"Exactly dusk," he said as I emerged. He sat on the cold floor, against a stone pillar. The meager incandescent lights lacked the strength to wipe the shadow from his face.
"So, you know?" I stretched and rubbed my eyes.
"I watched you come in, just after Andrews sped into town. I couldn't sleep. I was out walking. He and the other agent had apparently been searching for you here. But they didn't look long before they gave up and took off down the drive. I waited until you got back. I knew you'd be coming."
"Michael, I've put off explaining—"
He raised his hand to interrupt me. "Everything was confirmed this evening on the news. Three corpses, two drained of blood. A patrol car cruising the area spotted a suspicious man, then checked the houses on the street."
I squinted to see his eyes. "Come to my cell. Let me explain it from the beginning."
"We can't miss dinner and vespers, Victor. The last thing you need is to stir up any more suspicion here. We can talk later."
I grabbed his arm as he started to get up. "You don't blame me, then."
"Nature is nature."
"I adore you, Michael." I shook his arm.
The evening dragged. We chanted the longest, dreariest psalms at vespers. At dinner, the reading from Lives of the Saints detailed the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, who praised God while he was grilled to death. Talk of the killings dominated the social hour. Neighbors of the victims were interviewed on the news and Andrews once again assured the city that the murderer would be apprehended. When the reporter pressed him about the killer's identity, Andrews refused to share the details he claimed to have.
As much as Andrews suspected me in Luke's disappearance, surely by now he'd given up trying to pin the mountain and Knoxville murders on me. After all, he'd never seen me leave the monastery grounds. Or maybe he thought I had a partner in the city. But none of that mattered. I focused on setting things right with Michael and preparing for his baptism into the night.
Grave, intense, Michael fired question after question at me when we met in the library's stacks after the Grand Silence had begun. We sat on the age-darkened plank floor between shelves of books, the humid air full of their smell. Thunder rumbled above us.
"This author traces vampires to Satan." Michael picked up one of the volumes piled next to him. "Is it true?"
"Satan, the fallen angel? No, he took a different route than the founder of the Dark Kingdom. He wanted to usurp the role of heaven's god. He wanted an eternity of adoration—static, lifeless worship. The Dark Kingdom is a place of activity, as you've seen."
"Heaven's god? There's more than one?"
"Many powers rule the universe. Nations take their pick—Isis, Zeus, the Hebrew god. I'm no enemy of the gods. They are simply not relevant to me. They exist in spheres not accessible to me, just as mine is not accessible to them."
"Your food, Victor. All these people. The killings in the mountains too, I suppose. What is it like?" He spoke with the burning interest underlying all his quests for knowledge.
I shrugged. "Sometimes exhilarating, sometimes… sometimes unpleasant."
"You killed Luke, didn't you?"
"It was unavoidable. He threatened to expose me, to have me expelled. It was a matter of survival."
He looked away for a moment before speaking again, in nearly a whisper. "And you drank his blood?"
"Yes. It's how I live. How you will live, Michael. As you say, nature is nature. If you give in to petty scruples, see through mortal eyes, it's abhorrent. But look at the wolves. Look at human's killing for meat. Vampires live on blood."
"Vampires." Michael pondered the word. "Jana spoke of creatures of the night. Are there others? Do you have enemies, allies?"
He'd asked the question I dreaded most. To condemn him to a life of solitude, the most torturous aspect of my existence, how could he understand?
"Yes, there are others. But we operate alone, until we create a successor." I paused, then said, "What are decades or centuries, though, when compared to eternity?" I leaned forward and clasped his shoulders. "Besides, in the interim you can live on our passion, Michael. I lived without it all this time on earth. Now I think I could stay another 2,000 years, if I knew I would be joining you."
"Will I be able to communicate with you?"
"I can make no promises. I don't know enough."
"What if we both stay here? What if we leave this place and make a life somewhere else?"
"You mean until you die?"
"Yes. Can't I share your existence now? These books talk about large numbers of vampires."
