by Ray Wallace
A short while later found him downtown, driving around then pulling over to the curbside when he saw what he was looking for.
Hookers were easy targets as Jack the Ripper had discovered all those years ago. Even easier these days. All one had to do was pull up, flash a little green, open the passenger side door, take them somewhere nice and secluded.
"Get in," he told the girl standing on the sidewalk who couldn't have been much older than eighteen. Pretty, probably hadn't been on the streets all that long. Dark hair and big brown eyes, tight skirt and top that demonstrated her wares as effectively as possible.
With a resigned shrug that seemed to sum up her life she got in.
"Nice car," she said around a piece of chewing gum, taking in her new surroundings appreciatively. And it was. A new Lexus. The Coven kept a few cars in a garage behind the mansion, all expensive models, of course. Nicolae wouldn't have had it any other way. And he could afford it, that was for sure. Living for more than two hundred years gave one plenty of time to amass a fortune, it seemed.
"So watcha got in mind, mister rich?"
"Oh, we're gonna go all the way," Jeremy said with a tight-lipped smile. After some practice he had learned to speak almost normally with his special teeth in. No sense letting his next meal see them too early though. Might scare her, make her do something stupid, like try to get away.
"Yeah? Well that'll cost ya. A hundred bucks."
Jeremy gave a low whistle. "A hundred? Wow. You must really know what you're doing."
"Plus thirty for the room," said the girl with a confirming nod of the head. "There's a little motel up here around the corner. Cheap place and they don't ask no questions."
"Is that so? Sounds good to me." And it did. Somewhere new and different from the piers and alleys and other dark spots where he normally fed. After all, variety was the spice of life, wasn't it? Or un-life, as the case may have been.
Jeremy gunned the car out into traffic, followed the hooker's directions for a couple of minutes until she said, "Over there on the left, just before the traffic light." He pulled up in front of the place, two of the letters of its garish, yellow neon sign burned out so it simply read "MO E." He gave the girl the thirty dollars, let her out to go pay for the room. Then he went and parked the car in an empty space near the end of the building, waited for her to come out. A short while later she came walking over to where he stood leaning against the car, jangled the key at him, said, "Room seven, honey." He pressed a button on his key chain, heard the car's alarm chirp then followed the girl over to the room. She opened the door and then they were inside. Jeremy closed the door behind him.
"Nice, huh?" said the girl as she crossed to the queen-sized bed that dominated the room's interior then sat on the corner facing him.
He took a moment to look around. There was the bed with its orange spread. Next to it, a small faux mahogany nightstand with a black phone perched atop it. Located on the far side of the bed was a second door that presumably led to the bathroom. A white plastic table and two chairs sat near a window which was covered by an ugly green curtain. Stained beige carpeting covered the floor and smoke-stained white paint covered the walls. All in all a less than appealing place.
"Yeah, nice," said Jeremy in reply.
"You got the money?" she asked.
"Sure do," he said and pulled out his wallet. He was in a good mood. Might as well play along for a few moments. As he took a pair of fifties from his wallet, held them out, he showed the girl his shiny silver teeth.
She didn't even flinch, simply reached up and took the money, said, "What the hell are you, some sort of white gang-banger wannabe?"
Jeremy had to laugh. He liked this one. Eating her was going to be a special treat.
"No. What I am... Well, you wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Is that so?" She lay back on the bed, hiked her skirt up, let him see that she had nothing on underneath. "Why don't you show me instead, mister rich?"
Jeremy could feel the hunger stirring inside of him, insistent and inescapable. He stopped smiling, let his voice go deep with lust although it was not of a kind the girl on the bed could ever imagine. "I think that's a wonderful idea."
Then he was on her.
She screamed. Oh, how she screamed as he tore into her with his teeth and his impossibly strong hands. He was often amazed at just how long they struggled, how long it took for them to die even after they were ripped open and certain of their vital organs were no longer in the places or shapes they were supposed to be. This was something that he only thought about afterward, however, once he had taken his fill and the hunger had been satiated for the time being.
She was still screaming when the room's front door burst inward. Even then he did not want to stop, did not wish to pull his head free from the cavity he had excavated in the poor, dying girl's abdomen, down where all the choice meats lay. But some part of his survival instinct managed to override the hunger and he lifted his head up and turned, stared out from the red, gore streaked mask that covered his face toward the line of intruders entering the room.
Looks like I've been followed.
It was the Coven, of course. Half of them, at any rate. Nicolae was there, approaching the foot of the bed. Taking up positions to his right were Marcus and Justin, two of the older, stronger males. To the left were the three women who had been present at Jeremy's conversion. Judith stood at the center of the trio, shaking her head, a look of profound sadness etched across her features. She had tried to warn him, had told him that his reckless behavior was unacceptable, that Nicolae was worried that he was arousing suspicion, starting to draw unwanted attention. But he hadn't listened. Drunk with power, fueled by the omnipresent hunger, he hadn't listened at all.
The Coven leader motioned toward Marcus and Justin. "Take him," was all that he said. The two immortals pounced on Jeremy.
