The familiar smell of oil and dust, the gas lights burning it away into the familiar acrid smell, it never lasted long but in a way, it was pleasing. Reminding victor that each morning the world was the same, well each day it was not it. It was droll, catatonic, and stagnant to itself and never moving forward to progress of the future, perpetually silent so much that it screamed in his ears. Unhelpful the dim walls and corridors of the manse ones that twisted this way and that to him, never leading anywhere but to an end he could feel but not see. Gone were the days of perpetual music and parties, of trumped up so called nobles and their throngs of clamoring worshipers. All things stood empty since then but this was his choice, or was it? Was it truly his whim that caused this silence? On the other hand, was it that day?
"Victor come to the chamber, the master calls." A gaunt maid stood there in the door to the study, sweat beading on her forehead, a slave to her work.
He waved her away, vision hazy, awash with the fog of the bourbon he had been bathing his liver in. his cuff had been stained with it, a deep brown richness on the snow white sleeve of his so called gentleman's blouse. Pants in the same condition as the rest of him, ponytail disheveled and loose, he had not slept in days not since the master fell ill. Alternatively, was he ill at all? He could not remember anymore, he had been buried alive each day only to be pulled to daylight again over and over through stacks of parchments. The workings never ended it seemed, letters, statements, endless and paltry things he cared nothing for but oh, how the master did.
That man was obsessed but he was at the same time victor's obsession, he lived for him but did the master do the same? Victor was sure he did he was convinced, why else would he be so loyal to him? Or was it something else? Did he just have that much power over him? No victor thought again, no I came willingly I wanted to do this I am only helping him I am only happy by being here.
The halls were the same when he left the study, vacant nearly as lifeless as the city itself; a window he passed tapped a nonsense rhythm of rain. How long had it been raining? It felt like an eternity, perhaps it would wash this city clean of its filth, that is why the master was ill, those people outside. Their stupidity was killing him, their foul lives and the endless circles they traveled, they made it stagnant. The master was a brilliant man and stagnation was his death yet he lived by stagnation for he was the one frozen in time. Those dirty fools…
The chamber was the opposite of the rest it seemed to flood with light and purity and at the center in a specially constructed chair with spoke wheels. That red color it framed the dark lightly bearded master so well with his long hair framing the olive skin. The once powerful man sat there in his pathetic sickness, changed was he in a way victor did not wish to know or recognize.
"Victor, you came, I'm so pleased, bring your face to me so that I may gaze you clearly, handsome ward that I know you."
"Yes my master"
Victor crossed the room and knelt before the chair, the master leaned down hazed eyes could not see so well since he fell ill. Brushing a long blonde bang away from the pale porcelain skin with a wiry finger, the hand then cupped the cheek. "Eyes to me my ward."
One green orb and one blue looked up simultaneously and the master smiled and bit his lip with a pointed canine "lovely as you are, wild like your birth yet loyal like your breed. Lupus de" he let go of the cheek after calling him the wolf of god. How victor despised that title, but he would not argue it, not again. "You do not wish to look upon me? You keep your eyes down from me; you shame yourself and me by not adoring me now."
It was true, he was ashamed that the master was frail now not the once powerful man who chained him, but those chains were invisible but he still loved always the same. "No master, I cannot, you shame yourself by being this way." The man smiled and sat back, the chair creaked "that mouth of yours, always filled with sweetened malice, if it is not filled with flesh." He chuckled some and it followed by a rattling cough. "Lupus de and a whore for a lover. Bound and unbound. I may be weak dear victor but you still remain my love and a slave to it as you are."
"Yes master so it hurts me, but my pain is yours, just as my love."
"Your love…you say it like you mean it, but I know you do what you do, dear victor…now go fetch the kit, master needs your life and youth again."
Without pause, he left the room to fetch the bleeding kit; he had not the strength to do it the natural way, to taste his flesh as he once did. "Victor…wait" he stopped mid-step in the hall next to another "why do you do this?"
"Because I love the master, you would let him die…wouldn't you Matthew?"
Hazel eyes creeped past disheveled auburn bangs to take in the messy visage of the one closest to their benefactor. "It is time to, how long has he been this way? You only let him suffer on and on, your so called love poisons him, if we would simply let him slip away we would be free." There was always a grain of truth to Matthews words that much victor could never deny but it hurt him. It hurt him in a way that he could not understand "silence your jealousy, you just wish it was you, to swoop in like a pure dove at the last breath and save him instead of me."
