Blood Rites (19 page)

“There’s blood on your face,” Dick said in a casual tone when Stephen joined them.

Stephen wiped the streak away. “I think we can stop worrying about the man I sensed, yes? Let’s start down. I’ll lead.”

On the way home, Stephen sprang three traps on the public land and destroyed two more on his own property. Dick guessed the trapper would be furious. He disliked the damage to some man’s livelihood but could hardly disapprove. One of these traps wouldn’t do any permanent harm to an Austra body but it would probably hurt like hell.

“And snap a toddler’s neck, Richard. I’ve had to destroy traps before. This time I will make certain the trapper moves on.”

Dick had intended the short trip to be a test of Alan’s endurance. He and Stephen planned a four-day hike and wanted to take the boy. Though Alan had managed the hike well, by the next morning he had a cough and trouble catching his breath. The bronchitis that had plagued him when he’d been a baby had returned. He lay on the couch, wrapped in his sleeping bag, sipping peppermint tea sweetened with honey, melting every time Hillary brushed his forehead.

The girl finally sat on the floor in front of him, her back against the couch, and began reading to him, a strange wonderful story about fur-footed hobbits and magic rings.

Stephen quietly drew Dick’s attention to how Alan’s hand rested close enough to the girl’s back to be covered by her hair. —In ten years he’ll be irresistible, yes?— he commented privately.

Stephen sensed only sadness where there should have been pride.

—While we’re gone, we’ll have that talk— Dick responded when he noticed Stephen’s questioning look.

III

Richard’s boots crunched on the frozen ground. Stephen’s bare feet padded silent as an arctic fox as they wove their way to the highest point of the pass and looked down at the valley spread below them. A river ran quick, cold, and grey through it and on either side of it traces of green defied September’s first dusting of snow. The valley stretched ten miles long, eight wide. The rise on which they stood faced south.

No sound should mar the peace of this sight, so Stephen spoke mentally to his friend, —You are looking at the future home of AustraGlass.—

—And its last?—

—Perhaps its last.—

Sure yet not sure. Dick leaned against a boulder and asked, “Does anything really frighten you?”

“Some things. More now than in the past. War, of course, frightens us as much as it does any human. And I fear guns accurate beyond the range of my mind and automatic weapons that can fire faster than I am able to move. But the real danger is exposure and it is becoming increasingly hard to hide. We anticipate as many of these problems as we can. We form plans to deal with them. This is survival. Then we forget about them. This is survival too.”

“And if the war you’re preparing for actually comes, everything will fall apart. The governments and their weapons will be gone. You’ll be safe again.”

Stephen laughed. “I’m sorry, Richard, but you have no way of knowing how many times I’ve been accused of waiting for the end. But I don’t.” He spread his arms, embracing the trees, the air, the sky. “If I would have to wait a century to sit under these stars again, then the price for security is far too high.” He pointed at a great bull elk foraging near the water, then looked sideways at Dick. —Of course we camp here, Richard. Where else?—

Then Stephen was gone, running innocent, careless as the creatures he hunted through the pine-scented autumn air.

Richard dined on venison that night, then sat wrapped in his down bag looking up at the crystal stars, wondering where he would find the strength to start the discussion he had promised.

Stephen sat beside him, dressed only in loose knit pants. He had no need of warmth or fire, and Dick suspected, he only wore the pants out of deference to Dick’s modesty. His long-limbed body looked less human when exposed and all the hollows in his triangular face were accented by the sharp shadows of darkness against the fire. His eyes seemed larger than usual, as if they were altered by the night. These changes always seemed to come during their times in the wilderness. Dick wondered if they were deliberate or just a sign that Stephen relaxed up here, lowered his facade. Dick had hoped their differences would make this discussion easier, instead they made it harder. He didn’t know how to begin. If he hadn’t promised, he wouldn’t have spoken at all.

“This week up here is the only time I really see the stars all year,” he said, looking at them, then the fire, anywhere but Stephen’s face. “I sit under them and empty all the garbage out of my mind and for a little while I know exactly who I am. I don’t think there’s peace like this anywhere else on earth.”

