Dhampire

by Baker, Scott

  Uncle Stephen grabbed her by the arm, spun her away from me, and before I could react I was paralyzed, every muscle locked and straining and a pain that went on and on in my belly as he slapped something against her skin, just below her navel, and I smelled again the intolerable stench that I'd first smelled in that basement room where Monteleur had lain twisting and coiling in its envelope of jelly on the parquet floor.

  And then Uncle Stephen had let go and she was falling, crumpling, but the worm was still in his other hand, gray like a segmented root in its glistening envelope of yellow-quivering jelly.

  The pain in my belly stopped and I could move again.

  "Go help your sister to her feet, David." Uncle Stephen's voice was dry, slightly amused, as though nothing had happened. The worm still in his cupped left hand. "There's a dress for her in the backpack. Get dressed, both of you, so we can pay a visit to Michael."

  I got the dress out of the backpack—another velvet dress like the one she'd been wearing when I'd first picked her up by the freeway entrance—and helped her on with it.

  "And Dara—don't try to make yourself invisible and escape. Because even though Bathomar's refused to enter you I was able to persuade Monteleur, an in-every-way-similar spirit, to take up residence in David. Which means that as soon as you defy me or in any way disobey me, David will suffer for it. And should you succeed in killing me, or if I should die for any reason whatsoever, Monteleur has been instructed to kill David in the slowest and most agonizing way he can devise. Do you understand me, niece?"

  "I understand you." Her voice was weak, but level, unfrightened, though she was still trembling, still too weak to stand without my help.

  "Good. Understand this, then. I am not overfond of women and I share Bathomar's distaste for Nagas. I tolerate you only for the use I can make of you—and for the ways in which you'll enable me to make better use of Michael and David—and that toleration will cease the moment your usefulness ends.

  "And David"—turning back to me—"should it by any chance occur to you that the noble and heroic thing to do now would be to sacrifice yourself in some way or another so as to allow your sister to escape, let me remind you that, one, not only do you have as yet no idea of the nature or extent of the punishment you'd be bringing down on yourself, and on your sister if I recaptured her, but, two, that with your brother's cooperation I'd have no need of your help to recapture her. And I have no need of Monteleur's long experience and malicious imagination to devise for her a long, slow, and very painful death. Do you understand me, nephew?"

  "Perfectly."

  "Then we've laid the basis for what I expect will be a long and successful relationship."

  He had us wait for him in the library while we went below to fit Michael with the other familiar. Dara sat with her chair turned away from the fireplace, so she wouldn't have to look at the bloodshot ball of powerflame hanging in it. I pulled my chair up next to hers and sat down beside her.

  "How are you feeling?"

  "Better. Not good—never good, here—but a little stronger. I'll be all right soon. I just need a while to recover." And then, without moving her lips, in the same sibilant whisper the Naga on the landing had used, "David. Don't let your familiar know you can hear me. It can't hear me, no one without Naga blood could, but with it in you there's no way for you to reply to me without being overheard. So just sit back and look away from me. Try to relax.

  "As long as you have the familiar inside you there's no way you can escape, or even try to escape. It can't read your mind but for the most part it doesn't need to—it's aware of everything that goes on in your body, any tension or anger or fear, any words you subvocalize and anything you feel or think to which you have any sort of physical reaction. So it's going to be impossible for you to surprise it: it may not know what you're going to do, but it'll know as soon as you do when you're going to do something.

  "And though it's not very intelligent in itself, it will report everything you do and say back to Uncle Stephen. So you can't count on its stupidity, or on fooling it by saying things with double meanings.

  "But if you can get it to leave you, even for an instant, you can make yourself unnoticeable and escape. The golden Naga—the one I gave you, that you said you hid—might be enough to force it out of you, if we can just get it on your arm. It comes from Patala, the Naga Realm, and I think that the reason the other familiar refused to enter me was because I'd worn it all my life. But unless you've hidden it here in the house, or just outside, there's no way we can get to it, at least not now. We'll be too closely watched. And any instructions you could give me would lead Uncle Stephen to it first, and he'd destroy it. So in a moment I'm going to ask you a question in my normal voice. Answer yes if the Naga's somewhere you think I can get to it easily, no if it's out of reach."

