The Complete Vampire Chronicles 12-Book Bundle (The Vampire Chronicles) (572 page)

“ ‘Aye, but how can I hide the guilt inside my soul?’ asked the Old Man. ‘You reached for it, you found it, you possess it.’

“I heard her hissing whisper:
And they howl and weep for you on your precious Blackwood Farm. When will they put your name on a gravestone?

“ ‘Get away from me, luckless ghost,’ I said. ‘So you have in me a life for your life. Leave me.’

“There came no answer.

“And so my learning went on for hours amongst them.

“They schooled me until I could take the Little Drink, but never was I filled, and they laughed at my hunger when I complained of the pain, and if Petronia became sullen or impatient, Arion shamed her with his kindness.

“ ‘Now we go to hunt, the four of us,’ said Arion. ‘And you will search out the Evil Doer, using the power to read minds, and we’ll watch over you.’

“ ‘It’s a wedding,’ said the Old Man in his bass voice. ‘A rich American come to Napoli for his daughter’s nuptials. You’ll find the Evil Doer everywhere you turn. You lure him, you take him in such a way that no one’s the wiser and from your tongue the drops of your own blood will seal up the wound. Are you ready, son, to be one of us? Truly one of us?’

“ ‘Picture it before we leave here,’ said Arion. ‘They’ve been drinking for hours. You want to move amongst them quietly. Anonymously. You want to leave your victims as if they’re drunk. You want to take the Little Drink from the innocents as you desire it.’

“I nodded. ‘Yes,’ I declared. I was thirsting. And my heart was inflamed. I wanted with all my wretched soul to be one of them. I was one of them!

“Suddenly, Petronia lifted me and flung me out from her, out beyond the open terrace doors and into the night, and I fell down, down all the way to the beach below, and I landed quietly on the rocks, standing, just on the edge of the foaming green sea, still and quiet, gazing all around me.

“I looked up. How very far away she was, and from the terrace I could scarcely see as she beckoned me. I heard her whisper as though she was near my ear, ‘Come up to me, Quinn.’

“I willed my body to rise, and I did rise, and faster and faster I moved until I drifted near her and over the railing of the terrace and then I stood beside her.

“She slipped her arm around me, her dark eyes flashing as she looked up at me, and whispered in my ear. ‘And so you see,’ she said, ‘we move by speed, not magic. I have you in my grip. And don’t you spill a drop when you drink. We expect perfection of you.’

“ ‘But do we kill?’ I asked.

“Arion shrugged. ‘If you wish,’ he answered. “If the evil is ripe for it and you are graceful and sly.’ ”

40

“A blue haze of cigarette smoke hung over the rooms. The faces came at me as if I were a camera lens. All were beautiful. All were imperfect. The voices were a senseless and deafening babble, the thoughts of so many minds a chaotic hubbub. I lost my sense of balance. I wanted to retreat, but I pressed forward.

“The smell of the food was revolting, the smell of the liquor strangely acrid and foreign, as if my body had never drunk it. The scent of blood rose from every inch of flesh pressed against me as I worked my way through the labyrinth.

“I saw the bride beneath the heavily laden pergola. Wraith thin. Pretty. Her bridal gown had long white lace sleeves, and she was smoking a cigarette which she held in her left hand, and when she saw me she beckoned urgently as if she knew me, and I saw in her mind: invitation, but what did she want?

“I couldn’t take my eyes off her as I pushed towards her, and her free arm hooked around my left arm as we came together, and I caught the scent of her blood, strong and pumping alive beneath her olive skin.

“She pulled me into a large bedroom and shut and locked the door behind her. Her big low-set black eyes looked at me imploringly. Smudged mascara. Pouting red mouth.

“ ‘You saw him, that bastard,’ she seethed, cursing. ‘On my wedding night, he does that to me!’ Her face was a breathtaking snarl of rage. She ripped at my coat and pulled me towards the bed. Her black hair was falling loose from its diamond-studded combs. ‘Come on, now, let’s do it, hurry, I want him to try to break that door down, damn him, the pig.’

