"What do you think of him?"
He meant Charles Upton, of course. Since becoming vampire Sereny had given up habitual lying. People lied to keep society running smoothly. Without all sorts of lies, from little white lies to whoppers, society would fall apart overnight. She said, "I think he'll prove a dangerous partner. You don't really understand one another."
"Why do you say that?"
She returned to her dusting. "He can't be trusted. He's like his Maker."
"Like Ross?"
"Yes. But worse. He's even more arrogant. He expects to rule the whole world—just him. Not the two of you together. Later on, he'll turn on you. He has vast appetites. He's like some evil ancient king looking to fill his coffers, beat the servants into submission, and pillage the towns of all their women." She wished she hadn't said the last. Balthazar wasn't stupid.
"You slept with him, didn't you? He's already pillaged his competitor."
This was why lying was forbidden to her. Lies only complicated what was simple. It covered the truth with the mud of deception and then truth was never clean again. If she lied and said she didn't sleep with Charles, Balthazar would slip into her mind one day and discover the truth. If he hadn't already. He wasn't jealous, as where would jealousy get him? He couldn't own her. But he hated guile. "I slept with him. It was . . . his face."
"His face? You mean that cat thing? He thinks he's a jaguar. That made you want to have sex with him? I don't understand you, Sereny."
"I don't understand myself," she said. She couldn't explain the weird attraction that had come over her when she met Charles. It was his face, yes, that wild animal staring at her from the body of a man. But it was much more. In their first meeting he had attracted her like a magnet drew metal filings. If she didn't know better, she might think he had mesmerized her, but he hadn't. He just possessed an animal eroticism that made her weak-kneed with lust for him. Had Balthazar appeared and gotten between them at that moment, she would have fought him. She would have gone over or through him to get to Charles. She'd wanted his touch all over her body, wanted him to run his long tongue along the curve of her breast. Now that she'd gotten what she wanted, she had no feeling left for him at all.
Except maybe suspicion.
She put the past from her mind, knowing Balthazar had probably tapped into her memory lapse. She returned her thoughts to the chore of dusting. She took out armloads of ancient texts Balthazar loved to read and dusted each one with care before returning it to the high bone bookcase. What she did understand perfectly well was how she loved to tidy a house. This was no house, naturally; it was a cave chamber littered with skeletons, but it served as a living space, so it was her home now and she made do.
When human, she had loved housework so much she found ways to make herself indispensable to her husband. He came to cherish his clean home and had pride in it, though they were of the poorer classes. He began to adore the food she cooked with such meticulous care, the clothes he wore that were so carefully washed and pressed, the feel of the softly ironed sheets upon which he slept. Her children were the best-dressed in their school, not because her husband could afford good wardrobes, but because Sereny taught herself to sew and became a master seamstress. She could imitate haute couture clothing so well no one could tell the little dresses and suits her children wore hadn't come from an expensive boutique.
She learned to make soap and lotions and facial creams from herbs. She took rags and hooked rugs. From scraps she made quilts. Her domesticity knew no bounds.
The secret of her homemaking skills lay in the peace it afforded her. When dusting, washing, pressing, vacuuming, sewing, or cooking, she lost herself in the simplicity of the task and entered a heavenly trance. When things shined from her cleaning, she stood back in awe at their beauty—whether it was a china cup or a wooden floor. When she walked through a completely orderly home, she loved herself. With pure ingenuity and love, she had created an oasis in the midst of squalor.
Most of the world was filled with filth and chaos, especially the small Italian city where she'd lived and raised her family. She made light and beauty out of honest handiwork. Her thoughtful arrangements, from a vase of wildflowers to an old armoire stacked with handmade quilts, gave her such pleasure that it didn't matter whether anyone saw or enjoyed them other than herself.