"Forget the books!" I pounded a shelf with my fist. "I'm telling you it's not a choice. Other vampires exist, but all rule their own domains. We never come into contact. We can't. There's a barrier."
Michael gazed at me steadily, despite the excitement and fear I detected pulsing through him. "How can I live without you for centuries?"
"You are strong enough to do it. And there's no choice."
"And feeding on people—"
"You'll do it. We all do it. The blood: There's nothing like it, the sense of elation, the power. To think the life of a man is pouring into you. Think of communion, for God's sake. The hunger for blood takes people there. The blood of a victim. Remember the taste of my blood, Michael?"
"But you weren't a victim."
I laughed. "You're wrong. You held complete power over my soul."
As the thunder rolled and exploded, rain pelted the roof. Our niche among the books was a snug refuge that, in light of our impending separation, took on the romance of a dark bedroom the day before a battle.
Aware of our alliance in subversion, united in blood and the dark longings of our souls, we fell into each other's arms. I stripped off his shorts and T-shirt and buried my face in his musky crotch, licking the dark sack, the thick cock. My tongue traced the line of dark fur from that sweet meat to his chest, where it densely swirled. Our lips met, then our tongues. We wrestled playfully. He finally sat upon my belly, pinning back my arms, and impaled himself upon my rigid cock. Massaging his own, he groaned in his motion, and I, panting in the scent of his racing blood, groaned too, until we both exploded in orgasm.
Chapter Thirty
« ^ »
In the midst of the relentless media coverage of the devastation wrought by the "vampire killer," as I was dubbed by the press, Luke's grandfather visited the monastery. The dotard had to see where his boy last lived, had to search the woods himself. Apparently, Brother Matthew had discouraged his coming, but to no avail.
During compline, he sat in Luke's choir stall, glum and distracted, not bothering to follow the psalms in his grandson's breviary, which he caressed as though it were a child. He was a tall, rawboned man in his mid-60s, with deep grooves in his tanned cheeks and close-cropped gray hair. He wore a short-sleeved plaid shirt and blue jeans—a farmer through and through. From dawn to dusk he'd trekked through the woods, Michael told me, without stopping to eat, and had only picked at his food during dinner.
When the moment came for petitions, he spoke up wearily, in what I by now recognized as a country accent.
"I wanna ask the Lord to lead me to my boy. If he's dead, I just wanna know. But I pray he's alive. He ain't never hurt nobody. Looks like a killer wouldn't have no use for him, but I don't guess that matters to a pervert. I know it ain't right to wish evil on nobody, but I ask the Lord to strike that monster down in his tracks, afore he can kill another soul."
After compline, Michael spoke to him, briefly clasping his shoulder. It was a mistake to allow this compassion. Why stir the waters? A general could not weep over the slain soldiers on the field, whether his own men or those of the enemy. He must harden himself against future losses, future massacres. But I knew for now it was asking too much. With time Michael would see the necessity of leaving uncompromised the detachment natural to him.
What concerned me more was the incredible susceptibility of Michael's soul to supernatural interference.
When he failed to show up at my cell that night at the appointed hour, I ventured to his. Flames encased in red glass flickered throughout his room and sweet incense smoked densely. Michael lay naked on the floor, his arms outstretched. The shadow of the crucifix suspended in midair above him fell across his face. His cock was swollen with blood. As before, he invoked the cross, instrument of torture, as a source of hope.
"O crux, ave spes unica." His tone was insistent, as if he were leading a war cry, and he repeated the pronouncement again and again as though accompanied by a battle drum.
I wanted to interrupt the spell, shake him from his vision, but once again I could not penetrate the invisible wall between us. Frustrated, I stood near the door.
The chant quickened, gaining urgency, and then stopped abruptly, as though the enemies now stood eye to eye, ready to charge across the battlefield. He got up on his knees, extending his arms before the crucifix, apparently receiving from it a burden. Straining under the invisible weight he stood and approached the door, which swung open of its own accord when I stepped aside. I followed him down the dark corridor, alert to any movements behind the closed doors, particularly the door of the abbot's cell.
