by Nancy Morse
They clung to each other, two writing, panting bodies in the throes of passion so fierce and desperate, with emotions in disarray and in an all-consuming fire of lust and longing.
***
Nicolae lay there trying not to think, feeling spent and anxious as little by little reality began to intrude on his senses. How long could this go on, luring her here at night, partaking of her beautiful flesh and letting her think it was a normal mortal coupling? What would she think if she knew the truth, and why should he care? He had never been remotely tempted to reveal his true nature to any of his lovers, and there had been many of them over the centuries. Some he had killed afterwards, but only because they were harlots with unsavory habits—he was no killer of innocents. Others he had let live, leaving them with the memory of the most fantastic, explosive sexual experience of their lives. The little tricks each one had taught him along the way on how to pleasure a woman to complete distraction had made him a quick learner and an utterly unforgettable lover.
Why this one? The question repeated in his mind. And why, for all that was holy, was it suddenly, inexplicably necessary for him to tell her everything?
He felt her stir in his arms, and turned his face toward her. Her eyes were closed but he knew she was awake. “What say you to that, Prudence?” he asked devilishly.
Pru’s hand sought the spot on her neck where he had bitten her. The skin was not broken, but there were two tiny distinct indentations. Rolling onto her side, she propped herself up on her elbow. “I say we try it again.”
He disentangled himself from her and sat up. “Another night, perhaps. You’ve quite worn me out.”
Her mouth formed a pretty little pout, but she did not object. “Are you ill?”
He looked at her questioningly. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because you are always so cold to the touch. I thought perhaps…”
His whole body jerked away from her. “No,” he said flatly. “I’m not ill.” He rose from the bed, his nakedness shadowed by the candles that had nearly burnt themselves out. The prolific erection that had drawn her attention was now gone, the unexpectedness of her observation rendering it as limp as a wet dishrag. Frowning severely, he went in search of his clothes. “Get dressed,” he said.
She swung her legs around to the side of the bed and got up. “Papa always told me not to pry into other people’s lives,” she ventured as she dressed, “but I know so little about you.”
He pulled his cambric shirt over his head and reached for his trousers. “There’s nothing to know.” His fingers fumbled nervously with the buttons. “I told you. I am from Romania. My family is dead. There really isn’t anything more to tell than that.” He flopped onto the bed and pulled on his boots. “Now, finish dressing. There’s something I want you to hear.” He went to the candle stand and touched the wick of a nearly spent candle to a big fat one. Immediately, the tallow began to burn, throwing light into the room and onto his face that bore an expression of displeasure.
When she was dressed, she gathered up her hairpins that were scattered about the floor, wound her hair into a braid and fastened it atop her head as she followed him from the bedroom.
He led the way up the darkened stairs to the garret floor, the candle throwing softly shifting shadows across the narrow walls, to the room where she had first listened to his magnificent music.
He gestured to a side chair with cabriole legs, and said, “Sit there.”
She noted that the chair had not been in the room previously. Had he been expecting company? If there was any doubt as to whom he’d been expecting, it was quashed when she saw his violoncello standing on its endpin, not tucked inside its velvet-lined case, but waiting quietly for his fingers to give it voice. Her being flooded with something akin to shame when she realized that he’d been expecting her all along. Was she that predictable and so easily manipulated that he could control her comings and goings with only a few vague words about a skill he had acquired in his homeland? She sat down and waited patiently for him to take his seat behind the instrument.
With the hands of a master musician he enticed the notes and chords from the instrument, at times with the tenderness of a lover, at times with the raw ferocity with which he had coaxed her basest emotions out of her very soul. He played a piece she did not recognize but which she knew she would never forget. In it she heard the deep, mournful longing that could only come from his innermost being and the heartrending sorrow she’d seen on his face earlier in the evening as he stood by the fire. She closed her eyes and drew in a ragged breath, feeling taken again, this time by the music. The same fingers that had brought her such incredible pleasure glided the bow across the strings with equal fervor, caressing, teasing, demanding, bringing the instrument to the peak of ecstasy, the piece culminating in a crescendo of emotion that filled the small garret room with fire and ice and all the words that were beyond uttering, to a bursting finale that was as powerful as the one she had experienced in his bed.
A profound silence fell over the room.
His head was bent, his hair falling recklessly into his eyes, chest rising and falling with unspoken emotions. For a long time neither of them spoke. Then, he lifted his face. In the half-light of the candle she saw again the sorrow that haunted him.
“I can think of a thousand reasons why you should hate me,” he said softly.
From the darkened corner her voice answered in scarcely a whisper. “How could I hate you?” There was resignation in her tone. “No,” she said, “try as she might, I cannot hate you. Not because you initiated me into scandalous pleasure. Not because of your claim that you can help my papa. Not because you are beautiful. But because of this, the music. How could I hate someone whose music touches my very soul? That was beautiful.”
“Like you.”
She lowered her lashes. “I’m not beautiful. I’m plain and ordinary, with nothing unusual to recommend me.”
