Chapter Text
i. SMARANAM | स्मरण : derived from the root smṛ ("to remember"), focusing on the constant, unwavering mental remembrance of the Divine's name, form, and virtues
OMAN, 2022
Marius was tolerant of many things, but uncleanliness, he was not.
Unclealiness in every sense of the word; when Amadeo would return home with dirty fingernails after a tussle in the dirt. When Amadeo’s breath would reek of foreign kisses. When Amadeo’s mind would become sullied with the stench of disobedience. He grew into the shoes of an insolent boy towards the latter years, Psalm 51:7 branded into his flesh, chanted into his ears, forced out of his mouth until it was all he could see, hear & breathe. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Ashy skin rubbed raw with tallow and lavender, flesh sloughed off with every swipe of his maker’s roughened hand, like a snake shedding skin after every kill. The discarding of a body no longer its own.
In Delhi, chased down by an enslaver he once bashfully addressed as ‘uncle’ in a past life, fingers grubby as they clawed a screaming and thrashing Arun towards the docks. Too starved by the British to allow guilt to loosen his grip, his tearful gaze avoiding the child with a limitless resolve. In the ship, the mucus-lathered, rattling cough of death lulled the nearby children into slumber. In the brothel, that elusive luxury was also denied him; perspiration mingled with foreign, salty stenches he could not identify.
Marius, however, had freed him from the only life he knew: feet always socked, hands always gloved. Chest adorned with creamy linen in the summer, sapphire studded velvet in the winter. His body lathered so heavily in oils, creams, powders and scents from the botanical gardens, until he no longer remembered how he smelled without them.
The rigorous cleansing did not stop at the physical. Marius’ jaw would twitch with fury whenever he’d catch secretive mumblings in Sanskrit slip past his favourite insolent boy’s lips, dragging him by the scruff of his neck to the altar. Forcing him onto his knees, to renounce Ganesh for Saint Sophia, Hanuman for Saint Christopher, Parvati for the Virgin Mary, and Brahma for Jesus.
But in the desert, trails of curdling iron slicked from his throat down to his ankles, sand clinging to the crimson staining his skin, there was no Arun, there was no Amadeo, there was no Marius, and there was no God.
He continued to soldier through the rusty dunes in a daze, not even a whistle of wind to keep him company. Horrified by the remnants of his actions suffocating his senses, but too drenched in borrowed Catholic guilt to extinguish the flames of sin charred upon his body. Half a millenium of bastardised life had yet to teach Armand patience.
One look. All it took was one look at a hyperventilating Daniel, the delicious pumping of his blood slowing down to a snail's pace, and Armand drained of all sense. All sanity, all clear-headedness, quips caught in his throat as he jostled the limbs of a man he once recognised better than his own arms and legs. Shaking unresponsive shoulders with trembling hands, penthouse too void of life to bother screaming out for medical assistance. No library vast enough to instill him with enough logic, no whip scathing enough to beat the animalistic impulse out of him. Fangs sinking into clammy flesh. Jaw aching with desperation. Eardrums, screeching, clanging, ringing until…
Buzzing. The faintest of buzzing.
Any meal of divine quality could not compete with the taste of home. Infused with Levodopa, blood thinners, scarce haemoglobin and even scarcer plasma; ravaged, left in rubble, but if the bones remained, then it was still home. So Armand drank, drank until the walls dissipated into oblivion, until his lips curved into the betrayal of a smile; until tongues of fire licked at the pentecost of his veins, until his bones were drenched in the divinity of the refiner's flames. Centuries had passed without a glimmer of God, yet Armand suckled on greying flesh with the reverence of a blind believer, until every vein was gnawed.
And then the blood high wore off.
Molars claggy. Gums slicked with the acrid juices of forbidden fruit. Gurgling from a nearby corpse that should've died the way God intended. Armand staggered away from the crime scene, clutching his churning stomach, the aftermath of his gluttony strong enough to mortify emperors. Staring, with bated breaths. Waiting. For a sputtering of life or stillness of death. 50 years of restraint, of pleading and denial, of compromise and disobedience, yet all it took was a jittering pair of lungs to discombobulate every brick, every beam, every pillar of what he was and what he knew. Waiting. Feet firmly cemented, as if time would pass by quicker if he gave it space to squeeze past. Waiting… until a pair of ashen fingers twitched in his peripheral vision. The beating of a heart, however, could not be heard for miles.
The boy had not died, but nor was he alive.
The time between the killing and where Armand was now, he could not recall. Feet mechanically leading him away from the Al-Sharaf towers, away from the city, away from the country, until the rocky terrain morphed into sand, cushioning the blisters caking the soles of his feet. None of his primal needs were catered to; he had not fed, had not slept, had not stilled for longer than the presence of the sun, burying himself within the dunes until the moon would beckon him to resume his journey. Though 'journey' would imply an intended destination. Armand did not have one. He would simply stop once his mind ceased replaying the horror show of immortality being funneled into his boy's lungs. No commentary, no spiraling, simply the same scene burned into his corneas, accompanied with the soft sound of static.
