Blood Communion (The Vampire Chronicles #13)

by Anne Rice

  From far away came a Strauss waltz, and the low hum of vampiric voices, and Antoine’s violin. And a memory slowly drew me in—of my old friend, the friend of my mortal years, Nicolas, playing his violin in Renaud’s little theater, and the audience, that small packed audience, clapping thunderously for him. I saw his brown eyes, eyes somewhat like Pandora’s eyes, and I saw his sly smile at me as he turned again to the stage. I smelled the oil of the foot lamps, and the dust and the scent of humans, and out of the smoky darkness came the deadly word, Wolfkiller.

  And where is that blood drinker now, who sealed my fate then before going into the fire himself? He is a ghost and he lodges with the Children of Atlantis, and maybe they are making for him a new body. Or maybe he is in this room, or in this dream, invisible, and filled with anguish . . . Sleep, sleep so deep that the dreams can’t find you, the dreams that will not let you rest. Sleep.

  Chapter 8

  They woke me two hours before sunup to tell me Cyril had returned with Baudwin, and I should come quickly.

  The prisoner had been taken to the newly discovered dungeon below the restored southeast tower.

  I found all the usual members of the household in the large room directly above the barred cells. The significant elders, Seth, Gregory, and Marius, were there, along with Dr. Fareed, Sevraine, and Armand.

  Cyril was unharmed, though his black leather coat had been singed, I could see. But he had a mischievous expression on his face, and his hair, tousled by the wind, was hanging in his dark bright eyes.

  “There you are, boss,” he said, “the fiend who tried to burn you. He’s all yours.”

  In their midst on the stone floor lay one of the grimmest sights I’d ever beheld—a being almost entirely wrapped in what seemed to be strips of black metal.

  This creature was lying on his side. Only his legs below the knees were free, sheathed in filthy brown boots, and they moved restlessly, while all the rest of him was bound in these black coils all the way to the crown of his head.

  “Ah, yea gods,” I said. “The pickets of the iron fence!” I said, realizing suddenly that Cyril had removed those and used them to tightly wrap the head and shoulders, and arms of this being against his back, and his legs together to the knees. He’d made a mummy of the creature in iron coils, between which there was not the slightest opening.

  Cyril stood over the being and gave a triumphant laugh. “Baudwin, at your mercy, my lord,” he said. “He gave me a devil of a time, but I got him. And wrapped up like this, he can’t send the fire against anybody unless he wants to roast his own head.”

  “But how is that possible?” said Seth. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “Neither have I,” said Marius.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know,” said Cyril. “But in olden times we knew it. Bind up a blood drinker in iron and he can’t make fire or send force against you. He can’t even call to others.”

  No one looked more amazed than Dr. Fareed.

  Sevraine was also laughing along with Cyril. “How very clever, of course. It locks the energy in.”

  “That’s it,” said Cyril.

  “Good Lord,” said Fareed. “I’m devoted utterly to studying our anatomy, our psychology, and all our gifts—entirely from a scientific standpoint. And I never dreamt—.”

  “And let me tell you something else,” said Cyril, “and remember it. If he can’t see you, he can’t send any force against you either. But I didn’t take out his eyes. I was tempted to, but this was simpler. And the iron fence was there. I wanted to bring him back here to find out what he knows.”

  “But surely he can still send out the word, and the word might reach his maker, if his maker exists,” said Gregory. “I must confess I did hear tell of this in the later times after the Mother and Father had gone silent. Seems I remember prisoners whose heads were bound in iron. Like the medieval armor that came later. But I thought it was a form of torture. I never thought that it could contain his powers.”

  “Do you hear any thoughts coming from him?” asked Cyril. “I don’t.”

  Fareed took out his iPhone and began to tap in some message to himself or another. “Iron masks,” he said, “from the armorer in Paris. Iron masks.”

  I almost laughed. Here we stood on the first floor of a great refurbished dungeon, and Fareed was texting the armorer in Paris who had made the ax which I still carried under my left arm inside my coat. The armorer had in the last two years meticulously and wondrously restored all of the old armor I’d gathered from the ruins of my father’s house.

  Now all through the Château suits of armor guarded doorways or graced shadowy corners, with their eyeless helmets and hands sheathed in mail. How many times in my childhood had I heard tell of this or that ancestor who had worn such armor in the battles for the Holy Land in which my family had made its name?

  And now this craftsman of ancient armor would make us iron masks.

  Quite suddenly, the whole little informal assembly fell quiet.

  A muffled voice was struggling within the iron wrappings to be heard.

  “You will pay for this, all of you,” said the voice. “My maker will burn you to cinders and I shall watch.”

  “It’s almost morning,” said Cyril. “And I’m tired. Which cell do you want for this one?”

  “Mon Dieu,” I whispered. “So now I preside over a dungeon into which blood drinkers are thrown to languish without a trial?”

  “Boss,” Cyril said, pushing his way towards me until he was right in front of me and glowering down at me, which naturally enough I hated. “The monster tried to burn you alive, you and your fancy little friend Fontayne. He burnt up that fancy house you loved. People came from the nearby town to put out the flames, but they didn’t have a chance of saving it. Isn’t that enough for you? What makes you so—damn, if I only knew the words! What makes you so crazy? I love you—only you, nobody else ever—only you, and I’ll always do all in my power to protect you but you are . . . you are . . .”

