The Need

We drove until the city fell away. The last headlights swallowed by desert dark. Stars hung overhead, motionless despite night's passage.

He didn't speak again until we were past the point of no return. Just the road and the low growl of the engine.

He looked at me, profile gilded by the last artificial light.

“You walked away from me like I was an option.” His voice wrapped around me. A velvet rope. Unforgiving.

I turned my face toward the window, but his words clung to me. My reflection caught in the glass. What could I say? That I regretted walking away or that I regretted getting in?

Outside, the desert shifted. Shadows gave way to shapes. Trees skeletal and silver in the moonlight.

Then I saw it.

His house.

No, not a house.

A monument.

It rose from the scorched ground like something unearthed rather than built. Like it had always been part cathedral, part mausoleum.

Bone colored stone, impossibly pale. Gothic spires punched holes into the sky, unapologetic and absurd against the stretch of desert. Vegas glitz couldn't touch this place.

The car slowed. He pulled into the drive, a crescent of crushed gravel leading to double doors carved from oak so old it looked fossilized.

I stepped out barefoot, heels in hand, the night air cold on my skin. I tried not to gape like a Transylvanian tourist gawking at Dracula's timeshare.

"Nice place," I said dryly. "Very...Gothic. Is it a museum?"

The voice inside me offered another alternative. "Or just where you bring your dates to die?"

He didn't smile. Just watched me as though I'd said it out loud.

With a metallic scrape, he unlocked the wrought-iron gate and swung the heavy doors open.

Gentleman or jailer. I wasn't sure which. Maybe both.

No foyer. No luxury staging, nor polished veneer of hospitality. Just cold stone, and ancient candlelight flickering across tapestries that looked older than North America.

The silence pressed in, the kind that wasn’t empty but listening.

“Make yourself at home," he said. "Explore if you like.”

And just like that, he disappeared into a corridor.

I stood there for a beat too long, hugging myself, then turning slowly in place.

Everything was severe. Alive in a way that buildings shouldn't be. Red velvet curtains, like funeral drapes, black stained oak wood, severe portraits with eyes that followed, gargoyles, and ornate stone.

The scent hit me. Sharp, metallic.

Blood. Or maybe ozone.

Either way, something on the edge of natural.

Then, the air shifted. Warmer. Curious. It was like the house had exhaled just once and was now holding its breath again.

There were feats of architecture. This wasn't it. It was a place of intention, or a temple of secrets.

He returned not through the way he left, but through another oak and iron door, branded with a sigil I didn't recognize. A rod and a book. And something else I couldn't quite place. It reminded me vaguely of mythology, but I couldn't say why.

The fire had been lit in the study, its flames reflecting off the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Leatherbound volumes lined every inch, worn with age. Latin, Greek, and Aramaic were languages I recognized but couldn't translate. While not a voracious reader, I appreciated a carefully curated library.

Candles sparked to life as I stepped inside. Motion sensors? Although in my cynicism, I half expected to see a human sacrifice or a pentagram somewhere.

A book on his desk caught my eye and I reached for it. My fingers brushing the cover, my breath catching at the exquisite detail of it.

Its writings were inscribed in ink so dark it glimmered red in the light of the flame. I turned away as his hand encircled my waist. Away before something unseen began painting another name on the paper within.

"Interesting collection." I pulled a copy of holy texts from the shelf, noting the cover was worn and ragged. "I wouldn't have wagered this would be the one you'd read more than once."

He approached. “Any further than I would have expected this to be the book that caught your interest." His voice was low, edged with disapproval.

“It is one of the oldest book in history.” I admired the stitching, running a fingertip over the cracked spine.

“I’m most fond of the talking ass, myself.” He answered with a sarcastic smile.

“Oh. Family member?” I smiled sweetly, asking tongue-in-cheek.

“Not the donkey. No.” He smiled, almost. And for a second, the mask dropped.

But my attention was caught by the center table. Crystals. Coins. Scrolls. And a single dagger. Silver, ceremonial and sharp.

I shuddered, thinking of the news and cult activity I’d heard of in the area.

My pulse quickened. This was a collector's den.

A whisper crept into my thoughts. A prayer, old and instinctual. Protect me. Preserve me. Let me walk out of here alive.

"Are you some kind of collector?" I asked, turning toward him with forced calm.

"I'm a binder. A keeper of debts." He stepped in close and kissed the nape of my neck like he had the right.

I flinched. “Ah. A loan shark," I said, twisting away from his touch.

He smiled again. But this time, it didn't reach his eyes.

He guided me with a hand on the small of my back. We sat near the fire. He watched me as though reading a book he still enjoyed. His gaze, more carnivorous. "Not exactly, Lydia."

Behind me, the pages of that same book rustled open on their own. My name, now etched upon its pages.

