More Than Mortal (17 page)
Authors: Mick Farren
He carried the jug of water back into the bedroom, took another long drink, and as he began to rehydrate, he noticed, for the first time, the drop of only recently dried blood on the exposed sheet where the fur was turned back. Was the blood his or Marieko’s, and if it was, how had the injuries they’d both sustained in the dreamstate carried through into the waking world? He certainly had no marks on him that he could see or feel. He tentatively sniffed at the bed, but the general odor of both their bodies was too strong for him to isolate the
source of the blood, and he was none the wiser. The mysteries were piling up with an uncomfortable rapidity.
source of the blood, and he was none the wiser. The mysteries were piling up with an uncomfortable rapidity.
Columbine was aware she’d been rather making a fool of herself. The presence of Victor Renquist under her roof had plunged her into the most enduringly foul of moods, but by the same token, she knew she had to pull herself together before Destry and Marieko completely lost patience with her and the integrity, and even the continuation, of the highly useful troika became fatally jeopardized. Mercifully, Destry had finally stopped tapping the damned riding crop on her boot, but Marieko continued to sit as rigid and unbendingly exquisite as a jade figurine, her mouth growing smaller and tighter by the moment, a clear indication that she was very close to being unforgivingly offended. Another display of pettishness by Columbine might well push one or both of them over an emotional edge from which they might possibly not return—and yet she still felt an almost overwhelming need to pout and drum her heels.
Columbine was the first to recognize her problem, although she would also be the last to admit it. If she wasn’t extremely careful, the mask of thoughtless hedonism that had protected her for so long would turn into a threat, and her cultivated duality might actually prove her undoing. She had grown to womanhood and made the Change to the undead in a time when men were near-essential protectors and the most effective weapon in the arsenal of the adventuress was a facade of infantile—if sexually charged—helplessness, and she was loath to admit the games of the time she’d learned from contemporaries like Caroline Lamb, Emma Hamilton, and Harriette Wilson had become less and less applicable as the years passed. In the current situation, she knew absolutely nothing positive could be achieved by acting like a spoiled brat, and indeed, the results could, in a worst-case scenario, wreak disastrously negative havoc. The call was for cunning, but she still clung
to the need for petulance, out of nothing more than a sense of comfort and habit.
to the need for petulance, out of nothing more than a sense of comfort and habit.
The matter of Renquist was a case in point. The child in her wished they had never invited him to Ravenkeep. The mature and seasonedly sensible undead part of her knew she had to rationally accept that he was needed to solve the problem of the dreams that threatened to drive her to madness and the unidentified strangeness that apparently lurked inside the prehistoric mound at Morton Downs. The spoiled brat had used Renquist as the symbolic great betrayer, inflating his importance until he had become her own internal legend. Reason dictated she had to put aside this romantic and largely illusionary creation and work with him as an eminent and respected nosferatu. Yet, when he had appeared the previous night in his egomaniac display of psychic quasi-majesty, she’d immediately bought completely into his power play and tried to run him through with one of her favorite sabers. The act had been stupidly impulsive, and instead of humbling him, she had been humiliated herself. Bending him to her will in the way she desired would now be even harder.
To complicate circumstances further, her dreamlife was deteriorating faster than she was either prepared or able to accept. Although she didn’t truly believe it was anything but coincidental, she had earlier woken from what appeared to be yet another phase in the transmitted dreaming. This belief in the coincidental, however, didn’t prevent her from blaming him. Victor arrived at Ravenkeep, and her dreams sank deeper into the cesspool of emotional disturbance. In the new phase, in the sleep from which she had so recently arisen; she had found herself blind and entombed. The blindness was pure horror. A night-seeing nosferatu was never blind. As her eyes probed for anything at all, her own breathing rasped loud and dry in her ears, and the tiny sounds of body functions were amplified to near deafening. She was absolutely certain, in the total and sightless dark,
she could even detect the small booming reverberations in the Earth itself, as the planet moved and groaned along with tectonic plates on their infinite and implacable onward momentum. Her body was swathed in some sticky and all-enveloping, slightly elastic material with just a slight give, permitting her only the most minimal movement. Her hands were immobilized, crossed across her chest, but by pressing hard against the cling of the sticky stuff, she found that, in a small way, she could explore the inexplicable space she occupied. The mucuslike swaddling appeared to be only an inner layer. Feeling with shoulders and elbows, she could detect an outer shell of solid construct, apparently form-tailored to the contours of her body—a womb or a tomb, presenting a choice of dying or being born. She was in a container or sarcophagus, a casket, or one of those suspended-animation tanks from the realm of science fiction, but without any real clue as to which.
