Eyes into My Soul
by
Lisa Y. Drexel
I don't know what made me stop. A dark moonless night--a warm, humid summer evening in a city so unlike the one I had just left. One, where Canadian dignity seemed to permeate everything from the people to the architecture to where he was now--in middle America, a town, yet a city, filled with southern gentleness yet tainted with northern wariness.
Where I was north, now I'm more south.
Where there were many of my kind, now I only sense a few.
And ironically, that comforts me--that sense of isolation. No political bickering, no emotional ties--no broken hearts or hopes.
No, I welcome the loneliness, like I never welcomed it before.
Toronto, had my heart and I was no quite ready to embrace it again.
Not since I brought across by my angel nearly five hundred years ago, had I lost so much in one place. My child, lover and friend, Ursula. My closest compadre, Screed. A sense of finally belonging and of community. Of no longer running from my demons or responsibilities. And Tracy, my beautiful mortal who I longed to make my forever companion. Never before, had I felt such love and such devotion.
I had finally grown up.
Too late seemed to be motto. Too late to save Screed, Urs or Tracy. All were brought into death's cool embrace and yet, I who should've died not once, but twice, survived.
I still hear their whispers taunting me. Urs crying for justice--for the victim. Screed's need of acceptance and Tracy's desire to be respected.
I hear them all, even now, thousands of miles away, in a city, old for the States, young for the world, filled with contradictions and misnomers--a city called St. Louis.
I first saw her at the bookstore. One of those new, super bookstores filled with wonders of modern technology of society. The hours are even long, for those of us who like to shop during the evening.
She was standing in the aisle, so quiet and still, her head in a book and her mind far
away. I glanced at the cover and chuckled silently at the title, "Encyclopedia of Witches" and wondered if she realized that there was such a thing, albeit not quite the way of legends. Hair dark blond, streaked with the sun's gentle blond kisses. Although I couldn't see her eyes, I knew instinctively that they were a dark blue, maybe gray. Her skin, pale and white, although not as pale as mine. She was of medium height, like Urs and seemed to carry herself not unlike my child. Definitely sensual.
I clamped down on the beast and silently berated myself. Run Jav, my old self implored. Remember the last mortal!
But I couldn't.
She must've of realized someone was watching her, for suddenly she looked up and for only a minute our eyes met, but it was one of the longest moments in my long, unlife.
I suddenly felt so exposed that for an instant, I forgot I was the hunter and she was the prey.
Or was she?
I left.
By the time I got to the parking lot and on my bike, I found myself again. But the question still haunted me, who was this women who could see into my dark soul?
Not more than ten minutes later, she walked out of the bright store, bagless, into the lighted parking lot. She stopped at an older Honda Civic, light blue with dents and opened her car door. Before sitting down, she scanned the parking lot and her eyes rested on me, where I was leaning against a light pool.
She nodded.
And once again, the hunter, I smiled at her in return.
She shook her head with a small grin and slipped into her car. Seconds later she was driving away.
I followed.
She lived in a small apartment in an older, run down neighborhood. Apartment buildings crowded next to red brick single family homes. Beer cans and cigarette butts littered the ground, trash flew about as the wind blew. I saw her car pull into a small drive and park in front of the trash dumpster. She quickly exited the car and entered her apartment through the back door.
I decided then I wanted to know more.
Now, I know this is Tracy's fault. I can here snapping at me. Don't kill her, Vachon, get to know her. You want that. Companionship--that intimacy you were reluctant to share with me. Not every warm blooded creature is your next meal. Go to a fucking blood bank, for Gods sakes and use the restraint that I know you have.
And she's right.
That was her gift to me. My humanity.
I was lonely.
But on my terms, I added as I slipped into her apartment.
Quietly I stood in the kitchen and looked around. This mortal, unlike his Tracy, was a cluttered, disorganized person. A couple days mail laid untouched on the kitchen table. Days old dishes sat in the sink, the stink assaulting my senses.
I heard the clanking of fingers touching a keyboard and the low hum of a computer. I stepped into the living room and waited for her to turn around.
Unlike most mortals, she seemed to sense me as soon as we shared the same room. One undead vampire and one living, mortal woman.
She stopped typing and turned slowly around, fear plastered on her face.
Good, I thought. I still have an upper hand.
She gasped, reaching for the phone.
I was there before she could touch the cordless phone. I grabbed her hand, reveling in its warmth and moisture, reigning in the beast.
"I won't hurt you," I told her, hearing myself say those same words to Urs over 120 years ago.
She looked up. Her dark gray eyes filled with fear, her hand sweating despite my coldness and she nodded, relaxing her body.
I tried hypnotizing her, secretly praying that it wouldn't work and grateful that it didn't. Instead, she surprised me.
