Blood and Chrysanthemums (4 page)

“A black hole is omnivorous, all-consuming. It defines the space around it by its hunger. It is the ultimate abyss.”

Rozokov felt a sudden queasy sense of recognition. The need for blood had often been like that, he thought suddenly. Such a small thing but so dark, so obliterating. Whatever other life he had been able to scavenge existed only while it resisted the pull of the black hole’s well of overpowering gravity. His existence had been defined by his distance from the point at which the strength of his inevitable need would overcome all his intentions and resolutions. And in the end, the hole swallowed everything and reduced it to the smallest part itself. To the blood and only the blood.

And is it different now? a dark voice inside him asked. Will it ever be any different?

Does a black hole die? Even if it wants to?

He set aside the astronomy text through which he had been struggling and looked at Ardeth, curled in the battered armchair across from him, head bent over a loose sheet of paper. For a moment, he saw again the quiet graduate student who had crouched at the edge of his cell and told him the story of her life. This is what she must have looked like so many days and nights before that morning they took her from the street to feed your hunger, he thought. This is what they took away from her.

This is what
you
took away from her. The silence accusation ghosted through his mind and he thrust it away. It had been her choice, he reminded himself. A choice I did not have to give.

Then she looked up and smiled and the guilt slid away. Her hair was different, it was true, and her eyes still bore traces of her wild initiation on the streets of Toronto, but surely her soul was the same, surely the core of her had not changed. The smile faded into curiosity and he felt compelled to justify his sudden abandonment of his reading. “I am afraid my fifteenth-century brain will not absorb any more twentieth-century marvels. I was thinking of going for a walk.”

“If you can wait a moment, I’ll come with you,” she offered, and, when he nodded, bent her head again. After a moment, his own curiosity overcame him.

“What are you reading?”

“Diagrams of routes up one of the local climbs. At least that’s what the man who gave them to me claims they are.” She laughed and waved the sheets, covered in incomprehensible lines and squiggles. “I’m sure they’ll make sense once I’m up there.”

“You’re going climbing? On the mountains?”

“That’s generally where it’s done. Yes, I’m going climbing. If there’s a clear sky and a full moon, it’ll be just like daylight for me. I’d like to get in at least one real climb before we leave here.”

“I was under the impression climbing alone was dangerous,” Rozokov said carefully, ignoring her last words. She shrugged.

“I suppose it is.” She looked at him with a faint flirtatious air. “You could come with me.”

“I think that might make it
more
dangerous, not less,” he acknowledged with a wry smile. “But don’t rush into it. We have time.”

“Winter’s coming.” The words had a sharp edge and Rozokov knew she would not be distracted for much longer from what she believed was the real issue.

“The cold will not bother you.”

“I know that.” Her tone was sharp and the papers scattered as she gestured angrily. The silence was chilly, as if their words had conjured up ice to fill the spaces between them. “We can’t stay here.”

“Why not?”

“It’s too small. Everybody knows everybody else, once the tourists leave.”

“The tourists will be back in a month or two when the ski season starts.”

“That’s long enough for someone to notice us.”

“Why would they notice us? This town is full of transients and travellers. We are simply two more. If we are careful, no one will pay any attention to us.”

“It’s dangerous,” she insisted, and for a moment Rozokov sensed something behind her stubbornness, some secret motivation she was unable to admit.

“And if we leave here as you desire, where would you have us go?” he asked mildly.

“Vancouver, New York, Europe, I don’t know.”

“You have already said we cannot leave the country without the proper documents.”

“So? Canada’s a big place. How about Montreal?”

“Do you speak French?”

“No. But I bet you do.”

“I speak nineteenth-century Parisian quite well, as a matter of fact, though with an accent that people never failed to point out to me. I am not certain how far that will get us in Quebec.”

Her fist struck the arm of her chair. “It doesn’t matter where we go. Let’s just go.”

“We are safe here. It is quiet, it is remote, and our needs are met.”

“It’s expensive. We don’t have much money left.” That was true enough, he acknowledged. Their small supply of money had dwindled rapidly. Now they had barely enough to stay—and barely enough to leave.

