Cara Mia - Book One of the Immortyl Revolution

by Denise Verrico

  “Maybe so but we can’t leave this here.”

  He shrugged, shoving the remains indifferently into the dumpster, staring at the gore on his hands. Blood was smeared and spattered all over his face. Couldn’t walk through the streets with him looking like this, I had to lick him clean. I pulled him behind the dumpster to clean the blood from his face and hands with my tongue. Panting, he grabbed my face, kissing me hard as he pinned me against a wall. “Now we fuck!”

  “You’re completely covered in blood… ”

  He tugged at my jeans and turned me to face the wall. “Don’t care.”

  We fucked standing up, crying out like animals.

  When we made it back to the apartment, Kurt collapsed on the futon, moaning. Alcohol in the blood was affecting him adversely. He sat up suddenly, vomiting blood onto the floor and all over his clothes.

  “Boy, you’re a fun date.” I ran and got a large plastic garbage bag from under the sink and wet towels from the bathroom. “You should know better than to take a drunk,” I scolded him as I mopped up the blood. “Did you want to get caught? Let’s get these clothes off.” I took off his lightweight brown leather jacket, much nicer than anything I had. I sponged it off, throwing it onto the chair. Tearing off his shirt, I stuffed it into the plastic bag and then stripped off his jeans. I wiped as much blood as I could from his body and threw the towels in the bag, too.

  “Come on, you’re taking a shower,” I said, as I hefted his arm over my shoulder.

  I put him under the shower to let the water sober him up. He grimaced and groaned. Ethan had sometimes taken inebriated victims but they never affected him quite this much. I was careful never to indulge too much myself. Silent, Kurt leaned back against the wall of the stall as I washed the rest of the blood away. Now and then a little shiver of pleasure convulsed his body.

  Afterward, I wrapped him in a robe I’d stolen from a hotel, and led him out to sit on the chair while I disposed of the bloody sheets. While I remade the futon, Kurt sat behind me, staring at his hands even though they were free of blood. It was far from sunrise but the best thing he could do was to sleep it off.

  “Lie down.” I took him by the hand like a child.

  He loosened the robe, letting it slip down his body to the floor, sinking to the futon in my arms with a bemused smile. “Fuck?”

  “Go to sleep. You’re in no condition.”

  “Always ready.” He moaned, grasping the sides of his head in pain. “Scheisse!”

  I soothed him, laying myself alongside him. “It’s all right— sleep.”

  While he slept it off, I took the bag down to the incinerator and dropped it in. After that was done, I went back to clean the bathroom. As I came back into the room I noticed Kurt’s passport and wallet lying open on the coffee table. I picked them up and flipped through them. The passport was Norwegian, counterfeit. It named him as one Erik Nordstrom, giving his age as twenty-one years, birthplace as Oslo. I picked up the wallet, a few credit cards and about fifty dollars cash were inside and his Norwegian driver’s license, also faked. That wasn’t what I was looking for. A faded, creased photograph was tucked behind the driver’s license, a slender dark-haired man, a pretty blonde woman, a dark haired little girl and Kurt, about thirteen years old, his parents and his sister, a world ago, as he’d said.

  He cried out in his sleep. I hugged him tight. “Kurt, are you all right?”

  He muttered a name under his breath, “Fritz…” and fell quiet again. His eyes moved rapidly below the lids, in a deep dream state, his mind unguarded. I pulled the sheet back from his throat and ran my fingers down his carotid artery. It was too tempting not to take advantage of this, and peek inside at his secrets, not out of malice but concern. I bent my head down and touched my lips to his ear. “Kurt,” I whispered. “I want to share with you.”

  He mumbled, but didn’t wake. I licked the artery to find the pulse. I knew it wasn’t right, but I did it any way. I nicked him in the throat, and sucked on the small wound. Sweetness. Light washed into me for a moment. I climaxed, clinging to him, but suddenly cold mist swirled in around us. As it cleared, I saw a younger version of Kurt huddled on the ground, wet and covered in mud. Through the shadows emerged a tall figure, wearing a uniform with a long coat and cap emblazoned with a skull. The SS officer lit a cigarette and for a moment cold, gray eyes illuminated in the blaze. He dragged on the cigarette, regarding Kurt’s wretched state, walking around him in a circle. From his coat pocket he drew a photograph. I didn’t need to see it to know what it was. He held it out to Kurt with one hand and beckoned with the other. Kurt’s apparition rose as if in a trance and disappeared in the man’s embrace.

