Immortal Pleasures, page 14
* * *
The raid, like so many others, turned bloody. In the heat of battle he noticed a native man. This warrior was not just any man—he drank blood. In the fury of the fight, he watched as this man tore into the necks of the Spanish soldiers, then pulled their bodies out of sight. He ate and drank like an animal.
Hernán could not believe the sheer power of this man. His muscles glistened with beaded red sweat, and his eyes were furious enough to scare anyone into running in the opposite direction. And the soldiers did.
As the warrior was distracted in consuming a soldier, he was shot multiple times in the chest and head. He tried to flee into the jungle. Cortés followed him, shouting at the pursuing soldiers to leave him to find the warrior. Hernán could hear the ragged breathing of the man, who crouched in the dirt. As the young warrior, who couldn’t be more than sixteen, attacked him, Hernán thrust his sword into his chest. The youngster bared sharp teeth as Hernán attempted to pull out the sword.
“Tell me your secret! What are you?” screamed Hernán before bursting into a coughing fit.
The young warrior let out a howl through gritted teeth, “Eztli!”
Hernán knew that word. Blood. Sangre. He touched his lips. Maybe these people had other secrets besides gold. They were heathens and not brothers in faith.
Hernán knew he was dying anyway. He pulled the sword out of the warrior’s heart. The large wound released a flood of rich, blackish-red blood. Hernán scooped a mouthful in his hands and drank as the vampire warrior crumpled to the ground. Hernán’s body stiffened as he felt his muscles tense and convulse. Urine covered his trousers before he felt himself falling next to the warrior in a fit of excruciating pain. Then the world he knew as a human man went black.
He woke up as something else, not believing how good he felt. His muscle tone seemed revived without effort. Although he was sixty-two and had faced ill health, he could have been a man in his twenties. His ability to breathe without difficulty had returned.
That was in 1547. Immediately after awaking, he returned to Spain to fake his death and become someone else, to start again on his journey to riches.
* * *
But being in business with John Hawkins meant Hernán couldn’t just do what he wanted all the time. He missed the freedom of savagery, the freedom he’d felt when he watched villages and temples burn because of the power he wielded. These days he needed to suppress his true nature while he reclaimed his wealth. But that nature needed a release, and desire roared between his temples.
If Malinalli’s blood wasn’t as pure as he suspected, he would not have bothered to go through all the trouble of luring her to London. He also could have gone after Cuauhtémoc, who still walked the earth in Mexico; however, he was a big shot and heavily protected, with eyes and ears everywhere. And Hernán knew he would not come out alive if he attempted to attack Cuauhtémoc, considering their history—Cuauhtémoc would see to it that he would be skinned alive.
No, it had to be Malinalli. She was a loner, without the kind of protection that made Cuauhtémoc a hard target. It was clear from his reconnaissance that Malinalli did not associate with other vampires. Her only real companions were her work and herself. And killing other vampires to sell their bodies wasn’t just about the money; the hunt made it all the more delicious. He enjoyed his work. And that is why he’d created his perfect plan. Now that he couldn’t sail the oceans in exploration anymore, stalking was his own reward.
When he first began gathering more information about her, he stumbled across the rare skulls that Malinalli had been searching for in the antiquities market, making it very easy to set this trap for her. At the beginning of his plan, the hand of fate seemed to be working in his favor. Not only did Malinalli possess an emotional tie to these objects he couldn’t care less about, she trusted Horatio Hutchings, the English broker she dealt with. It wasn’t difficult to find Horatio, and he was all too chatty with him once he’d heard the amount of money Hernán was putting on the table.
As soon as Horatio offered the skulls to Malinalli, she’d jumped at the chance to buy them. Once again so very eager to make the sale, Horatio told Hernán of Malinalli’s travel plans. Horatio didn’t want the opportunity to pass any of them by. Once she finished her holiday in Ireland, she would then go straight to London to personally verify and collect the skulls. And in London was also the equipment and facility needed for the extraction. It had taken six months and a small fortune to set up the operating room in the basement of a large semi-detached terraced home. John purchased it in the nineties and renovated it over years. George thought it was an Airbnb property.
Besides the city being John’s birthplace, many vampires passed through London, so it was a logical choice to set up their facility there. Later they bought a property in Budapest as their European place of operations.
Hernán knew nothing of love, even as a human. It was lost on him what people did for love or how they tore themselves apart for it. But John would often say this about George: “Not sure why that man loves me, probably because he thinks I’m not rotten to the core. Doesn’t care much for history, thank God. He thinks his nice things are paid for through antique dealing and patents for anti-aging products. Let him live in bliss. He is my angel I don’t deserve.”
So what he felt for Malinalli wasn’t desire or love. He didn’t want Malinalli’s beauty or companionship. Hernán had had his way with Malinalli in his human life, and now he would have her as a vampire. He would drill deep into her flesh and bone until nothing was left.
