POINT SHANNON VILLAGE
IRELAND
1892

After two weeks of imprisonment the smell of earthen dampness, rat urine and unwashed bodies went unnoticed by the young woman inhabiting the cellar beneath the meeting house of Ireland's Point Shannon Village. Manacled to the gray stone wall, however, was a thing impossible for the nineteen year old to ignore. The vampire’s delirious ravings had escalated from occasional disjointed mumbling to profane and incoherent screaming. Bryce shrank further into the corner across the small enclosure terrified by the sound of him. Nothing in her past had prepared her for the depraved and damned creature with whom she was imprisoned.

“Sanctimonious, Bible thumpers. You’re all alike! You turn your back on a starving bloke because it would dirty your hands to help,” Gabriel came out of his stupor long enough to raise his head and bellow. Well-defined shoulder muscles strained at his sweat-dampened shirt. The chiseled jaw tensed. Cold blue eyes flashed with something beyond hatred. "I'll kill the lot of you!" he screamed.

His body relaxed against the stone wall, and then collapsed. Hanging from the steel cuffs that were bolted to the wall, he remained blissfully quiet for a time.

Bryce shivered, shamed by the truth in the vampire’s words. She had ignored his attempts at conversation before he had become incoherent. She had turned her back as she consumed the meager portions of food allotted her by their mutual jailers. Not a scrap of kindness or comfort had she offered to her fellow prisoner when it was within her power to do so, for Bryce Connery was a healer and quite gifted at her calling. One touch of her hand would have stemmed the flow of blood from his wrist, yet she had not raised the courage to approach the fearsome abomination.

It had been Bryce's talent as a healer that had awakened the suspicion of the church elders. They had ignored her prophetic visions, but medical miracles could not be explained in conventional ways. Too many infections treated by Bryce had cleared up. Limbs that normally would have remained crooked and misshapen after a break healed straight and strong after Bryce Connery touched them. Too many newborns delivered by the Irish lass had survived. When Bryce had been arrested and formally accused of sorcery, there was little she could say in her own defense. She was, after all, a witch.

"Help me," the vampire croaked, his intense blue eyes connecting with the calm green of hers.

Compassion previously missing stirred within the young woman as a low pain-wracked moan shook through the vampire. She had imagined all vampires to be hideous to the eye but this creature was handsome. With his piercing eyes, light brown shoulder length hair and trim body, she would have found him attractive if he were human. Bryce reminded herself that he wasn't. Gabriel moaned again. His body shook with obvious pain. If he were anything else, she would help. If he were anything else, she might have taken some small measure of comfort in his presence. Another ripple of pain rocked the vampire cutting Bryce’s conscience to the quick. Would God forgive her if she assisted a demon? Would a mere drop of blood sentence her to immortal hell? If so, why had she been cast down here in this cramped, barren cellar with him? Was this a test? Had she failed it in not utilizing her gift to reduce his suffering?

"Send me a sign," she prayed to any deity who might hear. "Any sign that I should help this unholy creature."

As if on cue, a familiar noise across the room caught Bryce’s attention. Straining her eyes, she squinted into the darkness. A rat looked back at her, its bead-like black eyes unblinking. It was the night forager who had taken snips from her arms and legs as she slept fitfully on the earthen floor. Bryce closed her eyes and forced herself to remain quiet and unmoving. Repulsed though she was at the thought of touching the wretched thing, she became suddenly determined to catch the rat. She would fake sleep until he ventured close enough to bite, and then she would fling her skirt wide like a net and capture the pestilence.

___________

“Wake up vampire,” Bryce urged the monstrosity. “I have nourishment for you.”

Gabriel struggled to climb from his stupor. He opened his eyes and saw the rat wiggling directly in front of him.

“Closer,” he said too weak to lift his head.

The rat struggled sensing its imminent demise. It bit into Bryce’s finger but she held fast as she positioned it directly in front of Gabriel’s mouth.

A change overtook Gabriel’s face, a spontaneous reaction to the smell of Bryce’s blood mingling with the rat’s fear. Crystal blue eyes turned pitch black and fearsome fangs dropped down to latch viciously onto the rat. He drank greedily until the rat lay limp and lifeless in Bryce’s hand.

“That was a bloody great act of kindness,” Gabriel told her. He studied her brazenly for a time taking in her long disheveled strawberry-blonde locks, the freckles, and her disarming eyes. A grin crooked one side of his handsome, pale face as he imagined the financial potential of any prostitute instilled with the deliciously curved body Bryce's soiled and frayed garments could not conceal.

“Why did they cast you down here with me?” he asked, suddenly curious. "Did you sneak a nip of your holy man’s sacrificial wine? Make naughty play with your boyfriend?"

"Certainly not," she said, thinking his questions were inappropriate and rude.

"Sorry Luv. Didn't mean to offend," Gabriel said, realizing from Bryce’s straight back and up-lifted chin that he was in the presence of a woman of good breeding.

“I see things,” Bryce said. “Before they happen, I see them.”