Short Preview of The Oldest Living Vampire In Love

This excerpt is from a work in progress...

Vesuvius

December 29

1

I felt the music penetrate my flesh even before I entered the building, the thump of its bass like a second heartbeat. They call it “techno”, but it has a primal quality that belies its modern appellation. It conjures memories of my people’s ritual chants, the drumming of bare palms on hollow logs, men and women shouting as they leap and spin around a roaring fire, their bodies moist with sweat, their faces tilted to the heavens in ecstasy.

I closed my iridescent eyes to drink in the music.

As a vampire, television and cinema are an irritant. My thoughts fly faster than a mortal human’s thoughts, and so I am aware of each shuttering still image. They twitch in my consciousness like a lizard impaled on a thorn. It taxes my patience, those glowing images. They whirl like life itself for your human eyes, but for me they are still images, ticking steadily through my consciousness.

But music… Ah, music! Music has the power to seduce me. A world without music would be a world without color, a world without dreams.

But I am not here tonight simply to enjoy the music, as attractive as the idea might be. No. I’ve come to this place for a much more malevolent purpose, and that is to feed on the lifeblood of an evil man. And so I opened my eyes and stepped up to the red velvet rope and waited for the doorman to admit me.

The bouncer was a veritable Goliath, arms thicker than my thighs, chest twice the breadth of my own. He had a shaved head and artfully groomed facial hair and wore an electronic listening device in one ear. It looked like a plastic insect feeding from his ear canal.

I had to wrench my eyes from the throbbing blue vein in his ox-like neck. The hunger was burning in my guts, squeezing my intestines between its taloned claws. Young men and women pressed up behind me, drunken and loud, eager like me to gain entrance to this place. Innocent souls, they were ignorant of the very real danger they had stumbled upon tonight. They unwittingly rubbed their plump, sweaty bodies against me, making me squeeze my fingers into fists for fear of turning and ripping their throats out.

I have lost control of myself more than I care to recall over the ages. I have devoured entire tribes in the hot red grip of my bloodlust. Some vampires can easily move among our human prey, putting aside the bloodthirst without too much difficulty, but not I. I have always been far too easily tempted, prone to bouts of savagery despite my gentler nature.

   

For a moment, I felt like I was drowning in a sea of human smells: their salty human sweat and sex pheromones, and the coppery scent of human blood sluicing through all that soft, succulent flesh. I wanted to bite them, rend open their throats and suck them dry—

Get a grip on yourself!

The bouncer finally deigned to notice me. “Name?” he asked in German.

“Vallessi,” I replied. The name I use in these modern times is Vallessi. Gaspar Vallessi.

He consulted a clipboard, began to shake his head.

Impatient, I hissed, “Let me enter!”

“Sorry, friend. You’re not on the list.”

 I was a little surprised that he refused me entrance to the nightclub, as I had pitched my voice to influence his mind. It is a trivial skill. Any vampire can master it, if that’s something that they care to do. It only takes a few of your mortal lifespans to get the hang of it.

He should have obeyed me without thought. Instead, he crossed his ridiculously muscular arms and scowled down at me like I was a child plucking at the hem of his shirt.

I realized then that the music coming from inside the club had interfered with my carefully pitched tonalities, so I adjusted the frequency of my voice to accommodate the bass thumps pulsing through the steel doors—a bit trickier—and gave it another try.

“Step aside, you oaf. Let me pass!” I demanded.

The man’s eyes fluttered. For a moment he looked confused, then he unhooked the velvet rope with a blank expression and gestured for me to proceed.

I slipped through the door, feeling a little guilty at the enjoyment I had derived from manipulating his mind. The temptation to abuse one’s preternatural abilities is powerful, but it is a danger I strive to resist. I need only remind myself of the Dark Ages, when the Catholics very nearly drove my kind to extinction, and I am duly chastised.

I passed though a short antechamber decorated in the Roman style. Small alcoves, spaced evenly between faux marble pillars, were ornamented with reproductions of Pompeiian art—most of it quite scandalous; the Pompeiians were a very open-minded and sensual people.

