I once met a guy that told me that I could live forever. I was eighteen, out drinking with my friends for the the first, ahem, legal time ever, and the night was slowly coming to a close. We had hit every pub in the township, starting out at the Twin Harts and working our way up to Miller’s Stop. All in all, ten pubs, each more seedy than the last, of which is where I met the man that would forever change my life.
His name was Mueller, and according to him, he was approaching his 400th birthday. Of course, I believed it. I was drunk. I bumped into him, accidentally I might add, and one thing lead to another, and well… its better to show you.
******
“Oh, shit mates.” I said. I was on my tenth beer of the evening, not counting the shots, so I was fuzzier than a week old crotch shave.
“Oh, shipmates!? You aren’t in the Navy, Nick! Your in a pub, drinking with your mates.”
That is Jeremy, he is a right cunt, but the best mate I had ever had and the source of the plan to drink our way through the township. He was good people.
But still a right cunt.
“Not shipmates. Oh. shit. mates. Here, hold the fag, I need to go piss. Look at Beatty, damn that dress!” I said.
“Don’t try anything on Larry’s sister, he will take offense to it bruv.”
That is Miles, he is smarter than all of us put together, and likes to style himself as the leader of our ragtag band of assholes.
“I have to pass her on the way to loo, mate. I will just tap her shoulder and give her a kiss.” I hitched my pants up and tossed the hair out of my eyes. I thought it made me look more mature. Probably didn’t.
“Yeah, good luck with that. I wouldn’t worry about Larry, I would worry about Beatty. She is still pissed.”
And finally, that was Grants. Not Grant. Or Grant’s. Like a possessive noun in a declarative statement. No, that was Grants. It was a nickname to commemorate an event a few years back involving a bicycle, a local sheep, and an unfortunate misunderstanding over on Grant street. He was banned from the post office because of it. Less said the better, but the name stuck.
“Right, wish me luck.” I said.
“ASSHOLE!” They all said in unison. (Its a ritual.)
I walked towards the hallway leading to what may have been the dirtiest men’s room this side of anywhere, but all I had an eye on was the tight vertical stripe and patterned skirt literally clinging for its dear life off the backside of a girl that was on-again, off-again, somewhere-again kind of fling that never seemed to end. It was my fault. Maybe it was her fault. Maybe it was God’s fault. I had no fucking idea.
“Hey, Bets.” I slurred.
“Oi, Nicky. You look right pissed. You not coming over here to ask me to take your drunk ass home are you?” Beatty said. She was hot, but in a conventional way, I suppose. I had known her my entire life, so it was like talking about a cousin or something. And in this township, she may have been a long lost cousin as it was. Not the prettiest girl I had ever met, but she was fine enough to turn most heads, and the pinched look she was giving me was cute.
“No, Bets. Just looking for a fondle.” I grinned.
“No way, you ass. You still haven’t apologized for the thing last weekend. My parents were there. You were mental.”
In all fairness, I may, or may not have, smoked a bit of weed prior to that little get together. So I took the offense instead. “True that. I have not said I was sorry, but your brother was being a dick.”
“He was only being a dick because you were stoned, Nicky.”
“Fair enough.” I sauntered on by. “Fuck it, Bets. See ya.”
She yelled at my back as she turned back to her giggling friends. “Yeah, fuck off Nicky. Come back when you have your head on straight.”
I took the longest piss of my life for the next few minutes. My head was resting against the wall, and I think I emptied the contents of Lake Victoria right into the commode. That happens to be the largest lake in Africa, in case you did not know. I zipped up, pretended to wash my hands, headed to the bar for another lager, and slapped Bets on the ass as I walked by. She glared, but it was a cute glare. She gave me the finger, I blew a kiss. So it goes.
As I was taking my drink back to the lads, I accidentally stepped on the foot of an elderly gentleman in one of the snugs. I nearly spilled my drink too, which would have been a real shame. I did not feel too bad about the foot. But I apologized any way.
