Scent of a Vampire (24 page)

"Of course, though at the time I had no idea who he was. He was a strange man in that he was probably rich enough to dress in the grandest of fashions, but always dressed as a peasant would in those days. We discussed architecture and philosophy, the arts and life and death."

"Were you there the entire night with him?"

"We were and as a matter of fact, we met several times over the next few years whenever I was in Rome. He sort of became a family friend. He visited our estate in Crecchio once. I remember him and my father having a good time debating the Holy Church." Roberto chuckled.

Unbelievable. The man in front of me was once friends with Michelangelo. It was a very surreal moment. Roberto continued, "I am pretty sure Michelangelo knew precisely how different we
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were from normal humans but in the years that I knew him he never broached the subject. I was very saddened when I learned of his death a few years after we had met. That is a very difficult thing Olivia, to lose friends and people you love just because you will outlive them many lifetimes over."

He sounded sad. I had never thought of the pain that went along with meeting a new person and knowing they would only be your friend for a short time. I reached up and cupped his face in my hands, "I'm sorry Roberto. It must be so difficult to know you will outlive most people that you meet." Roberto kissed the tip of my nose, "It is cara. That is why the evolved species usually stick to their own kind. It is rare and sometimes dangerous to have different species mingle."

"What do you mean by dangerous?"

"Well, if you can imagine when two different species breed, it is not always known what the end result will be." He said in a serious tone.

"Do you mean that an offspring can result in malformations or genetically altered sub-species?"

"That is a possibility; of course we are all in our own way a genetically altered sub-species. Have you ever heard of Alistair Allgood?"

"The famous rock singer?" I asked

"Yeah, that's him." Roberto grimaced.

Everyone in the world knew this famous rocker. His picture was in the paper on a daily basis. He was constantly getting in trouble. I had just read a newspaper article about him last week.

Something about him being on a transcontinental flight and taking his clothes off and insisting that he be flown to Siberia because he wanted to run with the tigers.

"Surely you're not telling me he is an evolved one?" I asked incredulously.

Roberto again grimaced, "He is unfortunately, the product of a rather disastrous love affair between a satyr named Phineas and a siren named Amethyst.

"Supposedly Phineas, being a woman chasing, wine drinking philanderer came upon Amethyst as she traveled to her new home in the Indian Ocean from the Atlantic. Well, Phineas being Phineas seduced her with promises of marriage and a happy ever after. When he found out she was expecting their child and fearing her Father's wrath, left her high and dry so to speak. The end result is Alistair Allgood who, as you are aware has the voice of an angel or more like a siren and the all of the sense of a drunken lout or a satyr." I sat there with my mouth hanging open. What can you possibly say to such a story?

I opened my mouth to ask a million questions but Roberto said, "I'm afraid that I've kept you up with all of my stories piccolina. It is almost dawn. Sleep with me in my arms mia cara and let our
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sleep be peaceful." I felt myself relax as the weariness of the day overcame me. I smiled as I thought my dreams would be of great art, traveling with Roberto and heartbroken sirens.

Instead I dreamt of a silver wolf.

I woke up at noon, still wrapped in the cold comfort of Roberto's embrace. I was groggy, as was my usual custom. As I lay there the dream I had came back with startling clarity. I was standing by a wide river that ran next to a dense forest. I could smell the rich earth that was the forest floor. I could even smell the pine scent coming from the trees.

I was contemplating on where and how I was going to cross the river. I had to cross because people were waiting for me on the other side. As I stood there I heard a rustling in the bushes.

When I looked in the direction of the sound, I saw a large silver wolf emerge from the woods. I wasn't frightened, only curious. The wolf moved forward to stand a few feet before me. We seemed to take each others measure. As if we had some understanding, the wolf lowered his head as if to say nice to meet you. I nodded back. Then the silver wolf turned and went the same way he had come. How strange, I thought, still standing by the water. I eventually turned my thoughts back to how to cross the river when I saw there was a vine tied to a tree and the other end was dangling at the water's edge. This was clearly the way for me to cross but there was a great fear inside of me. I did not want to go.