My stomach dropped, breath catching. "How do you know my name?"

He didn’t answer right away.

Instead, he moved to his desk, pulled a wooden box from it, and pushed it toward me.

Inside were things I recognized from my long nights alone at the hospital. Insurance denials. Medical records. The kind of paperwork I ugly cried over in hospital rooms.

“What the hell is this? I stood, fury surging. "Where did you get these?”

“I’m not your enemy, Lydia," he said quietly. His voice was almost sorrowful. “You are my consequence.”

That stopped me cold. “What in heaven's name does that mean?”

“You’ll understand soon. But first, let me give you-” He reached inside his suit jacket and pulled a small velvet satchel from his pocket and handed it to me.

I raised a hand in protest. Eyes wide. “I won't accept gifts. It creates... expectations.”

“Please. It’s always been yours.” He firmly pressed the silk pouch into my open hands, his gaze expectant and tense.

I pulled open the drawstrings and fished out a chain of white gold. The pendant dangled. An opal alive with fire.

My mother's. I knew it instantly.

“How do you have this. Who are you?”

I couldn't breathe. Her voice echoed in my memory, spinning tales of outback mines and fire opals that chose their owners.

“She gave it to me," he said. "Right before she died.” Grief, honest and raw, shone in his eyes.

He wasn’t a monster. I lied to myself.

Silence stretched taut between us.

He met my gaze. “I know everything that binds your bloodline. Your birthright. Your lineage," he said softly.

“Lineage? I have no lineage," I snapped, voice thick. "There won't be any more of me."

"You're wrong. It won't be the future you dreamed of, but a future, nonetheless. Certainly more than this world has to offer. With its desperation? Debt? Death?" His words slithered over me. His presence overshadowing mine.

I swallowed. Uneasy. My eyes sharpened with discernment. “This sounds a lot like bargaining with the devil.”

“Come now, Lydia. Let us not add deceit to the things that bind." He licked his lips, the gleam in his eyes sarcastic.

I let out a weak laugh. He had me there.

I watched as he moved again. Casting shadows that bent wrong.

"Let me get us something to drink while I tell you what I had in mind," he said.

I nodded, a chin tilt indicating my agreement. I continued to look around, a finger sliding across the top of a bookshelf to my right.

As he left the room I could have sworn I heard him say something about having my soul before the night was through.

The devil is always in the details, and I wasn't big on them.

The interior grew darker in his absence, save for the flickering firelight.

I studied a mirror, thinking of the golden sheen it carried and a movie I'd seen not long ago. Its frame was engraved, tapering off on each side. I traced the pattern with my sight, surprised to realize it was a language I recognized from my mother’s books.

So entranced by its meaning, I leaned closer to memorize the characters.

I barely heard a sound when he returned with two hand-blown glass tumblers. The cups were malformed. Their colour a beautiful shade of peach. He poured a deep red liquid and offered a glass.

Grasping it, I inhaled its bouquet, finding its scent off-putting. It also moved eerily. "Thank you." I covered my mouth with my hand and pretended to drink like I had seen my Korean friends do.

My smile returned, along with my glass in my hand. “You’re not a Chinese hopping vampire, are you?”

His head snapped around, a startled look in his eye. “I’m not sure I understand your meaning. Do I look Asian?”

I laughed and gestured to his golden mirror. “Perhaps you’re unaware, but the writing on your mirror references an Asian hopping vampire.”

“I wasn’t aware you spoke Mandarin,” he answered.

“Neither was I," I said. I briefly outlined where the knowledge came from to keep the conversation flowing.

He pulled out an antique filigree lighter and leaned to light an iron lantern beside us. The flame snaking back to crisp his flesh. He recoiled with a sharp curse, shaking his hand.

“You’ve burned yourself.” I reached out to capture his wrist and blow on it.

He flinched, not from pain but from my touch. In his eyes, a flicker. Hunger.

When I drew back, he caught my hand.

“Don't,” he murmured. “It’s been a long time since anyone cared.”

Something in the way he said it made me ache.

The air filled with an intense aroma, as incense crawled in my direction, forcing the breath from my lungs.

Our gazes locked.

“Balcony?” He asked.

I nodded.

We watched the stars scatter as they fled the approaching dawn.

He moved closer, reaching up to brush a strand of hair behind my ear, his hand sliding to my throat, not squeezing, just … holding – I didn’t want to pull away.

He leaned in with a greater sense of urgency.

His lips upon my throat.

I tilted my chin instinctively, wanting his caress.

His whisper so quiet, I thought I imagined it.

“Forgive me. I told myself I would wait."

Pain lanced through me. Sharp. Searing.

The stars blurred. The world fell sideways.

And everything I thought I knew unravelled with the night.