Chapter 2: The Vampire Tells His Story
"You entered a Tibetan monastery?" If Helen could raise her eyebrows any further, they would've disappeared into her dark hair. She looked at the two empty wine bottles littering the coffee table wondering if it had any effect on Nikola's truth telling abilities, but then remembered that he was incapable of getting drunk. It would have been more believable if he'd told her he'd been shacking up with a blond in a fashionable penthouse in some random European city.
"Affirmative."
"I never took you for the religious type," she mused thoughtfully, sipping her tea.
"I'm not. I wanted a place with a view and I just so happened to find a quaint little set up in the Himalayas."
"You gate-crashed a monastery for the view?" It was a little scandalous, even for Nikola. Helen was torn; was this a moment that deserved an "of course", or was a "really?" more apropos?
"No, I gate-crashed for the solitude. It wasn't even technically gate-crashing. I knocked, they opened the door, and I walked in."
"Nikola…" Helen used the tone of censure that frequented conversations between them.
"What? It's not like they asked me to leave! Not until the end, anyway."
"What on earth were you doing in a monastery?"
It really was an unlikely combination. Of all places Nikola Tesla would go, a place of worship would be the last place anyone would expect to find him.
"Believe it or not, nearly destroying the world with one's own invention leaves scars. Deep scars," he sniffed.
"I don't believe you."
He poured himself another glass of wine and seemed to ponder the contents of his glass before continuing. "My invention helped SCIU virtually destroy the Sanctuary and nearly destroy civilisation. I felt it necessary to reflect upon these…errors in judgment. I do have a conscience, you know."
"I'm sceptical of this delayed formation of a conscience." She pursed her lips and set her cup on its saucer.
"And that's what I like about you," he grinned. "Scientist to the core. Sceptical until the evidence supports your hypothesis." He scooted closer to her and wriggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Would you like to go on a fact-finding mission?"
"Nikola!" She pushed him away from her and promptly stood, leaving him to sit by himself on the couch. "That's enough. I didn't bring you here to drink all the wine."
"Maybe I'm drinking my problems." He sighed and sat his glass on the coffee table next to her teacup and saucer. "Which doesn't make any sense because I can never drink enough to actually make them go away. Being a vampire isn't always glitter and rainbows."
The vampire did seem rather melancholic, but Helen wasn't sure if it was because he was truly sorry about the destruction he had been capable of delivering into the wrong hands or if it was something else exasperatingly trite, as was his usual. With Nikola, it was so hard to tell.
"Maybe you should tell me why you're here and why you tracked me down." She was being firm, leaving no room to entertain Nikola's frippery.
"I'm trying. You keep interrupting with questions."
"They're good questions. Questions anyone would ask of a friend who disappeared for five years and then found out he'd spent it at a monastery, of all places."
"I didn't spend the whole time at the monastery," he scoffed.
"Oh?"
"I was caught with an iPod after about six weeks and was very rudely escorted off the premises. Apparently you can't reach enlightenment listening to the Sex Pistols. I ended up going home with the Sherpa who took me down the mountain."
"Oh dear Lord." Helen's hand went to her hip and she turned away, shutting her eyes to gather some patience and clarity. It was like a Monty Python sketch; the story was becoming more convoluted the more Nikola talked.
"You know, you're being very impolite."
"Am I?" she snapped, very impolitely.
He ignored that and proceeded with his story.
"I eventually discovered the Sherpa's name was Ang and we lived together in his house in Bhutan. I don't think he knew how to ask me to leave. It was a little awkward at first. He didn't know any English and I didn't know a word of Sherpa. I learned, eventually. I became fluent in Sherpa in just 60 days. Of course, I am a genius."
"That's impressive," she remarked.
"It is. One day, I was feeling lonely and bitter thinking, 'What am I doing with my life?' I'm hiding out with Sherpas, and why?"
"I would like to know the answer to that question, as well," Helen said, her patience waning.
"Guilt. Everything I'd done had finally caught up to me."
"You want me to believe that you feel guilty? For everything you've ever done?"
Nikola paused. "Well, not everything. Only the big things, like nearly wiping out civilisation, not bitch-slapping Edison while I had the chance… I do not regret, however, the many hours I've spent staring at your enticing figure—"
When her eyes narrowed in a glare, he abruptly stopped that line of thought.
"I am capable of feeling guilt," he added defensively.
"I've yet, in all the years we've known one another, to see you act remorseful for anything you've done. You tried to kill me in the catacombs of Rome and I received not as much as an apology from you."
"Admittedly, I wasn't myself at the time."
"Oh, I think you were very much yourself."
Nikola sat up, perched on the edge of the sofa cushion, he elbows on his knees. "Ok, look, I'm trying to tell you that I reached some kind of realisation during my self-imposed exile."
She looked like she was trying not to burst out laughing. "You found enlightenment?"
"I hate that word, but yes. Something like that. I stayed in the Sherpa village in Bhutan and taught seven-year olds to appreciate the complexities of science and engineering."
"You taught children?" Everyone knew Nikola loathed children. He barely had any good things to say about adults; it was unfathomable that he voluntarily insert himself into a situation that involved several miniature humans with their childish noises and needs.
"I thought it was an appropriate punishment."
"So you spent five years teaching children in Bhutan?" For a moment, Helen wondered if Nikola had suffered some sort of breakdown. It also crossed her mind that he was lying. It would not surprise her to discover that he'd been hiding out somewhere making plans for world domination all this time.
"No. I spent a year there, then let my sense of adventure take me south to India. I've always wanted to go there on an extended holiday. But because of my low funds, I had to do the unthinkable; I backpacked." He said it with such disgust that it made Helen laugh.
"How common of you," she said, greatly amused.
"I like to think of it as a purging of the soul. It is the only way I can come to terms with living the life of a philistine without inducing panic attacks. Backpacking, hitchhiking…though I did get to ride a motorcycle; that was cool."
"What did you do in India?" she asked, trying to urge him along.
"I taught people science—children and adults, whomever wanted to learn. I went from village to village teaching people physics, astronomy, biology, geology—you name it, I taught it."
"Your penance?"
"Another loathsome term," he winced. "I travelled around India, Pakistan, and Nepal during the remainder of the time. I discovered that I really love naan and that I have exceptional skills as a snake charmer."
It was a lot to digest. The story was incredulous, at best. The man who had never been known to have any scruples about anything spent five years in Asia teaching science out of guilt? He must want something; he must be building up her sympathies to ask something of a ridiculous nature in return.
"All right, what do you want, Nikola? You must want something or you wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of tracking me here."
"Well, there is something…"
"I knew it." She threw her hands on her hips.
"You don't even know what I'm about to ask! … By the way, you're beautiful when you're exasperated."
"Nikola…get out."
"Helen, wait," he hesitates. "I'm broke; I have nowhere else to turn. Can I stay at the Sanctuary?"