*Get out my mind, you son-of-*
"Bitch?" I asked her outloud, unable to conceal my astonishment. No mortal had ever touched my mind before and I found it disconcerting, nonetheless.
"If the shoe fits..." she whispered.
Can you read me now?
Yes. She leaned back in her chair, her arm now stretched as I still held onto her hand with inhuman strength. Her eyebrows creased in concentration and I felt a small whisper of her touch in me and shuddered. For the second time that night, I found myself naked in the eyes of a mortal.
Anger and the beast threatened to surface, but somehow Tracy's voice whispered reason. You need this, Vachon.
I quenched the vampire for now.
"A vampire," the woman said so softly only one of us could've heard her. "And so much pain."
Tears flooded her eyes.
I dropped her hand, feeling both confused and emotionally drained and flopped down on her couch.
"I knew something was different about you in the bookstore...," she stopped for a moment as if searching for the right words. "But it wasn't that, I just saw now. You've lost someone. No, more than one person in the last few months.
I nodded silently, feeling the layers of walls surrounding my heart being peeled away. "So, Javier, what do you want from me?"
My name? How? Or Trace, how can I let this woman live, I asked my ghost.
You will, Jav, just as you let me live. This is what you want...
I could see her blue eyes, filled with the blue sky of days that I will never see and water, shedding from her soul--each tear an offering of love and understanding...
She was right.
I would.
I silently wondered where the Enforcer's were in this hot hell hole? Do they sense me? Do they feel my pain like this one mortal does?
"Well?" she asked, her voice pulling me out of my own thoughts to the present.
"Want...?" I asked outloud while wondering if there were any words in any of the languages I knew to explain what I wanted.
A way out. A light. A salvation.
"My humanity." I answered as I went to her side, so quickly that she jumped, startled.
So, is this how Knight became a cop? How he chose the fork that led to his search for humanity?
Pain?
Too much loss.
I took her hand, feeling her warmth flood me--warm my coolness--my heart.
I stared at our hands, entwined, one filled with life and light, the other darkness and death, and saw a tear slowly roll down to the crevice between us. I lifted our hands and licked the tear, tasting her.
Oh, what life. Her fear mixed with wonder and pain. My pain. A total empath. She seemed to inhale all that was I--bleed me and bear it herself.
So quickly that I barely had time to prepare, the Hunger struck, straining to emerge and kill. It did not like to be challenged--this darkness--this virus. I wanted to taste her, take her in and be with her as she was with me.
I dropped her hand and sped across the room, taking deep, calming breaths, reigning in the Beast.
She was not going to die.
Not tonight.
Not by me.
She gasped, her dark gray eyes glued to my yellow, predatory ones. Her glance dropped and I felt her scrutiny on my lips--my fangs ached to bite.
Another deep breath and another and finally, I felt the Beast slip back into me, where I, Javier Vachon could control it and not the other way around.
Although only five minutes passed, I felt as if I had just lived a mortal lifetime. So much passed between us, yet I didn't even know her name. As I walked back to her, her voice so low, only I, a vampire, could hear, she whispered, "Serene."
Nodding, I stood before her, stunned at the power she held over me and yet, couldn't help but notice she felt the same. Her heart raced in excitement as I reached over and pulled her into my arms.
I wanted to say something, and even started to speak, but realized it was futile. There were no words for her and what I felt. So, instead I cocked my head to the side and smiled.
And then she did something so unexpected that I almost heard my own heart beat in response.
She smiled back. "You should do that more often. It does wonders," she told me, humor laced intricately with her words.
I blinked at her and suddenly knew that I had to kiss her and taste, if only in the mortal way, her. Our lips met, hers soft and yielding as I carefully but as passionately as possible, all the time waiting to hear my Tracy to back off.
She said nothing.
Serene pulled away and I suddenly wondered if I did something I shouldn't have.
Instead, a look of gentleness passed across her face as her eyes watered. She laid her palm against my cool cheek and smiled. "She wants you to be happy, Javier. That's all she ever wanted."
My little golden mortal, still there, desperately trying to pull that locked part of my soul out. The one that loved and reveled in life, not death. Still encouraging me to me, yet to be able to love. To make things right.
My mortal Tracy, still trying to save me.
I nodded slowly, feeling a blood tear, unwanted and unbidden, slip out of the corner of my eye.
Let her have this, Jav, I told myself. Do this for her and more importantly, for you.
"You're right, Serene, that's all she wanted." I dropped my arms and grabbed her hand and led her to the couch and began to talk of Tracy, Screed, Urs, Knight and Dr. Lambert and my life in Toronto.
What happens after tonight, I do not know. But Serene will live another day and maybe even I can help her.
The End If you like what you read or even if you hated--drop me a note and fill me in!