It seemed a terrible shame that I’d never bothered to know him. I could have followed him home one night, peeked in at him as he went about his evening routine, gotten to know this man who had shared a bit of his life with me. Now I’d never have the chance. It was too late for such things, and my frustration came with a thrill, a longing, that I hadn’t experienced in a very, very long time.
Later, at the Belle-Ile, a North American-style shopping center, colloquially known as a “mall”, I found myself fascinated by the bustling crowds, the slick modern architecture, all the bright shining lights and glittering surfaces. Beneath the sparkling surface, it was not much different from the markets of Rome or Egypt or Sumer, but I knew I would never experience such a thing again, and so it was precious to me, as all things were precious to me that night.
We purchased backpacks from a sporting goods shop, some spiral bound notebooks and ink pens so that I might complete my memoirs as we journeyed to the Swabian Alps. We made use of an automated photobooth before departing the mall. At my direction, Lukas slid into the booth and allowed the device to snap a series of photographs of him, which sprang out of a dispenser on the side of the machine.
Clever device!
“We need to deliver these to the front desk at the Ibis Liege,” I said, placing the photographs into an envelope. “Mr. Lipsky will bring your new documentation to the penthouse sometime tomorrow afternoon.”
Lukas nodded, distracted by the mortals streaming around us. I had hesitated to bring him to such a crowded place, but he’d behaved admirably so far. Probably because of all the blood he’d drank earlier. His tummy was visibly distended. He had drained all the blood from the hoodlum named Gerd, and bled the prostitute Annette or Annabelle past the brink of death. I doubt he could have fed again tonight if he’d wanted to.
I should have been furious with him for killing the woman, but I was in much too good a mood to be uncharitable towards my protégé. I actually felt some fondness, or at least a smaller degree of revulsion, for the little beast.
“Come, Lukas,” I said, “let us deliver these photographs and go home. I still have a great many things to do before we leave tomorrow evening.”
Lukas fell into step beside me.
Outside, in the bitter winter air, flakes of snow still swirling down from the heavens, Lukas said, “You called me by my name. You don’t do that very often.”
“No? Well, I suppose I’m in a gay mood tonight. I’m excited to be leaving on the morrow. To be on my way, at last.”
“So you really mean to go through with it? We’re going to the Swabian Alb? You’re going to make me kill you?”
“Of course I mean to go through with it,” I said, smiling and tilting my head back. Each flake of snow that fell on my bare flesh sent a tiny, shivering thrill through my body. “We are going to journey to the place where I was born, completing the circle of my long, long life. I am going to visit the cave where my wives and husband are buried, I am going to pray to my ancestors one final time, and then you are going to destroy me. My soul has been chained to this corporeal plane for thirty thousand years, Lukas. I yearn to be free. I want to see what else lies out there, beyond the veil of death.”
“And what if there’s nothing?” Lukas asked. “What if this life is all there is, and when we die we just blink out, like a TV when you pull the plug out of the wall?”
“Then I will have peace.”
Lukas was silent for a while. We crossed the parking lot of the Belle-Ile, carrying our purchased wares like two ordinary mortal shoppers. Finally, he said, “I’m going to enjoy killing you, you know.”
“I know you will,” I said with a laugh. “That’s one of the reasons I chose you.”
9
Lukas retired nearly an hour before dawn, claiming he was exhausted. He slunk to his room, rubbing his stomach like a mortal glutton, and shut himself inside. Vampires do not tire, not like mortal men and women do, but I did not comment. He was still very much the living man he’d been. It would be a while before he shed his human foibles. Decades, perhaps. And some strigoi never do.
Those blood drinkers usually don’t last very long.
I must admit, it was a relief to be shut of him for a while. Despite my strange elation, Lukas Jaeger could be a taxing companion. Not to mention he had to be watched constantly. He was as unpredictable as a wild animal, and worse, he was devious.
I played my favorite music albums, enjoying them as I had not in a long time. Each time I changed a vinyl platter, I thought, This will be the last time I ever listen to this recording. Oh, how precious it made them!
I finished going through the remainder of my possessions, packaging them, addressing the labels, and stacking the boxes next to the door to be picked up and transported to their various destinations. I watched dawn break from my balcony, then returned inside to see what else I needed to do.
Nothing, I realized. It was finished. My life in Liege was done.
When Lukas rose, we would dress, leave my penthouse for the last time, and walk to Germany. We had one stop to make along the way. I wanted to visit an immortal I hadn’t seen in over a hundred years—if he still existed. I’m fairly certain that he lived. I would have sensed it if he’d died, I believe. But after that, after that brief stop, we would continue on to the land where I was born, and there, at the beginning of it all, I would embrace my end.
My beloved Zenzele, then, would be the Oldest Living Vampire.
Not that she would care.
Restless, I went to my laptop computer and powered it on. I brought up Google Maps and perused the various routes that we might take. I had already mapped out our course, but it kept me occupied as the day brightened and I waited for H. Lipsky to arrive.
I noted that I had a new email message and exited out of Google Maps. Clicking on the mail icon on my desktop, my email messages sprang up on the screen.
Apollonius had sent me an email.