With his head bowed, Armand nearly hurtled into a body of water, halting milliseconds before slipping into the edge. He recalibrated for a moment, head snapping up, gathering his bearings as he realised he had reached an oasis. Armand had not sighted any signs of civilisation for countless days, so the ripples in the water stilled into a crystal sheet once it had recovered from his intrusion. He would have resumed his mechanical march if he had not caught sight of his face in the pool, haggard in a way he had not been since his Children of Satan days. Every inch of cloth and flesh smothered in rotting coagulation, beige and burgundy grains of sand glued to every pore. If there were anyone else around, he would believe the pond had mistakenly pulled up the wrong image. Unrecogniseable, regardless of how long he had stared.
The foreign reflection broke him out of his stupor. Every century, Armand had been tasked, by circumstance of the universe, to reinvent his identity once more. From the people surrounding him, the location of where he laid his head to rest; the dialect on his tongue, the clothes he wore, down to the name he bore. At first, it had been invigorating. Immortality had been uncompromising, but it was a slate smooth and polished enough to wipe clean with ease. He had lost Marius, so he started anew. He had lost Lestat, so he started anew. He had lost Louis, so he started anew. He had lost Daniel, so he crawled back to Louis, an etch on his slate he had improperly cleaned off in haste. Now, he was alone again, but new beginnings were no longer provocative. The thought of training his tongue into the shape of a new vernacular, luring in a fresh lover, scanning through continents for another home, it brought him to his knees. Alone. Prostrating into fertile land, clawing at fistfuls of dampened sand. Immortality was not synonymous with never-ending life but rather, the rapid flickering between countless personas. Immortality proposed one, singular promise, yet in 500 years, even that had failed to fruition.
If he sunk deep enough into the soil, perhaps the earth would take pity on his bones and curl their roots around his limbs, devouring his flesh as sustenance – yet, as always, Mother Nature had no appetite. The only semblance of youth left in him was the elasticity of his skin. This was not a life. This was nothing but stolen time, the fire patiently awaiting his thieving days to come to an end. Overcome with sickness, he plunged his hands into the body of virgin water, scrubbing and scrubbing to quell his conscience for even a moment. Scrubbed until the crystal blue sullied into terracotta. Armand brought his disinfected hands close to his face for inspection, frightened to realise that his terror was yet to expunge. Will these hands ne'er be clean? Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.
Hysteria bubbled deep in Armand's chest, frothing around his ribs, piling up his throat until peals of laughter came spilling out into the quiet. Convulsing with hysterics, lowering himself deeper into the oasis, lower and lower until submerged from head to toe. Hissing as the iciness enveloped a body that had not felt anything cooler than the branding of hot iron in weeks. Slowly prying open his jaw, water gushing into every orifice, every nerve alight with blistering agony. Limbs frantically splashing at their own accord, membrane nestled inside his skull screeching at the intrusion. But Armand was a monster masquerading as a man. Every warning signal was in vain if no imminent doom awaited.
Gulping and gulping. Retching. Gulping some more. Retching, until his vision blackened around the edges. Hysterical laughs never pausing, the theatrics of death endlessly amusing. Brain's determination at consciousness fraying, limbs accepting defeat, pausing their thrashing. Alone.
Something clawed at his wrist. Like talons, jerking his body upwards. The closer his body heaved towards the surface, the murmurings grew more comprehensible in tandem.
Ya waladi! Ya waladi, ta'al huna!
The remaining dregs of his resolve sputtered out.
—
Armand awoke with a feather-stuffed pillow underneath his head and a woollen blanket draped over his shoulders. Slowly propping himself up on his elbows, rubbing the bleariness out of his eyes as he took in his surroundings: some sort of sprawling tent, dotted with lamps in every corner, a maroon Persian rug beneath him, clothes haphazardly spilling from a trunk nearby, but the camp was sparsely decorated otherwise. His inspection was cut short at the sight of a mortal man entering the tent through a flap.
The stranger's eyes crinkled in a kind but hesitant smile, slowly approaching Armand as if he were an easily spooked cat. His thobe was off-white and scuffed with the tell-tale signs of manual labour, hands rough and face smattered with dozens of sun-spots. The tail-end of middle-aged with a receding hairline, a slashed scar running across the bridge of his nose, but his laugh lines were carved deeply into his heavily tanned cheeks.
"Hal tatakallamu al-'arabiyya?"
It took a second for Armand's brain to comprehend the foreign syllables being spoken, but he slowly nodded his head just as the man began to figure out another way to communicate. His Arabic was too rusty to write poetry in, but after two decades in Dubai, he could communicate just fine.
The man, no taller than 5'5, crouched down until they were both eye-level. Shoulders slowly relaxing, reaching out to pat Armand softly on the back. "Unlikely place to find a man so well-dressed. Are you alright, my son?"
Armand had not fed in so long that his sluggish mind could no longer track how many times he had watched the sun rise and fall since his last meal. The mortal smelled intoxicating, like pomegranate molasses. The main differences between vampires and mortals were their diets, lifespan and their physical limitations. They sang the same songs, danced to the same music and smelled the same roses, but the more time he spent around vampires, the less he could feel himself noticing the similarities between the two species. To call them cattle would be crass, but he could not lie and deny that lately, he saw them as little more than a means to an end.
