| My name is Scrivener, and I was beset with this ridiculous apellation by the vampyre Moribunde Undercroft. I do not remember my Christian name anymore, nor do I care to. It is just a sad reminder of the life I was beguiled to forsake. I first met Moribonde, or Mori, as I now know him (after 100 plus years in my acquaintance, why bother with formalities?), when I was a young man of high hopes and paltry means. I was an awkward endomorphic youth, still in my twenties. Having been ill a lot as a boy, my growth had been a bit stunted; therefore, I was rather diminutive of stature, and not what would be considered conventionally attractive. Due to an Iberian branch in my bloodline, I was a somewhat swarthy, dark looking creature. So dark was my complexion that, as a boy, the other children at my school used to shout the epithet "gipsy-boy" at me. Even now, I cast a rather tawny countenance for a cadaver. I usually sport a small moustache, with a tuft of hair under my bottom lip, much in the style of that Ukranian nutter, Gogol. I carry a mop of dark brown waves and curly-cues on top of my little cranium and I have deep brown eyes, which are a bit striking now with my wealth of experience. Not age, however, for despite his continual efforts in this regard over the last century or so, a fresh kill will swipe Father Time's furrows from my brow like so much grease paint. In contrast, Mori was tall and handsome, with a thick, cropped auburn moustache. Dressed in a muslin shirt, and a black suit with an overcoat of fashionable cut, he struck a very imposing figure along with his top hat and cane, and were it not for his open amiability, I would have felt a bit intimidated by his presence. He seemed very knowledgeable about all sorts of things concerning the arts, literature in particular. He introduced himself to me, late one afternoon, at the shop where I purchased supplies for my scribblings, and, seeing said implements in my hands, asked if I was a writer. I felt honoured that a gentleman of his bearing and obvious elevated station should not only address someone such as myself, barely beginnning my apprenticeship for the training college, but to shew such an interest in my personal affairs was really something out of the ordinary. After a brief exchange, he told me to meet him, in an hour, at a local alehouse, and to bring a sample of my writing. When there, he plied me with meat and drink (neither from which he partook), as he read my work. When he finished, his face stretched into a disturbingly toothy smile, then he grasped me firmly by the left hand, my writing hand. His grey eyes glimmered in the candle-light, like frost-laden windows, through the dimly lit corner of the pub in which we sat. His skin shewed like a death mask, marmoreal, sheen, and white. For a moment, I began to realize that I did not like him as much as I had before, and that I really did not know this man so well for him to be affording me such attentions. I slowly swallowed the morsel in my mouth, and took another draught from my glass . He then told me of a desire to have his adventures chronicled, so that if he were to perish some day (I recall finding it odd that he used the word if), then his survivors might publish the work and everyone would see what a clever bastard he really was. He offered to make me a companion on his sojourns to Italy and France, saying that I would be the Polidori to his Byron. In retrospect, I do not believe that he was aware of the inherent truth implied in that parallel. He then allotted me the job of being chronicler of the aforementioned deeds, and dubbed me Scrivener. After insouciantly tolerating my initial barrage of protests, Mori expiated on how great an honour this charge would be for me, and how, in return, he was to bestow upon me the greatest of gifts...the chance for immortality. Assuming that the gentleman I had previously believed to be my saviour, was actually a madman, I arose from my table and moved towards the door, but somehow he was there before me. He persuaded me to return to my table, and, after revealing his true nature to me, explained in full detail his plan. He also informed me that since I was privy to his secret, I had to go along with his designs, or the porter & pie I had recently ingested would be my last. I did not care for the prospect of eking out eternity with this vainglorious coxcomb, but Mori needed someone who could keep up with him, and share in his adventures firsthand, and so in time, he had me turned. Always the dandy, however, he could not be bothered with the intimate details of the conversion process. All this changed on the night he introduced me to a new companion, a female vampyre he had encountered in his nocturnal maleficia. That was the night I exposed my soul to perdition, and ceded my heart to the Circean wiles of Azraelle. |