by Todd Gregory
Trevor turned to find a young woman standing on the broad steps leading up to the house’s entrance. She wore an elegant black dress that mingled well with the rich shade of her skin. Her hair was pulled back at her neck and a row of white teeth revealed themselves in a smile as she walked down the steps toward the limousine, a black leather binder held tight against her chest.
The driver opened the door and Victor stepped out.
“Mr. Crowley, my name is Scarlet Harvey.” Trevor watched Victor warm instantly to the young woman’s British accent. “I’m from Ackerman and Stern, your grandfather’s attorneys. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“I appreciate that,” Victor said as he clasped the delicate hand she offered in both of his. “Thank you so much for delaying the ceremony until my flight arrived from Europe. I just had to be in attendance. The old man meant the world to me, you see.”
“Certainly. I trust everything went smoothly at the funeral home.”
“Do I have you to thank for that?”
“Yes, I hope everything met with your satisfaction.”
“It was beautiful. In particular, I appreciated the tasteful selection of coffin.”
“I’m delighted to hear that,” she said, offering him another smile. “Now, I know it’s a terrible time, but there are a few papers here I need you to sign.”
“Not at all. Let’s retire to the library, where you can show me precisely what it is you need,” Victor said as he led Scarlet Harvey up the stairs into the house.
The driver leaned in and extended a hand to the elderly gentleman. “Is there anything you need, Mr. Whitworth?”
Trevor ignored the hand and with surprising agility climbed from the limousine’s backseat and headed toward the house. As an afterthought he turned to the driver and said, “Actually, there is something you can do, Michael. If you have an ounce of chivalry left in your body, find it. It looks like someone’s going to be in need of a good saving tonight.”
*
Soon after Victor and Trevor made it home, the storm clouds delivered on their promise. Through a bank of French doors leading out onto the walled veranda, white curtains of rain fell on an amazing display of lightning. Great streaks of electricity connected earth and sky, and the heavens’ appreciation could be heard in the booming applause immediately after. However, nature’s display was nothing compared to the show going on inside the house.
Papers signed, Victor and Scarlet Harvey were pocketed away on one of the several richly upholstered sofas scattered about the spacious wood-paneled living room. A fire crackled on the other side of a stone hearth just a few feet from where they sat, driving away any chill the late spring storm might cause. Although nothing untoward was yet happening, Trevor had seen Victor on the hunt too many times to doubt that his impetuous friend was well on his way to choosing another companion to turn.
From his vantage point in a deep-set leather chair on the far side of the room, Trevor swallowed the acid taste of bitterness on his tongue. He watched as Victor leaned over to whisper something in Scarlet Harvey’s ear and she laid her head back to laugh. And in that moment the new path he had imagined might be available to him vanished before he’d even taken his first step.
He chided himself for believing the resolutions his friend had made not fifteen minutes before in the backseat of the limousine. Victor was Victor, and there was no hope of changing that. Why would Trevor even try? He didn’t have an answer to that one and was grateful for the bright bolt of lightning that drew his attention away from the matter altogether.
The flash of electricity made him wonder if lightning might have the same impact on his flesh as fire, one of the few forms of death that could truly end his long life. A morbid thought, to be sure, but what could one expect with another death looming so close at hand? He wondered how it might feel, that wave of electricity coursing through his body—one final moment of intensity before the nothingness of death.
Of course knowing Trevor’s luck, nothing so fantastic would happen. If he stepped out the glass doors and into the lightning storm, more likely than not, he would only catch cold, develop pneumonia, and die a slow and miserable death before being reborn.
And then what? Trevor asked himself. What are your regrets and resolutions this turn around the dance floor? He scratched an itch between two knuckles on his weathered hand and chuckled to himself. Many, too many regrets to count, he answered. And many, too many resolutions to make.
Some were the same vintage promises he’d made and broken repeatedly over his various lifetimes. They sat like well-aged bottles of wine in the cellar of his soul, dusted off now and then, but never opened and permitted to breathe. Meanwhile, other resolutions were fresh and crisp like the spring leaves filling the budding trees just outside, waiting to flourish and grow.
