Naramsin: Pisa Part 2
Mlle. Gerard and I walked slowly across the Piazza dei Miracoli towards the near-completed Tower, which rose magnificently in front of us with each passing footstep. She gazed at me expectantly. I narrowed my eyes, and said, quietly: “Know first, then, my dear Dominique, this truth: There is a darkness in all of us that plunges like an abyss down the centre of our souls, a darkness so vast, so limitless, so incomprehensible, that we fight furiously against its recognition, in the vain hope that sheer denial will dissipate it, and save us from the certain madness that lies within.
“And then there are those of us who embrace the darkness, who plunge willingly into the abyss, who seek out the madness, and live each day forward deeply, richly, in the beating heart of the black void.”
I had earlier noticed, from the corner of my eye, a beggar, neither old nor young, dressed in rags, approaching us from the shadows on my right. Now he was in front of us, hand extended, with a sickly gap-toothed smile, and rheumy eyes blinking from a face covered in small black spots.
“Money for the poor, please, Signore, Signora,” he rasped. “Money for the poor.”
We stopped, and I felt Mlle. Gerard’s nails begin to lengthen on my sleeve. Patting her hand gently, I reached into my pocket and handed the man a gold coin.
His eyes widened at the extravagance of my generosity, and he fell to his knees in wonderment and gratitude. “Bless you, Signore, bless you, bless you…..”
I nodded at the man, and resumed our walk. Mlle. Gerard eyed me curiously.
“Why,” she queried, “did you give that man money? Did you see him? A drunk, no doubt, who will spend that handsome coin on drink the minute he reaches the nearest tavern. You should have let me have him.”
I pursed my lips together. “My dear Dominique, the man is dead already. He has plague on his features, and will die terribly in the next few days. What of his being a drunk? The coin will help him to wash away the pain of the remainder of his existence. Besides, the money means nothing to me.”
She stopped and stared into my eyes. “I understand that money means nothing to you, Monsieur Naramsin,” she replied, “nor to myself, either, but I am struck by your sympathy towards that man after your dark speech of a moment ago. Men may serve us well when alive, but it is ultimately through death that they serve us better still. Why then did you show such pity to him?”
I smiled ruefully at her, and slapped her flush across the face with such force that she fell to the stone pavement. Holding her hand to her reddened cheek, she stared in shocked amazement at me.
“You overreach yourself, my dear Mlle. Gerard,” I said quietly. “Who are you to question my actions? You presume knowledge based only on what you see. The reality is that you see little, and apparently know less.” I extended my hand to her, and she shrank away, as if expecting another blow. “Come,” I said gently, regretfully. “Come. Do not be afraid. It is simply my way.”
Slowly, she took my hand. I raised her to her feet, and we resumed our walk towards the Tower.
“The last man who struck me,” she remarked icily, “was not so fortunate as you.”
“Of that I have no doubt, mademoiselle,” I chuckled, “and were I just a man, I doubt that we would be having this most pleasant conversation tonight.”
Her faced brightened, and she smiled at the joke. “Very true,” she agreed. “Now monsieur, I pray, please continue your tale. Tell me who was your teacher, how long have you roamed the world, and how it is that I did not know you.”
I breathed the moist, warm air in deeply, wondering how to respond.
There were only eight of us left now from the original Pact, only eight from the Twelve who transformed. Some say we fathered the races of both man and more-than-man; others believe us to be only myth, shaded and antediluvian, half-remembered only through some deep, mysterious racial memory. What could this girl know? What should this girl know? For the true knowledge was a dangerous thing….
“My dear, dear Dominique. Very well then, I will address each question in turn. You ask who was my teacher. Let me assure you that the name would mean nothing to you. Nothing, perhaps, except a painful and wicked death, at the hands of forces beyond your comprehension, forces that you have yet to encounter, and hopefully never will.”
She stopped. “I don’t understand.”
“You also ask,” I continued, ignoring her puzzlement, “how long I have roamed the world. Your mind cannot begin to fathom the gulf of time that bridges this present to my past. You are less than a baby, barely more than a century and a half old, an age which I nevertheless am sure you believe to be quite substantial, correct?”
“My dear Monsieur Naramsin,” she laughed. “Look at me. Do I seem any older than my twenties to you? Of course, I am joking,” she smiled. “You are correct. The weight of the years seems but a feather, yet I do admit to watching the passage of time from the vantage point of one who is a bit seasoned in the way of the world. Basil was much like you, claiming great age, and he often chided me for what he called my charming naivete. Yet here I am, surviving well in these rough times.”
