Hunger

by Karen E. Taylor

  “But did either of you have any proof about him?”

  “Proof? We heard his confession before he died.”

  “And that’s another thing. If Mitch did not think Max was a vampire, why did he kill him the way a vampire should be killed?”

  I gave a short laugh. “Quite honestly, the choice of weapon was just another one of life’s strange coincidences.”

  “And what were you doing when all this happened?” He frowned as the words escaped his lips, as if he realized that they would be damning to me.

  I allowed my anger to show. “I was there, what was I to do? Max was, oh, dammit, Max was just Max. I don’t believe that I could say anything that could make you understand Max. He was larger than life, a romantic hero in the classical sense. Arrogant and egocentric, he often thought of himself as a god. And I’m not so sure that he was wrong. But he couldn’t accept the fact that I could love a”—I just barely stopped the word “human” from escaping my lips—“another man. When Mitch and I realized that Max was the murderer, I begged him to let me handle it. Mitch was too stubborn, too proud himself, to accept my help.”

  My criticism of Mitch seemed to anger Sam. “And what in hell do you think that would have accomplished? What would have kept Max from killing you?”

  I gave him a direct stare. “Max did not want me dead. He would never have hurt me physically in any way.”

  “Just the same”—Sam shrugged—“I think Mitch did the right thing, not allowing you to confront him alone.”

  “Had I gone alone, there would have been no confrontation.” No, I told myself, there would have been no confrontation, since I would easily have succumbed to Max’s demands; it was only Mitch’s trust in me that enabled me to break the bonds imposed on me. “For all the good it has done me. I’m right back where I was, stuck between the two of them.” I muttered the last words but did not repeat them at his request. “I didn’t want the two of them to meet, would have done anything possible to avoid being involved in the death of either of them. Max had forced the issued to the impasse, so that there could be only one alternative—his death or Mitch’s. And I loved Mitch. There was no other choice.” I stopped on that last word; I had said too much, and if Sam had been listening carefully, he would have been able to hear my admission of murder. But he ignored my last comment—perhaps he wasn’t as good a listener as he thought.

  “And you left the country so soon afterward. Why?”

  I stood up suddenly. “This discussion has reached its end, I think. Why I left is, quite frankly, none of your business. And I am tired.”

  He accepted my rebuff calmly, and nodded, finally taking a sip of his coffee. “Damn coffee’s cold,” he said, heading for the kitchen, and opened the cardboard box, “and now so’s the pizza.”

  I tried to match his commonplace tone, as if I really had been telling a story about strangers, not people that I knew and loved. “There’s more coffee, and you can reheat the pizza.”

  He began to rummage through the cabinets, opening then slamming them closed; dishes and pans rattled and clanked. Eventually, I heard the sound of the oven door creaking open. “It’ll be ready in about five or ten minutes, in case you’ve changed your mind.”

  I glanced at the clock; it was only slightly after eleven. “No, I don’t . . . oh, no.”

  “What’s wrong?” Sam came out of the kitchen.

  “Nothing really, but I just remembered I had an appointment this evening.”

  “At this time of night? With whom?”

  “Victor Lange, executor of Max’s will.”

  He gave a low whistle. “No kidding? Max left you something?”

  “No, Sam.” I tried to smile, but what appeared on my lips was more of a grimace. “Max did not leave me something—he left me everything.”

  I paused a moment while he let my statement sink in. “I suppose I should call him and reschedule.”

  “I would if I were you. If you don’t mind my asking, how much do you get?”

  Laughing, I answered him. “After all the questions you’ve asked this evening, another one could hardly matter. Especially in such a trivial area. I don’t really know how much, but I understand it is a fairly large fortune—that is, if I choose to take it.”

  “Choose to take it? Why wouldn’t you?” Sam’s tone betrayed his incredulity.

  All traces of laughter disappeared from my voice, and I looked at him with disappointment. “You heard the story, but you didn’t listen, did you? It comes from Max.” I turned my back on him and dialed the number of the Ballroom of Romance.

