Chapter 248 - Final Arrangements part 5

Normally I'd leave by the balcony, leaping to the apartment building across the street. I couldn't do that tonight. Lukas was still having trouble overcoming his mortal instincts. He couldn't seem to get a handle on his amplified senses. He couldn't control himself when he moved at full speed, overshooting his mark or crashing into his surroundings. And he was frightened of heights. I had assured him time and again that he could fall from the tallest building in Liege and get up and walk away. Rationally, he knew I was telling the truth, but his mind couldn't let go of the fear. His muscles locked up when he was more than a few stories in the air, and it took a great act of willpower to force them to move again. I think he was one of those people who had to fall before they got over their fear of heights. It was an unexpected weakness. One that worried me. Would he have the strength to do what was required of him, once we got to Germany and it was time for him to kill me?

We took the elevator instead.

He knew why I had elected to take the elevator and pressed himself into the corner of the conveyance with a sullen expression on his face. He stared at his reflection in the brass panel walls as we descended, arms crossed.

"It still surprises me when I see my reflection," he said.

"Superstition," I sniffed. "There are a great many fallacies regarding our kind. Sunlight will not kill us. Garlic does not repel us. We are not repulsed by religious artifacts. And we do indeed cast reflections."

We both regarded our reflections then. I, dressed in a dark turtleneck sweater and jeans, my hair pulled back straight from my brow and tied with a leather thong. Lukas in a close-fitting long-sleeve shirt and leather pants, his bangs hanging like crows' wings over his eyes. Two very handsome, albeit pale, men. I had showed him how to apply cosmetics so that we did not look like walking cadavers. Instead, we looked like two thirty-year-old "bros" headed out for a night of clubbing.

Amusing.

The cab of the elevator stopped unexpectedly. With a chime, the door slid open and my downstairs neighbors, Henri and Josette Geroux, smiled in at us.

"Mr. Valessi!" Josette cried, striding into the elevator. "What a pleasant surprise! How are you this evening?"

Her husband was right behind her. He offered his hand and I shook it gently. I clasped his wife's fingers, bowing slightly at the waist. "Madame Geroux. Monsieur Geroux. How nice to see you. Lobby?"

"Yes. Henri is taking me out for dinner tonight. It's our anniversary!"

"How wonderful!" I smiled, careful not to let my eyeteeth show. "How long have you two been married now?"

Josette glanced at her husband, fingering the jewels at her throat. She was dressed in an ankle-length maroon evening dress and fur stole, her blonde hair fetchingly styled.

"Thirty-seven years now," her husband answered, and she smiled, pleased that he was so ready with the answer. He was dressed in tux and tails.

Of course, I knew how long the two had been married. Josette had been discussing it with her husband all week. Over the last ten years, I had eavesdropped on them far more than was seemly, enjoying their happy marriage vicariously.

The door slid shut and the elevator resumed its descent.

"Thirty-seven years," Josette mused. "We've lived here fourteen years."

"Yes, I know."

Josette's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Fourteen years, and you haven't aged a day, Monsieur Valessi," she said, as if I had done it specifically to vex her. She laughed and placed her hand on my chest. "You really must share your health regime with me! Whatever it is, it's certainly working!"

"I wish that were true," I said. "I'll be visiting a specialist in Germany next week."

"Oh?"

"My ticker," I explained.

"Oh, goodness! It's nothing serious, I hope."

I shrugged. "The outside has held up well, but the inside is going to pot, I'm afraid."

"I'm so sorry!" Josette exclaimed.

"Yes, so sorry," Henri added. "I hope everything turns out well."

"I'm in good hands. My friend Lukas here is driving me to my appointment. We plan to leave in the morning. I wanted to do a bit of sightseeing along the way. Might be my last chance."

They turned to my companion.

"Oh, he doesn't speak French," I said. The Gerouxes smiled and nodded at my fledgling like he was mentally deficient.

Lukas shifted uncomfortably, tormented, I'm sure, by the smell of their blood. I could see his nostril's flaring, the lines of tension radiating down his neck.

Fortunately, the elevator dinged again and the door swept open. The Gerouxes bid us good night and strode purposely through the lobby.

"What was that all about?" Lukas wanted to know.

