Nicodemus in Immortalis Writes a Daily Nicolas Observation on Behavioural Patterns
Day 147. Nicolas stirs at dusk, as ever, his rising marked not by sound but by the subtle shift in the air, a thickening of shadow that clings to the corners of the chamber. He does not stretch or yawn like some mortal brute emerging from slumber, no. He uncoils, deliberate, vertebrae cracking in sequence from sacrum to skull, a ritual percussion that sets the chandelier crystals trembling faintly above.
His first act is hygiene, obsessive. He pads to the basin, fills it from the decanter of distilled rainwater, and submerges his face, scrubbing with a boar-bristle brush until the skin gleams raw pink beneath the pallor. Water droplets trace paths down his throat, pooling at the collarbone before he towels them away with linen that smells of lye and iron. He examines his reflection in the mercury glass, tilting his head left, then right, probing for imperfections in the fangs, the canines especially, running a nail along their edges. Satisfaction comes only after drawing his own blood, a thin bead licked clean.
Then the dressing. Black silk shirt, unbuttoned to the navel, exposing the chest scarred from older hungers. Trousers of fine wool, tailored to hug the thighs, boots polished to a mirror sheen that captures the candle flames. He combs his hair with a silver-backed brush, parting it precisely, though a single lock always falls forward by evening’s end, a calculated imperfection. Perfume next: a single drop of civet and amber at the pulse points, musky, animal, designed to provoke.
Hunger follows. He ignores the vein-stock in the cellar, the anaesthetised donors swaying in their harnesses. No, he hunts. Out into the fog-choked streets, collar up, stalking the alleys where the desperate loiter. Selection is methodical: never the strong, always the frail, those whose absence registers as a vague urban statistic. The approach is charm first, a murmured promise, a hand on the elbow. The bite comes sudden, arterial spray staunched by his palm, body drained in shadows. He leaves them posed, peaceful, a mercy in the grotesquery.
Post-feed, the restlessness sets in. Pacing the parlour, two strides to the mantel, pivot, two back. He toys with objects: the silver dagger from Prague, twirled between fingers; the lock of hair from his first kill, wound around a knuckle. Conversation, if I engage, is clipped, probing. He asks of my observations, feigns disinterest in my replies, yet his eyes, those coal-black pits, miss nothing. Laughter erupts unpredictably, a bark that echoes off stone walls, triggered by some private jest involving blood or betrayal.
Midnight brings the pivot to pleasure. Women, always more than one, lured from the cabarets. They arrive giggling, mascara smudged, dresses hiked. He orchestrates: one on the chaise, skirts rucked up, the other kneeling. Commands barked in French, Italian, English, voice dropping to gravel. Bites punctuate the frenzy, shallow nips at thighs, breasts, necks. Ecstasy for them, sustenance for him. Dawn nears, they depart dazed, marked, sworn to silence by glamour or gold.
Retirement at first light. He drinks mulled wine laced with laudanum, collapses into the sarcophagus-bed, silk sheets drawn tight. Silence descends, save for the faint rasp of his breathing, steady, unhurried. Patterns hold, deviations minimal. Yet tonight, a new tic: he paused at the window, gazing east, fingers drumming the sill. Expectancy? Or mere caprice? Further notes tomorrow.
Immortalis Book One August 2026