No matter how docile he seemed, underneath he was a predator.
No matter how modern he seemed, underneath he was ancient.
He’d lived thousands of years. He’d experienced almost all recorded history from the dawn of civilization until now. Yet, he strolled along with me, hands unassumingly in his pockets. Seemingly content.
“What was the moment you realized nothing would ever be the same?” I had to ask.
He stopped under the House of Blues marquee and considered.
“Many times I felt despair at what I had become, but always Una and Ninurta were there to comfort me, as I was there for them.” Until then, he’d spoken while gazing sincerely at me, but there his words faltered and his focus fell past me—and not as an indication of lying. I sensed his heartache rising to the surface. “We grieved,” he said. “Like a child’s song sung in rounds, it was the same melodious grief, overlapping at different intervals, but always together. We’d loved together, and we’d been cursed together. We were strong together. For a time it seemed it would always be so. My day of reckoning came when Ninurta took his own life.”
“Ninurta?”
“He bore the curse of the moon.”
“He killed himself?” I touched Menessos’s arm. “I’m so sorry.”
“Una and I tended his body, bore him to the tomb.” He sucked in a lungful of cool night air.
I waited; he was staring up Euclid but was lost in memory. The Lake Erie breeze, though light, packed enough chill that I could see my breath in the air. And Johnny is on his bike in this. I wished my blazer were a little thicker. A cup of hot coffee would have been nice to drink and to hold. “What happened after you buried Ninurta?”
Still fixated on something up the road, he answered, “Guilt enveloped Una in a continuous embrace. Our curses had spread before we learned how to control ourselves through magic and sorcery. She was certain the world would be destroyed by our spawn. For her, I killed vampires and waeres alike, trying to correct our mistake. But the bloodshed could not purchase her peace. I tried to kiss away her nightmares, but my arms could not offer any comfort that was as constant as her regret.” He checked the roadway in a sweeping glance that brought him to face me. “Una’s dark hair turned silver. I knew she would age and die and finally be free of her shame. I was glad for her. But I had to watch her die and bury her alone. And I have been alone ever since.”
I felt a deep sympathy for what he had endured. “But you aren’t alone.”
His elbow pushed out for me. “Take my arm, Persephone, and we will go forth.”
“Hmmm?”
“A local slogan.” He smiled. “Go fourth-with-a-U—for an area on Fourth Street, where there are many restaurants. It is past the season for eating out of doors, but it remains a destination for the locals.”
I allowed him to lead me. My concentration circled around his story, without awareness of where we were going. As we strolled down a road blocked from traffic, however, my thoughts returned to the here and now. He guided me past the various venues, including a comedy club. Then he ushered me down a quaint brick alley.
Multicolored party lights zigzagged over our heads. A bench sat under the next building’s fire escape, from which hung a sign that read: ZÓCALO, MEXICAN GRILL & TEQUILERÍA.
The hostess showed us through the brightly colored space to a table next to a beautiful iron railing, placed the menus for us, and left. We sat. There were gorgeous brassy lanterns hanging all around. A curved stairwell led down to more seating and the kitchen. It was lovely.
I am sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio, with the original vampire.
Opening the menu, I fixated on the ornate lettering, seeing the page like art. My mind couldn’t focus on the words.
His native tongue is Akkadian, Old Babylonian, from thousands of years ago. He still lives, suspended in time, as if he’ll be thirtyish forever.
Forcing my mind to the words on the menu, I scolded my sullen self for having girlishly pathetic worries like being “forever changed by the experience.” Menessos couldn’t go back to things as they were, either. I wondered if he had wanted to.
How does he deal with it?
“Are you all right, Persephone?”
“Yes. Why?”
“You’re practically glaring at your menu.”
Yeah, at least here I have choices. “Tell me about the fey we’re facing.”
“Such talk will keep.”
“But we have to make plans.”
“Planning is best done on a full stomach—yours isn’t—and to be effective, it must be done in secret.”
I laid the menu down and looked at him questioningly.
The waitress took my posturing as a sign and came for my hurried order of diet cola and chile relleno.
The light from a neon sign at the bar glossed the vampire’s walnut-colored hair with a reddish glow. His beard balanced his face, his square jaw, and afforded him a hint of history, as if he belonged in the armor-clad times of the past. But his times were much farther back. As he scanned the bar, the neon light cast its red sheen on his beard, too: it seemed soaked with blood. “Waerewolf bartender,” he whispered. “Another in the kitchen downstairs. Do you not smell them?”
I sniffed. “Now that you mention it . . .” I’d dismissed the scent as that of two-by-fours from the theater, but this was quite different. It lay low, underlying the smell of savory food. Something not of the restaurant, but in it. Something woodsy, like the cedar part of Johnny’s scent, but missing the sage.
“Ahhh. You need to take heed of these things, Persephone.”
“So I don’t say something they shouldn’t know.”
“Correct.”
“Do you really think they’d listen? That they’d tell anyone?”
“Are you willing to take the chance?”
The waitress set the diet cola in front of me. “Chile relleno’s coming right up.”
I waited until she had gone. “You’ve molded patience into an art, of course. There’s no sense of time running out for you, is there?”
“No.”
“Childhood seems timeless, but hours of play pass in minutes. Bedtimes sneak up on you. Is that how it is for you?”
“Moderately. I suppose that childhood is as good an analogy as another. Children live gloriously seeking the next challenge, hunger incessantly, and growing old isn’t a concern.”
I laughed quietly.
“Becoming an adult means becoming accustomed to the scheduling of events. Rising to a new challenge that could define one’s life becomes a wearying negative. Personal growth takes its place behind maintaining the money flow that feeds the schedule.” The fingers of one hand rippled a bored staccato on the table. “Being wealthy is a better analogy. Wealth alleviates the concern for basic survival and creates the environment for growth.”
The waitress returned with my plate. The deep green poblano chilies were stuffed with asparagus, zucchini, tomato, and strips of peppers. It smelled scrumptious.
“Why do you choose not to eat meat?”
I stabbed my fork into the food. “As any starving college student can tell you, meat’s expensive. Cans of protein-rich beans aren’t. Just kind of happened, I guess.”
“With your ties to Johnny, that will probably change.”
Over the last few weeks the meat Johnny had prepared in my home had smelled delicious and I had more than once almost given in and eaten some. “What ties?”
“You’ve bonded with him, too,” he said curtly.
I stopped with the fork halfway to my mouth.
“How to explain this without using your other titles here in public? What you are and what he is, imprint upon each other. It is not yet a formal bond like other bonds you’re experienced with, but similar.”
“Yet?” I put the fork down.
“Eat.”
“Explain.”
“In private, I will. We will have our privacy sooner if you do things my way.”