Three Immortals Walk Into A Bar...

Gregor’s Guardian

What an astonishing development. Gregor instinctively tries to use his healing touch to calm the man, to console him, to set him at ease. But the second that he makes contact with the vampire, his Seer’s soul flares in an enormous burst of light, and the darkness held within Levant’s heart flees before it. Gregor’s aura appears to sear the shadows out of the vampire.

He is immediately apologetic. He watches with deep concern while Levant recovers, beholding in amazement as the shadows in the bar visibly snake their way like ribbons back to the corner, and crawl up the vampire’s limbs to be absorbed once again. He asks me as he watches, “What just happened?”

“All I can add to what you witnessed yourself is that contacting the vampire appeared to cause your aura to react, as powerfully as it does when you touch another Seer. This caused an immediate response, and the shadows instantly drained away from him. This robbed him of any strength.”

“Huh,” he thinks, “I didn’t feel anything. I feel it when I touch a Seer.”

I have no explanation for this, and do not wish to merely speculate. Perhaps we will analyze this phenomenon later, when we have the opportunity for quiet reflection.

We both watch with fascination as the darkness swirls around Levant, and appears to literally trace designs across his skin. “Those aren’t real tattoos?” Gregor asks me with amazement.

“It seems not. The shadows are decorating his skin with intricate patterns, which seem to be able to move and shift.”

“Amazing!”

“Indeed.”

After several minutes pass, Levant appears to be restored. He does not respond to Gregor’s suggestion that they share each other’s secrets. He sits in his chair, glaring at Gregor, trying to understand what just happened.

Gregor quietly asks him, “Are you all right?”

Levant scowls, and growls, and would rather be anywhere but sitting across the table from this bizarre man. But he decides that he has to try to understand this new threat. He has never heard of a non-vampire being able to steal shadows away. “What did you just do to me?” he snarls. Gregor can hear his French accent as he speaks.

My beloved winces apologetically. “I really am very sorry. That has never happened before. Usually it makes people feel better. I assure you that I did not mean to cause you any harm, only to help you.”

Levant responds only with a glare.

“He thinks you are deliberately withholding information,” I tell him, “which makes him more suspicious of you. He believes you are a serious threat.”

Gregor tries to be honest. “I told you I would share my secrets with you, Levant. I’ll tell you what I can. Hopefully you will see that I am not a threat. I truly only wish to learn about you, even be able to count you as a friend.”

Levant’s eyebrows lower even further, and he crosses his arms across his chest.

“At least he isn’t leaving,” Gregor thinks to me silently, hopefully. Then aloud, he tells Levant, “I am a Healer. Usually I can touch people in order to bring them comfort. If they are sick or injured, it can help them heal. I could see that you were upset, I really only wanted to make you feel calmer.”

“Didn’t work,” Levant growls.

Gregor tries not to smile. “Clearly. It must be because you are so different from other people. I’ll keep my hands off.”

“That doesn’t explain why you know my name. Or Maria’s,” Levant bites out, unconvinced of Gregor’s sincerity.

“Ah. As to that,” he shrugs, willing to reveal more information in order to encourage the vampire to reciprocate, “I have a guardian angel with me, who tells me what other people are thinking.”

Levant stares at him. “Bullshit.”

Gregor shrugs again.

“He is still suspicious. He fears that you are actually part of a plot to harm him, or his leader. He is here on assignment from a more powerful vampire, and he worries that you are somehow intent on interfering, perhaps as part of an enemy faction.”

“Goodness gracious,” he thinks to me, “this is getting very complicated, isn’t it?” He sighs. “Well, what’s the name of his boss?”

“Tepes.”

Looking earnestly into Levant’s eyes, he says, “I am not your enemy. I am not the enemy of Tepes. I have nothing to do with your assignment. This is literally nothing but a chance meeting at the airport. I had no idea that people like you even existed before today!” He smiles, hoping to provoke a more positive reaction from the vampire. He is disappointed.

Levant snarls, and his fists clench, and darkness swirls in fascinatingly ornate patterns across his skin. “What do you know about Tepes?”

Gregor sighs. “Nothing whatsoever. It’s what I just said. My guardian angel told me his name, and that you are on an assignment for him. I know nothing else at all.”

