Chapter 251 - Final Arrangements part 8

Impending mortality had made my existence precious again. I was not sure exactly when it happened, only that it was glorious. It was as if I'd been viewing the world through a dirty pane of glass, glass caked with the dust of thirty thousand years, and my rapidly approaching death had scoured the glass clean like a howling whirlwind.

I took a deep breath as a mortal man would do, smelling the crisp winter air, the redolent scent of wood burning in some nearby fireplace, supper cooking in a dozen kitchens, tar and concrete and car exhaust. I felt the chill of the night air on my bare flesh as if I were a living man again. I imagined my cheeks turning red, my nose running, my ears going numb.

It had been a long time since I had really felt the cold—felt anything—as a mortal man might feel it. The sensations are the same for an immortal, keener even, but for many hundred of years there had been a disconnect, a gulf between physical sensation and my experience of things. The cold did not have the power to affect me (few things did anymore) and so I'd chosen to ignore it. I could see and smell and taste with a sensitivity that would make mortal men weep or go mad, but it did not reach me. I had forgotten how to be alive, which is a strange thing for a vampire to say, I know, but no longer.

That elation persisted all through the night.

When we returned to my penthouse to bathe and change clothes, Franz, the doorman, peered curiously at us. He did not comment on our disheveled appearance-- servicemen rarely do-- but I found myself uncharacteristically curious about him. Who was he? Where did he live? What were the circumstances of his life? He had been a part of my life for better than a decade, longer than I had been neighbors with the Gerouxes, yet I knew almost nothing about him.

It seemed a terrible shame that I'd never bothered to know him. I could have followed him home one night, peeked in at him as he went about his evening routine, gotten to know this man who had shared a bit of his life with me. Now I'd never have the chance. It was too late for such things, and my frustration came with a thrill, a longing, that I hadn't experienced in a very, very long time.

Later, at the Belle-Ile, a North American-style shopping center, colloquially known as a "mall", I found myself fascinated by the bustling crowds, the slick modern architecture, all the bright shining lights and glittering surfaces. Beneath the sparkling surface, it was not much different from the markets of Rome or Egypt or Sumer, but I knew I would never experience such a thing again, and so it was precious to me, as all things were precious to me that night.

We purchased backpacks from a sporting goods shop, some spiral bound notebooks and ink pens so that I might complete my memoirs as we journeyed to the Swabian Alps. We made use of an automated photobooth before departing the mall. At my direction, Lukas slid into the booth and allowed the device to snap a series of photographs of him, which sprang out of a dispenser on the side of the machine.

Clever device!

"We need to deliver these to the front desk at the Ibis Liege," I said, placing the photographs into an envelope. "Mr. Lipsky will bring your new documentation to the penthouse sometime tomorrow afternoon."

Lukas nodded, distracted by the mortals streaming around us. I had hesitated to bring him to such a crowded place, but he'd behaved admirably so far. Probably because of all the blood he'd drank earlier. His tummy was visibly distended. He had drained all the blood from the hoodlum named Gerd, and bled the prostitute Annette or Annabelle past the brink of death. I doubt he could have fed again tonight if he'd wanted to.

I should have been furious with him for killing the woman, but I was in much too good a mood to be uncharitable towards my protégé. I actually felt some fondness, or at least a smaller degree of revulsion, for the little beast.

"Come, Lukas," I said, "let us deliver these photographs and go home. I still have a great many things to do before we leave tomorrow evening."

Lukas fell into step beside me.

Outside, in the bitter winter air, flakes of snow still swirling down from the heavens, Lukas said, "You called me by my name. You don't do that very often."

"No? Well, I suppose I'm in a gay mood tonight. I'm excited to be leaving on the morrow. To be on my way, at last."

"So you really mean to go through with it? We're going to the Swabian Alb? You're going to make me kill you?"

"Of course I mean to go through with it," I said, smiling and tilting my head back. Each flake of snow that fell on my bare flesh sent a tiny, shivering thrill through my body. "We are going to journey to the place where I was born, completing the circle of my long, long life. I am going to visit the cave where my wives and husband are buried, I am going to pray to my ancestors one final time, and then you are going to destroy me. My soul has been chained to this corporeal plane for thirty thousand years, Lukas. I yearn to be free. I want to see what else lies out there, beyond the veil of death."

"And what if there's nothing?" Lukas asked. "What if this life is all there is, and when we die we just blink out, like a TV when you pull the plug out of the wall?"

"Then I will have peace."

Lukas was silent for a while. We crossed the parking lot of the Belle-Ile, carrying our purchased wares like two ordinary mortal shoppers. Finally, he said, "I'm going to enjoy killing you, you know."

"I know you will," I said with a laugh. "That's one of the reasons I chose you."