Armand flicked through the memories nestled in the man's head like cards within a rolodex. Ahmed, a shepherd who, during Ramadan, would camp out in the desert situated on the outskirts of Muscat with his 16 camels. He would plump them all up every annum until they were primed for slaughter at the end of the holy month. Unwed with no kids, no family left besides a bedridden, widowed mother – no one would remember him within months of his death. There would be no investigation, a life so unremarkable, so sparsely educated with such limited potential, that not even the Omani camel market would suffer. His mother would die within a week after, the end to a mediocre lineage. His blood smelled healthy, well-fed despite the impoverishment, not laced with any bitter, foreign substances. Even amongst a crowd in a well-populated, wealthy city, Ahmed would still be a top-contender for a feeding that could sustain him for weeks on end.
And yet, Armand's head dropped into Ahmed's lap, chest wreaking with heavy sobs.
The poor shepherd froze for just a moment at the burst of emotion, but quickly pulled Armand closer, patting his head in a fatherly motion that he had not felt in centuries. Armand could not help but curl into the gesture, claws grabbing fistfuls of the man's thobe as his bloodied tears seeped into the stark white fabric, teardrops blooming like a freshly stabbed corpse in the snow.
Ahmed kept murmuring soft reassurances, patting his back to the beat of a metronome, but stilled with a gasp at the sight of the bloodied wreck spilling onto his clothes.
"Ya Allah! My son, wait here, I will fetch medicine for you."
Armand sniffled, wiping the last of his tears with his sleeve as the man scurried away in a panic. He could not recall the last time he was overtaken with such an open display of despair, especially not in front of a stranger. So starved of affection, that he bowed like a sunflower growing in the direction of the sun.
The man returned with a sparse, beaten-down medical kit, hands trembling as he frantically shuffled through for something that could aid such a strange symptom. Armand huffed out a wet laugh, shaking his head as he reached out to seal the medical kit shut. "This happens when my eyes are irritated. There is no cause for alarm, I assure you. I will be just fine."
Ahmed quizzically stared back at Armand, trying to dissect the honesty of his words, but slowly nodded as he accepted the calm of Armand's tone. "I am not sure if this is too soon to say, but you are a baffling young man. Drowning in clothes pricier than my cattle, speaking in a dialect that proves you are far from home. What is your name?"
He could lull the man into ceasing his questioning, could make him do jumping jacks, could make him march to a neighbouring nation, but for a reason he could not place, he let the conversation flow naturally. "Armand. I am a stranger to Oman, and lost my way in the night. I am not sure what my fate would have been without your generous hospitality. May I ask for your name, sir?"
"You can call me Ahmed." The shepherd rose to his feet, rubbing at the stain on his chest to check if it would smudge. "Your name is foreign. Do you fast?"
Considering his last feeding, — grey curls matted with blood, sage eyes swimming with flecks of cancerous, mutating amber — Armand nodded in response.
"There are still a few hours left until sunrise, and I have enough leftovers from iftaar, but… one look at the state you are in. I don't think think you are fit to fast anytime soon."
Armand stood up with unsteady feet, smoothing down the flowing, creamy linen of the shirt he had been changed into while unconscious. "If I could not handle it, I would not try. What just happened was stressful and unfortunate, but I assure you, I am entirely well." Armand hesitated for a beat, toying with the hem of his top. "I apologise for soiling your thobe. I can compensate you tonight for your selflessness. You must be busy. I can be on my way out in a moment."
Ahmed guffawed, shaking his head at the words. Armand, caught off-guard, knitted his eyebrows together in confusion. "Nonsense. You can stubbornly insist on fasting, but you will not leave here in this pitch black darkness. I am sure your hotel must be infinitely more comfortable, but you have lost your way once already. Eat, sleep, then you can leave whenever the journey is easier. I will ride into the city by camelback after sunrise, so you may come with me, but my home is your home, so feel free to stay for as long as you need."
Truth be told, Armand had not planned this far ahead. He could leave whenever, yes, but he was unsure as to where he would travel next. The Dubai penthouse should have packaged all his belongings and transferred them to a storage facility by now, but what else remained there…
"I would… I would be delighted to stay. Thank you."
So for the next few days, Armand did just that.
Each day, Ahmed would leave for the market with his cattle an hour after sunrise and on a good day, would return shortly before sunset with a slightly smaller herd. He would often bring back dates, yoghurt drinks, stuffed grape leaves and various spiced rice dishes for them to feast on once the call to prayer would faintly ring out from over the horizon. Armand would excuse himself to go pray first every maghrib whilst Ahmed broke his fast, promising to eat once it was Ahmed's turn to pray. By the time Ahmed would close his eyes to recite his opening dua, Armand would leave the tent and set fire to his meal, guilt panging in his chest since he knew the shepherd had been splurging on meals for hospitality's sake.
Armand slept during the day and would keep a watchful eye on the camels throughout the night. Whenever wolves would threaten to approach the resting cattle, he would flick his fingers towards the bonfire, flames licking up higher into the delightfully starry sky. Ahmed would usually accompany Armand for an hour or two after the final prayer of the evening, ending the day with freshly brewed qawah over the flickering, dying embers.
"Baffles me every night how well you can light a fire with barely any coal."
"I have a gift," Armand replied with a faint smile.
"I figured," Ahmed chuckled, taking another sip of his coffee. "A gift for brewing coffee, too." A pause. "I have seen how some of the Emiratis observe Ramadan in Dubai. You are not what I expected."
It was clear Ahmed cared greatly for the safety and livelihood of his guest, but was naturally not an inquisitive person, sensing Armand's elusive nature and choosing not to pry too often. But as a reward for his patience, Armand did not mind entertaining his queries for tonight.