“Dominique,” I replied, “if to me you are less than a baby, then Basil himself had just emerged from the womb.” I shook my head. “Ah, Basil. He was a good fellow, but hotheaded and vain, which ultimately proved to be his undoing.” Seeing her quizzical look, I reluctantly told her about Basil’s fall at the hands of the English at Crecy-en-Ponthieu not two years prior, after which she fell silent.
“Basil,” she remarked at length. “My Basil.”
We had, by now, arrived at the foot of the Tower, whose watch had apparently been abandoned as a result of the plague. We soon found our way up to the top of the sixth loggia, from which we gazed out over the jumble of buildings that was Pisa, bathed in the pale light of the quarter moon. Plumes of billowing black smoke rose from many points around the city and in two points along the piazza. The reddish glow of the flames spread broken shadows that danced devilishly along the faces of the clustered buildings, and the pungent smell of burning flesh wafted to our nostrils.
“How beautiful the city looks,” Dominique said. “And look at the sea in the distance. Vast, dark, and mysterious.”
“Once, there was no sea there, my lady,” I replied slowly. “Once, what you see there was dry land, land where… people… lived, and where civilizations older than your imaginings flourished, fell, and flourished again. Indeed, it seems like only yesterday that the dry Mediterranean basin began to fill, filling in yet another footprint of history. Slowly at first, then completely, as the Atlantic poured over the pillars of Hercules…. But that was, Dominique, a long, long, long time ago.”
She stared quietly out into the distance as the soft, warm breeze played with her long raven tresses, and filled her smooth black gown with gentle ripples of air. We listened together to the cacaphony of sound rising from below us in the night, the wails, the screams, the shouts of pain and madness, rising as one with the billowing black smoke that poured into the sky. I smiled. Dominique drew closer to me, and leaned her head against my shoulder.
“Monsieur Naramsin,” she said quietly as she gazed out into the night, “if what you say is true, then the life of our kind is…. is – ”
” – is limitless,” I nodded. She turned to face me, and the wispy moonlight sketched the faint trace of a smile on her lips as her luminous coal-black eyes arrested my own. I was struck, enraptured, by her elegant, ephemeral beauty again, which must have been evident on my face, as she brought her hand to my cheek and caressed it lightly.
“So old,” she whispered. “So old, yet so young. So debonair, yet so feral. So wise, yet so ignorant. And you say that it is I who know nothing?” She ran her fingers softly over my lips. “It is true that I may be ignorant of many things compared to you, monsieur…. but I am wise enough to know that you are still a man, and that your heart can still feel the need for a woman….”
She stepped slowly forward, and our arms wrapped around each other, drawing each other close. Our mouths locked, and as our tongues dueled, savoring the lingering traces of blood and each other, I returned the crush of her soft bosom against me with my own hardness that swelled against her body. As her hand slid down to free me, I lifted her easily into the air, and entered her slowly and deeply as she gasped and wrapped her legs around me.
As we made love alone on the Tower, our instincts revealed themselves as we descended slowly, deeply into pleasure. Dominique dug her now-long nails deep into my back, and bit my tongue fiercely with her sharpened teeth as she rode me powerfully, rhythmically. I growled softly as I cut her lips with my teeth and licked her sweet blood, gyrating her against me as we surrendered to the exquisite sensations of our mingled flesh. I stopped her screams by kissing her deeply as we slowly came together, her nails carving my skin into bloody stripes beneath my clothes….
We descended the stairs with a light tread as we made our way from the Tower back down to the piazza. She was obviously pleased to have been proven right about my need for a woman, but not as pleased as I was.
“I am now more amazed than before, dear sir,” she smiled coquettishly, “that I was not able to sense you as more than a potential dinner both during our voyage together and at the inn.”
I laughed. “Ah, madamoiselle, still eager to learn more, are you?”
“Yes,” she replied. “This day has certainly brought forth many surprises, and I am very inclined to experience more still.”
We exited the Tower with her clinging to my arm, with our intent to walk down to the port to review the few ships docked there, in search of passage to France. A light, misty rain began to drizzle. In the far distance, thin, jagged bolts sliced the sky, spiderwebbed harbingers of the coming storm.
“As you get older, Dominique,” I said, “much, much older, you too may develop the ability to disguise yourself from your kind. The value of this ability cannot be understated nor underestimated. At times, it is the only wall between the life that we know, and the true death.”
“But we are all kin,” she said, puzzled. “You make it sound as if we should be on guard against our very own.”
I squinted as the rain began to drizzle down harder. “There are times, my sweet, when things are not what they appear to be, nor people who they say they are. The ability to discern the true nature of things, and to pierce the veil of deceit, is, more frequently than I care to relate, often the sole difference between fortune and disaster.”
As we walked slowly through the piazza, I suddenly felt several pairs of eyes staring at us from a shadowy alley far ahead to our left. It seems my lot to be forever on guard…. I inhaled deeply, and caught only the scent of human, so I was not overly concerned.
“Now tell me of Spain, Dominique, and tell me why your unexpected redirection to Pisa was not unwelcome; or did you think I did not notice your reaction when we were turned away at Marseilles?”
She smiled. “Now sir, please do not expect me to divulge every detail, because it is, after all, a woman’s prerogative to indulge her fancies. However, suffice it to say that at the turn of the century I found myself here in Italy with Basil, who was keenly interested in the strife between the Guelphs in Florence, having supported the Guelphs against the Ghibellines in Germany several years earlier.
“We spent much of our time traveling in Florence, but took the opportunity to also explore Genoa, Pisa, and much in between. Basil’s constant yen for politics and warfare had, however, by this time become quite insufferable, and so it was in Pisa that I gave him up for a charming merchant Spaniard of our kin who had traveled to Italy from Cadiz. Basil and I went our separate ways here in Pisa, and that was the last I ever saw of him.
“The Spaniard and I traveled back together to Cadiz, where I spent many enjoyable years there, as well as in Cordoba and Granada, in the company of both men and kin. Ah, the Alhambra! Ah, the Generalife!” she sighed.
“Yes,” I agreed, smiling “Palaces most glorious, indeed.”
She arched an eyebrow in my direction. “Is there nothing, then, that you do not know, my dear Monsieur Naramsin?” She sighed. “But my blood called, and I could not ignore it. I yearned, finally, to return to France, so I bade my farewell to the Spaniard and boarded the Italian merchant ship bound for Marseilles…. And of subsequent events, you have full knowledge.”
I stopped, gazing through the now-steady rain at the six, seven, eight men who emerged silently out of the shadows ahead, advancing slowly in our direction. Dominique also saw them, and smiled at me wryly. “Look, monsieur, who leads this pack towards us.”
I nodded, staring at the beggar to whom only an hour earlier I had given a gold coin. He approached us with a smug joviality, and stopped a few feet in front of us. Behind him, his foul comrades fanned out slowly, so that we were immediately in the heart of their filthy circle.
“Signore y Signora,” he rasped, bowing mockingly before us. “How delightful to see you again. I have shared the tale of your generosity with my dear friends” – he gestured at the circle – “who are each most eager to also share in the fruit of your goodwill.”
He eyed Mlle. Gerard approvingly. “And who are,” he continued, “most eager to share in the rest of your treasure, as well.” The beggar stuck out his hand. “Your purse, Signore. Now.”
I could hear the flexing of muscles underneath their ragged clothes, and the quiet unsheathing of daggers and other instruments. I cast a sideways glance at Dominique, and could see the smile begin to curl upon her lips.
“But of course,” I replied, and as I reached into my pocket, the first one struck. His dagger flashed towards my back as the others in turn drew their weapons. Each man moved so slowly, so comically, so very, very humanly, I thought, as I turned and grabbed the daggered hand of the man in back of me, while at the same time grabbing the hand of the beggar in front of me.
I pulled the two men together and carefully drove the dagger deep into the beggar’s eye, twisting the blade deeply into his skull and piercing his brain, and placed my foot against the daggered man’s chest and pushed him away, easily ripping off his arm.
Dominique’s talons had already expertly sliced open the throats of two men, who flailed wildly upon the slick pavement as their lifeblood sprayed into the air. She sank her fangs into the throat of a third, and tore his windpipe out with a quick jerk of her head. Good girl, I thought, smiling inwardly at her prowess.
The beggar collapsed dead to the ground, while his compatriot screamed in agony as he clutched the gushing stump where his arm once was. I laughed at his pain, and turned to face the remaining three.
“Diavoli!” shouted one, dropping his short sword. He turned to flee, but I easily strode to him and plunged my hand into his back, severing his spine. He fell gurgling, and I stared deeply into his dying, uncomprehending eyes.
