INDIFFERENCE, Chapter 47
Guys, sorry for the delay. I hope you enjoy it. The image of the new slayer is by Minion, the image of the sanctuary is by Heather and the image of Bryant and his guest is by Sandi. Great, aren't they??! Have fun with it. Brian
THIS ENTRY IS INTENDED FOR ADULTS AGED 21 OR OLDER. MAY CONTAIN SCENES OF EXPLICIT SEX OR GRAPHIC VIOLENCE, DO NOT OPEN UNLESS YOU ARE 21 OR OLDER.
Having lived through eras, I learned that nothing stays the same. Change is the only certainty. Vampires live or die based on their ability to accept change. If you lose that ability, you lose your imperative to survive, for you cannot hold back time. For too long, we have lived a certain way, controlled by a rigid set of rules, believing we would be protected from the outside world and the horrors of vampire wars.
That belief failed.
We did clash, we did kill each other, we did let our need for calming the tedium of long lives to expose us to the self-destructive release of a drug that would rob us of our vampire spirituality, while exposing us to great risk in the macro-humanity of the world.
And that macro-humanity also changed, while we did not. Our old rules no longer offered protection from an electronic age where everyone and everything was a number somewhere. A photo, an image on a concealed security camera, a series of surveillance shots, a computer print out of mobile calls, recorded history of a life that is difficult to conceal.
And so things changed again. I became the leader of our troubled band of monsters and it was down to me to retain peace among us as well as look for ways to become part of the fabric of the world in which we lived. And killed. To do that, change must become radical.
I sit on the lanai of a small house overlooking the dramatic waves that crash against dark and jagged rocks jutting from the ocean floor off Carmel. Slade comes from the house and offers me a glass of vampire wine as he settles onto the double wicker rocker beside me. He stretches his arm across my shoulders and nuzzles my neck.
I move my head and search for his lips with mine. We share a quiet and loving kiss. Then we look back at the view and feel the cool breeze top the waves and blow in to caress us. It is sunset, the most beautiful and least harmful phase of the sun for our kind.
This place is sanctuary.
It may be a small bungalow from another era, but it’s location on the beach, steps from the water, hangs a price tag on it with seven or eight figures attached. But of course, it is not for sale, nor will it ever be.
A man walking a small terrier on a red leash ambles past us on the beach and gives us a friendly wave, not put off by our affection. We wave back. People are nice here. They accept us as a gay couple who keeps to themselves and who have updated and enlivened this beautiful old cottage on the shore.
I’m sure they gossip about who we are, how we came into quiet possession of the cottage, what we do to accumulate wealth. But no longer do the locals avoid us in fear as they did in times past, or come for us with torches and pitchforks. No longer do they believe that vampires exist outside of film and legend. But that is soon to change.
“What are ya thinking?” Slade asks. “Second thoughts?”
I shake my head. “Not really. Do you think I should have second thoughts?”
He smiles. My slayer, my lover, my pairing partner. “Ya be the visionary one, Bryant, not me. It’s not too late to reverse course.”
“Not yet,” I respond. “Not yet.”
“What if he don’t show?”
“He will.”
“What makes ya so sure?”
“A long experience with humans.”
“Aye, as food. Not so as conspirators.”
I laugh at his blunt but honest observation. “I can’t argue with that. But he will be here.”
“Out of them all, why him?”
“Because he knows how it is to live outside the club.”
“How so?”
“His skin color. Such things still have meaning among them.”
Slade huffs at that provincial failing. “So, if you are right, so what? How does an outsider get ya inside?”
“Because he gets in first and then pulls us through.”
“What if he don’t get in and even more likely, what if he don’t remember his old mates when he does?”
I smile at that remark, my fangs creasing my lip. “Then I shall remind him of who his friends truly are.”
A glint of silver gleams in his eyes as he sinks back into shadow. “I dinna like it.”
“I know,” I squeeze his strong wrist. “But you love me enough to support me, right?”
