by Ana Calin
“It sounded like you were losing it for her in there,” he says, pulling out a high stool and perching himself on top of it. He does it slowly, and I have a feeling that he’s not only tired, but that this whole thing has gotten to him. “Being wanted like that as a man, it must feel divine. I never felt like that with a woman.”
“It doesn’t happen with just anybody, it has to be The One; hookers and casual affairs won’t do. Hey, you’re not looking well, are you okay?” I probe.
“Yeah.” He waves a hand. “I’m just exhausted. I could sleep for another week or so.”
“It’s been intense twenty-four hours.”
“It’s not just that. Chasing immortality, this desire to restore my youth so I can enjoy what you and your vampiress did in there, it’s.... It’s taken a toll on me. It’s like I’ve made a deal with the devil but he’s only taking from me, while giving nothing back but illusions, and draining me.”
“Listen to you. I could almost think you’re a wise man.”
We both laugh.
“I’m not a villain, Lazarus,” he says with a sigh. “Never was. Not even with Juliet, all those years ago—I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t talk about her, I know it’s thin ice.”
“No, don’t worry. We can talk about it.”
“I know that you loved her once, so—”
“I’m not so sure anymore that I actually loved her. I found her worthy, and I felt a certain kinship with her. In the end, she was the only person besides the witch Magda who knew the things I did about the Hidden World, who shared my challenges, my fears, and even my dreams. We bonded, but I think in truth I always knew it wasn’t a romantic bond.” I look to the bathroom door, the need to be close to Irina growing inside me. She’s become an addiction, and I’ll have to learn how to deal with it once this nightmare with the Serpent Lord is over. And once I’ve killed Zdrovan Daniel. “I had to experience this exquisite bond with Irina to realize that what I had with Juliet was.... It was nothing, I can’t even compare it to what I feel now.”
“Juliet was a likeable girl,” Herald puts in. “I used to jerk off a lot thinking of her, but on the other hand she represented everything I could never become. She was young, smart beyond measure, bold, and there was always something magical about her. I wanted to be like her, but wasn’t, so I guess I always saw her as a rival. Someone I had to humiliate in order to feel better about myself.”
He only glances at my face as if he expects me to punch him.
“I felt better about myself by contrast to Irina, too. But now that I know who she is deep inside, I’m ashamed that I ever thought myself the better. I’m sure there have been circumstances in your life that caused all those traits you hate about yourself to appear. I’m sure deep down there’s someone as lovable and desirable as Irina.” I smile. “I wonder what you’d turn out to be like as a vampire. Your essence would come to light and stay imprinted on your face forever.”
“Maybe I’d be as ugly as the Old Priest.”
“No way. You see your own faults, you hate yourself for certain traits, which only means those traits don’t represent the real you. People are extraordinarily accepting of the traits that truly represent them, they don’t feel bad wearing them. To people such as the Old Priest, it’s always someone else’s fault.”
“He sure seemed to love himself, I can attest to that.” He drinks from his coffee, staring at the window. “I wanted to become immortal, and that’s what turned me into a slave to both the Old Priest and the Serpent Lord. Our desires are the tools to manipulate us, and the big bosses of this world know it.”
“You can still gain immortality. I hope I won’t regret this, but I’m ready to turn you into a vampire, if you can accept the sacrifices that eternity requires from vampires.”
He looks at me as if he just remembered something important. “Yeah, about those sacrifices. How come you can stand in the sunlight?”
“Long story. But it is possible to get rid of your weaknesses as a vampire.”
His head snaps to the bathroom door the moment Irina steps out, veiled in steam, a fresh towel around her.
“Then....” He whispers, “Irina was never in danger when she came to the brothel. She was never in danger from Zdrovan Daniel either.”
“I wasn’t in danger if he used silver or sunlight on me, but I was in danger all right,” she explains, taking the coffee from his hand and sipping. “God, this is good.” She closes her eyes and licks her lips, enjoying the taste of the hot liquid that she doesn’t need, but seems to love as much as I do.
I watch her as she tells Herald the truth about our plan, how she escaped the room where he kept her and went back pretending to still have a normal vampire’s weaknesses. The way she talks, the way her lips move and her eyelids fall and open as she blinks, slowly and seductively in a natural way, as if she had been born with it, I’m hooked on all that. I only realize they’ve asked me something when they stare at me for moments expectantly, not saying anything.
“What was that?”
Irina smiles, understanding what had me so distracted. “I think it’s time we decided on our next step in the mission.”
Lazarus
THE UNIVERSITY IS FULL even on the weekend. Students working in groups, swarming in the galleries, going in and out of the library, not to mention that many professors are working, too. I’m one of those who used to work weekends with the students as well. I haven’t done it in a while, but old habits die hard, and a group is already waiting at my office door.
I stop in my tracks when I recognize two of the faces. I should have expected this. The girls from last night, clutching papers, but I know they want answers related to our encounter. It must look strange that today I pop up again not only with my supposed fiancée, but also my so-called father-in-law, Herald.
“Professor Raica,” the bolder of the two girls greets, stepping forward. She probably came really early, to be the first one entitled to my time.
