Authors: C.K. Farrell
He was a long in the tooth (or more appropriately, long in the fang) vampyre living off his prestige and celebrity, but he was well aware that the hands of time were not on his side, even though he was principally immortal. Eventually a contender would swagger out of the shadows with high hopes of being his successor. Behind closed doors Nathaniel hoped it would be sooner rather than later.
Old vampyres past their best-by date didn’t get to retire, fade away, and die worthily—they simply weren’t permitted to. Death at the hands of one more astute, hungry, and cruel was the only dignified way out. Nathaniel knew this especially well, as he had to stake his claim in a similar fashion by removing the pompous head of the past ruler of the New England territorial span. He would be first to admit that once, not so long ago, he was filled to the brim with vim and vigour, but lately, however, it was more apathy than vim, and more lethargy than vigour that filled him. The tedium that old age brings affects all life forms the same—even the vampyre.
If one were somehow able to get close enough to this apex hunter surrounded by an ungodly amount of hostility and hyperbole, they would see that his large, dolorous eyes held his true nature and gave a window in which to glimpse into his unyielding torment. Nathaniel’s eyes were not overtly large, but sizeable in the way one would find on a Tim Burton creation. They complimented the brooding silence that existed within him—the kind of silence Edgar Allan Poe would have written about. This haunting feature was immediately apparent to all who had the pleasure (or displeasure) of encountering the two hundred and twenty-one year old, moribund Irish vampyre.
Customarily, Nathaniel wouldn’t dare step foot inside the grimy walls of a place like The Dungeon, which he saw as nothing more than a seeping sore on the skin of Mother Earth, and sit amidst the assembly of otherworldly ruffians who came here
en masse
every night to share a collective neurosis and pander in appetitive behaviours. But he needed to feed—he needed blood to sate his morose hunger, and The Dungeon had good quality blood in plentiful supply on tap, both human and animal.
“So what can I get you? The unusual?” asked Enyah, a fellow vampyre who was his waitress for the night. She had a tanned complexion, which was unusual for their kind. Even so, she was as much vampyre as those she was serving, but one who had a penchant for spray tanning.
Enyah wore a fitted, plain white t-shirt that had a cheap plastic nametag attached, and a simple black skirt that had an apron resting on top. She was a thing of natural beauty. With a face that held delicate features and a muscular body made for grappling, the vivacious Enyah Ellyson was eye candy for all of The Dungeon’s punters, no matter what their ilk.
Nathaniel lifted his head to meet her buoyant face and expectant eyes.
“I am not in the mood for bison blood. Any specials worth mentioning?” he inquired nonchalantly without paying Enyah much attention—attention that she was clearly eager for as she inhaled while pushing her ample breasts up and outwards, hoping her well-formed twins, that were testing the resolve of her t-shirt’s fabric, might win his vacant stare.
Any interest thrown at the effervescent female with the severely tied back, mousey brown hair by the contemplative patron before her would have been greatly appreciated and welcomed with open arms, but it was obvious that none would be forthcoming that night, or anytime in the near future. Even still, Enyah’s lips twitched, wanting to smile due to the brief encounter she was participating in with her favourite customer. His regular visitations made her time working in The Dungeon all the more bearable. The fleeting nightly encounters they shared meant the world to Enyah—more than they really should have.
“Actually there is a special on Scandinavian blood, but that wouldn’t interest you ‘cause you only drink the blood of animals, right?” she replied, raising her voice so she could be heard over the loud, boorish music and general din engirdling them. “Human blood is so
passé
for one as high-up as you.”
Nathaniel nodded absently, knowing that he had this same conversation with her only a couple of nights previously. “Yes, that is correct.”
He hoped that with time he would forget the taste of human blood, but he knew that he never would. Whenever offered some, it took all his strength and willpower to stand firm and resist.
“Oh, golly I almost forgot, we have a promotion on polar bear blood this week,” Enyah suddenly recalled.
“Is it any good? I could not imagine that it is,” Nathaniel commented with a downturn to his mouth. A mere hint of an Irish brogue could still be heard in his voice, even after a century and some change away from the verdant bosom of his motherland.
