The end

Originally, Michael rushed onto the sacrifice scene without intent of surrendering himself to save Jane.   I had written it as him accidentally getting axed by Jane's father.   He was a little pissed about that, and could only think about getting away from Jane after that.   The villain was originally a man--not Isabelle--so that's who Lorenzo is.

I like the published version MUCH better.   More romantic (though still bloody), and Michael's is more of a hero than in this version...

Michael struggled to get a firm grip on the fence post.   He refused Lorenzo's ministrations to assist him.   He was the last vampire on earth from whom Michael would accept help.  

         Feeling slivers of wood puncture his palms, he grit his teeth and levered his body to stand.   He stood, bent over.   Blood drooled from his mouth.   Blood from his heart?   He could be bleeding internally.   He needed a doctor.  

         Or a coffin.

         A doctor couldn't begin to know how to save him.   A coffin would only extend his misery.  

         What about door number three?   Gold cross and a stake, anyone?

         Oh right.   Stakes weren't as effective against a vampire as he'd once thought.   Idiot rock star.

         "Michael, please."   Jane remained in her father's arms.  

         It was the malevolent look Michael shot her that kept her in place.   Good. Right now, he didn't want that nasty piece of work anywhere near him.  

         He swayed, but managed not to fall.   More or less.   Gesturing with what might have been a fist, but instead was a loose splay of fingers, he swiped the air between them.   Drunken, yet not, he staggered through the overgrown vines and grass toward the back of the house.

         "Michael!"

         "Stay away!" he yelled.

         His footsteps quickened, drawing him through the garden.   Blood spotted his vision, so he used the line of waist-high shrubs as a guide.

         He could not survive this.

         He would die.

         She'd killed him.

         While lying there on the ground before the bonfire he had felt something probe about inside him, like a worm.   What the hell?

         And Lorenzo.   They would have done this to him had Michael not ran onto the scene.  

         Michael didn't know if he wished that had happened, or if he was glad to know he saved the old bastard.   He knew nothing right now.   Absolutely nothing.

         They took Jane's car.   Michael wanted to put some distance between himself and the murderous father.   Besides, he'd collapsed in the garage and when Lorenzo had lifted him and pointed to the open car door, Michael hadn't argued.

         Lorenzo peeled out of the drive and headed full-barrel down the country road, not stopping until he'd reached a paved street at the edge of North Lake.

         Strangely, Michael did not feel pain.  

         The flesh over his heart had closed up before he'd left Jesse's property.   His ribs ached.   He didn't know if they were broken.   Pick ax to bone?   Oh, yeah, there were broken pieces inside of him.

         Not to mention his broken heart.

         Blood gurgled around inside him.   Head hanging forward, he'd spat out more than enough of his own blood onto the floor of the car.   A dizzy wave teased the periphery of his sanity--yet he didn't pass out.

         "A pick ax?   Insane bastard," Lorenzo spat as the car slowed.   "And the daughter?   This is the woman you claim to love?   She'd give Lizzy Borden a challenge.   And when did Ravin Crosse move to Minnesota?   I knew this area was tainted.   I should have never risked following you here.   There are witches running amuck!"

         "She's..."   Michael's head rattled against the passenger window.   Not a witch.  

         But truly, was she of the devil?   That the woman he loved would even consider so vile a ritual.   Flame and blood and chanting to the moon.

         Yeah?   You were the one who told her to do whatever necessary to maintain her immortality .

         And since when had women begun to take his suggestions seriously?

         Turning into a motel parking lot, Lorenzo parked before a door numbered eight.   A streetlight flickered, highlighting an ice machine and a green dumpster beneath a huge oak tree.

         An extreme migraine had developed in both of Michael's temples.   His chest burned.   Blood still drooled from his mouth, but he no longer had to choke back a torrent.

         "I should be dead," he rasped.   "Why am I not dead?"

         "The ax may have missed your heart.   You owe Luck a big one."

         "Fuck luck.   The old man was a lousy aim."

         "You need blood," Lorenzo said.   "Lots of it."

         "I'm not sucking on your lousy wrist, man.   Nothing can get me to take anything from you."

         "Did I offer?"

         Asshole.

         Lorenzo tugged the keys from the ignition and pointed over the dashboard.   "See that door?"

         Michael didn't have to ask what Lorenzo suggested.   Pushing open the door allowed fresh air to pummel his face.   Michael twisted, untwining his spider-long legs from the toy car.   His boots slapped the pot-holed pavement.

