The Meridian Gamble (16 page)

“I’m surprised they don’t question
what’s going on.”

“Our workers are very well taken
care of. If you made twice the going rate of what your job normally paid, would
you question things?”

“I probably would, but that’s just
my nature.”

“And those are the ones whose
contracts we don’t renew. Or we simply … influence them, to feel less
inquisitive. It makes for a good exercise to hone the minds of our younger
initiates.”

Adam smiles a Cheshire cat’s grin,
looking proud of himself. But it’s ghoulish, to think that the vampires are
manipulating the minds of the people who work for them, their pawns.

The elevator stops, and I can only
imagine what will come next.

The doors open into a kind of
walkway with a low ceiling that curves around the floor in the same circular
shape of the building. It’s darkened, and there are no windows, but there are
openings that look out into a large space in the center of the room. And at
first, I’m not quite sure what I’m looking at, but the view is spectacular.

The center of the floor is filled
with plants, lush ferns and exotic flowers that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen
before. And they surround a tree that is absolutely amazing. It looks like an
ancient beech, with roots that stick out over the ground they’re planted in,
and twisting branches that reach out around it. And the leaves are vibrant, a
bright green. There’s a little waterfall that runs near it, and farther back, a
stairway that leads up to another floor. But the view of the tree is so
mesmerizing, it’s hard to take my eyes from it. It’s so beautiful, I almost
shed a tear.

I’m confused how the vampires even
keep it alive. I try to peek up, but the lights that shine down on it are too
high up, I can’t quite see the ceiling from where we are. But I almost wonder
if it goes all the way up to the roof, and if it opens up there somehow, to let
natural light in during the day.

Adam studies my reaction, and I’m
fairly certain my mouth has been hanging open the whole time.

“Pretty amazing, isn’t it?”

“That tree is fantastic. It’s
almost like there’s energy coming from it. I want to sit under its branches.”

“We can later, for as long as you
like. Come on.”

Adam leads me around the circular
hallway that hugs the walls of the floor, and it’s a nice walk, because it
gives me a view of the tree and the greenery that surrounds it. The place is so
relaxing and serene, which I didn’t expect. I’m not sure I even want to see the
rest of their quarters, if I could just stay here instead.

As we traverse the circular path,
we pass a man with brown, shaggy hair who comes from the other direction. He’s
young, at least in appearance, and is dressed in a blue, long-sleeved button
down shirt and khaki pants. In fact, he looks like one of the interns from the
agency. And it’s hard to tell if he’s even a vampire.

But I get a quick glimpse of
something silver under his shirt, a piece that almost looks like a choker or
collar, which strikes me as odd.

The man says nothing as he passes,
but for some reason, I get the impression that he’s nervous, and I can tell
he’s peeking at me from the corner of his eye. As he finally walks by, I
involuntarily tense up. And the man lets out a strange gasp.

Adam leans over.

“That’s one of the new guys,” he
says in a low voice, though not so low that the new vampire won’t be able to
hear. “We should go. It’s hard for them to be around humans.”

I look back, and the man has also
turned, and watches me with a desperate gaze as he walks off in the opposite
direction.

Adam brings me to a door that leads
to a stairwell, and we climb to the next floor. This place is so strange,
almost like a maze. But when we step out, we enter an elegant hallway that’s
lined with wood paneling, and filled with pictures and quaint antiques. It
gives me a chill, because it looks like we’ve stepped into another era, perhaps
a page from my Victorian novel, which has somehow come to life. I know nothing
about art, but I quickly suspect that the paintings on the wall and the little
pieces of furniture that line the walkway are all priceless. And the faces that
stare back at me from the portraits give me a chill, because I begin to wonder
if they depict vampires from the ages.

One woman in particular catches my
attention, a beauty with flowing brown hair. She looks the same in all the
paintings, even though they depict different eras; a view of her traipsing
through a park in England hand in hand with a distinguished man, a scene in a
Parisian court, with other noblemen and women. There’s one from the Italian
Renaissance. And like the Mona Lisa, she has a certain fetching smile that I
see over and over again, that’s quite charming. And I know she has to be a
vampire, to look the same throughout time.

