Nocturnes (11 page)

He rose and laid a small fortune in cash on the table.

“But it is late, and I have matters to attend to. Return to your hotel and try to sleep. We will resume the vampire’s history tomorrow night in front of the cathedral at nine p.m. Try to bring an open mind with you, won’t you? Good night,
Isaac.”

Chapter Twelve

T
he next night found them partaking of a solemn stroll. The joviality that had begun the previous evening was noticeably lacking. They meandered along the Moonwalk, overlooking the river and the lights of the towers that glimmered upstream. Isaac stared off across the swiftly dark water to the far bank and the twinkling lights of Old Algiers. Julian seemed to be gathering his words carefully, like each one held an unalterable meaning that, once uttered, could never be reclaimed.

They had met at the entrance of the St. Louis Cathedral. Julian had appeared to be hovering just inside the doorway, causing Isaac to replay all the vampire myths in his head. But Julian had merely shrugged his shoulders, stepping out of the shadows and into the pearl-bloomed night. They came to an empty bench and Julian motioned for them to sit. The vampire resumed history. His
story.

“As you might imagine, my life had changed abruptly. In the space of a few hours, I had lost my dearest ally and all my previous connections to a normal mortal existence. I left my home in Arles and took to the roads. The English had become emboldened in their advances, and the Hundred Years War raged on. Occasionally, I would allow myself some measure of revenge on an English encampment, slipping in in the dead of night and draining the life from as many as I could before the sun. Guerrilla warfare took on a new meaning, and my tactics may have been the first to qualify for the term ‘Black Ops.’ But I could already sense that the killing, especially under the guise of ‘revenge,’ was just an excuse to satisfy a growing lust for blood. I was playing with
fire.

“But then a most amazing thing happened. There have been very few times during the course of this curse that I have been grateful for. But meeting Joan of Arc was one of
them.”

The breath left Isaac’s lung in a whoosh. He stared at Julian as though he had just sprouted feathers. “I’m sorry. It sounded like you just said you met Joan of
Arc?”

“Met her. Yes. Became a kind of confidante for awhile. And helped her, in my fashion, to end the siege of Orleans.”

Now a silence, so rich and electric, settled over them. Julian allowed the news to settle in. And he realized that he had never once spoken those words to anyone. The next thought reminded him that he hadn’t spoken most of his recent confessions to anyone.

“There was a growing excitement, especially on the part of the farmers and the peasants, about a girl, an illiterate teenager from Domremy, appointed by God to drive the English out of France. You see, as is the case in every war, the poor had suffered most brutally, had lost so much more than any Duke or Dauphin ever could, and Joan was one of them…come to relieve their disproportionate
misery.”

Isaac had recovered his ability to speak and was abuzz with enthusiasm. “But…but…what was she LIKE,
Julian?”

The moods of both men suddenly lifted. Julian laughed out loud at Isaac’s exuberance. It was good, very good, to talk about Joan. There had not been anyone on the face of the Earth, for some time, who could speak with any authority about her, after all.

“It was easy to meet her. In 1429 she was traveling, darting here and there in hopes of meeting the heir to the throne, Charles VII. No matter where the road led her, the end of each day always found her in the local chapel or church, where she would spend hours before retiring to sleep. Some would tell you that Joan spent those hours in prayer. But as an intimate observer of some of those nights, what I can tell you is that she didn’t speak aloud and she certainly never asked for direction or blessings of any kind. Mostly, she would lie on the stone floor, stretched out there like an antenna, arms and legs reaching in opposite directions, and she would listen, like you and I would listen to a stream, or birdsong in the forest. Entranced by the vibrations that seemed to run through her, she would twitch and kick her legs, and run her hands across the stones. It was after one such session, maybe the third or fourth I had quietly observed, that I approached her. I was quite certain that, to a woman who had been visited by St. Michael and who was on a first-name basis with God, my own strangeness would barely raise an eyebrow. Joan of Arc was a highly sensitive being, and my sudden presence in her life was not only accepted but might have even been
anticipated.”

