Amrael - II

Second part of the Amrael tale. If you don't have a clue as to who Amrael is, I suggest you scroll down to the entry of the 18th (the one with the Stuart Towsend's picture).

note: I think it more than shows that I've read some volumes of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. Turns out I'm not as evil as her: haven't taken from my brand of vampires the pleasure of sex. In all honestly, Amrael wouldn't have made it through 50 years without getting laid. As it is, though, his thoughts on it are:

"One can learn quite a lot in six centuries of unashamed sluttiness, I tell you."

So far, he's been made a vampire and met young Tom Riddle, whom he intends to make his immortal companion...

He didn't bother to mention that to Tom, preferring to let the youth understand it by himself when the time came. He offered to teach him on his ways of subtlety, of capturing fascination.

"You'll catch their eye, Tom. You caught mine. Just you smile, and their death warrant is sealed."

He was keen on teaching Tom to deal with all sorts of unworldly creatures, especially other vampires. He told the youth that, if ever assaulted, all he needed to do was tug down his collar and show the existing marks.
To which came the smiling reply, "I much prefer to show them the wrong end of my wand."

Amrael didn't much bother with his choice lover being a Wizard. It didn't make him less human, didn't diminish the passions that had caught his immortal eye. It did nothing but greaten the raw power that could be sensed in that youth and that mingled to Amrael's own aura. They were visible to the vampire, and he amused himself with the thought that the colours matched.

He took his time perfecting his Love. Crafting him exquisitely, making of him the perfect predator and the most wanted of preys. He introduced Tom to the joys of blood-taking, first with an occasional addition to their bed, then with his own wrists. And he found that giving himself to someone he actually felt something for could get him in a high.
He endeared a tendency Tom had to bleed when taken, all the more because the cleaning up afterwards was his tongue's own privilege. He was amazed at how much he could drink metaphorically from this man, how much he could revel in that essence and it'd never end. How Tom stubbornly refused to die down. How he accepted the rest of the harem and Amrael's nightly victims, how he invariably brought that up when they argued. How so very deceiving in itself his nature was, how destructive of itself and everything around.

As their bond became stronger, Amrael felt that he was less drawn towards any other that not his lover. That agreed, Tom was granted permission to finish the harem as he pleased.

"Impress me with the wonders of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I am quite fond of fireworks."

After that he allowed Tom to drag him along to whatever it was that his search for knowledge of the youth's own Kind and Blood would take them. Amrael was relatively well-acquainted, and that alone opened many doors for the pair. He followed, mildly interested on the Wizards of Old and their doings, beliefs or achievements. He listened patiently and, at times, eagerly to the bits on enthusiastic information Tom would choose to share. The glitter in his lover's eyes was uplifting.
There was no doubt he pampered the human. He was strict only with the rules regarding his own safety from what could harm him: sunlight, fire, keeping the remainders of his chopped body apart from each other long enough for them to dry out. Anything else he'd give up or bend in favour of his adored companion.

"I catered to each and every of his whims; knowing now his mind worked even before he himself did so. I played along, it was all so very adorable."

Didn't mean they didn't have their rows. Those were passionate and furious, and for the living-death of him Amrael treasured them. He felt ever so pleased at himself knowing that Tom remained just as fierce as when he had first fallen for him, and that to him, Amrael, was granted the secret and loving softness of that man.
There were times Tom unnerved him, no doubt. Especially with his way of being all too conscious of his own brand of power over his Mentor, or his self-deprecation. It seemed he needed to have his merits being shoved in his face constantly in order to be aware of them at all. Amrael did that with bloodied lips purring against his lover's, and it was fine.

"I loved his torments and his inner demons because I've never had anything like that myself; I liked to watch him and learn about him, and above all there was a thing that got me high: I was able to banish his pain with a simple brush of lips."

Their parting happened gradually, he knows it now. It happened subtly, took time. It took years, took moving out of Russia. Took realising that the time he spent out with his victims, Tom spent with himself and his Magic. Took Amrael noticing that Tom was scaring him, that he looked at him with adoring eyes as he was kissed but that even then there was a cold edge on his gaze. That he was impatient and wanted that transformation to come, wanted to share the Death that was eternal and yet labelled as immortality that was Amrael's own dark gift.
It wasn't until then that the vampire realised he had been killing his love slowly.