His grimace is full of words not expressed. But I know he does, so I don’t force a verbal confirmation.
“He’s coming,” a voice from inside the open French doors intrudes. He steps out of the shadows, and his silver eyes fade to blue. There is blond hair under the hood of his sweatshirt, and he is vampire beautiful and slayer stoic. No longer the young, callow boy I rescued from a ghost, Jordan has become Justinian, christened for the emperor who sent the first plague to ports via infected fleas.
The plague that gave us Slim and his sister. That started out unlikely history. Justinian triumphed in his training, enough so that he was deemed strong enough and clever enough to watch over me. Slade has never completely given over his role as protector to the boy and he never will, but officially Justinian is my slayer and he is treated with that respect.
His boyish crush on me has mellowed into mutual respect, each for the job we must do. Like all slayers other than Slim and my pairing partner, he lives among us but outside us, all at once. His romantic pursuits are his own, I neither ask nor seek answers to how he fulfills that aspect of being vampire. But I have seen him in action as a slayer and he has earned his high post among bodyguards.
His smaller size creates no disadvantage in his ability to kill swiftly and without caution.
I don’t inquire how he knows someone approaches, I just accept that he does. Slade’s domesticity with me has softened some of his predatory skills, but not all. Not by half. “I want you to stay out of sight,” I tell Justinian. Strangely enough, of us all, he looks perhaps the most vampire, the change in him making him feral and sly. Good traits for a slayer, but not welcoming for a human guest.
Slade, on the other hand, has learned social skills I never thought possible and neither did he. Sometimes when he spars with the boy, to keep his killing strength up, I forget how lethal he can be. He is the perfect blend of death and love to keep me satisfied.
Justinian doesn’t argue with me as he slips back into a darkened bedroom. I know he will watch from there, still as a corpse, silver eyes aglow, making sure I am safe. Slade, on the other hand, will be part of this meeting when I deem the time appropriate. I keep nothing of importance from him.
There is a knock on the front door. I put a hand on Slade’s shoulder to restrain him. As I rise to respond to the summons, my bodyguard slips into the cover of darkness. I cross the room with its polished Saltillo tile floors and authentic art deco furnishings and fixtures, all original to the cottage, yet barely used. I open the door and there stands is a tall, slim Aftican American man in his mid-thirties. He is alone, dressed in a melon colored golf shirt and pressed, designer jeans. Even in casual clothing, he looks buttoned up and cautious.
To the casual observer, we appear to be of similar age. We are not, of course. Under his forced smile and confusion, I sense a flicker of recognition, but it is one he is unable to attach to a name or place. As far as he knows, I am merely a man of mystery who managed to raise seven figures to support his political campaign. One of the perks of paving the way into the United States Senate with money is access to the senator.
He believes he is meeting me for the first time, although he is wrong. We have talked on the phone, but nothing more than that, as far as he knows. He represents the state of California, but I first met him in Texas. Stanford University drew him to this beautiful state and he never left. Until recently, when he went to Washington and fell in love with power.
“Mr. Trueblood?” His smile widens. “At last we meet.”
His handshake is firm. I make sure mine is not too strong so as to alert him to my superior strength. “Bryant, please,” I respond. “Do come in. Shall I call you Senator Wise?”
“Will is fine,” he walks into my vampire lair, his thick political shell protecting him from more generic emotions like fear. He quickly gives this valuable real estate the once over, calculating my wealth. He has been in California long enough to know there is no cheap real estate in Carmel and no cheap real estate anywhere close to a beach.
“This place is just outstanding,” he proclaims as he looks around the bungalow. I offer him wine, the kind bottled in Sonoma Valley, and he accepts it. “You rarely see a home in California that has so carefully preserved the atmosphere during which it was constructed. This is truly remarkable. How did you find it?”
