Divine Madness

by Melanie Jackson

  Who is in control here?

  I am, but I think I will let him assume that he has power for a while longer. Ninon hoped this wasn’t a lie.

  You play with fire, cherie.

  For the last four hundred years. It’s what keeps me alive.

  Resolved, she exhaled and then turned her face upward, letting her eyelids fall, inviting a kiss. She leaned closer. In legend, vampires had to be invited into someone’s home; maybe Miguel—whatever he was—had to be invited before he could make a move.

  His eyes widened slightly at her invitation. This was apparently not what he had expected given her earlier resistance. Perhaps he was thinking of Venus flytraps. Slightly wary now, he nevertheless moved a step closer. Slowly, though without hesitation, he lowered his head, holding her half-veiled gaze as he set his mouth to hers.

  Take what you will, his eyes seemed to say. And I shall too.

  Mouth pressed to mouth. She had no warning, and obviously no previous conception of what desire truly could be, which might have given her armor against him. It was joy. It was terror. It was a mad tingling in every nerve as electricity ran over her skin and made her muscles spasm.

  She gasped and stumbled away, landing on one knee, barely holding herself upright with the aid of the railing. Horrified, she could see the golden lace of scars on her arms glowing in the darkness, burning as they did when true lightning ran through her body.

  He did it! He had called them out! Nothing but lightning could do that.

  So now you know. He isn’t human.

  And he knows that I’m not either.

  Her only consolation was that Miguel looked equally startled, and seemed to be staring at his own arms rather than at hers. She couldn’t blame him for this, because he glowed, lit from within by a luminescence that rivaled the moon, and it showed that he also had some strange scars. In anyone else, she would have called them the marks of the stigmata.

  “What are you?” he whispered, finally lifting his gaze to hers. There was no seduction there now. His eyes were the shade of the coldest deepest lake. He had reeled his power back in. Perhaps that was what made him burn like phosphorous.

  “I…”

  She sensed it then, the terrible overshadowing of her mind. Saint Germain had felt the moment when she lost control and was questing for her, following the path of the emotional flare she had inadvertently sent up. Her stomach clenched and all her heat drained away.

  Frowning, Miguel looked up at the sky. Ah—he sensed it too!

  A part of her still wanted Miguel, regardless of the danger, wanted to mingle their light and reunite the parts of the emotional storm that had been pulled apart. But her mind was no longer her own to control, and her past did not want to be known just then. Her terror was strong of Saint Germain. She suspected that if she got too close, her subconscious mind would try to maim or kill Miguel—anything to prevent revealing herself to her enemy. Survival instinct superceded lust. Barely.

  So instead, she pulled herself to her feet and vaulted over the railing. She landed lightly on the paving stones, unhurt by the fall.

  “I’m sorry,” she called as she ran for her hotel. “We aren’t safe now.”

  Miguel did not follow, but she heard his sharp answer in her mind.

  Later then.

  Everyone tells me that I have less to complain of in my time than many another. However that may be, if anyone had proposed such a life to me I would have hanged myself.

  —Ninon de Lenclos in a letter to Saint Evremond

  Actors ought to be larger than life. You come across quite enough ordinary, nondescript people in daily life, and I don’t see why you should be subjected to them on the stage too.

  —Ninon de Lenclos

  At all events, it is palpable that his knowledge has laid the seeds for him of sound good health; a little of which will—which has—overstepped the ordinary time allotted to man; and it has also endowed him with the means of preventing the ravages of time being visited upon his body.

  —From a letter of Count V Gregg, upon on seeing Saint Germain after a span of fifty years

  Whenever she thought of the First World War, she thought of the terrible smell—perforated bowels, gangrene, death. And noise. To this day, she hated the sound of thunder because it sounded like distant artillery fire.

  In Belgium at the time of the invasion, she had volunteered at one of the hospitals, hoping to do something to relieve the terrible suffering she saw all around her. She knew it was what her mother would want; that she use her dark gift, her immunity to disease, to help others. Was that not what Christ taught they should do?

