Flipping his coat collar up against the flood of the falling rain, Remi ducked his head, as he walked down the sidewalk that was glimmering from the light of the street lamps. Shop awnings provided sparse protection when he walked underneath them. Water dripped from his hair, sliding in a line down his neck and back.

It was the monsoon season in the Louisiana delta, the weather coupling downpours with a stifling heat that made steam rise from the streets, not that he minded that much. As a vampire, the elements didn’t affect him like they did humans.

As he advanced, his deck of cards thumped against his chest, nestled in the protective pocket where he had placed them. Discolored by age and bent from use, they were his most prized possession, given to him by his wife a month before she succumbed to malaria, taking their unborn child with her into the cement crypt that bore his family crest.

That was in the early 1800s, the days during which doctors could do little to help the sick except prescribe ever-increasing doses of laudanum and rest. Later, it was found that quinine cured the disease, but that was long after Grace had withered to dust.

Death had wielded a rampant scythe, cutting down all it could, like separating the wheat from the chaff in a field rather than persons from the living. Typhoid fever, tuberculosis, pneumonia, cholera… each took their toll.

Despite the agony around him, he focused his rage against the world that went on as if nothing horrible had happened to him, finding an escape in the darker parts of the city, mixing opium with his whiskey to dull his pain and lose himself in the fog of the drug’s high.

A year and a day later, he stumbled into the cemetery to sweep her bones to the back of the sepulcher to fall into the depths, joining those of his deceased ancestors, before returning to the hideaway that had become his home.

Penniless from his habit and slumped in a corner in a drunken stupor, his eyes unable to focus on the figure in front of him, he was found by Luc, his brother. He took Remi to his home and began nursing him back to health, holding him down in an unyielding grip when his body shook from withdrawals. After the first few nights, unbeknownst to Remi, Luc had blended a few drops of his blood with the broth he fed him.

As time passed, so did Remi’s dependence on the opioid, and his lucidity returned.

“Luc,” he rasped, shivering in the blankets, though a fire blazed in the hearth close by. “Where did you come from? Where am I? How did I get here?”

“Slow down, Remi,” Luc replied from across the room, where he was seated in a high-back chair. “Save your strength.”

“I don’t remember….”

“Of course, you don’t. Your brain was so addled from drug and drink, I’m surprised you survived long enough for me to find you, much less save you.”

“Grace… the baby….”

“I’m sorry, Remi. I know how much you loved her.”

“I wasn’t there with her at the end, Luc. I was abroad, chasing dreams of gold and wealth. When I arrived home, she’d already been interred; half of the townsfolk had.”

“The result would have been the same had you been there, if not worse. You could have been infected by the flying diseased thing yourself, and then where would you be?”

“With them.”

“Or you might have left a widow with a baby on the way had you encountered the bug first. In the matters of chance, you know that she would not have had an easy life without a husband, especially with the encumbrance of a child. It would have been nearly impossible to find a man to wed her. She would have ended up on the streets or worse.” Luc rose from the seat and approached where Remi had buried himself in the bed. Leaning down, he stared into his eyes, and Remi saw the flames of the fire reflected in Luc’s gaze. “You know what I’m saying is right. Don’t you?”

A tremor ran through him at the sight of his brother’s countenance, which was soon followed by a wave of peace and acceptance of Luc’s words.

“I hadn’t thought of it in those terms.”

“That’s what older brothers are for, to provide wisdom. Agree?”

Remi nodded, as the truth of what Luc said settled inside him. The pain began to seep from his heart, replaced by something close to hope, perhaps even joy.

“I’m glad you came back from wherever you were, Luc.”

As Remi looked at him, his eyes seemed to take on a blaze of their own.

“You’ll never want that poison again, mon frér.”

“No, I won’t.”

Remi assumed that what he had seen must have been a trick of the light, because his brother looked normal a moment later.

“Everlasting life awaits you, Remi.”

“What?”

“When you find love next, you’ll never have to lose her to the ravages of illness or age.”

“I don’t understand.”

“This shell of mortality doesn’t suit you, brother. You must don the eternal. Take up the mantle meant for you.”

“Luc, what are you talking about? You’re speaking in words that make you sound as insane as I felt mere moments ago.”

“Yes, it is crazy. I thought the same, but it is true. We will be immortal, you and I, roaming the world as we wish.”

Thinking his brother was joking with him as he had done all his life, Remi smiled and said, “What a dreamer’s heart you have, to jest about cheating such a certain and dreaded thing as death.”

“A dream become reality, as mine will beat forever.”

“Are you unwell?”

“I am perfect. I am vampire.” Remi wrenched his arm away, staring at his sibling with a mix of panic and wonderment. “Do not fret, brother. I am here to unmake and remake you as was done for me. To share the blood gift that was bestowed upon me.”

“That’s heresy, Luc!”

His brother chuckled.

“There is no such thing, Remi. You will soon see after it is done. Your eyes will awaken to view the world as beautiful and amazing, as it really is, not what you were reared to think and believe. You will live without fear of anyone or anything.”

“And what if I don’t want this?”

Going to Remi’s coat across the room, Luc withdrew the deck of cards from the inside pocket.

“You’re lucky you didn’t lose these. It is a beautiful set.”

“I’ve never been good at cards. You know that. I don’t know why Grace bought them for me.”

“Bring your best game, then. You’re betting for your life.”

* * *

Smiling at the memory of his epic loss to Luc and his transformation to vampire, he pondered his growth into a man of mental strength, one who held himself with a confidence some would call arrogance, possessing the wealth he had imagined having in his youth.

He approached the iron gate to his brother’s home, hearing the raucous sounds from within, ready to play another round… and win.