I wave him into one of the bamboo-framed chairs with the wide green palm leaves in the print. “It’s not mine,” I say as Slade enters the room. I introduce him as my “life” partner. That seems to be the catch phrase now, and they shake hands, my wanton killer of a lover and this elegant politician. I notice he is a bit more cautious of Slade than he was of me. Good instincts. Slade and I sit on the couch facing him. His well-oiled talent for greasing up rich contributors seems momentarily stalled. I tap into his thoughts, not literally, but based on my centuries of human observation
.
“Are you concerned that a gay man has contributed generously to your political ambitions?”
I know he is. Gays are still a flashpoint, even among liberals, but he covers it with a smile. “I have always been a proponent of gay rights, I hope you know that.”
“Of course I do. I researched your record very closely. And I have no gay political agenda to push onto you, other than to suggest that all of us who share this planet should be treated with equivalent dignity.”
He sighs. “I agree. I was just telling my wife….” He launches into a story and I suppress a smile. All straight men have to mention the old ball and chain and the little ones within minutes of realizing they are in dangerous proximity of a gay man. It never fails. Little does he know that my propensity for men as sexual partners is the least thing he should fear from me.
After his charming little home-story ends, I lean forward and say, “Will, do you remember meeting me before?”
He drops a bit of that slick façade to give my face a harder look. “You do look familiar. I meet so many people in this job of mine, so I do apologize but your British accent also rings a bell. I just can’t quite place it. Where did we meet?”
I smile. No fangs. “Austin.
He leans back, obviously surprised by that statement. “Texas?”
I smile again. “Is there another?”
This boy from modest means, born in the capital of Texas, went on to great distinction at Stanford and Stanford Law School and is now on his way, many say, to the White House. “We didn’t go to school together, did we?”
Because his parents scrimped and saved to send their brightest child to a private school in Austin, as his bio so states, he is trying to place me among the rich white boys he competed with. I presume few had British accents. “No.”
He blinks. He is patient. He will not allow himself to be played. Smart man. “It was in Austin where you gave me some sage advice that I have never forgotten.”
He grins at that. “I have to wonder about that. I left Austin when I was seventeen, except for visits to my family. Looking back, I can’t imagine I had anything sage to say at that age. Back then it was all about girls, basketball and grades. In that order.”
“And you did well at all three,” I observe.
“Too short for a true basketball career at six-one, too serious and driven to get in much trouble with girls, and yes, I did bang the grades hard. That was my ticket out. Why are you so interested in me, Bryant? What do I represent to you?”
“Hope.”
“Hope,” he repeats. “I like that. Has a nice ring to it. What hope do I give you?”
“You give me hope that America, and yes, the world, is ready to accept positive change.”
“And the advice I gave you in Austin sparked that?”
Slade gets up and refills the senator’s wine glass. He splashes some pinot grigiot into my glass and I swirl it around with the remnants of my vampire wine to flavor it. He sits beside me and rests a hand on my thigh as if to encourage me to go on. Even when he doesn’t agree with my vision, he always encourages me to pursue it. Who could not love this man?
“You talked to me about Dr. King. About how sometimes individuals have to take chances to be heard. How things do not change without individual courage and risk.”
“I wrote a term paper on Dr. King when I was a senior in high school. Did you find that somehow?”
“No. This was when your heroes included Darth Vader. Do you know I procured and watched every Star Wars movie after we talked?”
“Darth…” he pauses. He looks from me to Slade and back again. His eyes narrow as his concentration deepens. His instinct is fighting his intellect. I wonder which will prevail. He shakes his head. Intellect is winning the battle. He gets up. He paces to the windows overlooking the lanai and beyond it the ocean. If he is frightened, he shows no signs of it, only nervous energy fed by incredulity.
“The witch’s house,” he says as he turns to face us. I smile.
“No witch lived there.”
