Futile Flame (2 page)

‘I do not waste my immortality, Gabriele. Unlike you with your playboy lifestyle. I use my accumulated knowledge to inform my work.’

She stands with her hand on her hip. She is young, stunning and I burst out laughing.

‘What is so amusing?’

‘Well... I just don’t know how you get away with it. Looking like you do.’

Her eyes narrow slightly and for a moment I see her age and experience reflected in her black pupils as rage surges into them in a visible rush. She straightens her spine, losing the sloppy modern stance she’s adopted and her old arrogance reappears in the straight line of her shoulders. She, like me, has always been an excellent mimic.

‘At least that posture is more like the real you.’

‘What would you know?’ She folds her arms over her chest.

‘What are you really doing here, Gabriele? Because I know it is not that you felt like looking me up.’

I imitate her posture before I realise I’m doing it. We are two old enemies unsure if the feud still remains.

I force my arms down by my side trying to remain still for fear that she will think I’m defensive. After all, I need her knowledge, despite my ridicule of it. I need to know more of her past. Because then maybe I can understand how my only success, after years of trying to make a mate, was Lilly – a direct descendant of my own daughter, Marguerite. More than ever I need to know if there is any threat to our continued existence. The entity we encountered in Turin and later in England has left me with an uneasiness that I cannot shake. I’m afraid for Lilly more than myself. How then can I persuade Lucrezia to tell me about her life without revealing too much about mine?

‘Something has happened.’

‘Really? And I’m interested because?’

‘It may affect you.’

‘You’ve told someone, haven’t you? You’ve fallen for some little tart who’ll die once you fuck and feed, because everyone knows that’s how you get off, and then...’

‘Whoa... How would you know how I “get off”, Lucrezia? You, who only have one-night stands. I’ve built relationships, loved even, while you isolate yourself by working in a mortuary. What’s that, some morbid obsession with death? Or maybe there’s something more to it?’

She is silent, face blank, and I begin to regret my outburst as she slowly turns to the body of the dead girl. I find myself wondering who she is, how she died. I scrutinise her face and, as if she understands my interest in the girl, Lucrezia explains.

‘Poor kid. Only twenty-two. Major heart failure after using “E” for the first time. Seen the state of the heart? Looks like one of our lot sucked it dry,’ Lucrezia tells me as she picks up the heart and places it back inside the dead girl’s chest.

‘How do you know it was drugs?’ I ask despite myself.

‘Experience. Plus I can smell it on her. Here,’ she beckons me forward with her now blood stained fingers. ‘Breathe in. Can you smell that?’

‘Yes. Sickly sweet. But subtle.’

‘Exactly. A tantalising smell. Prolonged abuse would give her organs the odour of Royal Jelly. So, clearly a first timer. Of course, I have to back myself up with medical evidence which means blood analysis and pathology on the remains.’

I am bewildered by her. How does this lovely creature ever understand this? Why would she want to? But I daren’t ask her these questions. It seems too intrusive. Though, more than anything, I fear her scorn at my ignorance.

‘But look at the state she’s in.’ She points to the cuts and abrasions on her legs, the filth-covered feet. ‘Her friends gave her the drug, but didn’t look after her. She was found dead in a ditch.’

Put that way I imagine the grief of the girl’s family. I’m beginning to understand a little why Lucrezia is here. I am not after all completely a monster.

‘So. Tell me. What have you done that may affect me?’ She asks quickly changing the mood.

Turning to the sink behind her she begins to scrub the blood from her fingers. I watch with hypnotic fascination. She is meticulous as she cleans her short nails. Once done she tears a strip of blue paper towel from the dispenser above the sink and dries her hands before turning back to the body.

She pushes the corpse away from her work area towards a wall lined with doors and presses a pedal on the trolley to lower it to floor level. As she opens one of the bottom doors, cold air rushes out of the fridge sending wisps of freezing condensation into the atmosphere. The wheels beneath it collapse under as she presses the trolley into the opening, pushing hard against the lip of the doorframe. The remains slide into the coffin-like space and the door clicks shut, swallowing it like the mouth of some tiny frozen hell.

I tear my gaze away from the polished steel to find Lucrezia once more washing her hands at the sink in the far corner of the room. I know I have to tell her, but where to begin?

‘My shift is over,’ she says. ‘Let’s go talk.’

‘Thank you.’

She stares at me, her eyes round. ‘Why are you thanking me?’

‘For allowing me your time.’

‘Perhaps I should have done that sooner.’

Chapter 2 – Present

I leave my hired car in the hospital car park and climb into Lucrezia’s battered BMW. She is clearly not going for ostentation these days. I want to know why, because I am sure that she, like me, has accumulated much wealth over the years, and money ensures we are always able to hide among the living without fear. Yet here she chooses to live simply. Maybe this is a game for her, like my frequent trips into the ‘real world’ have been. Pretending to be something I am not has always been part of the fun, but not anymore: Lilly has changed everything for me.

But then, Lucrezia has dabbled in medicine for several years now. In the 1980’s, when I met her in a New York club, she told me she was a haematologist. She’d warned me of the coming AIDS epidemic and the effect it would have on my blood if I drank from an infected victim. However, since my main interest was in virgins, it was hardly likely that I would contract the Human Immunodeficiency virus. Even so, her warning had gone a long way to reinforce my choice of victim, and to ensure that I always checked my food carefully before biting into it.

We drive out of the hospital grounds and turn swiftly onto the main road heading towards the motorway. Lucrezia presses down hard on the accelerator with the recklessness of an immortal. We are so secure with our infinity, that speeding never holds any fear for us, so I relax in the seat beside her. On the dash is a security pass. It reads Dr Lucy Collins alongside a photograph of Lucrezia.

