The Darkening Dream (33 page)

Each had its appeal.

He raised his crimson-stained mouth from the body and surveyed the rooftops. His townhouse was only four buildings away, so it wouldn’t do to leave behind the broken empty husk. ‘Never eat where you sleep’ was an ancient tenant of vampire survival. He’d have to drag the corpse back to the crypt and let Fouad dispose of it.

He clutched the cooling body in his talons as he flapped from rooftop to rooftop until he alighted on his own, an exhausting but brief ordeal. He shifted back to human form, grabbed the cadaver by one ankle, and dragged it across the roof until he was above a window.

Fouad waited inside.

“Master, he’s been asking for you most urgently.” Al-Nasir had no need to ask who
he
was.

“I’ll speak to him in a moment. First, I’m going to lower a body down for you to pull inside.”

Al-Nasir crawled back up, gripped the dead boy’s hand, and pulled. Clinging to the brick, he adjusted himself so the body dangled in front of the window. Fouad grabbed the corpse by the belt, tugged it inside, and was wrapping it in a large sheet when the vampire entered.

“Master, may I dismember and feed him to my carrion bugs? I know the sawing is messy, but I’ve not so feasted since we left Morocco.”

“I suppose you could use the bathtub in the fourth bedroom,” the vampire said. “Just make sure the warlock doesn’t walk in on you. He might die of fright.”

Fouad’s chest shook with mirth. “Thank you, Master.” He threw the sheet-wrapped form over his shoulder and lumbered away. No blood dripped, one of the advantages of al-Nasir’s diet.

A faint bell tinkled from elsewhere in the apartment.

The vampire sighed and hurried to the study where he kept the encaustic painting. Fouad had hung it on the wall and covered it with black silk curtains. The vampire pulled these aside to reveal the heavy wax portrait.

It glared back at him.

“You made me wait long enough,” the portrait said.

The man in the painting had a negroid complexion, almost dark green, a bird-like nose, and soft, boyish brown eyes. His hair was dark and curly in the Hellenistic style. The beeswax and pigment mixture was slathered on three dried and ancient boards whose integrity had been much compromised by the years. Although nearly two millennia old, the artist’s thick strokes still retained their intense and lifelike color.

“I was hungry,” the vampire told the Painted Man. They spoke French mixed with bits of North African dialect. Although an Egyptian, the man disdained Arabic.

The painted mouth opened to speak. “The witch will—”

“Mr. Parris is a warlock,” the vampire said. “I’ve been waiting three days to tell you something important.”

The portrait steepled his greenish fingers. “On October eighteenth, at the close of the wretched one’s Sabbath, you made a kill in the manner I instructed?”

Even when fired high into the air, the old sorcerer’s arrows struck their target.

“As you requested, I selected a mortal at random and crucified him upside-down upon a tree.” The vampire neglected to mention he’d given the boy the dark gift. That had been his own personal nod to chaos.

“I knew it was so.”

Then why’d he ask? “Mortals assaulted my lair. At least three or four. One’s blood reeked of the archangel.”

The man in the painting quivered with excitement. Al-Nasir had the impression of a ram’s horn curling about the man’s left ear, and a stump where the right horn should have been.

“The feint has been answered,” the Painted Man said.

“No coincidence, I assume.”

The face grinned. “Coincidence is what mortals call the knots in Klotho’s weave they cannot comprehend.”

“The warlock located a dwelling that once contained the Horn. He’s a coward, but skilled. He believes the object is no longer in the material plane.”

“So I thought,” the painting said. “That insufferable mass of feathers has returned it to more angelic haunts.”

Things might’ve been easier if al-Nasir had been told that from the beginning. He pointed to the floor — Parris was confined two levels below.

“The warlock says we need a key to open the passage and enter this other place.”

“The passage is unlocked, the key has been found,” the man said.

“Which means?”

“All part of the Great Plan.” The image tapped the stump where his horn had been. “When I recover what that upstart archangel stole, he shall rue the very day of his creation.” The painted mouth cackled. “The witch will need to speak to you the night of November fourteenth.”

“I told you,” al-Nasir said, “he’s a warlock.”

“Don’t forget, November fourteenth. By then, he’ll know what to do and will require your services.”

“I’ll talk to him then.”

“But not on the fourteenth, on the sixteenth. Visit him on the sixteenth.”

Dealing with the old sorcerer’s prophecies required the patience of the dead.

“You must gain access to the Horn before November twenty-first,” the Painted Man said. “Otherwise, I’ll be forced to send the beetle. He’s now strong enough to cross the ocean. My vassal is most dogged.”

Al-Nasir harbored a fantasy of giving the beetle’s little jackal a swift kick. The last thing he wanted was sharing — or worse, yielding — his glory to Khepri.

“I never fail. Keep the bug away from me.”

“I’ll keep an eye on the situation.” The man in the portrait chuckled at his own joke. The chuckle soon became a giggle, and then a cackle.

“I’ll see what the warlock needs when it’s time.” Al-Nasir closed the curtain on the laughter. He knew the Painted Man’s fit would last for hours. Many centuries they had known each other, and he seemed to be getting worse. It was hard to tell.

Almost dawn, and Fouad was undoubtedly taking his glory with the carcass. Tomorrow night, he’d try a different tack. The
magi
Parris had fought must know something. Al-Nasir smiled. It was time to invite himself over.