“Then I am glad you came, Richard. You need this time now, yes?”

Stephen gripped his arm and Dick stared into his friend’s dark eyes. “You told me you wouldn’t pry,” he said, as angry as he was amazed.

“I never did. I knew the truth as soon as you arrived. I’ve seen the look of death in too many people not to recognize it in a friend.”

“Then you probably know I didn’t want to come here. Hell, I wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for Carrera.”

“And for Alan, yes?”

Dick nodded. “I had to bring him here. He and Helen were always so close.”

“How long does the doctor give you, Richard?”

“Six months to a year. The X rays showed growths in both lungs and the doctor thinks it’s spread beyond that.”

“I had no idea that what I sensed would be . . .”

“So soon? Surprised?”

Stephen didn’t answer. Instead he asked, “Will this trip be too difficult for you?”

“I’ll be OK if we take it easy. It’s funny, but since I flew up here, I feel better than I have in months so I guess I won’t die on you.” Dick paused, then, to fill the silence, asked, “You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

More than self-pity prompted the question. “No, Richard, I would not.”

“Why not? You feed on emotions as well as blood, don’t you? You already said death is at the top of your list.”

“Not of my friends.” Stephen’s voice seemed apologetic as he added, “Please, Richard, I didn’t force you to tell me this.”

Dick looked directly at Stephen, watching his friend’s face as he said the worst. “Listen. I didn’t want to come here and share the pain but in the last few days I’ve been hiding more than that. I envy you all the centuries you have coming. Maybe you’ll walk on the moon or travel to some star so distant I can’t even see it tonight. And if I ever hold a grandchild I’ll consider it a miracle. I wish I could make the feeling go away. But all I can do is apologize and hope you understand.”

“You use the word envy, Richard. It’s a noble emotion when compared to hate. Do you think that how I must live forces me to hide? No, Richard, my need for blood is a little thing beside my immortality. So many times I have wished that I could share my life with those I love or spread it through the world like some miraculous plague. So, if you ask for my understanding, you have it, my forgiveness, yes. But my pity for your pain, never. I am too old to feel it anymore.“

“I don’t care about your pity.”

“Then why were you so afraid to tell me this?”

“Because until I confessed it to someone, it didn’t seem real. Now you know. Now I have to face it.” He lowered his head, looking at the fire as he added, “Hell, have you ever known me to be anything but direct? Now look what death has done for me, it has me slinking around.”

“You haven’t even told Judy, have you?”

“I intended to, right after our anniversary. Then something more pressing intervened and, you know, I was actually thankful. I could put it off. Corey guessed some of it but, congratulations, you’re the first to hear it all.”

“Can the doctors help you, Richard?”

“They want to do an exploratory before starting me on radiation. I told them to forget about any of it.”

“You don’t intend to fight.”

“What in the hell for? All I’ll get is damn sick and a few more months to be a burden on everybody. Funny how I always figured if I was going to die young, I’d die quick. That’s what my job is for.”

“Then why didn’t you stay home and let Carrera kill you?”

“And have that bastard think he won?”

“Now a death sentence from a doctor will win instead.”

“Who the hell are you to give me a pep talk for this match?” Dick retorted.

“Someone who has seen men die because they believed they were going to die, wasting away from the curse of a wizard or a voodoo priest.”

“Modern medicine is not exactly voodoo,” Dick replied with a quick, sad smile.

“Modern medicine is still discovering secrets healers knew two thousand years ago.” Stephen paused, waiting to sense the seed of hope in his friend before adding, “You should have gone east with Judy. Elizabeth remembers lost arts. Perhaps she can help you.”

“I don’t think . . .”

“Promise me that when this is over you will talk to her.”

Dick started to protest, then abruptly agreed. Though he fought against hope, Stephen knew he wanted to believe—wanted it enough that Stephen’s plan might work. If it failed, well, Richard would only hate him a little while.

I

Patrick’s mind went traveling as it often did when the others were asleep or unaware. Sometimes he would merge with his parents while they hunted or wrestled together on the bed. He especially liked the emotion in the latter, the exertion and satisfaction. But if his parents sensed him watching, Patrick would be ordered out with a painful mental slap. Often they were too preoccupied to sense his presence so Patrick risked the discipline.

