Nocturnes (10 page)

Chapter Eleven

B
y eight-thirty that evening, the two men had been seated and were sipping at the excellent wine Julian ordered before they even considered the menu. It was a Burgundy, from the Volnay region. Like Isaac, Julian often ordered the meal around the wine, in contrast to the habits of most diners.

“This has long been considered the most feminine of all the Burgundies,” Julian explained, unnecessarily, but Isaac found himself hanging on every word. “If you prefer the elegant to the powerful, if your idea of a perfect evening includes jazz, moonlight spilling across the overstuffed couches on the front porch, and a loyal dog curled at your feet…if all you desire is the company of a good and loving woman, this wine is the official libation of lovers everywhere.”

Julian seemed to be in high spirits, as if he were starved of company. The thought struck Isaac with a thunderbolt of humor, and he began to chuckle, despite his desire not to do so. Starved of company. Of course. How could he not be when he killed and consumed everyone that he met? Ha-ha-ha. “Oh my,” he thought. “In a minute he’s going to ask me what’s so funny and I’ll have to tell him and then I’ll really be in trouble….ooohhhh, ha-hahaha…come on, Isaac. Get a grip,
man!”

Julian only smiled at Isaac’s amusement. “A wonderful wine, wouldn’t you
agree?”

Now Isaac was close to full-on belly laughter. “Oh yes, I can’t recall a more convivial wine. Goes right to the head. That’s what I love about the Burgundies. One minute you’re staring down the barrel of life’s futility, and half a bottle later you’re dancing on the table in your underwear. Here’s a great ad campaign,” he picked up the bottle and pretended to read from the label. “Village de Volnay…it WILL tickle your
fancy….ooohhhheeeeheeeehhaaahaa…”

Julian was grinning broadly now. “Perhaps we should order. You must be
starved.”

That was it. Wet, mirthy tears sprang to Isaac’s eyes. A long-restrained humor and laughter poured out of him. “Ooohhh…hehehe. Good idea. OK. I’ll have the ecrevisse aux oeufs, and my discriminating friend here will have the rack-of-human-flesh. Rare, of course…woooheeheehee…oh, boy, I’m a dead
man…”

“Calm down, Isaac. Anxiety is mostly an intellectual thing, but it can manifest itself in a variety of ways. Your sudden slant of humor is a reaction to your forced reevaluation of reality. It’s perfectly understandable. Now, shall we
order?”

Isaac regained his composure. But there could be little doubt that his own mood was linked to the vampire’s. Their conversation remained pleasant and humorous. Small talk dominated the five courses of the meal, but Isaac was brimming with questions. He would have to be cautious. His own history made him keenly aware of the sensitivity requisite when making personal inquiries. Particularly where such longevity was involved. He opened with the easy
stuff.

“And how long have you been in New Orleans,
Julian?”

“Too long, I’m afraid. I came here to visit many years ago and was simply enchanted by the city. I returned shortly thereafter to set up a residence. But soon I will have to look for a new home. I am becoming too familiar here. And more than any other form of carelessness, that can prove most
dangerous.”

He paused and took a long swallow of his wine. Isaac could see that he wanted, perhaps even needed, to talk.

“I absolutely love the history and the multi-cultural experiences here. This city is among the last of its kind in America. She has such an authentic feminine mystery. The summers can be trying. But in the spring the rains come, and the empty streets lend a dark reflection to the city’s moods. After Mardi Gras, when the flow of tourists has ebbed and the narrow alleys and hidden courtyards of this sacred town have regained their almost-religious, Southern slumber, I will walk the streets into the latest possible hour. My clothes and my skin absorb the river fogs that shroud the Quarter in secret enigmas. Beneath that gray, misty shroud, the city is transformed. You can not guess, until you are almost indecently close to a thing, what that thing has become.”

Isaac was feeling more comfortable about asking those personal questions. And Julian was ever more responsive.

“You understand, of course, how incomprehensible this is? I am dining with a man who is— if I understood you correctly—more than six hundred years old? You are history itself. I wonder if you wouldn’t mind sharing some of that history with
me?”

