Immortal Memory (Iris' Atlantis 1)

Plume: Timothy's Revenge

I was at the Castle, sitting on a couch in one of those niches with chairs and the very basic kitchen setup: a sink, a water boiler, a fridge and some cups in the cupboards. This particular alcove also hosted a television and a view of the cargo rails. I hadn't fancied tea and was instead holding some cranberry juice in an earthenware cup. I had gotten the juice from a supermarket on my way, already some hours ago.

It was silent in the Castle that night. A few links were training somewhere far downstairs, but the odd humm of the big building masked their presences, so that I felt I was alone in the universe. At least for the moment.

Earlier, just shy of midnight, Carnation had been with me. She had been here, listening to my Sacrifice tonight. Then she had been off too. There was a bigger Court gathering between cities, in the South Port. The Queen was there, so were most of the others. Blizzard wasn't attending, but he had other worries as he was desperately trying to locate and fix the leaking roof of his house before the autumn storms hit. Apparently he had a library located just beneath.

I sipped from the cup, letting the sugary taste fill my mouth and nostrils. Only then I swallowed. Then filled my mouth again.

It had been decades since I had been human. Nothing tasted quite the same as back then. The deep satisfaction of a filled stomach, a satiated thirst or of blood sugar on the rise just wasn't there. Without the bodily stimuli, the taste was hollowed out. As if I were only smelling the stuff and never truly bringing anything down into the organ that had died thirty years ago.

I placed the cup on the table and looked into the night. By my estimate, it was somewhere around three in the night.

Mo had taken the pills. She sometimes did, just to make sure I wouldn't develop a resilience for them and would sometimes sleep off the side effects. I had just woken up, gone to the City, and found the Castle empty on my return.

It had been nice that Carnation had happened to pass by, but it wouldn't have been catastrophic if she hadn't. It was the Queen's rule that every Sacrifice was to be shared. But as I often was diurnally active, there rarely was anyone around to share my experience right away. I was accustomed to waiting for my turn of sharing.

Sometimes I composed simple songs of the empty shells I drained. Let the experience flow through music. Mo knew I didn't share every song with another vampire, and she let it be. Important was to pause and process, to have a small reverent moment on their deaths.

It wasn't like anyone else was going to do it.

The ones that ended up consumed by vampires tended to be empty shells. Their souls had flown before their lungs stopped working. Desperation had died out and been replaced by an accepted kind of misery that was desolate and hung to places like the smell of smoke, impossible to wash away without proper soap. Without sharing and music. And they had no music, and no one to share even a beer with.

Often the houses were dirty and the inhabitants of the hollow spaces confused. For them it didn't matter anymore what day it was, or what year. Most often they didn't know which it was.

Unless there was a show on the radio or television they enjoyed. Something that happened at a specific time of the week or day.

But no one called, or visited, and rare people knew their names or what had been important to them when they had still been alive, if they had ever gotten a chance to create their stories and anchor their existence to something they had created and nurtured.

Usually there was blood before I came. It had dried on the sheets and clothes. Along with other bodily fluids. They had scratches that wouldn't heal, wounds that were pestering.