I’ll grant that the last saying could be heard pretty much everywhere, but it’s not as evident as in Miami; not even the paper-thin people from California can come close to it.
A culture of physical beauty, perpetual youth, and endless debts, because pretending to be successful is not for the faint of heart but for those willing to put the extra hours and all their income in all things vain.
A city of playboys, gold diggers, models, wannabe celebrities, physical instructors, and starving women—because staying beautiful has a price, right?
Vampires, all of them, pretending to be human. They’re vessels filled with pop culture, judging others, pretending to be more successful.
“Money is the word. Money is the goal. Money calls money.”
The charade goes on for less than two decades before a new generation of empty vessels comes and displaces those who are now too old to be accepted into the “in” crowd. Age, unlike with real vampires, is an issue because once you have decided to worship beauty, you are worshiping youth; and when that is gone, your time is up.
I’ve done the research. I’ve bought my way, very easily, into their circles by flashing my money. I look from above without sympathy; and when I get to kill any of them, their thoughts speak of the horror and disbelief that their existence will end.
“Why?” they ask themselves. “How is it possible? Not to me, not to me.”
Who told them they were different than any damn living creature in this life?
Only then do they understand that nothing they could ever have matters, that it’s who you are that counts at the very end and the only thing that nothing, not even death, can take away.
They all eventually fall like flies.
Stephen and Lucy were not different. Lucy was on her way to becoming one of such vessels learning from friends and now from her lover; but in my mind, Stephen was worse. I could feel the air of superiority in his words, his fake self-confidence trying to hide the uncertainty of a future he couldn’t see or control. Maybe that was enough to impress my lil’ Monet, but it had no effect on me. To me, he had been truly transparent from the get-go.
“You know, and I hope you don’t mind, but with the beard, you look just like Oded Fehr, that guy from The Mummy Returns,” Stephen once told me while we were sharing a glass of wine. This provoked an immediate laughter from Lucy.
My eyes moved from him to her, and then back to him. “The movie?” I asked, thinking of the 1932 Boris Karloff film. “I don’t think I understand,” I said.
“Yes, the Arabic guy leader of the priests guarding the secret of the Mummy,” Lucy explained.
My eyes went back to hers. “Oh! You mean in the new version, the one that came out a couple of years ago, right?”
“That’s right!” Stephen said animatedly.
I stared at him with a serious expression. “I’ve never seen it,” I said, wiping the smile off his face.
Lucy noticed my annoyance. “You should. It’s very good, and you do look—with the beard, I mean—like that guy. He’s very handsome,” she promptly said.
Stephen turned to look at her and then quickly looked back at me. “Yes, it’s very good. And he is handsome.”
If they only knew about the previous airport drama because of the damn beard and what I’m capable of doing once I’m in a bad mood, Stephen never would have dreamed of saying anything like that. But because he had no idea, I let it pass.
I looked into his eyes and held his gaze, which made him uncomfortable. After a while, I finally looked away and drank some more wine.
Lucy quickly changed the subject. She started talking about their plans to go to the Caribbean.
Stephen was not a kid. He was twenty-six years old, had one BA and was working on his master’s in hospitality management. His plan was to run a luxury club, a place where the coolest and the most beautiful people would meet, where great music would play forever, in a nonstop party of sorts—a dream where Lucy had no place because Stephen, like any other vampire, wanted to suck the shine out of her and then move on.
That first night of December 2001, right before I bid Stephen good night, I shook his hand. I could tell he felt my immortal strength, but the kid didn’t flinch a bit. My eyes bore into his, showing no mercy, before I gave his hand one last strong squeeze. This time I saw pain reflected in those blue eyes.
“Don’t hurt her,” I whispered with a smile.
His expression turned serious.
“Because if you ever do, I’ll hurt you back,” I said, widening my smile, showing my fangs.
The man held his own, struggling not to show any more trace of pain. “I think we understand each other,” he said in a low voice.
Slowly, I eased my grip on his hand.
He left in silence, and I stood alone in the center of the living room, daring him to look back once; but he never did.
*******
In the winter nights of 2002, the beach house was full with their friends and whenever I was invited to any of the gatherings, I would watch Lucy and Stephen, so happy together, and I made up my mind that right after the very moment he would break her heart, I would hunt him down and break his neck. That thought alone made me look forward to the future with a smile.
In the meantime, and despite all my complaining regarding the people in this city being fake, I was a hypocrite. Because despite my best efforts, and for obvious reasons, I had to live in a masquerade, forced to stay away, engulfed by the eternal darkness of an existence I could not dare to share with the woman I wanted. And because of it, I had to bear witness to how she gave herself, body and soul, to another man.
