by Anne Rice
Cautiously he opened his eyes. She stood with her back to him, intent on some task. Then he heard it, a tiny electronic voice emanating from her cell phone.
"You know who this is." A male voice. A blood drinker voice too soft for human hearing. But Garekyn could certainly hear it. "Leave a message of any length."
Garekyn lifted his head, trying to see exactly how he was bound here and to what. Steel cables all right, heavy and strong. And the table itself was stone, likely marble. The obvious point of weakness would be the table itself, the brittle quality of the stone. If he were to buck, kick, apply all his strength, the marble tabletop would shatter. But what if it was granite? Well, if it was granite or any stone too dense and strong for him to crack, it might nevertheless break loose from its base, and then the cables might slide off of it. But when was the right time?
"Rhosh, listen to me," said the female blood drinker into the phone. "There's a creature here, a non-human. Armand's going to try and secure it at Trinity Gate for the day. At sunset he'll take it to Paris. This might be an occasion for all to come together, for you to go to Court and ask about this discovery, to find some way to be welcomed back in." On and on she talked. The thing was dangerous to vampires. The thing fed on vampire brains! "If the Prince calls all to come together, you must come, Rhosh. We must have peace." Silence.
Well, that was interesting, wasn't it? As she turned around, Garekyn slowed his respiration, closing his eyes again.
The female came close to the table. She was anxious, fidgety. He could hear her agitated breathing, her heels clicking on the concrete floor as she paced. She drew closer. He could hear her heart. Her heart was strong but not as strong as the heart of Armand. He listened for Armand. Only barely could he hear the voices of those two, not in this cellar but in another cellar, likely under another one of the three houses that made up Trinity Gate, houses that had been built separately a century ago.
Slowly, he opened his eyes, to see that she was staring down at him, and when she realized he was looking at her she jumped. Backing away, she caught herself, ashamed of her fear, her eyes fixed to his. Long banks of fluorescent lights glared from the ceiling, clearly illuminating her slender frame, her pale ivory skin, and her eyes as dark as his own. Her long glossy black hair was parted in the middle, hanging to her shoulders, and around her graceful neck she wore strands of cream-colored pearls. He could hear the black silk of her long dress rustling in the moving air. Some machine somewhere forced the air into this cellar chamber. She studied him as intently as he was studying her.
"Who are you?" he asked in his gentlest voice. He spoke English to her because they had all been speaking English before. His eyes inspected the room about him, but so quickly she wasn't likely to realize what he was doing. A great concrete chamber with an iron door of immense thickness, standing open before a dimly lighted passage. The door was like the doors one saw on large walk-in freezers or refrigerators with the big handle and lock on this side.
"Who are you, that's the question," she answered, but her tone was as gentle as his tone had been. "Where do you come from? What is it you want?" She appeared powerfully fascinated by him. "Listen, you mustn't be afraid of us."
He lay back gazing at her calmly. He realized that his wrists weren't fettered, and that he could flex his fingers now, that all the sluggishness of his sleep had worn away. He strained imperceptibly against the steel cables. There were perhaps four of these cables binding him to the table.
"What is this, marble on which you've bound me?" he asked her. "Why, why am I a prisoner here?"
"Because you destroyed one of us," she said. She sounded simple, sincere.
"Ah, but I thought that he was trying to destroy me," said Garekyn. "I came here to speak with you, ask you questions. I made no menacing move towards your friend Benji." He spoke slowly, almost whispering. "Then your emissary tried to kill me. What could I have done, but what I did?"
She was obviously enthralled. She came closer and closer until the silk of her dress brushed the side of his arm.
"Is this marble? Is this an altar?"
"No, it's not an altar. Please be still until Armand comes back. It's a table, that's all."
"Marble," he repeated. "I think it's an altar. You're primitive, savage beings. You hunt the city like wolves. This is some sort of place of worship. You mean to kill me on this altar."
"Utter nonsense," she said. Her face was beautifully animated, her cheeks rounded as she smiled. "Don't excite yourself over nothing." She appeared to mean it. "No one here will harm you. We want to know about you, we want to know what sort of a creature you are."
