Change of Heart 2

Chapter 35

My eyes were still focused on the tattoos that were stamped on his chest, his shoulders, and his lower torso. "Tell me."

"It's−it's crazy Angel really−

"Nick, nothing can be crazier than the stuff I've been through all my life. Especially the stuff I'm going through right now; the stuff we are all going through." I looked him in the eye. "Sometimes things may sound crazy to you but the key to getting out of that insanity is letting another person in."

"You're optimistic and psychological." He smiled. "Seems like I've got myself a bonus package."

"You are so not sentimental."

"It's a bit too flowery for me."

"You're gonna tell me about your tattoos or not?"

He sighed then looked me in the eye. "How old do you think I am?"

I was a bit stunned and confused by the unexpected question. "Uh, one hundred and something?"

"I'm two hundred and four."

"Wow."

"But out of those two hundred and four years, I'm only aware of eighty."

"What do you mean? What happened during the other one hundred and twenty four?"

"I don't know."

"Nick, I don't understand."

"It was 1830." He spoke while gazing out the window. "I was just adapting to becoming a vampire. Actually I had already adapted and I was living pretty comfortably; enjoying life. I moved from California all the way to Italy. I even bought a nice house in Venice. One just like my mother always wanted."

"So what happened?"

"One night I met this beautiful woman. We rode a gondola after dinner for hours and just talked. I can't remember her name but she was really nice; a genuine kind of nice. It was getting really late so she told me she had to go. But just as I was about to row us closer to the buildings something came from under the water and flipped the gondola over. I don't know what it was but it was strong. When I fell into the water I could feel it pulling my feet down as if it was trying to drown me. Vampire strength wasn't enough to fight it. I couldn't see the woman anymore. I thought maybe she drowned." He paused "The last thing I saw was the moon. My eyes were glued to it while my face sunk helplessly into the water."

"Then what happened?"

"I wake up one morning in my house, lying perfectly normal on my bed as though nothing happened; as though it was all just a dream. I thought for a moment that it was. Everything looked the same to me. But when I got up and took a bath...I saw them."

"The tattoos."

"I had no idea where they came from. I still don't. It seems as though a Mayan artist used my body as a canvas or something." He sighed. "When I got out the house that morning I noticed that a lot had changed. It was 1954."

"Oh my god."

"I asked around about the woman but no one knew who I was talking about. There wasn't even any news about us supposedly drowning that night. So eventually I sold the house in Venice and I moved back here hoping to restart my life." He explained. "There is not a day that goes by where I don't think about what the hell happened during those one hundred and twenty four years. But no matter how hard I try, there isn't a single thing that I can remember."

"No one knows about this do they?"

"I never told anyone."

"You told me."

"I trust you." He said softly to me.

I was about to speak again but just then I got a glimpse of his back in the mirror that was behind us. Without a word I stood up and walked behind him to get a better look.

"Yea there're on my back too." He said when he realized I was studying them.

Silently, I traced the tattoos on his back with the tips of my fingers. "Nick?"

"Angel?"

"Did you notice that the tattoos on your back form a pattern?"

"No I didn't. I try very hard not to look at them."

"Well, when you look at it carefully," I said not taking my eyes off of his back. "it looks like...a triskele."

"It does?" He asked trying to turn his head back to see it in the mirror. "Well look at that, just when I thought it couldn't get any more confusing."

"I'm sure there's an explanation."

"Yea but, we've got bigger things on our hands right now." He sighed throwing his jersey back on. "Forget about it. Ok?"

"...ok."

He rose up from the bed and stood directly in front of me. "You ok?" He whispered lifting my chin so that our eyes met.

"Uh yea I um, I wanna ask you something."

"Shoot." His arms were folded.

"It's about that bite." I said taking a deep breath just from the memory. "Does it always feel like−

"Like the best feeling in the world? A feeling that you'd kill for...even if it was just gonna last for barely a minute?" He was close to me again and his breath clouded mine. "A feeling that you'd betray everyone you ever loved for? A feeling you'd seek no matter how great the risk? Even if the only one who can give it to you...was your worst enemy?" He whispered so close to my neck that I felt his cold lips lightly brush my skin where his teeth had sunk into.

"Yea...that feeling." I said softly inching away from his face.

"All of that I just described, that's how it feels for a human." He intertwined his fingers with mine. "You're a werewolf. That means your senses are heightened. So that feeling is multiplied by about a hundred for you."

"And it feels like that every time?"

"Every single time." He smiled and brought my hand up to his lips where he kissed my knuckles.

I laughed and took back possession of my hand. "You should get some rest. It was a long day."

"I still feel like we've accomplished nothing." He sat down on the bed.

"Maybe it's because we haven't." I sighed and sat down next to him. "Adrian's still in captivity and I have no idea how we're gonna get him back. We can't even imagine how to figure out the rest of this thing." I said picking up the paper with the prophecy. "Vince's new girlfriend is dying...maybe she's dead I don't know. Something's wrong with Vince these days. Again I don't know what. Ian's gone. People are still dying. And that thing is still out there." I looked at him. "So that feeling you have is pretty accurate. We have accomplished nothing. Nothing at all."

"Hey, I thought I was the pessimist here, Angel?"

"It's hard being an optimist when everything around you is negative."

"You see the job of an optimist, is to turn every negative thing into a positive one." He threw an arm around my shoulders. "Listen to me Angel, if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Maybe if you stop being so negative, you'll stop seeing the negative in our situations. Because believe it or not, it's not always all negative. There must be something positive. You just have to think positive to see it."

"Wow, and here I thought you had no sentimentality."

"I'm full of surprises Angel." He smiled.

"I'm sure you are Nick." I got up. "Get some rest."

"I'll try. Now hurry up and leave so I can finish this pack of cigarettes."

I sighed. "Goodnight Nick."

"It is now." He said while lighting one of them in his mouth.