  “Victor Lange, please, Deirdre Griffin calling,” I said when the phone was answered.

  I waited for a moment only when Victor picked up the line. “Deirdre, you’re late.”

  “I know Victor, I’m so sorry. We’ll have to meet at another time; I’m involved in another matter right now.”

  Victor chuckled. “I’m sure you are. Max once mentioned your proclivity, but I wasn’t sure I believed him.”

  I resented his tone. “It’s not what you think, Victor.”

  He laughed again. “Whatever you say, Deirdre. By the way, there was a friend of yours here tonight, asking for you. Someone by the name of Ron. Ring any bells?”

  “Damn,” I said coldly. “I told him to wait for my call.” I thought for a minute. “I would appreciate it, Victor, if you could discourage this kind of activity. Is he still there?”

  “I don’t know. Shall I check?” His voice still held amusement, and I grew angry, not so much at him as at myself for causing this situation.

  “Dammit, no. I’ll deal with him later.”

  “As you wish. Would you like to make another appointment?”

  “Tomorrow night, same time, same place?”

  “Fine, only don’t stand me up again, Deirdre. Have some compassion for an old man.”

  I hung up the phone and turned around to find Sam staring at me.

  “Trouble?” he said, a puzzled expression his face.

  “Nothing that I can’t handle, thank you.” I was sorry to see that my hard tone caused a touch of pain in his eyes. With a lighter voice I joked, “Now, is that your pizza I smell burning?”

  “Oh, shit!” He went for the kitchen. The oven door squeaked again. “Thank God it’s not too bad. I never eat the crust anyway. I’m starving, how about you?”

  “No, really, I don’t—” I started to insist again, but a blaring siren sounded from the street. “What the hell?” I asked, but Sam came running from the kitchen and headed toward the door.

  “It’s the car alarm.” He was outside before I could say anything, and I quickly followed him.

  Sam stood at the curb, yelling obscenities at the shadowy figure tearing down the street; I held my ears to keep out the sound. When the thief was out of sight, he went around to the shattered driver’s window and reached in to shut off the alarm. The acrid smell of blood and further obscenities from Sam’s mouth assaulted my senses at the same time.

  “Oh, shit, I cut myself. Goddamned car thieves. Goddamned stinking neighborhood. Goddamned stinking car.”

  “Shall I call the police?” My voice was trembling; the odor of his blood was so close, so compelling. “Or an ambulance?”

  “No to both. Do you suppose Mitch has a first aid kit?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, let’s at least go inside and see what sort of damage I’ve done.”

  I glanced at him hesitantly as he came around the car and toward me; his shirt was streaked with red and his arm dripped small crimson drops. My nostrils flared, my teeth grew sharp, and the hunger awoke. “Blood,” the voice inside hissed with glee. “We don’t want him around anyway, do we, my dear? We could have him now; take him inside. We could answer all his questions in one simple step.” Laughter that was not mine rang in my head.

  “Oh, Jesus, not now, please not now, just go away,” I whispered to him.

  “Deirdre, are you okay? You’re so pale�
�don’t tell me you faint at the sight of blood?”

  My nervous laughter echoed back from the surrounding buildings as I tried to drown out the inner urgings. “Of course not, Sam. I used to be a nurse.” My voice sounded soft, breathless. I tried to pull my glance away from his arm and that precious blood dripping on the sidewalk. I didn’t dare breathe as I walked past him to the brownstone’s entrance. “Come inside.” My back was to him and I licked my trembling lips. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  His wound turned out to be little more than a superficial scratch. And to my relief, when his arm was rinsed in cold water, the bleeding stopped. I ran the water in the sink to flush away all traces of his blood. Then I lightly daubed the cut with antibiotic cream and wound his arm with gauze that I had found. My trembling subsided, and when I had finished I was able to give him a smile, with unsharpened teeth. “All better.”

