Dhampire

by Baker, Scott

  It took an effort of will to remember how I had always hated it there. But no, I had never hated the forest for itself: it had been my one refuge from the house. But the house, the house I remembered as so cold and dark, even the house pulsed and shimmered like something out of a lunar fairy tale.

  And it had been this, it had to have been this, that whoever had tried to kill me had been so afraid I'd find.

  * * *

  Chapter Fourteen

  « ^ »

  I climbed the steps—native black marble, quarried in the crater itself—to the house and rang the bell. There was a cross of wild rose nailed to the door and it burned with white light. Even the door, a single slab of European black oak, shimmered in the darkness.

  Had Michael been the one who'd tried to kill me?

  A moment later Nicolae, a servant I remembered from my childhood, answered the door. He was brittle and slow moving; he had been old when I had moved away twelve years ago. A rare smile lit his face.

  "Ah, Mr. Bathory, come in! Come in. Your brother was just telling your Uncle Stephen that he'd been totally unable to locate you. They've been searching for you for five days now, ever since your father died."

  Five days ago the hand of glory had appeared and Dara had been taken from me. But—totally unable to locate me? He had known I was at Larry's, had called me and summoned me home—

  Without admitting to Uncle Stephen that he'd known how to locate me. Why?

  "Father dead?" I asked, trying to sound startled.

  "Why yes. His funeral's tomorrow. You didn't know, sir?"

  "No."

  "Then why don't you wait in the library while I fetch your brother? He'll be able to tell you what happened."

  "Of course. Thank you, Nicolae." He hurried off.

  The library was more of a reading room and museum than anything else; most of the family's books were kept in a basement annex while the medieval manuscripts were housed in a special room of their own. The library itself only housed two kinds of books: those which had been written by members of the family, usually privately printed and bound in leather, and rare first editions, also bound, for the most part, in leather. The librarian's main task was to keep the books well oiled so they wouldn't dry out and crack.

  I'd never taken much interest in either literature or book collecting but the family seemed to produce at least one notable collector in every generation. In my father's time it had been my aunt and now it was my brother, with his collection of medieval German anti-Semitic pamphlets.

  The books covered three walls. The fourth wall contained a huge black marble fireplace tall enough for a man to stand in flanked by two uncatalogued Goya paintings that had been in the family since the artist had painted them. The one on the right depicted a witches' sabbat; the one on the left was a portrait of one of my ecclesiastical ancestors, a priest who had visited Spain around 1800.

  I sat down in front of the fire, feeling the power of the house and land weave itself into the remembered bleakness of the life I had lived there. My blood was dancing in my veins. I awaited my brother.

  I heard his heavy footsteps on the carpet—unmistakable, even after twelve years—and rose to meet him.

  "Michael."

  "David." We shook hands formally, sat down in facing armchairs.

  "Would you like a drink?"

  "Please."

  "Whisky?"

  "That would be fine." He rang for a servant, ordered two whiskies.

  Michael was about my height, perhaps twenty pounds heavier, and immaculate. He wore a dark-blue suit, a blue and gold necktie, a white shirt and conservative shoes. Dark-blue socks. His brown hair was cut short, barely long enough to comb. He had no facial hair and he looked out at you from soft brown Dale Carnegie eyes.

  He looked exactly as I would have expected him to look, wore the same mask with which he'd fooled me all my life. But the indoor pallor of his skin was overlaid with the silver phosphorescence of power. His skin glimmered, gleamed, flamed. And his eyes—they were still brown but brown with moving pinpricks of light appearing and disappearing in their depths.

  I tried to turn his attention away from my suspicions, to reduce the me he could see to the David Bathory who thought his brother's facade hid only the same petty greeds I had assumed it hid when I'd last seen him twelve years before. I couldn't tell whether or not I was succeeding.

  "I hear father's dead," I said.

  "That's right. We've been trying to get in touch with you since his death. The funeral's tomorrow. It was certainly luck, you stopping in when you did—?"

  Which meant what? That I wasn't supposed to tell anyone that he'd been the one to call and tell me to come home?

  "Lucky?" I asked. "Didn't you phone me?"

  "Me? No. I've been trying to find you for the last five days, David. All anybody could tell me was that you weren't at your place in Big Sur."

  "I left right after my wife's funeral."

  "Yes. I know. I'm sorry I never got to meet her."

  I studied his face. There was a faint air of suppressed triumph about him. For the first time I realized that I was very, very afraid of him.

  "And you really didn't phone me?"

  "No."

  "I thought it was you. It sounded like your voice. But it's been so long since we've talked with each other… I must have been mistaken. How'd father die?"

  "Suicide. To be exact, he shot himself in the head."

  "Why?"

  He shrugged. "Who knows? I've lived here thirty years and I never understood him."

  "But you must have some idea." Was he afraid somebody else was listening to us? "Business problems? Debts? A woman?"

  "As far as I know he had no interest in women, at least after mother died. Debts? His lawyer told me that the estate is worth at least thirty-five million. And business problems—do you know what business he was in?" He was watching me closely, as if hoping for a reaction.

  "No," I said.

