More Than Mortal (9 page)
Authors: Mick Farren
Renquist had become such a virtuoso of rational procrastination that it took a day or so to realize how, in his adamant resolve not to take Julia with him, he had already subconsciously decided he was leaving for England.
His course was set; he just hadn’t accepted it at a conscious level. The colony really could look after itself for a while. He was aware that he might possibly be walking into some form of trap or risky entanglement, but such was the chance he took whenever he answered any solicitation or enticement to leave the Residence. Such were the risks in the night-milieux of creatures like himself. Any nosferatu who didn’t constantly expect the unexpected would never survive a decade—let alone a near-millennium. In the end, the temptation of the letters had proved just too intense. Both his own curiosity and fear of what these human scholars might discover were twin goads to which he couldn’t help but respond. Renquist was very well aware that if the humans were to attempt to date and decipher such material, they could learn far more than was good for Renquist, Columbine Dashwood, or any of their kind.
His course was set; he just hadn’t accepted it at a conscious level. The colony really could look after itself for a while. He was aware that he might possibly be walking into some form of trap or risky entanglement, but such was the chance he took whenever he answered any solicitation or enticement to leave the Residence. Such were the risks in the night-milieux of creatures like himself. Any nosferatu who didn’t constantly expect the unexpected would never survive a decade—let alone a near-millennium. In the end, the temptation of the letters had proved just too intense. Both his own curiosity and fear of what these human scholars might discover were twin goads to which he couldn’t help but respond. Renquist was very well aware that if the humans were to attempt to date and decipher such material, they could learn far more than was good for Renquist, Columbine Dashwood, or any of their kind.
Renquist had methodically begun reestablishing communications, calling in favors, implementing blackmail, and generally easing the way to the final and precise travel arrangements that had brought him to this comfortable suite in the Savoy. The preparation stage was behind him. He was now in a lull before the adventure began in earnest. A part of him, the ever-youthful heart-of-the-flame that still relished the excitement of a quest into the unknown, wanted to cease the game-playing and telephone immediately as the sun had set, but elder pride forbade this. He was Victor Renquist; it was fitting he should maintain a stern detachment. He would walk first, allow himself one more feel of the streets, and telephone on his return.
C
olumbine jerked first, as though electricity had been fed directly into her undead spine, and then the phone rang. Marieko noted how the two occurrences had taken place in diametric opposition to what should have been their logical order. First Columbine jerked and then the double ring of the bell, as though she was experiencing a brief but nonetheless full premonition. Could Columbine sense the electrons or digital light pulses coming down the wire or fiber-optic cable? Marieko was unclear about the technical details of the Priory’s phone service, but Columbine seemed suddenly able to anticipate it. As she reached for the receiver. Marieko intercepted her. “No.”
olumbine jerked first, as though electricity had been fed directly into her undead spine, and then the phone rang. Marieko noted how the two occurrences had taken place in diametric opposition to what should have been their logical order. First Columbine jerked and then the double ring of the bell, as though she was experiencing a brief but nonetheless full premonition. Could Columbine sense the electrons or digital light pulses coming down the wire or fiber-optic cable? Marieko was unclear about the technical details of the Priory’s phone service, but Columbine seemed suddenly able to anticipate it. As she reached for the receiver. Marieko intercepted her. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“Don’t answer on the first ring. He’s made you wait, so don’t be overeager. In fact, let me get it.”
Marieko reached past Columbine and picked up. “Hello.”
A well-modulated male voice, almost without accent,
asked, “Could I please speak with Miss Columbine Dashwood?”
asked, “Could I please speak with Miss Columbine Dashwood?”
Columbine hissed at her. “Is it him?”
Marieko nodded. Only Victor Renquist could take such care that his voice revealed absolutely nothing. “Can I tell her who’s calling?”
“My name is Renquist. Victor Renquist.”
Marieko covered the mouthpiece with her hand and waited. Columbine tried to take the receiver, but Marieko swatted her away in dumb show. “For someone who’s supposed to be an experienced game-player, you’re acting like a teenager anticipating a first date.” She spoke back into the phone. “I’m sorry, Victor, but Columbine isn’t available right now. This is Marieko Matsunaga. Can I help you? I have as full a grasp of the relevant situation. I’m the one who actually wrote the letters.”
“You have a very fine hand.”
“Thank you.”
“The realization of the flame-script was close to perfect.”
Marieko inclined her head modestly. “I still make errors.”
Renquist didn’t continue the pleasantries, and came to the point. “I am now in London. I believe Miss Dashwood wants to meet with me.”
“We all wish to meet you.”
Columbine looked as though she were about to burst, but she contained herself sufficiently not to grab for the phone again.
“I’m staying at the Savoy … .”
“I know the Savoy very well.”
“I don’t know if you want to do this in London or …”
“It might be better if you came here. It would make possible an immediate inspection of the problem we outlined in our letters.”
“That’s probably the best plan.”
“We would naturally send a car for you.”
