Raga Six (A Doctor Orient Occult Novel) (43 page)

Raga shook her head slowly. "I need the boy," she said. As she spoke, Argyle began sinking down to the floor. "You see, Pia and I are stronger than the two of you. I want the same thing as you do. Potential to develop. But we offer them more than telepathy. We offer eternity without death."
 

"Eternity—of killing—" Orient tried to raise his body.
 

"Not killing," Raga said quietly as if she were lecturing a small boy she found amusing. "Allowing the lesser beings to serve the purposes of the higher will is the universe’s own ritual. A natural sacrifice.
 

You reason like Alistar. In some ways you’re like him, darling. That’s why I had to sacrifice him." She looked down at Sun Girl and caressed her neck. "And you when it’s time."
 

Orient felt the pressure intensify and take him to the brink of a silken blackness. It receded just before he lost consciousness, toying with his senses.
 

"I could have sacrificed you in Ischia instead of Alistar," Raga was saying. "He was so good to me. But he wanted to stop me from completing the ritual. When my cycle came that night, it was too late for the girl. I had to choose. I found you so attractive. I hoped you would come to understand. But then I knew you never would. You want to stop me. Like Alistar."
 

"Sacrifice Alistar—" Orient grunted, trying to steady his vision.
 

"It had to take place at the moment of my menstrual flow. But instead of ejecting blood, I absorb life." Raga closed her eyes, smiling dreamily as if anticipating some supreme satisfaction. "Tonight my cycle will mark the beginning of my reign on earth." She opened her eyes and contemplated Orient and Argyle groveling against the relentless, tantalizing vibration of her power.
 

"I could never begin to be effective before," she mused, as she slowly stroked Sun Girl’s arms. "Alistar gave me that. For a hundred and sixty years I was forced to live only by night. Always in fear of being discovered. Always moving. Until science proved I didn’t exist." She began to laugh. "Even Alistar didn’t believe me. He thought he could use me and isolate a chemical from my body that would renew life. But he developed a serum that would enable me to live like an ordinary human." Her voice rose and her laughter rippled across Orient’s mind. "I was an empress before I was thirty and I’ll rule again. For an eternity."
 

Orient felt the pressure fade and his lungs fill with some air. Through his fuzzy vision he saw Raga lean close to Pia and kiss her cheek. She whispered something and a wide smile broke across Pia’s features. She rose and walked silently out of the room.
 

Then Orient heard Argyle’s voice. He turned his head and saw him trying to stand up. "Sun Girl—" Argyle pleaded. He fell back to the floor. "Wake—up, baby."
 

"Sun Girl has made her decision, Argyle," Raga smiled calmly. "She has placed herself at my disposal for the good of Julian. Julian will be initiated with his mother’s blood into my service. Two beautiful telepaths, Pia and Julian; a prince and a princess who will bring others to serve their undying empress. The telepathic power will become the instrument of my unending rule."
 

"No." Orient strained to move the word past his tingling, rubbery lips.
 

Raga looked at him. "You’re such a fool, Owen. If you hadn’t been so stubborn you could have ruled at my side. But Julian will be raised as my consort. A prince worthy of eternity. I didn’t want to sacrifice you. Pia didn’t want to let Presto die. He became suspicious when he found that she left no image in photographs." She began to giggle and the intensity of her madness echoed through Orient’s
 

throbbing brain. "Science always proves we don’t exist."
 

Orient squeezed against the pressure caressing his lungs and brain to sleep. He bit his lip and concentrated on trying to smother the silent implosions of ecstasy at the base of his brain.
 

Raga reached down and picked up a large-vesseled hypodermic filled with a brownish liquid. Its color was turgid next to Raga’s eyes, flashing like yellow lightning as she lifted the hypodermic to the candle flame. "This is Alistar’s legacy to my beauty. A simple mixture of rare herbs, cocaine, and B12. It needs only a little of your blood to renew my life, and my youth."
 

The pleasure in Orient’s body bristled, sending small shocks of sensation along his spine. His awareness began to fade into his senses.
 

