by Sam Stone
Lilly advances. She circles him and her eyes are devoid of expression. I watch, fascinated. She has changed. I am suddenly not afraid for her anymore. Her movements are compelling, hypnotic, and he freezes, watching her. His face goes slack. Lilly moves closer, her hand outstretched. He stands still, offers up his throat. She grabs him by the throat and squeezes as the bottle slips from his oxygen-starved fingers and lands on the outstretched leg of the dead girl. It bounces without breaking and rolls a few yards before coming to a halt against the green bin. His feet dangle a few inches from the ground as Lilly lifts him with super-human strength. Her hand tightens. He kicks and twitches, but more as a reflex than a protest, as silently he dies; spit bubbles from his foaming lips. He gurgles, but she doesn’t let go, merely increases the pressure, cutting off the sound sharply. His bloodshot eyes swell as blood vessels burst and the whites bleed to dark purple. His face bloats, impossibly swollen; it looks like a distorted balloon and any moment it will burst and spray the entire area with his brains.
I am coldly excited by the sheer brutality of the moment. Power surges through her muscles. She squeezes harder and I feel the snap as though it is my fingers around his dirt-encrusted throat. The junkie’s body lolls and she tosses him like a stringless puppet into the corner of the alley, knocking over a full black bin with the force of the throw.
At the back of the terraced houses a light switches on in an upstairs window. We must leave.
‘What ... have you done to me?’
Emotion has returned to her face, and through her half open mouth I can see the long sharp points of her excessively long canines. Her hands are blood stained and she stares down at her outstretched palms in horror.
‘Come. We have to leave.’
‘The girl’s dead. Her blood ... called me.’
‘Yes. It did.’
‘I’m hungry.’
‘I know ...’
She stumbles and I catch her. She is weakened but enhanced. More lovely than she’d ever been. Changed but recognisable. Oh God! How on earth did I fail to notice? Excited, I crush her to me. My heart feels full. I think it might actually rupture spilling out four hundred years’ worth of longing.
The back door of the house beside us flings open and florescent light spills out of the kitchen in the tiny back yard. We are blocked from view by the high red brick wall surrounding the yard. Lilly’s heart rate speeds up and I feel her fear leech out into my every nerve. I force myself to calm her. At first her psyche refuses my pulses but I press harder and being the older of the two, I’m relieved to find I am much stronger than she is. I push my consciousness into her and she stills with the cold calm of four centuries experience.
‘What’s going on? I’ve called the police ...’ A frightened male voice calls out into the night.
‘What is it, Dave?’ a woman whispers beside him.
‘Fuckin’ junkies again ...’
We remain still and quiet until the couple are satisfied and go back inside. The back door closes and locks and bolts are slammed with paranoid care. I know that like me Lilly will be able to see as clearly as if it is a bright summer day despite the sudden return to pitch black. Her eyes are wide, scared but somehow curious. The green of her irises is brighter and more fey like. I do not know what to say to her, how to explain. I have given up believing that this day would come. A torrent of emotion sweeps through me. I feel like Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain. What kind of mentor will I make? How can I put her through the pain of death after mortal death?
The distant call of a siren spurs me into action.
I pull her closer to me and this time when I lift her into the air she merely gasps.
‘I remember this.’
‘Yes.’
Gathering the air beneath us, we blaze straight up. We are suspended and her fear spills out into me as she looks down. From here we can see the body of the girl twisted into an impossible angle. Her tee-shirt is ripped and her jeans pulled down around her ankles.
‘He ... was raping her ... but she was dead.’
‘Yes. The world is full of very evil people, Lilly.’ My explanation seems trite; after all I’m one of the ‘evils’.
Within minutes the police car pulls up, its lights and siren at full pitch.
‘God, Jay. Your blood ...’
‘What?’
‘DNA. You cut your hand on the bottle.’
I glance at my hand, now healed. Her nearness has made me careless; I marvel at her presence of mind. She really is a very intelligent girl. She never fails to amaze me.
