Twice Removed: Excerpt

Alan Murphy plans to commit suicide in front of his ex-wife and best friend. He knows that shooting himself in such fashion would end his pain and exact an appropriate justice for the betrayal that destroyed his marriage and his memories. But Alan cannot die. Between the scandal and his return, Alan had become a vampire. Now he not only has the power to exact the revenge he envisions, he can survive it as well.

PRELUDE: CHRISTMAS 2000

I watched him, this man who had shattered my life with so little shame. The last time he ambled through the streets of Paris…better not to remember.  But now there was a storm so powerful, it claimed the antique glass of Notre Dame a victim; shrieking in triumph through shards of defeated sanctuary.

The object of my hatred stepped out of the Metro only to be met with a blast of weather that collected at one end of the Champs Elysée and heaved its way through tortured Christmas lights to the other.  He staggered amidst the shadows of the 8th Arondisement whilst beneath him, the cobblestones of the city lay await for the less than wary. 

He shivered, but it wasn’t the cold. He clutched his smartphone close to his chest and struggled to flip to the camera app.  He seemed determined to record a moment of panic and solitude–a moment where, against all reasonable expectation, I appeared before him, above him and around him until he fell breathless to the ground. The cobblestones were more comfortable underfoot.

The phone, flung in another direction, leaned at an angle against a curb, bereft and alone. The cool glow of its screen blinked at the two of us who, in staring back, forgot, just for a moment where we where. The scene within reminded us: a row of Parisien apartments at a macabre angle, the image of ghostly balustrades wavering in the rain. But, as the wind seemed to howl through the Arc de Triumph, it was silent where we listened. Together.

 It was only then that the scowling tourist glanced upwards and with an unimaginable shock, found he was witnessing the impossible. Oblivious to all around him, he fumbled for his phone but I reached down and grasped it first.  We both watched the scene within the screen swirl while I stood overhead focusing the lens on my face. In the screen, the apartments remained unaffected–their inhabitants ignoring the havoc outside their homes. For one brief second, while the one below me struggled to comprehend, I smiled.  Our eyes connected but it was too much. As he succumbed to the darkness that swept away the city of lights, the man I had once called my friend heard himself gasp incredulously. . .

“It can’t be. . . you. . .it can’t be.”

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