On a Darkling Plain (6 page)
You don’t know the half of it,
Elliott thought, remembering Mary’s severed head and mangled body. A pang of anguish wrang his heart, and his eyes stung with unshed tears.
“Many Kindred can’t handle the strain,” Potter droned on, oblivious to Elliott’s distress. “They go insane, like your prince, capitulating to the Beast and becoming sociopathic, or committing suicide. The pathology frequently manifests itself as they approach their thousandth year, and I understand that Prince Roger was born around the time of the First Crusade.”
The way Potter was talking, it sounded as if he’d already written off Roger. Lazio shot Elliott an imploring look.
The Toreador struggled to cast off the paralyzing pall of melancholy that had fallen over him. “I
do
know all that,” he said to Potter. “Your medical credentials notwithstanding, 1 daresay that at my age, I comprehend the vicissitudes of Kindred existence rather better than you. And 1 can assure you that if there was ever a man capable of transcending them, it’s Roger Phillips. I’ve never known an elder with so much humanitas, who adapted so readily to changes in the world around him, or who so rejoiced in each new night.” For a moment, as Elliott spoke, he felt a fierce surge of pride and affection for Roger, an emotion he hadn’t experienced for a long time. He had always been devoted to his sire, but he usually couldn’t
experience
the devotion except in an abstract and superficial way. His love for Roger lay buried, cold and inert, beneath his grief for Mary.
“Perhaps you’re right,” said Potter. “But on the other hand, perhaps the prince is a private person, who up to now has been hiding his growing depression. In which case—” Remembering the manner in which he’d portrayed Henry V, that indomitable, commanding warrior-king, Elliott gave Potter an intimidating stare. “I think,” he said, “that it would be best to proceed on the assumption that there
is
a physical cause for Roger’s malady. You will remain here until you discover the cause and bring about his full recovery. Needless to say, your success will be well rewarded, just as — and here I’m speaking purely hypothetically, of course — your premature departure would earn you the enmity of every Kindred in this domain.”
Potter tried to match Elliott stare for stare, but after a moment he was forced to lower his eyes. “Of course,” he mumbled. “With your permission, I’d better get back to my patient.”
Elliott gave him a regal nod. Potter turned and strode back down the corridor.
Lazio sighed. His shoulders slumped as the tension went out of his body. “I had the same feeling you did,” the dresser
off
l
ATARKUNG
,
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l
!
,
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said. “He wasn’t going to try to help Roger if he could get out of it.”
“Because he’s baffled,” said Elliott somberly. He felt the momentary passion that his clash of wills with Potter had engendered ebbing, and the accustomed deadness stealing back into his soul. “And it won’t do his reputation any good if he actually tries to cure Roger and fails.”
“If he doesn’t know what to do,” said Lazio, “maybe we should get somebody else.”
“There scarcely is anyone else,” Elliott replied. “And even if we could find another qualified doctor, the chances of him knowing any tricks that Potter doesn’t are remote. The problem is that, until very recently, nobody was even trying to use modern science to study vampire physiology. Now that they are, their efforts are hampered by the fact that the Kindred are supernatural entities, whose very existence violates natural law. The upshot is that even the most knowledgeable of us, like Potter, comprehends the disease process in vampires about as well as Galen understood the analogous phenomenon in his fellow humans.”
Lazio nodded, though Elliott could see that some of what he’d said had gone over the human’s head. But the aging valet understood the essential point: “You’re saying there isn’t any hope, aren’t you?”
“No,” said Elliott quickly, although that was precisely what he feared. “Potter has cured
some
Kindred. He saved Pierre Delacroix in Marseilles six years ago, when everyone else had given the old monster up for dead. And you know how resilient Roger is. He might shake off the madness all by himself. So promise me you won’t despair.”
Lazio nodded, encouraged either by Elliott’s arguments or by the unnatural force of personality which, the vampire now realized, he’d just exerted without even intending to. “I won’t,” the dresser said.
“Good man.” Elliott squeezed the mortal’s shoulder. “I’m going home. Call me if there are any developments.” He began to turn away.