I opened the message and read it.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: What are you up to now?
Father, imagine my surprise to arise this evening and find myself in possession of a great assortment of priceless historical artifacts. You may also imagine my concern to have received these items without an adequate explanation as to why you have placed these articles in my care. The note you enclosed in one of the boxes, asserting that you are simply “doing a bit of housekeeping”, was rather unconvincing. You forget that I am no longer the naïve young man you rescued so very long ago. You also forget that I am familiar with your tendency toward reckless behavior. You have been alone for far too long, and I am afraid that you have slipped into one of your melancholy funks. I have already booked a flight to Belgium. You are coming to Karpathos to stay with Fatima and I. Your great brood of grandchildren will cheer you up if you are blue. Just promise me you will not do anything rash before I get there.
Love Always,
Paulo
I contemplated Apollonius’s message for a long while, reading and rereading it. I started to compose a reply several times before abandoning the thought. Whatever I wrote, my beloved Apollonius would likely not believe it. He was flying to Belgium, coming to collect his errant father. He meant to bring me back with him to the sunny isle of Karpathos. He had probably already departed for the mainland.
And he was right. I had forgotten he was not the naïve young man I had first encountered in Rome almost two thousand years ago. He was an ancient immortal, a hoary old creature who commanded a large coven of vampires he called his Family of the Night, with all the experience and insight a life of such great length must impart. He might possess the face and body of a sixteen-year-old boy, but he was no child. He was one of the oldest vampires still in existence, and I had underestimated his perceptiveness.
I had made a mistake.
I returned to Google and searched for incoming flights from Greece. There was only one, com
ing in to Ostend-Bruges International tonight at 10 PM. And he would have to take the high-speed rail to Liege. Relieved, I sat back. I had plenty of time to make my getaway.
And it would be a getaway. If I were still in Liege when he arrived, he would drag me back to Karpathos with him, bound in adamantine chains of love. I could no more refuse Apollonius than I could my beautiful Zenzele. I could not be here in the city when he arrived, or my will to die, and all my nefarious plans, would swiftly come unraveled.
Fortunately, my vampire child did not know what I intended to do, or where I intended to do it. If I were gone when he arrived, he would have no idea where to look for me. Apollonius was a powerful vampire, but he did not have Zenzele’s preternatural intuition. He could not cast his thoughts into the ether, as my soulmate can. He would have to search for me the hard way.
Confident my plans were safe, I waited.
At a few minutes past noon, the shippers arrived.
They rang the bell, two men in brown uniforms, and gazed around my penthouse appreciatively as they stacked the boxes onto a wheeled cart. “Nice place you have here,” one of the men said. I thanked him, and the two men ferried the boxes to their truck down on the street. Mr. Lipsky arrived as I was signing their clipboard, releasing the last of my possessions to their service. He stood waiting by my sofa as I concluded my business, examining his manicured fingernails with a bored expression on his face. I turned to him after shutting the door.
“Mr. Lipsky,” I nodded.
“Looks like you’re ready to leave,” he said.
“I am. I’ve bequeathed the things that have the most sentimental value-- or some historical significance—to my loved ones, but the rest… I do not care what is done with the rest of it. Perhaps you see something here you’d like to have?”
The attorney laughed, an abrupt chuffing sound, almost a cough, but he looked around my apartment.
“Go on,” I encouraged him. “If you see something you’d like...”
He shook his head. “That’s very generous, but I’d feel like a ghoul.”
I spread my hands. “As you will. Have you finished preparing my neophyte’s new identity?”
“Yes,” Lipsky said. He opened his briefcase on my sofa and took out a manila envelope. Passing it to me, he said, “Should be everything he needs. Passports, identification cards, etcetera, etcetera.”
I opened the envelope, curious, and took out a plastic laminated ID card. It bore the photograph we had taken of Lukas last night. Utterly charmless, or perhaps that was simply my acolyte’s dead stare. It looked like a police mug shot.
“May I ask you a personal question?” Mr. Lipsky said.
“Of course,” I replied, putting away the ID card.
“Why do you want to die?”
His face flushed when I glanced at him.
“Why do I want to die?” I echoed, my voice soft, musing.
“I’m sorry. That was probably impertinent.”
“It’s quite all right,” I said. I thought about his question for a moment, trying to choose which answer was the most correct one.
There were a great many reasons I wanted to destroy myself: boredom, loneliness, frustration, exhaustion…
“I suppose it is like listening to the same song over and over again,” I finally answered. “At first, repetition engenders in your soul a certain fondness for the tune. You find yourself humming the melody at odd moments throughout the day. It becomes your favorite song. It moves you, each and every time you hear it, like no other song can do… and then, suddenly one day, and for no reason at all, you realize you cannot bear to hear that song ever again. Its dulcet tones, once so uplifting, are like fingernails screeching down a chalkboard. It grates on your nerves. After thirty thousand years, this life has become a song I can no longer stand to listen to, Mr. Lipsky. It pains me. I want to be free of it and never hear its like again. I want another melody to dance to. Or none at all. They say silence is golden.”