The struggle was vicious but brief, the room in shambles by the time it was over. Then Jeremy was dragged half unconscious out to one of the pair of cars the Coven members had driven down to the motel. The trunk was opened and he was bound tightly with the chains hidden within. He was dumped unceremoniously into the trunk which was then closed, sealing him in a tiny space of absolute blackness. The car was started and driven off just as the sound of police sirens drew near then faded as the motel was left behind.
Jeremy was afraid. What would they do to him? Kill him? Really kill him this time? He didn't want to die. Not now. Not when there was so much ahead of him. Thousands of years. Millions. Who knew? The thought of a second, final death weighed more heavily on him than the first one ever had.
All too soon the car came to a stop, was turned off, the trunk was opened and he was pulled out, carried through the yard that led around to the back of the manor. There he was dropped to the ground on an open expanse of lawn. All the while he begged and pleaded, said how he was sorry, that it wouldn't happen again, that he'd learn to restrain his appetite, that he'd be more careful.
But Nicolae wasn't having any of it.
All twelve members of the Coven were there, standing in a circle around his prone form. The night sky was so clear above, the stars so many, so bright.
"I'm sorry, Jeremy," Nicolae said. "You don't know how sorry I am. But I've seen this before. The hunger... It's beyond your control, will always remain beyond your control. It is a danger to us all. A danger that must be dealt with."
With that the Coven melted into the darkness, made its way back toward the house.
"No!" Jeremy shouted. "Please!" The fear was on him, a thick and terrible thing. He yelled until his voice was hoarse, until the stars began to fade from the sky, until he accepted the fact that his cries for mercy fell on deaf ears. By then it was nearly dawn.
He told himself there would be no more screaming, that he would face what was to come like a man. But when the sun broke over the horizon it burned all such empty promises from his head. Its light was a searing, scalding thing that caused him t
o writhe like an insect trapped beneath a magnifying glass. Smoke rose from his body as his pale flesh began to melt then burst into flames. The noises he made found their way into the house, echoed through its corridors, were the sounds most members of the Coven would hear for years to come in their darker dreams. Thankfully, the sunlight was quick and efficient in its brutal work. Within a few minutes the worst of it was over and the screaming had stopped. The once beautiful Jeremy had been reduced to an unrecognizable, twitching thing within a shroud of burnt clothing and fire blackened chains. Eventually, even the feeble twitching ceased as the Coven's youngest member was claimed by final death.
The following evening, when the sun was once more absent from the sky, Nicolae ventured out again into the back yard, over to the spot where Jeremy had met his demise. Nothing remained but the chains, a burnt patch of ground, and a scattering of ashes. Oh, and something else, gleaming in the moonlight.
He knelt down and picked up the teeth, set them atop his palm, stared into their wicked, razor grin. Immaculately, they still gleamed, seemingly untouched by the fire that had consumed their master. A truly magnificent piece of craftsmanship, to be sure. After a time Nicolae sighed and stood, put the teeth in the breast pocket of the silk shirt he wore. "A keepsake," he murmured to the darkness and the ghost of a dead immortal he was sure he sensed somewhere nearby. With that he turned and wandered back to the house and the Coven that awaited him within.
- TIMES LONG PAST -
(AN EXCERPT FROM THE NAMELESS)
Author's note: The following is a chapter from the novel length version of The Nameless. In it, we learn a lot more about Coven leader Nicolae's background. I remember really enjoying writing this particular chapter as it was a lot of fun going back in time and playing with history a little bit. I have plans for several more Nameless books. Often, in the writing game, I've come to discover that so much of it is just a matter of finding the time to get it all done...
*
When Nicolae awoke, Mary and Judith were gone. No doubt they had returned to the room they shared where even now they slept within each other's arms. The two were inseparable, apparently had been in mortal life also, a pair of orphans who regarded one another as sisters, as lovers, as the only real family each had ever known. He'd found the two of them living and working in a New Orleans brothel some - how long had it been now? - fifty years ago. Could it be? Half a century already? Oh, how the time went by. They had been the establishment's most expensive treat, the two of them, working together, able to take a man - or woman, for that matter - to heights of ecstasy previously unimagined. They were such beautiful young things, and Nicolae had an eye for beauty, no doubt. He simply had to have them. He realized, afterward, that it had been quite reckless to offer his blood to both of them at the same time. There was always the chance, a very good chance, that one of them might not have survived the change - about half of those who tasted the blood of one of his kind did not. Or so he had been told by the one who had shared the gift with him. Then, through personal experience, through all the years of building his Coven, he had discovered for himself the accuracy of this statistic. And as close as Mary and Judith were, it was a real possibility that the one who survived might not have been able to handle the simultaneous shock of resurrection and the loss of the person closest to her in all the world, might have, in fact, gone quite mad. In that case he would have been forced to destroy the fledgling creature. It could have been a very bad situation, very messy. And Nicolae hated it when things got messy. He liked control. He liked things nice and neat. It was an obvious testament to how smitten he had been by the pair to have used such poor judgment. Fortunately, they had both survived the change. And had remained inseparable, even to this day. He envied them their closeness. If only he had someone like that, someone who loved him unconditionally, who would willingly spend eternity with him. Someone he could confide in, with whom he could share his hopes and his plans for the distant future, his joy and contentment, his sadness and fear.
