Chapter 5: "Every me and every you"

Since hours Gillian wandered aimlessly through the streets.
She had no idea where to go. Neither could she go back to Larten Crepsley, nor could she stay with Gavner Purl.
She had just walked downstairs into the kitchen of the large mansion, had taken the car keys from the hook, and ran away with the car.
Although she had no driver's license, there had never been enough money for it when she was still a human, but she knew how to drive.
Now the car was parked somewhere randomly on the roadside, Gillian was not even sure if she could find it back.
She simply stopped and got out, and since then has been traveling on foot.

She didn`t look at any shop windows.
She was wearing her old dress, but for some reason she felt no longer really well in it.
Could it be that she no longer felt comfortable in her own skin?
As twilight came, she wondered, what would the Gavner do, when he found out, that she had stolen the car and hit the road.
Would he try to find her?
Probably.
Would he contact the Cirque, to ask if she had appeared there?
Probably.
Gillian sighed.
Then it was only a matter of time until Larten knew it.
And until they went looking for her.
She suspected the vampire master had ways and means to locate her.
But Gillian did not want to be found.
She shuddered at the thought of what Larten would say. Would he send her back to Gavner Purl, like a naughty pet dog?

Was it fate or her subconscious that she finally turned her steps towards the bridge?
When Gillian realized, where she was, she thought: How ironic. Here it all started. Perhaps here it should all end?
She did not hesitate and stepped onto the bridge on which she had met Larten Crepsley for the very first time.
The bridge was very long and designed for two-lane traffic, though there was not much cars. For pedestrians, there was a kind of emergency catwalk, but it was not allowed to walk across the bridge on foot. The bridge was to be entered only in exceptional cases, for example if your car broke. The river rushed far below her, a sharp gust hit Gillian from the first moment, and made her black hair flapping behind her like a pirate flag.
The dusk had set in, and Gillian felt that the orange sun approached the horizon.
Gillian remembered exactly how it has been.
How she had been.

When she had met the vampire for the first time, she had been standing on the railing of the bridge, ready to jump.
She had been twenty-two years young and had nothing to lose. She had no job, no education, no university degree.
No father.
But a mother suffering from alcoholism.
She had lived up to her sixteenth birthday with her mother, and had watched helplessly how the mother lost even the simplest job, simply because she was always drunk. There was never money, and often they had felt cold, dirty and hungry in their small apartment, because once again the electricity or the heating was turned off.
At such times her mother drank more than ever.
Gillian skipped school to earn some money in cheap fast food restaurants or in seedy bars, only to realize, that her mother found the hiding place behind the tank and all money was spent on vodka.
Earlier her mother had beaten her when she had opened her mouth, as the mother called it, then, as Gillian grew older and stronger, she struck back.
Finally the day came where they had been particularly in a bad state, and the owner of the apartment had seriously threatened to put them on the street, if they did not pay their arrears.
When Gillian came back home in the morning, tired and bruised, with a few dollars in the bag she had earned somewhere as an helper (but not nearly enough), she caught her mother in bed with a man.
She had sold the last thing in the apartment that was still of value: her own body.
Gillian realized that she would be better off without her mother, and ran away.
She had been sixteen years old.
Because she had no friends, she lived on the street, sleeping in the closets of the bars where she worked until she got caught or stayed in empty houses.
She did not complain, all in all it was better than it had been with her mother.
Then after a while, things went better.
The owner of a club allowed her to sleep in a back room when he learned of her situation, and she began to earn enough to get along at some extent.
Finally she found a small room all to herself, and every month paid her bills proudly.
But that was the problem.
Should this be all?
She earned enough to survive until each end of a month, and sometimes she could save, a little bit, but nothing more.
Her life was stuck in a dead end.
Although this was no longer the street, but the thought of the next twenty, even forty years going on like this, horrified her.
At night she walked around in discos and bars, and danced until dawn, to numb herself.
From alcohol, which was always accessible in huge quantities, she stayed away. Although she was often invited for a drink, she always refused, or took a Coke.
And she was often invited by men, who tried to get into a conversation with her, or they simply watched her with greedy eyes, when she danced absentmindedly.
She never gave in to one of them.
Sure, one time or another, she had smooched with someone, yes, she even had been a couple with someone for a while.
But whenever a boy wanted more from her, she had fled.