‘I ...’
‘I know what to do.’
Two police officers walk down the alley swinging their torches over each corner. It is not long before they find the girl or the junkie. One of them bends down, checking for a pulse, but I know that they won’t find any.
‘Fuckin’ hell!’ The younger PC gulps as his torch illuminates the girl.
‘Better call in and get CID down.’ His partner is older by about five years, but he seems far more cynical.
‘Shouldn’t we gather evidence?’
‘Christ. When did you graduate? Yesterday? We mess with this and homicide will have our bollocks on toast with garnish.’
‘What should I do?’
‘Come back with me to the car. We’ve got to tape this area up and call in.’
‘Shouldn’t one of us stay with the bodies?’
‘Why? They’re dead, you moron. They’re not going anywhere.’
While the rookie reports the scene, the other man opens the boot of the car and pulls a thick roll of yellow tape out of a dark blue canvas bag. Lilly and I land near the bin. She picks up the bottle and holds out her hand. I take it and we run silently away from the police car and out through the other side of the alley.
‘You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, Jay.’
‘I know, but for now, run ... Feel the strength of your limbs, Lilly! Feel your power! My darling, you’re immortal.’
Our laughter echoes through the streets and soon we are on Oxford Road, running full pelt under the street lights. For once caution is furthest from my mind. She is drunk on the adrenaline of her first kill even though she didn’t feed. I hold her hand and we sprint, an invisible blur, enjoying our strength and power. It seems so long since I allowed myself anything other than human behaviour.
I lead her through the busy street, back to Deansgate and my apartment. The ecstasy of being with her chokes my throat. I can barely hold back the cry that pushes up from inside me. It has been four hundred years since I lived with a woman, as any mortal man might, bringing up his children. My future fantasy is dispelled as, with this thought, the memories raise their ugly head, hungry to be relived.
I lapse back into the past as the cry echoes through the empty caverns of my chest - I’m not alone!
Chapter 15
Ten years had passed since I’d seen her. I was ashamed to realise that I had barely thought of Ysabelle, the simple scullery maid at Madame Fontenot’s brothel. She scurried along, a bundle clasped to her breast. She looked aged, worn, but yes, it was definitely her. She passed by me on the other side of the canal, crossed over a bridge farther up, and I was on my feet following her before I could think.
She hurried along the dark streets, her eyes darting left and right as though she expected one of the grotesque gargoyles to spring to life and reach out for her. Sweat beaded her brow and she licked her chapped lips; she was clearly agitated but I didn’t understand why. Maybe it was only that she travelled home in the dead of night, a woman alone. The more I followed the more I began to believe that she had just cause. She weaved in and out of the streets with the familiarity of a resident, and I noticed for the first time that she wore the uniform of kitchen maid of a local countess whose house I had often frequented and perf
ormed in.
I had been unaware of the servants. I could not even visualise the manservant who had repeatedly let me in, taken my cloak then lead me through to the salon; yet I still recognised the countess’s colours.
Ysabelle reached her destination and the tenseness left her shoulders as she unlocked the small door of an old hovel and hurried inside. Through the glass of a window pane the flame of a candle sparked and filled the hallway and I mapped the pathway of the lamp into the front room, where the frail light peeked through the faded, ill fitting drapes. Candle light illuminated the room above and I stepped back trying to see inside, but to no avail. I searched the outside of the house, not sure why, but driven to investigate this woman’s life. Some belated sense of guilt made me wonder how she had ended up here in this wreck of a house in the poorest part of the town and how, after all these years, she too was living in Venice, having also left her home town of Florence. I saw the candle extinguished and the house settled back into silence and I was left in the dark to ponder this new event.
As the night paled and dawn blossomed I slunk away. Back to my house on the Grand Canal where I hoped to find safety and normality in the silk sheets covering my brocade bed. Then maybe the oddness of the evening would dim and become a colourless memory and I would be able to continue my life as though nothing had ever happened. However, more than one thing had changed that evening - and strangely I wanted to learn more about Ysabelle, gain knowledge of why she, like me, had chosen exile from Florence and sought refuge in the last defendable fort, the city built on water: Venice.
