Futile Flame

by Sam Stone

  There was one young maid being instructed by the housekeeper.

  ‘Not like that. Like this.’ Knives and forks and crystal glasses were placed neatly on the table.

  The Justice and his wife were in the lounge, drinking fortified wine. I could smell the alcohol.

  ‘Peatro, don’t play with that toy in here...’ Senora Adimari said firmly.

  ‘I want to play! I’m bored.’ Peatro stamped his foot in what I now knew was a characteristic display of temper.

  I zoned out from the argument that ensued, scanning every spoken word for the sound of her voice. Joanna was not in the room. Or else she was sat so quietly that I could not detect her. Then I heard her name.

  ‘You’re a lucky man, Marco. There’s many in town would give their right arm for a chance to wed Joanna. Not least that she is the Justice’s daughter.’

  ‘Yes. I feel lucky.’

  I felt sad for Joanna. She was beautiful, and a commodity to these people, just as I had been to my father. I could surely do something to prevent that. My bite would free her, wouldn’t it? I could take her with me as a sister, a companion. We could travel the world. Obtaining wealth would be so easy now. I could take all that I wanted, who could stop me? And I would take Joanna.

  My thoughts tumbled away again. My obsession with Joanna confused me yet excited me too. Justifying a friendship helped me make sense of it. Then I remembered Lena. She was dead and had not transformed; I had savaged her. Or had I? Maybe Lena had healed and risen again. I hadn’t stayed around to find out after all. Somehow I knew she hadn’t lived. I knew that Lena lay in a cold dark grave, rotting as every corpse did. Could I bring death again to another innocent?

  I hesitated for a moment, surveying the distance between myself and the balcony. My indecision had little to do with fear of falling; I was considering leaving. Then the aroma of Joanna’s perfume wafted up to me from the half open dining room window below. I leapt from the wall onto the balcony before I even acknowledged I wanted to.

  It was interesting how my body responded to my every thought. I had unlimited agility and speed. I compared my new flexibility to the circus acts I’d seen as a child, who performed gymnastic and aerial combinations with ease. I swung on the canopy above the balcony, leaping up to catch the bar easily. There was no muscle ache, pain or discomfort in any way. I performed several exercises there, lifting my whole body up and down as though I weighed nothing more than a feather.

  I heard the family enter the dining room and dropped silently back down onto the balcony. As I suspected, the doors to the room were unlocked. They did not expect anyone to be able to reach this room. Therefore my entry was made simple. Once inside I headed for the hallway and went in search of Joanna’s room.

  I could sense her now. It was like the trace of perfume I’d smelled earlier, though I knew it was more likely her natural essence. It filled the hallway, and I stood silently breathing her in for a moment. Her odour filled me and made me lose my sense of self once more. She was like opium and I thought that my addiction for her might become the focus of my whole revenant existence. I could almost see her image burning in the trail of scent all down the hallway.

  At the top of the stairs the fragrance parted. The strongest trail led downstairs where I knew she must now have joined her family and fiancé. I wanted instead to see her room, so I followed the fainter scent across the upper landing and towards a closed door on the other side of the hallway. Overwhelmed by her essence I opened her door and walked inside. Closing the door behind me, I sighed and leaned my back against the wood. As I relaxed I allowed myself to once again become visible.

  Joanna’s room was perfectly tidy except for a robe that lay casually across the bed. There was a porcelain tub of bath water cooling before the fire. Clearly the servants had yet to get round to emptying it. I examined the selection of fine powders and pale pink rouge pots on her dressing table. She had a beautiful hand mirror, comb and brush set, all with engraved silver handles. I lifted the brush and caught sight of my dishevelled appearance in the dressing mirror. My hair was a matted mess, my skin crusted with filth. I looked like the crazed revenant my servants had called me. I looked like a monster. Joanna would be terrified of me, and I didn’t want her to be afraid.

