Divine Fantasy (8 page)

I stared at him and took his measure, appreciating his toned if pale body but also remembering his mind. I’d always loved his mind.

After a moment I said, “I’m not that surprised you’ve ended up this way, I guess. You used to write vividly about some pretty creepy things. It was tempting Fate. Look at your last letter to your niece, when you predicted you’d end up facing a firing squad in Mexico.”

His strangely twisted writings had delighted in being enigmatic and often deceptive. But ultimately the messages of the stories were straightforward, and he herded the reader toward a definite goal—usually the discomfiture of someone he disliked. But sometimes he drove people to confronting the weird and unexplainable that went on all around them. I wondered if he hadn’t had a premonition of what was to come when he wrote “The Eyes of the Panther,” a story about a man afflicted with lycanthropy He had been prescient about other things that happened in his life, certainly. The foremost example of his prognostication was predicting the assassination of President McKinley.

“And as ye seek so shall ye find?” he asked, again seeming to read my thoughts.

“Sometimes.” I yawned loudly, unable to fight off a sudden exhaustion rolling over my body. “Ambrose, is the full moon the only time you…change?”

He stared off over the water. “Yes. And no. I avoid changing as much as possible now, though I experimented in the beginning. It hurts, you see. And it gives me hell’s own hangover sometimes for days after.” He took a breath and then went on, I thought with some reluctance. “I can change at will, but don’t.”

“Because of the pain?” I asked, to clarify. This was morbid curiosity that I wouldn’t normally indulge, but he had set the ground rules by prying into my personal affairs, and I figured I would ask my questions for as long as he would answer them.

“Yes, and the danger of being seen. And…well, the urges.”

“Urges?” I had to ask.

“Of both a violent and sexual nature. They shouldn’t be indulged. Sex makes the wolf want to kill. Killing makes the wolf want sex. And food. It’s always hungry. It’s a vicious cycle.” Ambrose wrenched the top off a jar of olives and upended it over his mouth. Half the jar’s contents disappeared. The rest he handed to me. Apparently he wasn’t worried about me catching any of his werewolf cooties.

“Can you describe it?” I set the jar aside for later. The current subject matter was not stimulating my appetite.

Ambrose swallowed. “Yes. Imagine having every
tooth in your head extracted without anesthetic, while getting an all-over body wax. The hair doesn’t so much push free as get ripped out. I grow a tail from the end of my spine—it’s prehensile, by the way. My knees reverse themselves and joint backwards. And then I have to undo it when it’s done—shove all the hair and teeth and claws back in again. I have to collapse the bones in my tail and pull them into my body….”

This last part sounded especially horrible, and I started to say so but was overcome by another huge yawn. He continued talking, saving me from having to comment.

“Then I wake up with the most god-awful tastes in my mouth and I start remembering that I’ve been eating ghastly things. Sometimes I find blood under my nails and I have to recall what I’ve killed. And sometimes I know I’ve done other things, but can’t always recall with whom.”

Though I tried to suppress it, another yawn threatened to split my jaws as it forced its way out of my body. I apologized. “Sorry. It’s not you. I’m just very tired. My head is getting so heavy.”

I need my sleep. So does everyone, of course, but when I get very tired, things start going awry in my body. Among other problems, my blood pressure drops and I have blackouts. Adrenaline can carry me for a while, but even terror has its limitations. My hunch—and it was a real elephant-sized intuition—said I’d better nap as soon as I could because there was every chance I wouldn’t be sleeping
much once the other zombies reached the island. The other zombies…

I tried very hard to put the matter back out of my mind, which was a mostly useless exercise, but I succeeded in shoving it aside enough to relax my knotted muscles. I was so relaxed that I slumped in my chair.

“Come on, you need to rest,” Ambrose said. “I’m amazed that you’ve made it this long.” He stood up and took my arm, guided me to a small sofa made of bamboo and covered in batik cushions.