“We called it that, my brothers and me and all the kids who went there to trick or treat. It looked like a witch’s house should look and the owner always went all out to decorate for Halloween. On top of that, the candy there was the best. None of that cheap gum or jelly bean crap you sometimes were given, rather Butterfingers and Snickers and M&Ms. I used to love going to that place with the coffins in the yard and the sexy women dressed up like Vampira,” he pauses again. “Vampira…”
I nod. He shakes his head. “No, that’s not possible. I was a kid and the man I talked to about vampires and Dr. King was…well, he was a full grown man. He was just as you are now, as I am, that age. Our age.”
“No. I looked like I was of a certain age and I still do, but it’s all smoke and mirrors. If the truth be known, I was born in the 17th century, in Devon, England and reborn as I am now in the sands of the Sahara Desert some twenty years after.”
I see his nimble mind try to unwind this conundrum. Either he is captive of a madman, or he is mad himself. I speak, anxious to disarm his fear mechanisms. “You were disappointed that I didn’t look like a vampire should look. No cloak, no peaked hairline, no Transylvanian accent and I couldn’t even morph into a bat or a wolf.”
“Okay, Bryant, gloves off. Was this your father I spoke to? Uncle? When I was a boy, you could fool me with your vampire lore but I have put away my childish things. Shouldn’t you do the same? What is this all about?”
He sits down again, having decided not to flee, which is reassuring. “I’m not crazy or delusional or playing a silly game, Will. I’m the man you talked to that evening on the porch of that house in Austin, and I have never forgotten what you said. There is much that sets us apart, no doubt, but there are things that bind us, too. I had a mother and a father and two brothers and a sister. The plague claimed them all save my father, who died of drink. I was immune to plague for reasons that seem to make me the rather powerful vampire that I have become. I was a sailor in her majesty’s service during the conflicts over Gibraltar. It was there I would meet the man who made me what I am today.”
He glances at Slade and I smile. “No. Not this one. Although he shares my vampire state.”
Will crosses his ankle over his knee and leans back. “I don’t know what the purpose of this is, Bryant, and I don’t know how you know what happened that night, but I do know there are no vampires in this world.”
“How do you know?”
“Why not come forward before now?”
“Because we live off of your kind, Will. We survive on your blood. What welcome do you think we would find in your world?”
“Am I in some kind of danger here?” He asks with perfect calm. I laugh.
“Not unless your heart gives out. I’ve been fed. And so has he.”
“Y-you killed someone?”
“Not today,” I throw him a small orb I remove from my pocket and his athletic instincts kick in as he catches it. It is the size of a cranberry, and about that color. The powdery texture is covered in a harder red shell. He turns it over and over on his palm, and then asks,
“What is this?”
“I believe your military types would call it an MRE, meal ready to eat.”
“I don’t understand.”
I walk over to him and take the pellet. Slade retrieves a pitcher of warm water from the kitchen and a tall glass. I put the pellet in the glass, fill it with warm water and after much fizzing, the glass is blood red, and the scent is like nirvana. Of course he can’t smell it and it must look like a horror to him. I take a sip and then hand it to Slade who gulps it down and returns the crockery to the kitchen.
“Our medics have perfected a method of simulating blood in a tablet. Four of these a day and we are nutritionally complete.”
He shakes his head. “That proves nothing. Cheap FX.”
Bored with it, I reach out a hand, grab this healthy robust young man by his athletic golden throat and pin him helplessly to the wall, his feet dangling above the floor, his hands clawing at my grip, his expression more shocked than scared. When he attempts to kick me, I throw him back harder and lean in, fangs fully extended and sharp as I hiss, “I’m a fucking vampire, Will. Now do you believe me?”
He nods and I let him down gently onto the chair. I didn’t want to do that, but he left me no choice. He rubs his neck where my fist gripped as I resume a more docile demeanor and join my lover on the couch. I wait to see if he will bolt. Threaten. He does neither. He clears his throat as if to be sure it still works, and then he says in a calm voice, “Okay, so you’re a vampire. What is it you want from me?”
