Louis and Julia

Chapter ONE

          His shoe was eerily silent on the pavement as he stepped out onto the street and away from the comfort of his villa in the more residential part of the city reserved for well, those who could afford it. He had many of these large homes scattered throughout the globe, just like he had wealth stored in several bank accounts accruing with interest as the decades went by. The night air was not to his taste but he had grown quite accustomed to the chemically cluttered air of these times. He walked as if he knew where exactly he was going though in fact, he had no particular place in mind. It was just another night when he found it difficult. Difficult to stay in one place and face his wandering thoughts, better he wander with them.
          Two hundred years later and he was still alone. Alone. There seemed no way of escaping it, that word, that indescribable feeling of loneliness, so interminable they both seemed. So he walked the streets of New Orleans blindly lost in his thoughts, for after two hundred years one could take that risk. By now he knew all the streets and alleyways.
          He had told his story to that reporter just three nights ago. Maybe it hadn’t been such a smart idea. Retelling just how he had become a vampire had brought back thousands of painful memories in vivid, gruelling detail that he had fought for years to forget. But no, his kind didn’t forget easily. He had hoped that the reporter would have been able to tap into that systematic pain that held him in bondage and in constant hatred of himself. Instead, the reporter had asked to become a vampire. Silly mortal! He simply could not begin to comprehend what he was going through. But how could he? The man was a mere reporter. Why should he expect him to understand? He didn’t know what it was like to be immortal and alone, would never know. How could he bestow the dark gift that he himself despised upon someone else? How could he curse and condemn him to such a life of eternal nights.
          From Convention Center Boulevard he hailed a cab into the late night activity within the intricate bowels of the French Quarter. Here, even at midnight people walked the streets boldly – he smiled cynically as he thought of this – as if the night were…theirs. Looking out the taxi’s windows he acknowledged not for the first time that he would trade with anyone of them, if they were willing to give him their day, their sunshine, for his innumerable nights. Hookers, tourists, the mediocre-minded locals all formed a thickened hot soup of inquisitive, excited people pouring along the streets. The drunken and slurred movement of the crowd, the uninhibited laughter and the loud, lewd music told him that they were celebrating something. He inquired of the driver.
          “Mardi Gras they call it sir,” he spoke as if he disapproved of it. “Mardi Gras.”
          “Ah, yes,” he responded softly, “The madness of Fat Tuesday.”
          He got off on the curb just in front of Le Chateau. The dingy jazz club was well populated and he decided against going in tonight.
          He looked at himself in the reflection presented to him in the grubby window of the club. Of course the reporter had obviously been enthralled by the look of evident power and the thought of life without death. Without death…though in a way, you were, dead, he thought. He was tall; he often tapered over the other men of the present times. He was aware of the fact that he slouched to make this less obvious. It was all about being incognito when one looked like he did. His skin was a smooth alabaster in colour. The lean strength of his body lay hidden underneath the long stylish trench coat he wore.
          On the opposite side of the street someone looked out of a window, saw a man looking at his reflection in the street window of an old jazz club, thought nothing of it; vain bastard.
          He moved on, walking faster and faster until he was a mere blur to the passers-by, an uncanny inexplicable breeze of the night. He turned into an empty alley wondering what had become of the reporter whose name he had never found out. He couldn’t distinguish his scent anywhere. Maybe off to New York to get the latest story, he reasoned. If he could only find him now he would let him see just what it was to be in pain.
          Then he bumped into the woman who seemed to come out in front of him from nowhere. The sensation that resulted from her tiny fists instantaneously pummelling his chests was more annoying than painful but he grabbed her hands anyway.
          She didn’t stop screaming though. “Matt sent you didn’t he? Answer me you freakin’ stalking bastard!”
          At first, all he could think about was getting away from her. He had not fed and was not looking for a meal or else she would have been a perfect candidate. It was dark. The alley was deserted. He could take her here and now and ease that terrible hunger that he had let build up in him for the past two nights. He could smell the alcohol in her.
          His grip tightened around her tiny, weak wrists and the ensuing pain caused her to shut up. She looked up into his face, fear evident in her slightly widened eyes, her paused mouth agape. Yet, neither moved.
          He looked down at her, really seeing her for the first time. She was beautiful in her own way. Not the emaciated beauty associated with modern women but the fully developed, curved woman. The make-up that he suspected every woman wore did not lurch out at him from her pretty face. If she wore any tonight; it was subtle…just as the beating of his heart. He noted her dark brown skin, full bosom and confused eyes that were becoming more vivid by the second for she seemed to be studying him too.