Part of me really didn’t want to nap because I feared that I would dream, but I needed rest and my body was making me sleep. The swimming and snorkeling, the fear—it all added up to exhaustion. Not even the possibility of zombies invading the island could change that. My enervated remains collapsed down on the sofa, and I went bye-bye for a couple of hours. The last thing I felt was Ambrose pulling some kind of cover over me and smoothing back my damp hair. A small weight landed near my feet and I heard a loud purring.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Ashanti and I will keep watch while you sleep.”

That was the first time in my life that anyone had said this to me, and it brought a comfort that no words can describe.

I woke up to a sinking sun and an empty stomach that wasted no time in telling me its tale of woe. True to his word, Ambrose and Ashanti were nearby, though only the cat was laying on my body in a possessive manner and blowing hot breath into my ear.

“What time?” I croaked, squinting against the orange light. It had the same peculiar color of a southern California sky when the Santa Anas are blowing and terrible fires roar. My last had been a short but memorable trip because of the evacuations. I sniffed now but smelled no smoke.

“Dinnertime,” Ambrose answered with a smile, setting aside a paperback. He was reading a novel
by Lynsay Sands, which rather surprised me. I wouldn’t have thought her to his taste. “I selected lobster for you. May as well enjoy a last sumptuous dinner before the cook leaves.”

I nodded, but didn’t mention that this sounded a bit too much like a condemned man’s last meal:
Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die
. I promised myself that I would make an effort to appear enthusiastic about consuming it.

“I have to change,” I said.

“Only if you want to. Many of the female guests dine in little more than a bikini.”

“I am not most guests,” I heard my half-awake voice reply primly, and then I carefully moved the cat off my chest, threw back the covers and stalked toward the bedroom. I could feel my hair curling around me like Medusa’s angry snakes.

Ambrose laughed softly. He was amazingly lighthearted given what we had just recently been through, and I began to wonder if he had ADD.

Before dinner, we stopped back by my cottage so I could change. I skipped the stockings and garter belt but did put on a new linen sundress and heels. It’s stupid, but I wanted a chance to wear it before everyone left and I no longer had an excuse for dressing up. The thought also crossed my mind that I should drop someone a postcard and let them know where I was—just in case—but other than my publisher, I couldn’t think of a soul who would care. The thought was lowering.

Brooding doesn’t usually solve problems but I sometimes do it anyway. I looked at my reflection
as I slathered on some lip gloss, and didn’t like what I saw peering back. Fear eventually leaves traces on the face, as certainly as pain does, and the marks are every bit as unattractive. Pain comes in a whole variety of flavors, as I have discovered through the years. I hadn’t understood until that day that fear did, too. Having sampled several varieties lately, ranging from chronic angst all the way to mortal terror, I decided that I didn’t need second helpings to confirm my lack of enthusiasm for such fare.

I was probably going to get them if I stayed on the island. The thought made my reflection scowl.

Dinner was lovely. Knowing it was the last night and that anything not eaten would go bad before people returned, the chef laid out an amazing spread. The delectables were appealing to the eye, but I found my appetite limited. Subconsciously, my body was sending out the message that it didn’t want to be slowed down if I had to run for my life. Of course, by that logic, I shouldn’t have wanted to wear a dress and heels.

About halfway through dinner, just as the sun was sinking into the sea, a strange fog rolled in over the island. It stopped at the ring of torches where we dined and didn’t venture onto the lighted paths that led to the cottages, but it cocooned the rest of the islet in gray. It was too easy to think of it as a winding shroud and imagine that the whole island was about to be buried at sea.

I watched Ambrose as he studied the mist, baffled by his expression. I couldn’t be certain, but I
was willing to bet that every rock, every tree, every clump of grass and cute green turtle was covered with fog, smothered in the sinister earthbound cloud that smelled of sulfur and reawakened my fear of volcanoes. For the time being the sun was all but extinct. Twilight ruled, and would until true night fell. If the fog remained dense, we wouldn’t see the moon. And Ambrose seemed happy about it! Except that it was too utterly ridiculous to even consider, I might have assumed he had somehow arranged for the fog.

Every now and then something large splashed out in the water. That I couldn’t see it was only to be expected. After all, I was living in a horror movie, and those are the rules. The boogeyman is twice as scary if you can’t see him coming.

