Javier Vachon
 
And what a screamin' fine ride it is, too.  You pick this bucket out?
 
 
 

 
     I never thought I would live to be twenty-five.  I lived hard and fast.  A soldier
does.  We used to say "mientras dure la vida", while life lasts... and live each
moment as if it were our last.  I still do that--even though my life will last forever--
siempre jamas.
     It was 1531 and I was a soldier--running messages to artillary placements in the
hills above Lake Titicaca.  I remember thinking how impossible it would be to defeat
them--the Incas--as I ran.  He was watching me--the Inca--and he attacked me.
     We fought for what seemed like hours, neither of us winning, both of us losing,
and as the sun left the sky, we both fell, dying.  I remember looking up at the stars
when she came in the darkness--our master.  She'd been watching...said she
could still feel courage in our dying hearts.  And she brought us both across.
     It was the most erotic thing I've ever experienced, and yet it was somehow...
pure.  It was if she was flowing into me.  It was everything.
    She taught us everything we needed to know that night, and then she told
us what she wanted us to do with our new immortality.  She wanted us to be
her warriors, her chosen ones.  She wanted us to stop the senseless killing in
the world.  She said that those who treasure life should live, and those that
don't should die.  As she finished, the sun was coming up, and she kissed us
and then ... she walked into the sun...and we had to get out of the light.
     But I was young and immortal.  The last thing I wanted to do was spend it
chained to a mortal enemy of mine.  That night I was the first to rise.  He was still
buried in the soil, so I took a tree branch and stabbed him with it.  I should have
made sure he was dead.  But I was impatient and hungry.  So I left.  He's been
chasing me ever since.  But there is a world out there, and I wanted to live, so I
kept a step ahead of him--until Toronto.  Ah well, lo que hice, heco esta--what I
did is done...
     I've had a hell of a good time, though.  I'm one to live and let live, sit back
and enjoy what comes, and if there's a pretty woman--well, so much the
better.  Todos los espanoles somos muy aficionados a las muchachas guapas.
We spaniards are all very fond of pretty girls.
     For a long time I ran with a crew--with Screed, Bourbon, and Urs.  Misfits,
all of us, one way or another.  But we had fun.  It all gets old, though, when you
live forever, eventually.  We went our ways before Toronto, but we still ended
up in the same place.  But it was here, that I finally faced the Inca.  I also found
out that a little skinny mortal with big blue eyes had the power to nail me to this
piece of ground.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.
     The Inca showed up.  But then he always does.  On his quest to do good or
whatever the hell it is he wants to do.  So, I decided to leave.  Only natural.  Problem
was the plane didn't get very far.  It went ka-boom, and the next thing I know, I'm
looking up into these cerulean eyes framed by hair the color of cornsilk.  I thought
I was in heaven for a moment, until I realized what had happened.
   Fate, destino, suerte...whatever...  We met again when I was retrieving my hand.
She told me to "Freeze".  Can you believe it?  They really say that.  I thought it
was just the movies...  Anyway, she was a resister, and I couldn't whammy her
into forgetting me with my hand in my...uh, hand.  You should have heard the
conversation...she told me I was full of it.  I think I was in trouble right then.
     I must have a soft spot for women who call me slackers and try to arrest me.
I should have killed her, but I couldn't.  Screed called me every kind of idiot
under the sun, but I couldn't do it.  I let  her go.  I let Tracy Vetter go.  Good
thing, too.  Next thing I know, her partner shows up and throttles me within an
inch of my unlife.  I  haven't been that scared in a long time.  Not since I was alive.
And that was how I met Nick Knight.  An 800-year-old vampire you wouldn't
want to mess with on a dark night, and a vampire who doesn't want to be a
vampire.  He was working as a cop--Tracy's partner.  Kind of left my head spinning.
     Whether it was his pointed little lecture about responsibility or Tracy's big blue
eyes, I ended up staying in this town.  I got the Inca off my back (which is good),
but I got Knight for a replacement (which isn't so great--he's a hell of a lot harder
to avoid than the Inca ever was).  And I've got Tracy.  All I have to do is figure
out what to do about it--de una vez para siempre.  But, hey, that's life.  Live it
as it comes.  Tomorrow will take care of itself...
 
      Every woman has her own scent.  Her own flavor.  Your blood is who you are.  A taste of apricots.  The scent of calla lillies.  Every drop tells it story.
 

Javier Vachon / Characters / delggren@loftworks.com