He was mine from the moment of his conception. They all are. But he was unusual in this - that even then he knew who I was, and sought me in the womb.
I waited nine months to see him. They were long months and might have been tedious, had I not always been so busy. For those with the duties, there is always much to be done and few to do it.
When the time came however, I was not too busy to be denied the first glimpse of him, and slipped uninvited into the birthing room. I have visited such places before, and knew how to hide in plain sight. They easily missed seeing me amidst the confusion, as his mother was screaming, his father was roaring in sympathy and the midwife chanting exhortations to bear down, all the while praying that this babe would not be the death of his mother.
Being more experienced than she in such matters, I could have undeceived her. Instead I stood anonymous, waiting silently for his tiny form to emerge.
"A son!" cried the old woman joyfully, cradling the bloody form in her hands, eyes running professionally over the mother - fainted, poor lass, but alive, thanks be to the Almighty and his Blessed Mother. The father, overcome with pride immediately ran out to distribute largesse and ale, not marking that though the babe's eyes were open he uttered no sound.
The child looked upon me, soft azure and grey noting and acknowledging my presence all the while the midwife slapped him desperately to dislodge the mucus of his passage.
As I said, he knew me even then.
I looked my fill into those dark eyes, and suddenly found myself anticipating of the day we would first embrace, a softness trickling into my withered heart that the millennia had drained dusty dry.
A final glance of confirmation, then he turned away to the frantic woman who cried and praised God loudly as the boy coughed up the refuse in his lungs and entered his life with a lusty cry.
I had business elsewhere and left by the back door. But I knew now that here was one that I could truly call my own. Companion. Brother. Lover. Friend. When at last he came to me.
There have been those who see me as their enemy, fewer who saw in me a friend, and then the vast majority who refuse to lift their gazes and acknowledge me even when they pass me by in the streets. But few, oh so very few are the chosen ones who I know have been granted to me to ease my loneliness.
He was mine from the instant of his birth.
I pursued him over a thousand years and more.
I followed him whenever I could leave my duties, but even those stolen times were marred by his total oblivion to my presence. Yet I was content to wait, for his temperament showed me that it would not be long before I could show myself to him and we could be together forever.
And so it would have been, except for that demon bitch called Darla who stole my love from me and transformed his beautiful mortality into the marble hardness of the vampire. My hands were tied else I'd have ripped the heart from the slut and drained it dry as his fragile soul was slowly but inexorably crushed beneath the demon.
I do not underestimate my capability when I say that I can never be cheated of that I desire, though I can sometimes be delayed. This thought normally comforts me, so I was surprised that night to find moisture collecting in sockets that had been dry and hollow for centuries. Paltry drops, true, but drops nevertheless.
The next night, however, he called me to him.
Lurking in the shadows, I saw his body rise from the hard ground, animated and cold, poised ready to hunt and kill.
He stood there a moment, still and perfect, nostrils slightly curved to inhale the plethora of scents assailing him from all sides.
Then he looked straight into the shadows - I fancy he saw me, though he showed no sign of it at the time - twisted his lips silently, and all unknowing, beckoned me to follow.
And follow I did, to dance with my new partner in whatever measure he chose.
Many a galliard did we grace, many a minuet did we mince throughout his long career in Europe and the East. After that first night, he never acknowledged my presence again, just laughed and claimed the perfection of each dance for his own. But I was always a step behind him, mimicking his movements in the dark, rejoicing in the gracefulness of his waltz, indulgent of his whimsical fancies. Far from a perfect union was this lurking two steps behind in the shadows, still it seemed to foreshadow all I hoped for. So I was content to wait. I had waited centuries to see him born. I could wait another century or two before he came to me.
Patience is a virtue after all.
I had none, however, with the Romany whore who took him from me the second time. She came to me not long after, smiling in satisfaction at her revenge on him. She died slowly and painfully, an hour for every year he spent in sewers and the alleyways, he who had once graced the salons of the century and was now reduced to grubbing for rats.
She died too fast for my reckoning.
