Chapter 113 - Vesuvius, December 29 part 1

I felt the music penetrate my flesh even before I entered the building, the thump of its bass like a second heartbeat. They call it "techno", but it has a primal quality that belies its modern label. It conjures memories of my people's ritual chants, the drumming of bare palms on hollow logs, men and women shouting as they leap and spin around a roaring fire, their bodies moist with sweat, their faces tilted to the heavens in ecstasy.

I closed my iridescent eyes to drink in the music. I can feel it in my flesh, in my mind.

For a vampire, television and cinema are irritants. My thoughts fly faster than a mortal human's thoughts, and so I am aware of each shuttering still image. They whirl like life itself for your human eyes, but for me they are still images, ticking steadily through my consciousness.

But music… Ah, music!

Music has the power to seduce me. A world without music would be a world without color, without dreams.

But I am not here tonight simply to enjoy the music, as attractive as the idea may be. No, my motivation for coming is far more malevolent. 

I intend to murder a man.

And so I opened my eyes and stepped to the red velvet rope and waited for the doorman to admit me.

The bouncer was a veritable Goliath, arms thicker than my thighs, chest twice the breadth of my own. He had a shaved head and artfully groomed facial hair and wore an electronic listening device in one ear. It looked like a plastic insect feeding from his ear canal.

I had to wrench my eyes from the throbbing blue vein in his ox-like neck. The hunger was burning in my guts, squeezing my intestines between its taloned claws. Young men and women pressed behind me, drunk and loud, eager like me to gain entrance to this temple of sound. Innocent souls, they were ignorant of the very real danger they had stumbled upon tonight. They rubbed their plump, sweating bodies against me, making me squeeze my hands into fists for fear of turning and ripping their throats out.

Throughout the millennia, I have lost control of myself more than I care to recall. I have devoured entire tribes in the hot red grip of my bloodlust. Some vampires can easily move among our human prey, pushing aside the bloodthirst without too much difficulty, but not I. I have always been far too easily tempted, prone to bouts of savagery in spite of my gentler nature. 

For a moment I felt like I was drowning in a sea of human smells: their salty human sweat and sex pheromones, the coppery scent of human blood sluicing through all that succulent flesh. I wanted to bite them, rend open their throats and suck them dry--

Get a grip on yourself, monster!

The bouncer finally deigned to notice me.

"Namen?"

"Valessi," I replied.

The name I use in this modern era is Valessi. Gaspar Valessi.

He consulted a clipboard, began to shake his head.

Impatient, I hissed, "Let me enter!"

"Sorry, friend. You're not on the list."

I was a little surprised he refused to admit me to the nightclub, as I had pitched my voice to influence his mind. It is a trivial skill. Any vampire can master it, if that is something that they care to do. It only takes a few of your mortal lifespans to get the hang of it. He should have obeyed me without thought. Instead, he crossed his ridiculously muscular arms and scowled down at me like I was a child.

I realized then that it was the music. The music coming from inside the club had interfered with my carefully pitched tonalities, so I adjusted the frequency of my voice to accommodate the bass thumps pulsing through the steel doors—a bit trickier—and gave it another try.

"Step aside, you oaf. Let me pass!" I demanded.

The man's eyes fluttered. For a moment he looked confused, then he unhooked the velvet rope with a blank expression and gestured for me to proceed.

I slipped through the door, feeling somewhat guilty. The temptation to abuse one's preternatural abilities is a powerful one, but it is a danger I strive to resist. I need only remind myself of the Dark Ages, when the Catholics very nearly harried my kind to extinction, and I am duly chastised.

I passed though a brief antechamber decorated in the Roman style. Reproductions of Pompeian art—most of it quite raunchy-- adorned the walls of small alcoves, evenly spaced between faux marble pillars. I was impressed. The Pompeians were a very open-minded and sensual people. This modern world is not so liberal.

Plaster casts of Mount Vesuvius's victims curled on the floor below the erotic frescos, bodies contorted in the throes of their final agonies. They were crude, cruel reproductions. Juxtaposed against the sexually explicit murals, I found it all a tad gauche. That's just one man's opinion, of course, but I was present when the volcano erupted. I lost a woman I loved when the great wall of burning ash came roaring down the mountain.

The lights in the corridor throbbed in synch with the music. I passed a group of giggling young women-- tight clothing, breasts exposed like French aristocrats, half spilling from their bodices. A couple of them gave me a quick appraising glance, then I pressed through an interior door, and the music swallowed me whole.