He smiled. "I would like to trust you," he confided. "But how can I? You have me bound and helpless."
Her eyes appeared to be misting suddenly. Such large dark eyes, with thick lashes, such a fringe of lashes, lashes as lustrous as her hair. Her face was almost blank.
Was she charmed by him, as he was by her?
"Can't you set me free? Can we talk to one another plainly without all this?" He glanced down again at the cable binding his chest and upper arms to the table. "This marble altar is cold."
She bent closer as if she couldn't stop herself. Her eyes were now positively glazed, vacant, as the eyes of the other one, Killer, had appeared just before he'd sunk his teeth into Garekyn's neck.
"It's marble, tell me the truth," he prodded.
"All right it's marble," she murmured but her voice was sleepy, a monotone. "But it's not an altar, I told you...." She was bending down as if to kiss him, and with her right fingers she touched his lips. "We're taking you to the scientists among us. We're not wild beasts." He could hear her heart tripping. Somewhere far off Armand was arguing with Benji. But they were too far away for Garekyn to hear what they said. How far away? How long would it take them to get back here if this woman were to sound an alarm?
She was so pretty, so very pretty. Her hair fell down around him. He could feel it against his forehead and his cheek, feel it falling on his neck. It was now or never.
With all his might he bucked, pulling up with his arms, pounding down with his heels, convulsing his whole body. The marble cracked and he found himself sitting upright, the cables falling loose around him, and the whole stone platform of sorts crashing to the floor in three giant fragments as the woman screamed.
Freeing his arms instantly, he reached for her and clapped his hand over her mouth. Dragging her with him as he stepped out of the coils of cable and the debris of the broken marble, he moved to the door. She struggled mightily, almost managing to free herself.
He slammed the door shut tight in its huge metal frame.
She fought him with all she had, scratching at him, biting at him, even stabbing his left leg with the sharp heel of her shoe. He tried to throw her off but he couldn't, and finally grabbing her by the hair, he waltzed awkwardly to the side with her, pulling her off-balance, and slammed her head against the concrete wall as he had done with Killer.
She screamed so loudly it was like a dagger going right into his ears. But the impact had stunned her body, and the scream was all she could control.
He flung her head at the wall again, and then again.
The bones broke, but her screams did not stop. She slid down the wall to the floor, the blood pouring out of her mouth and out of her ears and down the front of her black silk dress. He could see the pearls being covered in blood, thick, sparkling blood, blood alive with something he could see in the light.
He knew he should flee, get down the passage and up the stairs before Armand and Benji could intercept him. But he stood paralyzed gazing at the blood, the unnatural glittering blood. And her dark eyes gazed up at him as her screams continued, ripping through his thoughts, ripping through his will, her eyes pleading with him though she could not move her arms or legs.
He found himself embracing her and lifting her. He held her as if he meant to kiss her, her breasts against his chest and her head fallen back as if her neck had been
broken. Dipping his fingers into her open mouth, he brought the blood to his lips! Sweet sizzling sensations just as he'd felt them with Killer. He brought more to his lips. Rippling chills all through his body. He bent to suck the blood out of her mouth with his own.
Let her alone. Do not harm her!
Who was this speaking to him?
Let her go. Do not harm her. It is Amel who is speaking to you. Let my child go.
"Amel?" he whispered aloud.
It seemed an age ago that her screams had stopped, and that a great pounding on the metal door had commenced.
He drank more and more of the blood.
She is my child, Garekyn.
"It is you?" he said, the words lost in the blood flowing into his mouth and down his throat. But he caught no image to confirm it, no flash of the Great One of long ago. Only a great web came alive in intricate detail against a sea of fathomless blackness, and all through this great web myriad tiny points glittered and brightened.
The door flew back off its heavy hinges and clattered to the concrete floor.
Armand stood there facing him. Benji was right behind him.
Garekyn held Eleni against him, drinking from her open mouth as though it were a fountain, his eyes fixed on Armand.