I followed him all the way down the stairs to the crypt and through the long, dank passage to my tomb, where he stopped.
He grimaced as if in great pain, sweat beading on his forehead. He moaned like a frustrated dumb man trying to communicate. It was the iron gate, I knew; he wanted it opened and I obliged him. That calmed him. Standing naked before the black mouth of the mausoleum, his arms still extended, he appeared to wait for someone to relieve him of his heavy treasure. I followed his cue, pantomiming a transfer of the burden from his arms to mine.
When he motioned to the tomb, I pretended to lay what must have been a corpse inside. Tears streamed down his face. Then he opened his eyes and the weeping ceased.
"He's here, Victor." He whispered, his eyes on the gaping tomb.
"Yes."
"He called out to me. Then I found him in the woods, white as chalk."
"This is a temptation, Michael." I laid my hand on his shoulder. "Joshu wants you for himself. But for what? So you can kneel with him before his father's throne for all eternity?"
He turned his head slowly until our eyes met. "Yes. There was something in the vision about Jesus. At first there were colors—red, yellow, black splashed against a white screen, and then a cross, a writhing body, and then Luke lay before me in the woods."
Securing the iron gate, I led Michael to my cell, where I directed him to wait until I could retrieve his clothes. When I returned with his shorts and T-shirt, he was rolling his head as if to relieve tension from his neck and shoulders.
"Let's take a walk," I said.
He nodded, alert now after the long trance.
The grass, taller after a week of rain, formed a soft carpet beneath our feet. Light-green leaves budded on the trees scattered across the grounds. The sour smell of mulch wafted on a warm breeze cascading over the mountains.
Once secure inside the woods, I took Michael's hand as we climbed through the leafing oaks, over stumps and fallen trunks. Only a slice of moon jeweled the sky, so it was up to me to guide him through the black thicket to our clearing.
"Your gloom's because of our parting," I said when we had settled on the ground against the log. "And once you're transformed the visions will stop."
"How do you know? How do you know these things?"
"Don't question me," I said firmly. "Give yourself over. A divided soul can't survive."
"Yes, I know." He laid his head back against the log and studied the sky. "This has to happen soon, Victor. I won't permit my soul to be used as a battleground for invisible forces. But there is one thing." He turned to me. "I want to sleep with you."
"Sleep?"
"Next to your coffin. I want to spend our final hours together. At dusk when we wake up this thing has to happen."
I studied his keen eyes, in search of ulterior motives, but without success. "Is this a test run? Do you want to make sure you can survive sleeping among the dead?"
"I've told you what I want."
"All right. At dawn we sleep."
When the sky lightened behind the mountains, we climbed down to the crypt. I entered the tomb first and made space for him near my coffin. He lay calmly, quietly, while I shut the gate. I loosened a brick in the back wall to let in air from a narrow channel between the mausoleums and the outer wall of the foundation. Then I climbed into my bed.
"How are you?" I asked.
"Fine. The dead don't frighten me."
"You know, in some medieval monasteries monks had to build their own coffins and sleep in them every night."
"Yes, I know, to remind them of their mortality."
"For you it's a promise of eternity."
I squeezed his hand and fell into the most peaceful sleep I'd had in two centuries.
Just before dusk, though, I dreamed of Luke. He stood over us in the tomb, naked, pale. He sobbed. Putrid blood dripped from his throat onto Michael's face. Michael's eyes snapped open. In a feverous delirium he struggled to escape from the tomb. I awoke and realized that it was no dream. Kneeling over my coffin, he pummeled my chest.
I seized his wrists. "Wake up. It's a dream."
"I am awake. I am." He stopped struggling against me and took a deep breath.
"Don't let Luke haunt you."
"It's not Luke. It's something else. I dreamed of heaven."
"What? Some fantasy?"
"No. I don't know." He settled back on his haunches. "I can't do it, Victor."
"What! What do you mean?"