As quickly as the resolutions came to mind, the regrets followed after. He shivered more from the memories than the drafty room he sat in as he recalled the mistakes he’d made in this life and catalogued them away with the ones from his previous lifetimes.
One in particular hung heavy on his soul: Gilbert stood outside his window, calling for him, begging him to answer. Trevor never even acknowledged the man’s pleading. He would never forget how he felt the next night when Victor came to him frantic, telling him that Gilbert had taken his own life.
Never again, he swore to himself as he remembered each of his regrets vividly.
“Wine, sir?” A young waiter stood at his elbow, a tray of glasses filled with deep red liquid balanced on his palm. Trevor smiled at the young man and accepted a glass. As the waiter looked on, he tipped it to his lips and sipped. Trevor recognized the wine as one of Victor’s favorites.
“Very good, thank you,” he said, and the young man smiled and walked away.
Now there’s a resolution for you, Trevor old-boy. He grinned to himself and watched the waiter cross the room to where Victor sat in hushed conversation with Scarlet. They both accepted glasses of wine before the waiter returned to the bar with his tray.
He appreciated the look of the young man—Scandinavian in appearance with slightly rounded cheeks, a square jaw, and small, dark eyes. Dark hair, rather than blond, topped his head—a testament to generations in the melting pot of America. And when the waiter had smiled at Trevor, he noticed a single dimple in his left cheek. He watched the young man lean over the bar to say something to the bartender. Trevor couldn’t help but enjoy the way his tuxedo pants clung tightly to the fine curve of his rear end.
Trevor cast a glance toward Victor and found his friend staring at him, a wolfish grin on his face. He lifted his glass in toast, then drank deeply. Trevor looked away, embarrassed his furtive glances had been observed.
He knew he shouldn’t be ashamed of looking. Victor certainly never was—no matter what his age. Of course, Victor held no doubts about his appearance and how to use it to full advantage. Likewise, Trevor had no doubts about his own appearance and the limitations it set in his path.
Even if he were fresh-born right now sitting in this chair, the waiter still wouldn’t have given him a second glance (if he were so inclined). He knew that not even his preternatural powers could improve the average looks with which he’d been born. Certainly nothing to match the fine features of Victor, or John, or especially Gilbert before he abruptly ended his own life. No, for Trevor there would be only a small pocket of time when he would age into his looks and for a few, brief years might turn an eye or warrant a smile of appreciation. However, that would be closer to forty-four rather than the twenty-four he would reawaken as once reborn.
He wondered for the millionth time what had attracted Victor to him originally. What had caused him to be drawn to his tall, lumbering form and bland (nearly oafish) features? What had made Victor decide that this twenty-four-year-old was worth turning and spending a lifetime staring at? Frankly, in two hundred years Trevor had never had the nerve to ask.
He took another sip, enjoying the subtle flavors of the
wine as it traveled past his tongue and down his gullet. Experience told him to revel in the flavor now; it wouldn’t be nearly so pleasant coming back up. Naturally, his body couldn’t absorb the liquid and so, like any food he ingested, it would only sit in his stomach until he expelled it back the way it had come. Not the most pleasant element of his long life. Still, if he expected to enjoy any of the flavors that food offered, it was either that or let the food fester in his stomach and rot.
The room’s thick wooden doors opened wide and Trevor’s musings were interrupted by the entrance of the party who had braved the storm to attend the interment. Trevor grinned, imagining what they would say if they ever realized they’d gotten soaked watching sandbags be entombed.
It was a rather large crowd filled with business associates that Victor had amassed in his previous life. Several others prided themselves on being called “friends of the family” (no doubt hoping that friendship would translate into a spot in the old man’s will). The party was headed up by Victor’s most recent lover, John, who walked briskly into the room despite his ninety-plus years. He spotted Trevor first thing and made straight for him.
“Trevor, good to see you made it back all right.”
