The manager hurried away. I watched him disappear upstairs, and then I spit my drink back into my glass, my expression of feigned drunkenness fading from my features.
The bartender saw me spit out my drink, and I placed the glass down on the bar.
“Too much vermouth,” I said dryly, and cast myself once more into the sea of human flesh.
Now that I had the old pervert’s scent, I contented myself with haunting the nightclub’s more dimly lit corners. A shadow among shadows, I stilled my thoughts and waited, untouched by the revelry surrounding me. I watched the stairs and tried to ignore the flashing lights and crashing music, the writhing bodies and shouts of merriment. At last the old man appeared, a young tart clutching each of his elbows. Escorted by the young women, he bid his friend Jules good night and pressed through the crowd toward the exit.
He didn’t see me follow him out, or notice my dark form scaling the alley behind him.
It’s one of the few details your popular media gets right when it comes to vampires. The ability to crawl up vertical surfaces is something almost all vampires can do. Our bodies, unlike the bodies of mortal men, are very light. When we are made into a blood drinker, the Strix crystalizes our cells, purging them of all bodily fluids. We are hollow shells, all the way down to the cellular level. Unless we’ve just gorged ourselves on mortal blood, that lightness, coupled with the rasp-like texture of our fingertips and palms, allows us to shimmy up just about any porous surface.
Also, it’s very fun.
A sparse snow was falling when Maurice exited the Vesuvius. Tiny spicules of ice, more like grains of sand than snow, swirled through the streets between the tower blocks and high rise buildings. It made a sensual sound as it descended, a sibilant susurration. The girls, now in furs, ducked their heads as they accompanied Maurice, complaining loudly about the weather and trying not to slip on the icy sidewalks, wobbling drunkenly on their high heel shoes.
I leapt nimbly across the alley to the next building and scurried to about a twelfth floor height. The frigid winter wind tried to peel me from the wall as I ascended, hooting as it whipped through the icy canyons of the street. I pressed my belly closer to the cold bricks, my long hair whipping to and fro, and followed Maurice as he walked with his underage escort to a nearby parking garage.
One of the girls slipped and fell, landing hard on her rump.
The other one laughed, calling her friend a clumsy bitch. Her voice was cruel and taunting.
The fallen one cursed back.
“Ladies, please!” my Frenchman pled. “This icy wind is making my bones ache!”
I slithered around the corner of the building like a gecko, climbing higher so that I might pass unnoticed by any passersby. There, just ahead of my quarry, a street light was out. An entire block was mired in night. I shifted on the wall until my head was pointed earthwards. I had to crane my neck all the way back to keep an eye on my prey, my hair dangling below me, but at least the wind, on this side of the building, was not blowing so hard.
My victim was only meters from our rendezvous in the dark! I waited, my body tensing, as the Frenchman helped his tart to her feet, and then they continued on, their voices echoing down the street.
“We’ll warm those old bones for you, grand-pere!” one of the girls declared.
“Old bone!” the other snorted. “Singular!”
Laughter.
“So long as he has more blow!”
“Yes, we want more blow, grand-pere.”
“Give us some blow and we’ll give you a blow.”
“At the same time, if you wish.”
Chuckling at their ribaldry, Maurice stepped into the darkness.
Finally--!
I pushed from the wall with all of my might, spreading my arms to guide my short flight to the street. The wind screamed in my ears. Icy snow struck my cheeks so hard it felt like little chips of broken glass were slashing across my face. I landed only inches behind him, unseen, unheard, and, encircling him in my arms, I took back to the air with such speed that the Frenchman was instantly knocked unconscious by the sudden, brutal acceleration.
The young women yelped as a powerful gust of wind blew up their skirts. It took them several seconds to realize that their naughty grand-pere was no longer walking between them.
I heard them call out to him, wondering aloud where he had gone, completely befuddled, but their voices were already growing faint.
I raced across the rooftops with my supper in my arms.