“We will manage. The world will be there tomorrow, and the day after that, and for a millennium more, for all we know. We have time to decide what we want. Do not be so impatient, child.”

She was out of the chair in a blur, shoulders sharp with anger, fingers curled. “Don’t you talk to me like that! I know what we are . . . and I know when you’re making excuses. We’re no safer here than we’d be anywhere, maybe less. As for our needs . . . maybe I need something to do besides watch stars and drink elk blood.” The words were hot and contemptuous, and, when they were said, she stalked back behind her chair, as if it gave her strength to have it between them.

“Would you rather drink something else?” he asked softly and watched the anger fade to confusion as she leaned against the chair.

“No,” she said at last. But he knew it was a lie. Elk blood was not like mortal blood. It was as mud to water, gruel to caviar. But it risked nothing—not the spoken danger of the discovery or the other peril, the one they did not speak of, because the language of vampirism did not seem to have words for it. The black hole took the elk blood . . . but gave back no heat from it.

“Ardeth.” He made his voice curl around her name, sweetly seductive. “It has only been a month. No one seems to be searching for us but we cannot know how long that will last. This is the last place anyone would look for us. We are safe here.” Rozokov saw her shoulders start to slide down, her anger dissolve under the calm rationality in his voice. For a moment, he despised himself for using the hypnotic power on her, knowing that she was still too new to his blood to resist it. But it was better than this endless argument, he told himself firmly.

“Don’t do that!” she snapped, face coming back up, eyes glittering in the light. “Don’t you pull that trick on me, just because you don’t want to talk about it anymore. We have to deal with it. We have to make decisions.” She came around the chair, emboldened, and stalked to stand in front of him. “We have to decide what we’re going to do, where we’re going to go, how we’re going to get some more money.”

Each of the questions pierced him, stabbing through the sheltering cosmic darkness he had wrapped around himself. And behind each question were a hundred more: Where could they get the identification papers they’d need to travel? How could they establish bank accounts and identities to protect themselves in the present and secure their futures? What would they do if the secret of their existence became known?

It had never been like this for him. He had never slept for more than twenty years. He would emerge with a cache of easily convertible wealth—gold or jewels—and find himself a place in the world. If his accent and clothing were considered quaint and old-fashioned, this generally had done him no harm. Indeed he had often benefited from the allure his subtle difference provided. In time, he caught up on the way the world had run during his sleep and began planning and saving for the next time that he would have to move on or hide himself away.

But this time a century had gone by. This time he had awakened with nothing. This time he had woken into a world that seemed to have changed more dramatically in the years that he had slept than in all the centuries since his first birth.

There was still so much about this new century that he did not know. Thinking about their future raised a thousand practical questions . . . and she was looking to him for the answers to all of them.

“We have to deal with this,” Ardeth insisted. “What are you so afraid of?”

The words were on his tongue, the confession of all his uncertainty. Yet something held them back, some pride that twisted into anger and then into the blind desire to end her questions, her doubts of him, by whatever means it took. He folded his hands into his lap and looked up at her. “If my decisions do not satisfy you, you are free to go. You are always free to go.”

He heard her quick intake of breath and looked up to see her face paling, her eyes losing their fire and melting back to soft, wounded brown. He almost rose then, to enfold her in his arms and take back the cold, contemptuous words.

“Is that what you want?”

“No.”

After a long, chilly silence, she bowed her head and stalked into the darkened bedroom.

Rozokov sat still and stared at the empty chair she had left behind. She would not go, he could tell that much of the future. He could also tell that, sooner or later, she would notice that he had not answered her questions.

It was going to be fine.

Ardeth looked up the face of the cliff and smiled. The moon, bright as a searchlight, rested over the mountains at her back, illuminating the cracks and crevices above her. Glancing from the rock to the paper in her hands, Mark’s map made sense for the first time. Six distinct stretches of climb, snaking up the broad east face of Tunnel Mountain. The small, rounded mountain, a diminutive echo of the great peaks around it, formed the eastern border of the town and, once on top, it would be an easy hike down to the apartment.

No problem, she told herself firmly.

