#righteous men

Obviously, everyone is here during the Letting holiday, when everyone walks in procession through the crypts for the pleasure of the Overlords and prick their palms to drip blood into the drains that feed the crypt-sleepers. That’s a grand event: lots of music, everyone in their best clothing, swathes of rich fabric decorating the place, the Priests of the Blood standing on the platforms and exhorting the Herd to continue in their devotions. It’s mandatory, too, which explains why everyone comes, believer or non-believer.

Leo remembers the first time he was led to the great altar and his father put Leo’s hand under the Fang, the needle-sharp point darting down and splitting his skin so quickly it was over before he had time to cry, the cooling spray of anesthetic that followed making it so he didn’t feel the blood that he could see dripping down from his palm into the grate.

The rest of the year, though, even the Overlords don’t come here. It’s supposed to be haunted: they say the crypt-sleepers, those of the Overlords that choose to sleep through the decades until they next feel inclined to rise to check on the state of the world, will sometimes wake and watch the living.

The Overlords don’t like it. They are the Deathless, they who fear nothing but fire and silver and sunlight, but the crypts are a reminder that for all their immorality, the gaping jaws of oblivion are still a possibility.

Worse: it’s a possibility that they will, one day, willingly embrace, just as the crypt-sleepers have.

Members of the Herd, like Len, should be particularly wary. The crypt-sleepers, when they rise, demand a glut of life-blood, full human deaths which even the Overlords only take rarely. The Overlords generally only take full deaths when they need to thin the Herd; the rest of the time, certain members of the Herd are summoned to the feedings and come back dazed and a little light-headed, but usually no worse for the wear. Leo’s not entirely sure how they are selected - some people say it’s by lot, others claim that the Overlords have digital books with the faces, ages, and blood-type and that there are sommeliers that carefully decide how to stock the Overlord’s feats - but it doesn’t really matter. He’s still got some time before he’s officially eligible, unless someone particularly important decides they want to spend the political capital to obtain a delicacy: babes’ blood, virgin’s blood, first-blood…

Leo doesn’t really care. He’s Herd; his job right now is to attend school and to become educated enough to do whatever work he’s eventually assigned to, and even that he doesn’t do particularly well. His father is associated with one of the ambitious Clans who jockey for position at the Courts, the Darbyinians, playing Overlord politics, and he sometimes take Leo with him to help with jobs he has been assigned, and that means he doesn’t attend school or do his homework as much as he ought. Most people think it’s a worthwhile trade; the Darbyinian Clan is quite powerful, known to be well positioned in the black market and as procurers of rarities.

Thieves and pimps and drug dealers, in other words.

Leo thinks his father may be angling for a position as a full on Familiar, one of the special human servants especially selected by the Overlords to attend to them personally. The Branded ones. The ones who might, if they were particularly worthy, eventually be raised up to become one of the Overlords themselves.

Lewis has already gotten several infusions of Overlord energy as rewards for a job well done; he’s just a little younger and stronger than he ought to be at his age. The infusions of energy make him particularly savage, especially right after he’s received them; it was after one of the early ones that he beat Leo’s mother to death, and married Lisa’s. But no one pays too much attention when it’s one of the Overlord’s servants.

Leo hates it when his father is successful.

But even his father doesn’t think to look for him in the crypts.

Leo crawls through the back entrance, one of the statutes that needs repairs that it never quite got, and takes that extra second to be impressed by the gigantic scale of the gothic cathedral that makes up the crypts, the layers and layer and layers of tombs stretching up and down as far as the eye can see, each one surrounded by the delicate web of pipes that snake through the entire building. The pipes that end right above the crypt-sleepers’ mouths, ready to drip in life-preserving blood; the great engines beneath the floors that pump the blood around the building, the slow-beating heart of a giant mechanical organism.

Dotted throughout there are little wells, which someone once told Len were filled with water for people to wash their hands, but which are now filled with the blood of devotees who wish to give more than merely what the Fang demands. The altar, of course, with the Fang itself, a terrifying beast made of metal and gear, a gigantic organ with each pipe a needle.

And, of course, there’s the marble floor and the steel grating of the great big drain where they pour the vats of blood at the end of the Letting process to be pumped into all of the crypts to feed the sleepers. Put all together, it’s so immense that the human eye has trouble comprehending it. It’s monumental.

It makes him feel small and insignificant.

Perfect.

There’s one crypt in particular that Leo likes to sit next to. He knows they’re not all the same, different classes being a thing even among the immortal Overlords. This one is just the slightest bit ajar from the rest, but not like the super fancy ones with the gold and the glittering diamonds everywhere. The one Leo likes is just a tomb, slick but dull marble and a base of simple stone.

He crawls up to the side and looks down at the sleeper inside. The crypts are all open, of course, so that the blood from the pipes can drip down onto their faces, and the sleepers are all terrifying: bodies so drained of blood that they shrink in on themselves, fingers like sticks of bone, yellow skin wrinkled with disuse, mouths gaping open in silent screams filled with pointed fangs.

This one was a broad-shouldered man in life, Leo thinks, and tall. His eyes are closed, his eyelashes long and dark, his head shaved. His face is not as deteriorated as some of the other sleepers, the really scary ones; Leo doesn’t know if that’s because he’s younger or what, but if he has to have Deathless company in his solitude, he rather it be this man, who looks as though he is sleeping, than one of the real monsters.

He knows it’s childish, but whatever; there’s no one here to judge him, no one but him and the sleeper.

Leo’s named him Mick.

