Journey

Part 8 - Purgatorio

"No, there is no one who can help me," I cried almost hysterically. "And if I go on like this , there will be only one way to end this nightmare..."

"I know, " he said in a quiet soothing voice. "I remember. Even if that was in another lifetime".

I looked at him again. Although of the same kind, he appeared quite different from Armand whose angelic features seemed to conceal a dark and malicious interior. But this person in front of me had a more modern, laid-back attitude, somehow he seemed less intimidating.

"But how can you know?" I asked sarcastically.

"Yeah, Armand! My sweet and cruel master!" he looked up at the sky, closed his eyes for a few seconds and then looked at me again intently. "Believe me "I" know! Just with a snap of his fingers he can take you from the bliss of paradise straight to the gates of hell. What has probably happened to you so far is nothing compared to what I have endured for about 12 years ..."

"12 years? You mean he was stalking you all these years? And during all this time you had to live in fear that he would come back and finally turn you into, into ..."

"A vampire, yes," he completed the sentence, all matter-of-fact. "Naturally, I ran away from him at the beginning. Hell, was I afraid that he might kill me if he was no longer interested in me. And he did stalk me, you can be sure of that, chasing me all around the globe, following me wherever I went. Ah, that was madness... " Again, he closed his eyes for a short moment and took a deep breath. "However, I realised soon enough that it's useless running away from Armand, he will always find you if he wants to."

I swallowed hard. Suddenly, my mouth was completely dry and I felt anxious again, nervous, restless. His words only confirmed what I had feared all the time.

"But then ...," he sighed, the memories coming back to him obviously painfully vivid still. "Then it was different. It was me who started going after him, who would always return to him and who would beg him to come and get me if I wasn't capable of returning on my own."

"Why? Why would anyone do such a thing?" I asked incredulously.

"I see you have no idea what being a vampire means at all..."

"No, and I don't want to know" I answered, but as if inadvertently I touched the side of his face. Cool. Smooth. Hard. But resilient.

"To touch is to believe, isn't it so?" he smiled ironically.

Quickly I withdrew my fingers as if they had been burnt, burnt by the fire smouldering beneath the ice, but he placed my hand softly back on his cheek whispering: "Don't! You don't have to be afraid, I won't hurt you."

"But I am. You make me afraid. Even if you seem to be somehow gentler and not so menacing as Armand. You've learned well from your so-called master and I believe you know the art of seduction and manipulation as well as he does."

He chuckled softly.

"Don't laugh! It's true! You seem to have forgotten how someone like you looks to mortal eyes. You do not even attempt to hide that unnatural fleeting beauty. Armand is very skilled in concealing his true identity, but you do not even pretend to be human!"

"Yeah, Armand is skilled in many things," he replied dreamily.

"Don't make me think of that!"

"You're really special," he mused, shaking his head in disbelief. "You mean to tell me you're not afraid of him because he might kill you in the end. No, but because he showed you pleasures beyond words, the rapture you can only find in a vampire's embrace!"

"Yes," I murmured, avoiding to look at him again. "Yes, that is the true horror for me. That he makes me do and even enjoy things which would be unthinkable in real life, taboo, forbidden. And also that he can have absolute control over my life if he chooses. I don't want to be at someone's mercy, but still ..."

"But still?"

"I can't forget him. On the one hand, I wish I had never met him and would never see him again, but on the other hand ...," I sighed. "I feel drawn to him. It's like without him my existence has lost all meaning and all colour..."

"And only he can make your life bright and interesting again? Isn't that so?" he asked in a voice full of sympathy. "Yeah, I know the symptoms of this illness, and I'm sure you're you familiar with this phenomenon, too?

"For Heaven's sake, what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about love ..."

"No, certainly not," I protested vehemently. "I don't know any longer what love is. And I don't want to. All I want is some peace of mind. What should result from this "relationship"? I can't see where this should lead to. Moreover, and please don't be offended if I say so, I don't want to become what you are!"

"Well, why should I be offended?" he replied good-humouredly. "I am now what I've always wanted to be and I could perfectly understand if you, too, were craving for the ticket to immortality or "the dark gift" as some of us have termed it so flowery.

"So it is really true ...?"

"Yes, sweetheart. It is. We are not a walking symbol of personified desires or a living message from your subconscious to act out your suppressed emotions. We ... are .... real."

At that moment it finally struck me that I had to face the truth whether I wanted it or not and I felt trapped in a nightmare from which I wanted to escape at all costs.

"I believe you, " I answered feebly. "But what did you say before? You can help me?"

Gently he took my hands in his, the expression on his face being sincere, almost solemn. "Yes, I will help you as no one should be treated like I was during all these years being at Armand's mercy, being subject to his whims and cruel designs. Mind you, I am not complaining. I've courted disaster myself. And in the end, it was not even about immortality or about the dark powers. It was because I had fallen in love with him, him alone. But it took me long years to realize this and the price I had to pay for it was high."

Suddenly, my own misery was forgotten, there were a thousand questions I would have liked to ask him, but he raised his hand to stop me before I had even started.

"What happened in the past is no longer important today. Now we are talking about you. You must be sure what you want, whether he'll give it to you is something different. But I'll have a say in that, too".

He sounded so confident, that for the first time in a long while I felt something like hope, a vague chance that there might be a way out of this. And I wanted to believe so much that even someone like Armand could have a heart and even if this heart was as cold as stone that it could be stirred by love.

Back