  I stripped away my clothing and slipped into the still-warm bath water, listening carefully for signs of the servants. The water felt wonderful. The things I had taken for granted all of my life were now luxuries I had been denied, or could no longer afford. Picking up Joanna’s rose-scented soap I scrubbed the grime from my body and hair, rinsing my scalp by ducking under the water until it felt soap and dirt free. Then I lay there, enjoying the feeling of the water sloshing over my limbs as it grew cold. I closed my eyes, imagining I was in the comfort of my own world once more. An intense homesickness squeezed my heart until I replaced those feelings aside with thoughts and images of Joanna.

  Relaxed, I stayed too long. I heard the rapid approach of two servant girls in the hallway. I stood quickly, looking around the room until I saw the towel spread over the back of the chair near the bed. Then I rushed across the room, grabbed the towel and shifted once more into invisibility. As the door opened my eyes fell on my dirty clothing, discarded by the bath. I hurried across the room, scooped up my dirty clothing and pushed it under Joanna’s bed seconds before the two girls entered.

  One of them halted as she saw the bedspread flop down, while the other babbled happily about the group now dining below us.

  ‘Signor Marco is so beautiful. Signorina Joanna is going to be so happy.’

  ‘Did you...?’ The first girl, a small waif of about fifteen, pointed to the bed.

  ‘Si, it is the wind.’

  The first girl shrugged.

  ‘We better empty this and tidy up a little.’

  The girls began to empty the water from the bath. Once they had filled two buckets each, the first one opened the balcony windows and they stepped outside to tip the water out onto the streets. I followed them, noticing that Joanna’s balcony was almost touching the wall. Good, it would make a better exit.

  I moved aside as the girls came back and continued their work. They smelt hot and sweet. My blood rushed to my face as one of them brushed too closely by me. I raised one hand towards her and had to restrain myself from stroking the skin of her neck with my fingers. Their blood called to me.

  ‘It’s cold in here,’ said the waif. ‘Like someone walked over my grave.’

  ‘Strange. The window was closed.’

  Once it was empty the girls picked up the bath and carried it away, the four buckets now stored inside it for ease. I could smell the faint aroma of their sweat as they heaved the heavy bath up. I noticed how beautiful the older girl’s arms were, defined and toned from the hard work. I’d seen girls like this in my own household; their attractiveness was always short lived. Hard work and marrying young often marred them long before their time.

  ‘Don’t you think this house is creepy sometimes?’ The waif shuddered as she swung the door wide open with her small foot.

  ‘Si. My cousin worked here before she married, she said she heard weird noises in the night.’

  I watched their retreat and as the door closed behind them I quickly grabbed Joanna’s robe from the bed and pulled it on. Tying the belt loosely I listened at the door. The maid’s

  superstitious chatter receded down the hall and faded as the girls moved deeper into the house.

  I felt a little dazed and confused. They’d been aware of my presence even though they couldn’t see me. I looked at my arms. The second girl had felt coldness as she passed me. Was that the chill of the dead? I sat on the edge of Joanna’s beautiful lace-covered four-poster bed. I felt the cold seeping from my limbs as I faded back to my normal colours again. This magic had to be evil.

  I felt colder and emptier. The hunger began to gnaw inside my stomach as never before. Maybe, by using my power too much, I had drained the energy from myself. I wasn’t sure.
Suddenly, I felt weak, and lay back, enjoying the sensation of a soft mattress under my back for the first time in weeks.

  I waited. Waited eagerly for the girl to return. I needed to feed.

  Chapter 20 – Present

  Coffee At Harvey Nichols

  I stir my latte as Lucrezia stares down into her mocha as if answers might be found there. I suppose she is thinking that I might be shocked. Her confession, her story, is similar to mine.

  I hadn’t realised how very alike we were. I feel an obscure empathy. Her life has been so terrible; a childhood fraught with danger and abuse. This is where our lives differ the most, because my childhood was ordinary and loving by comparison. Yet we were both thrown into the world of immortality without the means to resist. Without choice.

  ‘I’m sorry. You had to learn it all alone. Just like me.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s the only way,’ she shrugs.