Oh, sure, there’s a name engraved in the side of the crypt, at least there’s supposed to be, but there are so many curly-cues and arcane symbols involved Leo can’t figure out what it is for the life of him.

He doesn’t remember how he thought of the name Mick, but it’s the one that stuck.

Leo reaches out and pricks his palm - already scarred over from the twice-yearly Letting and the occasional visits to the Temples of Blood when his father wanted to beg for favors - on the sharp edge of the pipe, just a bit, so he can drip a few drops into Mick’s open mouth. Leo’s a Jew, just like his mother, so he doesn’t actually believe in what they spout in the Temples of the Blood, and he doesn’t think his father does either other than the Overlords having a preference for members, but he figures it’s only polite not to insult another’s religion in the middle of their holy places. There’s no anesthetic here, since it’s not the right time or place, but Leo doesn’t mind. He can handle a little pain.

“Sorry for bothering you again,” Leo tells Mick. “I just needed to get away from the maddening crowd.”

He’d read that in a newspaper somewhere and he’d liked it. It described his family well.

Leo sprawls out on the big ledge next to the crypt. “So we pulled a job yesterday,” he tells Mick. Leo’s always been a chatterbox, everywhere but at home when his father has taught him the value of silence, and he can’t resist having his own audience, no matter how silent or unresponsive. “My dad, his crew, and me. It wasn’t a good one - Dad never thinks about what to do when things go wrong, so we end up always having to shoot our way out, brute force.” Leo wrinkles his nose in distaste. “There were three different ways we could have exited other than shooting our way out! I told him - but he didn’t listen -”

Leo’s hands are shaking. Anger, perhaps, or left-over fear from the job. He hadn’t noticed that; he wonders how long that’s been going on. He lays them flat on the cool stone, letting it leech away the slight pain left over on his palm. Can’t afford for his best set of tools to get weak.

Leo doesn’t want to think about what’ll happen if he loses even a little dexterity in his hands, what his father would do if he decided Leo wasn’t earning his keep anymore…

Leo sighs and lays his cheek on the marble as well. “Anyway,” he says. “Let me tell you how I would have done it -”

———————————————————————————————————–

The boy is back again.

He can smell him.

He is still asleep, not yet awake, but enough visits - blood freely-given, without even coercion behind it, laced with respect and the fizzy energy of youth, is one of the finest of flavors, second only to blood given by a loyal servant who loves him - has brought him closer to that grey state where he can choose whether or not the world interests him enough to make the effort.

He hasn’t made a decision yet, but that is only because the halls are empty and echoing and his boy the only human around, and it would defeat the whole purpose if he were unable to resist the bloodlust and rent that tender, supple flesh between his fangs before he has a chance to stop himself.

He finds himself intrigued by this boy that comes to him, not every day nor every week, but quite often; this boy who tells him of the world, who is so young to be so cynical; this boy who gives his blood to him and him alone, faithful as a knight to his liege.

He often does not listen to the boy’s words, focusing on the tone, the emotions, the curl of his mind, the beat of his heart. The boy speaks of a cruel master, who he nevertheless wishes he could advise to the man’s benefit; he speaks of a girl, whom he loves with a pure and sparkling innocence; he speaks of dark matters with a tongue yet free from their weight.

He speaks, in a halting uncertain way, of honor. Of rules of combat, which no one has taught him but which his blood cries out for. Of the joy in meeting and matching worthy opponents, the thrill of the chase, the glory in victory. The ways of a warrior long lost to the sheep of what is called cultured civilization.

And so Abraham came before the Lord and said: what if I could find ten righteous men; and the Lord said: for the sake of ten righteous men, I will not destroy the city.

When last he looked upon the world, he could not find even one righteous man: not a single one who knew anything of honor, of the code any true warrior must abide by if they wish to earn respect beyond fear. At first he yearned to burn the world around him, so that it might be remade better, but in time even this disgusted him, and so he cast himself down instead, closed his eyes and so forsook the world.

The world, it seems, has changed again.

Ten righteous men might be pushing it, but fate seems to have decided to send him one.

He will wait until the boy becomes a man, to see if he can survive unspoiled, but for the first time in a long time, he thinks he may have found one who might make it.

He who when he last walked the Earth was called Drake, and Dracula, and King of the Vampires, and before that had many more names besides, sleeps on, but in his sleep, he smiles in anticipation.

The boy continues to talk, unaware of the change in the monster that slumbers beneath him.

———————————————————————————————————–

Leo is by this point way too old for imaginary friends, but really, by this point, he’s just gotten into the habit of going to visit Mick. The crypts are as cool and quiet as they were when he was a kid, and he’s just as unlikely to be found; those appeals remain intact. But the rest…well.

It’s a little embarrassing how he keeps going to talk to Mick about his problems, but in fairness, there are far worse emotional crutches to have.

There’s drink and anger, like his father does. Whores of all sexes, drugs of all types, mindless games to watch at the Arcadia or the Stadium, stupid shows pumped into your house on your viewscreen. Leo’s eighteen; the strict restrictions on the Herd regarding the usage of substances that could taint the blood become significantly looser once you hit sixteen. There’s a whole bevy of options the Herd can choose from in the state-sanctioned bars, and if you’re not satisfied with that, there’s always the Darbyinian Clan, standing by with smirks and pupils shot through with greed, waiting to offer you many more options on the road to oblivion.

Leo prefers whenever possible to avoid them.

Whenever possible is – less than he’d like.

