He jerked his hand away. "So just like that, I"m chosen to become immortal, like I"m some sort of supernatural sweepstakes winner?"
"Not at all. I said I"ve been following your work for years, Benjamin, and I have. I frequent the galleries, the museums, the university art shows, concerts and plays, always searching for another artist whose gift I can preserve. I first became aware of your work fourteen years ago. I remember the piece. It was your Number 11, a eulogy for the death of sixties" idealism."
Benjamin remembered that particular collage. It contained peace signs, Beatles memorabilia, and reproductions of drafts cards, all covered by dollar bills stained red.
"It was a simple piece," Seina continued, "but even then your talent shown through and I knew you were an artist to watch. And watch I did for nearly a decade and a half. Until I noticed your work begin to decline in quality, even if only slightly." She held up a hand as he opened his mouth to speak. "No need to protest or make excuses, Benjamin. We both know it"s true."
"Yes." It was a soft, painful admission.
"And the decline will continue, slowly but surely. The ideas will come harder, and those that do come will be common, pedestrian. You"ll stop searching so hard for just the right objects to create your collages and start using whatever"s at hand, because it"s easier. You"ll find that you complete fewer and fewer pieces, and those you do finish will be farther and farther away from your original vision.
"But it doesn"t have to be like that, Benjamin." Seina reached for his hand again, then stopped as if thinking better of it. "I can end this dissipation of your powers, even reverse the degradation which has already taken place. I can ensure that your talent will never die, Benjamin. Never."
Benjamin knew he should stop playing along with Seina"s fantasy, that he should get up and leave right now. But he stayed where he was. If it weren"t a fantasy, if it were true . . .
"What do you have to look forward to for the rest of your life, Benjamin? You have no family, no real friends. You smoke and drink too much. I can hear your lungs laboring to draw breath, your flabby heart struggling to pump blood. You"ll be lucky to live another ten years. Ten years of working odd jobs and watching helplessly as your artistic abilities slowly but surely desert you. Is that what you want, Benjamin?"
It sounded like a worse h.e.l.l than any Bosch ever depicted. "No, it isn"t."
She did take his hand this time, and this time he didn"t pull away. "Then allow me to help you. Give yourself to me, Benjamin."
Benjamin looked into her eyes, and what he saw there finally convinced him she was what she said she was, and that she could do what she said she could.
He uttered a single, final word. "Yes."
And then Seina embraced him and her mouth found his throat. There was pain, then warmth, then a coldness which began to seep into his limbs. As he listened to the sucking sounds, he began to feel that more than his blood was being drained. It was as if Seina was taking something else as well, something even more vital than blood.
And then he realized the true meaning of what she had said.
Your talent will never die.
She"d said nothing about him.
He tried to pull away, but by this time he was far too weak. Finally, as he sank into the darkness, he was comforted by one thought: at least the best part of himself would live on. In the end, wasn"t that every artist"s dream?
Seina wiped her mouth and watched as the dried husk that had been Benjamin began to crumble and decay. Within an hour it would be nothing more than dust, easily disposed of. She felt his abilities settling within her, alongside the countless others she had preserved over the years.
Her first collage should be something special. Something ... and then an idea popped into her head. She would create a memorial to Benjamin. Yes, he"d like that.
She stood and flexed her hands. They felt alive and eager to get to work, ready to help her stave off the boredom of eternity for yet another night.
A New House.
JOHN L. FRENCH.
"It is a fine house," thought the vampire, "well suited to my purpose." He had searched for months for just the right dwelling, similar to that in which he lived in Europe. He did not require a mansion nor any kind of luxury. He was beyond that. He needed a house that no one else wanted, that would not be disturbed in any way. He did not want trespa.s.sers stumbling over his resting place or vagrants starting fires that he could not put out. Trespa.s.sers and vagrants had their uses, but suspicions were aroused when too many disappeared from the same area. He would not make that mistake again.
