Part 7-9: Julian and Charles Darwin

Part Seven of Nine: Julian and Charles Darwin.

Previous Part:
Although a closer inspection would discover the black grease on the front of his stained jacket was claret red, Julian would be miles away by then.

Julian used a white lawn handkerchief to wipe the blood from his face, embracing the elusive warmth that filled his chest, filtered through his limbs, and vibrated along his nerve endings.

“Now that, Charles, is what I call unnatural selection,” he said quietly. There is a place for the beastly, if only to redress the balance of Mother Nature. Even she gets it wrong, sometimes, it seems.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Transforming the thrill of the hunt into terrifying acceleration, Julian skirted Hyde Park and passed silently along the streets of the affluent part of London until he smoothly mounted the steps to the door of his Georgian terraced house in Belgravia Square. Pushing open the door and passing soundlessly along the hallway, he glided up the carpeted solid-oak staircase to the first floor. The flames of the wall-mounted candles burning in sconces danced his shadow along the cream painted walls as a hideous distorted version of himself. A view into his inner-self? He wondered at times.

Closing his palm carefully over the brass doorknob, he entered his chamber and passed through it to where, as expected, in his dressing room a bathtub of steaming water awaited him, as it always did when the clock in the entrance hall struck two a.m.

Removing his shoes and placing his pocket watch in to a brass dish on top of a chest, he walked over to the tub. Stepping in and sinking down into the bath fully clothed, he ran hard palms over the fabric like rubbing pumice stones over an edifice of granite, and the fabric, beaten against his rock hard chest and thighs, bled the nights events into the water staining it pink.

Standing again, he stripped the clothes from his body, and leaving them floating in his wake to drown in the bath, he stepped out onto the bare wood floorboards to wash his skin at the washstand where an enamel bowl and pitcher of clean water were waiting to finish the job.

Finally, ducking his head under the water, he sluiced the images of the girl and the cut-throat thief from his mind, and emerged with a semblance of a peaceful smile on his face. After rubbing his skin dry, and towel drying his hair he dressed for dinner in another ritual designed to make his man servant, Garrett, more comfortable.

With Garrett’s help, the rinsed clothes would make it, evidence free, in to the hands of a local washer-woman. He and Garrett had an understanding born out of their shared horror the afternoon they had watched Eva’s blood meandering across the paving stones until her pale features grew cold and her glazed eyes had lost the spark of life. If he twitched the curtain at the window to his bed chamber, he could still look out onto the scene. It was almost fifty years ago now, but the image was burned into his brain...and Garrett’s too, as his young footman on that day.

Over the years, Julian had traveled the world, and the rest of the household had been released from their service, but Garrett had refused to go. In an unspoken pact, they both ignored the monster in the room. Garrett pretended his master did not look exactly the same as he had on that long ago balmy afternoon, and Julian pretended that he did not hear Garrett’s clattering nerves every time he moved too quickly.

Julian was not inclined to be driven from his home, and to leave his humanity behind, so he fostered the rumors of a heartbroken recluse...they were not that far from the truth. He traveled for years at a time, and human recollections were notoriously fuzzy and blinkered, some even assumed him to be future generations of himself, he was sure. And, as a tall, blond, charismatic, and cultured man, he could easily charm others, and he used that charm to move the humans around him like chess pieces.

Their body language, and the electrical impulses in their brains, gave away their creeping suspicions, long before it became a conscious thought. And then Julian used his influence to secure the husband the employment opportunity of a lifetime, or an old aunt they never realized existed would settle an obscenely rich stipend upon them with a proviso attached that took them away from London.

Julian quite enjoyed playing the people moving game. It gave him something, other than killing, to fill his time.

With his hair curling damply over his starched white collar, Julian pulled his tailored jacket up over his shoulders and took a deep vampire breath. It did not feed oxygen to his tissue, despite the rose-tinted flush over his chiseled cheekbones, his stone-cold tissue had already stolen the heat and congealed the blood inside him. It did however replace the stale air in his lungs with fresh, and make him smell more human, after all, rotting blood was not a nice aroma.

Shooting a parting glance at the mirror and sweeping his fingers through his hair one last time, Julian left the room, whisked along the passageway, and as he descended the stairs he whistled softly. As he reached the entrance hall, Alexander, his Irish wolf hound loped into view and wrapped his solid frame snugly into Julian’s thigh, falling into step beside him. Julian stroked his hand over the crown of the dog’s velvet covered skull, and, as the warm leather of Alexander’s padded nose prodded his palm in welcome, he smiled.

“Hello, boy,” Julian said quietly, “Supper time.”

Stalking through the doorway, as he expected, the dining room table was laid for one, and the log fire had been stoked into a fiery orange glow that draped the room in golden splendour. Julian was a wealthy man, and a philanthropic one. Try as he might, he could not spend enough money. Julian smiled wryly. A vampire’s needs are...modest.

To be continued...