  At first, spirits were high at the hospital, in spite of the steady trickle of casualties that came weekly. It was said again and again that Antwerp was unassailable, impregnable, and she would never fall to the German war machine. But Ninon knew better. History had taught her that eventually any place could be defeated.

  Still, it was safer than many other cities. Preparation had made Antwerp an immense complex of ugly but strong defenses. All around the city were seas of deep trenches for the soldiers to retreat to, miles of barbed-wire snares just waiting to be powered with generators that would electrocute the enemy. There were primitive defenses too, pitfalls hidden by downed tree limbs containing stakes to trap the unwary cavalry. Other fields were peppered with sharpened stakes hidden in tall grass, designed to skewer the cavalry’s horses—a sight that she had seen before and which made her ill and haunted her to the present day.

  Just outside the walls of the city were wide moats no vehicle could cross, alternated by tall, grass-covered fortresses, bristling with armaments. All roads into Antwerp passed over at least one bridge, and each had been mined. With the touch of a button the whole thing would blow. And, lastly, great gates of iron pierced the city walls, where nervous soldiers stood guard night and day. They were safe, everyone assured her and themselves. The city was unassailable.

  But, just as she had feared, none of these clever preparations was of any use when Death came calling, because no one had reckoned upon the siege guns and longdistance howitzers the enemy had. And they used them effectively, because the city had spies.

  The small towns fell first after days of ferocious battle that smashed their lesser fortifications like a sand castle on the beach at high tide. The towns’ destruction was a bloody harbinger of what was to come, though everyone continued to deny that it could happen to Antwerp. The human carnage poured into the city in ambulances, bodies hopelessly broken and mangled when parts were not missing altogether. The operating theater ran around the clock for as long as the battles lasted but many died anyway. And every day the Germans drew closer. Fear invaded the city. And ghouls. There was at least one. She had seen it late one night, dining on the dead in a makeshift morgue. That was when she had taken a trench spike from a dead soldier. If she had the chance, she would kill the thing.

  Shells began to fall on the city itself. Eventually enough damage was done that the water supply failed, and disease quickly spread through the embattled metropolis. Nurses and doctors fell ill and had to be bedded beside their bleeding patients. Animals starved in the streets and there was no one to haul the bodies away. Everyone was on the edge of panic. Except Ninon. She hated the shelling but she had no fear of illness. As the bombardment continued, she worked without sleep, doing what she could for the wounded while they awaited evacuation.

  It was on the final night before deliverance that she herself was wounded, shrapnel tearing a hole in her leg.

  Knowing she could not let any medical person examine her, she crawled into the basement of a nearby ruin that she shared with a half-starved cat and the slowly rotting bodies of the former owners while she waited for her wound to heal. It might have been delirium, but she thought one night that she saw Saint Germain and a small pack of ghouls walking among the wounded and dead left in the street. He never stopped smiling as he examined the corpses and tossed the living to his pets.

 
; CHAPTER SIX

  Corazon’s human changed her clothes immediately when she reached her room, throwing her dress into the sink to soak. He was glad, because the smell of fear and helplessness had to be washed away. He couldn’t stand the scent of either. Knowing she felt bad at losing her fight, Corazon tried to interest Ninon in a game of chase-the-dental-floss—reclaimed from the wastebasket for just this purpose. That was, after all, what he liked best when he was feeling down.

  Unless of course he was feeling down because of hairballs.

  Staring at her consideringly when she failed to respond to his offer of play, he decided that perhaps she needed some private time to cough up whatever was bothering her.

  Ninon patted her distracted thanks for his perspicacity and went into the bathroom where she began running water into the ancient tub. Corazon debated on joining her since he liked this faucet. Water was often sly and played dirty tricks, but it came out here at only a trickle, and it had some color and a rusty odor so he could tell where it was at all times. Also it was fun to chase cockroaches around the tub until they ran into the water and tried to swim. He’d left one in there earlier for just this purpose. It was to be his bedtime snack.