Lipsky stared at me thoughtfully for a moment, then nodded, as if he understood completely. “Poetic,” he said, “but sad. In fact, I would say it’s tragic. All your memories, all the sights you’ve seen. They will all be gone forever, won’t they?”
“Not entirely,” I said enigmatically. I didn’t explain further, though he waited for me to do so.
I could have explained to him about the Sharing, how our vampire blood, when ingested by a fellow immortal, transfers our memories from the donor to the recipient, that Zenzele and a few other ancient blood drinkers possess a bit of my soul. So long as they existed, a part of me would live on. It would not be me, but my memories would not be lost.
I could have told him that, but I didn’t. I held no great fondness for the man. He was what we vampires call a Thrall, like the elders of the Oombai, and I had always harbored a bit of revulsion for their kind. Obsequious mortal ticks!
His eyes suddenly narrowed, and he leaned toward me. “Those coins… in that display case by the balcony.”
“Pre-Civil War currency from the United States,” I said. “I resided in the New World in the first half of the 19th century. The coins have no great value, sentimental or otherwise.”
“I collect coins.”
“Then take them.”
“Really? Are you certain?”
“If you value them, take them. Please! I would have shipped them to my fledgling in the Americas, but he has no interest in such things. He does not believe in fettering himself with material possessions.”
I was speaking of Sydney, who was probably roaring down some desert highway on his Harley Davidson motorcycle even as we spoke. My eternal outlaw, forever and always on the run, as he was when we first met. Of course, he’d been one horseback then, and running from the law.
“Thank you, Mr. Valessi,” the lawyer said, crossing the room and taking the display case off the wall. “I mean that sincerely. I will cherish these.” He eyed the old coins greedily, then tucked the case beneath his arm. So much for feeling like a ghoul!
“That pleases me,” I replied with a genuine smile. “Now… if we’ve no further business, I should like to finish my preparations. I plan to depart the city at dusk.”
“Of course, Mr. Valessi,” the lawyer said, crossing toward the door. He stopped and held out his hand, mortal style, for me to shake. “I would say good bye, but that seems rather morbid. How about we say ‘good journey’ instead? That seems more appropriate, more optimistic, in light of your plans.”
“Yes, it does. Good journey, Mr. Lipsky.”
“Good journey, Mr. Valessi.”
I closed the door behind him and waited to rouse Lukas.
10
I watched the wan winter sunlight move across the floor of my apartment. It crawled, centimeter by centimeter, like a revenant clawing its way from the grave. The sky was still overcast, though it had stopped spitting snow sometime around dawn. I sat in my recliner, the leather one next to my phonograph player, and watched as the light slowly strengthened, growing brighter and brighter until each solitary tuft of yarn cast its own distinctive shadow upon the next, then just as slowly the light began to dim, to turn orange, and then a sullen vermillion.
There was nothing else to do, nothing to occupy my time, or my mind, and yet my sense of elation persisted even then.
My last few hours in Liege!
I was patiently impatient. Each minute that crawled by was an eternity, but an exciting eternity, because they were the last few eternities of my existence.
Thirty thousand years… that’s a lot of minutes.
The sun set on Liege’s encircling hills without ever fully revealing itself that day. It was just a dim glowing disk gliding slowly behind the lowering clouds, and then it was gone, vanishing beyond the hills like an exotic dancer who has disappeared behind the curtains without showing anyone the good stuff.
Time to wake Lukas.
I crept into the room where I had, until recently, kept him as my prisoner. He did not
stir. He lay like a corpse in his bed, on top of the covers, naked, as he like to sleep, his body very still and pale.
Vampires do not breath when they sleep. We do it when we are awake-- out of habit, or to fool a mortal into believing we are one of them, or to speak-- but we do not need oxygen. Our hearts beat only intermittently, if at all. When we sleep, there is no motion in us whatsoever, unless we are dreaming, but even dreams are rare for us. Our true nature is never so naked as when we are asleep.
Lukas’s flesh was a chalky white, with a faint blue tinge that accented the hollows of his bones. His lips were slightly open, and his fangs protruded, curling into very fine points over his lower lip. The veins in the back of his hands and at his temples were ropy ridges, zigzagging to and fro. His hair (eyelashes, eyebrows, head, chest and pubis) looked wiry and artificial contrasted with his paleness, like the hair of a waxwork dummy.
An unsuspecting mortal, stumbling upon him right then, would have been utterly terrified.
“Lukas,” I murmured.
His eyelids snapped open, and he sucked in a lungful of air. He lurched to a sitting position. “Is it time to go?”
“Yes.”
“I’m hungry.”
“I know. We’ll find you something to eat along the way. We cannot afford to linger.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
I explained about Apollonius as he rose and put on some clothes.
“Another one of your vampire offspring, huh?” he smirked, sitting on the edge of the bed to pull on his socks. “I suppose you love him, as you love all your vampire children. All of them but me.”
“Do you want me to love you?”
“No.” He laughed. “No!”
“Then let us be on our way. His flight will arrive in Bruge in four hours.”
“So what’s the hurry? We have plenty of time to get out of Liege.”
The Oldest Living Vampire Betrayed (The Oldest Living Vampire Saga Book 4) Page 9