  "Neither do I."

  "But after all these years you must have some idea—"

  "None. Perhaps I'll be able to find out now that he's dead. You know he was never willing to share anything with us." There was a depth of feeling in his voice that surprised me.

  I drank some of my whisky. "You don't have any idea at all why he killed himself? Nothing different about him—"

  "Oh, he changed all right. No question about that. Here, I'll show you."

  He stood up abruptly, led me into the manuscript room. There was a new door in the far wall.

  "What's that lead to?" I asked.

  "A room he had added on to the house. Over the years we've always followed the original plans when it's been necessary to enlarge the house. Always. This is the first thing ever built in defiance of them." His voice was thick with remembered anger.

  I had never even heard of the plans he was talking about.

  He opened the door, waved me through it. "As soon as I've got legal possession of the house I'm going to have this torn down."

  It was a large room filled with Orientalia. Tibetan scroll paintings depicting the life of the Buddha, Indian miniatures, books and manuscripts printed in what might have been Chinese or Tibetan characters, books in English, French and German dealing with Oriental philosophy and religion. A small gilt statue of Kali dancing stood on the mantel. Facing it from across the room was a seven-foot statue of Shiva. There were shelves of statuettes, prayer rugs on the floor, tapestries, a display case full of scarlet cords. The windows were open but the smell of some sort of incense still lingered.

  "That's not like father," I said, startled despite myself. He'd always been the strictest of Catholics, a man so deeply rooted in the European tradition that it was far easier for me to picture him as a black magician than as a dabbler in yoga or Zen.

  "Not like he was when you knew him, no. But he got strange near the end."

  "I saw a lot of cars in the parking lot," I said, changing the subject. "Who's here for the funer
al?"

  "Uncle Stephen and Uncle Peter, of course. Then Cousin Charles—I don't think you know him. He's a priest. A few minor relatives. And a Mr. and Mrs. Takshaka. Mother's parents. Why they should show up now, after all these years—"

  Mother's parents. My grandparents. Dara's grandparents, who'd given her her golden Naga before she was taken from them by my father with his room full of Oriental religious curios—"

  "I don't know anything about them," I said, trying to keep from showing anything beyond a mild curiosity. "Who are they?"

  "Indians. Not American Indians, India Indians. But they're Aryan, at least, even if they are almost black. You must have inherited your complexion from their side of the family."

  "Are they here now?"

  "Not at the moment, no. They'll be back for the funeral." His eyes flicked away from me to focus on something behind me. I turned. Uncle Stephen stood in the doorway. He was dressed, as always, in his almost-clerical black, and his skin shone with the universal silver sheen.

  "Ah, David!" he said. "I'm so glad you could make it home for the funeral. We see you so rarely here." He smiled a patently false smile.

  As soon as he spoke I recognized the voice that had summoned me home, though it no longer resembled Michael's in any way. But why? And why had he pretended to be my brother?

  I shook his hand and told him it was good to be home.

  * * *

  Chapter Fifteen

  « ^ »

  "What are you doing up, Stephen?" my brother asked with a barely perceptible edge to his voice.

  "I couldn't sleep so I came down to look at poor Gregory. Then I heard David's voice and decided to say hello to him instead."

  "I was just showing him father's collection."

  "Disgusting stuff, isn't it?" Uncle Stephen said to me. "All those cheap prints with their bright colors and those ridiculous statues… I'll be thankful when Michael gets rid of it all.

  "David," he said as if the thought had just struck him, "whatever happened to Judith's collection of grimoires?"

  "They're in storage," I said.

  "Now that you're home you should send for them. They're part of the family collection and should be here where we can care for them properly."

  "I don't know how long I'll be staying," I said, "but I'll find out about having them sent for."

  "Good." He smiled again.

  "When's father's funeral?" I asked Michael.

  "Tomorrow evening, around seven-thirty."

  "Just before dark. Isn't that a little unusual?"

  "Quite unusual," Uncle Stephen agreed, "but that's how Gregory wanted it and Cousin Charles agreed to respect his wishes. It's not contrary to any church rule, and we've even been given a dispensation for a Latin Mass."

  "After the ceremony we're going to bury him next to grandfather," Michael said. "We had the grave dug today and the headstone's been prepared, but we could use your help as a pallbearer."

  "Of course," I said.

  "Good. With you, me, Stephen, and Uncle Peter that makes four. We need six, so I guess we'll have to use two of the servants. William and Alexandra, probably."

  "Where's Uncle Peter?" I asked.

  "Upstairs asleep, I suppose. You know it's almost three?"

  "Really?" Michael said. "Then I'd better get to bed. There are still a lot of details I'll have to take care of tomorrow."

  "Where do I sleep?" I asked, though I had no intention of sleeping.

  "Your old room. Nicolae had Robert make up your bed as soon as you arrived."

  "Good night, David," my uncle said. "I just wanted to say hello to you before you turned in for the night. We can do some real talking tomorrow. It's been a long time. Too long."

  "Stephen," Michael said as my uncle turned to leave. Uncle Stephen turned back to face him. "I just thought of something. Can I talk to you privately for a few moments?"

