I Am the Night

by Rachel E Rice

  Nina held his folder and IPad close to her chest when she agreed to meet him at seven pm.

  Jovani Nightingale stepped out of his limo fifteen minutes late. Nina didn’t care how long the wait, she would stay as long as possible even sleep on the couch if she had to. This would be a life-changing sale if she could pull this off and she would. She wouldn’t take no. She wouldn’t leave tonight without getting something for her time even if it was to stare into his gorgeous face and offer herself to him just for the bragging rights.

  She watched at Jovani as he strutted in her direction as if walking on air. He wore an Italian suit made to fit his svelte body. Wide shoulders, small waist. His hair dark and his blue eyes lit up the approaching night sky.

  “Mr. Nightingale it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Nina said holding out her hand and he glanced down at it and didn’t shake her hand. It wasn’t because he wanted to insult her it was because he didn’t want her to ask questions or get too friendly. But one touch of his hand would reveal what he didn’t want her to know—his body was cold as the temperature outside.

  “I’m sorry but I have a thing about germs,” he said with an arresting smile. His full mouth covered his white teeth so stunning and perfect that she had to catch herself. She stood gazing at him in awe.

  He whispered, “Do you think we can see the rest of the place now? I don’t think I can purchase it with just a look at the entrance.”

  “Sorry about that,” she said after composing herself. They stepped off the elevator and entered the living quarters. This is a triplex. On each floor, you have living quarters and on the top floor, there is a pool. But first being a bachelor, you would want to see the bedroom.” Nina smiled wide and seductive as she gazed into his eyes. He never averted his glance.

  “Yes, of course,” Jovani said. They opened the door to the bedroom it was enormous. He wouldn’t need it. There was no woman to share his bed. The ones he thought he could share his life with, those of a vampire’s life, had been forgotten in Italy. It was why he had moved to the US. He needed a fresh start and he hoped they were happy enough where they would never follow him. He wanted nothing of that dead life anymore.

  But there was a part he couldn’t ignore. The insatiable need for human blood and his quest to rid himself of its soul-numbing feelings. He thought if he could wean himself off of human blood he could feel again and love again.

  There was also the realization that he couldn’t run from being what he was and what he is. He needed to feed and he needed to feed regularly because of his youth and because he was turned as a young man. Being a hundred years old wasn’t anything in the lifespan of a vampire. He had clothing that was a hundred years old.

  “Mr. Nightingale. Mr. Nightingale.” His thoughts were interrupted. “That’s an interesting name to have. Nightingale. What does it mean?”

  “A bird who sings at night,” Jovani said looking out the closed glass terrace doors in his bedroom. “I’ll take it.”

  “Did I hear you correctly?” Nina’s voice breaking with excitement.

  “Yes. And do you have any other properties I would be interested in?” Jovani questioned.

  “Yes. An apartment.”

  “I’ll take that as well.”

  “And a home in the Hamptons you will probably need one for summer months.” He looked at her, “The Ocean. It’s calm and quiet in the Hamptons if you have the right place.”

  Jovani turned and said, “I’ll take that as well. My servant will transfer the money tonight. I expect the keys tomorrow.”

  “Of course.”

  “And can you recommend a decorator?”

  “Yes of course. Anything else you would like?” She said with a suggestive warm smile.

  “No Nina. I think that will be all,” Jovani said. Nina didn’t want to press her luck and she rushed to the elevator and then turned around placing the keys on the chest in the foyer. “I’m leaving the keys to the townhouse and the apartment. I’ll send the keys to your Hampton home with a messenger tomorrow.”

  “Thank you. I will make use of them tonight.” Nina didn’t hear his last words.

  After she left, Jovani called in Connor his man-servant. “We will stay here tonight. Then we’ll move on to the apartment. I prefer an apartment. It’s in the heart of Manhattan and where there are far more pedestrians and I can walk at night where it won’t be obvious.”

  “What are you going to do about food?”

  “In Manhattan, there’s never a problem. There’s always some unsavory killer roaming the streets looking for their next victim. I will kill them before they get a chance to harm anyone.”

  “That may be dangerous. Suppose you make a mistake?” Connor said.

  “I never make mistakes. I’m a killer. I’ve killed in the war. I’ve killed when I was turned. I know how they think. I know what drives them to kill.”

  “You are driven to kill because of your need to feed.”

  “It is an addiction like all things that take over you.” He raised an eyebrow, but I will conquer that addiction one day by drinking the blood of animals. Not men. I have no choice now and I’m satisfying my thirst with incurable killers.

  “But how will you do that if you hunt killers and drink their blood? Won’t that make your addiction worse?”

  “I don’t know how I will do it, I just know I must stay alive long enough to find an end to my cursed life. If I’m not successful, then I have to end this.”

  JOVANI BOUGHT THE PROPERTY but he had owned many properties in Manhattan before, and now they were worth millions if not billions. He bought his first property after the war. That was during year nineteen hundred and forty-five right after the end of World War II when he entered the US on a ship bound for Manhattan.

