Fiend, page 10
part #3 of Voice of Blood Series
If I had had a blade, I would have run her through. But no; my father’s blade had been stolen by that Aostan slut with the bad skin, a lifetime and a half ago. I rubbed furiously at the perfectly placed spit curl until it frizzed and stuck out straight from the side of my head, then clicked my heels on the floor and walked down the hall to the waiting room.
Georgina saw my rebellious hair and blinked calmly, pursing her lips. Only one who knew her as intimately as I could have known that she was holding back cackles of laughter.
“Ah! My beautiful wife.” I sat next to her on the long sofa and kissed the back of her hand. “You are as Venus in the night sky,” I said, partially showing off and partially sincere.
Georgina wore her hair wrapped into a voluptuous turban made of heavy ivory-colored velvet, with only a few wispy dark curls around her face. It was a style that had passed somewhat out of fashion, but no one could deny that the effect was striking, with her long thin neck, great dark eyes, and birdlike shoulders. I hope that she has seen the twentieth century, where she would be famous the world over for those dreamy, exotic looks.
Maria, on the other hand, was, as always, the epitome of fashion, rounded generously all over, yet without a hint of excess, her waist corseted into a tight, sinuous line and her puffy gigot sleeves emphasizing the daintiness of her hands. Her saffron-yellow dress was trimmed with gleaming green embroidery and pearls no larger than grains of sand. The shimmering golden curls that framed her face served only to make the silk finish of the dress seem dull in comparison. “And I? And I?” she demanded, with such near-hysteria I knew that she was teasing me.
“And you? My lady.” I smirked lightly, and accepted her out-thrust extremity. “My lady, you are the sky.”
“Oh, mincemeat,” Georgie scoffed. “But you do look good. Both of you. I am truly the most fortunate woman in the world.” Her tender glance traveled between us, binding us with a silken thread of devotion, and my earlier annoyance at Maria dissolved, leaving me grateful and humble. I had gone from the bloody boots and the gutters of Ivry to a sumptuous sitting room in Montmartre, the company of gorgeous women, and tiny pewter frogs on my coat. It was not bad.
The clock struck, and the guests began to arrive.
I had been in Maria’s company for long enough not to be dazzled by the infinity of minor titles and curious names, and I quickly tuned out the litany of announced arrivals and concentrated on scanning the minds of the mortals who had obliviously walked into this lionesses’ den. None of them had any idea of our true natures, knowing only that Maria was an elegant lady with property, a title, and an immaculate, if unusual, reputation. In fact, all of our invited guests were completely mesmerized, and had accepted all that Maria had told or suggested to them without a flicker of suspicion. Part of it was her longevity-augmented power, and part of it was simply their own willingness to be blinded. Indeed, it was easier to pass unnoticed as an inhuman among the upper class; all that was necessary was the observance of a set of rules and anticipations, and a gentle unspoken urge to believe.
I was surprised to note that none of our guests had ever slept with Georgie; I had begun to doubt that there was anyone left in Paris who had not tussled with the insatiable radical. Then I realized that, of course, none of them would ever share company with the scruffy, noisy “anarchists” who crowded the cafés of the Latin Quarter, and Georgie would be similarly repulsed by the royalists. As it was, they were fascinated by the lanky, languid Polish girl in her velvet turban and redribboned white dress, and her unrestrained laugh, relaxing on the sofa like a courtesan. It was only with effort that I remembered that I was supposed to act as her husband, and not simply as a besotted suitor.
At dinner, seated together, I drank in her gaze and the sight of her powdered face and reddened lips, and ignored my empty plates and glasses. Our highborn guests garnered no more of my attention. I kissed her fingers, long and flutelike in white crocheted gloves, and she stroked my temple, taming my rebellious hair. “Do we get to kill them?” I whispered in her ear. “Please say yes.”
Maria, in midconversation, glanced over at me with an arched eyebrow.
Georgie held her head against my lips for a second, smiling. At once she straightened bolt upright in her chair and stared sharply at the doorway. I followed her gaze but saw only the butler, his arms crossed behind him, his face a blank servant’s mask. Her skin could not go paler than it already was, but I felt that her stomach had just dropped inside her. “What is it?” I asked.