“I don’t know. But what I do know is that it’s imported directly from the Arctic Circle. It’s meant to be—nice,” Enyah relayed, her hazel eyes flashing with friendliness. “I haven’t tasted it yet ‘cause I find animal blood hard to keep down. I don’t know how you do it.” While waiting for him to answer, she fidgeted nervously with her lengthy plaited ponytail that draped down over her left shoulder. It looked like a thickly braided whip rather than laced hair. “If it helps to make up your mind, some say it tastes sweet, sickly sweet, like molasses, but as I said, that’s just what I heard. The werwülfs sure seem to like it,” she added energetically. Enyah had an oomph to her that exhibited a person who has too many caffeinated drinks in their system. “But then again, what wouldn’t they swallow.”
Nathaniel listened to her with as much interest as he could muster. He then shrugged his shoulders unimpressed as if to say,
why not?
“One pint of your warmest polar bear.”
“One pint of polar bear blood it is!”
“Here, I want you to listen carefully to me when I say this, for I am not in the habit of repeating myself when it comes to insignificant
articles
like you.”
Enyah’s heart sank like a bag of unwanted kittens to the bottom of a stream. Nathaniel was the only one to have ever referred to her as an insignificant article. It stung nastily, and would for many days to come. “Okay, I am listening,” she said, barely restraining emotion from their exchange.
“Good.” Nathaniel’s eyes focused in on her nametag. “Enyah, my dear, do not ever mention
werwülfs
when conversing with me again. They will eat and drink anything—disgusting animals. Truly abysmal organisms.”
“Sorry. I should have known better than to mention them around you,” she apologised. “Can I get you any anything else with that? On the house, of course.”
“No. Just the blood will be all for tonight,” Nathaniel curtly replied. He then arrogantly waved her away from his table as if to declare;
be gone from my sight, wench
. He was not a friend and certainly not a lover of witter.
A polite expression reluctantly materialised on her face. Enyah realised that once again, that this night was not going to be the night when the anguished vampyre of her fantasies finally falls head over heels in love with her, just like he did in her dreams. Nathaniel was as ever a customer of crotchety behaviour. She scribbled his order down onto her notepad with a pen and drew a tiny heart alongside it. Enyah Ellyson was a glutton for punishment.
“Okey-dokey, I’ll be right back with your order, Mr. Valour.”
Turning on the heels of her thigh-high black leather boots, Enyah walked away from his booth towards the bar whilst working her firm posterior to the max with high hopes of Nathaniel throwing even a single glance at it.
As usual, he did not. Her swaying robust rump was of no interest to him, not at that moment, nor would it ever be.
In truth, Nathaniel knew Enyah had a soft spot for him. He could have been nicer to her and shown a little more courtesy, but what would be the point in doing that? He was a vampyre of influence, an understander of the esoteric—a venerable being of elevated intelligence that claimed providence over all creation both above and belowground. He was meant to be brusque, irritable, and tortured. After all, he was the custodian of a taciturn soul.
On the other hand, she was a lowly, garrulous vampyre who had reached her crowning point as a simple waitress. Even though she had an appreciable and jocund nature, and seemed not to be as much of a cretin as the other vampyres of her station, Enyah, nevertheless, came from the Appalachian Mountains in Pennsylvania where provincialism was rampant, and the ruling kind were not of noteworthy importance, but an assemblage of jingoistic and uncivilised types, of which Nathaniel’s rank dare not associate, or worse, intertwine with. Such unions would never be permitted or encouraged.
Even if Nathaniel were interested in her bellicose kinfolk and could see beyond her stratum, his heart would not allow it, for it had no vacant space. It was at maximum occupancy. He was the hapless owner of a heart decorated with pink ribbon scars. The inflictor of such keepsakes was the love of both his life and afterlife, Martha Harrington.
Almost three decades had passed without the tempestuous Martha by his side. Nonetheless, he still longed for her touch, her taste, and most of all—her bite. Time, Nathaniel had come to the conclusion, did in actual truth heal some pain, but in the process, it more than often created new aches.
Reaching inside the breast pocket of his black wool coat, he pulled out a small and narrow, silver rectangular cigarette case that was decorated with his monogram,
N.C.V.,
engraved in flowery font. Nathaniel flicked the clasp on its side and opened it. Inside, no cigarettes were to be seen. Only a faded Daguerreotype of a stylish woman looked back at him. The regal creature was Martha Harrington—his
inamorata
.
