I don't care about dying. Honestly, it's all the same to me. Death isn't a tragedy anymore. It's just paperwork. A shift of form. And of course, Du la Font is baffled—he can't wrap his ancient, overdecorated head around the fact that I'm not crying like a little bitch this time. He says, in that voice of his—measured, refined, almost elegant—that the last five times he sentenced me to death, I begged like a coward. He says I cried. Crawled. Pleaded for mercy over my pathetic excuse of a life—as a vampire so irrelevant he wouldn't even make the credits. Not even a supporting character in the grand vampire epic—just some extra in the background. He says I whimpered like the filthy, lowborn rat I was, am, and will remain—until I stop being reborn and finally stay where I belong: rotting in the fucking abyss.
I say nothing. There's nothing to say. Fuck Du la Font. He doesn't scare me. Nothing does anymore. I only think about Irene. Her voice. Her laughter. Her body—like a nymph carved in moonlight. Maybe we'll find each other again. Her in a new body. Me in a new body. It would take a miracle. A ridiculous, soap-opera-style miracle. But who knows? The fact that there's even the slightest, most absurd possibility of it gives me strength. It keeps me from thinking about the pain. The fire. The sun. About burning until there's nothing left but dust.
Du la Font listens to my thoughts. All the vampires I've met can do that. Then again, I've only met Agnes and now Du la Font. Still, I feel like some dimwitted hillbilly. Like a dropout who never made it past third grade. A moron with academic deficiencies.
"Would you like to know where that Irene you think about so much is?" Du la Font asks.
Agnes tries to speak, but once again, without even glancing at her, Edmundo silences her before the sound can leave her lips.
"You know?" I ask, though the question is pointless. If Du la Font brought her up, of course he knows.
"I know everything about you," he says. "Until very recently, my curiosity for you was comparable to the kind one might feel for a tadpole in some forgotten stream in a third-world country. In other words, you were the kind of being that passes through life unnoticed, leaving not even the faintest trace on memory. But now that I've decided to reclaim what's mine—namely, Agnes—I took the trouble to revisit your pitiful human life. Watched it like a film. This time, under the name Fabrizio."
"What do you mean, like a film? Can you see the past like that?"
"I can see it. I can be there. I can travel to any moment in time. I can move through time."
"How?"
"Because I am one of the most powerful beings to ever exist."
"And Agnes? Can she do it too?"
"Of course she can. Agnes possesses powers you wouldn't even dare to imagine. Naturally, she won't show them to you. And she definitely won't tell you how to unlock them yourself. And it makes perfect sense, don't you think? Ignorance is the most effective form of control. As long as you know nothing, she has you exactly where she wants you—obedient, confused, and bound to her forever."
"Did you teach her everything she knows?"
"Obviously. But everything she knows is not everything I know. I know much more. A good magician never reveals all his tricks."
"She's in Hell, isn't she? Irene's there."
"Yes. She hit the jackpot: a one-way trip to the inevitable."
I feel a brutal ache in my chest. I look at Agnes, and all that weight crashes into my eyes. I wish she would die with me at sunrise. Not to share in the pain of burning under the sun—no, not that. What I want, what I crave, is to see her face the one thing she truly fears: ceasing to be a vampire. Because for her, the greatest pain isn't death. It's losing her power. It's the unbearable idea of being simply human again.
Du la Font says:
"The life that Irene lived with you was her one hundred and twenty-first. Your life, before you became this poor imitation of a vampire, was your fifty-third. Your precious Irene was a much older soul than you."
"Is there a way for me to end up in Hell too? Some way to avoid being reborn as a human?"
"What are you saying, boy? That you'll go to Hell, find your girl's soul, and somehow be happy? Are you really that stupid? There are no reunions down there. No conversations. No comfort. Souls don't recognize each other. They're piled on top of one another, blind, boiling in pain—shapeless, timeless, senseless. If you think you'll hold her hand or whisper a word, that's pure delusional fantasy. Have you lost your mind entirely?"
Du la Font looks at Agnes and gives her voice back. Agnes says:
"Don't be stupid, Fabrizio. Be reborn in a human body. I'll find you again. I promise."
"What for?" I answer. "To live the same thing all over again? No. I don't want that. It makes no sense. I don't want to repeat this bullshit."
"I can send you to Hell, if that's what you want," Du la Font says.
"No, please, no," Agnes begs. "Edmundo, don't do it."
"If he asks, I can grant it. You know the rules, little lady. If he asks, I can give it to him."
Edmundo locks eyes with me.
"Do you want this?"
"Yes," I say.
"Say it. Say it all."
"I want to go to Hell."
"Ask me."
"I want you to send me…"
Agnes cuts me off. She screams in desperation. She doesn't want me to finish the sentence. Edmundo silences her instantly. He looks at me. I look at him. I look at the vampire who created Agnes, the vampire who created me. And now that I think about it, I guess that makes the fucking Du la Font my goddamn grandfather. I smile. Then I say:
"Come on, Du la Font. Fuck it all. Fuck your holy mother. Send me to Hell. I wish for you to send me to Hell."
"Wish granted, boy," Edmundo replies.