"Just saying goodbye," I answered placidly. It pleased me to see the Gerouxes one last time. Their marriage had been a pleasant backdrop to my life here in Liege. My mortal neighbors for over a decade, their routine was a kernel of normalcy in my bleak and chaotic existence.

"You told them you were going to a heart specialist in Germany," Lukas said. "Why bother?"

I was surprised he could follow our conversation that well, then I remembered his friend, Maurice Fournier, had been French.

"I don't want them to be overly concerned when I fail to return," I replied.

Lukas exited the elevator with an amused snort.

I followed him out, nodding to the doorman as I passed.

"Franz."

"Mr. Valessi."

Franz tipped his cap, an older gentleman in a maroon and gold uniform. He had been the doorman for as long as I had resided here.

"Do you think they even give a shit?" Lukas demanded, waiting for me outside on the sidewalk.

If you want to spot a vampire on the street, look for the clouds of condensed vapor coming from the mouths of men and women on a cold winter night. We don't have them. Strangely, most mortals don't seem to notice.

Tiny white flakes drifted from the lowering sky, adding to the snow that lingered stubbornly on from the last storm.

"Why do you say that?" I asked. I threaded my way through the pedestrians passing between us.

"They don't give a shit about you," Lukas glowered.

"Whom?"

"Them! The Gerouxes! Upper class fucks." He fell in beside me as I continued down the street. He had pressed his hands into his pockets, lowered his shoulders to the wind, as if the cold still had power to pain him. "They won't even notice you're gone," he said, then laughed contemptuously again.

"Perhaps not," I said, looking up at all the lighted windows.

Traffic moseyed in the street beside us like a herd of sullen wildebeest—bawling and snorting. High overhead, a cargo plane from Liege-Bierset glided into the heavens. It rose with a sound like rolling thunder, the rumble of its engines echoing through the canyon of glass and concrete we were traversing. Suddenly I longed to be far away from there, away from the city that I loved, and out into the countryside. I wanted the organic curves and spiraling fractals of the natural world, not all these boxes and hard pointy edges!

Patience, old monster. We will be leaving the city soon enough. Just a few more hours.

"I hate them all," Lukas muttered. He was glaring down the street ahead of us, shoulders hunched, but I had a feeling he wasn't seeing the cars, the snow, the people. "I told a social worker my father was buggering me," he said. He glanced at me, eyes glinting. "When I was thirteen or so, I got in trouble with the police. Nothing big. Got nabbed for running from a police officer. He just wanted to question me about some kids, a gang, that was causing some trouble in our neighborhood, but I was scared, so I ran. He hauled me into the station for making him chase me. Guess the fat ass didn't like to sweat. They questioned me about the gang, but I didn't know anything. I wouldn't have told them if I did. Anyway, I suppose I acted funny somehow, because one of the cops got the idea there was something going on at home. They sent me to talk to a social worker, said I couldn't go home until I'd seen him. I didn't put up a fight. It was an opportunity. It was a chance to get us removed from my father's house. Me and my sisters. So I decided to tell the guy everything. How my father was buggering us. How he prostituted me and my sisters to his friends. The drinking. The drugs. The gambling. The social worker listened to all of it with this expression of… pure horror on his face. Horror and sympathy. I just knew he was going to swoop in and save us. Like Superman, or something."

He laughed.

"Do you know what happened?"

"What?" I asked.

"He signed me out of custody. Told the detective he was driving me home. Said he wanted to talk to my dad. On the way home, he pulled his car over in a park. Locked the doors. Turned around in the seat, and told me I was going to blow him. Blow him or he would tell my dad I'd ratted him out." Lukas shook his head, smiling. "After you're dead and I'm on my own, I'm going back home and finding that social worker. I hope he's still alive. I don't know. Maybe he's dead by now. That was twenty years ago. But if he isn't… if he's still alive… I'm going to pay him a little visit, only this time it won't be his cock I suck."

We had found our way onto the Rue du Papillon. Low-slung brick buildings. Cobbled streets. Graffiti scrawled over the walls. If memory served, we were not far from the neighborhood where Lukas had once lived. Where he had filmed his kiddie porn with his friends Maurice and Hans. We walked uphill where the street narrowed, and just past the spot where Rue Strivay split off from Papillon, we heard mortal voices echoing in a lightless alley.