  She was silent a moment, giving me time to think, then asked, "Has it been very long yet, David? Do we have much longer before they get back?"

  I shook my head, said, "No. They just left. So we've got a while."

  "Good." And whispering again: "Try to think of a way to get it back, or some other way to force Monteleur out of you. But don't try to tell me anything unless I ask you: I have most of my memories back and I know what's safe and what isn't. When Uncle Stephen gets back ask him as many questions as you can get away with about the things you need to know. Not so he'll answer them, but so I'll know what you need to know, and what I should tell you. But be careful. Neither Michael nor Uncle Stephen is at all stupid."

  We sat silent a half-hour or so more before she asked me again if I thought they'd be back soon. I said no.

  It was almost dark before they emerged from the fireplace. Uncle Stephen motioned Michael to a chair, had us turn to face them.

  Michael ignored us completely, sat staring calmly at Uncle Stephen. But though he managed to keep his face expressionless his body was rigid and I could see that his hands were trembling.

  "David, Dara, I want you both to observe Michael very carefully tonight," Uncle Stephen said. "I've instructed Bathomar to keep him in some sort of minor pain at all times—a toothache, a backache, cramps, something of the sort. But for ten minutes every four hours Bathomar's been ordered to put him in as close an approximation to absolute agony as he can achieve without damaging Michael physically—unless, that is, I specifically command otherwise. And low-ranking though Bathomar may be, he is still a demon of sorts."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Because it amuses me, and because I have a score to settle with him. But also to let the two of you see what will happen to you if you refuse to help me achieve my ends."

  "Which are what?"

  "To spread vampirism as widely beyond this family as possible, in as short a time as possible. Because, David, unlike your brother I am an idealist. A Satanist, working for my master's eventual triumph.

  "You see, David, for generations our family has taken vampirism for our private property, a way of attaining personal immortality granted us and us alone. We have taken Satan, our proper master, for someone we can use. I like to think of vampirism as a disease and of all of us, dhampires as well as vampires, as plague carriers, and yet what have we done over the last few hundred years, we Bathorys? We've hunted down and destroyed all the other vampires in the world, then quarantined ourselves and begun the task of our own self-destruction. Gregory would have destroyed us all if he'd been permitted to, as would you and Dara now if I gave you the chance. While Michael cares for nothing but his personal immortality and has already, ostensibly as a demonstration of his legitimate authority, destroyed my sister Judith, attempted to kill you, and planned to kill me.

  "I intend to end all that, to see that vampirism is spread as an end in itself, and not merely as a means of prolonging the lives of a few self-selected individuals. And the three of you are going to do everything possible to help me."

  "To help you destroy everything we've worked for over the centuries," Michael said.

  "Perhaps. It's
a risk I'm willing to take. Which is one of the reasons why I, and not you, Michael, am now head of this family."

  "They'll give themselves away as soon as we lose control of them," Michael said. "They'll refuse to file their teeth, leave marks on their victims' throats instead of sucking the blood through the unbroken skin. And then people will know us for what we are and destroy us. That was the price we paid for getting Stoker to write Dracula for us, and it's too late to change it."

  "Too late for you, Michael. Not for me."

  "You had Stoker write Dracula for you?" I asked. "Why?"

  "For the publicity," Uncle Stephen said. "Because we derive power from mankind's belief in us. Before Dracula was published few people outside of Central Europe knew much about vampires or were afraid of us, and their lack of belief kept us weak. But with Stoker's book we were able to capture the imagination of the Christian world, and even part of the non-Christian world—and that without giving people the information they'd need to hunt us down."

  "As long as you keep the vampires from giving themselves away," Michael said. "As long as you keep them under control."

