Forget, for a moment, that you consider me some loathsome thing from hell and hear me out.
I am a killer, thousands of times over, I readily admit. I admit, too, that I have never had cause to regret it until now. Selfish motives drove me here more than any pangs of guilt. I'm not well acquainted with guilt, don't even know if I'd recognize it.
No, I came here out of doubt. I have questions, many of them, about things I've never really thought about. I don't know if you can answer them, but I don't know who else can.
I'm going to tell you what happened, and I'll stumble over the words, surely. This is all very new to me. But I won't gloss over any of it. And I'll tell you of Styron, too. I suppose I owe him that, if it's worth anything.
It started with another death, last night. I killed her, just another young victim who had cast aside her Midwestern values and common sense at the pop of a beer can. Such easy prey.
But after I left her, I had a stalker.
I did not fear him, precisely; I'd had stalkers before, and knew how to deal with them. I perceived him as, if anything, a potential but avoidable danger. Turns out the real threat — the insidious, inescapable doom — was all about me. My fate already had been written in the stars. My stalker, Styron, knew it. But there on the street, I thought he was just another zealot out to destroy me.
The purposeful clicks of his feet on the sidewalk set him apart from the bar-hopping crowd. Another hunter, I supposed, armed with the usual arsenal of superstitious claptrap. I did not panic; I'd been hunted before. I own the shadows.
I thought of killing him, but I didn't. Do I get credit for that? Sorry. I'm accustomed to flippancy, not supplication.
I discounted the notion of turning tables on him for purely practical reasons. I had no fear of crosses or Bibles, stakes or holy water. But not all hunters are stupid. He might have been carrying a more practical weapon — a knife or a gun. Such could put me down long enough for him to give full vent to his zealous mission. How was I to know he carried friendship, instead? No one ever had, not for me.
So I crossed the street, dodged traffic and headed toward the campus Oval. I knew the area well. Losing the hunter would be simple. I joined the shadows and waited for him to give up the chase.
My arms itched as I waited. That was a warning, though I didn't realize it at the time. It was just an itch, and would go away soon, I knew. It always did. At least, it always had before. Before Styron. No, I'm not stalling, nor changing the subject. It's relevant. Wait. This is not easy for me.
The hunter hesitated at a crossing of sidewalks on a broad lawn. In the lamplight, I could make out the black trench coat and wide-brimmed hat. But he did not carry the satchel I expected, the one the hunters always carry. The one with the religious trinkets. And the stakes. I should have realized then he was no hunter. But I've always tended to classify mankind as either hunters or prey. Other possibilities simply didn't occur to me. Hunters and prey were all I had ever met, before Styron.
He lost the scent quickly, and walked away. I went home.
He was sharper than I gave him credit for, though. The hunter was at my place before I arrived. Inside, even, despite my many precautions. I squared for battle, and waited for his hands to leave his pockets. Would it be crucifix or revolver?
He reached forward both hands, empty, in welcome. "My name is Styron," he said. He coughed, a sound like nails scratching dry bones, the rattle of death.
There was no one else with him. I can sense these things, you know. "You were a fool to come alone," I told him. I was full of bravado. I was always full of bravado, before Styron.
"I'm a friend," he said. He stepped forward. Moonlight lit his face... and his weak, fanged smile. His face, clean-shaven, seemed ruddy and cracked, like an old baseball glove. He looked to be in his sixties.
It startled me. A senior citizen vampire? Seems unlikely, don't you think? Despite centuries of hunting people for blood, I still look as I did when the change came. The one who turned me chose me for my youth and charming looks, and I'd always made similar choices in victims. Not everyone makes the change, but those few I turned remained lovely and ever-young afterward. But here he was, an elderly vampire. Who, I wondered, had been so hard up for blood as to bite this leathery geezer?
"I see we won't need to turn on a light," I said. Still the brave one, I was.
"No," Styron said, coughing again and scratching his nose. "But light is, ironically enough, what I want to talk to you about."
I scoffed. "You're looking for a place to hide from the sun? I've little room in my closet, and little reason to care if you've been careless."
"No... I've a safe spot nearby. I just want to talk."
"About what? Be quick." My lairs had always served my purposes, and those were not social. I did not like company.