  Suddenly, Kurt cried out. I drew back as he sprang up. “Fritz!”

  “Are you all right?”

  “A nightmare,” he muttered, falling back to the bed. He rubbed his head, wincing. “What time?”

  “One.”

  He rubbed his eyes. “Must call Brovik.”

  “It’s daylight there.”

  “He hardly sleeps.” He tried to sit up, grimacing in pain. “Scheisse! Bring the phone.” He rubbed at his neck and felt the mark. He took his fingers away and stared at the drops of blood on them in disbelief. He looked up at me, horrified. “What have you done?”

  “You were having nightmares.”

  “How could you? You knew I was unguarded!”

  “I just wanted to understand.”

  He grabbed me roughly. “What did you see?”

  “A man, in an SS uniform.”

  “How can I ever trust you again?”

  Kurt got out of bed. I tried to stop him. “You’re still not well— his blood made you sick.”

  “Don’t touch me! “ He looked frantically around. “What have you done with my clothes?”

  “Don’t you remember anything? You vomited blood everywhere. I had to throw them away. There’s your jacket. I was able to save that.”

  Kurt sank down onto the futon, and picked up his wallet. “Brovik warned me about you, but I didn’t believe him.” He noticed something was missing. He picked up his jacket and rifled through the pockets, panicking. “Where is it? What did you do with it?”

  I picked the picture up off the table and handed it to him. “This? It’s your family, isn’t it?”

  Kurt stared at the old photograph, the present melted away and he looked back to a time and place he didn’t want to go. He sighed heavily. “I was out when they came for us… I’d just turned fifteen. I had some flowers in my hand I’d picked for Luka, my little sister, weeds really, no one bothered to plant anything that spring. I missed them by minutes. One final goodbye I was spared… or robbed of. The SS were still outside of the building, loading people into trucks. I ran.

  It started to rain. I’d hidden in a storm drain. The SS found me, crouching like a drowned rat, covered in filth. The officer recognized me from my concerts, and said I was to be taken to his quarters for special treatment. You know what that usually meant? It would have been better than what he did to me. They took me to Dauchau, and took everything away, my clothes, my hair and gave me this.” He held out his arm. “I had a wallet on me— this picture and my identity card were all that were in it. They took that too, then led me to him. He said if I cooperated, I’d be shown preferential treatment. I’d work for him as a servant instead of slaving in a factory. He handed the photograph to me, smiling. His smile was… obscene. Not even Brovik knows what I did to stay alive. Bargains with the devil Mia, it was just the beginning for me.”

  “You were just a boy. You wanted to live. That’s not a crime.”

  “Perhaps not, but all I’ve done since then is.”

  He laid his head on my breast. I caressed the fine, burnished hair as his tears flowed. I hated myself for revealing the face of this demon. What did I have to offer him but the deceit and trickery I’d learned from Ethan? He’d given up a tattered remnant of his soul that he’d guarded vigilantly for over forty years and what did
I have to ease it? His heart beat against me, the rushing blood through his body called to me again. I could give him the intimacy only two Immortyls can share. What others took against my will, I’d give to him freely.

  “Take my essence, Kurt.”

  He pulled away, stammering, “Mia, this one thing Brovik forbids. He says it will bind me to you.”

  “It’s too late. I’ve already had yours. He owns your body Kurt, he can’t own your soul.”

  “Do we have any to speak of?” He hesitated, eyes brimming with vestigial moisture as he took my hand between his fingers, tracing the network of veins. Touching the palm to his lips, weighing the consequences of this action, a look of resolve came over him. His mouth opened and clamped down on my wrist. I shuddered as the points entered then retracted and his lips wrapped around the wound. We collapsed on the mattress as he pressed his own wrist against my lips. My tongue licked the slight bulge of the artery before taking him. His skin was sweet and salty. As it broke, a warm wet fountain bubbled up over my tongue.

