by Nancy Holder
“No, and never,” he said feelingly. “And I take back all I’ve ever said that may offend. Forgive me, dearest girl. You’ve got my heart.”
“And your soul?”
He felt a wee chill. Nevertheless, he laughed. “If any but God may have it,” he tossed off, “then it’s yours for the having.”
She turned her back to him and lifted her head. Through the window, the full moon glowed. He was surprised it had risen so quickly. Doreen’s red hair now looked yellow in the light. He’d never told her so, but his preference was for fair-haired maids, not red hair nor black.
Still with her back to him, she said, “Come along, then. We’ll see Granny Quinn and learn what you’re about.”
They took two of her father’s fine horses, him on Chieftain and her on Black Silky, and as they galloped through the darkness, the salt and stink of the harbor thickened like a smoke. A strong wind furled Doreen’s plaid cloak as Black Silky took on a pounding rhythm, hoofbeats heavy on the ebony earth. Her family was not so old as Angelus’s own, but the Kenneys had always prospered. Some claimed the family — redheads all — trafficked with the spirits to gain their wealth, but educated folk ignored the cant of jealous gossips.
Clouds rushed overhead, as if chasing the two of them, and Angelus put his spurs to his horse.
“Doreen,” he shouted, “a storm’s coming in!”
She galloped farther ahead of him. He couldn’t tell if she chose to ignore him or couldn’t hear him. Her cloak billowed out like the wings of a great bird; she hunkered down as the horse gained speed, and as she raced along, she looked as if she were headless.
Lightning crackled overhead. Chieftain threw back his head and whinnied in fear. With a second crackle the clouds broke and rain began to fall. Steamy mist rose from the green hills, spreading across Angelus’s path.
He had a thought to abandon the road for shelter. He was ashamed of his childish nerves, but every feeling within him was against this adventure. It were folly, sure, and nothing more, to press on in such weather.
Besides the which, he had an assignation to keep at Mistress Burton’s Society House. Bess, his favorite, had no illusions about rings and vows, and she was nothing for tempting and taunting without the giving. . . .
Added to that, he wasn’t sure he wanted to look at Granny Quinn’s dead body. The old crone had lived quite alone, but that had never stopped her from talking to folk no others could see. There were stories of a lover who had proved unfaithful, and that his bones were buried in her garden. That on a winter midnight you could hear the wind whistle through his rib cage, and his teeth chatter from the cold.
Wives’ tales, he told himself.
At that moment Doreen wheeled her horse around and waved at him to make haste. He couldn’t see her face in the darkness and the wind, but somehow, of a certainty, he knew she was laughing at him.
Irritated, he spurred his horse on.
Her hovel was a poor one, was Granny Quinn’s. Things skittered in the trash heap beside it. The place stank of peat, mud, and the carcasses of small animals draped over a line like Sunday wash just outside the door.
The house’s sad weathered stones piled one atop the other flickered yellow from a large bonfire in the garden. Angelus remembered the old ways, when bonfires were lit to warm the dead as they groped their way to the deadlands.
There was a group around it of at least six or seven people. All but one were women, and four or five of the females pressed handkerchiefs against their faces. They were weeping. Another had covered her mouth with the tip of her shawl, and she was keening loud enough to wake the dead.
Angelus was surprised; he had not thought there’d be much in the way of mourners, paid professionals or otherwise. Those who came to visit Granny Quinn did so on dark, moonless nights. From shame, they kept themselves well hidden. They crept to her door and whispered their requests — for love potions, remedies, and poisons.
Her face flickering between the flames of the fire, the woman who had covered her mouth with her shawl began singing in the ancient tongue. Angelus listened, and further puzzled: She was a bean caointe, a professional mourner. He was certain of that, and yet her death song was for a drowned child.
The sole man was dressed like an Aran fisherman. He wore a black-brimmed hat and his light-colored clothes were stiff and rough. As he turned to face Angelus, the mystery of the keeners and the death song was solved: He held in his arms a dead child in a white petticoat — a boy of four or five, by its look.
Kelp was still wrapped around the child’s neck, and his tiny feet were blue from the cold. Silently the fisherman stared at Angelus, and then a single tear ran down his cheek.
Dismounting in a hop, Doreen took no note of the tragic scene. Eagerly she bobbed around the bonfire and scurried into Granny Quinn’s hovel.
But despite himself, Angelus was transfixed. Still astride Chieftain, he stared back at the fisherman, who never spoke a word. His dead child in his arms, he stood like a stone statue on a grave.
This man is dead, just like his child, Angelus thought. And I’m dying, here in Galway. Day by day. There’s nothing for me here besides wenching and quarreling with my father, himself a dead man.
The keening of the wailing women rose, punctuated by the crackling of the bonfire. They sang on, and Angelus listened despite himself, entranced. Finally he stirred, feeling as if he had lost himself for a time; he stirred and looked through the flames to the canted door of the hovel, wondering what Doreen was doing in there. Praying, most like.
A sudden, bitter wind rushed over the scene, dragging a heavy net of darkness over the figures, faces cauled with shadow. The air became frigid and wintry in an instant.
The mourning women’s voices broke off. As one, they crossed themselves and looked around in astonishment. There was no sound but the wailing of the wind and the beating of Angelus’s own heart.
Until, low and eerie, came a baleful moan that sent a shudder down his spine. It began like a gathering fog upon the cold earth, then spiraled up, gaining height, becoming a shrill shriek that drowned out the frightened cries of the mourners.
The Aran fisherman shouted, “No! You can’t have me Paddy!” He folded himself over the child and dropped to the ground in a tight, sheltering ball.
Angelus fought the rising gale to get to his side. He put a hand on the man’s shoulder and said, “What is it? What is that sound?”
“Are you not an Irishman, then?” the fisherman cried. “ ’Tis the banshee, come to collect my boy! I come to wish on Granny’s bones to give him back to me, but now the banshee will take him!” He began to sob. “Patrick! Oh, Paddy, don’t go with her!”
The others started screaming.
Angelus rolled his eyes at the pure superstition of it. “It’s the wind, man!” he bellowed.
The moan became a shriek. The wind was wild now, and the women scattered. Whipped into a frenzy, the bonfire gave off a shower of sparks like a comet. The fisherman raised his hand above his head, praying in Latin that was pitiable for its mangling.
Then Doreen staggered from the hovel. She stood with her profile to Angelus for a moment, and it looked jagged, somehow. Her hood shaded the space from her forehead to the bridge of her nose, but her cheeks and jawline were all wrong.
Very slowly she lifted her hands to the hood and dropped it backward. At the same time she made a quarter-turn and faced the bonfire. She gazed full on at the fire. Her face was ashen, and there were black circles under her eyes. Her lips were gray.
Her fiery hair had turned pure white.
Angelus gaped at her. “Dorrie?” he murmured, though no one, least of all she, could hear him.
Unsteadily, he planted one foot beneath himself, hoisting up to a standing position like an old man with severe gout. The wind was so cold his young joints were aching. The spittle on his lips froze to ice.
Her gaze moved from the fire to him. She raised a hand and extended a finger. Slowly she began to walk,
staggering forward in a shuffle that was hideous to watch.
“The banshee!” the fisherman screamed, clutching at his child. “No, no! God and all His angels have my Paddy in their care!” He looked frantically at Angelus. “He’s not baptized! She’ll take him!”
Angelus stared open-mouthed at Doreen. He had never been more frightened in his life.
Doreen — or whatever she had become — shouted a word in a language he didn’t understand, and the wind stopped. The fisherman was babbling and crying, clutching his babe. She stared at them, and then her face broke into a hideous smile.
All but a handful of her teeth were gone.
“Angelus,” she said. “Wish. Wish that I am young, and beautiful, and your bride.” She held out her arms. “Wish, and it shall be yours.”
He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. She took another step toward him. Angelus found his legs and darted backward. He made the sign against the evil eye.
She walked closer.
The fisherman raised anguished eyes to him. “Wish that she spares my child,” he begged.
The figure looked first as the fisherman, and then at his dead son. As if it were all the same to her, she shrugged.
“That can be your wish,” she told Angelus. “One wish, while I stand.” She moved her hips. “Or you may have Doreen, and all her wealth. Only say it.”
“For my child, man!” the father pleaded. “Save the soul of my child!”
Angelus stirred. It’s a dream, he told himself, a nightmare, sure and it is. But he knew he was awake.
A trick, then. Didn’t I see this same face over hers, back in the barn? Her sisters and she are having a laugh at my expense. I don’t know how, but there is no such thing as magic. I’ve never believed in it, and I don’t believe in it now —
“You needn’t believe,” the specter said, as if she had read his mind. “ ’Tis not required. Only the doing. You have the means to change your life forever. You need only speak, Angelus.”
He squared his shoulders and licked his lips. “Speakin’ requires believing.”
“For the love of God, man!” the anguished fisherman cried. “Tell her to go away!”
“Is it Doreen and her dowry you want?” Her voice was a whisper, yet he could hear each word distinctly, as if her gray lips were pressed against his ear. “Or to leave Galway forever? You fancy London, I believe. You can have London. And Paris. And even the Colonies.”
“I’ll make my own way,” Angelus said defiantly.
She laughed, and it was a horrible sound, like the death rattle of a woman in terrible pain. “You cannot make your way out of the schoolyard, Master Angelus. You’re a liar, and a cheat, and you’ve stolen all that you can from your own father, without him turning you out for a common thief. Your mother’s heart is broken, though your sister loves you still.
“And you’ve broken the hearts of many maids, some of whom have found their way to this very door, to rid themselves of your get. So in your own way, you’re a murderer, to boot.”
She lifted a bony finger. “And you’ll die for murder, one day. You’ll suffer for all you’ve done, in ways you cannot fathom and I cannot even tell.”
She jabbed her finger in his direction. “And you’ll die alone, and none will grieve ye.”
At her words the fisherman made the sign to ward off the evil eye in Angelus’s direction. Angelus ran a hand through his hair and gave his head a nervous shake. It was often said that dead eyes could see the future. So he was to hang for murder, was he?
Anger flashed through him. This is all a sham, he told himself. Doreen’s family is rich; they can hire fine charlatans to frighten away suitors they don’t approve of.
“Then I’ll not die,” he flung at her. “I’ll never die. That’s my wish.”
She cackled. “Foolish creature! You’ve sealed your doom, then. For know this, me fine-spirited lad: God’s children die. All of them. Them that doesn’t die are not His. They belong to the Devil.”
As she spoke, she glanced at the dead child. The boy’s father clung to him and shouted, “Archangel Michael! Saint Patrick! Help me in my need!”
The woman laughed again. “Young da,” she said, and for him her voice was gentle, “your wee one’s soul’s already in Heaven. God covets the innocent, and that child surely was. Whist your blatherin’ and hie ye home.”
“Merciful God,” the man murmured, crossing himself. He staggered to his feet, turned, and ran.
She looked back at Angelus. “That leaves just you for the banshees and the Great Hunt. Soon enough, you’ll be fodder for demons.”
“Not I, you hag!” he shouted.
In an eyeblink the wind picked up again. It was fiercer than anything Angelus had ever encountered, even at sea. It pulled at him and he fought against it.
It lifted Doreen — or whoever she was — straight into the air and landed her square in the center of the bonfire.
In a trice she went up in flames. She screamed and struggled; hair, clothes, face — all were consumed in an instant.
The fire raged; it became a mountain of flame, roaring straight up to the heavens; through fog and moonlight, until it extended beyond Angelus’s range of vision. He imagined they could see it all the way to Dublin. It was like the tail of a comet.
It was like a bridge to Hell.
