Actually, the last time I had exchanged a few words with someone was during one of my visits to a brothel, a habit I hadn't lost despite the events that you all know about. Certain needs are die-hard, although I no longer became intimate with any of the girls I met. I never revealed anything of my true nature and allowed my partners to remain with the uncomfortable impression of having just brought a dead man to bed, as indeed it was. I could feel their discomfort in touching my cold body and their bewilderment of my snake-like eyes, but I used my powers to beguile them and everything went smoothly, even if I had to restrain myself from biting them as not to leave any traces of my presence. Anonymity was my new religion; I have had enough trouble for ten lifetimes.
“Let’s talk about you, instead. How old are you supposed to be?"
"Nineteen, I guess. Let me see, that would then mean that I will be nineteen forever?"
"I don't think you're going to live that long, given your wise tongue, but yes, that will always be your age."
"What about you? How old are you? Let me guess... I'd say about twenty-five or twenty-six as a human and ten thousand as a vampire. You're so boring, you can't be any younger than that for sure."
He burst into laughter and gave me a massive slap on my arm, drawing another murderous glare from me. I'd never admit it, but I felt very close to stretching my lips into a smile.
"Come on, I'm joking! I'm trying to make you laugh a little! So, did I get it right?"
"You're close to the human age: twenty-eight. You're completely way off on the vampire one, but I'm not going to tell you anything more. Where's your family?"
"Oh, I don’t have one. I’ve been living alone since I was eleven."
He said it with such nonchalance, as if he had stopped suffering about it a long time ago.
"And you? Do you have a family? Where are you from? Your accent sounds a bit strange."
"My family consists of my maker and her brothers. The human one has been gone for a very long time now. And, to satisfy your endless curiosity, I'm Dutch. Are we done now? I can ask questions, but you can't."
"Would you like..."
After the visit to Shibeen's house where we took some clothing rather obsolete but in better condition than those that Stefan was wearing, I thought it was time to part with my new, very loquacious friend.
He didn't think the same.
"With a good cleaning up, the Academy could even take you in consideration. See you, Stefan."
"Wait!"
He was at my side in a flash, managing to get another a sigh and a roll of the eyes from me. "I knew it. What the hell do you want, again?"
"Well, I was wondering if we could spend this last night together. With this weather, my new clothes will be ruined and I still have some more questions to ask. Before dawn, I will go and never disturb you again, I swear. Uh? Please..."
In fact, it had started snowing.
Although he wouldn’t have suffered from the cold, seeing him there in the middle of nowhere with his pathetic rags on him and barefoot, stirred in me the little glimmer of compassion that I kept well hidden somewhere inside me. I snorted and invited him to follow me with a nod.
"You will be just a memory by tomorrow night, right? And, don't talk to my neighbors anymore!"
"All right, thank you. Does this mean that I can still ask you some more questions?"
"What you can do now is to follow me quickly. I'm thirsty and I have to hunt. What about you? Have you put aside some fat, juicy rats?"
"I'm fine. I had dinner before I came. I was very hungry and I almost drained a horse, but when I left him, he was still alive. Maybe he'll recover, poor thing."
"Really moving. Do you think you can tolerate what I will be doing soon? I don't plan on hunting mice to please you."
"I know. I'll try not to look. Why don't you apply to the Academy with me? With your physical stature, you'd make an amazing warrior."
"It's a bit complicated. I'm not on good terms with Vincent. I fear that my candidacy would be dismissed with a laugh."
"What happened?"
"It's a matter dating many years ago, it’s better to leave it alone."
"Being able to get more information about you is really hard, Dutchman, have you noticed?"