“You are more beautiful than you can know.” His green eyes radiated out of the dimness, the angles of his face caught in shadow and candlelight. “I composed that piece for you. I call it A Bridge of Light.”
“For the bridge where we met,” she said shyly.
“And for the light you bring into my dark and dreary life.”
“Nicolae.” She rose from her chair and came forward, her shoes making a soft sound against the floorboards. “What is it that troubles you?”
His voice came from a hollow place inside of him. “I can’t tell you.”
She reached forward and cradled his face in her hands. He found it strange that she had touched his most intimate places, yet the feel of her hands on his face felt like the most intimate touch of all.
“Tell me.”
He looked at her for a long agonizing moment as he battled for the words to say. He shook his head, slowly, then adamantly. “You would never understand.”
“There are many things I don’t understand,” she said gently. “Like why I came here tonight. Why I long for the comfort of your music. Why a man with such a beautiful soul can look so wounded, so bereft of hope. What I said to you that day on the street, that you have no soul, I was wrong to say that.”
“Unkind, perhaps. But not wrong. On the contrary, if only you knew how right you were.”
“What are you saying? That you have no soul?”
He offered a straightforward look in reply.
“Oh, come now,” she said with a little laugh. But something in his voice gave her pause. She aimed a sidelong glance at him. “I do not believe it. There is nothing you could have done for which you would have lost your soul.”
“Not lost,” he said hoarsely. “Taken.”
Her hands dropped from his face and she stared at him incredulously.
He laid his head against the violoncello and closed his eyes. “I am tired,” he said, his voice scarcely a whisper. “So very tired. A lifetime of dashed hopes and shattered dreams weigh on me. My body aches with despair. At times every
breath I take is a laborious effort to forget the terrible truth of what I am and what I will never be.” He fell silent for many minutes, willing himself not to feel, but the expression on his face said he was failing.
“I long to place my faith in you,” he said at last. “To confide my deepest, darkest secrets, and in doing so, free myself of the dreadful burden I have carried alone for so long. If only I could share my torment with another being, one who would not turn from me in horror and revulsion, but who would look upon me with pity and understanding.” His gaze burned into hers. “Are you that being, Prudence?” The fire in his eyes faded as he turned his face away.
“If not me, then who?”
“You have no idea what my life is like.”
His gaze came slowly, tentatively, back to hers. There was no sign of fear in her blue eyes, no tremble of trepidation in her voice when she gently urged, “Tell me.”
“You would never believe it.”
Her whisper floated into the air, drowning out all doubt. “Trust me.”
Rising, he enveloped her warm fingers in his chilly grasp and led her toward the doorway. In a weak, uncertain voice that seemed to come from far, far away, he said, “Come with me to the parlor. I have an incredible tale to tell.”
CHAPTER 9
“Here,” he said dispassionately, “drink this. I fear you are going to need it.” Into her hand he thrust a glass of sherry.
Pru looked at him dubiously, hesitating.
“No tricks,” he said, his expression somber and uncharacteristically fearful. “Not this time.”
She lifted the glass to her lips and took a sip.
“No. All of it. Quickly. Trust me, it will fortify you against what you are about to hear.”
She took a deep breath and drank it down. In moments it sent a flush to her cheeks.
Nicolae returned to the decanter, and with a nervous hand poured a glass for himself in haste, spilling some of the golden Oloroso on the mahogany table. With unceremonious speed he downed the drink. From across the room he stared at her with a perplexed expression on his face, searching her eyes for a sign to turn back before it was too late.
He drew in a shuddering breath, and said, “You do know what I am, do you not?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Tell me what you see when you look at me.”
She answered honestly, “I see a man who seems very mature. At times much older than his years. And at the same time there is a youthful quality about you. I see a man who is brooding and temperamental, given to outbursts of temper and bad humor. But are not all musicians sensitive by nature and eccentric in character?”
He leveled a hard stare at her as if to say, no, no, that’s not what I mean. “Go on,” he prompted.
Pru’s gaze swept over him. “Your complexion is unusually pale. Your smile can be both tender and cruel. I’ve noticed that the corners of your lips rise when you are angry, much like a snarl, I’m sorry to say.”
Yes, that was more to the point, wasn’t it?
“Your movements are smooth and…Do not be offended if I say they are very cat-like. Your voice can be like the soft coo of a bird, yet there is this rumbling of malice in it that I can only assume is caused by some secret from your past. And your eyes…” She paused and looked away, and in an embarrassed little voice, said “…are quite simply the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. But I see such sadness in them. Sadness that I don’t understand and perhaps never will.” Her gaze returned to his. “I have tried to understand you, to see past that fearsome façade of yours to your heart, but my efforts are invariably blocked by some invisible shield of hostility with which you protect yourself from the rest of the world. Only tonight, right now, do I see the tiniest crack in that shield, a gentle crumbling of the walls that surround you. You seem to feel the need to express yourself to me, for what purpose I cannot guess.”
“Only to be known,” he said quietly, “for what I am.”
“Don’t you know who you are?”
“Not who. What.”