It was more difficult to reach her peaceful, mindless haven by doing housework inside of a large dark earthen cavern four miles below the surface of an island, but she didn't cease trying. She hoped once the coming vampire war was finished and Balthazar in a position of power, he would let her pick out a European castle and attend to it by herself. Oh, what she could do with a castle and unlimited funds! Think of all the art and sculpture and silver and glass she could care for and make shine. What peace she would enjoy.
She might even kidnap a child again, maybe a vampire girl or boy, to keep as her own. Neither of them would ever grow old. She could be its mother forever.
Here, to keep busy until that fabulous day, she dusted shelves, arranged pillows, made beds, and swept the dirt floors with careful movements that kept tiny debris from accumulating. At first Balthazar protested, wondering at her strange energy and why she would misplace it in this way. When she explained it was the only part of her that was still human, and that she needed the work to make her happy, he let her alone.
She moved on from the book shelving to the sofas and took each pillow in turn, plumping and fluffing, arranging them again in just the right positions across the sofa back to please the eye. She knew Balthazar understood her mania for housework, but the others, his followers, often found her down on her knees picking up tiny rocks or they'd interrupt her scrubbing soot from the glass globes of the lanterns, and they would stand around laughing and making fun of her.
Look at the washerwoman, they jeered. Look at the lowly servant.
She simply shut them out and continued with her work until they tired of their mean-spirited taunts and wandered away.
The "Bone Palace," as they called it, might have little to offer but dark passages, dirt floors and walls, and bone furniture, but it would be a clean place. It would be neat and polished.
And this above all gave her satisfaction.
~*~
The deep caverns were so dark, damp, and cold, they depressed Charles. He was used to the open blue sky and warm sun of Australia. Even his cell in the monastery hadn't been this close. Already he felt suffocated in the confined spaces, menaced by the looming ceilings, and hemmed in by the unrelenting darkness. When first landing on the island and seeing the vista of land covered with black volcanic rock, he had shivered deep down inside with dread. It was such a dead place, like an abandoned black ship nodding in the center of a great, wide sea.
He just had to get out of here, he thought, moving anxiously for the door. He left his chamber and traipsed the long passageway until he found the shaft that rose to the top of the volcano. He sped up the tunnel toward the opening and the sky beyond. It was dusk when he exploded from the caves, hovering over the volcano like a cloud of dusty brown smoke. He was so happy the other Predators had taught him this trick.
"It's not difficult," they said. "All matter is energy. We can control our own matter, the way you do when you change into . . ." They let the words trail off, not wishing to remark on his cat face.
He had spent days trying to change his body into dancing molecules of energy until one day he succeeded. He could point his energy cloud to the heavens and go there. He could rise above the ozone and look down at the Earth in amazement.
Now he stared far out at sea and imagined the African shore. He could be there in minutes if he wished. He was like a new god with the world as his playground. He could go anywhere. He could do anything! If only he had known of this in the monastery. Why hadn't he understood that's how the monks entered his body, entered, for that matter, into his mind, and bound him from escape? If he'd studied what they'd done, he might not have spent nearly two dec
ades under their power.
The dark cloud changed rapidly to his Thai body as he stood on the precipice of the volcano. He thrust out his face, his cat features sharpening, his eyes closing down to slits. He pushed out his mind before him, pulling the physical body in its wake until it broke up for a second time and became nearly transparent. He moved through the sky and across the waters, heading for the Dark Continent. He would not return until he was gorged with fresh blood and the taste of the cold liquid from Balthazar's goblet was erased from his palate.
Perhaps by that time his depression would lift and he'd feel more like working in tandem with the cautious Balthazar. He could tell already their methods were different and they might clash over them. Charles wanted to do things quickly, in a rush of passion. Balthazar wanted to go carefully, thinking over each move from several angles before committing himself. It was said he had spent years gathering together his own clan when it had only taken Charles a few weeks.
Then again, if he wanted the power of another four hundred and more Predators at his back, he needed Balthazar. He couldn't afford to irritate him right now. Later, he thought. Later, when I possess the power and the army I want, Balthazar will have to go.
