Case #13 – Skovajsa: First Impressions
Reason one out of, oh, I don’t know, about one hundred, why I always conduct my first meeting with a client in a very public place: You just never know what you’re getting into. Skovajsa. One name, like Cher or Sting. The Carpathian vampires are still the most dangerous. Full of power, hunted for centuries almost to extinction. Terrified of the world and ready at any moment to try and conquer it. Not the sort of vampire I would ever expect to call for my services.
He’s a tricky read: emotionally disheveled, almost childlike in his discomfiture, like an adolescent trying to fill adult shoes. Like Bela Lugosi’s shoes. It’s almost sweet. But then, all that economy of emotion and movement often covers ill intentions. It is like a first date; you get to see the persona and if it does its job, if it’s intriguing enough, you might want to see more, to try to tell what’s fact versus façade. I admit I’m intrigued. 1100 miles is a long way to go for a five minute talk. He’ll call. He hasn’t figured me out yet. And he wants something. That much is clear.
Of course, it coulda been worse. He could actually have been charming or cute.
Get back to the hotel# and up to my room, my groceries have been delivered. Empty out the bag just to check. A lemon rolls out of its mesh bag.
*sigh* No lemons for you, Mr. One Named Wonder. Bartender hasn’t called me back. Will try him tomorrow. He might’ve gotten busy. Would’ve thought that $100 would have kept me on his to-do list.
Now here comes the strange part. I’m looking out the window, there’s a moon, and honestly, I’m missing simpler times. Missing someone to get to know me. Missing an adult conversation. Missing…flirting… So stupid. If it isn’t in my cards, it just isn’t and nothing on Earth can change that.
THUMP! Goes my trunk. Archaic, I know, to travel with one but I need my references. I open it up, take out the Book. Give it a rub. Ok yeah I talk to it when I’m morosely lonely.
“Getting a little restless, eh? Been a long time since you’ve stirred. You seem to like Seattle?”
It doesn’t actually talk back. Ever.
I set it on the desk, move to the bed to unpack some things. Have a sudden feeling that somebody just walked over my grave.
The book’s cover knocks over and the pages start to flip on their own. Ok, when I moved the book from my carry-on upon landing in Seattle, it moved on me. This? This hasn’t happened in my recollection in over a century.
The book falls over onto the floor with a thud. I go pick it up, careful to note the page.
It’s one of the blank pages towards the back of the book, the edges well worn. I flip back a page and land on the Burim twins.
“Lucienne and Maurice Burim – My brave charges, how can I write of you and your bravery, so young when turned, without cursing the heavens for damning your souls to this world of pain and suffering forever.”
Heartbreaking but no, not them. This page. I’ve touched this page many times before but it won’t give up its secrets so easily. Sometimes I forget that the magic of this book is all its own. I can’t quite remember who gave it to me, which lifetime, only that I have ever since used it to record the people I have met in my lives. And every new life, with every new awakening, I find the book again and it shares with me those that I have met before. Only this lifetime, every since stumbling upon it 3 years ago, it has been mostly silent.
Until now. And yet, it’s not ready to tell me what it wants me to know. Crazy.
Hope to hear back soon from Bruno. Already, Seattle is becoming more than I bargained for. Better get some shut-eye. I have a real meetup with a real adult (vampire cohort but still adult human) early morning. Something about vampire dreams.
Vampirony 
August 17, 2009 at 7:32 pm
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