by A. L. Mengel
Tramos threw his head back and laughed. “And you two are not! Are you both so quick to judge? Do we know for certain that this was caused by Claret?”
Antoine stood and placed his hands on his hips. “She murdered our kind. She was hunting me for years.”
Tramos shot a glance to Antoine. “She had reason to. I remember a night when you were in Cairo. Do you remember, Antoine?”
Antoine remembered.
He could still see the stars on that night, decades before the Tutankhamen expedition had been arranged and the tomb had been discovered in 1922. Antoine remembered being there.
He could still smell the pungent urine stench of the camels. And the feel of the hot wind blowing sand in his face. He could still feel the shoulder strap of the small leather bag that he had carried on his shoulder, with the weight of the cup inside.
Antoine sat and cleared his throat.
“You both don’t know the specifics regarding Claret. All you know is speculation – ”
“– And what she did,” Antoine said. “What we saw!”
Tramos flung to his feet and spun around in Antoine’s face.
“You think you knew what was going on! But all you did was sit in those stupid little hocus-pocus sessions by that Harrison. That silly Monsignor. He has been a thorn in my side for centuries.”
Giovanni straightened up and looked at Antoine. Antoine raised his eyebrows.
“Then what we need to do,” Tramos said, “is for you to come with me. I will protect you both.”
Antoine and Giovanni nodded.
Tramos snapped back around and looked at the two of them sitting on the small bench. “And Delia and the others know nothing of this, correct?”
Giovanni raised his head and looked at Tramos. “That’s correct. The Inspiriti know nothing of this meeting.”
Tramos looked at Antoine. “And what about you, Antoine? Why are you here?”
Antoine looked down and fidgeted for a few moments.
He finally looked up at Tramos, directly in his eyes. “Because you are my bloodline. Darius is gone now. He transformed me, you transformed him…but I think if we can raise Darius, couldn’t he give us some answers?”
Tramos and Giovanni both looked at Antoine. Tramos placed his hands on Antoine’s shoulders. “For what, Antoine? Do you seek redemption?”
Antoine sunk down in the bench. He sighed. “One day, this immortality, won’t it all go away? I mean, a day has to come when all this…all this around us…ends. When we blow out like a candle.”
And Tramos stood.
He looked down at Antoine and Giovanni, as they sat on the bench and looked back up at him. “You both are loyal,” he said. “But it will take far more than your loyalty to our bloodline to redeem our kind.” And then he looked directly at Giovanni. “You, sir, are from a different bloodline. Are you not? Who is your maker?”
Giovanni looked down. “Only recently. I was mortal for a long time. But I am part of the bloodline. Darius is my maker.”
Tramos nodded. “How did I not see that? So you are part of our bloodline then. Interesting that I did not sense that.”
Giovanni sighed. “Claret has placed a curse on me, dear Tramos. When she took my eyes. It was after Darius became mortal again. But before Antoine had resurrected. But she came. As I waited for them to return from Miami. I take care of their chateau, you see. But when I was waiting for them to return from Miami, she came to me! And she took my eyes! And she gouged them out with a knife!”
Giovanni cried and fell to his knees, hugging Tramos’ legs. Tramos looked down at Giovanni, who buried his face in his thighs. Tramos could feel the warmth of the man’s tears moistening his pants. Tramos closed his eyes, shook his head, and placed his hands on Giovanni’s shoulders. “Get up,” he said. “This is not something I would expect from you.” Giovanni raised his head and looked up at him. “Master?”
Tramos smiled. “Do you know who I am?”
Giovanni shook his head and slowly rose to his feet as Antoine looked on.
“I am the eldest,” he said. “The oldest immortal. I was transformed many thousands of years ago. Before Claret. Before Christ walked the Earth. And you will always call me Master, correct?”
Giovanni sat back on his haunches. He looked up at Tramos, who stood, looking down from the shadows. A faint light emanated from behind him.
Giovanni’s eyes widened. “You cannot be…”
Tramos grabbed Giovanni’s chin and yanked it towards his face. “And why do you think that?”