He liked Dick Wells’s mind too. Dick had a habit the toddler had seen in no one else—he talked to himself inside. He did it all the time but most often when he was angry. Then he’d think words he never said out loud, words Patrick had never heard before. He used some of them only once, when Alan had taken a toy he refused to share and given it to Dickey. Everyone reacted differently. Alan’s face had gotten red. His mother seemed shocked, Dickey confused, and his father laughed longer than he’d ever seen him laugh before. “These are words you may think but not share,” his father had explained to him, looking at Dick as he did.

So these were private words. Patrick found this so interesting he would sit for hours, stringing and restringing them in his mind, creating incredibly musical combinations of profanity he could scarcely understand.

But he loved studying Hillary best of all. She had beautiful comforting hands, warm strong arms, and a voice almost as pretty as his mother’s. Though he didn’t comprehend the meaning of many words, he sensed a great deal through others’ minds and he knew he had to remain small and weak if he wanted Hillary to stay and care for him. He had tried but in this his body betrayed him and after they went home for the next family sharing, she would leave him and go away to a special school in a place called London.

He knew she was sorry she had to leave but she would go anyway. He wondered if he could go with her with his mind. Since he had no concept of distance or limits, he worked at mental traveling in every quiet moment, trying to extend his range far enough to follow her when she left.

Which is how he came to be awake and studying the ridge on Tuesday morning while the rest of the house slept. He saw a man wearing a dark shirt and pants and carrying a rifle climb onto it. He tried to focus on the man’s mind but every thought was nonsense to him.

Patrick wondered if the man was alone. His attention diverted to a sound in the distance and he followed it to a truck parked on the black road and a man working on its engine. Patrick watched the man until he stopped and got into a car parked behind the truck and poured himself a cup of some hot liquid from a red bottle on the seat.

It all seemed so interesting. Patrick wanted to stay and study both men more but he felt Hillary’s hand stroking his back and, with a purr of contentment, returned to his body, rolled over, and smiled. She’d touched him first. She loved him best of all.

Later that morning, Alan told Hillary that he felt well enough to watch Patrick and Dickey while Helen drove into town for groceries and Hillary cleaned house. Since Alan had made the first bracelet for Dickey, Patrick had been competing with his brother. They’d each managed to get an extra bracelet in the same colors as before but today Patrick decided to move into the physical shades. He studied Dickey, watching how he stood, locked his hips, and stepped forward, then imitated him exactly. Patrick managed to take four small steps before his hips loosened and his knees buckled and he deliberately fell onto his brother. As had become his custom, he pointed to his wrist. Alan rushed to the basket to obey.

When the bracelet had been tied to his wrist, Patrick waved his arm in front of Dickey, conveying images of his father running and how fast he’d one day go. Then he showed his brother how Hillary loved him best of all. Dickey pouted, ready to start what Hillary called the “dry-eyed wail.”

Alan picked up one of the blocks, noted the letter, and held it behind his back. Alan touched his forehead, a sign that Dickey should use his mind and asked, “What letter is it, Dickey?”

Dickey could “see” the letter in one of three ways. He could read Alan’s mind. He could move out of his body and look behind Alan’s back. Or he could return to the moment when Alan picked up the block and put it behind his back and recall the letter. Any of these would require more mental effort than he had managed before.

Patrick sensed a buzzing in his head and knew that Dickey was trying the really hard way first. Dickey might even get two bracelets for this! Patrick felt Alan concentrating on the letter, giving Dickey as much help as he could. He saw Dickey press his lips together and he seemed about to speak when Patrick said, “D.”

Dickey screeched with anger and jumped on him. As they fought, Alan sighed, picked up the magazines that had scattered when the twins started their fight, and rearranged them on the coffee table with the Austra reports his father had been reading on the top of the stack.

Hillary stopped washing the dishes and laughed at the pair, then asked Alan to bring his glass to the kitchen. As he started toward her, a bullet shattered a rear window and imbedded in the floor near the place he’d been sitting.