I was, indeed, in the right city.
Chapter 50
A Matter of Faith and Trust
August 5, 2004
Miami
I had to come.
Flying long distances, in this case from New York to Miami, so fast always uses up much of my strength. I made it right after 11:00 p.m. In complete silence, I landed in the back of the beach house and immediately found my way inside.
Wearing all black, as I always do when flying, I became one with the semidarkness of the place. My sense of smell guided me to where she was—sleeping on the couch with the TV on. I walked slowly toward, contemplating the expression on her. She looked so sweet and at peace. Then saw traces of eyeliner on her cheeks.
She had been crying, a lot.
I got her phone call that evening, just around half past five. Stephen had broken up with her, and she was very sad and was in desperate need of a friend. After almost three years, I was beginning to think that the guy had changed his ways and had become committed to her. Instead, his insecurities got the best of him, and he had taken to blaming Lucy for things that could only be justified by an immature jealousy. He had dropped the old “I need time by myself to figure things out” bomb, and her heart was shattered. It was hard for me to see her like that.
I was only weeks away from a long-overdue trip to Mexico. I was looking forward to spending the rest of the year over there before returning to Miami when her phone call made me forget everything else and make the leap in less than six hours from New York to Miami. My body was trembling furiously from the effort of challenging gravity, and my brain was going crazy, demanding blood; but she needed me here. I couldn’t refuse. For once, the thirst would have to wait.
“Lucy,” I called out her name softly.
She opened her eyes. It took her only a fraction of a second to recognize me; and when she did, she immediately teared up. I kneel next to her. She reached out for me and buried her head in my chest, allowing me to hold her tightly. I could feel, as much as hear, her sobbing. I felt dizzy, like my heart was going to stop and faint but no, I couldn’t. She needed me.
I could feel her tears seeping through my shirt, and I closed my eyes, wishing I had the power to take her pain away. I felt her warmth and her heartbeat, and I made her pain mine. Slowly, our bodies came back down to the couch. She tried to explain what S
tephen said between her cries. Her thoughts opened up to me, sharing her sadness in a way I rarely felt, but easily reminded me of my own. We held each other for a long time. Eventually, she fell asleep. My vampire eyes found her face, and I planted a kiss on her forehead. I held her tight in my arms, wishing with all my heart that I could somehow bring back her happiness.
Hours later, burdened by all the care in the world, I got up from the couch, picked her up, and carried her with ease to her bedroom. Without waking her up, I lowered her onto the bed and covered her with a blanket. Then I walked outside, looking out toward the city, desperate to sate my thirst.
*****
I returned to the house around 5:30 a.m.
That previous night, I needed more than one victim to satisfy my thirst. It took me awhile to find the right people, but I eventually zeroed in on a nice single mother and her two sons over in Cooper City. I went after the kids first, making sure their deaths were quick, then the mother. With her, I took my time, making sure she was completely drained. Now their bodies lay somewhere in the depths of the dark waters of the Atlantic.
How many had I thrown into its depths? Why bother burying or burning corpses when you have the ocean as your accomplice? It took me less than twenty minutes flying east, at least one hundred miles into the ocean before letting them fall. By the time their bodies hit the water, I was on my way back to the beach house. It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to hide my deeds.
All my senses alerted me to the imminent sunrise, and instinctively, my eyes cast about for the dark horizon. There was nothing, just darkness but still could feel it, something, crawling up.
Lucy was still in her room, where I had left her. I made sure she was secure, and then I made my way to the guest room. There, I felt Stephen’s scent. I turned to the closet and opened it. I found part of his clothing on the hangers. Their scent, Lucy’s and his, was everywhere. They had been here numerous times. The unmistakable odor of sweat and body fluids was too much for me to handle. The notion of their lovemaking throughout the years made me angry. I needed to get out of the house before the sun came up, but I also did not want to leave Lucy alone. I swallowed my pride and did my very best to change into clean clothes. I placed the dirty ones in a corner of the closet, to make room for Stephen’s.
Afterward, I went to bed, hating every second. There heard the sun rising up. I kept my eyes open for as long as I could, watching the traces of the new day through the small spaces between the slats of the window blinds. My eyelids grew heavy, and I knew that soon I would be snug deep in the nothingness. I thought about Stephen and swore to myself that he would regret the moment he was born.
Then complete darkness.
*******
I opened my eyes right after 5:00 p.m. and instinctively oriented myself to the room. The blinds were pulled down, effectively keeping out the last traces of sunlight. On the night table next to the bed, there was a tray with a paper on it. It was a note from Lucy, telling me that she was going to be at school but would be back after 6:00 p.m. How convenient, I thought.