Georgina said nothing but rose as silently as a fog from her chair. None of the guests seemed to have noted her agitation or her movement; she was veiled to them, but not to me. She vanished from the room in the blink of an eye.
Now I felt it, too. A prickling ran up my spine, then down, then spread throughout my senses, lulling to a mellow but menacing vibration that affected all I saw or heard or felt.
A new presence, inhuman as we three, approached; was perhaps already inside, making itself at home.
The power, the breathtaking power!
Maria still smiled and chatted with the guests, but she was aware as well. I had not felt this alien sensation in years; I had grown used to the frequency and hum of the presence of Georgina—playing always like a low note in my mind—and the stronger, deeper, more ancient one of Maria. But this mode was different—at once airy and heavily minor.
Another one! Another one like us!
Without remembering to disguise myself, I set down my napkin and stood up. The eyes of every dinner guest clapped onto me; I felt naked. Maria blinked at me, pretending to be surprised. “Dear brother, where are you going?” she inquired mildly.
I could think of no way to explain. Georgie’s absence was now noted as well. “Excuse me, I must attend my wife,” I mumbled, bowing briefly and following Georgie’s footsteps past the unruffled, expressionless butler, whose thoughts rang out: Where the devil is he going?
I hastened to the balcony parlor, my heart thudding anxiously in my chest. Had I genuinely thought that we were the only ones? Vampires are made, not born! Even Maria must have come from somewhere! But I knew, even before I had entered the room, that Maria had not sprung from this source. They were not related, as it were.
What other knowledge had escaped me? Just like a youth, I had mistakenly figured I knew it all.
Georgie sat, gazing up fondly at a plainly dressed gentleman of medium height, his unfashionably long dark hair thinning on top and drawn back in a queue, and his hat held in a gloved hand behind his back. He stood before her, but not intimately near. He shone faintly, less brightly than either of the women, but unmistakably to my keen eyes.
Be wary and on good manners, young man, came the voice in my head, in no human language but as direct as a bolt of lightning. I have more power in my smallest finger than you have in your entire body. I did not doubt it.
“Ah, Orfeo,” Georgina said, glancing over at me. “I didn’t think you would sit still for long. May I introduce you to M. Arthur Chicot? Arthur, this is Orfeo Ricari. He is our newest.”
I stared, as silent and rude as a country child. M. Chicot was not particularly handsome, but I thought I would never grow weary of looking at him; his very countenance was soothing and gentle, much as Maria’s was dangerously lovely, and Georgina’s wild. His deepset dark eyes were mild, melancholy, and quite beautiful, and he wore a slight smile that seemed to be his usual expression, based on the lines drawn into the skin by the corners of his mouth. How wonderful it would have been to have had him as my childhood instructor, and not the shocking, wicked beauty of Lorenzo Mercetti D’Aragón!
“Your perceptions are keen, Master Ricari. I am a teacher,” said Chicot to me. “Unfortunately, I know nothing of English literature, so I would not have been well-suited to your inclinations. You may well have learned more of the world from the tutor you had.” His accent was strange to my Paris-trained ear. He was from the southwest countryside that jutted into the Bay of Biscay, and I caught the remembrance of the scent of Bordeaux vineyards in his thoughts.
“Were you invited?” I spoke at last.
Georgie laughed her sprightly laugh. “Oh, Orfeo. You are the rudest, most inappropriate boy I’ve ever known. Chicot doesn’t need an invitation. He is a friend. Not to mention that he may go wherever he pleases, and far be it from me to prevent his passage.”
I resisted the urge to sit, but I did grasp his gloved hand in mine. Even through the glove I felt the extraordinary strength in his grip. “I did not mean it that way, Georgie. I meant only—why tonight? Why have I never seen another . . . before? Are there more of you?”
Chicot laughed, becoming alluring in the process. “Oh my, you are young, aren’t you? In every way. Don’t worry, Ricari, I won’t hold it against you. We were all young once. I remember when your girl ‘Georgie’ was young. It was like yesterday. It might as well have been yesterday. Always the questions, and with answers come more questions. You’ll get tired of them soon enough.”
