The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life (40 page)

As I moved through the room I realized they might be discussing anything, the price of attar of roses, or the fate of my own life, and I would have no inkling of it. I was an exile among most peculiar foreigners. I could understand the words, but not the language.

As I entered the room the conversation shifted into a decidedly different gear. It became more narrative and understandable to me, but something about it still suggested it was a code of some manner and possessed a second veil of meaning.

“I discovered a curiosity shop the other day,” said a young woman with a camellia corsage. “I wished to purchase a gift, a stereopticon, to give to a woman. She lay in her deathbed, you see, and I wished to raise her spirits.

I met her in the darkness and placed the magic lantern in her hands. It spun...
chatoyant
... emitting changeable rays like the eyes of a cat in the dark. It tinged her eyelids, and molded the lineaments of her hands.”

At exactly the same moment, two people at opposite ends of the room lightly scuffed their feet.

A woman standing opposite the first continued the patter. I circled the room looking for Madame Villehardouin. I was forming a theory about her as well, and if I was correct I suspected she, if anyone, might provide the key to my escape. I did not see her in the room. I turned to leave, ignoring the allegorical conversation of the two young women, when my ear suddenly selected a meaningful fragment from the prattle. “
—Rue de la Glacière
.”

I spun about.

The two women stood against the wall. The gentleman with the Hapsburg mustache had joined them. Intrepidly, I approached the group. “Excuse me for interrupting so rudely, but did you just mention the Rue de la Glacière?”

“
Oui
.”

“I only venture to say something because that street above all others means something to me. It’s a very special little street, don’t you think?”

“All streets are special, Docteur,” she returned calmly. “Ah, yes, but I still maintain the Rue de la Glacière is special above all others.”

“
Chacun a son gout
,” she said politely and nodded her head. I noticed her glance at the palpitation of the heartbeat in my temple.

“You do not see the ‘quiver,’ do you,
mademoiselle?
” I said.

“
Non
,” she returned, reassessing my eyes.

I gave a courteous bow and walked away. I was about to continue to the next room when Grelot appeared and announced dinner.

Like the finest of genteel crowds, the guests moved in a slow and ceremonious wave toward what I presumed to be the dining room. I had not seen the dining room before. It had always been packed with human servants, and I had not wanted to burst into the middle of them. Now, as I passed through the tall amboina wood doors, I saw it for the first time. I need not describe its opulence in detail, save that it was a masterpiece of fine woods and marquetry. The two most prominent features of the room were the great chandelier of deer antlers over the table, and the carved falcon heads on the arms of each of the numerous walnut chairs.

As we entered I heard Fernande mutter, “The buffet once belonged to Louis XV.”

I looked at the buffet and saw that it was, indeed, worthy of the possession of a king. Furthermore, it was covered with a kingly array of food. That was rich, I thought, glancing at the canines of a young woman tilted back in laughter.

I was still searching the guests for Madame Villehardouin when Lady Dunaway appeared in the doorway I had forgotten about her. To my surprise she wore a low-cut black evening gown. It was the first time I had seen her broad white shoulders and long neck. Once again I marveled at how she carried her large and awkward frame with such an exotic beauty. Her black hair was done up atop her head and elegantly accented her broad face. The only flaw remained her glasses, ever present, and she wore long black gloves. The regretful smile had faded from her face. Now she was only watchful and distant.

At last Madame Villehardouin appeared and Grelot begrudgingly set a place for her.

And then he began to serve the food.

The table was set in a magnificent explosion of silver and crystal. Wine was poured. Platters were served. But not a morsel was eaten. Instead, they only sniffed it, luxuriating in the vapors like some fairy aristocracy congealed for a make-believe party in the material world. Forks lifted. Goblets clinked.

And what a feast it was. Roman-style suckling pig with pine nuts. Truffles and cognac-perfumed duck. Escargot à la Bourguignone, black breads, and cheeses. Consommé with marrow and puree of chestnuts with Bordelaise sauce.

I ate, but I was so luridly fascinated with the macabre spectacle going on around me I merely picked at the food. I was no longer cognizant of the secret communications going on between the vampire, but I did not doubt for a moment that they were there. I suspected each chink of silver. I looked for other meanings in every glance. I was enveloped with a feeling of utter loneliness and isolation. In my low spirits I became painfully aware of something else. In some ways I considered myself the oldest member at the table. My face had started to crease. My hair was graying. I looked at my hands. They were not old yet, but they were different from all the others around me. In them was the shadow of what they would become. Time had begun to sculpt.

I surveyed the crowd.

These were not old people. They were children, strange young children with sloe and scintillant eyes, toasting and inhaling life. Château Hautbrion flowed like blood. Oranges in Grand Marnier syrup passed before me. Pastries with buttercream mousseline. Rum mousse and candied violets.

Across the table I saw Lady Dunaway sitting silent. She nibbled listlessly on a sliver of duck. Her hand brushed against the locket around her neck. Every ounce of her attention was upon me. She was a very special woman. Even against the vampire she fared admirably, a creature of rare determination and voracious instincts. Perhaps she had been manipulated by des Esseintes. Perhaps I could understand, but the fact remained, we had come into this together. We had fought and worked together, and she had betrayed me. Our eyes met for one brief second. I could take it no longer. I stood and left the room.

In the foyer I heard footsteps. I looked up and saw Hatim standing on the balcony, his eyes trained on something in the shadows. There was a fascination in his gaze, much like the falcon’s when it spied a rat in the cellar. More footsteps, but not Hatim’s. He was stalking someone.

Whoever it was vanished before I saw him. The Persian boy followed. I made my way up the rosewood staircase. The falcon followed behind. I looked in the direction I had last seen the hunter and his quarry. At the end of the corridor I heard a woman gasp. It was an odd exhalation, ambiguous as to whether it had been caused by pleasure or fear.

By the time I reached the end of the hall they had already gone farther into the warren of ancient rooms. I heard someone stumble. The footsteps quickened. There was another slight cry. I scaled the second set of stairs two at a time, and this caused quite a bit of frenzy in my feathered foe. It obviously did not like me moving so frenetically. I reached the damp and mildewed hallway in time to hear the creaking of the steps leading to the turret room. There was another series of faint and rapid exclamations. Was it a playful panic? Was the woman in trouble? I reached the steps of the turret room.

The door clicked shut.

I lifted a foot to ascend the stair when I caught the brazen eye of the falcon. There was a thud, as of someone sitting or being thrown upon the filthy mattress.

For a few moments I was frozen, wondering who the woman was. What was happening? It was useless to feel the rage of helplessness. The ancient boards creaked. There was movement in the room. A gasp. Movement. With a shudder I recalled the wretched smell of the little chamber.

I heard a sound behind me.

I turned to see Madame Villehardouin standing in the shadows just a few feet away.

“Are you really in so much curiosity?” she asked.

“What is happening up there?”

A warm wind wafted through the house and fluttered the rotting curtains as she stepped forward. She appeared gilded in the flickering light of the ormolu candelabrum. Her pearls rustled languorously over her bodice. Her teeth shone white, as white as her necklace.

“Of what concern is it to you?”

I blushed. I had never been so discourteous in my life. A gentleman had no place doing and saying the things I found myself doing and saying. On the other hand, my every uncivil inquiry might prove vital to my survival. How preposterous my mannerly existence was in the face of the unknown.

A faint suspiration rose from the room.

“You have heard of the incubus?” she said. “The male spirit or devil who seduces women?” She tossed a glance at the door above. “Just because we are of such low blood pressure does not mean certain bodily functions do not work.”

“You mean Hatim’s... well, his more gentlemanly operations are intact?”

“How delicate!” she chortled. She spun impishly about, throwing her head back and closing her eyes in wicked amusement. “How vedy, vedy proper!” Her movement caused a tempest of dust to stir from the walls and swirl through the candlelight. It was a disarming juxtaposition, the vibrancy of her beauty against the deteriorating house.

“Accounts of the incubus invariably refer to their uncommonly low body temperature. Have you ever wondered why?
C’est la mer à boire. Chacun à sa marotte.
Go and witness for yourself!”