"How so?"
"Well," Ahmed started, angling his body towards Armand, unable to hide his enthusiasm at the permission to pry, "you are awfully devout. It is not often I see people practice spirituality so strictly when fasting. Whether or not you have any worldly temptations, you do not make it apparent. I haven't seen you do anything but pray, read the Quran and keep an eye on my cattle." The crows feet near his eyes deepened in accompaniment to a wide grin, but faltered slightly after a few moments. "Maybe you are simply devout, yes. But there is a desperation behind how I see you kneel during sunrise. How a man like you wanders to a place like this yet chooses to stay… your pain is deeper than physical. What has happened to you?"
His observations were not wrong. In the time Ahmed spent away, Armand had buried himself in a well-worn copy of the Quran, immersed in verses he had already read a dozen times over. But for the first time, the text was parsed less literally; more as if he were analysing an anthology. He still did not feel God nearby, but perhaps he simply did not know how to identify His presence. So with nothing else to do, he drowned himself in worship, soothed by the repetition, the familiarity, rather than the content itself. Free of materialism, free of vices, every one of his senses void of stimulation, zeroed into prayer more than ever before. Focus so pointed, so narrow, that he could think of nothing but the chapters he memorised like the back of his hand.
Trembling hands, flexing to soothe the jittering. Ink stained, wrinkled, and faintly tanned with proof of a life well-lived.
Armand bowed his head, voice barely above a whisper. "I have lost a loved one," averting his gaze and coughing to clear the quiver in his voice. "More than one, actually."
"Ah," Ahmed sighed in understanding, turning back towards the fire. He seemed as though he wanted to say more, but after a moment of contemplation, held his tongue. Armand used his hesitation as a cue to gaze into the shepherd's mind, watching the hazy flickerings of gleefully squealing children pass by. Children whose screams of delight morphed into horror, kicking and thrashing as they were dragged away by men dressed in camo.
Armand squeezed a hand onto his shoulder. "You have taken care of me like a son. Even if I have lost loved ones, at least I am fortunate enough to collect more."
Ahmed bashfully waved him off with a snicker, tension easing out his shoulders, recollections of gory nightmares in his head slowly fading into black. "Enough flattery, I am already diabetic. No more sweetness for tonight." He clutched his aching knees with a groan as he stood up. "Drink up. Don't know how you stay awake through the night when you only use coffee as a handwarmer."
Armand continued to keep watch over the camels throughout the following nights. Would feed them their hay, observing Ahmed as he gave a tutorial on how to gather milk from their udders, and petting their heads when they would fall asleep. But half a millenium of vampirism still came with its limits: Armand was starving. His eyes sunken into craters, skin ashy, gait lethargic, eyes swimming with too much exhaustion to read. Slowly, he would sleep throughout the day but half into the night as well, only awake long enough to sit next to Ahmed during iftaar.
By the end of the week, Ahmed lost his temper.
"Either you eat a full meal in front of me or I take you to the hospital. I cannot believe the words leaving my mouth right now. I should not be chastising a grown man as if you were a child." His arms were crossed over his chest, face scrunched in fury with concern seeping through the cracks.
"You are being ridiculous. There is only an hour left until sunset. I will eat then." As if being mocked by the universe, that is the moment his lungs began to wheeze uncontrollably. Ahmed did not seem impressed. "Last I remember, you were proud of my 'spiritual cleansing'. Is this not what you wished for me to do?"
"I will not stand by and watch you kill yourself." The older man brought over a plate of dates, settling down in a chair next to a groaning Armand writhing in bed. "None of your fasts are valid if you do them with the intention of self-harm. You have warped self-flagellation into spirituality. Worship is the ultimate selfless deed. You may think depriving yourself of your needs is equal to worship, but if anything, it borders narcissism. You place your cruelty on a pedestal, unable to think of anything besides your wrongdoings. You are human. You were put on this earth for many reasons, but one of them is to enjoy the fruits of God's labour. Now open up."
Armand obliged, prying open his mouth as Ahmed plopped a date inside. 'Human'. Perhaps he is not deserving of the fruits of God's labour after all. He chewed on the date, face involuntarily scrunching into a disgusted grimace, mouth flooded with the taste of ashes and moldy flesh.
Ahmed's anger began to dissipate. "Not fond of sweets?"
Armand shook his head. "Not enough protein." Ahmed cackled delightfully, their bond restored as good as new.
JORDAN, 1979
"So," Daniel muttered, half-breathless, adjusting the keffiyeh wrapped around his head to keep his sweaty curls at bay. "Nice place you have here." He heard a soft snicker from his side, quickly shot daggers from his eyes towards his vampire chaperone, whose hair was effortlessly tousled and skin biologically sweat-free. Asshole.
"Gift from my Baba, actually," replied the oil tycoon, his accent difficult to place. "Fifty acres, still in development."
They'd just settled down in a sprawling, majlis tent, as wide as a banquet hall and as tall as a pair of stacked giraffes. The floor was layered with a mosaic of burgundy Persian rugs; the sofas plush and squat, arranged into a conversation pit. The opulence wasn't easy to digest, maroon drapes dotted with rubies as the servants poured out coffee from gold dallahs, their hands encrusted in poorly shielded scars. Warm, golden lights twinkled from every corner, the atmosphere was somber, but the music and line of belly dancers filtering in felt gaudy.
