He wiped his face to free himself of the last vestiges of the terrible dream he’d had. In it he had seen the Frenchman, Jacques, long before the world went up in flames.
He hated him so much. Now he was dreaming that Jacques was about to bring destruction to the whole world.
A ridiculous notion. He was certainly an evil man and he would die for his crimes, but he was no world leader bringing about holocaust.
That had almost happened during the Mideast crisis not long after the Twin Towers in New York City were attacked by Muslim fundamentalists. It had only been narrowly averted, leaving the world breathing a collective sigh of relief.
If the world had kept its head during those dark times, why would it ever unleash an arsenal of nukes?
It was just a dream, he told himself. I have nothing to fear from dreams.
Malachi stood and washed his face from a bowl of water sitting on a table near the open window. He dried with a coarse cloth and stood looking into the night. He could see so much better in the dark than he ever had before. Leaves trembling in a breeze and birds shifting in sleep on the limbs. Clouds scudding across the dark sky to race the moon. The swept path that led from the compound into the jungle.
All right.
He could not run away from the world. He could not die to it. He could not commit suicide in the cold dead center of a block of ice as tall as a skyscraper.
So he would do what he set out to do. He would find Jacques, no matter how long it took. If he was ravished by the urge to kill and drink from humans, he would control himself and make sure he did not give in.
He was vampire, just as he had wanted to be. Full, deadly vampire. Mentor, though a Predator, no longer killed to live. He could do the same. It was like having a weakness for an addiction. He would simply have to exert willpower. It was not that simple, of course, but it did mean he had to depend on himself and his will.
Meanwhile, he had a mission to fulfill. Jacques would haunt him until the man was found and killed. Danielle would be revenged. And then Malachi could return to his little son and raise him the way he should.
Someone was at his back, in the doorway. He felt the presence and knew it was one of the monks.
“You’re not ready to leave yet,” the monk said, knowing he’d been detected.
Malachi turned, his face set. “Will you try to stop me?”
“I would do better to stop the wind.”
“You got that right.” Malachi crossed the room and stood before him. “You’re blocking the door.” He knew he sounded gruff, but he couldn’t let the monk talk him into staying.
The monk stepped aside. “I’d rather you stay just a while. Let us advise you and guide you. This life is too hard without help in the beginning.”
He meant the vampire life. Malachi smiled gently, hoping to repair his earlier rudeness. “I know you mean well. And you may be right. But I have to go. I’ve wasted enough time.”
The monk clasped his hands in front of him and bowed, moving out of the way. Malachi could have transmigrated, leaving the room full of mist, but that would have been another rudeness. To vanish abruptly was not their usual mode of taking leave. The monks had cared for him. He would walk out of the monastery like a man.
In the courtyard he saw the monks had all come to see him away. They were grouped along the path, their faces turned toward him.
“I want to thank you,” Malachi said. “I’ll remember your kindness always.”
He walked past them, following the path into the night. Into the jungle.
Into the world.
~*~
The first news Malachi heard when he was again a part of the world concerned the epidemic. It had spread across Europe like wildfire. It had strangled communication, travel, and interrupted commerce. Thousands had already died and thousands more were infected. Those not quarantined were locking themselves in their homes and boarding shut the windows.
Malachi thought it had to be a deliberate act of bio-terrorism. The Ebola virus wouldn’t have swept that quickly across borders. And now the virus had mutated, just as porphyria had done to create the vampire. But this mutation was dangerous enough to send alarms into every country on earth. They could not find an antidote, nor create a vaccine for it. Some scientists even claimed the virus was like a ravenous animal, changing form so rapidly in the bloodstream that by the time one group of people had contacted the disease, it was already changing into another form of hemorrhagic fever.
God, what was going to happen? Malachi stood in Bangkok at a newsstand reading the papers, his hands trembling. All around him people surged in panic, trying to flee the city. The plague hadn’t hit Thailand yet, but people feared the worse and wanted to get into the countryside.
Just as Malachi was about to close the newspaper and stuff it into a nearby receptacle, a small caption on a column in the left hand margin of the paper caught his eye. He paused, straightening out the paper again and pored over the article. It was captioned:
Hemorrhagic Fever Victims in Rome Heal Miraculously
Malachi thought it was probably some charlatan taking advantage of the dying, but as he read the short column he wondered if there might not be more to it. The story claimed a man lived in Rome and he was responsible for the healing of those dying of the terrible fever. He didn’t even have to touch them. When he walked through the streets, those in his proximity were instantly healed.
It was obvious the London Dispatch he had found on sale at the newsstand did not think much of this possibility. They’d nearly buried it on an inside page.
Malachi continued reading and in the last paragraph the words leaped from the paper. His eyes widened and he stiffened. No one knew the name of the mysterious healer, but he was described as a dark man of French origin.
A dark Frenchman. In Rome.
It was very little evidence, but Malachi knew he had to go to that city to see for himself. Not that Jacques would ever be a man to heal the dying. He was a killer, not a healer. He was evil, not a savior. Yet it wouldn’t hurt to check it out.