They paused for a moment and Giovanni said nothing, not until Tramos released his grip, and he sat back. He reached his hand up and massaged his chin. He shifted his eyes back up at Tramos. “Because Claret is the oldest.”
Tramos lunged forward. He grabbed Giovanni by the neck with a powerful, muscular hand. “She is gone! Crucified! You crucified her without even really knowing that she even committed a crime! What makes you think that she was even guilty?”
Antoine placed his hand on Tramos’ arm. “Because she recruited a man. A man named George Stanley. It was she. After the crucifixion, we spoke to George. He explained to us what Claret had done.”
Tramos shifted his face towards Antoine. “What do you mean? You mean she did what she was tried for?”
Antoine shrugged his shoulders. “I hesitate to say this – but Monsignor Harrison – he was the one. He conducted a trial for her. He let the immortals make the decision. They voted, and chose to cast her away. They took her to Golgatha. She hung on a cross. And she served for her crimes.”
Tramos took a deep breath and exhaled. He looked forward, out at the cemetery. “Well then,” he said. “I will look into it. I have a mortal researcher who assists me. His name is Hector Tabares. Look him up, Antoine. He has been assisting me for years, and can be of great help to you. But use him to look into this Stanley character. I want to see what role he had to play in all of this. And also Monsignor Harrison. We have to clean up this whole mess with The Hooded Man. But if she was guilty…” Tramos shook his head. “Then that…that would be ‘The Kiss of Judas’, wouldn’t it? The ultimate betrayal.”
II
PREMONITION
IN THE DAYS before Darius had passed, Antoine kept his vigil in the Master Suite of their Chateau in Lyon. It had been a quiet evening; Giovanni was polishing silver in the kitchen as Antoine sat in the rocking chair next to the bed, his arm resting on the arm of the chair, his chin resting in his open palm.
He could never remember Darius being so close to death ever before. Not ever in the centuries they had known each other.
There was a knock on the front door as Antoine looked up.
He placed his chin back in his palm, hoping the caller would go away. He had instructed Giovanni to not answer for any visitors. Antoine sat in the rocking chair, watching Darius. The old and feeble Darius. Now lying on his back under a white sheet, looking like a snow covered mountain range.
The Darius who he had known for so many years, and who was a mere young man in chronological age – at least from when Darius had told Antoine of his transformation. Darius had been merely in his twenties when he encountered Antoine in Badulla, and then, the two of them had been frozen in time together for centuries. And then Darius had to drink from the decanter. That silly, crystal decanter. From that hooded man. Antoine shook his head and sighed.
But the knocking continued, as Antoine sighed and hung his head down, staring at his lap. He heard the clank of silver across the chateau and footsteps shuffle across the floor towards the foyer.
That certainly was Giovanni.
And he was clearly going to peek his head through to curtains from the windows that spanned the walls on the sides of the giant, wooden doors to get a view of the caller.
Antoine stood and headed to the bedroom door. He looked back once more at Darius, covered in white sheets, his head buried in the mountains of fluffy, white pillows. His eyes, sunken and dark. His skin looked pruned a
nd wrinkled. Antoine closed his eyes. He could see Darius’ jaw through his paper-thin skin.
“Darius?” There was no answer, just silence.
Antoine rushed to the bed. He knelt on the side and placed his hands on the side of Darius’ feeble head. After a few moments, his eyes slowly opened and Antoine could hear his breath come quietly.
Antoine closed his eyes and let out a sigh as he heard footsteps in the hallway approach the door. He rested his head on his arms, lying for a moment next to Darius, when he heard Giovanni’s footsteps approach in the hallway, and then the bedroom door click open. “I’m sorry sir. But it was Delia. And she insisted.”
Antoine opened his eyes and slowly looked around his shoulder. “Oh, yes. Delia.” He got up and nodded, turning around and saw Delia approach from the darkness of the hallway. Her hair had turned snow white. And her age appeared to be of an elderly lady. Had she drank from the decanter as well?