She shed her jacket and stood in the cool autumn air in her black climbing pants and her talisman T-shirt. The hike to the cliff base had cleared her head, left her body feeling limber and powerful. The elk blood had been hot and rejuvenating, seeming to warm even her cold muscles. She’d have to make the climb without the safety of either a top rope from above or someone to belay her from below. In fact, she’d have to make the climb without even the minimal gear she owned—climbing alone with ropes was more technically difficult than climbing with hands and feet. But, to her surprise, she was not afraid. With a final long stretch, she bent to change her shoes.

Something moved in the pines behind her.

For one wild moment she thought it was Rozokov come to watch her after all, but then she realized that her mind would have heard him long ago and, no doubt, her ears not at all. She turned and saw the beam of a flashlight weave an erratic course towards her, heard the crackle of dying grasses under mortal feet.

Ardeth watched for a moment, more curious than uneasy. Who would be out wandering through the forest? A warden perhaps, who had somehow seen her and come to tell her not to climb? A lost tourist? Someone else who planned to climb Tunnel Mountain by moonlight?

Whoever it was, she wasn’t interested. She crouched to gather up her belongings, preparing to retreat back along the edge of the cliff. Then a branch cracked and she heard someone say, quite distinctly: “Shit!” She paused. There was something about the voice . . . 

The light flickered across her face suddenly and she flinched back, hand coming up to shield her eyes. “Ardeth? Is that you?”

He emerged from the darkness of the pines onto the short, bouldered slope that led to the base of the climb. She stood up, tangled for a moment in relief, anger and a surge of wild, dangerous joy.

“Sorry if I startled you.” Mark apologized, turning off the helmet headlamp he had been using as a flashlight.

“What are you doing here?”

“I figured with the moon like that,” he spared a glance up at the silver circle above them, “you’d be out here. I flipped a coin over which climb to start with.”

“Why?”

“I told you it wasn’t safe to climb alone and I meant it.”

For a moment, she was too surprised to speak. In the silence, he removed his pack and bent to open it. “I’ll be fine,” she said at last, awkwardly.

“Of course you will be. Did you bring any gear with you?”

“Just my shoes.”

“No problem. I’ve got rope, a spare harness, a full rack of gear. You’ll be taking stuff out, not putting it in, anyway. I’ll give you a crash course in gear removal before we start.” He sat down and began to unlace his hiking boots.

“You’re not coming with me.”

“You can’t climb alone. I told you about it . . . it’s my responsibility to make sure you don’t break your neck,” he said, slipping on his climbing shoes. That wasn’t the only reason, Ardeth knew, remembering the coffee shop. His fingers had burned her skin that night, too.

“Mark, you don’t have to . . .” she began, suddenly afraid. Afraid for his safety as she was not for her own. Afraid that it would be a danger worse than the rocks, worse than falling, if he went with her to the top of the mountain.

“I do. Don’t worry. I’ve climbed this route more times than I can count. And I brought my headlamp.” He settled his helmet onto his head and clipped the detachable lamp to his harness.

I didn’t want to climb this alone anyway, she told herself, watching him. And it’s his choice. It’s a free mountain. I can hardly send him away.

But you could, the secret voice of her power reminded her. If you really wanted to.

But she didn’t.

Mark led the first pitch while she played out his rope from below, braced to support him if he fell. She let him take control of the climb, deciding his experience might outweigh her stronger senses, and doubtful she could persuade him otherwise anyway.

Then, too soon, it was her turn to ascend, while Mark hung above her, pulling in the rope between them.

It was different from the wall. The rock was real and rough against her fingers, scraping at her hands and knees, yielding unexpected holds and havens. In the moonlight, the mountain was a world drawn in black and white and all the shades of grey between. The cracks seemed the blackest darkness she had ever seen, the outcrops glittered with diamond quartz.

And despite the moonlight, despite her nights on the wall, despite her immortal strength, the first fifty feet were terrifying. She inched her way up, forcing her hands and feet to move, refusing to look down. The moments when she had to pause and remove the metal cams and other pieces of protection he had wedged into the cracks in the rock were especially agonizing, as she struggled to perfect the trick of easing them out and clipping them onto her harness. She knew Mark could feel her restrained panic but he paid no attention to it, calling down instructions and holds as casually as if they had been doing this for years.