His father is still a rising star with the Darbyinian Clan, brutal and cruel the way they like it, though Leo is ever more convinced that there’s no way they’ll make him a real Familiar. If Leo were to devote himself to it, he could get in deeper with them than Lewis ever got; he’s smarter than his father is, he’s good at planning jobs – he subtly corrects half of Lewis’, even when it earns him a beating – and he could be so good at it, if only he was willing to give up what remained of his soul.

He doesn’t want to.

If he could only be his own man, free and clear and bound by nothing by what his conscience dictated, he could be so much better than anything they offer.

Freedom’s not an option, though, not for Herd.

Len is eighteen years old. He’s been eligible to be a feeder for the last four years, though he’s always managed to palm it off to someone else – there’s no shortage of volunteers, eager to get in good terms with the Clans and the Courts, and the skills he learned pickpocketing serve him well in avoiding anything else that might get him closer to the Darbyinians than he’d like. They say the Overlords can see your thoughts when they drink your blood, and he can’t permit that to happen.

Not with how much he hates them.

He’s eighteen years old. In two years, when he turns twenty, he’ll be assigned to some task based on his grades in school and some aptitude testing; unless he shows some other talent or skill, in that job he’ll remain for the rest of his life, and the punishment for slacking will be far stricter. Drudgery and boredom, that is the life of the Herd; they are slaves of the Overlords and it is only at the Overlords’ mercy and pleasure that they may get a glimpse of something more than the mundanity of life.

It can’t have always been like this.

“I think I’m having an existential crisis,” he tells Mick, crawling up on the crypt. He still fits, though not as comfortably as when he was smaller. He got his growth spurt at long last; with Lisa finally eligible for her own lots of food rather than dependent on their parents’, he’s finally been able to eat his fill, and he got repaid by a full six feet of height.

His father hasn’t quite forgiven Leo for being taller; there’s a reason he’s here, not home. Lisa’s safe in school, and Leo stopped caring about school long ago, when he figured out that there was no point. His father would never let him have one of the finer jobs, reserved for the intellectuals; he thinks Leo is stupid and useless, but he’s also not all that stupid himself. He knows how much he needs Leo, and he’ll find a way to convince his patrons to force Leo to stay under his thumb forever.

Lisa’s gotten really good at ice skating, though. Leo’s been secretly paying her way to private lessons on top of the school’s general exercise classes; if she’s good enough, one day she’ll be able to become an artist on the ice, skating so prettily even the Overlords watch in awe. That’d be a good life for her.

Better than anything Len has to look forward to.

“Yep,” he says, shaking his head. “Definitely an existential crisis.” On instinct, he sticks out his callused palm for the pipe, only to find that it’s not there.

He frowns. That’s a bit weird. The Letting is coming up soon; if they don’t put the pipe back, Mick won’t get any blood from the great ceremonies.

“I guess it’s under repair,” he tells Mick. “Don’t worry, I’ll check in again; if it’s not fixed by Letting-time, I’ll…I don’t know. Tell someone. Do something, I guess.”

He has no idea what he’d do, since he doesn’t like talking to the Priests of the Blood at the best of times, but still. The crypt-sleepers need regular infusions of blood to keep them from decaying further in their sleep, succumbing at last to their bloodlust like rabid animals or – more likely – just withering away; Len’s not sure why they wouldn’t give one of them blood.

Still, it seems like a pity not to feed Mick. It’s the least he could do, given that the corpse has been very nicely serving as Leo’s imaginary friend for something like ten years now. Giving Mick a splash of blood is practically part of the ritual: it opens the bitching session, lets Leo relax and know that he’s got nowhere to go for a while.

Well, it’s easy enough to fix.

Leo pulls out his pocket knife and pricks his fingertips. His palm’s pretty scabbed over from years of Lettings, just like all the Herd – the Overlords like it; it means that the turned-Overlords will always have a reminder that they were once Herd, as opposed to those Overlords who were born that way – but his fingertips bead up as readily as ever.

Without the pipe to guide him as to where to aim, Leo instead reaches into the crypt itself. “Hope you don’t mind,” he tells Mick, and drags his bloody fingertips across the sleeper’s sharp teeth, running up to his gums.

It’s a strangely intimate act – Leo’s not saving himself or anything, but he just plain old doesn’t like anyone, either, so he’s figuring he’ll wait to find one or until he gets assigned a breeding partner at twenty-five, whichever comes first – and it makes Leo’s throat go dry and makes him swallow, just a bit.

It’s dumb as fuck, being attracted to the Overlords – everybody is, of course, they’re mostly goddamn gorgeous until the fangs come out, but you shouldn’t be paying too much attention to it. That way leads to being a regular feeder, a blood-whore, and no matter how much the Priests of the Blood talk about submission to the Overlords being one of the greatest duties and pleasures of Herd life, it’s still a bit looked down upon in polite society. And Leo has the bad taste to be attracted to a crypt-sleeper, which even the Overlords probably think is a bit weird.

Ugh. Whatever.

It’s not like that’s going anywhere.

He needs to think about other things. His little existential crisis, for instance, and what he wants to do with his life –

“I don’t think I want to be a mobster,” he tells Mick, abruptly sure of it. He’d been wavering before, because he knows it’s the smart thing to do, but – no. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want it at all. “Not at all, not even a little. Not the way the Darbyinians do it. A drug dealer, a pusher, a thug, even a thief – not if it’s for them. I like thieving, don’t get me wrong; it’s fun to have a job go right. I like all the parts of the actual work: scouting out an opportunity, casing the joint, planning the approach, going in, a plan coming together beautifully or screwing up and making you think on your feet, either way. But the lawless Clans, the mobsters – they don’t got any notion of caring for your crew. If it’s your job, it ought to be your job all the way through – they listen to you, and you see them through till the end, you keep them safe and you get them paid and everyone goes home happy, you know? If they fuck up or double-cross you, that’s one thing; but if they’re good and loyal, then you owe ‘em loyalty in return. And that ain’t how the Darbiniyans and the rest of them do it.”

