The Darkening Dream (50 page)

“What was in the wine?”

“The dark gift,” he said, “the blood of my long dead lover, my wife, my mother, my Isis — Isabella’s life, her soul.”

If another were to share my blood, I might find my way back.

He smiled and his canines, already sharp, lengthened.

His wife hadn’t just been killed and risen a vampire, she’d made him one herself.

Gently, he pulled Sarah’s head to the side, leaned in, and nipped her neck. The pain was brief.

Sixty-Six:

Dogs

Salem, Massachusetts, Friday evening, November 21, 1913

L
YING IN BED IN
his scratchy underclothes, Alex relived each fleeting moment in Sarah’s bed. It had taken every bit of his strength to leave her at her house, but he understood she needed to talk to her father.

He didn’t know if he could contain himself until she arrived. As he lay there, hard and excited, he rolled on his side and imagined that she was facing him without—

“Alex, are you home?” Her voice drifted up from below.

He sprang up and began to dress.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” he yelled down, doubting she’d hear. For some reason, the stairwell conveyed sound upward better than down.

After donning the minimum acceptable clothing, he pounded down the two flights of stairs. She must be talking to Grandfather, because the library light was on and he heard murmurs from inside.

He entered — and froze.

She hung limp in Grandfather’s arms. Blood streaked her neck. His eyes glowed ruby red.

No.
No!

He collapsed to his knees. Pain hit Alex’s temples like a tamping iron hammering his skull. His brain seemed to explode as forgotten fragments surfaced.

He remembered the high-pitched yipping of dogs. He was a little boy watching his black-haired grandfather storm out of their cottage, sword in hand. Beyond, he saw a creature of nightmare: a man with the head of a beetle clutching a ball of fire. He saw Dimitri drag Grandfather back inside, his teeth now long bright fangs.

The stark horror of it stared him in the face.

Grandfather was a vampire. He knew so much about the undead because no life beat in his own chest.

Alex tried to rise but enormous arms clasped him from behind, dragged him from the room, away from her.

Alex struggled in Dmitri’s iron grip, but it was useless. The hairy giant might have thought the blows rained on his head the buzzing of flies. He carried Alex downstairs and hurled him into the wine cellar.

The heavy oak door slammed shut before he could get to his feet. He heard the bolt slide home. His head hurt so bad he could barely think.

Dmitri was Grandfather’s thrall. How could he have been so blind?

Because his grandfather, his grandfather the vampire, had glamoured the memories out of him, that’s why. But they came now, and they hurt like hell.

The cottage on Mount Athos. His parents had lived there too. When Dmitri dragged Grandfather back inside, flaming arrows protruding from his chest, Father helped him to the bed and Mama wiped his brow. But the wounds were too great, the beast within too strong. The wolf surfaced, bringing with him blood and death. Dmitri tried to stop the animal, but it was too strong, feasting on the blood of its kin to save its wretched unlife.

His parents.

Perhaps the old monster hadn’t meant to, but Grandfather had killed his parents, then killed Alex’s every memory of them. His whole life had been a lie.

Except Sarah. Jesus, no.

As it had on the stairs in the Temple, rage swelled at the back of his head, driving out the pain, clearing his mind. Rage at the betrayal, rage for his parents, rage at what was being done to Sarah.

Maybe it wasn’t too late. Sarah had been bitten but she was still alive. It took death to create the undead.

Alex slammed his shoulder against the unyielding door until it ached. He pulled a bottle of wine from a stone niche and smashed it against the planks. Red juice splashed across the oak and drooled down like blood.

He sat on the cold stone floor with his head in his hands and cried. Broken glass cut his palms and the room stank of sour grapes. He had no notion of how much time had passed when he noticed the ladder lurking in the shadows.

Its sides were wood, but the rungs were not. He hurled it to the floor and stomped and twisted the brittle parts until he pried free an iron bar.

Then he went to work on the door.

Sixty-Seven:

Sacrifices

Salem, Massachusetts, Friday night, November 21, 1913

S
ARAH WOKE SHIVERING.
The sky was still orange, and she lay in the snow. At her feet, Constantine tugged off her stockings. He’d already removed her boots, skirts, and petticoats. They lay heaped on the dirty white ground. A huge tree stood near, bare of any leaves.

She struggled to move, but her limbs remained frozen.

“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” he said. He finished removing her undergarments, and she felt the searing chill of snow on her bare bottom.

How had she spoken with him, shared
Shabbos
dinner with him, and never known he was a vampire? She felt ill. He’d used his glamour to make her drink blood. Had her dreams been no more than the icy touch of his dead fingers on her mind?

He moved forward and set to work on her corset.

“I’m not going to rape you,” he said. “You needn’t worry about that. I really am sorry, but
they
can never be allowed to have it.”