  “Past all patience,” said Marius in a low sardonic voice.

  “Yes, that’s good enough,” said Cyril. “Past all patience, whatever the Hell that means. Sounds fine.”

  “How old are you really, Cyril?” asked Gregory.

  Cyril waved away the question. That’s what he always did when asked about his past.

  I well understood why Gregory wanted to know. How could one calculate the strength required to turn iron bars into coils, coils of uniform shape, it seemed. with not a slice of light dividing them, encasing a being entirely in iron? Each one of us was a mystery when it came to power, and for some reason many blood drinkers would never confide their true age.

  Cyril was one such, and would never speak of memories. When Fareed sought to enter Cyril’s personal story into his records, Cyril would give no cooperation. Yes, he’d made Eudoxia, the female vampire destroyed centuries ago as described by Marius, he would admit to that, because it was in the books. And I had picked up little things from him here and there, but he was a mystery overall.

  He was glaring at me now, his muscular arms folded, his dark eyebrows knit in a scowl. “Prince, this is all good what you’ve done here,” he said. “All this is good. I do not want to go back to living in caves, and sleeping in dirt, and staying clear of other blood drinkers as if I were a tiger on the prowl. No. But you must realize that those who try to harm you have to be destroyed.”

  “I know, Cyril,” I said. “I understand.”

  I went down on one knee beside the prisoner. I studied the iron coils which bound him. “Here,” I said. “Strip away this one, so that I can get to his throat.”

  From behind the iron came a muffled voice. “I loathe you and despise you. You will pay for what you have done to me.”

  Cyril bent down, picked up the prisoner in his left arm as if he weighed nothing, and then unwound
the coil of iron that was closely binding his chin and his neck. You would have thought it was licorice candy, it was so simple for him, until it clattered on the stone floor.

  I stared at the quivering flesh and the Adam’s apple pulsing.

  “Why did you try to destroy me?” I asked.

  “You have no authority,” he said in a muffled murmur, “to rule the blood drinkers of this world, beings who’ve thrived for centuries before you were even born. Your Court will be destroyed.”

  “And why is that?” I asked. “Why should it be destroyed?”

  “This is excruciating,” said the bound one. “At least remove the bonds from around my legs. Let me move my legs.”

  Cyril shook his head. “Keep him as he is. He’s very strong. Give him no room to flex and break the bonds. He can turn his head now and that’s a bad thing. I’ll put the iron back when you’ve finished.”

  “Did you drink his blood?” I asked Cyril.

  He shrugged. “I saw in it what he wanted me to see, great splashy pictures of the wonderful Gundesanth. He’s a liar. Gundesanth never made him.”

  “You’re the liar,” said the prisoner. “My name is Baudwin, Lord of the Secret Lake. And Gundesanth made me before you ever opened your eyes on this world.”

  Gregory drew closer to the prisoner.

  “Baudwin, did Rhoshamandes put you up to this?”

  “I do not know Rhoshamandes,” said the prisoner. “Oh, I’ve heard tell of him. Seen him. I stay clear of him. He stays clear of me.”

  “Well, then who did put you up to what you did?” asked Marius. He had been watching everything in silence. He came forward now as he spoke.

  “No one put me up to it,” said the prisoner. “You offend me, all of you, and there came a chance to destroy you and I took it. I will have the chance again.”

  “And why should we give you that chance?” I asked. “We have done nothing to you.”

  “You made this Court and you make rules here. You are as offensive to me as the old Children of Satan, and worse. Whereas they were penitential and stupid, you are clever and rich. You’re too visible to the world, and blind to your own folly. You and everyone with similar designs beg to be destroyed. Those allies of yours, those dark creatures from the early world, those creatures should be destroyed as well.”

  “Why not end this now?” asked Cyril.

  “But we’ve done nothing to you,” said Marius, ignoring Cyril. “We do not force our rules on those who don’t want to join us. We settle disputes only when we’re asked. And we do try to do what’s just.”

  “My maker will come for me,” the prisoner said. “My maker will hear my cries.”

  “No, he won’t,” said Cyril, “and if he were living and like to come, he would have come.”

  “And who is your maker?” Gregory asked.

  “You know who he is. Gundesanth. You knew him, Nebamun, and he knew you. He was the third blood drinker made by the Mother, of the purist blood. He was made before you were made. He rode the Devil’s Road from one end of the world to the other, burning out the mavericks.”

  “And by what authority,” I asked, “did he do that?”

  “The Queen’s authority, as they were renegades from her priesthood,” said the prisoner.

  “Ah, but you’re lying,” said Seth. His voice was soft but hard and hostile. “Do you know me, Baudwin? I’m Seth, the son of the Mother. And you know as well as I that Gundesanth became a renegade and he hunted down and burned mavericks for his own pleasure.”

