Part Seven ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The boy’s gasp was audible in the silence. "You didn’t." The vampire said nothing, but his green eyes looked down sadly and he blinked once. The boy’s hazel eyes went round in horror. "My God." The vampire’s eyes shot up and he nearly drowned the boy in angst. "We had no choice! It was the only way. We were tired of the drama, and the sarcasm, and of washing ink out of the tub every day. Elijah wanted to disappear for awhile, and he needed me to help him. So I did." The boy bit his lip. "Was it...bad?" The vampire’s eyes fell and he shuddered beneath his suit. "It was horrible." "Riding in the carriage all the next day, luggage under my feet and Elijah asleep in my lap, I stared at the chinks of light peeking in through the thick black curtains and thought of Dominic’s face. I could see him standing there, in only his black silk pajama pants, blinking sleepily at our piled bags and saying quietly, ‘What are you doing, William?’ I hesitated, but Elijah stepped forward and said brusquely, ‘We’re leaving, Dominic, and you needn’t bother trying to stop us.’ Dominic turned eyes to me that were still smoky gray but were beginning to crackle with ominous white streaks. ‘What did he say?’ I took a step towards Elijah. ‘It’s just for awhile, Dominic. Elijah needs to clear his head, and he asked me to come with him. We all know you’ve been... restless, lately. You could use some time to think.’ His eyes flared into glaring orbs of silver. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’ Elijah pulled his hand from his pocket and held it closed tightly into a fist. ‘Don’t come any closer, Dominic.’ I felt a twinge of alarm and stepped between them before their tempers got out of hand. ‘Dominic please, try to understand--' ‘I made you!’ he snarled, voice raspy with rage. I knew he would never let us go quietly. ‘Where would you be without me? I saved us! It was me! We survived because of me!’ ‘Not anymore,’ Elijah said. Dominic strode toward us, furious, and I saw Elijah’s hand flick once and the shiny splinter fell to the floor directly beneath Dominic’s descending left foot." The boy covered his mouth with one hand, aghast. The vampire shivered and closed his eyes. "Never will I forget that sound -- the horrid screams of agony as Dominic writhed on the floor and clutched at his wounded flesh. It was dreadful. I stared, appalled, as Elijah grabbed up our bags and cried, ‘Let’s go, William! The carriage is waiting!’ Dominic rolled and coiled on the floor, his never-ending caterwauling only going up in volume. He looked up at me pitifully through his tears and cried, ‘Oh! Oh William, help me, get it out, get it out it’s killing me oh God I’m dying...’ ‘Oh for God’s sake, stop being such a baby!’ said Elijah. ‘You’ll be fine as soon as you pull it out.’ Dominic continued twisting and sweating on the Persian rug, groaning, until even I raised an eyebrow and said, ‘Really, Dominic, I can’t believe you’re making such a fuss over that splinter.’ Dominic moaned. ‘Oh, it burns us,it freezes...’ Bags in hand, swirling on our special vampire-issue Dramatic Black Cloaks for sun protection, Elijah and I stepped over the prostrate form and headed for the door. ‘I’m sorry, Dominic,’ said Elijah. ‘But it’s for your own good. And don’t try to follow us -- not until you’ve learned to behave properly.’ And then we were gone. A covert midnight ferry-ride and a hasty carriage-rental later, I sat ensconced in folds of dramatic black and angsty white, staring blankly at motes in the shafts of light and toying with the unruly spikes of Elijah’s newly-regrown hair. He slept so peacefully, but my mind was on Dominic. I missed him already. Missed his quick smile and his flashing eyes, his dark molasses voice and his arms around me at night... and that one twisty thing he could do with his thumb. I wondered if he was alright, if he would come looking for us, and if perhaps we had gone too far. As if in answer, I felt Elijah’s lips stir on my thigh as he said softly, ‘He’ll be alright, William. We did the right thing.’ ‘Are you sure?’ I whispered. He raised his head, stared up at me with drowsy eyes and parted lips, and I fell in love with him for the ten thousandth time. ‘I miss him too.’ He moved slowly, crawling his way up my body until he knelt on the seat beside me and ran his hands into the gaping collar of my shirt. I leaned into him, and I was just starting to feel like maybe things would be alright when a sudden thought occurred to me. I had no idea where we were going. We knew we wanted to get to the Continent, but Elijah had secured the carriage and I hadn’t thought of discussing our destination in the distress of our departure. I wondered where Elijah might be taking me. Italy? Germany? I knew he had a fondness for German girls. Once again, he seemed able to read my mind. I felt his breath damp on my neck as he whispered, ‘Paris, my love. We’re going to Paris.’ And then I could feel his teeth sharp and glassy on my pulse, and his hands deft and clever on the buttons of my trousers, and I shivered and jerked as I realized he had learned to do the twisty thing with his thumb. Then he pulled me down beside him, and I stopped thinking for quite some time. And when I woke, we were in Paris." The vampire’s face brightened, almost seeming to light up as he smiled, only mildly distracting and/or attracting the boy with the display of pointiness. "I take it you settled in well?" asked the boy. The vampire raised an eyebrow. "Ever wonder why they call it gay Paree?" The boy cleared his throat. "Being an old soul, I knew I’d find the beauty of Paris soothing, and a suitable environment for my angst. It was artistic, romantic, and not too foreign, as I’d learned French years ago from a casual encounter with a diplomat’s son. Amazing what you can pick up if you’re not careful. What I wasn’t prepared for was the effect the place would have on Elijah. It was nearing the turn of the century, and the city was alive with youth and change and passion. Elijah flourished like a rare flower in Paris -- the bohemian flavor appealed to him both figuratively and literally. For my sake, he agreed to take our apartments in a more stately and serene section of town, but he soon spent all his time down in the poetry salons and artist’s taverns, where the painters praised him and plied him and he came home every morning with blood on his lips and shrill drunken giggling in his throat. His mouth tasted like absinthe and cloves before he fell asleep sprawled heavily across my chest. As always, I adored my angel, and I spent so much time catering to his wishes and joining him on museum tours and art exhibits and bohemian org-- uh, poetry readings, that in time I almost forgot the unpleasant memory of that last day with Dominic and the wondering of when he might come to find us. Elijah watched me closely for signs of such reminiscing, and he was always ready to drink the angst off my pouty lips and scatter guilty thoughts of Dominic with his slick and nimble fingers. In Elijah, I had an unlikely companion in my appreciation of the arts. Dominic’s tastes had been mainly limited to the prints one could buy from the back room of a bathhouse, but Elijah adored all forms of art and music and theater, and we resumed our nightly routine of dinner-and-a-show with a vengeance. French food did prove to be richer, but easier to swallow and just as satisfying as our British cuisine. And as most of them were pale to begin with, discretion was made all the more easier. It was in music that Elijah’s true passion lay. He kept up with the latest composers, always talking of the newest piece or production that I simply had to hear. I remember the day he came bursting into our flat, his arms full of bizarre little packages and a bright smile beaming from his lips. ‘William, you must see this!’ he cried. He had dropped the odd parcels on the table and stepped back out the door, and returned carrying a large contraption such as I had never seen, a wooden box with a great open bowl gaping at the top like a giant flower. He set it on the table as I stared and began ripping open one of the little packages, face almost flushed with excitement. ‘As soon as I saw it, I had to have it.’ He pulled a large wax cylinder from the paper and fiddled it into the box. Then he turned a crank and stepped back, and smiled at me as the sound of soft clear music flowed out into the room. My jaw dropped. ‘La Boheme!’ ‘It’s called a phonograph,’ he said. ‘Do you like it?’ ‘It’s wonderful!’ I said. ‘You can get these little cylinders with all kinds of music. I went a bit overboard and bought a whole bagful. I just couldn’t choose. Don’t worry, I won’t buy too many.’ He stepped close as the strains of Puccini curled out from the machine and wrapped around us. His eyelids dropped a fraction. ‘I got this one for you,’ he said. ‘I know how much you love it.’ His fingers toyed with the buttons of my shirt. ‘So tell me, does Puccini still make you...you know...’ It was a good thing I kept my shirts nearly half unbuttoned just for times such as these. And so we loved Paris, and Paris loved us, and we loved each other and anyone else we could find and all the world seemed spread out at our feet. And yet, for all that, my angst remained as much a part of me as the kilt on my hips, and it wasn’t long before even Elijah’s expert attentions couldn’t give me complete solace and I relapsed into my nightly stroll of cross-armed, dangling-forelock solitude. He merely smiled, and kissed my cheek, and told me not to forget my cloak. I wasn’t sure of the cause this time. I assumed it was a lingering longing for days past, and Dominic’s absence still troubled me whenever I passed a tailor’s shop or bought a bag of candy sticks for no reason. But there was something else, a hidden despair, that gnawing irritation of missing something you could not even name. Something odd, something lacking. And then, one clear dark night as I strolled along the Champs des Elysees, I found it without ever realizing I was looking. Or more accurately, it found me. I saw him standing by a streetlamp in front of an outdoor café, smoking a long thin cigarette held between slender delicate fingers. I stopped up short when I saw him, immediately startled by a sense of something vaguely familiar. Then he flicked his cigarette away with slow grace and began to walk towards me, and as I caught sight of black eyes glittering in a pale face the recognition hit me as plainly as a sharp whiff of cologne. He was a vampire. And that when when the realization finally came. In all my long years, I had never seen another of our kind. Only Dominic, only Elijah, only the stories of others Dominic had known before he made us. Never another. I stared fascinated at this dark stranger who approached, dressed in clothing of such finery that he rivaled even Dominic for well-fitted flamboyance. He was tall, far taller than I, and when he approached me he looked at me pleasantly from a face of such smooth perfection that I had to stop myself from reaching out to touch his cheekbones. ‘I’ve been watching you,’ he said, and his voice was like cream poured over cold fruit. I was taken aback. ‘Who are you?’ He reached into his pocket with one gloved hand, and withdrew a small white card. I took it, still staring into his bottomless dark eyes, wondering how another vampire could have been in the city all this time without our ever noticing him. My suspicion must have showed on my face, for he smiled slightly, teeth glinting in the lamplight, and gestured toward the card. I looked down at it. Théâtre Des Caraïbes 7 Rue du Bucanier by Invitation Only ‘Bring the petite beauty with you,’ he said, and I looked up to see him already walking away into the darkness of the street. ‘Who are you?’ I called after him. He turned and smiled an odd little smile, eyes heavy and dark, and took off his hat in a flourishing little bow. Waves and waves of black hair fell about his shoulders, and he spoke a single sentence before turning away and disappearing into the night. ‘My name... is Orland.’ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ home