Omertà - [Jesse Fforde]

[Jesse Fforde]

I try to read Axel’s expression as he drops the second body into the dumpster. There’s nothing there to read, however. Either the guy is really a very good actor, or he feels nothing about what I’m making him do, or what he must do to survive. He’s not questioning it, or arguing against it, or rebelling in any way. The anger that he exhibited upon first discovering what I’d done to him has long since dispersed. It’s been replaced by a cool calm. Maybe it’s genuine. Maybe it’s not. If he’s acting in order to keep me happy, then I assume that sooner or later, the façade will crack. Sooner or later, I’ll know exactly how he feels. And I can be patient.

Axel closes the lid of the dumpster and I cluck my tongue, shaking my head. I’m not nearly done, yet. In contradiction to Axel’s actions, I open the lid again. This is a slower process for me, I suppose, given the fact that I can’t talk him through everything. He has to watch in order to learn. At least until such a time as I can sit down and write down a few things for him. So far, though, he seems to be taking to this like a newborn fish to water. It seems to be coming to him as easily as breathing. I have no doubt that he will have no problem, discovering what’s what, even if I’m not around to guide him through it, every step of the way.

Keeping an eye on Axel, I pull the book of matches from my pocket. I still smoke, every now and again, though the addicted cravings seem to have left me. They’ve been replaced by a whole other addiction—I need blood, now, more than I need nicotine. Still, though, I keep the matches for this very purpose. Just throwing bodies into a dumpster isn’t enough. They’re still there, bereft of blood, to be discovered. Sure, it’ll take people long to find them here, but all the evidence will remain the same. And if not now, then they’ll surely be discovered on bin day. Which could be tomorrow. Could be next week. But still far too soon for there to be enough decomposition.

I clamber over the side of the bin to find a piece of something, anything, flammable. There’s enough cardboard from broken boxes, and it’s one of these that I retrieve. I hand it to Axel to hold while I pull out a match and strike it against the edge of the box. There’s a hiss and a flare as the flame comes to life. I let it build for a second before I hold it to the corner of the piece of cardboard. The corner immediately begins to burn, but I hold a hand up to indicate that Axel should wait. Only when the cardboard is alive with flickering flames do I motion for Axel to toss it into the bin.

Sometimes, it takes a while for the contents to turn into a pyre. Sometimes, depending on where the dumpster is located (are there idiots around-a-bout who throw their flammable chemicals into ordinary bins?), the contents explode into fiery wonderment. I watch and wait to see which this particular dumpster will become.

[Axel Rosen]

The sound from the mouth of the man next to him, almost takes him by surprise as he thinks for a moment that Jesse may speak. That though passes though as the inked man to his side takes hold of the dumpster’s lid. A box of matches has been produced from the pocket of the man and the connection is made. The two of them were going to burn the bodies within the dumpster. An object is handed to him, a piece of cardboard. He has a feeling that the piece of trash will be used as some sort of kindling. Before the match is struck to the other side of the match book that will light it, Axel wonders, for a moment, how long it would take to reduce a body to ash. The flame hits the cardboard. It starts to climb up the dingy surface of the paper-product. Once instructed to toss the piece of trash within the dumpster, he glances down at it. The fire spreads like a disease. The sound of condensed air escaping simple tin cans sounds from the mess. At first the spread is slow, then a red plastic container slowly melts away. The grows as the liquid that was contained within the item.