  It was during the war Jovani was taken into service. It was then he became twenty-seven when a Captain ordered him to kill his countrymen and entire families that he refused and it was then he was turned into a vampire by the Captain and became the killer he never thought he could become. At the end of the war, with so much blood on his hands, he felt compelled to kill himself, but instead, he put a stake into the heart of the Vampire Captain.

  After the war, Jovani traveled all over the Americas and Europe, from Italy to war-torn Germany to the US where he found himself in Manhattan alone, after creating his own family of Vampires throughout the world because of his need to feed on human blood.

  Looking out at the Manhattan skyline and thinking about his life before and after his change, the servant Connor a young man in his thirties, a little older than Jovani, whom he met as a soldier when the US marched through Rome in May of nineteen forty-five, stood near the black grand piano looking down at Jovani playing Debussy’s famous piece, Claire de Lune.

  Jovani’s hands and fingers moved effortlessly across the keys and he looked up and said, “Do you know who wrote this, Connor?”

  “I know the music by not the composer. It sounds sad and lonely.”

  “Claude Debussy. It means in French, Moonlight. I will only be able to see moonlight. Never sunlight. That’s why I play it to remind me that as long as I exist the only heavenly body I will ever see is the moon.”

  “This is your time, Jovani.” Conner reached for his black cloak and held it for him. The car is ready and I thought tonight would be a fitting time for you. You do good work, Mr. Nightingale. You rid the world of scum who harms innocent people.” Jovani placed his arms through the sleeves of the cloak.

  “I have done awful things too.”

  “I know. But that was war and that was in the past. You helped me when I was close to death. I was wandering around lost from my platoon when you found me covered under snow.”

  “It wasn’t my humanitarian nature that I saved you. I had no humanity left in me.”

  “You have more than you know. And you have a future even if you can’t see it. A long one.” Jovani looked at Connor with a small closed smile.

  “What do we have tomorrow? I though
t we could inspect my home in the Hamptons. It’s near the ocean. I think I may like that.”

  “Friday night you have an event to attend.” Jovani raised one eyebrow. His face turned sullen and he placed an open hand to his brow.

  “Can’t we not go? I’m tired of all those silly parties. The women who invite me are hoping I either marry their daughters or their friends. I’d like to stay in. Play my music and read.”

  “I didn’t think you would tire of parties. There among the wealthy are frivolous and detestable people young and old who live to bring misery to the world. Those in their small circle know about them but would never say. If one of them disappears, no one misses them. They think they have gone off to their mountain chalets to ski maybe broke a leg, died in a snowstorm, unable to cause any more harm.”

  “Go over the guest list and make sure they don’t have a family. I hate to take a man from his family,” Jovani said to Connor. “If they are murders I can make an exception.”

  “Why haven’t you turned a woman? Don’t you get lonely, sir?”

  “Sometimes. But I’ve never met a woman whom I’ve wanted and who would want to share the life of a vampire with me.”

  “Do you give them a choice? Can’t you leave her mortal? You don’t have to change her.”

  “I’ve thought about doing that but then I have to wipe her memory of me if she doesn’t agree to be with me. But I’ve never met a woman with that kind of understanding. Imagine telling her that I’m a vampire but I think I’m a good vampire and if she falls in love with me, then she will always have me to herself but with one exception. She will have to be a night person because that’s the only time she will get a chance to be with me.”

  “Strange things have happened. That’s not a bad line. One could fall for it. It’s like anything else. No one is what they seem and if she understanding she will see that as being weird. Women like weird men and they overlook that as eccentric behavior.”

  “Strange things do happen. You and I are almost the same age when we met, have you known of any vampires who have married a human without changing her first?”

  “I can’t say I have,” Jovani said gliding in the direction of the door that leads to the garage. “You should try wearing a heavy coat, Mr. Nightingale. It looks very strange that you’re walking around with that thin duster on when it’s freezing outside.”

  “Nothing is thought of as strange in Manhattan. Just different.”

  Jovani button the cloak and turned, “People think I’m eccentric. In the US all foreigners are peculiar if they don’t understand them. Especially if they don’t eat the same foods.”

  “I’ll take the elevator down to the garage and I’ll meet you in front of the building with the car,” Connor suggested.

  “Very well, but I could get there in a second with you,” Jovani said.

  “Security never sees you, and it would do you good to speak to them every once and a while. I suspect we’ll be riding around until dawn. I’ve been trailing this man. He has no family and he walks all hours during the day and night.”

  Connor disappeared into the elevator and retrieved the Lincoln SUV and parked it in front of the building. As he was pulled the SUV and angled it to the curb, Jovani stepped outside of the open door as the doorman tipped his cap to him.

  It was the first time Conner saw a smile on Jovani’s face. He knew him to be a brooding man and Connor thought if he had a companion, a mortal or an immortal, he wouldn’t be so sullen. He would have someone to share his life with.

  Jovani didn’t desire a vampire female, he wanted a human and because Connor knew of that desire he felt that Jovani would forever be alone and forever unhappy.

