“Do you like the food?”
“It’s delicious,” I say. “Thank you.”
And I begin to devour what’s on my plate.
“So what’s going to happen to me? If this Elder lets you change me?”
“We’ll have to act right away. Of course, we can give you some time to enjoy Paris, do whatever it is you feel the need to do while still human. But I’ll need to return to the States as soon as possible to reclaim the throne, before Marion can marshal her forces against me.”
“And I’ll be the queen of the vampires?”
“One can hope,” he says.
And I look away, unsure of what to think.
“Tell me something,” I say. “It seems stupid to ask, but I still haven’t figured it out, completely. And I can’t quite recall this part from my memories of Saga. But what exactly are the vampire powers?”
“We’re a bit stronger than normal, and faster. And our abilities increase over time. You saw the needle break against my arm, yet it eventually went in. Which should give you an idea that we’re difficult to harm, though not completely.”
“Can you fly?”
“No. Only with telekinesis, for short distances.”
“What about changing into a bat?”
“No,” he says, with a laugh. “Most of our powers relate to the mind, the ability to read thoughts, and such. And some of us develop a more specific gift, like the Twins. Or Adam, who seems to have a particular ability to hunt down his prey, to connect himself to wherever they are.”
And I nod my head, wondering if he’s focusing his mind on trying to track me down, or if my Luminos defenses are blocking him.
“You will probably have a gift of your own, given how strong your mental defenses are. But we never had the chance to see what it would have developed into when you were Saga. You weren’t with us long enough.”
I wonder if that was a good or bad thing. What would have happened to me if I had stayed a vampire? Would it have corrupted me, beyond the hope of redemption? Would I have become lost forever, as my mother from the strange dream realm had said?
But I might find out soon enough. Perhaps Roland is right, and I’ll need the transformation to survive against Marion, along with whatever special powers I might develop. Because even though she claims to be my friend, she seems just as intent to block me from whatever this strange fate is that the Elders intend for me.
Perhaps it really is my destiny to become the vampire queen, and lead them into a reality that’s better than being monsters who torture people.
“And what are your special powers?” I ask him.
“I have none, per se. But my skills of telepathy and telekinesis are stronger than normal, so that is a gift in and of itself.”
And I nod my head, trying to take it all in.
There’s a tray of desserts, and as the meal ends, I nibble at a small creme brulee and some custard. Roland drains another glass of the blood, and turns to me.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
“Ready for what?” I say, smiling.
And I’m convinced that this is the part where I get to enjoy Paris with a handsome man, while I still have my human life. I have some naive idea that he’s planning to take me for a night out on the town, or perhaps a bit of midnight sightseeing.
But I’m dead wrong.
“We’re going down below. To meet the Elders.”
“Down below? Down below, what?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you think the Paris vampires had a tower of their own? No, as I said, they do things differently here. The Paris vampires live in the catacombs.”
The catacombs. I’ve heard about them; they’re scary caves that stretch beneath Paris, or so I’ve been told. And he’s right; these vampires are different. Already, they seem more like the terrifying ones from movies and television that I had imagined. Just thinking about them living underground gives me the creeps.
“Roland, I don’t know if I’m ready for this,” I say.
“You’ll be fine,” he says. “And besides, we don’t have a choice. Though Marion will not hurt us here, who knows what spies she has who may already be watching us. Better to act, quickly.”
He stands and comes around the table for me, offering his hand, which I normally would find reassuring. But now, I can’t even stop myself from shaking nervously. And I’m suddenly questioning the logic of ever coming to this place.
But, he’s right, I don’t really have a choice. I realize I have to face this once and for all, and I stand.
Before we go, there’s a flashlight sitting on a table near the door, which I find a bit odd. Roland slips it into his jacket pocket, and any doubt I may have had over the fact that we’re actually going underground disappears from my mind.
Roland leads me out to the hallway, where we pass a couple who are clearly visitors at the hotel. The man is wearing a polo shirt and jeans, and the woman wears khaki pants and a simple top. They look like American tourists returning from an evening stroll.
“Good evening,” Roland says, with a pleasant smile.
“Good evening,” the woman says, and they both give him friendly grins, seemingly in the midst of enjoying their trip to Paris in a way I can only dream of. And it’s all I can do to plaster an awkward smile on my face, knowing where I’m going.
We enter a stairwell that seems innocuous enough, and I’m surprised we’re not taking an elevator into the bowels of the vampires’ lair. It is different here, and I doubt the stairs even gets used much. What guest at a luxury hotel would bother using them when there’s an elevator available?
When we get to the bottom, we find a door marked for the maintenance staff, which is where I think we’re going at first. But instead, Roland takes me around to another door, underneath the last steps of the stairwell. It’s plain, and there’s a simple numerical keypad protecting it.
He punches in a few numbers, and the door opens, revealing a long corridor that stretches out into darkness. Huge metal pipes run along it, and dim light bulbs brighten the way, though even from where we are, I can see that intermittent ones are burnt out, leaving patches of darkness. And the tunnel seems to go on forever.
