Mortal Agent of a Vampire - Chapter 4

“What?” I made a fool’s noise, “You should know that I don’t understand economics and am basically legally illiterate.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Vince waved me over and I followed with my tail wagging cheerfully as we circled the pool, the sparkling light shining on us, “I told you once that immortality can lead to a lot of trouble.”
“Yes?”
“One of them is that people will realize you haven’t changed.”
I imagined that five, ten …… years would not leave a mark on his body, and he would always look as if he were thirty, which of course would arouse suspicion.
“You could just change.” I shrugged my shoulders.
Vince’s gaze deepened and darkened a few points, “Yes, disappear from one city, show up in another, forget the past and start over, that’s how I’ve been doing it for decades, but human society is progressing and it’s getting harder and harder for you to be a shadow in the crowd.”
“So?” I muttered inwardly about why he had to nestle in the crowd.
“So I’ve decided to take a back seat,” he gestured, “and let you step in and deal with the others when necessary.”
“I see, like a butler, or this sort of thing.”
“The children are teachable.” Vince nodded.
This sounded like a gray area, and I didn’t want to get into any trouble, “But ……,” I spread my hands, ready to balk, and it was only two words before Vince interrupted me.
“The commission is one hundred thousand dollars a month.” He pulled a gold glittering card out of his pocket.
“Happy to oblige.” I quickly changed my tune, and I need to clarify here that I’m not a gold-digger, but joking aside, that’s a hundred thousand dollars!
Vince smiled in satisfaction.
“Where did you get all that money?” I asked, looking up after reverently worshipping the gold card as I carefully tucked it into my wallet.
Vince struggled to remember for a while, “It was during World War II ……”
“Well,” I reached out just in time to stop him, “it’s better to keep your successes to yourself.” That sounds like a court martial.
With that, I got myself a part-time job with a vampire who had lived for an unknown number of years and made his fortune in World War II, which sounded exciting. We went over some more details later, Vince was going to start moving immediately and leave first thing in the morning, I wanted to leave in a more dignified way, like a farewell party or something, but Vince insisted against it, “What we’re going to do is fade away on the down low, don’t let anyone know where I’m going” he said, and it seemed like I’d been excluded from the human race.
After the night’s revelry, he took me to his ‘castle’. I don’t mean to exaggerate the fact that where he lived, placed in the Middle Ages, was indeed a castle. The three-story, flat-roofed, modern-style villa sat on the edge of the forest north of Moonlight Falls, facing the lake on one side, and was extremely secluded under a canopy of trees and shrubs.
The entire first floor, enclosed in large expanses of glass, was used as a garage, filled with luxury cars; I even saw a Maybach that had been out of production since 1941. The second and third floors are like a museum, a partition wall is not there, the vastness of a glance, the moonlight from the floor-to-ceiling windows scattered in, the veil in the evening breeze up and down swaying, the whole room is like a crystal palace under the waves. Exotic treasures from all over the world are displayed in glass cabinets, towering oak bookcases filled with large hardcover books, antique furniture called relics, Oriental porcelain, tapestries, carved marble globes, paintings, wilted flowers and dusty peacock plumes inserted into floor-to-ceiling vases …… all of which are crammed together to form an intricate jungle of a jungle, a jungle of a jungle of a jungle. made an intricate jungle, and I followed Vince through it, scouring it for what he needed.
I felt like Plato walking into Socrates’ wheat field, not wanting to part with every exquisite ear of wheat. How ruthless would a man have to be to leave that behind? Yet all Vince took was a set of keys, an organza folder stuffed with papers, a hat and a pair of sunglasses, which he packed in a supermarket shopping bag. I noticed his penchant for sunglasses bordered on paranoia, I mean, who has a whole cupboard full of them?
Finally we crossed a glass bridge over the lake to a greenhouse built on a small island in the center of the lake, which I prefer to call the ‘Plant Kingdom’, and he told me to grab a pot of orchids.
With that preparation out of the way, I offered to go back and get my computer and the extra rent, which Vince rejected out of hand. Strangely I wasn’t angry, thinking about the 100,000 dollars.
Before we left, we had a little argument about cars, and he actually refused to let me get my hands on any of the ones in his garage, saying it would ‘ruin his collection’. So you see, if anyone ever tells you again that time makes you generous, just tell them: bullshit.
At dawn we hit the road. Vince was wide awake in the back. That’s rare for me. The book said vampires live in coffins.
“The book also says vampires are afraid of garlic.” In the rearview mirror, Vince didn’t even lift an eyelid.
“Aren’t you afraid?” I said, “And stop showing off your mind-reading skills.”
“I’d take one if it didn’t taste so bad.”
Another rumor, “What about sunlight, presumably it doesn’t work on you either?” I glanced at the red sun rising at the far end of the highway.
“Sunlight is deadly for those newborns, but I’ve been alive long enough that a lot of human blood has made me strong enough to develop a tolerance for it.” He sounded like a TV commercial for milk: a glass a day keeps you healthy.