I smile as I say, “I want you to bring me into the open.”
He blinks. There is a slight quiver to his hand as he sips his wine and then he responds with a single word. “Shit.”
THIS ENTRY IS INTENDED FOR ADULTS AGED 21 OR OLDER. MAY CONTAIN SCENES OF EXPLICIT SEX OR GRAPHIC VIOLENCE, DO NOT OPEN UNLESS YOU ARE 21 OR OLDER.
Having lived through eras, I learned that nothing stays the same. Change is the only certainty. Vampires live or die based on their ability to accept change. If you lose that ability, you lose your imperative to survive, for you cannot hold back time. For too long, we have lived a certain way, controlled by a rigid set of rules, believing we would be protected from the outside world and the horrors of vampire wars.
That belief failed.
We did clash, we did kill each other, we did let our need for calming the tedium of long lives to expose us to the self-destructive release of a drug that would rob us of our vampire spirituality, while exposing us to great risk in the macro-humanity of the world.
And that macro-humanity also changed, while we did not. Our old rules no longer offered protection from an electronic age where everyone and everything was a number somewhere. A photo, an image on a concealed security camera, a series of surveillance shots, a computer print out of mobile calls, recorded history of a life that is difficult to conceal.
And so things changed again. I became the leader of our troubled band of monsters and it was down to me to retain peace among us as well as look for ways to become part of the fabric of the world in which we lived. And killed. To do that, change must become radical.
I sit on the lanai of a small house overlooking the dramatic waves that crash against dark and jagged rocks jutting from the ocean floor off Carmel. Slade comes from the house and offers me a glass of vampire wine as he settles onto the double wicker rocker beside me. He stretches his arm across my shoulders and nuzzles my neck.
I move my head and search for his lips with mine. We share a quiet and loving kiss. Then we look back at the view and feel the cool breeze top the waves and blow in to caress us. It is sunset, the most beautiful and least harmful phase of the sun for our kind.
This place is sanctuary.
It may be a small bungalow from another era, but it’s location on the beach, steps from the water, hangs a price tag on it with seven or eight figures attached. But of course, it is not for sale, nor will it ever be.
A man walking a small terrier on a red leash ambles past us on the beach and gives us a friendly wave, not put off by our affection. We wave back. People are nice here. They accept us as a gay couple who keeps to themselves and who have updated and enlivened this beautiful old cottage on the shore.
I’m sure they gossip about who we are, how we came into quiet possession of the cottage, what we do to accumulate wealth. But no longer do the locals avoid us in fear as they did in times past, or come for us with torches and pitchforks. No longer do they believe that vampires exist outside of film and legend. But that is soon to change.
“What are ya thinking?” Slade asks. “Second thoughts?”
I shake my head. “Not really. Do you think I should have second thoughts?”
He smiles. My slayer, my lover, my pairing partner. “Ya be the visionary one, Bryant, not me. It’s not too late to reverse course.”
“Not yet,” I respond. “Not yet.”
“What if he don’t show?”
“He will.”
“What makes ya so sure?”
“A long experience with humans.”
“Aye, as food. Not so as conspirators.”
I laugh at his blunt but honest observation. “I can’t argue with that. But he will be here.”
“Out of them all, why him?”
“Because he knows how it is to live outside the club.”
“How so?”
“His skin color. Such things still have meaning among them.”
Slade huffs at that provincial failing. “So, if you are right, so what? How does an outsider get ya inside?”
“Because he gets in first and then pulls us through.”
“What if he don’t get in and even more likely, what if he don’t remember his old mates when he does?”
I smile at that remark, my fangs creasing my lip. “Then I shall remind him of who his friends truly are.”
A glint of silver gleams in his eyes as he sinks back into shadow. “I dinna like it.”
“I know,” I squeeze his strong wrist. “But you love me enough to support me, right?”
His grimace is full of words not expressed. But I know he does, so I don’t force a verbal confirmation.
