Vincent Heartwood's Arc

Chapter 1 of 9

Vincent Heartwood had loved a mortal man for three months, and tonight he meant to make him immortal. But he stood outside the man's window and could not knock. His fangs ached. His hands shook. He had turned no one before, and he knew the truth every young vampire learned too late: most mortals died screaming during the change. The blood took some. It broke others. If Vincent got this wrong, the man he loved would never wake up. So he did not knock. He fled to the one house that might hold an answer. His grandfather answered the door before Vincent finished climbing the steps. Dracula Vincent stood small and straight, white beard bright against his black cloak, red eyes fixed like two coals. He had survived his own turning six hundred years ago. He had turned dozens since, and buried most of them. "You smell like fear," the old vampire said. "You want to turn a human." "I want him to live," Vincent said. "Not just die and come back wrong." His grandfather did not soften. "Half of them don't come back at all. Their hearts stop and stay stopped. You'd hold a corpse and call it love." He turned inside. "I won't help you kill a boy." Vincent followed him into the dark hall. "Then help me not to." A voice answered from the shadows. "There is a way." Morwen Gravecaller stepped into the candlelight. She was half Vincent's height, silver hair tied high, a rune-carved staff in her small fist. She raised the dead for a living, and she'd once bragged she could drag a soul back from any door. His grandfather trusted no witch. But he did not tell her to leave. Morwen pulled a bottle from her coat. The glass caught the light. Inside, red and gold and silver swirled together like liquid smoke, sparks drifting through it. "An elixir for eternal life," she said. "Feed it to your human before you bite him. It holds the body together while the blood remakes it. His heart won't have the chance to quit." Vincent reached for the bottle. His grandfather caught his wrist. "Witch's promises kill," the old vampire said. "If she's wrong, the boy dies twice." Vincent looked at the swirling potion. Then he looked at his grandfather's red eyes, which had watched too many people die. "He dies for certain if I do nothing," Vincent said. "Old age takes him. I sit by the bed and I lose him anyway." He gently pulled his wrist free. "I'd rather gamble than grieve." He took the bottle. It was warm. Morwen smiled. "Give it an hour to settle in his blood. Then bite. Not before." Vincent walked back into the night with the elixir against his chest. His hands had stopped shaking. He had a plan now, and a poison, and one hour to reach the window and choose whether to knock.