The Blood of Kings

by John Michael Curlovich

  “I’m quivering with curiosity.”

  He leaned forward and put his fingers through the chain-link. “I want to know what you are. You and your professor ‘friend.’”

  I sat down again, spread my arms and looked puzzled. “As you see.”

  He lowered his voice. “I killed you. I stabbed you in the throat, like that other little cocksucker.”

  “Would you repeat that a little louder? The police officers didn’t hear.”

  He hissed. “You should be dead. Or dying. Instead you went off on a world tour.”

  “And you’re behind bars. Isn’t life funny?”

  “Why isn’t there a scar, at least? I cut your goddamn throat.” He pushed at the barrier. “I want to know what you are.”

  “What were the words you used that night? Pansy. Fagboy. That’s me.”

  Suddenly he jumped to his feet and pounded on the wire screen. It held. But I sprang up and backed away. A cop came and slammed the barrier with his nightstick. Greg sat down and became quiet. I looked to the cop.

  He yawned. “Maybe you ought to leave. You’re upsetting him.”

  “I’m upsetting him?!?” I couldn’t believe I was hearing it.

  “You should have seen him on the court. He was one of the best.”

  “Yeah, and sports builds character.”

  He smiled. I understood. “Right.”

  From the other side of the screen, Greg said softly, “Look, Dunn, please, we need to talk. I’m sorry about that.”

  I told the cop it would be okay, and he went back to his post. Warily I sat down. And glared at Greg. “All right, what? And make it good.”

  “What are you going to say at the trial?”

  “Why Greg, it’s not till next fall. I haven’t given it a bit of thought.” It was fun teasing him, it really was.

  “Are you going to tell them… are you going to tell them about Justin and me? There’s been talk, but nobody knows for sure. Except you.”

  I dumbed myself down. “What on earth do you mean? What is there to tell?”

  He was getting pissed again. “So, help me, I should have killed you, you goddamn little queer. I don’t know why you’re not dead.”

  “All right let me get this straight. You’re a cold-blooded killer. You slaughtered the guy you said you loved. And it’s okay for people to know that you killed him, but not that you loved him.”

  He jumped up and tore at the barrier again. And again it held.

  I recoiled a bit, then recovered my composure. “Well that answers that. I think I’ll be going now, Greg.”

  “No, I’m not through with you.”

  I got to my feet. “Have a nice day.” And I ambled off to the entrance. The cop scowled at me in what I thought was an especially unfriendly way.

  * * *

  Nighttime. Danilo and I walked about the campus, sometimes holding hands, sometimes not. There was snow in the air, large drifting flakes. It was not heavy, not yet, but it promised to turn into a storm. Academic Tower, floodlit as it always was at night, soared into the sky and vanished in the snowy night.

  Danilo was preoccupied. I let him lead the talk. “Have you ever read E.E. Cummings?”

  I told him I hadn’t. “Was he…?”

  “No, but he was a good poet. He wrote that summer is a lie.”

  “Wise man.” I wasn’t quite sure if I meant Cummings or Danilo.

  “Dead man. Winter and night are permanent for him.”

  It was a disturbing thought. “Danilo, what are you saying?”

  “Only that I envy him. I don’t suppose you’ve read Sappho, either?”

  I shook my head.

  “She said that the gods considered death the greatest evil, but that was only because they don’t die themselves.”

  His mood and his talk were upsetting me, more and more. It was only too clear what he had on his mind.

  We walked for a while more, across the bridge that spanned the hollow, to the park where Tim and I had gone together, my first day on campus. There was a stand of young trees, all quite barren of course, black branches scraping the air. A layer of snow was beginning to cover the ground; it scattered enough light for the night not to be dark. Danilo caught hold of a tree and swung himself around it like a schoolboy, or a lover in an old movie.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Jamie. You’re thinking this scene could have been directed by George Cukor or Edmund Goulding.”

  I laughed. “‘Women’s directors.’ You know me too well.”