         He hung his head out.   Sweat dripped, and mixed with his own blood.   Arcs of crimson painted his boot toes, highlighted wickedly by moonlight. He was a mess.   But the night wasn't getting any sweeter.  

         He vaguely recalled Jane forcing her father to drip his own blood onto the wound.   Must be why he wasn't flat on his back, pushing up daisies right now.  

         But he needed more.   Though subdued--or rather, completely blindsided--the monster growled.   Should he not find sustenance, he would never again sing on stage, because Michael Lynsay would, very likely, cease to exist.

         He pulled himself out of the car and stomped to the motel room door.   Kicking it inside, he assumed a bold stance in the doorway, assessing the interior.   The lone man sitting on the bed in jeans and typing onto his laptop gaped.

         "This is not your night, man."   Michael stalked inside and gripped the stranger around the throat.   "Go ahead.   Scream.   It's all about the scream."

         His eyes took in the hazy dust motes flocking near the parted drapes.   Daytime.   But what day?   Laying prone, his cheek plastered to the bedspread by something crusty, Michael sighed out a heavy breath.   Yuck.   His breath smelled like death.

         Maybe he was dead?   He should be.  

         No, dead men didn't sigh, unless it was a final sigh.   And, after all he'd seen in the past few days, he figured those final sighs were damned difficult to achieve.

         So here he lie.   Alive.

         A white plastic laptop sat upturned on the bed, ready to fall off with a jiggle.   Maybe the owner was still outside in the car where Lorenzo had left him?   Had but a night passed?   If it had been any more than that, housekeeping would have come in and discovered the bloody vampire passed out on the bed.

         He was safe yet.   But he couldn't stay much longer.

         Easing himself onto his back, Michael touched his chest.   Felt like he'd taken a blow, and that there should be a mighty bruise, but he knew there would not be.  

         He'd survived freakin' death.  

         And why should that be any more remarkable than a vampire rising from a pile of ash and blood?   A phoenix.   Michael sighed.   He had come close.

         "Jane," he said, dropping his hand and closing his eyes.   "What have you done to me?"

         "She's shown you how much she loves you."

         Lorenzo was in the room.  

         Michael hadn't the strength to push up onto his elbows to look around, so he muttered, "She does love me."   Did he believe that?

         "An ax through the heart is a strange way of showing it.   Michael, you don't know what you've gotten yourself into.   You need guidance--"

         "Bite me."  

         "Seriously?"

         "Fuck no!"   Michael heaved against the expended breath.   It ached so deeply.   He knew he must be bleeding internally.   Maybe it was simply the hurt at having been taken for an emotional ride by Jane.  

         Jane.   Had she planned this all along?   Did she know before that night of his arrest?   How to explain the witch in the graveyard if she had not?   Had she touched him, sensed the shimmer, and then...waited.

         Not going to believe it.   Not ready to.   Yeah, you idiot rock star, close your eyes to the truth.

         "You've no right to tell me how to live my life.   You claim you're my blood master?   Then do something worthy of it."

         "I'm no longer your master.   You've gone beyond me."   Lorenzo's face appeared over Michael's head.   "The strongest ones thrive without a master.   Were you not strong, you would be dead now."

         "I need blood."

         "My blood is your own, Michael.   You have merely to ask."

         To ask.   That was the kicker.   Nothing would be given without signing on the bottom line, and handing over the remnants of his soul.

         When a vampire created a blood child, it involved an exchange of the two souls.   Never again, in all his immortal years, could Michael claim his individual soul--unless Lorenzo was dead.

         "You're barely alive yourself.   I take from you, and you're dead.   So what's the string?"

         Lorenzo shrugged.   "You're not stupid."

         Right.   Blood for blood.   A surrender to all that had haunted him for years.

         "I don't want your blood.   I want nothing more from you than an act of contrition for what you did to my mother."

         "Would you give it up, you pitiful, whining child?   She had died long before I got to her.   The cancer had reduced her to a shell.   I did her a favor!"

         "She yet breathed, man!"   Michael pushed up to his knees and gripped Lorenzo by the lapels of his coat.   "Had she lived for a few days more, I could have given her my gift."

         "Of immortality?   And now you call it a gift.   Oh, that is rich.   A son's love for his mother would have sealed her life as it was that moment.   Forever sick and frail."

         "No, she would have become strong.   I could have healed her."  

         "The gift of salvation?"   Lorenzo lowered his gold eyes upon Michael.   "I see.   How righteous and just you've become.   Believe what you wish, Michael.   You are no better than I, or the next vampire forced to struggle through the dark.   And if you continue to walk through life regretting what you could not do, you are as dead as she is."

