Free My Vampire and I Vol 3: Blood Resurrection by J. P. Bowie Page A

through different eyes. Every sense, every movement, every smell, every touch would be enhanced. Every single thing he had taken for granted in his previous life would never again be the same.
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    In the years that followed, I was glad that he had agreed to be my forever companion, for the twentieth century in Europe became the most tumultuous and war-ravaged of any I had ever known. Of course, there had been endless wars before, but now the weapons that were used were so much more deadly, and the countless number of human lives lost was staggering. Had Pietro not come with me to the ‘other side’, he would have been conscripted into the Italian army and most likely lost to me, forever.
* * * *
    Some years before the beginning of the twentieth century, Marcus had gone to the Americas. I had seen him but briefly after the devastating loss he had suffered when Thomas, his lover, was viciously murdered by the jealous Comte d’Arcy, but we communicated regularly. My powers of hearing the thoughts of others had become greatly improved over the centuries, and even vast distances did not impede my ability to ‘converse’ with Marcus when the need arose. For instance, I knew he had met and was mentoring a young vampire by the name of Jean-Claude Lepeltier, and much later that he had fallen in love with a mortal named Roger.
    Roger and I were to meet in Rome, but only after he had become one of us. The terrible story of Thomas’s betrayal I found almost hard to believe. How could he have been so deluded into thinking that Marcus would forgive him for draining the life of the man he loved? I could only think that the Comte d’Arcy had exerted a tremendous influence over Thomas in order to compel him to undertake such a hideous act.
    While we were all together in Rome, I made mention to Marcus of a concern both Pietro and myself had regarding the priest who used the archival library at the Vatican—yes, we still worked there. I can only suppose that it was because of the vastness of the Vatican that for the most part, we went unnoticed by the staff who came and went throughout the years.
But back to the priest—He had recently returned, the same handsome young man who had pored over the manuscripts of the ‘end of times’ so many years before.
     
He hadn’t changed one iota in all of those years. His hair was still dark, without a touch of grey, his posture still strong and vital, his eyes still bright and all-seeing. He was not a vampire, of that I was certain, yet he had somehow managed to defeat death. Even if the Blood Resurrection
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    priest had been only in his thirties when first we’d seen him, he would now be at least that, plus a hundred. Marcus was intrigued and wanted to see the man for himself, and so I obtained a visitor’s pass for him. Of course, the priest did not show up while Marcus was there. Was he also able to read minds? I wondered.
“Tell me about him,” Marcus urged us, when we visited him one night, in the Lady Andorra’s villa, high in the hills of Rome. He sat on a couch, his arm about Roger who pressed himself so close to Marcus’ side, they appeared almost as one person. Pietro told me later that he was extremely touched by the obvious love they had for one another.
     
We related the story of how the priest had come to the Vatican over one hundred years ago, relentlessly studying anything and everything to do with the Apocalypse and the Antichrist.
    “What we thought strange, Marcus,” Pietro said, “was that he made no notes. It was as if he could commit it all to memory.” “No mean feat,” Marcus murmured. “But what is even stranger is the fact that he has not aged. You are certain it is the same man?” “Absolutely,” I assured him. “He is using another name, of course. Father Dominick.”
“While before, he was Father Constantine,” Pietro said.
“Marcus, we are sure he means harm,” I said. “But to whom we do not know.