He looked at her directly in the eyes.
They were wide open and her face was shifted in concern.
Her face looked pained.
Her mascara was running down her cheeks, through the patchwork of wrinkled skin.
“I’m surprised to see you here, Delia.”
She attempted a smile, but as she looked over and saw Darius dying in the bed, she bit her lip. “I came here to speak with you,” she said.
“Does it concern Darius? Because that is all I am concerned about right now.”
She nodded. “Will you join me in the front room?”
Antoine turned and looked down at Darius as he felt Delia’s light touch on his arm. “Let me speak with you. Away from this room. I have something important to tell you.”
Antoine never took his eyes off Darius as they exited the room, not until he crossed the threshold of the door. Darius lay in bed, as he been now for days. When Antoine had burst out of his grave, he first saw Darius. When Antoine clawed his way out of his coffin, Darius helped tear the wood away, and scoop the dirt out of the deep, dark grave. Antoine looked into the room for one last time. “You clawed me out of the earth with your own bare hands. I will do the same for you.”
And then he heard a familiar voice in his head. It was dark, deep, and demonic.
I am coming for you, Antoine. I am coming to collect payment. Do you remember me? I will see you in your nightmares…
Antoine felt a chill rush through his body as he snapped off the lights and closed the door to the darkened room.
“What is it, Antoine?” Delia’s face was shifted with concern.
Antoine closed his eyes and hung his head down. “I…I haven’t heard that voice for many years…and it spoke to me just now as I was leaving Darius…” There was a quiver in his voice. “Just a moment.”
Antoine dashed back into the room. He threw the drapes open as the bright afternoon daylight spilled into the room. He turned on each bedside lamp, as well as the overhead light. He stood for a moment. “No shadows?” He looked back at Delia. Her eyebrows were raised. Antoine took a few steps back towards the bedroom door as he scanned the room. “You don’t see any shadows, do you?”
“What was that all about, Antoine?”
He shook his head.
“What voice were you talking about, Antoine?”
He shook his head and brushed it off. “Never mind. Let’s go up front.”
*****
Giovanni was waiting in the front parlor holding a tray with two bulbous wine glasses. He stood straight and firm, and did not even reach up to adjust his blindfold. He raised his head towards the sound of their footsteps.
“I thought to open a Beaujolais? Perhaps might help?”
Antoine found his way to the sofa as Delia sat next to him. “Yes, Gio. That’s fine.” He looked over at Delia, directly in her eyes. “Now. What were you pressing to tell me?”
She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Well,” she said. “You know that Darius was aging rapidly after he lost his gift.”
He nodded. “His immortality.”
“Yes,” she said, accepting a glass of dark red wine from Giovanni. He turned to Antoine, holding the tray with the remaining glass. Antoine picked it up as Giovanni sat on the chair across from them, placing the tray on the floor, as Delia took a sip and nodded. “Yes, Antoine,” she said. “Well.” She sounded exasperated as she set her wine glass on the coffee table with a slight clank. She leaned back and looked up at Antoine. “When you were in your coffin, after you had been burned on the altar…do you remember that?”
Antoine nodded. “Yes. I remember. It was after Sacrafice had opened. Asmodai had pursued me. I paid for resurrecting Darius by a coffin-sentence for years.”
“Well, during that time, Darius went through a very difficult period. He lost his immortality that same day you burned on the altar. That was very significant for him.”
Antoine nodded as he fingered the rim of his glass.
“Everything caught up with him,” she said.
“How did you see this?”
“There were days that I would see him. And other days I didn’t, of course. But it was those gaps that seemed to change most. I’d see him on a Monday. And then I might see him again on Friday or Saturday, and he would look ten years older.”
Antoine shook his head, looking down at the floor.
“He was aging quite rapidly,” Delia said. “But the real reason behind my visit today was to tell you about a conversation he had with me a while back. Before you were captured by Asmodai.”
Antoine looked up and opened his eyes. “You mean when we were in business with the club? With Sacrafice?”
