Here we go, here we go, here we go again...
Long I Lay In The Ground
It will be a few weeks before I need to feed again, and I wonder how I will manage without Al-ys. Since she has been with me, I haven't had to find my own meals. I haven't had to dispose of the waste either. This modern world is different and new and its noises are jarring - I barely maintain composure without my beloved companion at my side, giving me her calm assurances and wise insights.
All that soothes me is music and art and culture, and the art and culture isn't too hard to find in a gracious city of spires and inspired architecture. I'm not finding the music quite so much to my liking, though. Having no further cause to visit the dens of thumping darkness and chemical iniquity so enjoyed by pretty Al-ys I seek the soothing and soaring pleasures of classical recitals - but it seems no single musician in this town has more than a cloth ear and leaden fingers. The very best of them are barely proficient, and the gap between proficiency and accomplishment is as a chasm to me. It would be easier to listen to someone who is bereft of ability than someone whose deviation from perfection is infinitesimal, yet I am misled by advertising.
Night after night I visit the Concert Hall, the Recital Theatre, or the Auditorium, seeking to assuage my loneliness and despair with beauty. The billboards and posters outside these venues promise an evening with the reknowned, the acclaimed and the celebrated, and I sit in the dark, waiting to be transported, willing to ascend to a higher plane where words mean nothing and music speaks to the soul in notes of purity and grace. I am always disappointed, returning still earthbound to my rooms.
Tonight I have purchased a ticket to a performance by some young man purported to be brilliant and dazzling, a genius. He is a pianist, and I don't have high hopes - I am drawing the conclusion now that humans simply cannot attain the splendor necessary to play truly well. They lack the dexterity, they lack the ear, and their souls are too superficial, each and every one of them. Of course it is not their fault that I perceive their efforts in this way. It is an attestation to the aspiring of the human spirit that so many of them strive so hard in their pursuit of musical endeavor. I listen to this man, and I grudgingly concede that he is the best I've heard. He comes so close, so close - he is a hair's breadth from what I want and need and crave, but that hair might as well be a mile in diameter. He is the best, and because of it, he hurts me the most.
After the concert I linger in the lobby of the theatre. My appetite is whet, and there are people all around me here. Surely I will find someone suitable? The loss of Al-ys is weighing on me even more heavily now that I hunger so deeply, and I must either kill or go back into the ground.
Amongst the milling throng I am surprised to catch a glimpse of tonight's alleged genius circling and greeting his admirers. Was I the only one who found his playing excruciating? People fawn over him, and he inclines his head graciously, accepting the adulation and praise, and I find myself affronted. He is undeserving of their acclaim as his intonation lacked subtlety, his timing was imprecise, and his entire presentation was unfeeling and heavy-handed.
I suddenly know how I will dine. He is not unattractive, and I will at the same time slake my thirst, and rid this town of a fraud masquerading as an artiste. He approaches me, and I smile. I will be the most alluring creature he has ever seen, because that is exactly what I am. Within moments I will be attuned to him, telling him everything he wants to hear, and flattering him. He will be unable to offer any resistance, and from then it will be just a simple matter of my deciding when and where he will take his last breath.
But as he comes alongside me, ably carrying out his mission to meet and thank individually everyone who is waiting here to speak to him, I am arrested. He is not normal! For a start, he is unnaturally pale, but that's not it - that's not what has caught my attention and confounded me. It is his scent. He is human - undeniably so - but what is this undertone, this base note that assails my nostrils and takes me back hundreds of years? One of my kind has touched him. It is unmistakeable.
My head flies up, my gaze searches the room, even as he glances to me and he extends his hand. Someone has marked him, invisibly, as a dog marks a tree or a tire, and recently. I cannot imagine why a vampire would bite a human and allow the human to live, but his veins carry a minute amount of venom and vampire saliva, though his heart still beats and his blood still pulses.
"Thank you so much for attending tonight. I hope you have enjoyed your evening," he says, and his voice has a silken timbre. I look disconcertedly at him, noting a vivid greenness to his eyes and a cut-glass precision to his cheekbones. He has been chosen. Somewhere not far from here is his Keeper - and who knows what perverse arrangement they have entered into?
However, despite my confidence that he must assume that I am like all the other humans here this evening, recognition flares in his eyes, and his grip on my hand falters. He knows what I am. My plans for the rest of the night now demand alteration, as my curiosity is piqued. I cannot take him somewhere dark and private and lick the life out of him, because he is somebody's favorite, somebody's human pet. And anyway, he would quite possibly refuse to go. He may be unseduceable.