He coughed. "About the killings. You need to end them." His eyes awaited my reaction, and it seemed he would say no more until he got it.
I wondered why he should care, then a thought occurred to me. "I've stumbled into your hunting grounds, haven't I? You fear I'll draw attention..."
"No," he said. "I don't kill them. Not any more. You don't have to, either, you know."
I laughed. "Oh, for the... you are a moralist! Or a conservationist? Fear not, man, I'll leave plenty for you." When my laugh subsided I noticed Styron was staring at my arm. I was scratching near my elbow. Styron's eyebrows furrowed on his ruddy forehead.
"Have you been in the sun lately?" His tone indicated he expected a certain answer, and he nodded when I said I had not. Did he wince, too? I think so. It was difficult to tell in that wrinkled face.
I had seen the sun only once since embarking on my night life, and that one second of curiosity had cost me months of pain and blistering. Nothing could drag me into the sunlight again.
Styron gave me a look of pitiful understanding, but said no more about sunlight. "Have you ever thought you may have to answer for the killings one day? You aren't as immortal as you think. You've no right."
His tone was self-righteous, my response vehement. "No right? No right? No one tells a tiger he has no right to feast on a gazelle!"
Styron stared at me, searching for words. He seemed hesitant, so I filled the void.
"So what if I shorten their lives by a few inconsequential years? They live dangerously enough, the ones I strike. I'm just a quicker path to the ultimate destination." I laughed again. "I'm just thinning the herd."
It sounds harsh, I know. But no one blames the hawk who swoops down on the mouse, now, do they?
Styron stared at me, his eyes hard. "And you fear no consequence?"
"Consequence?"
"To your soul." He coughed the words.
This time, I was too startled to laugh. "My soul? My soul?" I spun around as though looking for someone to let me in on the joke. "What fear stays the hand of a sinner who shall never see the judge? I'm here to stay. All that stuff about God and crosses is crap, anyway, or have you never figured it out? You can hold a cross, you know. You can enter a church. Hell, I've guzzled holy water. So can you. Our souls are perfectly safe, Styron."
Yes, I said those things. I had, of course, in my vampiric infancy, avoided churches and fled from crosses. I had believed myself damned, beyond grace. After all, I had grown up with the same folklore as everyone else, in an age where folklore was the best science we had. But I soon learned my fear was baseless. Crosses did not burn me. Holy water did not wash away my skin, or my sins.
Of all the vampire lore, only the bit about sunlight proved true. But even there...
Anyway, I was floored. Here was an aged, weather-beaten vampire prattling on about my soul. He even offered me a small silver crucifix. "Actually, I've spent much time in church recently," he said.
I scratched my head.
Styron reached the crucifix toward me, a gesture of gifting, not of warding. He asked, "What if you will be judged?"
I scoffed. "It won't be anytime soon."
"That's what I always thought," he said. "I was wrong."
Styron walked toward the balcony and slid open the glass doors. He stepped out into the night. I followed.
"What are you driving at?" I looked into the sky, where he gazed. Nothing but the brightest stars showed. The glow of a city at night had killed the faint ones.
"I have spent thousands of nights basking in starlight," Styron said.
I cringed. "Now you're a poet? Spare me."
He looked down at his feet. "I'm trying to prepare you. This won't be easy for you to hear."
I held out my palms and shrugged.
"My attitude was much like yours, once," Styron continued. "Didn't see any judgment day ahead for me. I hunted them for thousands of years." He stared at me, as if to drive home the idea he was the old pro and I the relative newcomer. "Thousands."
I summoned a sarcastic smile. "But the human race survived your onslaught, for which I'm eternally thankful. And I mean that literally, of course." I licked my lips. Bravado, remember?
Styron sighed. "Just a few months ago, I was like you. Looked young, felt young. Younger than you, even."
"What happened, the sun?" It was the only thing I could think of that might have weathered his face and hands in such a way.
"Not the sun."
"Well, then?"
Instead of answering, he gazed at the stars. "We once thought stars were the lamps of gods. Or maybe their eyes. I never really missed the sun, you know. I loved the stars. I imagined they were all mine, diamonds I might pocket one day." His lips quivered as he spoke, as though he were telling me of a lover who'd jilted him.
