Blood Canticle (27 page)

“When was the last time you saw any Taltos, living or dead?”

Shrug. “Maybe nine months ago? Every so often I think I hear the voices of Miravelle and Lorkyn. I woke up once and saw Miravelle walking out there on the beach with Rodrigo. Perhaps they were taken prisoner too for these ungodly men. Miravelle was sugar and spice—the idiot kind of Taltos, if you pardon my candor. When Miravelle plays tennis with you, she wants you to win! Notoriously stupid. It would have been easy to keep her. Lorkyn is cunning enough to hide her true spirit, and exceedingly beautiful. Red hair like Granny here. I know I’ve seen Lorkyn. But is she still alive now? Who knows?”

“Don’t call me that,” whispered Mona. She gave him a glacial smile. She seemed at a breaking point. “Oh, I know you mean it out of heartfelt respect, you’re such a thoughtful creature, so full of innate love for everyone, but I will settle for Gorgeous, or Beautiful, or Darling One, or Toots, or even Sweetheart. You call me Granny again and I may chain you up to that wall and leave you here.”

Another spontaneous laugh. “Very well, Toots,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were the boss of this little operation. I thought that position resided with the blond beauty here.”

“And where is the room of Mother and Father?” I went on.

“Penthouse suite,” he said. “Believe me, they were probably thrown into the sea a long time ago.”

“How many people do you think are left in the main building now? I’ve wiped out all the men in this wing of the building, and one woman.”

“Aren’t you the feisty one!” he sighed. “How should I know? I can make a guess. Rodrigo, his two bodyguards, maybe a goon or two to fetch, and maybe . . . maybe . . . Miravelle and Lorkyn. It’s a party in the first-floor bridal suite, that’s Rodrigo’s home away from home, one level above, dead center looking out to sea. Or so his mother told me.” He pointed to the dead mother. “I’d love to shoot one of the goons, assuming you haven’t taken care of all of them.”

“What about women? Does Rodrigo bring other women here? Are there likely to be some innocent guests up there?”

“Very unlikely,” he said, head to one side. “If there are guests, they’re dirty. This is a hideaway, a depot. Which has always given me the faint hope of seeing more of Miravelle or Lorkyn. You know, female Taltos are always, shall we say, feverish for fun? There’s inevitably a slight issue of blood, but it comes afterwards and can be dealt with privately. And the milk! Well, let me tell you, the milk’s delicious. Human beings can use them ad nauseam.”

“All right, wait here for us, don’t shoot anybody unless you have to and we’ll take you out of here, Mona and Quinn, come.”

“I have no intention of being left behind,” said Oberon. He checked the gun in his belt. “I’ll follow you. I told you I want to shoot a goon or two. Besides, if Lorkyn and Miravelle are here I want to see them. They’re my sisters, for the love of Heaven. You think I’m going to sit in this room and listen for bullets flying?”

“Don’t you know by their scent if they’re here?” asked Mona.

He gave another amazingly soft laugh. “The males give off the scent, Grandmother,” he retorted. “You should have studied up on the breed.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” she said bitterly, the tears spilling. “Rescue it and study up on it, Oberon, my darling dear! I’ve come a long way to find you, you blessed little sweetheart of a thing. What a joy it is that we’ve met. I warned you, you call me Granny or Grandmother one more time, and I may just knock you flat on your back.”

Rolling sarcastic laughter. “Okay, Toots,” he said. “No more slips of the tongue. And you are gorgeous.”

He stood up and stretched like a cat. Gave her a warped smile.

“Have any of you brilliant and crafty and conscientious Blood Thieves lifted a cell phone off your human victims? I want to call Rowan Mayfair.”

“I have my own,” said Quinn. “And I did lift a couple. But it’s too early to call. Let’s move.”

“Well, come on, you little sugar pot,” Oberon said, offering Mona his hand. “Let’s go kill Rodrigo so he can be with his mother. And then we’ll come back for Saint Juan Diego.”

“Why do you like him so much?” I asked.

“Who, Rodrigo?” he asked. Big raise of his eyebrows. “I detest the man, I assure you.”

“No, Saint Juan Diego,” I said.

“Oh.” Laugh. “I told you. I went to the Cathedral. Besides, when Lucia told me he’d been made a saint, I prayed to him for a miracle.” Suddenly his eyes got wide. “Good Lord!” he said.

“What is it?” I asked. “Something has come as a surprise to the Cynic for All Seasons?”

“Don’t you see?” He was flabbergasted. “Saint Juan Diego answered my prayer! You’re the miracle!”

26

R
ODRIGO WASN
’
T A SLOB
. The lobby was clean, not a scrap of paper on the desk or in it.

Nevertheless, the hotel had the air of a haunted place, having been robbed of its vitality and purpose.

Mammoth kitchen, machines grinding away, countertops clean except for fresh trays littered with fancy china, remnants of lobsters, glasses of milk, fish bones, etc.

No human presence.

“Don’t you see what that means?” Oberon said, staring at the plates. “That’s Taltos food, all white. They very well might be up there.” He was sloughing off his languor, growing even slightly excited.

I checked out the storage room, cases of powdered milk, some split open, powder on the floor, footprints, cans of condensed milk, empties in a pile.

“And explain that to me?” I asked.

He stared at it, shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. “Unless one of them comes down here in the night and guzzles. It’s a possibility. You starve a Taltos for milk, and it will go after it. But let’s get upstairs, my sisters are here! I know it.”

“Hold on,” said Mona, her eyes rimmed in red, her voice still quavering. “This doesn’t prove a thing.”

The big central stairway led to the mezzanine floor and into the spacious rooms of what had once been the library. Litter of laptops, bigger computer stations, walls of books, maps, world globes, televisions, huge windows open to the sea. Dust everywhere, or was it sand? The music from above was extremely loud. The place looked uninhabited and untouched.

“This was Heaven here,” said Oberon, “you can’t imagine the hours of pleasure I spent in these rooms. Saints Preserve Us, I detest that music. Maybe we should hit the breaker box to shut that off.”

“Bad idea,” said Quinn.

Oberon held his gun with both hands, and he had dropped his disdainful demeanor altogether. He was almost what one would call enthusiastic. But the music was attacking him like a horde of mosquitoes. He shuddered over and over again.

“First thing I’m going to shoot is that speaker system,” he said.

Again we took the carpeted stairs. Scanning for humans. I caught the scent of one.

The suite was dead center and wide open to the broad iron-railed porch that looked down on the lobby, the emperor himself seated in a huge gold satin–sheeted bed to the right, bleached wood headboard carved with mermaids, talking rapidly into a phone, costume sleek leather pants, purple satin shirt open to reveal a chest of oiled muscles, lustrous short black hair brushed back from a polished brown face with extraordinarily pretty eyes.

Thick beige carpet, scattered chairs, lamps. Doors open to other rooms.

He clicked off the phone as soon as we entered.

“Oberon, my son, I wasn’t expecting you,” he said, musical voice barely accented with Spanish, drawing up one knee, eyes moving over the rest of us as he smiled cordially, toenails manicured and buffed to a shine. Extremely amiable manner. “And who have we here? It must be party time. But let’s introduce ourselves first, shall we?”

He lifted a small black gadget and the inundation of purring dance music came to an end. The sound of the breeze was born again, sweeping through the great empty wall that fronted on the Caribbean.

“Oh, Rodrigo, I am ever so grateful to you for that,” sighed Oberon. “I was looking everywhere for the source of that infernally simpering music.”

“So that’s why we’re waving that gun around,” said Rodrigo agreeably. “And where’s my Mamma, didn’t you bring her up with you? I can’t raise anybody on this island. I’m humiliated. Please, my guests! Be seated! The bar is there—everything you could wish. Miravelle!” he shouted suddenly. “I have guests here! Where exactly did you come from? It’s once in a blue moon a boat ties up at my dock. But you’re most welcome. We are very private here, you understand, I can’t invite you to stay—”

“Don’t you worry at all about that,” I said, “we’ll soon be on our way. Just wanted to connect with Miravelle and Lorkyn.”

“Is that so?” he asked skeptically. “Miravelle!” he called out again in a short Latin bark.

This time with results.

She entered from the left, the genuine article without doubt, maybe six and a half feet tall, yellow hair, oval face, baby flesh like Oberon, simple black linen sleeveless dress, sandals, round blue eyes, and when she saw Oberon she screamed and ran into his arms. He had only time to shove the gun in his belt before he enfolded her.

He lost all reserve embracing her and running his lips all over her. He pushed her hair back and broke into sobs suddenly as he kissed her.