We step inside, and Roland lets the door slam behind us. He walks on, and there’s nothing I can do but to follow.
The tunnel is dark and dusty, far more frightening than the dungeon of the Omnicom building. At least that place is clean. The big pipes give off a low rushing noise that makes me think they’re water mains, or maybe natural gas pipes that fuel the city. I become irrationally afraid that one might explode, engulfing us in flame in the tight space, though Roland doesn’t seem to share in my fears in the least. He could probably survive an explosion, or maybe outrun the flames, though I won’t be so lucky.
Then again, I’m one of the Luminos. I’m immortal, in a sense, just as much as the vampires. I can come back again and again, as many times that I need to, while they’re trapped in the same form that will never age. And death will come for them eventually, or at least that’s their greatest fear. And the vampires won’t ever return, or at least they won’t have any memory of who they once were if they do. I try to tell myself that I have nothing to fear, from the tunnel or the vampire catacombs, to fill myself with confidence. But a part of me still wants to run back to the hotel, screaming in terror.
After a hundred yards or so, there’s a break in the wall of the tunnel, literally; concrete blocks have been knocked out in a rough way, forming a hole you can step through. Even though the corridor continues on, Roland leads me through the opening.
He pulls out the flashlight, flipping it on.
“Can’t you see without that thing?” I say.
“Of course I can. This is for you.”
“Oh, right.”
He flashes it around, to give me an idea of where we’re going. The tunnel on the other side of the hole is bizarre, almost like a cave, but there are little rocks that form the walls that are almost like tiles. The f
loor is rough, dirty, and I feel ridiculous for wearing high heeled shoes. And considering that they’re the nicest pumps I’ve ever worn in my life, it feels like a waste.
“Roland, these shoes are worth a fortune and I’m going to destroy them down here. They probably cost more than I make in a week.”
“Let them get damaged. It doesn’t matter, I can buy you 100 pairs of those shoes if you want.”
Suddenly, a wind comes whistling toward us, through the cave tunnel we’re in, and I stop dead in my tracks. I can sense it, the dark energy of this place, the psychic emanations of something truly evil going on. It’s almost palpable, like a wave of energy that hits my face. And I know in an instant that it was a mistake to ever trust the vampires in the first place. I should have run from Adam, I was foolish to be seduced by their beauty, because they’ve led me into darkness.
I back up, straining against Roland’s grip around my arm, which holds me with an immovable force.
“I can’t do it. I can’t go any further.”
“You must, Saga. You must,” he whispers, almost a plead.
I turn to look at him, begging for mercy with my eyes. But Roland just stares back down at me solemnly.
“I can’t stand it. This feeling of knowing I’m walking to my death. Just like with Marion, when I knew she was going to put me into that goddamn tank. It’s like I don’t want to go forward, yet I can’t go back.”
“It’s not your death. I promise that. If any of the Elders wanted your death, they would reach out and strangle you with their minds. They could kill us both a hundred different ways, without even lifting a finger.”
Without even lifting a finger. It’s frightening to think they’re that powerful. And my mind flashes to the Elder. And I can see him clearly, the vampire with the jagged fangs, sitting in a dark room, with a tiny plate of embers warming it. The other two are with him, the beautiful woman with the red hair, and the dark-haired man who never seems to say anything. And their heads are covered with robes, leaving only a shadowy glimpse of their faces. And after a brief image of them comes into my mind, I feel a compulsion to keep walking. It isn’t words or sentences, but a kind of subtle communication with feelings, one that grows stronger. Though I resist, my feet move forward, almost with a will of their own. I can’t tell if I’m being moved with the power of their minds, or if they’re manipulating my brain, forcing me to step when I don’t want to. But whatever it is, it’s clear that the Elders intend to give me a demonstration of their power.
And Roland looks to me, strangely, as I continue to step down the path.
“Can you sense that?” I say to Roland.
“No, nothing. What is it?”
“The Elders. Or Elder. They’re making me do this. They’re making me walk forward.”
“Well, then we’d better keep moving.”
And when I walk along of my own volition, I can feel their power release me. I try not to think it, because they’re minds are so strong they probably know my every thought even through my defenses … but I hate the Elders. I hate them for manipulating me in this way.
We keep moving forward, and there’s a huge black rat in the tunnel, another bad sign. I’m about to scream, but Roland looks down at it intently. He hisses at the creature, and it scampers away, running for dear life.
After a few more steps, we finally come upon an opening, a chamber of sorts with rough stairs that lead up to a higher platform. Roland waves the flashlight around, to give me a sense of our surroundings, and I can see that there’s refuse on the ground, an old shoe and some newspapers, what looks like a discarded sleeping bag. And there are empty soda cans and junk food wrappers.
“What is this crap? Do people come down here?”
“Teenagers. They have little parties, occasionally concerts. Or they run away from home, thinking this is somewhere they can stay. Sometimes tourists come down here, hoping to experience the famous catacombs that extend beneath Paris. There were even film societies that would sneak down here to project banned movies in one of the large chambers. And, not surprisingly, some of them were never heard from again.”