“You as well, John. I hope the storm didn’t make a shamble of things.”
“Not at all. It held off until near the end. It was rather a beautiful moment, I must say.” Trevor stifled a groan as he noticed the glimmer of a tear in the other man’s green eyes. Of all his options, how had Victor ever chosen this fop? “The priest had some moving things to say, and I also added a few additional thoughts of my own. Just then the clouds erupted, as if heaven itself mourned his passing. It really was quite lovely. I only wish…I wish Victor had been there. Where is he?” he asked, dabbing at his eyes and soldiering on. “I must see him. I must see my dear, sweet boy. Where is he, Trevor?”
“John,” Trevor said, avoiding a glance at the couple in front of the fireplace, “perhaps you should go upstairs for a rest. This has been a trying day for you.”
“I don’t need to rest. I need my precious boy,” John replied as he scanned the room and found his lover seated on the couch with Scarlet, oblivious to the recently arrived mourners. John’s puffy eyes narrowed. The wrinkles lining his face twisted into a scowl, and he said, “That bitch.”
As annoying as John might be, Trevor couldn’t help but feel sorry for the man. He knew firsthand how difficult it was to watch a lifelong relationship dissolve in the arms of Victor’s newest acquisition. “Now, John, don’t be hasty. She has no idea of the matters at play here.”
John glanced at Trevor, then back at the young couple secreted away on the couch in front of the fire and growled, “Who said I was talking about her?” and then stormed across the room to confront his lover.
As John approached, Victor looked up in surprise, “Uhhhhncle John, I didn’t know you were back from the mausoleum.”
“Yes, I am.”
“So soon!”
“Too soon, it would seem.”
“Not at all.” Victor smiled, rising from the couch. “You must be tired. Why don’t we take you upstairs?” He tucked his hand around the man’s elbow and tried to steer him toward the door, but John would have none of it.
He reeled to face Victor. “How dare you. You’re not even…your grandfather’s not even buried an hour and here you sit in his house on his sofa with this…this floozy making a mockery of yourself…of him…of me! You should be ashamed!”
Trevor glanced about the silent room. All eyes were turned toward the scene playing out before the fireplace.
Scarlet rose from the couch and grabbed her leather binder, saying, “Perhaps I should…”
“Yes, perhaps you should,” John spat at the girl, full of venom.
“No,” Victor said, surprising Trevor with his even tone. “Scarlet, stay. Uncle John, you and I need to talk. Now.”
As John was guided from the room, his tirade could be heard on the other side of the living room’s closed doors and up the stairway that traveled to their suite of rooms on the second floor. Once the noise had faded and the room was once again silent, all eyes turned back to Scarlet Harvey.
The young lady valiantly met the gaze of several of the mourners for a moment before an eyebrow rose and she smiled, saying, “Having a lovely time, are we? Wonderful.” She turned and stalked toward the open door of Victor’s private library, shutting it soundly behind her.
The group stood silent a moment longer before twitters of conversation sprang up across the room. Soon a general ruckus was in motion as everyone began discussing the scene they had just witnessed. Not Trevor, though. He sat resolutely silent, thinking that perhaps Victor had taken his suggestion of pulling the bandage off quickly a bit too literally.
The conversations were only beginning to build to full volume when the living room’s double doors opened wide and in walked a vixen dressed in black. Her blonde hair was done up in a tumble of impossibilities that dangled down in curls around ears ringed in large, bejeweled hoops. The hem of her small black dress seemed only scant inches below a bodice that swept her breasts up toward the ceiling in a dazzling display. Long legs hosed in fishnet stockings stretched toward the floor, ending in stiletto heals that generously offered the petite woman several inches on her normal height. She sauntered into the room on the arm of a man that modeled perfection and (Trevor hated to admit) would have put Victor and John and even Gilbert to shame. They stopped in the center of the room as conversation died and every eye turned in shock at the woman’s lack of decorum.
“What?” the vixen very nearly purred. “You look as if someone just died.”
