Eternal Darkness, Blood King Read Free

in one of his pockets. Six feet four and just turned twenty-eight. I turn my head to stare at his body on the floor, trying to summon an image of him upright. It was funny how he didn’t seem that tall when he found me inside this hotel room, when in a swift, effortless movement I brought him down to his knees. I can still hear his sobbing in my ears. It is ironic how size means nothing in the face of true will. Just like me, the man will never make it to twenty-nine.
     
    I sit on the bed and look for more items inside the wallet, trying to find as many pieces from his life as possible, to have an idea of who he was. You’ll be surprised what a wallet can tell you about its owner. I like seeing their pictures and personal items. It makes me feel that I am a part of their story somehow. I even avoid picking their thoughts while attacking them, although sometimes it’s unavoidable. For example, Celtrick here—a typical American kid: loved girls, working out, his friends, football and basketball, more girls, and vintage wine?
     
    Interesting, I think that I would’ve liked him.
     
    There, inside his wallet, I find a VIP card for the club downstairs, his college ID, and a picture of another young woman, no doubt his girlfriend. A beautiful creature, I must add. It makes me wonder how big of a fool she would feel if she found out about all the other girls in the life of Frederick, the dead stud.
     
    Then I see the card that brings me back again to that recent past, when I was enjoying my time in South Beach like I always do during the winter. The ID card in my hand indicated that Frederick was a hotel front desk assistant manager. It turns out that he was studying for his master’s in hospitality management, just like another man I was introduced to years before by my gifted young painter, Lucy—my lil’ Monet.
     
    I haven’t stopped thinking about her since I got back here in the city. I have tried to erase her from my thoughts. Obviously, I haven’t been successful at it, and I doubt I ever will be. She was truly special, and her fate was unnecessary. However, I won’t go on like this. First, I need to go back to the beginning, or to the middle of everything. Whichever the case may be, the facts are as follows: It was the summer of ’93, the place was Miami, and I was the Gypsy that I have always been.
     
    The Not-So-Recent Past
     
    July 1993
    Miami
     
    The sun had just set, and I was hungry and thirsty again, and happy to be out on the streets of Miami. Long gone were the insane ’80s, replaced by the early ’90s. It was a different time, but the heat was still the same. The airwaves were filled with salsa music from the Caribbean and South America, grunge rock, and Guns N’ Roses. It was my first time in town since the ’70s; and after a decade and a half of absence, I was impressed by all the changes that had taken place, mostly in the diversity of its habitants. I couldn’t get enough of their sultry spice, their music, and their flavor all mixed up with the North American culture.
     
    The Spaniard in me was delighted in the proximity of all this. It almost made me swear that I would find a good place of my own so I could always come and visit, but I needed a good-enough reason to do so.
     
    The Caribbean blood I savored in those nights was not different from any other type; but the scent, the fragile smell of salt and spice in my victims’ skin and in their tears was enough to turn me into an addict.
     
    Miami was growing from being a swamp filled with the oldest population from all over the States into a cultural and entertainment destination. May all the gods that men have created bless all that cocaine money! All that investment capital was turning what was considered at one time a worthless piece of land into an oasis. Just like what the Mafia money had done for Vegas back in the ’50s.
     
    There we were, the city and I. She was the sun capital of the world and me the lord of the night. Yin