The Wiccan Diaries (4 page)

Halsey

My landlady lived down the hall in a small fortified broom
cupboard with metal bars and a tray to pass money through. It was where she
conducted all her business. It was at the top of the stairs, and any time you
came in or went out, she knew about it. Her eyes poked through the plexiglas window
and stared at you. If the need arose, she could open the whole contraption up,
and come at you with a knife––she was a fierce,
fierce
landlady. She never slept. I had
to pass by her every time I wanted to go out. She never missed an opportunity
to offer me advice on what I could do to improve myself. It was like being back
at boarding school all over again. Except I had to
pay
her. And she was so judgmental.

She said anyone going out at this time of night was either
up to no good or else looking for trouble.

“If you keep on doing what you’re doing,” she said, “I may
not hear from you again. There is a killer on the loose.” She jabbed her finger
at me like a knife, and pretended to come at me like the killer. It was very
avant-garde. Her window offered her a proscenium arch, through which she
pretended to crawl; it was like she was coming through my bedroom window, to
get to me. It gave me the chills.

I showed her my index and middle fingers scissoring: “Just
want to walk. You won’t know I’m here,” I said.

She just shook her head.

On the street, it was pleasantly warm––a cool
breeze lifted the strands of my hair. I had pinned it up to keep it off my
neck. Wisps of it jutted here and there.

Rome was a sprawl, and any microcosm of Rome was an
opportunity to get lost––and experience that sprawl. I felt like
what’s-his-face in the labyrinth, with the Minotaur or whatever. Except there
was no Minotaur. I just felt like feeling that.
I’m kinda existential.
The haphazard helter-skelter screwy lack of
any city planning made the streets impossible to navigate.

The city was a maze of ancient and modern. I wandered my new
street with a wide smile on my face, in love with the possibilities of it.

I had money in my pocket, after all. If the need arose, I
could get my hands on even more. I could spend, buy, acquire, furnish. I don’t
mean lavishly. Just finish out my apartment, is all.

The word ‘freeing’
was
.
The shops included all of the finest clothing and jewelry, but it was the
antiques I was most interested in.

Within feet were priceless jewels and multimillion-dollar
works of art. Yet over all of this was my one room apartment and the faucet
that hardly worked.

I walked down one street, then another. Inwardly, I was
composing what I would write about, when I got home.

‘The gentlemen attend
to their ladies, who hang on their arms, enraptured in Rome; and when they
pass, they acknowledge one another, like
You
know the secret, too. I could get lost in Rome. I just know it.’

I made sure to remember my steps.

‘The buildings are
tall, dark, imposing. I want to see what things look like from a different
point of view. I think we get lost in our own points of view sometimes. I don’t
want that. I want to know and understand everything. Everything interests me. I
am intrigued by all of it.’

I knew that when I got home I would write something less
than what the experience had been for me––but I always got
fascinated in things. I always felt, for example, that if people paid more
attention–– Instead of taking notes, all the time––

‘I want to think,
know, feel...

‘I want to experience
all of it. I don’t even know what “it” is yet. But I want it. I want
it
very much.’

It was like coming here had been a sieve. I knew I could be
me
, if that makes sense. That whoever I
was––wasn’t
who
I was. I
was free to choose. I could be whatever me I wanted to be.

The problems that had threatened to trap me had all been
sifted away until I was left with who I was.

But who was I?

Ballard––it all had something to do with
Ballard.

* * *

I passed a small café and a rental store for mopeds. A sign
said that I could rent one for a day or even a month, if I so chose. I would
have to park it somewhere overnight, though. I would look into it in the
morning.

It would make traveling through Rome much easier if I could
come and go as I pleased, instead of being landladied all the time. While
walking was fun and all, I was starting to get a light patina of sweat. The
roads went up, down, all over the place.

I was now several blocks from where I had started
out––everywhere was beginning to look the same.

That’s... not good
,
I told myself, wishing I had bothered to take a map. It was pinned up still, in
my room. And I had been so confident that I wouldn’t get lost.

This was something I was used to, losing my way.

My professors were always on me about paying attention. I
couldn’t help it if my mind liked to wander. I tended to get lost a lot: in my
head, in life. The rigors of academia were not for me. I wanted to be an
artist. Or something.

My old headmistress was always threatening me with
expulsion. I say old, because the truth is I never planned on seeing her again.
I told her I was a lousy student, and that she
should
expel me! It was an idle threat on her part.

I felt the breeze change, turn nonexistent. It was just me,
in a backstreet, alone. Doors ordinarily opened were locked.

It was winding, with cobbles, the street. I felt the
darkness creep up on me.

Have you ever heard
the sound of ‘nothing?’
I wondered to myself, existentially.

The midnight strollers had all gone home. I was utterly,
completely alone. Or maybe I just wished it. Because I thought I heard
something.