  I give Lucrezia time to consider whether she will tell me more as a middle-aged waitress begins to clear the table beside us. I watch mesmerised as the woman stacks tea cups and plates noisily onto a tray. Then she extracts a cloth from her pinny and wipes away the spillages of the previous customer.

  This is our third meeting. I am beginning to build a strange friendship with Lucrezia that I never thought would be possible. I actually like her, and yet I had spent so many years hating and resenting her intrusion into my life. There is no love interest now which fortunately will make introducing her to Lilly so much easier. I’ve decided I must do this anyway. Although I have only scratched the surface of her story, it seems to me that the end of it will be crucial to our continued existence. I have so far resisted

  telling Lucrezia anything of my suspicions. I don’t want my words to change the reflection of her narrative. I want her to be the storyteller as she sees it. And then, well, maybe we will consider the implications together. Strangely, she has not asked me anything more about why I sought her out even though she does question me on occasion about Lilly.

  Lucrezia lifts her coffee cup to her red lips and sips her drink. I sip mine in reflection of her.

  ‘So, what have you told her so far?’

  ‘That I’m ready to share the final piece of my past.’

  Lucrezia laughs cynically. She knows me too well. It categorically wasn’t anywhere near that easy.

  Lilly was furious that I wouldn’t tell her anything. ‘What the fuck are you playing at, Gabi?’ she’d asked. I’d shrugged and smiled, kissing her silent until her questions turned to moans of passion in my arms.

  ‘But she has to trust you while you gather the pieces together?’

  ‘Yes.’

  And trust is such a hard thing for a twenty-first century strong-willed female. Telling the past, bringing the subject forward, admitting the truth is even harder for a seventeenth century male. But there never is a good time to tell some stories.

  I watch Lilly sleep serenely for over an hour before she wakes. Sitting in the chair beside the bed, I enjoy her slow awareness, the stretch of her limbs, the gentle rubbing of her eyes. She is my creature, my lover, my child, my wife. All her movements, so perfect and beautiful to me, would forever fill me with love and desire. And I do mean ‘forever’. Immortality has never been more attractive. My future and happiness all lay in her arms and in her love of me, and fear of losing that kept me quiet longer than it should have.

  ‘What are you doing there?’ she asks with a smile.

  ‘Watching you.’

  ‘That could be considered very creepy, you know,’ she laughs. ‘But I love you watching me.’

  ‘Do you?’

  She stretches again, her full breasts poking over the sheets and I lean forward, immediately aroused by her nakedness.

  ‘That’s why,’ she laughs. ‘I love that you desire me so much. Do you think you’ll ever stop?’

  ‘Oh my God, no! My emotions aren’t fickle, and I don’t change my mind so easily. I love you, Lilly.’

  ‘Then come to bed and show me...’

  I move towards her like a waking dreamer, or a hypnosis subject, aware but compelled. I smile and stop; it was important not to be distracted. I needed to tell her.

  ‘Soon,’ I return to my chair. ‘We have to talk.’

  ‘That sounds ominous.’

  I sit back, still enjoying the view she is provocatively presenting. Her leg slips out from under the sheet and wraps over and around it. I examine every beautiful toned curve. The sheet has fallen over her shape, her slim waist, her round hips: all call out to distract me further until I close my eyes. Her image is burned on my retinas. Maybe I should relieve us both first? But no, I am merely procrastinating again in my usual way.

  She remains quiet. Thoughtful. As though some part of her already knows what is coming. Her patience doesn’t last long, as I knew it wouldn’t.

  ‘It’s to do with your recent absences. It has nothing to do with business, does it?’ she prompts.

  I shake my head, still refusing to open my eyes and meet her beautiful stare. The final piece of the puzzle is within my grasp. I want to tell her everything and I need to share this with her. I feel that Lucrezia must reveal the remainder of her story to us both. Now, how do I tell Lilly?

  ‘It’s regarding the past?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And your maker?’