* * *
Hernán returned to John Hawkins’s clinic to ensure everything was in place for Malinalli’s dismemberment. It was quiet and dark. John hadn’t been there recently, as his scent was almost nonexistent.
Hernán couldn’t stop thinking about the two women he’d ripped apart in Ireland. The frenzy of it intoxicated him in a way being a respectable businessman and the work of dismembering vampires did not. He dismantled both female and male vampires with great care. Every step had to be precise for the line of serums John offered to his human clients. They called the product Immortalis. They kept the environment pristinely sterile to ensure no contamination. It was only one room with an electronic lock separate from the alarm system for the upper rooms of the property.
He was fighting back the urge to roam the streets to kill and feed, but the worries of the hypervigilant and all-recording modern world made him pause.
In his human life he had done as he pleased, buying and selling, keeping the native people submissive with the constant threat of death or starvation. He was surprised vampires remained known only in fiction still. They possessed so much power and could eventually overrun the humans, but he supposed total conquest was a long way away. Too many vampires and the supply of human blood would run out.
He and John had created a product yet to be released that could change everything when the time was right.
Up to now he’d maintained a sense of control over his impulsive bloodlust and desire to kill both vampire and human. He could strike a vampire target, get what he needed, and leave without getting distracted, and that had been enough for him, until the next time. But there was something about Malinalli that stoked his fire.
The empty clinic made his restlessness grow. He wasn’t hungry, because he had an entire refrigerator filled with blood, yet his hunger only grew. A black hoodie hung on a hook behind the door. He wanted to hunt—he was a natural explorer. But he had to get John to start pulling his weight again. He sent him a message.
John. You must lure Malinalli to me. Stop playing with your food. I know where she will be tomorrow. Call me ASAP.
With the message sent, he could wander the streets to feed.
The following day, Colin and I walk the streets without holding hands. I’m still processing, needing space. Colin will have to go back to Ireland without me now that I feel certain about his intentions and my own feelings.
And I want to see Alexander. To be with him alone.
I turn my energy back to the skulls as well. When you are so close to a dream that has been out of your grasp for so long, the fear of it being snatched away is unrelenting. I even called Horatio twice to change the time of our meeting for sooner rather than later, but he didn’t respond.
Surprisingly, Colin isn’t hungover, and we don’t speak of his half-asleep declaration. Instead, the day will be filled with museum visits. Ireland excited me because of the landscape, whereas it was the museums of London that gave me heart palpitations of pure joy.
Before entering the Victoria and Albert Museum, Colin stops at the newsagent stall on the sidewalk. The headline on one of the tabloid papers is about a gruesome murder in London. Alexander’s words, grave danger, whisper in my ear.
“Is one of you on the loose?” Colin chuckles. I shoot him a look, feeling a jolt of anger, though from his expression he seems to be joking.
But something inside of me wonders: Perhaps I should go to the shop Alexander mentioned once I get Colin out of London. According to the short article, whoever did it knew the area well. The murder occurred in an abandoned shop on an alley with no CCTV and very little foot traffic. No forensic evidence of the perpetrator could be found. There had not been a murder with such viciousness in a very long time. The article appealed to any witnesses in the area to report anything out of the ordinary. This isn’t my fight, but there were similar murders when I was in Ireland too. I shake it off, because senseless violence seems to be a way of life in the modern world, and the murders might not be related to Alexander’s warning. Colin casually wraps his arm around my shoulders and kisses my cheek. “You know I’m just kidding.”
I shirk his touch. “It will be a long day. Let’s go.” I walk ahead of him to avoid his affection. He doesn’t seem to notice.
I save my heart’s desire for last: the British Museum. I have many mixed feelings about it. It has the power to take me to places and meet cultures I might not otherwise encounter, especially humans with their short lives. I also know how important these items are to the people they come from, if those cultures still exist. Many of the items were collected by open robbery. They deserve to go back to their homelands. I’ve been trying to get our artifacts back—it is only fair others be allowed to do the same. The loan program has to improve somehow. Perhaps that could become the next phase of my mission.
The building is flooded with bright light with an oculus in the center of the ceiling just like the Pantheon in Rome. Here you can visit every corner of the world and a large span of civilizations in a day. For me it’s pure heaven: The visit fills my imagination with stories even if most of the objects in the museum belong in their respective countries, or should at least be owned by them.
I move from civilization to civilization until I find myself in the room of death. Canopic jars and mummies line every wall. The utensils by which these humans were prepared for the afterlife are on show as rusted and fragmented instruments. Wood coffins are beautifully painted with images of their inhabitants and intricate hieroglyphs. Poor Cleopatra lies behind glass, her fake eyes staring at nothing. She has been there since 1832. Seeing her small body wrapped in cloth and her painted face sent a shiver down my back. I thank the heavens I escaped that fate. My own history is still alive and biting. If only Cleopatra could have lived, with her power allowed to continue to grow and flourish. So many women in history had their lives cut short. Such a shame.
