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I went out of his house, and only as far as the church. I was so overcome with the desire for him, to bring him over to me, and visit upon him all the dark secrets of the Blood, that I could scarce catch my breath or see the street before me, or even feel the air in my lungs.

I wanted him. I wanted his talent. I dreamt dreams of the two of us¡ªSandro and me¡ªtogether in a great palazzo, and from there would come paintings tinged with the magic of the Blood. It would be a confirmation of the Blood.

After all, 1 thought, he is ruining his own talent, is he not, by turning to what is dark? How can one account for it that he would turn from his goddesses to a poem called the Inferno. Can I not turn him back to his celestial visions with the Blood?

But none of this must happen. I knew it even before I'd seen his cruel crucifixion. I had known it before I went into his house.

I must find a victim now; I must find many. And so I hunted cruelly, until I could take no more blood from the few doomed souls I found in the streets of Florence.

At last an hour or so before dawn, I found myself sitting against a church door in a small piazza, looking like a beggar perhaps if beggars fit themselves out with crimson cloaks.

Those two young vampires whom I had heard following me came with fearful steps towards me.

I was weary and impatient.

"Get away from me," I said. "I'll destroy you both if you don't. "

A young male, a young female, each taken in youth and both trembling, they would not retreat. At last the male spoke for them, his courage tremulous but real.

"Don't you harm Botticelli!" he declared. "Don't you hurt him! Take the dregs, yes, you're welcome, but not Botticelli, never Botticelli. "

Sadly I laughed. My head fell back and very softly I laughed and laughed.

"I won't do it," I said. "I love him as much as you do. Now get away from me. Or believe me, there will be no more nights for either one of you. GO. "

Returning to the vault in the mountains, I wept for Botticelli.

I closed my eyes, and I entered the garden where Flora dropped her tender roses to the carpet of grass and flowers. I reached out to touch the hair of one of the young Graces.

"Pandora," I whispered. "Pandora, it's our garden. They were all beautiful like you. "

Chapter 17

17

IN THE WEEKS that followed, I filled the shrine in the Alps with many new riches. I bought new golden lamps, and censers. I bought fine carpets from the markets in Venice, and golden silks from China as well. From the seamstresses of Florence I commissioned new garments for my Immortal Parents, and then carefully dressed them, relieving them of rags which should have been burnt long ago.

All the while I spoke to them in a consoling voice of the miracles I had seen in the changing world.

I laid before them fine printed books as I explained the ingenious invention of the printing press. And I hung over the doors to the shrine a new Flemish tapestry, also bought in Florence which I described to them in detail, so they might choose to look with their seemingly blind eyes.

Then I went to the city of Florence and gathering up all the pigment and oil and other materials which my servant had procured for me, I brought it to the mountain shrine, and I proceeded to paint the walls in the new style.

I did not seek now to imitate Botticelli. But I did return to the old motif of the garden which I had so loved centuries ago, and I soon found myself rendering my Venus, my Graces, my Flora, and infusing into the work all the details of life which only a blood drinker can behold.

Where Botticelli had painted the dark grass rich with varied flowers,

I revealed the small insectile creatures inevitably concealed there, and then the most flamboyant and beautiful of creatures, the butterflies and the varicolored moths. Indeed my style ran to frightening detail in every respect, and soon an intoxicating and magic forest surrounded the Mother and Father, the egg tempera lending a gleam to the whole which I had never achieved in the past.

When I studied it, I became ever so slightly dizzy, thinking of Botticelli's garden, indeed, thinking even of the garden I had dreamt of in old Rome, of the garden I had painted¡ªand soon I had to shake myself and collect myself because I did not know where I was.

The Royal Parents seemed more solid and remote than ever. All trace of the Great Burning was now gone from them in that their skin was purely white.

It had been so long since they had moved that I began to wonder if I had dreamt those things which had happened¡ªif I had imagined the sacrifice of Eudoxia¡ªbut now my mind was very much intent upon escaping the shrine for long periods of time.

My last gift to the Divine Parents¡ªafter all my painting was done, and Akasha and Enkil were decked out with all new jewels¡ªwas a long bank of one hundred beeswax candles which I lighted for them all at once with the power of my mind.

Of course I saw no change in the eyes of the King and Queen. Nevertheless, it gave me great pleasure to offer this to them; and I spent my last hours with them, letting the candles burn down as I told them in a soft voice of all the wonders of the cities of Florence and Venice which I had come to love.