"He has a good eye for economic growth, you see." The bearded man – doused in attar that could be smelled from ten miles away – unsubtly craned his neck towards a nearby bellydancer, eyes hungrily roving over the gold coins jingling around her waist. "Good people here, too." He shot a wink in her direction, earning a barely concealed eye-roll from Daniel.
Armand, like a true sadist, had whisked them away to the Middle East during the height of summer, also the only month where the people didn't eat. He'd agreed on selling one of his most prized art pieces to a young billionaire, Ibrahim bin Khalid: a business savvy prince of the Saudi royal family. Ibrahim was low enough in the ranks to never become heir, but high enough to spindle his connections into capitalistic gain. Daniel's boisterous reputation preceded him in the journalistic world, the prince requesting an interview during the trade-off as a 2-birds-with-1-stone convenience. Despite all of Daniel's grumblings over the blistering heat, it was difficult to conceal his excitement. Ibrahim bin Khalid was the centrifugal force of a scandal the public moved on from two years ago. His name had milled around during the very first day the Lockheed news broke, but diminished from the press instantaneously, a “printing error” being blamed for the mix-up. Adnan Khaggoshi was promptly announced as the key suspect, but a misspelling like that? Daniel didn't buy it. With the way the stars aligned so precisely to his liking, maybe he'd take another shot at believing in God.
"Your Baba…" Daniel flicked through his notes, scanning through bulletpoint lists before lifting his head, his gaze hardened with a mismatched grin. "Sheikh Abdul bin Faisal, next in line for the throne once Grandbaba kicks the bucket. Birthday gift? Or congratulations for buying out all of Exxon's shares in the Arabian American Oil Company?"
Ibrahim's demeanour had been relaxed for the past half hour, his eyes often crinkling in hearty, booming laughter, but his face began to sour — though the smile stayed plastered on. "Ah. Foolish of me to assume this would be a fluff piece." He took a sip of his coffee, recalibrating the nonchalance that'd shaken off. "I'll take it you have heard of our plans to acquire a 100% stake in the company. Shall I expect American outrage over 'confiscation of assets' for the rest of this fine evening?"
Daniel's infamous shit-eating grins often landed him with broken ribs, sprawled on the linoleum of murky bars made sticky with pools of his own blood. His antics should've sealed his fate years ago; instead, he lived on time bought by a monster that could zip up the gnarliest of gashes with a swipe of a slender finger. "No, I understand. Sovereignty over your own land while you can still afford it. Baba's pampered the right son." Cocking his head to the side as his interviewee's poker face finally set in. "Just making sure we're on the same page, boss."
"Of course." Ibrahim flashed Daniel one last bitter smile before angling his body away, face already warming up from the switch in conversation partners. "Armand! Good to put a face to the name," grabbing his hand in a hearty shake. "Hope the residence nearby is to the preference of you and your…", he trailed off for a moment, clearly mustering up as much diplomacy as he could manage. "Inquisitive friend. I hear the… sorry, my French is rusty. However you call it. The Picasso. Is it ready for the trade-off tomorrow?"
Daniel was used to conducting interviews with Armand looming in the shadows, not often seated right next to him. Regardless, he'd been uncharacteristically quiet the entire evening. Armand could be entertained in a barren room if the texture of the floor was jagged enough, but despite the glittering lights, the strumming of an oud smoother than whiskey and the qawah warming up his hands, Armand seemed distant. The agitating consequence of one-sided mind-reading rearing its ugly head.
“Forgive me for prolonging this ordeal," Armand murmured softly, a knack for conducting the focus of the room despite the low volume of his voice. "My reluctance was never about monetary value but rather, sentiment. I’ve loved Les Demoiselles d’Avignon since the first time I encountered it. I’ve been… fortunate, I suppose, to live with something so divisive for so long."
A stuttering pause, the vampire now picking at a hangnail that'd grown a millimeter since they'd entered the tent — a tell for when he's hesitating to speak his mind. "I understand why some recoil from it. These brothel women, fractured under the male gaze. Yes, that vulgarity is undeniable," his eyes twinkled, voice picking up in speed in tandem to his enthusiasm. "But what arrests me is them — the women themselves. The masks, the sharpened limbs, the suggestion of sickness and fear. There is so much unease to it, so much to sit with. Whether it is lauded for its intersectionality or condemned for its exoticism, it still evokes something profound in everyone that sees it."
Daniel's face must've looked stupid with affection from the way Armand caught his eye in his peripheral, abruptly cutting off his rant and levelling his voice in an attempt at regaining his poise. "You were remarkably persistent, even when I offered you other works in exchange. I’m curious about that.” Another moment of silence to pick at his hangnail. “What did you find compelling? What made it worth insisting on?”
The prince had zoned out, only half-listening as he silently beckoned over a footman serving canapés. "Right, right. I mean, I've been told this is the first ever painting from the period of Cuboidism-"
Armand cocked an eyebrow. "Cubism."
Ibrahim chewed on a crostini lathered in caviar, continuing as if he hadn't been corrected. "Yes, painting from the Cubism era, so I had to have it. Though mainly, I've been growing my Picasso collection. Not long left before MoMA snatches up the last of them," grumbling as he chowed down on another canapé. "Besides," he said, swiping the crumbs off his thobe like a slob before slapping Armand's back in jest, "not so hard on the eyes, either, huh?" His Mr. Moneystacks laugh thundered over the ballad crooning in the air, punctuating his wisecrack with a wink. He was unaware of how Armand had stilled. "Okay, okay, enough business-talk. Strictly banned during dinnertime." The oil tycoon impatiently mimed over another butler, oblivious to Armand's face hardening into impassivity. "Let's start with drinks. How do you take your whiskey?"
