Hunger

by Karen E. Taylor

  Victor chose not to take offense. Solicitously, he helped me into the car, then turned to Mitch with a friendly smile. “There’s no need for thugs, as you call them, Mitch. Deirdre is a woman of honor I know, and I’m sure you will not attempt any useless heroics. Anyway”—he glanced in at me knowingly—“Fred has been replaced. He has proven untrustworthy as well as unnecessarily vicious.”

  Mitch climbed into the seat next to me and Victor walked around to get in the other side. “No, Fred will not be bothering you anymore, Deirdre.” He carefully adjusted his expensive suit coat before he sat down aligning the creases of his pant legs. “But I’m afraid you’ll need to hire another manager for the Ballroom.”

  “Where did he go?” I was glad of Fred’s absence, but also briefly angry that Victor would have released him without my consent.

  “He was selected to do an overseas assignment for The Cadre. It seemed best to get him out of your way. Especially”—Victor lowered his voice confidentially—“since he was so susceptible to your powers. That was a nice bit of control, but your timing was bad. I don’t advise a stunt like that tonight, my dear.”

  “No stunts, Victor, I promise. Just the truth.”

  “Thank you.” He reached over and patted my knee. “And can I assume I’ve your promise too, Mitch?”

  “Yeah,” Mitch said abruptly. “I’ll stay out of it.”

  “Actually, you will not be allowed to be present at the questioning.” Victor gave an elegant shrug. “I did my best, but too many of us are still prejudiced against your kind. Ron did explain the procedures to you, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.” I reached over and held Mitch’s hand. “I’m to be questioned by each house individually, with you acting as an impartial arbitrator.”

  “Not exactly impartial, Deirdre. Should the houses be divided on your decision equally, the final vote belongs to me. Hopefully, it will not come to that.”

  I glanced over at Victor to get some feel for what that comment meant, but his face was expressionless. Mitch’s hand tensed on mine, and I leaned over and gave him a small kiss on the cheek. “It will be all right, my love,” I whispered.

  “It damn well better be,” he muttered as the car stopped in front of The Imperial. His jaw was set stubbornly and his lips were pulled tight. “Or there’ll be bloody hell to pay.”

  Ron met us as we got off the elevator in The Cadre’s warren. The large assembly room in which we had met previously was empty and dark. I looked over at Ron questioningly.

  He responded as if he had read my mind. “Oh, we won’t be meeting in here.”

  “But this is where our paths part, my dear.” Victor took my hand and kissed it in his characteristic fashion. “Mitch and I will be waiting upstairs.”

  Mitch put his arms around me in a brief hug. “Knock ’em dead, Deirdre,” he whispered to me, and gave me a quick, hard kiss. I watched the two of them enter the elevator, and when the doors shut, turned to Ron.

  “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”

  All the founders of the houses of The Cadre had their own individual offices, furnished in their own unique style. Any other time I would have found my surroundings fascinating and pleasant. The founders were gracious and courteous, and their manners and emotions were kept in careful control, so much so that many times I was forced to remind myself that these meetings were more than social visits. Studying the eyes of each one as I spoke to them, I found myself wondering which ones had been calling for my blood, and which were perhaps more sympathetic. But their faces might as well have been masks; they were unreadable, unfathomable, giving me no hint of their true feelings beneath.

  They had each been provided with my written testimony on the death of the man I had known as Max Hunter, as well as a short biography of my life to date. Ron and I had spent most of the past two weeks preparing this document, and he assured me that it would be read carefully and in great detail, as the founders took their judgment responsibility very seriously.

  I did not recognize any of my eight judges, and their names were not given. Most of them simply asked me questions about the night of the murder, clarifying details that seemed to me to be extraneous. But the last one, one of the two female founders, was much more interested in the biography of my life than in any details concerning Max.