“No office hours today, Lidia.” I point to the tag by the door, with my name, area of expertise, and office hours. “No longer working weekends.” I reach for Irina’s waist, pulling her closer. “I’m about to become a family man, I can’t get away with workaholism anymore.”
Irina is wearing a red and pink sundress—I bought it for her from a Turkish shop by the campus that’s open on weekends—and she gives the girls a beaming smile. Lidia’s eyes become slits and, if she weren’t human, I’m pretty sure she’d hiss.
“Yes, but here you are,” she insists.
“I came with other business, no open hours with students.”
She glances from me to Irina, then to Herald who tries to keep back, as inconspicuous as he can, but under the circumstances that’s impossible. “You have to take your family to work, too?”
“Listen, Lidia,” Irina begins in a tone so soft it could melt my guts. Soon I realize her tone is for the boys in the group, infiltrating through their ears and making them agree with her whatever her arguments. “Professor Raica will be available for whatever you might need from him during his office hours, as he always has been. But this is the weekend, and working is his choice, not his obligation. Now we’d be very grateful if you’d have the decency not to insist.”
Her hooded seductress eyes sweep over the others, the boys staring at her with open mouths, without blinking. She’s a breathtaking beauty as it is, but paired with the chemicals that her voice raises inside their systems, it’s like they’re bewitched.
I let the drug work on me, too, this time intentionally, and proud. She’s mine, only mine, no one and nothing can replace the bond that we have through our blood, through our venom, through our bodies and our spirit.
The group leaves, the boys and girls dragging their steps and looking behind. They’re still curious for answers, and the guys can’t get enough of the still smiling Irina.
I take Irina’s hand and pull her inside, locking the door after Herald. I head to my desk, books and papers spr
ead all over it, while Irina heads to the kettle, setting it to make the instant-coffee I keep to serve my students and other guests, and asking Herald how he likes his, she didn’t pay attention back at the dorm.
“Deciphering the Old Priest’s riddle wasn’t hard once we had the context,” I begin as Irina hands Herald a fresh mug of instant coffee. “What’s neither plant nor animal, yet lives as both. It’s amoeba, an organism that lives in the sea, and that, given the right circumstances, never dies.”
“Wait a minute, amoeba is actually immortal?” Herald says with genuine surprise.
“One of the greatest misconceptions humanity has dragged through the centuries,” Irina chimes in as she takes a seat in my chair and crosses her legs, making it hard for me to concentrate. “Is that every living thing must die. The amoeba is only one organism that scientists know about and have studied. There are probably more, yet by the time the discoveries were made the powers that be had already ordered that such secrets be buried forever.”
I move to the papers, going through the research I’d gotten to do before Irina and I first sat down at the pub to watch the brothel exit.
“My best bet is that the Serpent Lord’s scientists are using the amoeba’s process in order to create immortal humans.”
Herald joins Irina with the coffee in his hand, frowning and fully focused. I have their attention, but I have to find the right terms to help them better understand.
“Let’s start with the beginning. First of all, the amoeba isn’t immortal while it lives its so-called ‘normal’ existence, namely while it divides and participates in processes of exchange with nature, like any living organism. But it seems this very exchange, this continuous give and take is what’s killing organisms. Metabolism.”
“But.” Herald frowns as he struggles to understand. “Isn’t a healthy metabolism what doctors recommend for a long life?”
“Metabolism enables a good and long life. But not immortality. On the contrary.” I walk around the room as I talk, piecing ideas together. “Think cryogenics. What does cryogenics actually do to the human body? It freezes it in the moment, it stops metabolism. But cryogenics also stops the mental life; frozen people, while not dead, they’re not exactly alive either. So how do you keep people frozen metabolically, and yet mentally active? Because mental activity in itself requires movement, exchange, metabolism.”
“Look at us, vampires,” Irina puts in. “We’re predators, we’re humans transformed into carnivorous animals, but our predator bodies are frozen in time. Our DNA identifies the best version of ourselves in our genes, and our cells shift to make us into that version. Everything is slower in our bodies than in humans’, and that movement is actually only there to ensure the transfer of life from prey to predator through the intake of blood. Through blood we suck the life energy of the victim into ourselves, which keeps us going for a while, but then it burns out like fuel and we need a recharge. That’s why the higher the blood quality, the greater our power. But with humans things would have to be a lot different, because humans aren’t predators.”
“And this is what I think happens, my theory.” I lean against the desk, facing Irina and Herald. “It starts from the way the amoeba turns itself immortal. It slows down its metabolism to a minimal level, but really, such a low level that it might as well not happen at all. It goes into some kind of hibernation, and it turns into a sort of cyst.”
“So the human body would need to change density,” Irina works with me.“The first thing you’d have to do is slow down metabolism to the point of shutting it down. It would need a whole lot of experimentation, fine-tuning. But that brothel.... It was full of immortal humans—dead immortal humans. I guess they cannot die naturally, but they can be killed.”
“Yes. So the Serpent Lord has already mastered the process. But we need to understand exactly how it works as well, so that we know what we’re up against. The first step is finding the place where Zdrovan Daniel gets these immortals, or where he ‘makes’ them.” I turn to Herald. “For that we need to know more than we do now. So when did the Old Priest contact you about this, and when did you deliver his first message to the Serpent Lord?”
