Sips of Blood (18 page)

Cecelia, not a simple girl, smiled.

"Yes, often I find myself at home alone."

"It gives you great freedom,
ma
chère."

"Except that I don't have my own car yet. I
depend on friends to take me places."

"To what sort of places do you like to
go?"

If she said the malls, Sade decided he would
give her up.

"Beaches. There's a beautiful lake not far
from here. Whippet Lake. Have you been there?"

"Mais non."

"Then you must go. I'd be willing to direct
you."

"I am so poor at following directions."

"I mean I'd go with you. To make sure you got
there."

"What if it should rain?" Sade hated sitting
out in the sun for long periods of time. The sun sucked too much of
his energy.

"No problem. There's an old cabin right on
the lake. Been deserted for several years. We could always duck in
there."

"The cabin must be a favorite,
comment
dit-on ça...
hang-out for you and your friends."

"Most of my friends hang around the mall.
I've used the cabin by myself sometimes when I want to be alone, or
my girlfriend and I have secret picnics there. We have a little
hibachi set up."

"Roughing it,
ma chère."

Cecelia laughed, and when she did her breasts
jiggled under the white cotton T-shirt. Her teeth were very white
and straight, thanks most probably to a good orthodontist.

"So what do you think, Mr. Sade? Want to go
sometime?"

"We could roast some of those
Americain
weenies."

"I prefer those fat hot Italian
sausages."

"There are some good-sized French sausages,
ma chère."

"But are they as hot as the Italian
ones?"

"They can burn the tip of your..." Sade
reached out his left hand and held his index finger in front of
Cecelia's lips. She responded by sticking out her tongue.
"Langue,"
he finished his sentence. The tip of his finger
barely touched her tongue for a brief moment, and then he pulled
his hand back.

"How about tomorrow?"

"You are eager to learn the French ways. That
is
très bien.
I like teaching eager students. Do you know
where Belinda Road crosses the railroad tracks?"

"Sure."

"You think you could meet me there,
ma
chère?"

"I'll bicycle. Three o'clock?"

"Oui.
Three o'clock."

"Will you bring something of your own?"

"Pardon?"

"Something you've written."

Her eyes shined with eagerness, and Sade
thought of many writings he'd like to bring, but decided to be
cautious.

"I'll have to look through my work and see if
there is something that would interest a
jeune fille
like
you."

"I'm sure I can learn something from anything
you've written."

I am sure many people have,
he
thought.

"May I put this bouquet in your bedroom, Mr.
Sade? Oh, I know your bedroom is off-limits. What I mean is I could
put these flowers in a vase and leave it at the foot of your
door."

Ah! Such a pupil,
thought Sade.

"But,
mon enfant,
then you would have
to pick a new bouquet for the dining table."

"I don't mind. Really!"

"Then
merci, mademoiselle."

"Will these do? I could pick another bunch,
if you'd like."

"You have been holding this bouquet for so
long that they must have picked up some of your own fragrance, and
tonight that would be
une très bonne mémoire."

But hopefully not as lovely as la mémoire of
tomorrow.

Chapter 33

Liliana had climbed Wil's childhood tree. The
limbs were sturdy and healthy, and the view of the sunset eased her
rampaging soul. A squirrel sat on a distant limb, obviously trying
to decide whether he wanted to share his tree with a stranger. A
branch of leaves gently brushed her cheek with each breeze, and the
scent of nature lulled her into a semi-doze.

She had been eight years old when last she
climbed a tree, and for that she had been reprimanded by her nanny.
Unlady-like, she had been told. "I don't want my trees destroyed by
a wayward child," bellowed her father. Her mother merely stifled a
chuckle, while her brothers displayed some weird sense of bravado
at having snitched on her.

Her nanny and her family were long gone.
Unable to say good-bye to them, she still imagined them alive and
waiting. Waiting by her grave for the minister to end his sermon.
Her family believed in her death, and why not? To all appearances,
for several days she was dead, until her uncle brought her coffin
to his villa in Italy. There he fed her fresh blood from a toddler,
a scrawny child of a poor family who thought they were selling the
little boy into servitude to a wealthy family. Instead they had
ensured his early death.

Many times she liked to think her family
would all come together again. But her brothers had died in wars.
Her mother died most probably from grief, having lost all her
children. Father had simply withered away into a crippled old man
without family and without his mind.

Leaves in the next tree shivered loudly when
the squirrel also decided to abandon her. He scurried deep into the
leaves, leaving behind his old home in favor of the safety of an
undisputed tree. Liliana smiled and silently wished the little guy
well and hoped he'd have a more peaceful life than she had
known.

The gray shadows of night were bringing their
bland coloring to the earth. The bright green of the grass dimmed.
The colorful wreaths and bouquets of flowers dulled. The tombstones
and mausoleums took on the eerie complexion of a haunted night.

Movement. Close near the fence. It was late
for someone to be in the cemetery. Most mortals avoided the
reminder of death at this hour.

Movement again. It seemed to be edging from
the old part of the cemetery to the new. A scurry like a wary
animal, except its size and shape seemed more like a human's.

There it was again. Rags dripped from a
moving object. A human-sized object. Another smaller shape joined
the first. Lingering shapes hesitated to join their scouts.

Liliana shimmied herself down to the ground
and ran for the cemetery's gate. Ajar, the gate invited her
curiosity inside. Not wanting to make a sound, she squeezed between
the open gates. The gravel beneath her shoes crunched. She halted.
No other sound and no other movement. But she was sure she had seen
shapes moving about, and she was determined to find them.

Slowly she walked up the trail to the old
section of the cemetery. Flashes of movement kept their distance
from her. They were too quick to be caught. She began searching
behind tombstones and trees, hoping to surprise a shade. She found
nothing until...

A yellowed scrap of muslin clung to the bark
of an oak tree. Her hand shook as she reached out for it. She
wanted to know about the mutants, but she didn't want to believe it
was true. When she touched the material her fingers stung, but she
refused to pull away. Gradually the sting faded and the material
fell into the palm of her hand. Bits of flesh clung to one side of
the muslin, and the other side appeared blood-stained.

Liliana brought the muslin to her nose. The
odor of decay, of blood, of earth and age pervaded the threads.
Upon tasting the material, she realized it did not come from
anything living. Instead, soil freshly covered the entire patch,
almost drowning out the flavors of flesh and blood.

Hunger spiked in her body. Blood hunger. Not
thinking, she sucked the cloth until the metallic taste of blood
ran across her tongue. Human blood. Blood of the dead.

She spat out the muslin and turned in the
direction she thought the shapes had traveled in. They were
crossing over into the new part of the cemetery, into the active
section.

Guessing their course, Liliana cut through
several swaths to again reach the main path. No one walked the
path. Several yards away, beyond an ornate mausoleum, she thought
she saw movement again. She travelled in that direction until a
foul odor caused her to stop.

Fear throbbed inside her, a fear of seeing
the mutants, of beholding the wretches that had been mere
speculation and gossip among the immortals. Fear of seeing her own
desires played out on this deathly stage. Her embalming work
allowed her to brush near the dead without having to accept the
culture to which she had been doomed.

Mentally setting aside the smells, she
continued on to the far mausoleum. Beyond the mausoleum the land
was generously landscaped with weeping willows. Most were healthy,
but one tilted too much to one side. As she approached, she noted
that some of the tree's roots were above ground. The tree seemingly
readied to make a mad dash out of the cemetery. What had it seen?
she wondered. Too much pain and hurt. Too many tears. Or unnatural
scenes of grotesquerie.

Not far away she could hear the sound of
animals digging. Following the sound, she came to a hilly mound. At
the top of the mound she dropped to her knees. Before her were
human forms digging, hands performing the work of claws. They
worked quickly. And they worked as a pack on the freshly dug
grave.