I cut him off with a curt wave of my hand and stopped abruptly: I had just smelled the unmistakable odor of a human being in the vicinity and thirst had been unleashed in my throat. I hadn't fed for several days and I struggled to keep myself under control to act with the necessary caution. He froze and clung to my arm. I shook him off with annoyance and summoned him again to silence with a glare, vanishing in the shadows of a side street with him still attached to my cloak. Moments later, a man passed by in front of our hiding place, walking briskly. He was dressed elegantly, with a long coat lined with fur, black hat, and knee-high boots, clean and creaky on the frozen ground. He had no inkling of our presence until I came out behind him and assaulted him, dragging him to the ground. He was tall and very heavy, not one of the usual, weak vagrant I was particularly fond of; he put up a fierce resistance, wriggling and rolling around on the ground until he clutched his hands around my neck. As luck would have it, a thick woolen scarf protected his neck from the attack of my teeth.
"Help! Help! Somebody help me!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, pounding my face and my chest with his fists until I blocked his hands on the ground and deafened him with a headshot on his nose, making it gush with blood. The sight and smell of the food made me lose control. I ripped his scarf with my teeth and had free access to his pulsating throat. The man cried out loud and grabbed me by the hair, trying to make me lift my head, but I was too far to be affected. Stefan drew me back from my ecstasy with a shout.
"Hurry up, some people are coming, many of them!"
I raised my face with a jerk, annoyed by his interruption, but I realized Stefan was right: a group of people had gathered at the opening of the street, armed with sticks and knives. The alley was just half-lit because the oil lamps were much closer to the main street, so the people hesitated, unable to focus well on what was going on some fifty yards ahead at the point where we were. I stood up and took Stefan by his wrist, inviting him to follow me in a more shaded area, but just then two things happened: the man woke up and started to scream again and I realized that we were in a blind alley, blocked at one end by a solid brick wall. Meanwhile, the people who came to the aid of the cries of help of my victim seemed to multiply with each passing second. His new shrieks had induced them to stop their reluctance and to head to him, lying on the ground, with firm, decisive steps. I noticed with a certain amount of concern that they were carrying torches. So much for our hiding place in the dark! Stefan was crouched beside me, clinging to my arm, his eyes as big as saucers. "What are we going to do now? What are we going to do? Oh God, I just died, I don't want to die again! Raistan, they will take us apart!"
"Keep calm, let me do the talking."
I came out of the shadow in a swift and elegant move just in front of the crowd that was fast approaching. Between us, on the ground, clasping his own neck with bloody hands, lay the man I assaulted. He was trying to sit up but he kept falling here and there, shedding his blood on the white snow. During his attempts, he addressed his saviors and pointed at me with his eyes wide open in terror. The crowd meanwhile had stopped. It was composed of at least fifteen men, rather elegantly dressed and armed in various ways: swords, sticks, daggers, and even a rope ending with a slipknot. This was very good for a neighborhood, it was clear that solidarity among its neighbors was deeply felt.
"Good evening, Sirs," I began. "I'm afraid that the gentleman here had run against an unpleasant mishap."
"It was he! It was he! He sucked my blood, he's a creature of the devil!" the guy shouted, crawling towards his rescuers. One of them came forward and helped him to his feet, though he had to hold him up to prevent him from collapsing to the ground again. Judging by the level of my thirst, still completely unquenched, I had
sucked only about a couple of pints from him, though enough to make him feel quite weak. If I had had a few more minutes, this unfortunate mishap would not have occurred.
At the mention of demons and blood sucking and seeing the bloody hand of the man who kept applying pressure on the wound, the crowd, incited by angry murmurs, started to move towards us. I lowered my head and showed my fangs with a menacing growl: the crowd hesitated for a moment, but then continued to march in our direction again. Kylian's name, Shibeen's brother who died in a similar assault, came to mind. What did he feel before the angry crowd overwhelmed him? My overriding feeling was incredulity. I wasn't used to the fact that people don’t flee after receiving a warning like mine. I realized that Stefan was still glued to my back; he was so small compared to me that the humans hadn't spotted him yet. He was shaking and emitting strange squeaks of terror. Nobody would have ever thought that he was a vampire too. In the mounting apprehension that gripped me with a herd of executioners now just a few yards away, I decided it could also be an advantage.
