Immortal Muse

by Stephen Leigh

  But she didn’t. She could feel the woman’s appraising stare on her back as she fled.

  *

  She’d started Vivaldi playing on her stereo system; the soothing, intricate counterpoint of L’estro Armonico washing over the apartment. She’d picked up more of her clothing and personal items from the apartment, stuffing them into a laundry basket which was now sitting near the door, ready to take them over to David’s apartment.

  She sat on the couch in her apartment with Verdette on her lap, one hand scissoring her pendant between her fingers. On the wall across from her was a framed reproduction of one of Blake’s paintings: The Temptation And Fall Of Eve. There, the tree stood between Adam and Eve; Adam had his back turned, while the serpent coiled around Eve’s naked body, the fruit held in the snake’s mouth and pressed against Eve’s open mouth. It was strangely erotic and dangerous at the same time. Camille stared at it as she stroked Verdette’s fur.

  Verdette purred, her eyes closed while her front paws kneaded Camille’s thigh. “Ouch,” she said, disengaging a claw that had become hooked in the fabric of her jeans. “It’s time for a trimming, girl. I know you hate it.”

  Camille heard a knock at the door. “Just a moment,” Camille called out. Verdette, irritated at the interruption, leaped from Camille’s lap as she rose from the couch, putting the pendant back under her T-shirt. No one had buzzed for entry, so it was probably Mrs. Darcy from the other side of the hall wanting to borrow something. Still … She glanced toward the table in the breakfast nook; her purse was there, with the Ladysmith in it. She thought for a moment about retrieving it. No, Nicolas wouldn’t knock; he’d be less subtle than that. For that matter, he wouldn’t need to knock.

  As she walked toward the door, she felt a soul-heart’s presence, one that made her want to simply pull the door open and fall into the embrace waiting for her. She put her eye to the door’s peephole. In the distorted fisheye image, David’s visage peered back at her, his camera bag, as usual, slung across his shoulder. He waved, and she unlatched the chain and pulled the door open. She hugged him hard in the hallway.

  “Hey, what’s that for?” he asked, chuckling.

  “Just because,” she told him. “How’d you get in without buzzing me?”

  “I waited until the guy downstairs brought in his groceries and followed him when he opened the door. He likes you; said it was good to have you here, but if I were planning to take you away to live with me, to tell you that his second cousin’s daughter in Jersey is looking for a sublease in the city. Told him I’d let you know. You ought to think about it.”

  “I need to talk with him,” Camille said.

  “About that sublease?” David asked, with an uneasy smile. The smile slowly faded. “Guess not, eh? Don’t be too angry with him—he thought he was doing you a favor letting me in; besides, he’s seen me before, so it’s not like he was letting a stranger get inside.”

  “And you knew I was here how?”

  “You weren’t at my place, and Verdette was gone, too. So I figured you’d come back here to grab some other things, and had taken Verdette because you were feeling guilty about having abandoned her for Paris.” He glanced over at the laundry basket. “Looks like I was right, too. You gonna let me in or are you ready to go now? I can just grab that basket for you.”

  “Not yet,” she told him. “Come on in …”

  Once the door was closed behind them, he kissed her, a kiss that promised more, but Verdette bumped up against Camille’s legs, obviously annoyed at David’s presence. David bent down to pet her, but she hissed, flattened her ears, and fluffed the hair on her back. “Fine,” he said, withdrawing his hand. “I can take a hint.” He glanced at Camille, raising one eyebrow. “How about you?” he asked. “Can you take a hint?” The arms of his soul-heart were as tight around her as the embrace in which he held her.

  She wanted to give in to his invitation, but the afternoon visit with Morris intruded, dampening her emotions. She remembered the urge she’d felt to tell Palento everything. She felt that urge again now as she looked at David. She wanted someone close to her who understood. Understood everything.

  She wanted David to be that person, but she was afraid. She knew what Nicolas could do. She knew what Nicolas would do. Still …

  Tell him, or don’t. Decide.

  “Do you love me?” she asked him.