  “They had their truth, as we have ours. And they all intersect, don’t they?”

  This lost me. I asked what he meant.

  “If anything should happen to me…” He left the sentence unfinished but reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small brass key on a silver chain and handed it to me. “To my private storage vault. The address is on the key tag. They have your name there. You will have access.”

  I looked at the key as if it was the most unpleasant object in the world. “Danilo, what could happen to you? You’ve survived so much. You’ve survived everything in the world.”

  “Feld has definitely been sniffing around the sub-basements. I think he’s been telling people what he found there.”

  “Stop him.”

  “I think it is too late. He might have told everyone.”

  “Then move whatever is there.”

  “He had a camera.”

  “Oh.” A wave of numbness was coming over me. Or of fear. I wasn’t sure I knew the difference.

  “Once they connect me to the killings, they’ll release Wilton.”

  “No!”

  “Be on your guard.”

  The snow was coming down much more heavily. “Danilo, you can’t leave me.”

  “For a time. Only for a time, Jamie.”

  “There’s too much I don’t understand yet. About you. About myself.”

  “You will learn.”

  He kissed me, the most passionate kiss ever. I realized I was crying.

  “Come with me now, Jamie.” He took my hand and we began to walk, across the bridge and back to the campus.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the museum. I still have time to teach you more.”

  We walked. I pressed myself close against him, so there was no place for him to put his arm except around me. A snowflake stuck to my eyelash and I brushed it aside. There was no more talk as we walked.

  The building was dark. Danilo unlocked the main door, heavy bronze, and let us in. He switched on all the lights. The museum blazed.

  “Shouldn’t we be more careful?”

  Instead of answering, he took my hand and led me to the descending staircase. “Come along.”

  At the first level we stopped. He turned on the lights there and went directly to the vault. The combination lock seemed to fly under his fingers. The heavy steel door swung open. Danilo reached in and took out a small parcel wrapped in cloth. He placed it firmly in my hand. “Open it.”

  I looked at him, then at the package in my hand. “What is it?”

  “Open it.” He smiled gently. “I had envisioned this moment happening somewhere beautiful, outdoors, perhaps in a glorious sunset, not on a winter night in the basement of a deserted building by artificial light. But the moment has come.”

  It was a small pained box. I knew the style; it was from New Kingdom Egypt. Slowly, carefully I removed the lid. Inside were two gold rings. Each had a flat bezel covered with hieroglyphs in cartouches. I squinted and could barely decipher the names: Akhenaten and Smenkhare.

  Danilo took my hand. “They were my father’s last gift to me.”

  My head was spinning. If I were a heroine in an old movie I’d have batted my eyes and said something like, “But this is so unexpected.” Instead I felt my jaw drop open. I stammered like a fool. “D-danilo.”

  Wordlessly he took the Smenkhare ring from the box and placed it on my finger. I looked at him and realized I was shaking. In all my dreams
I had never thought… I kissed him then took the other ring and slid it onto his finger. He said something softly in the language of the ancient world. I knew enough to understand the words. “With this ring, I marry you.”

  We held each other for a long time without moving. Outside, the storm was picking up, and we could hear the howling wind.

  “Now, Jamie, come downstairs with me.”

  Again, I realized I was trembling. I had had time enough to think what must be down there. But I had to see.

  Down. Memories of that other time down there began to take hold of me.

  Second sub-basement. I was shaking.

  Third. Danilo put an arm around me. “You are a master now. Don’t be afraid.”

  And then we were there.

  The lights were dim. We followed the corridor to the place where the walls widened. And I saw them.

  Stacked up in corners, propped against walls. The missing men, more than a dozen of them. They were all naked, every one of them, and they were pale. Corpses piled everywhere. I had expected it; none the less I was a bit shocked.

  “Danilo, you… you… this…” I didn’t quite know what I wanted to say.

  He clapped his hands. Abruptly they opened their eyes. Blinking, they turned their heads to us. Among them I recognized Josh Mariatta, who had been missing since I first came to school.

  “Why are they here, Danilo?”

  “Proof against hunger and thirst.” He laughed a bit. “My own private organ bank, if you like.”

  He clapped again and they got unsteadily to their feet.

  I crossed to Josh and planted myself in front of him. He blinked. Something made me touch him. I held up a hand and pressed a fingertip to his cheek. The pressure seemed too much for him; he staggered backward into the wall. But he looked at me and his lips formed my name. “Jamie.” The others repeated it, a chorus of rasping echoes.

  I turned to Danilo.

  He moved behind me and put his arms around me. “This is only a fragment of the power you may wield.”

  “They’re dead.”

  “No. They possess death, but it is in life. Or they are alive in death. As you prefer. I chose them because they were used to this condition, in their way. You—we—may compel them to do anything.”

  He held me more tightly.

  “And the ones who turned up dead after being missing?”

  “I had used them up.”

  From somewhere in the air around us, music began. Piano music, the Chopin funeral march. It was me playing. I turned and looked into Danilo’s eyes.

  “Yes, Jamie, this is you. It is part of me. I can summon it whenever I need to. I can fill the air with it.”

  He pulled me back against a wall. The living-dead-men moved. Each of them took another in his arms and they began to dance. Slowly, intimately they danced. After a few measures they kissed.

  The music turned into an agitated waltz. They began to fondle one another, there in front of us. They kissed deeply, and then they began to make love. Athletes, artists, students, their bodies were beautiful and they touched in the most sensuous way. They danced and made love to the music.

  “Look at them, Jamie. I have given them the freedom they never had the courage to take for themselves.”

  I watched as one by one they reached climax in one another. Slowly the music died. They looked to Danilo and me.

  “Go back to your sleep now.”

  They did. Yawning, stretching, they went back to the places where they had been before, some alone, some on top of others. And they were still again.

  Danilo led me back upstairs. “They are yours now. My wedding gifts. Do with them what you will.”

  “Anything I want?”

  “Anything. Free them, slaughter them, copulate with him, drink their blood. But survive. Compel them to do your will. With men like them it hardly matters. There are certainly enough of them. You may always master more of them.”

  I hesitated. “Let’s go home now. I want to go home.” I kissed him.

  Suddenly Peter Borzage was there, staring at us, or rather glaring. “I knew it. I knew you two were… ” The word lovers seemed to stick in his throat.

  “Yes,” I said firmly. “We are.”

  “You and this old man. Professor Feld said he thought so.”

  “Older than you think. And Feld is a fool, Peter.” I took a step toward him. “Besides, he doesn’t do a thing to me that you don’t want to.”

  “No! I’m not like that!”

  “You are, Peter. Admit it.”

  “I’ll report you to the administration. We will. There are rules, guidelines.”

  “Not for us.” A step closer. “We survive, and we will prevail any way we can”

  He was beginning to look a bit frightened. “What you’re doing is a sin.”

  “Peter, you don’t know the half of it.” I reached out and caught him by the throat. There was no knife I could use. I bit into his carotid artery, tearing it. He died quickly enough. And he was delicious. Soaked in his blood, covered with bits of his flesh Danilo and I made love there on the museum floor.

  I wanted to clean up what was left of Peter, but Danilo insisted we leave him where he was.

  * * *

  The ending was ironic. And perfect. Feld had shown the police photos of the bodies. Feld was now the suspect in the disappearances which, the police decided, must be separate crimes from the killings. Peter Borzage had been his assistant. Feld must have been trying to divert suspicion from himself. He was indicted and released on bail. It gave us both a lot of enjoyment.

  * * *

  Several nights had passed. It was clear and cold, snow covered the ground, and there was a bright crescent moon, its face pale with earthlight. Danilo was standing at the front window, watching it.

