Consultation with a Vampire - 01 (8 page)

It was a mystery, an enigma wrapped deep inside himself, that he could not seem to unlock. He couldn’t even imagine what shape the key might be, how many syllables the password would use, what it might rhyme with, or how this mystery might be packed for a transoceanic voyage. Contemplating it led him to those threadbare and unraveled portions of his mind where the fabric of his understanding wore thin and from which he could hear the vast, unknowable universe laughing at him from the darkness beyond.

Finally, as he stood in his office, watching the sun as it set, he was overcome by a feeling he could not put into words. As he teetered upon the edge of something very much like madness, Agnes brought him back from the abyss. “Unless there is anything else, I will be going home for the evening.”

Edwin nodded and waved goodbye over his shoulder.

Agnes turned to leave but thought better of it. “Do you intend on staying all night?” she asked with concern.
 

“Hm? No. No, you are right. I need rest. Let me... let me walk you out.”
 

As they navigated through the pedestrians, Edwin became unusually aware of the faces of the people rushing by. As they walked, he was amazed at how small and frail Agnes’s hand felt on his arm. Edwin did not usually adjust his stride to his companion’s when he walked, but he slowed his pace so as not to cause his old friend discomfort. As the wind whipped trash around their ankles and the promise of spring could be read in the buds on the tough, city trees that plied their trade in the cracks of the city, his pace felt something more than human. Its roll from side to side was elemental and slow, like the seasons.
 

“Something is troubling you,” Agnes said.

“No, Agnes. The work goes well and is interesting,” Edwin said without much enthusiasm or conviction.
 

“I am not talking about the work, Edwin.”

“Ah,” Edwin said, hoping that Agnes’s question would be lost somewhere among the spring winds and crowded city blocks. The sea of faces rushed around them as they took step after step out of phase with both time and distance. Where were these people rushing, and to what end? What momentary stops betwixt cradle and grave did they take? Did they reflect, at all, upon the meaning of their lives? Upon worth and consequences? The terrible cost of it all?
 

They were, Edwin realized, nervous collections of wants and ailments - who, when faced with the silence and the dark, the ultimate, existential reality of death - would realize that their weak faith and incoherent logic were inadequate weapons for the battle they faced.

“Edwin,” Agnes said, “there is a question in front of you.”

“Death. Death is troubling me.”

“Oh, my heavens.” Agnes laughed. Her laugh was as bright as the first flowers of spring, those forgotten annuals that come up year after year and surprise you with their joyful presence. “Forgive me, that is rude, but, after all these years, that question has finally come around, at last.”

“What do you mean?” Edwin asked.
 

“Oh, my dear. Even as a small boy, you were so very serious. Always interested in the why of things. Precociously reading books that were disturbing for a boy your age. Disturbing for anyone, really, but as disturbing as those books were, you never asked The Question.”

Edwin looked down at her. His face was as calm and impassive as a stone Buddha, but his eyes betrayed the deep reserve of feeling that lurks within all of us. “I was not concerned with my death.”

“Poppycock! We are all concerned with our own deaths. I am close enough to have heard the Eternal Footman snicker, and, believe me, we are all concerned.”

“I am involved in a negotiation...” Edwin began, struggling to get a handle on what he wanted to say.
 

“Ha, ha! A negotiation with Death? Bravo, my boy. That’s the stuff. But I warn you, no matter how well the early rounds may be going, you will be forced to concede everything in the end.”

“I am not negotiating with Death. I speak of our newest clients.”

“Ah, yes, the French. I demand you take those treacherous frogs for all they are worth.”

“Agnes, it is your death that I am worried about.”

She tried to laugh it off, but her laughter rattled like bones. Edwin felt the grip on his arm tighten. “That should be the least of your concerns, dear boy. You are a young man, successful, making your way in the world. When I see you wed, you will be in fine shape, and you will no longer need your old governess.”

Edwin said, “You are aware of our clients’ unusual nature. They are in a position to confer certain... advantages. And I thought–”
 

“Oh, Edwin. You mustn’t be tempted by that twilight path. It is a snare of death.”

