It was an oven summer afternoon when Lauret kindly knocked on the screen door of the modest cottage. A moment later two dazzling sapphires came to the door. "Yes?" came the intrigued chime. Lauret's tall figure blocked out the light casting a shadow into the small room and over the the shorter figure. "I've come to see about the water pump, you were asking for a spare part?" The figure moved to open the door. "Oh yes! Do you have one?" Lauret went from his pocket to reveal the item in question and motioned politely to the screen. Filled with delight the figure opened the door fully. "Oh yes that's it, but I hope it didn't cause you too much trouble?" the figure became a beautiful young woman, pale and wearing a tight black top with boyish shorts, her medium length black hair swayed as she asked her question. "Not at all, I was actually in town coming your way when i saw your post and I thought it would be a good time time talk to my new neighbours." The sense of local elitism catching like fire to the woman she smiled and invited him in. Lauret did an overformal bow and entered, his black locks brushing past his should and reviving as he came upright taking in the small room, being both kitchen and dinning. Lauret also reflected the pale temperament and blue eyes of his host, which looked back to study him as he entered unawares. The only difference of the two was Lauret's head taller and wider than her.
"Was it Cassandra? I read that on the post." she had gone into the back to put the piece away as she responded in a informative yell "Yes that's me!" She busily returned full of wave of warmth "And your name?" "Lauret" As he offered his hand to shake. "Nice to meet you" as the cool palms embraced. "Would you like to stay for a quick snack, maybe a drink?" as she motion towards the kitchen. "Of course, I could use a bite." Lauret took the nearest seat to the table as Cassandra went back to the kitchen and busily prepared food for the table. "When did you move in?" keeping her mind off her task. "Oh this summer, just up the road by the fifth lot." he responded with slight indifference while looking at the lake. "Well its a good time for it, terrible hot this summer." she said as she moved with around with the board of food. She brought the massive board with her slender white arms to the table, a barely fancy array of different cheeses; brie, camonbert, bourson, gouda, and a few meats with crackers. "Wine?" she cocked her head as the pleasant vowels left her mouth. "A bit, yes, thank you." he said warmly. She moved about back to the kitchen with an excited energy while Lauret remained in a stoic form overlooking the nature, its commander and doctor. She poured a small glass for her guest and a larger for herself, as it seemed her habit and then sat across the table from him. They ate and sat and talked about gossip appropriate for a woman to a man, which is the eyebrow raising municipal news dull type as Cassandra let the small talk excuse the flow of the pleasant drink.
"Lauret is a French name right?"
"Italian, actually."
"Oh..." she paused, harmed from the unexpected answer.
"It was my mother's side of the family." He was looking down, fidgeting with the curved cheese slicer waiting for a response. When none came he looked up at his guest's cold eyes.
"Have you ever been?"
"No." She said abruptly as she looked out the large windows at the lake. She was swishing her drink mindlessly, thinking of something else.
"But I'd love to go one day." She turned back with a smile.
"It's a beautiful country." His eyes and smile trying to pierce her listless mood with deeper meaning. Her smile deepened.
"I'm sure it is." She took another sip.
The moment sat as the breeze came through the windows and was interrupted by the odd noise of Cassandra sighing sadly.
"Its kind of boring." as she gazed out at the mirror lake and chirping birds.
"Don't get me wrong, when me and Charles moved here I really liked it a lot. But after a few years it really drains you, its all the same." She seemed to be talking to herself.
"When was that?" Lauret stiffened himself at the mention of her lover.
"About three years ago... but it feels like a lifetime." Again almost talking to herself. She took another sip and finished her glass functionally.
"Nature is beautiful but seeing what artists can make, I think that's more important."
"And if that nature did not exist, how could there be art from it? Perhaps you will make something beautiful" His calm and deep tone retort of new silly possibilities tickled her into a smile.
"I don't think so." she was blunt as she put down her glass and dreams, turning back to her guest.
"I'm not really the artistic type anyway, and neither is my husband for sure... how about you?" her warm eyes threw the question out.