  Rhythm throbbed throughout him, penetrating every fiber. A soaring voice, an angel, sexless, ageless, sang as the blazing white light inside of him spilled over into me, sending shadows and phantom shapes to the edges of the landscape. The light and song grew brighter, cutting through the confusion, far too bright for poor battered Psyche. The god came forward in all his glory, face too bright to look upon, arms and wings outspread to gather her to him.

  I cried out, pulling away from Kurt. “I’m sorry! I can’t!”

  He blinked. That same terrifying light blazed in the depths of his eyes as a look of utter astonishment came over him, a glissando of wonder escaping from his lips. He clasped me to him, his tears wetting my skin. “Don’t spoil this.”

  I called myself every foul thing I could think of. My heart was dead and buried somewhere among the wreckage bearing Ethan’s name, all that remained was to feed off of Kurt’s, and it was seductive, to suck up pieces of his soul he proffered like rubies dripping from his hands.”

  Mia paused, a single tear gliding down her cheek. Joe was deeply disturbed by what she’d told him about Kurt. In his work he’d run across human monsters that preyed on kids sexually, the worst kind of ghouls. It destroyed lesser individuals, but Kurt had turned into cold, hard stuff and survived, ultimately finding a unique outlet for his revenge.

  She stared into space. “This demon gnaws and gnaws at him. He delivered himself into my hands, gave me his deepest, most painful secret and he’s suffered for it every hour, since that night.”

  SEVENTEEN

  * * * *

  “Kurt stayed a month before Brovik summoned him home. I ached for him when he left. The cramped apartment felt empty. The piano stood silent, gathering dust. I reverted to my old habits, wandering the city night after night, evading the odd Immortyl.

  Kurt would drop in unexpectedly, clutching a single red rose like a mortal boy to give to the girl of his fancy. I’d take the long stemmed flowers and reflect on the masses Ethan had showered me with. How very like Kurt to make the elegant gesture. How very like Ethan to make the ostentatious.

  Years passed. Manhattan changed yet again. Established old shops and restaurants gave way to franchises. The pin stripes of the eighties faded into to the flannel shirts and torn jeans of yet another generation. Somebody figured out that in the year 2000 a lot of computers might not know what year it is, probably some clerk making fifteen grand a year. Computers would crash and planes would drop from the sky. A sheep was cloned and newspapers proclaimed a breakthrough in the field of genetics. It was the post era, post modern, post feminist, and post gay. Here a post, there a post everywhere a post, post. Ethan was right. Time was a spectacle.

  Aside from Kurt, my callers were few. I remained far out of the loop as progress on Brovik’s work went. Kurt wasn’t at liberty to tell specifics and I didn’t bother to press him because I’d come to think the whole thing impossible.

  Ethan had disappeared, Kurt told me. Brovik hadn’t heard anything of him for years. I hoped he walked the streets of hell.

  Then, one early summer night in the last year of the tumultuous century of my birth, Kurt arrived with his customary floral offering. “Got a surprise for you… ”

  I hadn’t seen Philip in over a decade. He extracted himself from my impulsive embrace and gave me a long look. “You have roses in your cheeks again. The boy is good for you.”

  Kurt came up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. “Philip’s been working too hard. We must show him a good time.”

  “Dreadful, isn’t it? Imagine me, respectably toiling away at meetings and all sorts of nonsense. I don’t suppose you two would know a decent nightclub?” He eyed Kurt and me catching up on lost kisses. “No. I doubt you two get out much.”

  “We come up for air occasionally, “I said.

  Kurt kissed my neck. “Let’s take him out on the town.”

  “Shall we then? I have a car outside.”

  Kurt shook his head. “Let’s walk. It’s a beautiful night.”

  We went to a club in Tribeca but my libidinous pal, Philip hardly noticed the young and lovely mortals swarming the dance floor. He didn’t dance, which he loved, even though asked several times. You couldn’t really call it dancing, it was just kind of a ritualized groping, but Kurt and I joined the milling mass of bodies while Philip sat at the table, nursing a glass of wine. At Philip’s age you could tolerate a little more.