“I caught her chin in my right hand and turned her face up to me. I kissed her mouth. What was that to me? The blood scent overwhelmed me. I went for her throat. I bit down hard and the artery exploded, the blood gushing down over her wedding dress as I tried to pull away; it was a positive fountain springing from her. She gasped. I closed my mouth over it, cursing myself, my clumsiness, my hunger, my luck. Oh, God in Heaven. I drank and drank. She was limp, in a brand of ecstasy, a litany of banal innocence thudding out of her, no evil, no design, no malice, no knowledge, no pain.

“On and on I drank the salted blood. I belonged to it, was a slave to it. Wanted nothing more than it. Except that she somehow not die, that there not be blood all over her white dress, her splendid white dress.

“Her heart went out like a match or a candle. No way to bring it back. I held her, shook her. Come back. Mistake. Awful mistake. I drank again, like a fool, until there was no more to drink. I cringed. I moaned. She had no more life in her, no more blood to give. I tossed her like a doll. A broken bride doll. She was so dead! Look at the diamonds in her ruined hair.

“Someone took me by the hair of my head and swung me back against the wall. I hit it so hard that I went blind and senseless for a moment, and then in the blinkering light I saw her dead there, sliding off the foot of the bed onto the floor, the blood all over her dress, her pretty lace dress, her lovely white lace dress with its webs and circles of lustrous pearls, her hair fallen from her diamond combs, her face so sweet, no more anger, no more hate.

“It was Petronia who had flung me back and now she dragged me out the window under the pergola and threw me against the wall again. This time I felt the blood flow from the back of my head. I was in a shock of pain. She pitched me over the railing. I dropped down, down towards the sea. I felt I was dying. I was full of innocent blood and I was dying. I was weeping and I was dying, and the bride, the poor bride, she was dead, and I had left her covered in her own blood, all the brides of Blackwood Farm betrayed, Ophelia Immortal never to be my bride betrayed, blood on her white dress, Rebecca never to be Manfred’s bride laughing.

“We were back in the palazzo and Petronia struck me over and over again, cursing me and herself that she had made me.

“ ‘Imbecile, you killed her. Imbecile, she was nothing but a tart, and for that you killed her! In a wilderness of killers, you killed her. She was nothing but a tart. You fool.’ Again and again, there came the blows to my face—pain, but pain isn’t death—then the kicks to my ribs. I clung to the floor.

“ ‘Stop her,’ roared the Old Man. ‘Stop her, stop her, stop her.’

“ ‘I take you to hunt a wedding, thick with killers, and you kill the bride!’ she seethed. She kicked at my face. I rolled over onto my back. She kicked at my groin. ‘Stupid, clumsy, fledgling, idiot, clumsy!’

“The Old Man roared: ‘Make her stop!’

“ ‘And the blood on her dress, how you did it! Moron, idiot, fool! Where did you think you were? What did you think you were?’

“Finally Arion pulled her off me.

“ ‘It was our doing,’ he said. ‘We left him alone. He was too young. We should have been with him.’

“She was crying. She was in Arion’s arms and she was actually crying.

“The Old Man sobbed.

“I lay there and dreamt of death.

“Oh, Lord, how could I have come to this? How could my senses have so richly misled me? How could my greed have led me to this abysmal pass? I am in a place of darkness beyond panic and beyond anxiety. Lord, this is anguish. Yet I cling to what I am. I cling to all that I am.

“And somewhere very far away, others were searching for me. Rebecca was right. And they must have been saying, ‘The gators got him, had to be. Poor Quinn. He’s dead.’

“And I was.”

41

“Before the sunrise Arion took me to the cellar beneath the house and showed me the crypt in which I would sleep. He told me simply that, young as I was, the sun could destroy me, and that even when I had attained a great age, such as he had, it would still render me powerless and unconscious. He told me also that fire could mean my death. But that no other injury could kill me.

“I felt, unwisely, no doubt, that I understood these things. He told me as well that all the wounds inflicted on me by Petronia in her rage would heal over the day’s time, as they weren’t very serious for one of my strength, and that he would come for me when the sun had set, and I should wait for him.

“ ‘Don’t be afraid of the narrow box, my child,’ he said. ‘Make it your refuge. And don’t be afraid of your dreams. You are an immortal now, and all your faculties are enhanced. Accept it and rejoice in it.’