He put his hands together thoughtfully "Not in a material way, I like to think you can find art in all things, if you can see it that is, and frankly..." His turn to look mindlessly out the window now "there is more art here than in all the Guggenheim, not that modern art can even be counted as such." He chuckled and was met with the unexpected chuckling of his host which fed his own, they laughed and looked at each other in a silly stupid moment. She sighed and cocked her head staring at him.
"Well Mr. Not Artist..." she got up confidently and grabbed the wine bottle in the kitchen and cutlery and came back pouring him more without his consent. She returned to her own and filled her glass as she spun around. "A toast to seeing beauty in everything, even when it's as boring as hell!" The 'hell' being a definitely drunk one. He smiled and raised his glass "As hell." came the overly deep and gravely tone. They set their heads back and drank. Lauret kept his composure while Casandra slumped happily into her chair, resuming her romance with the window. "To be honest... its not just the cottage, but Charles himself... so boring, so..." her voice trailed off. "Its the same routine, the same ideas, I shouldn't say it but..." Lauret leaned forward, trying to capture her off gaze. Lazily she came to meet his eyes in defeat "I'm just..." she was staring at him now. "Bored..." she said it in a mixture of realization and melancholy, very rare.
"I'm sure something exciting will happen, if you keep your mind open, that is." he said unphased and focused. She smiled away embarrassed back to the window, covering her face lazily with her hand as she covered her eyes with her hair and then back to him. "Yes... I think something exciting will happen soon." She laid back in her chair letting her arm go limp by her side, her whole body relaxed. Now she was silent and the room changed.
His eyes ran down the cool pale flesh, the blue lines of her veins mirrored his eye's hue as he sated his sight on that cobalt gold. Involuntarily licking his lips he came back to her gaze which had become deep and hollow, filled with intent. Her response was a calculated loosening of her arms and placing her legs far apart under her ashen gown, signalling to him.
"When will your husband be home?" came the assured question from his moist not-nervous throat.
"Usually half past ten." As she tilted her coy head to the side, letting him perform the joyful calculation. 3 and half hours.
After a brief pause Lauret got up from across the table, his shadow figure filling the room. He began to move towards his target with methodical smoothness unnatural to himself, tracing his finger along the edge of the table's smooth varnish. Cassandra looked up with faux naivete suppressing the bubbling desire in her breast with a heavy breath and holding her left hand to it coyly as her right lay limply behind the chair. He came to the edge of her seat and let his left hand waver confidently in the air as she looked up at him prey upon their destroyer. Without averting his gaze from her full moon azurites he knelt to the side and let his table-finger catch the hem of her skirt and slowly move it towards her navel, savouring revelation her marble tabernacle. She reciprocated with her childish eyes and parting of her light red lips to make a slow O. Just as his hand closed in her cold thighs slowly closed in around his hand, snuggling him there. She sat upright with bold desire, eyes locked on his own, and clasped his venturing arm with her left and suddenly flashed him an evil smile.
In a flash her right fist swooped up and struck him in the chest just as he went to turn from her. He stumbled back looking down at the common knife stuck out from him that had narrowly missed his heart. It poured forth crimson pain. Looking up in half shock to see his muse already erect and motionless in deadly intent, shoulder slumped forward. He gave a pained smile as he jeered at her "Well then..." She lept at him fangs primed and sunk them into his defending arm, her eye more like black pits and wild motion. They tousled on the floor, he letting fly full blows from his free hand to unfang his assailant who held fast until he used her leverage to being her ribcage down square on his knee, making her let go but fly into a frenzy. Their blows and agility were superhuman, and shook the crying kitchenware of the cottage. She gashed the side of his face with her razor nails, he responded with a round house kick knocking her over the couch, crashing into the table and splitting it. He took the moment to remove the knife from his chest. Only more aggravated her she picked herself up and flew back at him in wild abandon only to land in his adept hands, he plunged the same knife into her wrist but she went on as if it was unnoticed sticking at his waist. He then twisted it with one hand and with the other pummelled her gut over and over towards the wall until she hit it and plunged the knife into the wood to pin her there.