  He was very quiet and watchful of Kurt and me when we joined him again. I waved away the thick pall of smoke hanging around us with the drink card on the table. “What’s wrong with you tonight? This brooding isn’t like you. Jesus, you’re acting like Ethan.”

  Turned out to be the wrong thing to say, Kurt winced as if someone had just staked his heart.

  Philip cleared his throat. “Little one, there is something I must tell you.”

  “Can’t it wait until later?” Kurt complained. “Must you spoil my evening with her?”

  “What?”

  Kurt frowned. “Tell her, I can’t.”

  “Ethan is back in Virginia. Actually, I just left him. He’s coming to New York to see you.”

  This bit of news got me in the gut like Ethan’s foot. I turned to Kurt. “I’m not going back to him.”

  He took me into his arms to reassure me. “You don’t have to. He has no rights over you anymore.”

  Philip watched us keenly. “None, indeed.”

  “Then that’s that. No problem,” I said.

  Kurt flashed a dazzling smile. “There, you see, Philip.”

  “Yes, I see clearly.”

  I had to turn away from Philip’s probing gaze. He didn’t look convinced. Damn him, he understood how much this news knocked me off-kilter. I kissed Kurt’s mouth to reassure myself, deciding he was definitely still my favorite flavor. Kurt for his part was unusually attentive, caressing my hair and whispering erotic temptations into my ear. I couldn’t think of going on without Kurt, but I hardly knew how I’d react when Ethan showed up.

  Kurt’s cell phone jangled and he excused himself to answer it outside.

  “Why is he coming here?” I asked Philip when Kurt left. “He must know I’ll spit in his face.”

  “He’s got this idea that he wants to make amends.”

  “I won’t see him.”

  “I haven’t told Kurt yet, but Ethan wants to settle property on you. He owes you this. I relayed this to the ancient, and Brovik feels you should accept. It would smooth things over financially for you. It’s rather embarrassing for him that you insist on earning your own way. It looks like he can’t take care of you.”

  “No, it means he can’t control me, and to accept anything from Ethan suggests a contract. I’m not assuming the position.”

  “No one says you must, but I must warn you Brovik is having second thoughts about your little liaison with Kurt. Truth be told, he’s concerned about the boy’s loyalty.”

  “Kurt has never exp
ressed a disloyal thought. He’s dedicated everything to this cause.”

  “The boy is in love, and you know how Brovik feels about the influence of women, particularly yours.”

  “I’ve never done a thing to turn Kurt.”

  “So I assured him, but he hasn’t remained where he is for a thousand years without being cautious.”

  “Philip, I’m scared. You know how Ethan is.”

  “Kurt is the one for you, but you’re too stupid to see it. Don’t let Ethan destroy this. He will, if you give him an inch.”

  I spied Kurt, a seraph wending his way through the clouds of smoke issuing from hundreds of cigarettes dangling from mortal lips, politely rebuffing a boy who stopped him to ask for a light. Kurt shook his head, flashing a sweet smile. The smoker, not so easily put off, grabbed Kurt’s arm, and whispered into his ear to ask for something else. This was a good time to come to his rescue.

  “Let’s get out of here. This smoke is awful,” I said to Philip, rising and pushing through the crowd toward Kurt. “Come on, I need fresh air.” I took Kurt’s hand and dragged him away from the hopeful smoker.

  The sky was unusually filled with stars. In Manhattan, we generally make do with artificial lights as they tend to make stars invisible, but on nights of extreme clarity they shine, fewer than in other places but they manage. We decided to walk down to the battery. Philip was subdued as we looked out over the harbor toward the green goddess Liberty. Kurt said little, clinging to me like he was afraid I’d run off. Conversation felt strained and stale.

  Philip bid us goodbye once we returned to my place, and drove off to a hotel. Kurt watched the first flashes of dawn lighting the horizon from my window. “You’re uncertain of what you’ll do.”

  I laid my head against his shoulder. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You’ve never told me, Mia,” he whispered. “You know I do.”

  I brushed back a stray lock from his forehead and kissed his cheek. We couldn’t even speak the word, maybe because it had too many bad connotations for us. It’s much bandied about, but seldom true. It has much more to do with ownership, and being owned, or just plain bloodletting. This thing Kurt and I had, was unheard of.