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

Part 2 - A Story

 In 1921, he was still wearing blue eyes, because of his pride, because of not wanting to beg me for another color. When I tried to take him by the arm to the bath he struck me across the face. The slap itself was nothing, but his nails were sharp.

"If you will come quietly, I will put make up on you," I said. "I will brush your hair."

"Will you do it gently?" he asked, trying to get free, but the struggle was not in earnest.

"If that's what you want."

"I want warm water."

"If that's what you want."

"I want to kiss you," he said.

"Later."

How long had his eyes been dead? How long had I not noticed? It wasn't his fault that he had let himself get this way.

"You have been busy," he said, as if he could hear me. "You have been arranging things. You've been getting things ready for us to leave." He was out of breath from struggling.

"I'll go to the doctor tomorrow on the train and get new eyes for you," I said. "They'll give it to me. I'm well known there. There won't be any questions."

"It's too risky. What if we are found out before we are ready to go?"

"It won't happen."

Sometimes the eyes lasted decades, sometimes months. His vision would grow worse as the nerves died, because his weak body couldn't keep them alive. Human eyes would always have this problem, but he hardly complained.

"You could be found out," L whispered. "You shouldn't be so arrogant."

He was patient while I drew the bath, sitting on the edge of the tub and listening to the water.

"See if you like it," I said.

He dipped his hand in and nodded, the greedy water enveloping his hand in steam.

I had learned over many years that vampires cannot wither away, but rather seem to grow translucent, like dying moths -- ghostly shells. His skin seemed stretched over him, tight like mean, alabaster sculpture, and I could see his thin muscles protesting as he untied his sleeves at the shoulder. The silk fell neatly to his wrists. There was an appearance of wasting, rather than an actual loss of mass. My eyes betrayed the science. He seemed thinner and more brittle.

"Help, help me," he said, gesturing to the pins in his hair. I hadn't seen them until he pointed them out, because they were in such disarray, holding no shape on his head. "When do we leave? What time is the boat?"

I'd told him a hundred times, but he never seemed able to remember. "We're going on the 27th, at 6 in the evening."

"I wouldn't like to travel so early in the day."

"I apologize. It's the best there was."

He shrugged away his dressing gown as I turned off the taps, and I helped him into the tub. He sighed in the hot water, face flushing from the shock of sudden warmth. "I would like to go back home."

"I'm sorry, my darling. It's not the same place you know."

"Call me 'darling' again," he said, his voice hard.

I whispered that I was sorry and he relaxed. With his eyes closed I could almost see him as he was before he lost his pale brown eyes. He had worn his hair taller then and painted himself with shimmering crushed pearls to meet his rich paramours. He'd kept us in money, because he was unable to live in any other way.