On a Darkling Plain (7 page)

“Yes,” she answered. “Do you believe me?”

He felt another twinge of the instinctive awe that had overwhelmed him when he’d first turned and beheld her. “Maybe,” he said, although suddenly he was sure she was speaking the truth.

Seemingly satisfied with his answer, she said, “We live apart from you, our descendants, for two good reasons. One is that we require vampire vitae to survive.” He tensed, and she gave him a reassuring smile. “I promise I’m not after yours. Remember, I just fed.”

The blood thirst smoldered in his throat, reminding him that he had yet to do likewise. The craving was so inexorable that not even the fascination of an encounter with a virtual demigoddess of the undead could take his mind off it for long. “Okay,” he said, “I believe that. If you wanted more vitae, you could have sucked Butch back there dry. Or jumped me before my wounds healed, when I was easier pickings.”

“Exactly,” Melpomene said. “As I was saying, we hide from you because, comprehending our need to prey on you as you batten on mortals, you’d destroy us if you could. But even more importantly, we hide from one another. Do the legends with which you are familiar speak of the Jyhad?”

He frowned, not quite sure what she was getting at. “A jyhad is a war among Kindred, isn’t it?” He’d fought in one such conflict as a kind of mercenary when some of the elders of Baton Rouge had rebelled against their prince. He’d hoped that his efforts on their behalf would win him a place in the new social order they established; but after their victory they’d paid him off and made it clear they’d prefer he leave the city.

“Is that how the term is used these days?” she asked wryly. “The
true
Jyhad is the war among us ancients. It’s been going on for thousands of years, and for all I know, it will continue until there’s only one of us left. Or until the Antediluvians,
our
sires, awaken from their sleep of millennia and destroy all younger vampires to satisfy their hunger.”

A chill crept up Dan’s spine.
What a cheery prospect,
he thought. “What are you guys fighting about?” he asked.

“Everything and nothing,” Melpomene said wearily. “Some of us want to rule the world. Others, to stave off boredom. Still others, to pursue ancient quarrels.” Her lovely mouth twisted. “We are, after all, not only killers by nature but also children of the earth’s savage dawn, when vengefulness was a virtue and forgiveness, contemptible weakness. Still other Methuselahs have surrendered to the Beast or gone mad, their reason crumbling under the weight of ages of loss and remorse, and they lash out at those who were once closest to them as the murderously insane so often do.”

Suddenly she seemed so full of bitterness and selfloathing that, to his surprise, Dan felt an urge to comfort her. “You don’t seem vicious or crazy to me,” he said.

She arched an eyebrow. “Don’t I? Look deeper. But thank you for your kind words.”

The Hunger seared Dan’s mouth again. His stomach ached. If he didn’t hunt soon he was likely to fly into a frenzy when he did find prey, and drink so deeply that he left the unfortunate mortal dead. “You still haven’t told you what you want with me,” he said. He heard a soft splash: a fish had jumped.

“First I have to explain more about the Jyhad, and my position within it,” she said. “Because we spend our lives in hiding, we Methuselahs are rarely afforded the opportunity to strike at one another directly. But each of us controls, by various means, certain factions in vampire society, just as Kindred elders direct the destinies of the mortals dwelling in their domains. And we mobilize our minions to strike at our enemies’ chattels. When victorious, we impair a foe’s ability to exert power, and injure his pride. If we succeed in destroying some servant or possession he truly cherishes, we can cause him actual pain. And once in a great while, our efforts are so successful that we force him into the open, at which point we can attempt to annihilate him.”

“Are you telling me,” said Dan, frowning, “that whenever the Kindred plot and fight against each other, it’s because you old vamps are pulling our strings?”

“Not always,” Melpomene replied, “but frequently. Rebuke me if you like. I know it’s cruel of us to manipulate you into strife and risk of ruin. That’s why I tried to opt out of the game.” The black, angular form of a half-constructed condominium loomed out of the darkness ahead.

“You can do that?” asked Dan.