He sighed heavily and continued. "Over the centuries, of course, we found out they weren't lamps or eyes." Styron turned his gaze toward me. "They're suns."
I blinked, and he continued. "Every one of those twinkling billions of dots in the sky is a sun. All pouring sunlight upon us. All the time."
I laughed, but it was forced. "The sun, I stepped into it once. Just a second. It was instant heat, fire, pain ..."
"Millions of needles can equal a rapier thrust," Styron said. "I bathed in starlight — suns' light — for thousands of nights. It took a long time to start with me, but it's come on quickly now. Cumulative effect, I suppose. I'm dying." He gulped. "And so are you."
I shook my head. "So, I'll be careful. Sunscreen, long sleeves ..."
Styron bowed his head. "You itch already, don't you?"
I remained silent. My leg itched like hell.
Styron continued. "It started as an itching, a sensation I hadn't felt in centuries. A burning, faint at first but growing more constant, more intense as the months went on. My hands began to look too old for my youthful body, and the skin on my face became dry and flaked when I scratched it.
"I could not see a doctor, of course. I searched medical annals, studied poison ivy and myriad other skin irritations, but nothing made sense. I had never been sick a day in my life, or unlife, if you insist. I could not understand."
I swallowed hard, but refused to scratch my leg.
"Then one night, the heat began to crawl beyond my face and hands. My chest itched. My arms burned. I tore off my shirt. My skin was red, and puckered. It reminded me of burn victims.
"I ran to the balcony. I looked at the stars, my habit when I wanted to think. I spotted my favorites and thought about them, their heat, their colors, their vast distances...
"The truth hit me like a spear. They were suns. Every goddamned one of them. And they were killing me."
He bowed his head. I sat on the floor, and covered my face. I did not want to believe him. No one wants to ponder his own death, especially one who never expected to meet the reaper.
"We both must face the truth," Styron said. "And the truth is, we don't know the ultimate truth. I have seen so many gods come and go, so many myths tossed aside by science. Who knows what lies beyond this life? It has to be... something... doesn't it?"
I stared at him. What did he want from me?
"What lies beyond?" Styron was pleading now. "I had always considered it a topic for mortals, not for me. I was immortal."
I stared at my itching, burning hand. He said he was worried about my soul, but it was plain he still feared for his own as well. I've never seen such fear before, not even among my victims. Theirs was a fear of the moment, a fear of surprise. Styron's fear went far deeper than that, and I felt an icy lump in my own throat.
A tear gleamed on Styron's desert face. "We're no more immortal than any of those we... Whatever's next, we'll face it. And if it's God... "
Styron choked.
"And if it's God?" I screamed. His eyes pleaded with me before he answered.
Styron shook. "How much can He forgive?"
I snarled. "You cowering bastard, don't drag me into..."
"I'm trying to save your soul," he whispered. "And... my own."
I noticed a hint of the coming dawn. He wouldn't make it to his lair, unless it was next door. Not that I cared -- OK, I did care, I guess -- but I told myself I had to know more. "Damn. Come. Sleep the day here. Tomorrow night, I want you out of my life."
Styron followed, silently, to the walk-in closet.
I sealed the door, hung the dark blanket and fetched Styron a sheet. He slept on the floor. I slept not at all. His rough breathing, his story... and my itches... kept me awake.
I remembered bogeyman stories of my youth. Gods and devils. Morals and sins. I could not shake them. I'd abandoned fear centuries ago. Now ...
I did not sleep, but dreams came anyway. I saw faces, faces of those I'd slain. I could not have recalled a single one of them the day before. But now they came -- shocked, frightened, unwitting. I saw them all again, and they seemed, for the first time, connected to me, not something outside myself. I suddenly could not forget that I once was one of them. Damn Styron for that.
Beyond the walls, out there under the sun, the bells here at St. Mark's pealed. Sunday morning. Were those bells calling me? Or mocking me?
I was still awake when I heard the chimes in the afternoon. Styron had breathed his last some hours before. He's a pile of bones now.
As for his soul, you tell me.
And that's my story. You've said nothing. That's expected, I suppose. You can't have heard many confessions like mine. But I must know. So... forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. What penance do you offer me, who has the blood of thousands on his hands?
How much can He forgive?