"Who are you?" he asks me abruptly, his boldness intriguing. He must be very sure of his Keeper, to challenge me in such a way.
"Who are you?" I respond.
Smiling, he indicates the posters around the walls, featuring photographs of him. "I am Edward Cullen," he answers.
Before I can reply, I scent and hear a vampire approach, swiftly. A female. She is displeased that her Ward is talking to a woman for longer than a polite few seconds, and as she gets closer, her displeasure changes to disbelief. She is insecure and possessive, and she has enslaved this man with poison and coercion, and she loves him, but he doesn't love her. I know all of this before she appears, yet still when I see her I am completely taken aback.
Blonde, small, and pretty, she is nevertheless little more than a child. He is a man, maybe twenty-two, twenty-five at the most, and she is barely adolescent, perhaps fourteen. Every gesture of her body, every tilt of her head indicates that she is painfully in love with this human at her side, but he regards her as man regards a young girl. It is immaterial that she has been alive much longer than he has, and her soul and mind have matured way beyond her physical appearance. To society, she is far too young to have a lover ten years older than her. She is too young to have a sexual partner at all - it would be illegal and immoral. And the way he is regarding her shows plainly that he will never be her lover.
"Edward!" she commands sharply, and he inclines his head towards her. The tragic mismatch between them is clearly evident and I am sorry - so sorry - for her situation.
Now I haven't met many others like me, and certainly none like her, but I am the senior here. It is up to me to initiate a greeting.
"Good evening. My name is Bel'aa. This is certainly an unexpected pleasure," I say.
She all but prickles with hostility. I can see that she doesn't even want to give me her name, but her Ward does it for her.
"This is Jane," he says. Trembling with resentment and apparent fear, she shoots daggers at me from glacial blue eyes. I can only surmise that she considers me a threat, and perhaps she hasn't been threatened before, but Edward Cullen is looking me as a man looks at a woman.
When he adds, "Jane is my sister," I sense her fury. We're in public here, and I see she would like to reprimand him, but I also understand that this is how they must present themselves. He must perform on the touring circuit, moving endlessly from city to city, and how else could he be accompanied by a teenage girl unless he is some sort of official guardian for her? How could they travel above suspicion unless they are related? They have no doubt concocted stories of long-distance study, of dead parents, no other relatives, and an unwillingness on both their parts for young, vulnerable Jane to be placed in boarding school or with a foster family.
There is no need for her to refute his claim, though, because to me it is laughable.
"Indeed," I respond politely, wondering quite what the hold is that they have over one another. She drinks from him, I can smell it. Each has traces of the other in their scent. But why would he be with her, when in human terms he is so pleasing? He doesn't want her sexually and cannot bring himself to make love to her - this is plain to me. Perhaps she permits him human lovers as long as he remains attentive to her. Their whole scenario is dark and sinister and delicious, and I want to know. I must ask the little demon though, not her attractive pet.
"Perhaps you would care to visit me tonight? There is much we could talk about. I imagine your life is remarkable," I tell her, and I employ every wile I have at my disposal to get the savage, unhappy girl to agree. She was too young to be turned, and will forever be alone unless she finds herself a vampire partner who will overlook her physical age. She has fallen for entirely the wrong mate. She loathes me on sight, because I am of an age to lure her love from her, but she has no-one to turn to, no support, no ally. What she needs is a mother, but I cannot be mother to her.
"Yes, I will visit you," she purrs lowly, though I know she wishes I were on the other side of the continent. She would like to throw me there.
"And now, you must excuse us as there are many people here Edward and I need to thank. I will find you later. Expect me in two hours," she says, gliding away without needing to ask my address. She will be able to track me.
Later, I am waiting in my rooms, listening to Verdi and lightly agitated, still hungry. The haughty little china doll will come, I have no doubt. Perhaps she thinks she will discomfit me by being late, and making me wait for her. Perhaps her protégé is simply so esteemed that they have been caught up talking to people - humans who admire him. Humans who want him. The level of pain she must suffer on a daily basis astounds me. But however late she chooses to arrive - arrive she will. A philosopher once said, "Keep you friends close, and your enemies closer."
She will not dare not to call on me - in case Edward does.
Once I hear her silent footfall, I determine instantly that she is alone, and it disappoints me. My disappointment is undetectable though, even by the most discerning of observers. I welcome her with genuine interest.