Charles laughed to himself in joy at the thought of running the elegantly dressed vampire back into his deep dark caves. Why would any of the followers want to stay with the eccentric Balthazar when they could join with Charles and enjoy all the spoils of triumph?
The coast of Africa rose out of the ocean like a green-knuckled giant thrusting up from the sea floor. Not far into the interior, Charles came down gently, molding his face back toward its original Thai human form. He loved "going cat" once he had a victim under his power. Until then he didn't want to frighten them any more than was necessary. Fear drove them to flee, and he'd never enjoyed the physical chase, despite how easy it was to catch a victim.
He moved down a jungle path, feeling as if he were back in Thailand again, and came upon a little town shrouded by night. He smelled the heady scent of meat roasting in banana leaves and a whiff of shredded coconut and spice mixed with a white starchy tuber. He could hear voices speaking softly in the night and the crying of babies. He slipped into the first thatched-roof hut he came to, slithering through an open window. He startled an old woman sitting in lamplight, weaving a reed basket.
She began to speak in her native tongue, but Charles didn't bother to understand her, though he could have if he'd wanted. He knew the gist of her queries. Who are you? What do you want?
He came close slowly and reached out one hand to encircle her throat. She dropped the basket work and clawed at his hand. Her eyes bulged as her air was cut off.
Now Charles let his cat self out, his nose lengthening into snout, his eyes narrowing, his cheekbones sliding back while his skull flattened and elongated. He looked down into the woman's horrified eyes and smiled his cat smile.
And then he ravaged her, ripping the jugular vein from her throat and closing his wide mouth over the wound in order to catch the flow.
She was old and frail and skinny. She tasted of dust and resin, of bone marrow gone dry and musty. She was hardly an appetizer. She hadn't lasted seconds past the opened wound in her throat, her terrified gaze falling dead and her eyes turning back in her head.
Before the night was over, Charles had stalked and taken six victims in the little African town. On his way back to the caves on Lanzarote Island, he glanced at the yellow moon in the sky, and inside his mind he howled like a victorious beast on the first night of a ravenous rampage.
Soon, he told himself, soon I will have my victims brought to me bound and shivering. Soon I will make both vampire and human tremble when I pass by. Soon I will control the world and every living thing in it.
5
Days passed without incident for Malachi in the little cabin behind the country store. He took his meals with Howard and the twins, careful not to complain about the old man's cooking, despite the fact it was frequently inedible. The dinners ran to beans and franks, beef stew filled with more potatoes and peas than beef, and tomato soup served alongside bologna sandwiches. Breakfast was better, since there wasn't much Howard could do to eggs that could ruin them. The days he cooked oatmeal, however, was another story. Oatmeal Howard's way turned out thick as tar and so salty Malachi could hardly eat it.
Dottie and Jeremy took to hanging out with Malachi during the day. He tinkered with his old motorcycle, and Jeremy liked handing him tools. Dottie enjoyed fetching cans of cola for him to drink. As he got to know the twins, he came to admire their genuine sweetness. Though their grandfather doted on them, they were as unspoiled as a peaceful summer day.
"What will you do if something happens to your granddad?" Malachi asked one afternoon. He hadn't meant to get involved, but he really liked the old man and his grandchildren.
"I'll take all the money from the register, call my great-aunt in Plainview, Texas, and have her come get us," Dottie said.
"So you've already thought it all out. That's good.”
“Grandpa helped us," Jeremy said. "He gave us his sister's phone number."
"I keep it in my purse," Dottie said. She lifted the glamorous little silver purse from her side and shook it a hale. Every morning Dottie put on a new dress, some of them much too large for her so that the skirts dragged on the ground. Malachi suspected these dresses came from her mother's closet, left there when her mother had died so many years ago. After putting on a dress Dottie carefully applied makeup. But shoes weren't in the picture. "I hate wearing shoes," she confided. "I have lots of shoes cause Grandpa keeps buying them for me in case I change my mind and wear them, but I won't."