“I delivered his message to one of the Serpent Lord’s people, to Geneva Daniel. I never met the Serpent Lord himself, of course, few ever have.”
“Hmmm.” Irina furrows her brows. “Geneva is a V.I.P. among these creatures, yet she’s still mortal. So maybe they didn’t perfect the process so much that she feels safe trying it out herself.”
“They must still be in the experimentation phase then,” I draw the conclusion. “Or maybe they’re still working on the invincibility part. I’m sure Geneva wouldn’t want to turn immortal only to be easily killed, like those people whose chopped off parts they fed to vampire hookers at the establishment.”
“The Old Priest contacted me about a year ago,” Herald says after a few moments of thinking back.
“So they must have started to experiment soon after that. We have to look for accounts of great numbers of people disappearing around that time,” Irina reasons. “They needed many humans to use as lab rats.”
“He could have gotten them from prisons,” I say.
“That would still have been a lot of paperwork, at least here in Europe. But knowing Zdrovan I do think he worked with prisons.” Irina stands and walks to the window, as if the sunlight that she’s now immune to can help her deal with memories of her past. “Prison towns of Russia or other places where no one would look into disappearances. Where papers wouldn’t be needed, just the right connections.”
“Still, he’d need to keep an eye on the process, so he’d need to bring the subjects here. There’s only one way to find out where his facilities are, and that is following him.”
“We wouldn’t know where to start,” Herald says fearfully. “He’s not an easy man to find just like that.”
The story of Zdrovan plays through my head. I can understand why it makes Irina shudder now. He supposedly met his wife in the context of the orgies they both secretly snuck into back in the day. Everybody thought Geneva was the one marrying her way into a position of power and money, but in truth it was Zdrovan who used her. He’s still using her. And him being Dracula’s enemy was enough to get Michael the Bad, Dracula’s estranged son, on his side.
“When the Old Priest first asked for my help,” Herald begins, “and I started to look for the Serpent Lord, I didn’t need to do much because he soon found me. Zdrovan’s people called, and summoned me to meet Zdrovan at a secluded restaurant in the Green Forest. That’s where we always met, without exception. I’m guessing if we lure him to meet me there again, you guys could take it from there, and keep following him until he leads you to the facilities where he keeps the immortals.”
“How would you lure him?” I don’t like it, and I’m pretty sure it shows in my face. “Because I’m not gonna risk putting Irina anywhere in his way again, you can be sure of that.”
Herald presses his wrinkled lips together and runs a hand over his face as if he’s tormented by a difficult decision. Turns out he is. “Listen, I could turn myself in to him. I could send word that I’ll meet him at the same place we used to meet back when I mediated between him and the Old Priest. I’ll say that I’ll get him Irina if he turns me into an immortal.”
“No fucking way,” I react.
“I wouldn’t be opposed to that,” Irina intervenes, “but there’s no guarantee he won’t kill you on sight, or torture you until you give him what you promised without the exchange for immortality. Zdrovan Daniel a powerful man, Herald, don’t forget that, he doesn’t need to make deals with people like you.”
“He will, if I say Irina will come to me herself, by her own accord, once I’m immortal, demanding answers,” Herald argues. “Trust me on this one.” He looks to Irina. “I’ve seen enough at the establishment to know he wants you more than anything in the world, Irina. I don’t think it’s love or even lust that drives him, but he nee
ds you like you’re a missing part of him. And he’ll stop at nothing to get you.”
CHAPTER VII
Irina
It’s hard to concentrate on the restaurant where Herald has just met Zdrovan. Lazarus and I hide in the forest across from it, his arms around me as he kisses my shoulder and my neck.
“Lazarus, please.” But I can’t help giggling. “We’re here for something else.”
“I haven’t forgotten, but I just can’t stop.” He kisses me passionately, finally turning me around in his arms and sinking with me in the bushes. We’re right across from the restaurant, but it’s late at night in this lonely area, the forest dark, not a soul on the dimly lit street to discover us. We’re close enough to hear what the two men are discussing in the restaurant, especially since they make it easy sitting at a table by the window, but it’s just so hard to stay focused.
“This bond between us is driving me crazy,” Lazarus says among fiery kisses, pressing himself against me in the bushes as if he wants us to become one. Never in my life have I felt such pleasure of the soul.
“I can’t bring myself to stop,” he whispers in my ear right before he takes my earlobe in his hot mouth. I bite my lip bloody and sink my fingernails into his back, my hands feverish to get him out of his shirt, but Zdrovan says something and we both stop abruptly.
“I could just slit your throat right now, and hang it at the establishment’s door tonight. That would draw Irina’s attention as well.” I can hear the sarcasm in his voice. “I don’t need to give you anything.”
“You could do that,” Herald says, keeping his composure. “But she’s a smart woman. Particularly so, if you ask me. You can kill me and hang my head on the very top of the Parliament House, but she won’t come to you. At best you’ll get her boyfriend, Lazarus, on your back, bringing down all of your establishments one by one. Because they are lovers, you know....”