Plaster casts of Mount Vesuvius’s victims curled on the floor below, their bodies contorted in their last agonized moments. Juxtaposed against the sexually explicit murals painted on the walls, it was a tacky display. But that was just my opinion, being present when the volcano erupted.

The lights in the corridor throbbed in time to the music as I strode forward. I passed a group of giggling young women. A couple of them gave me a quick, appraising glance. Then I pressed through an interior door, and the music swallowed me whole, like a whale swallowing a fisherman.

2

Vesuvius. What an apt appellation!

Inside, techno pulsed loudly enough to damage human eardrums. Patterns of light rippled across the ceiling and walls, flashing red, orange, purple. Young humans threw their sweaty bodies about the dance floor or mingled together at the bar or the tables, hoping to find a mate to accompany them home for the night... Or, at the least, a momentary distraction from an otherwise mundane existence: a fight, a thrilling bit of gossip, the flash of an attractive stranger’s eye from across the crowded chamber.

They waved plastic sticks filled with luminous fluid, sketching the air with serpentine streaks of pastel light. They snorted coca powder up their noses and poured alcoholic beverages down their gullets.

It reminded me of the Bacchanal-- or any of Rome’s countless drunken festivals, actually.

You humans... Always yearning for distraction. I don’t know how you can find your lives that tedious. They are so brief.

So very, very brief.

Of course, all things are relative. To me, your lives are like fleeting sparks. They rise up from the fire, twirling  like little stars, to flash for a moment in incandescent glory before dying away, lost to the winds of eternity.

And this club--! This seething nightclub, these celebrants-- so tame in comparison to the sights I have seen in my lifetime. I, who witnessed the gladiatorial games of Rome in its heyday, who can recount the pantheon of Haman, a country-- and the gods its people worshipped, which they called the Vitae-- lost now to time but for my undying memories. I marched in the Bacchanalia, and watched in wonder and disbelief as the Bacchae, the crazed female worshippers of the Roman god of wine, tore their clothes from their bodies and ran wild through the streets, raping the men and the boys… even the dogs!

My name in this modern era is Gaspar Valessi, and I am the oldest living creature on this planet. I estimate my age at 30,000 years, although I could be off by a millennia or two. For a creature as old as I am, there is no accurate stick to measure the span of my existence. I was old when Homo Sapiens shared this world with other extinct thinking beings. I was married to a Neanderthal woman. I warmed my cheeks by the light of civilization’s first sunrise.

Do you know who I am?

You, beautiful one, you press your body against mine as I cut through the thrashing crowd, smiling with your blood-colored lips, arching your breasts toward me, so full and soft to the touch.  Don’t you feel the lifeless chill that emanates from my flesh? Don’t you see the strange luster of my skin, or notice its unnatural inflexibility? Do you not know how you tempt the monster inside me? You run your fingers across the front of my trousers, laughing at your own audacity, thinking that I will be shocked by your forwardness.

You have no idea!

If you knew the thoughts that burned through my mind at your touch, like falling stars streaking across a blackened sky, you would run screaming from this place. Join a convent. Dedicate your life to Christ.

I seize you by the throat. My grip is cold steel. Irresistible. I push you down on the floor as you struggle in vain to pull my fingers from around your neck, your eyes bulging, your bloody lips splitting open to loose sudden screams of shock and terror. I tear open the front of my trousers, releasing my totem like a beast from its cage, and then I rip away your garments, sweep them from your flesh as if they were made of tissue. I penetrate you, make you cry out, and then, even as you claw at my back, trying to force me off you, I penetrate you again, my fangs hooking into your flesh as savagely as my cock hooks into your sex, fucking you, feeding on you, until you’re as cold and lifeless as I am.

I would never do such a thing, of course. Not to someone as innocent as you. Not unless I was starved for blood. But your youth, your beauty… it tempts me. It tempts the monster that dwells within me. Fills my mind with terrible thoughts.

Yes, that’s right. You’ve guessed my secret.

I am the vampire Gon.

No ordinary vampire, I am the Most Ancient One. The ghost god of the blood drinkers. For many thousands of years I have kept my identity a secret, but loneliness has driven me to publish my memoirs, to reveal myself to the human world, if only in the disguise of gothic fiction.