“ ‘I lay down then in the crypt, and I did suffer the most unspeakable horror of it, but there was nothing to be done about it, the granite lid was closed over me, and very soon, weeping quietly, I lost consciousness.

“I dreamed a dream of Patsy. She smelled like cotton candy. Her lips tasted like candy apples. I dreamed I was a little child, and I sat on her lap, and she pushed me off, and I grew to be a man in a twinkling and I killed her. I drank her blood. It tasted like maple syrup. Her diseases and her meanness could not contaminate me. I tried to wake up. I dreamed this over and over and I woke once, or so I dreamed, with her body in my arms. A Barbie. I pushed her down into the green water of the swamp and as I watched her sink below the surface I felt horror. But she was gone and dead, and blood came up. It was too late to save her. Bye Patsy. Rebecca laughed.
A death for my death.
‘Oh yes,’ I scoffed, ‘you think you planned everything.’ ‘The Damnation of Quinn,’ said Fr. Kevin.

“When I opened my eyes the next time Arion was there looking down at me. The sun had only just set and the sky was still red and the golden light filled the crypt, and he was pleased to see that I was conscious. He led me up the stairs and to the terrace.

“The stars drifted in the purple sky. The gold hung behind the clouds. It was magnificent.

“ ‘Some Blood Hunters don’t wake till the sky is full dark,’ he said, ‘and they never know this quiet glory. I see you shade your eyes, but it doesn’t hurt you.’

“In fact it didn’t and it was only with difficulty that I absorbed the reality that I would never see ‘the light of day’ again.

“He saw the trouble in my face. He said, ‘Look back on nothing. I’ll take you out to hunt now. You’re my apprentice for the evening.’

“ ‘And so I’ve disappointed her,’ I asked, ‘and she’ll have nothing further to do with me?’

“ ‘No,’ he said with a short honest laugh. ‘She’s eager to see you. But it happens that she’s a miserable teacher. And so I’ve told her no, and that I’ll take you out, and so we’ll hunt the cafés and the clubs of Napoli.’

“He was dressed informally tonight in a black silk shirt open at the neck and a finely cut jacket of dark red silk and a pair of sleek trousers.

“He took me to a room where the young mortal boy waited to help me select a similar suit of clothes, which I did hastily. Once again, I thanked him for his kindness.

“ ‘If I had any money,’ I said, ‘I’d give it to you.’

“He smiled at me. And I patted his shoulder.

“Then we were off to the cafés and bars for more lessons.

“We moved through all manner of crowds, taking the Little Drink over and over until I was very skilled at it, and then, cornering for ourselves two ‘perfect killers,’ we had our fill of them in a back alley in the oldest part of Naples. We left their bodies because Arion said it didn’t matter there, but there would be other times when it did and the bodies had to be disposed of. As it was, he slashed the throats of the two so it would seem they had bled to death.

“ ‘To thrive without killing,’ he said, ‘that is everything. If you can live without bringing death, you will endure. But now and then the urge to kill will overrule—you’ll want the burning bitter heart—and so I’ve taught you how to do it.’

“I was exhilarated all this while, and the elegant figure of Arion constantly thrilled me. I imitated his grace. I wanted him for my model in everything. And in some ways he is my model to this very moment. He had a feline way of moving and speaking in a hushed tone that commanded respect and loyalty of me.

“His skin was so black that under the lights of the cafés and bars it had a bluish tinge to it, and his deep yellow eyes had tiny flecks of brown and green in them. His teeth were powerfully white, and his lips small for his face, and his smile very smooth and loving.

“Finally, after we had hunted perhaps more than was required, we settled in a somewhat quiet café where he could talk to me and educate me, and this thrilled me almost as much as our hunting.

“But as soon as the stillness settled over me, as soon as I had the coffee in my hands, which I couldn’t and didn’t want to drink, I found myself in a state of shock and I began to shiver violently.

“He reached over and laid his hand on mine, and then, kissing his fingers, he repeated the gesture. Then he drew back.

