A Drop of Scarlet, page 24
part #4 of Voice of Blood Series
“I was wondering when you would join us,” he said, a little bit drunk. Her neck had a bright patch where the blood was close to the surface, but no marks could be seen. “You should have some. She tastes like appletini.”
“Appletini, huh,” I said, taking the girl’s limp form from his arms, and laying her on the bunk next to him. I rolled up the sleeve of her cardigan to expose her narrow arm; it was a wonder she had any blood at all in those fine, weblike veins, spreading over her pale skin like blue-green lace. The girl shifted and moaned faintly when I bit into her forearm, not trusting the fragile crook of her elbow, and the blood poured scalding-hot into my mouth. Silly kid, eighteen with a fake ID, heading home to Kalispell for Christmas break, wondering if she should tell her hick boyfriend that she’d cheated on him in college. Her blood was scanty and had a lingering aftertaste of acetone, because she drank instead of eating, “saving” herself for her mother’s cooking. My husband and his kind of lady, proud and sentimental and not too bright.
Alex’s fingers clamped against my lower jaw, and he pushed me back against the bunk, blood dribbling through my open lips. Beside me, the girl, Courtney-Ann, slumped over, her arm streaking blood over my pale-blue skirt. I protested, but Alex cut in, “Enough. She’s not strong enough—you’ll kill her.”
“I don’t care,” I said, staring at my dress in dismay. “Who’d miss her? Throw her corpse off the train at Kalispell.”
“Elisabeta, you know we can’t. We oughtn’t to be like Rifkin. We are in the service of Ariane; we can’t jeopardize our safety, or our anonymity. This goes beyond what we ourselves want. It’s not unreasonable for us to feed, but please, while we’re on the train, we mustn’t kill.”
“It’s because you were seen with her,” I said. Ah, that was better; alcohol in my bloodstream now, coursing through, making me lightheaded. “You didn’t have to be seen with her.”
“Please, my darling,” he said, his voice anything but affectionate. “Please assist her back to a public place, and be discreet about it.”
“Me? Why not you?”
“Because I was just seen with her. And because you might have gotten us into trouble with your lack of self-control. Go on, Betty; it won’t kill you.”
He only called me Betty when he was furious. I changed from my dress into a brown cowl-hood alpaca sweater and dark cropped trousers, a good outfit for discretion and invisibility. Alexander watched me, but he did not really see me, nor did he see the girl who he had just seduced. He was sending me out because he didn’t want to leave the room; he had a sudden phobic fear of the swaying hallway of the trains, and wanted to turn down the bunks and lie still and meditative in bed. He needed to concentrate on something, something I couldn’t see.
I looped one of the girl’s arms over my shoulder, and walked with her carefully, mostly carrying her so that her ankles wouldn’t drag on the ground, out of the sleeping car and into the dining car, which was no longer operational this late, but had an empty lavatory at one end. I set her down upon the toilet seat, resting her head back against the wall with her chin tipping forward. Now she just looked like she’d gotten really trashed and passed out trying to take a piss.
I gently tapped her face with my palm. “Courtney-Ann,” I said in her ear. “Wake up. We’re at Spokane. If you smoke, here’s your last chance for the next hour.” The girl, still out cold, did not respond. I sighed, shrugged, and walked away, leaving the door wide open for the next person to find her.
When I got back to the room, I no longer wanted any Orchid. Alex had converted the beds and turned out our linens, and lay there, staring at the ceiling. I climbed up and lay next to him in the narrow space, crowding him; he didn’t seem to mind. I gazed inward, concentrating myself, teaching myself to do something I had never had to do before. The berth bed was narrow like a coffin, and something about the lack of space soothed me and helped me to gaze inward.
I dreamed of Leland Quary wandering through the aisles of a supermarket. Every time he walked past a sign with a yellow smiley face, he gave the change in his pocket a jingle. He was after a girl that I never saw, and he never increased his slow, ambling pace. I was gripped with dread; I tried to make him change, speed up, leave the place, smash one of the displays, but there was no escape, and therefore, no need to hurry.