Isaac could not stop his head from shaking, back and forth, back and forth, trying in vain to assimilate this story…to find some point of reference in his own experiences thus far that could make some sense of this surreality. To no avail. This was the very definition of uncharted territory.

“You asked what she was like. I can tell you that as a vessel for the divine, none have been more worthy of it. Oh, don’t get me wrong. She could be rough, and even coarse. At Orleans I listened to her hurl insults at the English as casually as one might hurl a stick for some cur to fetch. But off the field of battle, she was the very picture of grace and humility. Perhaps she was keenly aware of her illiteracy, because she spoke very little, and only then when the words were tuning forks from Heaven. And there were words I wouldn’t speak, either. I never mentioned the word vampire to her, only that I had certain talents, gifts, if you will. I came to understand that she saw me as an angel of death, sent from God Himself, to aid her in her holy task of driving the English from French soil. It was a role I took to quite naturally. One that I relished. And while this will provide a jolt to your system, I have reason to believe that the secret words she spoke to Charles to persuade him to give her an army had something to do with her claim that she had a secret weapon…an angelic ally, capable of wreaking dark and sudden terror on the
enemy.”

Isaac was practically feverish. His body trembled, caught in a tension between outright disbelief and some sort of almighty gratitude for the hearing of such an incredible tale. He scanned the features of Julian’s face, looking for some sort of nervous twitch that would give away the lie. But Julian, as always, was supremely composed. He returned Isaac’s gaze with serenity.

“And that is how we saved Orleans. She called on me only once. I was to enter the city by whatever means I chose, and lay waste upon a couple of their commanders. But the most decisive part of the plan was to allow myself to be caught in the act of liberating the English dogs from the burden of their mangy lives. I drained the blood of the last of three captains and then cried out loudly for the guard. Two of them entered the bed-chamber and immediately froze with the predicted icy fear and horror. In their disbelief I was able to make an easy escape. The next day, possibly because they didn’t want to face the announced assault by the Maid of Orleans (perhaps a sorceress in her own right as far as the enemy was concerned) or maybe because they did not want to spend another night among the fanged shadows of a city they had no right to, the English quit Orleans. And I quit France. I made passage across the Channel to the British Isles. I began to wander
again.”

Isaac’s eyes practically bulged from his head. “But Joan was burned only a couple years later. Weren’t you there? How could you not have
been?”

“I was
there.”

The words seemed to wrap around them like a shroud, echoing off the walls of some crypt where the last mourners refused to leave.

“I could not stand in the sun and watch her burned, but from deep within the shadows of the keep, I could see the courtyard below. I could see the flames, and I could smell the flesh as they consumed that sweet child. That night I allied myself with the darkness and became a shadow, so that I could go into that courtyard and comb among the ashes for anything that might remain of Joan of Arc. Alas, there were ONLY ashes. I scooped up a handful and placed them in my pouch. Then I left France for another three hundred
years.”

Julian unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt, reached inside, and pulled forth a kind of amulet or locket. “This is all that remains of the Maid of Orleans.”

Isaac stretched out his fingers, tentatively, as though he were about to touch a flame, and took the amber-colored orb into his hand. His head began to spin. Julian tucked the locket away and placed his hand on Isaac’s shoulder to steady him.

“Should I
continue?”

Isaac could only nod his
head.

“For the next century, I wandered the Celtic moors of Scotland and Wales, living—if one could call it that—among the rubble and ruins of decaying castles in lonely, isolated regions. In 1532, I settled for the next 128 years in the ruined fortress of the cliff-top castle of Carreg Cennen, in the heart of Wales. It was the perfect setting for the vampire stories you would recognize from folklore and Hollywood caricatures. The interior buildings were in complete disrepair, but the walls and towers were intact. Its greatest feature, however, was its sub-level maze of rooms and tunnels. I was able to secure the peace for my needed retreat from the day, without worry that some curious hunter might stumble upon my slumber. During this period, I came as close as I ever would to becoming a kind of monster. I lived to eat. Each night I would ascend into the towers and gaze out from that wind-torn summit across three hundred square miles of territory. This was my feeding ground. The lights of the distant villages beckoned to me like a servant’s bell to the evening meal.