"I didn’t want to sacrifice you, Owen." He heard Raga’s voice inside his skull as his will shriveled under the intensifying sensation. "But you’re so very stubborn. Like Alistar." Her voice was warm and husky. "Don’t resist. It will be pleasant, I promise you. More pleasure than I’ve ever given you. I won’t take much of your blood. Just enough to make the serum active. As soon as your blood is joined to mine, your life will be absorbed." Orient groaned as the rapture in his cells began to spread down his chest. "It’s the highest form of love, my darling," Raga crooned.
 

"Julian."
 

Argyle’s cracked voice opened Orient’s eyes. He saw Argyle lying on his side on the floor. He was trying to lift his head and his mouth was opening and closing like a fish tossed onto land. His vision jumped as Pia approached the pillow, holding Julian against her naked breasts. She put him down gently on the pillow next to Raga. He was asleep. Pia reached out and removed the sheet from Sun Girl’s body. He saw her hands moving over Sun Girl’s breasts and stomach as Raga lifted the hypodermic. Then a jolt of raw delight crackled across his belly and squeezed his eyes shut.
 

"Woi, woi, moi, woi Agovi—" Raga chanted softly, her voice increasing the ecstasy in his million nerve fibers and bringing him to the edge of some delirious, pulsing release. "Woi, moi Bouki.’The words rose and fell in his brain like sugar cubes tumbling into boiling milk, dissolving as they reached his bubbling comprehension. The rhythm of her voice touched a half-consumed response and snapped across his disintegrating memory.
 

The singsong of Raga’s chant shifted slightly as his reflex blocked the vibrating pleasure spilling out of his senses. She paused and intensified the intonation of the words, sending an electric spatter of new sensation through his consciousness. Another reflex twitched and he remembered. He dug his concentration into the reflex, and it opened. "Woi, woi, woi Agovi—-woi, woi, woi bouki—" the rhythm of her voice beat against the spasms of his thoughts like warm rain in a forest. And then he understood the rise and fall of Raga’s voice. He understood the source of Raga’s power.
 

"Agovi." Raga hurled the word against his memory. The demon of Voodoo.
 

Orient clenched his fist and opened his eyes. He glimpsed a blur of blue on his outstretched hand and the knowledge lashed across his mind. The source. He brought the lapis ring on his finger close to his face.
 

"Woi Agovi, mount thy empress Diana—" Raga implored, swaying from side to side, her mouth open and slack. Pia held Sun Girl’s head tenderly as Raga touched the tip of the needle to the girl’s neck.
 

His memory clawed against his delirium and he felt the connection. Raga was calling a voodoo prayer. His reflexes jerked at he tried to breathe the word…The key.
 

He flexed his trembling memory against the delicious vibration sucking at his nerves and pulled the word along the dust-clogged tunnel of his throat.
 

Loupgarou
, the name in Martinique for the vampire. And Raga was from Martinique.

"Loup-gar-ou," Each sound scraped across his cracked tongue.
 

Raga stopped her low chant. Orient’s careening vision slammed to an abrupt stop against the glazed smooth skin of her face. He saw Raga open her eyes, turn her head, and start to stand, her features poised on the brink of surprise. All reality floated in slow motion through a cottony silence that stuffed every fraction of perception. He saw Pia’s mouth move slightly and her head lift. Raga was still getting up. As she turned, she stared at him wonderingly with her flame-rippled gold eyes. He saw the stone on his finger and opened his tips. As he spoke, each word disappeared into the dry, thick silence arotmd him. Raga was on her feet and Pia was rising, balanced on her toes. Argyle was on the floor, looking at him with a startled expression. His sounds were frozen into the stillness. Everything became motionless.
 

"... maroshana Sphytaya hun traka
. . . "
 

The noiseless words of power swelled in his throat, accelerating momentum as he completed the invocation of his judgment.
 

"
Ham
...
MA
!" The last word was a loud rasping shout of desperation that sent the delicate structure of the silence tumbling down around him. Fragments of movement flashed past his vision with blurred rapidity. Raga dropped the hypodermic and extended her hand to help Pia. Pia was falling to the floor. Argyle was up on one knee. Julian had opened his eyes and was screaming, his high shrieks rising over the sudden, crashing motion.
 