Watching the flame that spreads he doesn’t know when to turn away. The smell, it invades his nose. He has heard that the smell of burning flesh is absolutely horrendous, but now he’s experiencing it for the first time. It’s something that he’s sure he won’t get over, and it will probably be plastered to the memories of this night forever. It is; however, the only thing that has happened which could even be remotely be ‘negative’. Perhaps at another time, Axel could even come to the point to connect other burning flesh in the future and make it a good memory of this evening. He’s sure that most people wouldn’t think that dying and becoming a vampire as a comfort. Compared to what his life was before this evening, in his eyes, it can only get better. As far as he is concerned it already taken a step in that direction

He takes a step back, once the flame as consumed the bodies within and glances down the alleyway. His fingers move back into his pockets and takes a breath out of habit again. What else are they to do now? If Axel were to ask to attack someone else again, would that make him a monster? Or does Jesse have the same mentality of wanting to attack and kill humans without need or discrimination. The fledgling keeps these thoughts to himself, as saying them might not be the smartest thing at the moment. Later, when he is on his own he would experiment with the different ways to murder humans and take their blood. Those blue hues look down at his watch, and it comes to his recognition that he actually has no idea what time the sunrises, but he’s starting to get tired. He wasn’t even aware that vampires could feel any sort of desire to sleep.

[Jesse Fforde]

The fire spreads, and I am happy. Sometimes, especially after heavy rainfall, nothing in the dumpster catches fire. Sometimes, further fuel is required. Sometimes, the act of getting rid of bodies devoid of blood is more of a challenge than it needs to be. But there are other ways, and as I glance sideways at Axel, watching as his face contorts and flickers in the shadows and glow of the fire, I assume that he’s smart enough to figure that out on his own. What I have shown him now indicates that I would prefer that, if he’s to kill his victims, he get rid of all evidence. He doesn’t have to burn them all the time. I don’t burn them all the time, even though that’s the easiest way. A whole city of dumpsters filled with burnt bodies? Somebody’s bound to notice something, sooner or later. There are other, ingenious ways to confuse the general public, or to make a body disappear completely. But I won’t coddle Axel. He can figure that out on his own.

I see Axel glance at his watch, which prompts me to glance skyward. I close my eyes, if only for a second. It’s as if, as soon as I was turned, I was gifted with an internal clock. An upgrade to the normal body clock of a human. It’s an internal clock that can’t tell the time, per se, but it can tell me where the sun is at all times. It’s that clock that wakes me (though these days, it doesn’t wake me—I’m condemned to suffer nightmares until those nightmares should wake me up). It’s that clock that tells me when to get the hell inside.

As soon as I am certain that the fire has caught hold of the bodies, and that they are burnt enough to disguise the lack of blood, I begin to make my way out of the alleyway. I assume that Axel will follow. Although there’s a lot that I need to show him—I want to take him to the catacombs. I want to take him through the sewers, and to the Quarantine Zone. I want to teach him about all the foe that we have, and all the things that he can kill—all the things that he can practice on in order to learn how to defend himself properly. All the things that, in killing, will help disperse the suspicions of the public and to keep the masquerade, and thus the secrecy of vampire kind. But there’s not enough time for all that tonight.

I want to make sure that he has weapons. And I want him, above all, to meet the family. But again, there isn’t time. There’ll be time over the next few weeks to teach him everything that he needs to know, and to help him to discover the things that he is capable of. Abilities that I myself might be deprived of. I’m curious, and anxious to get started. But we’ve done enough already tonight. It’s time to go home, to get cleaned up, to crash for the day. We can start fresh tomorrow night.

And so I begin to lead Axel back toward True Love, and the apartment that I keep above it. He can use that apartment as much as he likes, until he’s independent enough to strike out on his own. All the windows are boarded up. No sunlight can get through. And when we get there, I’ll continue to write that mini novel. Whatever time we might have left before the sun comes up, I’ll answer his questions. And I’ll at least let him know what I have planned—just so he’s not kept in the dark. I like to keep a bit of mystery, but to deprive the poor guy of the knowledge that he probably craves would be bordering on cruelty.

