Blood Vivicanti (9780989878586) Read online

  The

  Blood

  Vivicanti

  Part 3

  Theo

  created by

  Anne Rice and Becket

  written by

  Becket

  The Blood Vivicanti

  Becket

  Copyright © 2014 Becket

  All rights reserved.

  Smashwords Edition

  ISBN: 0-9898785-8-9

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9898785-8-6

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the imagination of the creator(s) or are used fictitiously.

  Under copyright law, if you are not the copyright owner of this work, you are forbidden to reproduce, create derivative works based on this work, download, distribute copies of the work, decompile this work without Becket’s express written permission.

  Becket’s note

  In 2011, Anne Rice and I began talking about the development of a new breed of blood drinkers.

  The first ground rule was that they had to have an entirely different cosmology from her other supernatural stories.

  She and I spent many weeks emailing back and forth, sharing copious detailed notes. We had several energetic lunches and dinners, whence we discussed the foundation and framework of the story you’re about to read. We swapped ideas about the strengths and weaknesses of these new blood drinkers, ideas about the characters themselves as well as their backstories, and more ideas about potential narrative devices.

  One of the amazing facets of Anne’s writing method is that she seems to devote almost as much time to selecting the right names for things as she does to carefully crafting the narrative. Both go hand in hand, I’ve learned from her. She’s taught me much. The right name is as important as le mot juste.

  But what name would we call our new blood drinkers?

  One day, after we’d spent weeks thinking about what to call this new breed, I came into her office as she thumped closed a Latin textbook. She beamed at me with her irresistible smile. She told me she knew what to call our blood drinkers. She had not chosen a Latin word, but had developed a new word from Latin phraseology.

  What was the new word she’d developed?

  “Vivicanti,” she said as her smile broadened.

  I loved the word instantly!

  “Our blood drinkers will be called,” Anne Rice announced: “The Blood Vivicanti.”

  Then it was my job to write the story.

  I bathed you with water and I washed the blood from you… But you trusted your beauty and you used your fame to play the prostitute.

  —Ezekiel 16:9, 15

  The Blood Vivicanti

  Part 3

  Theo

  People are born with a strong personal identity. As infants we know what we want. And we’re not afraid to cry about it.

  A strong personal identity is like infancy: In time we might grow out of it. Some people’s strong personal identities are maintained by a good family. Other people’s personal identities are weakened by bad parenting and unchecked sibling rivalry. A few people’s personal identities are obliterated by neglect and abuse.

  By the time I drank Theo’s blood, my personal identity had the strength of tissue paper. It tore easily. It soaked up many of my tears.

  Theo’s Blood Memories pierced my heart and penetrated my mind. My heart raced with his feelings. My mind bubbled with his memories. It was as if I had taken into myself Theo’s deepest passion, pursuits, and perceptions – all of who and how he was.

  This tissue paper girl felt she might burst from the potency of his self-possession.

  Theo believed in a power greater than himself. He called this power “God” because that word alone was simple and small.

  He dismissively waved off the association God had with religion. He thought God was an aptly insignificant word to describe an infinitely powerful mystery.

  My personality had been insignificant until then. Like a reed in the wind. I needed a strong personal identity to borrow. Theo’s was brimming with the confidence I’d always wanted. I would try to be exactly like him. I would feel the way he felt. I would think the way he thought. I would stride the way he strode. I would pose with his poise. I would love what he liked – except for myself. I didn’t know how to love my “self” yet.

  Who can say they deeply love tissue paper?

  My china doll’s Blood Memories went to work in Theo immediately. On the violin, she could play Bach, Mendelssohn, Paganini, and much more great music from many other great violinists.

  Now, Theo could do so also. Her Blood Memories surged through his veins. He knew the notes to every song she knew. He knew the fingering to any scale she knew. Theo was now a concert violinist – at least for a week or so, until his Blood Memories faded away.

  Wyn had tucked away somewhere in his cavernous mansion a great Stradivarius violin, which was by that time gathering dust. He gave it to Theo for the week. It was interesting to see how Wyn regarded it so nostalgically.

  “It’s good someone’s using it again,” he remarked.

  I wondered who had owned the violin before. I had not yet met his dead wife, Aemilia.

  Wyn said nothing more about it. But the way he moved explained much. His movements slowed while his breathing quickened. A human wouldn’t have noticed any change.

  I’d never seen him look so mournful.

  Whoever had owned that old Stradivarius violin had been very important to Wyn.

  The next morning, I came into the kitchen to find Theo restringing the Stradivarius.

  Wyn also came in, reading Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe. He had drunk the blood of an astronomer. The astronomer was a lonely man living on the outskirts of the village near the mountaintop. His whole house was a homemade observatory. Wyn had devoured the man’s Blood Memories.