Thirty-Seven:

Unexpected Visitor

Salem, Massachusetts, Thursday evening, November 13, 1913

P
APA’S STUDY GROUP WAS
near Boston, and he and Mama were staying the night with friends. This left Sarah home alone — which was fine by her — although, technically, Mary was there, but she rarely left her attic room in the evenings.

Sarah had in mind to use this time to practice what her father had taught her, so she changed into her special white prayer shirt and crept into his study. She was freezing, particularly her feet, and it felt quite naughty to walk around the house with no underwear.

She rifled through Papa’s books for anything that might help Emily and was about to give up when she found a false backing behind which he’d hidden several volumes. The most interesting was handwritten in medieval Spanish Hebrew, encoded in a cipher that required her to hold a hand mirror up to the pages so she had to read the text inverted.

It was worth the trouble. While the book was anonymous, she thought the author might be Rambam, the famous mystic from Córdoba — odd to think the vampire Nasir was from the same city and might even have known him.

She had no idea how long she’d been reading when she heard an odd thunking at the front door. When she rose, her legs were numb. Thoughts of protective circles constructed from concentric rings of the divine consciousness filled her head. Only when she opened the door to the freezing November night did she remember she was only wearing a thin shirt.

A small man stood on the sidewalk, twenty feet away. His face glowed like alabaster in the light of the streetlamp, but his dark-clad body was lost in the night.

“Good evening,” he said, his accent melodic, familiar yet not.

“May I help you?”

“Oh, I’m certain.” His nostrils flared. “You can be of great assistance.”

It was him.

The horn rang in her ears, slow and mournful. For a moment she lost herself in the dark pits that passed for eyes.

She took a step back. He couldn’t enter unless she let him.

“You’re Mr. Nasir?”

He smiled, teeth yellow white. “You have me at a disadvantage. It’s not every night I meet such a lovely young lady, particularly one clad like a slave girl.”

A frigid gust made her nipples stand hard against the thin material. When she didn’t give her name, he continued.

“You have something I need. We can come to an accommodation.”

“I doubt that.”

His nostrils flared again. “I can smell it from where I stand.”

The Strength of God sings in our blood. The horn sounds our sacrifice.
Did the smell of the Archangel Gabriel’s Horn linger in the house like last week’s liver and onions?

“I was once a man of honor.” He smiled again. “If you give it to me, I’ll let you and yours live.”

She noticed a number of small rocks scattered on the porch and remembered the odd sound that had drawn her to the door. She forced her face into a smile.

“If you want it so badly, why are you standing so far away?”

He took a step — then snarled and covered his face.

“I’ll take an invitation if you don’t mind,” he said.

Sarah was numbed by more than the chill. She hugged herself and used the sole of one foot to cover the toes of the other.

“When I was a boy,” the vampire said, “my father would pull me from the tent to name the constellations. I know the desert wind was cold on our faces but I can’t remember how it felt.”

“You’re from Córdoba?” she said.

“You know me?”

The blackness of his eyes bored into hers. Stupid. She’d overplayed her hand.

“I’m good with languages, your accent,” she said.

“I think not. No one remembers al-Andalus.”

When Alex had told her he was from medieval Moorish Spain, she’d found a book in the library called
Tales of the Alhambra
by Washington Irving. She quoted from memory:

“Behold for once a daydream realized; yet I can scarce credit my senses, or believe that I do indeed inhabit the palace of Boabdil, and look down from its balconies upon chivalric Granada.”

“You surprise.” He spread his arms wide. “While the kings of Europe accused your people of blood libel, I let your doctors treat my own sons.”

She had to remind herself to stay on the offensive. “Bread baked with the blood of children is more to your taste then mine.”

“Your eyes betray your curiosity. Ask anything of me.”

“All you know is death.”

“I’ve seen kingdoms rise and fall, yet I remain.” Part of her wanted to step forward and fall into his eyes. “Tales of forgotten days dance on my tongue.”

Her mind was drawn back to the book she’d been reading. “Did you know Moses Maimonides?”

He caressed his pointy little beard, not so differently from the way Papa stroked his.

“The mystic and I met several times in Fustat. He wished to study me, even gave me a urine flask so I could provide him with some of my blood. I didn’t oblige him, but I still have the flask.”

“You kept it?”

“You stood in the same room… when you slew Nabil. Last year he celebrated a centennial in my service, and you made worms of him.” A dark tear came to his eye.

Could this ancient creature feel grief? Could he love?

The horn’s long note droned on, reminding her of what was at stake.

“Why do you want…” She couldn’t bring herself to say
the Horn
.

“To right old wrongs.”

Her surge of anger surprised. “You’ll have to step over my dead body to get it.”

The gentlemanly expression melted. Now only nothingness stared back at her.
Invite me in
, his voice screamed from everywhere.

Sarah collapsed to her knees, holding her hands over her ears.

Invite me in!

But she didn’t. She slammed the door shut, then ran to the window and peered out from behind the edge of the curtain.

The black pits of his eyes found her anyway.

Eventually you’ll tire of hiding. And I’ll be waiting.

The dark shape took to the air and was gone.

Thirty-Eight:

Exorcism