But even his face and even his voice, if ever he had been, had been swept away by the running river of time. There remained only the longing.
She walked steadily and precisely, as silently as the jackals, a shadow in the shadows of the night. But for her skin glowing pale beneath the hood and her eyes gleaming with a tiger’s shine, she revealed nothing of herself to the world around her.
Long before she came upon the camp, she knew that it was there. Ten leagues away, she spread her nostrils and drew in the scent of blood and cooked meat and dates, and the scintillating odor of human skin. She lived as much by scent as sight, and it was one of her favorite smells. They liked to be kissed, which was a matter of indifference to her. But she would kiss them to smell them. She knew the different ways each part of the human body smelled, and enjoyed it all.
Romans bathed and slicked themselves with oil. So these were not Romans. She lengthened her stride. The jackals scampered ahead of her, then stationed themselves on a tall outcropping, their forms dark against the sky glow. She moved directly toward them, knowing that the encampment of the humans would be in their sight.
She caught the sweet, milky scent of young children, and the odor of men with sweat in their hair. Also, now, the musk of the women, of whom there were three young and two old. She went closer, rising to the point on which the jackals stood.
As she approached, they melted away. She looked down into the top of a canyon. There were three pinpricks of light lost down there in the darkness—cook fires.
Then she noticed something odd. On the far horizon, just where the afterglow of the set sun marked the edge of the earth, there were lights moving back and forth. She listened. Below, she heard expected sounds—soft adult voices and the sharper cries of children, the rattle of flames and the hiss of cookpans—human sounds no different from any others. But the horizon offered a different noise. What was it, though? It was extremely faint, perhaps thirty or forty leagues away. Not growling, not a living creature. What, then? She could not place that noise. Almost, the rumbling of wagon wheels. Almost, the running of a waterfall. Almost, but not quite, either of those things.
She could make a nice meal down in the campsite, but her instinct was not to take even the smallest chance. Far better to do it in a back alley, to some social cull, than to cut out a paterfamilias or a valuable slave and cause the others to rush from the shelter, barking and waving torches.
What would they do if a noble came walking out of the dark of the night? They would think her a goddess, no doubt of it. That would be well. She would prevail upon their transport, and they would relate to their grandchildren the story of the deity they had conducted to town.
When she started down the mountainside, the male jackal yapped three times. She stopped. Why, in a setting that offered absolutely no threat, would it sound warning?
She drew in scent. Nothing but the peace of the cook fire and the fragrance of the bodies. She listened. The voices were as calm as the night.
She continued. Again, Anubis sounded warning. Again, she stopped, and again detected nothing. The moon rose above the mountains behind her. A chill had come into the air, the ancient cold of the desert night. The warning seemed to penetrate very deeply, raising some deep inner string to uneasy vibration. There was really no question connected with it, not if she allowed herself to see clearly. The warning was a fundamental one. It was her world telling her that she was about to do something that she had not done ever, not in all her years here. She was about to go into the places of men without guide or guard. She would enter now the land of the tall grass, the jackals seemed to say, where danger concealed itself in innocence.
As she went down the mountain, the campfires grew and became more defined. Soon she was close enough to see the creatures moving about. They were all heavily clothed, and so prosperous enough to afford ample cloth. Could they be Sumerian merchants, then? They had far more linen to weave than Egyptian peasants, and wore long robes to announce their wealth. She might take a Sumerian merchant, who had far to go before he could raise an alarm. Or maybe they were travelers from Nubia to the south.
The women were covered all over, even their faces. Now, this stopped her. It was strange. But no, when she’d gone to examine the Englishmen in Cairo, the women had gone about in the streets like that. Yes, they must be Egyptians living in this new fashion. The Egyptians were thriving, to have this much cloth. Even the children wore blue leggings and white shirts imprinted with letters and designs.
She came to the edge of their firelight. One was playing on an instrument and singing. They watched their fire with sleepy eyes.
She walked into the camp. For a moment, they did nothing. Then the one with the musical instrument stopped playing it. The children became quiet. She stood before their fire and said, in Egyptian, “Carry me to Thebes.”
One looked to the other. A smooth boy went against its father’s hip. She repeated her demand. It was obvious, though, that they did not understand her. She tried the next logical choice, which was Arabic. “Please convey me to your city. God is good.”
“We are wanderers, by the mercy of God.”
“Then to the Romans. Take me to the Romans.”
They glanced at one another, muttering. Finally, the oldest one spoke, a creature with a white twist of beard and a dirty cloth turban. “Do you mean those ruins in the Abu Ma’mmal? Are you a tourist?”
Some of the words passed her by. “I am a traveler,” she said. She drew back her hood. The men all gasped. Their eyes opened wide. Behind their veils, the women did the same. The children went into defensive postures, clinging to the adults. Two of the men began backing on their haunches, slipping away from the firelight.
A sour whiff of fear told her that she had only seconds to deal with this unexpected situation. She opened her hands, palms out. “I am in need of your help.”
A woman whispered, “It’s a djin. A djin of the night.”
