Nocturnes (17 page)

Chapter Nineteen

W
ith his company gone and no work to distract him, Isaac had gone out for some exercise with the neighborhood cats. The full moon made him feel like a lost hunter, alone among the silhouetted ruins of some ancient jungle city. The big, carnivorous cats were everywhere, lurking just beyond the shadows, darting forth with hisses and growls intended to unnerve him.

For most of an hour, he had chased after them with his raised broom. It rested now in the corner of his study like a faithful ally. He had thrown a couple of sturdy logs on the fire and it was blazing anew as he read from
Black Elk Speaks
.

The circle of light from his chair-side lamp was, aside from the fire, the only brightness in the house. Beyond that circle were shadowed books and dusty furniture. And the watchful eyes of Julian Germain.

Julian had been standing in the shadows for some time. At the moment, his eyes were locked upon the “key” that had given him access to Julian’s home. A key that Julian had intentionally placed into Isaac’s care. A personal and cherished piece of property that allowed the vampire access. In this case, the locket bearing the ashes of Joan of
Arc.

While it was true that vampires could only enter private domiciles by invitation, they could pass unobstructed across the threshold of any building where the energies of a “public” were welcome. The only way around the invitation into a private dwelling was to have something of personal worth to a vampire already inside. Julian had anticipated this day. While the gift was a genuine offering, he knew it would come in handy in short order. And so it
had.

He was enjoying Isaac’s choice of music. It was Chopin, and it lulled Isaac into slumber. He watched the old man dozing and felt a pang of sympathy. How many nights had he settled beside that fire, alone, dreaming of his
Lessa?

Julian had come to finish their business. Enough time had passed for Isaac to have considered all the details and possible meanings of their acquaintance. He should be ripe for the final
drama.

Julian stepped forward into the circle of light and cleared his throat. Isaac jerked his head up from his chest and caught his
breath.

“Julian?!?”

“Hello again, Isaac. It’s so good to see
you.”

The next several minutes passed with Isaac searching among the turbulent vortex of his thoughts for his voice and his composure. Julian moved calmly about the study reading the titles of Isaac’s books, and peering at the photographs on the mantle. He gave the startled old man all the time he needed to consider the implications of Julian’s return. He took a picture of Lessa from the mantle. She was in the middle of a group of young people, smiling. It was then that Isaac broke his reverie.

“Somehow, I knew that I would see you again. But I didn’t expect it to be here, in my home. Why have you come
here?”

Julian returned the picture to the shelf.

“Because the incomplete feelings that you have known, I have known as
well.”

He sighed deeply and lowered himself onto the
divan.

“I assure you that this will, indeed, be our final meeting. I have come to ask you a favor. Now that you have had these past months to consider all that has transpired, I believe you will be in the frame of mind to oblige me. Especially when you have heard the things that I am going to reveal to
you.”

Isaac felt an involuntary shiver dance along the notches of his spine as a stone of tension settled upon his stomach. He well knew that he needed to hear all the vampire had to say. And how dearly he dreaded it.

Julian could see the unease drawing at the corners of Isaac’s mouth.

“Some of what I have to tell you will not be easy for you to hear. But, after I have gone, I am certain you will know the same peace I hope to find for myself. Our fates have become…no. Our fates have long been…entwined,
Isaac.”

The vampire reached into the folds of his overcoat and produced a plain manila envelope. He laid it carefully on the table between them. Isaac’s universe suddenly seemed to shift orbits, revolving end over end around that envelope.

“When I have gone,” Julian spoke deliberately, “I want you to read the single piece of paper you will find enclosed there. To say that it is a gift from eternity would be an understatement. I am merely the messenger. But the message is one that saved me. And I am most certain it will do the same for you.

“But before you are granted this gift, you will be asked to perform the favor I mentioned. If you refuse this favor, that envelope will remain in my care until you change your mind. The favor is this. You must take my
life.”

Isaac felt the air rush from his lungs.

“Dear God, Julian! I can’t possibly oblige you! And you can’t possibly be
serious!”

Julian spoke calmly, as though detached from the very words he
uttered.

“Listen to me carefully now, Isaac. When I have told you what I am here to tell you, you too will see the inevitability in all this. The situation may seem distasteful, but it is the perfect summary to everything we have journeyed toward. This is not my decision, or even yours. The contents of that envelope are proof that this has all been a working process…that there has been a plan to all of it…and that our faith is never wasted. I say again, this is our passage to true and lasting peace. But there is some work yet to be done before we can
rest.”

Julian rose and began to pace. Isaac knew him well enough by now to know that he paced when he had the full measure of ideas and dreams to consider.

“Here is the summation of the story—our story—as I know it. You will recall that, throughout my six-hundred-year history, I have preyed primarily on the disadvantaged and dying. If you look at the parallel history of mankind, you will see clearly that I have had ample opportunity to sate my hunger. What I mean is, there have been times and places where I could linger for months and years at a time, and the machines of human slaughter would keep me fed. It was almost enough that I could survive as more a scavenger than a predator, really.

“Wherever there was widespread death and destruction, I and those like me could be found…like stray dogs around a landfill. The plagues of Europe. The famines of Africa. Let’s not even talk of the incessant wars that your kind find so enthralling. And how we came to the Second World War…the SECOND one. As though the first one shouldn’t have been more than enough to convince us of our own psychosis. No, the second one produced even more unbridled, lustful carnage than the bloody first. It served up to those like me the fattest part of history’s hog…the
Holocaust.”

Now Isaac rose from his chair and he, too, began to pace. The two of them moved around the room like tragic characters performing the final act of some Greek tragedy.

