LAST WEEK: River visits Pam, wearing one of Gabriel’s necklaces, and she tells him that the necklaces attract the undead, that that is why there are killings in San Francisco. Pam also reveals that she has AIDS, which has cost her her fangs.
Read last week’s installment here. See all installments here. Read the last installment here.
Chapter 140
River
San Francisco — 1987
Gabriel and Pamela
River looks at Pam, crystal necklace between them. She is there—right in front of him—so how can he miss her so intently?
A wind pushes against River’s back. The pantry door blows open. Gabriel is there, indigo eyes focused. He has heard the call of crystal, like a ripple in the stream, like a virus in the body, expanding every outward, encompassing eternity.
He moves toward Pamela with the sure grace River has seen so often on the dance floor. He reaches for Pamela. Without a glance at River, she takes his hand. She cannot help herself.
The two parts of Gabriel, human and vampire, are a poison aphrodisiac. Like fire and gas, the reaction is explosive. Like ammonia and bleach, the mixture is toxic.
His beauty, his very being, calls to his mother’s kind. Irresistible. Deadly and lovely as a perfect amanita glowing like a ruby in the moss. He is an oasis amidst dry sand, glistening, still and lovely, promising liquid peace, and eternal life. But he is a mirage.
The fruits of his hands call to his father’s people. Lonely men, desirous of a perfect, unobtainable beauty, permanent and hard as crystal. Each time Gabriel summons death, each time he looks down upon the dust, a tiny kernel of humanity screams.
“No!” The cry springs from River’s throat, scraping it raw. He leaps toward them, but Gabriel and Pamela have already disappeared into the darkness.
River stumbles after them, crying in the darkness. Once again, he is following Gabriel, but this time he knows he must catch him. This time he must win.
Chapter 141
Gabriel
San Francisco — 1987
Endings
They have reached the door of the Tailgate. It’s locked, but Gabriel doesn’t need a key. It opens at his touch like a lover’s thighs, soundlessly, letting darkness enter.
“I’m Gabriel. Won’t you come in?”
Pamela can’t resist. She’s lost in the deep indigo of his eyes, drawn by his scent, so different from River’s. Gabriel smells of the unknown and unknowable, of deep places and of danger.
Held in the elevator’s embrace, they rise through the silent building. Gabriel wants to talk to her; for the first time, he longs for more than conquest and ashes, but he has no words. He’s unschooled in the poetry of language, ignorant of the vocabulary of emotion.
They enter his room, feet not even touching the floor. He holds her, cool as a river, cool as she. Turning toward the night dark window, she sees the reflection of an empty room over a neon sky. Yet, despite the emptiness, she knows he is not one of her kind, knows she is not safe.
She doesn’t care. All her restraints have been severed. All her cautions dissolved by those bottomless eyes. She is drawn by hunger fiercer than blood, desire stronger than love, need more primal than lust.
Mouths meet, tongues mingle, cold and dry. Perfect white bodies meet in the moonlight. Two marble statues come to life. On Gabriel’s satin sheets, they fuse into a flawless moment of beauty. River is forgotten, buried in the pale perfection of flesh.
Afterward, Pamela rests in Gabriel’s arms. His eyes look into her, unfathomable as space, profound as eternity. She is free, falling out-out-out into unknown worlds, distant galaxies lost in a starless night.
Reaching above the horizon, a curving vine of light grows. It flowers, sending forth leaves of dawn, illuminating the darkness. It shines on the living and on the dead. It lights up Pamela’s ivory flesh. For a brief instance, she is glorious and blinding in the sun.
She leaves no teeth. They are already lost. Gabriel looks down at the dust. The world contains a little less beauty, a little less color. Gabriel smiles, accepting fate, embracing destiny.
Fog advances over the city, shrouding the streets in faux twilight. Outside of Gabriel’s apartment, River huddles. He is cold inside and out, cold as Pamela’s hands, cold as Gabriel’s heart, cold as death.
He’s tired, but fears to sleep. He’s afraid he’ll dream of Pam and wake up clasping air. Huck circles overhead.
Gabriel brews a perfect cup of coffee, adding milk and watching it foam. He puffs lavender smoke over Pamela’s charred form. Chopin’s melancholy harmonies caress her ashes. Gabriel ignores it. Since all his mornings seem destined to end in ruins, he’d rather forget light and harmony. He wishes he’d never glimpsed a world of birdsong and color. If he cannot be part of it, cannot possess it, he wants to destroy it.
Gabriel vacuums up the ashes and fuses them with coffee grounds, gently patting them into his orchids. The plants spread questing aerial roots round the window ledge like the hairy legs of the tarantulas that emerge each fall from dark caves on Monte Diablo, just across the Bay.
“Tarantulas are loners, like you,” says Ryo, resting a weightless hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “I was a loner too. Perhaps if I had it to do over… But that’s foolish talk. I don’t, I can’t. I don’t know if you can, but…”
Gabriel clips the dead stalks. As always, they sizzle at his touch and new growth sprouts. Ryo smiles and shakes his head.
“I was good with orchids, but even I could never make them grow at a touch.
“I was a lot like the tarantula. The males live underground for ten years until driven by irresistible longing from their dens. If a male is exceptionally lucky, he may survive the dance of love more than once, but it’s unlikely. Female tarantulas, like vampires, are deadly lovers. Even if the male survives, it is a pyrrhic victory. He can never return to the safety of his subterranean lair. He roams the hills seeking love and courting danger, until winter comes, and he freezes.
“Monte Diablo’s tarantulas have been described as being ‘the size of a small bird, possessing the fangs of a rattlesnake and delivering a bite considered fatal!’ It’s funny really: a tarantula’s bite is actually no more deadly or painful than a bee sting. One would be wiser to be on the lookout for wandering spirits, Skinwalkers, or even poison ivy, which triggers a rash more irritating and longer lasting than the tarantula’s kiss. But the deadliest residents of the Bay are the pale heart-rending beautiful strangers one encounters on late foggy nights. I know that from experience.”
Gabriel carefully wraps the dead stalks in paper towels and throws them in the trash.
Watch the author read this week’s installment in the video below:
NEXT WEEK: River runs at Gabriel, beyond feeling, beyond thought, loneliness and heartbreak giving him speed. Though ten feet away, Gabriel springs into the air like a feral cat, fast as light, sure as murder. He lands on River, for the first time fully his mother’s son.
Edited by Mitchelle Lumumba and Sophie Gorjance.
E.E. King is cohost of the MetaStellar YouTube channel's Long Lost Friends segment. She is also a painter, performer, writer, and naturalist. She’ll do anything that won’t pay the bills, especially if it involves animals. Ray Bradbury called her stories “marvelously inventive, wildly funny and deeply thought-provoking. I cannot recommend them highly enough.” She’s been published widely, including Clarkesworld and Flametree. She also co-hosts The Long Lost Friends Show on MetaStellar's YouTube channel. Check out paintings, writing, musings, and books at ElizabethEveKing.com and visit her author page on Amazon.