Maurice groaned and tucked his brow to my chest, blood seeping from one of his ears, instinctively shielding his face from the blistering wind.
I leapt from the ledge of a twenty story apartment complex and landed several seconds later at the southern perimeter of the Parc d’Avroy, which was always deserted at this hour, especially in the winter months.
“Wake up, grand-pere,” I murmured with a grin. “We have reservations for dinner.”
I carried him into the park.
6
Parc D’Avroy has been here in the center of Liege for 130 years. It was once a tributary of the Meuse, but the city filled it in 1835 to make way for a plantation of trees. It continued to expand until 1880, until it had become the largest and most decorated park in the city.
During the warmer months, it is a tourist attraction, its multitudinous paths winding through broad green lawns and shady coppices, Greek statuary and monuments, but in the winter, blanketed in snow and ice, Parc D’Avroy is all but forsaken. A perfect retreat for a monster like me, one whose needs require a bit of privacy.
I shifted Fournier in my arms and carried him into the park, walking until my booted feet vanished into virginal white drifts, and the insulating snow had silenced the sounds of traffic from the Boulevard D’Avroy and Rogier.
In the woods near the lake, I placed Fournier on the ground and waited for him to rouse.
I was trembling with desire.
The old Frenchman looked frail, almost tragic, lying in that bank of virgin white, cheeks and eyes sunken. His features were made all the more gaunt-looking dominated as they were by that big French nose. I watched the snow fall onto his body while I waited for the cold to revive him. I was intrigued at how slowly the snow melted on his skin. It was almost like he was already dead. But for the puffs of vapor blowing from his enormous nostrils, I might have thought my violent abduction had done him in. I had been careful to cushion his body against mine when I took off from the sidewalk like a rocket, but it is still terribly jarring to be snatched into the air like that. I knew from bitter experience.
Snowflakes drifted down all around us. Some of them landed on the old man’s eyelashes and clung to them. I stared, enrapt by the sight. If I looked very closely, concentrated on the image, I could just make out the fanning fractal patterns of those tiny, delicate crystals.
The old man stirred, groaned. His eyes flashed open, dislodging the snowflakes, and then he struggled to sit up, croaking, “Wha--? Where-- Where am I?”
He noticed me squatting nearby and scrambled a short distance away. I put my hand up, smiling to sooth him.
“You!” he accused. “You are the drunken Englishman from the club!”
“Actually, I’m German,” I replied in French, “but I’ve travelled quite extensively. It’s why my accent is so strange.”
“Where are we? What happened? I remember stepping outside…”
I looked around with a pleasant smile. “We’re in the Parc d’Avroy. Lovely, isn’t it? The lake’s right over there.”
He followed my finger, looking toward the icy lake, which was just visible through the copse of trees to the east of us. His head swiveled back toward me, his upper lip peeling back from his teeth. He had large, ugly teeth, stained brown from nicotine and coffee. Snow accumulated on his wiry gray curls like a sprinkling of stardust.
“What happened? Why are we here?” he asked. He pulled a sour face. “Did those sluts rob me? Is that what happened?” He checked
his skull for lumps, thinking someone had snuck up behind him and knocked him unconscious with a blackjack.
I shook my head.
“Then what happened?”
“You died,” I said.
“I… died?”
I nodded.
Fournier snorted. “I don’t feel dead!”
I spread my hands. “Whoever feels dead, mon ami?”
He still thought I was joking—or mad. He chuckled. “And I suppose you are the angel of death, n’est-ce pas?”
“Effectivement!” I said, giving him a wink. “I am the angel of death!”
His grin faded by degrees. I smelled the fear sweat begin to seep from his pores.
“I am here to take you to hell, Maurice,” I said, and my smile faded—also by degrees.
“Who are you really?” he whispered harshly.
I waited a beat before answering. “I am a friend of your business partner, Lukas Jaeger. He has contracted me to kill you.”
My confession rocked the treacherous old pornographer. “What? Why?” he exclaimed. “I have only been kind to that arrogant little bastard! Why would he hire someone to kill me? I don’t understand!”