  And yet, he was a French cat and had manners. One did not intrude when someone was coughing up hairballs. He would allow his human to play with his toy by herself. She never ate his things, so it would be all right. He could snack later.

  He paused by the door until Ninon gave a small gasp and made a sound of disgust, and then he knew that she had found the cockroach in the tub. Satisfied with his work, he curled up on the bed and waited for her.

  Leaving the shower, Ninon decided her cat had the right idea. Curling up in bed with Corazon, she buried a hand in his fur. She had her ears cocked at the door, a part of her waiting for the sound of Miguel’s footsteps in the hall. Corazon was not interested and clearly thought she was worrying over nothing—if worrying was the word she wanted.

  She did not sleep until the moon was set and the smell of morning rode the air. Instead she stared at the window and thought about her past, an activity that she had never really relished but seemed to be doing with distressing regularity these days.

  Men! They were always there, the markers in her life—father, lover, son, deadly enemy. They had brought her the greatest joys and her greatest sorrows. Her greatest danger too.

  Her second lover had approached her when she was fifteen. Refusing him after her first had not been easy, but she knew that in spite of his oft-stated admiration for her, she had to stay away from him. He was a dangerous man. After all, he was the power behind the throne, answerable to no one and therefore often capricious and cruel. Cardinal Richelieu also had an ambition so large that there was no space around him for affection to grow. This might have troubled another man, but his personality was likewise so vast and overshadowing that few people—himself included—realized this flaw, especially not the king, who was even more dazzled than she. And by the time awareness had dawned it was too late. Poor Louis was not so much seduced into losing his power as he was overwhelmed by the stronger personality.

  Saint Germain was much the same as Richelieu, but he did not work in the same way. He was also a societal seducer, but a dandy who distracted with his jewels and accomplishments; he was a charmer who seduced without sex. That made him colder than the Cardinal. And because he was not obviously sexual in his conquests, people did not realize that they were actually being led astray by the deadliest of sirens. He was a magician using sleight of hand to distract his audience from his real agenda. He appeared to give away for free what others would hoard and charge dearly for—information, jewels, contacts with others in places of power. But once the supposed gift was cast into the world, Saint Germain reeled his bait back in, carefully concealing his delight when his victims followed the lure. And in the end, they always paid for their free gift.

  Isn’t there a saying: It takes one to know one?

  Oui. I am also a seducer.

  In her era, Ninon had been something of an emotional and mental transvestite, an ambiguity of feminine logic that intrigued most males; the judgment and education of a man housed in a beautiful woman’s body. And she had been—was still—a capable seducer. Of course she was! All wise women of her era were, for how else were they to have any power or protection when the means of brute force employed by men had been denied them by nature? It wasn’t as though they could appeal to the law for aid either. At least not until that nasty little general, Napoleon, changed the law so that women could finally buy and sell property in their own right

  The voice in her head didn’t answer. It wasn’t condemning in the silence, simply waiting for her to finish her thought. Ninon stroked the cat, who was likewise alert and pensive.

  Yes, she seduced. Seduction was a delicate act of war practiced both on individuals and on society, as politicians, priests, actors, and kings have always known. Such a method was usually thought to be a woman’s tool because of the simpleminded belief that it was beauty and sex that drew men in. Saint Germain knew this. But he also knew that true seduction was a matter of psychology and could be used on either gender by either gender. Like a gun, the power didn’t care who wielded it. Given the tools and the will, anyone could entice.

  Some people—then and now—considered seduction a bad thing. But that was only because they had not chosen their pleasures wisely. They hadn’t hungered after the right things. Whether being seduced by a person or an idea, one always had to be cautious—as Ninon knew from painful experience. Had she kept her hungers to a longing for education or respect of her peers, she would not have been so grievously injured. But the desire to preserve her beauty and above all her health…

  You were young, her voice consoled. Your chest hurt more each day and the pox was everywhere.