Colin doesn’t seem as interested to linger over the explanations attached to each object. I want to take my time with every different part of the world found in each room. Their deities, treasures, practices, and histories spread out for me like an intellectual feast. The sheer enormity of the beauty of it all brings tears to my eyes.
Eventually Colin ventures to the café for coffee and cake. There are also more calls about his book. I can only give him a distracted, “Yeah, see you soon.” Somewhere in the room that houses mummy after mummy, an unease beyond being surrounded by shrouded death creeps over me.
I feel watched and scared, even though very little scares me anymore. I’ve killed more than once, albeit out of necessity. I search the thick crowd of tourists snapping selfies. No one sticks out to me, but I do detect the faintest scent of dried blood and decay. I inhale and glance around more slowly. I dismiss the feeling: It just has to be my emotions and thoughts jumbled together like a mass grave. After all, my life has been very simple until now.
But as I turn to leave, a copper tang hits me, and a man stands before me. He smells like me, not human. I don’t know what to say or do.
“What a beautiful surprise to find you here today. I often wander this museum reminiscing on days past, considering I am also a relic of the past. Not in a very long time have I met another. What brings you to my city and this fantastic institution today?”
I open my mouth to speak but pause, feeling suspicious. He is a decently handsome white man with green eyes and light brown hair swept neatly across his forehead. If I had to give him a human age, I would predict at least forty based on the creases on his forehead, at the corners of his eyes, and around his mouth. His fingernails are cut short and clean, and his hands appear soft. Based on the way he speaks I assume he is, as Horatio would say, very posh and educated. His Barbour jacket and Church’s shoes appear to be in pristine condition. I knew of these things from Horatio, whom I met a few times during his business trips to New York City.
All of these details I evaluate like I would an artifact to gauge its worth and authenticity. I still don’t trust him, especially after my encounter with Alexander. None of it makes sense. Why would anyone want to kill me? And I’ve never seen this man before. All these years I kept to myself to avoid more violence. “It’s nice to make your acquaintance, Mr….”
“None of that, please.” He leans in closer to my ear to prevent anyone near us from listening in. “We are extended family bound by blood and marrow. You can’t get much deeper than that. Call me John.”
I remembered Alexander asked me if I knew a John Hawkins. My guard is up, but I can’t exude panic. “Call me Mali.”
“That is a unique name. Have you been to the lower floors with the Mesoamerican art? I’m sure you could write the descriptions better than any of the historians here.”
“How did you guess?”
“Come now, we have years of practice sussing out who is who. And there are not many like you here. Call it an educated guess, with that turquoise-and-gold pendant hanging around your neck. It doesn’t appear to be something you could buy at Camden Market.”
I clutch at my neck. He is educated and very good at paying attention to detail. It is true the pendant is one of the treasures I salvaged. I had the back reinforced with platinum so it could be strung as a necklace. “You have a very good eye.”
He crooks his arm for me to come closer to him. “Would you join me for a stroll?”
I look around the room, trying to detect any other vampires or Colin. John notices my reluctance to fully engage with him. “Don’t worry, I can smell human on your skin. I have no desire to bed you…I just wish to enjoy the pleasure of meeting another one like us.”
I smile to be charming. “I know. I can smell a male human on your skin.”
He matches my charm and offers his arm again with a friendly nod.
To not alarm him, I take his arm. This is obviously his home. He has to know I don’t mean to encroach on whatever he has going on in London and am just passing through. There is no need for a fight. Perhaps he will reveal his intentions.
“I suppose it could be a treat exploring this museum with someone who might have been alive when it was being built?”
He throws his head back and laughs. “Not far off. The doors opened in 1759. I’d never ask a lady her age; however, I suspect you go even further back than that.”
I give him a smile and allow myself to walk with him. I also feel the need to give him a very small warning. “I am older than you, with perhaps more experience in bloodshed. I’m not here to cause any trouble, but if it should find its way to me, I am more than prepared.”
He continues to look into the mummy-filled glass cases with a smug smile on his lips. Goddamn vampires can be hard to read, but small sparks of information filter through my senses.
“Noted. Do you like the Egyptian room? It makes me feel closer to God when I am here. Here we are, two of Osiris’s children. We are the resurrection. Isn’t that the most amazing thing? It saddens me we have lost the art of ritual and death.”
He is right. Ancient civilizations always captured my imagination over more modern history or art.
“Yes, in my line of work I have returned many items to their rightful places or at least to collectors with some connection to ancient objects or works of art. It is very gratifying and lucrative. I have a wonderful post-resurrection life. At least now. It wasn’t always easy,” I say.
We stop when we arrive at the mezzanine with the staircase leading down.
“I’d very much like to hear more about it. I know you are entertaining a human, or at least feeding from him in some kind of mutual transaction. But would you like to join me tonight?”
“Thank you for the invitation. I am also here on business. As I said before, I do not mean to interfere with your territory.”
“If you change your mind, then take this. May I ask where you are staying?”
He reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a white card with a phone number embossed in black. I take it to not be rude.
“Thank you. I will consider it.” I ignore his last question.