The next day, I commissioned my steward to seek information on Ysabelle. With the right amount of coinage, information was available on anyone in the city. I left my house in the morning and set off on my usual visits to the surrounding nobility. After all, my livelihood relied on these people paying me to sing at their functions. As I stepped towards the water on my landing dock I suffered the weirdest sensation. It was as if the city shifted. I was momentarily dizzy. The ground pitched up at me. My footman quickly reached out and caught me as I almost stumbled into the canal.
‘My lord!’
‘It’s fine,’ I said, shaking my head to clear it. ‘Just a small dizziness.’
My head ached. I felt weak and hungry, yet I had eaten a large breakfast. Even so, the indulgence in bread, cheese and ham still did not leave me feeling full. I returned to my house and took to my bed. Laying flat without moving my head was the only cure.
‘Should we fetch the surgeon?’ the servant asked.
‘No. It’s nothing.’
Though I knew nothing of the power I had, I understood I was changed and feared the scrutiny of a medical man. So I lay in the darkening room hoping that this hideous vertigo would leave, while every time I turned over nausea threatened to overwhelm me.
As the night approached I revived and was able to stand and walk again. I felt almost normal. I looked out of my window and saw the moon still in it full glory and its beams fed me. I basked in it; absorbing the energy that poured down from it into my body.
‘She lives in Fondamento Nouve,’ my Steward told me as I dressed for dinner. ‘A servant girl in Countess Umberto’s household.’
‘I know that ...’
‘Her name is Ysabelle Lafont. French father, Italian mother. She arrived nine years ago. She tells everyone she is a widow. And a woman alone with two children, well why not?’
‘She has children?’
‘Twins. A boy and girl aged around nine.’
‘What?’
‘Yes, sir. No one knows the name of the father, but the children are Gabi and Marguerite. The boy’s full name is Gabriele ... sir.’
The floor unwrapped beneath me and I found myself sitting on the corner of my bed, my head in my hands.
‘My Lord?’ The steward’s worried face peered at me.
‘Leave me.’
As the door closed behind him, the steward flicked me a curious glance and I realised I would have to mask my reactions much better. It was clear by my reaction that the boy, Gabriele - Gabi, was not named so by coincidence.
Soon after he left I slipped quietly out of the house and walked through the streets, crossing bridges and curving through narrow alleys to reach Ysabelle’s house. I walked alone and with new confidence. All the way, the moon strengthened and filled me, its revitalising rays soaking into my skin, so that by the time I arrived there was no longer a trace of the sickness and dizziness I’d felt earlier.
It was a mild winter so far. There was no frost and the flood season had barely begun. It was early evening and the windows of the downstairs lodgings were open. As I approached the house I could hear the soft tones of a woman speaking inside. I stepped forward, climbed up easily on the rough brick work and looked inside. Through the open window I saw Ysabelle bathing a young boy as he stood naked in a small round bowl allowing her to slosh tepid water over him.
‘Oh, madre, why must you wash me so much? I stink like a girl and the other boys laugh. I will never get a job as a fisherman if I am not allowed to smell a little of fish ...’
‘Hush, Gabi. You must always be clean of mind and body. Have I taught you nothing? Those boys. Do you think they will one day serve kings? Maybe even become a page? You could be destined for great things if only you forget this foolishness.’
‘But, madre, all I love is the sea.’
She smoothed back his golden blonde curls, kissing his forehead.
‘But the sea does not love little boys, Gabi. It is a hard life you would choose.’
‘No matter how much you wash, you’ll always stink.’
‘Marguerite!’ Ysabelle turned to the tall lithe creature standing in the corner of the room, her arms folded.