  "And what about the Nagas?" I asked. "If we're such a ; threat to you, even Michael, because we're half Naga, what do you intend to do about the real Nagas—and for that matter about any other gods or demons or whatever that may not like your ideas?"

  "Ah, but you see, all the Powers derive their strength from their worshipers' faith in them, and that faith is dying. The various political ideologies that have replaced the traditional religions of the Far East leave their followers without any sort of supernatural protectors, and the fad for Oriental religions in the West is already giving way to various forms of fanatical Christianity which can only help us. With luck we can hope for new witch hunts, or a second Inquisition, by the end of the century. Judaism and Islam we can live with; their demonologies and infernal hierarchies are compatible with ours. And with atomic weapons we'll be able to wipe out whole populations of believers should any sort of revival of the faiths which oppose us render it necessary."

  "But what about Christianity?" I asked. "If Christ still has all those worshipers—"

  "But very few of them actually believe in Christ. What they really believe in is something very different: that the world and any afterlife which might exist would be too terrible to be endured without the protection and intercession of Christ or someone like Him. And it's that terror, their fear of death and pain and evil—of Satan—that's real, and important. Not their futile attempts to convince themselves that they're not afraid, or that there's nothing to fear."

  I thought about that for a moment, said, "Granting that, what do you personally expect to get out of this?"

  "For myself, nothing. For Satan, everything. And what He intends is nothing less than the total destruction of all life in the universe. The gods and other supernatural beings, then men and all lesser forms of life, and finally Himself. And when He too is gone the universe will have been swept free of all taint and filth, it will be clean and pure and empty and perfect."

  "But Satan won't be there to enjoy its perfection."

  "No. So why does He want to destroy Himself? Because His only joy is in destruction. And when all else is gone, what will remain for Him but to destroy Himself?"

  "But you yourself will have been destroyed. So, why?"

  "For the same reasons. To see it all die, and myself and my Master with it."

  Nicolae entered and announced dinner. To Uncle Stephen, not to Michael or myself.

  "Dara, David, you won't be eating with us here tonight," Uncle Stephen said as soon as Nicolae was gone. "David, I want you and Dara to take your truck and drive back to your cabin in Big Sur. I arranged to have it taken off the market just after you left it—I'm afraid I gave the real-estate people the impression that I was you when I discussed the matter with them over the phone—and you'll find that I've changed things around a bit."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "I'm preparing to hold the Grand Sabbat there this year. On Lammas Day, August first. And getting you and Monteleur ready for the Sabbat happens to be part of the preparations. Which is why I want you and Dara to stop and make love with each other at Carlsbad and the Grand Canyon, just like you did on the way here.

  "There's gas in the truck and you can leave in, oh, say about fifteen minutes. As soon as you've had a chance to appreciate Michael's first real experience of Bathomar's talents."

  * * *

  Chapter Thirty

  « ^ »

  It was long past midnight, and we were half-way across Iowa by the time I realized that Monteleur was manipulating my emotions.

  Whenever I happened to glance at the baby cobra in its glove-compartment cage I felt a muted repulsion, a feeling compounded of fear and disgust and even hatred, but so far back in my mind, so attenuated, that had I not been watching myself constantly to make sure I did nothing that would let Monteleur know that Dara was whispering things it couldn't hear to me as I drove, I would have never realized what was being done to me.

  And I knew that my feelings were neither spontaneous nor natural because I could visualize the cobra without looking at it and feel nothing, I could remember the bushmaster that had killed Alexandra and the coral snake that had almost killed me and feel nothing, yet as soon as my gaze fell on the cobra in its cage the repulsion was there, and with it the fear that snakes had never before inspired in me.

  The next time we stopped for gas I visualized myself feeding the cobra. No reaction: I'd fed it innumerable times before and the thought of doing so again roused no special feelings. But then I turned to Dara and said, "I think the cobra needs to be fed. Would you mind giving me a hand with it?"

  Sudden panic blossoming within me. Monteleur had given itself away.

