by Anne Rice
At last we had come to the bottom of the steps, and there she struggled to see, but she could not.
"Marius, speak to me," she said.
"I'm here, Bianca," I said.
I knelt down, then seated myself on my heels, and gazing up at the torches that hung on the walk, I tried to light one of them with the Fire Gift.
I directed the power with all my strength.
I heard a faint crackling and then the torch kindled and the light exploded, hurting my eyes. The fire made me shiver, but we could not endure without it. The darkness had been worse.
She raised her tender hands to shelter her eyes from the brightness. Then she looked at me.
What did she see?
She covered her mouth and gave a muffled scream.
"What have they done to you?" she asked. "Oh, my beautiful Marius.
Tell me how to remedy this and I will."
I saw myself in her gaze, a hooded being of burnt black sticks for neck and wrists with gloves for hands and a floating leather mask for a face.
"And how do you think that can be done, my beautiful Bianca?" I asked. "What magic potion can bring me back from what I am now?"
Her mind was in confusion. I caught a tangle of images and memories, of misery and hope.
She looked about herself at the glittering golden walls. She stared at the shining marble sarcophagi. Then her eyes returned to me. She was aghast but unafraid.
"Marius," she said, "I can be your acolyte as surely as Amadeo was. Only tell me how."
At the mention of Amadeo's name my eyes filled with tears. Oh, to think this burnt body had within it the blood of tears.
She dropped to her knees so that she might look directly into my eyes. Her cloak fell open and I saw the rich pearls around her throat and her pale breasts. She had worn one very fine gown for this
enterprise, not caring how its hem would catch the dirt or the damp.
"Oh, my lovely jewel," I said to her, "how I have loved you both in innocence and guilt. You don't know how much I have lusted after you, both as monster and man. You don't know how I've turned my hunger from you when it was something I could scarce control."
"Oh, but I do know," she said. "Do you not remember the night you came to me, accusing me for the crimes I'd committed? Do you not remember how you confessed your thirst for my blood? Surely I have not become since then the pure and simple damsel of a children's tale."
"Perhaps you have, my pretty one," I said. "Perhaps you have. Oh, it's gone, isn't it? My whole world. It's gone. I think of the feasts, the masquerades, the dancing, it's gone, all my paintings burnt."
She began to cry.
"No, don't cry. Let me cry for it. It was all my doing. Because I didn't slay one who despised me. And they have taken Amadeo prisoner. Me, they burnt because I was too strong for their designs, but Amadeo they took!"
"Stop it, Marius, you rave," she said fearfully. She put out her hand and touched my gloved fingers.
"Oh, but I must rave just for a moment. They took him and I could hear him begging them for explanations, and all the boys, they took the boys too. Why did they do this?"
I stared at her through the mask, unable to imagine what she saw or read from this strange artificial countenance in her heated mind. The scent of her blood was almost overpowering and her sweetness seemed part of another world.
"Why did they let you live, Bianca, for surely I had not come in time?"
"Your pupils, those were the ones they wanted," she answered, "they captured them iri nets. I saw the nets. I screamed and screamed and screamed out of the front doorway. They did not care about me except to draw you on, and what could I do when I saw you but cry out for your help against them? Did I do wrong? Is it wrong that I'm alive?"
"No, don't think such. No." I reached out as carefully as I could and squeezed her hand with my gloved fingers. "You must tell me if this grip is too strong."
"Never too strong, Marius," she said. "Oh, trust in me as you ask that I trust in you."
I shook my head. The pain was so terrible I couldn't speak for a moment. My mind and body both were pain. I could not endure what had befallen me. I could not endure the hopeless climb which stood before me and my future self.
"We remain here together, you and I," she said, "when surely there is much to be done to heal you. Let me serve your magic. I have already told you that I will."
"But what do you truly know of it, Bianca? Have you truly understood? "
"Is it not blood, my lord?" she asked. "Do you think I cannot remember when you took Amadeo, dying, into your own arms? Nothing could have saved him such as that transformation which I saw forever after in him. You know that I saw it. I knew. You know that I did."
I closed my eyes. I took my breaths slowly. The pain was terrible. Her words were lulling me and making me believe that I was not miserable, but where would this path lead?
I tried to read her mind but in my exhaustion I could not.
I wanted so to touch her face, and then believing in the softness of the glove, I did it, stroking her cheek. The tears welled in her eyes.
"Where is Amadeo gone?" she said desperately.
"South by sea," I confessed, "and to Rome, that is my belief on it, but don't question me now as to why. Let me say only that it was an enemy of mine who made this siege upon my house and those I love, and in Rome is where he dwells, and those he sent to harm me and Amadeo come from Rome.