As Levant growls, low in his chest, Gregor thinks to me with some dismay, “I’m not getting anywhere, am I?”

“Sadly, no,” I tell him. “He appears far too suspicious and angry for your advances to bear fruit.”

“I suppose I should just leave him alone,” Gregor sadly thinks. But he does not wish to do so. He watches the vampire glaring at him, clearly unwilling to share any confidences of his own.

A few minutes pass in this silence, an awkward standoff, when I suddenly realize something else.

“Darling,” I tell him urgently, “another vampire has entered the airport and is on the way here!”

Clyde

I have always been a Southerner at heart. No matter where I roam in the world, no matter who I meet or what I do, I always want to return here, to the South. It is my home, and ever does it call to me. Georgia has drawn me back, and I have settled down again here in Atlanta, grown to be an impressive metropolis, far more bustling and crowded than it was in my day, so long ago.

I leave my secluded home, behind its security gates and thick hedges, hidden from the prying eyes of residents and tourists. I like to monitor the area regularly, to protect me and mine from any looming threats. There are hardly ever such threats any longer, as I dealt with the most serious of my enemies long ago. But, I do not wish to ever let my guard down.

I step out of the back door, and for a time simply walk under the rich tapestry of trees covering most of the grounds, the magnolias and dogwoods and oaks. After a few minutes, I sigh, and allow myself to dissolve into my swirling mist of darkness.

I rise above the trees, above the roads, above the buildings, floating over the city, my dematerialized form nothing but a smudge of dark cloud to the eyes of any mortals who might happen to glance upwards.

The weather is threatening, but this means little to most of the inhabitants of a modern city. What is a thunderstorm to a person who lives within secure modern walls, who uses motorized transportation, who scarcely needs to ever venture outdoors with the plethora of electronic and communication devices available to all? No, things are very different than they were when I first lived in this area.

I realize, in my musings about how technology has transformed the region, that there is one area in which the weather still makes a significant difference to human activities. Air traffic will probably be disrupted. I draw closer to the airport, curious to see whether the flight patterns have been altered to accommodate the weather, and confirm that yes, no flights seem to be arriving or departing at the moment. Those poor humans, both freed by technology and confined to it.

I long since recovered from my resentment over my fate, over what was done to me without my consent. I was transformed into this creature of blood and shadow, but I have made my peace with it. It has its advantages, I think wryly, drifting easily over the grounded jetliners parked in rows upon the tarmac.

Something draws my eye. So to speak. I have no eyes while in this form, of course. But I detect an unusual fluctuation in the patterns of light and darkness within one of the terminals.

What is that? There seems to be an unnatural gathering of darkness in one corner, and I draw nearer in order to more carefully observe. As I watch, the shadows covering the area suddenly evaporate in a flash, as though an explosion scattered them. Then, slowly, they coalesce again in the same corner, gathered together with a sense of deliberation.

This is not normal. It can only mean one thing. I have only ever seen shadows behave this way under the direction of a vampire.

Has a new foe arisen?

I allow my mist to sink to the ground at the front of the airport, in the busy chaos outside where passengers are still optimistically arriving with their luggage, hoping that their flights will be allowed to depart despite the threatening clouds. I rematerialize right in the middle of the crowd. I have found this is better than trying to find a hidden corner. A man coming out from a deserted alcove is more conspicuous than in the center of a huge crowd in which everybody is too distracted to really be aware of what is happening in their midst.

As expected, nobody notices me. I am dressed casually in modern clothing, and only my absence of luggage might mark me as different from the humans scurrying all around.

I enter the building and stride towards the source of the darkness. Those are my shadows, I think somewhat indignantly, they should come to me, their master. I start drawing them to me as I walk to the location of the interloper. I want to drain as much of their darkness and power as I can before I arrive, the better to deal with the situation. Whatever the situation might be.

I come to the security gate, and cannot move beyond it in this form, but this barely slows me down. This time I do duck behind a hidden corner, evaporate into my mist, and creep along the ceiling the rest of the way to where the enemy awaits. By the time I arrive and again assume corporeal form, I have strengthened myself with shadows, drawing them to me, even as I feel the enemy’s attempt to tug them back.

They know I’m coming. I see the darkness wavering back and forth between us, as I come up to their location.

It is a bar. An airport bar.

How trite.

I walk inside.