He sighs, drapes his head on the cool marble. “They like my dad, which ought to tell you everything,” he says glumly. “More than that, though, it’s all of them. They like how he works, the way he’ll ditch crew members at the drop of a hat, the way he’ll make a half-assed plan and just be sure to bring enough firepower to force his way out again.”

Leo bangs his head lightly against the crypt. “It’s just so wasteful. It’s not that I can’t ice a guy for doing me wrong – I can, no sweat; I’m not a baby anymore – but if the reason they’re screwing up is because your plan is wrong, you got no business doing nothing to them. It ain’t them, it’s you, and they shouldn’t have to pay for supporting you when you make mistakes. They want me to join up, you know? The Darbyinians, I mean.”

He snorts. Mick is a silent, sympathetic presence.

“They sometimes pretend it’s a good thing. Promotion and pleasures and all sorts of new entertainment options, all for doing the same sort of work I’ve already been doing, and it’s gotta be better than working the factory line or something, they say. Not as good as being a Familiar, of course, but there’s always that little bit of gold at the end of the rainbow – maybe if you’re good enough, if you do well enough, if you’re promising enough. Hah! It’s never going to happen. They’re going to force me to stick with my dad till I’m dead.” He swallows. “Or till Lisa is.”

Mick’s stillness matches the coldness in Leo’s heart.

“You know he’s been threatening Lisa now? Ever since I got taller than him, and stronger, too, he’s figured out that just kicking my ass doesn’t work anymore, not even if he uses a bottle or a bat to do it with. Oh, it’ll hurt all right, but it’ll just get me angry. He’s gotten me used to it. But Lisa – man, you should see her. She dances on ice like a freaking ballerina, and if he gets his hands on her and breaks something that she needs for the skating, I’ll never forgive myself, and damn him, he knows it, too.”

Leo smiles. “Though he doesn’t know about the skating. Just that I worry about her, s’all. I’ve kept that much secret.”

Mick, unsurprisingly, didn’t respond, though Leo feels as though he would be approving.

“You know what’s sad?” Leo asks. “I think, next to Lisa, you’re my favorite person in the world, and I don’t even know you.”

———————————————————————————————————–

Most vampires, when they sleep, sleep like the dead.

Damn that boy. His fondness for puns has become infectious.

Mick’s lips curl up and he licks the trace of blood from his teeth. Mick. Yes, he likes Mick; he likes being Mick. Mick is the boy’s creation, Mick is the mind which the boy loves – far better than Drake, who had nothing and was nothing and was last resurrected by stinking rats seeking to use him to aid themselves against a warrior who hunted their kind and who they dared not fight back against. Mick is the person who has been responding to the boy’s words, responses in his mind, turning monologue into dialogue, though the boy doesn’t realize it. Human minds are not particularly receptive to telepathy, humanity naturally immune to it, but Mick is strong enough, even in his sleep, to make himself and his thoughts known.

He has not fully awoken, not yet, but it is time. He has given certain signals that he is ready and they should be preparing for his rising.

The boy is growing into a man, and what a fine man he promises to be. He yearns to be free and rejects the tired pleasures of everyday life; he is greater than those around him who would pull him down.

There is no way Mick’s calling him Leo, though. His boy’s no lion, full of bluff and false might, shaking his mane and roaring to frighten off competitors but in truth being weak and lazy, relying on the strength of others to do the work.

Besides, the boy has named Mick; it is to Mick to name the boy in return.

Mick’s been thinking about it: he’s grown rather partial to the shortening ‘Len’. ‘Lenny’, if the boy is being particularly amusing.

He has grown closer and closer to true awakening, when he will need nourishment in truth in order to move muscle, and now he listens to Len’s words instead of merely his tone – and this time, there is a trace of concern there.

The pipe is gone.

Mick’s not entirely certain what this means – he’s just had some of Len’s blood, which means he has some access to Len’s thoughts, the glorious bright mess that is his boy’s brain, and Len seems to think it strange, that he does not have the pipe that would get him fed at the time of eating. Holidays, in Len’s mind; his vampires, now that they have conquered the world, have made it a holiday, that all the humans line up and donate blood, and the giant vats fill with the stuff, which is then pumped through the pipes that twine everywhere through the great cathedrals, the crypts, filled with those vampires who, like him, have chosen to sleep through the years in hope of a better future.

But there is no pipe for him.

No blood.

Mick needs to think about what this might mean.

He has given the signals that he is thinking of awakening – and soon after, they remove that which he needs to awaken. From Len’s mind, it seems that it is traditional when a sleeper awakens, it is during or after the holiday, the majority of the blood pumped to that sleeper so that they regain flesh and muscle, that they have the power to rise up and to feast upon the poor human lives chosen from the prisons to serve as an awakening.

If there is no pipe –

They do not want to risk him waking up.

His children have grown to fear him and what he might mean to their perfect, comfortable, fat, lazy world.

They remember, then, that he longs to burn the world down and restore it – not in his image, no; he has already done that, and see how badly it turned out. But to create something beautiful from the ashes. Something better.

Let there be ten righteous men – and I will not destroy it.