  Do you think God will see that as cause for mitigation? If I thwarted His will by accepting the dark gift? And does He care that I turned from the Church not because what it asked was hard and I was lazy, but because they were venal and cruel and I longed for equality for my sex?

  The voice didn’t answer. Perhaps it didn’t know.

  Would God understand? And forgive? Even if she didn’t repent? For she did not regret most of her actions. That was the truth of it. She did not repent either her life of sexual adventure, nor that she had turned from religion at an early age because of the utter corruption of the clergy—many of whom tried to seduce her after her father had fled France and she was alone. And she certainly did not feel shame in being one of the précieuses galantes who had insisted on rights for women—she believed then and now that all women should be able to reject marriage, and not be forced into convents and have their money and property taken if they refused. She did not regret taking on the Faculty of Theology when they tried to ban Descartes and his works because they threatened Church authority and the frightened clergy deemed them blasphemous. Nor did she regret upholding Molière’s right to produce satirical plays about the corrupt Court and Church, though it had earned her the hatred of the local priests he lampooned. The Church had decried her impiety again and again and said she was damned, but she had still fought for what she knew was right in the Court of the King, in the Court of Law, and the Court of Public Opinion. And she was not sorry for any of it!

  The main difference between her seductions and Saint Germain’s was that, other than her one transgression with the Dark Man, she used her power only to secure her safety and that of those close to her. She had not sought political rule or great fortune—though opportunities for both had presented themselves many times. Nor had she ever purchased her happiness by stealing it from another. She did not kill to sustain her life or political position.

  Still, the voice was right. She may have done wrong for the right reasons, but it took only one false step to fall from grace. And the two of them were too close to kin for comfort; she and Saint Germain were opposite sides of a very thin coin that could be used to buy both good and evil
.

  And now there was Miguel Stuart. What was he? He might be the greatest seducer of all.

  They say set a thief to catch a thief.

  They did. But the real question was, could one set a seducer to catch a seducer? And without getting caught oneself. It might be possible, if Miguel cooperated. He’d need to turn down his charm when he was with her. Perhaps he would be inclined to, now that he knew there was more to her and the situation than he imagined. She had spotted his unhuman nature; surely he had seen hers as well.

  Or maybe he would just head for the hills and save himself from the complications of involvement with her. It all depended on how curious he was. How badly did he want to know who and what she was? Had he religious training? Most humans drew a line—this was life; that was death. Life was short, death was long. But Ninon’s line wasn’t so straight and she didn’t draw it in the same place most people did. In fact, hers kept shifting as she again and again delayed natural death. It was the curse of the inquiring mind. Maybe Miguel was the same.

  It was a pity that time was running out for her, but it was. A decision had to be made. The Dark Man had ended insane, his mind burned up by repeated trips into the celestial fire. It could happen to her as well if Fate ruled against her in this eleventh hour. Her next renewal could be her last, if it destroyed her mind.

  That couldn’t happen. She had to stop this deterioration, even if it went against all natural and moral law. And Saint Germain could not be allowed to go on with his plans.

  Even if there were eventually dire consequences for you or Miguel?

  I’ll take the chance.

  Oui, but should anyone else have to pay for your salvation? Does the end justify the means?

  That was the question. Would anyone else be hurt and have to pay if she continued her fall from grace? And who would decide what the penalties would be? And when they would be assessed? Some laws were immediately enforced without divine help. Like gravity—there was no avoiding that one. Drop a glass, it falls and breaks. But other laws had delays built in. Like sin, which you paid for at death—or so most world religions believed. Could one avoid that by not dying? And then there were those man-made laws. Those tended to be enforced only to the degree of strength of will of the men making them. Those were the easiest to get around, as she well knew. She had no doubt that Miguel could evade any man-made laws that he had to confront. Even murder.