Dead and Gone

worthless.”
    Eric never waffled around to be polite. Though I actually enjoyed that, I was also glad it wasn’t a widely held trait. “I don’t know that anyone is worthless,” I said. “Though I have to admit, if I had to pick one person to get in a lifeboat with me, she wouldn’t have made even my long list.”
    Eric’s mouth quirked up in a smile.
    “But,” I added, “she was pregnant, that’s the thing, and the baby was my brother’s.”
    “Pregnant women were worth twice as much if they were killed in my time,” Eric said.
    He’d never volunteered much information about his life before he’d been turned. “What do you mean, worth?” I asked.
    “In war, or with foreigners, we could kill whom we pleased,” he said. “But in disputes between our own people, we had to pay silver when we killed one of our own.” He looked like he was dredging up the memory with an effort. “If the person killed was a woman with child, the price was double.”
    “How old were you when you got married? Did you have children?” I knew Eric had been married, but I didn’t know anything else about his life.
    “I was counted a man at twelve,” he said. “I married at sixteen. My wife’s name was Aude. Aude had . . . we had . . . six children.”
    I held my breath. I could tell he was looking down the immense swell of time that had passed between his present—a bar in Shreveport, Louisiana—and his past—a woman dead for a thousand years.
    “Did they live?” I asked very quietly.
    “Three lived,” he said, and he smiled. “Two boys and a girl. Two died at birth. And with the sixth child, Aude died, too.”
    “Of what?”
    He shrugged. “She and the baby caught a fever. I suppose it was from some sort of an infection. Then, if people got sick, they mostly died. Aude and the baby perished within hours of each other. I buried them in a beautiful tomb,” he said proudly. “My wife had her best broach on her dress, and I laid the baby on her breast.”
    He had never sounded less like a modern man. “How old were you?”
    He considered. “I was in my early twenties,” he said. “Perhaps twenty-three. Aude was older. She had been my elder brother’s wife, and when he was killed in battle, it fell to me to marry her so our families would still be bonded. But I’d always liked her, and she was willing. She wasn’t a silly girl; she’d lost two babies of my brother’s, and she was glad to have more that lived.”
    “What happened to your children?”
    “When I became a vampire?”
    I nodded. “They can’t have been very old.”
    “No, they were small. It happened not long after Aude’s death,” he said. “I missed her, you see, and I needed someone to raise the children. No such thing as a househusband then.” He laughed. “I had to go raiding. I had to be sure the slaves were doing what they ought in the fields. So I needed another wife. One night I went to visit the family of a young woman I hoped would marry me. She lived a mile or two away. I had some worldly goods, and my father was a chief, and I was thought a handsome man and was a noted fighter, so I was a good prospect. Her brothers and her father were glad to greet me, and she seemed . . . agreeable. I was trying to get to know her a bit. It was a good evening. I had high hopes. But I had a lot to drink there, and on my way home that night . . .” Eric paused, and I saw his chest move. In remembering his last moments as a human, he had actually taken a deep breath. “It was the full moon. I saw a man lying hurt by the side of the road. Ordinarily I would have looked around to find those who had attacked him, but I was drunk. I went over to help him; you can probably guess what happened after that.”
    “He wasn’t really hurt.”
    “No. But I was, soon after. He was very hungry. His name was Appius Livius Ocella.” Eric actually smiled, though without much humor. “He taught me many things, and the first was not to call him Appius. He said I didn’t know him well enough.”
    “The second thing?”
    “How to get to know him.”
    “Oh.” I figured I understood what that meant.
    Eric shrugged. “It was not so bad . . . once we left the area I knew. In time, I stopped pining after my children and my home. I had never been away from my people. My father and mother were still alive. I knew my brothers and my sisters would make sure the children were brought up to be as they ought, and I had left enough to keep them from