  "Are you sure?" Dara asked. "He won't really need to be fed for at least another week or two and he's very nervous from the drive. It would be better to wait until we get to California and he's had a few days to calm down."

  I said I'd trust her judgment and my panic subsided. I paid the station attendant for the gas and got back on the highway.

  Monteleur was trying to keep me away from my snakes, and trying to keep me from realizing that I was being kept from them. Which could only mean that it was afraid of them, or that there was some way I could use them against it.

  Both Monteleur and the other familiar had struck me as in some way parodies of the Naga I'd seen on the stairs. And Bathomar had refused to possess Dara because she was too Naga. So perhaps the familiars' fear of Nagas—if it was fear, and not something less comprehensible—extended to their earthly relatives or reflections, the cobras and other serpents.

  To free myself from Monteleur I'd have to either force it to leave me, or kill it somehow while it was still inside me. And the only way to try to kill it with the cobra while it was still inside me was to have the snake bite me in the hope that the venom in my bloodstream would reach the familiar and kill it before I myself died.

  Dying, the worm might try to kill me—and I'd seen how that other one, Bathomar, had been able to hurt Michael without even doing him any real long-term physical damage. It might injure me in its death throes; dead, its alien body might poison me. And I had no real proof that it was vulnerable to the cobra's venom, no real proof in fact, that there was any way a spirit of its nature could be killed at all. Besides which, only the cobra-headed Queen's unexplained intervention, and then Loren's injection of the proper antivenin, had saved me from the coral snake. Though it might have been my Naga blood that had brought the Queen to my aid, that blood alone had provided me with little or no real immunity to the venom, and I had no way of knowing why the Queen had decided to help me that time, nor whether she'd ever do so again.

  And finally, to be sure that I'd killed Monteleur I'd have to wait until I was certain that the familiar was dead or beyond recovery before injecting myself with the antivenin, or I'd be saving it along with myself. But for all I knew I'd be dead long
before it was.

  Trying to force it out of my body looked more promising. If it really was afraid of the cobra I could try to arrange to have the snake threaten to bite me, hoping that the mere fear of being poisoned would be enough to force Monteleur out of me. If that didn't work I'd have to allow myself to be bitten, hoping that Monteleur would leave me soon enough for me to save myself, and without damaging me too badly in its flight.

  If it refused to leave me I could hope that the venom would kill it without killing me, or that the Queen would once more come to my rescue.

  I spent the next hour or so trying to think of other ways to use the cobra against Monteleur, or to protect myself from the familiar. There weren't any.

  "I'm feeling really depressed," I told Dara. "Or not depressed, exactly, but scared and… I don't know. Scared. I can't talk about it."

  "You want to tell me something, something important, but you can't say anything with Monteleur listening?" Dara whispered.

  "Could you get the coke from under the cobra's cage and give me some?" I asked. "I need to cheer myself up, not feel the way I do. Be someone else for a while. You press there—" I pointed—"and the cage swings up and out. The coke's not really in the cage, so you don't have to worry about the cobra."

  "You want to tell me something about the cobra? About being scared of the cobra?" She got the coke out and held the spoon three times to each of my nostrils. I thanked her and she put it away again.

  We continued on a few more miles while I waited for the exhilaration I was planning to use to mask my reactions from Monteleur to hit. When I felt myself starting to shiver a little I had Dara give me another six spoonfuls, then let my eyes come to rest, as if by accident, on the baby cobra in its cage. I looked away from it as soon as I felt the first stirrings of fear and disgust in the back of my mind.

  "I know what it is," I said, forcing myself to look back at the cobra, then looking quickly away from it again. "What I'm afraid of. My snakes. All of them, but especially the cobra. I never used to be afraid of any of them, and I got bitten a lot of times without ever having anything really bad happen to me, but when I think about what happened to me in Chicago, when that snake tried to kill me the same way the other one killed Alexandra, I get scared. Really scared. The way it climbed up on my glove to get at me—"