Ariella lay with her back to him, cold and still in his arms. He hoped that his visions had not led him astray, that he had interpreted them correctly, that this woman was, indeed, the one. His new queen. His czarina. The woman who would walk at his side and help watch over his Coven until the end of time. The visions... He had seen her so clearly, even where they would meet. And now here she was, lying within his embrace, sleeping the sleep of the dead.
It was still a few hours before sunset. Nicolae could sense the sun outside his great house, its rays alighting upon the roof, the walls, the heavy curtains that kept its killing touch from entering the room. He pictured the walls dissolving, the light flooding the room, engulfing him and Ariella in fiery, agonizing death. The vision was so powerful, so vivid, that for a moment he was afraid. Then he shook the images from his mind and chastised himself for the old fool he sometimes felt he had become. He wished he could join Ariella in her undisturbed slumber. If only he could close his eyes and slip into unconsciousness. But it seemed that the older he got the less sleep he needed. And so he often found himself lying awake while the sun still ruled the sky. These were troubled times for him. At night he was strong, nearly invincible, the king of his domain, but during the day he was weak, vulnerable. It was a time of self doubt and terrible imaginings. It was a time when all the old memories came back to haunt him.
Born in 1884, he spent his childhood in a small village located in the harsh and unforgiving northern climes of Russia. His parents were farmers, as were most of the adults who lived in the area. The winters were long and painfully cold, the summers short, offering little time for crops to grow. But the soil there was rich, the warm summer skies often laden with rain, so the plants there grew fast and in abundance. When Nicolae was old enough to wield a hoe he was put to work in the fields from sunup to sundown, from the spring's first thaw until the first freeze of winter set in. It was a hard life, especially during the winter. Without fail, one or two of the villagers would die during those frigid months. He remembered attending any number of snow-shrouded funerals. But it was also a good life, in its way. His parents loved him and his two sisters. And he had his share of friends throughout the village. He remembered how he and his comrades would talk about one day leaving the village, how they planned to visit some of the distant places they had only heard about from the occasional traveler who would pass through on his way to usually warmer climes. As it would turn out, only Nicolae would ever get to see any of those mythical lands.
The plague came to his village when he was nineteen years old. Within weeks, everyone was dead. Everyone but Nicolae. And he was dying. He had another day to live, two at the most. Death at that point was not such a bad prospect. He was in agony. Fever wracked his body. The swelling of the glands in his neck was a constant misery. And after watching his mother die, his father, his siblings, all his friends... More and more, he saw death as a welcome companion.
And death did visit him. But not in the guise he was expecting.
"Anybody home?" asked the voice in Russian. At first he thought it was a hallucination, another one of the fever dreams that had come to fill his waking and sleeping mind. He was lying on the floor of the small house's main chamber, wrapped in blankets, over near the hearth that offered no heat, no comfort of any kind. He had been too weak for some time now to bring in any wood, to light a fire. Hearing the voice, he turned in its direction, stared at the now open front door and the snow swirling in around the figure standing there, a dark silhouette against the moon-bathed darkness outside.
"Ah, so there is. Still alive, I see. What a nice surprise. And such a pretty thing." It was a man's voice, strangely accented, heavy on the consonants, definitely not native to these parts. A dream, Nicolae told himself. Only a dream...
The figure approached him, knelt down beside him, reached out with a cold hand and placed it upon his burning brow. The touch was soothing, a balm that for a moment allowed Nicolae to make some sense of his scattered thought
s. Had this man called him pretty? Sure, he knew that the girls of the village thought him attractive. And he had found himself appreciating the curve of his chin when presented with a mirror, the cut of his nose. He was not too modest to know that he was a handsome man. But pretty? Women were pretty. A dull anger mingled with the pain that consumed him body and mind. It must have shown in his face. The figure crouching beside him laughed. "And what spirit he has."
The stranger stood and retraced his steps, pushed the door closed, grabbed the lantern hanging on a hook nearby - the lantern Nicolae hadn't the strength to get himself, to use to push back the darkness that surrounded him. There was the sound of a match striking, then the lantern was lit and a dim light filled the room. For the first time Nicolae got a good look at his mysterious visitor.
He was tall, with a wide-brimmed hat perched atop his head, a black riding cloak draped about his shoulders, matching pants, boots, and gloves. His hair was dark and hung below the ears. His face was thin, long, almost gaunt, with high cheekbones and a thin mustache. And those eyes... Was it a trick of the lighting or simply part of the twisted way Nicolae currently viewed the world? For no eyes could be that bright, that piercing, could they? They seemed to stare right into him, into the deepest, darkest places of his being, to see his thoughts, his secrets, his innermost desires. All of which centered around his wish to either be healed or to die, to be free of the pain that had claimed him, that had taken everyone he loved from him. Beneath that gaze he felt as though he had been laid wide open. It was a most unsettling feeling, one he felt terribly incapable of dealing with. So he tightly closed his eyes and turned away, managed to convince himself for a moment that it was all, in fact, nothing more than another hallucination. A belief that was quickly vanquished when the man once again spoke:
