Beloved,
I have to adore the earth:
The wind must have heard
your voice once.
It echoes and sings like you.
From “Love Song,” by Henry Dumas
***
He nearly breaks my undead hand.
The bouncer is definitely a were, and one of the big ones. Bear, maybe? Anyway, he takes my hand to shake, and holds on, and squeezes. When I don’t react, his grip gets harder, and after two seconds, if I were just a mortal my hand would be nothing but a squishy bag of bone chips. But I just meet his thousand-yard stare with one of my one, and don’t show pain. And, satisfied, he lets go and waves me in.
I don’t feel much anymore. I guess that’s a good thing, not feeling.
I should have expected it, or a similar test. No one gets in to Club Chthonic free and easy. You prove your way in to the darkest club in Vancouver.
And when I say ‘darkest’ I don’t mean ‘hardest to identify whether you’re actually dancing anywhere near the person you were trying to dance close to.’ When I say ‘darkest,’ I mean ‘least likely to actually emerge from alive.’
Yeah. It’s like that. Lucky for me I’m already dead then.
My name’s Wolfgang Stark. I’m a vampire. I’m here to kill an Immortal.
That’s what they call themselves – ‘Immortals.’ But word choice matters, and they chose wrong. Maybe they don’t age like the rest of us. Well, not me, anymore, but others do – normal people. And maybe they don’t get sick, and maybe they heal from mortal wounds faster than I used to heal from papercuts. No, scratch that, no maybe about it. They don’t age, they don’t get sick, they don’t die in stupid accidents because someone wasn’t paying attention with the ladder. They might live forever.
But they’re not immortal. They’re not gods. They can die. And I’m going to prove it. Tonight.
Emily Barrowcourt, the Ice Ninja, is going to die tonight.
***
I’ve been around for a couple hundred years. Sometimes it feels longer.
It’s been long enough to make an enemy or two.
***
My mother died when I was just an infant. I don’t think I ever saw her face. I hope that’s true, because I can’t picture it, and if it’s not true then that says something about me.
I know that she was the daughter of a wealthy German merchant family, wealthy enough to catch the eye of a minor noble family that needed an infusion of wealth, back when real power was just starting to move from blood to gold. Love didn’t enter into it, even less than it does now, but both families got what they were looking for.
My father was a diplomat, sent to Europe by the kingdom of Maravi. I’ve looked it up; it’s capital was in what’s now Malawi. That’s in south-east Africa, by the way.
You can probably guess where this is going.
My father was sent on a trade mission to try to form a relationship with a European power to offset Portugal’s influence in the region. He got stuck trying to chat up the graf married to the woman who would become my mother. The graf, I was told, wasn’t thrilled about playing host to some savage, but was trying to impress whoever was higher up the political food chain and so was on his best behaviour, and had a number of receptions at his property.
My father told me that, when he first saw my mother, he saw the beauty of her soul, and he was lost. Obviously, she felt the same, if not at first then shortly. It’s hard enough to cross the colour line today; then, it must have been almost impossible. My parents were special enough to see the worth of each other to cross that line. That’s where I come from.
Father kept finding reasons to drop in on the graf, and managed to do so when the graf was busy with other matters. Mother was perfectly happy to host while her husband was busy. Father told me they were subtle, but no one in the house imagined that their relationship was even possible, and so they got away with the occasional minor PDA without raising suspicion.
Then my mother got pregnant.
I gather the hope had been to play me as the graf’s kid whether I was or not. But biology will have its day, and I was born even darker than my father.
Mother knew instantly she had no chance of hiding my parentage, and her infidelity. The graf hadn’t been in the room during the birth, and while those present were still wondering what to do, my mother grabbed me, threw on a coat, and ran into the night.
She didn’t make it to my father.
The graf caught up to her on the road and cut her down.
My mother heard his horse before she could see it. And before the graf could see her. She knew what was coming. Desperate, she hid me in the crook of a tree’s roots, with a cloth soaked in milk to suck on to keep me quiet. And then she went back on to the road, for the graf to find. To find her alone.
When the graf was done with her, he assumed I was dead or dying; he didn’t see any need to hunt around for me to complete his vengeance. By the time I started crying, he was gone.
That’s how my father found me, when he received word of an incident on the road and came out searching for my mother.
My father’s mission kept him in Germany for several more years, and much of that time he had to interact with the graf. They both knew everything, but neither could show their rage for the other. They had to play nice. In public.
The graf sent hired goons after my father constantly. My father was already slightly skilled at combat, but he got better fast. Necessity is a hell of a teacher, and he was fighting to save me. He had no illusion what would happen to me without him around. He was careful. With some of his attackers he could claim self-defence, if there were enough independent witnesses honest enough to state that the thugs came at him first. Other times he had to be careful to leave them alive and not even too seriously wounded. And sometimes he had to hide the bodies.
Meanwhile, Father was doing everything he could to destroy the graf. While he didn’t have that much practical power, he was the charming representative of a foreign power, and was able to gather up enough influence. By the time Father was ready to leave Koln, the graf was friendless and destitute. My father made sure he was informed when, a few years later, the graf died on the streets.
How is this relevant right here right now? Emily Barrowcourt, as she calls herself now? She’s my half-sister, born two years before me to my mother and the graf.
***
I met Shiro about thirty years ago.
For a couple of decades after getting drained, I went all-in with the Damned Child Of The Night thing. I kept a harem of entranced mortals, and forced myself to think of them as lesser beings just there for my amusement. First it was effort to think like that, then it was boring, then it got actively disturbing.
So I went all-in the other way. I went looking for love, and found it. And I figured that, since I was going to live forever, but only at night and only by drinking blood, she should share that with me. And she was willing to. So I drained her. Then we started having trouble, and then she started enjoying her current state a little too much for my tastes, and five months later she was gone.
I learned from that, and found someone else, someone better, someone I could trust. Eliza. She knew what I was, and loved me anyway, and wanted to stay mortal. We had a long and wonderful life together. I’ve never been that happy, thinking back, and never will be again.
Because we were together to the end, when she lay in bed, so thin and fragile, and I sat on the edge of the bed and held her hand and looked in her eyes, and I was still as strong as the day we met, and I saw the light in her eyes go out, and I felt a piece of my heart go with that light.
Eliza never said anything, ever, but towards the end, as her vision went and her hearing went, when just walking a few feet was such a struggle that sometimes she simply couldn’t, she must have looked at me, still young, with envy and a little hatred. She must have. I know she must have, because I felt it for her anyway, hating myself for still existing.
After Eliza, I just couldn’t put anyone through that again. I still needed someone, but I just drifted from lover to lover, never together more than a year or so, flitting between glancing connections that only barely held me together.
And then, about thirty years ago, I met Shiro, and everything changed again.
The best way I can describe it is like this: when I saw Shiro, I finally knew what my parents felt when they first saw each other.
When Shiro smiled, everyone could see the benevolence in his soul. He was so perfect at everything, handsome, smart, utterly charming, that the rest of us normal fallible people should just want to punch him in the neck. But he just genuinely liked everyone so much that there was no way not to like him back.
And no way not to love him.
And he was an Immortal.
I didn’t know that when we met, or even in the first year. I was careful to keep secret that I was a vampire; I wanted to stay with him as long as I could, and I thought that if he knew he’d either push me away or want to join in. But he knew; he knew within minutes. He was observent, and smart, and had lived enough centuries to have encountered his fair share of undead bloodsuckers. And he was willing to give me the time and trust to work out for myself what to do.
So, after a year of nightly dates and finding increasingly tenuous excuses to avoid getting together in daylight, I finally told him. And then he told me.
I know I just said I was never happier than when I was with Eliza, and I still hold to that, because losing Eliza left me just that little bit numb, so that nothing and no one could get that far. But Shiro filled me with as much happiness as I could possibly experience. And we were going to be together Forever, capital ‘F.’ Forever.
I know. Stupid, right?
***
Some people who hear about Immortals, or Vampires for that matter, assume that every major event in human history (and most minor events too, for that matter) is the direct result of some eternal occult conspiracy, that everything that happened was planned and instigated and controlled by some small cabal of immortal beings directing the fate of humanity for their own inscrutable benefit. If that’s the case, then I’m out of the loop with the rest of you, and Shiro was too.
It’s a silly idea anyway, thinking about it. Running the world is too much work. And running the world in secret? Do you have any idea how many people you’d have to corrupt/discredit/kill to keep it quiet? In the Wikileaks era? Good luck. No, normal humans did this to ourselves. Yourselves.
***
We had been living in Vancouver for over five years, and were getting into all of the Vancouver lifestyle – complaining about house prices, complaining about the rain, complaining about the traffic, not actually going skiing, actually going to Seattle, the usual. I had some savings and was coasting, while Shiro had a life coaching consultancy something (there were a couple more buzzwords in there that I never remembered more than three seconds after I heard them) that was just to give him an opportunity to meet more people, since we didn’t need the money at all.
We had a nice condo downtown, one bedroom and den up on the twelfth floor, with a nice view of some neighbouring highrises. Small, but enough. Shiro turned the den into a practice room (I want to say “dojo,” but he never called it that) for practicing his fencing. He taught me a bit, but I more enjoyed just watching him. Sure, he looked good shirtless and sweaty, but the real beauty was in watching him move, with grace and with such confidence. It was like watching a poem, with each action a word, so carefully chosen and placed, and flowing into each other like the water of the smoothest clearest brook.
I was in the living room, TV on in the background, leaning over the back of the sofa watching him. Shiro finished his routine, placed his katana back on the wall, and grabbed a towel. I turned my attention at least partly back to the news.
“Huh, the Canucks made it to game 7,” I said, more just for something to say than any real interest. I don’t care how long I live here, the only real sport is football (PROPER football, mind you).
Shiro walked over and bent down, kissed the top of my head. “We should go.”
“Never get tickets now.”
Shiro flopped over the back onto the sofa and waved somewhat in the TV’s direction. “It says they’re going to arrange for public viewing areas, and it’s downtown so it’s right nearby.” He punched me in the arm; I barely felt it. “You’ve got no excuse.”
I shook my head. “It’s gonna go bad, I’m telling you now.”
“Killjoy. Come on, it’ll be fun to be out!” Shiro grinned, and I lost.
I sighed. “Fine. But I get to say I told you so later.”
***
I don’t know why, but Vancouver has a much higher than normal population of weirdness. Immortals, vampires, weres, ghosts – you name it, Vancouver has it, and more of it. We stay hidden, not by any great conspiracy but just by being careful. Mortals don’t want to see us, anyway, it shakes anyone’s concept of the universe, so we don’t even have to try to hard. Mortals will explain us away all on their own.
But I think that having so many of us here, in one place, at this concentration, does something to the city, to the people living here. I believe that, even staying underwater like we do, we still make ripples and waves on the surface. These people can’t help but know that there’s something out there, something not quite right, and it affects them. Maybe contact, even unknowing contact, with the immortal makes them question the value of the mortal. We know the value of the mortal, precisely because we’ve lost it; maybe to those who’ve never known the other, knowing at some level that you’re surrounded by those who will live forever makes you wonder what’s the point of trying for only sixty or seventy years.
I think that, instead of any secret conspiracy of moster overlords, might explain why Vancouver gets so, well, dark sometimes. And in a lot of different ways. I mean, Vancouver even rioted when Guns N’ Roses didn’t play, and in 2002, not 1989!
I should have seen it coming.
***
We had no warning.
Shiro and I were watching one of the huge screens downtown. It was daylight, but I’ve got my methods; it’s not necessarily fun, but I can function well enough. People around us had been drinking, and the mood wasn’t good. I don’t watch enough hockey, or care enough, to know if Vancouver was playing well or not, but I could see that they were losing, and losing hard.
The game was over by less than a minute when the first bottle smashed into the screen. More bottles were thrown, and people started to shout “Riot!” Some people started to panic, and the crowd was off.
The news said that, although over 100 people were injured, no one was killed. That was wrong.
I grabbed Shiro’s arm and started pulling him back home. He pulled back, saying “We should help!”
I shook my head. “Help how?” I waved at the mob, dozens of people now flipping and burning police cars. “We can’t just beat everybody down, we’re not superheroes! And it’s not even dark yet, I’m useless!”
Shiro pulled out of my grip. “You’re not, and I’m not, and I’m not giving up.” He took two steps and grabbed the back collar of a guy getting ready to football kick the head of another guy on the ground. Shiro yanked back, pulling the guy off-balance and backwards far enough that they were face to face. Shiro let go, then grabbed the front of the guy’s shirt with his other arm and lifted the guy’s feet off the ground. “Don’t. Now leave.” Shiro let go, and the guy dropped to his feet and instantly bolted.
He turned back to look at me. “See?” he said, smiling.
And then a sword slammed into the side of his head, slashing deep, sending an eye flying onto the road.
***
Immortals and vampires, we generally don’t set things up, not on a big scale. Still no conspiracy, right? We manipulate people for our own advantage or pleasure, but we don’t arrange for wars just to kill an enemy, and we don’t create epic disasters just for amusement. But we have been around long enough that we can often see where things are going, and quickly enough to take advantage of an opportunity. Like, say, a riot.