I smiled at my silliness. Still, even with Ambrose beside me and a scotch in my stomach, the unknown was troubling. And it remained so, no matter how often I told myself it was just the fish or some seabird hunting in the shallow waves. I vowed to my sniveling inner child that I would stay far back from the shoreline and move as silently as I could when I went back to my cottage so that no one would chase us through the fog.

If I went back to my cottage, that was. I was thinking earnestly about spending the night behind Ambrose’ thicker walls and metal shutters.

“I don’t smell anything.” He
was
pleased. I could hear it in his voice. He liked the damned fog.

And “anything”? That was code for
zombies
.

“Me either,” I answered. Unless you counted the
nasty volcano smell. The candles’ flames seemed to dance drunkenly in their cut-crystal bowls, but it may have been a shortage of oxygen and not the wind that made them gutter. I realized that my chest hurt and I had to force myself to breathe. I did not need to have a cardiac event in front of everyone.

“Do you hear anything?” I asked quietly.

“Yes. I think we have a crocodile out there.”

“What?” I almost forgot to whisper.

“We get saltwater crocs sometimes. They swim over from the Solomons.”

“Are they big?” I asked fearfully.
Crocodile
, like
cancer
, is one of those words that invokes atavistic fear in most people. In this, I am wholly normal.

“Well…not especially. But this one is an eighteen-footer.”

“What?” Again I came close to shrieking, and this made him grin. I guess giant crocodiles aren’t scary if you’re immortal.

“Don’t worry. She’s staying offshore. She’ll probably head for the mangroves soon. Crocs don’t like people in large numbers. In a way she’s good news.”

“Yeah?” I sounded doubtful. Sorry, but to my way of thinking, an eighteen-foot crocodile roaming at large in thick fog just couldn’t be a good thing when you had tourists roaming too.

“She’s a sort of watchdog. Nothing is going to get past without her raising a huge ruckus.”
Raising a ruckus
. That was code for having Hell’s own fight. “And given this cold fog, I doubt anyone will be trysting on the beach, so we needn’t worry about any close encounters between reptiles and humans.
Everyone will go from here to bed and then from bed to the plane.”

Trysting
. That’s on old-fashioned code word for…well, you know, right?

He sounded so sure of these facts that I almost demanded to know if the chef had put something other than Bordeaux in the wine sauce. I glanced at my lobster, wondering if it was glazed with sleeping pills.

“You’re a scary man, Ambrose.”

“I know.” And he stopped smiling.

“What did you tell the staff?” I asked. He lifted an enquiring brow “About why they have to leave so suddenly.”

“I told them there was a giant crocodile nesting in the mangroves and that we had to leave so that nature could safely take its course. They aren’t complaining. It’s happened before and they get paid for their time off.”

“She’s been here before?”

“Yes. These are her nesting grounds. There are very few giant crocs left. Humans have killed them all.” He shrugged. “The island is large enough to share, so I don’t mind granting refuge to another creature who needs it from time to time to raise her babies.”

And just like that, the crocodile became an animal instead of a monster. Albeit, a really large, caution-inducing animal.

“I like you. You’re gallant,” he said unexpectedly. His dark eyes were suddenly fastened on mine, and I swear that they looked right past my
body and into my soul. Radiant heat welled up inside of me, urging me to get comfortable, to take a place at his fire and never leave. “I didn’t think I would take to you. Not this way. But that’s life, isn’t it? Unexpected.”

I couldn’t think of any reason why he had taken to me—or I to him. But I didn’t think about it too much just then. These things happen, right?

I nodded reluctantly and looked away, beginning to be fearful of something other than zombies and crocodiles. I wasn’t sure if I welcomed the distraction of more mundane concerns like the possibility of falling in love—or at least lust—with an inappropriate person.

Hard lessons had taught me that personality, identity, it’s all about keeping clear edges, definite borders that outline who we are.
Here, here, here and here
—this is me; daughter, Democrat, dog-lover, whatever. But heedless and hopeless and often completely blind love smudges those boundaries. Sometimes it rubs them out altogether and you begin to blur into the other person, to blend your tastes, schedules and even beliefs. Next thing you know, you’ve moved to a foreign country and agreed to write a biography about a person you don’t like just to please someone else.