The elder man raised his own hand in a gesture of dismissal toward the woman who had spoken. “God willing, would you take some tea?”
Lilith came closer to them. “It would be my pleasure, sir.”
It had been a long time since she had done this, but she found herself enjoying the company of her creatures more than she had expected. Really, now that she thought of it, she’d been tucked away in her cave much too long. Here, beside an open fire, beneath the blazing of the moon, surrounded by the jackals and the sailing night birds, this was good.
The old one came close to her, his eyes down, his poor hands trembling so much that he almost spilled the tea. She watched the veins of his neck throb. They were a little caked inside, and would offer a hesitant draw. With this one, she’d go straight to the main artery and with a single heave of her belly dry him to dust.
Laughing easily, she took the tea. “Thank you.”
“May God be with you.”
As she sipped her tea, the tension among them continued to rise. The children and women had repaired to their tent, and could be heard speaking softly together. A little boy was whispering, “It is a rich djin, look at the gold!” A female replied, “It is an American.”
That was a word she did not know. She made a note to discover its meaning.
Taking tea with her were four males. From their eyes, she could see that they found her beauty very great. Her spell was coming down upon them as swiftly as the dew that falls before dawn.
She noticed, however, that they were moving themselves about, maneuvering so that her way was blocked except directly behind her, which would take her into their tent. Within, there was rustling. An ambush? She said, “How may I get to Thebes?”
The old man nodded toward the west. “The road is there. You can get the bus to Cairo. There’s tours to Thebes.” There was another unknown word for her list, bus.“A few kilometers.”
There was no road off in that direction, she knew quite well. If she walked west, she would go many leagues before she reached the Nile, a j
ourney that would kill a human. Perhaps they were trying to trick her to go off into the desert, with the intention of following her and attacking her.
If they did, she would take them all. She’d bloat like a tick, but she wouldn’t need to eat again for quite a time. Her tongue was stiffening with eagerness when she heard a distant and very surprising noise: a clanking sound, followed in a moment by clattering that quickly became continuous.
“My cousin comes,” the elder said. “He will take you in his car as far as El Maadi. There you can take an East Delta bus into Cairo. Is your hotel there?”
She had understood some of it. His “cousin” would be a blood relative. But the rest—whatever did he mean? How was it that there were so many new words in the language of Arabic, in just—what—oh, it couldn’t have been more than a hundred years or so.
Of a sudden, the clanking sound became louder. There was a rhythm to it, and it seemed to be moving faster than was natural.
All the animals that had been lingering about her in the shadows hustled away. To the west, she saw a glow. She had no idea even how to ask a question about it, so she remained silent. In what seemed like just a moment, it became enormous and burst over the edge of a nearby hill. The light was accompanied by a terrific roar and an odor of some sort of bizarre fire.
Forgetting all of her careful poise, Lilith jumped up, cried out, and scrambled into the tent. She tripped over a child and went sprawling, her cloak settling around her as the great light swept across the thin fabric walls.
Then it went out. A moment later the noise faded, and with it, but more slowly, the odor.
“God be with you,” a male cried cheerfully. “You have a lost American! What beautiful good fortune for us, my brothers!”
“She speaks Arabic,” one of the young men murmured.
“Well, all the better, may God be pleased! My dear lady, come forth, would it please you.”
She stepped from the tent. There was a carriage visible in the light of the fire. It had obviously come far, for it was covered with dust. It was also the source of the odor of fire. There was not the faintest scent of a horse, or sound of one, or sight of one.
Very well. It was a puzzle that would be solved.
“Look, I can take you for twenty pounds. Do you have a cell? Is there somebody to call? What hotel are you in?”
None of the questions were sensible. In fact, only the inflection told her that they were questions. “All is well,” she said. “May I go now into the carriage?”
“She talks like an old movie,” the cousin said. “What kind of Arabic is that?”
“It’s her way. But look at that costume. She must be a rich one.”
The cousin gave her a long, frank stare. “You are pale,” he said, after his appraisal was over.
“I have not been much in the sun, in these past years.”
“Hey, Abi, I have to get that line back up tonight, or the boss’ll be on my ass. The fatties don’t get their air conditioners at the monastery until I do.”
“How many fatties?”
“A bunch. Big busload. First-class extra and a bit.”
“Tips if we go to be pictured?”
The cousin nodded. “Borrow that camel from Duli. You’ll get nice money. But be late. They’ll not be up with the sun.” He laughed then, through gaps in his teeth. Then he looked to Lilith. “Lady, we go now.”
How interesting this would be, to go in a carriage without a horse. Did he pull it himself? Roman boys played at war, making their slaves pull their baby chariots about in the peristyles of their houses. But a human being was not strong enough to pull a heavy conveyance like this carriage. It had two rows of seats within, and four doors, and seemed at once dirty and beautiful. It also had wide, small wheels that would make it quite impossible in the sand, even for somebody much stronger than a human being.
She got into the thing, seating herself behind a circular rail, placing her hands firmly around it. She detested the bouncing of carriages, and there was always the threat of the ditch.