"No I simply think that it is the course of nature, I want him to be free, but you only want to keep him bound to you, you needful thing, you harlot for his heart. He doesn't love you, he poisons you with words and you drink them up like a butterfly teasing a flower for its nectar."
"You wouldn't dare tell him those things you say to me. Not in his presence would you ever be so vile to me."
"You think me so vile when all I say is truth, you should be free just as I, yet he binds you here, say that you would not be happier to live your life outside of him? Those fettered things shouldn't hold one like you victor, it's inhumane."
"What you say is poison, you just want him dead cause of your jealousy of him."
"I simply wish the cycle to move forward as it should."
Victor could not take much more of this banter he stomped away with the kit in hand, back to the room he made it and once more knelt at his master's chair. Soon enough he had drained what seemed a full two pints into a chalice. "Here master" the chalice fit into the wiry grasp filled with the dark life of his own body, he teetered a little, he would have to eat but it could wait. His master needed him now and his care. Gulps were taken then a breath then more and a long sigh; he reached up with a clean white handkerchief and dapped away the red that dribbled from one corner of the mouth. "Victor your love is endless, and my constitution thanks you for your gift."
"I give everything to you; it is my duty, and my life to do so."
"That it is, always knowing your place unlike others."
"Like Matthew?"
"Ah quick to single him out aren't you?"
"He wants you to die, to leave us, to leave me, he says it's natural."
"Natural? Yes but what am I but unnatural by those sniveling masses that walk the streets?"
"It is only what they do not know, just like me."
"Yes you yourself would be unnatural, dear lupus de"
Such was truth here too; would he never be able to disguise it? Though being here was its disguise, the skin he wore was a lie for the real thing that lay beneath. Like his master, he was a creature, or so they called him, and those like him that slipped between the mists and folds of legend. Legends though are dead things, he however was alive, his master was alive or was he really if he so needed the life of others. Though humanity itself existed on feeding on the lives of other things so there was nothing wrong.
"You have been swallowed by thought again, go and eat…ill join you later"
Victor snapped back to reality "yes sir" he exited a little more slowly than he had entered. He went to his study to eat, it was where he was taking his meals all the time, he didn't care for the room he had been given anymore, the memories were strong and the fact that Matthew had moved to a room across from his own.
Tapping on the frame of the door "again victor why won't you just agree with me, it is the natural course." Not this again, it was endless… "Because it is not right to take his life."
"Life? How is he alive? Does his heart beat as yours? As mine?"
"He is alive because he walks talks and knows the world; it is not a heartbeat that defines his life Matthew!"
"So he is a memory then, and even memories must fade victor, you are a shadow of yourself because you do everything for him."
He let the fork down to the pewter plate with a clatter "Matthew you know nothing but old memories, you went and saw the world and returned, you are not of this house, not like I am."
"And you are not of this house either…you are an object, needing to be free but even then you would chain yourself. Stop this nonsense of extending the inevitable! Let him go and be instead of this day to day suffering!"
"He will come back from this! Do not tell me it is wrong to save him!"
"He cannot be saved and neither can you for this victor, it is a crime of nature to belay him to this existence which he so calls life."
"He can be saved, and I will do it no matter how many times you tell me otherwise Matthew!"
Hazel orbs took in the distraught body language of the normal serene victor once more "somewhere in you victor you know I'm right, it's what we were taught long ago, that when the heart leaves then so dies the life." He turned and sauntered away, he needed to reach through to victor, to free him of this pain, a constant and useless struggle that only caused him to suffer alongside the master.
He wouldn't listen to that, he would keep his master alive no matter the cost, he was greater than himself he would likely one day change the world. Great things, was that not enough reason to save him? That and the heart that always uttered its needs clung to the master, as he was his own life and pulse.
Those memories, and that day, it was the end of things of life of himself. The horrid day Matthews plan succeeded and he was left to this house alone. No matter his protection, he had failed so he remained in the manse, with the dust and memories. Like a relic, he remained behind when all others wafted away like dandelion seeds in the summer breeze. Here though it remained stillness like a winter's morning. Just the lupus de and the ashes of his once beloved master. No longer could he save the life he once cherished above his own. Therefore, he would wait for his own end, no matter how long he would remain in the darkness like the one that swallowed all he was.