"Please forgive Edward's absence. He tires after a performance, as you may imagine, and he is now resting," she offers smoothly, by way of explanation.
"Have you dined?" I ask.
It's a loaded question, but she chooses to read it on one level only, and shrugs.
"Not for some time. I am a little peckish," she admits. So she has not partaken of her pianist tonight - although I already knew it. All scents are unique, having their own signature even when blended. Hers has the lingering hint of his in it, but from days ago. Maybe she doesn't seek his blood too close to a performance, for fear that he would be depleted. I'm sorry that she is young and lonely, but suddenly I am filled with ire that she enthralls this mortal and takes blood from him, and will neither let him go nor change him.
"And how is it that you came to be?" I ask, cloaking my distaste and offering my arm. She is a child after all, and cannot walk the streets of the city after dark without an escort.
"I don't want to bore you with that story. I'm more interested in talking about you," she answers, deflecting. "You are clearly more ancient than I. Your history must be fascinating."
I find myself amused at her veiled insult, but I have no wish to talk about myself and desire to hear only of her, and thus we reach an impasse.
"I am antediluvian," I admit, and she doesn't know the word. Poor thing, I shouldn't tease her. "I was born many few centuries ago in a place that no longer exists. Not before the so-called Great Flood, but before a major flood, certainly, that covered my homeland so completely that though its existence is rumored, it has never been proven. The world was a very different place then. Our kind were celebrated and revered, and admirers flocked to see us, crossing oceans and mountains just for a glimpse. We were treated as idols, and had the power to bestow great gifts on those we considered worthy. As we still do."
I smoothly brought the conversation around to what I wanted to talk about. "Your brother is a very talented musician - in fact the best human player I have ever heard - yet his performance is still so stilted and unfocused as to almost cause me pain. You know this - it must have the same effect on you. I am curious as to why you not give him the ultimate gift and make him the truly brilliant exponent he deserves to be."
Jane frowns and beneath her tightly controlled surface I am aware of her irritation, but she maintains her composure.
"He has improved greatly since being under my tutelage. I will never do as you suggest because it would harm Edward's ambition. He wants a career. As long as he continues to age, he will be accepted. Obviously, I cannot be seen as his companion for longer than two or three years because I cannot sufficiently alter my appearance. I will have to fade into the background soon, and be content with watching him from a distance." She sighs, her pretty face still a mask, yet a troubled one.
"For another thing, it is simply not possible for a human to become a better technician than a human is capable of becoming. If Edward underwent the transformation, his playing would be far too accomplished and intuitive and visionary for a mortal. It would draw attention to him and to us, and I fear discovery. Discovery, as I'm sure you'll agree, would be catastrophic."
Her reasoning is sound and plausible. She has rationalized her refusal to change Edward, and as she repeats it to me, as I am sure she has repeated it both to herself and him, she sounds completely sincere. I have my suspicions that these are not her only reasons, though. Distasteful as the idea is to me, I believe she may be keeping him as a handy, entertaining and highly decorative source of sustenance. A pet who also serves as an aperitif. At her age, it must be difficult to wander the streets alone at night, hunting. As long as she can sip from Edward, she need never suffer true hunger and can afford to go without predating when conditions are less than ideal.
I find myself torn between finding her choice repugnant, and yet understandable. I am forever twenty-three human years, and will never know her predicament.
"Shall we go for a walk?" I suggest. "We can see what this city has to offer in terms of dining options."
Accompanied by me, Jane can walk the night streets, and we can window-shop and people watch.
She agrees, and we set out. It is around midnight, and the night is temperate. This is a cosmopolitan city, with a variety of its inhabitants and visitors still strolling about, visiting the late night bars and clubs. Streams of noises pour from doors and windows, and I am drawn to the sound of a soulful, lone clarinet in a backstreet cafe.
"Jazz? I've no time for it," Jane snorts, but we go in and listen for a while, although I sense her restlessness. Maybe it's time we found our dinner.
Outside, the alleys beckon. We're not far from the waterfront, and we'll need somewhere to dispose of a body, so we're in the optimum location.