Mick’s fangs lengthen, just a bit, and his eyes flicker under his eyelids.

With ten righteous men by his side, he could destroy it.

He wonders if Len will be able to find him ten.

———————————————————————————————————–

He didn’t run there on purpose.

Nothing was on purpose – nothing but blind, stupid terror, guiding his every step as he stumbles and trips and runs some more, his breath heaving until his chest burns, his heartbeat loud in his ears, the bile thick on his tongue.

Stupid.

Stupid, just like thinking his father was clever enough to know how useful Leo was to him. Stupid, thinking that his father cared; that his father had enough animal cleverness not to throw away his meal ticket. Stupid, not thinking about how his father has watched him grow, grow strong and grow smart and grow tall, and stupid, not to think about how his father is jealous.

Stupid.

Stupid to force the issue.

Stupid to tell his father that he doesn’t want to listen to him anymore. Stupid to think Lisa’s brand new scholarship would keep her away, and safe, and even stupider to think it meant some measure of freedom from his father’s threats. Stupid to think he could have a little bit of his own life now that she is gone to better things.

If he lets them catch him, he’s very soon not going to have a life at all.

That’s what the Darbyinians do, after all; they cater to the black market, to desires only whispered at in polite spaces. They’re the procurers, the mobsters, the pimps. They can get you what you want if you’re willing to pay their prices.

There are stories, whispered tales, that once the Herd were the ones in power, the powerful and the many, and the Overlords were merely animals hiding in the dark, hunting for the weak and the sickly, the ones who would not be missed.

Stories that the Overlords missed those days, sometimes, missed the vicious savagery of chasing a victim and snuffing out his life, the thrills of the hunt.

There are Overlords hunting him now.

Yapping and howling like a pack of wild dogs, whistling and mocking, crying, “Here human, here human!” as they track him down.

The Overlords are said to be faster and stronger than humans, but not by that much. They can perform no feats of great strength nor run so fast that the eye cannot see. No, their strength is where it has always been: in their endurance. In their immortality. In the fact that they can go on and on and on where the Herd – where humans – will grow tired and fall.

No lactic acid boils their muscles. No carbon dioxide chokes their lungs.

They keep going.

And they will hunt Leo until he falls, and when he falls, they will kill him.

That’s what Lewis sold them, the fucking faithless bastard; he sold them a human life, a chase in the dark. They will hunt Leo and they will bring him down and they will put their fangs in him – in his neck in his arms in his thighs in his ankles – and they will tear him apart, they will bleed him dry, and when they’re done, sated and pleased and feeling like brave men for having paid for the privilege of debasing themselves – then his father will come, the dog nosing at the heels for scraps, and he will clean up their mess, and never think twice about the fact that the strips of flesh and bone were once a boy that loved him.

Stupid.

Stupid, too, to run, to give them the chase they want, but he can’t help it. He wants to live. He wants to be free. He doesn’t have much else but hope and potential, but he knows he can do better than this stupid, stupid death.

But life doesn’t care about that.

He runs to where he’s always felt safest, to the crypts, to Mick. It’s his private place, his happiest place, and he runs there, he knows, to die. They will find him. He could be clever and run to the streets, to the temples of the Blood, and seek sanctuary there; this is not a state-sanctioned death, so theoretically he would find protection among the peace-keepers. But Leo knows human nature too well, and Overlord nature as well, and he knows how many of the so-called priests harbor desires of a most un-priest-like nature. He’s seen them often enough in his jobs for the Darbyinians, with his father. Hell, one might be in the pack behind him, even now.

No, there’s no safety there.

He could have run to the factories, to where the Herd congregates most, and tried to lose their scent there – one human among a thousand, among a million. But the pack chasing him are frenzied and panting and wild for death, and he knows if he took them there, to the Herd, then he would only be trading his death for that of another, someone slower and more vulnerable, who never had a father like Leo’s and was not sold to his death by his hands, and for Leo that would be intolerable.

Stupid heart. His father always said it’d be the end of him.

Leo just hadn’t thought it’d be like this.

At this point, he’s lost all hope, even as his breath grows shorter and shorter, his lungs screaming, his muscles beyond sore and into numbness. He just wants – he doesn’t know.

The base instinct in all people is to seek somewhere safe when they are scared.

He’s so scared.

It probably says something about him that when he thinks to go somewhere safe, he runs to Mick.

He goes to say goodbye.

———————————————————————————————————–

He hears Len coming, faster than ever before. He smells his boy’s panic, his sadness, his resignation. He hears the jagged breaths, the beats of his hear; he tastes the salt of the tears that drip down his face. He hears the mocking howls of the ones who are chasing him, hears their intent to kill in the jibes they throw, in the way they goad each other on, children of the night who have never had the spine to do one thing right in their miserable deathless lives.

They are coming to kill his boy.

The sheer gall of it rises up between his eyes and for the first time in centuries his eyes slit open, and they open red as fire.

His fingers are stiff with disuse as he uncurls them; they are more claw than finger, right now. He should have blood, an ocean of it, at his service; he should have loyal servants standing by, the bodies of their enemies cast forth for his pleasure to feed upon; he should have death upon death upon death to glut his hunger and make him strong.

What he has is a boy who is very nearly a man, an upright man, a warrior like him.

In truth, he prefers what he has.

The boy falls a few meters from his resting place as the cowards hunting him grow tired of the chase and spooked by their surroundings, afraid of defiling the places of their ancestors with their insipid games, knowing just a little that they are doing wrong, and they run forward with the strength of men who do not tire and they catch the boy as he runs and they throw him to the ground.