I looked above, around and behind me. Nothing. Disappearing
into nothing. Both ends of the street were empty. A single penumbra of light
lay in-between. I walked toward the lamp, stopping below it. I heard a rasping
sound. It sounded like a hiss, almost. Something was coming toward me. I felt a
shiver of fear. It had been so long since I had been really, truly frightened.
I decided I didn’t much care for the sensation, the unpleasant cold that crept
up from the pit of my stomach, licking at my insides.

“I know you’re out there,” I said.

It kept coming. When I saw its eyes, I knew I was in
trouble. They were a bright, blood red. The unnerving part was how focused they
were––
on me
. Like I was
their target.

My heart began to race. I think it heard it, because it
watched me for a second, then
hissed
again. Was this what had been killing all of those people?

I stumbled back against the wall.

The part of my brain that said, “Run!”, jammed.

“I’m not alone,” I said stupidly, for clearly I was alone,
as alone as I could get. And the hissing creature knew it, too.

How many times had I imagined this happening to me? If
Mistress Genevieve saw this, she would have gone, “See? Didn’t I
tell
you this would happen? Girls should
be in school, not lollygagging around strange, foreign cities.”

“I
have
to know!”
I almost shouted.

“Your parents
died
.
They
died!
And there’s nothing you
can do about it!”

I was on the ground, with my hand over my face, remembering
how cruel she had been.

‘I can’t explain it,’
I decided I would write in my diary, if I ever made it out of this alive,
‘it was like she was really there.’
I
felt the truth of her statement, like a blow that hit me physically.

It was like being cut with a straight razor––at
first I didn’t know what was happening, then the wound opened up.

“Mistress Genevieve,”
I said. She thrived on opening my wounds.

That’s when it happened.I tried opening my eyes, but the
light was blinding me. I felt it coming closer! I felt myself falling as if
from a great height.
This was going to
hurt
, I said to myself. I fell back and the world went dark.

Lennox

There are moments that, whether you know it or not, define
who you are to become. They can be simple moments. How many times, for
instance, has someone misplaced their car keys, only to avoid that huge traffic
accident that would have claimed their life? Or been held up and because of
that died in an unforeseen accident.

If I hadn’t been in the neighborhood none of this would have
happened. At least, not in the way it did. I found that I thought about that
for months to come.

* * *

I was too low to the ground. Screams traveled differently
depending on where I was at. These were high and plaintive; I was astonished
that no one else seemed to notice. Something in the frequency of the one who
was screaming awoke in me my old sense of mortal protectiveness. It existed to
protect the pack, of which I was no longer a member, from the type of monster I
had
become
.

Whoever it was, was in trouble. That much was clear. About
all I knew was that it was a female voice. I could even tell the age.

Seventeen.

Nothing in the screams suggested any kind of prank. Whoever
she was, she was in trouble. I had to help her.

I moved towards her, passing cafés and other nightspots. It
was the time of night vampires fed their sanguine thirsts. We could not enter
where we were unwanted, so had to rely upon the free-for-all of the street.

I had walked through the years forsaking all my immortal
desires––except one. The pursuit of an inner life. The struggle to
find out who
I
was. To know what
my
purpose was. I didn’t know, then,
that I had found it.

Chapter 4 – Lennox

I couldn’t believe it! It was right there. Its hands were on
a girl. I crawled down the travertine blocks of the building I had scaled,
landing in the street, and kept out of the light, but it saw me anyway.

It turned, its teeth exposed. It was carrying a body. I
should say, it had a body stowed underneath the large cloak that it wore.

Was
this
the
boker? The powerful dark wizard who had been making my life an undead living
hell by reanimating dead corpses? If so, where was Occam, when I needed him?

“Hey, creep!” I shouted.

It turned, its blood-red eyes like congealed puddles at a
crime scene, to look at the disturber of its nighttime sojourn. Its mouth was
bent to her. I saw the slick strands of saliva that dripped from its diseased
gums, barely missing her––the teeth that shone like polished onyx.
It was attempting to bite her––would have, if I had not shown up.
But it hadn’t yet! There was still time!

It was a contagion carrier––perhaps
the
contagion carrier. Was
this
what was spreading the Suck? I was
determined to find out. I unsheathed my stake, preparing for the duel. It felt
like a bit of wood in my fist. Not exactly reassuring. But there was no time.

Part of me was relieved the girl, whoever she was, was out
of it. I wouldn’t have to do any covering over of the facts, were she suddenly
to become indoctrinated to the evidence of
my
kind
.

Rule Number One was we do not let people know about our
existence. People were so predictable when it came to vampires. They always
freaked out!

I caught the whiff of dead guy. And Occam had put the last
one in the trunk of his car! Yuck! I wasn’t looking forward to cleaning it out.

The body the boker was carrying seemed to come to life and
unfold itself from its master. The boker, meanwhile, concentrated on the girl.