  “What I’m saying is Gundesanth made me, and when he finds out you’re holding me prisoner, he’ll come for me. Don’t you think he can read your thoughts even now? You’ve wrapped me in iron so I can’t summon him. You’re very clever, all of you are clever, but you can’t keep the Court and the news of the Court from anyone, especially not Gundesanth.”

  “Where is he?” asked Marius. “I should like very much to meet him. We all would.”

  “We didn’t part enemies,” said Gregory. “Santh was my friend until he left the Mother. I knew he was leaving. I didn’t betray him. Santh never raised his hand or his weapons against me.”

  “He hates you, Nebamun. He’s told me so.”

  Gregory looked at me. He shook his head. “None of this makes sense. It’s a fact, I can’t really probe his mind when he’s wrapped in iron, but he’s lying. I know he is. I can tell by his voice.”

  “Let me go,” said the prisoner.

  “Why on earth do you think we would let you go?” I asked. “So you can try to kill me again?”

  “I will do that, you can be sure.”

  I sat back and drew him up close to me. He groaned and kicked, slamming his boot heels against the stone floor.

  I touched his neck, which filled me with revulsion, and then I bent and sank my fangs into him, resisting a wave of nausea, and the blood flowed quickly into my mouth.

  It was hot and thick, much like the blood of Marius, but not the nectar of Seth’s blood, and immediately I heard his curses, his invectives, his evil predictions rushing at me, but what I saw was a great blond-haired blood drinker with green eyes, mounted on a magnificent warhorse caparisoned in gold. His hair was thick and long and blowing in the wind, and a look of jubilant malice illuminated his face as he gazed at me through the blood. I saw and heard fire all around him. The sky was lurid with fire. A terror seized me. I felt myself running on foot. I saw a mace coming at me, an iron ball on a chain, the very weapon I’d used two hundred years ago to slay the wolves that had surrounded me on my father’s mountain, and I ducked and fell facedown in the earth. Horses were all around me. I felt someone lift me and with both my fists I pounded upon the handsome, malicious face and yanked at the hair. A low rolling laughter deafened me. I was sick, sick unto death, and fell back and turning my head vomited the blood on the floor.

  I shoved him away from me onto the stones. I tried to stand, but the nausea rose in me again and I went over to the corner, put my hand on the wall, and more of the blood came out of my mouth. Someone held on to me, steadying me, and I realized it was Cyril. But Marius was beside me, and Sevraine’s long graceful hands were flashing in front of my face. She put a white handkerchief to my lips. The sickness wouldn’t pass.

  Had this ever happened to me before, the blood of a blood drinker sickening me as if it were poisoned? I couldn’t remember.

  “Gundesanth will destroy you,” said Baudwin.

  “Be quiet, you bloody demon,” said Cyril, and kicked the iron-bound body hard, rolling it over on its front.

  “Put him in the cells,” said Marius.

  “Why not simply put an end to it here and now?” asked Seth. His voice was soft as before, but he appeared as full of revulsion as I felt.

  “No. I have an idea on that,” said Marius. “No point in wasting his death?”

  “Wasting his death?” I said. I leaned back against the wall. “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said. The sun’s rising. Let’s put him in the dungeon for now.”

  Cyril gathered up the iron coil, put it back around the prisoner’s neck, and tightened it till the prisoner started choking and then carried him through the door that opened to the winding stone stairway that led to the barred cells below.

  I was staring at Marius, trying to regain my equilibrium, trying to make the sickness go away. I heard the loud clank of a barred gate opened and slammed shut, and the grind of the key in the lock.

  Cyril brought the old key ring to me. I stared at it for a moment in revulsion, and then I took it.

  “I’ll be the keeper of these keys,” said Gregory, “unless you prefer.”

  “No, you take them,” I said.

  “Are you satisfied, Lestat, that we’ve given him a trial?” Gregory asked.

  “Yes,” I said,. “Beside, he never asked for a tri
al, did he?” This sickness wasn’t letting up. I reached out for Cyril. “Something’s wrong with me . . .” There was more I wanted to say on this question of a trial. The rebel didn’t recognize our authority to put him on trial. But I couldn’t think for the sickness. What had Marius meant by those strange words, “no point in wasting his death”?

  “Ah, it’s just he put a curse on you when you drank from him,” said Cyril. “Come, let’s go.”

  And we all left the dungeon. I was growing cold. The sickness was leaving me for the numbness of the dawn. Cyril all but carried me into my private cell and set me down on the marble shelf where I often slept beside the coffin.

  I lay down because I couldn’t prevent myself from doing it, and Cyril put my feet together upon the marble bed.

  “You sleep, boss,” he said. “Nobody’s going to kill you. If Gundesanth were living, he would find you a companion for his soul.”

  Chapter 9

  I opened my eyes. The day had died. The night had come, and I’d awakened from a dreamless sleep with the taste of nausea on my lips. I put my hand to my lips and felt the stickiness of blood there, and turning on my side, I vomited blood on the floor of my cell.

  “When will this go away!” I said aloud.

  I heard someone with me in my cell in the darkness. Someone I could not see. But a candle on the shelf burst into flame immediately, and as its feeble, even light moved out like a vapor to extend itself to all corners, I saw the being, seated on the marble bench at my feet.