“No!” Len shouts, cries out. “Just a little more!”

His boy was coming to him.

That is right, that is just, that is how it ought to be – the weaker turn to the stronger, they give you love and they give you loyalty, and they are rewarded with loyalty and love and protection in return.

It has been a long time since someone worthy has thrown themselves upon his honor.

Longer still since he felt the call to answer.

His bloodless fingers curl around the edge of his crypt.

He pulls himself up.

He sees six of them, adults in full, each one of them, some pure-born, some turned, all foolish; six grown men hunting one untried boy. He sees the white flash of their fangs. He smells their fetid lust, lust for death, lust for blood, lust for the boy beneath them. He hears them laugh –

“Stupid little piggy,” one is cooing as the others hoot like monkeys, “thinking you could run from us; we’re the kings of the world, we are, and you’re just a big fat little piglet, aren’t you, all pink and terrified, plump and filled with blood, all for us –”

They run their hands over his boy, hideous and stroking and a terrible parody of intimacy, and his boy shudders in disgust, in fear, but he does not beg for mercy. He raises up his head and he spits in their faces.

Oh, Len.

Mick’s face stretches greying skin, tight for lack of moisture, into a terrible smile.

His muscles ripple under his skin as he calls upon his most ancient of abilities, the power to change shape, to become greater than human, the unhinged jaw, the monstrous form. He does not need that now, not for this. Right now he needs something different – he needs to make himself just a little bit smaller.

Just smaller enough that what little blood he has – all Len’s by now, all Len’s, just as he is – pools in his gut and gives him the power to leap.

The movement is enough to awaken him fully.

And then there is nothing but the bloodlust.

He roars in victory as he catches the first, the one who dared touch his boy, dared think his boy the pig rather than himself, and he rips his throat open and gorges himself on the blood the man had stolen from others.

The jeers and hoots and howls of the pack turns to squeals and screeches and whimpers of terror.

They run, but he does not grant them mercy, just as they granted his Len no mercy. He breaks their legs and guzzles their blood, he lets them live, their dead hearts pumping wildly to bring out the reserves of what they have left, and then he lets them watch as he hunts down each and every one of them.

And then, when they are healing their wounds and crawling away from him, intent on escape, as they beg him for mercy, he goes for a second round, filling his belly with the last of the life-blood, cracks open their bones and sucks out the marrow, and laughs as they dissolve into ash in his hands.

One – cleverer than the rest – manages to crawl to a vat of blood, preserved at the right temperature to keep it from congealing, pumped through the system to keep the sleepers content. He rips it open, spraying its contents everywhere as it pumps out of the system like water from a hose and he drinks and he uses that strength to heal himself and he runs without thought to his companions.

It would have worked, too, but Mick is faster, Mick is stronger, Mick is better.

Mick grants him one small mercy for his cleverness: he rips his head off in a single, clean stroke.

The ashes cover his hands and drift away in the breeze.

There is blood painting the floor when he’s done, blood painting the sides of the crypts, the blood of the vampire pack – they were already filled up on blood freely-given before embarking on this chase, as if to cut off any risk of failure, the pathetic worms – and the blood of the vat, the first, angry stream of warm blood having faded now into a drip that pools on the pale marble floor beneath the great gothic arches and endless tombs.

There is Len, legs still splayed out before him and his arms behind him, raised up on his elbows and staring, eyes white all around, his face splattered with blood and his clothing soaked sodden with it.

He’s beautiful.

Mick’s not sure if there’s anything he could do to become even more beautiful.

“Mick,” Len breathes, and oh, he was wrong, he was wrong, for that is joy in his boy’s eyes, not fear: joy to see the monster who Len called his friend, pleasure to see him standing upright, careless of himself and his death, knowing that there are none who need be feared more than a risen sleeper and uncaring because it is Mick, it is his friend, and he will die happy, if it is at his hands. “Oh, Mick –”

Len will not die today.

Six vampires, filled up on blood – Mick’s not saying he couldn’t do with some more, but it’s enough for now.

He strides forward, his face settling into his first shape – dark eyes and shaved head and thick features, broad shoulders and strong arms – and Len looks upon him and admires him, and he falls down before him and catches Len’s head in his hands –

And here it is, the slightest glimmer of fear, even as Len lets Mick tilt his head back –

Mick kisses him.

———————————————————————————————————–

Leo’s never –

Leo never thought –

This is better than he ever imagined it being.

God, it’s Mick, he knows it’s Mick, it’s Mick as he ought to be – strong and sharp and eyes glowing, and he loves Leo just as Leo loves him, and it doesn’t even make any sense, none at all – he has a million questions: why is he here – how is he awake – how does he know him – but none of that matters, because Mick is here, Mick is with him, Mick is kissing him like he can’t stop, and Leo’s kissing him back, too, just the same.

He’s still high on adrenaline from the chase, pain and terror transmuting now to pure need, and he doesn’t know what to do with his hands so he clutches at Mick’s shoulders, Mick’s arms, Mick’s waist. He wraps his legs up around Mick and lets Mick pull him into his lap, lets Mick tilt his head back and kiss his neck – Leo’s pulse jumps a little, he can’t help it, that’s his jugular right there, but Mick doesn’t bite down, doesn’t rip him apart, just runs his tongue along Leo’s collarbone until he shivers.

Mick pulls his clothing apart like it’s nothing, the cotton of Leo’s shirt and sweater falling to pieces before his sharp fingernails, the denim of his jeans barely any more of an obstacle, and then Mick’s pushing him down on the cool marble floor –

Leo yelps.

