THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION

 All alone with an angry vampire next to two bleeding corpses, young Richard Blaine 

finds that a library can be a very dangerous place to ask the wrong question.

THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION

“The question that keeps youalive at St. Marok’s is: ‘What am I missing?’”

– Richard Blaine

 

I studied the limp bodies of Iceand Easy. So vital and deadly just moments ago.

Now, just vacant houses of flesh.

The two birds have flown. In whatstrange tree do they now sing?

I smiled bitterly at myself.

My task for today was a six-hourself-accusatory depression.

Did Marcello miss them already orwere they to him just useful tools?

No matter.

He was the less for their dyingregardless of what he told himself about their deaths.

Whenever someone who knows you dies,you lose one version of yourself. Yourself as you were seen, as you were judgedto be.

Lover or enemy, mother or friend,those who know us construct us, and their several judgements slant thedifferent facets of our characters like diamond-cutter's tools.

Each such loss is a step leadingto the grave, where all versions blend and end.

Abigail Adams studied me in turn.

“Why so sad? Do you really thinkthat those two would have mourned you in the least?”

I shrugged. “What's real andwhat's true aren't necessarily the same.”

I smiled sadly and twisted the wordsof Dorothy Parker,

“What fresh hell have you broughtto my doorstep, Mrs. Adams? You want that invitation to Mr. Morton’s mansion,too?”

“Oh, dear heavens, no! I wantnothing to do with that thing no matter what designation it gives itself.”

She held up her slender righthand. “Bide. My ghouls are here to attend to their dietary needs.”

“Not right here!”

“Oh, do be sensible, Mr. Blaine.They will not break their fast here. They will take the bodies out the hiddenpassageway to the alleyway behind this orphanage.”

“This place has a hiddenpassageway?” I asked and immediately regretted sounding like a loon.

Of course, this building hadsecrets. It was nearly as old as the city itself.

As it turned out, the two ghouls,smelling of mildew and unwashed flesh, came out of a cavernous pit in the floorwhich slid open as if it had been recently oiled.

My shivers got goosebumps.

The way they moved. Jerkily, almostspider like … as if their muscles had forgotten how humans used their bodies.

I forced myself to look themstraight on. I would grant them personhood if only by recognizing theirexistence.

Only by the wildest stretch oflanguage could you call what they wore clothes. 

Tattered ruins of eveningclothes … or burial ones … clung to them, looking as if they would fall off atany moment.

“Oh, do not bother trying to bepolite to these caricatures of their former incarnations.”

Her thin lips curled.

“There is only one ghoul in allof New Orleans who retains her personality. As long as she stays in her crypt,I will stay my hand.”

“You’re a real sweetheart,ma’am.”

“I am a revenant, whelp, and theempress of all the American revenants. What gave you the fanciful notion that Iwas good?”

I made a face, “Sooner or later,I am bound to meet someone with power that is decent.”

“Look elsewhere, Mr. Blaine. I amnot that person.”

I was tired of her games. “Whyare you here?”

“Curiosity. I heard that theentity which now calls itself Morton was interested in you. I wanted to seewhy.”

“That’s easy, Mrs. Adams. TheLost Gospels of Henry the Lion.”

“No. Though that volume is indeedcursed, there are more intriguing volumes in that cretin Stearns’ collection ofarcane lore.”

She sighed, which impressed me asshe did not breathe.

“They invoke mysteries hinting ofknowledge ancient, extraterrestrial, even possibly divine: the VoynichManuscript, the Rohonc Codex, the Smithfield Decretals, andthe Book of Soyga.”

She pointed a long forefinger atme.

“No, Mr. Blaine. There issomething about you, yourself, that unsettles that Entity …  and that unsettles me.”

The ghouls had gone, carrying thecorpses of the killers with them.

I jumped as the blindingly whitehabit of Sister Ameal popped up from the still open passageway in the floor.

“I cannot trust you to stay outof trouble long enough for me to teach Miss Mayfair one simple self-defenselesson, can I?”

Mrs. Adams snapped, “You! I heardyou were still a paid assassin in Portugal.”

Sister Ameal shrugged.

“I grew bored. I joined theconvent to become a nun and enter the intrigues of the Vatican. I should havestayed an assassin. It was a more honest profession.”

“That is not the reason.”

“No, but I do not owe such as youthe truth. Now, clamor down into the sewers where you belong.”

“I will not! Unlike most of mysubjects, I can walk in the daylight.”

“But not in the Son-Light. Helen,my dear, you can enter the library now.”

“No!” screamed Abigail Adams, andwith a rustle and sweep of satin gown, leapt down into the dark passageway,brushing roughly past the chuckling nun.

Helen, with mussed hair, pouredinto men’s jeans and white shirt, stormed into the library.

“Sister Ameal, you are too freewith my secret!”

The nun easily climbed out theopening in the floor like a gymnast.

“Be of good cheer, Miss Mayfair.Mr. Blaine is too smitten with you to logically assess what just transpired.”

I glared at her. “And thanks forkeeping my secret, too, Sister.”

Both giving me knowing Mona Lisasmiles, Miss Mayfair and Sister Ameal spoke as one. “What secret?”

 

“There's nowhere you can be thatisn't where you're meant to be...”

― John Lennon

Don't let the title below mislead you, the music is fitting for a conversation with a vampire next to bleeding corpses.