She wore a white nightgown and cap and looked every bit her nine years except for the intelligence that seeped out of her mischievous brown eyes and impish face. Despite the gleaming whiteness of her clothes I was mesmerised by the grey line several inches from the bottom, which revealed that it had been altered to fit her.
‘Madre. What is the point? He wants to be a fisherman, let him. I will gladly be a fine lady and dance every night at the Palazzo, with handsome men to beg my hand. And I will fall in love, mamma, just like you did with our father ...’
‘No. Not like I did.’ Ysabelle looked out into space.
I scrutinised the boy and I felt like I was looking at a miniature portrait of myself; so green were his eyes blazing out from his guttersnipe tan and hair so fair even with the slight coating of street dust. The girl reminded me of my mother. She was taller than the boy and had a regal quality which belied her patched and repaired clothes.
‘You are staying away from fine gentleman, Marguerite.’
Ysabelle continued. ‘Until your brother makes his fortune and is able to provide a good dowry for you. Then you can marry well.’
‘I shall marry for love,’ the girl sighed. ‘Not just for wealth.’
Laughter bubbled into my throat and I quickly suppressed it. Her nature was so like mine. So rebellious and yet romantic. My God! These were my children and I might never have known.
Ysabelle had left Florence under a cloud and found herself here in Venice. I felt this must be fate. I could at least do something for her plight. Feed, cloth, educate the children; provide a good dowry to ensure a respectable match for Marguerite. These were the things that their mother strived for and I was sure that she would welcome an anonymous benefactor.
‘Well, what have we ’ere? A fine gent, roughin’ it. Looking for a piece of trench trash are yer?’
I turned slowly and found myself face to face with a gang of five men. The one who spoke was scraping his nails with a seven-inch silver stiletto. The others, four more of similar calibre, all grinned at the first man’s apparent wit. This was obviously their leader.
‘And maybe we won’t,’ Stiletto smiled.
‘I’ve heard of you. Braves - that’s what you call yourselves,’ I replied.
‘Yeah. ’Cos we are brave, see? We’d always go down fighting. Wouldn’t we lads?’
Stiletto stood up to his full height. He was a tall man, but I was taller. I’d grown to six feet two - exceptionally tall for an Italian male in the seventeenth century. Stiletto was burly, muscular in the way dock workers were when they acquired sinewy from lifting heavy loads. His companions were more like Gondoliers with upper body strength showing in their sinewy arms.
A strange quiet filled my senses. I wasn’t afraid; my heart beat steadily as I looked at the men with their dead eyes, which showed they’d seen so much that nothing touched them anymore. I turned to face them fully.
‘Looks like we got a “Brave” gent here lads!’ Stiletto laughed.
I went cold. My muscles turned to marble. I knew instinctively that they couldn’t hurt me. Nothing could. The man with the stiletto rushed me and I knew the second before he moved, because his thoughts drifted into the air where I could pick them up like speech. Before it could pierce me the knife was knocked from his hand and he yelled in pain as his wrist snapped under my fingers. The other four rushed in and I slapped at them all. They fell before me, their blows no worse than the weakest splashes of rain. I was hungry for more. Stiletto got to his feet nursing his wrist, but still came at me, the knife now in his good hand. I grabbed his broken wrist, snapping it back, he screamed and it filled the empty alley like a cry from the pits of hell. Blood spurted from the wound as jagged bits of bone stuck out through the skin, and an overwhelming hunger consumed me. Before I could stop myself I pressed it to my lips and drank.
The warm liquid filled me and my muscles rippled and hardened, contouring themselves beneath my clothes as I sucked on the wound like a man drinking from a watering hole in the desert. Stiletto’s bowed back snapped under the pressure I exerted but still I held that wound to my lips and drank. It was the sweetest nectar I’d ever tasted. My appetite pushed against my jaws. My teeth ached. Through the ecstasy of drinking the hot liquid I felt the first awareness of pain. All four men had recovered and surrounded me. They buried their blades deep into my flesh. The pain was needles; little more than a small annoyance. I shrugged them off, turning and snarling.