***
Shiro immediately pulled his head away and jumped to the side, away from the sword.
I saw my sister.
“Greta!”
She flicked her blade, blood and gore spattering the street beside her. “It’s Emily now, dear brother.”
I took a step toward her before realizing, foolishly, we’d left our weapons at home. “Stop it! He’s not involved!”
She smiled, harsh. “I’ve seen the two of you. He’s involved.”
“Don’t do this! You don’t understand -”
“I understand perfectly! I know exactly what he is, and what this will cost you!” Her eyes burned into mine. “I know exactly how this will hurt you.”
She started to turn back towards Shiro, and his kick caught her exactly in the neck. I heard the crack, over all the noise of the riot, and saw her fall.
Shiro turned from the body back to me. “Wolf, who is this?”
“Don’t turn -”
Too late. The blade sprouted from the centre of Shiro’s chest, pinning him for a moment, before it slid back. Shiro looked down, more in surprise than anything else for a moment. Immortals recover faster than possible, but the type of injury still matters. Broken neck? That means a severed spinal cord. A few strands patch back together and you’ve got movement, at least a bit, and that can be enough. Heart cut in two? No blood moving, with all that entails, and it’ll take a minute to heal from that.
While Shiro was still looking down, Emily swung again, and Shiro’s head fell at his feet.
I screamed, pure and incoherent grief. Emily smiled more broadly in innocent satisfaction. Shiro’s body folded in on itself and vanished in a slight billow of dust that the wind carried into and lost within the smoke of burning cars. A streetlight exploded, electricity arcing, blasting where Shiro had been and where Emily was now. She just stood there for a moment, motionless, until the electricity cut out. Then she turned back to me.
I stood motionless as Emily walked towards me. I waited for her to strike. She knew what I was. She had a silver stake ready. I saw it in her hand and welcomed it.
She stepped right up to me and gently rested the stake on my chest, over my heart, my shattered heart. Emily leaned in and whispered into my ear, “Not yet. You can live with this for a time.”
Then she took a step back, and was gone.
***
I step into the club and look around. It’s night, and dark, and I’ve fed in preparation, so my senses are at their peak. I’m seeing better than anyone, hearing better than anyone, catching scents better than anyone not a were. I’m going to spot Emily Barrowcourt before she spots me.
And there she is, by the bar, talking to someone I don’t recognize or care about. I shrug and tug on the sleeve of my trenchcoat, and feel all my preparations are exactly where they should be.
I cross the dancefloor towards her.
I’m almost all the way across, maybe ten feet from her, when she looks up and spots me. She instantly straightens and her hand goes to her sword that’s suddenly at her side. She steps toward me, frowning.
The crowd sees this and parts, opening between the two of us. Club Chthonic is used to this sort of thing, and the crowd enjoys the occasional floor show. I step back further into the dance floor, which is now clear, a perfect empty arena for a fight.
“Wolfgang, what are you doing? I was going to let you experience the pain of your loss for longer than – what, only five years? That’s nothing. Go on, run along. Don’t worry, I’ll find you when I’m ready to end your suffering.”
I speak quietly to keep from shouting. “You didn’t need to do that. Not to him. He didn’t deserve it.”
Emily steps into the ring and begins to circle. “You loved him. He deserved it, and more.”
I reach under my coat and pull out my weapons: a short sword in my right hand, a dagger in my left. I lose control. “You killed Shiro!” I scream at her.
“You killed my father!” she shouts back, the rage in her eyes twisting her face.
“He killed my mother!”
“You! You killed MY mother!” Here it is, we’re both finally getting it out. “MY mother! I remember her, you don’t. You killed her, you and your father. If you hadn’t been born, she’d have lived!”
I circle away from her, careful to stay out of reach of a sudden lunge. “Your father killed her, Emily. Greta. She died to save me from your murderous father.”
“She died for nothing!” Emily lunges now, stabbing at me. I bat her sword aside with mine, barely, and take two hurried steps back. She doesn’t pursue, just smiles.
“I’m not sorry for what happened to your father, truthfully,” I say. “But I am sorry that you got hurt.”
“‘Hurt!'” she sneers. “You know nothing about what it was like!” She’s closer now. “The cold, the hunger, the look in my father’s eyes while he tried to comfort me when I cried at night in the alleys!”
“You!” She swings, fast, and I don’t parry enough. Her sword slashes across my right arm. “Don’t!” A low slash, and a cut across my left leg now. “Know!” I scramble back to avoid a stab through the abdomen. “Anything!”