Julian smiled. “I admit that it has been a very long time since I have shared any of my story with anyone. But you and I seem to share some of life’s tragedies, Isaac. Perhaps we will both learn something from such a venture. What would you like to
know?”

Isaac thought for a moment. The story of Scheherazade came to mind. If he could keep the vampire talking long enough, who knew what might happen? Maybe Julian himself would find reason enough to spare Isaac’s
life.

“Quite frankly, I would like to hear everything you’re comfortable sharing…right from the beginning. How did this happen to you? What have you seen? It’s all so fascinating to
consider.”

In this, Isaac was quite sincere. Over the inevitable Remy XO, Julian began his story. History.

“The year was 1383. I was born outside Arles, France, to a poor farming family. Have you ever been to that part of the world? It is a lovely land in which to be young. I try to return there as often as I can, even though the ageless memories wear upon my heart. It is more hauntingly beautiful than even Van Gogh could do justice to. Our farm was not far from the Mediterranean coast. On those glorious days when the winds come fresh from the south, you can inhale the sexy, salty fragrance of the sea. It must have been days such as these…I’m sorry, I mean, those. It’s so interesting when I look back at the past that I am almost transported there, with all its vivid colors and scents. Anyway, it must have been such days that siren-called my younger brother, Robert, and me to later adventure.

“Only a year separated us, and it was all that did. In the isolated and rural landscapes of our youth, we had by necessity become the best of friends. We fished and hunted as a team, and learned to cook together in our mother’s kitchen. Our family tables were not always heaped with bounty, but our parents instilled a strong appetite for love. And the love of family was a kind of sacrament of itself. When we offered our prayers before meals we would join hands and each, in turn, would speak aloud our sincere gratitude for our food…and for our
kin.”

Julian paused to refill their glasses, sat deeply back into the cushions of his chair, and continued.

“The familial friendship, which my brother and I never took for granted, carried easily into our twenties. As young men, we made our first journey to the exotic, mythical kingdom we knew only by name and reputation: Paris. Oh, how clearly I can recall that adventure. Each stride of our horses’ hooves toward that ideal seemed to electrify us with a more heightened sense of anticipation. The vibrancy of our youth coursed through our veins. And then we were there. For both of us, it was the first exposure to the full palette of sensual pleasures. Paris was the sweet, juicy essence of the forbidden fruit. It is very much like New Orleans, that way. I have been told that they are sister-cities, and that seems most appropriate to me. For two young farmers from the simple fields, Paris seemed part of an alien galaxy. But those stories are for another time. We returned to Arles after a fortnight as men of the world. We swore ourselves to bachelorhood and looked forward to our next sojourn. Even after these infinite years have rushed beneath the bridge of time, it seems that only a single sun has set upon that happiness.”

Isaac was fascinated. And he knew that more fascination was in
store.

“It wasn’t until I had turned thirty that I began to reconsider my vows of hedonism. There comes a time when the quiet comfort of a country home seems like a come-true dream. I had all that I needed there in Arles, except for a loving wife, and perhaps a son and daughter to cook for on Sundays. I imagined my brother and I raising families together, always as confidantes and comrades, a fellowship to carry us far into our winter years. So I set about to find a kind woman who could comfort my spirit as well as my flesh. But it was an unsettled time. Far to the north, beyond the pleasures of Paris, the King Of England had become even more obsessed with French soil than the English had been for the previous decades of the Hundred Years War. Our own king, Charles, was hopelessly insane. So it fell upon the citizenry of France to protect our homeland from the arrogant expansions of the English. Robert, who loathed the English as much as anyone, took an officer’s commission in the army. Three months later, out of a need to look after him, I did the
same.

“It was 1415. That summer had been particularly hard on the people of France. Henry was a big fan of the old scorched-earth game. He left little but flames, ash and sorrow in his wake. Certainly no food, nor the ability to grow it. But the winter was coming and it was time for his armies to retire beyond the Channel. The October rains had swollen the rivers and made them impassable. The English dog was forced to take his troops much further inland than he would have liked. We had not defeated the English in battle for more than a generation. But the whims of nature made him, at last, vulnerable to our forces. And we intended to make him pay.