She tried not to imagine the consequences of a mistake. If she fell and the rope failed to hold her . . . her vampire body might be strong but a fall on the rocks below could do her serious damage. What would happen if she broke her back? Would that kill her? And even if she were only injured, the results could be dangerous. She could end up in the hospital, facing discovery. She did not think Mark could be persuaded not to go for help and if she were badly hurt she might not be able to stop him by force.

There’s nothing to be afraid of, she told herself firmly. I can’t fall, there’s a rope, I can’t die, I can’t die. The words whispered through her mind like a chant and, after fifty feet passed and she had not fallen, had not died again, she began to believe them.

At a hundred feet, she felt the beginning of a rhythm, the first glimpse of what it would feel like to do this well, to surrender fear and thought and the future to the rough face of the rock and the smooth slide of her muscles. Her hand closed over a large hold, her foot pushed her up towards the next hold, her fingers caught the crevice and held her. The easy sweetness of it made her laugh and she caught a pale flash above her as Mark looked back from his perch.

“You OK?”

“Yes.” She laughed again. “I think I just figured out why you like this.” His laughter drifted down the rope to join hers.

They traded off again, Ardeth anchoring herself to the bolts set in the rock to mark the second belay point and letting Mark climb, then he finding a safe position and drawing her up the rock towards the moon as it sailed over their heads.

Halfway up the mountain, it all changed.

From some hiding place, clouds appeared and crept long, gauzy fingers across the moon. Above her as she belayed, Mark cursed and she heard the metal equipment dangling from his harness clattering. He swore again and something dark plummeted past her. “What’s wrong? What was that?”

“My lamp. Do you have one with you?”

“No,” Ardeth admitted. There was a long silence.

“Don’t worry. It’ll be all right. We’ll just move when the moon comes out.” The words were calming but she caught the undercurrent of tension in his voice and shivered.

From then on, he moved only when the moon cleared. The stops and starts wore on Ardeth’s nerves. Even resting in her harness, safely clipped into the belay bolts, her fingers on the rock and the rope felt slick and thick as if full of thoughts of betrayal. Tremors begin to insinuate themselves into the spaces in her spine, between the muscles in her legs. She looked down into the sharp branches far below and thought of stakes, waiting to impale her unnatural heart.

“I’m moving.” Mark’s voice brought her gaze back up to watch as he stretched out for the next holds, reaching into the momentary moonlight. She did not see what happened then, only heard his wild gasp and the hiss of rope through the metal carabiners as he fell toward the forest’s spiky embrace.

The rope snapped tight in her hands and her muscles clamped down, her mind forgetting belay technique and weight ratios, her body compensating with unnatural strength, ignoring the fact that the belay plate at her harness had long ago prevented the rope from moving.

Then it was over and Mark was dangling above and to her left. He had fallen at least ten feet before the rope and the last protection he had placed had caught him. She could hear the ragged grunts of his breath, see the wash of chilly sweat over his white face. “Mark?”

“Yeah. I’m OK. Don’t be scared.” She heard him mastering his own fear in the silence between the words. For a moment, she thought she could feel his heartbeat, a quick echo of her own, pounding through the rock. “Just hang on. I’ll climb back up when the moon comes out again.”

Ardeth put her forehead against the stone and willed her fingers to loosen their savage grip on the rope. She glanced up at the traitorous moon and watched the heaviest clouds shred slowly away, leaving a faint caul across the moon’s face. She heard Mark begin to move.

It took several long, careful minutes to climb the ten feet to his former position. When he reached it, he hung for a moment against his harness, breathing hard. “Jesus. I knew I should have brought the bivvy sac. We’re going to be out here all night.”

“It’s only one o’clock. The clouds will disappear soon.” She saw him sift a little to look up at the moon.

“If we’re lucky. We’ll be here for a while yet. I’m anchoring in here. Don’t worry,” he added, catching her uncertain look, “you’re clipped in securely there. The harness will hold you.”