The woman in the white gown sighed. “I thought I could. One night about four hundred years ago, after the Armada but before the founding of Jamestown, I slew the last of my special enemies, by which I mean the last of the Methuselahs who were actively striving against me. I was weary and heartsick from centuries of bloodshed and intrigue, and it occurred to me that if I hid myself even more thoroughly than before, if I refrained from making any moves against the remainder of my peers, they might leave me alone to live in peace. After all, each of them had rivals who were actual threats to worry about.

“And for a while my plan seemed to work. As my confidence grew, I let some of my minions pass from my control altogether and loosened the reins on the rest. When my Toreador, my descendants, contrived to live in peace here in Sarasota, I permitted it gladly. I was no longer sufficiently wary to worry that a placid existence would blunt their fighting edge, or that their refusal to join in military alliances might leave them friendless in some future hour of need.”

As they neared the unfinished condominium, the breeze sighed through the empty windows. Noticing the absence of any construction equipment, and the obscene graffiti on the concrete-block walls, Dan realized that the project had been abandoned. Perhaps the builder had run out of money. “And now it is their ‘hour of need,’” he guessed.

“Yes,” said Melpomene somberly. Her head turned as if she were tracking the motion of something through the air. Dan squinted, but he still couldn’t see whatever it was that she was looking at. “I spent most of the last century asleep. It’s something we ancients do to refresh ourselves when existence begins to seem too burdensome. But my dreams provided a window on the waking world, and in one of them I saw that a wonderful painting, a work by an artist my Toreador and-I had nurtured and cherished, had been destroyed. I roused myself and found that the vision was true.”

“And you figure that was the opening shot in a new war,” said Dan.

“It was,” Melpomene replied* “I felt it instantly, and subsequent events have proved me right. Other works in whose creation I played some role have been destroyed — you would have seen the reports if you followed the news

— and, though they may not fully realize it themselves as yet, the Kindred of this domain are under siege.”

Gosh,
Dan thought sardonically,
and I didn’t even know anything was wrong.
Maybe there were advantages to being an outcast, if it kept you out of the line of fire. “You know," he said, “just because somebody’s calling you out, that doesn’t mean you have to go out in the alley and fight. You could just keep lying low.”

“No,” Melpomene said grimly, “my opponent knows how to compel me. Even if I could bear to abandon those of my own lineage, the art must not be lost! It’s my legacy to the world!” Her voice grew softer. “Perhaps it’s my atonement for all the evil I’ve done.”

“So what are you going to do?” asked Dan. Sand crunched beneath his sneakers. “March into Prince Roger’s stronghold and take charge?”    ,

“No,” the ancient vampire said. “That’s what the enemy would like, to flush me into the open.”

In other words,
Dan thought,
the art is precious, but not precious enough for you actually to risk your own neck.
To his surprise, he felt a little disappointed in her.

“By and large,” Melpomene continued, “I’ll have to trust my Toreador to direct the defense themselves. What I am going to do is plant a spy in the enemy camp.”

Cocking his head, Dan gave her an incredulous smile. “Me?” he asked.

She nodded. “I’ve been out of touch too long. 1 have no idea which of my peers is assailing me, nor even who his principal minions are. Some occult force is shielding them from my psychic abilities. However, I have managed to sense one small contingent, no doubt the most ignorant and least significant, of my enemy’s forces. But it’s a place to begin. A clever agent could infiltrate them and begin working his way up the ladder of command, amassing intelligence as he went.”

“Swell, but why me?” Dan said.

“I saw you in my dreams, too,” she said, “before I even realized what bond would bring us together. Despite your youth, you’re strong. You’ve proved it many times in the course of your wanderings. And you’re a Caitiff, with no ties to Prince Roger, the Toreador of Sarasota, those elders kindly disposed toward them, or anyone else I might be thought to control. Indeed, in the wake of your altercation tonight, the Kindred of the domain should soon be crying for your head. That should keep anyone from suspecting you when you join the other side.”

A pang of self-pity stabbed through his chest. Struggling to quash the feeling, he said, “I wouldn’t count on them letting me join, even so. If your dreams showed you very much of my life, you know that I’m not exactly good at winning friends and influencing people, not when the people in question are vampires.”

“Don’t worry about that,” she said. “The enemy will encounter you in circumstances that will make your acceptance inevitable.”

“If you say so,” he said dubiously. “Now for the big question: Considering that Prince Roger and his gang are no friends of mine, why should I risk my neck to help you? What’s in it for me?”