We go up the steps that lead to the platform above, and Roland begins pressing on a portion of the wall. He is careful about it, as if he’s a safecracker, moving his hands about to various positions. And I can’t really tell what he’s doing, all I see are little rocks on the wall that he presses his digits against.
And Roland talks to me, as he performs his task.
“People venture down to these catacombs and disappear all the time, and the police make a show of sealing the place. Eventually, the civilians will break into it again. And someone will disappear again. The vampires don’t even need to bother trying to lure people down here, their natural curiosity draws them in. And what’s even better is, the police don’t make much of an effort to try to scour the place. They know something is going on, and they can’t stand to come down here. But they’ll never find the entrance to the lair, no matter how hard they try.”
Roland has a look of intense concentration on his face, as he settles on one patch of the rough cave wall. And he seems to press on it with increased pressure.
“I don’t know why this gives me trouble, after all this time. I suppose it’s a testament to the design, but sometimes, I just want to break it all down.”
He pushes harder, and the rough surface finally gives way. A door seems to form in the wall. It pushes back, seemingly by magic, and reveals a room beyond.
It’s amazing. You wouldn’t even have known the cave wall gave way, the edge of the door fits so seamlessly.
We walk into a chamber, and finally I can see that I’m in a structure that is man-made, or vampire-made, that doesn’t consist of odd caves. There are pillars and a low stone wall around an opening that looks down to a floor below. From somewhere above, there’s a dull light, but most of the illumination comes from candles interspersed about the room. It seems odd, that they would get their lighting from candles. I can see the flickering everywhere, but I can’t help but to wonder how many they need to burn through each day, unless they use those weird electric candles, but that seems unlikely, down here.
The air feels dank, and the walls and floors seem dusty and dirty, their one similarity to the tunnels. The place feels ancient, like an old temple, something an archaeologist might discover. I wondered how far the structure spans, if there are even people living here, it all seems so quiet.
And then I hear it, a low moaning that is almost inaudible, followed by a muffled scream, from off in the distance.
A figure comes striding toward us purposefully, dressed in flowing robes that are red and velvety, and even though they are shapeless, for some reason I think it’s a man. He wears a hood over his head, but I can see that his lips are ridiculously puffy and full, like a model’s. And they form a smile as he approaches us.
“Roland, so good to see you.”
“Vincenzo.”
The man hugs Roland, and kisses him on both cheeks. And Roland smiles widely, the way you would when greeting an old friend.
“How have you been?”
“I’m afraid I’ve been better. Problems with Marion. I’m sure you’ve heard by now.”
“We don’t worry much about Marion over here. She’s a pest. Why don’t you just stay here permanently, with us?”
“I just might. I could definitely be persuaded,” Roland says.
The man lowers his hood, and I can just make out his features in the semi-darkness. He’s young, and looks like a teenager. He must have been turned at an age when he first became a man. Vincenzo has olive skin, and his hair is dyed blonde. I think he’s perhaps Greek or Italian. And as he speaks with Roland, I realize that the robed vampire seemingly refuses to acknowledge me. It would seem I’m beneath his contempt.
Finally, he turns my way, and looks me over, almost as an afterthought. And I can’t help but feel that he stares at me not as a person, but as a thing.
“And what tre
at have you brought us today?”
“Not a treat, I’m afraid.”
“Are we not to sip from her?”
“No one will be drinking from this one.”
Vincenzo stares at me more closely, and I can feel a flicker of him scanning me.
“Her mind seems quite fortified. Don’t tell me you’ve brought one of the Luminos here?”
“I’ve brought someone for the Elders to meet.”
Vincenzo’s eyes widen, and he looks to Roland in shock.
“Vincenzo, I’d like to introduce you to Meridian.”
“So nice to meet you,” I say, with just a hint of sarcasm. And I offer my hand.
His eyes bug out just a bit more, and he looks at me in horror, recoiling. You’d think I had just stuck a paw in his face, and I pull the hand away. But Vincenzo regains his composure, and stares at Roland, seriously.
“I claim first right of drink.”
“I said that no one will be drinking from her.”
“We won’t kill her, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he says, smiling to me in a condescending way. “But we have rules here, too. She is human, and if she is to stay here, at least one of us must be allowed to drink, if we so choose. And I do.”
I sigh in frustration, and look away. Roland’s right, these vampires are different. They seem to enjoy chomping into necks in an uncivilized way, like Count Dracula, and it’s all too much. After being drained to the edge of my life and dropped in the tanks, the last thing I want is for this insufferable vampire to clamp down on my vein. And I understand now why the Luminos hate them so much, how they see them as monsters. This Paris vampire has no respect for life, and I seriously consider tapping into my Luminos skills, to try to put a stake through his heart.
I look to Roland, but he seems hesitant, almost confused.
“Really, Roland?”
“I’m sorry, Meridian,” he says.
And the vampire, Vincenzo, smiles at me.
“Oh, it’s not so bad, my sweet. Just one little sip.”
“Fine, but no venom. Bite someone else first, because I refuse to be under your sway.”
The Meridian Gamble Page 49