Daniel scoffed sardonically, but still accepted the crystal lowball, peering into the glass as he gave it a swirl. "Huh. Did not realise the Saudi monarchy was so easygoing with secularism."
Ibrahim held the fogged glass to his lips, eyes darkened and locked with Daniel's. His PR training was too solid to rise to the bait. "Everyone has their vices."
When Daniel was 10-years-old, he plunged his hands into electric eel infested waters, just to see if they lived up to the 'electric' hype in their name. Nearly two decades later, he still wasn’t eager enough to break his bad habits. "That so? What were Princess Mishaal's vices?"
If all the other quips ruffled his feathers, then this one plucked each feather straight out of every pore. Ibrahim's jaw twitched dangerously and yet, he failed to rise to the bait once more. It was delightfully easy to undermine the prince, with all his crass jokes and gluttony, yet his mouth never faltered whenever it really mattered. After all, impossible to build an empire with a loose tongue.
"Armand." His voice rumbled, words aimed at the vampire, but his stare pointed at Daniel. "I am starting to realise why this interview, in addition to the initial $20 million, felt more lucrative to you than the $5 million top-up." Daniel whipped his head back to Armand, who seemed to have gained an interest in the embroidery of the carpets for the first time that evening. "I am an open book. But let us leave the interrogation until later this evening." The flock of bellydancers, previously on standby, were whistled over. "Feast for the eyes as the first course, yes?"
The performance entranced Ibrahim instantaneously, like a cobra falling victim to a flute. He abandoned his guests as he redirected his priorities, right as Daniel redirected his, too.
"It's funny," Daniel started, Armand squeezing his eyes shut in a way that expressed that he, in fact, did not find this funny. "How a man in violation of more Geneva Conventions than I could count on one hand would beg for an interview with an investigative journalist rather than, say, a Cosmopolitan columnist."
The fact was, the stars had not aligned, this was not karmic retribution and there was no God — only Armand.
Armand, still avoiding eye contact, raised his chin in defiance. "Our living room centrepiece is a pinboard with his face pasted in every corner. Do not act like this is not exactly where you wish to be."
Daniel breathed out a light laugh, subtle betrayal fully subsiding as he nudged closer, brushing his fingers across Armand's now fully grown nails. "It is. You're right. But it isn't where you wanna be."
Armand huffed, irritated, but didn't pull his hand away from where it was safely concealed underneath the table. "Always a new paradox with you. I could make him confess his sins in a heartbeat if you would let me, but even this displeases you." A gust of wind blew in through the entrance of the tent, ruffling Armand's loosely buttoned, white linen shirt. It was hard to hold a grudge against his sulking vampire, usually adorned head to toe in Armani, pristine symmetry and harsh silhouettes, now looking impossibly boyish.
"I'm not arguing with a mindreader. Try again."
Daniel felt a flutter cascade through his stream of consciousness. Armand's tense shoulders relaxed a little as he gave Daniel's hand a reassuring squeeze. "I am fine, beloved. I am here on my own volition. You misconstrue me as a captive, but your success from tonight will please me, too."
Daniel didn't buy it. The kicked puppy dog look wasn't easy to hide. The least he could do was make Armand feel useful, so he gave his foot a nudge, tone sly. "But if you're up to it, I wouldn't mind if Ibrahim went a little heavy on the drinks tonight." As expected, Armand's eyes twinkled with mischief, earning himself a small grin, too.
So Ibrahim drank. He drank, drank, drank, well past midnight, until his assistant came hurtling through the tent, anxiously whispering at him to call it a night. But no, the prince was on a rager, and anyone that came in the way of his inebriation was threatened with a firing squad. As entertaining as it was to pull on his strings like a marionette puppet, Ibrahim's storytelling slurred borderline incomprehensibly with every glug of a miscellaneous cocktail. Every slip up in no way meaningful — until it came to gloating about Californian golf courses, of course.
"And I said to Carl, you let these Slavic pussy bitches walk all over you?" Punctuating every word with a jab to Daniel's chest, rum-soaked spittle spraying onto his neck. Mother Thersea would have cried at Daniel's patience. "Your land. You let a Communist tell you what you can and cannot build on American soil?"
From the profile he'd built on the oil tycoon, Daniel had learnt that Ibrahim could tolerate a lot, but jabs at his competency, not so much. He reached for the prince’s martini glass, slowly prying it out of his hands. "Alright, buddy, think you've had one too many vermouths. Sure you mean Carl? You said it was Hansen's golf course."
Ibrahim let out a heavy sigh, chest sagging as he clamped a hand onto Daniel's shoulder, grip painful enough to bruise. "Mr. Molloy. I invite you to my holiday home. I treat you like family. My people serve you hand on foot, but an ounce of gratitude from you? An ounce? The privilege you have tonight begins and ends with you only, yet all I hear from you every 10 minutes is snark. Snark, snark, snark. I am not a drunk. You do not call your host a drunk. Every word I say is with clarity. I said Carl. I meant Carl. My good friend Carl."