“And of ego,” Edwin said.
 

“They are foul creatures, perhaps romantic in storybooks and at the cinema, but you are educated enough to know that there is a limit to a man’s days. Nothing in this world can be procured for free. All things come at a cost, Edwin. And the cost for such a boon, even if it is real, would be simply too much to bear.”

“Perhaps you have underestimated the benefit,” Edwin said.
 

“Perhaps you have underestimated the worth of your soul. To throw such a thing away for a few extra days.”

“Metaphysical nonsense aside,” Edwin said, “it is not I who-” and here he looked away from her and could no longer speak. This display of emotion was so uncharacteristic, it took Agnes a moment to process.

“No, my boy. You mustn’t think it. My dear, sweet boy, it is not for me that you consider this thing. It is for you. A fine selfish influence. You desire that I remain for your own convenience and comfort,” she said somewhat cruelly, knowing that Edwin could not shape his lips to form the word “love.” She stopped and turned to face him in the street. Looking up at him in deadly earnest, she demanded, “Listen to me, Edwin Albert Windsor. When I am gone, you must let me go. To cling to the dead after they have departed is a kind of sin, perhaps the worst sin. I have had my time. I have taken my bludgeonings, and I am unbowed. Cling not to me, and in so doing become a monster.”
 

Edwin could say nothing.
 

“Now, I shall give you some practice in letting go. Call me a hansom cab, or failing that, a yellow taxi.”

Edwin did as she asked. When she had gone, he walked long and far into the night, weighing many questions of value, time, and eternity. Surrounded by the city, swallowed by darkness.
 

What is the craziest, least logical, most emotional thing to do? Well, that’s just what Topper did. He awoke in the middle of the night, and that old feeling was back. He just knew he was going to do something stupid. As he struggled out of his custom-tailored silk pajamas and into some clothes, he muttered to himself, “This is what I get for going to bed early.”

His explanation was not as crazy as you might think. When you are plagued by dreams, the last thing you need is more sleep. On this basis, he should have gone out and drunk his face off. But, for the first time in a great many years, instead of embracing his madness, he feared losing control.

It was her. It was only her. Her smell. The thick curtain of her dark hair as it fell across his face. The barest touch of her lips on his neck. Those weren’t the thing; they were merely the doors, the access points to the most profound peace he had ever known. Access to a — it shamed Topper to use the word — love eternal, unchanging. A peace and acceptance he had never known in his life.
 

That’s the thing about chasing money and broads and booze and blow; chase them hard enough and long enough, and the worst thing in the world happens. You catch them. For your efforts, you are rewarded with a few moments of hyperbolic enjoyment, but then they are gone. All that remains is the hangover.
 

Pleasure, like life itself, is fleeting. All that Topper had ever known was changing the pace of the pursuit. But now he realized that there might just be some kind of eternal peace.
 

At the front of his building, he said to the third-shift doorman, “Get me a cab, Stevie. I’m off to confess my love.”

So it was that Topper found himself huddled against the side of a cab, trying to hide from a cold wind off the river.
 
For a moment all he could do was stare at the ancient stone building where a few short days before, he had been a prisoner. Even after what he had been through, the outside of the building seemed scarier than the inside had.
 

“Who dropped a goddamn castle in the middle of the city?” Topper asked the wind.
 

He knocked on the window of the cab. When the driver rolled it down, Topper thrust a handful of bills at him and said, “Wait 15 minutes. If I’m not back by then, I’m not coming back.”

“Is that good or bad?” the cabbie asked in a thick Armenian accent. Topper hardly heard him; he was already walking away.
 

Topper looked both ways before crossing the street. Yeah, safety, he thought. Don’t have a nice clean death in the street. How about you hustle over there and a catch a really messy one in that building of cold stone?
 

The stairs to the building hadn’t been designed for Topper’s legs. He took the first few as a normal-sized person would, one at a time. But before he reached the front door, set nearly a full story off the sidewalk, he was forced to slow. Having to press both his feet on each step made him feel small and stupid, but he soldiered on.
 