Renquist hesitated. Only for a fraction of a second, but long enough to convince Marieko his reactions were not as instant and impeccable as was generally believed. “No, there’s no need to do that. I will arrange my own transport. It will give me greater flexibility.”
Renquist was clearly protecting himself against any possible ambush or trickery. Marieko would have expected no less of him. “Do you intend to come tonight?”
“That was my intention. How long is the drive?”
“A little over two hours depending on the traffic.”
“Then I could be there well before midnight.”
“You will require directions. This place is a little remote.”
“I actually know Ravenkeep.”
“You do?
“From a very long time ago.”
“The road system may have radically changed since then.”
“It almost certainly has. You had better tell me the relevant roads and Motorways so I can relay them to my driver.”
Marieko did nothing so gauche as giving Renquist time to reach for pen and paper. If he was as good as his reputation claimed, let him memorize what she told him. “You take the M4 out of London …”
Hardly pausing for breath, she recited the route from London to the Priory.
“All three of us look forward very much to seeing you, Victor-sama.”
She hung up to find Columbine glaring at her.
“Why didn’t you let me speak to him?”
Marieko’s expression, as always, revealed nothing, although her aura hinted at a certain assertive satisfaction. “I would have thought that was obvious. By not allowing him to speak to you, he learned nothing of your prevailing mood or attitude, and he can speculate on the various possibilities as he travels down here. He made you wait, and now it’s his turn to be marginally inconvenienced.
The contest is surely one of balance and counterbalance, isn’t it?”
The contest is surely one of balance and counterbalance, isn’t it?”
The limousine was white, far too flamboyant, and Renquist was less than pleased. He didn’t want to be mistaken for an entertainer. He supposed he should have given more specific instructions to the Savoy desk clerk, but did the man really imagine Renquist would require a vehicle so overtly ostentatious? The driver wore a grey double-breasted suit and matching peaked cap. The forepart of his mind was smooth with the professionalism of an upmarket service provider and colored by a distinct pride in the long list of the celebrated and notorious he had driven in his time. He had a ready repertoire of jokes and anecdotes should the client prove conversational, but also the ability to remain silent if need be, enclosed in his own thoughts and concentration. He also had a fairly comprehensive catalog of contacts for clients who not only required to be taken where they wanted to go, but also to avail themselves of sex, drugs, or other illegal, illicit, or merely bizarre distractions the city might offer.
Behind this anterior working facade, however, there burned a resentment as old and sullen as the English class system. The world, as he saw it, was arbitrarily divided into underlings, who drove, and the supposedly superior, who were driven, and this perpetually rankled. Having taken the brief measure of the human with whom he’d spend the next couple of hours, Renquist had little further interest. He had seen infinitely more brutal inequality in his time. A driver was a driver, and Renquist hoped the man wouldn’t be presented with any occasion to rise higher than that. Renquist might have looked more deeply into the chauffeur’s mind had its owner shown the slightest trace of rebellion or even of originality, but he detected no Red Flag rebel romance, no death on the barricades, no poet craving to be free. The chauffeur might have his resentments, but he also had a strong if spurious investment in the status quo, and he
truly believed in the gossip-column celebrity hierarchy and his own minor place in it. For Renquist this made him stereotypically dull.
truly believed in the gossip-column celebrity hierarchy and his own minor place in it. For Renquist this made him stereotypically dull.
The man clearly didn’t know what to make of Renquist. He first assumed Renquist was an actor, but, by the man’s tabloid logic, if Renquist could afford to stay at the Savoy and make use of a limousine service to take him way out into the wilds of the countryside, the driver should have been familiar with his face, and he wasn’t. The driver’s second idea was that he might have been one of the new breed of TV, sound-bite politicians, but this also didn’t seem to fly. Aside from the man’s cardindex knowledge of famous and semifamous faces, something didn’t sit right. Sure, Renquist had the correct assurance, the confidence of power, but somehow he carried it too well. These new politicians were good-looking, but never this good-looking. They always seemed to have some flaw or defect, and they never looked him quite so unflinchingly in the eye. Just as they didn’t sport almost shoulder-length hair. Renquist was almost tempted to smile. If only the chauffeur knew the clear and unvarnished truth. That would surely give him a story to tell, wherever chauffeurs gathered and told their chauffeur stories. That was, of course, if he stopped running long enough to ever tell the tale. Ah, humans.
The man held the door open. Renquist, as he stepped into the low but ample rear of the car, repeated the instructions he’d been give over the phone. “We apparently take the M4 out of London …”
The driver nodded. He’d maybe absorbed about half of what Renquist said, which wasn’t bad for a mortal. “You may have to refresh my memory as we go, sir.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll see that we don’t get lost.”
The door closed behind him, and Renquist thought no more about either the chauffeur or the less-than-appropriate white limousine. They were merely a means to the next item on the agenda.
“Keep still and focus, damn you, Grendl, or I swear I will have you beaten so badly you won’t walk for a week.”
Destry called from her dressing room. “Don’t beat her before I’ve finished with her. I need her next.”
