Chapter 114 - Vesuvius, December 29 part 2

Inside, techno pulsed loudly enough to damage human eardrums. Patterns of light scintillated across the ceiling and walls, flashing red, orange, purple. Young humans threw their sweaty bodies around the dance floor or mingled together at the bar or the tables, hoping to find a mate to accompany them home for the night... Or, at the very least, a momentary distraction from an otherwise mundane existence: a fight, a thrilling bit of gossip, the flash of an attractive stranger's eye across the crowded chamber.

They waved plastic sticks filled with luminous fluid, sketching the air with serpentine streaks of pastel light. They snorted coca powder up their noses and poured alcoholic beverages down their gullets by the gallons.

It reminded me of the Bacchanal-- or any of Rome's countless drunken festivals.

You humans...! Always yearning for distraction. I don't know how you can find your lives that tedious. They are so brief. So very, very brief.

Of course, such things are relative. To me your lives are fleeting sparks. They rise up from the fire, twirling like little stars, to wink for a moment in incandescent glory before dying away, lost to the winds of eternity.

And this club--! This seething nightclub, these celebrants-- so tame in comparison to the sights I have seen. I, who witnessed the gladiatorial games of Rome in its heyday, who can recount the pantheon of Haman, a country-- and the gods its people worshipped, which they called the Vitae-- lost now to time but for my undying memories. I marched in the Bacchanalia, and watched in wonder and disbelief as the Bacchae, the crazed female worshippers of the Roman god of wine, tore their clothes from their bodies and ran wild through the streets, raping the men and the boys… even the dogs!

My name in this modern era is Gaspar Valessi, and I am the oldest living creature on this planet. I estimate my age at 30,000 years, although I could be off by a millennia or two. For a being as old as I, there is no accurate stick to measure the span of my existence. I was old when Homo Sapiens shared this world with other thinking beings, all of them now long extinct. I was married to a Neanderthal woman. I warmed my cheeks by the light of civilization's first sunrise.

Do you know who I am?

You, butterfly child, you press your body against mine as I cut through the thrashing crowd, smiling with your blood-colored lips, arching your breasts toward me, so full and soft to the touch. Don't you feel the lifeless chill that emanates from my flesh? Don't you see the strange luster of my skin, or notice its unnatural inflexibility? Do you not know how you tempt the monster inside me? You run your fingers across the front of my trousers, laughing at your own audacity. Do you think you can shock me with your forwardness?

You have no idea!

If you knew the thoughts that burned through my mind at your touch, like falling stars streaking across a blackened sky, you would run screaming from this place. Join a convent. Dedicate your life to the Christian god.

I seize you by the throat. My grip is cold steel. Irresistible. I push you down on the floor as you struggle in vain to pull my fingers from your neck. Your eyes bulge, your bloody lips split open to loose a scream of disbelief and terror. I tear open the front of my trousers, releasing my totem like a beast from its cage, and then I rip away your garments, sweep them from your flesh as if they were made of tissue. I penetrate you, make you cry out, and then, even as you claw at my back, trying to force me off you, I penetrate you again, my fangs hooking into your flesh as savagely as my organ hooks into your sex, fucking you, feeding on you, until you're as cold and lifeless as I am.

I would never do such a thing, of course! Not to someone as innocent as you. Not unless I was starved for blood. But your youth, your beauty… it tempts me. It tempts the monster that dwells within me. My soul is a terrible pit of ravenous vipers. Be careful that you don't fall in!

Yes, that's right. You've guessed my secret.

I am the vampire Gon.

No ordinary vampire, I am the Most Ancient One. The ghost god of the blood drinkers. For many thousands of years I have kept my identity a secret, but loneliness has driven me to publish my memoirs, to reveal myself to the human world, if only in the guise of gothic fiction.

Others of my kind have taken notice.

Have I told you that?

I have gotten very angry electronic mail from some of them. They are surprised by my revelations, and filled with self-righteous indignation at my reckless disregard for our secrets.

They speak of laws. They threaten retribution.

Bah! I do not fear them—not even the eldest!

My kind are too few now to have any real society. We have no laws for me to break. And even if there were a multitude to rise up en mass to silence me, who would carry out my punishment? Who among my brothers and sisters has the strength to challenge me?

Heed this warning, my immortal brethren! Gon has set up house in Belgium. This city is off limits to all of you, save those I have loved or made into immortals. You throw away your life if any of you dare venture into my territory!

My race is most rare, and yet I am singular. The oldest. The most powerful.

Indestructible, they whisper, in whatever dark crypts those self-righteous demons choose to haunt, and they are correct.

Many have tried to kill me, even my own vampire children, yet I am still here, the hoary grandfather of a deathless race.

But I don't like to brag.

Of course, I must appear to you, butterfly child, like any other human male. Early middle-age, handsome, longhaired and bearded. You have not guessed my secret yet, have you, little one? You see me here in this club, my white flesh disguised by cosmetics, and you think that I am just another 30-year-old "dude", too old by your standards to be in this thundering place. I should be home with my wife and my children, you probably think. You believe you play a game with me, torturing some prosaic family man who has not the good sense to retire from this sport.

I could-- I should-- kill you for your presumptuousness.

No!

Damn this hunger! It is so hard to maintain my self-control in this place, with so many warm bodies writhing up against me. All this hot, blood-filled flesh, squirming against me from every direction.

You play with fire, little girl! The way you place your hand on my shoulder, the way you lean your face into mine, your silky hair-- smelling oh so clean and fine-- swirling like a dark cloud, your neck so near to my teeth.

Your ripe red lips part. You mean to speak.

I smile at you suddenly, baring my fangs.

Surprise! Fear!

I see the blood drain from your cheeks, your eyes grow wide, even as your body shrinks instinctively away from me. Your hands rise to your defense, and then I use my preternatural speed to flit through the crowd away from you, vanishing from sight, leaving you shaken, and with the unspoken admonition:

Careful, little butterfly! The world is full of spiders!