That was all I remembered of the dream. It is weird how the mind works. How can your mind make a dream so vivid and real? I thought as I prepared to get myself up and get dressed and begin my training. I rolled carefully out of Roberto's arms and rolled my eyes at myself.

"I will never get used to sleeping with a dead man." I laughed out loud. The laughter died on my lips as I looked down at my feet. They were dirty. There were little flecks of mud on both my feet.

"What the heck?" I said. I looked around the floor but didn't see any dirt. I pulled the covers back and didn't see anything there either. I tried to think what I had exactly done last night. I took a shower and did not go outside after that. I was a little spooked by the whole thing; the vivid dream and now the dirt.

Just then there was a knock on the door. I opened it and Janel was there dressed and hopping from one foot to the other, clearly impatient, "Can you hurry up and get dressed?

Andy and Mark are waiting for us. Andy is really cute but there is something mysterious about Mark that I find fascinating. He is handsome in a rather rough way don't you think?" Janel paused for a second. "You look different today. Did you lose weight? You're probably not eating right. I'm going to make sure that you eat a proper meal today." As Janel rambled on, my mind was still preoccupied with my routine of last night.

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Maybe when Roberto had taken me downstairs there was some mud on the floor someone else had tracked in. That is the only plausible explanation I could think of at the moment. Janel pulled me back to reality when she said, "Do you think I can?"

I looked at here in confusion. "Do I think you can what?"

"You weren't listening to a word I said." Janel accused.

"I'm sorry. You know how long it takes for me to wake up. What was it you asked?"

"I asked you if you will ask Andy and Mark to let me train with you. Of course Mark will train me. Maybe we will do some body to body combat." She said hopefully.

"I think you mean hand to hand combat."

"Whatever, as long as there is some type of contact." She said and I laughed. I decided to forget my problems for the moment and go with the flow. After promising Janel to take a quick shower and be downstairs in ten minutes I ran in the bedroom I was supposed to be sharing with Janel. I grabbed a pair of jeans and brown turtleneck sweater from the new things we had bought and headed to the bathroom. Ten minutes later I was headed downstairs with my hair wet but otherwise ready to learn how to defend myself. I met up with Andy and Mark in the kitchen talking to Janel.

"Wow, a navy seal. I bet that was exciting. I bet you have to be in really good physical shape in order to do that kind of thing." I heard as I walked in.

Both Andy and Mark looked relieved that I had come in.

"Good morning." I smiled at them.

"Good morning." Andy replied. Mark just nodded.

"Let me grab a cup of coffee and a bagel and I'll be ready to start."

"Oh no, I got a proper breakfast for you. Sit down. I got bacon and eggs and some toast." Janel said as she set everything in front of me.

I looked at Andy and Mark to apologize for the delay but Janel saw and said, "These guys are fine. They will wait. You need to take better care of yourself." She admonished.

"Okay, okay. But you are going to spoil me." I said. But I was pleased. Usually, in the scheme of our relationship, I was the more sensible one. It seemed like Janel had grown up in the last few days. I ate everything on my plate and drank two cups of coffee and actually felt better than I had in days.

"All right. Make me a bad ass." I said as I got up from the table.

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Andy smiled and said, "I don't think you need any help in that department. I heard about last night." My face must have shown my embarrassment because Andy added, "Don't be ashamed of what you are Olivia. Besides it being what you are, your Sensay abilities may help keep you alive one day. Today we're going to start with some basic defense maneuvers. These maneuvers are life saving techniques. They are designed to stun your attacker to allow you enough time to escape."

For the next few hours Janel and I learned how to counter chokes and holds. How to counter an approach with a weapon, hip throws and body strikes. It was hard work but I thought back to how in the fall, a few women from the hospital had been attacked as they left a late shift. This stuff should be taught in every school to every girl, so they can learn to defend themselves.