Then, that night, she had been flirting with a guy who had been staring at her all evening. The guy thought he was a very big hit, and Gillian had enjoyed it, to heat him up, and then leave. Had she known how dangerous that was?
Of course, she was not stupid.
It was rather that she was looking for the danger.
After she gave the guy a rebuff and made him look stupid in front of his friends, she had made her way home alone on the dark streets, her heart had started to pound, as the guy and his company followed her in a dark alley.
Started to pound with joy.
Gillian loved to play with fire.
These were the only moments in her life where she felt alive.
She had felt the adrenaline rushing through her body, and with a happy grin on her face she had to pull herself together, in order not to laugh like crazy.
Instead, she had launched an arrogant expression, and began to taunt the guy.
Only when he became violent, and the adrenaline was transformed into real fear, Gillian realized that she had gone too far this time, and that she was in real danger.
She drew her knife, ready to defend herself to death.
The men had been reluctant to do anything, when they saw the resolute face of the little woman, and how safe she went with the folding knife in a ready to fight position.
Their hesitation gave Gillian the crucial advantage: She gave one of the guys a kick in the balls, and the other a hefty cut in the arm, then ran away like the wind.
She escaped, as the men made no attempt to follow her.
Gillian felt great.
Invincible.
She laughed out loud.
She had never felt so good in life.

So how come that Larten Crepsley found this intrepid young woman a little later standing on the railing of a bridge, ready to jump?
What had happened, why did she wanted to kill herself?
Well, the answer is this: She had not wanted to kill herself.
She had just sought another kick.
When the elation subsided together with the adrenaline in her blood, Gillian couldn`t allow this.
She didn`t want to feel again as before, so lifeless and stuck in a cage.
She wanted to be alive and capable of anything.
Invincible.
When she arrived at the road bridge, she entered it, because the slight swaying and the view of the raging abyss underneath had caused her a pleasant and familiar tingling in the stomach.
It was like an addiction.
Finally, she took off her shoes and climbed onto the narrow railing to challenge the threat.
Gillian remembered exactly how great she had felt, as the wind tugged and pulled at her, and called her.
Called her, to let herself go and jump.
She knew she could do that.
The idea was tempting.
To jump, with the wind in her hair.
Like flying.
Simply let go of everything.
Once have full control over your own life.
Gillian had looked down.
The butterflies in your stomach must be overwhelming at such a jump.

Suddenly she had sensed that someone was watching her.
She had turned her head and saw him for the first time
The man stood a few yards away and looked at her curiously, as if thinking about what kind of species she might be.
And Gillian wondered the same thing.
Fascinated, she stared at the scar that ran across the man's face, his white skin, shining in the moonlight, and the long red cloak, spread by the wind like wings behind him.
The man had made a bow, and lifted his top hat, so that a tuft of orange-red hair came to light.
Without a smile or saying something, he had drawn a green piece of paper from the hat and handed it Gillian.
Puzzled Gillian had taken the green paper, and gave a look.
It was a ticket for the Cirque du Freak.
As she looked up again, the man had disappeared.
Gillian had struggled with her balance and almost fell into the deep.
She had been frightened to death when the man was gone so suddenly.
Panting, she reached for one of the steel cables that spanned the bridge and with beating hearts, she climbed off the railing, until she had solid ground under her feet.
No trace of the man.
Here was nothing, where he could disappear so quickly.
Had she been hallucinating?
Everything had seemed so surreal.
If not for the piece of paper in her hand, she was still clutching it.

So Gillian went to a show of the Cirque du Freak.
And became a student of Mr Crepsleys.

Now, fifteen years later, Gillian reached the same place on the same bridge, on which railings she once had stood.
She looked down.
The river was far below her.
A jump down would mean death for every human.
And for a half-vampire?
Gillian did not know, but it was more than likely that her body would be shattered on impact with water from that height.
She had heard that water could be as hard as concrete.
She watched as the sun disappeared behind the skyline of the buildings, and familiar darkness fell upon her.
If Larten should find her, then he could just as well do it here.
Running away was meaningless.
What in the end had any meaning ?
What had years at the side of the vampire brought her?
At first she had felt alive, finally.
Larten had offered her a life that she had always yearned for, full of excitement and danger.
With him all her wishes had been fulfilled.
Or not?
After the first exciting years full of new discoveries, what came then?
Was it not also a kind of deadly routine?
Gillian had started to get bored, even if she had never admitted that until now.
When had she felt alive the last time?
She would never feel alive, not until she became finally like him.

Gillian kicked the shoes off her feet, and climbed onto the railing.

She knew now what to do.
Either Larten Crepsley would finally agree to turn her into a vampire, or she would put an end to all this. Definitively.
She would jump.

Come on, Larten, come and get me, thought Gillian concentrated.
You know, where I am.
Come here, Larten.
Let's bring this to an end.