“He’s coming,” a voice from inside the open French doors intrudes. He steps out of the shadows, and his silver eyes fade to blue. There is blond hair under the hood of his sweatshirt, and he is vampire beautiful and slayer stoic. No longer the young, callow boy I rescued from a ghost, Jordan has become Justinian, christened for the emperor who sent the first plague to ports via infected fleas.
The plague that gave us Slim and his sister. That started out unlikely history. Justinian triumphed in his training, enough so that he was deemed strong enough and clever enough to watch over me. Slade has never completely given over his role as protector to the boy and he never will, but officially Justinian is my slayer and he is treated with that respect.
His boyish crush on me has mellowed into mutual respect, each for the job we must do. Like all slayers other than Slim and my pairing partner, he lives among us but outside us, all at once. His romantic pursuits are his own, I neither ask nor seek answers to how he fulfills that aspect of being vampire. But I have seen him in action as a slayer and he has earned his high post among bodyguards.
His smaller size creates no disadvantage in his ability to kill swiftly and without caution.
I don’t inquire how he knows someone approaches, I just accept that he does. Slade’s domesticity with me has softened some of his predatory skills, but not all. Not by half. “I want you to stay out of sight,” I tell Justinian. Strangely enough, of us all, he looks perhaps the most vampire, the change in him making him feral and sly. Good traits for a slayer, but not welcoming for a human guest.
Slade, on the other hand, has learned social skills I never thought possible and neither did he. Sometimes when he spars with the boy, to keep his killing strength up, I forget how lethal he can be. He is the perfect blend of death and love to keep me satisfied.
Justinian doesn’t argue with me as he slips back into a darkened bedroom. I know he will watch from there, still as a corpse, silver eyes aglow, making sure I am safe. Slade, on the other hand, will be part of this meeting when I deem the time appropriate. I keep nothing of importance from him.
There is a knock on the front door. I put a hand on Slade’s shoulder to restrain him. As I rise to respond to the summons, my bodyguard slips into the cover of darkness. I cross the room with its polished Saltillo tile floors and authentic art deco furnishings and fixtures, all original to the cottage, yet barely used. I open the door and there stands is a tall, slim Aftican American man in his mid-thirties. He is alone, dressed in a melon colored golf shirt and pressed, designer jeans. Even in casual clothing, he looks buttoned up and cautious.
To the casual observer, we appear to be of similar age. We are not, of course. Under his forced smile and confusion, I sense a flicker of recognition, but it is one he is unable to attach to a name or place. As far as he knows, I am merely a man of mystery who managed to raise seven figures to support his political campaign. One of the perks of paving the way into the United States Senate with money is access to the senator.
He believes he is meeting me for the first time, although he is wrong. We have talked on the phone, but nothing more than that, as far as he knows. He represents the state of California, but I first met him in Texas. Stanford University drew him to this beautiful state and he never left. Until recently, when he went to Washington and fell in love with power.
“Mr. Trueblood?” His smile widens. “At last we meet.”
His handshake is firm. I make sure mine is not too strong so as to alert him to my superior strength. “Bryant, please,” I respond. “Do come in. Shall I call you Senator Wise?”
“Will is fine,” he walks into my vampire lair, his thick political shell protecting him from more generic emotions like fear. He quickly gives this valuable real estate the once over, calculating my wealth. He has been in California long enough to know there is no cheap real estate in Carmel and no cheap real estate anywhere close to a beach.
“This place is just outstanding,” he proclaims as he looks around the bungalow. I offer him wine, the kind bottled in Sonoma Valley, and he accepts it. “You rarely see a home in California that has so carefully preserved the atmosphere during which it was constructed. This is truly remarkable. How did you find it?”
