Nocturnes (15 page)

Chapter Seventeen

I
saac Bloom sat in the comfortable wingback chair he had treated himself for his scholarly pursuits, in the days before he even imagined vampires. Four months had passed since Julian had walked away into the flowing-river-darkness of the New Orleans night. It was winter in Boston. And Isaac was officially
retired.

The
Bhagavad Gita
lay atop a stack of books at his feet that included the love poems of Neruda, as well as a collection of Lessa’s poetry and lullabies he had self-published for his own enjoyment. The title read, simply,
Nocturnes
.

Isaac’s reading list had become predominately spiritual in nature. He was no more certain of his beliefs than he had ever been, but he was enthusiastically open to all of it. Asking genuine questions was a novelty he could get accustomed to. He was becoming a seeker.

But he was currently preoccupied with other thoughts…thoughts that were less than meditative. Evan Connor was due to arrive at any moment. And Isaac intended to speak to him of the bizarre events that he had recently been a part of.

The old priest’s temperament had worsened in the months since he had confessed his waning faith to Isaac. He had been granted his request for retirement and replaced quickly, too quickly for Evan’s taste, by a young, dynamic character not unlike the Evan Connor of 1945. Since then, he had faded into a self-imposed exile from most of his friends and followers.

It was risky to subject his unstable friend to stories of murder and ancient histories. But Isaac was prepared to gamble that the shock might help suspend Evan’s spiritual tailspin. There was also the fact that Isaac needed the comforting words of the priest more than ever
before.

As Julian had promised, the vampire’s hold on him had vanished. At least, the compelling need to obey and protect him had vanished. But it had been replaced by the persistent feeling that there was yet some unfinished business between the two of them. There was something out there that Julian had wanted Isaac to understand. It was something that had come from Isaac, and which had altered the vampire’s perception of eternity and eternal love. He had said that it was something Isaac must discover through his own reflections. Isaac had spent four months doing little else, with nothing to show for it but a growing anxiety that he was missing the
point.

It was astonishing enough that he had been allowed to walk away. It was more troubling than soothing that the two of them had shared so many common experiences of tragedy and sorrow. But that was where the link needed to be examined. And Isaac had pored over his still-acute memories of those nights with Julian with a detective’s inquisition. He was close, and the niggle-naggle realization of that was enough to drive him to hysterics. The knock came at the front door and Isaac rose to answer
it.

“Come in, Evan. It’s so good to see you, old
friend.”

The weathered padre entered the room looking considerably older than he had just four weeks earlier. The grey hollows beneath his eyes were basins of surrender. He slumped heavily onto the low divan and asked Isaac for a brandy.

Isaac fetched a tumbler and sat down across from him.

“How are you,
Evan?”

“Alright, Isaac. You sounded more eager than usual to see me, so I hurried over as fast as these spindly legs would propel me. But I hope this doesn’t concern matters of faith. I have retired from the shepherding of
souls.”

His voice was laced with a weary sarcasm. Isaac was stunned. This had progressed far beyond mere self-pity and doubt. It was bordering upon a total departure from all that Evan Connor had once held dear.

“I don’t have much time to socialize, either, I’m afraid. I am in the middle of an epic project that is consuming my time in research. Something the old dinosaurs of the Church will find quite upsetting. I am shooting several holes in the good name of St. Augustine. Once a heretic, always a heretic, if you ask me. Man is simply incapable of changing his
nature…”

Isaac was perturbed and cut him off
abruptly.

“Evan, I asked you to come by tonight because I have something rather amazing to share with you. I need all your attention and open-mindedness…” He could hear the echo of Julian’s words imploring him for the
same.

He looked into Isaac’s vacant eyes and wondered if he would have either. The wind had been building for several hours. Isaac walked to the fireplace to adjust the flue against the downdraft. He placed another log on the fire and returned to his chair. He was aware that the lighting was poor and that the firelight was adding a certain drama to the
room.

“A moment ago you said that man is incapable of changing his nature. I am no longer so certain of that
fact.”

He looked again into his friend’s eyes, then turned his gaze to the sighing logs and continued.

“During my last assignment for the magazine, I met an incredible man who has spent several decades trying to change his nature. He has, at least in part, been successful.

“I became involved in something that I have never told you about. As I sit here now, I find it too strange, myself, and I can only imagine how you will react. But I have to tell you, Evan. And I am going to need your help in sifting through the details to find its meaning.”

He began to pace around the room. The moment had come to divulge the past month’s secrets to his lifelong friend, and he was finding it more difficult than he had imagined. To make matters worse, Evan was taking him about as seriously as a parking ticket. He was stubbornly refusing to even allow Isaac the courtesy of a forum. There was nothing to be done except forge straight ahead, to meet Evan’s stubborn inattention with a stubbornness of his own. Even would see the magnitude before much
longer.

“Quite by accident…or maybe it wasn’t an accident at all…I discovered…a series of murders, a recurring pattern that had been in place over the last half decade, and longer. Someone was preying on the
homeless.”

He paused and looked carefully for an expression of alarm on the face of the priest. But there was still only that vague comprehension. Evan hadn’t yet made the emotional connection that Isaac was counting on. He
continued.

“The fact of the serial murders was unsettling enough, and made no sense in itself. I mean, who would want to murder homeless people…for what reason? But all the other circumstances also seemed too bizarre to be true. I pursued the case myself so that I could verify what I suspected before turning it all over to the police.

“But the more I became involved, the more impossible it became to disengage myself. And the whole thing took on a stranger, darker tone than I could believe. So much so that I began to doubt my own sanity. It was during my investigations that I met the man responsible for the killings of all those pitiful people. After spending a week with him in New Orleans, I knew that I would never be able to go to the police with my
information.”