“Wait!” Lazio cried. Elliott turned back around. “You can’t go! They need you downstairs!”
Like the residences of most monarchs, vampire or mortal, throughout history, Roger’s haven was more or less a public place, where affairs of state were conducted and some of his subjects could be found hanging about at any given hour of any night. At the moment Elliott could hear at least two dozen of them, babbling and pacing anxiously.
“Are the rest of the primogen here?” the actor asked. Lazio grimaced. “Yes.”
“Then you don’t need me,” Elliott said reasonably, striving to project the power of his charisma again.
But this time, for some reason, Lazio was scarcely affected. He gave his head a shake as if to clear it, then said, “We do! You haven’t listened to them. I have. They’re afraid, and they can’t agree on anything. But they’ll listen to you.” Elliott sighed. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” said the human, scowling stubbornly. “You’re the oldest, and the one Roger valued” — his mouth twisted —
“values
most.”
“Once,” said Elliott, “that may have been true, but I’m sure that if Roger were in his right mind he’d tell you that it isn’t anymore.”
“That’s bullshit!” Lazio said.
Elliott felt a flash of anger, a shameful, unaccustomed desire to strike the impudent, importunate human down. Instead, turning away, he said, “Watch this.”
Two paces farther down the hallway sat a small, round, cherrywood William Morris table and, atop it, a beautiful twelve-inch marble statue of a nude woman. Elliott recalled Roger telling him that the sculpture had been unearthed by archaeologists digging in Pompeii.
The gray-haired Toreador picked up the statue by its head, swung it into the air and slammed it down against the edge of the table. The blow splintered the wood and echoed down the corridor, but it didn’t break the stone figure. He had to smash it against its stand again before it shattered.
He set the base back down and then, dusting marble dust off his hands, turned back around. Lazio was goggling at him in horror. “Do you understand now?” the vampire asked, feeling vaguely ashamed. “No Toreador should be able to desecrate a beautiful work of art. But I can do it easily, because I’m broken inside. I can’t feel the things I used to feel, or care about the things I once cared about. Now do you understand why I’m unfit even to sit among the primogen?”
“No,” Lazio said. “You’re an actor, aren’t you? If you don’t feel confident and ready to lead, fake it! Snap the other Kindred out of their funk and get them organized. Don’t you think your wife would want you to?”
Elliott realized that she would indeed. He shrugged uncomfortably.
“Don’t you think you owe it to Roger to support him in his hour of need?” Lazio continued relentlessly. “Come to think of it, don’t you think you owe it to me? Or are you going to urge me to hang in here with the prince come hell or high water — using your damn powers on me too, I’ll bet
— and then run out on us yourself?”
Elliott held up his hand.
“Enough!"
he said, scowling. Then, to his surprise, the situation began to seem obscurely funny, and his frown quirked into a wry smile. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that the Kindred are savage, amoral predators, utterly incapable of guilt?”
“Are you going to help?” Lazio persisted.
“You can’t push me into standing in for Roger,” said Elliott. “I’m truly not up to the job. I’d make a botch of it. But I will meet with the others now and try to help them pull themselves together. Will that satisfy you?”
“It’ll do for a start,” Lazio said.
THREEiT
H E METHUSELAH
The chess-board is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what vie call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us.
— T. H. Huxley, “A Liberal Education”
Startled, Dan turned. Behind him, her form blurred by the darkness and his still-impaired vision, stood a pale, slender woman. Her white, gauzy gown and long black hair stirred in the sea breeze.
A kind of confused awe flowered inside him, supplanting the blood lust that had filled him only a moment before. Some instinct insisted that the newcomer was a ghost, or an angel, even though she was manifestly as solid as he was; a patina of sand clung to her dainty, naked feet, and she’d left a trail of tracks in her silent progress across the beach.
“Please stand away from her,” said the stranger, nodding at the motionless form of the vampire Dan had battered unconscious. “I need her more than you do, and I promise to provide you with something else to drink.”