He held up his hand to silence the apologies that I had not yet spoken. “You have barely even had time to understand the parameters of the human life, let alone this other existence that we share. Yes, most certainly there are others. Have you never seen them? We may choose to hide ourselves from them—” He angled his head toward the doorway. “But we cannot completely hide ourselves from each other. Come, take a look! You will see their lights.”
Chicot led me to the balcony and faced me toward Paris. “Look,” he said, “and concentrate. We all shine.” He removed his left glove and laid his ice-cold hand against the back of my neck. At once my perceptions sharpened, focused through his lens.
Among the glimmering lights of fires and torches that sparkled on the warp and weft of the streets of Paris, I made out faint, darting, pale dots that quickly appeared and, as quickly, were swallowed by the shadows, only to emerge again, like fireflies gliding through leaves of grass. “There are dozens of them!” I whispered.
“At my last count, one hundred seven in Paris. You make one hundred eight.” He removed his hand, and I turned to face his perennial mild smile. “You see, I keep track. I catalogue. I am a sort of census-taker of the undead.”
“Undead?” I echoed. “But we are alive, are we not?”
“Did you survive?” Chicot’s eyes narrowed. “I know my mortal body did not survive the transformation. Nothing could. If I did not survive, I must be dead; and yet I have animation. I can think of no better word.”
“But it sounds terrible,” I said.
“The transformation is terrible,” Chicot said. “Do you not remember it?”
Maria entered then, the train of her lemon-ice dress rustling against the floorboards. She and Chicot embraced each other at arm’s length and briefly kissed the other on both cheeks. “From one side of Paris to the other,” she said. “Thank you for granting us your presence.”
“Granting? My lady, you are too kind.” Chicot’s eyes sparkled with a mixture of malice and admiration, and something like wistfulness. “The introduction of Monsieur Ricari demanded my presence. I almost suspect you create new whelps just to get me to come around.”
“That’s a horrid thing to say,” Maria retorted prettily, only to be met by Chicot’s mock-innocent blinking. I looked to Georgie for clarification, but my lover seemed as baffled as myself. This matter went back further than either of us. I finally sat next to Georgina, and she enfolded me in her ribbon-trimmed shawl and rested her head against mine.
Maria and Chicot both stripped off their gloves and grasped each other’s hands. They remained still in this way for quite some time, lost in silent communication, a closed book in two volumes. I occupied myself in removing Georgie’s turban and combing out her hair with my fingernails, careful not to nick her scalp with my sharp edges.
“One hundred eight,” came Maria’s low voice. She and Chicot had separated their hands and now busied themselves sheathing them with gloves. “How is that? There should be one hundred ten.”
“Dr. Tern has gone to Morocco,” Chicot said. “And La Levant . . . La Levant is no more.”
Maria looked appalled. “Dead?”
Chicot gave a single, grave nod.
“How?” I cut in. Georgie pinched me lightly. I pinched her back. “Don’t try to silence me. I must ask questions, or I will never learn anything. Isn’t that correct, monsieur?”
“That is correct.” His eyes bored into Georgina, and she bowed her head. “Her head was severed from her body with the blade of an ax, wielded by her human slave. I witnessed this, unbeknownst to those involved—if La Levant knew I was there, I might have tasted doom myself. But her thoughts were focused on a single point.” His eyes sought me, and his expression chilled me to the bone.
“Escape.”
I was sufficiently horrified not to speak further. Maria tutted. “Ah, she was mad,” she surmised. “She has always been mad, living outside society, but just on its fringes, like a rat that survives on garbage. Ah well, this is the best city on earth for such a life.”
“Ah, madame, you have not been to Calcutta.” Chicot’s countenance assumed its previous gentle amusement. “As I recall, you refused my invitation, preferring instead to dine in the company of Antoinette.”
“For me, the choice was clear,” Maria said. “A vermin-infested marine journey to the foulest place in the world, or champagne and sherbets with the Queen. I make no apologies, monsieur.”
“What of our dinner guests?” I asked. “Are they unattended?”