  “Yes,” he said, without hesitation. “In fact, let me prove it …”

  He took her hand, obviously intending to lead her into the bedroom, but she didn’t allow him to pull her away. She sat on the couch, patting the cushion next to her. “Sit, please,” she told him. Verdette climbed onto the coffee table, pacing the polished wood with her tail lashing. David looked askance at the couch.

  “Uh-oh. This sounds serious.” He set his camera bag on the coffee table; Verdette glanced at it and hopped back down to the floor. “All I know is that we were terrifically happy in Paris. If something’s happened since we got back that changed things for you, I want to know what it was. If it’s something I did, something I can change, then I’ll make it go away. Or is it that detective woman?”

  She stopped him with a hand to his arm. “You didn’t do anything. There’s nothing wrong between us.”

  “The detective, then? What happened?”

  “Sit,” she told him. “Do you want something to drink? I know I need something …” She got up and went into the kitchen, pouring two tumblers half-full of Redbreast Irish whiskey, putting an ice cube in each. She handed one to David, and took a long sip of hers, relishing the burn down her throat. He sat where she’d been sitting, on the couch; she moved to the chair opposite the couch, staring at him over the coffee table, over the camera bag. She felt the radiance of his soul-heart dim, pulled inside away from her.

  “You’re not going to believe what I have to tell you, David.” Her vision shimmered in a wash of salt. She wiped angrily at her eyes for their betrayal. “That’s just fair warning. You’re going to think I’m crazy. But listen to me, please—this is hard enough to talk about. I … I haven’t been entirely truthful with you, David.”

  “What do you mean? Are you saying there’s someone else? I already know about Mercedes and Morris and the others, and I told you that it didn’t matter.”

  “No.” She shook her head quickly. “It’s nothing like that. It’s about me. About my background. Where I came from. And where Pierce fits in.”

  “Pierce?” He nearly spat the name. On the cushion, his free hand fisted on the leather. “What about that guy?”

  Verdette curled her tail around Camille’s ankles, meowing. She ignored the cat.

  “I’ve known Pierce for a long, long time. And that’s dangerous for you.”

  He seemed to stifle a laugh, but his face seemed far more angry than amused. “You can’t just say something like that without an explanation, Camille. It doesn’t make any sense. How can I believe you?” He was irritated now; the whiskey shivered in his hand, the ice rattling. He set the glass down on the coffee table. “Goddamn it, if you want to talk, then talk.”

  “How old do you think I am?” she asked David.

  “You told me you were twenty-four,” he answered. “Was that a lie?” His eyes suddenly widened. “God, you’re not telling me you’re underage, are you?”

  She laughed, bitterly. “No. But I did lie.”

  He stared, silent. And with a deep, slow breath, she began. “I’m much older than twenty-four, and my name isn’t really Camille …”

  *

  The tale took hours to tell, even in the condensed version she gave him. After a while, she thought David had stopped really listening to her. He was nodding and making the appropriate noises, but he was no longer asking questions and there was almost a panic in his eyes, as if he’d been trapped in a closed space with an insane person.

  Their tumblers had been drained, refilled, emptied, and refilled yet again.

  “So this Nicolas Flamel is your stalk
er, and he’s been chasing you for centuries. Not only that, but you’re saying that he’s also Dr. Pierce, and that he killed Helen?” His voice sounded dry and almost strangled. He took another long sip of the whiskey.

  “Yes,” she told him.

  He nodded, but she knew that it wasn’t comprehension, only a reflex. He was staring somewhere past her. She saw his gaze snag on the Blake print. “You knew Blake. Vivaldi. Bernini. They were your lovers.”

  She gave him a silent, quick nod. “Blake, no, but Vivaldi and Bernini, yes. Among others.”

  He started to speak, then shook his head, taking another sip of the whiskey. “And you feed on artists.”

  “It’s not that one-sided, David. Yes, an artist’s creative energy sustains me, but I can also help a creative person reach his or her full potential. I can enhance the creative flow, let you tap deeper into what’s inside you. And that energy … it allows me to follow my own creative endeavors. I’m a muse, not a leech. A daemon, not a demon.”