“Power,” she said. “If you agree to help me, I’ll enhance your abilities.”

His eyes narrowed in consideration. Many vampires aspired to improve their existing supernatural talents or to master the exotic arts practiced by Kindred of other bloodlines, and he was no exception. “It’s a tempting offer,” he said slowly. “I just don’t know if it’s tempting enough for me to take on what could turn out to be a suicide mission. After all, you’re asking me to snoop into the secrets of a bad-ass just as powerful as you.”

“But you haven’t heard my
complete
offer,” she said. 1 lie cool breeze gusted, pasting her thin dress to her slender body. Even in the darkness he could see her nipples through the gauze. “After the war is over, I’ll exert whatever influence is required to gain you the acceptance of your fellow Kindred. You’ll finally have a place in the world. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”

“Yes,” he admitted, pondering the deal. He supposed that a lot of people would think he was crazy even to consider jumping into a deadly feud that was really none of his business. But Melpomene was right, he
was
tough: in the perilous years since he’d submitted to his unknown sire’s Embrace, delirious on the hallucinogen someone had slipped into his drink, he’d learned to trust in both his strength and his ingenuity. And if they proved inadequate to the challenge this time, well, he didn’t have to be as old as Melpomene and her rivals to feel that his current existence was becoming wearisome. “Okay, what the hell. I’ll do it.”

“Excellent,” the ancient vampire said, her dark eyes shining.

“What do we do first?” Dan asked.

“You do what you’ve been wanting to do,” she answered softly, releasing his hand and raising her own. He hadn’t seen her cut herself, but blood began to flow from a gash in the fleshy base of her palm. “You quench your thirst.”

A feeling of awe came over him again. Hesitantly, half-suspecting that this was a test of his respect and good judgment and that she’d strike him down for his temerity, he took hold of her wrist and pressed his mouth against the cut.

At his first taste of her vitae, a lightning bolt of pleasure blazed through his body. Drinking blood had never filled him with such euphoria, not even when he’d been starving or berserk. The sensation transcended the ecstasy he normally felt when feeding as far as that exhilaration surpassed human orgasm. He lifted his becrimsoned face and howled with delight, then frantically kissed the cut again.

The rapture of guzzling her life so possessed him that he was nearly incapable of sensing anything else. Yet, dimly, his eyes closed, he felt a cool fingertip tracing a design on his forehead. The touch left a tingling trail on his skin. Then Melpomene laid her free hand on his brow and shoved him suddenly and hard, like a faith healer thrusting the power of God into one of his flock.

Another blast of energy crashed through Dan’s body. This one
was
painful, but he was so lost in the bliss of consuming Melpomene’s vitae that the hurt didn’t matter. The world began to spin, and his knees buckled. Still clinging to the ancient’s arm, he collapsed onto the sand. She flowed down to the ground with him and covered his shuddering form with her own.

FOIIRi DELIBERATIONS

You
may take the most gallant sailor, the most intrepid airman, or the most audacious soldier, put them at a table together
—
what do you get
?

The sum of their fears.

— Winston Churchill,
The Blast of War

Elliott paused at the foot of the stairs to run a comb through his hair, straighten his tie and vest, adjust his cuffs and make sure his handkerchief was protruding from his breast pocket properly. At the same time, he reflected again on Henry V, Shakespeare’s most heroic and charismatic king, trying to cloak his own despondent apathy in the role’s dynamism. Gradually his back straightened, and his jaw set in bogus resolution. When he felt as ready as he imagined he could be for the ordeal to come, he strode on into the room that Roger humorously referred to as the arena.

With its vast expanse of gleaming hardwood floor, its high ceiling and its glittering crystal chandelier, the arena would have made a satisfactory ballroom. Indeed, on occasion Roger had moved the furniture out and used it for precisely that purpose. Currently, however, the chamber was full of comfortable antique sofas and easy chairs grouped into conversation pits in a manner that reminded Elliott of a posh hotel lobby or a gentlemen’s private club. Holbein’s portrait of Roger hung above the ornately carved fireplace where someone, heedless of the warmth of the evening, had kindled a crackling yellow blaze.