"Give her to me," said Armand. "Give her to me or I burn you alive."
Garekyn, do as he tells you to do. He can restore her. I will make him let you go.
Garekyn wanted to do it, to surrender her, let her go. But he couldn't let go of this blood, this sizzling blood that was so rich and so beautiful and the telepathic voice that was speaking to him almost tenderly, the voice he was certain he knew, coming through this blood. He saw the web growing in all directions, ever more elaborate, and strangely beautiful to him with its myriad pinpoints of twinkling light but even more beautiful was the sense of meaning, the sense of understanding everything utterly and completely, and yet losing his grip on it as soon as he had grasped it. And then he would have the sense again.
He saw the towers of Atalantaya melting. Millions of voices screamed in panic, in agony.
Garekyn, let her go.
Armand stood right before him. Garekyn held Eleni's helpless body by the waist. And slowly, lapping the blood from his cupped right hand, Garekyn let Armand take her away. Gently, Armand laid her body on the floor.
"Get out of here," Armand whispered. He appeared unable to move, staring at Garekyn even as his eyelids descended, even as his eyes appeared to close. Then the creature appeared to shake himself all over, and his eyes fixed on Garekyn again.
Garekyn couldn't reason. He had no will. Sluggishly he backed up and gazed on the ruin of the room--the shattered marble, the stupid steel cable coils tangled in the weak iron table frame that had supported the marble. And then he spied something that quickened his pulse. His leather wallet lying there on a wooden table against the back wall opposite the door. His keys. His passport, his phone, his things.
He cleaned all the blood clumsily from his hand with his tongue and, in an instant, he'd scooped up these personal items of his, these indispensable personal things, and he was moving out the door.
Benji Mahmoud cowered against the wall, speaking a stream of frantic words into his little phone. It was Garekyn's full name he was saying over and over, Garekyn's description he was repeating, Garekyn's address in London!
Every instinct told Garekyn to get away as fast as he could. But he turned back once.
Armand held the broken, helpless Eleni to his chest, his left wrist pressed to her mouth. She was moving her mouth. She was sucking his blood. The creature was doing all he could to restore the damaged Eleni, the poor broken Eleni, and he made no move to stop Garekyn.
And neither did the helpless Benji, who sat asleep against the wall now, his head bowed, his cell phone beside his right hand on the concrete floor.
Garekyn rushed towards the staircase.
As he came up into the empty house above he understood why the monsters hadn't tried to stop him. The pale white morning light filled the first floor of the townhouse. It made the glass in the front door look like ice. The sun was rising over the city of Manhattan.
The creatures couldn't come after him. It was true, their vampire lore. They were powerless when the sun rose, and that's why Benji had dropped down unconscious against the wall and Armand had used his last few precious moments to heal Eleni.
He could go back now. He would have them at his mercy! He could examine them ever more closely! He might batter them to pulp with the fragments of the broken marble slab.
But a sudden banging noise sent a shudder through the building. The great heavy door below had been slammed back into its metal frame sealing the basement chamber off from the outside world.
Garekyn fled.
In the taxi, on the way to his hotel, he almost lost consciousness. He was physically sick. However well the restorative properties of his body functioned they could not restore the equilibrium of his soul. He had almost killed that thing, and Amel had spoken to him, his Amel! His Amel!
Like a stunned and drunken creature he blundered into his room, stripped off his bloodstained clothes, and headed for the steady blast of the shower.
Pray they had no human protectors, no human task force that could overtake him here or stop him from escaping New York. Ah, but they were such clever beings! Clever enough to track his credit cards, clever enough to find him here or anywhere else he went.
At the airport, the first flight he was able to confirm would have released him at London's Heathrow Airport after dark. Impossible. He couldn't chance it. They knew where he lived. He had to throw them off his trail. In his desperation, he had to make something resembling a plan. For surely if the wounded Eleni had not been restored to herself by nightfall, they'd be after him with two murders charged to his account.
Where could he go? What could he do?