This time Malachi placed the paper in the receptacle and pushed through the crowded Bangkok street until he came to a narrow alleyway. There he found relative privacy from the humans and he began to change, his molecules dispersing. He had his destination well in mind.
Chapter 30
Jacques had the noose firmly around his neck as he stood flat-footed on an overturned milk carton. He was in the closet of his high-ceilinged room with the other end of the rope attached to the closet bars high above his head. He could reach the bar where he’d fastened the rope, but once he stepped off the carton, he would not try to save himself.
He was determined to get it over with. He had no intention of fulfilling some destiny for which he had no control over. If indeed he had been picked to lead mankind into the darkest era of history, then his demise should sidestep the whole issue.
He didn’t know any other way to get out of it.
He stared straight ahead of him into the bedroom where he’d confined himself for days. No one had come for him, not even Corgi, the vampire who called himself one of Jacques’ soldiers.
No, no one came except the people. The dying. They’d discovered his whereabouts merely by passing in front of his apartment building. Once healed, they told others, and those others came, swarms of them. They stood on the sidewalks and in the street, arms lifted to the blank windows of the stone building, calling out for their lives, praying and begging to be spared.
When they began to bang on the front doors, Jacques had gone to the closet and found the plastic carton holding the rope and old plumbing materials left behind by some former tenant.
Now he stood on the brink of suicide and marveled for the last time at how uninvolved he was in his own existence. Dead or alive, nothing mattered to him. Death was a sleep. At least it would get him away from the madness of this insane, dying world. It was no fun living at all. He would not be a puppet, used for someone or som
e thing’s own ends.
He closed his eyes and stepped off the carton, kicking it aside as he did so.
The rope tightened around his neck, cutting off his wind instantly. He began to struggle and his eyes popped open as he wondered for a moment if what he was doing was the right thing.
Too late, he told himself, his sight dimming. His lungs screamed and he began to kick.
Suddenly he was lifted into the air and the rope was magically loosened from his neck then slipped over his face. He gasped for breath and looked down, but nothing supported him. He hung suspended in thin air.
He blinked, water running from his eyes. He sucked in air and coughed, grabbing at his throat and the deep rope burn there.
When his vision cleared he saw a little demon sitting outside the closet, hunched on the floor. It grinned up at him showing teeth as sharp as razors. “You can’t get away from it that easily.”
Jacques floated to the floor, as if someone gently lowered him. He leaned over his knees, still gasping air into his depleted lungs. He realized he was lucky his neck had not been broken. Or unlucky, actually, he realized. He was still here. Still the puppet.
“Can’t off yourself, old man,” the demon said. “Might as well face it.”
Jacques couldn’t speak. His throat was raw and painful. It felt like a pipe heated to a scald. He shook his head slowly at the demon as if saying he didn’t understand.
“You still don’t get it, do you?” The demon wasn’t grinning now. It scowled fiercely at him. “Why someone as stupid as you was picked, I’ll never know. You can’t kill yourself!”
The demon leaped up and ran to him, screaming up into his face. “You can’t kill yourself, you fool! That’s not allowed!”
Then the little beast skipped across the room and flung open the door and disappeared. Jacques, his knees weak, sank to the floor just outside the closet.
What in the world was he going to do? Would every suicide attempt be thwarted this way?
He could hear the clamor of the people in the street and the rattling of the doorknobs of the lobby door. They wanted him. Given the chance, they’d tear him asunder just for a piece of his flesh.
Corgi slid into the room, his face expressionless. He wore black, as usual. Black slacks, black tee shirt, and shiny, polished black shoes. Even his hair was black. And the big pupils of his eyes. He was an Italian, but he claimed to have lived in dozens of countries during his time as vampire. He spoke French perfectly. “We need to leave here,” he said.
Jacques sighed deeply as he came to shaky feet. His neck felt as if a burning iron collar had been clamped around the scalded pipe. He had both hands at his throat as he stumbled after the vampire, following him up the stairs, and up, and up to the fire door on the rooftop, and then into the warm evening air of Rome.
“How…?” Jacques glanced around at the tarred roof and the distant roofs beyond. Where could they be going?
Corgi stepped near and wrapped his arms around Jacques. “I’ll show you how we leave.”
The world spun out of time and space and Jacques saw only darkness broken by swirling stars. He did not know what was happening or where he was, and he didn’t care. He didn’t even care if the vampire kept hold of him or else let him fall.
~*~
Malachi found himself on a stone bench in a park inside of the city of Rome, Italy. Across from him on an identical bench an old woman sat with a tattered suitcase at her feet. She saw him appear and crossed herself quickly. He was a frightening apparition who had suddenly disturbed the balance of her world. She tried to stand. She grabbed for her suitcase.
Malachi said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.” It was trite, but truth often was, he reflected. “Honestly, you don’t need to be alarmed. I didn’t know anyone was here.”
