Beyond The Pale
Savannah Russe

Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

I never wanted to be a spy.  Of all the careers I’ve envisioned for myself in 450 years, secret agent never made my top ten.  But fate doesn’t give you a choice.  At least it never offered one to me . . . .

CHAPTER ONE

Uncle Sam Wants Me?

I was between relationships, 180 some years between relationships, to be exact.  No long sweet kisses, no I love yous, no moans of ecstasy or shivery release since the Greek rebellion against the Ottoman Turks. It had been a wee bit more than a dry spell.  I called it the Sahara when I got into it with my girlfriends.  You’d think I’d be used to a solitary existence by now.  After all, being a female vampire tends to discourage long-term relationships because even a casual fling can have serious consequences.  Indeed, my last affair nearly killed me, literally.

            What put me off the whole man-woman commitment thing happened back in 1824, when I was a dark-haired beauty in Missolonghi.  The affair had the potential to be a great love, one for the history books. Then, practically overnight, it ended badly.  No, that’s an understatement. To tell the truth, it ended tragically. 

Talking about truth, let me tell you, do not believe for a moment the story that the great poet and revolutionary George Gordon, Lord Byron, died of a fever.  I can’t believe the public bought that, but then people believed Nixon when he said “I am not a crook.”  The real cause of Byron’s death was a love bite gone bad—gone septic, to be medically accurate. I remember the incident as if it were yesterday.

We were strolling hand in hand near the inn where he had set up his temporary living quarters.  We entered a rose garden arduously created by the innkeeper out of the swampy surroundings of this mosquito-ridden town.  It wasn’t the first time we had walked there, but it was to be the last. The April day had faded into a purple haze on the verge of turning into a black velvet night. A slight breeze stirred the foliage; the air felt heavy with the smell of flowers.

“Tell me more about London, George,” I said, fanning myself feverishly, and not just from the warm temperatures.  “Do you miss it?  Is it difficult to be so far away from the parties?”  I made sure I walked very close to him, my breath like a flower petal caressing his cheek.

“The parties provided an agreeable distraction from the rather frightening solitude of a poet,” he said vaguely.  Then he gazed out over the Gulf of Patras, lying flat and still to the west.  A ship anchored far off the shore.  I could easily discern it amid the scattered silver waves that leaped up and caught the last light. I don’t know that Byron saw the vessel, but I think he did. She floated there at the starting point of a long journey, the shadows of her masts stretching eastward in the setting sun. 

“So why did you leave?” I asked.

His face stayed turned toward the gulf when he answered. “I became tired of listening to hired musicians behind a row of artificial palm trees instead of to the single, pure-stringed instrument of my heart.  I knew it was time to go.”

Seeing him in profile, his face inexpressibly sad, I couldn’t keep my eyes off him.  Byron had a wide forehead, sensual lips, and long, dark lashes over bedroom eyes. He was as finely featured as a Greek god, certainly better- looking than his portraits, which I think make him look gay.  In real life he was an unmistakably male, high-testosterone type, filled with energy, turned on by taking risks.

I admit that if I looked closely, dust soiled his clothes and grime blackened the inside of his collar. Deep lines fanned out from his eyes; his skin was sallow and dry.  And when he became fatigued, his twisted foot pained him and his limp increased. Lately George looked especially worn out, dissolute from too much hashish and too many women. Yet, so little in life looks as pleasing under bright lights and cold scrutiny as it does by candlelight and heated glances exchanged over glasses of wine. Tonight Byron was incredibly handsome. I was enchanted.  I fairly trembled to be near him.  He could have so many women—he had had so many women—but for the past few weeks, he had wanted me, only me. 

            Nonetheless, there were hours when he seemed far away in his thoughts, crossing some inner geography of his mind. “Let’s not talk about England. Talking bores me,” he said. “I’m much more interested in this.” He pulled my face to his,  kissed me hard and long, his mouth tasting of wine.  When he stopped, he looked deeply into my eyes. “ ‘She walks in beauty, like the night,’ ” he recited, “ ‘of cloudless climes and starry skies.’”  I virtually swooned.

 This man, hard and hungry, had come to fight for Greek independence. He was a hero.  I was starstruck.  He was horny. I was flirtatious. He was thirty-six.  I was a little over 274.

“Daphy,” he said, “Come on sweet thing, give me a little. You know you want to.”

Oh, yes, I did want to. I laughed and let him move the length of his body against me.  I knew his reputation, and I knew what he was after, but I didn’t care. He moaned, and whispered in a low hoarse voice, “Girl, you’re going to be the death of me.  It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted a woman this much. There’s something about you. Something . . . something mad, bad, and dangerous to know.”

He clasped my hand. As he entwined our fingers, his ring bit into my flesh.  The sensation made me tingle. He led me to a bench, putting one arm around my waist. I can still remember the feel of the hard muscles in his forearm through the thin silk of my camisole. He pulled me down onto his lap, his hand slipping up under my skirts.  I didn’t stop him. His mouth felt like silk as he lowered his lips to my heaving breast.  My blood was racing, my head was spinning, and that was when the rising moon lit up the white skin on the back of his neck.  I couldn’t resist.  I wanted to, I tried to, but I was carried away with rapture . . . and I bit him. Losing all control, I drank too much, too soon.  He looked at me with stunned eyes, suddenly understanding, and then he slipped into unconsciousness. Poor George.  And that’s the truth about his death, but don’t expect to hear about it in Lit 101.  It still hurts me to talk about it.

After barely escaping from Missolonghi before Byron’s comrades put a stake through my heart, I decided celibacy was the wiser course.  But now even I, resolute as I am, have my limits. I was climbing the walls.  A girl has her needs, and I certainly had mine. 

And one of the needs I had was getting a new ID every twenty years or so.   Vampires don’t age.  On the plus side, I’ll never need Botox.  In the minus column, I have to keep changing my birth date. 

            And that was how I got busted.

The earth turns on its dark side.  It is winter

            You can get just about anything in New York City.  Even a vampire can get a fake ID, and when the time came, all of us went to Sid.  He worked out of a wretched walk up apartment on Ninth Street between Avenues B and C.  The neighborhood gave me the creeps. And of course, I had to go there after dark.  We all complained, but Sid just said, “And, vhat do you vant? Park Avenue?”  I knew I could get mugged.  I just never expected what was about to happen. . . .