Daniel pushed his luck. "Carl Kotchian?"
Ibrahim granted his wishes. "Exactly. Carl Kotchian. Now do not interrupt me again."
Daniel stilled, his neck prickling with trepidation, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for Ibrahim to realise the depth of what he'd confessed and summon his aforementioned firing squad. But he continued, oblivious as he rambled about soil biodiversity laws.
Daniel swallowed his Cheshire cat grin with a sip of club soda, his two-year-long expedition drawing to a close with one simple name-drop. He winked at Armand, the go-signal for him to put the Arab man to sleep. Armand promptly stood up, a little too eager to leave, just as Ibrahim slumped over the glass table, snoring like a hibernating grizzly bear. Offered out a hand to Daniel, hoisting him up before dragging him back out through the exit of the canopy.
The dry, desert wind whipped at their faces as they trudged through the pebble trail paved through sand, back to the bungalow, alight with hundreds of bamboo tiki lights. Armand held Daniel by the wrist, but did not weave their fingers together.
Growing up, Daniel moved house every two years or so, meaning every teddy bear, every comic, every G.I Joe he'd collected had all gotten lost in the shuffle from city to city. He never stuck with a toy for long enough to grow emotionally attached, so that mentality seeped into his psyche within adulthood. Everything he needed, he could fit into a rucksack. At most, he found himself slipping into the jaws of hedonism, but from materialism, he was safe. Armand, however, was a sucker for sentimentality. He liked to collect pretty things, from paperclips to priceless antiques, taking care of macaroni art sold for 10¢ at a thrift store with the same precision he coddled his Kintsugi vases. He loved nothing more than scanning through glossy catalogues, dissecting each potential purchase a dozen times over before dragging Daniel to department stores that would open at 3 am if presented with a thick enough wad of cash.
Which meant that it didn't take a genius to figure out how much it devastated his sulking vampire to give away his precious Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, especially to a recipient he deemeed unworthy.
Daniel let the idea marinate on his tongue until it became soft enough to chew and digest. "Feelish peckish?"
Armand shot him a stern glare, already two steps ahead, but Daniel continued to feign innocence. Entertained his line of thought regardless. "That isn't really what you are asking, is it?"
"Say," Daniel croned out, dragging his syllables as he tugged back on Armand's wrist, their pacing falling back in sync. "Would the blood money make him taste sweeter? Since he's so well-acquainted with it already?"
Armand's eyes roved over Daniel's face for a few, silent moments, as if trying to crack his expressions like a coconut and scoop out the intentions. "You wish for me to find out?"
Daniel hummed in acknowledgement. "Investigative journalism. I mean, it's my job, right?"
Armand abruptly stopped walking, Daniel almost tripping before grounding himself into place. "Daniel… be serious. You already know what that would entail, and you would not be asking if you didn’t. Either the interview tonight is ultimately in vain, or," he softened his voice to a gentle whisper, tucking a loose curl back into Daniel's keffiyeh. "This is the part that concerns me — the timeline you’re assembling, a man this powerful last sighted with you, places your safety in very real jeopardy. I won’t pretend otherwise, simply because it is inconvenient."
He wouldn't lie and say that scrapping his passion project didn't sting a little, but the immediate gratification paled in comparison to the gloom radiating off of Armand in tidal waves. Evil billionaires come and go, but Armand was a forever he couldn't afford to lose. Nudged closer, until they were only nose to nose, tracing whirlpools onto his wrist bone. "Early Christmas gift from yours truly. God forbid a gentleman wine and dine his beau."
Armand chuckled softly. Cool breath, tinged with his last kill, ghosting onto Daniel's lips. "If you insist, I won’t say no to seconds. I rarely do, where you’re concerned." He broke out of his dazed stupor for a moment, drawing distance between them before lifting Daniel's head up with a palm pressed to his jaw. "But are you absolutely sure this is how you want to proceed?"
Daniel grew surer by the second, closing the divide until they were chest to chest, head bowed into the expanse of Armand's exposed clavicle. "You underestimate my prolific history of martyrdom for the greater good, babes."
Armand threw his head back into a laugh shuddering through his chest and vibrating onto Daniel's roving lips. "Such as swiping the ID of your boss’s son to get into Studio 54 last week? You have a remarkable talent for surviving your own recklessness, Daniel."
"Exactly," Daniel murmured through kisses, words muffled as he nipped at the junction between his shoulder and neck. "Quick learner."
The fight in Armand died out as the kisses grew reverent. Daniel traced the hard lines of Armand's back, scrunching a fistful of the linen shirt as he felt fingers rake through his curls. Scraped blunt teeth across supple flesh, earning the delicious scratch of claws across his scalp.
The clang of a copper tray cluttered nearby. A stout maid with burning cheeks hastily picked up a set of dropped silverware before scurrying back towards the bungalow. Armand gently unfasted Daniel's grip, prying him by the hair until they were eye to eye. "Reckless boy. Are you forgetting where we are? West Berlin has spoiled you. Loosened your inhibitions." Though his words were barren of a real bite, eyes glued onto Daniel's panting mouth.
Daniel huffed, lugging Armand back onto the trail to expedite what he needed his monster to do to him in private . "What sorta lousy vampire can't avenge me from cattle?" Daniel carped, just to get a word in edgeways.
Armand scoffed in disbelief, reprimanding with his Sexy School Teacher voice. "Do not call them that. These mortals are your people."
