by Tanith Lee
One night, Rachaela had drunk a lot of wine before and during dinner. She wanted to follow Althene out of the room and take hold of her, her hand or waist. After all, Rachaela was the same. She was not pregnant. She thought, crudely, perhaps Althene was not particularly potent, for she was surely more woman than man.
But Rachaela did not follow Althene.
Althene, for all she was a woman, was also male.
And sometimes Rachaela only dreamed of her, not knowing what she dreamed, waking up with the memory of a dark glistening wheel which had turned forever through the daylight sleep.
And once she had imagined herself in Althene's lingerie. Would they resemble each other even more?
Rachaela had seen Althene today, from her window, walking on the common in the black skin coat.
What skin was it? Dyed human, maybe, like the bone handle of the gun.
There was a noise. Rachaela jumped horrifically.
It was the telephone. The telephone was ringing.
Stupidly, Rachaela sat looking at it, waiting for someone, Michael or Cheta, to come and answer it.
No one came, and the phone rang on.
Rachaela got up, and went to raise the receiver.
"Is that you, Gladys?" asked a quavering voice.
"No… This isn't Gladys."
"Is she there?"
"I'm afraid you have a wrong number."
"Oh, dear. It's me eyes. I'm sorry, dear."
"No trouble," said Rachaela.
She replaced the receiver slowly. Even the Scarabae were not immune to calls dialed in error.
But she was trembling. She felt sick. What was it? Fear? Why?
She sat down in a chair and shut her eyes. And, after a moment, steps crossed the room very lightly. As the firm cool hand touched the back of her neck, she smelled the unique perfume, cinnamon, shadow.
The fingers rubbed at the base of her skull, briskly. Rachaela relaxed.
"It made me jump, the phone," said Rachaela, foolishly.
"An instrument of evil," said Althene sardonically. "Bad news and sorrow."
"Yes, pure primitive fear. Absurd."
"You're better now."
"I think so. Thank you."
The hand left her alone.
Althene stood away, shimmering darkness. Water drops glittered on her hair. The windows had faded to copper.
"It's raining."
"At least, not frogs," said Althene.
"When I was a child I thought it rained cats and dogs," Rachaela said. She felt numb and at the same time desperate. "My mother used to shout at me. She thought I was trying to be cute. A proper child. But I was really a useless child. I always felt self-conscious in that ridiculous small body."
"Ah, yes," said Althene. She looked out into the hall. Longing to get away?
"Don't let me keep you," said Rachaela.
"I'm quite expensive," said Althene. "Do you think you could afford it?"
"I think sexual jokes are going to fall rather flat," said Rachaela. Then, "I apologize."
Althene took off the coat and dropped it on a white sofa, like a dead snake. She wore gray, a nun's color, and had masked her eyes in smoke. But her lips were rubies.
"Let's drink some of Eric's brandy," said Althene.
She went to the oval silver tray and lifted up one of the cut-glass decanters.
Rachaela sat still, obedient.
Althene handed her the black drink. It was bitter and burned like gall, whatever gall was.
"My mother's name," Rachaela said, "was Janet. Janet Smith. It's ordinary enough she may have contrived it."
"And how did she pick your name?"
"I think… he must have suggested it. God knows why she let him. Why she did what he said."
"Why did anyone do what Adarnus said?"
"He mesmerized us all. My mother, myself. Ruth."
"I never met Adamus," Althene said, "although, of course, I knew of him."
"If the Scarabae live so long," said Rachaela, "why do they commit suicide—how can they be sure…"
"Vampiric resurrection," said Althene, "is that what you infer?"
"I don't know what I infer."
"Are we still talking about Adamus?"
"Camillo," said Rachaela suddenly. "He's altered. He isn't just an old man wearing boy's clothes. Sometimes he looks—he looks too young." Althene did not answer. Rachaela said, "And Miranda's hair. Is she coloring it?"
"I doubt it."