But the house could not be too derelict. Then the state would come and tear it down, exposing his secrets. He needed a place that people shunned, where no one wanted to go.
He had briefly tried living among his prey, renting a house in a residential neighborhood, keeping to himself, attracting no attention. The needs of this kind of "life" proved too demanding.
He had to create doc.u.ments to show to landlords, arrange for utilities he did not need, hire people to maintain the exterior of his dwelling. He also had to show himself to his neighbors on occasion, just to avoid being thought of as "different." It was too much; too many people became aware of his existence. No, it was better to live alone, away from the cattle.
Finally, during his nightly forays throughout the city he learned of a house that fit his needs. There had been a tragedy, a death of some sorts. It had stood vacant for over a year. No one wanted it.
The vampire learned more. There had been a burglary. The owner had confronted the thief before he shot and killed the man as he fled out a window. Despite his pleas of self-defense the owner was imprisoned for manslaughter, and should serve another two years in jail. His family moved away, abandoning the house they were unable to sell. The homeless and drug addicted made use of it for a while, but even they gave it up. They had perhaps been encouraged to leave by community pressure and the police, going on to less visible haunts. The house was his to take.
He waited for the conditions to be right and created a fog that covered his move. He placed his box of earth in the bas.e.m.e.nt, in a corner away from the windows. His trunks of personal possessions he also put in convenient, yet secluded, spots. As additional precautions, he drove heavy nails into the rear bas.e.m.e.nt door and silently collapsed the stairs to the first floor. Even if should someone enter, they would not be likely to disturb his rest by coming into the bas.e.m.e.nt.
His preparations had tired him. He would not hunt this night. He sought his coffin for an early rest.
The noise woke him, the breaking of the gla.s.s, the raising of the sash.
"Why tonight?" he asked himself. "I watched this house for a week and no one even glanced at it. Some even avoided it, crossing the street to keep from pa.s.sing it. And now on my first night someone breaks into my home."
He considered ignoring the intruder, trusting to his preparations. But in the end, anger at the invasion and a hunger from his previous exertions caused him to mist and rise to the first floor.
Reforming, he saw the broken window in what had been the kitchen. He turned and saw the young boy creeping around the living room.
"Don"t they ever learn?" he asked as his fangs descended. "Well, this one never will."
He stalked the boy while at the same time he considered what to do with the body. Just as he struck, his quarry turned, staring through him. His fangs entered the boy"s neck, and he began to feed.
Too late he realized the nature of his prey. A cold burning pain raced through him. He had never felt agony like this, not even during his conversion. As the boy stepped away from him he was flooded with the youth"s last living memories.
Through the boy"s mind, the vampire remembered approaching the house, sure that no one was home. Again, there was the breaking of gla.s.s and the raising of the window. He got as far as the living room when there was the man with the gun. He fled past the man, but too slowly. There was a gunshot, a sharp pain in his back, and then darkness. Coming back to his own mind, the vampire collapsed on the floor.
Unlike the warmth he received from blood, the chilling he had from the boy did not diminish. Rather, the pain intensified, until it was all he could feel. The ghost watched him for a time and then slowly faded, taking the pain with him. Again, there was darkness.
The vampire found himself reforming on the first floor. He saw the broken kitchen window.
Turning, he saw the young boy in the living room. Trapped now in the cycle of the haunting, he forever stalked his prey.
Bridges.
ALAN SMALE.
The blood brought him, fresh on the wind like tendrils of sweet copper. She was young, under thirty, and her flawless neck and shoulders made him feel dusty and ancient and almost unbearably sad.
Strange to find her here alone, staring through the trees at the moon.
Her eyes widened when she saw him. Her pulse raced and her breathing quickened, but otherwise she stayed calm.
Anton did not attack. They became prey only when they screamed and ran. Her calmness defanged him.
"Oh, G.o.d," she said. "I"m so stupid."
Her blood still hung in the air, taunting him.
"What is your name?" he asked.