“Sorry about that.” I said. The old man that owned the foot that I had so rudely stomped upon looked up at me, smiled and invited me into his snug. If you have never been in a snug, it is private-like booth with windows and the like, turned away from the bar to give a bit of privacy to the occupant. It was a way for the minister or the parish ladies to enjoy a drink out of sight and out of mind. Something about the way he smiled caught my attention, and I don’t know why, but I sat.
“Not a problem, lad. What is your name?” He asked. His voice was silky, smooth, soothing. I felt a wash of familiarity with him, something that was strange, but at the same, very nice. Like seeing your favorite grandmother after a few months of absence.
“My name is Nicholas. Friends call me Nicky.” I said.
“Good name, Nicholas. Strong. Poetic.” He said.
“I suppose.”
“My name, since you have not asked, is Mueller Von Ossman. How splendid to make your acquaintance.”
“You talk like silver-spooned royal.” I smirked. Being drunk made me a smart ass if you had not noticed.
“Which I am, so that makes perfect sense.” He smiled. His teeth were very white.
“Oi, a royal? How so?” I took a sip of the lager.
“On my father’s side, actually, twice removed from the King of Austrian Empire.”
“Austria? They don’t have a royal family.” I said. “Do they?”
“Not anymore, of course. It was different when I was younger though. How old are you, Nicky?”
“Eighteen today, in fact.”
“Splendid!” He smiled again. Showing me his pearly whites. I swear his eye teeth were vampiric. Were they actually longer?
“How old are you?” I said cockily.
“Year four hundred myself, today in fact.”
“Bullshit.”
“Manners, Nicky.” Mueller admonished. “Manners maketh man after all. Your words are the best representative of who you are. Don’t wear a tattered coat when you should be in tails.”
“Aye, duly noted, your highness.” I said. “Again sorry about the foot, I will get back to my lads now, they are probably wondering where I am.”
“Nonsense, Nicky. They aren’t looking for you.”
“They aren’t looking for me.” I repeated. It was kind of against what I was thinking, but I repeated it anyhow for some strange reason.
“I am four hundred years old today. And I believe it providence of the good Lord that you and I were meant to meet today. You see, Nicky, I am in a bit of a quandary, and I need a young man like you to assist.”
“Oh, your a pervert.” I said raising an eyebrow. “That explains a lot.”
Again, he smiled. I am almost positive he has fangs now.
“No, just an old man knowing that it is my time to pass on. But you, Nicky. You could live forever.”
“How?”
“By being greater than you are and living the life that most people dream of. Living. Experiencing. Taking everything life can give.”
“Sounds like a line. If I could live forever, why aren’t you going to live forever?” I said.
“Because I am tired. I could keep going, but I truly believe that I am not meant to. When you are as old as I am, one gets a feeling for such things. I am ready to move on.” He took a sip of his whiskey and looked me in the eyes. “I must admit that I am impressed Nicky. You just find out that you are sitting across from a man 382 years older than you and you are asking about my motivations. Most people would ask how I reached the age I have, or ask about my history, or any other multitude of questions and you only want to know why I want to stop.”
“I suppose.”
“Back to the point, Nicky. I need some help. I was given a gift, but honestly, I don’t want it anymore. I believe it is the time to give it to someone else. Someone deserving.”
“And I am that someone?” I asked.
“In my long time on this earth, I have learned to how to measure people. It comes with the gift, you get a sense of what a person is or more importantly, is not. I know for certain that you are not only the best choice, but my only choice.”
“You are mental.”
“Perhaps. All I ask is that you give me five minutes to explain, and you can walk away.”
“Five minutes?”
“Five minutes.” He leaned back and took another sip of his whiskey.
“Shoot then.”
“It may be a shock to you, but I am a vampire, Nicky.”
“I noticed the teeth.”
“Ah. That is another testament to my choice. You noticed. Most people do not notice my teeth. But it may surprise you that the teeth are not used to suck blood or anything.”