She stepped in front of the falcon as she nodded me on. I climbed the rotting stairs carefully. I peered through the crack in the door at the decrepit little room. It had not changed. It was still malodorous. The floor was worn black from endless pacing. My vision passed over the sparse furnishings, the table, the falconer’s glove. I could not see the mattress for the angle.

“The archives of the Parliament of Paris in 1616 recorded the testimony of a twenty-three-year-old woman who had been seduced by one of those wanderers of the night,” Madame Villehardouin called from below.

I leaned far over the railing until at last I saw the ticking of the mattress and the shadows rippling over Hatim’s naked torso. His breeches were loose and his brown and muscled loins moved rhythmically.

. she knew the devil once,’” the Oriental woman continued. Her breath was sibilant.

Beneath the Persian was a woman, her face severed by darkness. He moved a brown hand slowly up her rib cage, kneaded the large pink aureole of her white breast.

“‘... and his member was like that of a horse, cold as ice and ejected ice-cold semen.’”

A pearl of saliva dripped slowly to her neck as he moved with sinister precision.

“‘... and on his withdrawing it burned her as if it had been on fire.’”

I am ashamed to say I was frozen in my voyeurism. It was the same immobility I had felt at the eggshell window of my youth. Who was the woman, I thought? With terrifying grace he sunk his fangs into her jugular. She shot up, wracked by the draining kiss as she wound her arms around his dark shoulders and enveloped him in the tangle of her hair.

For a moment I thought the hair looked familiar. The hands. The image wavered in my mind. No, it couldn’t be.

“Ursula!” I cried.

Madame Villehardouin tried to stop me, but I burst into the room. Hatim dropped the woman and lurched back, blood frothing at his lips. His eyes were aflame with the same obsidian gleam of the falcon’s.

“Ursula!” I repeated, but it was then that I saw. It was not Ursula. It was Geneviève. Her eyes were red and glassy Only the faintest hint of awareness shot out of them, a furtive, half present modesty.

I quickly retreated.

Within moments, in the darkness, I heard Madame Villehardouin’s slippers padding in the rotted carpet. There was a hush of breath near me.

“Who is this Ursula?”

I turned and gazed into the petal eyes. They were darkly intent upon my answer.

“My daughter?’ I said simply.

She accepted the information, and something told me her cerebral machinery, a mind centuries old, was quickly mulling it over, processing it behind the sublime and probing eyes. “I see,” she said with a knowing edge to her reply. She looked at me with an odd mixture of distance and sympathy.

All of these things—her reception at the party, her searching eyes, her uncharacteristic hint of sympathy-convinced me my theory was correct. Madame Villehardouin, like Niccolo, had been changed to a vampire because of her phenomenal beauty. Even Hatim had been changed because of a talent, not because of genius. This was the dividing line. She was an outcast because she was not privy to their secret language. I had suffered just a fragment of the resulting alienation only minutes before in the gathering below. What sort of melancholy or spiritual devastation would such segregation cause over the centuries? To be alone from humanity, to be a vampire, was one thing. But then to be alone again. I began to understand the depth of Niccolo’s sadness and Hatim’s abandon to his instincts. She had not changed as the other vampire had. She had not shed the last vestige of her humanity. Therein lay a hope.

My eye traced over the bridge of her nose, her cheekbone. “May I venture to tell you how exquisitely beautiful you are,” I said. I had hoped the compliment might soften her, but it had exactly the opposite effect. Her pupils narrowed.

“I was a concubine of the Kublai Khan,” she said without feeling. “Just as he collected leopards and roe bucks and sent hordes of elephants over all his territories to bring back the most grand and immense trees for his gardens, so he collected beautiful women. We were rated in carats, like gold. Every feature had its measure, one carat for shape of face, another for sweetness of breath. He imported five hundred of them a year, from Ungut, in Tartary. For many years I was one of his more favored.” She ended abruptly. I wanted to ask her to continue, but I did not want to offend her. My heart was pounding. “May I inquire as to what happened next?”

She turned to me slowly, the gauze of her bodice whispered over her shoulders. I realized she came from an age and culture of even more rigid protocol than my own. There was a time when even the most trifling breach of social etiquette made in her presence might have resulted in a flogging. A trace of contempt passed through her expression as if she were considering putting an end to further questions, but then she looked at me with the same remote pity.