  His mood had grown steadily darker for days. The thought of losing him, of being alone in the world again, had me almost frantic. But I didn’t know what to do.

  He was looking old, and so was I. He suggested we go out for a walk. I knew the real purpose.

  “Not here, Danilo. Not in town. We can’t. They’ll know.”

  But he insisted.

  And it was plain how hungry we both were.

  The night was frigid, arctic. Our breath was heavy smoke. The air stung. Danilo took my gloved hand in his. We did not talk much. I only had one thing on my mind—him, how much I wanted him. What was there I could say? Inside my glove I felt the golden ring on my finger.

  The campus was lit brightly, as always. Academic Tower soared into the night sky, floodlit. There were couples and groups of students, of faculty, crowding the streets, talking and laughing. Traffic was heavy. I wondered briefly why they weren’t all at home, sheltering from the cold. One more reason to feel apart from them all.

  The museum was dark. We walked in a circle around it. In an alley at the rear, we stopped to kiss.

  Farther up the alley, someone stirred. Whoever it was was hiding in the shadows. Danilo called, “Who is there?”

  “Who are you?” It was a young man’s voice.

  We walked a few steps into the alley. He was under a sheet of cardboard, lying on an exhaust vent, trying to keep warm. A slight bit of moonlight showed us he was in rags. A street kid. He stood up, looking afraid. Danilo asked him what he was doing there.

  “Sleeping. What’s it look like?”

  “You shouldn’t be here. This is private property. The guards will be around.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  I got close enough to get a look at him. He was young, maybe 16, not much more. “You should be at a shelter.”

  “No. They won’t take kids like me.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. The cold was making him shake. “You want a blowjob?”

  I suppose I should have expected that, but it caught me off guard. “What?”

  “20.” He looked from one of us to the other. “Each.”

  “No thanks.” I thought if he had better clothes and a haircut he’
d be attractive.

  “So, you’re… ?” Danilo made a twisted gesture.

  “No. I’m no fag.”

  “Oh.” Danilo looked at me from a corner of his eye and smiled.

  I wasn’t at all sure I wanted it to happen. I got between them. “What’s your name?”

  “Jonas.”

  “Jonas what?”

  “We doin’ business, or are you gonna fuck off?”

  Danilo stepped up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Business.”

  “Forty. Up front.”

  “You’re cute.” Danilo smiled gently as he said it. “Jonas.”

  The kid seemed to relax a bit. I saw the knife come out from Danilo’s pocket. He should not have been doing it there, not in town. The police would—

  The kid saw the knife and screamed. Suddenly there were lights everywhere around us. Three cops appeared; I couldn’t tell from where. They had their guns drawn, and they began firing.

  Danilo was hit. Then again, and again. I saw him stagger back a step, then straighten up. He cried “Stop!” His shout was loud, almost deafening. It startled even me.

  It seemed to hit the cops and the kid like a battering ram. They froze, standing in place.

  He turned to me. “You see, Jamie. I can’t stay here. They’ll watch everything I do. There are too many of them.”

  “Danilo, no, don’t!”

  I saw him bend down, as if he was curling himself into a ball. When he straightened up again he had changed. He was the creature I had seen at the Great Pyramid, a falcon-headed man, eight feet tall. I could almost feel the power in his muscles, in his wings.

  “Jamie, I love you. And I will be back.”

  He spread his arms, and his wings were 20 feet across. With a terrifying cry he rose into the night air and flew off into the night. By moonlight I saw him circle Academic Tower. He crossed the face of the moon. Then he was gone.

  It had happened too quickly for me to know how to react. He was gone. I pulled off my glove and pressed my lips to his ring. Then, not much caring about the others, who were still standing rigidly where he had left them, I turned and went slowly home. To my apartment, not his.

  Next morning the news was filled with stories about three city policemen and a boy who was working as a decoy for them found frozen alive in the alley behind the museum. I suppose I could have brought them out of Danilo’s trance. I suppose I should have. But I didn’t much care.