Dan rose and stepped away from his erstwhile attacker. It was only when the stranger broke eye contact, knelt over the defeated Kindred and sank her own fangs into the
woman’s neck that the feeling of awe began to fade and he realized that he’d had a choice about whether to obey her command.
The newcomer, evidently another undead and a diabolist to boot, sucked her victim’s vitae for what seemed a long while. Meanwhile, torn between anxiety, annoyance and curiosity, his body throbbing as broken bones mended and shredded flesh repaired itself, Dan peered up and down the beach. He was concerned that someone might have heard the shots and called the police, but there was no sign that the cops were on their way. Perhaps, as was more and more frequently the case in these final, decadent years of the twentieth century, no one who had heard the commotion had cared enough that some poor soul might be in trouble to pick up a phone.
Finally the vampire in the white gown flowed to her feet. Licking herself as unselfconsciously as a cat, she ran her pale tongue over her lips, cleaning the residue of vitae off them. Dan realized that if he’d still been mortal he would have found the sight erotic.
Determined not to allow the newcomer to cow him again, he glowered at her. “It’s dangerous for one animal to try to steal another animal’s kill,” he said.
The newcomer smiled at him. “I see the intimidation has worn off already. Good. That, no less than your victory a minute ago, is a mark of strength. I’m called Melpomene, after the muse of tragedy.” She sighed. “A name of good or evil omen, depending on how you look at it.”
“I’m Dan Murdock,” he said.
“I know. I’ve been looking for you.”
He frowned, his emotions still an untidy jumble of interest and apprehension. “I guess it’s finally my night to be popular. What do
you
want with me?"
“Let’s talk as we stroll by the water. It’s been too long since I visited the sea.”
He looked down at Prince Roger’s unconscious flunky.
Blood was still oozing sluggishly from the twin punctures in her neck. “Is she dead?”
“No,” Melpomene replied.
“You didn’t lick the bite closed,” he observed. “Are you the murderer she was worried about?” He paused, groping in his memory for the details. “The one who killed the mortals at the aquarium?”
“No,” Melpomene said. “The humans have been safe from me for a long time.” She held out her white hand. “Come.”
Either because of her palpable charisma or his own loneliness, he wanted to take her hand, but caution held him back. Nodding at Prince Roger’s subject, he said, “This bitch never even saw you, did she? If she wakes up a quart low, she’ll blame me.”
“I know,” said Melpomene. “We want her to. Trust me, and everything will be all right.”
Dan
didn’t
trust her. Over the last thirty years, he’d learned the hard way not to trust anyone. But he yearned for her to prove herself a friend. And he didn’t care all
that
much if Prince Roger’s vassal crawled back to her master believing the worst of him. He hadn’t exactly been chummy with the other undead denizens of Sarasota as it was. If their ruler declared a Blood Hunt against him, he’d simply run away to some other town. The perpetually feuding lords of the Camarilla were unlikely to exert themselves unduly to help one of their peers track down a fugitive.
And so, gingerly, irrationally half-afraid that his touch would disgust her, Dan took Melpomene’s hand. Her grip was firm yet gentle, her skin cool, smooth and soft. The contact reminded him yet again of the days when he’d burned for the embrace of lovely women.
They strolled toward the susurrant surf. She took a deep breath, perhaps savoring the salty tang in the air. “Well?” Dan said.
Melpomene shook her head. “The impatience of youth.
But in this case, justified. My capacity for urgency dwindled away a long time ago. Now I have to revivify it.”
They reached the water’s edge. When the first sheet of cool white foam washed over her feet, Melpomene quivered as if a lover had caressed her. The two undead turned and headed south, away from the site of Dan’s battle.
As his vision finally sharpened into perfect focus, Dan said, “Okay, then get urgent. Tell me what you want with me.”
“Very well,” Melpomene said. For a moment, her eyes strayed to an elaborate sand castle, its turrets end crenellated battlements now crumbling in the incoming tide. “Do you know what a Methuselah is?”
“A very old vampire,” he said, “living in hiding or sleeping the centuries away. Or at least that’s what the legends say.” He peered at her skeptically. “Are you telling me that you are one?”