“Within a decade the legends had begun, of yellow-eyed jackals sweeping over the moors, craving the pale young flesh of the village children. I never left a body behind me to be recovered. Nonetheless, the grizzly accounts of my nocturnal ambitions were posted in every village that fed my need. Wildly-horrific descriptions of limb-severed virgins found still writhing in their final anguish. The decapitated remains of a wandering cleric, his white-knuckled fingers vainly clutching at the blood-spattered Bible on his breast. Such were the nightmares of a simple people.

“In truth, I was nothing more than a transparent soul, drifting along on the currents of perpetual night. There was no fellowship for me. By necessity, I was a stranger to everyone, and becoming so to myself. Once or twice, I naively attempted to converse with my victims. But this only complicated matters, and I realized that the process was best carried out impersonally…for all involved. I was related to those who had made me. And it was becoming more difficult to recall what I had once been. The seasons rolled like a wheel. The cycles of life and death played on without me. The only notice that I took of time was in the way that it lingered like a malicious jailer, always reminding me of my
sentence.

“Eventually I was forced to leave my castle. The villagers had taken to abandoning the night altogether. As soon as darkness settled over their fields and their farms, they locked themselves away behind bolted doors and posted watchmen at the gates. I realized that I would have to take up residence in the city if I were to have a reliable source of protein and still be able to maintain my anonymity. So, in 1660, I took a house in London. I was ready to surrender that tiresome struggle with myself. My dreams were in crimson. I had lost so many of my memories. All of their colors had faded with the forgotten sun. It was vanity to think of myself as still
human.

“London was a strange counterpoint to my existence. I was back among the great diversity of people and ideas that thrive in the petri dish of a large city. Being out among them each night, I could almost feel that I was part of their society. Passing them on the thoroughfares along the Thames, looking into their eyes, recognizing the common threads of their humanity…some of them would even smile at me. And I would have to quell my eager desire to follow after them like a stray cur in need of a home. Often I would sit on an empty bench along the river and just watch them pass. As the hours fell away beneath the slow-moon death of the night, their numbers would inevitably dwindle to a scuffling, solitary soul…the three a.m. man that I have known in every town I have called home. It’s odd, but that lone, solitary figure seems as cursed as I am. I wonder at how they disappear…into a place that is mostly painful recollection of some estranged family, or the sudden-waking-longing of a heart-torn
wife.”

Julian rose suddenly, like some voltage had swept through him, unseen by Isaac, but certainly noticed. For Julian, it was the realization that he was coming to another difficult part of his story. One that was mixed with gratitude, for sure, but also with a sense of loss that he could not hope to recover from if he existed for 600 years more. “Let’s stretch our legs…and perhaps our hearts and minds,
Isaac.”

They continued upriver. Outside the Aquarium of the Americas they found a beer vendor and bought a couple of Dixie long necks before resuming the leisurely pace of their stroll, and the leisurely pace of the vampire’s story.

“In London I continued to walk the narrow line between my blood lust and my diminishing humanity. I knew that it was a zero sum game, and I had no hope of winning it. As time passed, with less and less reason to act human, I would eventually become one of those Hellish creatures I most feared becoming. Five years passed in this manner. Five years during which I considered returning to some faraway place where the people weren’t so recognizable in their vibrancy…in their joy for life. It was, in fact, my self-disgust that brought awareness to my unused sensitivities concerning the vitality of life, as it compared to the sluggishness of impending death. Once I realized I could tell the difference, my reality began to shift once more. You might say that I was evolving.

“Then one night, as I was stalking my usual feeding ground in London’s West End, I came across the frail figure of a woman slumped in an alleyway. My senses weren’t as well-defined as they are today, but I could tell that she was near death. She was an obvious choice for my need. I bent over her, and just as I was lowering my mouth to her flesh, a group of people rounded the corner and rushed towards me. I rose hastily, prepared to flee, when I heard a young woman cry out, ‘There she is. That gentleman is rendering her aid. There may yet be
time.’