"I should have destroyed him. I should have foreseen this. But in vanity I displayed my powers to him, and brushed him aside. And so he sent his followers in great numbers so that I couldn't overcome them. Oh, how foolish I was not to divine what he would do. But what is the use of saying it now? I'm weak;, Bianca. I have no means to reclaim Amadeo. I must somehow regain my own strength."
"Yes, Marius," she said. "I understand you."
"I pray with all my heart that Amadeo uses the powers I gave him," I confessed, "for they were great and he's veiy strong."
"Yes, Marius," she said. "I understand what you say."
"It's to Marius that I look now," I said again guiltily and sadly. "It's to Marius that I look, for I must."
A silence fell between us. There was no sound except the crackling of the torch in its sconce high on the wall.
Again I tried to read her mind, but I could not. It was not only my weakness. It was a resolute quality in her just now. For though she loved me, there were thoughts conflicting in her, and a wall had been thrown up to keep me from knowing what they were.
"Bianca," I said in a low voice, "you saw the transformation in Amadeo, but did you really understand?"
"I did, my lord," she said.
"You can guess the source of his strength forever after that night?"
"I know it, my lord," she answered.
"I don't believe you," I said gently. "You dream when you say you know."
"Oh, but I do know, Marius, As I have only just reminded you, I recall only too well how you came into my very bedchamber thirsting for my blood."
She reached out to touch the sides of my face in consolation. I put up my gloved hand to stop her.
"I knew then," she said, "that you fed upon the dead somehow. That you took their souls, or perhaps only their blood. I knew then it was one or the other, and the musicians who fled that banquet at which you'd slain my kinsmen—they spoke of your giving my unfortunate cousins a kiss of death."
I gave a low soft laugh.
"How veiy careless I was, and believed myself to be so masterly. What a strange thing. And no wonder is it that I have fallen so far."
I took again a deep breath, feeling the pain all through me, and the thirst unbearably. Had I ever been that powerful creature who so dazzled many that he could slaughter a gathering of mortals and no one would dare accuse save in whispers? Had I ever. . . ? But there was too much to remember, and for how long would I remember before even the smallest part of my power was restored?
But she was staring at me
with brilliant inquisitive eyes.
Then came from my lips the truth which I could no longer hide.
"It was the blood of the living, beautiful girl, always the blood of the living," I said desperately. "It is the blood of the living and only the blood of the living and must be the blood of the living, do you understand? It's how I exist and always have existed since I was taken out of mortal life by malicious and disciplined hands."
She made a small frown as she stared at me, but she did not look away. Then she nodded as if to tell me that I might go on.
"Come close to me, Bianca," I whispered. "Believe me when I tell you that I existed when Venice was nothing. When Florence had not risen, I was alive. And I cannot linger long here suffering. I must find blood to restore me. I must have it. I must have it as soon as I can."
Again she nodded. She stared at me as firmly as before. She was shivering, and she brought up out of her clothes a linen handkerchief and wiped at her tears.
What could these words mean to her? They must have sounded like old poetry. HOW could I expect her to grasp what I had said?
Her eyes never wavered.
"The Evil Doer," she confessed suddenly. "My lord, Amadeo told me," she whispered. "I cannot play the game any longer that I don't know. You feed upon the Evil Doer. Don't be angry. Amadeo confided his secret a long time ago."
I was angry. Instantly and completely, I was angry, but what did it matter? Hadn't this dreadful catastrophe swept everything in its path?
So Amadeo had confided the secret to our beauteous Bianca after all his tears and promises to me! So I had been the fool for confiding in a mere child. So I had been the fool to let Santino live! What did it matter now?
She had grown still and was staring at me yet, her eyes full of the fire of the torch, her lower lip trembling, and a sigh coming out of her as though she was about to cry again.
"I can bring the Evil Doer here to this chamber," she said, her face quickening. "I can bring the Evil Doer down these very steps."
"And suppose such a being should overpower you before you have reached this place," I said in a low voice, "how then should I establish any justice or revenge? No, you cannot take such a risk."
"But I will do it. Rely upon me." Her eyes grew brighter and it seemed she looked about, as though absorbing the beauty of the walls. "H[ow long have I kept your secret? I don't know, only that nothing could pry it from me. And no matter what others suspected never did I betray you with one word."
"My precious, my darling," I whispered. "You will not take such risks for me. Let rne think now, let me use whatever powers of mind still remain to me. Let us sit here in quiet."
She seemed perturbed and then her face hardened.
"Give me the Blood, my lord," she said suddenly, her voice low and quick. "Give it to me. Make me what you made Amadeo. Make me a blood drinker, and then I will have the strength to bring the Evil Doer to you. You know it is the way."