"Then Miranda's hair—" Rachaela stopped.
They sat in silence, and the golden clock, which ran, ticked softly. Time, passing. Perhaps.
"Althene," Rachaela said, "nothing's happened to me. I'm not pregnant."
" 'Tis wel goed."
"I mean, Althene, I believed perhaps I was meant to be."
Althene shrugged.
"I mean," Rachaela said, "that was the plan the last time. I was used. Just like my mother."
"Yes, you were used."
"I don't want to be used again."
"In what sense am I to have used you?" Althene said. "By trying to impregnate you with rabid Scarabae seed? Or by masquerading as one thing and being another?"
"It isn't a masquerade, I realize that. But a deception. To make me think I was safe with you and then—"
"And then," said Althene.
She finished her brandy and walked across the room, the coat trailing from her hand.
Rachaela stood up. She said ironically, "Can I have offended you?"
Althene turned. She smiled, from a height.
"Why not persevere? Perhaps you will manage it."
Rachaela came to dinner in the olive dress with a coil of silver around her throat. She felt silly, anxious, fraught, and proud—yes, that was the word. Like a woman from a novel set in 1890.
She watched the others carefully.
Eric. Old and straight, ringed, in his brushed dinner clothes. And Sasha, her iron hair pinned up, in plum velvet. Tray came in with Miranda. Mother and daughter? No, grandmother and grandchild, for Tray had started to call her Nan-Nan. Tray was now a Lily Burne-Jones in her dark sequined frock. She wore pale makeup and dark eyes, but no lipstick or blusher. And Miranda. 1950s dress and hair down her back. The gray had mixed into some other color. Prune-color hair. Like black hair graying, but… the other way around.
Did Miranda's face look young? It did. Deep lines by the mouth and between the eyes. The marks of a thin woman of fifty-four or -five. But she had looked eighty, ninety, Miranda. Once.
Camillo did not come in, or Lou. Off to another gig, in the rain.
She won't come. The Scarabae game.
Adamus. With her for a night. Pinned like a butterfly, impaled on the vampire stake of the burning phallus. And then he hid himself in his tower, which later burned in fire.
Althene came in in a scarlet dress.
Rachaela felt the blood rush into her face and throat.
Burning…
They sat down and ate the meal. Something. What was it?
Rachaela thought of the sea gull they had eaten at the other house, before. Sufficient unto themselves, locked in time. But events had smashed open the glass case, and out they flew.
Was it the shock which made them alter? Kill, or cure.
After dinner they went into the drawing room and put a video on the TV.
Eric said to Althene, "This actor looks like Malach. Don't you think so?"
"Perhaps," said Althene. She was sitting in an armchair. On one of her fingers was a ring of twisted gold. She turned it absently.
Rachaela reached across and touched the ring.
"It's old," said Althene. "A prince wore it in fifteenth-century Italy."
"Yes," Rachaela said.
"Then it was stolen."
"By you."
Althene smiled. "No."
"If you tell me it was you, I'll probably accept what you say."
"How unwise."
Eric said, "Shhh. These films need concentrat
ion."
After ten minutes more, Althene got up quietly and went out. Sasha and Eric did not react. Miranda and Tray also sat staring at the screen, a box of chocolate-covered truffles between them.
Rachaela went after Althene, out into the hall.
The oil lamps were alight.
"Yes?" Althene said, turning to look at her.
Rachaela walked across the hall, until she was near to Althene's salamander redness.
"If it's a game, I don't want to go on playing," Rachaela said.
"Or it isn't a game."
"Your dress," said Rachaela.
"Yes?"
"Bloodred. The Scarabae betrothal color."
"Betrothal and marriage."
"Why?" said Rachaela.
"I happen to own a red dress."
"If you want me to," Rachaela said, "I'll go up with you. To your room. No more protests."
"Really? No more? But I'm a man who is a woman. Which do you want?"
"I don't know," said Rachaela. "I want you."