I woke up in a cold sweat, the strange bedsheets rough against my ribs and thigh, and Alex’s body next to me still and unmoving, but warming up. I wanted to burst into tears, but as Alex’s chest flexed drawing breath, I realized that I couldn’t cry over a dream so utterly meaningless. Most likely, he had seen that dream, perhaps even shared it, stalking silently along behind Leland in a jeweled canyon of dishwashing liquid bottles. If I tried to explain, he would be within his rights to laugh at me. Instead, I concentrated on breathing, feeling strength return with the air in my lungs.
The train was stopping yet again. I opened the window shade just an inch and peered outside into thickly whirling whiteness. “We haven’t outrun the snow,” I mused.
“But we did outsleep the sun, thank God.” He yawned, scratched himself, and disappeared into the lavatory closet. “Be a pet and bring in the newspapers, would you? They should be just outside the door.”
I got my dressing gown out of the suitcase and combed my hair with my fingers. Next to my ankles, the other briefcase rested against the wall. I closed my eyes and turned away, going to the door. I concentrated my mind on Leland, on the unsettling dream, the sound of his pocketful of coins.
There was nothing outside the door except a pair of sneakered feet and the quizzical expression of a child heading toward the dining car. I smiled at the child and went back into our room. “No paper,” I said, shrugging.
“Shit.” Alex had slipped into the same pair of pants he wore the night before, so I knew he was in a hurry; he had an ex-soldier’s distaste for wearing the same clothes twice in a row. “They weren’t listening. I shall go down to the dining car and fetch them, and make sure they don’t forget the damn things tomorrow. What the hell do they think I’m paying them for?”
I smiled at him. That was a lot of profanity all at once for Alexander Vassilyevich, at least without most of it being sexual. This soft-spoken rant was about as angry as he got, unless he meant to completely destroy something; and even that wasn’t really based on anger. I always theorized that it came from that private part of him, and perhaps that was the part itself—a methodical violence as cold and unfeeling as the edge of a knife. But he had no need to hide that from me. I had seen it. I had benefited from it more than once. And I had always been there for him when it was over and he collapsed, invariably coated in blood like some infernal confectionery, appalled and yet somehow proud of himself.
Still, even then, and now, he hid something. Even as he slipped into shirt and shoes, still grumbling about the newspapers, a part of him was veiled. I brought the dream to mind again; it wouldn’t be good to be obvious about prying. I resolved to let it go.
“Back shortly. Do you want anything?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, now that you mention it. I would love a cup of hot black coffee.”
“No sugar?”
I kept smiling. “Not tonight,” I said.
He left. I let a few beats pass before I opened the briefcase and pulled out one of the 200ml bottles. I prayed that the train wouldn’t start for a few seconds, dipped my fingernail in, just enough to make a drop of Orchid cling to the tiny spoon shape, and sucked my finger, recapping the bottle and sliding it back into place. It was so minimal, but it was enough. I sat there on the floor next to the narrow bed, stunned at the tension and unhappiness flowing out of my limbs, drifting away even as the train started again with a labored screech. Soon, Alex returned.
He closed the door behind him quietly, the papers tucked under one arm, holding out a Styrofoam cup with his fingertips. Steam gushed from the tiny opening in the lid. “How much?” he said.
“Not a whole lot,” I said. “It’s probably a triple-ought-four.”
He threw down the newspapers. My dreamy voice had incensed him. “Why, Elisabeta? Why? Why deceive me? It’s not as though I mind. You can take it if you want. But understand that you’re stealing. You’re stealing from Ariane, from me, from yourself.”
I shook my head. He wasn’t making very much sense. “I’m not stealing anything,” I said. “She gave some to us. It’s ours to take.”
“For one thing, I saw what you did—your mind was like a siren. You can’t hide anything from me. You didn’t take it from what Ariane gave to us; you took it from the bottle supply. That part I don’t understand. Are you skimming? Are you cutting it with, oh, I don’t know, vodka?”