She nodded and took another sip of wine. “Yes, Antoine. He told me he had a vision.”
“A vision?”
“A premonition.”
“A premonition? Of what? His own death?”
She looked down at her wine.
Antoine scoffed. “Are you kidding me? He’s still alive. In the back room. You know that, right?”
Giovanni interjected. “Antoine…”
Antoine guzzled his remaining wine and threw his glass across the room. It shattered on the mantle. He stood and started pacing. “Please, Delia! Stop sounding like a side show psychic! Just give me a straight answer!” Giovanni got up and rushed over to the fireplace and started picking up glass shards, placing them in a felt napkin.
Antoine sat on the sofa next to Delia and leaned his elbows on his knees as Giovanni brought Antoine a fresh glass of wine. Antoine looked forward and shook his head.
She looked down at his hand and placed her hand over his gently.
Antoine looked down at her hand, the wrinkled skin, the liver spots, and sighed. He brought his other hand to her chin. “Hey. It’s me,” he said. “Now I have a question. And we’re talking about Darius. I know. But he’s dying in the next room over there and I need to – at the very least – get some answers.” He looked her directly in the eyes. “I’m not blaming you. Now about the conversation?”
She leaned back and sighed. There was a pause. “He came to me with a premonition of his death,” she finally said. Antoine started coughing and spit some of his wine across the room.
Giovanni rushed over as Delia patted Antoine on the back. Giovanni leaned in. “Are you alright, master?” Antoine waved his arm. In his mind’s eye, Antoine could see Darius lying in the room down the hallway. Huddled in a bright, white sheet. His chest rising and falling lightly as he took each breath. And then, Antoine hovered over Darius, locking his eyes near his face, when there was an interruption –
“Antoine what are you doing?”
Antoine took a deep breath through his nose but did not open his eyes.
“Giovanni, please. Let me concentrate.”
Giovanni walked away from the sofa as Antoine exhaled through his mouth. “Very well then,” Antoine said. He did not open his eyes. “Let me continue…”
Antoine recalled the days at Sacrafice.
When he and Darius would
sit in the conference room, around the expansive wooden table (which was roughly the size of North Dakota) and wait. And watch each other, sitting at opposite ends of the table, and stare into each other’s eyes. It was always Darius who would break the silence.
“And do you think that I am somehow – not – a part of this? Of this business venture of yours?”
The meeting of the investors had just concluded.
Antoine had leaned back in the chair and covered his face with his hands. “No, Darius. That’s not what I’m saying at all. But there are rumors circulating that you have been visited by an angel of death.”
Darius scoffed. He stood and slammed his palms on the table. “Who is saying that?”
Antoine walked over to the expansive window on the side wall that overlooked the nightclub dance floor. He looked out into the darkness of the club floor below, and then back over at Darius, who was waiting, arms still propping himself up on the table. “Where were you last night?” Antoine asked, eyebrows raised. “I know what you have been doing in Miami since I resurrected you. Did I make the wrong decision?”
Darius pushed the nearest conference chair down on the floor. “Are you serious?”
Antoine opened his eyes, as he was jolted back to the present.
Delia looked at him expectantly. She leaned forward. “Are you okay?”
Antoine slowly nodded.
“You were shaking.”
Antoine took a deep breath and looked around. “I…I don’t know, really. I remember Darius getting angry. On the night in the conference room. After the meeting of the investors. When I confronted him about the angel of death.”
“The Hooded Man.”
Antoine looked up. “Yes. How did you know?”
Delia sighed and shook her head. “Because I think that’s why he could be dying. I don’t know yet. Don’t circulate this with the immortal community. Just don’t.”
Antoine shook his head. “What is it?”
Delia set her glass of wine down as thunder rumbled outside. She clasped her hands over her knees and raised her eyes to look at Antoine. “This angel of death…this ‘hooded man’…I think he is the cause of all this. Darius came to me, and felt that he was dying. He told me about The Hooded Man. And the night with the young Latino man in Flamingo Park. And the cops. He told me about it all, Antoine.”