He could see the confusion tearing at her, doubt creasing her brow and clouding her eyes, turning them dark blue in the dusky light. “Surely, you must have guessed, or at the very least, suspected.”
Her voice issued from a place far within, scarcely audible.” Tell me what you are.”
He inhaled deeply, steeling himself against the fear and revulsion that were sure to follow when the dreaded words were uttered.
“I am a vampire.”
He searched her face for a sign of horror, but saw only a blank stare. “Oh, that’s right,” he said, remembering. “I don’t believe the word has found its way into your language just yet. Ah well, soon enough. Do you know what a revenant is, then?”
She answered cautiously. “A person who returns to life. A ghostly spirit.”
“Well, imagine that a person has died and returned to life, not as spirit or mist or some ridiculous apparition, but as flesh and bone. He walks. He talks. He breathes. He is just not, how shall I put it, alive, in the truest sense of the word.”
“You mean, sort of like…” She looked around helplessly, and for want of a better word, said, “…undead?”
“I prefer immortal. It has a much nobler sound to it, does it not? But yes, undead will suffice.”
Despite the urgent look in his eyes, she said dismissively, “How can such a thing be possible?”
“You’re asking me? I haven’t the slightest clue. But here I am, standing before you, proof that such a thing is entirely possible. What say you to that, sweet Prudence?”
“I say blessed is God who restores life to the dead.”
He looked at her, appalled. “Is that what you think this is?” he said, explosively. “A gift from God?” There was fury in his eyes that glistened now like shards of broken glass. “More like Satan’s curse, if you ask me.”
Pru shrank back from his vehemence. “I only meant…”
“You meant to cruelly mock me.”
“Perhaps it is you who mocks me,” she said indignantly, “with such a ridiculous claim. Dead, indeed. And just how am I supposed to believe such a thing?”
Of all the possible reactions—fear, horror, revulsion—the one he never expected was ruthless disbelief. He was seized by the impulse to grip her by the shoulders and shake her hard and shout look at me, damn you. Look at me! But now that he had begun this sordid tale, there was no turning back, and throwing fear into her with physical force would only lose her forever. He rushed to the settee and sank down beside her. Taking her hand in his, squeezing with his fingers, he said urgently, “What do you feel?”
He knew he was hurting her with his terrible grip and when she tried to pull free, he held on fast. Slowly, with intense purpose, repeating each word as if it were a solemn prayer, he said again, “What do you feel?”
Her hand trembled in his. “Cold.”
“Yes, cold. You’ve said it yourself, how cold I am to the touch. Do you know why that is?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to know.”
“It’s because I am dead. “Look at me,” he commanded. “Really look at me.”
A tense silence settled over the room. The air seemed abruptly thick and difficult to inhale. The fire ceased its friendly crackle. The orange flames that licked the hearth grew unearthly still.
Pru’s gaze swept his face. Tiny blue veins appeared beneath his pale, translucent skin. Upon closer scrutiny, his full lips bore a faint bluish tint. His face was handsome…and bloodless. Like a heavy rock dropped into the darkest depths of the river, the full extent of what he was saying sank into her brain. Her hand suddenly splayed open and the glass fell to the floor, shattering on impact, the myriad shards glistening in the light cast by the fire. From a distant place her voice drifted into the waiting stillness. “How can this be?”
“That is a story unto itself. I’ve never told it to anyone, but I’ll tell it to you if you wish to hear it. If you don’t,
tell me now.”
For a long while she did not answer.
A transient plea rushed through his mind. Oh God, don’t let her say no, not now, not when it is so desperately important for me to tell my story. For so long he had carried this secret around like a beast of burden, sagging under the weight of it. He yearned to share it with another human being, one who would understand and take pity on him, and in doing so, lighten his unbearable load.
“Well?” he asked.
The fire faded from his eyes, leaving them sad and hollow.
She nodded her head, just the barest inclination.
He released her hand and slumped back against the tufted silk of the settee, his head resting on the carved mahogany border. A great sigh of relief spilled from his lips as he squeezed his eyes shut. Liberation lay at hand. Salvation. Deliverance from the deadly secret that held him in its spiteful grip, tearing at his nerves and ripping at his heart. For many wordless minutes he remained thus, gathering his thoughts and his strength about him. At length, he opened his eyes and sat forward. Lowering his head, he held it in his hands. He began carefully, testing each word, concentrating so hard he thought his mind would burst.
“I was born in the year fourteen-fifty.” He heard her muffled gasp, but did not…could not…stop. “My father was a prince of Transylvania. My mother was from a long line of Magyars from the Kingdom of Hungary. I lived with my parents and two younger sisters, Izabella and Gizella, in a village at the foot of the Carpathians, the land of the ancients. The house and surrounding lands had been a gift to my grandfather by the Hungarian king as a reward for his military deeds and for his discretion in not betraying the king’s love affair with the young wife of the prince of Walachia.”
She remained so silent it was as if she were not there. He stopped and lifted his head. She was still sitting beside him, a small motionless figure etched against the growing darkness. Running a hand through his hair, he swept the dark locks from his eyes, and went on.