I couldn’t help laughing. It wasn’t such a bad idea. “Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry. I just took some because I wanted to have it. So I have no self-control. After we’re done with this, let’s not ever take this again, okay?”
“But I don’t want to never take it again,” he pointed out. “I am not with you on this one. I like Orchid. I like it as much as you do. What I’m wondering is why you feel the need to hide it from me.”
“I just had the urge,” I said, letting out my breath in a heavy sigh. “I had such a strange dream and I can’t get it out of my head. You steady me, Sasha, and when you left I . . .” I let my voice trail away, and closed my eyes. “I don’t understand it. I just felt so imprisoned. Their shops frighten me. Too much color. If I wanted to see a circus, I’d go to the circus.”
He slid down onto the floor beside me, and put the hot cup into my hand and put his arms around me. “My dear,” he murmured, “my dear, it is anxiety, nothing more. Talk to me about it; that’s the only thing that will help you through it. You’re just not used to it, that’s all, all this traveling and adventure. Of course you’ll have tense dreams. It’s nothing—just a few crossed wires, that’s all.”
I was so glad I knew him so well, and that I learned quickly. I could protect my thoughts, after all. He trusted me, and that was the best armor against him that I could possibly have. That it went both ways, I had no doubt.
I took a sip of the coffee, which tasted of vinegar, and stood up to pour it into the toilet. Alexander Vassilyevich laughed. “What I really want is to make love,” I said. “I think that will help me best.”
“I want some Orchid, too,” he said. “Remember when we swam among the stars? I want to try something like that again.”
We kissed, and rolled among the tousled bedsheets. I rested my weight on top of him, and bent to the unlocked briefcase, pulling the syringe free from the tape. He grinned up at me. “Not too much,” he advised. “I’ll hold still.”
I held up the syringe to his open mouth, and looked at the measuring marks with a careful, critical eye. The train shook gently from side to side, buffeted by the strong wind, moving slowly and tentatively over icy tracks.
We might be stranded here, I thought.
I pushed the plunger all the way down, flooding his mouth with twelve milliliters of Orchid. He coughed and choked, but none of it spilled; his mouth obediently soaked it up and rushed it through his bloodstream.
His expression transformed from shock to fear to sadness in less than a second, but never for a second did he show anger. He just lay back, his shoulders relaxing against the bed, and his head rolling back and forth, one ear touching the bed, then the other. Eventually, even that movement stopped.
“Whatever you do,” he said in a ragged whisper, “don’t apologize.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” I said. I licked the end of the syringe, grimacing the last trace of chemical flavor into my mouth. I bent over and kissed his lips, which were deliciously warm, moist, soft.
He moaned faintly. “I want to put my arms around you, but I can’t move,” he mumbled. “Oh, God in heaven. My little Elisabeta, I wish you could feel this. I suppose you can. You’ve got hundreds of doses to do with as you wish; you could take it all if you wanted to. Is that what you want?”
“No,” I said, tossing the syringe down and tucking myself beside him, folding my arms across his waist, and pulling his arms to me. He shuddered. “I just want to know something.”
“You already know my birthday and my favorite color. Oh, but did you know that I dislike sturgeon?” The pupils of his eyes were huge, consuming the blue irises completely; he was as blind as a baby and I wished that he would close his eyes. Instead I closed mine.
“The train,” I said. “The accident. Outside Novgorod. When I fell. You remember. Tell me.”
He said nothing for several minutes, and if I hadn’t been able to perceive the gauzy swirling of his thoughts, I would have thought that he had lost consciousness. When his voice came, it was faint and resigned. “The accident. There was no accident.”
“But I remember, Alexander Vassilyevich—”
“Of course you remember. You remember falsely. There was no accident. You did not fall—I pushed you. I pushed you and I prayed that you would break your neck.”
I lay there, stunned into silence, hearing him say what I had never even allowed myself to suspect.
