Circle of Blood

There was perhaps something to be said about Edward Kelley. He didn't get bored easily. Between the general monotony of the castle and occasional letters, there were plenty of reasons that he could have been. But all those reasons were a bit lacking in fine detail or touching on what he tended to do. If anyone were to look in on him during some points of his day, they would have seen the heavy curtains drawn, a wavering fire sputtering away in the fireplace, and heard the constant scratching of a quill against parchment. But people would have only been seeing Edward Kelley at work.

The moonlight never hit the stone floor until Kelley slowly pulled open the curtains, looking out on the snow-capped trees and the scattering of clouds that raced across the sky. The windows kept him away from the worst of the wind, but he could still feel the light breeze that escaped around its edges, blowing both at his short trimmed beard and the curtains he held in one hand. Kelley reached up and tugging his cap a bit further down over his head. The strings of it tickled at his neck, much to his annoyance, and he hurriedly stepped away from the window before it could annoy him further.

The castle has the usual nighttime noises it always did, but tonight he listened particularly hard. He was straining his senses to catch any hint of the one sound that would be out of place. There, in the middle of his room, only the trail of his robe illuminated by moonlight, he finally heard it.

It was the scrape and brush of a set of shoes and dress hem against stairs. A second ago, it hadn't been there, but now he could tell it was coming closer - towards him.

Part of him relaxed. He stopped straining to hear, but other muscles tensed up. The ones in his legs and arms. As if he had anywhere to run or any hope of fighting his late-night visitor. Instead, he watched the door. Waiting.

Eventually, the handle turned, and a white hand became visible against the door frame before the hand disappeared back into the folds of a long dress sleeve. Then the door was pushed the rest of the way open, a woman slowly stepping into the room. Her eyes moved around, completely missing Kelley. Purposefully, he knew, since he was standing in plain sight. Instead, her eyes found the window, and she lightly stepped into the room, slow, stiff.

"Are you getting as weary of these meetings as I am, Edward Kelley?" she asked. Her voice was curt and to the point. Not rude or abrasive, but a soft sort of impatience.

Kelley dipped at the waist, bowing to her. "I grow weary of the need for it, but not of the company," he responded with ease. He did well to keep the hunger - the greed - out of his voice. Doubtlessly she knew it was there, but she made no indication or comment on it.

"Yes, well, would it be considered rude of me if I proposed it was cut short?"

The same curtness of before remained, only this time a bit of impertinence had also filtered its way in.

Kelley put on a feigned wounded expression. "You injury me, Lady Katherine. I was under the impression that you enjoyed my company."

Lady Katherine took several pointed steps forward. It became painfully clear that she was a couple of inches taller than Kelley. She was not so tall herself but still more impressive in stature and manner than Kelley was presenting. However, her sleeves hung over her hands, and Kelley was almost sure her hands were shaking under them.

"I tolerate your existence," she said. "I do not tolerate this continued dance that I play a part in."

She'd stepped into the moonlight in such a way that Kelley was unable to look away from her face. His eyes followed the pale flesh, the line of her blond hair, and the way it tumbled down her shoulders to her chest.

His eyes must have rested there a second too long, because the next thing he knew, Katherine's face was very near his. In a decidedly very unpleasant way, drawing his eyes to her mouth, his back bending a bit to get away from the things protruding from it. Fangs. A deep growl. Animalistic, annoyed, but also trapped. Katherine's face was inches away from Kelley's nose. It made him want to wrinkle it and, in some small way, get away from the unexpected movement.

He could smell her breath. It was metallic and clammy. Not the warmth of a human mouth. The mouth of a pale corpse.

"Tonight," she said. "Tonight is the last of it. We finish this or -"

Kelley didn't relax, but he found himself taking a step back. His back straightened again, and he pulled his cap down, tightening the straps and keeping it firmly over his ears.

"Or what?" he asked, trying to make the clothing adjustment seem flippant rather than nervous. "You agreed to the deal. You signed the contract. You can't just back out of it with the deal incomplete. It's as simple as that."

She was trembling now, an undeniable shaking in her arms. Kelley pushed his flicker of relief away. Her fear and anger protected him. She couldn't do anything to him, and, for a fortnight, the contract had been tested. She hadn't found a loophole in the deal yet. She had to carry it out, as written.

Seeming to compose herself, Katherine relaxed, her arms losing the tremble and her chin rising a fraction. It was a small show of defiance. But Kelley knew it was just that - a show. He was currently the one with the most power in the room.

"As you say," she said stiffly. She also took a step back. Only this time, she held out her arm, pulling up her sleeve to expose her wrist. Kelley let another modicum of tension slip from his shoulders. He moved toward his desk, fumbling a bit in the dark as he left the rays of moonlight. Kelley almost cut himself on the knife but pulled his hand back to the pearl handle in time. He turned back to Katherine, holding the knife lightly. Again, his eyes found her face, noting the stiffness and the conviction she had to resist his gaze. She just stared straight ahead at the wall. Kelley ignored that, a giddy feeling starting up in his chest. He was close. Had to be close. He only needed a bit more. A bit more time.

And this.

He placed the knife at the line of Katherine's wrist, where her hand met her arm. The tip rested there for a second, a bead of blood already forming. Katherine's arm was shaking a bit, but Kelley grabbed it. The feeling of pale, clammy flesh under his palm turned him off her beauty ever so slightly. But not enough that he didn't find himself leaning just that bit closer to her.