[Axel Rosen]

Realizing but not saying anything about how wrong he was about which door to use when he comes back. This evening has kind of all run together in one way or another. Each of the murders are like a lasting dose of speed which is still coursing through his veins (if the blood pumped). He’s not sure on that part and can’t be sure if blood actually makes any movement through his body anymore, save when he swallows it. He follows around the back of the building, watching as Jesse unlocks the door and then opens it. Stepping through, this time safely but he gets the feeling from vampire lore that he may have to be invited in from a certain point on. Moving into the back of the parlour and then up the stairs he sees the boarded up windows and starts to make mental notes for things that he should do when he gets the chance to evict his significant other from the apartment that he has just signed. Funny thing, death, comes at the most unexpected times. If he could have known that he was going to die tonight a month ago, he wouldn’t have agreed to the apartment. He probably would have burned his fathers house to the ground.

Now they are up at the top, and he feels that he could ask more questions. His blue eyes scan around, before finding a pen and pulling some of his own paper from his pocket. On one side of the paper there are scribbles, notes, flow charts, plots, and depictions for monsters. He flips that side over and then places the pen over top of it. He’s sure that Jesse has paper elsewhere in here, but Axel comes prepared, almost like a nerdy boy scout. He doesn’t look like either part though, either nerdy or boy scout material. He thinks for a moment and then takes a seat in the closest chair to where he put the paper and pen at. “So, invitations, or rather, needing to be invited, real or not?” He thinks for a moment and then leans in close. “Invitations, holy symbols, mirrors, flowing water, fearful animals, stakes, decapitation, are any of these things based in reality?” Now he is starting to get ahead of himself, because after asking those questions he starts to wonder who the first vampire is, and for that matter how old Jesse really is.

His eyes move along the man for a moment and he comes to some internal conclusion that there is no way that he is some ancient vampire. He could be a few decades old, maybe even a six decades, but he doesn’t think that the man could be much older than that. Something about him just screams ‘modern’. It’s going to be hard for him to try and figure certain vampires out. That question of the first vampire comes back into his mind. Many of folk lore points to there being a progenitor of the vampires, and some think it may even be the Biblical Caine. The man who killed his brother and God cursed to walk the earth in absence of him. These things are all, of course, some grand myth, but until a couple hours ago, vampires were a myth. That being said, at this point his mind is probably free to make all sorts of it’s own connects, “Ancient vampires, like the first?”

[Jesse Fforde]

I stretch, like a house-cat returning home from the hunt. I’ve brought my prey home with me—though he’s no longer my prey. He is my protégé. My progeny. The bones crack as I roll my shoulders and stretch my neck; I kick the shoes off my feet, even as Axel starts asking his questions. I find his enthusiasm amusing, but why should he not be enthusiastic? He’s like a newborn child, though born with the faculty of thought, and speech. These questions may as well echo those of a kid—why is the sky blue? Why must I eat this? Why can’t I eat that? I prefer this, to an actual kid. Children were never really my favourite things.

I’ve got plenty of notepads that I could use. But I take the one offered to me by Axel, regardless. This is for his benefit. It makes sense that the answers be written in a pad that he’s able to access easily. I nosily flick through a couple of the filled pages, even though I’ve been offered a blank one. I’m curious. From what I see inside, I know that if this notepad were to be found, nothing more would be thought of it—it would be dismissed as the musings of a creative type. I don’t think that our secrecy could be harmed by such a thing. If that were possible, Anne Rice would be dead. Bram Stoker, Stephenie Meyer, Polidori—they’d all have been slaughtered by those intent on punishing secrecy breakers.

I am one of those intent on punishment. And I think this can slide.

I lick my thumb and flick back to the blank page. I twirl the pen in my hand. I saunter toward the desk, tucked into the corner—my drawings and designed are pinned up all around it, corners curling according to age. There are plenty of greywashes, but the majority are full, vibrant colour. Most are mythical in theme. There are snakes and gods, demi-gods and eagles. And a lot of owls. I really like owls. Have always liked owls—it’s got nothing to do with my current affiliations. There’s also a large phoenix, and a design that looks a hell of a lot like a sunrise.

I straddle the chair, and make sure that lamp is switched on, bathing the space in warm light. I place the notepad on a flat surface, and I write:

“Needing to be invited: Yes.

