Andrej went on ahead to Prague on the first flight out it in the morning. He still had Czech citizenship papers, doctored of course to account for the fact that they had originally been issued in the mid-twenty-second century. Never one to be far from the action, he bought an apartment along the river in the city, and called Anne-Marie the following day with details of where to ship their belongings. A little more mind control had their entire shipment on a transport within hours, skirting Customs. By now he excelled at getting falsified credentials for whatever he needed. The sooner they were out of New York, the better, and the less chance of anyone being able to track or follow them.
Prague had changed little over time. The balcony of their new apartment looked out over an undulating sea of red-tiled roofs which belied the high-tech, ultra-modern interiors. The city trailed no one technologically, yet had managed to retain the flavor of Old World Europe. After the devastating plague in the twenty-second century, the city leaders organized a tremendous effort to get the populace focused and moving forward. Building and development projects had begun at an unprecedented pace. Prague had modernized and evicted the stale utilitarian brand of architecture and attitude that had infested it since the early part of the previous century.
“Once we get settled, I think I’d like you to start learning to speak Czech,” Andrej told her one morning.
Anne-Marie looked a little surprised. “Doesn’t everyone here speak English?”
“Sure, but I’d like to blend in as much as possible. The less we stand out, the better.”
“Well… can’t you just do all the talking and I’ll pretend to be mute or something?”
“Don’t be such a baby, you can learn it. There’ll be plenty of times when you’ll have to be out there without me, anyway.”
Anne-Marie made a face. “All right. Just don’t expect me to be fluent by the end of the week.”
“Two weeks.”
She walked out of the room.
The move to Prague wasn’t quite the homecoming Anne-Marie assumed it was. Andrej was finding it oddly difficult to be back in familiar surroundings. Turning a corner could result in an assault of memories, rising like ghosts from the grave of his subconscious. This wasn’t his first return to Prague after being gone for an extended length of time, but it was the first time he had felt haunted by his own past. He wondered if he was starting to go mad, with all the memories resurfacing as they never had before. Several times he had to stop himself from calling out a name, thinking he recognized someone from years before as he walked down a street, even though he knew it was impossible it could be who he thought. He hadn’t been in Prague for nearly fifty years, and anyone he remembered from that time was either dead or had grown old and was not the young person he thought he saw. The likelihood of any of his former acquaintances who were still alive recognizing him, or even of them happening to be in this neighborhood, was remote in the extreme.
The disquiet of his heart and mind kept him from settling into his usual routine of making the rounds of the clubs to find a feeding. For the first week he wandered around the dark nighttime streets watching the crowds, reacquainting himself with the old city. Although some of the externals had changed—a building renovated here, one torn down there—it was still Prague. He could still blend in perfectly, looking at home in the local milieu, even if he didn’t quite feel it. Prague largely resembled the city he recalled from his youth. He was gratified, relieved, even amused, to see how tightly the city was hanging on to its past, but of course it was good for tourism. The charms of Old Europe were disappearing in most countries, left behind and forgotten in the rush to modernize, as humanity was wont to do.
Toward the end of the second week he went into Old Town, to his favorite café, and found a table outside on the sidewalk. He discovered they still had the marvelous coffee he remembered. The café had been a family business and was somehow still in operation. As he sipped the steaming brew a group of teenagers mobbed by, banding together as if to protect themselves from the more respectable citizenry. One of the girls had painted her hair with metallic silver streaks as well as woven beads into it. Andrej watched absentmindedly as she slowed her gait, letting her friends get a few paces ahead of her. She turned her face to Andrej as she adopted a seductive pace, licking her lips at him with the vaguest smile. He took a long drag on the cigarette he had lit, considering the possibilities. No, he thought, not this one. Not yet. He suddenly felt tired, it was too much effort to even feed himself. He looked off in the other direction, breaking the link with the girl. As he did so she seemed to wake from a dream, shook her head to clear it, and increased her pace to catch up to her friends.
He relaxed back in his chair and continued watching the crowds drifting by. Eventually he would have to take Anne-Marie out and at least show her around the city, although she’d be doing more moving about during the day. Like an animal stalking its prey, he needed to get the lay of the land and so hadn’t wanted to be distracted by acting as a tour guide with her just yet. He had to relearn the various districts of the city, and where he was likely to find what he needed.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry!”
He jumped back from the table at a sudden sensation of wet in his groin. If it had been hot coffee; he would have had to pretend to be burned. This was just cold and wet. He looked up to see who was responsible. She was blond, blue-eyed, pretty, and he noted she was speaking English. She must have tripped walking by, tossing her drink to catch her balance, with the glass landing in his lap. He mopped at his pants with a towel that a nearby waiter had hurriedly handed him. The woman’s companion, a young dark-haired man, stood by observing but not saying anything. Men often had the reverse reaction to him that women did, and the opportunity was too good to pass up. Something about him always threatened human men, without even speaking to them. Andrej stood up to dry off his seat, keeping an eye on the man out of the corner of his eye.
