Belle Morte Bites (Belle Morte 4.3)

Lonely Heart

Barfleur, France,1721

Edmond Dantès gazed out over the moonlit sea and wondered what it would be like to die.

Vampires couldn't drown, of course, but what would happen if he filled his pockets with rocks and waded out until the water closed over his head? Sooner or later, he would wither away from lack of blood. How long would it take? How long would he be trapped down there, staring up at the world above his head?

Although, he supposed, he wouldn't be around long enough to know how long it would take to die of thirst – water wasn't protection enough from the sun. He'd burn up before anything else.

Simply standing in the sun might be a quicker way, but he couldn't imagine where he could do that in private, away from curious eyes.

Did he really want to die?

Twelve years ago, the disasters of war and famine had become so great that France was on the verge of collapse, and in desperation the king had appealed to his people to save their country. Thousands of recruits had joined the army – Edmond among them.

He was no stranger to death and suffering – not after having seen the plague rip through his village so long ago – but war was a very different beast. The horror he'd seen there was something he'd never forget. The thunder of muskets firing, the smell of the smoke mingling with blood and shit and vomit, the screams of dying men, it still woke him up at night, though the war had ended seven years ago. He'd made friends with his fellow soldiers, but lost them just as quickly, and even though the war had given him a purpose, something to fight for – which he hadn't had since losing Marguerite – the constant blood and death and suffering had weighed heavily on him.

When the war had ended, it had felt like the sun coming out from behind the darkest cloud, and yet . . . in a perverse way Edmond missed the fighting. He'd hated it – hated seeing friends shot down, dying in agony, hated the musket balls that had ripped through his own flesh, hated the constant barrage of human misery – but what did he have without it? There was nothing to fight for, no direction for his whole life, and he didn't know what to do.

All he had were the ghosts of the past – all the people he had loved and lost.

Ysanne had once told him how lonely immortality could be, and now he really understood that.

He was just so tired.

What was the point of anything?

He lost everyone he loved. He was adrift in the world without a single friend. Was this all immortality was – watching the people he cared about die?

Part of him knew this didn't make sense – Lucy had died of plague when he was still human, and Marguerite would have died of her wounds even if he hadn't tried to turn her – but it was hard to think logically when that terrible loneliness was like an ocean current threatening to drag him under.

He looked at the sea again, and took a step towards it, then another.

The sound of soft laughter reached his ears, and everything around him went very still, because he knew that voice, but he couldn't believe that it was her, couldn't believe that she was here now, in this commune by the sea where he was contemplating ending his life.

Slowly, he turned.

Ysanne was walking up the beach, her sleek hair gleaming under the moon, a smile on her lips, and it really was her, and Edmond's tired, aching heart gave a great leap, because if she was here then he wasn't alone.

He still had a friend in this cold, bleak world – his best friend.

Edmond wanted to run to her, to throw his arms around her and hold her tight, the only bright spot in his world, but then he realised why Ysanne had laughed.