Holy symbols: No.

Mirrors: Look for yourself. There’s one in the bathroom.

Flowing water? Don’t think so.

Fearful animals: No”

I smirk, even as I write that last part. Even as I write that last part, Cairo comes out of hiding. The ginger kitten is mewling—though he’s a bigger kitten, now, curious and bouncy and sometimes I think he might just have ADHD. He’s rubbing himself against my legs, wanting food. But he’s also watching Axel, wary. I’ll feed him in a second. I keep writing:

“Stakes: No.

Decapitation: Sure. But though your body might turn to ash, or disperse into shadow, or just rot, you won’t die. You’ll go to the Shadow Realm until you find a door back. And then, like Jesus rising, you can come back to life.

Ancients? Yeah. There are a few originals around. Haven’t met one myself. Though I welcome you to Altaire, there’s a different bloodline we belong to – Grigori. Mircae is head of it. I think he is one of the originals. All the bloodlines have one. But we don’t associate with Grigori.

I have met the wraiths. Spirits of long dead vampires. You got to go to them to learn things, if you want to learn. They are who you want to go to, for your answers.”

I stop writing. Though I could continue, I don’t. I’m sure what I’ve written will spawn more questions. I hand Axel the pad to read as I stand and saunter toward the kitchen to get Cairo his food.

[Axel Rosen]

Watching his creator look over the pages, he feels like he should say something about a feeling of break in privacy. He doesn’t though, as he doesn’t feel that his personal ‘space’ in a manner of speaking has been breached by the man. A feeling, in his gut, this connection to the vampire that turned him, still unexplained in his mind. He may ask at some point, but doesn’t feel that it should really be brought up at this point. It might make things awkward. Glancing down as Jesse moves into the kitchen, the young fledgling reads through each response. Making sure to take his time, he reads each one again. This probably isn’t necessary though Axel feels that committing these answers to memory as soon as possible would probably be in his best intention.

Needing to be invited, Axel believes could be a problem in the future. The idea that he has to gain the trust of a human, and actually get an invitation before he can go in to feed on or socialize with a human. Then again he wonders why he would ever feel that he would really want to socialize with a human. His eyes move to Jesse getting cat food, and then scan around. Finally he catches the creator of the mewing sound that he had heard a few moments again. A small smile cracks at his face then turns his head back to Jesse again. It seems that his sire had a reason for socializing with humans. Would it only be to turn them into vampires, work, some elaborate scheme. It’s not his place to ask, and he accepts that the man that turned him has relatively good intentions for why he does things.

Much like the novels by Anne Rice, holy symbols don’t harm vampires. This isn’t really something that shocks or flies under his radar. He’s not really sure why he asked this, it doesn’t really matter to him. He won’t really mind one way or the other. He’s never been on for religion anyway. The matter of the fact is that he is one that has always walked the left hand path, the path of darkness. It’s something that he’s kept to himself, trying to consort with demons, animal sacrifice, etc. The thought of him going into a church or even trying to touch a crucifix makes him grin a little bit.

The notion to look at the mirror sort of worries him, as it might be a bad idea. What if he has a reflection and it’s something of like a rotting corpse. This might be an issue, though it might not. What if it is true to most vampire mythos that he has read before, that he doesn’t have a reflection at all. Here’s the question that Axel has; however, do clothes show up in mirrors if the body doesn’t? It’s a strange question, but he will investigate at a later time. Now he wants to read over the rest of the answers on the page.

Flowing water was just a question because in several stories and folklore, flowing water has been known to harm vampires. The reason for this is that it has long since been known as having a purifying property and most stories view vampires as being unnatural, unclean monsters of death. Then again, Axel starts to wonder if the running water thing falls under the ‘holy symbols’ section, because running water was used in baptisms in the early days such as rivers and things.