She found she could talk. “Please, let me go. What would Alex think?” A horrifying thought crossed her mind. “Or does he know what you are?”

He shook his head as he tugged off her corset and began unwinding the band of cloth wrapped around her breasts.

“The poor boy witnessed our departure — Dmitri had to restrain him. He may never forgive me. This night will be costly for us both, but only you can stop them.”

“Who are they? Say what you mean.” She tried to scream, but what emerged was a tiny moan.
Trust the wolf. At the moment of the passage, his cruelty and kindness shall unlock everything
.

Constantine clicked his tongue at her. “You nearly died at the hands of the Caliph. Now the beetle god has crossed the Western Sea.” He spat blood on the white snow. “He’ll be here soon. He ripped my love limb from limb, bathed her in fire, and left me only dust.”

“Why don’t you just fight him?”

“He commands the sun. He would burn me as he burned my love then take the Horn from you anyway. He paused. “Perhaps if I stop them, the Son will see fit to redeem me.” He shrugged. “But not even the lamb is so merciful.”

But Papa had hidden the Horn. “They want to end the world?”

“Close enough.” He lifted some rope from the ground. “They would rip your prize from you and use it to open the gates of heaven.”

She stared at him. “And you want different?”

“I would see them stopped and Khepri obliterated!”

How did he know all this? “Who are you?”

He paused in tying cords around the tree and bowed. “Konstantinos XI Dragases Palaiologos, last King of the Romans. At your service, my lady. The rumors of my death were unfortunately completely true.” He spoke Greek now, lending yet one more touch of unreality to the moment.

Thanatos
.
Nekros
. Of course he was dead. She’d misjudged the timing. The dreams had been her clues. He and Isabella had lived and died not decades ago but centuries.

“Are you even related to Alex?”

The vampire shrugged again. “He’s my living heir. Blood of my blood. The uncrowned king.”

It always came down to blood.

He finished with the rope, took her arms, and pulled her onto her feet. Her naked back burned from the coldness of the snow, but now she felt the freezing wind on her whole body. She’d never been naked out of doors before, or in front of a man. She began to cry.

He brushed at her tears. “I am a man no longer, and the blood gods’ magic is never gentle, but I’ll try and make it brief.”

We must both die twice before we save each other.
Oh, God, please. She wasn’t ready to die.

He took her in both arms, flipped her upside down, and slammed her back into the trunk of the tree. He secured the ropes around her ankles and stepped back.

She flopped down painfully against the trunk, the rough uneven surface pressed against her bare back and limbs. She felt dull pain in her ankles. The smell of burning wood clogged her nostrils. Below her, the brilliant sky was lit with an intense red and yellow light. Her head craned up, and she saw the gnarled roots of the tree overhead, ascending into the snow.

“
Aima
,” he said.
“
From the moment I tasted your blood, it sang with the hidden Strength of your God.”

The passage is unblocked. What is lost will be found
.

Constantine’s fingernails grew into long talons. He stepped forward to swipe one hand across her belly, and the pain tore through her abdomen. He was doing something to her, something she felt only as a series of deep wrenching motions.

“You drank the dark gift first,” he said. “It will save you both.”

Together we can stop them, but the price will be steep.

Sarah swooned. Warm tickles crawled across her face, and dark liquid dripped slowly off her and fell upwards onto the twisted canopy of roots. The moment stretched, and she felt the welling presence of something approaching, something massive and primal. Then she heard the horn, the long mournful tone, loud and gigantic but at great distance.

The horn sounds our sacrifice. My death, your blood, your death, my blood.

Oh, God, no!

“The realms merge,” Constantine said.

Sarah felt intensely thirsty. She wondered if she should pull her chin up to see what he’d done. How bad was it? Blood poured down her face. No, it would be best not to look.

The horn continued, louder and louder. She’d heard it in the basement, too, when Papa bent his knee to God’s inscrutable will. Those roots too had been bloodied. Above her, the wood began to shimmer as the tree came alive. From its dead wood, luminous leaves sprang.

She remembered the actual Horn. Remembered it between her legs in the basement. Oh Lord.
You’re the key. The passage is almost open, beyond lies Paradise.

She saw it again now, nestled in the roots. A ram’s horn sheathed in gold. Papa’s Horn, the Strength of God.

“Why? Why?”

The vampire’s laugh seemed to echo in the garden.

“When heaven is besieged, even gods must use what weapons they can.” He gestured at the great living tree on which she now hung. “After all the centuries, the world still contains wonders.
Etz haDaat tov V'ra
you would call it: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

The tree from which the serpent had tempted Eve.

He stepped forward, so close she could have grabbed him if she had the strength. He reached below her head and plucked the Horn from the roots.