Sleeping it off

Whilst Ava slept off equal parts blood loss, equal parts hangover, Dagaz set about doing some research into his new condition. Casting one last look at the girl sleeping in his bed, he retrieved his discarded pants from the floor and pulled his cigarette tin from one pocket and his phone from the other. His shirt and Ava's robe he left laying there, not out of laziness, but at the prospect of seeing her perfectly proportioned ass naked as she bent over to pick it up later.

In the 34 years he'd been on this planet, he didn't think he'd ever had head that good, which was a hell of an achievement considering he'd been with plenty of incredible cock-suckers before. There was this one he'd dated for a few years, Max. Stunning redhead. She'd been absolutely bat-shit crazy, in the good kind of way, but still totally nuts. She'd had a great pair of tits though, and legs that went on for days, so he'd overlooked the craziness. Plus she'd had the kind of mouth a man could just get lost inside. But now... well she couldn't compete with the skilled pair of lips that had just wrapped themselves around his shaft.

Fastening his pants up (he'd forgone his boxers as the pants were destined for the machine anyway, so a few cum stains wouldn't be the end of the world) Dagaz made his way across the living room, past the designer kitchen and up a small flight of spiral stairs to the mezzanine area above. It was up there that his office, his sanctuary within the sanctuary of his home as it were, was located. In this one room, more so than any other in his home, he had spared no expense on the decor. It clearly showed. The office was luxurious, even bordering on the opulent in some areas, but never straying too close to the indulgent. It was the room of a man with refined tastes, and the funds to make them a reality. He loved this room, even though it was primarily for working out off, it exuded his tastes more so that any other room in his home. Underfoot were dark oak floors, polished to a sheen and worn smooth under the soles of countless feet before he'd reclaimed them from an old monestary and had them imported. Antique chairs in a deep green leather lined on side of the room, smelling faintly of tobacco and aftershave when one sat in them. One was a solitary arm chair, the other a matching sofa. Within easy reach of both was a liquor cabinet, mostly stocked for Dagaz's personal use but with enough cut crystal glasses displayed that he would be able to offer guests a drink on the vary rare occasion one was invited into the room and allowed to partake.

On the other side of the room, a huge mahogany desk dominated the space. To the uninitiated, the room would have seemed cluttered, disorganised even. But everything had a purpose, and everything had a place. Souvenirs and knick-knacks from business trips could be found spread throughout the room, large and small, from the tacky to the boutique they told an unspoken story of the man who owned them's many travels. The few photos in the room had been meticulously selected to only show his meetings with those who's faces needed no introductions to, and spoke silent of a man who mingled with the people who really mattered in society. The walls of the mezzanine were solid sheets of tinted glass that ran floor to ceiling, which both afforded Dagaz not only privacy whilst he worked but also an incredible uninterrupted view of his apartment. Hand woven tapestries hung from a few of the panels, from others hung art. Nothing that was instantly recognizable, Dagaz may have been reasonably wealthy, but truly rare art was outside of his financial reach loathe as he was to admit it to himself. The reason he had retreated to his office was not for the view though, but for the dark tint of the glass walls that were designed to filter out UV radiation when sunlight hit them.

Upon having them fitted many years ago when he'd first purchased his home, the glass had been purely to allow him to work in peace. Whilst being in the penthouse of the building afforded him spectacular views of the city, the downside was that it also meant sunlight streamed in through the windows uninterrupted throughout the day. Whilst he did enjoy the brightness, it bothered him while he worked. Now he hoped the tint would find a secondary but more imperative use; to shield him from the approaching daylight that he could still feel drawing closer.

Dagaz had no idea if he could even survive behind the walls, but lacking an alternative this was all he was able to do in the time he had to hand. There was no time to make alternative preparations, and ruefully Ysabelle had neglected to inform him of any of the rules governing his new existence. The little he knew of Vampires, gleaned mainly through the media of films — he hadn't read many non-fiction books since his youth — only gave him an idea of the basics: fire bad, sunlight bad, wooden stakes bad. Who knew how much of that was even true anyway, until yesterday he'd lived his entire life with the belief that anything supernatural was bullshit, the imaginings of the crazy, the degenerate and the superstitious. Whilst he'd been at least one of those thing, possibly a second depending on who you spoke to, Dagaz was not a superstitious man.

He was however a cautious one. He locked the door tightly shut behind him, guarding against the prospect of Ava opening the door later unaware and flooding the room with light.

Throwing two lumps of ice and as many fingers of single malt scotch into a tumbler, he retrieved his laptop from his from his desk, made his way over to the leather sofa and flopped onto it. It creaked slightly under his weight, the leather was in **** need of an oil and it had been almost a week since Dagaz had let his housekeeper into his home. He'd been out on business for most of it, the party last night had been meant to serve as his reward for a job well done. Not his own party sadly — he had however made the VIP list — but a chance to unwind after 4 intercontinental flights in as many days, and as many countries between them.

Fishing a cigarette from his tin, he lit up, savouring the feeling as the sweet smoke hit his lungs. The smell of the smoke drifted up through the air as he breathed out, before the filtration system sucked it up and discarded it. He knew he shouldn't really smoke inside, let alone in a room filled with so many precious, flammable objects, but he didn't give a shit. He'd been smoking since he was 13, when he'd first snuck one from his nannie's purse when she wasn't looking. He hadn't really wanted to smoke, but all the other kids at the private school he'd been sent to were doing it, and he'd been curious what all the fuss had been about.