Since time immemorial, the worthlessness of mirrors had created problems for nosferatu ladies of fashion. Columbine, Marieko, and Destry were far from the first to use the mind and vision of a maidservant thrall as a human looking glass when dressing or applying makeup. Of course, the mind of the thrall so used had to be under full and absolute control, still and functionally inanimate with his or her will completely subjugated and frozen—but wasn’t that what thralls were all about? Psychological abasement and the surrender of the will and personality to a superior? Usually the commanding nosferatu promised or at least hinted at eventual immortality, but these were pledges rarely if ever kept. Both parties knew that to be used and exploited, to serve without question in return for just being in close and daily proximity to nosferatu was an end in itself for most thralls, whatever their hopes might be for an infinite future. The truth was that, in all but the rarest of cases, thralls, after a mortal life of servitude and subservience, made very poor nosferatu. Columbine always used Grendl or some other woman to be her mirror. Men could not be trusted. No matter how blanked and glazed they might be, they always tended to impose a measure of their own interpretation. They altered, flattered, and reflected what they desired rather than what truly was—very nice, but completely lacking in essential objectivity. Women were more ready to return the cruel truth and allow their mistress to make the crucial alterations.
Staring directly at herself through the immobile Grendl’s mind, she finished applying a deep purple lipstick and mentally stepped back. “I’m still not sure this works. Maybe I should take a Polaroid. Does anyone know where the camera is?”
Again, it was Destry who answered. “I’ve got it here. I’ll trade it for Grendl.”
The triad may not have been the first to use a thrall to provide a psychic reflection, but they were possibly the only ones who used Polaroid photographs as a check and backup. The idea had been Columbine’s, back when Polaroid color film became readily available at the village shop. The idea never would have worked, however, had not all three females been of that undead strain who were able to produce a photographic image. Some nosferatu simply couldn’t be photographed. Their image failed to react with silver nitrate as anything but a blurred, ectoplasmic apparition. Others might pose for pictures, but if they wanted to fog the film, they could. Like the original problem of the missing mirror reflection, this phenomenon had never been adequately explained to Columbine. Various nosferatu she’d met in her travels had proffered theories, but never one that completely satisfied her. It happened, therefore it was. Maybe Victor had an explanation—although she might not buy into his as a matter of principle.
No matter how Columbine, Marieko, or Destry might later deny it, the imminent arrival of Victor Renquist had created a swell of excitement in the paneled corridors of Ravenkeep Priory. As the three women made their preparations, their auras left afterimages of flirtatious anticipation, which joined the wafting perfume and rustling of fabric. Marieko had been right. A nosferatu male had indeed not crossed their threshold in a long time, and no matter how they might claim to be above such shallow fancy, the prospect triggered an escalating indulgence of vanity, cacophony, haste, and even a slight edge of hysteria. Columbine had really made the effort, perhaps claiming her birthright from a more overdressed age: after trying on a number of ensembles, she had settled for a Versace extravaganza, unusual for the murdered designer in that the ensemble eschewed what had been his signature riot of color and was entirely black, a decostyle
creation of crustacean armor—layered sequins with an almost Elizabethan, face-framing collar of high spines webbed with black lace—but, at the same time, open to the navel and highly revealing. With her white ringleted hair and corpse-pale skin, the effect was one of total monochrome. To offset this, she slipped on the ruby ring she had so recently taken from the hand of the dead boy. She had also taken the matching necklace and pendant earrings from their velvet case. She took one more look through the eyes and mind of Grendl, adjusted the set of the necklace slightly, and was more or less satisfied.
creation of crustacean armor—layered sequins with an almost Elizabethan, face-framing collar of high spines webbed with black lace—but, at the same time, open to the navel and highly revealing. With her white ringleted hair and corpse-pale skin, the effect was one of total monochrome. To offset this, she slipped on the ruby ring she had so recently taken from the hand of the dead boy. She had also taken the matching necklace and pendant earrings from their velvet case. She took one more look through the eyes and mind of Grendl, adjusted the set of the necklace slightly, and was more or less satisfied.
“Take a photograph.”
The thrall was so tightly controlled she raised the cheap Polaroid with slow and robotic arms. The flash left Columbine with retinal images, but as the small square print was ejected from the plastic base of the camera, she took it and waited impatiently for the image to appear. For a few moments she studied the picture; then she nodded and smiled. “Yes, indeed. That should help keep you off balance, Victor dear.”
This was not to say Marieko and Destry hadn’t made at least a comparable effort. Marieko had gone for an almost science-fiction glamour, in gold jeans of metallic leather, teetering platform shoes, and a scarlet chiffon blouse fastened only at the left shoulder so her right breast was exposed and the splendor of her tattoo-work was revealed to its full advantage. Destry, on the other hand, had opted for a somewhat more conservative look. A man’s black tuxedo with satin lapels decorated with a diamond pin, in the shape of a Native American thunderbird, given to her by Fidel Castro during his exile in Mexico City before the revolution. To prevent an overly stern and masculine effect, she had mitigated it with very red, very high heels and matching lipstick that she now required Grendl to help her apply.
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