I shrugged. “It’s complicated. We have an arrangement.”
I rose and went to pick him up. The old man squealed as I lifted him bodily from the snow.
“Wait! Wait!” he squalled. “How much did he pay you? I will double it-- triple it!-- if you kill him instead!”
I paused as if to consider it. “Triple?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“Oui! Oui!”
I laughed.
“He does not pay me in money,” I said, and then I dipped my fangs to his throat.
The old man howled, stabbing me in the chest.
I stepped back, looking at the front of my shirt in surprise. I didn’t see him retrieve the knife from his pocket.
“Die, you cocksucker!” he yelled triumphantly, and he lunged toward me and stabbed me twice more.
The third time he stabbed me, the blade caught in my chest, wedged between two ribs. It slipped from his fingers and he stumbled back from me, eyes wide, his skeletal frame quaking from head to toe.
I looked at him blandly.
He stood slightly hunched, puffs of white vapor billowing from his mouth.
“Well… die already,” he said after a moment.
I sighed. I couldn’t believe I’d let the old man ruin a perfectly good shirt. It was one of my favorites—my black turtleneck sweater.
I pulled the knife from my chest and examined it. A switchblade. How droll.
I bent the blade forward until it snapped back into its hilt. The old man watched with disbelief as I stuffed the weapon into my front pocket. Holding his gaze, I pulled the front of my shirt up. I wanted him to see my wounds heal, watch them fade away to nothing.
“Mon dieu!” he whispered, his eyes growing wider.
“Not exactly,” I smiled.
Mother always scolded me for playing with my food.
I took him then, leaping upon him like a blood-crazed animal… which is actually what I am. Let’s be frank. He screamed as I knocked him to the snow, tried to push me off. I paid little attention to the fingers clawing at my face. He did not have the strength to scratch my marble-like flesh. I pushed his chin to one side and lowered my mouth to his throat.
Ah! That smell!
I took a moment to savor it: that aroma. I inhaled him, filled my lungs with him, the scent of his blood, his sweat, his fear. I imagined his entire body pulsing beneath me like a slug, sloshing with all that thick, hot, nourishing blood. I would make a bloody fount of him and drown myself in it!
Then my lips split back from my razor sharp teeth and I surrendered to my hunger. I tore into the flesh of his neck, severing his carotid and jugular with one quick snap of my jaws. He stiffened, then began to buck beneath me, struggling with renewed vigor, one last futile burst of strength. He grabbed a handful of my hair and tried to pull my mouth from his throat. I fastened onto him, making of seal of my lips. I was careful not to let any of his blood squirt on me, as I had one further errand to complete before I retired for the night. Finally, he surrendered. His hand flopped to the snow. His last breath rattled from his throat.
I only paused in my feast once: when the old man voided his bowels.
Hey, it happens.
A long and gassy purr emanated from his posterior. I drew back from him, wrinkling my nose. Disgusting old fiend! I shuddered at his rudeness and finished draining him, taking my time, drinking my fill. He had snorted a lot of cocaine tonight, and the stimulant rushed to my brain, giving me a sensation of euphoria before the Strix neutralized the chemical, as it does all poisons and drugs.
I finished with a sigh, sitting back in the snow with a satisfied smile. Eyes closed, I enjoyed the rush—the drugs he had ingested and the sustenance surging through every cell of my body.
As sometimes happens, I felt a distant echo of his personality as his blood coursed through my veins. Ghost voices murmured in my mind, like the mutterings of lost souls in the winding corridors of a dark and deserted manor.
It is never anything distinct, the voices. Not with mortals. Not for me. Just a sense of otherness as their universe slowly darkens, absorbed into my body, and then their souls (if that is what they are) dwindle to a single point of light in my awareness like an old television screen fading to black.