  “And you chose me because I could sustain you better than the others.”

  “You make it sound so cold-hearted, self-serving, and cynical, David. It’s not like that.”

  “Then what is it like?” He slapped a hand on the couch; she saw dust fly up from the cushions. Verdette hissed and fled the room. His dark gaze found her; he studied her as if he were peering through his camera lens. “My God, Camille—or Perenelle or whatever I should call you—how am I supposed to actually believe any of this? It’s insane.”

  “I told you that it wouldn’t be easy, David. You’re supposed to believe it because I told you, and you know that I wouldn’t lie to you about something as complicated and strange as this.”

  He stared at her, silent and grim. She rose from her chair, went to the kitchen, and came back with an 8-inch chef’s knife. David’s eyes widened as she put the knife on the coffee table in front of him. “Stab me,” she said. “Stick that right in my gut. Do it—try to kill me. Go ahead.”

  “Camille, I’m not going to stab you. Are you crazy?”

  “I’m not crazy. You won’t do it because you haven’t believed anything I told you.”

  “That’s not fair. Look, if you’re really insisting on something like this, just cut your arm or something—you say you heal fast, right?”

  She shook her head doggedly. The room swirled around her with the motion. “No,” she insisted. “That won’t be enough. You’d pass it off as some kind of trick. C’mon, David. I’m asking you to do this for me. For us. Go ahead.”

  “I don’t know what to believe,” he told her. “But I’m not going to stab you with that thing. Chris’sakes, that really is insane … and, hell, what if you’re wrong … ?”

  “You don’t believe me,” Camille repeated, “or you wouldn’t have said that.”

  The knife glistened on the polished wood. You have to prove it to him. She knew part of it was the liquor talking, that her mind was fuzzy with the whiskey fumes, and that she wouldn’t be thinking this way if she were entirely sober. She wondered if she could do it anyway, knowing the pain she’d feel, knowing the agony she’d have to endure to prove herself to him.

  Do it!

  Before she could change her mind, she snatched up the knife, placed the point against her stomach, and pushed in hard with a cry. David shouted in panic, reaching for her. The pain was worse than she’d imagined: her mind had blanked the memory of the other times she’d had to endure such severe wounds. Blood soaked her T-shirt and poured down the blade, slick and hot. Her hands, slick, slipped on the handle as she tried to pull it out and the blade moved inside her. She screamed at the agony as the blade twisted, doubled over and gasped. Verdette came running in from the other room, hissing and ready to protect her. David was up now, alongside her, the cat slashing at his jeans.

  “Take it out!” she managed to say. “Please, David! Take it out!” and she cried out again as his hand pulled the blade from her body. He dropped it on the carpet and helped her sink to the floor. Her vision was fading; she saw David’s hands, red with her blood. She heard him fumbling for his cell phone. “No!” she told him. “Don’t call anyone. Just wait. Be patient. This is important.”

  “Damn it, Camille. You’re losing blood fast, and you need help. I have to call 911.”

  “No! Wait! Please … Please …” Already it was becoming easier to speak. She lifted her shirt, showing him that the blood flow was easing, that the far edges of the deep wound were already beginning to slowly, reluctantly close. David stared, his phone still in his hand. She took a breath, forcing her voice to sound calm and slow. “David, I’ll be fine. I just needed to show you, to prove it to you.”

  She sat up, which caused fresh blood to flow. “A towel,” she said to David. “In the kitchen.”

  He broke from his stasis, hurrying into the kitchen and returned with one of her dishtowels, handing it to her. She pressed it against the wound and extended a hand to him. “Help me up.”

  He helped her get to her feet, biting her lips to stop from crying out. Verdette growled from under the coffee table. Her insides seemed to pull and tear with the movement, but she could move. Blood was clotting quickly along the wound; she carefully peeled the sticky dishtowel away and refolded it to press clean cotton against her abdomen. David still held her arm. Camille forced herself to straighten fully, despite the protest of her body. A distant part of her looked at the dark stain on the rug and thought, I’ll have to get a new one. That’ll never come out … “See,” she told him. “I was telling you the truth, David.”