Trevor rose quickly from his chair and rushed to meet the woman and her escort. He extended his arms in greeting and kissed her on both cheeks saying, “Celeste, so good to see you.”
“Trevor, darling! Sorry I couldn’t make the funeral. Our flight out of Milan was delayed.”
“I’m sure Victor will understand,” Trevor said as he guided Celeste and her companion toward the series of French doors and away from the scandalized crowd.
“Ah, Victor. Where is the darling cherub?” And from the acid in her tone, Trevor guessed Celeste was sincere with neither the darling nor the cherub.
“He’s upstairs talking with John.”
“Already? My, my, he isn’t wasting a minute this go-around, is he? With me it was a year, and with you dear, sweet Trevor, it was what, at least three months?”
Trevor returned her icy grin. No matter that nearly a century had passed since the woman had fallen from Victor’s favor, she had never forgiven Trevor for their sire’s seemingly limitless affections. And not for the first time Trevor rued the fact that of all their sire’s past loves, he alone was the one abiding constant in Victor’s long life.
“It’s nothing like that,” he said, swallowing his pride. “John made a scene, and Victor took him up to their room to lie down.”
“Poor John, he has no idea what’s about to happen to him, does he?” Celeste sighed. “But you’ll be there to help him through, won’t you, good and ever-faithful Trevor. You’ll nurse him through the pain and the heartbreak just as you did me—oh wait, that’s right.” Her lips pressed tightly together in a smile that promised venom as she said, “You didn’t.”
“Trevor, a whore for my funeral? You shouldn’t have,” a voice behind him said. Trevor turned to find Victor joining the small group.
“Victor!” Celeste gushed. “Why, I wouldn’t have expected to see you looking so vibrant, what with your death and all.”
“Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated,” he joked, taking her hand and kissing it. “What are you doing here, Celeste?”
“Well, I couldn’t let one of my sire’s rebirths go by without stopping in to honor it, now could I?”
“How sweet, seeing as how I’ve missed, how many of yours is it now?” Victor asked. “It’s so hard to keep track these days.”
“Seven, but
what’s a couple of deaths between friends?”
“Indeed,” Victor said, grinning.
“How’s John?” Trevor asked, diverting the conversation to more civil topics.
“He’s upstairs,” Victor said, eyeing the Adonis on Celeste’s arm. “He’s resting.”
“Lying sprawled on the bed, no doubt,” Celeste volunteered, “ready for you to cut out his heart and tear it in two.”
“Celeste, I think perhaps—” Trevor said, attempting to intervene.
“Oh no, my dear,” Victor replied, “I only crush the hearts of those I never loved.”
Trevor tried again. “Victor, let’s not do—”
“You? Love someone?” Celeste laughed. “Victor, you say the most adorable things.”
“Enough! Both of you,” Trevor snapped. “Not with company present.”
“Quite right, quite right,” Victor agreed, eyeing the crowd filling the room, and then, “Speaking of company, Celeste, you haven’t yet introduced us to your latest toy.”
“How rude of me.” She beamed, turning toward her escort. “This is Jean-Claude.”
“Jean-Claude.” Victor offered a hand in greeting. “Nice of you to come.”
“Jean-Claude hasn’t licked English yet,” Celeste explained, taking Victor’s hand and lowering it back to his side, “just like he won’t learn to lick you.”
“Celeste, I’m hurt you would even think—” Victor’s words were cut off by a scream coming from behind the library’s closed doors. It was punctuated by the sound of shattering glass from across the room.
Trevor’s eye was caught by a streak of movement crossing the room as the young waiter raced toward the library. He kicked the door open to reveal Scarlet pressed against the room’s large mahogany desk with John on top of her, lathered fangs at her throat.
“Hey!” the waiter shouted. John looked up just as the young man flung his empty tray. The metal disk went swirling through the air to lodge deep in the man’s throat.
Gasps escaped the crowd. The small cluster standing by the French doors looked on in horror as their centuries-old secret was revealed. The waiter reached behind the library’s door and produced a sword.