When they reached the coffin, each repeatedly
slammed weighty stones against the lid until one of the pack
howled. All the others stopped. The leader leaned over, and Liliana
heard the sound of wood being ripped apart. Long dangling ribbons
of drool hung from the spectators' mouths.

Finally a body rose out of the grave, but not
on its own. No, the leader passed the corpse to his brethren. The
corpse seemed fresh, not more than a day old. Never embalmed,
thought Liliana.
Immediately interred.
Still full of the
blood that these creatures sought. A plump body of a woman, a
middle-aged woman wrapped in a white shroud. The pack ripped the
protective shroud from the corpse and went to work trying to
extract as much of the body's blood as they could.

Liliana rose to her feet and slowly glided
down to the scene of the feast. The leader spotted her and howled.
Each in turn howled and made vicious hand movements in her
direction, but never moved away from their meal. Gradually they
returned to their sucking and munching, and only occasionally would
a pair of wary and mindless eyes look at her. They all had the eyes
of frightened animals. All were ugly, fangs grown
disproportionately long, lips partially chewed. The faces were
discolored and blotched with singes from the sun. Hair was matted
with the decaying flesh of their prey, nails uneven and bent,
fingers like stalks of wilted wheat. Most wore shredded rags, some
hovered over the corpse naked.

"Can you understand me?" Liliana called out,
praying no one would answer. She moved closer, but the frenzy had
become such that they no longer took any notice of her. "My name is
Liliana," she said, surprising herself with the calmness of her
voice.

She had to stop. Her stomach roiled. Their
breath seemed hideously foul and oppressive in the summer's night
heat.

The fangs worked as a hindrance, piercing
veins way past the necessary prick. The tongues lapped at the
rivers of blood spreading across the corpse. One held a torn-off
breast, sucking the flesh between its mangled lips, forcing its
tongue deep inside the hollow it had dug.

Some squeezed portions of the body over their
mouths, catching drops deep inside their throats. Gobs of flesh
were swallowed with the liquid.

Cannibals, she thought. But what was she?
Actually, as an embalmer she stole from the grave robbers. What did
they do when formaldehyde instead of rich blood squirted into their
mouths?

Mesmerized, Liliana waited. She watched. The
sex of each diner could be determined by the shape of the body. The
faces no longer differentiated one from the other. Gentleness and
strength had been leached from their features. Even facial
definition blurred in the mass of sucking and chewing.

But she watched. To learn about her kind.
They were all vampires. The family of vampires. They dramatically
depicted the ancient peasant stories of what vampires were. Not
romantic, sophisticated lovers, as her uncle portrayed himself. How
had the line been drawn? And who were the freaks? The pack before
her? Or the evolved lineage of her uncle? Or did it all eventually
come down to the scene in front of her?

She envisioned her uncle howling and
commanding even in dementia.

Like dogs burying bones, the pack gathered
the waste and brushed it back into the grave. Rapidly they returned
the soil to the site and stomped the muddied soil tightly into the
grave.

A single member of the pack made a movement
toward her. She faced the thing full-on and drove it back a step.
It could smell the blood inside her veins. They all could. The pack
waited for the member who dared to step back into Liliana's reach.
It scowled and hissed and moved in jittery motions. Its hunger had
not been sated. When Liliana put her hand out to it, immediately it
tried to gnash its fangs into it. But her speed exceeded the
mutant's.

The leader, tiring of the pathetic display,
led the others back to the old section of the cemetery. Feeling
alone and unsure of itself, the last mutant followed behind the
pack.

Chapter 34

In the morning Marie cancelled her clients'
appointments. There were few clients now. She guessed it was
because of her behavior, edgy and pre-occupied. Only Garrett seemed
to be turned on by her indifference. But her work demeanor would
change after today. She would see to it before noon.

She had chosen blatantly suggestive attire: a
black lace bustier and a black half-slip that she used as a skirt.
She had eliminated a layer of clothing. The spiked-heeled shoes had
straps that wrapped around her ankles several times, and the hose
shadowed her still-shapely legs in opaque black.