They both took a moment to breathe, feeling this an uncertain checkmate, staring each other down with those same erotic eyes. Cassandra's hand leaked blood down her white arm, the wall, and onto the floor. Lauret's face had already sealed up the claw wounds with only traces of his blood running down his face. After their breathing fell in even sync he spoke first.
"You killed my master four years ago in Tuscany."
A sardonic smirk covered her mouth as she looked up with fiery eyes. "Oh, that tired old fool. I would have never guessed he had such... delicate taste." As she admired the pale curves of his cheekbones, raising her free hand almost to feebly touch it. He grasped with like a mad father. "Did you really think you could escape? Leave without any punishment?" he growled. She laughed pathetically as blood came up onto her lips. "Well here is my punishment now, and how handsome he is!" This only furthered Lauret to lose more of his dwindling temper. "Do you even know who he was!? What kind of rabble strikes at a grandmaster? And what could he have even done to you!"
Her breathing slowed as she looked up at a fool through the stands of her wild hair. "Nothing." She let the word hang in the air. Lauret looked on in confused horror "I killed him..." Her head bent down, now rising up to his own with new strength against the knife "Because he was weak!" her eyes bulged with their whites as she let out an insane cackle. Seeing his recoil she moved forward a knee to his groin and her free hand in a pincer to dig into his side. Despite his fear Lauret adeptly unstuck the knife and in a crescent motion slid it upwards into her rib cage, piercing her heart. That seemed to end her strength yet she moved. He knew it was over. As her heart necrofied he held her up to the sunset beaming in through the large rectangular windows, the white curtains blowing in the lilting breeze. "Look upon the nature we have spurned" he growled as he clasped her head with his strong hand. She moaned then screamed as the light entered her eyes and suddenly her pale skin caught into flames, her eyeballs becoming blazing orbs as her body peeled away like light paper to a fire, leaving a pile of white ashes on the floor. The exhaustion took Lauret and he collapsed backwards into the ugly and comfortable sofa. He looked down at his side wound in annoyance. It would take some time to heal. So he sat there in his answerless triumph, watching the sun descend and feeling his heart still beating. Being close to being extinguished he took in the sounds and sights of nature with new vibrance as his dead flesh spliced back together. He contemplated that setting sun, that setting world and how all the small things, even poor chipmunks and flies perish with clock that God instilled upon them. And how he did not move according this this clock, did not share the life that it imposed, and wondered is that made him above the nature before him or merely alien to it. Is there value in loving things that could not come to love you back? Perhaps that is how it felt to never hear to tongue of God but still worship him, and wondered how John would fare in this pristine wilderness.
Lost more in thoughts than pain, Lauret only realized his health long after the sun had gone down. Darkness had encroached upon the small cottage and only the outdoor light illuminated its wooden deck. Lauret got up pristinley and feeling his now smooth side felt satisfied and left the cottage door. As he walked into the singing trees a hoarse voice called back "Who the hell are you!" The 'husband'. Lauret weary from confrontation slowly turned about in his black coat. The man sitting in the shadow of the porch light saw only a pale face turn back to him, so white it seemed to float in that absolute darkness of the countryside. The birch trees yawned in the flowing breeze like monsters, the warm winds giving them breathe, and the dismal porch light struggling to illuminate infinite darkness and a swarming horde of animal life within it's endless womb. It seemed the two were in different worlds, one in darkness and one in light, and the whole sight inspired as much fear as awe in the man as his muscular hands curled into tense sweaty balls. The vampire looked back with the oddest emotion of smiling sorrow or happy remorse, unable to bring words of meaning to help this deluded man, like an animal, he simply gazed up at him to try to give condolence. Neither could speak and after a moment though could be a minute or ten he turned away and walked into the infinite forest, his face swallowed by the darkness and rushing leaves, leaving behind sorrowful mystery.