“We caught his fleeing army in the open fields of Agincourt. We had them vastly outnumbered, but foolishly allowed them to reach the cover of the trees. There, they were able to set their defenses behind a wall of Europe’s finest archers…the surgeons of medieval warfare. We charged their position again and again, as though the sheer force of our numbers could withstand the black, quivering rain of arrows. They cut us to pieces. Robert carried three shafts of English Ash in his body before he
fell.”

Now Julian paused for several, silent minutes and swallowed hard at the warm brandy. He looked off into the near distance, recalling the carnage of the scene.

“We finally retreated, what was left us. And it’s odd. I watched that field being plowed over just a few months later. I have always wondered at the richness of that next summer’s crop. But on that evening, as the very heavens poured their grey misery onto that blood-soaked land, I learned the essential nature of madness. Under the cover of darkness, I set out to recover my brother’s body, with the intention of carrying him back home to our farm. By now the English had retreated as well, leaving only the woeful cries of the dying behind them. I stepped over torn bodies, often stumbling among the corpses, searching the contorted faces for that one, beloved and familiar. It is such a dreary
memory…”

Now Isaac could see that Julian was no longer enthusiastic about recounting his past. It was torturing him. After all these centuries he still suffered. Was there no end to the tenacity of grief?

“All the light had fled from the world. There has never been such blackness. The sounds that reached my ears were relentlessly maddening. I could no more hope to find my brother in such a nightmarish place than I could have found reason for our bitter defeat. I was succumbing to shock. At first, I hardly noticed the chill of the ground fog that crept in over the carnage. But gradually I began to notice that the sounds were changing. There was something terribly different. The pain-wracked cries of the dying had turned to shrieking calls for help. Those men were screaming in fear. But in their cries was something else. I had heard fear in men’s throats before. But never this. This was new. This was horror. The blood drained from my withering heart, and I was filled with a sudden and shuddering foreboding. And rightly so, Isaac. Rightly so. I began to flee as best I could among the scattered limbs and gory remains of my comrades. Still the screams increased with the rolling mist. Then the most disturbing sounds of all came to my disbelieving ears. It could not be. This was the depths of madness. Dear God…what WAS that sound? It was the unforgettable symphony of a vast hunger being sated. Wet and voracious, and all around me. I stopped running and peered into the fog. As my eyes adjusted, I saw them. They were everywhere. The oldest and lowest form of night feeder, preying mercilessly on those who still clung to life. They were not like me, Isaac…not like me at all. Not like what I have become. They had embraced a gluttonous evil, severing their last arteries with humanity. They had become true monsters. And their only pleasure was the blood of the living.

“Now I began to flee in full panic. The ground was so mired in bloody entrails that I could hardly stay upright. It was hopeless. I was caught from behind and dragged down into the mud and the butchery of Agincourt. The thing was greedy, wanting my flesh as well as my blood. If it had drained my blood, as it intended, I would have gratefully perished with all the others. I would have gone to a merciful rest alongside my dear brother. But an unexpected rent in the clouds allowed the sun of an early dawn to peer through, and forced them prematurely from the killing ground. For the first and last time, I was saved by the sun. Changed into something I did not wish to be. Something I fought the urges of for years and years after. Something forever different and unacceptable to the world that I am forced to
inhabit.”

Now Julian seemed to withdraw deeper into the cushioned chair, and closed his eyes. His features were drawn and cold, causing him to look every year of his six centuries. Isaac was, indeed, fascinated. But he was not moved to pity. There was little empathy. How could there be? Julian was a killer. Isaac and his wife had been victims of their own horror.

Julian’s eyes fluttered open and he stared across the table as though he was disoriented…or guessing at Isaac’s thoughts.

“You have opened ancient wounds, Isaac. I am willing, however, to suffer these memories if they will pry you from your stubborn blindness. I am increasingly of the opinion that we have been drawn together by more than
coincidence.”