Her car was thirty feet away. "I"m going to leave now," she said, and began to walk. The doors unlocked with a soft electric click as she pressed the b.u.t.ton on her key ring. She did not press the alarm b.u.t.ton. He followed her out of the trees. The blood was coming from four punctures in the palm of her right hand, made by her fingernails. She had made them before she"d known he was near.
The car now separated them. He knew he would let her drive away. She was too complex.
She hesitated. "Are you all right?"
He looked away.
She got into the car and started the engine. And waited.
Anton slid into the pa.s.senger seat, not knowing why he did it, not knowing why she let him. The car was a Saturn, black and modern, more comfortable than the luxury of centuries past.
The woman put the car in drive and pulled away. He wasn"t used to traveling so fast without the wind in his face.
"Where do you need to go?"
"Nowhere," he replied.
"Then what do you want?"
She glowed in the moonlight. Her skin was very pale. Her heady essence filled the car.
Anton wondered if his proximity was having a similar effect on her.
"You know what I am?"
"Yes," she said. "Should I be afraid?"
The answer was unclear, even to him.
"You"re bleeding," he said, because it was the main thing on his mind.
She looked down at her hand as if seeing it for the first time. Anton recognized it as a social affectation, an acknowledgment of his words, rather than genuine surprise. "I suppose I am. You have good eyes, to see that."
"Eyes?" he said, baffled.
They"d reached a conversational impa.s.se. As the more powerful being, the responsibility to move ahead seemed to be his.
"Tell me about yourself, and why you"re not afraid."
"You"re not going to attack me as soon as I stop the car?"
He frowned. Her question made no sense.
"You"d have killed me already if you were going to," she said.
Anton wondered why she believed this. Clearly she did not own a cat. He began to say "Not necessarily," but desisted. Rusty on the social graces, he was beginning to remember tact.
Instead he turned her verbal techniques against her. "You were in the woods because something is bothering you," he said. "You wished to think and be alone."
"My husband is a pig," she said.
The statement alarmed him only temporarily.
She spoke like a child, but with a late-twenties ennui and a maturity seemingly as ancient as his own. "My name is Rachel. I am twenty-eight years old, and I have a severe marital problem that I"m trying to think through. You didn"t surprise me because you"re just typical of the way my life is going right about now. Yes, I"m afraid, but somehow I don"t think screaming and shouting is going to help me much."
The vampire sat amazed. Rachel turned off the country lane onto the highway and continued. "So. Ken just told me he"s going to give up his job. It sucks. He"s going to look for something else, after he"s taken a bit of a break. It"s time I supported him for a while, after all. Know what that means? It means he"s going to sit around and be bored and we"re not going to be able to make the mortgage payments. He"s going to be on my case all the time, and we"re going to be poor. You know what else? There"s this other woman he sees. Giving up his job means he has all these extra afternoons to meet up with her in motel rooms. You know what else? I boss him around too much. I never consider his feelings. Oh dear. What a witch I am."
Anton was drowning, but she continued. "I discovered today that there"s even a t.i.tle for him. He"s a difficult husband. That"s a term used by professional counselors for a man who finds fault in everything I do, has antisocial habits, and changes his moods at random. Eighty percent of the time I spend with him, I"m angry, depressed, or otherwise unhappy. It"s a co-dependency thing." She glanced at him. "In contrast, you"re a rather simple problem."
Anton frowned. "Your pig is a simple problem. Leave him."
"I love him."
"Why?"
Rachel sighed. "How old are you?"
"Older than Christ," he replied; his stock answer to a regular question. "But not as good looking."
The joke fell flat. Anton hadn"t used the line in a while. Perhaps it didn"t make sense any more.
"So I guess you"ve seen it all?"
He did not answer.
"Do people ever change?"
The conversation was becoming difficult for him. He would have left but the Saturn was traveling towards town at sixty-five miles per hour. He said, "Sometimes people change. But truly bad men do not."
"Ken is not a bad man," she said.
"Perhaps he will leave you."