Ad Eternum by Elizabeth Bear Read Free Book Online

let just anybody come in.”
    The wampyr’s head was not bowed over a printed card, so he saw the wrestle of expressions that crossed Ragoczy’s face before it settled into perfect bland amusement. Jealousy, sharp and true.
    Without raising his gaze, Damian said, “Sarah wanted to let you both know that she wants to talk over some draft ideas for the university charter. She’s also got an investor or two lined up.”
    “I can help with the finances,” the wampyr said. “ Only the finances.”
    “We’ll see.”
    “We will not.” How easily you commit yourself. Well, the money was no object, and while he had done many things in all his centuries, he had never founded a university before. He still had no intention of tying himself to this place forever. Or even for a dozen years.
    A teacher—what could be more ridiculous? He said so. “I am no sorcerer. Nor teacher of magics.”
    “You are magical enough for me. Maybe you can teach history.”
    “Ouch,” the wampyr said.
    Damian grinned devilishly. He stretched his tall frame against the back of the chair. As if by accident, his legs brushed the wampyr’s. “We’re meeting tonight at her place. After sundown, of course.”
    Mercifully, the waitress brought back Ragoczy’s sandwich when she returned to take Damian’s order. The food gave Ragoczy something to do with his hands and mouth without having to support a conversation—a task that Damian took up quite cheerfully until he, too, was fed. Then it fell to the wampyr, who resorted to the gossip of Prague, six centuries out of date, to keep talk flowing.
    Shortly thereafter, Ragoczy excused himself—before Damian had even quite finished eating, and in such haste that he left his newspaper folded beside his napkin. Damian sighed and set his fork across the edge of his plate. He tilted his head to one side and regarded the wampyr with frank appraisal.
    “I’ve realized,” he said, “That I need to know what this is.”
    The wampyr folded his hands. There was really no way to handle this delicately. “You know my kind cannot support…monogamy. It equates to slow murder.”
    “You’ll have other lovers.” Damian shrugged. “So may I. I had guessed it was…club rules.”
    “Love,” the wampyr said, “is not always the word for it.”
    Damian said, “That looked like an uncomfortable conversation I was intruding on. So, even if he’s not some immortal Baltic nobleman, what does it harm for him to say so?”
    The wampyr realized a moment too late that a mortal man would have shrugged. But he had left it too long, and so he said simply, “He envies you. You should be careful.”
    “Envies me?”
    “He’s realized we have an agreement—”
    “Jack.”
    It was that, the wampyr realized—hearing a sound repeated in the voices of people one respected—that made it a name. Otherwise, it was just a dog barking for attention.
    “I believe we just established that it is not an exclusive agreement—”
    The wampyr cleared his throat, for punctuation rather than of any need. “I fear I am considered somewhat peculiar among my kind. I prefer to limit my depredations to those whose company I enjoy.”
    Damian straightened his silverware. “I think I’m flattered.” But the mind behind his direct, amused gazed was patently aware that prefer to limit was not the same thing as simply limit .
    “He wants to be immortal,” the wampyr said as if he were not changing the subject. “Wants it so badly he’s convinced himself that he is. And now he wants to convince me.”
    “So that you will make him immortal?” Damian drank water. A crease between his eyebrows deepened, and the wampyr apprehended the shadow of ancient heartbreak as he continued. “Wait. Are you suggesting that you would make me a va—one of the blood? Because, no offense, but we’ve only just met.”
    “No,” the wampyr said. “But Ragoczy might have convinced himself so.”
    “Oh,” Damian said. He glanced towards the