Chapter 149 - Interlude part 1

For a moment I was twice lost in time, dreaming of my home in the Swabian Alb as I descended into the valley of the Tanti-- as I sat in the spare bedroom of my penthouse in present day Belgium, recounting all this to my captive Lukas Jaeger. For a moment, I didn't know which was real. Was I in the past, dreaming of the future? Was I in the future, dreaming of the past? It was the sound of motorized traffic that finally snagged my floundering psyche. It caught in my mind like a hook, reeling me through the millennia to the present. One moment I was falling through the treetops, dreaming of my mates, my brood of squabbling children, as summer foliage whipped past me in a rustling green blur… and the next moment I was in my penthouse in the here and now. Liege. Winter.

I felt a constriction in my chest, as though my heart were being squeezed, as if I could no longer draw breath. Yet, I am a vampire. My heart does not beat. I do not breathe—unless I wish to speak.

I strove to still my mind. My soul was a gaping wound, spurting blood. Staunch the flow with serene thoughts, old monster, I counseled myself.

In the icy streets below: the rumble and burp of automobiles. Horns honked. A siren wailed.

Day was dawning on my beautiful snow-dusted city. Its pastel light glowed faintly on the bedchamber's frosted windows. I could sense the denizens of the city rising with the sun, attending to their toiletries, bundling up in fur-trimmed coats (faux fur, of course, in this "civilized" era) before rushing off to their jobs in their rude and fuming vehicles.

I shifted in my seat, wiped a tacky black tear from my left eye.

Lukas watched me from his bed, his body motionless, saying nothing. He didn't have to speak, however. He didn't have to move. He could not conceal his emotions from my preternatural senses. His faintly frowning lips, the way his eyes shone back at me-- the flat and emotionless stare of a crocodile—all but shouted his disdain. My nostalgia disgusted him. For this mortal, love was an alien concept.

"Are you aware of how horrible the present smells?" I asked.

I saw a flicker of confusion in those soulless, reptilian eyes.

"Of course you don't," I said with a smile. "Why would you? You were birthed in the fetor of this poisonous modern world. The stench of this age is as natural to you as your own skin."

Though it annoyed him to ask, I saw that he was too curious to resist. "What do you mean?" he said. He raised himself up on his pillow, trying to get comfortable. I'd been talking a long time. All night, actually. His body was probably aching from lying still so long.

If he weren't a ruthless murderer I might have felt some shame. Our original bargain was for an even exchange: his sad stories for mine. But I was the one doing all of the talking. How terribly egotistical of me! 

His right knee was bent in the air, his left leg lying flat on the mattress. He had crossed his arms.

I gestured vaguely. "The atmosphere has become a toxic haze in the last one hundred years. With each passing day, the atmosphere grows increasingly alien and repulsive. You do not notice because your mortal lifespan is so short, but for a creature like me, it is as if it happened overnight. The air of this world has become a wretched miasma of carbon monoxide from your gasoline-powered automobiles, of industrial pollution, insecticides and fertilizers. Human waste. Drugs. Humanity drowns this planet in artificial chemicals like a child playing carelessly at some new game. The rivers reek of sewage and unmetabolized pharmaceuticals. You bathe in noxious chemicals, then drench your flesh in pungent perfumes to mask your natural scent. Why mortals do this, I cannot fathom, as your natural scent is so alluring."

I laughed derisively.

"Better living through chemistry! Isn't that the motto? Modern man has bought into a lie, like an old fool who believes the snake oil salesman will cure all his ills, and now you drown in a sea of toxic chemicals! Even the taste of mortal blood is tainted.

"Soon, I fear, the scales will tip, and mankind will vanish from this despoiled land. Perhaps that would be the best thing for this planet, before humanity drags the rest of the world to the grave with it."

"It's a big planet," Lukas said. "There are still places untouched by humankind."

"You believe so?" I asked. "When I walked the earth as a mortal, I knew of only three or four hundred other men and women, and half of those were Neanderthals. Man did not dominate nature. We lived in balance with nature. For every human there were a million birds in the sky, a million fish in the waters. I have seen, with these very eyes, herds of bison stretching from one horizon to the other. I have seen the sky darken as if it were night with the passage of migrating fowl. What do you have now of any great number? Rats and cockroaches? Pigeons? If you venture into the countryside, the silence is deafening. Man has conquered nature, and left the carcass to rot in the sun.

"I once fought a war to save your race," I said to him. "I destroyed untold numbers of my own kind to preserve humanity." I looked to the frosted windows, which glowed now with a soft golden light. "I wonder if that was the right thing to do," I said softly.

"A war?" Lukas asked, his interest quickening.

Of course...!

He sat forward, his eyes avid. "There was a war between your kind? A vampire war, you mean?"

"Yes."

"When was this? Why don't you tell me about that, instead of all this soap opera crap? I don't care about Ilio's baby, or how you reunited with your descendants."

"You want action, is that it?" I asked. "Blood and gore and murder!"

"Hell yes!"

"Rest assured, I plan to tell you all of it. It's not much further along in this narrative, actually. I only tell you of Ilio and my grandchildren so that you will understand the decisions I made. You must love something before you will fight for it… or at least you should. What would be the point otherwise? To kill for the sake of killing?" I sighed. "I suppose there are men like that. Men who wage war simply for the sake of killing. For the thrill of it. But that is not something I would do."

The light was stinging my eyes. I was tired. Not physically tired. This immortal body does not grow weary so quickly. I was emotionally spent. I suddenly felt the need for solitude. I rose to leave the room.

"I think we are done for now," I said, moving toward the door. "Is there anything you require before I leave?"

"You're going to bed?" Lukas asked.

I nodded.

"Something to drink," he said. He raised his arm and shook his wrist. "Oh--! And unchain me from this bed!"

I smiled. "I will refill your glass."