"Ah." Althene leaned back on the bannister. "But now, I'm not convinced."
"They get young again," said Rachaela, "don't they?"
"Do they?"
"Will it happen to me?"
"I've no idea."
"I need," Rachaela hesitated. "I can't go on with it. Something's already happened to me. I can't—you're the only one—"
"Not at all. There are many Scarabae."
"I don't want to be bred from."
Althene said, "You wouldn't be safe with me. There are things we can do to avoid it. If you want. But I'm as dangerous to you that way as Adamus. You had better understand."
"I feel as if," Rachaela said, "my body were full of doors, standing open. And my mind. I can't cope with it. I can't even run away."
"All right. Not here. You'll upset them if they come out."
Althene held out her hand. Rachaela took it. They went up the stairs, up and up, to the room of peacocks.
In the room the light was darkest gold.
Rachaela turned herself into Althene's body and looked into her face.
"Do you want me," said Althene, "to wipe the lipstick off?"
"No. I like it. My mother never kissed me."
"I'm not your mother."
Through the scented sheath of garments, educated now, Rachaela felt the restrained hardness of Althene's second self, as Althene's lips came down to hers.
On the bed, Althene wrapped Rachael's nakedness in the gilded shawl. Althene's kisses and tongue came through the eyelets.
"Is this what you want? And this…"
Rachaela pulled on Althene's body. "All of you."
"But then how can I—"
"I don't care. All of you. Now, now."
Love me and leave me, Rachaela thought.
"Yes, I'll leave you," Althene murmured, "but I'll come back."
Back from where, from history, from the night? Rachaela's orgasm was long and sad, sweeping like the sea, and full of tears. Something beautiful, held her through the spasms of ocean, through the storm.
Althene withdrew from her gently. "The Roman method."
Rachaela thought of their kind by night, flying over deserts and the snow. Althene came silently and fiercely against her.
Life and death, day and darkness.
"I want to sleep with you," said Rachaela.
"Sleep then," Althene said, like a magician. And Rachaela slept.
CHAPTER 37
THROUGH THE WOLF-BROWN DAY, between the iron cities, they rode out of the north. It was February, month of the Lupercal, and none of them knew it. They were a kind of black cloud roaring over the landscape. Over the wastelands in the rain.
As they got nearer the capital, they created pauses. In the motorway cafes the girls in their bright slave-uniforms treated them carefully.
On the great wide roads they burned up tarmac. Black jets with flares of blue, crimson and silver.
At the head rode Connor. His long black hair was in a tail, fastened by a cinch of steel. He had a big powerful body and the beer-gut of a Viking. He liked screwing women, but he loved Viv, who was in the saddlebag on the left-hand side. He loved her like the bike. If ever anything happened they would be together, the three of them, into Valhalla.
Viv was of middle size, white, black, and yellow, with one upstanding ear in which, long ago, another dog had bitten a hole. Through the hole now was a silver stud, a heart. Viv wore goggles to protect her eyes, and a scarf, red, with silver cat skulls. This was Connor's tribute, for he liked cats, too.
Behind Connor and Viv on the Harley Shovelhead, came the rest of the fleet. Whisper on his black beast, shouting loudly at every twist and turn, and Red up behind him, grinning with joy. And then Pig and Tina, and then Cardiff, alone and looking grim, as if he needed a shit, as he always looked. And lastly Rose, his shaven head tattooed with a flower, his hard beefy chest naked to the wind and rain, only the silver coins and chains slapping it from his black jacket.
They stormed into London, no longer walled, but clotted by dismal outskirts and high blocks of concrete, and through its Avernal avenues, as the dusk came down early.
At the pub, The Compasses, they pulled up and slipped from the saddles. Red took off her helmet and shook out her laval hair.
Connor glanced at her with approval, and then drew Viv from her bag.
"Come and put your snout in some beer, baby."
Viv smiled arid wagged her tail.
He took off her goggles and she licked him.