Orient tried to stand up. He saw Argyle reach Julian and Sun Girl. He got to his knees, then fell forward as the noise and the blurs faded and his senses faded with them.

CHAPTER 27

A long distance away, through the thick fog, someone was sobbing. He tried to see through the mist as the sounds came nearer. The sobs were close and the fog became a blur of flickering colors that focused into hazy images.
 

Argyle was rocking Julian back and forth in one arm. He was crouched over Sun Girl. Orient sat up and his vision blurred again. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he saw Raga and Pia lying on the floor in front of the pillow. He got up slowly to one knee. He heard Sun Girl moan and Julian cry out. He stood up, his arms extending in front of him to maintain his balance.
 

"It’s all right, baby," Argyle whispered as Sun Girl woke up struggling. She stopped struggling and fell weeping against Argyle’s shoulder when she saw Julian reaching out for her.
 

Orient took a few unsteady steps. A movement across the floor stopped him. Raga’s white fingers were fluttering over the rug groping blindly for something. He realized it was the hypodermic. He bent down and picked it up.
 

Argyle looked up.
 

"Should get them out of here—" Orient said.
 

Argyle nodded, his face streaked with sweat.
 

Orient reached down and took Julian in his arms. The boy felt light against his chest as he lifted him. Argyle got to his feet and helped Sun Girl stand up. She leaned against his arm and lifted her hand out to Julian. Argyle picked up the sheet and wrapped it around her shoulders. When they reached the door, Orient stopped. "Can’t go with you," he said.
 

Argyle looked at him.
 

"I’ve got to stay. Take them home." Orient’s voice was hoarse.
 

He set Julian down.
 

Argyle didn’t say anything. He lifted Julian with one arm and put the other around Sun Girl’s shoulders as Orient opened the door. He paused and looked up. "If you’re not back in half an hour, I’m coming back," he grunted.
 

"I’ll be back in the morning," Orient said. He closed the door behind them. He stood there for a moment, his hand around the knob as he cleared his lungs. He had an impulse to follow them, but the certainty that he must remain crushed his desire to rush outside. He turned and started walking back to the corridor.
 

When he reached the room, he saw Raga stretched out on the floor near the candles. Pia was lying a few feet away, her body very still. Raga arched her back as he came closer and twisted her mouth to speak. Orient heard her breathless rasp against his ear. "Please, Owen—give it to me—" Her eyes were fixed on his hand. He looked down and saw that he was still holding the hypodermic. "Don’t let me die, darling—" Raga whispered. She tried to smile.
 

Orient looked away. With a sudden lunge he wheeled and threw the hypodermic against the wall. The glass shattered, sending a brown spray of liquid up to the ceiling and staining the air with the stench of rotted flowers.
 

"Owen!"
 

He turned as Raga cried out. She was staring up at him, her delicate face set in hard lines of rage. Her slender hand opened and closed as she tried to speak. Her lips curled away from her teeth with loathing.
 

Orient turned away and walked across the room into the shadows. He sat down on the floor, wrapped his arms around his legs and waited. The light from the candle flames across the room caught the surface of the stone on his finger and glinted in the corner of his vision.
 

He stared at the ring and concentrated his tattered energy on the word of his judgment. Loupgarou. As he looked at the dark blue lapis, the numbers of the calculation loomed in his thoughts. The sum of the letters was five five four. Divided in half it became two seven seven. He shut his eyes and rested his head against his knees. The reality of the key consumed the remains of his doubts and left him empty. There was no emotion left except the certainty of his judgment.
 

After an hour had passed he got to his feet and walked back to the candles. He bent down to examine Pia. The girl’s face was wrinkled and her features were swollen. Her hair was steel-gray. She looked like a woman of seventy. A dead woman.
 

He stood up and walked to where Raga was lying. He knelt down next to her. The smooth white face had become brown and mottled like old photograph paper. A parched web of cracked, flaky skin covered her shoulders and withered breasts. He put his hand over her heart and felt his fingers sink slightly into her chest, as if her ribs were made of dust. He pulled his hand away and looked at her, trying to remember. There was nothing.