  “And so you woke up, in the hospital, with no idea of what had occurred?” Her voice was soft but powerful, with a suggestion of a lisp and a slight foreign accent. She was seemingly young with an amazing mass of blond, curly hair piled into an intricate fashion on the top of her head. If I had to give her an age, it would be early to mid-twenties, at least several years younger than I had been at my time of change. But the intensity of her eyes belied this apparent youth, as had the eyes of all the others.

  I glanced over at Ron; none of the other interviewers had been interested in my life. He gave me an encouraging nod, and I answered her question.

  “Well, I knew that there had been an accident. I knew of the loss of my husband and unborn child. And I sensed the change in my physical and mental makeup, but any memory I might have had of the transformation and the encounter with Max was buried. All I had to go on were my dreams. And”—I gave her a small, wry smile—“the fact that my father was a great lover of dreadful gothic literature.”

  She returned my smile briefly, then arranged her face once again in its neutral expression. “And you managed to survive long enough to piece together the facts of your vampirism without anyone to guide you or to provide you with what you needed to live?”

  “I provided for myself. There was no one to help.”

  “You were either very lucky or very resourceful—I suspect a little of both. A pity, really, for with a mentor you could have become very powerful indeed.”

  I said nothing, expecting that no response was required. She nodded absently, as if to herself, then her eyes moved quickly over my features, finally fastening upon my eyes as she spoke again.

  “And you had no contact with Max”—did I detect a note of scorn in that dispassionate voice? I wondered—“until the mid-sixties, at which time he still did not make you aware of who he was?”

  “That is correct. I had no idea who he was, or even what he was, until the night he died. And then, of course, it was too late.”

  “Yes,” she said impatiently. “I have read your testimony.” She picked up the document in question and dropped it into the wastebasket by the side of her desk. Then she looked at Ron. “I am the last, is that right?”

  “Yes,” he responded.

  “Well then, I don’t want to hold up these proceedings any longer.” She gave a low chuckle. “I have other fish to fry this evening; a particularly delicious bellboy is waiting for me at my hotel.”

  Ron and I moved to the door. “Wait,” she called after us. Ron tensed, but I turned around and smiled at her. She came around her desk and walked over to me. Then, ignoring Ron’s gasp of surprise, she put her arms around me and gently kissed my lips. “My true name is Vivienne. You may count me as a friend, Dorothy. Walk softly this night.”

  “And you,” I said solemnly, sensing the last as a ritual good-bye.

  Her eyes searched mine again, and she smiled fully. “Your instincts are excellent. Good night.” Ron stood rooted by the door, and she nudged him. “Well, go ahead, Ron, get her out of here. She shouldn’t be kept waiting any longer than necessary.”

  Ron took my arm, and I felt him trembling, but he said nothing until we arrived at the designated reception area. When we got there, he went straight for the bar and opened a bottle of wine, pouring two glasses and handing me one before draining his completely.

  I stared at him over my untouched wine. “Something wrong, Ron?”

  “She surprised me. She wasn’t supposed to touch you, or respond to you in any way. And she was definitely not to tell you her name. Next to Victor, now that Max is gone, she is the oldest among us.”

  I sat down in one of the overstuffed leather chair
s. “What difference should any of that make? You know her name, why shouldn’t I? I thought she was easily the most agreeable of them all.”

  “And that worries me too. Vivienne has always held herself aloof from our politics. Actually, she has very few dealings with any of us; she attends when she is required and avoids us when she can. And she has always been very determined on the subject of rogue vampires.” He poured himself another glass of wine, his eyes avoiding mine.

  “In what way is she determined, Ron?”

  “Well,” he began hesitantly, taking another long drink, “she has been quoted on occasion as saying that the only way to deal with rogues is to have them killed, quickly and cleanly.” Then he shrugged. “Maybe she’s mellowed on the subject.”

  “But you don’t think so, do you?”

  “No, but she kissed you. And told you her name, not the name she goes by now, but the name she was born with.” He shook his head as if to clear his mind. “Jesus, I wish I knew what she was up to. Victor will want to know.”