She swings overhead, wild, but strong and fast and I only manage to parry because I’m faster than any human could hope to be, just for that instant.
We each draw back and observe each other. Emily is smiling. I’ve been training since that night, and I’m barely managing to survive. She knows my skill, and knows she can best me, easily.
I flip my knife around, so that the blade is pointing back along my forearm, the butt of the handle facing forward, in an icepick grip. Emily’s smile gets wider. She knows I’m not skilled enough to make a go of this, that I’m not that good a knife fighter. She’s got my number. She knows that this is desperation.
She smiles, a genuine smile. For the first time in my life, I see what my sister looks like when she’s happy. And she’s lovely.
Doesn’t matter. She’s going to die.
She slashes again, twice, not really trying to hit, just close the distance. I parry both, barely.
Then I scream and jump straight towards her.
She’s startled, just for a split second, but it’s enough. Muscle memory takes over, and her sword takes me right through the heart.
Just as I planned.
This would kill any mortal, instantly. This stroke would even disable another Immortal long enough for a following stroke that would prove fatal even to such an opponent. It’s a very effective move against almost any opponent, and Emily is very good at it.
But I’m not mortal. I’m not even an Immortal. I’m a vampire.
And I haven’t used my heart since the night of the riot.
I drop my sword from my right hand and grab her arm, holding her close. At the same time, I stab towards her face with the butt of my knife.
And I trigger the shotgun blast in the handle.
It was expensive to commission. It’s only got one shot, and then it’s wrecked even as a knife. There’s no range, so you need to be close, close enough to stab. It’s only got one advantage going for it.
Surprise.
The blast takes her full in the face. Her blood splashes over me. Her hands go to the mess of skin and the ruins of eyes, screaming in pain, fear, I can’t tell. I don’t care. I drop the knife and reach around to my back.
I pull out Shiro’s katana and take it in both hands. I plant my feet and swing. The blade slides neatly through Emily’s neck, and flings blood into the crowd.
Emily drops to her knees, hard, and falls face down onto the floor. There’s a soft puff, and her body disappears.
Now I pull her sword out of my chest and drop it on the pile of empty clothes.
***
I’m on the roof of the condo where I lived with Shiro.
I moved out after he died. I had to. I kept up the payments, even eventually paid it off so I owned it clear. I don’t know why.
I face east.
Whoever Emily was with started towards me after our duel, but when he saw my face he just let me go. I left the club, and came here. I took the elevator up, then the maintenance stairs, and broke the lock, and here I am.
Facing east. Waiting for the sun.
“You finally came back.”
I spin. Shiro’s sitting on one of the concrete blocks, smiling at me.
“Shiro!” I run to hug him. My arms pass through him.
“Sorry,” he says, still smiling but looking down, embarrassed.
“Oh my god. Shiro. I’m sorry.” I start to cry. “You’ve been waiting here -”
“Hey, Wolf, don’t, please. It doesn’t matter. You’re here now.”
I kneel in front of him, look him in the eye. We’re silent a moment. “So, um, how are you?” I finally ask.
He laughs, genuine and loud and delighted, and shrugs.
“I know,” I say, “stupid question.”
“No, it’s fair. I’m doing okay.” A chuckle. “All things considered.”
“I -” I stop, breathe deep, continue. “I missed you.”
“I missed you.”
“I love you. I never stopped.”
“I love you too. Always. That’s why I’m here.”
“What?”
Shiro’s serious now. “You have to let me go. I don’t want to see you this way. I want you to be happy. We’ll be together eventually, but you have too much love to bury. Share it with someone.” He smiles, but I see a tear. “Make someone as happy as you made me. And be happy.”
We just sit in silence, I don’t know how long, just that it’s long enough and too too short. I look down, but I feel a soft breeze guide my face up until I’m looking in Shiro’s eyes again. And I say “Okay. For you.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Can I see you again?”
Shiro shakes his head.
“Is it really you? Not just my imagination?”
Shiro’s almost gone now. “Yes. But it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s what you need to hear. And it’s true.”
And he’s gone.
I look up and see the sun’s light pouring over the horizon. I could take the stairs, I suppose. But no.
I run to the western side of the roof and without stopping spread my arms wide and launch myself over the edge.
It’s early; I can see that there’s no one down there. I am going to feel this. And then I’m going to get up. And I’m going to carry on.
I smile all the way down.
somanyrats 