"Owwwww! Stop it, Gerd! You're hurting me!" a woman whined.

"I said shut up, bitch!" a man snarled, and then a sharp clap as an open palm met an unseen cheek.

"OWWW! Why'd you do that? I'm doing what you asked me to!"

"Hee hee hee! Slap her again, G!" a third voice screeched. "How her who's boss!"

Lukas grinned, back arching like a cat. He bared his fangs and glided forward.

I grabbed his arm, shook my head when he glared at me. I nodded toward the rooftops. "We attack from above," I whispered.

The buildings here were only two or three stories high. I leapt silently to the roof of an abandoned garage. Lukas followed.

He should have been able to make the roof easily, but he could not quite clear the top of the structure. He clung to the brick façade, cheeks puffed comically out, then scrambled over the ledge, huffing and making a lot of needless scratching sounds.

We crept across the roof of the garage until we could see into the alley below.

There were three mortals lurking in the trash-strewn backstreet, two men and a woman. The first male was a tall fellow in a fur collared brown leather jacket and cargo pants. He was gripping the forearms of an emaciated female whose skirt (much too thin and short for the cold) was hiked up over prominent hipbones. Thrusting into the woman from behind was a smaller male, pants around his ankles, shirt pulled up and tucked beneath his chin. The tall male had the knobby shaved head of a Neo-Nazi. His fingers were sunk cruelly into the woman's flesh. I couldn't make out the woman's face. Her head was just a mass of over-permed ringlets. She didn't sound happy, but she did not seem to be with the men against her will either. The man taking his pleasure of her was swarthy and ugly, with a large nose and bulging, frog-like eyes. He was dressed in a black tracksuit with yellow piping. 

Lukas edged forward hungrily. "I want the woman," he growled, but I placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.

"Those are not evildoers," I murmured. "Just exhibitionists. Poor and uncouth. Let's move on. Leave them to their vulgar pastime."

"Are you kidding me?" Lukas hissed. "I know those guys! That Skinhead is Gerd Drechsler. He used to bring us girls for our movies. And that little fucker is named Lemming. We called him Lemming because he was always falling in the river. I don't know why. I didn't know him too well. Just saw him around the neighborhood from time to time, but I heard him brag once about stabbing a guy down in the park. Fellow knocked up his sister and wouldn't own up to it, so he killed the bastard."

I searched my companion's face, but detected no deceit in his countenance. He was telling the truth.

"And the woman?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Annette or Annabelle something. I don't know. Just some crack whore. She's one of Gerd's bitches." He turned back to the alley. "I want her, though. I haven't fed on a woman yet. I want to see what that's like."

"No," I said sternly. "We take the men, but the woman lives."

Lukas smirked. "How do you propose we do that? Without leaving her a witness, I mean."

"Regardez," I smiled.

I scanned the street, looking for cameras. I did not expect to see any in this section of Liege. It wasn't a slum, but there wasn't exactly much to protect here either, but I was surprised. A few buildings down from the alley, a camera was mounted over the show window of an office supply shop.

Always with the cameras now!

There was a pair of crumbling chimneys jutting from the roof behind us. I retrieved a chunk of brick from the pile of rubble at their base and returned to the ledge.

Lukas watched with keen interest (he enjoying watching things be destroyed) as I cocked back my arm and let the chunk fly. Pieces of broken camera rattled down the street after the brick.

"Watch, and do not interfere," I said.

I do not normally hunt so early in the evening, but there was very little activity on Rue du Papillon. It was cold, and all the huddled shops were closed down for the day. Still, I needed to be cautious. The alley the trio was copulating in was open-ended but for a low brick wall and a wrought iron gate. I would be partially exposed to anyone passing on the street beyond. I crouched, waited as a delivery truck rumbled past on the far avenue, then propelled myself at my quarry.

I flashed across the street, moving too fast to be seen by mortal eyes. I struck the ugly, frog-eyed male with my palm, slamming him into the low brick wall, then whipped around, snatched the Skinhead's fingers from his girlfriend's bony forearms and threw him into side of the building. Both men slumped to the ground, knocked unconscious by the blows.