  I took a small sip of my wine. “Well then, tell him.”

  “No, I can’t. It’s another one of the rules, you see. Anything that I heard or witnessed must be held in complete confidence. Even you are not supposed to divulge anything about the interviews. The judges are free to speak of it, although they seldom do.” He filled his glass again. “This really puts me in a bad situation.”

  “I’m sorry, Ron. I would help you out if I could. But other than Vivienne, how do you think we did?”

  He looked at me with a rueful smile. “Honestly, I haven’t got the slightest idea.”

  “Great,” I said. “Just goddamned great.” Holding my glass out for him to refill, I crossed my legs. “So I guess we just sit here and wait.”

  We had just finished the first bottle of wine and started a second one, when someone knocked on the door. Victor walked in and Ron hastily placed his glass on the bar. “They’ve decided so soon?”

  Victor inclined his head and handed him a slip of paper. Ron looked at it, then back at Victor for confirmation. Nodding slightly, Victor dismissed him. “That will be all, Ron, thank you.” Ron left without so much as a backward glance at me, closing the door softly behind him.

  “Ron is a good attorney,” Victor said without preamble, “and he did his best for you. The papers were prepared properly, with all the right nuances and emotions. Even your biography was a masterstroke, portraying you as a romantic heroine of epic proportions, single-handedly learning to survive and grow as a vampire.” Nonchalantly, he studied the bottle of wine we had been drinking. “Not a bad year, not the best, of course, but still good.”

  “I know you aren’t here, Victor, to discuss the wine or Ron’s quality as an attorney.” I finished my drink and got up from the chair, walking over to the bar. Looking him directly in the eye, I set my glass down. “They didn’t buy it, did they?”

  He gave an odd laugh. “I really do appreciate your directness, Deirdre. But you’re wrong; half of them did buy it. That’s why I said Ron was good. Your odds going into this situation were not that favorable. Now, the other half . . .” Victor’s voice trailed off and he sat down. “Well, I’m afraid it’s a stalemate, my dear.”

  “So the deciding vote is yours after all. What’s it going to be, Victor?” I tried to keep all emotion out of my voice but succeeded only in sounding stilted and antagonistic.

  “Sit down,” he said in a sad voice. “We need to talk this out.”

  “In the first place,” he began as I settled into the chair again, “I want you to know that I have always liked you, admired you, and I thought that Max was an ass to keep you so uninformed. But I do not have the freedom, as the other judges did, to decide this on my own emotional responses to you. As leader of The Cadre, I have responsibilities and I cannot afford to have it rumored that I decided a case of this magnitude on personal feelings. Nor, on the other hand, can the decision be made out of a desire for vengeance on my part.” He gave a charming smile and shrugged again. “Quite honestly, Deirdre, I’m not sure what I should do.”

  I laughed softly. “I could tell you, but that would hardly be fair, would it?” As I sat back down in the chair, the chain on the locket I was wearing came loose and it fell to the floor. I picked it up and examined it, refastening the catch, and put it back on. When I looked back at Victor, he was staring intently at the locket.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “It was in the chest in Max’s room. It seemed appropriate that I should wear it this evening. Mitch didn’t think I should, but I thought that she should be remembered.” My voice softened a bit as I stroked the gold. “Max would have appreciated the gesture.”

  Victor looked at me with a strange expression on his face. “Do you know who that is?”

  I snapped the catch open and glanced at the portrait, feeling a reminiscent smile cross my face. “Of course,” I said confidently. “It’s Max’s mother. Did you know her? She was a beautiful person.”

  “I never knew her.” Victor’s voice was flat and even. “But Max spoke of her often. He loved her very deeply. He never really seemed to get over her death.” Then he stopped and gave me an intent glance. “When did she die? And how?”