  “Thank you. That was very well done. Are you really a nurse?”

  “Some time ago I served as one, yes.”

  “Can’t have been that long ago, Deirdre. You aren’t that old.”

  “Well, it seems a long time.” I shrugged. “You know how it is.”

  “Yeah.” He looked at me and began to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing, I guess.” He continued to laugh, almost giggling. “What a strange evening it’s been. As I said before, you are one strange lady.”

  “I am what I am.”

  “Yeah, well, aren’t we all?”

  I gave him a twisted smile. “No, actually, Sam, I don’t think so.”

  He stared at me for a minute, all traces of his laughter gone, then he checked his watch and shook his head. “Look at the time; how did it get so late? I’d better go now. Do you mind if I take the tape home, make some notes, and talk to you later? I can’t really think after midnight.”

  “That would be fine. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  “Can you make it earlier? I have plans for the evening.”

  I shook my head. “Absolutely not. I have plans for the day.”

  “The night after that, then. But I assume you’ll be visiting Mitch.”

  “Yes, during the evening.” I laughed. “At least I will be there if Nurse Jean isn’t on duty.”

  “Don’t worry, she knows who you are now. She’ll let you in.”

  “If you say so.”

  He began to make a move to the door. “Oh, Sam!” I stopped him before he could get out. “Take your pizza, please.”

  The disgust I felt must have shown, because he started laughing again. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with such an aversion to plain, simple pizza as you.”

  I went to the kitchen, put it back into the box, and handed it to him with a half smile. “Enjoy.”

  Sam took the box, then laid it down on the table near the door. His expression was serious again. “Deirdre, I want to thank you for talking to me this evening. Everything you’ve told me will be a big help, and if his rate of improvement continues, I think I can promise that Mitch will be released soon.”

  I put my hand out, but he surprised me and put his arms around me in a brief embrace. Ignoring my gasp, he kissed me lightly on the lips, then moved away and picked up the pizza box. “Thanks again, Deirdre, and good night.”

  After he had gone, I closed the door, locked it, and went into the kitchen to open the window. It took almost an hour to rid the apartment of the smell of burnt garlic pizza. And by that time I had also purged my senses of the smell of Sam’s blood.

  Chapter 11

  My dreams bring me once more to the cemetery. This time I am spared the trip through the dirt of his grave; he is waiting for me, lounging indolently against his tombstone, smiling at me, the tips of extended canines and white skin gleaming in the moonlight.

  Wordlessly, I hand him the rose I carry, and with a courtly bow he takes it from me, delicately inserting it into his breast pocket.

  Although I know it for a dream, I also sense that it is real; he is real and he is solid flesh once more. I find my voice and speak.

  “What is it to be this evening, Max? More blood? More death, and torture, and guilt?”

  He holds out his hand and I reach for it, touch it. He draws me to him. Our hearts beat to the same rhythm. Enfolding me in the black silken wings of his dark soul, he whispers to me.

  “Nothing so simple, my love. You have more painful lessons to learn than that. Tonight I will show you youth, my youth and my lost innocence.”

  The world spins around us, a giddy, sickening whirl. A heavy, tangible mist swirls around us, and we are engulfed in that mist, then disembodied, thinned and carried by the cold night wind.

  Candles are burning and a large hearth glows with the dying embers of a fire. Above the hearth hangs a tapestry coat of arms. At first I think the room empty, but my eyes are directed to a young man, dressed in fine dark velvet, who sits hunched over a piano.

  No, an inner voice supplies, a clavichord; the piano does not yet exist.

