The Devil's Shadow | The Empty World Sequence

Nineteen

New York City, after the stay in Europe, Winter1994 AD.

They had been happy in Europe, Robert and Blade.  They were two people who had seemed depressed and troubled to those close to them for a long time.  They really were happy together, very much in love.  It even seemed the madness had left Blade, or at least the instability.  She killed people she judged to be petty horrors, but she could deal with that.  And though Robert would not give up the dark colors or floral configuration of hair he was playful as maybe only Troy and Absidus remembered him.

They called Steven every once in a while.  There were occasions when Blade called John or Mandy.  And when they were in cities they picked up American papers for news.  They never spoke to Julien; that was how Blade wanted it.  They had news of him though and each time someone said he was well or that his classes were going smoothly for him Blade was assured that she had done the right thing in leaving him to his own devices.

But it was a year and a half they were away.

While in London or Paris they would get a New York paper and read disturbing things in the society or art section.  They might meet someone at a party in Chelsea that had recently visited New York City and had seen Julien at a party.  First there was the young painter that became enamored of Julien and did many paintings of him.  Cary, as he was known, was charmed away from furthering his education in school and set up in a Studio by Mandy.  And after the obsessive, temperamental painter was out of the picture it was Mandy who turned his charms on Julien. 

Steven and John would never speak of it.  They would only say things like, "We drove him home before anything happened," and implied that Julien was often drunk at parties.   Steven would say, "I made sure he ate today," leaving Blade to imagine all the horrible reasons Julien might not be making sure of this himself. 

After a while there was no getting news from John, all he would talk about was his series of fights with Dave.  Mandy who had previously denied having anything to do with Julien would start hinting that he was oh so distraught at loosing the gorgeous boy to someone else.  And Steven, he would hold back, it was obvious. 

Steven would speak of Louis often.  Louis was at his house.  Louis was decorating for him.  Louis had feng shued the place. Louis had struck a deal with Valentine to sell a few paintings and Val and Mandy were at war with their two young painters, Cary and Louis being shown in the same gallery.  Steven had never seen so many pictures of Julien... and Mandy's photos upstairs...

Blade seemed distraught, but she didn't seem to catch all the clues, self-proclaimed crime-fighter though she was.  She missed the fact that Steven had all but said Louis was using Julien as a model.  There would have been no escaping their knowing each other figuring that both would have been attending Parsons, and that they seemed to attend the same parties recently...Robert wondered how well they knew each other.

He could never steal the information, even over the phone.  But it was growing to be something so inevitable in his head.  There was Louis in need of affection after growing away from his father and from Psyche with his history of attaching strong feelings to people who, like his mother, were blonde, pale and blue-eyed.  And there was Julien, with that classic sort of beauty one saw in ancient Grecian statues, so close, thinking vampires in movies and novels romantic. 

It was hard to hide these fears from Blade.  Sometimes she would sense there was something unsaid, try to steal the information.  She would start yelling; they would fight. 

Fights never lasted.  Robert did still have his own charm.  Blade had been pretty much the leader of the pair while in Europe, but all Robert had to do was smile a certain way and she would forgive everything and curl up in bed with him.  He would hold Blade close and say he had been wanting a long time to have a lover who was like him.  Blade would melt and purr, wrap her legs about him.  And then it was like New York was billions of miles away on a cold and distant planet.