Mortal Agent of a Vampire - Chapter 9

He didn’t see Leonie again.
When I returned to that house again, it was empty. The nurse, dressed in civilian clothes, was folding the sheets into a square.
“Hi there.” I greeted uncertainly.
She turned her head, “Oh, hi,” she was surprised to see me, “I didn’t really expect to see you again.”
We shook hands, “I’m here to visit Leonie, is she ……?” I looked around and realized that the oxygen machine, the vase and the photos hanging on the wall were all gone, the whole room revealed a deserted and airy atmosphere.
The nurse’s eyes flashed with a hint of surprise, “You didn’t know?”
“What?”
“She’s dead.” She said, and I felt a tightening in my abdomen as the floor seemed to cave in under my feet, “In fact ……” she whispered with an apologetic smile on her face, “It’s her funeral today.”
There was a roar of an engine and I looked up out the window as Vince drove off in a wild car and was gone in a single turn.
Damn, why does he always have to read people’s minds! It’s such a bad habit!
“No!” I rushed out, a wave of guilt welling up inside me. God, what had I done? Leonie had settled to the bottom of the lake like sands filtered out by time, but I made waves to break the calm, to stir her up again, to make Vince think …… think he could catch something.
I know where he’s been, and I can’t let him face this alone. Even though, and this probably sounds a little ridiculous, I want to protect him, even though he’s smarter and stronger than me, and I’m nothing in front of him, I still feel like it’s my duty to protect him from harm. To put it in a cheesy way, on the surface, he wanted to be thought of as a shameless asshole, but in reality, he had a better heart than most.
I hailed a cab and headed straight for it.
It was raining on the road, and when it rains in the spring, it never ends. The world was a blur by the time I reached the cemetery. I trudged deeper and deeper across the lawn, over rows of headstones, until I saw the black figure.
Apparently the funeral was long over, even the closest family members had left, and the freshly covered grave was strewn with a scattering of white rose petals, rainwater running down the headstone stones and seeping into the ground. Vince stood there, head bowed, as if looking at the picture on the headstone, the face of a woman covered in furrows from age. At the bottom it read Leonie, 1935 – 2013, and a short epitaph. I felt a pang of acidity assault me. Though as a bystander I had never spoken a word to Leonie, Vince had bonded us invisibly.
Both of us were drenched, our hair and clothes plastered to our bodies; he must have known I was coming, but didn’t react as I walked up.
“Don’t be sorry, Lyle.” Vince said suddenly.
“I …… I didn’t think it would happen that fast …… really ……” It was a failure, I was trying to comfort him but it sounded like I was doing my best to clear my name.
He looked at me, his deep gaze through the streaking rain, “Even if I’m the main character in your book, it doesn’t mean you’re obligated to give me a happy ending, that’s reality.”
Even I didn’t notice it myself, he simply spoke to my heart.
“Well …… if it makes you feel any better ……,” I said, “the nurse said that she went peacefully, that her children and grandchildren watched over her in her final hours, and that she ended her life in her sleep, at the end of her life.”
Vince nodded, “This day was expected.”
I suddenly remembered what he had said once, that immortality brings a lot of trouble.
You’d watch the people around you, the people you love, grow old and die while you remained where you were, like you were abandoned on a lonely highway that stretched infinitely.
“I just didn’t think that I would stay and watch it happen.” Vince continued, his voice sounding subdued, but I couldn’t be sure if it was the same inside him, “My plan was always, to turn my eyes away.”
“Pretend like it didn’t happen, right?” I understood the feeling, just like I always fantasized about the day I successfully proposed to Mina. True misfortune doesn’t fade away, it follows you around like a nightmare horse, sometimes you think you’ve forgotten, but it’s just waiting for you to turn around.
“Uh, you know …… I’m right here if you …… need a shoulder.” What the hell am I talking about? Need a shoulder? Is this some kind of third rate soap opera?
Vince laughed a little, giving me the illusion as if I was a naive little girl, “I’m not going to fall on top of you and cry until I break down, don’t be delusional.”
“I mean well, okay? Crying is cathartic, it’s better than being bored all the time.”
“Thank you. But you should know that I can’t cry.”
I was speechless. That day, we stood in the storm.

