Chapter 4: Getting Settled

Sebastian LaCroix's Ghoul

Chapter 4: Getting Settled

When I woke up next, I thought that I was still in a dream. Instead of the three star hotel room my parents had rented for our trip to L.A., I was still in the opulent room in Venture tower. Instead of hearing my father's loud snoring, or my mother's soft breathing, or even my brother babbling quietly in his sleep, there was only silence. Then I remembered. I drew in a shaky breath, ready to cry again. But I couldn't cry. Not until the funeral, at least, and only then. There I would cry out all the rest of my sorrow, until I was empty of it. Until that day and afterwards, I had to find a way to move on, to separate all the sadness from the good memories until all the pain was burned away and there was nothing left but warm thoughts. The next breath I drew was steady, and the world became clear again as the tears went away. After a moment, I sat up, and looked around at the room. My room...

I began to see it again with new eyes. I got up out of the king size bed and pulled open the drapes. Golden Californian sunlight streamed in, blinding me for a moment. When I could see again, I wandered around the room, oblivious to the cold polished wooden floor at my feet. I traced my fingers along the smooth dark-wood desk, fingered the spines of the books in their shelves, picked through the clothes in the wardrobes, and finally settled on the extremely comfortable colonial couch. Staring at the blank T.V., I allowed for the feeling that had been following me the whole time to sink in: It was all mine...

A shiver of excitement went up my spine.

Of course, it all really belonged to LaCroix, considering that he owned the tower and all. But it was still nice to believe that this was my own sanctuary, my own place to be. After a moment of basking in this new feeling of ownership, I had the urge to check my email. I got up, and finally realized that the floor was quite cold. I quickly walked to the wardrobes and searched around for some slippers, but found none. I turned around, searching with my ghoul vision. At home, it would have taken me a while to find anything, as my room always was in a state of perpetual disaster. But with this room, I resolved to do my best to keep it neat and tidy. It was just too nice a place to be messy. I went to hang up a fallen shirt, but my injured hand made it difficult.

I looked at my wrapped up hand, spotted red where I had bled through. "This should be all cleared up in a few hours..." Mercurio had said. The digital clock read two o'clock in the afternoon. My hand no longer hurt when I moved it... could it be that I was healed already? There was only one way to find out. Slowly, carefully, I removed the gauze. When my hand came free, I stared in wonder. White lines, like the palest of scars, where scattered around my palm and fingers. Soon, these too would fade, leaving no trace of my accident.

My cold feet reminded me of my task. I looked around for some slippers, and sighed in exasperation as I discovered that they were right beside the bed. I hop-stepped across the distance and slipped on the warm, silky black footwear, then went over to the Mac. As I waited for the computer to load, I started to wonder what would happen today. Perhaps I would hang out with Mercurio. I thought about what happened in the kitchen last night/this morning. I would have to find some way to quickly acclimatize to my new strength. Mercurio would probably help me with that if I asked. I didn't want to embarass myself like that in front of Mr. LaCroix.

LaCroix... An interesting individual... Would I see him today? Probably not, considering that he was very busy man. But I could not help having a small spark of hope that I would.

Realizing that the computer had booted up I went to use it, only to find that I needed a password. I sighed inwardly at my silliness. Of course there would be a password. Suddenly something started buzzing in the right hand upper drawer. I pulled it open to find a cell phone and a blackberry on top of several envelopes. The phone vibrated for another second, then stopped. I picked it up and clicked a button. The screen lit up, revealing a black box that informed me that I had had 3 new messages. It took me a couple of attempts to unlock it, but after fumbling around for a bit (and finding out that it was one of those phones that could have a keyboard or a number pad depending how you opened it) I finally got to the message screen. It read that I had two new messages from Mercurio, and one from Sebastian. I opened LaCroix's first.

Mercurio will be taking you to the gym today. Be sure
to wear appropriate attire, and to be ready by 2:30
PM. After that he will take you to dinner, and then you
will be introduced to my other agents. I may or may
not be there to introduce you to them, so if I am not,
then I bid you a good day.
-SL

I raised an eyebrow, not just because he initialed his text, or that it was all proper spelling and grammer, but that it had only been sent a moment ago. Shouldn't he be asleep by now? And how the hell does he seem to know when I'm awake?

I would have to ask Mercurio about it, I decided, and opened the first text from the man.

Hey kid, up and at 'em! We're headed to the gym in a
few hours, so get dressed and fed! I'll come get you
soonish.
-Merc

I snorted and opened the second message.

By the way, the cell and the blackberry are yours. You
also have a new email address through the company.
All of your emails from your old account are stored on
this one, and any emails sent to the old account
will be directed to the new one. The password for
your computer and email are the same: bloodlines.
-Merc

I sighed at the fact that I wouldn't have a whole lot of time to explore the room further, but I decided to postpone breakfast for another few moments. I logged onto the computer, and then opened up my email. There was one new message, but from an unknown sender. Suspicious, I ran a quick virus check, but it was clean. I opened it.

By darkest moon, and by darkest night,
your own dark past will be brought to light,
to aid you in the trials to come,
for very soon, the end of nights will come.

-A friend.

What the hell?

A sudden loud knocking made me almost jump out of my skin.

"Who is it?" I called, hurriedly signing out of the email and logging out. Something made me want to hide this message. A familiar voice called back "It's me. Are ya decent yet?" I cursed. It was Mercurio, ready to take me somewhere already. "No, sorry, I just got up." I yelled back, racing for the wardrobes to pick something out. I quickly found and yanked on a pair of soft grey sweatpants, white socks, blue and white sneakers, a sports bra, and a black tanktop. Yanking the large wooden brush through my hair (which luckily was not very messy anyways), I found a hair tie and headed for the door. I would have to look at that email later.

I opened the door to find Mercurio waiting on the other side. His eyebrows were raised in both surprise and amusement. "Wow, you dress fast, kiddo." He chuckled. "Ready to go?" "Ready to go where?" I asked. I still hadn't eaten anything. "To breakfast, then down to the gym, and then after that a tour around the penthouse. You'll be spending a lot of time here, so you might as well get familiar with the place. So, are ya ready?" "I suppose so. Lead on." I said.

We stopped off at the kitchen first, where I grabbed a toasted bagel with 'light' strawberry cream cheese spread along with a glass of milk. I scarfed it down, or at least ate as fast as my new sense of taste would let me. Every bite was like a symphony of flavours: the strong, artificial taste of strawberry, the lovely hint of cream, and the bready flavour of the bagel. Afterwards, we headed to the company gym in Venture tower.

As we stood in elevator, Mercurio explained to me about what we were doing. "When we get down there, we'll go to a private section of the place. It'll have weights, tread mills, a running track... and a small gymnastics area. I need to get you up to speed on your new abilities so you don't do what you did last night unless you want to." The elevator dinged and the door slid open to a desk that was in front of a large, high ceilinged room. Past it, I could see what could only be business people working out: woman with lined faces and too much make up were walk-reading leisurely on treadmills; large, sweaty men walked around an indoor track, no doubt just completing their second lap and about to leave. The whole place stank of sweat, stress, and cheap grey-targeting hair dye. Mercurio took out his wallet and flashed a card to a bored looking attendant, who nodded and seemed to press something behind the desk. Instead of heading towards the large open room, Mercurio walked over to an unmarked door and opened it, revealing a large room filled with expensive exercise machines and its own indoor track.

"Alright kiddo, start with that one over there, and we'll work our way through." said Mercurio, pointing to a contraption that looked like it exercised the thigh muscles.

An hour and a half later, we finished with the machines. I had gotten quite a decent workout, especially when I was lifting weights that normal full grown men would struggle with. And I'm not that terribly fit to begin with. I did two laps around the kilometer long track, which Mercurio timed: I did it in about forty five seconds, sprinting. On the treadmill, I ran for a good fifteen minutes at a fast lope. And as we progressed through the workout, I learned the limits of my new strength, and knew that from now on the things I broke would only be broken because I wanted them to be. I've never felt so in shape or alive.

After we went into a connecting room that contained a small gymnastics playground: spring boards, two balance beams, horizontal bars, and lots of padded floor space. "The first thing I want you to do is to jump, not climb, but jump onto this balance beam." Mercurio said, patting the object which was four feet off the floor. No problem, considering I jumped about the same distance last night with not a whole lot of effort. But I don't have the best head for heights, or great balance, and all I could think of was 'what if I fall off?'. I hesitated. Mercurio raised an eyebrow, and I sighed inwardly. I bent my knee's, and jumped. Up I went, above the beam... and landed squarely on top. I wobbled to correct myself, then realized that it was unnecessary. I was perfectly balanced, and my struggles only came from force of habit. I straightened. "Now I want you to walk to the end." directed Mercurio. I took a step and wobbled, a real wobble, but I quickly stabilized myself. The next step was better, and the next, until I was at the end, triumphant. Grinning, I executed a bow and a flourish. And promptly fell off.

I should have landed hard on my side, but it seemed as if time slowed down, and I had time to twist and right myself before I hit the ground. It wasn't a graceful landing, but at least I was upright. When I looked at Mercurio, this time both his eyebrows were raised, but he looked amused. I sighed, outwardly this time, then leaped back onto the balance beam. After a few more lengths of the beam, we called it a day at the gym and headed back up to the penthouse. There, I showered and dressed, this time in jeans, a soft white camisole, and a black over jacket that hooked together in front of my chest. As soon as I was ready, Mercurio took me on a tour of the penthouse.

The sheer size of the place astounded me. Room after room went by: a billiards room, a boardroom, a sitting room, several guest suites and offices, even an art gallery, a small ballroom... and a large indoor swimming pool. All in a penthouse.
Every room was beautifully decorated, but always in a victorian style. Was this a clue about LaCroix's real age? Did he have a bout of nostalgia when he built his miniature mansion?

We stopped at a particularly fancy set of doors, made of ebony with gold handles instead of mahogony and silver. Mercurio continued. "And this is Mr. LaCroix's personal chambers. He's sleeping right now, obviously, so we can't go in." It was six o'clock in the evening, so I guess he would be up in a few hours. "I'm surprised he would let us in there anyways." I said. Mercurio shrugged, saying "Ah, well, Mr. LaCroix likes to show off his wealth. I've been in there and I gotta tell ya, it puts your room to shame." "What about yours?" "Oh, I don't live in Venture Tower. I live in Santa Monica, by the pier. Santa Monica Suites, Room 4. Its a nice enough place."

He turned to continue down the hall, and I followed. "So how old is Mr. LaCroix, really?" I asked. "He was born in Calais, France, over two hundred years ago." said a most unexpected voice. I whirled around to see Sebastian LaCroix standing in his bedroom doorway, wearing his usual suit and looking regally amused.