A Cold Coffee

My coffee has gone cold on the counter long before she arrives to tell me of my fate. The nightlife bustles outside the glass windows just as it would on any other night, club-goers, theatre buffs, street artists, and all the usual wildlife of a large city, mingled together rushing about their business as though it was any other night. For them, it is. There's something extraordinarily wonderful about the city at night. It's the energy I think. But then the nightlife is all I have know for the last 400 years. So, maybe it's simply just that I've nothing to compare it all to.

I remember though, the sallow faces in the mornings on the people in their coaches, and on foot. The poor and the rich alike were always so...dead during the day. Maybe it was the grey and black woollen suits and stockings, which sapped the life out them. It was nothing like right now, late at night in the heart of the city. Streets filled with glittered costumes of every colour, strange hats and weird shoes. It's all so alive at night like this.

I find myself alone, seated with my cold coffee, just simply soaking it all in; for once, behind the glass instead of in amongst the throng. From here it's all so beautiful; it's life at the absolute most that life can be. I find myself wondering if I'll ever be a part of all that again.

You would think that 400 years would be enough to live all that out there. But it hasn't been. It's only just now beginning to get good, to become truly free. Humanity at its best - is now.

"Would you like something stronger?" A smooth deep voice floats over to me. He sees I wasn't paying attention and elaborates for me, "The coffee." He nods, "Would you like something stronger?"

His jeans are slung low, his hair is messy and tussled and he wears a thin white shirt, buttons mostly open to show his muscled torso. I look him up and down, the want stirs in me. The lust for blood - and for more than just the blood. I forcibly stop my line of thought. "I would love to have something stronger." A half smirk crosses my face meaningfully. "But, tonight I am waiting for someone."

A face moves silently through the masses outside of the window. She's dressed no different from anyone else out there, and yet, she stands out from the rest of them. Death has an aura I suppose, and she is like me. One of the 'Walking Dead.'

I watch her slow approach and don't even notice that I am drinking the long ago cold coffee, until the foul taste in mouth forces me to suppress a gag. The waiter with the double meanings laughs at me as I spit it back into the cup.

I watch the woman I am waiting for as she silently glides towards my table. I struggle to remember, what name is she using this decade? It was something strange, I do remember that. There's an odd observation in the back of my mind, one which hadn't occurred to me before - That after a half a century or so, my colleagues all become sort of nameless in my mind. I hadn't actually noticed that before. Curious.

She sits and looks to the waiter disinterestedly, "a flat white. 2 sugars."

I look to her as the waiter rushes off. She's not showing any expression of any kind at all. But then she always is like this, so even that tells me nothing. "Well?" My heart, if it worked still, would have been pounding heavily. "What did the tribunal say?"

My life is literally on the line and she stares at the waiter making her coffee. "What is the punishment for my crime? Will they allow me live?" I don't know how to describe terror like that which I feel right now.

She looks blandly at me, as though considering something. She simply shakes her head. My heart would have stopped there, if it hadn't already done so, 400 years ago. "You told a Mortal detail of the Vampire world. Even of the tribunal itself. You knew the punishment for this before you did it. If you had killed her, or turned her, then maybe....but you did not." Her eyes show a hint of sadness for me. The first emotion she has shown since I've known her.

My mind is speeding over my options. Desperate to find a solution, yet, too frazzled to think of anything. I don't handle the concept of death well. This is why immortality had been so appealing to begin with. Why it remained to be appealing. 'Run!' my head screamed at me. Not very helpful without any idea of where I would be running to.

Across the table she turns back to me after paying for her flat white. "Sexy little thing that. I'm shocked he's still bleeding. He really is exactly your type."

My mind's response is to speed around in many directions whilst screaming, 'RUN!'

Cold eyes look harshly into the depths of my soul. "That would be a very a stupid idea. You require a large city in order to get food, and not have it noticed. There is only one city large enough to hide in where the tribunal has no power." She looks at me meaningfully. "If you were to be caught there, your punishment would be worse."

'Only if I were to be caught though right?' My mind begins to worry. 'Which city is this?' I can't think of any place where The Tribunal would have no power.

My companion seems to be getting annoyed with my stupidity. "It would be very stupid, to have your mortal friend drive you through the day, in a darkened crate to Seattle." Her eyes seem to be concentrating something at me. "The Rogues have rule there. If you were to ever leave, and be caught again by The Tribunal, you would be tried as one of them. It is not a course I would advise."

"They will arrive for you tomorrow night." She leaves. Her coffee is untouched.

Seattle: My salvation. I have a phone call to make I think, and then, well there is still many hours until daylight. I believe I have a date with a waiter.

~end~