He'd nearly coughed a lung up the first time he'd inhaled, and you would have thought that would have been enough to deter him for life, but no, like the rebellious idiot youth he was, he'd tried again. And again, until he was hooked and eventually smoking a pack of 20 a day. The only real difference between then and now was that he'd upgraded from stolen Pall Malls's to Sobranie Black Russian's. He took pride in the fact that every time he retrieved one of the black and gold cigarettes from his tin, he was regularly asked about them by those that couldn't afford them.

Taking another hit, he tilted his head back and pursed his lips, before blowing out a few smoke rings with a click of his jaw. Setting the cigarette into an ashtray, he fired up the laptop and quickly pulled up a secure web browser, making sure he was all but untraceable. He knew very little about hiding his identity online, but thankfully he knew those who did, and they had been willing to provide their services for the right incentive. The first thing he did was order the same dark tinting that protected his office to be fitted on every window of the apartment. Then, he sent a text to his housekeeper, arranging for her to be here when they were fitted. He would make himself scare whilst the were installed, he didn't particularly relish the idea of moving about in his home until he was secure in the knowledge that he would be safe from harm.

The second thing he turned his attention to was to read anything he could about vampires. He skipped any articles that looked pulpy, and most defiantly anything that had been turned into a movie. To the more obscure he looked, towards any articles that mentioned the things less often discussed. They all agreed on a few common things; the sunlight, the need for blood. Between them all though, he gleaned a few things that he hadn't known before.

He found mentions of magic, real magic, higher powers and of unspeakable rituals. Sacrifices and beings worshiped akin to deities. Whispers written of secret groups with no names, of ancients battles between man and creatures, but whispers were all he found. Enough for him to form the beginnings of a million and more questions to lay at Ysabelle's feet when they met again, and the burning desire for answers from her.

As he sat there swirling his drink in his glass, his resentment began to crystallise until it became nothing but a hard, bitter ball dwelling inside him that began to boil and fester. Why, why had she picked him, killed him? Turned him? Why had she left him up there on the roof, with nothing but questions on his mind and a strangers blood on his lips?

But even as he thought of his Sire, he couldn't find it in himself hate her. Not completely, not enough to satisfy the anger her felt towards her. It would have been easier if he could truly hate her, but the lingering image of her face was etched into his memory. The silky timbre of her voice, the feeling of her lips on his own, her fangs scratching against his cock as she'd sucked him slowly began to turn anger to mournfulness. He wished she was here with him, he couldn't help it, and she had promised she would return in time. He just had to prove himself.

Dagaz thought over her parting words to him.

At the dusk and the dawn,
They rise and they fall.
In one you'll be nourished,
The other you'll perish.

That could only be about the Sun and the Moon he'd deduced, rising and falling in opposition with each other, one bringing destruction beneath its rays, the other sanctuary beneath its light.

He though of the next lines. Greet your seventh alone, Without my Embrace. Here I'll be waiting, To mourn or rejoice, She obviously wanted him to survive on his own for a week, seven days and seven nights without her protection. Some kind of test. An initiation maybe, a way to sift the weak from the strong perhaps.

And then the lines At my fledgling's success,
Or my own poor choice. He would succeed, and prove her choice had been a wise one. Even if the illusion of choice to enter this life had been denied to him, this was his life now.

You'll live or you'll die,
By our kinds simple rules
It would be a shame to let you go to waste,
Mark each of these words.
Heed the Masquerade.

What the fuck was the Masquerade?

He'd found not the slightest reference to that. The rules part hadn't born any fruit either from his internet search, and how could it have when he had almost no idea of what he was looking for.

There were rules to being undead were there, laws that governed things? Had he broken any already in his ignorance of them, and could he truly be held accountable for his actions if he had. Panic crept in, and only by draining his glass of scotch did Dagaz manage to ward them off. His self doubt was interrupted by the shrill beeping of the low battery sound coming from his computer. It had been fully charged when he'd first sat down with it. Lost deep in his research and his own thoughts, he'd been sitting there for the better part of 4 hours. With his thoughts occupied, he'd not noticed the sun finally rise outside, brilliant beams of sunlight having burst through the windows to illuminate the apartment floor below him.

He wasn't dead he noticed with a hint of relief, feeling the knot of apprehension that had been nestled between his shoulder blades finally melt away. It would appear that the tinted windows of the mezzanine had offered him the protection he'd desired.

Shutting his laptop down he stood, and like a cat waking from its afternoon nap, stretched languorously, letting out a mighty yawn. He was exhausted, beyond that even if such a thing were possible. He'd been awake for an unreasonable amount of time that was for sure, but he hadn't even felt fatigue creeping up on him, one moment he'd felt fine, the next like he could sleep — pun very much intended — like the dead.

Carrying his computer back to his desk, he plugged it into recharge before reaching for his phone to fire off a message to his housekeeper Camila, telling her to be there during the day whilst the windows were tinted. He followed it up with a second message, instructing her to leave his bedroom and office alone when she cleaned. In fact, that should she disturb either room under any circumstances, her job would be forfeit. She was a fantastic and loyal worker, but if she took it upon herself to open his office door before the rest of the windows in the house were finishing being tinted, she may find herself hard-pressed to remain in the employment of a corpse. As for the bedroom, he just didn't particularly like he idea of her waking Ava without him being around. He had no idea what effects his blood would have on her, if any, and he wanted to be there when she woke.

Secure in the thought that he could do no more for now, he resigned himself to the sofa, closed his eyes, and let sleep wrap him in its warm embrace.