“What’s a vampire that doesn’t suck blood? That sounds like a setup to a lame joke, if you ask me.” I said.
“To be more technically correct, I am actually a Dhampir. That is pronounced d’ham-pier, but spelled D-H-A-M-P-I-R. I tell you this because you will want to ask your phone later when your hangover wears off. A Dhampir is a very odd sort of vampire… how we came about is a strange story, and not one that I will share with you tonight, but we do not suck blood or drink our prey. That is morbid. In fact, my energy is derived from water and food just like any mortal man.” He lifted his whiskey in proof.
“Than what is the difference?”
“I drink… talent. Ability. God-given gifts to the human race is the energy that sustains me.”
“So what, you find a really good violin player and kill them and eat their talent?”
“Lord no, son. That is morbid. I have never killed from feeding.”
“But you have killed.” I grinned.
“Of course I have, I was born 400 years ago! We had these things called swords.”
“I have heard of them.” I said sarcastically. One would think having a conversation with a vampire would really tilt one’s worldview and lead to a panic and vomiting, but the pleasant heavy buzz of excess drinking put a damper on that.
“I find the strongest, the smartest, the most talented people on the planet, then I absorb small amounts from each of them. In turn, they lose a small measure of their talent temporarily, but they practice harder, it comes back. They also lose a small measure of their life, I think, but I have never been able to prove that outright.”
“And what do you get out of it?”
“I get their talent. If I feed off a violinist, I can play the violin. If I feed off a polyglot, I can speak many langauges with ease.”
“But after a while, it fades away?”
“Only if I let it. Somethings become tiresome after awhile, so you learn to let them go. I once feed off of a very famous composer, and I had hundreds of pieces bouncing around my conscious thoughts. I couldn’t do anything while I harbored them, so I let that go very quickly. It was tiresome… honestly, I was not surprised when he killed himself. His state of mind must have been torture.”
“But you feed off of them, their talent fades… you could have feed off of him and saved him from killing himself, right?”
“I suppose. But then I would have mental indigestion for a long while. It wasn’t worth it.” Mueller admitted.
“Harsh.”
“Life is.” He nodded.
“So you go about, traveling the world, rubbing elbows with the best and the brightest, and what? Just blend in.”
“That about sums it up. I help them meet others like them, I help foster their ability and their talents. I have been called a muse, a demi-god, the greatest philanthropist that has ever lived, a progenitor of the worlds’ greatest, a prognosticator of the up and coming, the father of a movement or three… but in the end, I am just a vampire that happens to want a steady food supply.”
“Brilliant. And what, you want to make me a… Dhampir?”
“That is the idea. I don’t make Dhampir’s though. Its the reverse of feeding. Its a gift. I give it to you, like it was given to me. Once it is yours, I am just an old man, and you are the Dhampir.”
“No sun? No garlic? Sleep in a coffin?”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“But the teeth. Your chompers are longer in the front.”
“I have always considered them a badge of office.” He smiled widely and showed them off. “They do come in handy for eating steak.”
“So I can think about it?”
“You can. I will be here tomorrow night for your answer.”
“How many?”
“How many what?” He replied, an eyebrow going up theatrically.
“How many Dhampir?”
“As far as I know, seven. There used to be nine, but it seems we have lost track of who is who. Clio keeps track, but she admits that perhaps they don’t want to be tracked any more.”
“Are they ok with you leaving the ranks?” I frowned.
“Of course they are. It is expected to happen time to time. We get a feeling, and we comply. It is just the way it is.”
“So if I come back tomorrow night, you make me one, what happens?”
“Anything. Everything. It is up to you. But our time is up, so I will bid you a lovely evening. I hope to see you again, Nicky.” He stood up from the snug, polishing his whiskey off in brief swallow. With a nod, the impeccably dressed Mueller Von Ossman turned and left.
******
That is how it started… what happened after I took the gift, well, that is where I cocked it all up.