Others of my kind have taken notice, as well. Have I told you that? I have gotten very angry electronic mail from some of them. They are surprised by my revelations, and filled with self-righteous indignation at my reckless disregard for our secrets.

Bah! I do not fear them—not even the eldest!

My kind are far too few to have any real society. We have no laws for me to break. And even if there were a multitude, who would carry out my punishment? Who among my brothers and sisters would have the strength to challenge me?

Do you hear me, my immortal brethren? Gon has set up house in Belgium. I have cleared the entire city of Liege, destroying all the young ones who did not have the good sense to flee. This city is off limits to all of you, save those I love or made immortal. You throw away your life if any of you should venture into my territory!

My race is most rare, and yet I am singular. The eldest. The most powerful.

Indestructible, they whisper, in whatever dark crypts those self-righteous demons choose to haunt, and they are correct.

Many have tried to kill me, even my own vampire children, yet I am still here, the hoary grandfather of a deathless race.

But I don’t like to brag.

Of course, I must appear to you, mortal child, like any other human male, early middle-age, handsome, long haired and bearded. You have not guessed my secret yet, have you, little one? You see me here in this club, my white flesh disguised by cosmetics… just another 30-year-old “dude”, too old by your standards to be in this thundering place. I should be home with my wife and my children, you reason. You think you play a game, torturing some prosaic family man who has not the good sense to retire from this sport.

I could-- I should-- kill you for your presumptuousness.

No!

Damn this hunger! It is so hard to maintain my self-control in this place, with so many warm bodies writhing against me. All this hot, blood-filled flesh, squirming against me from every side.

You play with fire, little girl! The way you place your hand on my shoulder, the way you lean your face into mine, your silky hair-- smelling oh so clean and fine-- a swirling dark cloud around my face.

Your succulent lips part. You mean to speak.

I smile at you suddenly, baring my fangs.

Surprise! Fear!

I see the blood drain from your cheeks, your eyes grow wide, even as your body shrinks instinctively away from me. Your hands rise. Your lips part to shout, and then I use my preternatural speed to flit through the crowd away from you, vanishing from sight, leaving you shaken, and with the unspoken admonition:

Careful, little butterfly! The world is full of spiders!

3

It had been five days since my last feeding: the pornographer and sadist Hans Loen. 

Now there was a meal fit for a vampire king! Betrayed by his associate, who I’ve been holding captive in my penthouse suite, he was a giant of a man, well over six feet tall. Vigorous. Full of hot, delectable blood. And beautiful, too, despite the injury that had claimed his right eye and scarred the flesh of his face.

In his form could be found the ultimate romantic expression, handsome prince and furious beast, all wrapped up in a single mouthwatering package. Body of an Adonis, face of a Frankenstein’s Monster. I have to confess, he was lying in pieces when I was through with him.

Oh, spare me your rebukes, you guardians of propriety, you waggers of fingers! The man was as much a monster as me. A deceiver. A child rapist. Delivered by his business partner, who is even more repugnant, morally, than Hans himself, if you can imagine that! Right to my door, just like you mortals order out for pizza.

I have made many moral capitulations throughout my unimaginably long life, driven as I am by this thirst for human blood, but perhaps I can win your sympathy by assuring you of this: I feed only on the wicked.

At least, I try to.

Oh, like any human addict, I have my slips. Just this previous August, I had gone to the Monos Gallery to take in a new showing. Local artist, lovely paintings. Reminded me of Cezanne. As I glided through the galleries, drinking in the sights, I was approached by an ethereal beauty, an art critic who wrote for one of the local newspapers.

She engaged me in conversation, and we talked at length about art. Her specialty was modern art.  I, of course, impressed her with my knowledge of the classics. Would you expect anything else? After all, I was present.

She seemed quite taken with me, laughing at all my little jokes, nodding at my insights, stroking my chest and shoulders. She couldn’t keep her hands off me, and my desire for her swelled with every passing moment.