Sick at this new delay, I returned to
my place in the shadows, hovering over his life constantly, yet constantly
ignored, for all his fine words to his Slayer about - but nay, I must be charitable,
though it be alien to my nature. He was young then. A child
merely, with a child's understanding of
himself, and therefore desirous only of childish things.
I want you to understand that I was never jealous of his women. Not the ones he bedded, never the ones he nearly wed. How can I be jealous, knowing what was set apart for me from the beginning? For in the end I knew he would come to me. After all, in the end it could only be me.
There were millennia, I say, before we could be together, before he understood whom he truly needed above all others. Though at times in his youth it may have seemed that he courted me, yet his heart was always for life, and especially the life of beautiful young innocents like the Slayer, who are as far the opposite of my nature as the day is the opposite of night.
Yet, as I say, I was never jealous. Merely - irritated, perhaps, at the delay.
He had been told that he could attain
humanity if he fulfilled his appointed tasks. But the deities that style themselves
Powers are capricious beings. They kept him at their beck and call for centuries,
using his strength and tearing at his will, as comrade after
comrade fell in the puny struggle against
the Dark that the 'Powers that be' used to mask their own involvement. Still
he persevered in their service, growing lonelier and more desperate, till
finally he truly began to seek me, striding boldly into the shadows where
I was wont to hide, calling my name with every silent beat of his un-dead
heart.
But I was not there for him to find. I too can be capricious, especially after the one who was destined for me - FOR ME - had chosen to ignore me for so long.
At last though, we were both too long denied. He dropped to his knees in the half shade of his room, and cried out in a last desperate plea, "If you will not come willingly, I will force you to come to me!"
Was any lover more sweetly urged? I am as immune as most and less than some when it comes to my lover's pleas. I came when he was just a moment away from lifting the shutters, the unexpectedness of my entry dashing his hand away from the window into the safety of the shade.
I am here, I said quietly, and waited for him to speak.
He didn't answer for the longest time.
We stood in silence, near where the poisoned sunlight fell onto his floor, gazing upon each other, while time either stood understandingly still, or the hours continued in their usual progression. I cared not, as I looked upon his withered cheeks, grown beautiful with wisdom and my glance was a caress too long withheld, too long denied. Age became him as it would no other.
"But you are beautiful," he said finally, puzzled. "Beautiful," he whispered again as his eyes roved my face and I saw a familiar hunger growing in him.
(Beautiful, no, you are the one, my chosen, my lover, soon to be mine.)
All the years of his life he had feared me, even when he had believed he sought me. But now his enforced loneliness had taken its toll and at last he was ready for me.
"I know you," he said at last, softly into the stillness, as if he feared to shatter our communion with the bell like tones of his voice that had never, never, ever before addressed me in truth.
Yes, I answered in kind, trembling and shuddering, trying to bridle anticipation too long unsatisfied - too long, far too long! - trying not to hurt him with the force of my need, but to take him gently (Gently! when all I wanted to do was devour him,) even as my arms opened wide to receive him and I said
Yes you know me and I have courted you all the days of your lives, from birth to now and at last
"I am ready,"
I know. (Oh my dearest love I know, I know, and I have waited so long for you, for this)
"Then wait no longer." He read the rapacious need in my shivering presence and hesitated for only a second, but in the end it was he who stepped forward towards me, into my outstretched arms, wrapping his arms tightly around my waist.
"Don't make me wait any longer," he whispered, voice muffled in my shoulder and blue-aged eyes dim with tears.
And I felt my arms close around him tight, (No my darling. No we will not wait,) felt his heart leap and shudder and stop and then
Then I was in him at last, and he was mine, mine, MINE.
And at last, at the last was Death no longer denied.
~ End
*****
Comments - This idea of Death seeking Angel and finding him at last came to me while I was in the checkout line. My inspiration for Death came from many sources; a 1950s tale called 'The Pale Sergeant', Mercedes Lackey's poem, 'The Shadow Lover' and my own noggin, of course. Sorry if that was a truly awful ride, but I needed to get it out.