  I gasp with relief. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I knew there was more, of course. There’s been something you’ve held back all along, and something I felt you were searching for as we’ve travelled. Although it didn’t seem so urgent until we came across...’

  ‘Yes. In Turin. The creature that drained our strength and then followed us here. I’ve been afraid for you ever since. I felt I had to learn more about my origins so I could protect you.’

  ‘All through time, man has sought to learn the answer to the question: “Where did I come from?” Why should we be any different, just because we are immortal?’

  ‘True. But until recently I had felt no urge to explore the past at all,’ I answer.

  ‘It changed when you met me. When you met my mother too, I think.’

  She understands me as always. Why had I been so afraid to share? And so I told Lilly of her ancestry. How her family tree led right back to mine. How she was a direct descendent of my daughter, Marguerite.

  ‘You realised when you saw the letter at my parent’s house? And the family tree?’

  I nod.

  ‘You’ve kept this secret all this time. A whole year, Gabi! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’

  I had thought it so perverse to love a woman born from the blood line of my own child. Even though generations of marriages and mixing of blood must make it less incestuous. Nevertheless, our relationship had been so fragile in the beginning and I had feared her flight from me night and day for the first few months.

  ‘So, how could I tell you?’

  ‘Even in Turin, when you told me about the loss of your children... I thought that nothing could hurt you more than that. Surely that would have been the right moment?’

  ‘I was still working this out myself. I spent four hundred years searching for a mate. You were the only one to survive my bite and then I learn that this could be because you have my blood in your veins.’

  ‘Genetically we are connected. That’s obvious, but why then is that relevant? Why does it matter?’ she asks. ‘Why do you need to know any more? We’re immortal. We have nothing to fear. Looking for the reason is like learning the magician’s secrets; magic is never the same again.’

  For a long time I’d thought that myself. Wondered why I needed to know. In all of my existence I had never come across another immortal other than Lucrezia. The thought of my origins hadn’t ever concerned me. I had been wrapped up in my obsession with finding a mate to share my life with. Now the vampire gene in my heritage had become so important. How did it get there? Maybe Lucrezia held the answer somewhere in her past.

  ‘Things have changed,�
�� I explain. ‘I sought out Lucrezia for answers. Now I’m learning things that I had never guessed about her.’

  ‘Lucrezia,’ Lilly rolls the name over her tongue. ‘You’ve never said her name to me before. Even when you told me the “graphic” details of how you were changed. I almost believed that it was a one night stand and you had never known her name.’

  I look at Lilly, surprised at her thoughts. I’d never consciously omitted her name, but had obviously never thought to use it.

  ‘Did you love her?’

  I laugh. ‘Lucrezia and I have had many dimensions to our limited contact, but love has never been one of them.’

  ‘But you were lovers...’

  ‘I was a meal to Lucrezia, nothing more.’

  ‘Just as your victims had been to you.’

  I wince at her words. Maybe Lucrezia had stalked me in much the same way I’d pursued my victims. It was hard to know and definitely didn’t matter anyway. What mattered was the connection with why I had survived. And why our physical appearances were so similar.

  ‘Lucrezia is a Borgia and I have absolutely no idea how she can be connected to my family at all. I was brought up in Florence and I always believed that my uncle Giulio, my father and my mother all grew up there too. As far as I know my grandparents were never in Rome either.’

  ‘Lucrezia Borgia! No shit?’

  ‘Oh. You’ve heard of her then?’ I laugh.

  ‘Trust you,’ Lilly answers, smiling. ‘You couldn’t get yourself bit by any old ordinary vampire now could you? It had to be one of the most notorious women in Italian history.’

  I smile. ‘I think you’ll get on with her like a house on fire.’

  The following evening, Lilly and Lucrezia observe each other across the small round table in the café of Harvey Nichols with the scrutiny of nemeses. Their lovely expressions mimic each other. They are different and yet the same. The ancestral similarity is clearly present. I have so many questions to ask Lucrezia but it seems too early to do so. I still need to let her unfold her tale for us, and then I need to make some sense of it all.