Angelus tried to mount his horse, but the beast would have none of that. It whinnied and reared, turned tail, and cantered away. Black Silky ran after, and the horses disappeared into the darkness.
“Damn you!” Angelus shouted at them.
The fire went out. All at once there was nothing, not even a burning ember. It was as if there had never been a fire.
Except for the body that smoldered in the moonlight. Except for that.
Tentatively he approached it. The light was dim, but what he saw, he never told another soul: The body had somehow melted into itself, although the facial features remained intact. It was as if a candle had burned from the inside out, leaving the decorative exterior for last.
Speechless, he turned and fled into the night.
* * *
It took him all night and half the next day to get back to Galway, and when asked where he had been, he made up a lie about falling asleep drunk in a ditch. Better drunk than crazy.
Doreen Kenney was never seen again, and though a search was made, no one looked in at Granny Quinn’s. And to Angelus’s knowledge, no one ever went to Granny Quinn’s again, ever, not even to bury what was there.
A fortnight later he became Angelus, the One with the Angelic Face, the most ruthless vampire who had ever lived.
If what he was could be considered alive.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Are you man or beast?”
“Man.”
“What’s your name?”
“I’ve lost it.”
— ancient Indonesian barong, or dance
Nias, 1863
“Latura,” the Servant whispered as the head-hunters converged on her. She closed her eyes and flinched as a spear sliced so close to her throat that she felt the pressure in the air.
He had sent demons. He had sent flames. Surely he would not fail her now.
“Latura, aid your Servant,” she murmured.
The headhunters drew back. Their fierce faces were pinched and wary. Mumbling to each other, they sank one by one to their knees and put their foreheads to the earth.
A weight settled on her shoulder; she slid her gaze toward it and stifled the scream in her throat. What was there was hideous. Neither hand nor talon, nor claw or any other thing she could describe, yet it served the purpose of a hand. It was leathery and dark green, and yet, as she stared — unable to tear her gaze away — it shifted and transformed. It looked almost like a face, and then it became long, ropelike tentacles that flailed and flapped. It was purple, noxious mist, and then it was trickling liquid that reeked of the dead.
She was somewhere alone as it seeped inside her. She floated in d
arkness, unable to breathe; she felt it moving through her body. Icy cold congealed her blood; for two, three, four beats, her heart stopped, unable to give her life.
The god has forsworn me, she thought desperately as she began to die.
Then she rose from the ground and soared through the air. Her heart began to beat again; for a moment she thought she herself was flying. Then she realized that something had hold of her clothing, and it was carrying her through the air.
She looked behind and up.
It was an enormous winged serpent. Its face was huge, its eyes glowing red, its snout fanged. Teeth as long as her forearms had sliced through her blouse, and she hung by tattered ribbons of fabric high above the ground, higher still.
She cried out as she and the monster soared above the throng of warriors, higher still, until it seemed she would be able to touch the face of the moon with her fingertips.
When she looked back over her shoulder, there were flickering yellow dots on the ground. She looked harder. They were the warriors, each one on fire. In their agony they were running to quench the flames.
“No,” she whispered, but deep inside her soul she heard the god answer, Yes.
Los Angeles, the present
It was the custom in Indonesia for observant families to care for their dead themselves. For them to wash and perfume the body with their own hands. To wrap their deceased in linens. If they cremated their dead, for them to light the match.
If they buried their dead, for them to shovel the earth and put the body in.
In a dark room choked with incense, the two male Rais cousins attended to the bathing of Bang Rais’s corpse.
Meg wasn’t sure if they knew she was there. As Jusef’s protégée — and lover — she was allowed to come and go as she pleased. She often came into this room to meditate, as Jusef had taught her; to keep the memories at bay and stay in the moment.
It had been very dim and quiet; she had sat by the fountain with its floating lotuses, and then, almost overcome by tiredness, she had stretched out on some satin pillows behind it, dozing. Tonight would be the sedhekah, and the reception, and she would dance in the old way, the barong, before . . .