I can’t help but to wonder who she
is.

As we walk along the hallway, it
freaks me out, because I realize it’s curved once again, ever so slightly. It’s
like an optical illusion, and I realize I can’t quite see where it ends. What
the hell is it with these vampires and circular spaces? I’m about to ask Adam
about it, but a man comes out from one of the doors, startling me. He’s older,
at least in appearance, maybe 60 years of age. And he has a confused expression
on his face when he sees us.

“Oh. I’m sorry, I had no idea
anyone was here.”

“It’s all right, Nicodemus,” Adam
says.

And the man looks at me, openly
staring, as if I’m an alien. He has fuzzy white hair, and reminds me of the
rabbit from “Alice in Wonderland.” And for a moment, before he speaks, he
sniffs at the air in a way that I find repellant.

“Oh, she’ll make a lovely addition
to our family,” the man, Nicodemus, says.

“No, Nico. She isn’t meant to
become one of us,” Adam says, full of regret. And I suspect he despises even
uttering the words.

“Pity. So pretty. Well, then,
excellent fodder for the tanks. Such a sweet treat.”

“No, no, Nico. She’s not meant for
the tanks.”

In an instant, the older man’s
dull, rheumy eyes fill with rage, as he glares at Adam.

“Arrogant boy! Do you mean to
challenge me?”

“No,” Adam says, trying to be
patient. “Of course, I meant no disrespect. I’m simply telling you the facts as
I believe them to be. I thought you might want to know.”

And it seems to placate him, just a
bit.

“Well, we’ll see about that,” he
says, eying me again. “Until we speak again, my dear.”

He turns and walks away, dismissing
us. And I know in my heart that if there’s one thing that I want, it’s to never
speak with that man again.

Now the place is starting to get
creepy. Horrifying, even. And I could barely understand what the old vamp was
trying to say. But he mentioned the tanks. Adam had spoken about them, had said
something about donors giving away a month of their life in exchange for a bit
of vampiric riches. And that must have been what Nico was talking about, that
he thought I would be doing the same.

Only he almost made it sound like I
was being put there against my will.

Adam continues walking, and I sense
just a bit of frustration in his gait, even though he keeps a moderate pace. But
I begin to wonder if he was just as upset by our encounter.

“That man is a vampire? I would
think that you wouldn’t transform the elderly,” I say.

“We don’t, but an exception was
made in his case,” Adam says. “But apparently, we’re not completely immortal. He
was created at an age when senility was beginning to set in, and it has
increased very gradually over time. Or maybe he’s just gone a bit mad. But he’s
actually a point of great interest amongst our scientists, who study him
extensively, to try to determine the nature of his condition. Or more
importantly, to solve the riddle of how rapidly we are or are not aging. He’s
like a constant cause of fear, that we might all end up like him one day.”

I shake my head. Just thinking of
the man chills me to the bone.

Adam leads me further down the
well-appointed corridor, and he finally stops at one of the doors and unlocks
it. Adam looks to me, and whispers.

“This is my place.”

He opens it, and the room inside is
big, almost as big as my whole apartment, though not quite. An expansive couch
dominates the center, which faces a widescreen TV on a stand, and there’s
something larger than a king-sized bed under four posts that’s off to one side.
The walls are painted a deep olive color, and there’s no art on them, save for
a strange piece of metal with figures pressed into it mounted on a wall, which
serves as a sort of backdrop to the television.

And slowly, I look around and
realize something. The room is round, almost oval in shape, save for where a
wall cuts through it, slicing off a section of the circle. There are two more
doors leading to what looks like a closet and bathroom, and I somehow suspect
that those two rooms form the rest of the sphere. And the more I look at its
shape, the more it blows my mind, to realize I have never seen anything quite
like it.

I get dizzy, just thinking about
it, and have to go to a nearby chair to steady myself.

“Okay, what’s with the round
rooms?” I finally say, turning to Adam.

“It’s a design philosophy of our
leader.”

The woman in the pictures. I know
it, in an instant.