“Please, don’t worry, it’s just an accident, it’s no problem,” he said in heavily accented English. American women were always suckers for accents, and he made sure it came across loud and clear. He smiled at her, half to annoy her boyfriend and half because she was genuinely embarrassed and contrite for spilling her drink on him. In another moment she had bought him a fresh cup of coffee, and after more apologies they left. He sat back down, watching them go, keeping his eyes on the woman and willing her to turn around and look back at him. When she did, he was ready with another seductive glance for her. She kept walking away, although he knew he would linger in her mind for a few days.
He used to enjoy practicing on random passersby, but he wasn’t interested in putting out too much effort just then. It was enough to be back here, enjoying familiar sights and smells. This was still ‘home,’ even after three hundred years. After spending all his youth and much of his adult life here, he had had to move on from city to city every few years, but he tried to make his way back to Prague every forty or fifty years.
As he sat there letting his mind wander, he didn’t notice the lights of the café were going off until the waiter came over to pull in the tables from the sidewalk. He stood up to leave and glanced at his watch. He was surprised to find it was almost two a.m. He’d forgotten Prague closed up shop for a few hours at night, unlike New York. He wasn’t ready to go back to the apartment yet and instead decided to walk down towards the river through the deserted streets. The emptiness threw him off, and for a moment it was as if he’d stepped back in time to the Purification War, when the cities had been decimated and many towns emptied by disease.
“Jesus, I gotta get over this.” He shook himself, as if he’d come in out of the rain and could shake the flashbacks off like raindrops.
He started to pick up his pace, but as he passed an alley, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to look. There was a couple who at first appeared to be kissing, but Andrej sensed something else. He stood still for a moment and then he caught the unmistakable aura of a feeding and smell
ed the blood. The man was another vampire, and the woman was his evening meal. He stood still, watching, smoking his cigarette. The woman slumped to the ground as the vampire finished. He’d drained her, instead of taking just enough, the way Andrej had learned to.
“What’d you do that for?” he said.
The other vampire hadn’t even been aware of him standing there. He shot a look at Andrej, his eyes still glowing from the fresh feeding. For a moment Andrej thought he was going to lunge at him and try to fight him.
“What business is it of yours?” he said, barely able to talk from the blood still coating his throat.
“It’s a problem for all of us if you get careless,” Andrej said calmly. He took another drag on his cigarette then flicked it away. He walked over to examine the woman’s body. “How long since your conversion?”
The other vampire retreated a few steps deeper into the darkness of the alley.
“I’m not sure,” he said.
Andrej saw he was in a daze from the rush of the fresh blood. He hadn’t been that overcome by a feeding in… well, longer than he could remember. And that was a long time. This guy had to be newly-minted.
“What’s your name?” He wasn’t interested in making friends, but it could be useful to know who else was out there.
“Kiril.”
“All right, Kiril, give me a hand. We need to get the body out of here. And then we’re going to talk about how not to take everything.”
The two of them carried the woman to the edge of the river and dropped the body in. Whenever she was found it would appear she had cut herself and fallen into the river and drowned. At least at first glance. Andrej knew the autopsy results would never be made public. As they walked back up from the river he tried to explain to Kiril how to feed just enough to satisfy his craving without killing the prey, but in the state Kiril was in Andrej wasn’t sure he would be able to remember. There wasn’t much else he could do for him tonight. No doubt he’d see him again if they remained in Prague for long. He watched Kiril leave, wondering where he was staying, and for a moment thought about following him. Instead he shrugged and decided to go home. It wasn’t his responsibility to monitor other vampires, nor did he have any control over them. If they were stupid, they’d get caught and killed.
He arrived back at the apartment just before dawn. Although sunlight wouldn’t cause him to burst into flames, it was painful to his eyes and he avoided the brightest times of day when he could. Anne-Marie was asleep on the sofa in the living room when he walked in. He stood watching her for a minute. She was pretty enough, he thought, and in her sleep she had a childlike innocence. He felt a twinge of envy well up in him for her ability to find peace so simply. She slept untroubled by nightmares, even with him around. He had been surprised by how quickly she had lost her fear of him when they first met. It wasn’t often those like him were able to find humans who were not only not afraid, but sympathetic. He left her sleeping, and went to his own room and stretched out on his bed, but it was some time before he was able to put himself into a meditative state. Some days it was hard to put everything aside and empty his mind. He still hadn’t decided when to tell Anne-Marie why he’d wanted to return to Prague. Ah well, there was time. Walpurgis Night was still weeks away.