  I knew the answers as well as I knew my own family’s history. “She died two years after Max entered the seminary, a year before the Thirty Years’ War started. As to what she died of, I assume it was what we now call tuberculosis, although, in my century we would have called it consumption. What you would have called it, I have no idea.”

  “And when did Max transform into a vampire? And who was responsible?”

  “Ten years after the war had started. He had been wounded and was going to die.” I closed my eyes to avoid Victor’s burning glance and to bring the memory of the dream to the surface of my mind. When I spoke, my voice was soft and not entirely my own. “We were saved by a vampire. We were going to die, but he came along and promised us eternal life. I thought he was an angel; he worked the miracle and I thought he was an angel.” I snorted angrily. “I was naive, too immersed in my religion to understand the ways of the world, and I didn’t know any better. Can you believe it? I thought he was a goddamned angel. But he wasn’t! He was Nosferatu; then I was Nosferatu.” The word came out like an obscenity. “His name was . . .” And I paused, searching deep within me for Max’s residual memories. I knew that somewhere beneath the loathing and the depravities, past the countless dead bodies and the long centuries, there lurked a face that he had blocked from my view. Or perhaps I had blocked its recognition. Whatever the reason, I struggled to tear away the veil that obscured that identity.

  Finally I found that for which I searched, and my eyes opened wide on Victor’s astonished face. “His name was”—the voice speaking was my own again—“Victor Leupold.” I paused again and matched the face before me with the one my memories held. “Victor Leupold . . . Victor Lange. It was you who turned Max into a vampire.”

  Chapter 30

  Victor’s face turned even paler than usual. “Max?” he whispered, searching the room as if he thought he could see him. “Max is still with you? He must be, how else would you know of these things you have told me. Why didn’t you tell me that Max was still with you?”

  “I have had dreams of him for years now. I have heard him and seen him. Quite honestly, I thought I was just going crazy. And I did not know it would matter to you whether he was haunting me or not, or believe me, I would have told you sooner.”

  “I have read of this phenomenon.” Victor’s voice was eager, full of emotion. “How if the bond between two vampires is strong enough, one will linger even after his death. But I never really believed it. And no vampire living today has ever experienced it. What is it like?”

  “Do you want the truth?” I looked at him shyly, feeling ill at ease.

  “Yes,” he said without hesitation. “Of course.”

  “Well, there are times when he is a comfort to have around, but most times
it is simply hellish.” Then I laughed, surprising both myself and him. “He is actually more of a bastard dead than alive.”

  “But I must speak with him. Can you summon him?”

  I laughed again, this time with more humor. “Have you ever known Max Hunter to come when he was called? Or to do anything merely because you wanted him to?”

  Victor looked at me skeptically for a moment, then suddenly his expression lightened and he laughed himself. “No, Deirdre, I suppose not. I can’t imagine that even death would change him that much.”

  “So, what are we to do?”

  Victor stood up and poured himself a glass of wine. He gestured with the bottle, and at my nod, poured one for me.

  “There is a way.” He hesitated. “Not without risk to you, nor, for that matter, to me, but a way in which I can speak to Max. He must have stayed with you for a purpose.”

  “Other than to devil me, you mean?”

  His eyes showed amusement only for a second. “That would be one reason, of course. But somehow we both know that it goes deeper than that. If I can ascertain his purpose, then maybe it’ll help us both out of the awkward situation we are in.”

  “What are the stakes?” I was curious about why he wished to pursue this avenue so avidly.

  “Your mind, maybe even mine.”

  “Look, Victor,” I said determinedly, “I know I haven’t been taking this trial as seriously as I could. But I hardly see that a few weeks or even months of starvation on my part would be worth the prospect of losing my mind. Or justify your wish to risk yours. Why not just take the sentence? It can’t be so terrible, can it?”

  For the first time since I had met Victor, I saw a clear, readable emotion in his eyes. It was fear, complete and utter terror. “Maybe Ron wasn’t that good an attorney after all. What kind of sentence did he tell you to realistically expect?”