Lucy was in her last year of college. However, anyone keeping tabs and doing the math would have noticed that at almost thirty years of age, her last year of college was six years too late.
She was eager to find a direction in her life. I tried to help as much as possible; but in reality, I couldn’t do much because age, as has always been the case, was an issue. She was nineteen when we met, and I looked like twenty-eight. Now a decade later, she was about to turn thirty, and I had to grow a beard to look somewhat older.
I had stayed with her in this same beach house the first three years, and I saw how my company created a balance in her life. But when I realized that sooner or later she would grow suspicious of my “great genes,” I made the decision to move back east to Extreme City New York.
Jason didn’t like that at all, but that’s another story.
Immortality is not easy.
I’ve encountered the occasional curious soul who, for some reason or another, had figured out what I am, and a few of them have had the courage to approach me and ask for immortality.
I try to remember how it felt before I knew my fate and right after I did. Before turning, I was reckless, a rebel, a thief, and an assassin; but was also mortal and every breath I took was precious. Immortality changed all that. The moment you realize that everything you know and everyone you love will cease to be is the moment you start to truly understand the reality of an eternal life.
Lucy was a smart woman, and I think that by then, she knew my secret. I mean, how much longer do you think a being like me can keep the secret of his true self while living with a mortal?
However, she was deliciously discreet with me and elegantly disregarded any questions she might have had about my nocturnal activities. In the beginning, I could tell my escapades worried her; but after some time, they became irrelevant to us. What mattered was that we were always there for each other; anything beyond that was inconsequential.
In our friendship, I had always been alone; and I knew it hurt her to see me like that. My loneliness annoyed her, and she couldn’t understand it; but that’s the reality of immortality. The eternal existence of an immortal is at the core of the relationships he pursues, the companions he keeps; and when they are gone, we immortals truly grieve those whom we have chosen as our friends and/or lovers. Sometimes the grief lasts for years, decades even; and for some, getting close to anyone again is almost an impossibility.
We were made in pairs, says the legend. That’s if you believe in legends . . .
I completely understood Lucy’s need to have a companion she could relate to. It bothered me that it wasn’t me, but I also acknowledged that she deserved a man of her time.
It is a matter of trust when you decide to make yourself vulnerable and let someone into your heart. It is a matter of faith when you believe that the other person will treasure and protect that trust.
If you had asked me back then about trust, I would have told you that trust was meant to be broken, and faith a matter of perspective, but that’s just me.
Lucy chose to make herself vulnerable to someone she was predestined to want—no, crave would be the right word. Lucy was a woman, but in some ways, she thought like a man. Men are visual, women are emotional. At least that’s what science says. It is not rare for men to have pictures, photos, and posters of the subject of his attention all over the place. Lucy was like that, always posting pictures of male models in her room walls—something about the power of positive thinking or some nonsense like that. And then Stephen, who was exactly what she craved physically, showed up in her life.
As though following a bad script, they got together, two attractive young people in the city of plastic beauty. There was a lot of intense lust, a lot of fun. And then life followed. Before she met him, we used to spend much of our time together, but I was no fool. I knew very well I couldn’t offer her anything more than immortality as a vampire. I also knew then, as I know now, that Lucy was not a killer. Life as a vampire would be a living hell for someone like her.
Like I said before, I was suspicious of Stephen for personal reasons, but also because I knew his type quite well: we were very much the same.
Maybe this knowledge made me feel a dark combination of joy and anger that someone like him had finally ended up with someone like her. The only two reasons why I didn’t intervene were that I respected her and thought, and still think, that she needed to experience these kinds of emotions in order to grow.
I had witnessed on more than one occasion how she had broken the hearts of many men and just kept going each time, as though nothing had ever happened. It was during those times that I played with the idea of turning her; but in time, I understood that what I took as a detachment from human emotions was, in fact, immaturity mixed with ego.
Then I realized how lost she really was. She had adopted his life—his friends, his tastes, and his interests. It was sad how she was losi
ng herself, willingly, in his world. The man had friends to spare; there was no club they didn’t visit, no hotel they didn’t stay in, and their nights out on the town were epic. More and more, she became like him. That was when I first noticed a gap in her behavior. There was something missing, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I observed all this from a distance, not wanting to be a factor in what I knew would be the outcome.
She had no chance whatsoever with Stephen, whose charms, looks, and career interest easily made him a nocturnal creature; and just like me, he could also be quite creative. I couldn’t help using my willpower on him most of the times we spoke. That was how I got him to tell me what was really in his heart; that was how I found out how insecure he was about everything.
Eternal Darkness, Blood King Page 3