"Preferences?" I ask my companion, in case she has particular requirements. This is the red light area, and the people gliding about are women dressed provocatively, and men who reek of vice and dishonesty. Jane makes her selection quickly, and approaches a scantily-clad girl. The girl looks up in alarm as Jane approaches, but her pimp isn't nearby, and her attacker is swift. To my surprise though, Jane wants to play. She asks the girl about what she does and what she earns, and what the clients are like. She pretends to be a runaway with a drug addiction who needs fast money. The girl she is speaking to is clearly intoxicated on something or other, but beneath the slurring she is kind, and tries to advise Jane to find another solution. She suggests the churches, and the charities - anything but prostitution. Jane pretends to listen and consider, but suddenly she lunges, and bites savagely at the girl's throat. I don't know why, but she hasn't gone for the artery, and she has hurt the girl without giving her a fatal wound. The girl can't scream, and her breath comes raspingly as she tries to plead, but then Jane begins to gouge her with fingernails, leaving cruel, deep grooves in her chest.
I fly forward and pull Jane's arm back, wondering why she would torture a victim. Her eyes gleam and she resists me, although I am stronger than she is. She puts up a fight while the human girl has collapsed to the ground groaning and sobbing in her agony and terror.
"Let me be!" Jane snarls in fury, bloodlust clouding her eyes and turning them scarlet.
I shake her off and snap the girl's neck. No-one deserves to be persecuted, and I can't understand what would possess Jane to prolong a death in such a cruel way. We have barely seconds to feed before the blood is no good, but I have no appetite for it now anyway. Jane sucks noisily for as long as she can, then raises her head to regard me.
"Why did you do that?" she asks.
"Why did you?" I counter.
"Cortisol," she responds. "I love it."
"Jane - they're sentient," I stress. "We give them and take from them their last minutes, and they go to their eternal rest. Their deaths are ours - we are the arbiters of mortality. Humanity suffer enough in their temporal existence - they endure disappointments and lose loved ones. We need not send them off in anguish."
Her sapphire eyes narrow at me, her pale face twisted into a sneer.
"Perhaps you're not aware of my everlasting circumstance, dear Bella," she replies. "I endure an eternal anguish, locked in this barely pubescent body. I can't drive, I can't go unaccompanied into licensed premises, I can't take out a lease on a property, or manage my own financial affairs. I'm questioned by authority figures at every turn. If I appear in public any day of the week I'm asked why I'm not at school. On the weekend, I'm asked where my parents are. Despite being emotionally and intellectually mature far beyond my appearance I cannot take a lover, because only perverts would fuck a fourteen year old. These things will never, ever change. You speak of pain so blithely. What could you possibly know of it? Mine is alleviated if someone else can take it on for five minutes. Five minutes' reprieve isn't much, in the face of forever."
Much of what she says is true. I am looking into the howling, relentless, bitter fury of an unremitting impotence.
"Jane, this girl did nothing to hurt you. Your maker is responsible for what you are," I attempt, inadequately.
"Him?" she snarls. "Oh, Madame Bella, he is long, long dead, and he was a long, long time dying, I made sure of it. Sometimes I wish I hadn't ended him, so that I could do it anew. The one thing that miserable sadist bequeathed to me besides this everlasting and hateful childhood was a wish to kill him nightly. I would put him a dungeon if I could, I would chain him and starve him to a state of weakness, and then I would sit opposite him and taunt him with little kindnesses, because cruelty was all he knew. Cruelty fed him and made him powerful - I would smile and thank him, and he would scream. I know this because it's what already happened. I drove him insane by singing to him and saying I couldn't bear to leave him to his solitude and suffering."
It occurs to me then that Jane is close to becoming unhinged. It also occurs to me that I know someone I could take her to. My own maker, who I haven't seen in well over a century. He lives a quiet and sumptuous life, surrounding himself by others like us, yet not like. His entourage are those upon whom the dark blessing sits uneasily, who are not quite reconciled to the burden and the fire of immortality. He provides a haven for the dislocated, and offers care and non-judgement. In return, he is able to simply observe. His curiosity regarding the vagaries and varieties of the human condition, amplified once vampirism comes into the equation, is unquenchable. He would harbor Jane if she were willing to go to him, and perhaps she would not feel so devastated, so acrimonious, and so unempowered amongst his collection of vampire oddities.
But would she leave Edward? How attached was she to him?
There is no God and therefore I do not pray, but I speak words of reflection now and again to clarify my thoughts and to offer acknowledgement of events. Briefly, I spoke to the lifeless young prostitute, holding her in my arms, and expressing my regret that life had brought her hardship. I was sorry that she had died frightened. Jane was sullen and silent as I laid the body tenderly in a doorway, arranging the limbs to be redolent of sleep, and licking the neck clean, though the flavor of dried blood is unpleasant.
And then I turned to Jane.
"Would you like to come with me to Europe?"
.
.
.
Pick me! Pick me! I'll go to Europe!