"I can't."
"You're babbling like an idiot. Get out in the air and calm yourself."
"It won't help. My sense is strong. This can't be done."
"What, is your Jana putting crazy ideas in your head? Fuck her. You love me. That's what matters. A magnificent life is ahead of us. You won't back out, not if you listen to your own desires instead of a spirit's black magic."
But his gaze was one of resolution, not fear.
"It's useless to discuss it now," I said. "Get out. We'll talk tomorrow."
He said nothing as he crawled from the tomb.
VIII
The Storm
Chapter Thirty-one
« ^ »
That night was the darkest, longest I'd known in my centuries of flight from the sun. Restless to the point of madness, I heard the subtlest movements in the woods, smelled the decay of animals lying dead miles away. The nerves in my body formed a network of live wires, exposed, popping, near the point of conflagration. If now, with all my hopes, now when the moment to act announced itself like a giant bell tolling over the land, if now this partner who'd freely entered into a pact with me betrayed me, I knew not what heights my fury would reach. His flesh would rip, flesh as abhorrent to me in that moment as it had been enthralling for the past year. How could I bear to let him live? Impossible. And he knew it. He knew it but spoke still.
Yet couldn't he have been under the old woman's spell, as he'd been that night in the woods? Perhaps she, not he, spoke. Perhaps she was in league with Luke's spirit. Damn them both. Cowards of seduction.
When Michael met me in the shadows outside the crypt the following night, I already knew his position, even without reading his thoughts. Erect, determined, silent, he approached. He did not play up the pain he felt. All the same, I despised him as he uttered the words I expected to hear.
"I can't do it, Victor," he said solemnly. "I can't."
"Damn you!" I pinned him to the wall. "It was a test, sleeping in the tomb. You refused to trust me. I'll kill you, I swear."
"I'm not stopping you."
"Stop me!" I gripped his throat and would have broken his neck, but footsteps sounded on the stairs. I covered his mouth and pulled him behind a column. The intruder stopped, then retreated. I slammed Michael against the wall.
"So you want to ruin my plans,
my happiness! When I can almost taste it, like blood?" My chest heaved with fury. "You like power, do you? You like to experiment with the forces of darkness?"
"No, Victor. I love you." His face was still red from the pressure of my hands on his throat.
I backhanded him. The sting brought tears to his eyes. "Traitor. I'll kill you here and now. No, wait. I'll have some amusement first. You want power? I'll show you power."
Gripping him by the arm, I took him outside and rose into the night while he clung to me. We lighted near a corner grocery store in Knoxville, just as the owner was locking the doors. I knocked on the glass, clutching Michael still. When the owner mouthed the word "closed," I shoved open the door.
"Hey, Mister, I said I'm closed." The man was 70 or so, with a widow's peak and a bulbous nose sprouting black hairs.
"So you are." I advanced a step, my fangs now protruding, and he ran to the counter. Before he could grab his gun, my arm was around his neck like a vise. "Behold power, Michael."
"Let him go, Victor, for God's sake." Michael pounded on the counter.
"For whose sake?" I grabbed a shock of gray hair, pulled the man's head back, and pierced his throat. Then I sucked slowly, so he would struggle a long while under Michael's gaze.
Michael came around the table and tried to tear the man away from me.
With one thrust, I hurled him into a shelf loaded with wine. Bottles crashed to the floor, staining the white linoleum as red as the blood I drank. As soon as he stood up, I bared my dripping fangs at him.
"Nature is nature," I said. "Here, try it." I reached for his arm and pulled his lips to the old man's throat.
He strained against my grip to move his face, now smeared with blood, away from the man's neck.
The old man, his eyes stretched wide in terror, groaned and struggled to breathe. Blood had drained down the collar of his shirt and collected around his pocket protector full of pens. Holding Michael with one hand and my victim with the other, I lunged at the old man's throat, sucking greedily until he collapsed behind the counter. Michael darted toward the door, but I intercepted him.
Vampire Vow Page 13