The Oldest Living Vampire In Love (The Oldest Living Vampire Saga Book 3)

by Joseph Duncan

“I think you’re testing me in some manner. With all these tales. I think you plan to make me an immortal.”

  “You? An immortal?” I scoffed. “Why would I unleash such a horror on this world?”

  Lukas’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure yet. There’s something you want from me. Something you see in me. Otherwise you would have already killed me. I can see how badly you want to do it sometimes. Your lust for my blood smolders in your eyes when you look at me, even though you try to hide it.”

  I laughed, rising. “You are right. If I were not so lonely, I would tear you limb from limb. I would drain you to the last drop and dispose of your body like the garbage that you are. You saw what I did to your giant compatriot. That is what I plan to do to you when I have tired of your company.”

  I reached for the doorknob.

  “Let me go!” he said hurriedly, anxious to have his say before I departed. “There’s no need to keep me in chains. I want it! I want you to make me a vampire! Let me return home. Let me put my affairs in order, and I will return tonight. You can tell me your stories. I will listen to them all, if that is what you need from me, before you change me into what you are!”

  I stood glaring down at him in disgust, my lips curled back from my fangs.

  “Are you afraid I’ll go to the gendarmes?” he asked. “I am a wanted man! And even if I ran, you would have no trouble finding me.”

  “No, I would not--”

  “Then release me! My sins are no greater than your own. You have no right to pass judgment on me.”

  He rose from the bed, and I stepped away from him. I retreated, and it infuriated me.

  “I know you’re lonely. I’ll gladly be your new companion. I’ll listen to all your tales. Hell, I’ll even fuck you, if that’s what you want. You can take me right now, right here on this bed. We can be together forever, you and I. Hunt together. Kill together—“

  “Be silent!” I roared, grabbing him by the throat.

  He retched, his eyes bulging.

  Jerking him close to me, I stared into his eyes. “Do not presume to know what I do or do not desire from you,” I snarled.

  His fingers scrabbled at my encircling hand, but he could not loosen my icy grip. His face turned red, then began to purple.

  “You are nothing to me,” I whispered. “Less than nothing. A moment’s distraction. An idle diversion. If I wanted to fuck you, I would fuck you. If I wanted to kill you, I would kill you. You offer me nothing I cannot take from you by force. You possess nothing that I need.”

  The vein in his forehead bulged. His eyes fluttered and went blank.

  I threw him onto the bed with a snort of derision.

  He rolled onto his side, wheezing and clutching his throat.

  “You’ve spent your entire life preying on the weak,” I said. “A predator, yes, but you are a hyena in the den of a lion. Do not forget that, Lukas Jaeger. I will devour you if you task me.”

  He did not reply, just laid there whooping and holding his throat. I think, perhaps, he nodded a little, but it might have only been a twitch.

  I picked up his glass and glided silently from the room.

  I locked his door on the way out.

  3

  I do not sleep in a coffin, but I’m sure you’ve already deduced that, you should know me well enough by now. Some vampires do. Even in this day and age. It is a specious affectation, an ironic nod to the superstitions that have always surrounded our kind. I’ve never been one to put on airs, however. I have no delusions about my place in the grand scheme of creation. A bizarre mutant leech, that is all I truly am, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t pamper myself.

  I sleep in a sumptuous four poster bed, a great custom-made bier of cherry and oak, with hand-carved columns and thick draperies of deepest red interwoven with gold threads. I commissioned the bed when I moved to Liege in the early 1900’s, and I paid the craftsman lavishly when I saw the work that he had done for me. The columns are decorated with reliefs of leaping animals and delicate foliage, very detailed, in a swirling art nouveau style, which I find intriguing and lovely.

  After leaving my captive so abruptly, I retired to my bedchamber. I snatched off my clothing and sought refuge in my covers. The room was dark and quiet, the thick drapes filtering out not just the light of the sun but the sounds of traffic from the street below. Despite the comfort of my dark, warm bed, however, I found that I could not sleep. I was too angry.