“Chutzpah.” I commented.
“Yeah? But in your heart you seem to be saying, cool.”
“I told you to stop reading my mind!”
And so the joyous journey stretched forward.
Returning to the place of my birth again, I thought I’d feel like I was returning home, but I was wrong. I called home to say that I was treating everyone to a nice dinner, and before I could say anything, my mom said compassionately, “My poor little baby, if you don’t have a place to stay, come back here, there’s no more room in the house, but you can squeeze in with Brian (my younger brother in the midst of his teenage rebellion), I don’t think he’ll mind.”
But I minded very much, so I expressed my love for her and then politely declined. I called Mina again, and all that answered me was a cold answering machine. What can one say? It’s a big city, look at all those steel buildings, people are busy.
I had to report to my new place of work with a sense of frustration, my editor-in-chief was proofreading the sample issue while squinting at me from behind his glasses, “Lyle Firth, oh good, good, let’s get started.” He said nonchalantly before handing me a bunch of recordings, “Put these together, you need them by twelve.”
This sudden shot was a real handful, but I managed to finish at least, and when I handed him the script he put it aside without even looking at it and said, “Congratulations, you passed the test, we want new employees to be able to get into their roles quickly and not just muddle through all day, and it’s clear that you’re at the professional level.”
Oh, I really hate my new boss.
It was nighttime when I walked out of the newspaper office. A car horn told me the grueling day was far from over and I sighed, walking towards the blue Ford parked on the corner.
Vince rolled down the window, “Get in.” He looked in high spirits.
“Find me a cottage, I need to be in it by six.” Vince said in a dictatorial tone just as I got in the car.
I glanced at my watch, “You mean in five hours?” He had to be kidding.
“I don’t have the luxury of joking with you.” His stern look caused my smile to freeze on my face.
“Where am I going to find a villa with you in the middle of the night?”
“That’s your problem, you should know how much you get paid to do what you do.”
I wasn’t convinced, “So I’m your slave.”
Vince thought for a moment, “More like a servant.”
He put his foot on the gas and almost threw me out, thus ending the argument.
“Hey, hey, slow down!” The passenger side is the most deadly position in the car, and I don’t want to go to God before my money is spent.
Obviously he ignored my protests, not to mention the middle finger raised by the driver he passed, and weaved through the traffic at eighty mph. It’s strange, the highways in this city never take a break.
“My villa, it can’t be in the middle of downtown, that would be too noisy, but it can’t be too far away from downtown either, or foraging for food won’t be convenient. Have you memorized that?”
He didn’t even look at the road, easily turning the wheel and brushing against an oncoming big truck. “Whoa, whoa!” I replied, not really listening to a word. I was scared to death, okay? That’s what it’s like to hear that honking horn, the breath of death sprayed in your face.
“There must be at least five parking spaces.” He added at the end, soldiering his way between two side-by-side minivans (good kids don’t copy that), braking sharply, and coming to a halt next to the sidewalk with a shrill screech of tires. It’s a good thing I was wearing my seatbelt or I would have broken out the window by now.
“This is your first mission, don’t let me down.” He gracefully picked up the car keys with two fingers and handed them over to me, admonishing me before opening the door and taking off.
I stuck my head out and tried to ignore the abuse from the pedestrians and drivers around me, “Where are you going?”
He winked back at me, those green eyes sparkling, “I smell dinner.” He trails a pretty girl and steps out into the misty night.
“Asshole.” I climbed into the driver’s seat, the car had just started when a traffic cop straddled the motorcycle and knocked on the window, “Sir, you’re speeding.”
The saying that human potential is unlimited is indeed true, and I successfully completed this seemingly impossible task. I won’t bore you with the details, but it’s nice to have a college friend who is in real estate and is happy to run around at 3:30 in the morning for you.
I more than found a villa for Vince, the place, oh you should really see it, is just a vineyard away from being called an estate. Oversized lawn, circular driveway, angel statue fountain, and the main body of the house was even more grand, like a scaled down version of the Pantheon, no exaggeration.
So the next day, when Vince reached the grand portico, supported by a row of Ionic stone columns, he removed his sunglasses and whistled.
“I passed the test, didn’t I?” I made a motion to take off my hat in salute, “Your Lordship?”
Vince cleared his throat as if trying to hide a laugh, “I’ll give you a ninety out of ten.”He came forward and I took him on a tour of the entire house, the hall, the parlor, the nook, the study, the dining room ……
“Why the ten point deduction?” I wondered.
“No reason.”
“Then why?” There must be a rule for everything.
Vince paused, “You’re lucky, I was planning on draining your blood and putting it in the fireplace if you tried to get rid of me with a small duplex.”
I did plan that at first, and I felt a sickening chill, “You wouldn’t really do that, would you?”
Vince narrowed his eyes and smiled. Mesmerizing.
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