"I don't like shoes either. I don't even like underwear," Jeremy said, not to be outdone.
Malachi laughed. "Why don't you like shoes?" he asked Dottie.
"They pinch my feet. When they're new, they rub blisters on my heels. I'd rather go barefoot. I really like it when it rains and I can squish my toes in mud. But it don't rain much here." Dottie gave him a wistful smile.
"They pinch my feet, too," Jeremy echoed.
Malachi glanced at the boy before looking at Dottie again. They sure were twins, all right. "Why do you wear makeup, Dottie?"
"I just like it," she said. "Like going barefoot."
"Don't you want to wait until you're all grown up to wear lipstick and stuff? Little girls don't usually wear makeup because their faces are so pretty anyway. You have a pretty face."
"Thank you," she said, preening, "but I just like it." She reached up and patted her rouged cheeks.
"You don't wear it to school, do you?"
"Makeup? Oh, no. When school starts, I only wear real light pink lipstick. They'd send me to the principal's office if I wore mascara and rouge."
Malachi forced himself not to smile this time. "Hand me the wrench," he said to Jeremy, turning to work on the bike's chain.
It was the eleventh day Malachi had been staying at the cabin when the vampires came. He thought he'd escaped them. He thought they'd lost him and after a couple of months they would give up the search.
Due to his naïveté they caught him unaware, bent over his bike as he worked. Dottie was inside getting him a soda and Howard was busy concocting another inedible stewed or boiled supper. Jeremy stood faithfully at Malachi's side, a dedicated assistant.
The first Malachi knew the vampires were there, they had him by the scruff of the neck, hauling him backward to the ground. He saw them then, surrounding him, and there were more than he'd ever seen before. His heart quadrupled in its beating and he found it hard to breathe. He thought of home, the ranch. He thought of how his mother had so often known before he did when the assassins came for him. She'd been like an early warning system.
"Go inside," Malachi told Jeremy. The boy, rooted to the spot, began to back away slowly and the vampires let him go.
"Where's your mama, half-breed?" one of them asked as if reading Malachi's mind.
"Don't talk
to him. Let's get him out to the desert and get it over with," another said.
Malachi began to struggle, throwing off the hands that grasped him. He stood quickly, his heart still beating furiously. He backed away just as Jeremy had done. He needed a weapon, some kind of weapon. Oh, God, he thought, looking at them as they advanced, their fangs showing as they snarled. There are eight of them. How will I . . . ?
At that moment Dottie came from the back door of the store with his cold drink. She stood riveted to the steps, her eyes going wide in terror. Jeremy reached the steps and ran up them to his sister.
"Run, Dottie, go inside and lock the doors!" he said.
She dropped the can, cola spewing across the dry ground. She turned, opening the screen door and rushing inside with Jeremy. Within a minute the children emerged again, this time trailing their grandfather.
Malachi saw the old man had a shotgun. He pointed it at the group and said, "What the hell do you think you're doing? Leave that boy alone and get off my property."
"Go back inside, Howard," Malachi pleaded. "Take the kids, lock the doors."
"Yeah, go away, old man," one of the vampires said, turning his head to show the intruder his fangs.
Howard stared hard at the vampire, taking in the fangs, and now his eyes widened as Dottie's had earlier. "What are you?" he whispered. The shotgun trembled in his hands, the barrel wavering. Both children slipped behind his legs, holding onto the denim of his overalls.
"I can show you." The vampire began to approach the steps.
"Jeremy! Get me the shovel, hurry!" Malachi danced away from the Predators, speeding so fast only the vampires were able to see his movement. He had moved closer to the store.
"You go to hell, whatever you are," Howard said, and pulled the trigger on the double-barreled shotgun. The vampire had nearly reached him at that point. The blast took off the vampire's head, knocking him backward and to the ground. He didn't move. Two more vampires changed direction from where they stalked Malachi and came toward the old man, hissing.
SCROLLS OF THE DEAD-3 Complete Vampire Novels-A Trilogy Page 49