Brenda, the vampire hooker, reached her limit at around the same time spots started to appear in my vision, which worked out pretty well for both of us. (This is another thing most people don’t understand about vampires. Their limit is about four quarts. Only malevolence or severe starvation would lead them to consider overfeeding.) I reached across the bed and slowly pried my wrist from her mouth. She was half asleep, so I helped her the rest of the way onto the bed and then, very lightheaded, I lay down next to her.
It had been centuries since I’d thought of the late Francois Etienne de Harsigny. Like so many thousands that came before and since, he was someone I called friend. That’s the truly shitty thing about being immortal, in case you were wondering. Everybody dies eventually. Even the vampires. Some of them end up slain by stupid mortals who think they’re acting in the name of whichever god is fashionable at the time, but most end up as suicides somewhere around the three hundred year mark. The way it works is you spend the first century doing all the things you always wanted to do, the second century doing things you never thought you’d want to do, and the third century doing whatever’s left. Then one night you look around and realize that not only have you done everything there is to do, but you’re no longer interested in doing any of it ever again. Suddenly death seems like an interesting option, if only because it represents the one experience left on your checklist. Compounding the problem, vampires young and old routinely suffer from depression. Never being allowed to see the sun ever again has that effect. And as I’ve said, I’ve been there a few times myself.
Another unfortunate fact about immortality could best be explained by Harsigny’s reaction to the scene in the clearing. There I was, his trusted friend, nursing a vampire in the snow next to a slain dragon. After all this time, I can still see the stunned expression on his scarred face.
Historically, mortal humans haven’t dealt well with the unknown. Their usual reaction is to kill what they don’t understand. Harsigny, willing up until that point to ignore the obvious fact that I never aged, was forced all at once to come to the only conclusion his ideology would allow him. His trusted friend was some sort of demon. And for a God-fearing fellow like him, my apparent demonhood was something he wasn’t willing to overlook. (Considering what real demons are like, this was a bit of an insult, but I let it go on the basis of the fact that Harsigny had clearly never seen one.) Thus, my days in Coucy-le-Chateau came to an abrupt end, all thanks to my charitable decision to rid Picardy of a human-eating dragon. Sometimes that’s just the way it goes.
Harsigny was gracious enough not to run us through right then and there—which was good, as I didn’t particularly want to have to kill him, too—and he did let me keep Archimedes. He even gave us some gold in exchange for the guarantee that we’d leave immediately and never return.
History wasn’t particularly kind to him, and so, while I’m quite certain he’s passed on, I don’t know when or how because there’s no historical record of his existence. Enguerrand de Coucy I do know about. He lived many more years after my hasty departure before dying in the Battle of Nicopolis. I regretted not speaking to him one final time before I left, if only to apologize for leaving.
Eloise and I traveled from Picardy through the Holy Roman Empire and into Italy, where we witnessed the church schism firsthand. Boredom eventually led us to Egypt, where I regaled her with tales of pyramids and sphinxes and long-dead kings. Eventually we drifted apart, although I can’t for the life of me remember why.
As I trailed off to sleep beside my new friend Brenda, it occurred to me—not for the first time—that death was the only constant in my life. If it weren’t so depressing, I’d laugh at the irony.
Brenda nudged me awake with a glass of orange juice in her hand. “You okay?”
I sat up slowly and took the glass. “What time is it?”
“Daytime,” she said. It was impossible to tell with the windows masked.
“Yeah, but what time is it?”
“Dunno. I don’t own a watch. What do I need one for?”
True enough.
The juice was cool and tasted supermarket fresh. “Where’d this come from?”
“I have a cooler under the bed,” she explained. “I like to keep juice on ice, just in case. I figure the Red Cross gives OJ to its donors, I should do the same thing, you know?”
“Do you charge extra for it?”
“No, silly, it’s free,” she smiled. “You know… you taste, um, you taste really good. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“I bet you say that to all the boys.”
“I’m serious! It’s really weird, your blood it’s, like…”
“Old,” I offered. “I have heard it before. I’m a very old vintage.”
Brenda smiled again. She had quite a nice smile. Had she reached her mid-twenties, she would have been a brilliantly attractive young woman. I wondered what made her decide to arrest her development younger than that. Eighteen, I guessed. Possibly it wasn’t her decision, but that was very unusual. When you meet a vampire nowadays you’re generally meeting one who chose the life.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“A little lightheaded,” I said, “but that’s the worst of it. Can you hand me my bag?”
The bag was one of those nondescript army duffel bags. I bought it off an RAF paratrooper in 1952. It contained seven of my lives.
About two hundred years ago, I realized if I was going to continue to travel freely about the planet, I was going to have to officially establish myself. Back in the day a guy could wander from place to place, and his word was pretty much the only identification he ever needed. Now I need a passport, name, and nationality to get from country to country and sometimes from state to state or town to town. Fortunately, every lawful society has an unlawful element, so it’s usually not that tough to pick up a new ID whenever I need one.
I dumped the contents out on the bed. It wasn’t much: a change of clothes, the seven passports (they were each good for another two years), a shaving kit, about twenty grand in cash, and the passbook for my Swiss bank account.
“Wow!” Brenda exclaimed, specifically regarding the cash.
“It’s just walking-around money.”
“Forget walking, why don’t you buy a car!”
“It’d use up most of the cash,” I explained. “Plus I haven’t driven one since 1965, and that was a disaster. And if you think I’m going to drive in
“What’s this?” she asked, her eyes drifting across other items.
“That’s a bank book.”
“Cool.” She flipped it open and frowned at the handwritten notes inside. “What language is this?”
“It’s a code I invented a long time ago,” I said, “so nobody else could read it.” By the way, thank God for the Swiss. I gave up on everyone else’s banking system long ago, but they’re still going strong. Plus, nobody there seems to have a problem with the fact that I should have died fifty years ago.
“How much do you have?” she asked.
“A lot.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know how much. I haven’t asked for a balance in a very long time.”
“So, you could be, like, a billionaire or something.”
“Could be, but I doubt it.”