I knew I should withdraw. Flee from her presence, lest I poison her with the venom of my vile desires, but I was too fascinated by her—by her beauty and her intellect. I could not resist her graces. How can a man be rude to such an erudite admirer?

Before I was even aware of her intentions, she had swept me into a deserted stairwell, piercing my soul with a quiver of compliments, whispering that she had nearly fainted at the sight of me, she was completely enamored with me and that I must take her now, right here in this filthy stairwell like an animal, she wanted me so badly!

I covered her in passionate kisses, her head falling back in delight, her tiny warm fingers tangling in my hair. The flesh of her neck, rashing with goosebumps at the touch of my tongue, so soft, so warm, and I thought: Just a little drink, as I press myself inside of her.

Yes, vampires can make love! The Strix, the black blood which animates us, has no quarrel with our cocks. Sex with us is dangerous for mortals, and not always pleasant if we—in our passion—let slip the reins of our true strength, but it can be done, and she wouldn’t even realize I had fed from her, if I took the utmost care!

All vampires must learn this trick, if they wish to go undetected by mortals: bring the black blood into your mouth, slather it on the wound after drinking your fill. Just a drop, mind you, and the wounds stitch right up. And my teeth are so very, very sharp! She would think it a lovebite. In the throes of passion, even little pains can be a pleasure when delivered by an amorous lover.

“Yes! Now, Gaspar, I must have you inside me!” my beautiful art critic whispered in my ear, and so I slid myself inside her, and then I slid myself inside her.

She latched onto me as I fastened onto her, and I lost myself in the pulsing red pleasure of feeding and fucking. We could hear the low murmur of the art show attendees just beyond the door. I think it enflamed her knowing we could be caught at any moment, her reputation sullied. She wrapped her legs around me as I held her in my arms, filling her, draining her.

It was only after the penultimate moment that I realized she was dead. Cold, pale, limp inside my encircling arms. A lifeless China doll, arms flopping at her sides, the legs she’d clamped around my hips only moments before swinging flaccidly around.

Just one little drink, I’d promised, before granting myself license to indulge. I’m sure no small number of alcoholics have thought that very thing.

I made off with her body to a nearby wilderness, ashamed, furious with myself, and buried her in a lovely, remote location. I’m sure she would have appreciated the beauty of her final resting place, though not the untimeliness of her demise.

Still warm with her blood, I proclaimed: Never again! Never again will I feed from the innocent!

Though I’m sure every addict has sworn off their weaknesses in just such a manner, as well.

As I said, I try to feed only on the wicked, and such was my aim on this night.

I don’t ordinarily hunt in nightclubs such as this. This garish gathering place is favored more by those with a mind for mating than the morally deficient or the black hearted thief. My shadow most often falls on those who haunt back alleys and dimly lit riverside bars, the irredeemable, the insane. And don’t think I prey only on the lower class, as I’ve been known to take a corrupt lord or lady as well… though it’s become much trickier to steal them from their gilded halls in this modern age. There are just so many damned security cameras now!

Here, in this nightclub called Vesuvius, I feel as if I’m drowning in a sea of horny, innocent children. There are a few blackguards to be found. They’re easy enough to spot. That one standing by the bar, plying a female with drinks—he’s no stranger to a prison cell. I can tell by the stocky muscularity of his figure, the way he constantly peeks over his shoulder. And that woman there? She’s a professional thief. See how she appraises the men who come to court her? She doesn’t look them in the eye, but assesses what they wear: their clothes, their jewels, the timepieces on their wrists.

But I’m not hunting just any generic villain tonight. I have a target, a very specific victim in mind, and I’ve been assured he’ll be somewhere in this club this evening.

Thinking about him makes the hunger leap and snap inside my stomach. I salivate as I press my way through the bounding mob. The music, the smells, it makes my mind reel. I slip between the revelers like a lion through high savannah grass. I feel alive, rooted in the here and now, vital and relevant. I so often feel unanchored, like flotsam drifting in time’s slow tides.

All this hot bloody flesh pressing in around me, it threatens to distract. But I ignore them. Even if they were all great villains, I would stalk my singular prey with no less intent.

You know how it is when you have a taste for something in particular.

Nothing else will do!