Even worse, when he got to the door, he couldn’t reach the knocker. “Ah, screw it.” He pulled back a leg to kick the living hell out of the door and make a racket loud enough to wake the undead. But before he let fly with the shoe leather, he tried the massive doorknob. It turned easily, and the well-oiled door swung open without a sound.
 

Topper stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The lack of an ominous and melodramatic creak put him more on edge. Unlocked? Jesus, the door was unlocked? Why did he dive out the window?
 

Then he remembered the blood and the screaming. And with it came a sinister thought: “Why would they make it harder for lunch to deliver itself?”

What was this, the Venus flytrap of vampire condominiums? Again he was overwhelmed by a feeling of stupidity intermingled with dread. But, before him was love. The smell of Madeleine seemed to hang in the air, and he could not resist going inside.
 

“Hello? Honey, I’m hoooome!”
 

His voice echoed in the empty rooms. He was very silent and very still, but he could see and hear nothing. He found an ancient pushbutton switch. When he turned it on, it illuminated a gigantic foyer, empty but for dust.
 

He wandered through the first floor of the decaying building. While the exterior walls looked as if they would withstand a prolonged siege, the inside was shabby beyond belief.

Elegant turn-of-the-century wallpaper peeled off rotting, water-soaked wallboard. Plaster crumbled onto the floor like an elegant ruin of the ancient world, slowly surrendering to the ravages of time. In fact, the only items on the first floor that suggested habitation were a card table and two folding chairs.
 

On the card table, a half-finished game of solitaire was laid out. “Hunh,” Topper said. “I guess when you live forever, you gotta find something to pass the time.” This gave him hope for his absurd, impossible, and most likely lethal romance with Madeleine. Topper wasn’t long on self-knowledge, but one thing he did know about himself: He sure as hell wasn’t dull.
 

He shuddered as he passed a curved staircase leading up. No, he didn’t want to go up there just yet. Where would she be? In the basement. Had to be. Vampires spend their days underground, right? At least they did in all the movies. And, as far as Topper was concerned, the movies had never lied.

He found a stairway leading downward. The musty smell of death and old ladies wafted up from the dark. Topper felt around for a light switch. If he hadn’t found one, he might have turned right around and run out then and there. But it’s a funny thing about fate. Sometimes the click of a push-button light switch and the sizzle of cheap aluminum wires are all someone needs for his fate to be sealed.
 

As Topper descended into the darkness, a series of bare bulbs illuminated his journey into the basement or, rather, undercroft. “Undercroft” was the perfect term, as this building had been built so long ago it was constructed on a series of low arches beneath which Topper now walked. The arches stretched the length of the building, and along one side, Topper could see a set of bowling alleys that had fallen into disuse. Members of one of the city’s wealthy families must have come down here to enjoy themselves as World War I raged or the roaring ’20s roared.
 

As Topper walked farther along the underground chamber, he found what he was looking for. Ahead was an area of thick rugs and velvet draperies. Electric candelabras decorated ornate, lacquered tables. In the middle of the velvet oasis were two expensive coffins. Top-of-the-line models. The kinds of coffins that are bought for the deceased only by exceptionally guilty family members. Those who have gotten away with parricide, trophy wives who were bedding a tennis coach when their husbands were struck down, that kind of thing.
 

“Madeleine?” Topper called out. He expected the lid of one of the coffins to rise dramatically. When it didn’t happen, Topper wasn’t sure what to do next. Sure, he had feared death. But even worse, he feared rejection from the beautiful, undead woman with whom he now found himself helplessly in love. But boredom? Topper just hadn’t seen that coming.
 

Death was scary. Boredom was worse. As for rejection, that just made Topper angry.

“Hey! HEY! C’mon, what is this shit? Isn’t there some kind of Renfield around here or something? A hunchback? A scary rat running across the floor? Anything? Where’d the puffy guy go?”