  I was angry with my captive. Angry at his presumptuousness. And I was angry with myself, that I had allowed the mortal to upset me.

  You should kill him now! I said to myself. He has begun to sniff out your schemes. If you allow this farce to continue, he may find some advantage.

  He might be a mortal, but you cannot underestimate his intellect. He is every bit the predator that you have accused him of being, and you are not half as invulnerable as you like to portray yourself. He has already guessed part of your plans. You know it is only a matter of time before he discerns the rest!

  Plans? I argued with myself. What plans?

  I was lonely, that much was true. And I had allowed this wicked mortal to live, so far, because of that loneliness. All the rest was a jumbled mess of longings and half-formed strategies, a catalogue of what-ifs and do-I-dares. My mind pursued a faint possibility-- helplessly, against my will-- but my intrigues were a hopelessly elaborate house of cards, one that would collapse at the removal of any piece.

  My captive mortal could no more guess my ultimate goal than he could conceive of some way to take advantage of my desires, I consoled myself. The fool actually believed I was sexually attracted to him! Alas, for him, all paths save one led to his destruction.

  And only if I dared to try again.

  My thoughts circled the prospect, a hungry fish eyeing a worm. It knew the worm dangled from a hook. It could see the bright, shining barb… but the meal was so tempting!

  An end to this unceasing existence.

  I have tried so many times before! I won’t bore you by enumerating the methods of self-destruction I have experimented with over the eons. I’ve already told you how I’ve thrown my body from great heights, tried to drown it in the sea, burned it with fire and acids, poisoned it with man’s deadliest drugs and nature’s most lethal venoms. I have sent the cells of my flesh to the most advanced medical research facilities on the globe, hoping their scientists, and the tireless computers they man, might unlock the secret of my annihilation. I never sent a sample of the Strix, the living black blood that animates my flesh. No, never that! For the sake of the world! Only a scraping of my cold, white flesh. All I ever received back from them was a listing of my flesh’s elemental components—complex structures of carbon and silicon—and inquiries begging me to divulge the origin of the material that I’d sent to them. Or more of it. In all my time here on Earth, I have only ever seen a true immortal like myself destroyed once, and replicating the circumstances of it are hopelessly impossible.

  And yet...

  Perhaps there is another way.

  Thinking of death, I drifted into darkness.

  4

  My captive was dozing when I returned to his chamber, his body sprawled across the bed. He was sweating profusely, the fitted sheet untucked from one corner of the mattress and crumpled beneath him.

  A restless sleeper.

  I should think of him by name, I said to myself, if I intend to set upon this course.

  I was reluctant to do it. A name is a terribly intimate thing to wield.

  Every culture has its superstitions: that a name can bring good fortune or bad, that it can be used to curse or bless, heal or strike dead. The ancient Hebrews believed that a man’s name was his soul. Even God bends his ear when called upon by name, or so some men believe. And yet the most powerful invocation is the intimate one, the lover crying out a partner’s name amid the throes of passion, or whispering it lovingly, twined in compliments like the stems of hothouse flowers.

  What responsi
bilities must I assume then, in the utterance of this monster’s name?

  Lover?

  God?

  My lips moved soundlessly: “Lukas Jaeger.”

  Jaeger meant “huntsman”, an apt name for such a deadly human predator. An amoral beast-- child pornographer, rapist, murderer. His name gave testimony to the caprice of the fates. What man, woman or deity could have chosen a better name for this creature, or foreseen that our paths would one day intersect? It seemed preordained.

  I stood over him, a silent revenant. Cold. White. Motionless. I examined him thoughtfully, looking for any flaw which might cause the Strix to reject him.

  A stout man, his body was dense with muscle, fleshy and powerful, his legs like the trunks of two trees, his arms thick, biceps bulging, even at rest. He was a modern barbarian, with thick black hair and a tangled mat of curly hair on his chest and stomach. Square, rough-hewn facial features, handsome despite their severity. A smattering of moles and freckles. Birthmark on the meaty part of his left hip.