His eyes skip over stakes, as it has always seemed a bit cliche to him to believe that a creature that is unliving can be killed by stabbing it in the heart. If it’s heart doesn’t beat, why would stabbing it in the heart even remotely matter. Once reaching the next part, he reads the section of ‘Decapitation’. His pale blue, grey-like eyes look over the statement of ‘you will not die’. The concept of the this blows his mind. The fact that he would never die, well, he would die but would go to some sort of afterlife, then come back. This raises a ton of questions, but those can wait til Jesse comes back from the kitchen and sits down.

So there are ancients, and one of them are within our line, but Axel wants to know more. He wouldn’t go against his family if they don’t associate with him. The matter that there are more ancient vampires among them, hopefully he will be able to meet one that the group of vampire he is now a member of won’t mind him talking to. Axel’s eyes move farther down the paper to the point where he says that Jesse has met ghosts, essentially, of vampires that have been dead for a long time and that current vampires can learn things from. Maybe at some point he will have to learn something from one of these beings. Though, he would want to pry, learn more. He assumes that there is a first vampire, and wants to know as much as he can.

Once the page has been read over a few times, he waits for Jesse to looks like he is done with what he is doing. “So this Shadow Realm thing, dying, is that normal? It says here that you’ve met long dead vampires? If vampires can come back from the dead after being killed by finding a door in the shadow realm, why can these ‘wraiths’ not come back?” He feels this is a legitimate inquiry. Not asking anything else about the wraiths or things of that manner, he feels that when he needs to he would be able to ask his sire to help him find one. He is curious if the man before him has ever been, but that might be a personal experience, to ask if another man has died again since being turned into a vampire. He would hate to have to explain his second death, let alone his first, in horrendous detail. However, he probably will, in time, write ‘fiction’ about this.

[Jesse Fforde]

I fill Cairo’s bowl with wet food—the poor cat has a sporadic feeding schedule. Though I normally just fill the bowl with something or other whenever it’s empty. Sooner or later, I may have to start calling him Garfield. For now, however, he’s still a kitten. Whenever I pick him up, I can feel his little heart racing a million miles an hour. He can’t focus on one thing too long. His ears are always twitching, and he’s always pouncing at thin air. No way he can keep weight on, the way he runs around. I scratch his back, just above the tail—his bum arches into the air, even as he scarfs down his food. I grin, and wander back over to Axel.

He’s done reading all my responses. Of course there are more questions. There are bound to always be questions—even I still have questions, though I don’t really ask them of anyone. I just keep on trucking on, and I figure things out things on my own. It’s the way I’ve always been. I don’t to be beholden to anyone, for anything.

I resume my former position, straddled on the seat by the desk. It’s where I’ll stay, slaving over that piece of paper, answering all the questions Axel might have. It might just be where I pass out, as soon as the sun starts to creep over the horizon. I’ve been known to pass out all over the place—even the bathtub. That bathtub, over there behind that temporary curtain. I died in that bathtub. Stabbed, throat slashed, by the one and only Phoenix. I continue to smirk. I take back the pad and answer the next few questions to the best of my ability.

“Dying – normal, yes. There are people we’ve killed several times over. They keep coming back, asking for more. Masochists, if you ask me.

I don’t know. Maybe the wraiths don’t want to come back. Maybe they don’t have the energy. The strength. I don’t know how it works. Ask Phoenix – she might know.”

I slide the pad back over to Axel. I perk a brow and wait for the next round.

[Axel Rosen]

Looking down at the sheet, his eyes are falling down to a half-lidded state. It is now that he realizes that on things about vampires are false. The thing about vampires not needing to sleep. Each thing on the page sort of makes sense, except for the wraith thing. It seems that he has questioned his sire out of answers for the evening. Sure he would have more at another time, but at the moment he can’t bring any questions to a real thought. Foggy mind, the questions are there but they cannot come to the forefront of his mind. Many many things he wants to ask both him and this Phoenix person. He has yet to meet her or him, but at this point he really wants to, it would mean the world to him for wanting to ask questions. The muscles in his arms he wants to find someplace to fall asleep. Though he is sure that he cannot find the strength to even move. His whole body is starting to shut down without preparing him for the crash ahead. With one movement, his head starts to move down to the counter where he sits. Slumping his head he starts to fall asleep. The sleep is against his will and he can’t stand it, he wants to learn more.