Mick pulls away from him, just a second, looking him up and down for injuries.

“Sorry,” Leo says apologetically, automatically. “It’s a bit cold.”

Mick stares at him, then he laughs.

Leo can’t keep from smiling. Mick’s got a great laugh, deep and rich and lovely, and yeah, okay, that was possibly the least sexy thing he could say right at that moment, but hey! It’s marble! It’s cold as hell on his bare ass.

Mick solves the problem the best way possible, by peeling off his own shirt – a loose thing of white linen, now stained red with blood – and dropping it to the floor, picking Leo up and putting him on it and kneeling above him, clad in nothing but tight leather pants, eyes intent, and the laughter dries up in Leo’s throat as he stares.

He’s hard and wanting and he doesn’t even care that he’s naked in the crypts, surrounded by all the sleepers, and when he was young he’d thought it was stupid that teenagers would come here to screw, but he knew nothing of how much you wanted it, how desperate you are, how stupid it made you, when you wanted it and it was someone who wanted you too –

Mick kisses him again.

“Gonna be short,” Leo warns him through kisses, with panting breath, Mick’s fingers sliding through his close-clipped hair, dipping down his side, a tantalizing tease –

“Yes,” Mick rumbles, and his voice is low and intent and perfect, just the way Leo knew it would be. “Yes. Come for me, Len.”

“Leo –” Leo tries to correct him.

“Len,” Mick says firmly, his eyes glinting, his hand sliding down to caress Leo, fingers wrapping around his length and giving a single long stroke. “My Len, mine – mine to name, just like you named me –”

And yep, that’s it, Leo’s done – Len’s done, totally done, crying out as his vision blanks out and he shakes and he comes and he feels so good, so incredibly good; he’s never come this hard in his life –

Mick laps at his fingers.

Len whimpers at the sight, his cock twitching with the aftershocks like he still thinks he can get it up. Sure, he’s only twenty, but he still needs a goddamn minute, and Mick is just so hot.

Mick smiles at him, and there are fangs in his smile, pairs of canines long and sharp and pointed, on the top and on the bottom.

That should not be attractive. Len literally just saw what those fangs are capable of, what those hands can do, the violence in them, the violence in Mick, the unrestrained brutality, the real thing next to the pale echoes of the Overlords that hunted him. They’re both stained with blood which is already starting to brown as it dries, filthy and awful and what would probably be incredibly unhygienic except for the fact that Overlords are incapable of carrying disease. It ought to be disgusting. It ought to be terrifying.

Len thinks it’s really fucking hot.

He’s so stupid sometimes.

“My turn,” Mick rumbles, and yep, Len’s done thinking. More kissing, yes please.

Mick lets Len fumble at his pants, popping the buttons open and pull him out, and Mick is thick in Len’s hands, a heavy weight of heated flesh – heat from other people’s blood, since Mick’s dead heart produces none of its own, beating dully in parody of the living.

Len swallows.

He wonders, wildly, what he should do now. There are a million options open to him. He could stroke Mick off with his fingers, watch as Mick shudders and spurts until he’s drenched Len’s hands; he could lean down, take Mick into his mouth – he’d only ever thought of that before, at night – feel the weight of him on his tongue, swallow him as best as he can; or maybe even –

Mick makes the decision for him, pushing Len down and spreading his legs, settling between them.

“I’ve never –” Len says: a caution, not a plea to stop.

“I know,” Mick says, and he seems pleased. “Will you permit me to have you?”

Well, when you put it that way…

Len shakily nods his consent.

———————————————————————————————————–

His boy wants him, his boy trusts him, his boy loves him.

His Len will give him everything.

Mick knows perfectly well he should wait. The boy is yet young and untouched; he spilled within moments and already Mick can see that he stirs once more. It would be the work of moments to bring him off again. Mick could have his body any way he wishes; he could rut against him like a beast, or put him on his knees and teach him how Mick best likes to be serviced.

But he wants.

He wants to take the boy right here, in the halls of the dead, splattered with the blood of the kill, of his rescue, of the promise implicitly made – the liege who offers protection, the knight who offers loyalty, bound together by the greatest of fealties – wants to take him and make a new binding, one on top of the others, love and loyalty mixed together until he has every last piece of Len’s soul in his hands and has given Len a piece of his own in return.

And Mick is accustomed to getting what he wants.

There is oil in the base of the lamps, sweet-smelling and rich and thick and most importantly within arm’s reach, and he suspects he’s not the first one to think of this use for them as he dips his fingers in there, his body outstretched above Len’s as Len murmurs happily and runs curious fingers over Mick’s chest.

His murmurs turn to pleasure soon enough as Mick slides his fingers down and slips one inside.

“You like that, huh?” Mick asks, smile curling on his face.

Len reaches up and kisses him, his tongue daintily curling around Mick’s teeth, tracing his fangs. Dancing with danger already, his reckless boy.

He gives him another finger just for that. It’s too quick, the boy’s tight and untried, but he’s come once already and his body is inclined to be loose and relaxed.

He’ll be more relaxed once he comes again.

“Oh – oh – I can’t –” Len protests as Mick leans down, kisses his chest, licks off the blood that leaked through his clothing, works his way down to Len’s cock even as he fingers Len open. “If you do that, I’ll be done –”

“You won’t be done,” Mick says, quite sure of it. It’s been a very long time since he was an adolescent, but he’s known many in his time. “We won’t be done, not by a long shot.”

He dips his head down and takes Len in his mouth.