The knife traced up her arm, suddenly digging deep. Blood dripped, pooling a bit in the newly formed wound, before sealing up again. Kelley dug the knife deeper, forcing it into flesh to counteract the swiftness of the healing skin. He had to push aside the distracting smell of night air and earth that he picked up off the woman. No scent of death at all. If he hadn't been able to see the blood slowly falling from her wrist, feel her skin against his hand, he would have been sure she was alive.

There wasn't enough blood. Again, Kelley ran the knife over her arm. He cut her until there was enough streaking down both the blade and her arm that it started to color the floor. It was only then that Kelley glanced at Katherine's face. It was scrunched up in an expression, holding in the obvious pain he was causing her. At this realization, with a surge of wild desire, Kelley squeezed her wrist so tightly that her eyes widened. He pressed the knife against her arm, more blood bubbling up around the blade. There was a growl from Katherine, a guttural thing, which caused a shiver up his spine. But she couldn't do anything to him. He could do everything to her. Take as much blood as he liked, take up her time. Take so much. Oh, of course, there were limitations. Unfortunately.

Kelley would have loved to see what he could actually take from her. But the blood was enough. It spattered the floor under the moonlight, and Kelley watched it with an intensity that had his heart in his chest. Each drop of it seemed to add more to his excitement. Yes. Yes, this would do it.

He almost reluctantly removed the knife from where it pressed against Katherine. Then with even more reluctance, he let go of her wrist.

She leaped back as if she expected him to hurt her again. Her eyes were a feral red. He had difficulty remembering what color her eyes were supposed to be. Her chest rose and fell with anger. Kelley doubted it would have been an actual need to breathe.

"Thank you, my lady," he said politely. It was a ... polite exchange, after all.

"My part of it," she rasped. "Give me the last of it. Now."

Kelley didn't hurry. He lazily strolled around the patch of blood, mindful of it. He opened a drawer on the other side of the room, pulling out a slim feather quill. Then a piece of parchment. It already had a dozen or so scratches and lines across its surface. Markings that only he could read. He slowly stood, scrawling something onto the paper as he walked back. The quill needed no ink to sketch out the last of the symbols, the circle of them completed on the worn surface.

He held the paper out to Katherine.

"No one can say that I do not keep my word. Though I can't say that such a design will help you as much as you'd like."

"Will it make me mortal again?" Katherine asked, her eyes suddenly hungry. The anger of before hiding behind her eyes and closely entwining itself with wariness.

"By all accounts, it should," Kelley said, though he could still not for the life of him work out why she would want such a thing. "Though by all accounts, it may take you that same long life to get the spell to work. They aren't as easy as writing down a handful of symbols. Or our contact."

He didn't wish her luck. It seemed like such a waste of her form and figure to let age wear down on it. He at least doubted that any alchemist in this time would have the skill to orchestrate the construct he had just designed for her. But that was something she would work out.

"And tomorrow is the last night?" Katherine said, her own greed - and desperation - escaping into her voice. With no control, Kelley noted. Women were so flimsy with their emotions. It seemed like that didn't change with immortality.

"Of course," he said, almost with a purr. "And then you never have to see me again."

Katherine nodded, looking like a mountain had been removed from her shoulders. "More blood for your odd circle. Of course."

Kelley glanced at the blood, still seeping across the stones. It was now running into the rough outline of chalk that had been sketched on the ground. Lazily, maybe even smugly, his eyes flickered back to Katherine.

"Not quite," he said. His voice was bright. "For me."

Katherine paused. "What?"

"The last night of blood will be for me. Not for the circle. It is what makes you immortal, is it not?"

Katherine's eyebrows drew together. "Yes?"

Kelley shrugged. "Then I simply have to infuse myself with it to gain the same immortality, would I not?"

Katherine was already shaking her head. There was no concern in her eyes as she said, "It would kill a human. Nine times out of ten times, at any rate. Hardly the odds I expected you to take." She was looking at Kelley with a sort of hunger that was nothing like Kelley's own. It wished him dead. But it was also suspicious that he was getting at some other point.

Kelley hummed. "Well, yes. But I've hardly been spilling your blood on my floor for a fortnight only to take those odds, now was I?"

He didn't explain further, but Katherine's eyes got wide, and she looked at the chalk outline. Then she bounded forward, attempting to smudge it out with her shoe. Kelley let her, watching with a sort of glee that felt dangerous. An uncontrollable one that almost made him want to laugh.

"Yes, yes," he said aloud. "I mean ... dear Lady Katherine. Isn't it only fair that I give you a way to your mortality and you a way to my immortality? It feels like a poetic song." He stepped toward her, a hand out. As if he was going to direct her gently to the door.

Katherine slapped the hand away.

"Go to hell," she said, eyes wide, red, and angry. Those eyes were violated and furious. Like Kelley had stolen something from her.

She whirled, the skirt of her dress getting in her own blood, and let her hand slap against the door handle.

The boom of the door slamming echoed through the castle and Kelley's room in particular. He just leaned against his desk, lifting his knife again. He tapped his thumb against the sharp edge of it until there was a line of his own blood trickling down the shaft of the blade. His thumb was wet with his blood and blood still on the blade. Then he watched the cut. It remained open for a couple of seconds, but after a while of carefully watching, the injury started to close.

Kelley set the knife back onto his desk and looked at his hand. The cut was closed, and there was just a smear of blood there now. In the moonlight, his hand looked very alive. But also aging.

Soon. Kelley could taste it on his lips. What he'd wanted for so long was close. So close.