“You broke everything but your neck, it seemed. Perhaps my concentrating on it so closely protected it. As I stood beside you, feeling bullets slamming into my back, I heard you scream. I knew you were still alive, and at once I resolved to protect you. I had already taken three lead pellets in my back that might have hit you instead, and I realized that I would take more, as many as was necessary, but that you must not ever be hurt again if I could prevent it. I loved you. I love you still. For a moment I was a coward. I didn’t want to have to protect you and your fragile body, not when my comrades had committed themselves to destroying me and destroying the country I fought for. I didn’t feel like looking after you. But I had married you, and not in vain . . . not for nothing. You were my responsibility to protect, your body and your mind. I could bring you with me—I could change you—and we could escape together. I almost let a moment of cowardice destroy the only thing of real value I’ve ever had. The money, the expensive things—none of that has ever meant a thing to me compared to being with you and bringing you happiness, my precious, my beloved ’Sbeta. . . .”
Now he really was slipping away. He fell silent and his eyes finally closed. His lips had gone pale and dry, and when I tried to move his suddenly heavy arm, his joints were stiff. He wasn’t dying; instead, he was sliding gradually into sleep, a deeper sleep than he had ever experienced.
I sat beside him all through the night, as the train shuddered on its route, pausing now and again. I thought of all the places that I had seen and wanted to see again, wondering if the world had changed them so much that I couldn’t love them anymore. I thought of all the places that I hadn’t yet seen that I had hoped to see someday, and knew that I could never see them as I wished, bathed in heady midday sunlight. I thought of all the kisses that I could never have again, and all the hopes of all the men and women and children that I had killed, vanished into the world like smoke, but, as long as I lived, as long as I contained their memories, never really gone.
I didn’t take any Orchid. I fought off the reverie and the urge to doze off, even as I watched snowflakes flash by the window, then suddenly cease, leaving the sky stark black, but alive with stars.
The train stopped as the sky started to pale at the horizon. We had come to a station, and I heard the bustle of passengers gathering their things and exiting the train, too many of them, and too early, for all of them to be grabbing a cigarette break on the platform. I overheard “St. Cloud” and “late as hell; it’s ten till six.” I looked over at Alex, still unconscious, rigid and peaceful as a corpse, and slowly put on my dress, a cardigan sweater, and shoes. He had never undressed; not that it mattered.
I waited until the hubbub outside subsided, refilled the syringe out of one of the bottles, took a deep breath, and hoisted my husband in my arms. He was heavier than he should be, but that didn’t matter to me; I was more than strong enough.
The cold outside on the platform was a revelation. I hadn’t felt cold that profound in years, and yet it wasn’t the most extreme I had ever experienced, not compared to Novgorod in the dead of winter, so cold, even the snow thought twice about falling. This cold still held some moisture; I knew that a river was nearby, and the cold didn’t deter me from going to find it.
I wondered if Leland dreamed of me, of the snow cresting over the tops of my shoes and the freezing wind blowing over my bare legs and Alexander Vassilyevich, shielding me, a barrier against my front side. Would Leland interpret this memory as a nightmare?
I set Alex down on a wooden bench, in a pleasant little park a few blocks down the street from the train station, edged by the river. He retained his slightly hunched position, but showed no signs of waking up. I brushed snow off the bench next to him and sat down, smiling at the ice clinging to my skirt and my skin. On the other side of the river, the violet sky flushed hot pink and tiger-gold.
I rested the edge of the syringe against the corner of my mouth and shot the Orchid in.
Ah, delicious, melting, sugar and butter, igniting, heating my skin—all existence was a treat. I kept my eyes planted on that horizon, staring full into the brightening line until that’s all I saw. I was pleasantly surprised. Going blind didn’t mean eternal darkness; it was unending light, a tight lentil of illumination. Of course I hadn’t seen the entire disk of the sun, but I saw it; the sunrise, cresting over the mighty Mississippi, beside the only man I’d ever loved, who had ever loved me. He would understand.
We did not burn with flames; we smoldered like incense, consumed rapidly, as our human bodies had been at the first fatal touch of the inhuman blood. It happened so quickly that I only felt pain for an instant; then nothingness, a sweet, floating, drifting away.