Len howls in pleasure, thrashing under him and held still only by Mick’s greater strength, and Mick curls his fingers and sucks and all in all it’s maybe two minutes before Len is coming again, his eyes sliding shut with ecstasy, his body falling down, free of all concern and pain even as Mick opens him up.

Len barely stirs as Mick pulls his fingers out, pressing himself against Len, just opens his eyes and smiles up at Mick, a soft, quiet smile, love in his eyes, gasping just the slightest little bit as Mick pushes inside.

His boy – his good boy, his righteous boy, his warrior –

“You’ll stand at my right hand,” Mick whispers, ducking his head down, hands effortlessly holding Len up as he pushes inside, Len’s legs draped over his arms, pushing in deep until he’s bottomed out into Len’s languid body. “My Len – you and me, we’ll take it down, we’ll make it right – we’ll burn the world alive –”

“Yes,” Len says, and his eyes glow with pleasure. “Yes –”

“The faithless will fall before us,” Mick promises him. “The strong will protect the weak, as they ought, and the best and the cleverest will be rewarded.”

“Yes,” Len says again, and he curls up his body a little more, urging Mick along. He’s hardening yet again, quick enough that it must be causing him pain; Mick’s eager little Len. His Len. “Yes – yes – yes – more –”

Len’s not talking about their new world anymore.

Mick smirks, and turns his attention to what he’s doing.

———————————————————————————————————–

Mick fucks him long and slow and good and it’s amazing, it’s mind-blowing, and fuck, he’s hard again and if Mick doesn’t stop being so stupid hot soon, Len’s going to way too worn out to help Mick burn the world down like he wants.

Not that it’s a bad way to go.

Not if it’s Mick, anyway.

“We’re gonna do it,” he says, only half aware. “We’re gonna do it, ain’t we?”

“We already are, I thought,” Mick says, kissing the corner of Len’s mouth with an insolent smirk on his lips.

A punster.

Oh, be still Len’s living, beating heart.

“We’re gonna burn ‘em,” Len clarifies, and is rewarded by seeing Mick’s eyes glow yellow, growing slitted and alien in their pleasure as Mick speeds up his thrusts. “We’re gonna burn it all to the ground – gonna start again – make it better than it is now – gonna burn down all of their stupid temples, going to make them run, make them afraid –”

“My Len,” Mick says, and he’s pounding into Len now, he’s big and thick and oh, this is going to hurt like hell tomorrow – in an hour, even – but it’s so, so worth it. “My perfect Len, my right hand; how long I have waited for you.”

“They’re going to remember why they hid in the dark,” Len says.

“Yes,” Mick gasps, his hips working.

“They’re going to burn to ash,” Len says, and he can see it in front of his eyes as if it were real – the great gothic cathedral around them, the crypts of the sleepers, every one of them aflame and burning, each and every one of them a Temple of the Blood, a Court, a Clan-house, an Overlord who was once the terror of humanity in the dark and which had grown fat and decadent and worthless – and in the midst of that fire he can see himself, him and Mick, standing there, free of any obligation but that which they want to take on, which they have to take on, honor and freedom and justice all mixed into one unbreakable whole –

“Yes,” Mick says, and he leans down and he buries his fangs into Len’s neck.

————————————————————————————————————–

“There you go,” Len says, back straight and eyes proud, arms outstretched to show Mick the glories he has found in his searches, his work on Mick’s behalf. “Ten righteous men.”

“And women,” Iris says tartly.

Len inclines his head. “And women,” he adds, amused. “I did you one better, actually; I got you twelve.”

Mick leans forward, his eyes bright. “Let me meet them,” he says. “Your righteous dozen.”

He is beautiful, sitting there on his throne; a throne of twisted metal dragged out of some crypt, some dead place, marked with runes long since forgotten. Len’s heart skips a beat just looking at him.

“Lisa,” he says, and sends her forward.

She kneels before the monster on the throne and she looks him in the eyes and she trusts.

He puts his hands on her shoulders and stares into her eyes.

“Your sister,” Mick says, his voice dark and deep and pleased. “You give me your sister.”

“That which is most precious goes to the Lord,” Len says, and he’s only half joking.

Sure, it’s a bit blasphemous, but they’re planning world-wide revolution.

You’ve got to be a bit blasphemous for that.

Mick lifts her wrist. “With your consent,” he says.

“Freely given,” she says, head held high, eyes bright and hard, and when he bites down he does nothing to dull the pain, but she does not make a noise.

Mick pulls back within seconds. “Yes,” he says. “You are one of us. I will give you my protection.”

“I will give you my loyalty,” she replies.

He smiles.

“Next,” he orders, releasing her to stand up, Lisa moving instinctively to stand by his side, on his left.

The right, of course, is Len’s.

The next to come forward is Barry Allen, young and eager and hopeful, a boy who sees nothing but the brightness of the future before his eyes, whose life has been darkness but who is always striding to the light.

“I approve,” Mick says.

Next is Iris West, Barry’s foster-sister and anchor.

Wally West, Iris’ brother.

Cisco Ramon.

Caitlin Snow.

Ronnie Raymond.

Sara Lance.

Jefferson Jackson.

Kendra Saunders.

Martin Stein.

Raymond Palmer.

Each and every one of them bright and upright, heroes in souls stained with darkness. They hate the status quo that grinds down men into slaves and lets the Overlords grow stupid on their blood.

“My baker’s dozen of righteous souls,” Mick says. “Together, we’re going to change the world.”

“But first,” Len says. “We’re going to burn it down.”