"Amel," he whispered as if he were praying to a god for help, a god who had no earthly reason to help him except that the god might love him as he, alone in the whole world, loved the god. "I would never have harmed you. You know this. You remember the vow we took, all of us, we, the People of the Purpose."
Slowly, he was able to collect his thoughts.
"Los Angeles," he said. "Earliest through flight."
For five solid hours as the plane flew west, he listened to Benji Mahmoud's archived broadcasts on his iPhone, examining all that these creatures revealed of themselves in a new light. But at the same time, he was thinking, dozing, and remembering, remembering more than ever before. It seemed at times it was all coming back to him, all of those splendid months, but then he would lose the thread, and every time he tried to sleep he would see the city again sinking under the waves.
He'd wake gasping with the passengers and the steward asking after him, if he needed anything, if there was anything they could do.
It was early afternoon when he checked into the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, using cash and requesting an alias be observed by the staff. They thought him an actor and a performer. No problem, once they'd verified his passport.
After leaving a lengthy message for his solicitor in London, he at last lay down to sleep in a clean fresh bed. He had a few hours until sunset, and then he might have to start running again.
8
Lestat
CHATEAU DE LIONCOURT
"VERY WELL," I said. "We're all here, or at least most of us are here. Let's go over it again. What do we know?"
We were gathered in the Council Chamber of the northern tower, a reconstructed part of the Chateau that had not existed in my day. It was a vast room at the very top, with a solitary coil of iron stairs leading to the battlements, and richly decorated, plastered, and painted, as was every single room of my ancestral home. Marius had only recently painted the murals depicting the battle of Troy on the surrounding walls and on the ceiling, a spirited depiction of the tragic journey of Phaeton, vainly struggling with his father's steeds as they drew him across
the sky. The murals had the eerie perfection of a vampire painter, which made them look both magnificent and contrived at the same time, as if someone had blasted the walls with photographic images and then a team had painted them in.
I liked this room, and I liked that it was remote from the public rooms below. There were many young ones in the house and older ones not all that well known to us.
Now, there was no fixed membership in the Council. Attendance varied. But seated about the round table here were those I knew best and trusted best and mostly truly loved. Gregory, Marius, Sevraine who had only just arrived with my mother, Gabrielle, and Pandora, Armand, and Louis, and Gremt along with Magnus and another incarnate ghost, Raymond Gallant. This Raymond--a very impressive figure with dark gray hair and a narrow somewhat angular face--had once been a confidant and helper of Marius, and I had glimpsed this being a number of times with Marius in Paris, but we had not spoken, and he had not been with Gremt and Magnus when I'd visited them last night. Cyril and Thorne clung to the walls, of their own will, not choosing to sit amongst us as equals. Seth and Fareed were in Geneva and would report in as soon as they could.
Benji, who had crossed with Armand, had absented himself to be broadcasting from a chamber below, warning the Undead worldwide against Garekyn Zweck Brovotkin, who could destroy vampires who had been over five hundred years in the Blood.
Armand spoke first. He appeared drawn and hungry, and his voice did not have its usual silken strength.
"Well, Eleni will recover," he said. "She's in Fareed's laboratories in Paris now, in the hands of several of the medical apprentices." He addressed Sevraine and Gabrielle as he spoke, his eyes moving on to Pandora. "They say she will be whole again soon."
This compound of laboratories was the only hospital in the world ever created strictly for the Undead. It was skillfully and securely hidden in one of Gregory's many high-rise office buildings in the small industrial compound known as Collingsworth Pharmaceuticals on the outskirts of the city.
"We're all relieved that Eleni is well," I said, "but explain to me what you saw when you drank from this creature. We know the facts of how it happened. But what did you actually see?"
Armand sighed. "Something about an ancient city," he said, "falling into the sea. A metropolis of distinctly modern-looking buildings, futuristic buildings, suggestive of some long-forgotten utopia, I don't know how to describe it, and this being having been there with others like him, and these beings having been sent to the city for a special purpose. I couldn't see his companions clearly. And somehow it was all about Amel."