  I opened my senses wider, probing his body more thoroughly. Diving through the surface, searching for defects or the telltales of disease.

  His flesh was warm and pink, the whooshing of his heart strong and steady. I could not detect any odors which might indicate cancerous or malfunctioning tissues. He had no infestations of fungal, bacterial or viral organisms. His lungs did not wheeze. His intestines gurgled efficiently. He was the epitome of good health, a living indictment of karma.

  What a monster he would make!

  I envisioned him cold and white and eternal, and shuddered at the thought.

  Dare I do this? Was I so desperate?

  “Lukas,” I whispered.

  He lurched on the bed, coming awake with a cry. I watched with some amusement as he scrambled away from me, his chain slithering after him with a metallic purring sound. It was only when I noticed his blank stare, his head jerking to and fro, that I realized he was blind. It was too dark in the room for him to see me, though I could see him easily enough.

  I flicked the light switch with the tip of my finger. The incandescent globes in the ceiling fixture swept the dark away. The tiny metal filaments inside the glass bulbs hummed.

  I hate that sound. It permeates this modern era: the hum of electrons sweeping through molded metal conduits.

  My captive—Lukas! – blinked at me like a mole. “Oh, it’s you,” he said, but his muscles did not relax. He remained in a semi-crouched position on the opposite side of the bed.

  “The Strix may reject you,” I said without preamble.

  “What?”

  “If I were to… attempt the thing you proposed to me this morning,” I said, “the Strix might reject you. The living black blood which animates our flesh does not always accept a new host body. There is sometimes an… incompatibility. We have never discovered why this occurs, nor can we predict if or when it may transpire. If the living blood finds you unsuitable, you will die a slow and painful death. The Strix will devour you from within. I have seen it occur many times.”

  “How often does it happen?” he asked. “One in ten? One in a hundred?”

  I shrugged. “Somewhere between the former and the latter. Vampires like myself-- the true immortals, I mean to say—have more success making new blood drinkers than our short-lived kin. In that you are most fortunate, but it is never a sure thing, even with a maker as old and powerful as myself. The results are always… wildly unpredictable.”

  “And if I survive?”

  “You may become utterly invulnerable, like me. An Eternal. You may live for several millennia. Or your altered physiology may begin to deteriorate in a few hundred years.”

  “What’s the worst case scenario, besides instant death?” he asked.

  “You may become a mindless, bloodthirsty ghoul. If that is the outcome, I would be compelled to destroy you. The mindless ones are not allowed to exist. If I did not do it, my vampire brothers and sisters would do it the moment they laid eyes on you. We have an instinctive hatred for the failed ones, the ghouls. My kindred would destroy you, and then they would hunt me down and punish me for allowing you to live.” I smiled. “Or perhaps I should say, they would try to punish me. I doubt they would succeed, unless I allowed it.”

  “Punish you how?” Lukas asked, his eyes narrowing. He had relaxed, had moved to sit on the edge of his bed.

  He did not seem overly excited by the prospect of immortality. Not outwardly anyway. If I listened close, however, I could hear his heart beating more rapidly. I could hear the churning of his stomach.

  “There are ways even one such as I might be punished. If I were to do something sufficiently outrageous, my brethren might be goaded to attack me en mass. I cannot be killed, but I can be overwhelmed, and then they might Divide me. It is how the Eternals are punished. But I will tell you more about that later. In this modern era, such a thing is not very likely to happen. Vampires are very rare in this day and age. You might even say we are an endangered species. We tend to be solitary creatures as well. Group endeavors are a very uncommon occurrence.”

  “So you do have laws,” he said.

  “In a manner of speaking, yes, but there are not nearly enough of us to enforce them in any practical way.”

  “No vampire covens? Like in the movies?”