“Si, diavoli, diavoli del inferno,” I grinned at him, as I crushed his windpipe with my foot.
I turned and saw Dominique snap the neck of the seventh, who crumpled like a rag doll, hitting the stones hard, jarring loose from his pocket a necklace, a necklace with a… charm? My eyes widened as I saw that the charm was a crucifix. Dominique saw the crucifix also, which mesmerized her for an instant…. And in that instant, the last, eighth man behind her wielded his sickle, and his aim was true. “No!” I screamed, leaping at him – but I leapt too late, and the pure iron blade sliced through her neck, severing her head completely. Her hands clawed the air as her body stumbled and fell, and her head thudded heavily onto the ground.
First I tore his arms off, then his legs, then I split apart his chest and ripped out his heart, his lungs, everything, in a mindless, blind fury. I stuck my hands into his mouth and eyes and pulled apart his head, and I smashed his brains into pulp with my fists.
And then I heard her teeth, chattering wildly.
Suddenly, my rage was gone. My heart sank within me as I turned and looked down at what was left of my Dominique.
Her body still twitched on the piazza stones, and her hands still clutched and opened as the rain bore steadily down. I tenderly lifted her severed head and held it gently in my hands, drawing it close to my face. Tears streamed down her face as her mouth opened and closed without sound, as her blood dripped like dark wine from her severed neck.
“Dominique,” I whispered, “my poor, poor Dominique….” Her crying eyes darted wildly as her tongue flicked in and out of her mouth between her still-pointed teeth.
“My sweet,” I said softly. “I know you can hear me. You must listen, listen carefully to me.” Blinking, she gazed at me through her haze of agony. My heart was leaden with the weight of the words that I knew I must speak to her. I sat down on the stones, the stones wet with rain and blood, and cradled her head in my lap, brushing her raven hair away from her face, and caressing her cheeks softly.
“My poor little one,” I said finally. “There is…. there is no hope for you.” Her eyes widened, and she tried to speak, but without a throat, there came no words.
“Ssshhh. Do not try to speak. It is impossible. But you can blink your eyes to show you understand. Blink once for yes, twice for no. Do you understand?” I stroked her face tenderly, and watched as she slowly blinked yes.
“Good. Now you must know. What I tell you next will be hard, but I will leave the choice to you.” She stared at me plaintively as her eyes welled with tears. She blinked once.
I swallowed hard. “You are immortal, Dominique. Even though your body has been destroyed, your brain is still intact, meaning your head will remain alive, in this state, forever. Unfortunately, you cannot draw sustenance, for you have no vessel left in which to hold the elixir. Your head will begin to age, and wither…. But you will not die.”
Her eyes widened, and slowly, she began to mouth the words, over and over again:
Help me.
I felt a deep pang of bitter empathy for this poor, beautiful creature, cut down in the flower of her youth. So much promise, now never to be fulfilled.
“The only way I can help you,” I whispered finally, “is to kill you.”
High clouds slipped by the fingernail moon, drowning the light in shadows for a brief moment; and as the clouds passed, I looked into Dominique’s dark eyes, saw the tears streaming down her face, as she slowly blinked…. Yes.
I nodded slowly and stood, lifting her head to mine for the last time. “Close your eyes, my sweet, sweet Dominique, and rest. One day, we will meet again.” She gazed at me with a last look of remembrance, and struggled a final desperate smile as she closed her eyes. I brought her forward, and kissed her lips tenderly. Her mouth opened to meet mine, and our tongues danced a last, sweet dance. Then I lifted my mouth from hers, and closed my eyes.
With sudden, savage force, I pushed my hands together, and her head exploded between them in a spattering cascade of blood, bone, and brains. I ripped apart the remaining skin and skull with my hands, the same hands which only a moment before had gently cradled her head, and flung the bloody pieces across the Piazza dei Miracoli. Then I threw back my head, eyes still closed, and shrieked long into the rainswept night.
And Pisa, gripped by the Black Death, shuddered at the sound of something far, far worse….
I left Pisa that night, melting into the moonbeams, furling myself against the sky, shrieking, screaming, riding the white clouds high, one with the mist that now blew towards the east, away from the earth, away from the pain, away from the false, cruel promise of love.
And as I headed east across the vast, unsympathetic sky, I remembered Babylon.
Babylon, where nearly four thousand years earlier….