I brought the living blood up into my mouth and spat some of it onto my fingertips. It was marbled red, his mortal blood mixed with mine. It takes the Strix several minutes to fully absorb a meal. Before the fluid could oxidize, I smeared the glittering substance onto the Frenchman’s savaged neck and watched as his wounds began to close. The ragged edges of his injuries softened like melting wax. The lacerations filled in, then quickly faded from sight. Within moments, you couldn’t even tell that he’d been injured. Apart from the being dead part, of course.
I helped myself to the cash in his wallet, my belly sloshing, and then I leapt to the treetops and made my way out of the park.
As I returned home, I stopped at a diner to pick up Lukas’s meal.
“Your shirt is torn,” the waitress said. She had a jowly face, bags beneath her eyes.
“So it is,” I replied, peering down at my turtleneck.
“You should dress more warmly, love,” the plump old frau advised. “On a night like this, you’ll catch your death. Here you go. Your dinner’s ready.”
“Oh, it’s not for me,” I smiled. “I’ve already eaten.”
Dinner Conversation
1
“Scheisse! It’s cold!” Lukas complained. He scowled at me as he explored the contents of the Styrofoam containers I’d returned with, as if I’d allowed his meal to get cold on purpose. He crumpled the paper sack and tossed it aside, his chain clinking.
“It’s very cold out,” I said.
“Don’t you have a microwave?”
“I’m not reheating your dinner,” I growled, and he grinned at me, amused by my annoyance.
I chastised myself for allowing the cretin to goad me. I really should kill him, I thought, but I was too full to dine again tonight. For such a skinny man, his cohort Maurice had been very filling. To kill Lukas now would simply be a waste.
I watched him stuff his mouth with frites, what you Americans call “French fries”, eating with his fingers.
I enjoy watching mortals eat. I suppose it’s something that I miss: the variety of food you mortals dine on. Fruits. Vegetables. The seared flesh of animals. The pleasure of ingesting blood, for vampires, is almost orgasmic, but it is still the same thing every night. Blood, blood and more blood. I think that is why older vampires feed only when they are compelled to by their hunger. You would grow bored if you had to eat the same thing every night, too. Regardless of how pleasurable it might be.
“I wish I had some beer to drink,” he said wistfully. I had forgotten to bring him anything to drink.
“I can
only offer you some water,” I replied.
“No, wine?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“If you’re going to keep me here like some kind of pet, you really should stock up on some wine, at least. Beer would be preferable, though. To deprive a man of beer and wine…!” He shuddered. “Inhumane!”
I caught his eye. “I do not plan to keep you much longer.”
He swallowed thickly, eyes wide, then he smiled again as if to show me that he was unafraid, but I could smell the lie of it. He smelled desperate. Aside from the sour smell of his unwashed flesh. He smelled desperate and unhappy.
I left the room to fetch him something to drink. My penthouse was dark, all the lights turned out but the lights in my captive’s chambers, but I do not need electric lights to find my way around the dark. The shadows do not veil my preternatural sight as it veils the eyes of mortals.
My captive sneered when I returned with a mug of tap water, but he took it and drank before returning to his cold frites. I watched his jaw move, the muscles in his cheek bulging rhythmically. I could almost taste the frites from the smell that arose from the container. Grease, potatoes, spices and salt.
“There’s something I can’t quite figure out about you,” he said casually as I crossed the room to a chair.
“And that is?” I asked. I moved the chair near his bed and sat.
Speaking with his mouth full, Lukas said, “Whether you’re a faggot or not.”
I chuckled. “Does it matter?”
“Of course it does,” Lukas replied. “I don’t like faggots. I spent half my childhood fending off my papa, and then in prison… always there was some faggot offering me his ass or mouth. It sickens me.”
“I do not plan to force myself upon you, if that is what you fear,” I said.
“I’m not afraid of anything,” Lukas declared.
“When I was a mortal man, our marriage customs were quite different than they are today,” I said. “My people were polygamous, and our group marriages often included more than one male member.”
The Oldest Living Vampire In Love (The Oldest Living Vampire Saga Book 3) Page 3