The Blood of Kings
Page 27
I met him at dinnertime, when the museum closed. We had a quick, light meal. Then he took me to his apartment in Brooklyn. As we were going in, I happened to notice his name on the apartment doorbell. Lawrence Miller. Rick, indeed.
I asked him why he wouldn’t rather live in Manhattan. He shrugged. “I like being across the river. Keeps some distance between me and… well, between me and all that.” He made a vague gesture.
“You like being apart?”
“Yeah, I guess I do. From everything.”
“It must be nice to have the choice.”
He didn’t know what I meant. I wasn’t quite sure I knew, either. But he was one of our bloodline; of that I was certain.
His apartment was larger than most I’d seen in New York. There was room for a king-size bed. Almost before I knew what was happening, he stripped himself naked, locked his arms around me and pushed his tongue into my mouth.
He was good. The sex was fantastic. We came together, first time that had happened since Danilo. When all I want is sex, there’s nothing more exciting than an aggressive bottom. But I wanted more than sex.
When we were finished with our coupling, he lit a cigarette.
I smirked. “Isn’t that a bit of a cliché?”
“What of it?”
“Nothing, I guess.” I smiled and stretched on the bed.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like you to leave now.”
“Oh. I thought we might talk for a bit.” I smiled. “Get to know each other. Are you—?”
“Look, we fucked, we got off. I’m going to the gym now.”
“But—”
“I really don’t want to ‘get to know’ a damn dumb tourist faggot, okay?”
“Okay. You won’t, then.”
I jumped on top of him, pinned him to the bed. There was nothing sharp at hand. I used my teeth. Tore his throat open. Drank. It always interests me that men’s blood can taste so different. Some is so sweet. Some is deliciously salty. Some has a pleasantly bitter edge. His tasted like shit.
Then I crossed the room to where I’d left my backpack and got Danilo’s ritual knife. The golden blade gleamed as I did my work. I cut out the organs I needed, eyes, heart. His genitals were still hot from our coupling.
I looked down at his body, drained of blood, wizened and pale. Not for the first time, I found myself thinking that that was what I wanted. To be dead. To feel nothing. Since Danilo vanished, that was all I wanted.
But how? I didn’t know, and I was afraid to find out. If I stopped living on the blood of the sacrificed, would I simply revert to my normal age? Or would I… ? Danilo said I would age and die if I stopped. I had seen too many old horror movies to want to contemplate that possibility. To die old… no.
I didn’t always have sex with them. Sometimes I just… performed the sacrifice and moved on. Over the months, I had come to prefer that, actually. Quick, over with, satisfied. No time for lies, not theirs, not mine.
There were times, looking in the mirror, I thought I could see their faces in my own eyes. There were times when I wondered if they wanted to taste me in the way I tasted them. They denied their blood; but can anyone ever deny himself so completely? Did they feel the same thirst, ever? At all?
Death is the beginning, in the same way that fatherhood is the beginning. I am only beginning to understand, even now. Poor creatures like assistant curator Rick, or Lawrence, would never know.
No one had ever looked for Danilo but me, myself. When he disappeared, everyone—the university and the police—assumed he was simply one more victim in Gregory Wilton’s killing spree, one more of the dead and vanished. With no family to make trouble—with no one in the world except me, or so I thought—the police and the university could safely forget him. But, of course, I could not forget. Every time I took another victim, Danilo was there with me.
And yet I had hardly begun to understand all the things he tried to teach me, or the enormous gift he gave me. I had to find him; I had to be with him again.
There is another world, and it is in this one. I know. I live there.
About the Author
John Michael Curlovich is a freelance writer based in Pittsburgh. His gay-themed fiction includes the dark fantasy Blood of Kings series: The Blood of Kings and Blood Prophet, both to be reissued by Riverdale Avenue Books along with a new title, Blood Music; his short story “Reflections on Death,” a part of that mythos, is included in Riverdale’s The Morris-Jumel Mansion Anthology of Fantasy and Paranormal Fiction. He is also the author of the acclaimed gay-themed Arthurian fantasy Mordred and the King and Loves of the Argonauts, a gay retelling of Greek mythology. Additionally he has published fiction in a number of other genres including horror (as “Michael Paine”), mystery (as “J.M.C. Blair”), and erotica (“Jon Jockel”).
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