“She’s an architect, among other
things, and she helped create the plans for the building,” he says. “There’s a
message in it somewhere, though she refuses to share it, just to be
aggravating. But knowing her, it’s probably not terribly deep. Maybe she likes
that we have something that’s unlike anything else, to show we’re unique, round
pegs in a world full of square ones. Or perhaps it’s that the circle symbolizes
the eternal, and the fact that we’re immortal.”

“Only you’re not immortal,” I say. “You’re
dying slowly, aren’t you? Just like Nicodemus?”

“Perhaps,” Adam says, smiling. “We
still don’t know for certain.”

The words come tumbling out of my
mouth before I can hold them back. I’m not sure why I said it, it sounded so
bitchy. It almost felt like the Luminos in me had come out for a moment, to
taunt him, to knock him down from his position of superiority.

“If I am aging at an imperceptibly
slow rate, I imagine that when I’m finally decrepit, I’ll be more than ready
for the end. You’re the only one who’s truly immortal, Meridian.”

Immortal. Only I don’t feel
immortal. I feel all too human, and frail. And looking at Adam, and his beauty,
I think what a pity it would be if it were ever to fade. But there would
probably be a good million years or so where he would be an indescribably
attractive older man, with salt and pepper hair. And I begin to get flustered
just thinking about it.

I turn away, and look to a desk
that’s huge, made of wood that’s so deep in color it’s almost black. There’s an
iMac computer that’s all widescreen monitor, and I can only imagine how souped up
it is inside. It rests under a moderate window, the only one in the room. And I
figure the walls must somehow block the rest of the view from the mirrored
exterior of the building, which isn’t all windows, as I had thought. But the
vista of the city that unfolds before me is still a spectacular sight, one I
would kill to wake up to every day.

And as I look out the window, I
realize something; that you can see my apartment building from here. I wonder
for a moment if this is where Adam spotted me, with his keen vampire vision.

He’s watching me, no doubt
analyzing my reactions to the place, and I walk over to the bed. It has thick
green curtains that are pulled back. The frame is made of wood, the same black
color of the desk, and when I touch it there are odd ridges and grooves. No,
not grooves, I realize what I’m looking at are carvings, figures of horses and
deer, naked humans reaching up to the sky, desperately trying to escape the
madness they’re trapped in. I can see flickers of flame carved into the wood
behind them. The poor creatures seem to be writhing in an inferno, and I
quickly pull my hand away.

Adam still watches me, and I wonder
how anyone could want to sleep in such a thing. I wonder if the bed frame will
give me nightmares, wiping away any post-coital bliss I might experience in its
clutches. The horror of it all disturbs me, but it turns me on at the same
time. Or maybe it’s just being near Adam. And I realize that no matter how
creepy the furniture is, I want him right here and now.

He comes to me, sensing my feelings
without even needing to be told. Adam lifts me up onto the edge of the mattress
that’s high off the ground, so that I’m sitting, and he’s standing between my
legs, still smiling. But he doesn’t kiss me. He buries his face in my curls and
inhales deeply, drinking in their scent. He runs his lips against my skin, my
cheek and temple, and I can feel my pulse quickening with excitement.

I want to throw myself onto the
bed, like a cat in heat, to have him in the most intimate of ways.

“You want to drink me, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t. Not at all. You’re
far too precious for that. No vampire alive deserves to taste your blood,” he
says, running his lips against my skin once more. “And I don’t need to drink
you to taste you. Your scent, your skin against my lips is delicious.”

“You’re endlessly attractive to me,
Adam.”

“Why? What on Earth could you
possibly find attractive about me?”

I laugh, because it’s so obvious. I
pull him close to me, hugging him tightly. And this time, I press my face into
his neck, tasting his skin also. And the warmth of his body is incredible,
erotic and comforting at the same time.

“Maybe it’s the contradiction. You’re
this dangerous creature, yet I feel completely safe with you. Like you’ll use
every ounce of your being to protect me. Or maybe it’s that you’re so
complicated. I feel like I can fall into you, and the levels will go on
forever.”