         Michael swung up an arm and managed to connect with solid body.   He curled his fingers into Lorenzo's shirt.   "If you find a way to survive without my blood, know that I will haunt you for the rest of your days."

         "I take pleasure in knowing I will visit your thoughts daily."

           Shoving him away, Michael swallowed back bile.   He wouldn't give Lorenzo another thought.   The bastard didn't deserve that satisfaction.   "I need blood.   Bring me another warm body so I can suck it dry."

         Lorenzo nodded.   "I'll return shortly."

         "Just leave the body on the doorstep.   If I see you again, it'll be too soon."

         The door creaked open and shut with a slam.

         Rolling onto his side and into a ball upon the bed, Michael tucked his head against his arm and closed his eyes.   Much as he hated to side with the man, he knew Lorenzo was right.   Though he could never know if she would have remained sick and frail, as Lorenzo had suggested, he did know to give his mother this fickle hunger was no gift at all.

         Not without the rapture.

         Underdog reruns played on the black and white motel television.   Michael sat up on the bed.   His clothes soaked in the bathroom sink after a long, hot shower, so he'd wrapped a sheet about his hips.  

         Lorenzo--who had not left a body, but instead had brought it inside--had offered to retrieve some clothes for him.   Michael had reluctantly agreed.   There was no getting rid of the vamp.   And until he had gained full strength, he had to put up with his presence.

         Hell, the man had brought him blood.   Michael didn't even want to think how young the kid had been, or that he'd been male.   It gave him the creeps.   The hunger was all about sex and fulfillment to him.

         But he'd drunk the kid's blood, to the point where he had sensed the heart would burst.   Lorenzo had insisted he take more--complete the kill, but Michael had not.   The monster had merely shrugged and quieted.

         He didn't need the kill.   And that was even more remarkable than surviving death.   Jane had opened his heart to that.  

         Jane.   Had opened his heart.

         What a thought.

         So was that it?   Had he gotten control of the monster?

         "Can't be that easy."   Not that it had been.   But he didn't feel different, more enlightened, or even accepting.

         The screen door creaked open.   Lorenzo stood in the doorway, his lank silhouette shadowed by the sun behind him.   He'd been the one to finish off the kid; it had given him a straighter carriage, but Michael knew the man was desperate for an infusion of vampire blood.   A piece of his own soul.

         Not going to happen.

         "You're up.   That's a good sign.   I imagine it'll be days before you feel your old chipper self.   Ready to rock on stage, eh?"

         "Did you bring some clothes?"
         "I wasn't sure of your size, so I raided my own stores.   I'm quite sure you're not the three piece suit kind of guy, but this shirt and the Zegna trousers are as close to rock and roll as I get."

         The shirt was a deep crimson silky kind of fabric.   The pants were slim, pleated black trousers. A few gold chains were all needed to make it a pimp costume.   So not Michael's style.   But they were clothes.   And they weren't bloody.

         Michael tapped the TV remote.   He wouldn't turn it off; he needed the sound, a distraction from the option of he and his blood master, alone.  

         "What are you standing around for?   I'm not going to let you suck my blood, Lorenzo.   Isn't there another way for you to get your strength back?"

         "No.   But I can wait.   A lot has happened.   You've always thought me dead.   It'll take a while to come around.   But you will."

         "Before you cack?"

         "I can hope."   He lifted his chin, looking down upon Michael with wicked pale eyes.   Once, Michael had looked to him with admiration and curiosity, even as a possible father figure.   "I understand completely your reasons for hating me."

         "I do hate you."

         Lorenzo nodded.   "What of your Jane?"

         "What of her?"   Michael slid the remote over his knee.  

         "You gain strength by creating blood children, Michael.   I suggest you consider turning Jane to increase your power."

         "If you believe her to be a witch, why suggest I bite her?   Don't you know it'll be my death?"   He turned his head to pop out a crick.   "What's your deal?"

         Lorenzo hadn't the consideration to offer a sheepish shrug.   Instead, he smiled widely.   "It is a wise vampire who walks away from the ashes, without allowing a single bone to remain.   Or blood."

         "Get the fuck out of here, man."

         "Of course."   Lorenzo stopped in the doorway, an expectant tilt to his brow.   "I intend to set things straight by you before I leave the state.   I promise you that."

         "Just go," Michael said, waving him off with a loose hand.  

         Lorenzo nodded, and walked out into the sunlight.

         The man was overly dramatic.   And yet...   What could Lorenzo possibly believe would make things right between the two of them?

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