Moving at speed, I turned back to the frizzy-headed addict. She stood in a submissive posture, body bent forward at the waist, panties around her knees. Without her Skinhead boyfriend to hold her up, she was starting to overbalance.

I slapped my palm across her face before she fell. Hollow eye sockets. Bright red lipstick smeared across her cheek. A mask of tragedy, her face. I felt her muscles spasm as my attack registered on her drug-addled consciousness. One confused and tear-streaked eye popped open in the space between my thumb and forefinger.

"Sleep!" I commanded, my tone imperious, compelling her to obey with frequencies of sound no human throat can produce.

Annette or Annabelle went limp.

I lowered her to the cold cement as gently as I could, started to rise, then pulled up her panties and tugged down her skirt.

"When you awaken, you will not remember how you got here, or that you were even with your male friends here tonight. You will go home and take a nice warm bath, and then you will go to bed and have the most peaceful sleep you've ever had in your life." Her mind would be highly suggestible in the trance state that I had placed her in. I regarded her thoughtfully a moment, then added, "In the morning, you will rise, eat a healthy breakfast, and then check yourself into a rehabilitation clinic. It is time for you to take care of yourself. You deserve a better life than this."

I rose. Checking for traffic, I grabbed the one named Gerd by the fuzzy collar of his jacket and dragged him across the street.

It's a bit more difficult to climb walls when you're carrying an unconscious mortal—you mortals are much heavier than we, with our hollow, bloodless cells—but I got him onto the roof of the garage without much difficulty.

Lukas gurgled hungrily and went to his knees beside the man.

I returned to the alley, fetched the man Lukas had called Lemming, who was beginning to stir and moan softly now, and climbed back onto the roof with him.

Lukas snapped the Skinhead's neck as I passed, the bones crackling like kindling. He drove his face into the crook of the man's shoulder and began to gash the flesh with his eyeteeth.

"Whassizzit?" Lemming moaned, folded over my shoulder. His pants were still tangled around his ankles, but I didn't worry about that. I needed to finish this killer before he came to his senses. Before he started to scream.

"Hey, what is this?" Lemming cried. "Who are you? Where are you taking me?"

"I'm taking you to hell," I said.

I threw the man down, and then I threw myself upon him.

Lemming drew a breath to scream, his frog-like eyes bulging even further in his terror. The shout never passed his lips. I didn't let it.

I shoved his face rudely to one side, brutal in my eagerness. I was suddenly starved, hungrier than I could remember being in a very long time. I tore open his neck, catching the hot spray of his blood in my open mouth, feeling it splash across my tongue and the back of my throat, and then I latched onto him and began to suck.

Red tides of ecstasy washed across my thoughts. I dove deep, indulging myself without reservation. This would be the last night I spent in my beloved Liege, the last night I would feed on her wicked children-- the last time, perhaps, I would ever feed on human blood again. I wanted to feel every pulse of pleasure, every tingle and spark of bliss, and bask in the warm glow of my hunger's satisfaction.

But all good things must come to an end. My mortal lover's heart raced madly for a moment, then lost its rhythm and stopped, and did not beat again. Reluctantly I withdrew my fangs from the muscles of Lemming's neck. I bit my tongue, spat a bit of the Strix upon the wound to heal it, then sat back on my knees. 

I sighed, melancholy now, as I used to be after sex. All gone now. The ecstasy. The blood. All Gon's, and all gone.

"Sad, is it not, to squander such a precious gift?" I said to Lukas. "He could have done so much good with his life. But then, who am I to judge? I have squandered a thousand lifetimes."

My mortal victim looked very small and young now, flesh bled white, face turned to one side, as if in repose. There was a star tattooed on his right cheekbone, just at the corner of his eye. For some reason, it made me think of a child's nursery, shooting stars painted on pastel walls. This man, Lemming, had been some woman's baby once, whatever dark paths he'd wandered later on. Remorse sank its sliver-sharp fangs into my heart.

"No time to wallow in guilt tonight," I sighed. "We still need to get that photograph of you for Mr. Lipsky… Lukas?"

I turned around. I was alone on the roof. Alone with two dead men.

"Lukas!" I roared.