“That’s it, get back!” declared Rodrigo from the bed. He clapped his hands imperiously. “You hear me, both of you, I said get back! Oberon, did you hear what I said?”

But the two had fallen to kissing and speaking what seemed an alien language in high-pitched whistling words that none of us could understand, astonishing Quinn, though Mona seemed not one bit surprised by it. It was a spectacle.

Rodrigo was off the bed in an instant. He had the cell phone unfolded and was barking orders in Spanish. Then shaking the phone.

“They’re all dead,” I said. “I killed them all.”

“What are you talking about?” he said, the graciousness gone, his face the picture of rage. He drew his gun out of his belt and leveled it at me. “You’re being rude to me in my own room,” he said, “which I won’t tolerate.”

I sent the power to push the gun out of his hand and far to the right wall. It hit the sheetrock and fell to the floor. His eyes grew large, but he wasn’t humbled by this display of strength. He glared at me, trying to make sense of what he’d just seen, then scoping Mona and Quinn.

Meanwhile the two Taltos had settled down somewhat and were watching him. Mona came up beside them. Quinn was beside me.

I scanned the hotel. There was another being walking on the floor above, but I didn’t know whether it was Taltos or human.

“All right, what do you want from me?” Rodrigo said. “You want money, what? You killed all my men, you did that? For what reason? You want this island, it doesn’t belong to me, take it. I was leaving tonight anyway. I don’t care what you do. Miravelle, get away from him!”

He was suddenly distracted by a roar and a particular sound which I knew and couldn’t place until he named it:

“The copter! They’re taking off without me!” He ran to the open balcony. “Stop them, damn them.” He want into a Spanish aria of denunciations and execrations.

I sent the scan. Two human beings. Male. What good was it to us or the future of this place to have them escape? I held tight to the iron railing of the balcony and I sent the Fire.

I didn’t know if the power was viable over such a distance, but no one would know if I failed. My body was rigid with the attempt, the knot inside me burning with all the energy I could feed it, and suddenly the Fire hit the copter with a force that knocked it to one side. I gave every particle of consciousness in me to the heat.
The Fire.
The copter went up in flames. Then it exploded.

It was plenty far away from us, but everyone in the room cringed from the blast. It lit up the island.

Rodrigo was speechless.

I hung on to the rail, dizzy, sweating all over, and then I backed away, glaring at the spectacle of the huge machine coming down lopsided to the runway. It was slowly incinerated. I was sickened again, to think that I could do that, to think that I had done it. And the feeling of emptiness, of meaninglessness took hold of me. I believed in nothing. I was good for nothing. I ought to die. All that seemed fixed in my mind. I couldn’t move or speak.

Quinn took over; I could hear his crisp voice right beside me.

“Well, old man,” he said to Rodrigo, “it’s no longer leaving without you. Any more favors you want from us? And now tell me: What did you do with the pair in the penthouse suite, the ones that Miravelle and Oberon call Mother and Father?”

Rodrigo turned slowly and looked at me, eyes narrow and vicious, and his mouth twisted with anger. He picked up his little cell phone again, and let loose a barrage of Spanish into it with only one recognizable word: Lorkyn.

Steps overhead.

“Hmmm. So she’s alive too,” said Oberon, from behind him.

A light singing voice came from Miravelle:

“Oh, please, please, if you’re here to save us, let us go up to Mother and Father’s room. Let us see them. Rodrigo promised they are there, they are on ice, let us go! They are safe and sound on ice. Please, Oberon, please! Before Lorkyn comes.”

“You imbecile,” said Rodrigo, his eyes fixed on me, then darting to Mona and Quinn, trying vainly to comprehend what we were, how to play this. He had no gun, but there was a knife in his boot, and he was desperate for the appearance of Lorkyn.

And Lorkyn satisfied everyone on that score immediately.

We could hear her striding down the steps from the floor above. We could hear her tread on the balcony, and then she appeared in the open doors to the suite.

I heard Oberon’s deep despairing sigh before I made sense of what I saw, and Mona let out a bitter laugh.

The creature was the predictable six and a half feet tall, with the predictable baby flesh face and naked arms and legs, but her face was round, not oval, and she had almond-shaped green eyes, extraordinarily pretty, with lashes so thick you’d think they were fake but they weren’t, and a kitten nose, and a sweet mouth, very pink, and a small firm chin. She had Mona’s red hair, brushed back from her shining forehead and apparently clipped on the top of her head, because it appeared to be spilling down behind her.