It was probably good that I did this once with Max, since love is an important and almost universal part of the human condition, but I felt resistant to the idea of risking such entanglement again. It isn’t a pleasant fact to admit even now, but at that point Ambrose’s personality was stronger than
mine—hell, he was practically a superhero who had saved me from a flesh-eating zombie—and only a fool would have ignored it. I could be an idiot—this was already proven—but I have always tried not be stupid in the same way twice. There would be no more blind, unquestioning love for me, I assured myself with a confidence I almost believed.

I did like him, though. Something about him fascinated me as no person ever had, and physically I reacted to his presence in ways that I never had before. That was probably partly because of who he was—Ambrose Bierce, the great American writer.

As though guessing both my wary thoughts and my unease with the sudden intense attraction, he added: “That wasn’t a proposal of marriage or anything. You needn’t look so concerned.”

He blinked, and his eyes were again just eyes, although very dark ones. I smiled ruefully and nodded while I finished my scotch. What was I thinking? Of course it wasn’t a proposal of marriage. Bitter Bierce would never marry again. He liked me. He probably even wanted me. Which was okay. I could do
like
and
want
.

“Why is Saint Germain doing this—coming after you?” I asked, changing the subject. “I know he must be crazy, but even crazy people do things for a reason.”

“I’ve given this a great deal of thought while you were sleeping, and I believe that he wants a new viral ally.”

Viral ally
. That was code for…I couldn’t even guess.

“What?” I was saying this a lot.
What?
That was code for
whatthefuckareyoutalkingabout?!?

“I think that he has been looking for a way to raise and control the dead that doesn’t involve magic. There were some suspicious goings-on in Mexico a couple years ago in a region known for having vampires. Rumor on the supernatural grapevine at the time was that he ended up killing the local death god and taking over his vampire priestesses. But someone—several someones—took the vampires out shortly after he made his power play. They also sabotaged some of his clinics where he was doing genetic research down in South America.”

Is this chilling you as you read it? It chilled me as I heard Ambrose say it. I think it was that combination of words:
death god, vampires
and
genetic research
.

“Why?” I asked again. Maybe if I kept asking I’d eventually hear something useful or even understandable. “Why does he need another way to raise the dead? How is it that you can help?”

Ambrose shrugged. It wasn’t a gesture of indifference but rather to show that he didn’t know where to begin.

“As I understand it, magic limits the number of zombies he can raise and control at any one time. Even Saint Germain, powerful as he is, has limits on his psychic strength and how many balls he can juggle at once. If he had been able to establish vampiric mind-control—a sort of telepathic command system—he could have manipulated many more entities and even changed their instructions
by mental remote control. As it is, once he creates a zombie or ghoul and gives it instructions, the thing is on autopilot and Saint Germain has no way of altering its objectives should the situation change. They are also stupid. He could try to create people like me, I suppose, but he never has. I think he fears what the reaction of any thinking person might be. Or perhaps he doesn’t have the Dark Man’s secrets of resurrection.”

I didn’t know what to say to this latest impossibility, so I opted for silence.

“His clinics do a lot of work with cloning and DNA manipulation. Vampirism should have worked, but has apparently failed him for some reason. I think he wants the lycanthropy virus now. He wants to be the alpha werewolf of a new kind of pack and breed instinctive obedience into his ghouls who could serve as his generals. As it is, he has only marginal control over them when they are out of sight, and he may worry about them turning against him eventually. Ghouls are not inherently loyal, and they are just smart enough to plan a coup—as the Dark Man eventually learned. Of course, Saint Germain may just want the virus for himself, so he can become stronger and faster than he already is.”

“And if he succeeds?” I asked reluctantly. On the bright side, I had stopped worrying about the crocodile. Ambrose’s suggestion was so much more terrifying by comparison that I couldn’t work up much fear of a giant reptile that could eat me.