“You have no sense of time, I see, little greyhound. All the guests but one have supped and gone,” Maria said. “And with your permission, our final guest may have his refreshment.” She bowed to M. Chicot, who returned the gesture, his smile growing. When his lips drew back, I saw rows of sharp, yellow-brown teeth, dampened with the passage of a thick, purplish tongue.
In the dining room, a plump, aging banker dozed, his head nodding and jerking in drunken half-sleep. From the doorway, I could see the waves of alcohol fumes rising from his bald head, and when he hiccuped, I could taste his bile in my mouth. Not deterred in the slightest, Chicot walked to the banker, pulled the man’s head back by the thin curls spread across the back of his fat neck, and put those yellow teeth to swift, slashing use. Blood poured into the empty plate and across the tablecloth. The banker’s eyes shot open and he struggled against the fatal embrace of Chicot, but his wriggling was blessedly brief. The fat man limply relaxed to the tune of avid suckling.
“Ah,” said Maria indulgently. “I do so love to entertain.”
Chicot straightened up and wiped his mouth with a black muslin handkerchief. He looked much younger with his face flushed ruddy. “Thank you, madame,” he said to Maria, slurring a little, and weaving gently as the alcohol prodded him. “You still have superb taste in claret. And with your permission, I would like to visit the cemetery grounds in the company of your two beautiful children.”
Georgie and I, who had watched this from the doorway, traded a glance. Her smile broke out dazzling. “Splendid,” she said. “Maria?”
Maria raised her eyebrows, but her face was pleased and peaceful. “Granted, Arthur,” she said. “Have them home by dawn.”
We left the building and wandered up the stairs that led toward the church and the graveyard. “Wait,” said Georgie as we approached the cemetery gates. “Feo, would you unlace my corset? These things are barbaric; I feel like a string-wrapped roast.” Chicot and I laughed, and I unbuttoned and flipped Georgie’s dress over her head to allow me access to her corset strings. Chicot said nothing, but I knew that he enjoyed the sight of her lace-pantalooned thighs as much as I did.
We progressed into the cemetery, crowned with trees and smelling pleasantly of autumn dust. Some graves were quite fresh, but we passed by them in favor of the older crypts and wrought-iron cribbed resting places. Chicot took a seat on a concrete slab and stared up at the stars. “Ah, Calvaire, I recall when the first body was laid in your arms,” he sighed. “Now you are almost full. They don’t rot as fast as they should. Come, sit by me, you two. I have a gift for you.”
I looked at the man. He held nothing, having replaced his hat upon his head, and having little room in his coat for hiding. Georgie eagerly took a place next to him, wrestling her dress out of the way of her legs. She seized me and dragged me into her lap, where I fit very well in the space between her narrow thighs, and she kissed the back of my head.
Chicot gave us a searching look. “How are things with Maria?” he asked.
“I love her,” I answered immediately.
“As do I,” Georgina responded. “But at times she is difficult.”
“She is older than both of you combined,” Chicot admitted.
“Is she older than you?” I asked, and caught Georgie’s hand before she could pinch me again.
Chicot laughed. “No,” he admitted slowly. “Almost. We are contemporaries, as it were. We arrived in Paris at nearly the same time, and circled one another like tigers in a cage, wondering if the city was large enough to support us both. But Paris is miraculous; it is as large as one needs it to be. And of course, even then, we weren’t the only ones. It became my interest to know exactly how many, and who they were, and how they lived. I am like Maria in that I dislike anarchy and obscurity and I enjoy knowledge. Unlike Maria, I am able to concede control at times. I understand what makes her this way: Spending thirty-six years of one’s life living under another’s rule gives one a certain attachment to one’s own wishes. That does not mean that I believe that she is always right, or always just.”
Georgina’s wordless, indignant answering scoff was all the agreement necessary.
“But it is thirty-six years out of a score of generations, and she has become ever more inflexible. And I like you young ones. It is becoming clearer to me that the world Maria and I know no longer exists, and shall not again for another score of generations. Therefore, I propose a way to narrow the gap in abilities between you and her, so that you may have more power to do what you yourself believe to be correct, and be less in clined to give her control out of fear or uncertainty in your own ability. I know she does not share her blood evenly between you.”
