The Story of the Vampire, L (Completed | Featured )

Part 7 - There Are Here Old Things

To my surprise, it was not Quinn or even Dasius who came looking for me, but Leis, who I found sitting on my bed one morning in my second week at Leechtin's. 

"Come along," he whispered, as if to himself, wheezing. "He cannot stop looking for you. I have found you. Come along."

When I didn't move he began to take off his clothes, his jacket and belt, socks, untucked his shirt, unbuttoned his collar, and climbed into bed with me to lie across my body. Exhausted, he made himself comfortable on me and went to sleep, so I went back to sleep, too. 

"I'll go back to school," I told him, when he finally woke, his cheek on my chest. I had never been so close to him before. He smelled like the inside of a rose.

"No," he said. "That is over."

"I want to go back to school," I said.

"Why do you feel it alright you are talking back to me? We are in a very dangerous place."

I could count on two hands the times Leis had referred to himself and I as "we".

"It's OK here."

"Do not behave as if you are stupid. And when they are becoming tired of you? Or if you are saying just one word wrong? You are a very silly boy sometimes. Do not think they are patient, or that you understand them."

"Leechtin is my friend."

"Look at Jackie, he is the stupidest boy there is."

Look at Leis nodding next to me. You said that, didn't you? What else did you say. That's right. You said, "And if it were not me who come now? They are smelling you like you are ripe because you grow a ripe age. They are not all my like here arriving. There are here old things. They cannot love you, for they do not even remember what that is."

What did I do then? See he remembers. He remembers it better than me. I threw a tantrum! I was sixteen years old and thought I knew everything. "I'm better than you because Leechtin respects me," yes I said that. I was mad and embarrassed because I couldn't go back to school and see my friends. And because I was afraid to stay in that house but wouldn't admit it.

I couldn't understand what he was saying. He said, "When is it that you grew so much pride? They are saying wrong when they say you are a good boy. How are you speaking so? If you will grow pride grow dignity instead! You have accumulated sin and lost your humbleness! Foolish!"

It only made me feel ashamed, but I have since learned not to feel as much. At that age, every word felt like the end of the world. So I told him I would kill myself.

"See he is foolish! Foolish boys like to play at dying. What you will do is go back home and stay there. It will not be easy, but the old ones will see our side. You are too young."

"Is it me who doesn't have dignity?" I shouted at him. "I know what you do with Laurent. I know how you go abroad with him and leave Father behind. You only want me to go home so that you can go away to Europe!"

What did you say then? Did you hit me? Anyone else would have. No. That's right. You only said, "It is my fault that you do not know anything. You do not know anything," and you might as well have struck me with that. Because I thought I did know about vampires by then, and what it meant to be a man, but I did not know anything about suffering yet, did I? And suffering is what it means to be both of those things, and I had been so lucky. I had only tasted it by then.  I struggled with him.

He said, "Stop it! Stop! I am responsible for you!"

It made me cry, because even then we had a lot to work through, between us. I asked him, "Do you love me?" and he took me by the chin, and looked on me, as if measuring me, very coolly, and said, "Yes," easily, like that. I said, "Really?" and he said, "Don't let's be greedy."