"Wouldn't have to be if you'd turn me," he grumbled, only bold enough to steal a sideways glance at his companion to see how the barb had landed. Sometimes, the air thickened with animosity, Armand then disappearing for days at a time. Sometimes, they'd argue until sunrise. Tonight, Armand silently raised an eyebrow, more amused than miffed.
"You should stop speaking if you still wish to feed from my wrist tonight."
Daniel skipped two steps at a time up the marble staircase by the porch, turning around to face Armand once he reached the doorway, shit-eating grin at the ready.
Better?
Armand giggled softly behind the back of his hand, shaking his head in affection. Journalism is wasted on you. Perhaps there is still time for Law school. Even after countless silent conversations conducted in their heads, Daniel didn't think he'd ever get used to it, chill running down his spine at the mental intrusion.
Before Daniel could whisk them back to the bedroom, Armand perked up with a gasp as he caught sight of the kitchen, bouncing lightly on his feet. "Daniel, come." He picked at the lock with his fingernail, pushing through the heavy oak doors. "I found this contraption named an 'immersion' blender within the servant quarters. No jug required, simply blend straight into the vessel of your choosing." Armand slammed the cabinets noisily as he scanned through dozens of appliances, eyebrows creased in single-minded focus. "Do you know which rodents are native to Jordan? My Middle Eastern knowledge is rustier than I presumed."
Daniel's chest swelled with aching tenderness, eyes watering as his stomach cinched at the sight of Armand's curls bouncing as he bounded from one end of the kitchen to the other. The glint of his ivory fangs refracted against the silvery moonlight, his feathery eyelashes dusting the apples of his cheekbones like dandelions, the raised scar slashed across his shoulderblades too deep to be healed by immortal genetics. Armand tasted like the first Christmas at his dad's house after the divorce; like laying on his Granny's porch without sunscreen, like acceptance letters to colleges he couldn't afford.
So he slung his arm around Armand's waist, his vampire too engrossed in fiddling with an electric socket to notice, pressing a kiss onto the corner of his lips pulled in concentration. "Just get me a rucksack. I'll bring as many Jordanian rodents as you need, boss."
OMAN, 2022
The scolding left a lasting impression, Armand slipping into the city late into the evening. The Islamic Holy Month meant mortals adapted to the customs of ones with the Dark Gift, resting by day and roaming around at night. The city teemed with life, the old and the young all browsing through ecclectic stalls of fried foods, chirping toys and shimmering dresses, all bathed in iridescent light. Any other day, he would have gravitated like a moth to a flame. Now, starvation had rendered every one of his senses overstimulated; every twinkle like molten lava poured into his eyes, every exhaled breath like a jackhammer against his eardrums.
The reaping occurred in haste, snatching the tallest, healthiest man he could find. There was no lulling, no persuasion, only immediate indulgence. He laid him down in a closed-off alleyway, suckling on greyed flesh until the hallowed arteries could no longer suction up the remnants of blood. Armand's hands still trembled in deprivation as he spliced open the expanse of the mortal's vascular system with a careful fingernail. Hungrily licked along the expanse of every vein, every artery until he could not bear it anymore, clawing through the businessman's ribcage and mauling out the weakly thumping heart, feasting on the aorta like a lifeline.
Once Armand had taken his fill, he slumped against the crumbling brick wall, peering at the corpse ravaged beyond recognition. Mutilated beyond identification of its species, nothing more than bleached muscle and a shattered skeleton. The Omani summer had not provided an iota of the warmth he now felt thrumming beneath his skin. Staggered back up straight to dispose of the spilled intestines before any stray children wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time.
Within the hour, Armand ambled into a tailor shop, borrowing their landline phone to make a call to his accountant as the workers stared at his bloodied appearance, slack-jawed, unsure of whether to call the police on him or for him. Once he regained access to his accounts, he cleared out half of the boutique's collection, tacking on two extra zeros at the end of the sum so he would be able to wash up in the bathroom with no interruptions.
With only minutes left before sunrise, Armand had returned to the camp with as many bundles of cash as he could carry and an array of thobes in every shade of white. Goodbyes would have made it more difficult to resist the temptation of staying, so with an aching chest, he knew this was the end.
From the moment Armand had savoured the final droplet of his meal, his senses fully recalibrated, a foreign sensation doused the marrow of his being. It was foreign, yet instinctual: a bond, tethered forever to another, inching closer and closer to where he was. He had recovered well enough to cease his self-flagellation, but this was not an encounter he could fathom partaking in for the foreseeable future.
It had been half a century since Armand had indulged in the pleasures of getting acquainted with mortals on an intimate level. Like object permanence, he only knew how deeply he had missed it once it was writhing in the palm of his hand. With nothing to do and nowhere to return to, perhaps it was time to take a leaf out of a book that belonged to a companion he once knew in a past life: to pack up his entire home within a rucksack.
Perhaps it was repentance, a cleansing of his soul until the truth lay bare beneath the grime. Perhaps it was a becoming, the crackling of an exoskeleton to protrude with fresh limbs, dripping in water that once was wine. Regardless, Armand could not stay in his current form, so instead, he would walk. Walk to wherever his legs would carry him, until the monster in the mirror resembled something he could spend an eternity with. Armand had grown weary of immortality — there was no better time to venture the world as a mortal.