He carried her in the pub under one arm.
Red bought the first round. She was all right. Viv had a pint to herself, in a bowl—the landlord knew them.
"Better get some grub as well, we don't know what the setup is."
So they had pies and chips and beans, and Cardiff farted loudly, so drinkers in the next bar stared across.
"You could bloody power your bike on that," yelled Whisper.
Cardiff farted. "Yours, too, you old bastard."
Connor bought a round, and they downed them.
This was journey food. They had somewhere to get to.
Tina and Red went to the ladies' and came back smelling good. Red wore no makeup and needed none, with her clear pink skin and sapphire eyes. Connor would have liked a go at Red, but Red was not for him.
"Whisper treating you all right?"
"Oh, it's marvelous. Like chariot racing."
"Better," said Connor.
"Okay," said Red. "Better."
She kissed Viv on the nose and Viv licked her. Viv was soppy with the good ones, but she had taken a chunk out of a guy who had raised his hand against Connor. Viv was a doll.
They went out and the night was dark, the way night got to be, even in the sodium-lit cities.
Connor looked up. "Once there were stars."
"You want to tear this streetlamp rubbish across," said Red, "get at the darkness."
She was a good one all right.
They mounted up, and Viv sat in the bag and Connor put back her goggles and gave her a handful of crisps.
She liked riding.
They took off like rockets. The engine poured up its power. You grew into the machine. The body became a shaken jelly of rock and the soul slipped loose, half an inch out into the night. That was how you rode. You were the bike, and out of the body, and never so real as then.
They arrowed up the hills of London, through the lumbering cars and elephant buses, past the parks of winter grass, between the high walls flimsy as paper.
When they came up the final road, the big trees were looming above like a forest. And then there was the house. Connor had been told what he could expect.
A witch's mansion. Turrets and towers. Sunbursts of windows.
"Up there?" said Rose, coming level.
"That's the place."
They soared up the hill toward the house, and swerved to rest on the flatter ground before it.
The noise of the bikes died.
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It was quiet.
They stood marshaled, and Connor reviewed them.
"Okay. Now watch yourselves. No messing about. This is Camillo's drum." Cardiff farted. "And none of that, either." Viv barked. "You're smashing," said Connor. He took off her goggles, and marched toward the door.
No bell. A knocker that was a green man head, leaves sprouting from its lips. Nice. "Hands off," he said to them, indicating the knocker. Then he knocked.
No one responded. But they waited patiently. Camillo had told Connor to come, late winter, just before the spring. "Come and rescue me," Camillo had said, and gave his high horse laugh.
Finally the door did open. A slim old lady in a black dress, alabaster and ebony, like a waxwork meant to represent an old lady.
"It's Camillo we want," said Connor, gently. "He invited us."
"Please enter."
They entered. Two doors to go through, and then the big hall, with pillars, and under the electric light, the rosy oil lamps softly flickering.
"I will go and tell Mr. Camillo that you're here."
"Thank you," said Connor, courteously.
The light was wonderful for Red. They looked like an invasion, of course. The black hard leathers. A faint whistling sounded.
"Cardiff," said Connor, "I warned you."
"Sorry."
Tina laughed.
Rose was over stroking the balustrade of the stairs.
"Look at this."
Then a woman came out of a doorway below. She wore a white party dress, like something Ginger Rogers might have had, at her most glamorous. Her long dark wavy hair was great and Connor liked the way she wore it, even though she must have been fifty-five.
"Please come in," said this woman.
So they went in behind the stairs to a wide white room, Viv bustling after them.
There was a black-haired beauty sitting on a sofa, but she looked too vacuous for Connor's taste. She was eating a rum baba. Behind her on the huge TV was Die Hard. The sound had been turned down, but Rose, Tina, Pig, Whisper, and Cardiff at once began to watch the film, the way they did the TVs in pubs, and even through plate-glass shop windows.
Red stood in awe over a gilt table with a small green bowl on it.