Page 51 of Lucy Undying

Now Mina’s asleep and I can’t pretend I’m not alone. I’ll always be alone in my head and my heart. And I can’t stop thinking about that dog.

I’m going out now to find the yard he’s kept in. I’m going to cut the rope that binds him, and I’m going to hold him and pet him and let him feel whatever he wishes to feel, all the time.

Or maybe we’ll slip away and never come back.

45

Boston, September 26, 2024

Client Transcript

Don’t look proud of me, Vanessa. Yes, I stopped a Parisian serial killer. But do you think I’m better than he was? You’re assigning value and moral weight to different kinds of killing. Different kinds of being a predator. There is no right. There is no wrong. There is only life and death and the things that tip us from one to the other.

Do you remember the train car? The treaty I made everyone sign, congratulating myself on saving so many lives? It was a haphazard treaty, doomed to fail and tip the world directly into a new war. Directly into the same war.

All my false Parisian lightness shed, war once again raging, I felt the weight of hopelessness and failure dragging me closer and closer to the ground. How could I have thought I’d done some good? How could I make up for it?

It was one night, crying next to the dazed and still-bleeding spy I’d made a small meal of, that I understood: Wars were not won on battlefields. They weren’t even won in treaties. Not when that treaty failed to take into account all the information possible. No, wars were won on intelligence. And hadn’t Mina always chided me that I should be a better student?

“Where are all the spies going these days?” I asked the young man. He lay on his back and stared dizzily up at the stars. He was in no pain. My small meals left them wobbly but happy. He would remember this as a surprise tryst with a stunning beauty, and the scars on his neck wouldn’t haunt him for the rest of his afterlife.

“Istanbul,” he said, giggling. It was adorable. He had round black eyes and curly hair and looked so young I wanted to send him home to his mother. “It’s neutral, so it’s the best place to find, buy, trade, or steal information. Everyone wants to push Turkey to one side or the other.”

Istanbul it was. I was tired of France, anyhow. The idea of being on the front lines again, of wading through that much suffering and devastation…Even I have my limits.

Istanbul was a dirt-crusted jewel, a glittering city built on so many layers of history they were indistinguishable. I was starving when I got there, nearly feral with—

No, I didn’t hear anything. Would you like me to go out and look?No?

I was used to my teeth and throat aching, but Istanbul made my soul ache. I wanted to gorge myself on its sense of place and identity. I wanted to be swallowed by the stones, to become a theater or library or mosque, to plant myself there and let history move around me. Such a mixture of old and new, built out of and on top of and over each other. I could have wandered those streets forever.

Except, as I said, I was starving. I’d never minded powerlessness—being my default state, it held no terror for me, and so I didn’t avoid it while traveling. Some might have to be coddled and tucked away into their own grave dirt simply to cross Europe, but I knew how long I could go without sating my thirst or resting my bones.

At a certain point, though, even I began to lose my mind to the drought clawing through me. Fortunately, I had scarcely set foot on the edges of the city when I smelled fresh blood, accompanied by a metal-edged scent I knew well: freezing and sharp, like a scalpel unearthed from snow. The Doctor was in Istanbul.

My nose wrinkled and my jaw ached. The Doctor’s scent threw me back to the trenches. I felt the deaths of a thousand young men in my arms. I wanted to scream and run away. But I also wanted to weep and run toward her. Bad memories or not, the Doctor was my friend. Or at least, she knew I existed, which felt almost the same as friendship.

I needed to be at my best when I saw her, though. She didn’t tolerate foolishness or weakness, and I’ve always been told I have a penchant for both. Also, she’d never forgive me if I showed up looking for a meal.

It was night in a big city, so a meal was easy enough to come by. I stumbled and weaved, projecting vulnerability. Three people tried to help me, which was sweet and reminded me why I wanted to cut this next war short. But the fourth had darker intentions. My would-be attacker followed me so clumsily I almost felt affection for the idiot. He didn’t follow me back out of the alley. I don’t always take small meals.

Happily fed, all I really wanted to do was sleep. But that was far trickier. Istanbul was so old, nearly every inch of it had been bathed in blood, but also consecrated by centuries of faith or love or belief. The ground held so much; even the stones were noisy. It would be a challenge to find anywhere to rest peacefully here.

With high hopes that the Doctor would have somewhere for me to sleep, I followed my nose and found her right away. I didn’t need an invitation, since a laboratory is not a home. Much like a therapist’s office isn’t.

Home is a funny concept, isn’t it? One that we hold sacred, whether we realize it or not. If a home was safe, we carry that feeling with us. And if a home wasn’t safe, we can’t shake the scars of that violation. We never forget the violence of losing a home, or the pain of never having been given one, or the comfort of having lived in one filled with love and community. The longing for home is a universal human experience; there are few of those.

I think that’s why vampires carry both fear and awe of homes with us beyond the space between life and death. Entering one without an invitation is a line we cannot cross; home is sacred and traumatic on both sides of mortality.

I can see you puzzling it out. Is this restriction magic, or merely psychological? Who’s to say what’s magic and what’s not? Stop trying to figure it out. You won’t, and it’ll drive you mad. And then who will you turn to? My therapist is quite busy.

You have such a nice smile, Vanessa. Warm and compassionate and knowing. If it were a home, I would love to live in it. Anyhow, I walked right into the Doctor’s lab. Though “walked” isn’t the right word. It was hidden beneath an old library, accessible only via a locked iron door set into the ground. But there were cracks, so I was moonlight, and then I was inside.

When I shifted back into myself, she didn’t even glance up. Her hands spidered over a prone body, ruthlessly dexterous and relentlessly curious. I felt a flush of affection, seeing her again. Her frown made it clear it was not mutual.

“No,” she said.

“But I haven’t asked anything yet.” I skipped toward her, delicately twirling past various body parts and a few bodies that were not yet parts but would be soon. I didn’t want to get blood on my dress or shoes, not after working so hard in the alley to avoid it. I hate having to steal clothes. It feels cruel, especially back then when clothing was meant to last years. I only ever took from wealthy people, though, which soothed my conscience and suited my vanity at the same time.

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