‘Where are we going?’ I ask.

‘Not far.’

We drive two short miles down the motorway and come off at the first exit. I settle down and close my eyes. There is no need to look; I can always find my way here again if I wish. Lucrezia’s aura is radar and always has been. We travel for around twenty minutes, weaving in and out of streets with short bursts of motorway in between.

We arrive sooner than I expect. I open my eyes as Lucrezia parks the car smoothly on the drive of a suburban house with a dark blue painted front. I scrutinise it with interest. I know that she could have any house in any place; yet, she is in Manchester, the place I first met Lilly. It looks like the sort of house a doctor would have. I almost expect a husband and children waiting behind the double-glazed front door. As we climb from the car, I know that her life will be absent of companionship of any kind.

She unlocks the door with a key ring, which also sports a tacky disc with a faded picture of the Statue of Liberty on it. It reads ‘so good they named it twice’ in bold red letters. Can it be that she is sentimental about her previous lives?

The door opens without a sinister creak, so there is nothing predictable or corny about this vampire’s residence. As we enter the hallway, which is quite long with a staircase to the left, I’m shocked by the magnolia blandness of the décor. It lacks imagination – though it looks clean.

There are some Art Deco influences present. Black curved chandeliers hang from the ceiling, but the whole effect is minimalist right down to the taupe pattern-less carpet. This is a far cry from the life I live with Lilly.

‘Can I get you anything?’ Lucrezia asks.

The normality of her home, her manners, are so strange to me, that I experience a slight sense of unreality. I realise then that I am in shock: stunned by her nearness and this sudden change in her attitude and lifestyle.

‘Am I supposed to reply, “Yes please, a coffee would be good”?’

‘If you want coffee, I can get it for you.’

‘No. I don’t need anything.’

She leads me into the lounge, a smallish room, sparse, with an uncomfortable upright three-piece suite of brown leather on a cream carpet. I fight back a snigger. Clearly she’s trying too hard to appear bland.

‘So, what do you want to know?’ she asks.

I tear my eyes from the pale blown vinyl paper. For a minute I can’t focus on her words, can’t remember why I’m here.

‘How did all this happen?’ I say, although it is as if I am merely asking a mundane question, like, ‘How are you?’

‘Ah.’

She falls silent and I wait, patience always my virtue.

‘I have an uncharacteristic urge to... talk.’ She crumples onto one of the sofas.

‘I’m listening.’

‘There are things that happened, things I haven’t thought of for years. Perhaps, never wanted to think about. And certainly never wanted to speak of.’

Her hands cover her face, then swoop up into her hair, making her appearance manic and almost desperate as she tugs briefly at her blonde locks.

‘What is it specifically that you need to know?’ she asks.

‘I’m not sure. Could you start at the beginning?’

‘No. That’s too... raw, although I’m sure that sounds insane to you.’

‘No, it doesn’t. I understand that feeling perfectly.’

She falls silent again, sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest, her thumbnail pressed between her teeth. She looks like a small and frightened child and my heart opens to her in a way I’d never expected. I feel an affinity and I am on the cusp of learning why.

‘I’ll start with Caesare.’

‘Your brother?’

‘Someone did their homework!’

‘Lucrezia, your entire family history is in public libraries all over the world. I obviously came across them at some point.’

Her eyes pierce my casual words with disbelief.

‘Ok. I looked you up. They made a television series about you and your family – maybe you saw it?’

‘I don’t watch television.’

‘Probably just as well – they didn’t make any of you look good.’ I realise my mistake as she frowns.

‘Don’t let’s be distracted. You were saying?’ I say quickly.

‘I think I’ll start in the middle,’ she decides and then changes her mind. ‘No, I won’t. It has to begin in the library at St Peter’s.’

‘Is this the beginning, then?’

‘Yes.’

Typical woman, contrary even in immortality! How alike she and Lilly are.

Chapter 3 – Lucrezia’s Story

‘Luci. Where are you going in such a hurry?’

I stopped in the corridor and turned to find my brother Caesare leaning in the open doorway to the library.

‘Have you seen Father?’

‘No.’

I looked closely at Caesare; his eyes looked strange, as though he had the beginnings of a fever.

‘Come in here a moment.’

‘Oh Caesare. I’m in no mood for your teasing today. I need to see Father!’

‘Come,’ he smiled. ‘I have something to show you.’

‘All right, but only for a moment. I really do need to...’

I entered the library, lifting up my pale blue skirt as I stepped over the threshold.

I had searched the halls of the Vatican for my Father; walked down the huge corridor, its many doors beckoning me in, but all barred from me by politics. By then Father was known as Pope Alexander VI, but his birth name was Borgia, and he ruled Rome as though he were a modern Caesar, all in the name of God. Even so, to us he was still Father, and our family lived in the Palazzo Maria del Portico, which was attached to St Peter’s. We had our own private door to walk in and out of the Vatican whenever we wished and more importantly, Father could visit his mistress Guila Farnese. In those days a Pope could have lovers, though discretion was still important. Father was powerful. No one questioned him. They knew from experience that those who dared risked their lives and those of their entire family.

That morning I needed to see him urgently. He had announced the night before that I was to be married. At first the announcement did not concern me; Father had already made two previous matches. He did this to gain political advantage, not that I understood this. Even so, I always felt safe in the knowledge that he would change his mind again as politics dictated. However, his inclusion of a wedding date troubled me. He’d never allowed things to go that far before. As with the previous arrangements I had not met my fiancé. Father kept me safely away from contact with any men and I was always chaperoned in public.