“ ‘Understand the gift you’ve been given, as best you can,’ he said. ‘Don’t forswear it in the first years. Too many perish in that way. Of course you despise Petronia for giving it to you—all this is natural and right. When she drained you, when she almost killed you, you saw a vision of those who’d gone to Paradise before you. And you turned away.’

“ ‘How did you know?’ I asked.

“ ‘I could read your mind then. It’s not the same now. We’ve exchanged too much blood. It’s the same with her too. Don’t let her fool you. She’s mercilessly clever and eternally whimsical and persistently unhappy. But for whatever it’s worth, she loves you and she can’t read your mind any longer.’

“ ‘Is she always a woman for you? Do you ever see her as a man?’

“He laughed. ‘She made her choice in life early on to be the woman with me. When she fought in the arena centuries ago, it was as a woman. Those who came up against her marveled at her musculature and her stamina. But they thought her a woman. She switches back and forth. She’s truly both. But we don’t need to talk of her now. Let’s talk of you.’

“ ‘And what is there to say about me?’ I asked. ‘Did I will myself into this? I did not. And yet I blame myself that it happened. I turned away from my grandparents in that vision of Paradise, you’re right, and can you tell me now, even if the answer torments me—was what I saw real?’

“ ‘I can’t tell you,’ he said with an easy graceful shrug. ‘I don’t know. I only know what you saw. It’s the same with my victims. Often they see the light of Paradise and those they once loved call to them, and so they leave my embrace, in spirit, and I am left with the corpse.’

“That answer rattled me. And I sat quietly for a long moment. I even picked up the cup of coffee and then set it down. The café was half empty. The street outside was noisy with passersby. There was a nightclub opposite. The music was throbbing beyond the neon sign. I wondered if I had been in this street when I was alive. I didn’t remember it. But Nash and I had gone a-wandering in Naples. It was possible. And now, how would I see Nash again? How would I even go home?

“ ‘Now let me take up the point again,’ said Arion. ‘Don’t be destroyed in the first years. It happens with too many. There’s so much danger all around you. It’s easy to despair. It’s easy to succumb to bitter hatred of yourself. It’s easy to feel that the world no longer belongs to you, when nothing is further from the truth. It’s all yours and the passage of the years is yours. And now you must simply and plainly live up to it.’

“ ‘How long do we have?’ I asked.

“He was surprised by the question. ‘Forever,’ he said with another shrug. ‘There is no lifetime for us. When I gave you my blood I tried to hide my life from you, but you saw the place of my mortal happiness. You knew it was Athens. You knew the Acropolis. You recognized it immediately. You saw the Temple of Athena in all its grandeur. I couldn’t keep from you the secret of the sheer brilliance of that time, and the Athenian sunshine, so harsh, so hot, so merciless and wonderful. You breathed this knowledge from me. And you must certainly know how long I have been alive, how long I’ve walked the Earth as we say, how many centuries I’ve wandered.’

“ ‘What sustains you? What supports you? Surely not Petronia and the Old Man.’

“ ‘Don’t be so quick to judge,’ he said gently. ‘Some night far distant from now—if you survive—you’ll laugh when you remember asking me such a question. Besides, I love Petronia, and I can control her. You wonder perhaps why I didn’t stop her from making you, as we call it, why I didn’t call upon my authority to stop her from defiling you? Because you must understand I saw her as giving you immortality.’

“He paused, smiling at me faintly and touching my hand again with his hand, which was warm.

“ ‘Were there other reasons? I don’t honestly know,’ he went on. ‘Perhaps I harbored a heated desire to see you transformed. You are so very admirable. So young. So splendid in all your parts. And with the sole exception of Manfred, it’s been centuries since she worked the Dark Trick, as some of us call it. Centuries. And she has an idea that the desire builds in us and then must be discharged, and so she brings someone into our midst and makes of that one a Blood Hunter.’

“ ‘But the girls who prepared me, and the boy—they spoke as if there had been others.’

“ ‘She plays with others, and then she destroys them. The servants? What do they know? They’re told that the postulant is being prepared for great gifts, and then fails. That’s all. Now the girl, I don’t know about her. She’s ignorant and greedy. But there is some spark in the boy. Perhaps Petronia will bring him to us.’