Ardeth nodded and relaxed a little, resettling her balance on the thin ledge at her feet and leaning back in her harness. Her arms were aching with tension that seemed to radiate out from her bones and she forced herself to let them drop away from the rope and dangle loosely at her sides.

“So, how’re you liking it so far?” Mark asked casually and she laughed, glancing up at him. He had relaxed in his harness, feet bracing himself as he looked down over his shoulder at her.

“Wait till we get to the top and I’ll tell you.”

“You’ve got to admit that most people would not go to this much trouble to get a girl alone in the moonlight.”

“Don’t tell me you staged that fall,” Ardeth countered.

“No. That was real.” She caught his brief glance downward. He looked back at her, resolutely ignoring the darkness below them. “So here we are. Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

“Why?”

“Because it’ll pass the time. Because I’d like to know.” For a moment, the words shivered through Ardeth’s mind like an echo. She heard her own voice saying them to Rozokov, deep in the nightmare of their captivity.

“All right,” she said carefully, at last. “What do you want to know?”

“Where are you from?”

“Toronto.”

“What are you doing in Banff?”

“Getting away from Toronto.”

“Why?”

“It’s a long story.”

“It’ll be a long night.”

“Not that long.” Her voice scraped along the rock beneath them, sharp and sudden. It left a moment of tense silence in its wake, then she saw Mark shrug.

“OK. What’s your favourite colour?”

“Cobalt blue,” Ardeth answered after a bewildered moment. The abrupt change of tone had almost startled her into answering in the past tense, as if her colour preferences had died along with her body. She spent one ludicrous yet terrifying moment trying to decide whether they had.

“Damn. I was betting on black.” That brought the laughter back and restored her wits.

“My turn. Where are you from?”

“Brantford, Ontario. Birthplace of Alexander Graham Bell and Wayne Gretzky. I played hockey with him when I was a kid, by the way.”

“Really? Is that why you ended up in Banff?” It was his turn to laugh.

“Not really. Though it made the hockey games kind of boring—whichever team had Wayne always won. No, I came out here about ten years ago.”

“Why?”

“I’d done a year of university but decided it really wasn’t my thing. I got a job tree-planting in B.C. for the summer and when it ended I came here.”

“Do you ever thing of going back?”

“Never. Too flat. Why did you decide to try climbing?”

Lies flittered through her mind, easy believable. “My life is very complicated right now,” she said at last. “I needed something simple. And because I could.”

“I’d wondered. You don’t look like the climbing type.”

There was a question waiting there, at the end of that statement. Ardeth knew she shouldn’t ask it, that it veered too close to the cliff-edge of flirtation. “What type do I look like?” She felt the weight of Mark’s silence and wished she had held her tongue.

“That’s a tough one. You dress like a punk but you’re not one. You’re very strong but I don’t know how. In other words, you look like a mystery,” he said at last, softly, and Ardeth closed her eyes. She could feel a fall waiting, the beginnings of the same mad seductive urge to leap that sometimes touched her when she stood a long way from the ground.

“Mysteries can be dangerous.” The warning sounded half-hearted even to her own ears.

“So can climbing. That’s part of why we do it.”

Then the moon swept out the last of the clouds and coated the cliff in silver light. The mechanics of moving took over, secrets and seduction forgotten as they worked their way across the stone towards the final pitches. The moon did not desert them again.

At last, Ardeth hauled herself up on the flat outcrop of rock that marked the top of the cliff. Mark was standing up, looking out over the valley below them. Ardeth rose beside him, following his gaze. The forest was a silver tipped darkness beneath them, leading to the lights of Banff Springs Hotel, looking like a fairy tale castle, to her right. On Sulphur Mountain, a light winked in the restaurant at the top of the gondola station. To her left, the valley vanished into the darkness, bisected by the icy ribbon of the Bow River. Above them, the moon kissed the edge of the mountains, the stars spread out across the sky like a scatter of diamonds. For a moment, it seemed that they were high enough to touch them. She wondered suddenly if Rozokov could see her through his telescope, if he should choose to look. “You see why I could never go back,” Mark said quietly and she nodded, wordless before the beauty of the night.