I wave him into one of the bamboo-framed chairs with the wide green palm leaves in the print. “It’s not mine,” I say as Slade enters the room. I introduce him as my “life” partner. That seems to be the catch phrase now, and they shake hands, my wanton killer of a lover and this elegant politician. I notice he is a bit more cautious of Slade than he was of me. Good instincts. Slade and I sit on the couch facing him. His well-oiled talent for greasing up rich contributors seems momentarily stalled. I tap into his thoughts, not literally, but based on my centuries of human observation
.
“Are you concerned that a gay man has contributed generously to your political ambitions?”
I know he is. Gays are still a flashpoint, even among liberals, but he covers it with a smile. “I have always been a proponent of gay rights, I hope you know that.”
“Of course I do. I researched your record very closely. And I have no gay political agenda to push onto you, other than to suggest that all of us who share this planet should be treated with equivalent dignity.”
He sighs. “I agree. I was just telling my wife….” He launches into a story and I suppress a smile. All straight men have to mention the old ball and chain and the little ones within minutes of realizing they are in dangerous proximity of a gay man. It never fails. Little does he know that my propensity for men as sexual partners is the least thing he should fear from me.
After his charming little home-story ends, I lean forward and say, “Will, do you remember meeting me before?”
He drops a bit of that slick façade to give my face a harder look. “You do look familiar. I meet so many people in this job of mine, so I do apologize but your British accent also rings a bell. I just can’t quite place it. Where did we meet?”
I smile. No fangs. “Austin.
He leans back, obviously surprised by that statement. “Texas?”
I smile again. “Is there another?”
This boy from modest means, born in the capital of Texas, went on to great distinction at Stanford and Stanford Law School and is now on his way, many say, to the White House. “We didn’t go to school together, did we?”
Because his parents scrimped and saved to send their brightest child to a private school in Austin, as his bio so states, he is trying to place me among the rich white boys he competed with. I presume few had British accents. “No.”
He blinks. He is patient. He will not allow himself to be played. Smart man. “It was in Austin where you gave me some sage advice that I have never forgotten.”
He grins at that. “I have to wonder about that. I left Austin when I was seventeen, except for visits to my family. Looking back, I can’t imagine I had anything sage to say at that age. Back then it was all about girls, basketball and grades. In that order.”
“And you did well at all three,” I observe.
“Too short for a true basketball career at six-one, too serious and driven to get in much trouble with girls, and yes, I did bang the grades hard. That was my ticket out. Why are you so interested in me, Bryant? What do I represent to you?”
“Hope.”
“Hope,” he repeats. “I like that. Has a nice ring to it. What hope do I give you?”
“You give me hope that America, and yes, the world, is ready to accept positive change.”
“And the advice I gave you in Austin sparked that?”
Slade gets up and refills the senator’s wine glass. He splashes some pinot grigiot into my glass and I swirl it around with the remnants of my vampire wine to flavor it. He sits beside me and rests a hand on my thigh as if to encourage me to go on. Even when he doesn’t agree with my vision, he always encourages me to pursue it. Who could not love this man?
“You talked to me about Dr. King. About how sometimes individuals have to take chances to be heard. How things do not change without individual courage and risk.”
“I wrote a term paper on Dr. King when I was a senior in high school. Did you find that somehow?”
“No. This was when your heroes included Darth Vader. Do you know I procured and watched every Star Wars movie after we talked?”
“Darth…” he pauses. He looks from me to Slade and back again. His eyes narrow as his concentration deepens. His instinct is fighting his intellect. I wonder which will prevail. He shakes his head. Intellect is winning the battle. He gets up. He paces to the windows overlooking the lanai and beyond it the ocean. If he is frightened, he shows no signs of it, only nervous energy fed by incredulity.
“The witch’s house,” he says as he turns to face us. I smile.
“No witch lived there.”
