Parallel World

Chapter 6

Although Glory & Shame was a vampire club there was one exception - Blake Bailey. He did not belong to our species but he shared one of our traits - immortality. We had met about eight months ago and I found him fascinating. Blake had chosen immortality because of his curious mind.

"There were so many things I wanted to learn or try in my lifetime... And then, one day, it dawned on me how short human life is. I would not be able to read all the books I was interested in, let alone do everything I dreamed about... That is when I started to wonder how to prolong my life," he had once told me.

Blake's biological age was 35 but his actual age was nearer 360 years. He did not intend to live forever, though.

"Once I feel that I have had enough I will become mortal again. So far, I have never felt that way. I have been around for a very long time but I have never lost interest in life. I always find something new and exciting."

Blake's zest for life was amazing. He had learnt 25 languages (although he had forgotten most of them by now), fought in several wars, been part of different royal courts, assisted several scientists and inventors, and travelled to more than 100 countries. Blake had been employed in at least a thousand jobs in his lifetime. He had even worked at NASA at some point and was very interested in anything related to outer space.

It was the afternoon and we were in one of New York's countless restaurants. I had really been looking forward to today's meeting - Blake had promised to reveal the secret behind his immortality.

A waitress brought his order - steak, fries and salad. Just like me, he only needed to feed once a week. I, too, was having "lunch" by drinking Slood from a straw. The dark green glass bottle looked like a regular bottle of mineral water.

"I was acquainted with a few alchemists. One of them, Kristian Magnus, became a good friend of mine. At first he had searched for the philosopher's stone but later lost interest and created his own stone - eternium. Kristian thought that the philosopher's stone had too many cons. It only provided eternal youth and immortality as long as the owner had it whereas eternium is tied to the owner and works until the spell is broken. Sounds handy until you think what would happen if the owner would somehow become separated from it... There would be no way to stop eternal life. Kristian made a few of these precious stones. He gave one to me and kept one for himself. I don't know what happened to the rest of them.

I had never heard of eternium before so he had my full attention.

"What does it look like?" I asked.

"It's green and partially covered by white salt rock. It looks quite boring to the untrained eye. Remind me to show it to you one day."

"You mentioned breaking the spell..."

"Yes, it does not work on its own. There are special words one must say to activate it. Then, once the stone is no longer useful, there are words to deactivate it."

"And what happens next? Would you..."

"Turn into a pile of ashes?" he laughed. "No. Once I deactivate the stone I would become an ordinary thirty-five year old mortal."

"And what if you change your mind?"

"Eternium can be re-activated several times."

"Impressive stone..."

"Indeed. I have no idea how Kristian managed to create something like that."

"What happened to him?"

"That I do not know. He left our town and I never heard from him again. By the way, there is more to tell... One eternium can serve two owners. If I met a woman I wanted to be with I could make her, too, immortal. There's just one catch - we could not have any children whilst immortal. That is to remind me that..."

"...you cannot have it all."

I had another sip of Slood. Blake got back to his food.

"Have you really never felt you've seen it all?"

"No. Each new decade is more exciting than the one before it and every century has brought something new. Especially the twentieth century. So much progress in everything in such a short period of time... I enjoy every day of my life and have never felt weighed down by my long life."

Blake's face changed as he said it. I hadn't seen such joy of life and enthusiasm in anyone's eyes for a long, long time.