She wore a leather sleeveless shirt, low-slung belt, miniskirt and high-heel boots, laced up the back.

The shocker? She was armed, not just with a gun in a holster over her shoulder, but with an AK-47 slung over her shoulder as well.

She sized up the situation in an instant. But for insurance Rodrigo let loose with another aria of Spanish in which he told her to kill us all, including Oberon, but to spare Miravelle.

“You move for that gun, precious,” I said, “and I’ll burn you to a cinder where you stand.”

Oberon was transformed with rage.

“You filthy trash!” Oberon declared. “You murderous little traitor to the Secret People!” He began to shake all over, the tears spilling from his eyes. “You’re in with them and you let me rot in that room below! You treacherous beast!” He drew out his gun and aimed it right at her.

Mona snatched it out of his hand.

“Honey darling,” she said, shivering all over, “she’s a specimen now. Rowan Mayfair can decide what to do with her.”

“Rowan Mayfair?” asked Lorkyn in a soft ironic voice. “Rowan Mayfair has found this island?”

“Shoot them!” Rodrigo cracked out in English.

Lorkyn didn’t move. “And Rowan Mayfair sends Blood Hunters to take us away from here?” Her voice had a sweetness to it that was entirely physical and had little to do with her intentions. Her facial features were mobile, expressive of emotion. But she dropped her voice to a whisper. “No wonder Father fell in love with this woman. What amazing resources she commands.”

“Oh, he never did, he loved Mother!” cried Miravelle. “Please don’t say all those old hateful things! We have Oberon free again. We’re together! Rodrigo, you have to let us stay together.”

“Shoot them!” screamed Rodrigo. He cursed Lorkyn a thousand times over in Spanish.

“Why not kill this one now?” Quinn asked pointing to Rodrigo.

“Lorkyn, where are the Mother and the Father?” I asked. “Do you know?”

“Safe on ice,” she said.

“And where precisely would that be?” Mona asked with exhausted exasperation.

“I won’t speak to anyone but Rowan Mayfair,” said Lorkyn.

“Let me see them, please!” cried Miravelle. “Oberon, make her unlock the penthouse.”

“Rodrigo, I don’t think there’s any reason now to keep you alive,” I said.

“Let me shoot him,” said Oberon.

“No,” I said, “you’d take the gun and shoot Lorkyn.”

Rodrigo went mad after a fashion. He tried to jump from the front balcony. I turned his head around on his neck, killing him instantly. I dropped him down to the tiles below. He lay there in a splat of blood.

I turned around in time to see Lorkyn shoved back against the wall, her arms out in the form of a crucifix. She’d reached for the gun in her holster and Quinn had done this by pure force. Lorkyn was staring at him. Her calm was impressive.

Mona was studying her as if trying in vain to understand her.

Oberon was glaring at Lorkyn, and bitterly weeping. Miravelle clung to him.

“You were in with them all the time,” Oberon said despairingly. “What were you, the brains behind Rodrigo’s glory? You with all your intellect and cunning? You could have reached help! You could have gotten us off this island! Damn you for what you did! Why did you do it?”

Lorkyn of the kitten face didn’t answer. Her face never lost its softness, its expression of receptivity.

I went to her and gently removed her automatic weapon and broke it into pieces. I took the gun and threw it way out over the patio into the sea. She had a knife in her boot. Beautiful knife. I took it and put it in my own boot.

She said nothing to me, her exquisite eyes watching me as patiently as if I was reading her a poem.

I scanned but it got me nowhere.

“Take us to the Mother and the Father,” I said.

“I’ll reveal them to Rowan Mayfair and no one else,” said Lorkyn.

“They’re in the penthouse on ice!” said Miravelle. “Rodrigo always said. On ice. Let’s go. I can lead the way. Rodrigo said that when he came into the penthouse, Father said ‘Don’t kill us, we can’t do you any harm, keep us on ice and you can sell us to Rowan Mayfair and Mayfair Medical for millions of dollars.’ ”

“Oh, please,” said Oberon through his tears, “Miravelle, darling dear, for once don’t be a perfect idiot! They can’t be in the penthouse on ice. I know where they are. I know where they have to be. If you can keep Lorkyn in custody, I know precisely where to go.”

We moved as quickly as we could. Quinn had Lorkyn firmly by the arm. Oberon led the way. Down the stairs and down the stairs.