“It was all too easy, too convenient not to take advantage of. My work was all but done for me. I needed only to step in at the last moment, just before the final breath was drawn, and feed at my leisure. Other than avoiding the daylight, and the unlikely curiosity of the rest of the walking dead, there was no fear of reprisal…no one was going to conduct an autopsy of the bloodless victims already emaciated and dying. As a predator, my conscience was quite clear. None of this gruesome disposal of sentient beings was my doing. This horror fell squarely on the shoulders of the HUMAN beings. For once, I could feed without the slightest twinge of
guilt.”

“You know the score, Isaac. Dozens of your people perished each night from starvation, disease, suicide, or sheer loss of will. This isn’t even considering the gas chambers or the point-blank bullets behind the ear. I would simply enter the camps each night, choose the weakest of all the weak ones, and end the nightmare of those places for him or her forever. Who knows, Isaac, you and I may have passed in the night long before that dark park in Atlanta drew our paths together
again.”

Isaac was standing in the corner of the room, his face concealed in the shadows. But Julian could guess at the painful distortions wearing at and eroding his features, like the flood of Noah moving over the landscape of his heart.

“Stop trembling, Isaac. And listen to what miracles are possible in this tired drama you know as
life…

“In the terrible winter of 1944 and ’45, my feeding ground was the largest and most despicable of the death camps…the camp you knew as intimately as I did. Auschwitz. Near the end of that camp’s existence, in the days before it was liberated by the Russian Army, a strange and portentous thing occurred.

“It was about ten p.m. I was in the woods bordering the village of Birkenau. Isaac…please, gather yourself. I came upon the bodies of five men and three women…it’s all right. Patience, my friend. Bear with me for just a while longer. The eight of them had been shot sometime during the
day…”

Isaac was sobbing openly now. Julian could see his shoulders quaking from across the room.

“Steady now, Isaac. One of the women was still alive…but barely. She was unable to speak and she had lost a great deal of blood. I knew that she would perish very soon. Normally, I would have considered feeding on her to hasten the end to her suffering. But I knew, I sensed, that this was a different encounter.

“I held her in my arms. Her long, dark hair fell across my lap where her head lay. She looked into my eyes with a warmth and tenderness that I have never forgotten. There was an understanding
there…”

Now Julian’s voice broke as well, despite his willing against it. That was more than Isaac could bear. He threw himself back into his chair and covered his ears.

“That picture there, on the mantle, does your wife no justice. Next to my Clara, Lessa was the single most noble creature I have ever encountered. I am eternally grateful that I was able to give her some final contact that was not brutal, that was not evil. Not evil, Isaac. Do you understand me? That last look in Lessa’s eyes was one of peace…and
gratitude.”

Julian pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at his eyes, then offered it to Isaac.

“Before she died, she took my hand and placed it over the breast pocket of her shirt. I reached into that pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Without that piece of paper I would never have known you, all these years later, for who you are. And this situation we have found ourselves in the midst of would have been just another in a long line of bizarre circumstances for me. As it stands, that piece of paper, and all that has happened since that day, is proof enough for me that your wife awaits you…and that the eternal love you and I have spent our lives in search of is no longer a thing to be doubted or guessed
at.”

Just then the phone began to ring, and ring incessantly. Isaac rose and turned on the overhead light in the room. But Julian grabbed his wrist before he could get to the receiver. Isaac spun and looked into Julian’s face, stunned by how much the vampire had aged during the past few months. Something vital had gone from his demeanor. There was only resignation to a less than joyous fate. He was ready to die.

“This is why you must take my life, Isaac. Do you understand? Here is your salvation from hatred, from anger, right here in this envelope. And here is my only chance for a peace of my own. I cannot fall on the stake myself. I won’t ignore the events that have transpired in the past months. You and I were brought together precisely for this night. Now, accept your
responsibility.”

Isaac rushed to the bar and uncorked his best bottle of Cognac, then drank straight from the bottle. Julian stood calmly in the background, waiting patiently for Isaac to accept the
inevitable.

Isaac drank and paced, paced and drank. He knew that if he didn’t follow through, if he didn’t grant the vampire his macabre request, he would never read the contents of that envelope. But the thought of impaling Julian on a stake horrified and repulsed him. He just couldn’t imagine it. But he knew that he must. And that, somehow, he
would.

The sudden knock at the door startled them both. Julian motioned for Isaac to stand still. He began moving toward the door when a key was inserted and the door flew open, revealing the flushed and eager face of Father Evan
Connor.

Evan looked around the room quickly, surveying the scene for signs of a struggle. Satisfied at least temporarily of his friend’s safety, he made his way to the bar.

“Damn it, Isaac! I thought we agreed that you would engage that blasted answering machine. You didn’t answer your phone. Your machine didn’t answer your phone. So naturally I came scrambling over here like a fool. Would you care to tell me exactly what is going
on?”

Isaac was muted by the sudden turn of events. Julian filled in the blanks.

“I’m afraid that Isaac is in a mild state of shock. Please. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Julian
Germain.”

The freshly-filled glass fell from Connor’s hand, tumbled gracefully, and proceeded to spray its contents around the room like a ruptured jugular.

“A waste of good brandy, Father,” Julian observed
dryly.

“The vampire wants me to take his life,
Evan.”

Isaac had regained his voice, but his words only added to the surrealism seeping into the priest’s world in place of alcohol. Evan looked around the room, found the familiar comfort of his favorite chair, and sank into it to stare at a piece of shadow on the far
wall.

Julian walked back to the bookcase. He stood before it for several, silent minutes, then withdrew a volume of Blake’s poetry, turned some pages, and read
aloud.

“I have traveled through a Land of
Men,

A Land of Men and Women
too,

And heard and saw such dreadful
things