she could even detect the small booming reverberations in the Earth itself, as the planet moved and groaned along with tectonic plates on their infinite and implacable onward momentum. Her body was swathed in some sticky and all-enveloping, slightly elastic material with just a slight give, permitting her only the most minimal movement. Her hands were immobilized, crossed across her chest, but by pressing hard against the cling of the sticky stuff, she found that, in a small way, she could explore the inexplicable space she occupied. The mucuslike swaddling appeared to be only an inner layer. Feeling with shoulders and elbows, she could detect an outer shell of solid construct, apparently form-tailored to the contours of her body—a womb or a tomb, presenting a choice of dying or being born. She was in a container or sarcophagus, a casket, or one of those suspended-animation tanks from the realm of science fiction, but without any real clue as to which.
Sealed in with nothing but herself, she had more than ample time for theorizing. Accepting Marieko’s supposition that, while dreaming, she was somehow coming under the slumbering influence of the powerful entity allegedly buried in the mound at Morton Downs, she had been shifted in time. The idylls and then the subsequent devastation of the sixth century, the entity’s overspilling dreams, were long in the past. The new darkness was present time. The entity was drawing near to waking, and she was sharing the experience. If she was correct, what would happen if this thing of conjecture should actually come alive? Would she be drawn to it, or cast aside? One very unpleasant idea had crossed her mind and then, despite how hard her revulsion might try, refused to be dismissed. The state in which she found herself was much like the way certain arachnids incapacitated their live prey in order to eat them later. If that were the case, was she doomed to be consumed? Was she condemned to be a metaphoric spider’s breakfast? Perhaps their real investigation should be to find a way
to destroy the thing before it ever emerged.
to destroy the thing before it ever emerged.
The worst part of all this dream-induced consternation and lurking fear was that, with Renquist in the house, she felt obliged to keep it all to herself. Had it just been Destry and Marieko in residence, she would have shamelessly created a living hell for those around her, ranting and sobbing that her dreams were in full decay and she was clearly finished. Her aversion wasn’t only to diminishing herself further by throwing another tantrum in front of Victor. She still didn’t trust him. She wanted him to go to Morton Downs and see what he could discern with as little foreknowledge as possible. Marieko provided a further source of humiliation. By greeting the new night so full of herself after her own dreamstate adventures with Victor, she had the edge with her swashbuckling ninja, and was the dream-star of the evening. It went further, though, than Marieko stealing her thunder. She felt she now needed to be a good deal more guarded around the other two females. Ruminating in the black hole of her dream, she decided Victor being in the house was a catalyst for competition, subterfuge, and challenge, and she must expect snapping, snarling, and two-faced backstabbing. Where they normally went about their business without too much resort to the balance of the natural pecking order, the male, if he became an object of the desire to bond, could wreck all that and return them to the violence of the pack. In the pack, the acknowledged alpha female must never show weakness. If she did, her rivals would inevitably drag her down—not out of conscious spite, but just in obedience to the natural law. From now on, she decided, she would play her cards, no matter how distressing the hand, very close to her bosom.
“I have to get to grips with my duality.”
Destry and Marieko both nodded. “We’re glad you’ve finally acknowledged that.”
Now that she was thinking rationally again, an unpleasant and obvious thought struck her. “Oh, shit.”
“What?”
“Did it occur to either of you he could be listening to us right now?”
Neither Marieko nor Destry seemed to share her concern. “I think we would have noticed. Besides, does it matter? We’re hardly exchanging state secrets.”
“We should get him out of the house. Even if it’s only for an hour or so.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to gather my thoughts. We need to talk, and I won’t feel comfortable if he’s just a couple of rooms away.”
Marieko glanced at Destry. “He’ll be expecting me to take him to the excavation.”
“We have to talk first.”
“What should I tell him?”
“Tell him that we need to wait, that this Campion and his students may still be there.”
Destry looked skeptical. “Okay, so we tell him that. He’ll probably buy it, but what do we do then? Suggest he take a walk around the grounds so we can talk about him behind his back?”
“Offer him the use of your horse.”
Destry’s jaw slowly dropped, as though she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Are you joking? Let Renquist ride Dormandu? That horse will only be ridden by me.”
Columbine was secretly pleased and amused by Destry’s reaction. She might tap her riding crop disdainfully on her boot at the weaknesses of others, but the moment it was suggested she sacrifice one of her own preciously held and exclusive vanities, she treated it as a violation. “Victor prides himself as an equestrian. The horse would be the perfect temptation.”
“Damn you, Columbine. How long have you been setting me up for this?”
“I’m not setting you up, Destry, dear. I’m just suggesting you let Renquist ride your horse.”
“But I’ve bonded with the animal.”