  "Of course, Michael."

  "Excuse us, David," Michael said. "Good night."

  "One thing first," I said. "Is father's body in the chapel?"

  "Yes. They did an excellent job of embalming him. You can hardly see the bullet hole."

  The chapel was lit by twelve long tapering candles in silver candelabra. Father's coffin was on a low table in front of the altar. The top half of the black coffin was open. Michael had been right: the bullet hole in his head was almost invisible. He must have used a small-caliber gun.

  His features were composed and there was a faint smile on his lips. I wondered how the mortician had achieved such a peaceful effect, for father had never looked peaceful in life.

  But the longer I stared at him the less peaceful he looked.

  It was nothing that would have been visible in a photograph, but I could sense worms of silver light crawling around just beneath the surface of his skin. And he looked stronger than he had in life, as though death had changed his fat to muscle. He also resembled Michael much more than I'd remembered; there was something about the set of his features, some ingrained nuance of expression that not even death had been able to eradicate, that I'd never noticed before and that reminded me of my brother.

  I leaned forward, touched a finger to his face. The flesh was soft and faintly moist. I thought about great soft fungi growing in moist white rows, loosened the collar of his shirt to examine his neck. It was unmarked.

  Why had Michael and Uncle Stephen been up and fully dressed at three in the morning?

  They'd gone into the library. I hesitated a moment, looking down at father, then wrapped myself in unnoticeability and made my way as silently as I could through the house to the manuscript room, through whose thin walls I had occasionally overheard scraps of conversation from the library when I'd been a child.

  "… about the phone call." Michael's voice. He sounded angry. I sat down in one of the armchairs against the connecting wall, started to pick up one of the manuscripts laid out for display so I could pretend to be studying it if someone discovered me, then put it back on its table again: if Michael or Uncle Stephen penetrated my unnoticeability they'd know I'd been there trying to hide myself from them, and not just studying manuscripts.

  "And only your word that you didn't call him," Uncle Stephen said. He sounded amused.

  "You've forgotten the Nagas." An unfamiliar voice, cold, grim, precise.

  The Nagas: Mr. and Mrs. Takshaka. My maternal grandparents.

  "But why would they want him here?" Uncle Stephen asked. "We want him here."

  "It's not important what they want," the grim voice said. "What's important is that they're dangerous to us, and that we cannot tolerate them here. You should kill them now, before they can harm us."

  "How?" Uncle Stephen asked. "We don't understand them, and we don't want to understand them. Look what happened to Gregory. Unless you, Michael, perhaps you could tell us—"

  "I repudiate mother and her race, and everything they stand for. As you know well, Stephen."

  "But how can we trust you," the grim voice asked, "with your mother's tainted blood flowing in your veins?"

  "You need not trust me. You need only obey me. I am a Bathory and a dhampire. I am your master."

  "Not yet. Not until you master Gregory."

  "I am your master now, grandfather. I can force you to obey me."

  Michael's grandfather, our father's father, had died before I'd been born. Was dead and buried.

  Dead and buried and in the library talking to Michael and Uncle Stephen. A vampire.

  "For the moment," Uncle Stephen agreed. "Until you confront Gregory. But, Michael, I too am a Bathory and a dhampire, and I remember what your mother made of my brother. Why should I accept your dominion?"

  "Because father was a coward and a fool, for all his untainted blood. I had to learn to deny him, and to deny my mother's blood in me, and that denial forced me to develop the strength he needed but never had."

  "Perhaps. He may have been stronger than you think, Michael. But why would the Nagas want David here, if they were
the ones who brought him here? To help rescue Dara?"

  "No," Michael said. "If they'd wanted to rescue her, they could have done so earlier, before I'd had a chance to gain any power from her."

  "Unless they wanted you to gain power from her," Uncle Stephen said.

  "They're here to prevent Gregory's transformation," the grim voice—my grandfather's voice—said. "And they have power over fire: they could burn him in his coffin before he's ready."

  "Then they could have burned him earlier," Uncle Stephen said.

  "But why now?" Michael asked. "Why are they here, if not to prevent his transformation?"

  "The three of you are here again now. Their own kind."

  "I am not of their kind, Stephen. And you would do well to remember it."

  "Dara, then. Or David."

  "We cannot tolerate them here any longer," the third voice said. "You must destroy them or force them to leave us. Tonight."

  "How, grandfather?" Michael asked.

  "You could kill them. They can die. Your mother died."

  "The first time," Uncle Stephen said. "Not the second."

  "Gregory will bring her back to us."

  "If he survives his forty days," Michael said. "If they don't destroy him first. If Satan accepts her."

  "You don't have the strength to master my son alone," my grandfather said. "And should either Dara or David join us before you gain dominion—"

  "Then you will have all of us before our time," Michael said. "Perhaps. But they will do what I demand of them, as will you, grandfather, even now, before my dominion is complete. And as will you as well, Stephen. Remember, only I can protect you from father."

  "Protect me, Michael? Do you really think I fear my fate? I am only sorry that my responsibilities to my family prevent me from embracing it sooner."