She looked like she was stroking out: arms flailing, going
all over the place. Her face was hidden beneath her hair; the look upon it, one
of pain. It was almost like she was drowning. It made my breath
hitch––which was weird, because I don’t usually breathe. She was
very attractive.

If you don’t do
something, she won’t be breathing much longer
, I told myself.

I was about to charge them, to prevent it biting her, when
the most unexpected, ridiculous, crazy, great, miraculous, wonderful,
inexplicable
thing
happened. Here I
was, thinking I had reached my quota of the sublime.

She
floated
.

Right up in the air.

She just floated out of the grasp of the vile monster.

I heard my breath do that hitching thing again. What was
going on?

The only one who didn’t stop to marvel was the corpse that
had unfolded itself from the necromancer. It came at me like it was
my
fault. I saw the boker stare up. Then
it
hissed
something, and the corpse
veered off. They disappeared into shadow. I just let them go.

I saw her rise higher. One of her little slippers fell off
her foot. I reached out and grabbed it before it hit the ground. I was
beginning to worry she may just continue right up floating and fly away
entirely. Instead, she hit her head on the lamp, and came crashing back down to
me. She landed right on top of my head and knocked us both over. Luckily, I had
cushioned the fall with my face. What was I going to do with her? She was
passed out right there on the ground.

I suddenly caught her scent.

It unmanned me.

Here we were,
alone
,
I smiled, and I’m all Stalker Boy. Her legs were in my lap; I felt the weight
of her thighs in her tight jeans, how firm they were.

I couldn’t resist. I leaned towards her, resting my left
hand on the outside thigh. With my right, I brushed a strand of her hair away.
It was dark, black, midnight. I looked into her eyes.

They popped open and
glared
at me.

Surprised, I fell back. Stalker Boy wasn’t used to an
audience. But her scent! Her
alluring
scent!

It was unlike anything I had ever smelled before.

Take her. How many
times have you saved someone’s life? You deserve her. With her hair and her
little feet.

Her toenails were painted bright blue. The shoe was
forgotten. I threw it when I tried to save her.

I didn’t know where I was at. I had never even heard her
speak and already I wanted her. The monologue in my head continued unabated.

...vein pumping,
gushing into your mouth––the blood like a warm elixir, burning your
scorched throat....

Dry mouth feed on her
blood take her listen to the racing little heart begs....

Seriously, you’re
allowed
ONE,
every now and then. You
ARE
the only vampire IN Rome. Take her.

When I let him get like this, he was hard to resist.
Speaking of hard. I shifted. Her weight was still on top of me. I was trying to
fight it, but Stalker Boy launched the full and considerable resources of his
counteroffensive.

Just this once, if you
want me to, I’ll look the other way. We’ll forget it ever happened. You know
you want to.

I felt the tingling anticipation of her skin against my lips.

They don’t mind if
you
slip now and then. It’s expected.
Otherwise, you wouldn’t be a vampire... right? You don’t think they don’t keep
a little somethin’ somethin’, do you? I’m telling you...

No...

Enjoy her. This is
your reward. You––

I––

Stalker Boy wasn’t interested in what I had to say.

If you won’t, I
will.
You can blame me in the morning....

I bent, reaching towards her––my mouth opening,
my teeth parting––preparing to experience the warmth of her sudden
death.

Her eyes registered awareness, but no fear.

I wanted to hurt her, then, a little. It would make her
taste better. That’s really what I was after.
Lie to her. Tell her that you will let her live. ‘It won’t hurt a bit.’
Say it.

I didn’t know where Stalker Boy ended and I began. What did
it matter? He was right. I
did
deserve her. I deserved whatever I could get.
Besides, what kind of girl ‘floats?’ No one will miss someone who
‘floats.’

She was my perfect victim. I could have her without anyone
the wiser.

She wants you to.
Look!

She bared her throat to me. I couldn’t believe it. What was
going on?

I felt her body trembling beneath mine. It was warm and
infinitely desirable. Her chest heaved. The pumping of her blood was like a
furnace beckoning me to her hidden mysteries. I wanted to bury myself into the
darkness of her throat. Hide in the warmth of her raven-colored hair.

And here she was offering herself to me! It was driving me
wild! She had no right! She was mine, all mine. I would take her.

I felt my lips hunger for her. I just wanted to taste her.

I saw What’s-His-Face staring back at me in the color of her
eyes, reflecting Stalker Boy. He
was
me. I had never seen myself look like that before.

Her eyes lit up. Part of my brain wondered at the fact that
I reflected in them. They were soft and brown and they knew exactly what I
wanted. It was like they were drawing me
to
her. She was reeling me in.

“Do you see what you do to me?” I said.

I tried drawing away.

“No. Please. Don’t,” she said. I didn’t know what was going
on. It was like my brain had temporarily jammed.