  The music the boy plays is sweet and pure, and something about the way he holds his head is familiar. Then, still playing, he turns his head briefly to glance at a woman entering the room. A smile curves his lips as he returns to the music, finishing it with a feverish intensity. When the last chords fade from hearing, he shakes back his long black hair and rises from the bench;

  I gasp at my recognition of him, and although I have no body, no physical presence in this place, his eyes come to rest where I would be standing, as if I called his name. His face is still flushed with the fervor of playing, the eyes light and shining with an eagerness that even after years of looking on those same eyes, I have never seen before. His finely sculptured face is the work of a master, Bernini perhaps, or Michelangelo, but immature, or incomplete, as if the artist had neglected the last few chisel strokes that would imprint the true character.

  Intently I study the young man, no more than fifteen or sixteen years of age, and the incongruity becomes clear. It is Max before the many centuries heaped upon his flawless features the blemishes of pride and arrogance, murder and blood—Max before the inheritance of the curse of vampirism.

  “No,” I cry, voiceless in this ancient place. “No.” That so fine a creature could be so absolutely corrupted is an evil almost beyond comprehension.

  “You see,” he replies, an irony in his voice, unheard in the young one’s, as he talks quietly with the other person in the room. “I was once your equal. I walked proudly in unity with my fellow men and humbly before my God.” And the irony is replaced by sadness as I feel him direct our eyes to the woman. “My mother”—his tears are hot on my face—“an angel among women.”

  I look at her; through my vision she is a normal, middle-aged woman, her hair graying. Her thin frame seems fragile, and although weighed down with the volume of her clothing, she holds herself erect with pride and effort. Her face is creased with worry, sorrow, and laughter, and her light eyes are circled beneath with heavy shadows. But in Max’s view she is beautiful, and his memories of her become mine. I remember her calm voice, her clarity of thought, her many loving acts, as if she were my mother. And I feel his pain when she coughs quietly, yet persistently, into a small silk handkerchief.

  “She is dying.” Max’s voice confirms my thoughts. “In two years she will be gone.” He turns on me in bitterness. “You are not the only one to have lost your loved ones over the centuries. But listen now, you must learn who I was to learn who I became.”

  Suddenly we are no longer observers to the past. We are merged with the youthful Max, buried deep within him.

  “Madre.” I grasp her hands within mine. “You were to rest. Go back to your bed; I will come up to say good night later.”

  “No, my son.” She smiles, and the knowledge of her impending death saddens me. “This will be your last night under this roof as my son. When next you return you will no longer be my Maximilian, my dearest boy.” She wipes her eyes. “But do not th
ink that I am unhappy with your choice. You will do well in your vocation. You must remember to make me proud, and to celebrate your first Mass for me.”

  “Mother, I will.”

  She reaches up and gently touches my cheek. “Now play for me.”

  I obey and sit down at the instrument again. It is strange to look down upon hands that are not mine, playing from memory music I do not know. And yet it feels right. Max’s young fingers move across the keys; the music comes from deep within me, flows through me, filling and purifying my corrupted soul with unexpected joy.

  The scene begins to blur before my eyes and the mist engulfs us, pulling us away.

  “Please, just a few minutes more,” I cry. I do not want to leave the music or the room, filled with so much love; it could be a home for me; it is my home. “I want to go back.”

  There is no one to answer my plea, for suddenly I am in the cemetery, alone, in my own body once more, pressed against the cold earth of his grave.

  When I woke, I could not remember where I was, much less who I was. “Max?” I whispered, trying to sense his presence within me. There was no response. I shrugged off the covers and walked down the hall to the bathroom. As I stooped over the sink, splashing water on my face to alleviate the confusion and grogginess caused by the dream, my stomach tightened in panic. What if I looked into the mirror and saw, not my face, but his? And would I know the difference?

  Trembling, I reached behind me for a towel dried myself, and slowly dropped it, revealing to my relief the familiar features of Deirdre Griffin.

  “Jesus, what a dream.” Tensely I laughed at my fears. “You are you,” I assured my mirror image. “Who else would you be? And Max, a priest? Deirdre, you have had some strange dreams in your life, but I believe that one will take first place.” The sound of my voice provided some comfort, but my eyes quickly darted around the room, looking for the familiar ghost.