I reached behind my back, grabbed Stefan by his shirt, and put him in front of me, as if I had just taken him from a secret pocket of my coat. I wrapped my arm around him and bent his head, bringing my mouth to his throat. "I advise you to stop or this poor orphan will die... I was keeping him as dessert, but given the circumstances..."
I could feel a strange quiver in the back of my impromptu hostage. With a feeling very close to horror, I realized that he was about to laugh despite our tragic situation. I sank my teeth into his neck and felt him wince and emit a strangled groan. I hoped that it would spur him on to play his part properly. More murmuring from the crowd. At least they had stopped their advance, but their eyes were threatening and their weapons were still being wielded with decision.
"Now, please step aside and let me pass, unless you want this poor youngster's blood on your consciences..."
I stepped forward, still shielding myself from them with Stefan. For now, he had lost his desire to laugh because the crowd didn't seem eager to let us go. Their thoughts were a seething storm of threats, fear, and indecision, a worrying mixture. Depending on the element that would prevail, the fate of the evening would be different. I calculated to be able to kill some of them very quickly and hoped that Stefan would be able to do the same; but there still would have been at least ten of them left to face at the same time, and I wasn't sure of our success. Three or four stabs from the swords would hinder any vampire, but would not be life-threatening. Pain would still be intense as it would be for anyone else, only the outcome would be different. What if someone decided to behead me? I prefer not to think about it.
"I'm running out of patience, gentlemen!" I shouted, then I hissed in my companion's ear: "Complain, be the hostage, do something!"
"Oh!" he said, as if he was just rousing from some sort of a dream, then he started reciting. "Please, don't let him kill me! I've got three little brothers waiting for me at home! We're orphans, nobody takes care of them except for me! Please. Do what he says, he's a heartless monster; he's been holding me captive for three days and drinks from me drop by drop just for fun!"
To emphasize his message, I sank my fangs deeper into his neck - the wound was already healing and it was better if they did not see it - tapping a rivulet of blood that dripped along his throat and towards his half-covered chest.
"Hey, will you stop it?" he hissed in turn. It could have been funny if we hadn’t been in such a dangerous situation. Meanwhile, snow was falling harder and harder, making it more difficult even to see.
Finally, the crowd parted, creating a narrow passage to let us pass. Still clutching my friend tightly, I passed through between the two wings of people, sensing the tension that animated them like a thick fog hanging in the air and scrutinizing each side to catch any sudden movements. Ahead of us, salvation: the opening of the street, deserted and whitened with snow, with the light of the street lamp in the distance.
I turned once again towards the crowd, thanked them with a mocking bow and disappeared, dragging Stefan and leaving behind the echoes of his crazy laugh.
We ran all the way home without stopping.
When we finally reached the staircase heading to Montmartre, we slowed down a little.
"If you wanted to persuade me to hunt humans, you picked the wrong way... It was... it was... dreadful! YAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!"
I finally discharged a liberating chuckle; upon seeing Stefan's astonished expression after hearing me laugh for the first time, I laughed again. He seemed totally incapable of stopping.
"I'm sorry," I said, still laughing - "You're very unlucky... in almost fifty years, it's the first time something like that happened to me. If it were not for you being my hostage, I don't know how..."
Wham!
A lightning-fast punch rendered me speechless, cracking my lip.
"This was for biting me and this..." Another punch, this time in my stomach, "for treating me badly from the moment we met!"
As soon as I recovered from the surprise, furious and astonished, I stared at him with an irresistible urge to tear him to pieces on the spot. But, seeing his little clenched fists and his flashing eyes, I was again overwhelmed by hilarity. I had to grasp on to the staircase railing so as not to crumble to the ground. He was laughing too, howling in his usual way, something that further intensified my laughter. I could only imagine how we may have looked to some passersby - two vampires covered with snow roaring with laughter at three in the morning at the foot of Montmartre - and I literally started to bray and then fell on Stefan, dragging him to the ground under my weight.
