THE BUTTERFLY AND THE CROWS
We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty – Maya Angelou ...
Death.
Art.
Foolishly I thought I could separate one from the other but lines blur.
'These violent delights ...' I heard Henry whisper, his lips brushing against my ear as he offered me a chalice filled with blood and wine, 'have violent ends.'
Death rarely brought me any sort of delights; violence came to me like a thief, taking the most valuable things I owned ... my sanity and my will to go on.
My eyes lingered on the cut upon Henry's wrist, the spot where he took a knife and bleed into the Cabernet ... for I refused to feed off him. He told me to drink as I looked frail. But he never did anything because of a kind heart.
Henry Byron never cared much about the rest of us, but he understood beauty. His eyes lingered on my ruby necklace while mine lingered on the carmine liquid. His fingers danced along my skin, right where shoulder meets neck. It made me shiver and the thought took me that my own grave had just been walked upon.
'Aren't you going to drink?' he asked when I faltered. 'You look so very fragile.' He unclasped the necklace and coiled it around his fingers.
Fragile ... we were all fragile at the core.
At least I knew who my friends were, and they all came with a price.
***
Upon his deathbed, my prince had never looked more divine. I ran to him as soon as I stepped foot into the castle ignoring everyone else, especially Calista. It is a sure thing to say that his grave will not only be walked upon but trampled upon.
His face no longer held his porcelain beauty and was reduced to an ashen grey. His thick hair now lay like strands of frayed silk around his head. His eyes would never move to meet mine. His hands would never rise to embrace me. Never again would I hear my name dripping from his lips or the way he murmured, 'Beloved'.
I wept for him as the others visited downstairs. Every one of them wanted to take his place. I felt their desire. I smelt it in the air. Rancid. Revolting. Though I tried to hate them all, I could not. I hated myself more.
***
'Aren't you going to drink?'
I lifted the chalice to my lips, allowed the beautiful bitterness of the blood-wine to find every inch of me which felt empty.
Drinking off another vampire was an unforgivable sin, but we were both willing to risk it. I always had some pretty trinket to reward Henry with, making the endangerment worth it. He knew after killing Dante, I rarely fed. I was skin and bones, the walking dead parading around in expensive gowns and imported perfume.
By now Henry's cut had nearly healed, all that remained was a thin red line. I drank till there was nothing left, my tongue flickering along the edges of the cup like a parched dog. I handed Henry the chalice, feeling some of my strength return.
Kindness was something none of us had in abundance. We were vampires; cruel, conniving. We all had a motive, something wild that drove us to the edge. Ah, but what a place to be for there is no way to leap to your death if you refuse to stand on the edge.
***
Death ... it finds us all eventually, even those of us no longer truly alive. Perhaps some graves are meant to be walked upon.
Outside the world lay silent, moonlight kissed and calm. Inside the castle, I felt the energy of desire. I should kill them all. My mind birthed foolish thoughts. The others were taking up too much room in the fragmented follicles of whatever was left of my sanity. My mind felt like an island surrounded by turbulent seas. Killing a vampire is never an easy task, it takes a certain art form to do it right.
Somewhere in the distance I thought I heard a violin. Fragments of the night before lingered. Two down and I had nothing to do with either death.
In the stars I saw Dario's face. Guilt came to throttle me once more. I thought of the butterflies I once collected. I thought of how their tiny wings bashed against the inside of the jar. How their wings stuck to the mortar, how they turned to silver dust under the pestle.
From my pocket I took out a folded sketch and opened it. He would have made a fine sculpture, put David to shame.
I ripped the sketch into a hundred tiny pieces and flung it out of the window. I watched as they fluttered to the ground on tiny wings. 'Now,' I whispered, 'you are free.'
***
Calista sat next to the Egyptian on the velvet settee, her slender frame snug between the man and a large velvet throw pillow. The others lingered by a gramophone, flipping through the records as they sipped absinthe. When I entered the sitting room, they fell silent and looked my way.
'Come join us, Cara Mia,' Calista purred. 'There is always room for one more.'
'Like in your bed?' I spat out spitefully. I saw the flame-haired vampire smirk.
The Egyptian gave me a dark look and I side-stepped into the shadows.
'Always,' Calista replied never missing a heartbeat. She knew I was sometimes blunt but always kept her elegance and never told me to fuck off as she should have.
'You have already spent too much time on your own,' Byron said. 'Calista is right, you should sit with us.'
The scent of the absinthe they had been drinking, making me feel ill. I shook my head and took a step toward the door.
'He needs me,' I whispered almost inaudibly. I heard someone sigh heavily.
'He is gone, Cara Mia.' Calista rose and extended her hand to touch me, but I pulled back hastily. 'Nothing is going to bring him back.'
'And you are all so happy now, aren't you?' I spat. 'Once he is buried you will all be fighting over who becomes our next prince. I know you will!' My voice rose octaves. I saw red. They were pleased Lucio was gone; I felt it in the marrow of me. I was the only one weeping bloody tears over the loss of him. 'I'm sure you'll all be dancing on his grave.' When Calista tried to reach for me again to calm me down, I pulled away so abruptly I slammed my arm into the wall. 'Don't touch me.' I stepped back, cradling my aching arm.
I welcomed the pain; at least it didn't ache like the pain in my heart.
'None of us are happy. We ...' Lazlo spoke but I cut him off.
'Lies! You ...' I began to point from one vampire to another, 'you probably killed him.' My voice trembled as the realization that he was murdered crept over me and hung before my eyes like a mourning veil. 'You are nothing but killers!'
Like a gust of wind, the Egyptian came to me and grabbed me by the shoulders hard. 'We may be killers but guess what, so are you. Or have you forgotten you are a vampire?'
'I never used poison,' I hissed accusingly.
Their eyes burned into me. I felt the sting. I freed myself from the Egyptian's grip and bolted out of the room.
***
Art. There is beauty in the art of destruction, I remember my lover once saying. I stood on the rooftop of the castle and looked to the night sky. Shards of gold dotted the dying darkness. The hem of my long white dress swayed around my bare feet. A gentle breeze ran its fingers through my dark hair and stole the rosebuds woven into the strands.
'I once dreamed ...'
My voice was a hushed sound as the sun began to rise over the horizon. I stared at it in awe for it was a beauty I had not seen since I'd been turned. My eyes and the sun met for a splinter of time. There was nothing else in the world at that moment when everything turned from black and bleak to pink and gold, but me and my sins.
'... I once dreamed of a girl who dreamed of a prince, but these violent delights have violent ends.'
A flock of crows took to the skies, one for every murder I ever committed but I was no longer one of them. I heard their cries serenade me; their inky wings left sketch-marks in the sky. I extended my arms, tilted my head back. I was a butterfly; I'd always been a butterfly, never a crow. I closed my eyes and let the sun turn me to dust.