Martha’s trademark auburn locks were parted down the middle and dropped well below her shoulders. Her heart-shaped face was pensive, but at the same time sensual, holding the very slightest hint of a smirk. Martha was the type of woman who was beautiful with or without a smile. She was elegantly dressed in a semi-sheer, beige gown that fitted smoothly from her neck down to her hips. The neckline was high and its sleeves were tapered and flared early on at the wrist. A coffee brown velvet ribbon was tied around her neck, as was indicative of the fashion towards the end of the nineteenth century. Only the most sophisticated raiment and accessories would she dare let touch her body.
There was something unique about the refined Martha, and the photograph made for posterity resting in Nathaniel’s hand emoted that very sentiment. The sartorial Martha Harrington was not only a
femme de la mode
, but also a
femme fatale
. She, too, was a vampyre—not a bastardised crossbreed like Nathaniel, but one of macabre purity whose afterlife was ostensibly devoted to vice.
The torch that he carried (and still held) for his prima love had often been dipped in blameless blood to enhance its flammability. He had once upon a time convinced himself that their raging romance that had grown out of childhood attachment and had come to fruition through death, was as resilient and perpetual as the stars that twinkled in the nighttime sky, but he had sadly found himself mistaken. It was the definitive fallacy of his existence.
A sad longing rolled over the Irish vampyre as his melancholy-speckled eyes whilom glanced down at the picture. Nathaniel could remember the exact afternoon it was taken. He could still recall the musty smell that hung in the air of the photography studio, the excitement Martha was feeling from getting her very first photograph, and the pleasure they took in torturing, feeding on, and then ending the lives of the photographer and his junior assistant after the picture was snapped.
It seemed to him like it was only yesterday that he and Martha were roaming the congested and flaring streets of Vienna under the brass gas streetlamps in the twilight hours, hand-in-hand as everlasting lovers in league against the world, stalking and feasting on the local inhabitants whenever their dark fancy arose.
Happy times they were
, Nathaniel recalled. Even though a vampyre was technically dead, they could still feel the igneous spasms of nostalgia.
He removed the Daguerreotype from the case and turned it over, revealing an inscription written in flowing cursive script. The handwriting read:
October 9
th
, 1877, Vienna.
May you never forget what is worth remembering,
or remember what is best forgotten.
Love Always,
Your wilting rose...
Martha
“Love, ha! Love is nothing but regret,” he muttered in an annoyed tone as he flipped the print back over and looked at his long, lost love once again. Nathaniel’s mind became thronged with blistered impressions of their nights of tyrannical copulation.
Those memories were unremitting. They stabbed and slashed at him relentlessly. With Martha, he found out the hard way that hearts were certainly easier to break than stake. Some days Nathaniel wished he were gifted the latter by her instead. The wounds, both internal and external, that were inflicted by his copper-haired beauty had, to some extent healed, but not to the point that he had hoped. They were after scabbing over, and with each year that passed Nathaniel desperately hoped the ugly crusts would loosen their grip, but so far, no luck. The scabs were beginning to wear thin, but nonetheless, they were not yet ready to fall off.
“I believed that your face was constructed by God to distract me from my troubles, not be the author of them,” Nathaniel spoke to the progenitor of his heartache, noticeably still stretched upon the grave of their relationship that was comparable to a heaving sea—constantly rising and falling with fatal undercurrents. Yet still, he couldn’t stop thinking about the way she used to run her unsanctified fingers through his chest hair as his waist was imprisoned between her supple, milky thighs. She was his alpha female, and he her alpha male.
The doldrums of Nathaniel’s thoughts were suffocating. He inhaled deeply then exhaled slowly before undoing a couple of buttons on his dress shirt. It didn’t help in the slightest. He then shook his head quickly, hoping to disperse the harassing thoughts. Dulling the recollections of Martha and the two plus centuries they had spent together at one another’s side was an almost impossible feat. Nathaniel had come to understand and grudgingly accept that fact. In spite of that, he still held a staunch death-clasp on those olden days.