That liberating laughter gave start to our friendship. In the end, when we recovered, the relationship between us had changed completely. I was always the grumpy one, antisocial and cold; he, on the other hand, brought a wave of joy in the lives of everyone he met. From the outside, nothing seemed to have changed: I continued to treat him as badly as before, scolding him and teasing him, sometimes with cruelty; but the annoyance that I felt for him had been replaced by something very similar to the need of his company, although this is the first time that I admit this even to myself.
A few months after he had taken up his career path, I followed him to the Academy. I couldn't bear the silence of my home after the barrage of questions with which he had bombarded me for days. I liked the way he accepted my bad temper, never getting angry, always ready to diffuse any situation with his unique and unmistakable laugh. He even actually stood his ground. With him, I had some of the most memorable fights of my life, and he never harbored any bitterness, always being very frank and direct. He had no problem calling me a moron anytime if he thought I was acting like one and he was right most of the time. He was clever and insightful, as I had already guessed from some of his observations, sincere and sarcastic... and loyal. Immensely loyal.
Maybe you have noticed that I'm talking about the past. The truth is that Stefan died the night I fell victim to Greylord's ambush.
I never had a friend like Stefan again.
Fuck, I never had a friend of any kind.
I miss you, Puck, but this remains between the two of us.
19 - SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK
Almost six months had passed since I said my farewell to Stefan.
He had spent two days at home with me after our thrilling night and I did my best to simulate a nuisance that I wasn't really feeling just for the perverse pleasure of teasing him. After hours of exhausting interrogation, he succeeded in finding out what had happened during my first encounter with Vincent. He was left speechless when I revealed to him that I told the Master to fuck off.
"Yes, but then he helped you when you were sick.” He had managed to extort that story well. “Maybe he's forgiven you now. Why don't you try to apply anyway?"
"I'm afraid I'm extremely averse to authority. I'd get myself in trouble only after a week, that's why. No, I don't think it would be my cup of tea..."
"Too bad. I'll come to see you as
soon as I've settled down, supposing they accept me, of course. Will you remember me?"
"I don't meet enough people to be able to afford to forget them, even someone as insignificant as you. You’ll see, I will still be able to recognize who you are. You, on the other hand...why should you come back to an old grump like me with all the people you'll get to know and all the things you will be doing?"
I uttered this sentence by staring at an unspecific spot on the floor; not hearing his reply, I curiously lifted my eyes and found him looking at me seriously and thoughtfully.
"Do you really think I could forget the only person who has done something good for me in the last ten years? I might have become a vampire, but I'm not ungrateful."
"Fine, ok. Leave, now."
"I'm leaving, but I know you will miss me."
"I might surprise you..." I said with a grin and gave him a slap on his nape to which he replied with an awkward hug that surprised me above all else. Vampires don't like being touched; we usually don't express our feelings on a physical level, even because there's very little to externalize. Stefan wasn't and would never be an ordinary vampire, luckily for him, and he could afford to show his affection in ways normally forbidden to us all. I stiffened and stood still with my hands raised as if in a gesture of surrender, even if I'd have liked to have hugged him back, I really would have; in the end, I gave him some gawky pats on his shoulder and pulled back gently quickly.
"I'll return to you," he said, and he kept his promise. He always did.
Some months later, out for my usual night stroll, I noticed a young man leaning against a tree on the opposite side of the street, staring at my door. He wore a long black jacket with sleeve cuffs embroidered in silver, tight pants tucked into his shiny boots, and his dark, shoulder-length hair combed back. When he saw me, he raised his hand in a shy greeting gesture and smiled. I froze in place, looking behind me. There was no one there and, therefore, I concluded that his wave was directed to me. He crossed the street at a supernatural speed and I realized that he was something more than an ordinary guy.
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