Page 8
"They've promised to bring you over, haven't they?" I asked.
"Yes," she said. "They're honorable. That's more than I can say for my colleagues in American medicine." She turned to me, drawing close enough to kiss me quickly one more time on the cheek. I didn't stop her. Her fingers went up to my face and she touched my eyelids.
"Thank you," she said. "Thank you for these priceless moments. Oh, I know you didn't do this for me. You did it for them. But thank you."
I nodded and I smiled. I held her face in my hands as I kissed her now with a fervor that came from the Blood. I could feel her body warming, opening like a flower, but the moment was gone, and I took my leave.
Later, Fareed and Seth told me they meant to keep that promise. She wasn't the only crazy vampire-obsessed doctor or scientist they'd invited in. As a matter of fact, they went out of their way to recruit these poor "loonies" whom the world had ostracized. It was easier after all to invite into our miracle those whose human lives were already ruined.
Well before dawn, the three of us hunted together. Sunset Boulevard was a mob scene, as they say, and the Little Drink was everywhere to be had, and so were a couple of despicable rogues whom I fed on with cruel abandon in the backstreets.
I think the medical experiments had left me desperately thirsting. I was letting the blood fill my mouth and holding it like that for a long time before swallowing, before feeling that great wash of warmth through my limbs.
Seth was a ruthless killer. The ancient ones almost always are. I watched him drain a young male victim, watched the body shrivel as Seth drew quart after quart of the vital fluid. He held the dead boy's head against his chest. I knew he wanted to crush the skull, and then he did, tearing open the hairy wrapping around it and sucking the blood from the brain. Then he'd composed the corpse almost lovingly on piles of refuse in the alley, folding the arms across the chest, closing the eyes. He'd even reshaped the skull and smoothed the torn scalp over it, and stepped back from it as if he were a priest inspecting a sacrifice, murmuring something under his breath.
&nb
sp; Seth and I sat in the roof garden as the morning was coming. The birds had begun to sing, and I could feel the sun, smell the trees welcoming the sun, smell the jacaranda blossoms opening far below.
"But what will you do, my friend," I said, "if the twins come? If the twins don't want this grand experiment to continue?"
"I am as old as they are," Seth answered quietly. He raised his eyebrows. He looked elegant in the long white thawb with its neat collar, rather priestly in it in fact. "And I can protect Fareed from them."
He seemed completely sure of it.
"Long centuries ago," he said, "there were two warring camps, as the Queen told you. The twins and their friend Khayman, they were known as the First Brood, and they fought the cult of the Mother. But I was made by her to fight the First Brood, and I have more of her blood in me than they ever had. Queens Blood, that is what we were aptly called, and she brought me for one very important reason: I was her son, born to her when she was human."
A dark chill ran through me. For a long time I couldn't speak, couldn't think.
"Her son?" I finally whispered.
"I do not hate them," he said. "I never wanted even in those times to fight them, really. I was a healer. I did not ask for the Blood. Indeed I begged my mother to spare me, but you know what she was. You know how she would be obeyed. You know as well as anyone from those times knows those things. And she brought me into the Blood. And as I said, I do not fear those who fought against her. I am as strong as they are."
I remained in awe. I could see in him now a resemblance to her, see it in the symmetry of his features, the special curve of his lips. But I couldn't sense her in him at all.
"As a healer, I traveled the world in my human life," he said, responding to me, to my thoughts. His eyes were gentle. "I sought to learn all I could in the cities of the two rivers; I went far into the northern forests. I wanted to learn, to understand, to know, to bring back with me great healers to Egypt. My mother had no use for such things. She was convinced of her own divinity and blind to the miracles of the natural world."
How well I understood.
It was time for me to be taking my leave. How long he could withstand the coming dawn, I didn't know. But I was about spent, and it was time to seek shelter.
"I thank you for welcoming me here," I said.
"You come to us anytime that you wish," he said. He gave me his hand. I stared into his eyes, and I felt strongly again that I did see his resemblance to Akasha, though she had been far more delicate, far more conventionally beautiful. He had a fierce and cold light in his eyes.
He smiled.
"I wish I had something to give you," I said. "I wish I had something to offer you in return."
"Oh, but you gave us much."
"What? Those samples?" I scoffed. "I meant hospitality, warmth, something. I am passing through. I've been passing through for the longest time."
"You did give us both something else," he said. "Though you do not know it."
"What?"
"From your mind we learned that what you wrote of the Queen of the Damned was true. We had to know if you described truthfully what you saw when my mother died. You see, we could not entirely fathom it. It is not so easy to decapitate one so powerful. We are so strong. Surely you know this."
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8 (Reading here)
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156