  His face was pale. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Yes, I did,” she answered. “You wouldn’t have believed me otherwise. Look now …” She pulled the cloth away again. The wound was nearly half-closed, and visibly less wide and deep than it had been. It was no longer seeping blood, though the center of the wound was still wet and dark. She wasn’t certain what emotion she was seeing in David’s eyes. “In a few days, it’ll just be a scar which I’ll have for a month or two, then even that will vanish. I was telling you the truth, David. The truth—which I haven’t shared with anyone I’ve ever been with. None of them. You’re the first and only one I’ve ever told everything, all of it, and if that doesn’t tell you just how much you mean to me, then I don’t have any other way to demonstrate it to you.” She could feel tears burning in her eyes, and she blinked hard, sniffing.

  “Camille …”

  “No, let me finish. When I tell you that you’re in danger, that’s the truth also. Nicolas—Pierce—wants to hurt me, and he knows that what would hurt me most is losing you. Don’t you understand? That’s why I took you to Paris, so you’d be safe, but then the tequila came and I knew that he knew where we were …” She stopped, taking in a long, shuddering breath. The pain in her abdomen was beginning to recede. “We, and you especially, need to be very careful until I deal with him, or until …” She glanced at the long table in the corner of the room, with its cages of mice, the jars of chemicals, the alchemical equipment. He saw the direction of her gaze.

  “Until you give me the elixir? Is that it?”

  She nodded.

  “What makes you think that I would take it if you offered it to me?” he asked her.

  The question furrowed her forehead, made her eyebrows climb. “You wouldn’t want immortality? You wouldn’t want several lifetimes to perfect your craft?”

  “Yeah, artists want immortality all right, but the immortality we’re after is the kind you don’t know you achieved because you’re dead when it happens. It’s the work that’s supposed to live forever. Not the artist.”

  A wry smile lifted one corner of her lips. “I know that better than anyone,” she said. “Believe me.” The self-inflicted injury and her body’s efforts to repair the damage were sapping her strength. She fumbled for the chair, sitting abruptly. David watched her with concern, but he didn’t move to her or touch her. His soul-heart’s radiance stayed inside him when she most needed
it.

  “Look, you said the elixir cost you your skill in alchemy; it forced you to seek out people with these ‘green soul-hearts’ to keep you healthy,” he said. “Is that right?”

  Camille nodded.

  “And you said that it turned Nicolas into someone who feeds off death and pain. He claimed that all the mice you injected became compulsive and obsessive about something. That’s why Verdette is the way she is.”

  “Yes, but …”

  He shook his head at her protest. “What would the elixir cost me?” he asked. “Would it take away the gift I have with photography? Would it make me a half-vampire like Nicolas, finding my pleasure in pain and blood? What kind of eternity would that be for me? For us? Could I even be what I want to be if I take your elixir?” He swept a hand through the air, as if an invisible moth fluttered in his face. “I gotta go,” he said suddenly, then grimaced. “You’re sure you’re all right? I can take you to Urgent Care or the ER …”

  “I’ll be fine,” she told him. “I promise. David, where are we now, you and me?”

  “I love you, Camille,” he answered. “I do. But right now, I really don’t know. I … I just have to think. Alone. I’m going to go home.”

  Muscles and tendons pulled inside her as she tried to stand again. She closed her eyes, refusing to cry out against the pain. She let her mind touch his soul-heart, take some of the energy inside herself; she needed it—needed him. David shivered, as if he noticed. “All right, then,” she told him when she could speak. “But let me go with you to your place. All I need to do is get Verdette and take the stuff I put together.” Something inside her moved painfully; she felt the wound pulling as it knitted itself.

  “No,” David said, surprising her. “Why don’t you just stay here tonight and let yourself recover. Use a spell, or however you do it.”

  The undertone of sarcasm in his voice bit at her even as she tried to ignore it. “David, I’m worried that it’s not safe for you. Give me a few minutes …”