“ ‘And has it been well done?’ I asked.

“ ‘Oh, yes, of course it’s been well done,’ he said, almost as if I’d insulted him with my question, ‘not without much more cursing and kicking I think than was ever necessary, but in the main well done; I saw to it that it was well done, though I have more to tell you.’

“He made a little gesture with the coffee, playing with it, as though he liked to see it move in the cup and savor the aroma of it, which was dark and thick and alien to me. Then he spoke.

“ ‘I’m watching you, of course,’ he said. ‘When you drink from the evil ones you have to revel in it, not cringe from the evil. It’s your chance to be evil as the one you kill. Follow your victim’s evil as you empty his soul. Make it your adventure into crimes you yourself would never wantonly commit. When you’ve finished, you take your soul back with what you’ve learned and you’re clean again.’

“ ‘I feel anything but clean,’ I said.

“ ‘Then feel powerful,’ he said. ‘Disease can’t touch you. Neither can age. Any wound you receive will heal. Cut your hair and it will grow back within the space of a night. Forever you will look just as you are now, my Caravaggio Christ. Remember, only fire and the sun can harm you.’

“I listened intently as he continued.

“ ‘Fire you must avoid at all costs,’ he said, ‘for your blood will burn, and terrible suffering may result, which you may survive, healing slowly over centuries. As for the sun—one day of it cannot kill me. But in these early years, either can destroy you. Don’t yield to the desire for death. It claims too many of the young in their impetuosity and grand emotions.’

“I smiled. I knew what he meant—grand emotions.

“ ‘You needn’t find a crypt every day of your life,’ he said. ‘You’re strong from me and Petronia combined, and even the Old Man’s blood has been good for you. A room that is shut up and sealed away from the sun, a hiding place, that will suffice, but eventually you should choose a refuge to which you can retire, a place that is yours where no one can find you. Remember when you do this that you are some ten times stronger than mortals now.’

“ ‘Ten times,’ I marveled.

“ ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘When you took the pretty bride you broke her neck in the final moments. You weren’t even conscious of it. It was the same with the killer in the alley. You snapped his spine. You have to learn to be careful.’

“ ‘I’m drenched with murder,’ I said. I looked at my hands. I knew I would never see Mona again, because I knew that a witch like Mona would see blood all over them.

“ ‘You feed from mortals now,’ said Arion in his usual graceful manner. ‘It’s your nature. Blood Hunters have existed since the beginning of time, and probably before that. Old myths are told and written that we once had among us parents from whom the primal fount poured forth to us all, and that whatever happened to them happened to us and so they must be kept forever inviolate. But I’ll give you the books to read which tell these tales.…’

“He paused, looking around the café. I wondered what he saw. I saw blood in every face. I heard blood in every voice. At will I could receive the thoughts of any mind like so much static. He went on.

“ ‘Suffice it to say that the Mother rose from her slumber of thousands of years and on a rampage destroyed many of her children. It was at random that she moved. And I thank the gods that she passed over us. I could have done nothing against her power, because she had the Mind Gift—that is, to destroy by will—and the Fire Gift—that is, to burn by will—and she burnt those Blood Hunters whom she found, and they numbered in the hundreds.

“ ‘At last she herself was destroyed, and the sacred nucleus—the primal blood from which we all come—was passed into another, otherwise we would all have withered as so many flowers upon a dead vine. But that root has been preserved without interruption.’

“ ‘This one, this one who has the nucleus or the root, is he very old?’

“ ‘It’s a woman,’ he replied, ‘and she is ancient, as old as the Mother was, and she has no desire to rule, only to keep the root safe and to live as a witness to time, in a place apart from the world and its worries. With that kind of age comes a peace from the blood. She no longer needs to drink it.’

“ ‘When will that peace come for me?’ I asked.

“He laughed softly, gently. ‘Not for thousands of years,’ he said. ‘Though with the blood I gave you, you can go many nights with just the Little Drink or even nothing. You’ll suffer but you won’t become weak unto dying. That’s the trick, remember. Don’t become so weak that you can’t hunt. That you must never do. Promise me.’