Andy told us to take a break for ten minutes and Janel and I collapsed on the ground.

"God, how is Mark ever going to be attracted to me when I smell like a sumo wrestler?" Janel complained.

I laughed. We did smell a little ripe.

Andy walked over to us and with disgust I noticed that he wasn't even sweating. "I've asked Mark to work with Janel a while. I'm going to instruct you on some offensive strategies." I looked up at him in confusion. "What does that mean?" Andy tried to explain, "We want to teach you to be in command of situations where you may find yourself outnumbered. How to ambush the enemy with stealth and surprise to defeat them."

"I don't know about that Andy. I can see myself defending myself to prevent myself or someone else from being hurt. But it sounds like you're asking me to condone random killing. I don't think I could do it."

Andy squatted down next to me, "What if the other day when you arrived at your parents'

house and they had still been alive, but being held by a highly trained unit? The only hope of their rescue would have been you, but you had to out maneuver-trained soldiers. Maybe they were even guerilla trained combatants. Would you wish at that moment that you knew what to do?" He looked at me with cold steely eyes.

"I'm sorry for being so harsh. But reality is the people you are going to be up against are not going to be pacifists. Either you beat them or they beat you. It is that simple." He stood up and offered me his hand. I understood what he was saying. I knew this was just the beginning of putting myself in a totally different mindset than I had been for the last thirty years. Violence and pain had replaced harmony and peace in my life. I took hold of his hand and let him help me off the ground.

"Okay. I'm game. I just want to warn you though. I don't think I have the killer instinct in me but I'll try." I warned him.

He laughed, "Tell that to Cristoforo. I'll bet he'll disagree." I groaned. I had a feeling I was never
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going to stop hearing about that unfortunate incident. It was the third grade all over again, when I accidentally called my teacher

'Mom' and everyone made fun of me for the rest of the year. I spent the rest of the afternoon learning about stealth attacks and using the terrain to ambush an enemy. By the end of the day Andy wanted to do a trial run, so he was hiding in the nearby woods. My directive was to sneak up on him and engage him. It was hard, but not impossible to make no sound as I crept towards my objective. I had spotted some movement to the right of the tree line about a hundred yards across a meadow. I didn't use the direct route across the meadow, instead I skirted around the meadow concealing myself in the growth of trees. I was sure Andy was maybe fifty feet to my right behind a large evergreen tree. I had seen a flash of movement over there. It may have been some leaves blowing but I didn't think so. I crouched low and kept my eyes on the tree. A silver wolf stepped out and looked at me with silver eyes. I closed my eyes for a second to make sure that my vision wasn't playing tricks on me. The wolf was gone. Great, now I was having delusions. I needed to ge....

"Hmmpph," I grunted as Andy tackled me from behind. For one second I just lay there with him on top of me.

Then I got pissed off. I bucked up hard and threw him off balance and before he gained control I rolled to the side and pushed myself to my feet.

He was up an instant later, circling around me looking for a point of attack. When he struck, I countered with a spin and a quick kick to his feet to unbalance him. At the last minute, he jumped out of the way. Andy moved with lightening speed and got behind me and put me in a chokehold. I countered the hold by leveraging his weight to flip him over, just like he had taught me. Andy looked up and laughed, "Very good. You're either a quick learner or I'm a good teacher."

"You're a good teacher." I panted, out of breath.

"I think you're underestimating yourself piccolina. You're an excellent student." I turned and saw Roberto standing behind us with a ferocious look on his face. Roberto looked at Andy lying on the ground and said, "Will you excuse us Andy? I need to speak with Olivia for a moment."

"Of course, I'll see you back at the house." Andy said easily.

When he sauntered off, Roberto grabbed my hand and just about dragged me across the meadow to the thicker tree line. Roberto seemed upset over something.