  Wyn was now entirely occupied with the vast mysterious life of the universe. His mind was teeming with new ideas.

  He also read Carl Sagan’s Cosmos in a few minutes, and then cross-referenced that with Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass. He believed the two were highly interrelated.

  Ms. Crystobal prepared coffee and fruit-salad for breakfast. She was our housekeeper, cook, and maid. She did everything. She never complained about the workload. She was amazing.

  That should have told us: She wasn’t from our planet – or from our universe – and now that I think about it, I doubt that she was even from our dimension.

  Her daily sour expression never relaxed. Sometimes I’d be walking alone down one of the numerous hallways and she’d suddenly appear out of nowhere, like a ghost, staring at me as though I’d done something wrong. She’d tell me that it was time for lunch or dinner, or she’d tell me that this hallway was being cleaned, and I wasn’t allowed down there right then, even though I couldn’t hear any cleaning going on. That woman could scare the Dickens out of me.

  Of course, I later found out that she wasn’t a woman at all. Or a man.

  Wyn and Theo ate their breakfast happily. They were already brimming with delicious Blood Memories.

  So was I, with Theo’s in me.

  Blood Memories rejuvenated us surprisingly. We all seemed reborn. We were like inquisitive children seeing the world in a whole new way.

  The tissue paper of my personal identity was beginning to galvanize.

  Ms. Crystobal gave me a plate of strawberries dipped in peanut butter. I’d never had it before. She seemed to know I’d love it. She was right. They were scrumptious!

  Wyn talked about electromagnetism.

  Theo finished stringing the violin. He stood before us. He positioned the instrument at his neck. His fingers pressed on the strings. He held the bow above the strings for a second.

  Wyn and I watched. We were curious to know what he would play.

  Ms. Crystobal sipped a cup of tea. Her eyebrow raised in doubt.

  Theo slammed the bow down on the strings.

  The violin music resounded beautifully. The kitchen had excellent acoustics.

  The music was Bach's Chaconne for Solo Violin. Some say that Bach wrote that music as a tombeau at the death of his first wife.

  When I consider that a tombeau is like a requiem, only less religious, it is no surprise that it was my china doll’s favorite piece. Mourning felt normal to her. It feels normal for many people. She was more normal than she knew.

  We watched Theo working the bow across the violin. His fingers moved swiftly over the strings. He had such newfound power and speed and authority.

  A tear came to Wyn’s eye. It was like seeing a Vulcan cry.

  I couldn’t tell if Wyn was happy or sad.

  He might have been happy. The Blood Vivicanti had proven to be his most successful science project.

  Then again: He might have been mourning – the way Bach mourned his wife through music.

  Theo played the violin for us for days. It was wonderful to have live music in the mansion. Yet his playing and his music were associative: They reminded me of how my china doll used to make me feel.

  But the richness of my fantasy life turned my thoughts and hopes and dreams away from her and toward Theo. The network of my mind was making new associations.

  He was a phenomenal dancer. And now that I had his Blood Memories in me, so was I.

  Theo would play the violin and I would dance with his music. The memory of dancing was not in my muscles. It took me a day to get used to being graceful. I’d never been graceful bef
ore. My body had never moved so fluidly or so beautifully before. I could plié and brisé and pirouette.

  I still can. His Blood Memories are still strong in me. If I wanted to, I could dance a very lovely Lobster Quadrille.

  At the end of the week, Theo and I performed a dance recital in the ballroom.

  Wyn came to watch.

  Ms. Crystobal came too, but only because Wyn threatened her with immanent unemployment if she didn’t.

  He was joking of course.

  I’m not sure if Ms. Crystobal gets jokes. They might be a little too human for her.

  Theo and I danced to the music of Danny Elfman’s Topiary Garden Waltz.

  We would twist our bodies beyond the limits of the human frame. We would leap high into the air. We’d spin around and around, far from the ground. We moved like two currents of clear water.

  Ms. Crystobal sat with her arms folded the whole time. She looked annoyed and unimpressed.

  Theo and I finished. We’d hardly broken a sweat.

  He said I was “beautiful.”

  My porcelain white cheeks blushed.

  Ms. Crystobal said she’d resume her duties now. She promptly left without another word.

  Wyn was very pleased with our dance. The good scientist had taken copious notes – like Jane Goodall observing wild chimpanzees.

  Blood Memories helped me learn more about who I really was. I was beginning to see that I wasn’t the self others had shaped me to be. I wasn’t the girl my parents had framed, not the grade schooler my peers had rejected, not the high schooler my classmates had ignored. My journey as a Blood Vivicanti was a path toward my true self.

  Was my “true” self a blood drinker?

  Yes and no.

  I needed to drink blood, yes. That was my nature now. Blood drinking happens when you’re a Blood Vivicanti. Blood Memories happen when you drink blood.