“The American fears the Arab’s driving, my cousin. She thinks you a fool.”
She heard this. How dare they consider her a drover. “I’ll not drive,” she said.
There was a silence from without. The men grouped together. As low as they whispered, she could hear them with ease.
“I tell you, it’s a djin.”
“There are no djin, no more than your foolish god who never—”
“No, no, Allah be praised, go with God. Look at her! Look, she looks like some kind of a—what is it? Marble. A woman made of marble. It’s horrifying.”
“I see money. Twenty pounds for ten klicks, and no haggling! I’m going.”
“Cousin, I would not go out into the night with that thing.”
But he went.
Chapter Two
Tears before Sunrise
Leonore Patterson looked down at the steak that the waiter set on the coffee table before her. She cut into it and watched the blood come out in runnels, then spread in intricate rivers across the bright white china plate. She touched one of them, then brought the tips of her fingers to her lips. Memory.
She threw herself back on the couch, touched her temples, massaged them, then pushed hard, feeling the flutter of her own veins. She pressed until it hurt, blocking some of the deeper pain, the torment as if a brutal leather garrote were being tightened around her neck.
“You want something?” His tone was carefully pleasant. He did not care what she wanted or didn’t. She was a job.
“I’m fine,” she replied, wishing that she could keep the ugly snap out of her voice. Indifference would be less revealing. She was far from “fine,” but it was also none of his damned business. She lit a cigarette, took a long, miserable drag.
“Should we do that?”
“Tell me when I smoke,” she’d said, “remind me.” She wished to hell she hadn’t. “I’m stopping tomorrow. Remind me then.”
“You’re stopping tomorrow. Shall I have the suite stripped?”
Leo met his eyes. “Of cigarettes?”
He nodded. George had been her chief of staff for three years. He’d come to her from ten years of freelancing New York for Bowie and Jagger and people. Before that, incredibly, he had been on security for Jackie. He was, in other words, exactly right.
But not tonight. Tonight he was exactly wrong, because tonight she had to ditch her very pretty and very efficient George. She’d been taught to plan every inch of every move, to respect the danger of the hunt, and she could not allow George or any of the other servants to know that she would be leaving the suite in the small hours of the morning.
Suddenly her spine felt hot. She sat up, rigid. In the secret, internal war that she was fighting with her own body, another stage had been reached. She tore viciously into the steak, causing George to step back from the table, causing Malcom to ask her, “May I pour you some wine? We have a Giscours that would be lovely with that meat.”
Damn them and their wine.
“No, thanks,” she said, forcing her voice into an artificially cheerful lilt. She put down her utensils and pulled her feet up on the couch, then fired the remote at the big-screen TV across the room. She began surfing.
George and Malcom watched her without watching her, unobtrusively alert. She knew that there was absolutely no human feeling involved in their attentiveness. George watched an icon. Malcom had asked his question of an icon. Neither of them saw the desperate woman who sat before them, who at thirty-three looked nineteen. When she’d become ageless, she had gained the confidence she needed to become a performer.
Years of grief and fear had followed her blooding by Miriam Blaylock. Miri had been killed by a monster called Paul Ward, a crazy “vampire hunter” with a genius-level ability as a detective and no mercy at all.
Something about the blooding had changed her voice. She’d been a good singer one day, a brilliant one the next. Her voice was a dream, a curling hypnotic
smoke, all because of the vampire blood that now ran in her veins. Or maybe it was knowledge that made her sound as she did, the alluring resonance of somebody who kills.
She had started at the Viper Club in L.A., and just gone on from there. “Somebody Love Me” was number one on the charts, looking certain to be her tenth gold record in a row.
Nobody understood just what that song meant to her. It sounded as if her heart was in it because it was. In her whole life, the only person who had even come close to loving her was Miri, and she’d loved her like a person would love a cat.
Her gleaming, ever-perfect beauty only made it worse. Such beauty doesn’t draw people to you. On the contrary, it isolates you, frightening men and making women sad. It’s a disfigurement.
“Are you ready for us to go?” George asked.
He sounded as deferential as some imperial flunky, afraid that his question might seem impertinent to her highness. But why? Her highness was just a kid from Bronxville, for God’s sake, the daughter of a guy who bought media for Gray Advertising and a woman whose chief purpose in life was to attend charitable meetings. She had been a face that came down into the world and left again, and Leo knew the sounds of the house: the dripping of the kitchen faucet, the rattling of the trees against the eaves, the whisper of wind in the chimney. But not touch, not smiles. She’d been part of the furniture.
In school, she was the kind of person who was always and never there. She wasn’t pretty enough to be of interest to boys, she wasn’t aggressive enough to count in the rough society of girls, and she wasn’t rich, so she didn’t matter in spite of herself, as the rich kids did. She used to pretend to be an alien, or somebody from a foreign country. Sometimes she would speak with a thick French accent and claim to know little English. Nobody cared. If she called, she dated…sometimes. If she did not call, nobody called. She had been a stranger in her own life, not even important enough to be hurt.
Lilith’s Dream: A Tale of the Vampire Life Page 2