“We called it that, my brothers and me and all the kids who went there to trick or treat. It looked like a witch’s house should look and the owner always went all out to decorate for Halloween. On top of that, the candy there was the best. None of that cheap gum or jelly bean crap you sometimes were given, rather Butterfingers and Snickers and M&Ms. I used to love going to that place with the coffins in the yard and the sexy women dressed up like Vampira,” he pauses again. “Vampira…”
I nod. He shakes his head. “No, that’s not possible. I was a kid and the man I talked to about vampires and Dr. King was…well, he was a full grown man. He was just as you are now, as I am, that age. Our age.”
“No. I looked like I was of a certain age and I still do, but it’s all smoke and mirrors. If the truth be known, I was born in the 17th century, in Devon, England and reborn as I am now in the sands of the Sahara Desert some twenty years after.”
I see his nimble mind try to unwind this conundrum. Either he is captive of a madman, or he is mad himself. I speak, anxious to disarm his fear mechanisms. “You were disappointed that I didn’t look like a vampire should look. No cloak, no peaked hairline, no Transylvanian accent and I couldn’t even morph into a bat or a wolf.”
“Okay, Bryant, gloves off. Was this your father I spoke to? Uncle? When I was a boy, you could fool me with your vampire lore but I have put away my childish things. Shouldn’t you do the same? What is this all about?”
He sits down again, having decided not to flee, which is reassuring. “I’m not crazy or delusional or playing a silly game, Will. I’m the man you talked to that evening on the porch of that house in Austin, and I have never forgotten what you said. There is much that sets us apart, no doubt, but there are things that bind us, too. I had a mother and a father and two brothers and a sister. The plague claimed them all save my father, who died of drink. I was immune to plague for reasons that seem to make me the rather powerful vampire that I have become. I was a sailor in her majesty’s service during the conflicts over Gibraltar. It was there I would meet the man who made me what I am today.”
He glances at Slade and I smile. “No. Not this one. Although he shares my vampire state.”
Will crosses his ankle over his knee and leans back. “I don’t know what the purpose of this is, Bryant, and I don’t know how you know what happened that night, but I do know there are no vampires in this world.”
“How do you know?”
“Why not come forward before now?”
“Because we live off of your kind, Will. We survive on your blood. What welcome do you think we would find in your world?”
“Am I in some kind of danger here?” He asks with perfect calm. I laugh.
“Not unless your heart gives out. I’ve been fed. And so has he.”
“Y-you killed someone?”
“Not today,” I throw him a small orb I remove from my pocket and his athletic instincts kick in as he catches it. It is the size of a cranberry, and about that color. The powdery texture is covered in a harder red shell. He turns it over and over on his palm, and then asks,
“What is this?”
“I believe your military types would call it an MRE, meal ready to eat.”
“I don’t understand.”
I walk over to him and take the pellet. Slade retrieves a pitcher of warm water from the kitchen and a tall glass. I put the pellet in the glass, fill it with warm water and after much fizzing, the glass is blood red, and the scent is like nirvana. Of course he can’t smell it and it must look like a horror to him. I take a sip and then hand it to Slade who gulps it down and returns the crockery to the kitchen.
“Our medics have perfected a method of simulating blood in a tablet. Four of these a day and we are nutritionally complete.”
He shakes his head. “That proves nothing. Cheap FX.”
Bored with it, I reach out a hand, grab this healthy robust young man by his athletic golden throat and pin him helplessly to the wall, his feet dangling above the floor, his hands clawing at my grip, his expression more shocked than scared. When he attempts to kick me, I throw him back harder and lean in, fangs fully extended and sharp as I hiss, “I’m a fucking vampire, Will. Now do you believe me?”
He nods and I let him down gently onto the chair. I didn’t want to do that, but he left me no choice. He rubs his neck where my fist gripped as I resume a more docile demeanor and join my lover on the couch. I wait to see if he will bolt. Threaten. He does neither. He clears his throat as if to be sure it still works, and then he says in a calm voice, “Okay, so you’re a vampire. What is it you want from me?”
I smile as I say, “I want you to bring me into the open.”
He blinks. There is a slight quiver to his hand as he sips his wine and then he responds with a single word. “Shit.”