The incessant rain hammered
the gray streets of Soho, and ran down the dirty facades of the buildings
like bitter tears.
Valentine muttered to himself as
he walked the familiar streets from Totenham Court Road underground with
his eyes closed. Obscenities filled the chill air around him; he despised
the cold stab of the London rain, and the way it was only ever half-dark
here. He cursed the sulphurous pollution of the street lights and the pulsating
neon signs of the strip clubs, sex shops and porn theatres - he was still
aware of their infection through his closed lids and hated that there was
flashing lights where there should have been darkness.
Valentine stepped over the threshold
of his club and flicked the lights on. He sighed heavily...
Another night ahead watching all
these fop fucks prancing around in their purple velvet and black lace,
their clown white melting off and running down their faces in the heat
of lights and bodies. And the way they smell. They smell like pigs to me.
Like cattle. Animals. Even the clean ones smell like piss and shit and
sweat to me. I fucking hate them.
Although the lights were soft, dim,
he squinted as if they hurt his eyes and glowered over his shoulder at
the innocent light switch. He walked over to the bar and tossed his keys
down onto the liquid-black granite counter.
“I knew I would find you eventually.”
Valentine spun around in the direction
of the voice. It wasn’t just hearing his voice that startled him, but the
fact that he had not immediately sensed the presence of another being in
the club with him. He'd been around his clientele and nobody else for too
long. They'd dulled his senses, made him soft, made him like them. He was
no longer the predator he used to be. Living with them, being near them,
had made him only a fraction of his former self.
That voice was unmistakable. By the
time he’d turned around and the realization had hit him fully, his blood
had frozen in his veins. The souls of his feet and the palms of his hands
felt as if they were freezer burned; he was unsure whether the sensation
was heat or cold. He swallowed hard and tried his damnedest to put forward
airs of coolness, and calmness, and nonchalance. He tried, but he knew
he would not fool the man who now stood before him, a man he had not seen
for decades, yet knew he would see again…someday.
Over the years he had almost learned
the art of forgetting the fear a mere mention of his name instilled in
himself, and anybody else who knew of him. But those years withered and
died, dissolved in a heartbeat, and left behind them an overwhelming nausea
in the pit of his gut.
Why did you come back? Why are you
here? What do you want? I don't want you here? Why don't you crawl back
under your rock, you sick fuck?
"Questions, questions, Valentine.
I've not even taken my coat off yet. And you've not offered me one of your
fine beverages. Some Maitre'd you are."
Although Valentine hadn't uttered
a word, the other man had read his thoughts. He hated it when he did that.
Valentine broke out in a corpse-cold sweat. He could feel his body quivering
as he stood looking at him, instantly under his spell once again.
“Vivant. I thought…”
His name on his tongue tasted like
a bitter flavor.
“Thought what, Valentine? That I
was dead? No; I’m not dead, well, I am, but you know what I mean,” Vivant
told him with a broad smile bereft of any warmth or levity. His feral grin
revealed the gleaming tips of his stark-white fangs.
Valentine was even paler than usual,
and tiny beads of sweat sparkled on his brow and upper lip in the dim and
dusty light inside the club. Valentine’s unease pleased him immensely;
he was happy that he could illicit such a strong reaction from his old
friend after all this time.
“I won’t be alone very long, so if
you’re going to kill me, just do it before somebody comes in and clean
up the mess. We’re opening soon.”
Vivant’s laughter broke through the
silence. He slapped the bar with his open palm to punctuate his hysterics.
“Oh, Valentine; you still make my
belly ache with laughter,” Vivant said, rubbing at his stomach. He stopped
laughing abruptly.
“If I wanted you dead, Valentine,
you wouldn’t be standing there almost pissing yourself with fear,” Vivant
told him. He stared at Valentine with soulless eyes. Valentine had no doubt
that he meant what he said and he knew that he still stood there in his
own club only by Vivant’s grace. But what bothered him more than being
killed by Vivant, was why he was here in the first place. What bothered
him the most, was what he wanted.
They stood looking at each other
across the edge of the bar for what seemed like eternity. Valentine still
didn't know what he wanted, and was still afraid to ask.
"You'll be wondering what the hell
I'm doing here, no?" he asked Valentine.
"Of course I'm wondering what you're
doing here. We've not seen each other for decades. What is it you want?
"I want you, Valentine. I want you
back."
Valentine stiffened at his words,
the hands at his sides contracting into fists, shoulders drawing up as
his muscles all became taut, tense.
"I'm not sure what you mean." Valentine
tried his damnedest not to stumble over his words, not to show his fear.
"Yes, you do. Don't be coy - it's
unbecoming on you. You know exactly what I mean. Tell me, have you ever
felt the way it felt when we were together? Have you ever felt that bolt
of electricity that shoots up your spine and into your head with so much
pleasure it feels like you brain is being fucked, with anybody else except
me? You miss that. I know you do. You could spend years protesting that
you do not and I will never believe you. I'll never believe you because
I know how it feels. And I know I've never felt that again. I've never
felt it without you, Valentine."
Valentine tried hard to swallow but
his mouth was dry, nervous tension obstructing his throat. The nerves in
his lower abdomen stirred as Vivant's words triggered his memories. And
he remembered in glorious hues of red. As he thought back to those times
he could not stop himself from sighing. A low growl made its way up his
throat as his primal nature began returning, triggered by remembering he
and Vivant on their legendary hunts. He remembered both of them lying on
their backs, chests heaving with exertion, soaked from head to foot with
fresh blood and picking shreds of flesh and clumps of hair from between
his teeth.