          He was handsome, to say the least. Tall, well dressed, unusual shoulder length brown hair for a man of that era and piercing green eyes. Was it possible that this goon worked for Matt? Had Matt sent him for her? He didn’t look hostile; in fact he looked like he wanted to be rid of her presence entirely. So then why did he cling to her wrist so?
          He was in pain. She could see it in his eyes, the creased brow, the way his mouth seemed to look like a line in his face and nothing more. She thought it strange that he had no wrinkles…he couldn’t be any younger than 30. Not physical pain, no she didn’t think so, but there was something about it that made her think that it was not the same kind suffered by the average human either.
          “You don’t know Matt do you?” she found herself asking despite the alarm bell going off in her mind.
          “No.” He didn’t let go of her wrists. It seemed to her that perhaps he had forgotten he was holding them.
          “Look, I’m sorry that I hit you. I mistook you for someone else. Can you please let go of me.” She wasn’t asking. It was a polite command.
          Her distinct human scent was killing him with desire. He would not kill tonight. He bared his fangs but she did not notice them, instead she was looking at his fingernails. He followed her gaze. He knew how they must have appeared to her; impeccable, flawless, the perfect French manicure. His nails would seem to have an unusually natural sheen but he knew all to well how unnatural they really were.
          Though she knew it was stupid, it would not be the most stupid thing she had done in the past. She reached out and took his right hand in hers. His hands were soft and beautiful and cold. And pale. His face too seemed inhumanly pale, almost white.
          “Who are you? Or more precisely, what are you?” she asked again. Some sort of drug addict most definitely.
          Their eyes met and he smiled, sending shivers down her spine, causing her to let go of his hand. This time he took her hand in his. And as he pulled her towards him unsullied panic streaked across her countenance.
          She aroused something in him. Maybe he would kill tonight, for at this moment the pain and fear of two centuries were gone and he was at peace. About to do what he was meant to do. Why he had run from it for years he simply could not understand. He was a vampire; he was to kill for his nourishment. It was simple. Or was this the hunger talking?
          He placed his palms oh her cheeks and cupped her face. “You have no idea what you have just done to me, do you?” he asked of her. Beautiful tears were streaking down her face. If he were to cry, he reflected, his would be tinted with blood.
          “No,” she whispered. He was insane, she thought. A crazy-ass man fucked in the head. She better run. She struggled against him but his strength, his strength…
          “Thank you anyway,” he murmured as he planted kisses on her lips, cheek and then down towards her neck. He could hear her heart beating in her chest. Thump, thump, thump. The frenetic rhythmic sound seemed to urge him on.
          He’s insane, her mind yelled at her, scream! But somehow, she couldn’t.
          Her body was so warm, so alive…. He felt the up and down movement of her chest as she breathed. It was a bit shaky but he had seen and dealt with this all before. Finally, he pierced the skin of her neck with his fangs and indulged himself in her red blood. He heard her sigh before it filled his mind with images.           Her name was Julia. “A beautiful name for a beautiful person,” he whispered to her without moving his lips from the puncture mark on her neck. She was successful. He saw her large office. Comfortable, but still, an office – it was her place to work. A blur of her friends then where she lived. Home. An apartment. Spacious and luxuriant. “Yes, you would like comfort wouldn’t you?” He cooed, his breath on her neck. Then flashes of past lovers, one of these she has loved immensely, lost tragically. Now pain. Lots of it. Then nothing but loneliness. She lived alone. She was alone.
          He snapped. There was that word again. It seemed to fill the passages of his mind and reverberate in order to echo over and over again. Alone, alone, alone. He staggered back from her and let her limp body fall to the pavement. She moaned, turned to face him and let her eyes flutter shut. She was not dead. He could still hear her heart beating, slowly, soporific but beating nonetheless.           He began pacing. She’s lonely and he had actually felt her pain. He remembered how acute it was for he could still feel the remnants of it burning a cavity into his mind and heart as well. Her pain and loneliness had only sought to fuel his own. And now his memories came back to haunt and torture him, fresh and anew and even stronger than before. He started to walk away from her. Her pain was too much like his; he couldn’t face her.
          He had almost reached the main street at the end of the alleyway when he heard his name escape her lips in a sigh. “Louis,” her voice pleaded for her soul, “Louis,” her French pronunciation of his name was without flaw.
          It brought all the questions back. What kind of a monster was he? To take her life substance away from her and then leave her to die a slow death on a dark street just past midnight when all she had intended him no harm? He hurried back to her and with one swoop of his powerful agile body picked her up in his arms and carried her to her apartment complex. Swiftly, he handed her over to the night watchman mumbling something about finding her in the streets before disappearing into the shadows of the building. He made sure that the watchman did not see his face.



*NB>to be continued*