“Why did you write that?” Vince threw the book on the coffee table with a ‘pop’. We sat in the living room on another sunny morning, the late spring warmth smothering the air with the scent of flowers. Looking out of the floor-to-ceiling convex belly window, ‘Crab’ was cleaning the wind-blown Lancashire bubblers off the lawn. Brainwashed hobo gardeners, so edgy.
That’s my novel, I pick it up, the book spread out on the title page, “What?”
“I am honored to have this book dedicated to me?” He rolled his eyes at the ceiling, “You write me like a dead man.”
“That’s right,” I took a bite of toast over my coffee, “You were dead, remember?”
Vince stared at me and I realized I shouldn’t make vampire jokes with him, and in two seconds he said, “You should go to work.”
And so my vacation was over. I was glad that Vince was back to his bossy attitude, not that I liked it, but it was better than the brooding look he’d had, and I couldn’t have been more worried when Leonie had just died and he’d spent the whole day as if he were a statue (and his skin color was the same).
I went back to the paper, jittery, thinking what awaited me was, “You don’t have to come back anymore.” Since the editor had called me three times in the last month, all of which I had cut off, I really didn’t know what to tell him.
Luckily, though, he was neither angry nor surprised that I was back, but just nodded flatly, “Okay, fine.”
“Well, then?” I nodded back, and as I turned to head out, he coughed, “I heard you wrote a book.”
I turned back, “Uh ……”
“It’s kinda a novel.” He commented carefully, as if if he wasn’t being cautious, my nose would go up in the air and poke a hole in the wooden ceiling.
“Thanks.” I couldn’t actually tell if he was being complimentary or not.
“Was it the skiing that inspired you?” The editor sounded as if he were a chronically ill patient asking a sick friend if a new drug was working.
“What? Skiing?” By the time I responded, I was laughing on the inside, “Oh, absolutely, when I stood on my skis rushing down the hill, the inspiration flourished like a geyser.”
The editor nodded thoughtfully and I headed out.
Life was back on track, on the one hand I was the bumbling social news reporter, while on the other I was Vince, a vampire’s agent, negotiating and attending meetings on his behalf, buying and selling stocks, managing real estate, and getting what he wanted through various channels. I was like a human stand-in for him, decisions were Vince’s business and I did what he said.
It was a busy and happy time, and to give you an example, I even forgot about Mina. There was only one thing that stuck in my throat. One night, when I saw Vince coming back from foraging in the blue ’09 Ford, I finally couldn’t hold back.
“Wait a minute.” I stopped him in the driveway as the garage door slowly opened and a row of luxury cars gleamed inside.
“What’s going on?” Vince rolled down his window.
“I can’t figure you out,” I leaned over the roof of the car and looked down at him, “Why do you keep driving this car? You have a warehouse of Rolls Royces and Ferraris and stuff.”
“You got a problem with that?” He had a cold, arrogant look on his face.
“Come on, if I was in this car and saw those in there,” I pointed to the garage, “I’d be banging my head against the wall.”
“You’re being j□j nakedly discriminatory.” Vince shook his head, “I don’t want to be too conspicuous, you know?”
“What about jet airplanes?” The guy who owns an airport says he doesn’t want to be conspicuous. Best joke of the year.
“In the air, there are no eyes on you to see what you’re sitting on, except when you meet a flock of migrating birds.”
“Well,” I went along with him, “if you’re not going to drive it, then why did you buy it? You should know that this is not a collector’s model.”
He squinted at me and after a moment he said, “I see, you want one, don’t you?”
My face burned, “I don’t have a …… Oh, but if you want to give me one, I wouldn’t mind.”
“Sure.” Vince smiled, “Keep thinking.” He drove off in a jab.
The next day near the end of the day, I was sitting in my own cubicle in the office, checking the to-do list on my sticky notes.
“Did you see that, there’s a crazy person at the bottom.”By the floor-to-ceiling windows,
a coworker said.
“A rich man.” Someone else adds.
”
Isn’t that a synonym?” Wonderful.
I cleared my desk and walked over, “What are you talking about?”

Following the direction of the other person’s finger, I saw the scene.
First there was a parked red Lamborghini, cool as hell, exactly like the one Vince had just bought. Then there was a man in a pinstriped black suit and red tie, with sunglasses covering most of his face.
Wait, that scratchy guy, forgive me, that’s the word that describes men dressed like they’re going to the red carpet leaning against the front hood of a car, winking at every passerby and stroking their hair every now and then, even though they’re not messy is the word, isn’t it?
I think that’s Vince, and his car.
“What’s the nerve of this?” I muttered as I rushed down the road.
Seeing me, Vince straightened up, “I was wrong.” He said.
“What?”
“About that theory about keeping a low profile.” He explained, pulling his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and waving it around, “I’ve only been waiting here for you for half an hour and I’ve gotten five invitations to come up to their house for a drink, two guys and three girls, all top performers, which has never happened before.”
As if to confirm his thoughts, a blonde walked past us, Vince took off his sunglasses and gave her an ambiguous smile, and the other person returned a smile that seemed to have a deeper meaning, there is always a special kind of airwaves that outsiders can’t understand in the circle of type of men and women, like baby language. I think this would have been the sixth invitation if I hadn’t stuck my nose in the middle of it.
Poor guys, they had no idea what Vince’s drink meant.
“So what’s going on now? Why are you standing here like an exhibit sign? Got an appearance fee?” I asked, hugging my arms.
“Who told me to have a vain boyfriend?” He went around and got into the driver’s seat, then hooked a finger at me.
I gladly slid into the passenger seat and buckled up, well, a Lamborghini is cool.
“I’ll spare you the vanity, boyfriend, you wish.”
Vince shrugged, “And it’s a constant mess.” He started the car.
That’s when a traffic cop came up to the window, “No parking here, sir.”
“Are you going to look at my driver’s license?” Vince asked.
The traffic cop nodded and took out a paper clip.
“Then you’ll have to catch up with me first.”
Vince stepped on the gas, the engine roared, and we headed off into the night.

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