  A vampire such as Jovani who can’t live with himself and live without love would very soon be asked to be put to death. And it would be Connor who would have to do the deed. Connor didn’t want to think of that and that’s why he tried to encourage him to consider revealing himself to the woman he would want to spend his life with.

  Chapter Four

  WHEN JOVANI STEPPED out of his black limousine, he glided behind a man he had been watching for two days. Jovani quiet, ordinary, except for his extraordinary good looks, wearing dark clothing went unnoticed.

  It was late and the women’s dorms were full with young women readying themselves for bed. Some walked around with only towels after a shower. Some were bare-breasted with nothing on but panties, not aware that they could be seen at a distance because of open curtains, open blinds, and binoculars clutched tightly in the hands of a vile predator.

  Jovani stood firm and silent behind the man, looking down at him, then saying, “Why are you standing near the women’s dorms looking in the window?” His voice like a knife.

  The man became stiff with fear of his discovery as he turned with a jerk of his body. His eyes wide his mouth opened with no sound coming from it. His expression surprise and then intense as he glared at Jovani.

  He was a short balding man in his late forties with a protruding belly but to Jovani he wasn’t a man who appeared to have children or a wife. A wife would inquire about his whereabouts because Jovani had seen him on more than one occasion wandering through different neighborhoods after ten pm.

  Conner had discovered that he was divorced, and he had regularly beaten his wife, at least that’s what the police reports said.

  Finally getting his courage, the man said, “What’s it to you?” his voice shaky at first and then it grew bold, “If you must know, I’m checking on my daughter. She was supposed to be in the dorm room but she isn’t there.” He turned to walk away.

  Jovani discovered in his drives through and walks through different areas good and bad that there was this kind all over the city. Opportunistic predators and he should know because he had been one of them.

  “Would you care for a ride somewhere?” Jovani asked. His voice low and less threatening.

  He glanced up at Jovani. “No. Just a ride to the subway.”

  Predators have a false sense of their abilities, Jovani thought. They are crafty and like to deceive others. They seem to think that they can spot their own.

  But Jovani appeared to be one of the good guys. Not like him. Not cold and fearless. Not driven by a habit—a desire for killing.

  After looking Jovani over from his head to his feet, the man determined that Jovani was harmless, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a strangeness to him that he couldn’t figure out.

  Connor stepping out of the limo dressed in his dark suit and white shirt didn’t meet the man’s eyes. He opened the door to the limo, and the balding man entered. “You have some set up here,” he said after he slid in next to the right window. He stared out at the building through the tinted window and let out a sigh.

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” the man said as Jovani picked up the decanter containing the liquor and handing him the glass then poured him half a glass until the man waved that it was enough.

  “Ice?”

  “I don’t take my liquor with ice.” He drank all of the scotch and then he began talking. “I like little girls,” he said.

  “You have a daughter, I would think you would like little girls,” Jovani added.

  “I like to do things to them,” he said reaching for another drink after Jovani conveniently poured it for him. The man looked up at Jovani with both raised eyebrows and shot a smile that was almost a wink. Did he sense the other about Jovani? The strangeness that made them more alike than before?

  “I don’t understand what you mean,” Jovani said his voice low. And then Jovani’s attention was drawn away from the conversation as they passed the Maze Bar. It was then he heard a faint muffled cry. Jovani hit a button and said, “Connor stop. I have to get out. Take this man to the subway and meet me back.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Very sure.” Connor stopped the limo. Jovani glanced over at the man. His head lay lolled to one side re
sting on the window. He had passed out from the liquor.

  “Do you mind if I...” Jovani ignored Connor because something or someone was calling to him. He had to see if the woman was in distress and he didn’t know why he did. He never thought of himself as an angel of mercy.

  He was the night. A demon of the night, cold and heartless. He had never stopped being that. He just didn’t want to be a slave to the blood of men. He had to find another form of feeding and he was determined to try. But because of his nature and the desire to hunt man for his food, he had to continue stalking men who prey on his own kind.

  To Jovani’s mind, that is what made them so despicable. He knew he had to kill to live, but he thought these predators had a choice. They weren’t killing for food to live. They were killing for the pleasure of the kill.

  These men weren’t hunting women and men because they had to feed on their blood, they were hunting them because they enjoyed it. Jovani never enjoyed what he had to do to exist. And if he didn’t find a way to extricate himself from drinking human blood, then he would walk into the sunlight and commit suicide because he couldn’t do this any longer. He couldn’t justify his existence.

  He was unhappy and had nothing and no one to share his life with.

  Jovani strolled into the alley near the Maze Bar. He saw a young woman being imprisoned by two men. He knew what they had on their minds. They were predators and they were going to rape the young woman and then do away with the body, and he knew where they would stash the body after they defiled her. It would be in the large garbage bin setting visibly in the alleyway.

  They didn’t hear him as he approached them. They didn’t hear him until he asked them to give the woman to him. If they had recognized him for what he was and what he tried to hide for so many years, then he may have let them live, or maybe not.