Chapter 245 - Final Arrangements part 2

His name was Harold Lipsky. He was an Englishmen, and, I believe, a Jew. Short, a bit heavyset, with short-cropped steely gray hair. He was eighty years old, but spry. Somewhat jowly faced. Clean-shaven. Very piercing blue eyes. In the forty years that he had been handling my legal affairs for Thomas, Lampard and Sade, I had only met the man twice. Both times I came away from our meetings impressed by his professionalism… and a little disconcerted by him, though I never knew quite why.

Lawyers! 

There are no connecting flights from London to Liege, so he had to fly to Brussels and finish his journey by rail, but he arrived at Liège-Guillemins shortly before noon, where I had a limo waiting to bring him to my apartment.

Normally, I would have driven to the station and picked him up myself. I own a very well preserved 1963 Alfa Giulia Spider—red, of course—which I rarely ever drive. It would have been fun to take the old Spider out for a spin, but I had a fledgling vampire sleeping in my apartment, and I'd sooner trust my arm to the jaws of a hungry great white than leave my protégé to his own devices.

Day or not, I guarantee Lukas would have tried to eat the neighbors!

So I puttered around my apartment while I waited. I was far too anxious to sleep. I sorted through all my papers, getting them in order for my meeting with Mr. Lipsky, then sorting through them again, just to make sure I hadn't overlooked anything. I checked on Lukas-- sleeping like the dead. I straightened up the apartment again. Perused some brick-a-brack, trying to decide to whom I would bequeath my last few possessions. Should I send this 7,000 year old fertility idol to Apollonius? Or should I donate it to a museum? I had already shipped far too many items to my beloved Apollonius. If I sent him anything more, he was sure to become suspicious. But if I donated it to a museum, which one should I send it to?

I hadn't realized just how complicated it would be to end my immortal life!

Oh, I know I should just do it and get it over with. Have Lukas end me, and let someone else worry about the mess. Why bother with all these plots and preparations!

But… it just wouldn't seem right.

I am the oldest living vampire in the world. I am history incarnate. I am thirty thousand years old, with Shared memories that extend nearly twice that into the past. I have untold legions of children in this world, both mortal and immortal, and I do not wish to die without giving them something to remember me by. To my mortal offspring: my memoirs. To my immortal offspring: the remainder of my possessions. Paltry things, perhaps, my memoirs and my possessions, but better than what death will leave us in the end.

Dust.

Nothing but dust.

So distracted was I by my ruminations that I did not sense Mr. Lipsky exiting the elevator. Normally I would have smelled him the moment he arrived in the street below. When my doorbell rang, I jumped a little and started toward the door. I stopped, realized I was holding a stone idol with an enormous erect penis in my left hand.

Mr. Lipsky might be taken aback by that!

I returned the fertility idol to the coffee table, turned it around so it was facing the wall, then walked to the door and opened it.

"Mr. Lipsky," I said.

"Mr. Valessi," the lawyer replied.

"Enter freely—"

Lipsky smiled thinly and pushed inside, muttering, "And of my own will. Yes, yes. Quite amusing, Mr. Valessi."

It can be a shock to see a mortal after several years have gone by. Time is a very subjective thing for vampires. For me, it seemed only a couple months since the last time I'd met with Mr. Lipsky, but objectively, a little over two decades had passed. Since the last time we'd met, Harold Lipsky had transformed from a man in the prime of his life to a gray and stately gentleman. It was unsettling… and a little depressing.

"May I take your hat and coat?"

"Yes, thank you."

Bespoke coat from a proper English tailor. Nothing so gauche as an off-the-rack garment for H. Lipsky!

He was nearly bald now, I saw. And heavy.

"Drink?"

"Scotch, if you have it."

"Of course." I remembered from our last meeting, and had purchased a bottle just for him. As I walked to the liquor cabinet, I said over my shoulder, "We can speak English, if you'd like. It won't offend me. In fact, I find it rather interesting to speak the Saxon tongue."

"The Saxon tongue!" Mr. Lipsky said with a genuine snort of amusement. "Thank you. That would be a relief. I'm afraid I've never had much of a knack for speaking Deutsch."

"Your German is quite terrible," I said, and he laughed again, a bit more easily. "How was your flight?" I asked, handing him his drink.

"Not too bad," he said. He met my gaze over his glass, eyes glinting in the peculiar way the eyes of our human agents sometimes gleam, especially when they have been in service to us for a very long time.

It was the blood.

It is customary to offer a mortal servant a drop of our living blood when they perform a service for us. We call it a "boon". It was the reason his eyes sparkled so brightly, his flesh was so smooth and flawless. Like the Elders of the Oombai, the living blood he'd imbibed over the years had kept him youthful and strong. He was an eighty-year-old man who looked—maybe-- sixty. Fifty-five, if you were feeling generous. Plastic surgery can work a similar kind of magic if you are rich enough to afford it, but it only sands the rough edges off. It does not make one youthful.

Someday, perhaps, if he continues in the service of the undead, the living blood might quicken in him, and make him an immortal. Probably not, though. It takes a lot of "boons" to trigger the transformation. And most of his type don't want to be a strigoi. Who would? They just want to enjoy the perks of our affiliation: the wealth, the health benefits of lapping up our blood from time to time.

"It's cold here," he said, lowering his glass from his lips. "Much colder than in London."

"I prefer the cold," I replied, thinking of glaciers. Glaciers creeping over the mountains of my mortal birthplace. The smell of the wind as they blew down from the north, swirling off those white shelves of ice.

"Yes, but you would, then, wouldn't you?" He waited for me to reply, smiling politely. When I did not speak, he looked somewhat discomfited, then confessed with a shrug, "I read your book, Mr. Valessi. Or perhaps I should call you Gon. May I address you as Gon? Mr. Gon?"

"I'd prefer that you call me Mr. Valessi," I replied.

"Of course. Whatever you prefer. I meant no disrespect."

"Oh, you have not offended me. It is simply that I reserve my birth name for more intimate acquaintances. May I ask you how you came across my book?" I had published it under a fictitious byline, disguised as a work of fiction.

"Oh, my secretary found it, actually. She reads a lot of that gothic, uh… literature. She saw the name Valessi and showed it to me, thinking it an amusing coincidence. I, of course, realized the book was not quite as fictional as it appeared to be."

Unable to restrain myself, I asked, "Did you enjoy it?" The author's reflex.

"It was a bit short, too much sex," Lipsky said apologetically. "But interesting!"

I laughed. "I'm sure that's a fair appraisal. Now, shall we get down to business, Mr. Lipsky? We've a lot to cover today."

"Yes, certainly," Mr. Lipsky said.

I gestured toward the dining room table and he proceeded ahead of me. He sat, placed his briefcase on the table in front of him, unlocked it and swung the lid open.

"And what will we be taking care of today, Mr. Valessi?" He took out pen and paper.

I circled around to the other side of the table. Sat. Steepled my hands with a smile.

"My last will and testament," I answered.