  “Our social groups tend to be very small. Two, sometimes three will travel together for a while. It usually occurs when one of us makes a new blood drinker, but the parental bond sours quickly. Sometimes it lasts a few decades. Sometimes even a few hundred years. Never much longer. Can you imagine being someone’s companion for such a length of time?”

  “No.”

  “If they do not part when the bond withers, any affection they may have had toward one another will turn swiftly to resentment, and then, inevitably, to bitter hatred. Even my own vampire children have turned against me once or twice, and I have never been a cruel or domineering maker.” I shrugged. “It is simply human nature.”

  “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

  “Yes, and despite the changes that are wrought upon our physical bodies, our souls remain human. That is, perhaps, our greatest curse.”

  “That you still love?”

  “And hate. And feel loneliness. All our human emotions—despair, envy, joy, disdain—immortality traps the human soul like an insect in amber.”

  I watched my captive killer absorbing all that I had said to him.

  “So tell me… do you still want this curse? Do you want to live forever?”

  He nodded-- slowly at first, uncertainly-- then more decisively, his shoulders squaring with his resolve, his eyes wide and sober. “Yes,” he said.

  “Even though the attempt may kill you? Slowly, painfully?”

  “Yes, I want you to make me immortal. I’ve seen what you can do. I want your long life. I want your powers.”

  “Even though you must feed on the blood of the living?”

  He laughed.

  “And what are you willing to give me in exchange?” I demanded.

  He thought I was implying sex again. I could see it in his eyes. The way they flicked down to my groin and back up. His muscles went rigid at the thought. I could tell the idea was distasteful to him, but I could also see that he would do it, if that is what I desired of him.

  “Would you please stop thinking I want to have sexual intercourse with you?” I said, exasperated. “The idea of being intimate with you is revolting.”

  His face flushed and he looked away, the corner of his lip curling up on one side.

  “I may decide to make you what I am,” I said. “I have not completely made up my mind whether to kill you or make you immortal, but if I do, I would require one act of fealty from you. I am not ready to tell you what it is yet. I do not know if you are even capable of it, but I would bind you with one promise, and if you fail to carry it out to the best of your abilities, I will bring your vampiric existence to an abrupt and premature end. Do you understand?”<
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  “You want me to promise to do something, and you won’t even tell me what it is?”

  “In exchange for a chance at immortality,” I nodded.

  He grinned humorlessly. “That’s an awful big condition to put on it.”

  “It’s a very rare offer.”

  He scratched his nose, then shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

  I started around the bed toward him.

  “Now? You’re going to do it now?” he squawked, scrambling away from me, his eyes bulging in sudden fear.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “We still have many things to discuss. Now give me your hand—your other hand, idiot!” I slipped the key to his manacle from my pants pocket and released him. As he rubbed his abraded wrist, free of his bonds, I stepped away from him and said, “I release you, Lukas Jaeger. You are free. Go. Do what you will tonight, but return to my home tomorrow at dusk so we can continue our discourse. I would like to finish telling you my story before I make you an immortal. It is the only way you will understand the payment I shall exact from you.”

  “I have no clothes,” he said, looking toward the frosted windows. It was snowing outside. It had been snowing since I awakened.

  “I have clean clothes laid out for you on the counter in the bathroom. There are fresh towels and toiletries as well. Make certain you avail yourself of them both. You stink.”

  He nodded. He gave me a wide berth as he moved to the door, afraid I would snatch him up and devour him, I suppose. Perhaps he suspected I was toying with him, teasing him with the prospect of freedom, of immortality, before cruelly taking his life. It was probably something he would have derived great enjoyment from were our roles reversed, but I had no such intentions.

  “We have brokered a deal, Lukas Jaeger,” I reminded him as his hand fell on the doorknob. “If you do not return to this penthouse tomorrow night, I will hunt you… and there will be no bargaining for your life when I sweep you into my embrace… no promise you can make to keep me from sending you to the afterlife, if such a thing exists.”