-powered or any of that. Just humans who have figured out what we are and how to get rid of us. They don't
need super powers. Just daylight. Even the oldest among us are helpless in daylight, and most of us don't have human families like Gabriel does to protect us.
“Other vampires
will kill an age-sickened vampire like that. They represent too much risk to all of us. It's one of the things that Gabe takes care of here, sometimes on the request, sometimes not. It's one of the things we all watch for, and something you'll learn to watch for too.
“Age sickness tends to strike us once we start reaching the age where regular humans die, and it's another reason that there aren't many vampires who live past a century. Some of us are more resilient than others. I
like the changes that the world keeps coming up with. Humans are pretty entertaining to watch. Others, like Gabe, find routines to help. He's been with Elizabeth's family and their children almost since his creation. Plus, he has his fledgelings like you and me that he keeps an eye out for. That helps, both him and
us. Gabe's only lost a handful of us to age-sickness. How much of that is us and how much is him we're not certain. But we're grateful.”
Cassia shook her head. “I'm stalling. Sorry.” She looked down and folded her arms around herself.
“The woman that he rejected, she wasn't human, and she was more than a little unstable. Age sickness. When he told her she couldn't have him she decided to take him, and then kill him. That wasn't enough though, she was angry about his initial rejection, so she made him tell her about the others that he'd courted so that she could kill them as well in chronological order. It took her a while, but eventually she got to me. I was the last. She waited for her chance, and then she struck. I was walking at night when she found me and brought me back to her place. She'd grown tired of her captive by that point, so she killed him first. He screamed so loudly. And then –”
Cassia shut her eyes and was silent. In that silence, the horror of his own death pressed in close around him, until James could almost taste his fear and feel the unforgiving earth that she'd pressed him against.
“I don't remember much after that,” Cassia admitted. “My next clear memory was of waking up to find two men standing over me, arguing about something. It took me a bit to realize that they were arguing about
me. Nate – Nathaniel, Gabriel's fledgeling at the time had changed me while Gabriel had been busy killing the woman that had killed me and my brother.”
“He said he couldn't stand to see a pretty woman die needlessly. Gabe was not happy at all. But there I was, and
someone needed to look after me. Not that I agreed with them at first.” Cassia chuckled.
“To be fair, I wasn't quite awake then, and I had no idea what had happened to me. So I told them I could take care of myself, thank you very much, and I stood up to walk myself home. Nathaniel tried to stop me, so I punched him in the face.”
Cassia balled up a fist in demonstration and punched an imaginary opponent. She moved fast; the movement clean and professional.
“There are advantages to being the youngest of seven with five older brothers. Gabriel was amused, and impressed, I guess. He wanted to know where I'd learned how to punch. I don't think Nate knew what had hit him. He didn't like it much though. He left not too long after that. Apparently he couldn't stand to be replaced as Gabriel's favorite. I don't think he'd expected a woman who could speak for herself, and who was more than capable of standing up for herself too.”
It was clear that Cassia didn't feel terribly guilty about that punch.
“I stayed with Gabe for a while in his place, then got one of my own near him. Never left. He wasn't happy about that at first. Kept urging me to go 'see the world' and all of that. After telling me to go away for a couple of decades didn't accomplish anything, he gave up.”
James wondered what she'd have done if Gabriel hadn't given up, and she assured him that she'd have stuck around anyways.
“Types like Gabe, they need someone like me to stir things up every now and then. Keeps 'em on their toes. Plus, I'm good backup for him, and for the others as well. With the kids and 'Liz, he can't travel much. Me? I'm an
artiste. We're supposed to be erratic and unpredictable. I can disappear for a week or two and it's no big deal. It's a nice change of pace. I
like frightening whoever is making trouble for one of Gabe's. Speaking of vampires that need head-punching, if you ever want me to go after your sire, just ask. It'd be my pleasure.”
It took a while for James to convince Cassia that he didn't want her to go after his sire, and even after he'd done that she still seemed unhappy about it. She was taking his sire's abandonment much more personally than he was.
As she explained, what his sire had done was rare. Vampires didn't just create fledgelings and set them loose. Creating a new vampire involved an exchange of blood – and for a vampire there was nothing more powerful than a blood connection. A blood-bond was what Cassia called it. With most sires, the bond was so strong that abandoning one's fledgeling was almost unthinkable. Cassia compared it to a mother leaving her small child alone in the wilderness to fend for itself.
In Cassia's case, she'd ended up with Gabriel instead of Nathaniel because Nathaniel had still been inexperienced, and not even close to ready to take on the task of raising a fledgeling. Their bond had been weaker, but still strong enough that he'd had a difficult time leaving. If there had been no Gabriel to watch over her, he'd have kept Cassia and they'd have done what they could.
“Even a vampire with almost no experience has a difficult time abandoning their fledgelings. That's the only reason Gabriel isn't constantly swamped with ones like you. He'd probably try to take them all in too, after he got done strangling their sires for being such
idiots.”
James laughed as he wondered how Elizabeth would react to that. He wasn’t entirely certain if she’d attempt to strangle Gabriel for even suggesting such a thing, or go along with the plan.
James decided that he liked Cassia. She didn't talk down to him or skimp over things that were unpleasant. She treated him like a peer, even if he was one that had a lot of learning to do yet.
They chatted about her art, she showed him her projects and gave him a tour of the parts of her house that were actually accessible, and then they chatted some more. It wasn't until Gabriel came to pick him up that he realized how late it was.
Story continues here