Tom hadn't noticed, of that much he was sure. He acted as always, the alterations in his ways all too subtle for him do be doing that deliberately.
Or so Amrael thought, until it hit him that tom was modifying himself deliberately. Was the one behind his lengthy silences, his increasing interest in power and knowledge. All the things Amrael had done to a certain extent, and that had led him to his current shallow state, as he stood now, having to seek emotions and passions from others. Only that for Amrael it had happened and not being sought. It had simply came, out of boredom or getting used to it all he couldn't tell. It could as well be due to how many times he had loved a human, watched him/her go, picked another to admire, and this one had also faded. He supposed he had grown used to it, to watch them fade and himself remain untouched.
He had grown to believe he was untouchable by them, deep down.

Yes. It was him who had woven his bound to Tom. Yet he knew that Tom was finding his way out of it. Subconsciously, he must know it wasn't doing him good. Amrael, having been around for longer, was quicker to sense it.

"Our relationship became less and less physical, and I realised I was losing him. He didn't want me; he wanted to be like me. And that was so not what I wanted for him. I'm superficial and uninteresting, although fascinating under certain angles. Tom is sublimely complex and so above me in many ways. I had all the reasons to coil before his greatness, but instead I felt urges to taste it."

He made a painful and selfish decision: to walk away before Tom would realise fully what was going on. Walk away before Tom would no longer need him. Walk away so that the pain and confusion of his departure would linger and do the trick.
Memories can be misleading. They tend to highlight the good treats of our dear ones that are gone.
With that in mind, Amrael made a plan.

He disappeared. Just that. Left the Mansion they were in. No note, no warning, no goodbye. Just the papers for one of his castles in Britain, where resided one too many hidden reserves of gold.
He ached. But that was the least harmful way out if it.

"He loved me and for that he wished to kill me. He needed me away. He needed solitude to do what he had to do. He couldn't part from me, he knew that I'd be hurt, knew that he'd be hurt. All the same, he, unlike me, didn't like the idea of so strong a bond. Didn't like to think that he was dependant on me."

Amrael did not inform the Vampire Circles that the newly risen, powerful Dark Lord of Wizards had previously been his apprentice and his heart's choice for a mate. He didn't bother to look after the one who had been his Tom. He knew it to be unneeded. Lord Voldemort could stand by himself and he did not, at any rate, want to cross paths with the man.
He never saw Tom again. However, their link was not a frail one, and Amrael was quite old and powerful. Should his mate and beloved ever call, he'd know.

"It seems that the best thing I've been able to do for him was to leave him. It is not me he calls for in his dark hours. I'm just gifted with the ability to head him if he'd do as much as breathe my name. I'm past, and past is good where it belongs: in one's memory and, perhaps, one's heart. I'm obviously out of the later, and out of place in his life.
I wouldn't turn away if he were to come to me. He might, when he's ready. Or his being ready can mean that he wouldn't need me. He hasn't, for a long time."

Not for anything would he deign to seek Tom until he was sure that he was needed and wanted. Amrael isn't good at coping with rejection.

Little surprise here. In spite of the bratty, inconsequential and lover of the ephemeral as he was, his own intensity, although unknown to him, made him shine outstandingly. Amrael has most answers: it's just that he can't be arsed to investigate the depths of his soul for them.
Too worrisome for his one-track mind, says his smirk.

His mind will drift to Tom occasionally, still. There's no feeling attached to those memories. They're just that. Memories.

"Can Tom kill? Yes. Can he seduce? Yes. Can he make you adore him with all the strength in his emotional frailty that he'll show just for you because you've become one of his pillars? Definitely. He's so lovable it hurts, and so easy and difficult to get to.
I knew of the power I had over him and I used it. Unashamedly. For his benefit and mine as well.
Can he make you love him? Yes. Can he love back? He needs to. Can he give head? Absolutely. He couldn't with me, and I doubt he deigned to lower his lips to another's crotch after that. When I left him he was on advanced stage of becoming all great Dark Lord of the Wizarding World. Such people don't give head. And Tom never seemed particularly keen on it, at least with me."

Amrael: *smiles at reader* Care to see to that?