There would be no next round now, because he is now slipping off into sleep. Now he can feel his arms under his head, but he knows that he didn’t put them there. Or did he? Seems the haze of sleep is the same now that he is a vampire. With his last, very last bit of energy, he mumbles some semblance of a ‘Good night’ to his sire. The tone he uses is just a matter of fact so that Jesse doesn't assume more questions are coming. Finally, he falls into sleep the feeling of being pulled under into darkness. Sleeping there, his mind is flooded with the same dreamscape it always is flooded with. Vampirism has not changed this place, the mere realm of pure nightmare. There is a sea of crimson liquid with a lack of reflection of the upside down pyramids floating up above the liquid. Beneath the blood-like sea, from his viewpoint looking down. He can see it, the beast. This creature that inhabits his mind. It’s always just a shadow under the surface and he’s never actually seen the thing close up.

Hours pass and he feels something beneath him that is different than the counter he had fallen asleep on. Starting to wonder if everything that has happened had been the beginning of one of his dreams. That happens sometimes. While yes, his dreamscape is generally the same, there are sometimes those dreams where things are different. Everything felt so real. His eyes start to open and he realizes where he is. The tattoo parlour. There is no way, in his mind, that he fell asleep in the chair while being tattooed? He’s never felt so much pain that he has passed out before, but that’s not to say it couldn’t happen now. Sitting up, looking around the room, he rubs his head a little bit. No. Nothing that happened, except when he fell asleep, was a dream. The craving he has for blood at this moment is very real.

[Jesse Fforde]

I don’t want to go to sleep. Ever since the nightmares started, I haven’t wanted to sleep. It’s always inevitable, of course. I always end up passing out cold, unable to resist the pull of the sun, even if I cannot see it. I cannot see it, but I can feel it, like it’s some omniscient God. The sun is Apollo, I can believe that now. I can believe that there is something more to this world than just physics and cosmology. If the sun can exert such power—sure, I suppose it could be science. All this… it could just be something that mankind hasn’t discovered yet. Maybe there’s no such thing as magic. This is all some disease unexplained by science.

But I like to believe otherwise.

No such questions of origin or of explanation are asked of me, though. Perhaps the adrenaline of the night has got to me, but I haven’t felt the feathery, demanding touches of the sun just yet. I only realise that dawn has come by the way Axel suddenly drops like a poisoned fly. I stand, suddenly aware of my own weariness. I don’t let it get the best of me, though. I’ve been practicing. Oh, it hurts, the longer I try to stay awake. But I do it anyway. One day, I hope to be able to resist the sun completely. It’ll take time, and energy. And it might not even be achievable. But goddamnit, I’m going to try.

I wander over to the window. I have the heaviest black drapes money can buy. I pull it aside, only a tiny bit. I peer outside—the sky is still mainly dark, a few stars still speckling the horizon. Out there, at the very edge, illumination has begun to paint the dark velvet, to seep into it, like spilled milk. I frown at it, and let the drape fall back into place. I wander over to where Axel has fallen—with waning strength I grasp the scruff of the shirt at his neck, lift his head enough so that I can pull one of his arms up over my shoulder. I drag him over to the couch—he’s a dead weight. I let him fall, and there he stays. His eyes don’t even twitch.

I pace the apartment, then. I pace and I pace for I don’t know how long, before I must finally crawl into the bed. Before I, too, fall like a dead weight. I resist for as long as I can, before complete and utter darkness takes over my mind. At least, for a while, I can have the bliss of darkness. At least… at least until that rooftop comes to haunt me again. And there’s nothing that I can do about it.