“It would hardly damage that bonding if Victor were to ride the brute for an hour or more.”
“It sticks in my craw. I went to a lot of trouble to acquire Dormandu, and I don’t like the idea of his being ridden like some hack by all and sundry.”
Now Marieko was with Columbine. “Victor Renquist is hardly all and sundry, and it is the ideal way of getting him out of the house for a while. I agree with Columbine. We do need to talk without being overheard.”
For a few moments, Destry stared stubbornly at the floor. Finally she looked up and met the eyes of the other two. “Okay, okay, the point’s been made. I’m being petty. I’ll offer Dormandu to Renquist if that’s what’s needed.” She rose from the chair. “I’ll do it, but I don’t have to like it.”
“Good evening, Victor.”
“Good evening, Ms. Maitland.”
“Please, not so formal. You have to call me Destry. I told you that last night.”
“Good evening, Destry.”
Renquist had broken the impasse of the neglected country house-guest by dressing and then leaving his room to explore the Priory on his own. He had chosen an ensemble of a casual tuxedo-cut leather jacket over narrow pants and a silk shirt, and feeling suitably attired, he commenced to wander the house until one of its three mistresses came to find him. Although, to all outward appearances, his movements were aimless and idle, Renquist had never been blessed with any talent for idling, and he made his seemingly random wandering a cover for filling in as much background as possible on the three females with whom he now found himself involved.
As Renquist moved silently from room to room, he gleaned only the most obvious basics from the possessions, decor, and furniture. He found the Priory completely typical of most nosferatu Residences. It contained
the disorganized clutter of centuries; the use of the interior space was not well planned, and in some parts, not planned at all. Domestic cleanliness was of such a habitually low priority the least-used rooms had closed atmospheres of dust, must, and creeping decay. The interests and personalities of the troika were, on the other hand, very well represented. Columbine’s fixation on her Georgian and Regency roots took a definite precedence, since she had been there the longest, but there were also souvenirs and artifacts of Marieko’s long history in the Far East, and Destry’s career seemed to be that of a warrior maid-of-fortune around the colonial flash points of the twentieth century.
the disorganized clutter of centuries; the use of the interior space was not well planned, and in some parts, not planned at all. Domestic cleanliness was of such a habitually low priority the least-used rooms had closed atmospheres of dust, must, and creeping decay. The interests and personalities of the troika were, on the other hand, very well represented. Columbine’s fixation on her Georgian and Regency roots took a definite precedence, since she had been there the longest, but there were also souvenirs and artifacts of Marieko’s long history in the Far East, and Destry’s career seemed to be that of a warrior maid-of-fortune around the colonial flash points of the twentieth century.
Renquist had yet to learn the exact history of Destry Maitland and how long she had been one of the undead, but the array of mementos that were undoubtedly hers could be read as indicating she had followed the camps of both revolutionaries and counterinsurgents, primarily in Central Africa and South and Central America. A collection of personally inscribed photos—Fidel Castro; Patrice Lumumba; Augusto Pinochet; Leon Trotsky, in Mexico City toward the end of his life; Eva Perón; and the notorious cocaine baron Pablo Escobar—seemed to confirm that her intimates had been players of the highest order. On a high shelf, Renquist noted a number of blue document binders that carried the circular eagle-and-shield logo of the Central Intelligence Agency, but curious as he might be, he did not think this preliminary reconnoiter was the time to take them down for closer examination. For all he knew, the binders might hold truly devastating material and sources of limitless blackmail, but for such things to be gathering dust on a shelf was not in any way unusual. Nosferatu were notoriously careless with all kinds of treasures.
A hand-cranked power unit for a military-style field telephone, battered and worn, with chipped olive drab paint came with two electric cables attached to it that ended in alligator clip electrodes, suggesting a grimly
mute story. Was this Destry’s keepsake of some unwholesome past adventure or even an avowed calling? If such were the case, it would not be the first time a nosferatu had hired out to humans as a torturer. The Inquisition itself had maintained its uneasy contacts with the subworld of nosferatu, and Lupo, Renquist’s strong right arm back in the Los Angeles colony, whose history went back to the Italian city-states of the Renaissance, had extracted many a confession under duress in his time, despite his regular profession of hired assassin.
mute story. Was this Destry’s keepsake of some unwholesome past adventure or even an avowed calling? If such were the case, it would not be the first time a nosferatu had hired out to humans as a torturer. The Inquisition itself had maintained its uneasy contacts with the subworld of nosferatu, and Lupo, Renquist’s strong right arm back in the Los Angeles colony, whose history went back to the Italian city-states of the Renaissance, had extracted many a confession under duress in his time, despite his regular profession of hired assassin.
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