The old woman coughed and hunched over, holding her belly. A look of great pain crossed her wizened face. She was horribly ill. Malachi strode to her to try to help, but when she saw him coming, she scuttled away down the path, leaving behind her suitcase.
“Wait!” Malachi took up the suitcase and was about to pursue her, but realized she was too scared to take it from him. He set it on the bench and sighed. Maybe she’d come back for it.
The park was empty except for him now. Through a stand of cypress he could see the street and it was clogged with noisy traffic. He stood listening to it and to the cacophony of human voices, most of them panic-stricken. People were running from this city of death.
Where was the healing taking place then?
Leaving the park, Malachi began to crisscross the ancient city on foot, taking in the sounds and sights, gauging the mood of the people. Some looked infected, hardly able to walk. Others looked healthy enough, but fear had rid their eyes of reason. Malachi had never seen people this way. There seemed to be a miasma of fear suffocating everyone, lying like a pall over the city.
There were very few vampires. Malachi found one working behind a counter in a bakery. She was a Natural, a worker for her blood. She was blonde and pretty, her lower lip pouty and her eyes a green probably intensified by tinted contact lenses. She recognized what he was immediately and caught his eye. He came around to the end of the farthest counter from the door, following as she urged him with her glance.
“May I help you, sir?” she asked. But her eyes asked a different question. What was a Predator doing in her bakery?
“Have you heard of the Healer?” he asked below his breath.
She nodded. “I’ll get that right away,” she said, busying her hands inside the glass counter, taking small white-frosted cakes to put into a bag. She whispered, “He’s in the place where dozens of Predators gathered around him. On the Via Piodora.”
“He’s vampire? What is his name?”
She glanced across the room to be sure they weren’t being monitored by other employees or customers before replying. “No, he’s not vampire. All I know is they call him Jacques.”
The name caused Malachi’s face to blanch. Blood rushed from his head and he swayed a little. Jacques. It was him.
“And he can heal people?” Malachi could not believe it. How could a murderer have such a gift?
She shrugged and handed over the bag of little cakes. “You can pay the cashier, sir.”
He had all the information she knew. He paid for the purchase and stood outside on the sidewalk, looking straight ahead of him into the traffic. He shook himself mentally and stopped the first pedestrian who happened by to ask directions to the street called Via Piodora. He gave the helpful man the bag of cakes. Within minutes he had found the street and knew what building Jacques lived in by the number of people crowded before it. Police tried to break them up, but people were fighting back. Some carried lit candles, others wept, and they all pressed toward the entrance.
My God, it was a phenomenon. They must really believe in a magic cure. As Malachi neared, he sensed none of the petitioners were ill. Why had they come here if they didn’t have the virus? Or perhaps it had vanished from their bodies just as soon as they arrived at this place.
Yet Malachi did not feel anything particularly benevolent about the building before them. Was the power of healing something that he might sense, he wondered, or was it like air, surrounding the area and below notice?
Taking a side street, Malachi circled the building and came up behind it. Police had cordoned it off with yellow tape, as if it were a crime scene. He spoke to one of the officers in Italian.
“Has there been a murder?”
“No sir, the house is empty. We are just trying to keep the curious at bay. The Mayor has requested the house be closed.”
“Empty? Has the healer left?”
The officer put his hands on Malachi’s chest and pushed him back a step. His eyes grew flinty. He must have been asked the same question too many times today and his temper was frayed. “He’s not here. No one is here, sir. Please move along now.”
Malachi wandered away, but not far. When
it was dark enough, he would go into the house and see for himself if it was empty. He sensed no presence in it, no musk of vampire, no hot blood of a human, but maybe he could find a clue about where Jacques had gone.
He had been so close!
He was a day late and a dollar short, as his father would say. Something extremely strange was going on and he was determined to discover what.
He found a shadowed doorway across and down from the cordoned building on Via Piodora. He leaned against the wall and waited, watching the crowd as it slowly dispersed.
It was not long before a rogue vampire found him. He was an Italian peasant, dressed in soiled farm clothes and heavy boots. He growled as he came near, giving warning.
Malachi straightened. “You don’t want to mess with me.”
The starving vampire showed his teeth before licking his lips. “I didn’t think you were a sick one.”
“Nor am I human.”
“I know that.”
“Then what do you want?”
“Nothing.” The vampire slid into the doorway and leaned on the opposite wall. “I’m just hanging around, waiting for someone not sick. The sick ones taste like hell. Those out there, in front of the building, they’re well now.”
“You could wait somewhere else.” Then Malachi thought better of running off the scab vampire. “But if you want to stay, you can help me out.”
“Get your own damn victims. Do I look like a slave to you?”
“I don’t want a victim.” Malachi pushed the hunger farther back in his mind. It was always there.
“What do you want then?” The Italian avoided looking into Malachi’s eyes. If it ever came to a match between them, he knew he’d lose.
“They say vampires lived in that building. The one with the healer. Why?”
“You don’t know?”
“If I knew I wouldn’t be asking.”
SCROLLS OF THE DEAD-3 Complete Vampire Novels-A Trilogy Page 82