He remembered having a human heart
in his hands, staring at it with fascination and squeezing the last of
the contents of the organ into his mouth. And he remembered the two of
them, fangs locked into each other's veins and feverishly drinking in the
potent vampire blood. No sensation on earth - human or vampire - could
compare to that of one vampire feeding from another. The sensation was
beyond bliss, beyond sex and sensuality. The sensation was beyond the religious
ecstasy of the stigmatic feeling Christ's pain and suffering. It was, quite
simply, beyond compare. His cock stirred and he had an intense urge to
put his hand down the front of his pants and start stroking it. He wanted
to grab Vivant by his tousled black hair and make him sink his fangs into
it and drink from him.
A knowing grin spread across Vivant's
ruddy lips.
"You don't have to lament the passing
of those days anymore, Valentine. I'm back. We're together again. And we
can feel what we once felt again."
Tears welled up in Valentine's eyes
as he realized he was again powerless to resist him. His mind and body
screamed at him to be strong, but the vampire heart that beat inside him
told him to go out into the night and be what he was supposed to be - a
ruthless killer, a murderer, a beast. The feral heart that beat out a tattoo
inside his chest told him to go out into the night and be the only thing
that he could be - a vampire.
Valentine walked, stepping heavily
across the floor, and slumped down on a low stool at a table in a corner
of the club. He had no idea what he was going to do. He was torn inside,
a war raging in his head between the man he was now and the beast he knew
he could be. And he knew which one was stronger. He knew which one would
be triumphant. Questions filled his mind and his brow furrowed as a satisfactory
answer evaded him.
What is it that stops me from
being what I am and doing what I know I want to do?
These humans do nothing but make
me insane with their smell and their falseness and their pretense and their...their...everything!
I'd love to run rampant through
this club when it's full to capacity and slit each and every throat from
ear to ear and bathe in the arterial spurts that would paint the walls
a beautiful shade of vampire red.
"So, come with me then, Valentine.
Don't just dream about the old days - let's live them again. Let's be more
than we were even then. We're older now, stronger, more powerful. The world
is at our feet and there is nothing beyond our grasp. It is all there for
the taking and if you want it, all you have to do is reach out and take
hold of it. Come with me."
Vivant held out his hand to Valentine,
crooking his fingers toward himself in a come here gesture. Valentine didn't
move; he sat there, body rigid, hands on his knees and his fingernails
digging into the flesh on his legs. He still tried to resist him, still
tried to deny Vivant his dominion over him, but he knew it was futile.
Valentine rose, shoulders slumped,
his head heavy, defeated by himself and his own desires. He put his hand
in Vivant's hand.
Vivant's grip tightened around his
fingers and his eyes changed.
His eyes, he remembered, only changed
when he was in a state of blind rage.
Valentine watched as the near-black
of Vivant's irises bled into the whites turning them dark and the iris
flooded with scarlet color. His pupils became feline, elongated and a snarl
curled his upper lip and showed Valentine a stab of keen white enamel.
Before he could blink, Valentine
was slammed into the club wall with such a brute force that each one of
his ribs shattered and he felt sharp shards of bone protruding through
his skin and the heat of his own blood running down his front. Immediately,
his bones began to knit back together again and within seconds he was new
again, unharmed.
"You think it's going to be that
easy, you fucking prick?" Vivant's voice emerged from a growl that rumbled
in his throat.
"But...but...I thought..."
"You thought you'd just swan back
in and everything would be rosy in the garden and we'd go on our merry
way and fuck and suck our way through eternity, right? Wrong. You've got
some fucking explaining to do. And if I'm not satisfied with your answers,
then...well, let's just say your answers had better be satisfactory, you
understand me?"
Valentine knew that he was serious.
"I asked you a question - do you
understand me?" He asked again.
"Yes, I understand. I'm sorry, Vivant."
"Sorry? What for? Trying to kill
me?"
"Yes, I'm sorry for that. I had no
right to do it. I just wanted to get away from you," Valentine said.
"You could have just left me a fucking
note! But no, you had to try and kill me. Why did you do that? Were you
that afraid of me? What did I ever do to you to make you hate me so much?"
Valentine was ashamed of himself
and looked down, toed the pool of his own congealing blood that lay on
the floor at his feet.
"I'm sorry. I don't know what else
to say. But you do know what you did, Vivant. But, I know I don't deserve
your mercy, so if you're gonna kill me for what I did, so be it. I won't
struggle. I accept my fate."
Vivant looked at him with a horrified
look.
"What? Jesus. You've been amongst
mortals way too long. Once upon a time, I'd be watching your eyes change
right now."
"I'm glad it's finally over. I've
lived with the fear of you coming back for so fucking long that I nearly
forgot what I was afraid of," said Valentine, and laughed bitterly. "I
just want it finished. So finish it now, Vivant. Kill me."
"You'd like that, wouldn't you? Ever
the fucking martyr. Well, fuck you; if that's what you want, I'm not going
to give it to you."
They stood glaring at each other.
Valentine was determined not to give Vivant the fight he wanted and Vivant
was desperate for each of them to draw blood and tear strips of each other
in a passionate, obsessive battle of wits and fists.
But as they stood there, eyes locked
together, minds reading each other, they both knew that it was futile to
resist. A bond that can never be broken was between them - the bond of
father and son, the bond of brotherhood, of lovers, of family - the bond
of the maker and the child. These were bonds that had withstood ultimate
betrayal, loss, loneliness and the expanse of decades. But in the moments
as they looked at each other, the years disappeared into history and this
night - the night they were brought together again - was just the beginning.
© Alex
Severin 2004