I was completely caught off guard.
I cannot say that in my burnt soul I had not thought of this very action—I had thought of it immediately when I had heard her weeping—but to hear it come from her own lips, and with such spirit, that was more than I had ever expected, and I knew as I had known from the beginning that it was the perfect plan.
But I must think on this! Not only for her sake, but for my own. Once the magic had worked in her—assuming that I had the strength to give it—how then would we, two weak blood drinkers, hunt the city of Venice for the blood we needed and then make the long journey North?
As a mortal she might have brought me to the Alpine pass of Those Who Must Be Kept by means of a wagon and armed guards, whom I might have left in the small hours to visit the chapel alone.
As a blood drinker, she would have to sleep by day with me, and therefore we would both be at the mercy of those who transported the sarcophagi.
In my pain, I could not imagine it.
I could not take all the steps necessary. Indeed, it seemed suddenly that I could think of nothing, and shaking my head, I tried to prevent her from embracing me, from frightening herself all the more by embracing me and feeling the stiff dried creature that I had become.
"Give me the Blood," she said again with urgency. "You have the strength to do it, don't you, my lord? And, then I shall bring here all the victims you require! I saw the change in Amadeo afterwards. He didn't have to show me. I will be that strong, will I not? Answer me, Marius. Or tell me, tell me how else I may cure you, or heal you, or bring you comfort in this suffering that I see."
I could say nothing. I was trembling with desire for her, with anger at her youth — at the conspiracy of her and Amadeo against me that he had told her — arid consumed with desire for her here and now.
Never had she seemed more alive, more purely human, more utterly natural in her rosy beauty — a thing not to be despoiled.
She settled back as if she knew that she had pushed me a little too hard. Her voice came softer, yet still insistent.
"Tell me again the story of your years," she said, her eyes blazing. "Tell me again of how it was that Venice did not exist or Florence either when you were already Marius, tell me this story once more."
I went for her.
She couldn't have escaped.
In fact I think that she tried to escape. Surely she screamed.
No one outside heard her. I had her too quickly for that, and we were too deep in the golden room.
Pushing the mask a.side and covering her eyes with my left hand, I sank my teeth into her throat, and her blood came into me in a rush. Her heart pounded faster and faster. And just before it made to stop I drew back from her, shaking her violently and crying out against her ear
"Bianca, wake!"
At once I slashed my tight dried wrist until I saw the seam of blood and this I forced across her open mouth against her tongue.
I heard her hiss and then she clamped her mouth, only to moan hungrily. I drew back the burnt unyielding flesh and cut it open once again for her.
Oh, it was not enough for her—I was too burnt, too weak—and all the while her blood went on a rampage through me, forcing its way into the collapsed and burnt cells that had once been alive.
Again and again I cut my twisted bony wrist and forced it against her mouth, but it was useless.
She was dying! And all the blood she'd given me had been devoured.
Oh, this was monstrous. I couldn't endure it—no, not to see the life of my Bianca snuffed out like one small candle. I should go screaming mad.
At once I stumbled up the stone steps, not caring what rny pain or weakness, forging my mind and heart together, and rising up, I opened the bronze door.
Once at the head of the steps above the quais I called to her boatman:
"Hurry," and then went back inside that he should follow me, which he did.
Not one second after he entered the house did I fall upon the poor unfortunate innocent and drink all the blood from him, and then, scarce able to breathe for the comfort and soothing pleasure it gave me, I made my way back to the golden room, to find her where I had left her, dying still, at the foot of the stairs.
"Here now, Bianca, drink, for I have more blood to give," I said against her ear, my cut wrist on her tongue once more. This time the blood flowed from it, scarce a deluge but what she must have and her mouth closed over the fount and she began to pull against my heart.
"Yes, drink, my Bianca, my sweet Bianca," I said, and she in her sighs answered me.
The Blood had imprisoned her tender heart.
The night's dark journey had only begun. I could not send her in search of victims! The magic in her was scarce complete.
Bent over like a hunchback in my weakness, I carried her put and into the gondola, each step achingly painful, my movements slow and unsure.
And, once I had her seated against the cushions, half awake and answering me, her face never more beautiful, never more pale, I took up the solitary oar.
> Into the darker regions of Venice I traveled, the mist hanging thick over the canals, to those dimly lighted places where ruffians abound.
"Wake, princess," I said to her, "we are on the silent battlefield, and very soon will see our enemy, and the little war we love so much will begin."
In my pain I could scarcely stand upright, but as always happens in such situations, those we sought came out to do harm to us.
Sensing in my posture and her beauty the very shape of weakness, they forfeited their strength at once.