It was obvious now that Evan was not going to become invested in the matter. He had made up his mind before he had even arrived that, whatever he was being summoned to, he was finished with intimate involvement in other people’s problems. Even Isaac’s. But he surprised Isaac with the extent of his
apathy.

“This sounds too much like confession to me, Isaac. Wouldn’t you like me to call that new kid who has taken my place? Perhaps he can lend a more sympathetic
ear…”

“Damn it, Evan! Just hear me out, please. I don’t know what all this arrogant indifference is with you lately, but I hardly recognize the man I have known for these past five decades. I have a genuine need to make you understand this matter, because I believe that by discussing it I might be able to grasp its true significance. It may seem odd to you, but through it all I have felt a certain
purpose.”

Now he hesitated again, acutely aware of the absurdity of what he was about to relate. He could hardly believe it himself. And he had lived through it. The situation was taking on the air of impossibility. But, amazingly, Evan was pushing ahead with his own point. He had obviously gone deaf in the past ten minutes.

“Did you know, Isaac, that St Augustine was a devoted practitioner of the occult sciences? And that he was quite proficient in astrology, before he gave up paganism?”

Evan continued with his original line of thought as though nothing out of the ordinary was about to happen…as though a ticking time bomb was not poised above his unsuspecting world.

“But he ran into a dilemma when he tried to reconcile the horoscopes for a pair of identical twins who had lived through completely different fates and circumstances. Because he was disillusioned with astrology, and only because of it, he turned to Christianity. Something that required less scientific evidence and more blind faith. Without those twins, we may never have even heard the name, Augustine of Hippo. But with the typical zeal of the newly converted, he set about discrediting paganism in all its forms, and they made him a saint for his efforts. I mean, this was the same hedonist that put God in his place; ‘Grant me chastity and continence…but not yet.’ Which just goes to show you…if you really want to be in the favor of God, you must renounce something and then wage a blistering attack on what you are renouncing. You must renounce the nourishing fountains of the hedonistic life and live in the withered desert of ‘faith.’ God just loves that prodigal son routine. For those of us who are uninspired enough to simply toil in His service every day of our nondescript lives…well. I suppose that quiet desperation is its own
cross.”

Isaac had assumed that he was going to have some dramatic effect on his friend’s mood, but it was turning out to be just the opposite. He could scarcely believe what he was hearing from this man of the cloth.

“Evan, please. I understand that you have gone through a disconcerting period and that your life is in transition. But that is not reason enough, surely, to abandon your life’s meaning? If you will just listen to what I have to say, and apply that wisdom of yours to helping me make some sense of it, perhaps we can both find some
perspective.”

The priest leaned back in his chair, barely able to contain his
sarcasm.

“Fine, Isaac. You talk, I’ll listen. Then I’ll dispense of that sage advice I have handed out to my congregation over the years like Halloween candy…or a tasty
placebo.”

Isaac could only shake his head in frustrated confusion. They sat there with only the sound of the hissing logs between them. Two old men, consumed as they had always been with questions of faith and eternity.

Evan had kept his cancerous doubt inside of himself for too long. And in spite of Isaac’s annoyance, he was going to get some things off his chest for a change…while there was yet time.

“You know, the Jesuits have a saying: ‘To have sinned is good.’ Meaning, of course, that there are valuable lessons to be learned after the fact of sin. Life, then, can be seen as a series of transgressions and penance that ultimately will lead the flawed and the faithful to salvation.

“But where does that leave someone like myself? What does that say about the men and the women who just seem to make a habit of doing the right thing? I will never be a St. Augustine because I didn’t lead a life of debauchery and heresy before I ‘saw the light.’ I walked the same uninspired path all my life. There was no ‘crisis of conversion’ for me…no born-again awakening. It has all been so routine, like toiling away in some anonymous factory, stamping out the same, tired product…like a staple, or a bobby-pin…one of those necessary items that no one takes particular notice of. Then one day you’re seventy-five years old. They shake your hand and send you on your way. On your way out the door, you look back over your shoulder and see that the conveyor belt is moving right along. Everything is running quite smoothly without you. You weren’t vital at all. And you won’t be missed in the slightest.

“I forgive people every Saturday afternoon as my own spirit has declined into a moral tar-pit. I have taken the long, circular path to the same point I have allegedly steered so many others from. Now it is I who am the wayward and the misguided. I am lost and empty, and there is no going back—for I have already been there. I have led, and cannot
follow.”

He walked to the bar and poured himself another healthy shot of Isaac’s brandy. After swallowing several times and refilling, he turned back to Isaac with his new world-view.

“I may be a little late to the dance, but there are still a few ticks left on this grandfather clock. I’m going to finish this bottle of brandy because I have only been drunk once in my entire life—and spent a week in prayer trying to atone for it—and I’m going to offer a back rub to the next woman I meet. I don’t even care if she’s married. I’ll even use the Lord’s name in vain, if I should take the notion.

“I survived a World War. I watched as the world became uglier than it did beautiful, christened hundreds of babies and married hundreds of couples who no longer speak to one another. But somewhere along that fine line I toed so dutifully, I lost something vital of myself. I buried, and kept burying, the questioning, passionate Evan Connor for the sake of a calling that I may never have actually been called to. What voice did I think I heard when I was still a lonely, misunderstood, Irish teenager? Why did I think that this is where I should end my
days?”

“Evan!”

Isaac elbowed his way rudely into the priest’s monologue. It was time to bring Evan, kicking and screaming, into the present.

“I have met a
vampire.”

“…and I may be feeling sorry for myself, but for once I am going to…uh. What did you just say,
Isaac?”

Isaac felt the blood drain from his extremities. There was a potent shock associated with the utterance of those words. As though some residual blood-marriage with Julian yet remained.