  And I liked drinking blood. I just liked eating memories a little more.

  My true “self” would be the woman I’ve grown into – the woman I’m still growing into.

  No: Blood Vivicanti do not grow outwardly. But we can mature inwardly.

  I stayed drunk on Theo’s Blood Memories for the whole week.

  The hangover was bad.

  Theo became sad and brooding again when his Blood Memories faded. He liked playing the violin as much as he had liked rock climbing. He did not like losing his skills. He missed them all. All he had after they faded were memories of Blood Memories.

  Wyn was similar. With the Blood Memories of the astronomer, Wyn had understood much about life and growth beyond the limits of the Milky Way.

  He became very mournful when his Blood Memories faded. It was as if someone had died.

  Wyn listened to a tombeau all day.

  I’ve never understood why Theo and Wyn used to get that way. Blood Memories do not fade in me. My photographic memory will not let them.

  Wyn and Theo waited another three days to see if my Blood Memories would fade.

  Wyn’s dour disposition lightened a little by Day Ten. My Blood Memories hadn’t faded at all. His theory was correct: My photographic memory not only retained my Blood Memories, but my mind also perfectly balanced Blood Memories with my own memories.

  Theo was glad when Wyn let us hunt again. He was ready for someone else’s memories in his mind.

  The week before, he had wanted to drink the blood of a cook.

  This week he had other plans. His plans would surprise me. He was always surprising me.

  Wyn was curious to see how two different Blood Memories would coexist in me. He theorized that, in the same way my mind neatly catalogues all my photographic memories, it would also neatly catalogue all my Blood Memories.

  His null hypothesis had been: Retaining Blood Memories beyond a week will give her a mental breakdown. Prepare a room at Bedlam.

  Thankfully his null hypothesis was disproven. It was balderdash.

  Mostly.

  Wyn encouraged us to feed outside the mansion. “No blood in the house.”

  I made a game of it, tapping Theo’s shoulder. Tag. He was it. I was becoming more like Theo by the minute.

  He laughed. Then he chased me from the mansion.

  I loved being chased by him.

  We ran faster than I’d ever run before – down the mountain – past the desert valley – west toward the setting sun.

  Theo outran me. He tapped me on the shoulder. Now I was “It”. I chased him.

  I was always chasing him.

  He led me all the way to Los Angeles. We ran through the city to the Pacific Ocean.

  The whole run took less than half an hour.

  We stood on the shore of the sea. Barefoot. Panting. Toes in the sand. Cold salt water rushing all around our ankles.

  The setting sun slowly sank into the sea. The sky was orange and red.

  Theo took me to the amusement park on the Santa Monica Pier. He bought himself cotton candy. He used to love cotton candy.

  He bought me a soft pretzel. I still love soft pretzels.

  But that night I wasn’t hungry for food.

  I didn’t feel hungry for blood either.

  I was hungry to escape. I didn’t know how to live life any other way.

  I hung around Theo’s neck. I hung on his every word.

  I assumed I was in love with him. All I wanted was to feel safe. I was too young to know that love and safety is like oil and water.

  I was confusing affection with certainty.

  Theo and I leaned over the pier. Our sight was strong. We could see fish far below the surface.

  Theo talked about the kind of blood he’d like to drink. He didn’t merely want to drink a person’s blood. He wanted to drink the blood of someone with a good personality. He wanted in him the Blood Memories of someone who had led a meaningful life.

  He wasn’t interested in the skill of doing something new. He wanted the skill of living well.

  “I’d like someone inside me who likes themselves,” he said. “I don’t like drinking the blood of a self-loathing soul. Their Blood Memories leave me feeling empty.”

  He was sharing himself with me in a new way. I liked it. And I feared it.

  Theo sighed. “That violinist didn’t like herself.”

  I was beginning to realize how broken my china doll was.

  I decided then: Theo shouldn’t drink from me. He might hate me if he knew how I really felt about my self.

  Night soon fell.

  In the desert it is easy to see the nighttime stars. They are infinite and infinitely beautiful. There are so many stars that the constellations get lost in the thick soup of the cosmos. City lights make it difficult for human eyes to see the stars. But I could see far through the atmosphere. I could make out small craters on the surface of the moon.

  I wished I had a comfortable house there. I’d invite Theo over anytime for tea and a spacewalk.

  Dark clouds were forming out at sea. A storm would hit the coast later.

  Theo pointed to an old man far down the beach. No human eyes could see him from that distance. Mine could.

  The old man was walking an old yellow lab. The dog’s hair was mostly white. So was the old man’s. The two were strolling side by side. The dog was watching his master. The old man was watching the coming storm.

  Lightning flashed in the dark clouds.

  I could hear the thunder. Theo could too.